I was invited to present a research paper entitled, “Faders, Engineers and Genres: Mixing Live Music in New York City” at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, in association with the Africana Studies Department of Oberlin College.

The following is an excerpt from the paper:

“I have chosen to focus on the relatively inconspicuous social encounters between engineers and audiences during performances, those in which audiences mostly attribute the entirety of musical dynamics to the agency of musicians, while engineers continually adjust and readjust dynamic properties of the live mix in subtle ways that do not call audience attention to the mixing itself.  Considering the mixing activities of engineers and the listening activities of audience members, I focus on how mixing mediates formations of personhood among engineers and audiences.  However, mixing does not simply or directly mediate personhood between engineers and audiences.  It does this within the live production and consumption of popular music and the distinct cultural characteristics, needs and expectations of its genres.  I argue that when and where the fader moves is both a reaction to and assertion of not only the immediate content and context of popular music genres but how persons listen to and make its mix during live performances.” (Slaten 2013: 6)