History   Korean Society of Music Perception and Cognition (KSMPC) has been formed by psychologists and musicologists who have attended the 5th ICMPC held in Seoul in 1998. Those with special interest in music perception and cognition had their initial meeting at Seoul National University and agreed to officially call this academic gathering, Korean Society of Music Perception and Cognition and to organize further academic activities in regular basis. Since 1999, Korean Society of Music Perception and Cognition has been holding 5 or 6 academic seminars at various universities and one extended seminar for 2-3 days at remote location in Kangwon region annually. International Relations   ICMPC, found in 1989, has been sponsored by three trans-continental bodies: Namely, SMPC (Society for Music Perception and Cognition) in American Continent including United States, Canada, South America, ESCOM(European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music) in Europe including England, France, Sweden, Germany, Australia, Poland, Israel and Middle Eastern countries, and APSCOM (Asia-Pacific Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music) in Asia including Korea, Japan, Australia, China, and India.   ICMPC holds international conferences biannually across continents. The founding meeting of the association, held at the end of 1989 in Kyoto, Japan, considered its initial start from 1990, and the conferences were planned for every even numbered year. In 1992, the 2nd conference was held in Los Angeles, United States, the 3rd conference was held in 1994 in Liege, Belgium, the 4th conference was held in 1996 in Montreal, Canada, the 5th conference was held in Seoul, Korea, the 6th conference was held at Keele University, England, the 7th conference was held at University of New South Wales, Australia, and lastly the 8th conference was held in 2004 at Northwestern University, United States. The 9th conference will be held in 2006 in Bologna, Italy.   Up until the 4th international conference, there was only one member registered from Korea, however, the 5th conference, held in Seoul, yielded a great opportunity for many Korean scholars to join the conference. KSMPC has the international expectation for its academic activities and achievements. TOP Report on the 5th ICMPC in Seoul   Ohgushi, Kengo, Kyoto City University of Arts   Nakajima, Yoshitaka, Kyushu Institute of Design   Published in JOURNAL OF MUSIC PERCEPTION AND COGNITION Vol.4, No.2, Fall/1998, pp.137-139.   Translation: Japanese into Korean: Shin Won Young, Korean into English: Ju Chong 1. Background Details for the Holding   It was after 9 years for the ICMPC to come back to Asia since its first cry of the birth in 1989 in Kyoto; The 5th conference was held from August 26th to 30th in Seoul, Korea. We can now look at the details how things worked out for this to happen after the first ICMPC. The 2nd conference held at UCLA was facilitated by Edward Carterette, Diana Deutsch, and Roger Kendall. During the conference, the location for on the next conference was discussed. In the discussion, Dr. Irene Deliege showed great interest in holding the next conference and the 3rd conference took place at Liege University, Belgium where Dr. Deliege works. As the location was in Europe, many European researchers attended the conference and it was a great success. The 4th conference was held in Montreal as Bruce Bennycook and his wife Eugenia Costa-Giomi from Canada were recommended as co-chairs by Professor Carterette. While the 4th ICMPC was being held in Canada, Eugene Narmour, the president of SMPC, and John Sloboda, the president of ESCOM have inquired the possibility of holding the 5th conference in Japan. Among the Americans and Europeans, many considered Japan, America and Europe as the three main parental figures, therefore, naturally believed that Japan, America and Europe should hold the conferences alternatively. However, considering how the ICMPC has grown in quantity and quality, here was a subtle hesitation to accept this suggestion for Japan. Surprisingly, Korea began to contemplate the possibility of holding the conference despite the fact that there was only one delegate from Korea. Professor Suk Won Yi at Seoul National University has reviewed many agenda regarding the facilitation with the administrative body and personally contacted Koreans of various professional fields in the evening to discuss the arrangements for the raised agenda. Finally, it was decided that the 5th conference would be held in Seoul, Korea. At that time, not many were aware of the research achievements in music perception and cognition in Korea, therefore, it was rather a surprise to find out that Korea would be holding the upcoming conference. We are sure this uncertainty was all cleared as the 5th conference in Seoul was completed in success and we believe the facilitating and organizing skills of Korean researchers were widely recognized. 2. Introduction   The conference was held for five days from August 26th to 30th in 1998. It took place at Novotel Ambassador Hotel at Doksan, which took about 40 minutes by bus from down town, Seoul. The hotel was on the one side of the street, which had eight lanes both ways. It cant be said that the environment was perfect, but the hotel was adequately soundproofed, hygienic, and had well-organized atmosphere. It was well planned and organized that the graduate students at Seoul National University provided full guide and assistance. Moreover, they were very polite compared to the students in Japan. The total number of attendants was not announced, but we presume it would easily be from 100 to 150. There were 17 Japanese presenters, 15 Americans, and 9 Korean and English presenters each, 5 German and Australian presenters each, 3 from France and Sweden each, 2 from Canada and South Africa each, and one presenters from Israel, India, Australia, Czech, Norway, Finland, and Poland respectively. 