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Brent Keogh

University of Technology Sydney, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Faculty Member

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Brent Keogh is a Lecturer in Communication at UTS, and currently convenes 54092 Culture: Plugged and Unplugged, 58301 Communications Practice Project and teaches in 50817 Audio Production. He completed his doctoral studies at Macquarie University in 2014, examining the discourse of World Music in Australia. His current research interests include exploring perceptions of 'intimacy' through immersive audio/visual technologies, sonic branding, and music sustainability. He is also a songwriter and musician, and plays a number of instruments including guitar, vocals, mandolin and middle eastern lute (oud).
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Katherine Butler Schofield

King's College London

Ruben López-Cano

Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya

University of East London

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Swansea University

The University of Newcastle

University of Genova

Rice University

University of Warwick

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Papers by Brent Keogh

MUSICultures 43-1 Digital

Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of hum... more Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of human cultural practices, environments, and contexts. The ecology trope has found a resonance within the academy, and has long been used across the social sciences, to contextualize aspects of human social and cultural life. This paper examines the application of ecology and ecological concepts to our apprehension and understanding of music, an application that may be traced back almost 50 years. Here we discuss a number of issues regarding the appropriation of ecological principles to articulate and explain human musical activity. In this paper, we critically assess the ramifications of framing the relationship between people, their music, and their world, in ecological terms. Résumé : Le terme « écologie », qui relevait dans les années 1950 de la biologie, a été importé et appliqué à un grand éventail de pratiques culturelles, d’environnements et de contextes humains. Ce trope a eu un for...

Popular Music and the Religious Screen

Sonic branding and the aesthetic infrastructure of everyday consumption

Popular Music

Sonic branding – the sonic expression of a brand's identity – is the audio equivalent of a br... more Sonic branding – the sonic expression of a brand's identity – is the audio equivalent of a brand's logo, a sound that is both distinct and adaptable to diverse contexts, and serves to communicate a brand's narrative. Sonic branding has been a feature of marketing strategies for the past two decades, but more recently there has been increased commercial interest in sonic branding, a move from the ‘visual turn’ to the ‘sonic turn’, as voice activation technologies such as Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant immerse the consumer in a personal encounter across diverse sensory touch points. While there has been significant scholarly discussion in popular music studies of the ways that sound is employed to increase capital in commercial contexts, little has been written to address the ways in which popular music is courted and implicated in brand strategy specific to sonic branding. In this paper, we consider the ways in which sounds are embedded in contemporary bran...

From Here, There and Everywhere: Recording Popular Music in the “Field”

Journal of World Popular Music

Film and Television Music

Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Culture

'A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place?' - the (Ab)uses of Music Ecology

by Brent Keogh and Ian Collinson

MUSICultures

Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of hum... more Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of human cultural practices, environments, and contexts. The ecology trope has found a resonance within the academy, and has long been used across the social sciences, to contextualize aspects of human social and cultural life. This paper examines the application of ecology and ecological concepts to our apprehension and understanding of music, an application that may be traced back almost 50 years. Here we discuss a number of issues regarding the appropriation of ecological principles to articulate and explain human musical activity. In this paper, we critically assess the ramifications of framing the relationship between people, their music, and their world, in ecological terms.

An Interview with Damian Wright: Flamenco and the discourse of World Music in Australia

In this Riff article, Brent Keogh speaks to Sydney-based flamenco guitarist and ARIA award nomine... more In this Riff article, Brent Keogh speaks to Sydney-based flamenco guitarist and ARIA award nominee, Damian Wright. The interview discusses Wright’s experiences and perspectives on world music in Australia. Where much of the academic discourse on world music focuses on broader theorization and systemic critiques, the following interview presents experiences and insights from a musician contributing to, and working in, the complex discursive space of world music in Australia. In doing so, Wright’s perspectives contribute to broader discussions concerning the politics of otherness, musical patronage and cultural diversity in Australian music.

