Paul Harkins
Paul Harkins

Dr Paul Harkins

Lecturer T&R

 0131 455 5020

  P.Harkins@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

My lecturing role at Edinburgh Napier University began in 2005 when I started teaching the Business of Music modules on the BA (Hons) Popular Music degree before becoming a permanent member of staff in October 2007. I have been responsible for designing and leading new undergraduate modules about the music industries and the history of music technologies. I was Programme Leader from 2015-2018 and have been nominated in the Best Feedback Category at the NSA Awards.

My PhD research was about the history and uses of sampling technologies and my book, Digital Sampling (Routledge), was published in 2019. I have also written about the politics of copyright, the aesthetics of mash ups, and published articles in Popular Music, Popular Music & Society, IASPM@Journal, Journal on the Art of Record Production, and Reseaux. I'm currently working on research projects about digitalisation and democratisation, Syco Systems and the distribution of musical instruments, and Kate Bush's use of the Fairlight CMI.

I am keen to exchange ideas and share research with a wide audience. In 2011, I organised and chaired a debate about song lyrics with Ian Rankin and King Creosote at the launch of Edinburgh City of Literature's 'Let's Get Lyrical' campaign and took part in an AHRC New Generation Thinkers Media Training Workshop. One of two early career researchers invited to take part in music policy workshops funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, I have contributed to policy debates by writing op-ed pieces about copyright and the music industries and participating in a round-table discussion about the creative industries for The Times. I was recently awarded funding by the AHRC to host an event at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford called 'Uncovering the Secrets of the Fairlight CMI' as part of the 2019 Being Human festival.

I worked for PRS For Music and as a music publisher before becoming a lecturer and have contributed articles to Product magazine, The Scotsman newspaper, and The Conversation website. I am a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), the Association for the Study of the Art of Record Production (ASARP), and the Scottish Pop Ideas Network (SPIN).

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36 results

Cult Sound Studies: hand claps, orchestra hits, and the production of popular music

Journal Article
Harkins, P. (2019)
Cult Sound Studies: hand claps, orchestra hits, and the production of popular music. Sound Studies, 5(2), 213-216. https://doi.org/10.1080/20551940.2019.1648029
No abstract available.

Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies

Book
Harkins, P. (2019)
Digital Sampling: The Design and Use of Music Technologies. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351209960
Digital Sampling is the first book about the design and use of sampling technologies that have shaped the sounds of popular music since the 1980s. Written in two parts, Digit...

Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, December)
Can Music be Digitised? Samplers, Democratisation, and 'the Digital Age'. Paper presented at Music, Digitalisation, and Democracy
Rather than an abrupt or revolutionary shift from analogue to digital, I will argue in this paper that the use of digital technologies such as samplers have been part of a mor...

Was the Sampler a Revolution? Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Synthesizer/Sampling Technologies

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, September)
Was the Sampler a Revolution? Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Synthesizer/Sampling Technologies. Paper presented at The Sound of the Anthropocene: Materialities Seminar
No abstract available.

Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments.

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, September)
Following the Distributors: Syco Systems and the Selling of Musical Instruments. Paper presented at Art of Record Production (ARP)/International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) UK & Ireland Branch Conference
Since the 1980s and 1990s, scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and, more specifically, those adopting the Social Construction of Technology (SCOT) approach have b...

Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2018, June)
Becoming a User? Science & Technology Studies (STS) and the Design/Use of Digital Synthesizer/Sampling Instruments. Presented at Workshop on Objects of Electronic Sound & Music in Museums
This provocation will give an overview of a research project about the historical and contemporary uses of digital synthesizer/sampling instruments. One of the problems I face...

Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, June)
Questioning the Digital Revolution: Continuity and Change in the Design and Use of Music Technologies. Paper presented at 19th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, Kassel, Germany
The use of digital technologies since the 1980s have changed the way in which music is stored, distributed, and consumed. The use of digital technologies has also reshaped the...

Following the Fairlight CMI and its Users: The Digital Reproduction of 'Real' Instruments and Sounds

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, June)
Following the Fairlight CMI and its Users: The Digital Reproduction of 'Real' Instruments and Sounds. Paper presented at Galpin Society/AMIS Conference on Musical Instruments, The University of Edinburgh
This paper will focus on the Fairlight Computer Musical Instrument (CMI), which is generally regarded as the first commercially available digital sampler. However, its designe...

'The Rest is History': Writing a History of Music Technologies and their Users

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2017, March)
'The Rest is History': Writing a History of Music Technologies and their Users. Presented at Burgundy School of Business Research Seminar, University of Burgundy, Dijon
The socio-musical practice of sampling is closely associated with the re-use of pre-existing sound recordings and the technological processes of looping. These practices, base...

Real Sounds, Real Instruments: Discourses of Fidelity and Authenticity in the Design and Use of Digital Sampling Technologies

Presentation / Conference
Harkins, P. (2016, December)
Real Sounds, Real Instruments: Discourses of Fidelity and Authenticity in the Design and Use of Digital Sampling Technologies. Paper presented at Art of Record Production (ARP) conference, University of Aalborg
This paper explores how an ideology of realism was central to the designers of early digital synthesizer/sampling technologies and how discourses of authenticity remain import...

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