My research focuses on relationships between musicians and music technology in popular and experimental music practices in the United States and São Paulo, Brazil. I explore musical creativity by examining the connection of media technology to sound, image, and aesthetic production. Media discourses and the changing nature of music circulation impact the ways artists create and listeners engage with sound. I aim to investigate how creative processes are mediated by the materiality, economics, poetics, and cultural politics of technology.
Raised in Pheonix, Arizona, I completed a certificate program in guitar building at Roberto-Venn School of Luthiery shortly after high school. I worked as a luthier in San Francisco’s Mission District for several years and spent two years at City College of San Fransisco before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley—where I completed my B.A. in Music. In 2017 I began my M.A./Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Berkeley supported by the Mellon-Chancellor’s Fellowship.
Teaching:
Music 26AC – Music in American Cultures – Summer 2018 (Reader)
Music 26AC – Music in American Cultures – Fall 2018 (Graduate Student Instructor)
Conference Presentations:
2018 “Manufacturing Age” – Presented at The Electric Guitar in American Cultures Conference – Texas Tech University
Email:
jonturner@berkeley.edu