Keywords: Australian music industry; flamenco; popular music; world music

Sounds, Swords and Forests: An Exploration into the Representations of Music and Martial Arts in Contemporary Kung Fu Films

In the Wu Xia film Hero (Yimou, 2002), Jet Li's character Nameless ponders mid-combat the connect... more In the Wu Xia film Hero (Yimou, 2002), Jet Li's character Nameless ponders mid-combat the connection between the martial arts and music, stating that both wrestle with 'complex chords and rare melodies'. There have been various articulations of the Chinese equivalents to the Medieval Quadrivium, whereby the cultured person is expected to be competent in a select number of artistic and intellectual disciplines. Rather than the four disciplines of this particularly western approach, several Chinese equivalents have been based on the number five, a significant number featured in the I Ching, whose articulation of the Five Elements (Fire, Metal, Wood, Water and Earth) can be found throughout traditional Chinese medicine, cosmology, and martial arts. One such articulation expects the cultured martial artist to be competent in the disciplines of calligraphy, music, healing (acupuncture, Chinese medicine), cosmology, and of course, kung fu. My interest in this article is to explore the ways in which the philosophical connections between music and martial arts have been represented and articulated in contemporary kung fu films.

'A Tale of Five Festivals': Exploring the Cultural Intermediary Function of Australian Jazz Festivals

This article considers the cultural intermediary function of Australian jazz festivals. It presen... more This article considers the cultural intermediary function of Australian jazz festivals. It presents a detailed analysis of programming patterns across five Australian jazz music festivals—namely, the Manly Jazz Festival, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Brisbane International Jazz Festival and Bellingen Jazz Festival—in the ten-year period, 2004–2014. Using this data, this article draws attention to the ‘search and select’ function of cultural intermediaries speaking to the broader significance of festivals as sites of popular music study. A number of programming trends are considered, including a comparison between local and international musicians; the frequency with which musicians performed at each festival and across festivals; issues of gender in programming; and the identification of musicians who could be placed into a number of genre categories, with a particular focus on those musicians who identify in some way with the category of world music. This study presents an insight into current trends in jazz scenes in Australia and the roles that festivals play as cultural intermediaries in contributing to this aspect of Australian cultural life.

The Wizard of Oud - A Case Study of Sydney Based Oud Player Joseph Tawadros

This article is a case study of Sydney based oud player Joseph Tawadros. The discussion centres o... more This article is a case study of Sydney based oud player Joseph Tawadros. The discussion centres on the strategic market positioning of this musician and the use of identity as a tool for navigating patronage within the local and international music economies. This study observes the ways in which Tawadros embraces multiple identity positions, reinscribing himself and his instrument within the dominant narratives of art music in Australia, and considers how this may have helped him gain access to different forms of patronage. By reference to media interviews and interviews conducted with the author, this case study presents him as a musician who skilfully adopts and invokes various musical identities and identities tied to nationalism. These have helped Tawadros navigate diverse musical categories and mainstream media. This paper uses the Tawadros case study to explore the strategies used by musicians associated with World Music, Multicultural arts and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse arts in Australia.

Between Theory, Representation and Practice of the Maqam: Rethinking the Representation of the Arabic Maqamat.

Traditionally, students learning the maqāmāt are taught aurally, in the master-student paradigm, ... more Traditionally, students learning the maqāmāt are taught aurally, in the master-student paradigm, where phrase-by-phrase they acquire knowledge of the maqāmāt, which forms the building blocks of taqsīmand composition. While Western forms of notation for the representation of Arabic maqāmāt have increasingly been used to represent these modes, many scholars have questioned their effectiveness within these traditions. Criticism of Western notation has raised issues concerning the fixing of the notes of a maqām to a fixed pitch, being unable to account for regional differences in articulation, and not accounting for crucial information such as the breaking up of a maqām into its distinct ajnās. This paper proposes a new system of representation for the organization of the maqāmāt and the interrelationships within these scales, used for modulation both in composition and improvised settings. Additionally, this paper argues that this system is more useful than existing forms of Western notation for addressing the problems mentioned above when articulating the maqāmāt.

