A cross-disciplinary study between the two research areas of Audio Technology and Music Education was performed to assess how different aspects of education and experience may influence the experience of music listening given a typical streaming service-Spotify.(1) The point of departure is that streamed media facilitates a plenitude of versions of the same song. The paper focuses on the differences that these different songs yield from various mastering processes and production choices motivated by the end distribution media and user settings in the playback system that aim to alter the sound. These variations may all lead to differences in musical dynamics and timbre. A listening test was conducted to examine listeners’ preferences, the assessed audio quality, and subjects’ reports on how the music content affected them when given the possibility to compare versions in a controlled environment. The test subjects (n = 76) represented populations with various educational backgrounds and experience within music and audio technology. Among the results, it was found that education and experience in some cases do affect preferences.

This article explores the meaning and function of streaming media as a potential facilitator of musical Bildung. Taking the affordances of streaming media technologies as a starting point, the article thus focuses on the formative and cultivating dimensions a music streaming service such as Spotify might offer. The specific aim of this article is to describe and analyse how musical Bildung may evolve within a Spotify context from a user perspective. To address the aim from the point of view of music education, Spotify users’ activities and experiences of streaming media interactions were accessed, inspired by internet-related ethnography. Stimulated recall interviews, focusing on the participants’ experiences as well as their actual use of Spotify’s streaming service, were conducted, recorded, and transcribed. The generated material was subjected to co-operative hermeneutic content analysis. The results illuminate how Bildung evolves in users’ encounters with the service and with art mediated via Spotify. Relevant topics occurring in the human-art-technology relationship of Bildung from a Heideggerian perspective were Being-possible, the ability-to-be, and Spotify as the Other. In sum, it can be stated that Bildung evolves when Spotify exceeds the thingness of the Other, becoming a work of art in itself, throwing the user into Being.

In the context of musical Bildung, a study was performed to assess how different aspects of education and experience may influence the affordance from music listening in a typical streaming service such as Spotify. This was done by investigating whether subjects’ backgrounds affect preferences and/or choice of wording in motivations when comparing versions of different tunes. The versions that were compared were selected for typical differences that may occur in a streaming context full of choices, e.g. different masters or user settings. Five different tunes were compared in a classic A/B test. A survey, related to the A/B test, captured three aspects of perceived differences: preference, musical affection and audio quality. Questions were also added to capture a range of background factors that were assumed to affect these aspects, e.g. listening habits, earlier musical education and/or socialisation. Earlier research has shown that similar tests were performed with people of convenience, e.g. sound or computer engineers, predominantly males 25–45 years of age. They have thus not accounted for the results from psychoacoustic studies which have stated that preferences may differ on behalf of demographic factors such as gender and age. In the study at hand, the common selection of participants was challenged by performing a strategic selection of participants. This included professional musicians, students within music education, professional sound engineers, students in sound engineering and people without any explicit education within the expertise areas accounted for above. The number of participants was N=60 of mixed gender and of varying ages from 13 years and up. The presentation will show several statistically significant results. 

Vilka bildningsprocesser kan urskiljas ur människors Spotifyanvändande? Det visar sig att ett sådant användande är tätt sammanflätat med musikalisk- såväl som digital kunskap. Med ett fokus på de bildningsprocesser som sker i samspelet mellan människa, teknik och musik utmanas förståelsen av vad en strömmande musiktjänst som Spotify kan erbjuda.

”Evolving Bildung in the nexus of streaming services, art and users – Spotify as a case” är ett tvärdisciplinärt projekt som visar hur människans bildningsprocesser villkoras, utmanas och möjliggörs i och med den strömmande medieutvecklingen. Denna bok kan med fördel användas inom utbildningar i musikpedagogik, musikvetenskap, musikproduktion, ljudteknik, pedagogik, kulturstudier, sociologi, samt medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap.

What educational processes take place in people's Spotify use? It turns out that such use is closely linked to musical as well as digital competences. With a focus on the educational processes that take place in the interplay between people, technology and music, the understanding of what a streaming music service like Spotify can offer is challenged.

"Evolving Bildung in the nexus of streaming services, art and users - Spotify as a case" is a cross-disciplinary project that shows how the processes of human education and self-formation are conditioned, challenged and made possible by the streaming media development. This book can be used in educations in music pedagogy, musicology, music production, audio engineering, pedagogy, cultural studies, sociology, and media and communication science.

