PhD Research Information
I completed my PhD in June 2023, which is titled 'An ethnographic study of the online synthwave community, a community of practice – by a composer and performer'. I am currently transforming my PhD into a book, so if you are a creator, listener, or otherwise, and want to talk to me and share your experience of synthwave, please get in touch via Twitter (@blaisejess), Instagram (@blaisejess) or my email address (j.b.ward@leedsbeckett.ac.uk)! #synthfam

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Conferences​

• BFE/RMA Research Student’s Conference, hosted by Cardiff University January 2024. Synthwave Identities: Tensions of gender and subgenre in the online synthwave community. https://bitly.ws/39KZS

• Internet Musicking: Popular Music and Online Cultures - Hosted by the University College Cork, Ireland. 'Metalheads in the online synthwave community' . <https://www.internetmusicking.com>

• Artistic Research: Various Fields, Approaches, Experiences - International Conference hosted by Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, Riga, Latvia. 'A Hybrid Approach: Virtual Fieldwork and Composition as a Methodological Tool'. <https://www.lma.lv/en/actual-3/international-conference-on-artistic-research-various-fields-approaches-experiences>

• Gender and Age/Aging in Popular Culture - Interdisciplinary Online Symposium hosted by University of Graz, Austria - June 2021 <https://gendersymposium2021.wordpress.com/> ‘Millennial Generational Alienation and Synthwave Identities’.

• Leeds Beckett Virtual Postgraduate Research Conference – June 2021 <https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/the-graduate-school/community/postgraduate-research-society/> ‘Female Topliners: Popwave and Gendered Practices of Synthwave’.

• BFE/RMA Student Conference, hosted by Milton Keynes University <https://fass.open.ac.uk/music/events/bfe-rma-research-students-conference-2020> <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1I6t6J0j2tHx6OyjlDGvYrKu9iSwj4NsY/view> ‘Style and digital music genres: Combining music style parameters with the ‘paramusical’

• Punk/Noise: The 6th Punk Scholars Network Conference hosted by Newcastle University <https://www.punkscholarsnetwork.com/newcastle-conference-2019> <https://www.dropbox.com/s/1qam5n97fsvsqnb/PSN2019%20Newcastle%20Conference%20Programme.pdf?dl=0> ‘Who remembers post-punk women?’

• BFE/RMA Student Conference, hosted by Sheffield Hallam <https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/music/research/conferences/bfe_2019> <https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.824453!/file/BFE_2019_Programme.pdf> ‘Synthwave Music and Catalysts in the Creative Process’ 
   

Publications

• Who remembers post-punk women? (2019) Intellect Journal of Punk and Post-Punk

• An ethnographic study of the online synthwave community, a community of practice – by a composer and performer (2023). PhD. Leeds Beckett University. Access by clicking here.

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Audio Artefacts from my PhD

Composition Works

• Strangers in the Dark (2019)

• Drift (2019)

• Killing Dreams (2019)

• Bones (2020)

• Futures Promise (2021)

Style Parameter Audio Experiments

• SP1a ‘Ostinati or Sequenced Synth Bass (8ths or 16ths)’

• SP1b ‘Drone Bass’

• SP2a ‘Plucky Arp’

• SP2b ‘Brassy Arp’

• SP3a ‘Detuned Saw Lead’

• SP3b ‘Bell Lead’

• SP4a ‘Lush Moving Pad’

• SP4b ‘Brass Pad’

• SP4c ‘Brass Synth Stabs’

• SP5 ‘Four-to-the-floor Programmed Drums’

Remix

• ‘The Drone Racing League’ (2019) Gunship Remix by Jessica Blaise Ward and Jan Hajsen

Collaborative Works

• Replicant (2019)

• World's Without (2019)

• Fluorescent Light (2022)

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Some songs are released and are clickable (see above). Others are available to view from this Google Drive.
 

Unless otherwise noted, content on this website (and inclusive of the linked Google Drive) © 2017 by Jessica Blaise Ward is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.