Music and noise seem to be mutually exclusive. Music is generally considered as an ordered arrangement of sounds pleasing to the ear and noise as its opposite: chaotic, ugly, aggressive, sometimes even deafening. When presented in a musical context, noise can thus act as a tool to express resistance to predominant cultural values, to society, or to socioeconomic structures (including those of the music industry). The oppositional stance confirms current notions of noise as (...) something which is destructive, a belief not only cherished by hard-core rock bands but also shared by engineers and companies developing devices to suppress or reduce noise in our daily environment. In contrast to the common opinions on noise just described, this volume seeks to explore the constructive potential of noise in contemporary musical practices. Rather than viewing noise as a 'defect', this volume aims at studying its aesthetic and cultural potential. Within the noise music study field, most recent publications focus on subgenres such as psychedelic post-rock, industrial, hard-core punk, trash or rave, as they developed from rock and popular music. This book includes work on avant-garde music developed in the domain of classical music as well. In addition to already well-established (social) historical and aesthetical perspectives on noise and noise music, this volume also offers contributions by music analysts. (shrink)

One hundred years after Luigi Russolo's "The Art of Noises," this book exposes a cross-section of the current motivations, activities, thoughts, and reflections of composers, performers, and artists who work with noise in all of its many forms. The book's focus is the practice of noise and its relationship to music, and in particular the role of noise as musical material--as form, as sound, as notation or interface, as a medium for listening, as provocation, as data. (...) Its contributors are first and foremost practitioners, which inevitably turns attention toward how and why noise is made and its potential role in listening and perceiving. Contributors include Peter Ablinger, Sebastian Berweck, Aaron Cassidy, Marko Ciciliani, Nick Collins, Aaron Einbond, Matthias Haenisch, Alec Hall, Martin Iddon, Bryan Jacobs, Phil Julian, Michael Maierhof, Joan Arnau Pàmies, and James Whitehead (JLIAT). The book also features a collection of short responses to a two-question "interview"--"what is noise (music) to you?" and "why do you make it?"--by some of the leading musicians working with noise today. Their work spans a wide range of artistic practice, including instrumental, vocal, and electronic music; improvisation; notated composition; theater; sound installation; DIY; and software development. Interview subjects include Eryck Abecassis, Franck Bedrossian, Antoine Chessex, Ryan Jordan, Alice Kemp (Germseed), George Lewis, Lasse Marhaug, Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, Diemo Schwarz, Ben Thigpen, Kasper Toeplitz, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay."--Page 4 of covers. (shrink)

In this article, we consider music and noise in terms of vibrational and transferable energy as well as from the evolutionary significance of the hearing system of Homo sapiens. Music and sound impinge upon our body and our mind and we can react to both either positively or negatively. Much depends, in this regard, on the frequency spectrum and the level of the sound stimuli, which may sometimes make it possible to set music apart from (...) class='Hi'>noise. There are, however, two levels of description: the physical-acoustic description of the sound and the subjective-psychological reactions by the listeners. Starting from a vibrational approach to sound and music, we first investigate how sound may activate the sense of touch and the vestibular system of the inner ear besides the sense of hearing. We then touch upon distinct issues such as the relation between low-frequency sounds and annoyance, the harmful effect of loud sound and noise, the direct effects of overstimulation with sound, the indirect effects of unwanted sounds as related to auditory neurology, and the widespread phenomenon of liking loud sound and music, both from the point of view of behavioral and psychological aspects. (shrink)

A follow-up to Hegarty's successful Noise/Music, this book looks at noise in a range of contexts within sound studies and cultural theory.

Everyone knows what noise is. Or do they? Can we in fact say that one man's noise is another teenager's music? Is noise in fact only an auditory phenomenon or does it extend far beyond this realm? If our common definitions of noise are necessarily subjective and noise is not just unpleasant sound, then it merits a closer look (or listen). Greg Hainge sets out to define noise in this way, to find within (...) it a series of operations common across its multiple manifestations that allow us to apprehend it as something other than a highly subjective term that tells us very little. Examining a wide range of texts, including Sartre's novel Nausea and David Lynch's iconic films Eraserhead and Inland Empire, Hainge investigates some of the Twentieth Century's most infamous noisemongers to suggest that they're not that noisy after all; and it finds true noise in some surprising places. The result is a thrilling and illuminating study of sound and culture. (shrink)

