Stay ConnectedWhat does it mean to be a music researcher? How does a musician use music as a medium to foster community? Featuring interviews with other musicians, scholars and artists, host Lydia Bangura seeks to ask interesting questions about music and execute important and relevant music research. Join Lydia as she reads, writes and chats her way through a music PhD program.
Got questions or feedback? Interested in being a guest on the pod? Send inquiries to: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
Copyright: © Lydia Bangura
In part two of our conversation, YouTuber and musician Tayo Omisore (COLORMIND.mp4 on YouTube) and I continue our conversation about "rap covers" and how rap is developing into a canon. We also discuss Tayo's songwriting and production process for his musical interlude segments in his YouTube videos.
This episode was edited by Jair G with ExpMediaProductions.
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
In this episode, I chat with YouTuber and musician Tayo Omisore (COLORMIND.mp4 on YouTube) all about his musical upbringing with rap, his experiences learning to write music, and the development of his career as a Black musical content creator. We also discuss his video response to music theory YouTuber Adam Neely, who made a video about the absence of "rap covers." Tayo and I offer our perspective as Black musicians and ponder what music theory offers us when studying and discussing rap. Stay tuned for part two of our conversation!
This episode was edited by Jair G with ExpMediaProductions.
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
In this episode, I chat with Dr. Ben Cornelius-Bates (Duquesne University) about his musical upbringing in Alaska, his path to composition, and his experiences studying the organ. We also discuss how to write music for the organ, particularly within the context of secular music, and talk about timbre in Maan Varjot by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho for organ and orchestra. Rest in peace to Saariaho, who passed away on June 2, 2023.
Ben's recorded organ improvisations
The second movement of Maan Varijot
This episode was edited by Jair G with ExpMediaProductions.
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
In this solo episode, I chat all about how my winter semester at the University of Michigan went. I give an update on the grad student strike, my classes, and my teaching. I also explore my yearly theme of simplicity, set new goals for Summer 2023, and discuss the podcast's progress!
THANK GAWD this episode was edited by Jair G with ExpMediaProductions! Hire him for all of your video/audio editing needs!
My Staging Blackness term paper
Tressie McMillian Cottom Twitter threads (one and two)
Oliver Burkeman's 3:3:3 method
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
In this episode, I invite Anna Rose Nelson (University of Michigan) on the show to give us an update on finishing her dissertation (hire her!). We also (in great detail!) break down the ongoing strike at the University of Michigan. Beginning with the very recent history of U-M graduate student workers and lecturers striking in 2020, Anna Rose shares about her experiences organizing with the Graduate Employees Organization on behalf of the School of Music, Theater, and Dance. We discuss how the bargaining with the university over the grad student workers' next three year contract has gone (poorly!) and what has led over 1,000 grad student workers to halt their teaching, office hours, and grading. Finally, Anna Rose shares about how the university's negotiations specifically affect music grad students, and how U-M faculty and undergraduates can support their grad student instructors and researchers. Thanks for your support! Solidarity!
(Again, this podcast is absolutely NOT an attestation that either Anna Rose or I are on strike! U-M kindly mind your business!!)
Small numbers correction: We mention that our economic ask was about 10% of the $200M we make the university each year. Actually, the highest compensation proposal would cost 33M (closer to 20%) in that first intense bump.
Anna's episode on modernist music
Former President Mark Schlissel
Steve Lett in Music Theory Spectrum
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
Our last episode for Women's History Month! Today on the show I welcome another Michigan alum Dr. Vivian Luong (University of Oklahoma) to chat about her background as a clarinetist and a pianist, her time studying music theory at Michigan, and her current approaches to theory pedagogy. We also discuss her research centered around feminist music theory and what it means to love music, her MTO article titled "Rethinking Music Loving," and her Engaged Music Theory blog post titled "Feeling Like a Theorist."
Our podcast episode on Susanne Cusick's chapter "On a Lesbian Relationship with Music"
Vivian's Engaged Music Theory blog post
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
TW: brief mentions of sexual assault
For our second episode of Women's History Month, I chat with Dr. Susan McClary (Case Western Reserve University) about her path to musicology, as well as her experiences as an educator and researcher. We also discuss her incredibly influential scholarship centered around gender and sexuality in music by diving into her 1991 book Feminine Endings. Finally, she shares her current teaching philosophies as well as the music she is enjoying.
My SMT-Pod interview with Susan, Phil Ewell and Chris Jenkins
My performance at the Theorizing African American Music Conference
My podcast episode about Susan's article "Terminal Prestige" with Anna Rose Nelson
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
Our first episode for Women's History Month! Today I chat with Dr. Kyra Gaunt (University at Albany, State University of New York) all about her experiences as a singer, her time studying voice and ethnomusicology at Michigan, and her first book The Games Black Girls Play: Learning The Ropes From Double Dutch To Hip-Hop. We also discuss her forthcoming book PLAYED, featuring her research centered around Black girls dancing on YouTube.
Thanks to Natalie Krafft for editing the written transcript of this episode!
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
We are finishing off Black History Month with a conversation about Beyoncé! My sister ismatu gwendolyn and I chat all about our personal relationships to her music, the public perception of Beyoncé, and the aesthetics and politics in her latest album, Renaissance. I also feature the voices of some of the Black women and femmes in my community to get their thoughts on the album. In order of appearance, you heard the voices of Erykah Benson, Gaby Kubi, Dylan Keese-Forster, and Ijeoma Opara. A huge thanks to my sister and my friends for being on the show!
Thanks to Natalie Krafft for editing the written transcript of this episode!
My first Beyoncé podcast episode
Article on Beyoncé performing in Africa
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
In this episode, we are wrapping up Black History Month with some familial history! My younger sister ismatu gwendolyn joins me on the show to discuss our shared musical upbringing, their experiences leading a gospel choir at Northwestern University, and how their relationship to music changed after they became a sex worker. We also chat about their blossoming Tik Tok career and the ways in which they are using art, writing, dance, and poetry in their activism. Finally, Ismatu shares about the fundraiser they've started for our tribe back in Sierra Leone! If you are able, drop a dollar! And stay tuned for part two of our conversation, where we dive into the aesthetics and politics of Beyoncé's album Renaissance!
Thanks to Natalie Krafft for editing the written transcript of this episode!
My first Beyoncé podcast episode
Get in touch with me at: hermusicacademia@gmail.com
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