In a recording, what sounds count as music? Sounds made by a musician's body--including inhales, finger taps, and grunts--have for decades been dismissed as extraneous noises. In Sounds as They Are: The unwritten music in classical recordings, author Richard Beaudoin pioneers a field of inquiry into non-notated sounds in recordings of classical music, recognizing often-overlooked sounds made by the bodies of performers and their recording equipment as music.
Beaudoin classifies such sounds via inclusive track analysis (ITA), a bold new theory based on a comprehensive census of audible events on a given recording, and then codifies their musical function. He builds a typology across four large categories: sounds of breath (inhaling and exhaling), sounds of touch (guitar squeaks, piano pedals), sounds of effort (grunting and moaning), and surface noise (on early recording formats). Breaths are shown to be as complex and diverse as chords. Touch sounds create empathy with listeners. Effortful vocalizations reveal connections between music-making and sex. The measurement of surface noise reveals moments of synchronization with the meter of the recorded piece. He draws analogies between unwritten music and painting, photography, poetry, psychology, and government. The book's methodology is intertwined with the aesthetics and ethics of non-notated sounds: who is allowed to make them, and how they are received by listeners, critics, and scholars. Beaudoin uncovers insidious inequalities across music studies and the recording industry, including the silencing of body and breath sounds along lines of gender and race.
Sounds as They Are demonstrates the expressive, interpretive, and embodied possibilities that emerge when all sounds are valued coequally and asks music theory to face a simple truth: that all sounds deserve recognition.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Sounds As They Are is a beautiful-looking hardback of 240 dense pages with musical examples, an extended discography, a list of works cited, and an index... Beaudoin's intensive research is impressive and exhaustive. * Janet Horvath, The Interlude * This book not only changes the way you think about music; it changes the way you hear. Spellbinding, ear-opening, and impossible to put down, Sounds as They Are is a groundbreaking exploration of our capacity to listen unconditionally. In a field dominated by extraction and exclusion, Beaudoin compels us to imagine an expansive musical ecosystem in which composers, interpreters, sound engineers, and listeners are all cocreators in a radically transformed experience of hearing and appreciating music. Every musician should read this book. * Claire Chase, Professor of the Practice, Harvard University * Sounds as They Are helped me remember how I used to listen to music, how to apply that same child-like joy to my performances, and how to (rather literally!) breathe life into my listening. Fearlessly written, a new mode of deep listening emerges from this book, which addresses performers, audio engineers, theorists, musicologists, and everyone who loves recordings. * Dashon Burton, Assistant Professor of Voice, Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University * Groundbreaking in its pursuit of equal recognition for all recorded sounds, Sounds as They Are unlocks the latent potential of 'unwritten music.' Beaudoin exposes biases in our perception of classical music recordings, enriching our auditory experience and inspiring innovative scholarly contemplation. His lucid mapping and inventive typology will become standard tools for analyzing sounds that have long been overlooked. * Yves Balmer, Professor of Music Analysis, Paris Conservatoire * Through its flexible methodology, clear but open-ended categories, and sensitive analyses, Beaudoin's Sounds as They Are offers much to music scholars. * Christa Cole, Theory and Practice * Through its flexible methodology, clear but open-ended categories, and sensitive analyses, Beaudoin's Sounds as They Are offers much to music scholars. Readers will likely encounter composers, performers, pieces, and recordings previously unknown to them. Even the most attentive of listeners will learn new ways of engaging with familiar recordings. Perhaps most importantly, analysts will leave the book encouraged to explore the multitudinous expressive possibilities of unwritten music and, in Beaudoin's own words, "to savor the rich thicket of sounded intricacies that greet them each time they press play". * Christa Cole, Theory and Practice *
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Illustrationen
55 musical examples, 8 b/w figures
Maße
Höhe: 226 mm
Breite: 160 mm
Dicke: 41 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-19-765928-1 (9780197659281)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Richard Beaudoin analyses audio recordings and uses his research to create scholarship and compose new music. He has held posts as Preceptor in Music at Harvard University, The Joseph E. and Grace W. Valentine Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Amherst College, and Visiting Research Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music, London. He is currently Assistant Professor of Music at Dartmouth College.
Autor*in
Assistant Professor of MusicAssistant Professor of Music, Dartmouth College
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Four octaves and one breath
Defining unwritten music
Why classical recordings?
Categorizing unwritten music
Five notes
CHAPTER 1. The Aesthetics and Ethics of Unwritten Music
Sound recordings as documents
Questioning "intelligent suppression"
Everything that sounds simultaneously
An unwritten note
A series of enigmatic clicks
A decisive inhale
Five analogies
The reception of unwritten music
The empathetic dimension
CHAPTER 2. Sounds of Breath
Breath sounds as music
Breath as rhetoric
Breath as anacrusis
Breath as expectation
Breath within motive
Breath as climax
Breath as phrase marker
Breath as narration
CHAPTER 3. Sounds of Touch
Touch sounds as music
Fingernails and motive
Foreshadowing fingertips
Dancing fingerfalls
Squeaking shifts
Percussive valve clacks
Chair creaks
Podium stamps
Timbral damper pedals
CHAPTER 4. Sounds of Effort
Sounded effort as music
Sound, sex, and somaesthetics
Climactic exertions 1: The exultant holler
Climactic exertions 2: The tense moan
Climactic exertions 3: Grunt lead
Intimate exertions 1: Subtle vocalizing
Intimate exertions 2: Emphatic panting
Intimate exertions 3: Stifled grunting
A thoroughgoing growl
Moans as indicators of phrase
Grunts unheard
CHAPTER 5. Surface Noise
Surface noise as music
Listening with
Recordings as carta
Six modes of interaction
Performance-centricity
Narrative asynchrony
Ekphrastic (non)coincidence
Expressive synchronicity
Metaphoric development
Surface noise-centricity
CHAPTER 6. Inclusive Track Analysis
Attentional flexibility
Reading what was never written
Inclusive track analysis: A pragmatic framework
Beyond classical tracks
Les sons tels qu'ils sont
Discography
Bibliography
Index