Next Seminar: 27 February 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
Modality in Question
Speaker: Richard Dumbrill
Venue: Room G21a (Ground Floor)
Venue Details: South Block, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU
Free of charge. Open to the public. No advance booking required.
Autumn term 2012
Saturday 16 September 2012, Room 102
Lacan Reading Group
Seminar 7: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: What does psychoanalysis allow us to formulate concerning the origin of morality.
The idea for the Lacan Reading Group stems from an initial collaboration between Richard Dumbrill (Director of ICONEA), Julia Evans (Lacanian Analyst and a member of the Eurofederation of Psychoanalysis), and Bruno de Florence (Musicologist and Fellow of ICONEA). We are grateful for the support given by both ICONEA and the Institute of Musical Research.
Wednesday 3 October 2012, 17:00 – 18:30
Modality in Question
Speaker: Richard Dumbrill
Venue: Room G21a (Ground Floor)
Venue Details: South Block, Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Thursday 11 October 2012, 17:00 – 18:30
The reconstruction of an Elamite harp from the Battle of Ulai at the British Museum
Speakers: Margaux Bousquet (Sorbonne University Pantheon)
and Richard Dumbrill
Elamite harp
Venue: Room 261 (Senate House, second floor)
Senate House University of London London WC1E 7HU
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Margaux Bousquet demonstrating the playing of the harp
- Tuning the harp
Richard Dumbrill
Jonathan Tubb, Keeper of the Middle East Department of the British Museum and Richard Dumbrill
Irving Finkel in concert
Wednesday 24 October 2012, 17:00 – 18:30
Commentary on Richard Dumbrill’s Modality in Question
Speaker: Bruno de Florence
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Winter Term 2013 Wednesday 30 January 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
The spiritual nature of Pythagorean music philosophy in Anatolian Sufi practice.
Speaker: Alan Prosser
Venue:
Senate House University of London London WC1E 7HU
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Wednesday 27 February 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
Modality in Question
Speaker: Richard Dumbrill
Venue: Room (To be defined)
Venue Details: (To be defined)
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Wednesday 13 March 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
Oral Tradition and its Texts: Hamparsum Notation in 19th Century Istanbul
Speaker: Jacob Olley, King’s College London
The 19th century was a period of extensive social and political change in the Ottoman Empire, which also saw new developments in literature and the performing arts. It was during this time that, through the initiative of Armenian church musicians, a new notation system (Hamparsum notası) was introduced into Ottoman art music. The collections of pieces which survive in this musical script illustrate the processes of change and diversification which occurred within a largely oral tradition.
This seminar aims to provide an overview of Hamparsum notation and its place in Ottoman musical and cultural history.
Hamparsum notation
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Wednesday 10 April 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
***REPLACING BRUNO de FLORENCE’S MODALITY PRESENTATION***
‘HOWARD GOODALL’s STORY OF MUSIC’: a critical examination
Venue: Room (To be defined)
Venue Details: (To be defined)
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Wednesday 15 May 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
THE BABYLONIAN ROOT TWO METHOD
Speaker: Pete Blumson AKA Pete Dello
The American Musicologist Prof. Ernest McClain spent most of his life studying the harmonics of the Ancient World. The cornerstone of his method is a musical matrix similar to the Lambda of Plato’s Timaeus. Plato based his matrix upon the primes 2 and 3. McClain, by discovering an ingenious method of incorporating the prime 5 into his own matrix has harmonised it with the ‘regular’ numbers of the sexagesimal system first used by the Sumerians and the Babylonians for astronomical purposes. McClain has shown that his method draws together music, astronomy and geometry in an extremely innovative and potent way. His hypothesis is that the Babylonian cribes would have ‘played’ with something similar to this while pursuing their own investigations.
This seminar will reveal some of the properties of inverse symmetry contained in McClain’s Matrix and how they can be used to deduce not only the square root of two (by the method hinted at by Neugebauer and Sachs but also square root of other primes which can be worked out in easy steps using this ‘musical algorithm’, Unlike rival methods which often steeped in algebra this method is extremely intuitive.
Venue: Room (To be defined)
Venue Details: (To be defined)
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Wednesday 12 June 2013, 17:00 – 18:30
SHOFAR, TOTEMISM AND VOICE: A FREUDIAN-LACANIAN APPROACH >From a remark by Jacques Lacan on a text by Theodor Reik, I shall attempt to outline how we can consider musical practices as incarnated thinking. Borrowing from the notions of perception (Merleau-Ponty), jouissance (Lacan) and libido (Freud), I shall propose a model of musical performance and its listening as a continuous path along a multidimensional Moebius strip, structured by the enigma of the real of the body.
Speaker: Bruno de Florence
Venue: Room (To be defined)
Venue Details: (To be defined)
Open to the public, free of charge; no booking required
Past seminars
Spring term 2011
Wednesday 1 February 2011. (Stewart House, Room ST276), 5 – 6 30pm)
Bruno de Florence: Between Freudian libido and Lacanian jouissance: the X Factor of emotion in Musicology, and its sublime object a.
Wednesday 29 February 2011. (Stewart House, Room ST276, 5 – 6.30pm)
Richard Dumbrill/Bruno de Florence: The Pythagorean conspiracy and the contingency of arithmetics and geometrics in the theory of music.
Wednesday 28 March (Stewart House, Room ST276, 5 – 6.30pm)
Leon Crickmore: Exploring the Musical Tetractys.
Autumn Term 2011
Seminars
Wednesday 12 October (Senate House, Room 103), 5 – 6 30pm
Bruno de Florence, Between Truth and Knowledge:
The Lacanian Contribution to Musicology
Wednesday 16 November (Senate House, Room 104), 5 – 6.30pm
Irving Finkel (British Museum), An Old Babylonian Lament with Instruments
Free of charge. Open to the public. No advance booking required.
Past Seminars:
Wednesday 9 March (Senate House, Room G35), 5 – 6 30pm
Richard Dumbrill, What do we know about Babylonian Music and how do we know it?
Wednesday 16 March (Senate House, Room G32), 5 – 6.30pm
Bruno de Florence, The epistemological framework of musicology: Aristotle, Descartes, Lacan (to be continued 8 June))
Wednesday 23 March (Senate House, Room G32), 5 – 6.30pm
Richard Dumbrill, The psychogenesis of theorism in Ancient Near and Middle-Eastern cultures
Wednesday 8 June (Senate House, Room 104)
Bruno de Florence, The epistemological framework of musicology: Aristotle, Descartes, Lacan (Continued from 16 March) 5 – 6.30pm
Wednesday 15 June, (Senate House, Room 103) 17.00 to 18.30
Richard Dumbrill, The reconstruction and Replication of the Silver Lyre of Ur.
Wednesday 22 June, (Stewart House, Room STB7) 17.00 to 18.30
Richard Dumbrill, The translation of Hurrian text H.6, the Oldest written music.
Free of charge. Open to the public. No advance booking required.