"…to understand how and why emotional labour is performed in particular ways, one must understand the complex nature of the contexts and spaces in which it occurs; as material spaces (and often technical spaces), as spaces of emotion and performance constituted by social and emotional relations, as relational time-spaces actively made and re-made by the practices of those working in them." - Allan Watson & Jenna Ward, ‘Creating the right “vibe”: emotional labour and musical performance in the recording studio’

This is the recording of a performance score by Rebecca Lee. The work explores forms and relations of listening that (re)produce and are (re)produced by personal and public places; and which extrapolate from non-musical, musical and technological forms of listening. Its development was informed by Allan Watson and Jenna Ward's investigations into emotional labour in the recording studio and the geographer Doreen Massey's work on the relational nature of place. It was then refined through workshops with trained and novice musicians from Loughborough, in which the boundaries of music, place and registers of listening were traced. Many of these musicians then joined 'The Ensemble who are Making it Up', who performed this iteration of the score in June 2018.

Commissioned by Radar as part of (re)composition, a series of commissions exploring musicking and placemaking.

A printed version of the score, designed by Blue Firth with an essay by David M. Bell, was published with support from the Hinrechsen Foundation in 2019. A paper copy can be obtained for free by emailing LUArts@lboro.ac.uk

REBECCA LEE is a musician, artist and educator based at Primary Studios in Nottingham. She produces audio works, performance, site-specific installations, film scores, broadcasts and publications. Location is an important consideration to Rebecca’s work, as are the relationships between experiential, cognitive and cultural understandings of sound and musical materials. Musically, she is interested in improvisation; working with field recordings, site-specific composition/performance, collaboration and communication between “professional” and “amateur” music makings. Recent works include the site-specific ‘The Heavy Note’ at Brewhouse Yard Museum in Nottingham; an infinitely changing generative score to soundtrack Yelena Popova’s moving image work ‘This Certifies That’, and If the bell rings we will hear it, a touring musical research project in collaboration with Samuel Rodgers. As Bredbeddle she released the album Stackes through Fractal Meat records. Rebecca is an Associate Artist at Fermynwoods Contemporary Art.