Dr Thomas Graves

I’m excited to see Laufey in concert next month, and couldn’t agree more with her Grammy speech. We must value our music and arts education system. It can’t take any more cuts.

youtu.be/ZfJjDz3RQnY?...

To read my full perspective, see my LSE HE blog post from last year: lnkd.in/ekrFZz36

#Grammys

Programme The provisional conference programme can be downloaded here.

bfeconference2026.wordpress.com/programme/

This year’s British Forum for Ethnomusicology (@bfeadmin.bsky.social) conference programme dropped today, and I’m delighted to be sharing a session with my long-time friend, singing teacher, and colleague Budhaditya Bhattacharyya (@ragameister.bsky.social) #ethnomusicology #conference #music

What makes qawwali such a powerful musical tradition?

My new blog post for LSE South Asia blog explores what kinds of emotions people feel when they listen to qawwali at Sufi shrines in India: blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/20...

#music #research #blog #spirituality #emotion #qawwali #southasia

A genre-specific structure of subjective feeling in music listening: What do qawwālī listeners feel? - Thomas A Graves, Tuomas Eerola, Martin Clayton, Syed Murshid Nizami, Muhammad Usama Rafiq, 2025 Most studies of subjective feeling categories in musical emotion use dimensional or categorical models to describe the different kinds of emotions induced by mu...

What role does culture play in how we classify emotions we feel with music listening?

Get the view from one musical tradition (qawwali) in our new article doi.org/10.1177/1029...

#culture #music #emotion #research #musicpsychology #crosscultural #Indianmusic

Thanks for the share!

Hi Dr Yates - the “Do different musics create different emotions?” question is a hook - the actual RQs for the study are about mapping agreement around subjective feeling categories and how those categories are related to each other. Unfortunately thats not as pithy!

A genre-specific structure of subjective feeling in music listening: What do qawwālī listeners feel? - Thomas A Graves, Tuomas Eerola, Martin Clayton, Syed Murshid Nizami, Muhammad Usama Rafiq, 2025 Most studies of subjective feeling categories in musical emotion use dimensional or categorical models to describe the different kinds of emotions induced by mu...

What emotions does music evoke beyond Western genres? A data-driven study of qawwālī (South Asian Sufi music) shows that listeners report ethical/virtuous feelings, spiritual love, and trance. Culture & the construction of emotions matter. doi.org/10.1177/1029... #musicscience #musicpsych #emotion

A genre-specific structure of subjective feeling in music listening: What do qawwālī listeners feel? - Thomas A Graves, Tuomas Eerola, Martin Clayton, Syed Murshid Nizami, Muhammad Usama Rafiq, 2025 Most studies of subjective feeling categories in musical emotion use dimensional or categorical models to describe the different kinds of emotions induced by mu...

The linkedin links were shorter and actually fit. Here are the actual dois: doi.org/10.1177/1029...; doi.org/10.15128/r2m...

Do different musics create different emotions?

Now published: the first quantitative article on the South Asian Sufi music qawwali to be published in a major music psychology journal!

Read the article open access here: lnkd.in/g7Dxpw3Z

Data are available here: lnkd.in/gQK2RCJp

#musicandemotion

Two new publications in one week! If you’re interested in the arts and the current UK universities crisis check out my blog post: blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

If you are interested in what open research means for non-positivist researchers, read our preprint: doi.org/10.31235/osf...

white notes on a blue background

With the news that Nottingham is just the latest uni to close music courses, @thomasgraves.bsky.social explores why music degrees seem to be such an easy target for the axe - and why that's a tragedy
blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducat...

The Effect of Rhythm Cycle Length, Cultural Familiarity, and Musicianship on Learning and Recall of North Indian Rhythmic Patterns The study explores the effect of the length of rhythmic cycles, familiarity, musicianship, and rhythmic structure on the perception of long rhythmic cycles of North Indian Classical Music (NICM). W...

Excited to share my latest paper with Martin Clayton and @tuomaseerola.bsky.social on cross-cultural differences in rhythm pattern perception, focusing on Hindustani (North Indian) musical rhythms.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#musicpsych
@musicpsychologylab.bsky.social

Caillagh – The First Manx Language Opera Help bring the word’s first Manx language opera to life! – Cur bioys da’n chied opera sy theihll ayns Gaelg! My name is Matthew. I’m a composer and writer living on the Isle of Man and I’d like to tel...

