Eliot Bates
Eliot Bates, an ethnomusicologist by training, has contributed new approaches to the study of music’s instruments, materialities, technologies, infrastructures, and production workflows. From 2004 to 2016, Bates researched these within Istanbul’s recording studios, luthieries, and music industry; since 2013, their work has broadened geographically to consider European, North American, and Australian audio technology gear cultures.
Committed to social science and ethnographic methods, Bates incorporates an experimental practice-led research design, whether that entails their ongoing studio-based audio engineering work, collaborative recordings featuring the 11-stringed oud, or solo Eurorack performances for the New York Modular Society. Bates has served as either performer, composer, or audio engineer to more than 80 albums produced in the U.S., UK, and Turkey, as well as several TV series and feature films.
Before joining The Graduate Center, where Bates is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Ethnomusicology Program, they taught at the University of Birmingham (UK), Cornell University (as an ACLS New Faculty Fellow and adjunct fellow of the Society for the Humanities), and the University of Maryland, College Park.
Committed to social science and ethnographic methods, Bates incorporates an experimental practice-led research design, whether that entails their ongoing studio-based audio engineering work, collaborative recordings featuring the 11-stringed oud, or solo Eurorack performances for the New York Modular Society. Bates has served as either performer, composer, or audio engineer to more than 80 albums produced in the U.S., UK, and Turkey, as well as several TV series and feature films.
Before joining The Graduate Center, where Bates is currently an Associate Professor and Director of the Ethnomusicology Program, they taught at the University of Birmingham (UK), Cornell University (as an ACLS New Faculty Fellow and adjunct fellow of the Society for the Humanities), and the University of Maryland, College Park.
less
Related Authors
InterestsView All (44)
Uploads
Books by Eliot Bates
Table of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Chapter 1: The Production of Music and Sound: A Multidisciplinary Critique
Eliot Bates and Samantha Bennett
Section 1: Situating Production: Place, Space and Gender
Chapter 2: Field Recording and the Production of Place
Tom Western (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
Chapter 3: The Poietics of Space: The Role and Co-performance of the Spatial Environment in Popular Music Production
Damon Minchella (University of Birmingham, England)
Chapter 4: “An Indestructible Sound”: Locating Gender in Genres Using Different Music Production Approaches
Paula Wolfe (Sib Records, England)
Section 2: Beyond Representation
Chapter 5: Producing TV Series Music in Istanbul
Eliot Bates (City University of New York, USA)
Chapter 6: Reclamation and Celebration: Kodangu, a Torres Strait Islander Album of Ancestral and Contemporary Australian Indigenous Music
Karl Neuenfeldt (Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, Australia)
Section 3: Electronic Music
Chapter 7: “All Sounds Are Created Equal”: Mediating Democracy in Acousmatic Education
Patrick Valiquet (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Chapter 8: Technologies of Play in Hip-Hop and Electronic Dance Music Production and Performance
Mike D'Errico (UCLA, USA)
Section 4: Technology and Technique
Chapter 9: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Invention and Re-invention of Recording Studio Mythology
Alan Williams (UMASS, Lowell, USA)
Chapter 10: Auto-Tune In Situ: Digital Vocal Correction And Conversational Repair
Owen Marshall (Cornell University, USA)
Section 5: Mediating Sound and Silence
Chapter 11: Listening To or Through Technology: Opaque and Transparent Mediation
Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen (University of Oslo, Norway)
Chapter 12: Six Types of Silence
Richard Osborne (Middlesex University, England)
Section 6: Virtuality and Online Production
Chapter 13: Intermixtuality: Case Studies in Online Music [Re]Production
Samantha Bennett (Australian National University, Australia)
Chapter 14: Crowdfunding and Alternative Modes of Production
Mark Thorley (Coventry University, England)
