Music "Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive-Use Musical Instrument": A Talk by Professor Sherrie Tucker (University of Kansas)

The music department presents a special talk by jazz historian and professor of American studies Sherrie Tucker. All are invited.

Professor Tucker’s talk focuses on the work of composer, musician and humanitarian Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016), who is renowned for her innovations in composition, sound technology, research, philosophy and practices of listening, as well as feminist and environmental humanitarian projects. Less known is her work on all-ability improvisation through the Adaptive-Use Musical Instrument (AUMI), a free download/app that transforms any laptop, desktop, iPad or iPhone into a musical instrument that uses motion tracking to adapt to every body. Oliveros considered the AUMI a continuation of, not a departure from, her life’s work, listing it as her major research project with her department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in her final years. From 2007 until her passing, she spoke of the AUMI as interconnected with her other projects and collaborations intended to expand our abilities to listen, and thus to expand consciousness—such as the Sonic Meditations, Expanded Instrument System and Deep Listening® practice. 

In this lecture/demonstration, jazz studies scholar Sherrie Tucker shares what she has learned as a member of the ongoing collaborative AUMI Research Project, including how it challenged her exclusive relationship with jazz as an object of study, and pivoted her jazz studies questions and methods toward explorations of inclusive mixed-ability listening, sounding and sociality. Participants are invited to bring laptops, iPads or iPhones (sorry, Android users), if they wish. Those who want to try the AUMI in advance may download it free of charge at http://aumiapp.com/download.php.

Sherrie Tucker (professor, American studies, University of Kansas) is the author of Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen (Duke, 2014) and Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s (Duke, 2000) and co-editor, with Nichole T. Rustin, of Big Ears:  Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies (Duke, 2008). She is a member of the AUMI Editorial Collective, whose collaborative volume, Improvising Across Abilities: Pauline Oliveros and the Adaptive Use Musical Instrument (AUMI) is currently under review at University of Michigan Press. She is a member of two major collaborative research initiatives: the International Institute of Critical Improvisation Studies and Improvisation, Community and Social Practice (for which she served as facilitator for the Improvisation, Gender and the Body research area), both funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is a founding member of the Melba Liston Research Collective, a member of the AUMI (Adaptive Use Musical Instrument) Project and founding member of AUMI-KU InterArts, one of six member institutions of the AUMI Research Consortium. She was the Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University in 2004-2005, where she was a member of the Columbia Jazz Study Group. With Randal M. Jelks, she co-edits the journal American Studies. She serves with Deborah Wong and Jeremy Wallach as series editors for the Music/Culture Series at Wesleyan University Press. She is the proud holder of a Deep Listening® Ear-tificate.

For more information, contact Professor Jason Robinson (jrobinson@amherst.edu).