In order to solve the problem of the influence of feature word position in lyrics on music emotion classification, this paper designs a music classification and detection model in complex noise environment. Firstly, an intelligent detection algorithm for electronic music signals under complex noise scenes is proposed, which can solve the limitations existing in the current electronic music signal detection process. At the same time, denoising technology is introduced to eliminate the noise and (...) extract the features from the signal. Secondly, from the perspective of audio and lyrics of song sentiment analysis and the unique characteristics of lyrics text, a lyric sentiment analysis method based on text title and position weight is proposed. Finally, considering the influence of the weight of feature words in different positions on the classification of lyrics, the analytic hierarchy process is used to calculate the weight of feature words in different positions of text title and lyrics before, in, and after the text. The results show that in the complex noise environment, the accuracy of music classification and detection of the proposed model is more than 90%, which is far beyond the control range of the actual application of music processing. The effect of music classification and detection is better than that of the contrast model, which has a certain practical application value. (shrink)

Aesthetic Noise: The Philosophy of Intentional Listening considers the complex nature of noise within the framework of philosophical filtering, examining how, if noise is engaged with aesthetically, it can produce profound experiences and understandings. Applying the philosophies of Edmund Burke, Martin Heidegger, Jacque Derrida, and Julia Kristeva to works by Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Steve Reich, Alison Knowles, Annea Lockwood, Alyce Santoro, and Sunn O))), this book explores noise as an art material, and ultimately how it (...) can become a tool for activism and expanded creative possibilities. It demonstrates that, by engaging multiple philosophies in concert, the value of aesthetic noise is amplified, thus allowing the listener to better appreciate noise and its possibilities. Providing greater insights into noise as an aesthetic material, Aesthetic Noise will be of interest to researchers and students of sound studies, philosophy, and sound art, as well as sound designers, artists, musicians, and composers. (shrink)

This paper is about how the horror of noise has been expressed in the work of some writers, fiction and theory, who have detected a certain alien weirdness lurking in the human voice. I link this to Deleuze and Guattari’s discussion of ‘becoming-animal’, in which a ‘strange ecology’ is described. ‘We sorcerors’, they say, are drawn to experimental alliances with nature. The ‘sorceror’ is admitted to a multitudinous, teeming space and opened up to the immanent alien. H. P. Lovecraft’s (...) weird fiction frequently deals with alien simulacra of human language and speech. This is speech as human-alien alliance. In Thomas Ligotti’s fiction, too, we find becoming articulated as speech-noise. Apocalypse is imagined as ecstatic choral annihilation in which all souls merge into a great ‘black unity’. For Ligotti, we are the suffering puppets of a Schopenhauerian Will akin to Lovecraft’s ‘blind idiot god’, Azathoth. Nevertheless, what Deleuze and Guattari call ‘becoming zero’ can be associated with an affirmative thought of noise ontology, a furore which is sounded more from Bataille's 'Mouth' than from Azathoth’s mad musicians. As the head is thrown back in joyful frenzy, the mouth opens, screams ejaculate and rend with nature’s explosive propagation, like a blossoming flower or the racket of an anus. (shrink)

Biographical note: Kai Ginkel (Dr.), geb. 1981, ist Projektmitarbeiter an der Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Graz. Der Soziologe promovierte an der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. Zuvor war er PhD-Scholar im postgradualen Lehrgang”Sociology of Social Practices“am Institut für Höhere Studien Wien.

Contemporary electronic music has splintered into numerous genres and subgenres, all of which share a concern with whether sound, in itself, bears meaning. Listening through the Noise considers how the experience of listening to electronic music constitutes a departure from the expectations that have long governed music listening in the West.

Noise will be inevitably mixed with music signals in the recording process. To improve the quality of music signals, it is necessary to reduce noise as much as possible. This article briefly introduces noise, the masking effect, and the spectral subtraction method for reducing noise in reverberant music. The spectral subtraction method was improved by the human ear masking effect to enhance its noise reduction performance. Simulation experiments were carried out on the (...) traditional and improved spectral subtraction methods. The results showed that the improved spectral subtraction method could reduce the noise in reverberant music more effectively; under an objective evaluation criterion, the signal-to-noise ratio, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method had a higher signal-to-noise ratio; under a subjective evaluation criterion, mean opinion score, the de-reverberated music signal processed by the improved spectral subtraction method also had a better evaluation. (shrink)

If musical instruments belong to the organology of anthropotechnics, noise music can be seen as a disorganizing force, as well as a principle of recycling and as a surgery of the sonic flesh. Why is noise so intimately linked to a gesture dis-instrumentation ? An analysis of Christian Marclay’s video Guitar drag paves the way for a reflection that invites us to consider noise as the place of emergence of what contemporary politics can only leave unthought.