Index
In Digital Traditions: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul's Recording Studio Culture, author Eliot Bates answers these questions and more with a case study into the contemporary practices of recording traditional music in Istanbul. Bates provides an ethnography of Turkish recording studios, of arrangers and engineers, studio musicianship and digital audio workstation kinesthetics. Digital Traditions investigates the moments when tradition is arranged, and how arrangement is simultaneously a set of technological capabilities, limitations and choices: a form of musical practice that desocializes the ensemble and generates an extended network of social relations, resulting in aesthetic art objects that come to be associated with a range of affective and symbolic meanings. Rich with visual analysis and drawing on Science & Technology Studies theories and methods, Digital Traditions sets a new standard for the study of recorded music. Scholars and general readers of ethnomusicology, Middle Eastern studies, folklore and science and technology studies are sure to find Digital Traditions an essential addition to their library.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters by Eliot Bates
"Encuentros tecnológicos en la interculturalidad de los estudios de grabación de Estambul"
Resumen: Este artículo se pregunta qué es cultural en un estudio de grabación y en qué medida la interculturalidad resulta útil para examinar los encuentros en un estudio y, por extensión, en otras formas de trabajo artístico-tecnológico. Voy a demonstrar que cuando el concepto de interculturalidad se usa, raramente está acompañado por un concepto de “cultura” suficientemente matizado, y que, generalmente, depende de la suposición de que el prefijo “inter” describe el encuentro entre individuos que representan unidades culturales discretas, típicamente definidas en términos demográficos reduccionistas. La interculturalidad podría ser recuperada parcialmente, con una conceptualización más flexible y realista de la cultura que responda a las especificidades de las prácticas y los discursos locales y mediante un involucramiento sostenido con la materialidad de mundo vivido. En este estudio de caso voy a reflexionar sobre estudios de grabación profesional asentados en Estambul que estuvieron activos entre 2004 y 2011. Más allá de la compleja y poli-étnica identidad de muchos de los individuos participantes, las diferencias culturales estaban típicamente enmarcadas por arreglistas, ingenieros de audio y músicos de estudio en relación con sus profesiones específicas, particularmente en consideración con las formas en las que las personas habitan el espacio del estudio, con los sistemas de entrenamiento y conocimiento y con las distintas maneras en que los participantes se relacionan con los objetos tecnológicos.
http://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/what-studios-do/
Dissertations by Eliot Bates
Post-2000 Istanbul studios are primarily engaged with the production of digital audio. Although much of production work draws on musical knowledges and techniques, similar practices are used for creating arranged sounds without a musical value (such as film sound), and therefore a cross-pollination between musical and non-musical sound production has emerged. I also emphasize the digital aspect of recording to show the similarity, in terms of the software interface and the nature of the final deliverable product, to other kinds of digital content authoring, as digital workflows have come to have considerable implications for contemporary conceptualizations and productions of traditional musics.
After analyzing specific case studies drawn from ethnographic research conducted in 2004-2007 in the Turkish recording industry, I suggest a general theory for the study of recording production practice. This comprises four key components: interrogating the relation between digital audio and music in specific production contexts, considering multitrack production work with regard to newly emergent kinds of sensory configurations, investigating the uses of technology towards particular goals while continuously linking technological manipulations with musical practice and social forces, and using unique kinds of data such as DAW session files for analytical work.
