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I had the pleasure of talking to music journalist, Todd L. Burns, about my new book Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INTERVIEW

Available for a limited time only!

I am pleased to announce that my new book, Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era (Bloomsbury, New York) was published in April 2021.

Virtual Music explores the interactive relationship of sound, music, and image, and its users (creators/musicians/performers/audience/consumers). Areas involving the historical, technological, and creative practices of virtual music are surveyed including its connection with creators, musicians, performers, audience, and consumers. Shara Rambarran looks at the fascination and innovations surrounding virtual music, and illustrates key artists (such as Grace Jones, The Weeknd), creators (such as King Tubby, Kraftwerk, MadVillain, Danger Mouse), audiovisuals in video games and performances (such as Cuphead and Gorillaz), audiences, and consumers that contribute in making this musical experience a phenomenon. 

Click here for a book preview!

For more information and to purchase the book, please click here!

Join us as we celebrate the publication of Dr. Shara Rambarran’s new book Virtual Music: Sound, Music, and Image in the Digital Era, published by Bloomsbury Press. 
Dr. Rambarran will be promoting her work in a live chat on Wednesday June 2, 2021 at 5pm BST.
We’ll be celebrating this work with a discussion with the author, live on Zoom.  Please use the link below to access this event:

https://queensu.zoom.us/j/91953534113?pwd=cUhkQ0o2RmpmU2VGWGI0NXBEVWhrQT09
Passcode:  VM2021

Shara Rambarran  is Assistant Professor of Music at Bader International Study Centre, UK (Queen’s University, Canada). Her research interests include musicology, remixology, digital technology, music industry, education, and law. She co-runs the Art of Record Production conferences, and is an editor on the Journal on the Art of Record Production and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality (2016).

Purchase Virtual Music on Bloomsbury.com

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Virtual Music explores the interactive relationship of sound, music, and image, and its users (creators/musicians/performers/audience/consumers). Areas involving the historical, technological, and creative practices of virtual music are surveyed including its connection with creators, musicians, performers, audience, and consumers. Shara Rambarran looks at the fascination and innovations surrounding virtual music, and illustrates key artists (such as Grace Jones, The Weeknd), creators (such as King Tubby, Kraftwerk, MadVillain, Danger Mouse), audiovisuals in video games and performances (such as Cuphead and Gorillaz), audiences, and consumers that contribute in making this musical experience a phenomenon. 

Topic: Book Launch:  Virtual Music. Shara RambarranTime: Jun 2, 2021 17:00 London
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://queensu.zoom.us/j/91953534113?pwd=cUhkQ0o2RmpmU2VGWGI0NXBEVWhrQT09
Meeting ID: 919 5353 4113Passcode: VM2021
Join by SIP91953534113@zoomcrc.com
Join by H.323162.255.37.11 (US West)162.255.36.11 (US East)115.114.131.7 (India Mumbai)115.114.115.7 (India Hyderabad)213.19.144.110 (Amsterdam Netherlands)213.244.140.110 (Germany)103.122.166.55 (Australia Sydney)103.122.167.55 (Australia Melbourne)64.211.144.160 (Brazil)69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)207.226.132.110 (Japan Tokyo)149.137.24.110 (Japan Osaka)Meeting ID: 919 5353 4113 Passcode: 082070

I’m pleased to announce that the paperback edition of The Oxford Handbook of Music & Virtuality was published in January, 2020.

‘Has the virtual invaded the realm of the real, or has the real expanded its definition to include what once was characterized as virtual? With the continual evolution of digital technology, this distinction grows increasingly hazy. But perhaps the distinction has become obsolete; perhaps it is time to pay attention to the intersections, mutations, and transmigrations of the virtual and the real. Certainly it is time to reinterpret the practice and study of music. The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality, edited by Sheila Whiteley and Shara Rambarran, is the first book to offer a kaleidoscope of interdisciplinary perspectives from scholars around the globe on the way in which virtuality mediates the dissemination, acquisition, performance, creation, and reimagining of music. 