On the Limitations of Music Ecology

Some Preliminary Thoughts on Patterns of Programming in Australia’s World Music and Folk Festivals

The CALD Front: A Summary Report of Arts Funding for Diverse Musical Disciplines in Australia

The Oud, the Bad and the Ugly: Transmitting 'Roots' in the discourse and experience of World music in Australia

MUSICultures 43-1 Digital

Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of hum... more Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of human cultural practices, environments, and contexts. The ecology trope has found a resonance within the academy, and has long been used across the social sciences, to contextualize aspects of human social and cultural life. This paper examines the application of ecology and ecological concepts to our apprehension and understanding of music, an application that may be traced back almost 50 years. Here we discuss a number of issues regarding the appropriation of ecological principles to articulate and explain human musical activity. In this paper, we critically assess the ramifications of framing the relationship between people, their music, and their world, in ecological terms. Résumé : Le terme « écologie », qui relevait dans les années 1950 de la biologie, a été importé et appliqué à un grand éventail de pratiques culturelles, d’environnements et de contextes humains. Ce trope a eu un for...

Popular Music and the Religious Screen

Sonic branding and the aesthetic infrastructure of everyday consumption

Popular Music

Sonic branding – the sonic expression of a brand's identity – is the audio equivalent of a br... more Sonic branding – the sonic expression of a brand's identity – is the audio equivalent of a brand's logo, a sound that is both distinct and adaptable to diverse contexts, and serves to communicate a brand's narrative. Sonic branding has been a feature of marketing strategies for the past two decades, but more recently there has been increased commercial interest in sonic branding, a move from the ‘visual turn’ to the ‘sonic turn’, as voice activation technologies such as Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant immerse the consumer in a personal encounter across diverse sensory touch points. While there has been significant scholarly discussion in popular music studies of the ways that sound is employed to increase capital in commercial contexts, little has been written to address the ways in which popular music is courted and implicated in brand strategy specific to sonic branding. In this paper, we consider the ways in which sounds are embedded in contemporary bran...

From Here, There and Everywhere: Recording Popular Music in the “Field”

Journal of World Popular Music

Film and Television Music

Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Culture

'A Place for Everything and Everything in its Place?' - the (Ab)uses of Music Ecology

by Brent Keogh and Ian Collinson

MUSICultures

Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of hum... more Since the 1950s, the biological term ecology has been imported and applied to a wide range of human cultural practices, environments, and contexts. The ecology trope has found a resonance within the academy, and has long been used across the social sciences, to contextualize aspects of human social and cultural life. This paper examines the application of ecology and ecological concepts to our apprehension and understanding of music, an application that may be traced back almost 50 years. Here we discuss a number of issues regarding the appropriation of ecological principles to articulate and explain human musical activity. In this paper, we critically assess the ramifications of framing the relationship between people, their music, and their world, in ecological terms.

An Interview with Damian Wright: Flamenco and the discourse of World Music in Australia

In this Riff article, Brent Keogh speaks to Sydney-based flamenco guitarist and ARIA award nomine... more In this Riff article, Brent Keogh speaks to Sydney-based flamenco guitarist and ARIA award nominee, Damian Wright. The interview discusses Wright’s experiences and perspectives on world music in Australia. Where much of the academic discourse on world music focuses on broader theorization and systemic critiques, the following interview presents experiences and insights from a musician contributing to, and working in, the complex discursive space of world music in Australia. In doing so, Wright’s perspectives contribute to broader discussions concerning the politics of otherness, musical patronage and cultural diversity in Australian music.