Noise is a common experience in the contemporary world. Din from traffic, construction sites, factories, and neighbors bother urban residents. Radio listeners, television watchers, and mobile phone users have to endure statics and fading from time to time. Music lovers have debated whether jazz, atonal composition, rock and roll, rap, and abstract expressionism are art or nuisance. Scientists try to retrieve genuine signals from fluctuating data. Engineers design devices, software, or systems to filter out disturbance to the normal (...) functioning of technology. Mathematicians and physicists examine randomness. Traders and economists attempt to predict markets’ future trends beneath highly irregular commodity prices.. (shrink)

Blanchot took Mallarmé’s “Book” as the paradigm for an artwork that aspired to such excess it could not exist. And yet it partly did, in the form of the poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard. For Blanchot, this ultimate literary work acted as a model for a relentless deconstructing not just of what existed but also of that which did not. His emptying theoretical perspective is ideally suited to analyse the phenomenon that is harsh noise wall (...) music. This type of music aims to be both total and static, an extreme stilling of the music impulse, and even of noise itself. This stilling will of course fail, in the shape of recordings, concerts, recognizable “pieces,” but this failing puts it into the same realm as the Book, as glossed and mobilized by Blanchot, in that it exists but it should not. It cannot happen and yet it unfolds. Rather than failure, then, I argue that this type of noise music is one realization of Blanchot’s thinning, dissipating and disappearing of Mallarmé’s project. This completion, present in these writers and in harsh noise wall, notably in the work of Romain Perrot is not just resemblance but is something that enables a reading, a return completion of Blanchot. This article looks to stage this double reading, a reading that produces nothing. Actually, not even nothing. (shrink)

Is it even possible to resist or oppose neoliberalism? I consider two responses that translate musical practices into counter-hegemonic political strategies: Jacques Attali’s theory of “composition” and the biopolitics of “uncool.” Reading Jacques Attali’s Noise through Foucault’s late work, I argue that Attali’s concept of “repetition” is best understood as a theory of neoliberal biopolitics, and his theory composition is actually a model of deregulated subjectivity. Composition is thus not an alternative to neoliberalism but its quintessence. An aesthetics and (...) ethos of “uncool” might be a more viable alternative. If and when they function as bad, unprofitable investments, uncool practices like smoothness (predictable regularity) can undercut neoliberal imperatives to self-capitalization. I consider both the impact of neoliberalism on music, and how the study of music can advance theories of neoliberalism. (shrink)

Noise has become an increasingly noticeable and significant symptom of our civilization. Fundamentally an acoustic phenomenon, noise has wider implications. It is the legitimate object of scientific investigations in the fields of psychology and physiology. It can be properly evaluated by its role in music and in general aesthetics. It leads to basic questions of sociology. We shall pursue the implications in these various fields one by one. In this process, as elsewhere, music provides the bridge (...) from facts to commitments . Siegmund Levarie is professor of music at the City University of New York. The author of books on Mozart, Guillaume de Machaut, harmony, and Italian music, he has also collaborated with Ernst Levy on Tone: A Study in Musical Acoustics and the forthcoming A Dictionary of Musical Morphology. (shrink)

The article examines the sensorium and how it is has been divided to argue that touch underlies what we refer to as hearing. It explores Stockhausen's "Helicopter Quartet" as an extended meditation on the mediation of the senses and the foregrounding of touch in the piece through teletechnologies that serve as prosthetic devices for sound, sight and touch.

This book traces the profound impact of technical media on the sound of music, asking: how do media technologies shape sound? How does this affect music? And how did it change what we listen for in music? Based on the information theoretical proposition that all transmission channels introduce noise and distortion, the argument accounts for the fact that technologically reproduced music is inherently shaped by the technologies that enable its reproduction. The media archaeological assessment of (...) this noise of sound media developed in the book draws from a wide range of sources, both theoretical and historical, conceptual and technical. Together, they show that noise should not be understood as unwanted by-effect but instead plays a foundational role in shaping the sonic contours of technologically reproduced music. Over the course of five chapters, the book sketches a broad history of the problem of noise in sound recording, looks at specific analog and digital noise-related technologies, traces the ideal of sonic purity back to key developments in nineteenth century acoustics, and develops an analysis of the close interrelation between noise and the temporality of sound. This relation, it argues, is central to the way in which recorded sound and music resonate with listeners. Ultimately, this media specific analysis of the noise of sound media thereby greatly enriches our understanding of the way in which they changed and continue to change the sonorous qualities of music, thus offering a new perspective on the interaction between music, media and listeners. (shrink)

