The Sound of Thinking
A Listener's Companion to Conceptual Music
Published on 30. April 2026
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-0-226-84769-6 (ISBN)
Description
A lively compendium of musical practices and compositions that upend notions of creativity and expressivity while diversifying our sense of the musical canon.
An artist draws two octaves of pitches randomly from a hat, just enough to set each syllable of the dictionary definition of imprimer (to score, to print). Trawling the internet for cute videos of cats "playing" piano, an artist splices together a complete, note-perfect performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 11. Half a century after the release of Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue, a jazz quintet spends months of focused practice to reproduce the original exactly. These performances share a common denominator: absolute fidelity to the outcome of a system. From Marcel Duchamp to Yoko Ono, Steve Reich to Sun Ra, The Sound of Thinking brings together a diverse array of musical or sonic works that are algorithmic, automatic, permutational, procedural, or otherwise structured in contrast to the creative expressivity typically associated with artistic production.
In twenty-six short essays, each keyed to a term that begins with a different letter of the alphabet, Dworkin discusses work composed or performed according to a predetermined rule, transforming artistic creation into a system running its course. The pieces detailed here, drawn from more than a century of musical experimentation, offer a fresh perspective on the history of innovative music by decoupling music from expression and by shunting creativity from the level of organizing sounds to the level of devising a system that can do the organizing. Not only does this book spotlight the critical role of music in twentieth-century conceptual art, but it also identifies previously overlooked links among diverse artists and movements.
An artist draws two octaves of pitches randomly from a hat, just enough to set each syllable of the dictionary definition of imprimer (to score, to print). Trawling the internet for cute videos of cats "playing" piano, an artist splices together a complete, note-perfect performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 11. Half a century after the release of Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue, a jazz quintet spends months of focused practice to reproduce the original exactly. These performances share a common denominator: absolute fidelity to the outcome of a system. From Marcel Duchamp to Yoko Ono, Steve Reich to Sun Ra, The Sound of Thinking brings together a diverse array of musical or sonic works that are algorithmic, automatic, permutational, procedural, or otherwise structured in contrast to the creative expressivity typically associated with artistic production.
In twenty-six short essays, each keyed to a term that begins with a different letter of the alphabet, Dworkin discusses work composed or performed according to a predetermined rule, transforming artistic creation into a system running its course. The pieces detailed here, drawn from more than a century of musical experimentation, offer a fresh perspective on the history of innovative music by decoupling music from expression and by shunting creativity from the level of organizing sounds to the level of devising a system that can do the organizing. Not only does this book spotlight the critical role of music in twentieth-century conceptual art, but it also identifies previously overlooked links among diverse artists and movements.
Reviews / Votes
"Craig Dworkin's new book is a rhizomatic atlas, a poetically mapped room of musical possibilities in which one door leads to a Wittgensteinian room and another onto a whale's vagina. Whether you're new to its imaginative possibilities or a long-time resident of its frontiers, The Sound of Thinking's unique scholarship and textual virtuosity are a perfect introduction to the 'resonant paper' of conceptual music." -- Nate Wooley, trumpet player and composer "Declaring that "even the most esoteric music need not be off-limits to nonspecialists," the practitioner and scholar of conceptual writing Craig Dworkin sets off on an abecedarian's course through largely uncharted musical practice. The Sound of Thinking is a joy not only due to its vast research and wild associative leaps, but because Dworkin is a brilliant prose stylist whose comic panache pairs well with the deadpan stare of much of the work gathered here." -- David Grubbs, composer, musician, and vocalist "In this brilliant sourcebook that guides the listener through global musical practices, Craig Dworkin takes us on a tour of conceptual music, defined for its exploration of procedure, arbitrary rules, and contextual reframing. The twenty-six short chapters are presented as an abecedarium that may be read in any order, focusing as they do on lesser-known composers, on anomalous works by famous composers, and on practices such as collage, chance, appropriation, the sonification of data, and visual art taken as musical scores. Even the most esoteric music need not be off limits to nonspecialists, argues Dworkin." -- Nancy Perloff, Getty Research InstituteMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
1 line drawing
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 25 mm
Weight
594 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-84769-6 (9780226847696)
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 Classification
Person
Craig Dworkin teaches literary history and theory at the University of Utah. He is the author of Reading the Illegible, No Medium, Dictionary Poetics, and Radium of the Word: A Poetics of Materiality.
