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While there has been significant academic interest in AI-systems for musical composition, adoption of such systems by practitioners has been slow. Concurrently, Pearce, Meredith and Wiggins argue that research into AI is slowing because of a failure to develop and adopt an appropriate methodology. PMW proffer a solution in through better categorisation, which Sven Deserno proves hasn’t gained significant traction. Issues surrounding artificial intelligence in music are further complicated by the ambiguous nature of the term, and it’s widespread and often erroneous use in media. This thesis aims to answer questions surrounding this slow adoption of AI-systems for musical composition, the apparent hesitance towards embracing them for musically creative purposes, and practical aspects that might limit their use for composition of commercial music. It does so by juxtaposing Calestous Juma’s theory on fear of adoption of new technologies, early historica and modern-day approaches to algorithmic thinking in music and creative thinking in music composition against experiences of makers and users of AI-systems for musical composition. I will focus specifically on the music of popular singer-songwriter and AI-enthusiast Taryn Southern and AI-researcher and composer David Cope and critical analysis of said systems. I argue that the slow adoption is caused by more than mere financial incentives, as many innovations have, but rather a specific type of fear of letting new technology invade the creative process that practitioners might identify as strictly human in nature, combined with the difficulty of effectively evaluating the usefulness of AI-systems, and a general lack of affordances regarding AI in musical composition. In 2000, David Cope mentions in his final chapter of The Algorithmic Composer: “what rational composer would refuse to listen to an algorithmic attempt to solve a problem”. This thesis offers a beginning of an answer to Cope’s hopeful or woeful prediction.

Since the 1990s, trap has increasingly influenced mainstream popular music. The Southern-American genre is notorious for its “trap-beat” as well as a vocal style that is often derogatorily referred to as mumble-rap or mushmouth rap. This vocal style is characterized by the murmured lyrical delivery causing a high level of unintelligibility. Different from mainstream post-race hip hop—which Justin Burton classifies as clearly pronounced, politically engaged hip hop performed by artists such as Kendrick Lamar—trap lyricism rarely involves anything other than money, promiscuity, and excessive lifestyles. Moreover, typical trap music uses a fair amount of expressive exclamations and ad libs, for instance, the “choppa” sound: brrrah!, where the rattling r’s imitate the sound of an automatic firearm, adding to a violent and noisy sound experience for a mainstream audience that has become used to post-race hip hop (Burton 2017). The perceived sonic blackness (Eidsheim 2011) in trap, which is the perceived black body in sound, urges questions about the way in which the voice can be rendered less-than-human, or even nonhuman. The sonic palette of trap deliberately invites a listening experience of blackness by making use of the sonic color line, which refers to sounds that are racialized by the listening ear in the historic context of segregation, slavery, and othering (Stoever 2016). The racialization of sound is rooted into socially constructed ideas about the use of the voice, which has traditionally divided vowels and consonants, sounds and noises, as well as language and gibberish into the hierarchical binary of human and nonhuman (Connor 2014, Weheliye 2002). This binary has traditionally rendered people who deviate from the white patriarchal norm as less-than-human in an intersectional way. The perceived sonic blackness in trap is thus a perception of trap’s sounds as noisy, aggressive, and threatening, which are notions that are rooted in stereotypes about a specific

The industry of online pornography has become one with great influence, and academic interest in this field has gradually increased. However, the academic field of porn studies has generally neglected the role of music and sounds within pornography. Pornography is seen as a predominantly visual genre that relies on ‘witnessing’ sex and creating a real presence of sexuality. According to Linda Williams, removing music would intensify the (sexual) sounds and the sense of proximity and immediacy - bringing the spectator ‘close’. However, in this thesis I argue that this depends on the type of pornography, of music, and on the type of sounds that are used. Music and sounds can intensify the experience of watching online pornography. To support this claim, I focus on the role of music and sounds within (male-to-male) poppers training. These are online (instructional, montage) videos that guide viewers in the use of poppers: a recreational drug that is inhaled through the nostrils and may cause mild euphoria and a heightened state of sexual arousal. Within the genre of poppers training, music and sounds play a significant role in stretching and enhancing the so-called masturbatory trance - a concept from Paul Morris and Susanna Paasonen. Using Ruth Herbert’s theories on the concept trancing, I explain what exactly is a masturbatory trance and how music and sounds can play a role in inducing or influencing this type of trancing. I do this by analysing the most viewed poppers trainer on Pornhub: ‘POPPERS TRAINER - MEGA POPPERBATOR’. With this thesis, I should also like to encourage other scholars to step outside of the taboo on pornography, and contribute to the fields of porn studies, be it from a musicological perspective or from within a different academic field. The range of pornographic genres seems to be infinite and is constantly changing, just as the music and sounds that can play a role in it.