On the basis of the graphic convergence between the English « noise » and the French word « la noise » , this article attempts to identify a percept that would be specific to the transgeneric reality of noise music. In order to understand how noise has become a source of aesthetic enjoyment, it revisits the history of recording devices, and proposes a philosophical hypothesis on the type of affect that is nurtured and fostered by (...) those who expose themselves to the noise experience : an ontological-political exploration of « letting-be ». (shrink)

What is noise?Noise is a central concept of acoustics that distinguishes certain kinds of sounds from others. Beyond sound, notions of noise associated with the measurement process and information theory have moved to virtually all fields of science and engineering, and even the social sciences. Not surprisingly, we find not one but several different and even contradictory concepts of noise in science and engineering. How did this happen?Scientific concepts of noise have changed over time. But (...) they have also varied in relation to a respective research field or technical application. The history of acoustics is characterised by its distinct relation to human sensation and perception of hearing, music and speech. (shrink)

The noise factor is the ratio of signal to noise of an input signal to that of the output signal. Noise can block or interfere with the meaning of a message in both human and electronic communication. But in Information Theory, noise is still considered to be information. By refining the definition of noise as that which addresses us outside of our preferred comfort zone, Joseph Nechvatal's Immersion Into Noise investigates multiple aspects of cultural (...) noise by applying the audio understanding of noise to the visual, architectural and cognitive domains. Nechvatal expands and extends our understanding of the function of cultural noise by taking the reader through the immersive and phenomenal aspects of noise into algorithmic and network contexts, beginning with his experience in the Abside of the Grotte de Lascaux. -/- Immersion Into Noise is intended as a conceptual handbook useful for the development of a personal-political-visionary art of noise. On a planet that is increasingly technologically linked and globally mediated, how might noises break and re-connect in distinctive and productive ways within practices located in the world of art and thought? Joseph Nechvatal explores this intriguing question in Immersion Into Noise. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the dominant view of musical sampling embodies an impoverished conception of the expressive capabilities of sampling. There are two respects in which it goes wrong. First, it overlooks the possibility of samples representing their sample sources. Second, it overlooks the possibility of samples that are not instances of their sample sources. En route to bringing out why the dominant view is impoverished, I introduce a theoretical framework that illuminates some of the ways in which (...) sample-based musical works can function as realistic representations of their sample sources. (shrink)

Noise permeates our highly mediated and globalised cultures. Noise as art, music, cultural or digital practice is a way of intervening so that it can be harnessed for an aesthetic expression not caught within mainstream styles or distribution. This wide-ranging book examines the concept and practices of noise, treating noise not merely as a sonic phenomenon but as an essential component of all communication and information systems. The book opens with ideas of what noise (...) is, and then works through ideas of how noise works in contemporary media, to conclude by showing potentials within noise for a continuing cultural renovation through experimentation. Considered in this way, noise is seen as an essential yet excluded element of contemporary culture that demands a rigorous engagement. Reverberations brings together a range of perspectives, case studies, critiques and suggestions as to how noise can mobilize thought and cultural activity through a heightening of critical creativity.Written by a strong, international line-up of scholars and artists, Reverberations looks to energize this field of study and initiate debates for years to come. (shrink)

What can the sounds of today tell us about the future? Can an analysis of sound and sonic practices allow us to make reliable predictions in relation to wider social phenomena? And what might they tell us about technology in a world where futurology is such a frenzied and busy field? In order to answer these questions, this book tests a range of propositions that connect noise, sound and music to political, economic and technological events. Hence it is (...) a book about historical trajectories and conflicting ideas about time and the necessity to re-contextualize and interpret them in the digital age. (shrink)

