The Journal of Experimental Music Studies (JEMS) is an online peer-reviewed journal devoted to experimental, systems, minimal, post-minimal, ‘new’ tonal and postmodern music. It is a rolling journal, in that suitable articles are added as they are accepted, to provide the most recent available research in the field of experimental music. Jems is a free publication hosted by the Experimental Music Catalogue.
General information:
New Articles:
JEMS Special Forum: The EMC² Festival, 24–26 March 2017, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Papers, panel discussions and greetings on the Experimental Music Catalogue from the EMC² Festival and conference, sponsored by CoMA (Contemporary Music for All), Arts Council England, University of Leicester, and De Montfort University. Uploaded 1 December 2017. Includes:
- Virginia Anderson. The EMC: Past, Present, Future. Keynote address.
- Hilary Bracefield. From Birmingham to Belfast: improvising and experimenting with students.
- Tim Bausch. Reinterpreting the Role of Performer in the Music of Alvin Lucier.
- John White, Virginia Anderson, Sarah Walker, Hugh Shrapnel, Christopher Hobbs. Discussion panel on the Experimental Music Catalogue.
- Gavin Bryars. Greeting from Knoxville, Tennessee, for the EMC² Festival.
Virginia Anderson. Chinese Characters and Experimental Structure in Cardew’s The Great Learning Uploaded 17 March 2004.
Rob Haskins. Another Look at Philip Glass: Aspects of Harmony and Formal Design in Early Works and Einstein on the Beach. Uploaded 12 September 2005.
Interviews:
Michael Nyman. Interview by Virginia Anderson, London, 23 March 1983. Added 13 November 2017.
Daniel Varela. ‘A Question of Language’: Frederic Rzewski in conversation about Cornelius Cardew. Uploaded 17 March 2004.
Reviews:
Christopher Hobbs. Keith Rowe, by Brian Olewnick [Review]. Uploaded 19 February 2020.
Christopher Hobbs. Charles Ives’s Concord: Essays after a Sonata, by Kyle Gann [Review]. Uploaded 5 August 2017.
Virginia Anderson. Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music, ed. Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach [Review]. Uploaded 27 June 2017.
Virginia Anderson. Shared Meanings in the Film Music of Philip Glass, by Tristian Evans [Review]. Uploaded 26 February 2017.
Virginia Anderson. Visible Language Fluxus issues (Fluxus and Legacy, 39/3 (October 2005) and After Fluxus 40/1 (January 2006)) [Review]. Uploaded 6 January 2007.
Bruce Coates. The Legacy of Cornelius Cardew, by Tony Harris [Review]. Uploaded 12 August 2013.
Reprint Series:
Gavin Bryars. Satie and the British. Originally published in Contact 25 (1982), 4–14. Uploaded 25 December 2010.
Gavin Bryars. Vexations and its Performers. Originally published in Contact 26 (1983), 12–20. Uploaded 17 March 2004.
Michael Parsons. Howard Skempton: Chorales, Landscapes and Melodies. Originally published in Contact 30 (1987), 16–29. Uploaded 19 April 2004.
Michael Parsons. The Music of Howard Skempton. Originally published in Contact 21 (1980), 12–18. Uploaded 19 April 2004.
Dave Smith. The Piano Sonatas of John White. Originally published in Contact 21 (1980), 4–11. Uploaded 19 March 2004.
Dave Smith. Following a Straight Line: La Monte Young. Originally published in Contact 18 (1977-78), 4–9, and updated. Uploaded 21 June 2004.
John Tilbury. Cornelius Cardew. Originally published in Contact 26 (1983), 4–11. Uploaded 27 October 2004.
John Tilbury. The Experimental Years: A View from the Left. Originally published in Contact 22 (1981), 16–21. Uploaded 17 March 2004.
EMC Article Archive:
The EMC Archive is a treasury of papers, articles, research and so on which you can’t find elsewhere. Some of these papers were uploaded before the launch of the more-formal Jems (like the Chant and Coates articles), but are significant additions to experimental scholarship, nonetheless. Some of them (like ‘Historical Assumptions’) are outdated for current publication, but may, nevertheless, have some points of interest.
Richard Ascough. ‘Mr Feldman Says’. Added 14 April 2020.
Richard Ascough. ‘The Scratch Orchestra and the Counterculture’. Added 27 June 2015.
Virginia Anderson. ‘Historical Assumptions of the Avant-Garde and Experimental Movements: The Participants and Their Historians’. Added August 2002.
Michael Chant. ‘A Turning Point in Music History’. Added 10 September 2002.
Bruce Coates. ‘The Construction and Application of a Model for the Analysis of Linear Free Improvised Music’. Added 27 November 2002.
Links to like-minded writings:
James Pritchett. On the Cage/Feldman Radio Happenings. The Piano in My Life, 7–29 December 2015.
A four-part blog series by Pritchett on the Radio Happenings show of over four hours of conversations between John Cage and Morton Feldman, on WBAI Radio, New York City, in 1966 and 1967.
James Pritchett. Opening the door into emptiness. The Piano in My Life, 31 May–17 August 2014.
A series of blog entries by Pritchett on John Cage’s spiritual awakenings in the 1940s and 50s.