classroom deck Flashcards
example of climate - music and protest
climate protesters song at Shell shareholder meeting
subverting functions of space
effective form of passive protest
music organising people
Alice Coltrane, World Galaxy (1972)
Imagination of space.
Galaxy around Olodumare
Track from album.
Imagining galaxy space.
Time warp within piece.
Large sound – filling the space.
Sounds moving in and out from each other.
A lot of the music recorded and given titles after.
Cosmic expanse.
Religion and mystical beliefs.
Ideas moving in a unique way.
Roger Payne – Songs of the Humpback Whale (1971)
US military hearing whales through under-water listening devices.
Massively popular album.
Sea not silent.
Sonograms.
Visualisations of audio.
Trying to structure the songs – composition.
US military devices through under-water listening
Luc Ferrari, Presque rien no 1 (Le lever du jour au bord de la mer) (1970, 21’)
sounding like the sea
additions of other audio sounds from c.30 sounds
sounds of the sea and nature disrupted by electronic sounds and voices
sounds and images colliding and overlapping
‘See what three degrees of global warming looks like’ (2021, The Economist)
climate migration - affecting the poorest people
more natural disasters
adaptation and migration to fix
Andrew Chung, ‘Songs of the New World and the Breath of the Planet at the Orbis Spike, 1610: Toward a Decolonial Musicology of the Anthropocene’ (2023)
1610 dip in CO2 in atmosphere causing depopulation in Americas
land re-wilding, new forests
seen as start of Anthropocene
human activity having distinct impact on the environment
land changing due to human impact
Purcell’s The Indian Queen (1664) as imposed European hierarchy and ‘musical representation’ of Indigeneity through western lens
climate change impacts the most those who contributed least
planetary listening
Listening to the world around us.
Relationship of human listening to environment.
Against traditional anthropocentric musicological ideas.
Moving away from human engagement with sound.
Human mediation always there – listening and interpretation.
Directional – us listening to planet.
Inter-communication between animals e.g whale song.
Human engagement with animal sounds – Feld Kaluli bird.
decolonising
Examining the legacy of colonialism in how we think today.
Looking at subjects with new thought patterns.
Re-consideration of knowledge.
Epistemic violence.
Mixing of decolonising and ecology.
interactions of cultures and their own environments
clashes between environmental and human impact
climate imposing power
idea of globalisation
more than clear separation of first and third world
Holly Watkins, Musical Vitalities: Ventures in a Biotic Aesthetics of Music (2018), Introduction and ch.6
music as ‘the art of enlivening sound’ and being felt in the body
biotic aesthetics - music interacting with and shaping life
vitality - music as active force for engagement and catalyst for change
natural imagery in 19th c. European music and aesthetic discourse - impact of non-human on imagination
listening to birdsong
listening to sounds themselves as a more inclusive approach to sonic experience
John Luther Adams
evoking bird song in Songbird Songs (1974-79)
Earth and the Great Weather (1993) - combined Native languages of two Indigenous groups with drumming inspired by their dance and music for strings by Aeolian harp and natural sound recordings
with ‘sonic geography’ and ‘music that is landscape’
connections to indigenous song
reference to the natural world throughout music
overt use of Indigenous language and concepts
music contributing to our awakening ecological understanding - network of patterns and interconnections
composing musical landscapes working from recordings of natural sound
Richard Wagner, ‘Prelude’, Das Rheingold (1854, ca. 5’)
Beginning sounding like a sunrise – starting from quiet drone notes and building with major arpeggio sound on brass almost like a sunrise.
organicism - gradually building and growing
Fanny Gribenski, ‘Nature’s “Disturbing Influence”: Sound and Temperature in the Age of Empire’ (2021)
argument that the standardisation of pitch was made difficult by varying temperatures and conditions across the world and that this was further intertwined with European colonising missions as they attempted to exert standardisation across the globe but were hence unsure of their own practices
temperature influencing pitch standardisation and instrument building
expansion of empire and European colonising mission
points not explored well and in-depth - focus on military bands
Alexander Rehding, ‘Music Theory’s Other Nature: Reflections on Gaia, Humans, and Music in the Anthropocene’
Reorientating humans in nature.
Aeolian harp and defying sound – at the time not knowing how sound was created.
Gaia hypothesis - agency of humans and objects joined
linking Aeolian harp and Anthropocene
sound in dialogue with nature - he doesn’t mention human mediation within this
Cage 4’33’’ (1947-8)
Experienced outside.
Sound of nature – wind in trees, voices of punters, aeroplanes etc.