Futurism is famous for promoting “the art of noise” in its manifestos, serate (theatrical evenings), poetry, music, and visual art. Noise appears in Futurism as an avatar of the machine age, as a means of assaulting the senses of complacent audiences, and as a sign of the conflict inherent in matter. Beginning with the “Founding and Manifesto of Futurism” of 1909, where the noises of the street galvanize Marinetti and his friends to break out of a prison-like (...) domestic space, to early paintings representing the vibrations of music/noise by Balla, Severini, Carr , and Russolo, to Russolo's 1913 manifesto “The Art of Noises” and his invention of a series of “noise tuners,” discordant sound played a vital role in Futurist art and politics. Often it was associated with moments of rebirth or awakening to new forms of consciousness, as in Russolo's noise score “Awakening of the City,” but it could also signify the destruction of life, as in Marinetti's Zang Tumb Tuuum . It served both to shatter older forms of perception based on notions of order and harmony, and to instantiate the violence the Futurists believed was inherent in matter as well as in social life. It allowed repressed energies to be released, but also sought to re-channel these energies towards the integration of man and machine, flesh and metal, war and the universe of matter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Graham McPhail, “Too Much Noise in the Classroom? Towards a Praxis of Conceptualization,” Philosophy of Music Education, 26, No. 2 (2018): 176–98.Patrick K. Freer“Are you all right, Sir?” asked the head trainer. I was on the treadmill at the gym, reading Graham McPhail’s “Too Much Noise in the Classroom?”1 as I worked up a sweat. Apparently I got so engaged by McPhail’s writing that (...) my heart rate spiked sufficiently to trigger a warning monitor at the front desk. I suspect not many others at the gym would agree that McPhail’s article qualifies as a pulse-racing, spine-tingling thriller. Still, I found the article to be revelatory in its content, scope, and style. In this brief essay, I will provide a few contextual and reflective comments regarding elements of his argument, state why I feel McPhail’s article is important, and describe two examples of how I plan to use his article as a framework for the consideration of philosophical concepts in music education.NOISE“Noise” is a curious word. The term has etymological origins in the Latin “nausea” with its connotations of discomfort and it gradually became associated [End Page 87] with “discord” or “quarrel” during the medieval period.2 The “noise” referenced in McPhail’s article title is akin to statistical noise in a research study: random data points that are discordant with the underlying facet being revealed or examined. McPhail likens this concept of noise to some current conversations about music education’s curricular and pedagogical foundations, specifically those centered on the aesthetic versus paraxial debates and with “political, emancipatory, and social justice aspirations.”3 McPhail writes that resultant pedagogies can unwittingly inhibit intended musical outcomes when “teachers decide not to ground knowledge in use in the systems of meaning from which they are derived.”4 These systems of meaning, McPhail offers, are concentrated in music’s “universal or context-independent concepts”5 from which arise the questions “what are these systems of meaning?” and “how can we make them meaningful for students?”6 These questions imply distinctions between epistemology and pedagogy and they necessitate consideration of a child’s cognitive growth in order for the answers to guide a teacher toward the development of meaningful educative processes in classrooms.7CURRICULUM AND PEDAGOGYA central point of McPhail’s argument is that proponents of postmodern approaches to music education occasionally conflate pedagogy with curriculum. This can be seen in our professional journals, for example, when authors position music as the means to any number of activist ends rather than focusing on the teaching and learning of music through emancipatory principles.8 McPhail argues, correctly in my view, that music’s praxis should inform the various pedagogies we might employ when teaching music, while the conceptualization of music provides the core content of what it is we are to teach in the first place. That curricular dilemma, how versus what, is the crucible necessary to balance our conversations about equity and relevance in—and to—music education. It is possible to realize approaches to pedagogy that embrace vernacular musics, reflect social issues, and promote consciousness of action and reaction. These approaches should certainly be thought provoking, engaging, and relevant to the lives of students. But, without a defined curricular plan for guiding students to musical understandings that cumulatively build toward increasing levels of expertise, it is unlikely that the music education endeavor will be as efficient or empowering as it might otherwise be.In a 2014 essay, McPhail wrote that schools can offer the conceptual grounding that expands possibilities for students through “knowledge that is context-independent rather than context-dependent.”9 McPhail argues that this approach to teaching invokes principles of social justice itself as it provides formal knowledge [End Page 88] that students can then apply to informal contexts beyond the classroom. McPhail offers in his earlier work that “if the boundaries between informal knowledge and the more formal knowledge offered in the school are dissolved students may be at a loss to see what school can actually offer them.”10PEDAGOGY AND CHILD DEVELOPMENTMcPhail identifies music’s underlying, related concepts as one of three... (shrink)

Abstract:In this paper I begin to theorize what secondary school music education might look like “post-deconstruction.” In particular, I explore the argument for a reconsideration of the importance of conceptualization in the process of music education. I argue that is it through coming into contact with powerful conceptual knowledge that students’ potential to participate fully as capable musicians in their world is most likely to be realized. Conceptual knowledge provides the link between experience and the understanding of that (...) experience. The great paradox of postmodernism is that in opening up some possibilities we have subsequently closed others down. There is a danger that in placing the knower rather than knowledge at the center of our educational endeavors, we have reduced access to something extremely important: the dimensions of knowledge that hold the power for students to move beyond their experiences, to imagine, and conceptualize a different world. (shrink)

