May 28, 2006

Greetings to SMPC members!
 
In this newsletter we try to convey to you the most important activities that have developed in SMPC and related societies in the preceding year. Our main features relate to past and future SMPC elections and to past and future conferences.

Elections

The most recent SMPC election (Autumn, 2005) has led to a new SMPC Executive committee.  Two new members came on board (Marilyn Boltz, Peter Pfordresher) and two members retired at the end of their three year terms (David Huron, Aniruddh Patel). Scott Lipscomb, who had been serving as inter-treasurer, was confirmed as treasurer for a full three year term.  Finally, William Thompson, who was already serving as Secretary of SMPC, was elected President-Elect; Bill will begin a two year term as President on January 1, 2007.  The current board consists of the following members:

* Bill Thompson is serving two roles for one year: President-Elect and Secretary.                   Because he assumes the presidency in 2007, nominations for SMPC Secretary will be open in our next election.  

The two departing members-at-large this year (David Huron and Aniruddh Patel) have been invaluable as board members and we thank them for their service.  In particular, Ani did a marvelous job of hosting the SMPC workshop conference in 2005 (more on this later in the newsletter).  We are also grateful to Scott Lipscomb who stepped into Justin London’s shoes last year early as inter-treasurer and has not missed a beat.   Finally, we wish to thank all of those SMPC members who were nominated by colleagues and admirers and who agreed to run for office.

Speaking of elections, during the summer of 2006 we will again have an ongoing Call for Nominations for members of the Executive Committee. Three positions must be filled on January 1, 2007.  Bill Thompson will be replacing Mari Jones as President beginning on January 1, 2007.  Therefore, we will be seeking a replacement for Secretary in the forthcoming election. In addition, Caroline Palmer will be completing her term as Executive Committee member and so we will need a replacement for Member-at-Large.  In addition, due to a brief doubling up of jobs (Bill Thompson wears two hats this year) we are short one Member-at Large currently and will need to add a second Member-at-large.  Therefore, we will be electing a new Secretary and two Members-at-Large. Please help us by giving some thought to people whom you think would serve SMPC in any of these positions.   Assisting in the development of the slate of candidates that will be presented to the voting membership in August/September (2006) is the SMPC nominating committee.  Marilyn Boltz will ably Chair this committee, with Rita Aiello and Lisa Margulis as the other committee members (Mari Jones is an ex-officio member). Announcements and call for nominations will appear soon, followed later in the summer by a slate of candidates. Note that we typically send out the call for nominations to all past and present members of SMPC.  However, only current members will be able to vote the August/September elections.  The moral is to have vote, make sure your dues are paid in full (see the “join” link on the SMPC website for memberships and renewals. For information on your membership status, contact the SMPC Treasurer, Scott Lipscomb <lipscomb@northwestern.edu>). 

Updates on past and future conferences

SMPC 2005

ICMPC8 was held in 2004 at Northwestern University, with huge success.  We again thank the organizers of that conference (Ric Ashley, Scott Lipscomb and others) for stepping in when plans to hold that conference in Argentina unavoidably fell through.  Following this very successful ICMPC event, SMPC hosted the first ever series of “workshops” in the summer of 2005.  This was planned as an experiment to assess the feasibility of the workshop format as a possible component for future SMPC conferences.  So, how did the   experiment work? By all accounts, exceptionally well, as described below.
 
SMPC 2005: The Workshop.  

The workshops were held August 5-7, 2005 at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego. Ani Patel was in charge of organizing the SMPC Workshop experiment and he did a terrific job. In this case, members of the SMPC Executive Committee assumed the role of Program Committee and instituted a call for nominations for workshops.  We received a number of good proposals, all of which offered topics of great relevance for scholars who teach and engage in research on music perception and cognition.   Four final topics were selected for the workshop; these were (leaders names in parentheses): Music and dynamics (Edward Large, Devin McAuley), Teaching Music Cognition (William Forde Thompson), Evaluation of impaired/spared musical abilities (Isabelle Peretz, Lola Cuddy), Music and Language (Ani Patel, Jennifer Saffran).  Poster sessions were also included.  Attendance for all workshops was good (between 20 to 30 members present for each workshop); fees were assigned based on the number of workshops attended. The whole affair was very informal and successful.  Following the conference, we evaluated the workshop models by asking all participants to rate their experiences and to provide detailed feedback on what worked and what did not in the workshops they attended.  These data will be forwarded to future program committees who can then use the information to suggest strategies for organizers of workshops in forthcoming years.  In general, however, the feedback was extremely positive.  Therefore, when we institute a call for papers for SMPC 2007, the program committee will be asked to consider proposals for half-day or full-day long workshops that can either precede or follow the main conference.

ICMPC conferences.

Future ICMPC conferences are scheduled for years 2006 (ICMPC9) and for 2008 (ICMPC10).   The next ICMPC9 (2006) is to be held this summer in Bologna, Italy, hosted by Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, Italy between August 22 and August 26, 2006. You can follow unfolding plans for this conference by consulting the website:
www.icmpc2006.org. Details on ICMPC10 scheduled for 2008 are also underway and more information on this will be provided in next year’s newsletter. This conference will be held in Sapporo, Japan.

SMPC 2007

The SMPC Executive Committee has assessed several excellent proposals for hosting next year’s conference.   The decision was a difficult one, but finally we have chosen as the host Concordia University; thus, the site of our next conference will be Montreal Canada. The meeting is scheduled for July 30 to August 3, 2007.  The  Conference organizer will be Christine Beckett.   As usual, you can expect a call for papers (and perhaps for workshop proposals) sometime in early January 2007.  We will be providing much more information about the conference in the weeks and months to come.

RELATED CONFERENCE

APAM 2006   The new society for Auditory Perception, Cognition and Action (APCAM) (http://apcam.us/) welcomes presentations by researchers in music perception and cognition.  This year the 5th Annual Auditory Perception, Cognition, and Action meeting will be held on Thursday, November 16, 2006 in the Hilton Americas Houston, Houston, Texas

APCAM will be held just prior to the Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society (see http://psychonomic.org/ ). The goal of APCAM is to bring together researchers from various theoretical perspectives to present focused research on auditory cognition, perception, and aurally guided action. APCAM is a unique meeting in its exclusive focus on the perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral aspects of audition.

This year's meeting will include a keynote address by Professor Mari Riess Jones (Ohio State University, http://faculty.psy.ohio-state.edu/jones/ ). For on-line submission and registration, go to: http://www.apcam.us/

The deadline for submissions is Friday, September 8th.

The Society for Music Perception and Cognition (SMPC) is a not-for-profit organization for researchers and others interested in music perception and cognition. Our objectives are to:

• further the scientific and scholarly understanding of music from a broad range of disciplines, including music theory, psychology, psychophysics, linguistics, neurology, neuropsychology, ethology, ethnomusicology, artificial intelligence, computer technology, physics and engineering
• facilitate cooperation among scholars and scientists who are engaged in research in this interdisciplinary field
• advance education and public understanding of knowledge gained.

This issue of the SMPC newsletter has been sent to any and all members and friends of the society past and present for whom we have a mailing address.