Book reviews by Eliot Bates
Table of contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Chapter 1: The Production of Music and Sound: A Multidisciplinary Critique
Eliot Bates and Samantha Bennett
Section 1: Situating Production: Place, Space and Gender
Chapter 2: Field Recording and the Production of Place
Tom Western (University of Edinburgh, Scotland)
Chapter 3: The Poietics of Space: The Role and Co-performance of the Spatial Environment in Popular Music Production
Damon Minchella (University of Birmingham, England)
Chapter 4: “An Indestructible Sound”: Locating Gender in Genres Using Different Music Production Approaches
Paula Wolfe (Sib Records, England)
Section 2: Beyond Representation
Chapter 5: Producing TV Series Music in Istanbul
Eliot Bates (City University of New York, USA)
Chapter 6: Reclamation and Celebration: Kodangu, a Torres Strait Islander Album of Ancestral and Contemporary Australian Indigenous Music
Karl Neuenfeldt (Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, Australia)
Section 3: Electronic Music
Chapter 7: “All Sounds Are Created Equal”: Mediating Democracy in Acousmatic Education
Patrick Valiquet (University of Edinburgh, UK)
Chapter 8: Technologies of Play in Hip-Hop and Electronic Dance Music Production and Performance
Mike D'Errico (UCLA, USA)
Section 4: Technology and Technique
Chapter 9: Weapons of Mass Deception: The Invention and Re-invention of Recording Studio Mythology
Alan Williams (UMASS, Lowell, USA)
Chapter 10: Auto-Tune In Situ: Digital Vocal Correction And Conversational Repair
Owen Marshall (Cornell University, USA)
Section 5: Mediating Sound and Silence
Chapter 11: Listening To or Through Technology: Opaque and Transparent Mediation
Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen (University of Oslo, Norway)
Chapter 12: Six Types of Silence
Richard Osborne (Middlesex University, England)
Section 6: Virtuality and Online Production
Chapter 13: Intermixtuality: Case Studies in Online Music [Re]Production
Samantha Bennett (Australian National University, Australia)
Chapter 14: Crowdfunding and Alternative Modes of Production
Mark Thorley (Coventry University, England)
Index
In Digital Traditions: Arrangement and Labor in Istanbul's Recording Studio Culture, author Eliot Bates answers these questions and more with a case study into the contemporary practices of recording traditional music in Istanbul. Bates provides an ethnography of Turkish recording studios, of arrangers and engineers, studio musicianship and digital audio workstation kinesthetics. Digital Traditions investigates the moments when tradition is arranged, and how arrangement is simultaneously a set of technological capabilities, limitations and choices: a form of musical practice that desocializes the ensemble and generates an extended network of social relations, resulting in aesthetic art objects that come to be associated with a range of affective and symbolic meanings. Rich with visual analysis and drawing on Science & Technology Studies theories and methods, Digital Traditions sets a new standard for the study of recorded music. Scholars and general readers of ethnomusicology, Middle Eastern studies, folklore and science and technology studies are sure to find Digital Traditions an essential addition to their library.
"Encuentros tecnológicos en la interculturalidad de los estudios de grabación de Estambul"
Resumen: Este artículo se pregunta qué es cultural en un estudio de grabación y en qué medida la interculturalidad resulta útil para examinar los encuentros en un estudio y, por extensión, en otras formas de trabajo artístico-tecnológico. Voy a demonstrar que cuando el concepto de interculturalidad se usa, raramente está acompañado por un concepto de “cultura” suficientemente matizado, y que, generalmente, depende de la suposición de que el prefijo “inter” describe el encuentro entre individuos que representan unidades culturales discretas, típicamente definidas en términos demográficos reduccionistas. La interculturalidad podría ser recuperada parcialmente, con una conceptualización más flexible y realista de la cultura que responda a las especificidades de las prácticas y los discursos locales y mediante un involucramiento sostenido con la materialidad de mundo vivido. En este estudio de caso voy a reflexionar sobre estudios de grabación profesional asentados en Estambul que estuvieron activos entre 2004 y 2011. Más allá de la compleja y poli-étnica identidad de muchos de los individuos participantes, las diferencias culturales estaban típicamente enmarcadas por arreglistas, ingenieros de audio y músicos de estudio en relación con sus profesiones específicas, particularmente en consideración con las formas en las que las personas habitan el espacio del estudio, con los sistemas de entrenamiento y conocimiento y con las distintas maneras en que los participantes se relacionan con los objetos tecnológicos.
http://www.arpjournal.com/asarpwp/what-studios-do/
Post-2000 Istanbul studios are primarily engaged with the production of digital audio. Although much of production work draws on musical knowledges and techniques, similar practices are used for creating arranged sounds without a musical value (such as film sound), and therefore a cross-pollination between musical and non-musical sound production has emerged. I also emphasize the digital aspect of recording to show the similarity, in terms of the software interface and the nature of the final deliverable product, to other kinds of digital content authoring, as digital workflows have come to have considerable implications for contemporary conceptualizations and productions of traditional musics.
