This article proposes the electromagnetic soundwalk as an anti-method for consumer research, a compositional practice that listens to the infrastructural residue of market environments without aiming to interpret, represent or explain. Using a handheld electromagnetic detector, the walk transposes imperceptible emissions into audible frequencies, revealing the operational murmur of retail systems. These include devices such as wireless payment systems, contactless terminals, touch-screen tablets and digital signage, technologies that organise and condition consumer experience, but do so silently, beneath the threshold of ordinary perception. These electromagnetic emissions trace the infrastructures that shape and facilitate consumption yet remain formally outside marketing discourse. The soundwalk stages a form of methodological estrangement, where listening becomes a way of staying with systems that persist without expressive form. While rooted in soundwalking traditions, the project diverges from immersion or participation. Positioned within the sonic turn in consumer research, the paper reframes sound as residue, an ambient trace of logistical systems. For marketing, this is a speculative proposition. For sound studies, it is an example of compositional listening used to breach an adjacent field. What results is not a soundwalk for its own sake, but an acoustic method for hearing how consumer systems continue, quietly and without reward. The first section of the paper adopts a speculative and affective tone, free of citation, to evoke the experiential register of the method. Subsequent sections develop the theoretical and methodological foundations in a more conventional academic voice.

This essay investigates intermedial interference – a perceptual phenomenon arising from the interaction of media features within the intermedial space – in the context of electroacoustic audiovisual composition. Grounded in visual music and intermedial arts traditions, this research explores strategies for combining, integrating and fusing sound and moving images to create artefacts that transcend conventional multimedia juxtaposition. This essay refers to the author’s doctoral practice-based research, in which a portfolio of six works is examined through the study, discussing the nature of interference, the interaction of media features in the intermedial space, the role of balance in managing perceptual equilibrium and novel compositional methods, including associative mapping and synchrony typologies. A case study of one of the portfolio works illustrates the application of these concepts, emphasising remediation, meta-narrative and audience interpretation. The findings contribute new insights into intermedial audiovisual practice, offering methodologies for composers to harness media interactions and foster open, subjective engagements with intermedial artefacts.

All around Santiago, Chile, there are water towers known to citizens as Copas de Agua. These towers are recognised as modern industrial heritage and integral landmarks within the city’s urban landscape, contributing significantly to its cultural identity. This article presents strategies for exploring aural architecture by creating a new space defined by sound in motion within an existing architectural structure with unique morphological and acoustic characteristics through the medium of sound installation art. The project Polyphono, a multichannel sound installation located within the Copa de Agua of Quinta Bella, Chile, establishes a dialogue between three different spaces: the invisible space of the sound installation, the existing space of the water tower and the symbolic space of experience. In this process, an interior space of sound emerges within the physical space of acoustic reactions, which is experienced by the audience as aural architecture. This dynamic situation involves animating the monumentality of the water tower, transforming it through the performative action of the sound installation, thereby intensifying the historical significance of the site in physical, sensory, political and social terms. The outcomes are framed as a transitional space, from site-specific sound to aural architecture, creating an affective space for aesthetic experience.

This article explores the use of composition as a methodological tool in ethnomusicology. By reflecting on the creation, rehearsal, and performance of the Suíte Afro-Brasileira—an original piece blending a big band with choir, capoeira, samba, and Candomblé ensembles—the author contends that the knowledge gained through composition parallels that acquired through bi-musicality, the established ethnomusicological practice of learning to perform music for research purposes. The multiple musicalities developed by composer-researchers in cross-cultural projects such as the Suíte Afro-Brasileira result in a form of compositional poly-musicality. This application of composition, however, intensifies the ethical issues of bi-musicality, forcing composer-researchers to rethink representational issues.

This paper builds on research conducted in 2008 by Wright into the uneasy power dynamics between a music teacher and her pupils in a secondary school music classroom in Wales as a result of her Western Classical ‘habitus’; by this, we mean the habitual behaviours, attitudes and values that are commonplace when operating as a classical musician. Some 18 years on, and in a transformative Welsh education climate, narrative data collected from pre-service teachers practising in similar classrooms in Wales suggest that they have begun to move away from their Western European classical ‘habitus’ and believe in shared pedagogic ownership that takes account of pupil voice and choice. Furthermore, in learning to teach, they develop pedagogic behaviours more akin to popular musicians, such as being more improvisatory and more willing to tolerate uncertainty. A key factor is the trusting and collaborative relationships they developed with their mentors (teacher-tutors) within an education system in Wales that has committed itself to the concept of subsidiarity. These findings mark a positive step forward for the music education community within a new and aspirational educational landscape in Wales.

The main goal of this article is to show how disco polo’s entry into the mainstream disrupted the existing cultural hierarchy in Poland and how it influenced the attitudes and narratives surrounding the genre. Disco polo is a subgenre of Polish electronic folk music characterised by a simple rhythm and a clear melodic line. It is often criticised for its vulgar lyrics and simplistic musical structure, and its audience is commonly associated with lower class and poor taste. Drawing on empirical data from a qualitative study conducted in 2021, we demonstrate that disco polo’s temporary promotion to mainstream during 2016-2023 was superficial and, to some extent, artificial, driven by politically motivated programming decisions made by public media authorities. However, we argue that disco polo fans benefited from this phenomenon, as it strengthened their sense of self-worth, helped them cope with class-related stigma, and reinforced their integration as a community.