Conference Agenda
The Online Program of events for the 2026 AMS Annual Meeting appears below. This program is subject to change. The final program will be published in early November.
Use the "Filter by Track or Type of Session" or "Filter by Session Topic" dropdown to limit results by type. Some of the sessions are also color-coded: purple indicates performances, grey indicates paper forums, and orange indicates sessions which have been organized by one of the regional associations of IMS (ARLAC or IMSEA). (Sessions which are both IMS sessions and performances are only colored orange.)
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Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 1st Sept 2026, 02:57:17am EDT
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Daily Overview |
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Timbre, Technology, and Digital Musical Interface Session Chair: Florian Walch, West Virginia University | |
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Synth Pad as Interface in Christian Worship Music Indiana University Christian Worship Music (CWM) is one of the fastest-growing genres in the United States, and around half of all Protestant churches sing it regularly in services. Led by the “big four” megachurches of Bethel, Hillsong, Passion, and Elevation, CWM is marked by a distinct sound and style that affectively moves worshippers from around the world in their public and private relationship with God. Although published scholarly accounts of CWM rarely mention it, no timbre is as central to the sound of CWM as the “pad” (short for synth pad), a synthesized drone on a tonic note or chord that continues throughout an entire song, and often lingering before and after. “Pads” are not played by instrumentalists, but are tracks activated by a click of a button on a synthesizer, phone application, or guitar pedal. The “pad” and its washy, major mode ambient textures are present in almost all of the top songs in the genre from the past fifteen years. In spite of its timbral centrality to CWM, the “pad” has received little to no scholarly attention; it was omitted from the 2025 special issue of the Yale Journal of Music & Religion titled “The Power of Timbre in Religion.” Drawing on frameworks from critical organology (Dolan 2012, Moseley 2016), I argue that while the “pad” is less than an instrument and more than merely a timbre, it is best understood as an interface by which people engage with the practice and genre of CWM. Like the keyboard, I argue the form and shape of the “pad” as a technology has shaped the development of style, musical practice, and experience within this genre. I also argue the “pad” influences pedagogy, theology, and the textures, instrumentation, and formal trajectory the genre is known for. Because of the slipperiness inherent to timbre, especially one so difficult to hear and not connected to the gestures of a musician, its influence goes mostly unnoticed. Analysis of repertoire, popular performances, digital ethnography, and mixing interfaces position the “pad” at an exciting juncture of sound studies, space, affect, timbre, religion, and technology in popular music. | |