3. Opening Ceremony   The Opening of the conference was announced as the prelude of by Richard Strauss was played in the auditorium. It was followed by opening greetings of three presidents from JSMPC, ESCOM, and SMPC which were considered as the parental figures of the ICMPC. One of the authors (Ohgushi) has mentioned that there was been a significant development in various research areas in Japan after holding the 1st ICMPC and hoped for the same outcome in Korea as well. Professor Suk Won Yi, the representative of Korea, spoke about the history of music perception and cognition in the opening speech. He emphasized that this area was no longer one of the branches of psychology, but an academic research area of on its own working collaboratively and inclusively with other related fields under multi-disciplinary approach in order to identify the academic phenomena and issues. He also added that what we aim for is the science in connection between music and human mind. During the speech, professor Yi asked the audience whether they considered themselves musicians or psychologists. Among the people who raised their hand as musicians were 70 percent and this implied that the music perception and cognition research area is no longer a branch of psychology. 4. Presentations   Presentations were categorized into plenary sessions, oral presentations and poster presentations. There are brief descriptions of each presentations attached to this journal as an appendix, so it will not be mentioned here. Overall, it appeared as though there are active experimental research in the music education field. Another notable change was that analysis on performance behavior became a significant part of the research area as well. The oral presentation was for thirty minutes, composed of 20 minutes of the presentation and 10 minutes of questions and answers. There were concurrent sessions taking place at another auditorium, and although the timing was kept fairly well, there were many presentations which went over the given time. The posters for the poster presentations were displayed along the corridors and halls between the two auditoriums, however, there werent a specific time given for the description. It felt as though the posters were not efficiently used to communicate the research content to the people. We thought ICMPC has the tendency to give less value to the poster presentations. We recall that there was a statement in the ICMPC policy that the research which score low in the evaluation, are likely to be considered for the poster session. This was deleted with strong objection from Japanese members, however, we could still feel such trend. We feel there needs to be a revision on this issue from the next conference because although it may be better if the Japanese could apply for the oral presentation, many researchers may put great effort for the poster presentations. Another regret was that there was no invited Japanese speaker for the plenary session. In the first ICMPC, one could feel that Japanese were conscious of the English Language and were rather anxious, however, in this conference, the communication between Japanese and foreigners were significantly improved maybe because the Japanese are used to the foreigners (or the foreigners are used to Japanese). There were also many Japanese participating actively in the discussion. Although many internationally-active Japanese have hard time getting rid of their Japanese-English, it is important to be comfortable with their own English skills and be able to express themselves regardless of the environment. This also implies that Japanese researchers have shown great improvement in this aspect. Lastly, in future Japanese could attempt to communicate with each other in English during the break and mealtime in order to strengthen the international relationships. It is my intention to use all the possible resources in the international conferences. Nevertheless, it was a good international conference yielding friendly relationships among the people continuously engaged in the discussion. 5. General Assembly   Alf Gabrielsson, the president of ESCOM, was the chair for the meeting, Jay Dowling, the vice president of SMPC, and Ohgushi were the vice chair for the meeting. Each president reported on their activities followed by the issues of next conference location by mentioning the names of possible candidates. Kate Stevens suggested that she was interested in holding the ICMPC in Sidney, Australia in 2002 and also one Indian member expressed his interest in holding the ICMPC in Madras, India. There was a discussion on this matter and the decision was made based on the majority rule by raising their hand. It was decided that the next conference would be held in Australia. Washington University in Seattle, United States also expressed an interest in holding the conference in 2004, however, this agenda was to be discussed in the next conference. 6. Events and Entertainment   In the evenings, there were various entertainment events followed by the conferences. There was a cocktail party at the Seoul National University with the invitation by Dean of the College of Music on the 26th evening. There was a Korean traditional music performance on the 28th evening. There was Seoul city tour on the 28th and a social gathering on the 29th. During the social gathering, the Karaoke singing of the students were going on and on until we felt it was enough. 7. Closing Ceremony   The final words of Professor Suk Won Yi was "Now, I can go back to my office," and we thought this was an excellent statement. We sincerely thanked him for all the preparation and arrangement and said farewell. We really wish that there would be tremendous development in this field in Korea. At this moment, Korea and Japan are suffering economic crisis, however, we think this is a good time for researchers from both countries to collaborate studies on such fundamental discipline. The next international conference will be held at Keele University from August 5th to 10th in 2000 organized by John Sloboda as the chair and Susan ONeill as the vice chair. We hope many Japanese will participate in this conference as they did in Seoul. Richard Ashley, Review, Music, Mind and Science (Music Perception) forthcoming Marc Leman, Review, Music, Mind and Science (Musicae Scientiae) forthcoming TOP Copyright 2004-2005 KSMPC. All right reserved