A strong similar to 11-min-long surge of the lobe reconnection was observed during a substorm on the tailward side of the near-Earth neutral line. In the southern lobe near the reconnection separatrix the MMS spacecraft observed short-duration earthward electron beams providing the local Hall current, tailward propagating Alfven wave (AW) bursts with Poynting flux up to 10(-4) W/m(2), and large-amplitude E field spikes (e-holes) and low hybrid waves. The reconnection surge was accompanied by substorm current wedge formation and fast poleward expansion of auroral bulge-related westward electrojet in the conjugate ionosphere. During its meridional crossing above the expanding bulge the Metop-2 spacecraft observed an intense energetic precipitation spike near the expected X line foot point and confirmed the dipolarized character of magnetic field lines inside of the bulge. Globally the observed average reconnection rate ( similar to 3.3 mV/m) was sufficient to produce the magnetic flux increase in the bulge, associated with observed fast poleward expansion (about 6 degrees latitude in 5 min). Plain Language Summary Although magnetic reconnection in the magnetotail has been proposed to be the core process for the strong global magnetospheric reconfiguration and for huge particle acceleration during magnetospheric substorms, this association is mostly based on indirect evidence, because reconnection intermittently activates in different parts of the tail current sheet, and it is difficult to monitor its location and intensity variations based on direct spacecraft observations. On 28 July 2017 the MMS spacecraft succeeded in staying in the magnetotail near the active reconnection separatrix for a relatively long time during the surge of reconnection. At the same time the electric currents were enhanced and moved poleward in the magnetically conjugate part of the ionosphere, indicating configurational changes in the magnetotail. At the same minute the Metop-2 sp

Hip-hop, as a culture, distinguishes four building blocks upon which it is built: turntablism, breakdance, graffiti and rap. These building blocks are unquestioned within the hip-hop community. However, basketball is often named as the fifth building block, the fifth element. Ever since Walt Frazier became NBA champion with the New York Knicks and DJ Kool Herc threw his first party in 1973, hip-hop and basketball are connected. Frazier signed a deal with Puma for exclusive signature shoes. Later on, Puma would become the official sponsor of Beat Street (1984), a movie about hip-hop culture. This is one of many connections between the sport and the music. This master thesis explores the connections between basketball and hip-hop and studies the reception basketball culture got in The Netherlands from the early nineties on. It looks at the role basketball culture played in The Netherlands and how hip-hop culture played a role as a part of basketball culture. It contains interviews with basketball players, Dutch as well as American, professional and amateur, who have an extraordinary interest in music, and describes what role music plays in their lives. It connects the experiences the players have to concepts like musical affordances, agency and lived religion.

Online pornography usually starts with music, but continues without it. The development of video cameras, editing software and internet connections has popularized the DIY-aesthetic and sense of immediacy that belonged to amateur videos. This aesthetic leaves little room for music, as it exposes the video as mediated. Placing music only at the beginning of a video creates a juxtaposition between the non-diegetic sound of music, and the diegetic sound of people having sex. This intensifies the explicitness of the depicted sex. Because the change of sound environment usually happens between the sexual acts that focus on female pleasure and those that focus on male pleasure, the placement of the music signifies how pornography prioritizes male pleasure. Another important role of music in online pornography is that it acts as a “threshold”, based on the concept of Gérard Genette, and elaborated on by Giorgio Biancorosso and Guido Heldt. The Pornhub Community ident is a musical threshold that acts as a frame that demarcates the diegetic world of the video. It also serves as a peritextual cue that signals the beginning of the video. Finally, music and paratexts play a key role in constituting the “story” of online pornography. Online video-sharing websites such as Pornhub are saturated with paratexts. These captions and tags provide a large bulk of information that is not addressed in the video itself, except through the music. Here Ronald Rodman’s associative approach to television music is applicable, because the small budgets and relatively short span of television programs are taken a step further by online video culture.

Omdat het medium televisie steeds verder daalt in populariteit, profileren veel televisiebedrijven zich tegenwoordig ook online. Eén van die bedrijven is Nederland Zingt. Het bedrijf produceert liveregistraties van geestelijke liederen aan de hand waarvan ze twee televisieprogramma’s maakt. Nederland Zingt plaatst de liveregistraties van losse liederen ook op haar online kanalen op Facebook, Instagram en YouTube zonder daarbij kritisch te kijken naar de verschillende behoeften van televisie en internet. Dit terwijl het wetenschappelijke debat aangeeft dat verschillende media altijd vragen om verschillende manieren van productie en om verschillende verwerking van content. Mijn hoofdvraag van dit onderzoek luidt dan ook als volgt: ‘Welke mogelijkheden zijn er voor Nederland Zingt om haar televisieclips te remediëren op zo een manier dat er ook liveregistraties voor sociale media kunnen worden geproduceerd die beter aansluiten bij de huidige online video-esthetiek?’ Aan de hand van verschillende technische en esthetische aspecten van online muziekvideo’s zoals deze worden besproken binnen het academische discours en aan de hand van de remediatietheorie van Bolter en Grusin zal ik de online muziekvideo’s van Nederland Zingt bespreken. Binnen het theoretisch kader zal ik drie online liveregistraties als casus behandelen. Onder andere op basis van de analyses die hieruit voortkomen zal ik inzichtelijk maken hoe een liveregistratie van Nederland Zingt er over het algemeen uitziet. Tot slot zal ik een aantal adviezen uitbrengen aan Nederland Zingt om aan te geven hoe het bedrijf haar online muziekvideo’s beter aan kan laten sluiten bij de huidige esthetiek van internetvideo’s.