Noise appears to critique the prevailing cognitive and social habits of modernity by providing concrete and particular art objects that demand attention and jar us from one-dimensional life. Noise sounds, for a moment, like a true alternative not only to contemporary music but to a whole way of thinking through abstract generalisation and living through commercial mediation. Understood in this way, noise makes sense. Once noise is no longer inscrutable, however, it is assimilated into popular (...) culture and becomes a commercial novelty. The blatant contradiction of the commodification of noise gives rise to a second order of critique wherein noise parades its uselessness and occasions reflection on the tortured existence of art in modernity, the ubiquity of identity thinking, and the relation between use and exchange value. This ironic endgame for noise, however, is itself absorbed by consumer culture and noise lives on as but another cool, extreme product. The cultural reception of noise thereby demonstrates the mechanism by which modernity absorbs artistic attempts to critique it, and noise is ultimately understood as a desperate but spectacular failure. (shrink)

What is the influence of music on the brain? And in what cases can this influence cause dysfunctioning? Among the different examples analyzed by Oliver Sacks, one is particularly significant: the phenomenon of synesthesia. Synesthesia is connected to having an extra one that associates different kinds of sensory information, music, and color. It can sometimes transform hearing music as a painful experience, transforming it into a pure literal meaning – to feel together – the secret condition for (...) all sensations? This hypothesis is examined by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. After all, Wagner was subject to synesthetic syndromes. (shrink)

“The Subliminal K i d moved in and took over bars cafes and jukeboxes of the world cities and installed radio transmitters and microphones in each bar so that the music and talk of any bar could be heard in all his bars and he had tape recorders in each bar that played and recorded at arbitrary intervals and his agents moved back and forth with portable tape recorders and brought back street sound and talk and music and (...) poured it into his recorder array so he set waves and eddies and tornadoes of sound down all your streets and by the river of all language‐Word dust drifted streets of broken music car horn and air hammers—The Word broken pounded twisted exploded in smoke—.Nothing is true—Everything is permitted—1—William Burroughs, Nova Express. (shrink)

The conversations generated by the chapters in Music's Immanent Future grapple with some of music's paradoxes: that music of the Western art canon is viewed as timeless and universal while other kinds of music are seen as transitory and ephemeral; that in order to make sense of music we need descriptive language; that to open up the new in music we need to revisit the old; that to arrive at a figuration of music (...) itself we need to posit its starting point in noise; that in order to justify our creative compositional works as research, we need to find critical languages and theoretical frameworks with which to discuss them; or that despite being an auditory system, we are compelled to resort to the visual metaphor as a way of thinking about musical sounds. Drawn to musical sound as a powerful form of non-verbal communication, the authors include musicologists, philosophers, music theorists, ethnomusicologists and composers. The chapters in this volume investigate and ask fundamental questions about how we think, converse, write about, compose, listen to and analyse music. The work is informed by the philosophy primarily of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and secondarily of Michel Foucault, Julia Kristeva and Jean-Luc Nancy. The chapters cover a wide range of topics focused on twentieth and twenty-first century musics, covering popular musics, art music, acousmatic music and electro-acoustic musics, and including music analysis, music's ontology, the noise/music dichotomy, intertextuality and music, listening, ethnography and the current state of music studies. The authors discuss their philosophical perspectives and methodologies of practice-led research, including their own creative work as a form of research. Music's Immanent Future brings together empirical, cultural, philosophical and creative approaches that will be of interest to musicologists, composers, music analysts and music philosophers. (shrink)

Much has been written and said about music's time, much less— at least in recent epochs—about time's music. Today this most subtle, yet most powerful form of music finds fewer and fewer listeners. It has become, in fact, harder and harder to listen to. The “congruent melodies,” i.e. “the rhythms of times which were given to us to alleviate our labors” (as the 13th-century music theorist had put it) have long since been silenced and drowned by (...) subsonic noises.* In its organization of time, Western civilization has, to an appallingly large extent, replaced rhythmic aliveness with abstract measures, reducing it to a “functional mechanism” (Baudrillard 1974). The main tools by which these measures are set, the clock as we know it and the modern calendar, are obviously, taken as such, remarkable achievements, but in their impact on our lives they are not so much companions enabling us to be “in harmony with things at the right moment” (see the Chinese shih, Larre 1976) as they are hostile guardians “watching our steps.”. (shrink)