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JMM 8, Winter 2009, section 1 Dear reader, It is our pleasure to present the new issue of JMM: The Journal of Music and Meaning, JMM8, an issue as varied and exciting as ever. In May 2009, the Editorial Staff of JMM were invited to give a best paper award at the joint international meeting of ICAD (International Conference on Auditory Display) and CMMR (International Symposium on Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval in Copenhagen. The winner was Mariana Lopez and Sandra Pauletto’s paper ”The Design of an Audio Film for the Visually Impaired”. A revised version of this paper has passed through our thorough peer-review processes and reaches our readers under the new title ”An Alternative to Audio Description: The Design of an Audio Film”. Our second peer-reviewed paper, Birgitte Stougaard Pedersen’s “Anticipation and Delay as Microrhythm and Gesture in Hip Hop Aesthetics” deals with the seldomly treated but musicologically fascinating issue of the micro-gestural components in rap lyrics. That her main focus is on Danish rap music should not scare our foreign readers away, since many of her considerations may apply to rap in general. Translations of (the content of) the lyrics discussed are included accompany the article. Moving on to a completely different musical tradition, the research report “A Statistical Analysis of Raga Ahir Bhairav” by Soubhik Chakraborty, Rayalla Ranganayakulu, Shivee Chauhan, Sandeep Singh Solanki and Kartik Mahto introduces the reader to the unique world of Indian music performance through a formal, computer-aided analysis of a specific raga. A performance of the “Raga Ahir Bhairav” by the first author's wife is included as a sound example in the report. Returning to the field of sonification, within which Lopez and Pauletto’s peer-reviewed paper may be included, our second research report is an introduction to an exciting new artistic project by Danish musicians Fredrik Søegaard and Claus Garn entitled “Soundmapping the Genes”. The project attempts to use a specific DNA sequence of a rainbow trout as the basis of both “strict” compositions and frameworks for improvisation music. 2009 marked the passing of 200 years since the death of Joseph Haydn. In recognition of this bicentennial, we are pleased to include Edward Green's essay, ”Haydn's Secret 'Dodecaphonic' Art” which highlights the sometimes overlooked progressive nature of many of Haydn's compositions. As usually, we conclude our issue with an update on recent publications related to music and meaning studies, skillfully put together by our book review editor, Jens Hjortkjær. With JMM8, we would like to welcome three new names to the editorial fold. On the Editorial Board we are pleased to induct Sara Zamir of the Bar-Ilan University, Israel and David Hebert of the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. On the Editorial Staff we welcome Søren Mortensen, who recently received his mag.art in philosophy from the University of Southern Denmark and who will be of valuable asistance in the coming 6 months, during which our Managing Editor, Søren R. Frimodt-Møller, further immerses himself in the final stages of writing his PhD dissertation on the role of normativity in composition-based music performances. Since our last issue, the research program The Aesthetics of Music and Sound: Cross-Disciplinary Interplay between the Humanities, Technology and Musical Practice (www.soundmusicresearch.org) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) with which JMM is affiliated has been further strengthened. The associated (Danish) Network for Cross-Disciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (NTSMB) continues to arrange workshops on topics related to music and meaning studies - the most recent being The Role of Rhythm in Musical Meaning, at SDU, Odense, November 19, 2009 (see www.ntsmb.dk for further details). Central figures in this network are now also taking part in the Nordplus-financed Nordic Network for the Integration of Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics (NNIMIPA). NNIMIPA recently organized a successful Master's level course in Esbjerg, Denmark in close cooperation with Aalborg University Esbjerg, University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg and The Academy of Music and Music Communication, Esbjerg. The one-week course entitled ”Music Informatics, Performance and Aesthetics” incorporated the skills of researchers within both traditional musicology, computer music modeling, aesthetics, philosophy of interaction and insights of professional music performers. Review of past and future events arranged by NNIMIPA will soon be found at www.nnimipa.org. Furthermore, The Aesthetics of Music and Sound welcomes the appointment of acclaimed pianist and pioneer in music pedagogy, William Westney of Texas Tech University as a Hans Christian Andersen Academy Guest Professor at SDU for September 2009-June 2010. For now, we are proud to present an issue of JMM that in its variety of approaches to music perception and creation reflects the inspiring cross-disciplinary scope of all of JMM's associated research networks. As usual, we end our editorial with fresh stastistics for the JMM site: As of November 2009, www.musicandmeaning.net had an average of 512 visits per day (visits corresponding to actual users viewing one or more pages at the website during an internet session) and 2220 page views per day (each article in JMM corresponds to one page). This is, respectively, a 29% and 23% increase since February 2009, when JMM7 was published. Below are the top 20 countries with respect to user and server hits on www.musicandmeaning.net in November 2009:
Best regards, On behalf of the Editorial Staff, Cynthia M. Grund, Editor-in-Chief
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