Graduate Research Colloquia: Professor Steve Waksman (University of Huddersfield)

Abstract

In this presentation, I will offer an overview of some of the primary materials and questions that have motivated my Leverhulme-funded project on the history and cultural impact of amplification technologies. The Amplification Project, as the study is currently named, arises from my career of research spent examining intersections of popular music and technology, much of which has revolved around the electric guitar. How is guitar amplification related to a wider set of innovations and interrelationships involving audio technology, musical practice, and public life since the late 19th century? My talk will examine historical documents and media representations to posit a framework for thinking about the varied impacts of amplification and how it has become socially meaningful in a range of settings. In particular, I will highlight two strains of investigation: the early history of public address systems, and the advent of solid state guitar amplifiers.

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Biography

Steve Waksman is the Leverhulme International Professor of Popular Music at the University of Huddersfield, UK. His publications include the books Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience (1999), This Ain't the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk (2009), and Live Music in America: A History from Jenny Lind to Beyoncé (2022). His books have won multiple awards including the Woody Guthrie Prize given by the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, U.S. Chapter, and the Music in American Culture Award from the American Musicological Society. With Reebee Garofalo, Waksman is the co-author of the sixth edition of the rock history textbook, Rockin' Out: Popular Music in the U.S.A. (2014), and with Andy Bennett, he co-edited the SAGE Handbook of Popular Music (2015). His latest book is The Cambridge Companion to the Electric Guitar, co-edited with Jan-Peter Herbst. Currently he is beginning a new project devoted to the study of amplification technologies and amplified sound, funded by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust.