‘Sound studies’ and ‘auditory culture’ are terms often used synonymously to designate a broad, heterogeneous, interdisciplinary field of inquiry. Yet a potential disjunction between these terms remains. Some scholars within sound studies, by turning to the ontology of sound and to the material–affective processes that lie ‘beneath representation and signification’, reject auditory cultural studies. In this essay, I consider the ‘ontological turn’ in sound studies in the work of three authors (Steve Goodman, Christoph Cox, and Greg Hainge) and offer a few arguments against it. First, I describe the Deleuzian metaphysical framework shared by all three authors, before addressing their particular arguments. Then, I consider Goodman’s vibrational ontology. While Goodman claims to overcome dualism, I argue that his theory is more rigidly dualist – and poorer at explaining the relation of cognition to affect – than the cultural and representational accounts he rejects. Next, Cox and Hainge’s aesthetic th...

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/20551940.2015.1079063

Sound studies without auditory culture: a critique of the ontological turn

The role of sound recordings in the revitalisation of minority languages of the Ainu People (Japan) and the West Frisians (the Netherlands)

linguistic propositions and concepts; and aesthetic experience, accordingly, involves a detached contemplation of the formal relationships intrinsic to the (supposedly autonomous) musical ‘work’ itself. Because of this, (and until recently) the situated, embodied and affective aspects of (musical) cognition have been largely ignored (Colombetti, 2014; Johnson 2007; Powell 2007). Put simply, this orientation has resulted in the (often-tacit) assumption that a proper aesthetic account of a musical work has little to do with the actual lives of individual listeners. Rather, what matters is possession of the appropriate cognitive apparatus and technical knowledge to correctly perceive and reproduce the putatively objective formal relationships encoded into the score by the composer (Sloboda, 1985; c.f. Small, 1999). 10 Regelski (2016b) discusses this very effectively in terms of a ‘hegemonic ideology’ that often obscures the meaning of music as social praxis.

http://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/17408/etd10162_DvanderSchyff.pdf

Concepts for an enactive music pedagogy: Essays on phenomenology, embodied cognition, and music education

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Qualitative Inquiry (QI), we write about the ongoing hegemony of the ocular in research and toward a more multisensory, and aural, embodied inquiry. Sonic inquiry is attention and intention as meta/physical and socially embodied processes without ignoring the body or separating the mind from body or material-physical and social worlds. This article is about acknowledging that sounds and silences have always shaped (research/er) possibilities, as well as what hearing research futures might offer.

Beyond Ocular Inquiry Sound, Silence, and Sonification

During the 1950s the experience of recording was transformed by a series of technical innovations including tape recording, editing, the LP record, and stereo sound Within a decade recording had evolved into an art form in which multiple takes and editing were essential components in the creation of an illusory ideal performance The British recording industry was at the forefront of development, and the rapid growth in recording activity throughout the 1950s as companies built catalogues of LP records, at first in mono but later in stereo, had a profound impact on the music profession in Britain Despite this, there are few documented accounts of working practices, or of the experiences of those involved in recording at this time, and the subject has received sparse coverage in academic publications This thesis studies the development of the recording of classical music in Britain in the long 1950s, the core period under discussion being 1948 to 1964 It begins by considering the current literature on recording, the cultural history of the period in relation to classical music, and the development of recording in the 1950s Oral history informs the central part of the thesis, based on the analysis of 89 interviews with musicians, producers, engineers and others involved in recording during the 1950s and 1960s The thesis concludes with five case studies, four of significant recordings – Tristan und Isolde (1952), Peter Grimes (1958), Elektra (1966-67), and Scheherazade (1964) – and one of a television programme, The Anatomy of a Record (1975), examining aspects of the recording process The thesis reveals the ways in which musicians, producers, and engineers responded to the challenges and opportunities created by advances in technology, changing attitudes towards the aesthetics of performance on record, and the evolving nature of practices and relationships in the studio It also highlights the wider impact of recording on musical practice and its central role in helping to raise standards of musical performance, develop audiences for classical music, and expand the repertoire in concert and on record

Recording classical music in Britain : the long 1950s

Interestingly, the sound studies reader that you really wait for now is coming. It's significant to wait for the representative and beneficial books to read. Every book that is provided in better way and utterance will be expected by many peoples. Even you are a good reader or not, feeling to read this book will always appear when you find it. But, when you feel hard to find it as yours, what to do? Borrow to your friends and don't know when to give back it to her or him.

Steven Schrag

Papers

The Sound Studies Reader