Content
Introduction: Definitions and caveats
Key works by John Cage; Eliane Radigue; Christopher DeLaurenti; Maryanne Amacher
1. Alphabet: Arbitrary and aleatory organization
Key works by Gilius van Bergeijk; Erik Carlson; Jasna Velickovic; Cathy Berberian; Luis Andriessen; Alvin Lucier; Luiz Henrique Yudo; Mieko Shiomi
2. Birds: Nonhuman composers
Key works by Ezra Pound; Pamela Z; Cassandra Miller
3. Chess: Sonification of chessboards
Key works by John Cage; Atanas Bozdarov; Rodney Waschka; OPO; Francesco Ardan Dal Ri and Raul Masu; Michael Horgan; John White; Murielle Lucie-Clement
4. Data: Sonification of data
Key works by George Brecht; Alexander Chen; Johannes Kreidler; Edith Viau; Cassie Thornton; Marko Ciciliani; Tae Hong Park; David Pocknee
5. Errata: Chance and readymades
Key works by Marcel Duchamp
6. Forgery: Appropriation
Key works by Vito Acconci; Mekhitar Garabedian; Jane Pollard; Rosemary Brown; Mostly Other People Do the Killing
7. Glue: Collage and appropriation
Key works by Jim Hodges; Jennifer Walshe; Christopher Hobbs; Milan Knizak; Yasunao Tone; Maria Chavez; Nicolas Collins; Peter Ablinger; Lukas Foss; Rodney Graham; Katie Paterson; Todd Levin; Mauricio Kagel; Christian Marclay
8. Helix: Sonification of geometry
Key works by Cildo Meireles
9. IPA: Deskilling and translations of speech
Key works by Nate Wooley
10. Jeux de Des: Chance and games
Key works by Robert Xavier Rodriguez; Tom Johnson; Hanne Darboven; Robert Ashley; Zexuan Qiao; Dave Soldier, Vitaly Komar, and Alexander Melamid; Percy Grainger
11. Kittens: Appropriation and deskilling
Key works by Cory Arcangel
12. Long: Computational durations
Key works by James Whitehead (jliat); Roc Jimenez de Cisneros and Stephen Sharp; David Pocknee; Cassandra Miller; Rodney Graham; Richard Beaudoin; Bethany Collins; Seth Kim Cohen; Leif Inge; Joanna Bailie; John Cage; Jem Finer; Ian Melish; Erik Satie; La Monte Young
13. Mute: Appropriation and erasure
Key works by Samson Young; Weronika Trojanska; Luke Nickel
14. Nature: Nonhuman composers, deskilled performances, systems
Key works by Raven Chacon; Dave Soldier; Sun Ra; Paul Panhuysen; Alvin Lucier; Nigel Helyer; Devin Maxwell
15. Organs: Appropriation
Key works by Eva-Maria Houben
16. Portraits: Sonification, appropriation, erasure
Key works by Clarence Barlow
17. Q&A: Chance and games
Key works by Ben Patterson
18. Rocks: Chance
Key works by Mineko Grimmer
19. Speech: Sonification of sounds
Key works by Peter Ablinger; Jacob ter Veldhuis; Florent Ghys
20. Tenebrae: Chance and systems
Key works by Toshi Ichiyanagi; Gyoergy Ligeti; Yoko Ono
21. Ut Pictura Musica: Sonification of images
Key works by Philip Corner; Alvin Lucier; Charles Gaines; Sylvain Chauveau; Luiz Henrique Yudo