Entirely participatory?
Choice of time length – E-ching to determine , chance.
Often spoken about as autonomous.
Boundary of feeling and hearing.
New meanings in new context.
Birdsong – organised pitch and rhythm.
Challenging as group – having to count.
Cage idssmissing Beethoven but Oliveros accepting.
Visual aspect of performance.
Cage’s Water Walk.
First performance in the Woodstock concert hall – open back and seats outside.
Piece is what you make of it.
Annea Lockwood – ‘Bayou-borne’ (2016)
Piece for Oliveros.
Rivers different tributaries converging.
Over 20 minutes.
Experienced outside.
Difficult to converge.
Hard to take seriously at times.
Would it be different if each one was interpreted by one person not a group?
Ideas moving back and forth between.
Physical aspects of a river embodied.
Human understanding of nature.
Rivers moving into the sea.
Humans in embodied space.
Think on this piece.
Human interaction with nature.
Is the piece site specific?
Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum, ‘Walking as Fieldwork Method in Ethnomusicology’ (2021)
Walking exposing us to the world and forming relationships with others
Mapping the land and transcending boundaries
learning lessons, songs and skills
patterns of history and locality in the sharing of footsteps
cultural context of space
Wunderlich three kinds of walking
purposive walking - necessary, destination bound, fast
discursive walking - spontaneous, varying
conceptual walking - reflective, interpreting space
Viv Corringham (2013) ‘shadow-walking’
With others
Environmental sounds
Improvising singing
walking with locals in areas of meaning - recording conversation and environment then walking alone to re-imagine it
Schafer (1994) - listening vs sound walk
Listening walk – concentrating on listening.
Soundwalk – orientation, dialogue, composition.
notated through sonography
doesn’t discuss the privileging of certain sounds (e.g wind)
Angela Impey, Song Walking: Women, Music, and Environmental Justice in an African Borderland, ch. 1, ‘Paths toward a Hearing’ (2018)
Austrian mouth harps remembered by some of the community from the past.
Unlocking memories through music.
rhythmic memory
multisensory nature of songs
colonial music making practice holding new importance in cultural memory creation
Andra McCartney, ‘Soundwalking: Creating Moving Environmental Sound Narratives’ (2014)
soundwalking bringing attention to ignored events and practices
relationship to sonic environment
exclusiveness of walking
Schafer - World Soundscape Project 1970s
International research project.
Studying acoustic ecology.
Balanced soundscape between human and environment.
Increasing public walks.
Began in Canada.
focus on recovering natural sounds lost to industrialisation
Kubisch - electrical walks
wave outside human hearing - special headphones
electromagnetic fields creating sounds
somewhat rhythmic - less natural
guided listening - making buildings heard
Hildegard Westekamp, Kits Beach Soundwalk (1989)
Narrating her walk on the beach – describing in metaphorical and descriptive manner.
City outside of the natural sounds.
Changing volume of the soundscape as shock.
Listening to tiny sounds in more detail makes city seem louder.
industrial city occupying sonic landscape
view alongside sound
focus on natural sounds - her edit
ecology
notion of space and environment extending beyond one organism and one entity
soundwalk exploring ecology of sound (Schafer)
Gaia hypothesis: James Lovelovk (chemistry) and Lynn Margulis (biologist) 1970s
Organisms evolve together with their non-living environment.
De-centring the human.
Drawing on ancient Greek myth of Gaia as personification of Earth (also word for Earth in many texts).
Organisms evolve together.
agency of humans and objects together
Schafer quotes (1994)
‘The soundscape of the world is changing.’
Noise pollution influencing soundscape.
‘we may speak of a musical composition as a soundscape, or a radio program as a soundscape or an acoustic environment as a soundscape.’
‘A soundscape consists of events heard not objects seen.’
‘acoustic ecology’
Feld Acoustemology - 2015
Joining ‘acoustics’ and ‘epistemology’ – sound as a way of knowing.
knowing through relations
Wilbourne and Cusick (2021)
sounds conveying information about space and place
power of sound to move the body
vulnerability and subjectivity in listening
modes of interpreting and living in sound
examples of the use of natural sounds in pieces
Blanca Rego, ‘Rain…’ - recording of rain, coming in floods
Cathy Lane, ‘Sweet Airs’ - from Hebrides sweet, recordings of natural soundscape and human - Scottish reading, sounds of wind and rain
Feld Voices of the Rainforest (1991)
conventional musical structure - sounds isolated and bought forwards
transitions of sounds
human vs birds
Experience of the rainforest Bosavi in Papua New Guinea and indigenous Kaluli people that inhabit it.