After analyzing specific case studies drawn from ethnographic research conducted in 2004-2007 in the Turkish recording industry, I suggest a general theory for the study of recording production practice. This comprises four key components: interrogating the relation between digital audio and music in specific production contexts, considering multitrack production work with regard to newly emergent kinds of sensory configurations, investigating the uses of technology towards particular goals while continuously linking technological manipulations with musical practice and social forces, and using unique kinds of data such as DAW session files for analytical work.
In this paper I suggest an approach to thinking through musical instruments as interfaces to digital technologies, and musicians as “indirect users” (Oudshoorn and Pinch 2005) of digital audio workstations. As a case study, I will look at Istanbul’s studio musicians who specialize in folk instruments and performances of minority etnik muziği. Such musicians developed new modes of playing for/with the computer and are keenly aware of the potentials for subsequent editing and signal processing, which in tandem with the work of audio engineers resulted in new aesthetic paradigms. As recorded music has been a key space for Kurdish, Laz and Alevi identity politics (Bates 2010), I hope to open up a way of thinking through what Jane Bennett has termed “thing-power” (2010) in relation to iconic musical instruments and the politics of their recorded, digitized soundings."
In this paper I suggest an approach to understanding all of the actors within studio environments as kinds of computer-users. As a case study, I will look at commercial recording studios in Istanbul, and projects entailing acoustic musicianship and extensive nonlinear audio editing. As I will suggest, beyond the engineer’s obvious role in driving computer-based music work through a mouse-keyboard interface, studio musicians developed new modes of playing for/with the computer that show a keen awareness of the potentials for subsequent editing and signal processing, and arrangers/producers similarly developed new aesthetic paradigms and conceptualizations of musical and social interaction in relation to digital workflows. I will then propose an expanded concept of technology use that takes account of indirect users.
In this paper I suggest the beginnings of a framework for theorizing studios. I draw on recent work in Science and Technology Studies by John Law, Thomas Gieryn and Sofia Zöe that suggests productive approaches to theorizing spaces, places, workplaces, and the heterogeneity of relations between architecture, objects and humans. I contend that studios must be understood simultaneously as acoustic environments, as meeting places, and as typologies that facilitate particular interactions between humans and nonhuman objects while structuring and maintaining power relations. I will touch upon several kinds of interaction: interaction between tracking room musicians and control room engineers that is “mediated” by talkback and other technologies of audition; interaction between musicians who perform together on recordings (both synchronously and asynchronously); interaction between engineers and the interface(s) that they use for manipulating recorded audio; and social interactions that are not apparently immediately related to recording work. Part of what I wish to tease out is the extent to which such forms of interaction are shaped by the “raw” studio (one not yet populated with people or technological objects) itself as opposed to studios that are populated with objects.
My theoretical framework is supported by ethnographic accounts of several contemporary studios in San Francisco and Istanbul. I will focus on high-end engineer-owned project studios and medium-scale commercial facilities that have been active sites for the production of a considerable amount of commercially released material. As acoustic environments, they range from DIY acoustic retrofits of residential units to acoustician-designed buildouts of generic light industrial spaces. However, as a point of comparison I will also touch upon larger multi-room commercial facilities.
Through an analysis of films by directors Yılmaz Erdoğan, Ömer Faruk Sorak and Sırrı Süreyya Önder, I will explore the symbolic nature of affect in this new Turkish filmic idiom, and how a programmatic use of folk music elements constitutes a fundamental shift in the range of possible emotional-affective meanings of folk music. I will analyze how generic rural Anatolian landscapes and the soundscapes of specific localities are invoked through music and non-musical sound. Finally, I will consider the extent to which specific symbolic representations, and more general trends in contemporary Turkish film sound, are inspired by film sound and scoring conventions in European and American films. This paper is in part based on observations at several film studios in Istanbul, and interviews with film music composers and session musicians.
I argue that not only are these contradictions perennially unresolved, their existence is an integral part of the identity and functioning of these communities. They parallel a widespread ambivalence towards hi-tech workplaces, which often exhibited similar contradictions between corporate values, workplace ethics, and the actual nature of work. In Northern California EDM communities, in other words, work and leisure are inseparable. This paper is based on field research conducted between 1999 and 2004 on over a dozen communities (sometimes called “tribes”), and interviews with DJs, “founders,” and current and former members.