22. Vaginas: Yep.
Key works by Nam June Paik; Lauren Lesko; Miya Masaoka
23. Weave: Sonification and readymades
Key works by Stine Janvin and Cory Arcangel; Christopher Hobbs; John White; Brian Eno
24. Xylorimba: Appropriation and erasure
Key works by Lance Massey; James Hoff
25: Y-Intercept: Systems
Key works by Steve Reich
26. Zone: Systems
Key works by La Monte Young and Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Key works by John Cage; Eliane Radigue; Christopher DeLaurenti; Maryanne Amacher
1. Alphabet: Arbitrary and aleatory organization
Key works by Gilius van Bergeijk; Erik Carlson; Jasna Velickovic; Cathy Berberian; Luis Andriessen; Alvin Lucier; Luiz Henrique Yudo; Mieko Shiomi
2. Birds: Nonhuman composers
Key works by Ezra Pound; Pamela Z; Cassandra Miller
3. Chess: Sonification of chessboards
Key works by John Cage; Atanas Bozdarov; Rodney Waschka; OPO; Francesco Ardan Dal Ri and Raul Masu; Michael Horgan; John White; Murielle Lucie-Clement
4. Data: Sonification of data
Key works by George Brecht; Alexander Chen; Johannes Kreidler; Edith Viau; Cassie Thornton; Marko Ciciliani; Tae Hong Park; David Pocknee
5. Errata: Chance and readymades
Key works by Marcel Duchamp
6. Forgery: Appropriation
Key works by Vito Acconci; Mekhitar Garabedian; Jane Pollard; Rosemary Brown; Mostly Other People Do the Killing
7. Glue: Collage and appropriation
Key works by Jim Hodges; Jennifer Walshe; Christopher Hobbs; Milan Knizak; Yasunao Tone; Maria Chavez; Nicolas Collins; Peter Ablinger; Lukas Foss; Rodney Graham; Katie Paterson; Todd Levin; Mauricio Kagel; Christian Marclay
8. Helix: Sonification of geometry
Key works by Cildo Meireles
9. IPA: Deskilling and translations of speech
Key works by Nate Wooley
10. Jeux de Des: Chance and games
Key works by Robert Xavier Rodriguez; Tom Johnson; Hanne Darboven; Robert Ashley; Zexuan Qiao; Dave Soldier, Vitaly Komar, and Alexander Melamid; Percy Grainger
11. Kittens: Appropriation and deskilling
Key works by Cory Arcangel
12. Long: Computational durations
Key works by James Whitehead (jliat); Roc Jimenez de Cisneros and Stephen Sharp; David Pocknee; Cassandra Miller; Rodney Graham; Richard Beaudoin; Bethany Collins; Seth Kim Cohen; Leif Inge; Joanna Bailie; John Cage; Jem Finer; Ian Melish; Erik Satie; La Monte Young
13. Mute: Appropriation and erasure
Key works by Samson Young; Weronika Trojanska; Luke Nickel
14. Nature: Nonhuman composers, deskilled performances, systems
Key works by Raven Chacon; Dave Soldier; Sun Ra; Paul Panhuysen; Alvin Lucier; Nigel Helyer; Devin Maxwell
15. Organs: Appropriation
Key works by Eva-Maria Houben
16. Portraits: Sonification, appropriation, erasure
Key works by Clarence Barlow
17. Q&A: Chance and games
Key works by Ben Patterson
18. Rocks: Chance
Key works by Mineko Grimmer
19. Speech: Sonification of sounds
Key works by Peter Ablinger; Jacob ter Veldhuis; Florent Ghys
20. Tenebrae: Chance and systems
Key works by Toshi Ichiyanagi; Gyoergy Ligeti; Yoko Ono
21. Ut Pictura Musica: Sonification of images
Key works by Philip Corner; Alvin Lucier; Charles Gaines; Sylvain Chauveau; Luiz Henrique Yudo
22. Vaginas: Yep.
Key works by Nam June Paik; Lauren Lesko; Miya Masaoka
23. Weave: Sonification and readymades
Key works by Stine Janvin and Cory Arcangel; Christopher Hobbs; John White; Brian Eno
24. Xylorimba: Appropriation and erasure
Key works by Lance Massey; James Hoff
25: Y-Intercept: Systems
Key works by Steve Reich
26. Zone: Systems
Key works by La Monte Young and Tao G. Vrhovec Sambolec
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index