Sensing Sound
Singing and Listening As Vibrational Practice
Published on 11. December 2015
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-0-8223-6046-9 (ISBN)
Description
In Sensing Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim offers a vibrational theory of music that radically re-envisions how we think about sound, music, and listening. Eidsheim shows how sound, music, and listening are dynamic and contextually dependent, rather than being fixed, knowable, and constant. She uses twenty-first-century operas by Juliana Snapper, Meredith Monk, Christopher Cerrone, and Alba Triana as case studies to challenge common assumptions about sound-such as air being the default medium through which it travels-and to demonstrate the importance a performance's location and reception play in its contingency. By theorizing the voice as an object of knowledge and rejecting the notion of an a priori definition of sound, Eidsheim releases the voice from a constraining set of fixed concepts and meanings. In Eidsheim's theory, music consists of aural, tactile, spatial, physical, material, and vibrational sensations. This expanded definition of music as manifested through material and personal relations suggests that we are all connected to each other in and through sound. Sensing Sound will appeal to readers interested in sound studies, new musicology, contemporary opera, and performance studies.
Reviews / Votes
"Even if we consider 'the voice' as a sound source, in an average personal imaginary 'sound' is something external, while 'the voice' is something internal and intimate. If we add to that the extreme power of language, it's even harder to treat the voice as 'sound.' Eidsheim explores these contradictions in her book with knowledge and vision. Her theory of sound as a 'universal connection of entities,' for example, is simply enrapturing...." - Aurelio Cianciotta (Neural) "Eidsheim's formulation of music as vibrational practice engenders new ways of considering communication between singer and audience, environment and body, and animate and inanimate materials. ... Her work generates wide-ranging and pragmatic resonances for those interested in questions surrounding sound and multi-sensory experience." - Amy Skjerseth (Theatre Research International) "[Eidsheim's] book invites readers to remember that music itself is a complex phenomenon better understood as an experience and practice of 'intermaterial vibration.'" - Cecilia Livingston (Cambridge Opera Journal) "Sensing Sound is a captivating and rewarding book. Eidsheim's 'vibrational practice' provides a liberating take on vocal sound, and one that can be applied not only to singing and listening, but to many dimensions of sensory experience." - Rebecca Lentjes (Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies) "No doubt [Sensing Sound] will become required reading in many academic disciplines that touch on voice studies." - Marit MacArthur (Yale Review) "Sensing Sound delivers a provocative theory of musical sonority-one that interrogates the participatory, material, and ex-periential dimensions of music-making in new and exciting ways. . . . Sensing Sound is sure to enliven music and sound studies research for years to come." - Daniel Akira Stadnicki (Intersections) "Eidsheim's book is sensitive to bodies, attentive to physics, and mindful of encultured practices of listening and sounding. It is a much-needed meeting point for musicology, sound studies, philosophy of sound, performance studies, vocal pedagogy, and those interested in theorizing difference in music." - Lucie Vagnerova (Current Musicology)More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
North Carolina
United States
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
28 illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
522 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8223-6046-9 (9780822360469)
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
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
11/2015
1st Edition
De Gruyter
€198.99
Available for download
Person
Nina Sun Eidsheim is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Content
Illustrations viii
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Music's Material Dependency: What Underwater Opera Can Tell Us about Odysseus's Ears 27
2. The Acoustic Mediation of Voice, Self, and Others 58
3. Music as Action: Singing Happens before Sound 95
4. All Voice, All Ears: From the Figure of Sound to the Practice of Music 132
5. Music as a Vibrational Practice: Singing and Listening as Everything and Nothing 154
Notes 187
Bibliography 241
Index 261
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. Music's Material Dependency: What Underwater Opera Can Tell Us about Odysseus's Ears 27
2. The Acoustic Mediation of Voice, Self, and Others 58
3. Music as Action: Singing Happens before Sound 95
4. All Voice, All Ears: From the Figure of Sound to the Practice of Music 132
5. Music as a Vibrational Practice: Singing and Listening as Everything and Nothing 154
Notes 187
Bibliography 241
Index 261