Sonic landscape of the rainforest and musical practices of Kaluli people.
gamelan concert and ecomusicology
gamelan and lit screen shadow puppetry
multimedia
traditional stories - Hindu epics
performing story that had ecological themes
forest setting
moving puppets
environmental storytelling
ecocriticism
ecocritical roots in literature and forms of writing
literary and cultural criticism
Rachel Carson, Silent Spring (1962)
Scientific research background.
Early movements in ecological science.
Exploring the use of DDT and other synthetic pesticides on plants in mid-C20th.
One of first major works of environmental science, and major impetus for the environmental movement.
Important critique of chemical industry’s mis/disinformation campaigns.
Existential political identity of America and production.
Argues that without concerted effort, humans would face a ‘silent spring’ (i.e a spring where no birds sing).
Broadly: questioning of narrative of scientific progress.
Aaron and Dawe (2015) - What is ecomusicology
Environmental studies plus music/sound studies equal ecomusicology.
Field rather than discipline – multiple ways of looking at it.
Prevention of disciplinary boundaries.
Gautier (2016) – Acoustic Multinaturalism, the Value of Nature, and the Nature of Music in Ecomusicology.
music/sound have no given value, but rather that value is constructed historically
distinction between nature and culture
bringing together ecocriticism and all of music studies
the meaning of sound depends on animal that produces and animal that hears.
Ecocriticism and Traditional English Folk Music – David Ingram
folk tradition in English
Edwardian folk revival as narrower idea of what constituted folk music
pastoral idealized escape
nostalgia in English culture
Marxist critique of English folk music ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ pastoral
radical nostalgia in English folk song - attachment to place, political dimension in resistance to development
New Directions: Ecological Imaginations, Soundscapes, and Italian Opera – Aaron S. Allen
explores current ecomusicological scholarship in the context of writings about nineteenth century Italian opera. Allen reveals how the focus of Italian musical periodicals at this time on opera also showed interest in writings on the connections between music, culture and nature. He argues that these authors can be traced to be the beginnings of an early ecomusicological community that have contributed to current scholarship.
The Audible Anthropocene: Sustainable Bridging of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences Scholarship through Sound – John E Quinn, Michele Speitz, Omar Carmenates, Matthew Burtner (2023)
Sound in any form shared by many disciplines.
Anthropocene reflecting shift that is audible at both local and global extents.
‘Sound represents a possible boundary object across disciplines’.
Boundary object as idea, object, product or tool enabling communication between disciplines.
of ecocriticism, ecology and music to birdsong - Avian Telemetry as transdisciplinary composition (Burtner, 2018)
Central Australian Women’s Traditional Songs: Keeping Yawulyu/Awelye Strong – Linda Barwick and Myfany Turpin
Traditional ritual performance of yawulya/awelye ceremonial genre performed by women in various country-based groups in Australia.
clan identity
singing and dancing
learning through performance and repetition
paying attention and participating
displaying group identity - part of ownership over land
ties to place
trying to continue
Bellingham’s Dana Lyons: The Artful Activist (2016)
Combining successful music career with activism for the environment.
Touring and Top 40 hit, music reached beyond activist audiences.
Each tour bringing awareness to environmental issue.
Hit song ‘Cows with Guns’
Performing in environmentally threated sites that others avoid.
Music(ology)
Thinking in music and musicology.
Differentiating the academic field and what has been done in practice.
hierarchy of attention in soundscape
Different sounds standing out.
Soundscape not neutral.
Value laden hierarchy.
Wind amplified and creating other sounds.
Guido Adler’s ‘The Scope, Method, and Aim of musicology’ (1885)
Partly coining term musicology.
Music and science.
Evolutionary language to describe music.
organicism in writings
classical music environment examples
French song and French melody - Debussy, Faure, Ravel.
Vivaldi – Flute Concerto ‘Il Gardino’ - Mimicking bird sound.
Handel’s Giulio Cesare - Act II. No.18 Aria. Text informing music.
Messiaen bird song- Ouisseau
Recording and transcribing birdsong and compose off it.
Smetana Vltava
Earth Rot – David Axelrod (1970)
Lots of different styles.
Spoken word.
Cyclical quality to use of voices and technology.
Instrumental and choral sections.
Popular styles and jazz examples.
Taylor Swift ‘Clean’
Environment metaphor
intersections with ecocritical attention to music
fan dying in the heat at Rio Stadium 2023
her shows boosting communities such as Thailand
private jet flying