Want to be part of a world first? My wonderful and very talented friend Dr Matthew Warren is composing the world’s first Manx language opera, and needs your help to get it done! gogetfunding.com/caillagh-the... #worldfirst #endangeredlanguages #opera

Sign the Petition Stop the suspension of undergraduate music courses at The University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is the latest UK HEI to propose suspending the music department. Another in a long line of attacks on university music. Don’t let them get away with it! Sign the petition: www.change.org/p/stop-the-s... #university #UKHE #music

Delighted to share our latest research on consonance. We asked participants from India and UK to rate how “tense” different harmonic intervals sound. We found that musicians across both cultures agreed almost perfectly on which intervals feel tense or relaxed, however, ....

This is really fascinating! I do wonder whether the presentation of intervals decontextualised from a melodic structure (as in a Western context) might prompt a Western listening schema in Indian musicians, as intervals are presented outside the context of the raga melody, intonation, and chalan?

Who should control open access, the markets or the commons? - Impact of Social Sciences Publishing Beyond examines the ills of a marketised system of academic publishingand outlines how commons-based approaches could be an alternative.

Academic publishing is now a marketised system where charging £9000 for a single paper isn't beyond the pale.

A new book by Samuel A. Moore proposes an alternative: a commons-based, scholar-led approach.

Read a #review by @thomasgraves.bsky.social on @lseimpactblog.bsky.social

This is a really great read!

Thank you for writing it! Much needed I think!

Who should control open access, the markets or the commons? - Impact of Social Sciences Publishing Beyond examines the ills of a marketised system of academic publishingand outlines how commons-based approaches could be an alternative.

💥New: Who should control open access, the markets or the commons?

✍️ @thomasgraves.bsky.social reviews Publishing Beyond the Market: Open Access, Care, and the Commons (@uofmpress.bsky.social) by @samuelmoore.org

#OpenAccess #OAWeek25 #ScholComms

This week I facilitated a workshop on Open Research for post-fieldwork Anthropology PhD students at LSE. It was really great to hear about their research projects and discuss scholar-led publishing, open access, repositories, and the ethics of data sharing. #openresearch #anthropology #ethnography

YouTube video by The Charismatic Voice The Science Behind Vocal Distortion: Will Ramos of Lorna Shore

Really interesting! Not sure i’d want to be responsible for participants having needles stuck in their throat, but the data is bound to be fascinating youtu.be/JkBV8GoPWXY?...

'An extraordinary legacy': Tributes after chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall dies age 91 - follow live The primatologist was a

So sad to hear of the passing of Jane Goodall www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...

In Trump’s USA, someone who migrates to the US to marry a US citizen can apply for a green card immediately. In the UK, Labour want to extend the time it takes for a spouse to get Indefinite Leave to Remain to 10 years! Those centrists who support these new immigration rules should think on that.

Starmer confirms formal UK recognition of Palestinian state - BBC News Canada and Australia also announced the move on Sunday, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu accusing leaders of giving a "huge reward to terrorism".

Its too late, but at least it finally happened: www.bbc.com/news/article...

YouTube video by The Dream Journey Soz o Salaam - Azmat Nabi ke Deen ki Dikhlaa Gaye Hussain (AS) - Ali Akbar Razi Qawwal aur Humanava

Ali Akbar Razi - master of soz - strikes again this Muharram! I really love Soz o Salaam - perhaps even more than qawwali with instruments! Those overlapping voices and slight discrepancies really stir something inside. youtu.be/9YAVmIuvgRk?...

What does “Open Research” mean for qualitative research? - Impact of Social Sciences Open research has become a buzzword in university research, but Jo Hemlatha and Thomas Graves argue that when it comes to qualitative research, considerations around replicability, context-dependent…

#OpenResearch has become a buzzword in university research, but Jo Hemlatha
@lseanthropology.bsky.social and @thomasgraves.bsky.social @lselibrary.bsky.social write that #openness looks different when #research is context-dependent and involves marginalised communities @lseimpactblog.bsky.social

Very proud to have co-authored this blog post with Jo Hemlatha! It looks at how qualitative research methods contribute to open research through participatory methods, interpersonal openness, and linguistic openness. blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... #openresearch #openscience #qualitative

Let’s talk about social anxiety in ethnographic research. I’ve always frozen up in social situations that seemed important. This seems like a problem in research, especially in fieldwork where there are certain people you want to speak to. Can an anxious person be a good ethnographer? #ethnography