Inom musikforskning används av tradition källmaterial som inspelningar, noter och textdokument i tryck så väl som handskrift. Denna typ av källmaterial utkommer numer många gånger i digitalt format (så kallat born-digital eller ”digitalt fött” material) Det är även så att äldre icke digitala källor digitaliseras. Digitalisering uppfattas ofta vara ett sätt att rädda äldre och skört material från tidens tand. Digitaliseringen kan leda till ökande möjligheter för forskaren vad gäller till exempel åtkomst och spridning. Men samtidigt kan den också leda till utmanande begränsningar i fråga om till exempel krav på teknisk utrustning och kompetens i digital literacy. Centrala teman i en diskussion om born-digital och digitaliserat källmaterial är bevarande, tillgänglighet, sökbarhet och kvantitet så väl som kvalitativt innehåll. På ett rent organisatoriskt plan innebär dessutom digitalisering och tillgång till digitalt material många gånger en hybridisering mellan traditionella kulturarvsbevarande samhällsinstitutioner och privata kommersiella aktörer, eftersom arkiv och bibliotek inte sällan köper in programvara och databaser från privata företag. Förutom dessa tämligen konkreta problemområden kan användningen av digitalt material i vetenskaplig forskning även lyftas till en abstraktionsnivå. Det handlar om forskningens nav och vetenskapens kärna: Vilka möjligheter och begränsningar för forskning erbjuder det digitala paradigmet?, Vad är att betrakta som forskning då källmaterialet är flytande och föränderligt?, Vilka krav behöver vi som forskare ställa på vetenskaplighet i detta paradigm?

Music streaming has colonised the market of recorded music. Recordings of music are transformed from traditional physical artefacts into numerous digital formats, which consequently implies different affordances of how the sound of the music may be mediated. Such digital formats keep evolving which means that how a particular recording sound is a rather undefinable matter over time. Also, cloud storage is replacing traditional archives of recorded music. This entails that sources can be swapped with new versions or taken out of the collections leaving little or no traces behind that it was there before. This digital milieu does, by these features, offer new challenges for research. This paper will present experiences and insights from the method used in my dissertation Liquid Streaming – the Spotify Way To Music where the affordances of musicking brought about by streamed music with the case example of Spotify was explored. For this purpose, digital sources like the Spotify program and sources found on the Internet were used as empirical grounds. The presentation will focus on issues concerning those two major roots by problematizing and conclude how it is possible to use agile software, like the Spotify streaming service program, as well as the Internet as sources of research. One major conclusion from this work is that liquid sources need to be saved as copies and followed longitudinally. My research also showed that sources changed content over time, updated, disappeared, change its resolution e.g. quality. In retrospect, it is clear how digital sources such as programs and sources on the Internet need to be problematized as sources for research in order to bring about trustworthiness to the research.

Since the autumn 2018 a research project concerning Transformative Technology (TT) for the increase of wellbeing and the reduction of mental dissonance has been launched at the School of Music in Piteå. Seed money has enabled a pilot project where students within higher music education can use different types of TT. This poster will show the different types of TT used in the pilot project and some preliminary result from the user experiences. The technology in use are (i) the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) sensors and Heart Math application, (ii) the Muse headband and meditation app, (iii) the Soma Mat and Breathing Light developed at SICS and KTH, as well as the (iv) ARK-crystal developed at the Torus Tech lab. The purpose of the pilot study is to investigate how students respond to different kinds of sensors and actuators used in this TT and most importantly how the students find the technology transformable in regard to amplifying their well-being, empowering and refining their aesthetic resonance and diminishing stress and anxiety blocking them in their musical performance and development.

Understanding of cognitive strategies in supporting artistic expressions, reducing stress, performance anxiety and emotional blockings are of paramount importance to empower students’ and prepare for a sustainable work life as musicians. How can we aid musical artists to cope and master their emotional and mental dissonances in order to empower creative and artistic progressions in a sustainable way within higher music education?

This pilot has several aims including investigating possibilities for higher education to interact with societal artistic communities as well as students’ DIY culture using available technology in order to analyse and co-create a professional development including artistic competence, holistic awareness and personal balance. The project will explore transformative technologies; HRV, Muse (EEG), Soma Mat & Breathing Light (heat and breath feedback), and the ARK-crystal, which differ regarding presented data (biofeedback) and function. Further, how these devices relate to research theory and methodology. We pose the critical question: Can these applications contribute to the identification, interpretation, and organization of the First Instrument, the students’ own aesthetic sensory information, embodied behaviours and cognitive strategies?

This presentation will include methodological challenges discussed and interpreted in the transdisciplinary research group SANE – embracing researchers in art, quantum physics, medicine, sustainability learning, and biology.

This article investigates contemporary cultural policy reforms enabled by paid digital media distribution services, taking the case of the integration of Spotify into the Swedish public media system. Specifically, it reflects on the conflicts arising over the prioritization of digital distribution over cultural preservation, during the gradual substitution of the Spotify digital services for the services provided by the traditional material media archive, the Grammofonarkivet. It considers the factors influencing changes in the Swedish cultural policy environment and the nature of the complaints and human rights claims made by employees of the Grammofonarkivet to UNESCO regarding its structural transformation. It also postulates a “Spotification” model of public service media emerging in Sweden but potentially affecting other countries with public media systems served by traditional media archives.