Keywords: Australian music industry; flamenco; popular music; world music

Sounds, Swords and Forests: An Exploration into the Representations of Music and Martial Arts in Contemporary Kung Fu Films

In the Wu Xia film Hero (Yimou, 2002), Jet Li's character Nameless ponders mid-combat the connect... more In the Wu Xia film Hero (Yimou, 2002), Jet Li's character Nameless ponders mid-combat the connection between the martial arts and music, stating that both wrestle with 'complex chords and rare melodies'. There have been various articulations of the Chinese equivalents to the Medieval Quadrivium, whereby the cultured person is expected to be competent in a select number of artistic and intellectual disciplines. Rather than the four disciplines of this particularly western approach, several Chinese equivalents have been based on the number five, a significant number featured in the I Ching, whose articulation of the Five Elements (Fire, Metal, Wood, Water and Earth) can be found throughout traditional Chinese medicine, cosmology, and martial arts. One such articulation expects the cultured martial artist to be competent in the disciplines of calligraphy, music, healing (acupuncture, Chinese medicine), cosmology, and of course, kung fu. My interest in this article is to explore the ways in which the philosophical connections between music and martial arts have been represented and articulated in contemporary kung fu films.

'A Tale of Five Festivals': Exploring the Cultural Intermediary Function of Australian Jazz Festivals

This article considers the cultural intermediary function of Australian jazz festivals. It presen... more This article considers the cultural intermediary function of Australian jazz festivals. It presents a detailed analysis of programming patterns across five Australian jazz music festivals—namely, the Manly Jazz Festival, Wangaratta Festival of Jazz and Blues, Melbourne International Jazz Festival, Brisbane International Jazz Festival and Bellingen Jazz Festival—in the ten-year period, 2004–2014. Using this data, this article draws attention to the ‘search and select’ function of cultural intermediaries speaking to the broader significance of festivals as sites of popular music study. A number of programming trends are considered, including a comparison between local and international musicians; the frequency with which musicians performed at each festival and across festivals; issues of gender in programming; and the identification of musicians who could be placed into a number of genre categories, with a particular focus on those musicians who identify in some way with the category of world music. This study presents an insight into current trends in jazz scenes in Australia and the roles that festivals play as cultural intermediaries in contributing to this aspect of Australian cultural life.

The Wizard of Oud - A Case Study of Sydney Based Oud Player Joseph Tawadros

This article is a case study of Sydney based oud player Joseph Tawadros. The discussion centres o... more This article is a case study of Sydney based oud player Joseph Tawadros. The discussion centres on the strategic market positioning of this musician and the use of identity as a tool for navigating patronage within the local and international music economies. This study observes the ways in which Tawadros embraces multiple identity positions, reinscribing himself and his instrument within the dominant narratives of art music in Australia, and considers how this may have helped him gain access to different forms of patronage. By reference to media interviews and interviews conducted with the author, this case study presents him as a musician who skilfully adopts and invokes various musical identities and identities tied to nationalism. These have helped Tawadros navigate diverse musical categories and mainstream media. This paper uses the Tawadros case study to explore the strategies used by musicians associated with World Music, Multicultural arts and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse arts in Australia.

Between Theory, Representation and Practice of the Maqam: Rethinking the Representation of the Arabic Maqamat.

Traditionally, students learning the maqāmāt are taught aurally, in the master-student paradigm, ... more Traditionally, students learning the maqāmāt are taught aurally, in the master-student paradigm, where phrase-by-phrase they acquire knowledge of the maqāmāt, which forms the building blocks of taqsīmand composition. While Western forms of notation for the representation of Arabic maqāmāt have increasingly been used to represent these modes, many scholars have questioned their effectiveness within these traditions. Criticism of Western notation has raised issues concerning the fixing of the notes of a maqām to a fixed pitch, being unable to account for regional differences in articulation, and not accounting for crucial information such as the breaking up of a maqām into its distinct ajnās. This paper proposes a new system of representation for the organization of the maqāmāt and the interrelationships within these scales, used for modulation both in composition and improvised settings. Additionally, this paper argues that this system is more useful than existing forms of Western notation for addressing the problems mentioned above when articulating the maqāmāt.

On the Limitations of Music Ecology

Some Preliminary Thoughts on Patterns of Programming in Australia’s World Music and Folk Festivals

The CALD Front: A Summary Report of Arts Funding for Diverse Musical Disciplines in Australia

The Oud, the Bad and the Ugly: Transmitting 'Roots' in the discourse and experience of World music in Australia