The Oxford Handbook of Music and Virtuality addresses eight themes that often overlap and interact with one another. Questions of the role of the audience, artistic agency, individual and communal identity, subjectivity, and spatiality repeatedly arise. Authors specifically explore phenomena including holographic musicians and virtual bands, and the benefits and detriments surrounding the free circulation of music on the internet. In addition, the book investigates the way in which fans and musicians negotiate gender identities as well as the dynamics of audience participation and community building in a virtual environment. The handbook rehistoricizes the virtual by tracing its progression from cartoons in the 1950s to current industry innovations and changes in practice. Well-grounded and wide-reaching, this is a book that students of any number of disciplines, from Music to Cultural Studies, have awaited.’

Click here to buy the book and enter promo code AAFLYG6 for a 30% discount!

Please click for more details (flyer)

I was honoured to be invited by Dr Ben Halligan to present a keynote at the Diva: Hip Hop, Feminism, Fierceness Symposium at the University of Wolverhampton (July 2019).

About the symposium:

‘The shift from the margins to the mainstream has occurred simultaneously, over the last few decades, for two groups that now jointly exert a central influence over contemporary culture and politics: female r’n’b and hip-hop artists, and feminist thinkers and activists. The coming together of these two groups and sensibilities has redefined contemporary popular music (in all senses of musics of black origin), and wider culture and politics, in the West – from the banlieues to the White House, from Black Lives Matter to #MeToo, from Betty Davis to Neneh Cherry, TLC to Aaliyah, Alicia Keys to Iggy Azalea, Beyonce to Arianna Grande, and all points in between.
The symposium will seek to address this ongoing development, within the scope of exploring the origins of this shift, its resultant successes and failures, its social activism and relationship to “Black Capitalism”, its identity politics and LGBTQ+ components, its saints and sinners and controversies old and new, and its oppositions to, and recuperations by, the establishment, in African-American and Afro-European contexts, and beyond.’

https://benjaminhalligan.com/divasymposium/

My talk was on Mariah Carey, an artist who is seldom discussed in music academia. I discussed how she is misrepresented by critics and argued on why she should potentially be considered as an ultimate Diva and Womxn Empowerment Influencer in Popular Music and Culture.

I had the great pleasure working with other guests that day: photographer and television director Dr Pogus Caesar, media/culture studies academic Dr Kirsty Fairclough, and music industry expert, Natalie Graham. It was a very enriching event where researchers and guests shared insightful and friendly conversations. For pictures and more information on the programme, please visit: https://benjaminhalligan.com/divasymposium/

Thank you Dr Ben Halligan for the opportunity!

I was honoured to talk about my research on Danger Mouse and his music productions to students studying at Belmont University. The music production/audio engineering and songwriting students were on the ‘study abroad’ program at Kings College in the summer of 2019. The students were very engaging and we, and their lecturers Drew Ramsey and Alan Shacklock, had a great chat afterwards. Thank you to the legendary record producer, Alan Shacklock for the opportunity!

In 2018, I was approached by Amanda Robinson (story seeker, TMOAP) to participate in the Too Much of  Person project. 

About the project:

‘The Too Much of a Person project is an online archive of stories chronicling the experiences of self-identifying womxn and non-binary people being told they were “too much” of something (nice, loud, sensitive, aggressive etc.) to dismiss or conform them to the current perception of how a woman should be. We say that your “too much” could be your power. Let’s reclaim that, take up space together and be whatever we want.’

(Too Much of a Person, www.toomuchofaperson.com)

I got to work with the amazing photographer, creative director, and founder of the project, Diana Patient. She documented 100 womxn and heard our ‘too much’ stories. I also had the opportunity to meet other participants of the project at events (such as the exhibition at the Omved Gardens in 2019) where we continued to share our stories and powers without being judged. This is an extraordinary project and I thank Diana and her team for this amazing opportunity and creating a safe space for our voices to be heard.