Music and the crisis of contemporaneity (original) (raw)
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Ostium, 2016
Phenomenology, as a philosophy of the twentieth century, is often confronted with music of the same period, which in contrast with the classical-romantic repertoire recedes from previously codified means for the organisation of musical structure (namely tonality) and holds up the actual matter of the music – sound – for admiration. So musical experience dwells more at the sound and its direct appearance rather than rushing to the musical meanings intended through sensuous moments. From this aspect music in the first decades of the twentieth century complemented the other arts undergoing a similar development. Romantic art was replaced by artistic creativity relying on the objectivity of the musical material and not on the emotional quality. The paper considers circumstances under which some of the phenomenological approaches adopt a positive approach to the music of the twentieth century (those which stress the immediacy of the perceptive presence) and some of which tend to reject it (those which apply the requirement of expressive intentionality). Stratilková, Martina. “Sound or Expression: Dilemmas in the Phenomenological Aesthetics of 20th Century Music.” Ostium 12, 2016(4). The article can be accessed on the journal website: http://www.ostium.sk/sk/sound-or-expression-dilemmas-in-the-phenomenological-aesthetics-of-20th-century-music/
The Crisis of Musical Aesthetics in the 21st Century
Topoi-an International Review of Philosophy, 2009
This essay is an attempt to understand the reasons for the current crisis of musical aesthetics. It examines the function of this discipline as the mediator between philosophy and musicology, it inquires into its connections with the ideals of autonomy, beauty and free subjectivity. During the 20th Century, major changes in society and their communication forms happened; anthropology and semiotics began to compete with aesthetics in explaining musical facts. The last paragraphs test the chances of resistance of musical aesthetics; musical meaning appears to be the only question which endured in spite of the considerable fragmentation and loss of profile of musical experience.
Contemporary Music Theory and the New Musicology
Music theory online, 1996
What best captures the spirit in which the following collection of essays was conceived is the little connective in the title: "Contemporary Music Theory and the New Musicology." Not, mind you, "Contemporary Music Theory or the New Musicology," "Contemporary Music Theory versus the New Musicology," "Contemporary Music Theory in spite of the New Musicology," or "Contemporary Music Theory instead of the New Musicology," but "Contemporary Music Theory and the New Musicology." Not that we should deny the reality of the tensions that characterize our current situation and engage in a game of denial-a game, as our therapists tell us, that our whole family can enjoy for now, but that will bring us all to ruin in the end. For it is no news that music theory, and especially theory-based analysis, has often not fared well under the critical eye of many new musicologists. Nor is it news that such critiques have engendered among theorists a wide variety of responses-from outright horror to mere bemusement, from outraged cries for primitive justice (a Schenkerian tooth for a Foucauldian eye), to a reexamination of our fundamental principles, to, in a few cases, outright spiritual conversion. And, of course, it comes as no news to any of us that if the new musicology had come to praise music theory and celebrate its intellectual triumphs, the new musicology would not be what it is today, and we would all have something better to do than ponder the curious relationship between contemporary music theory and the new musicology. (1) [2] It is this last point-that the new, "postmodern" musicology carved out space for itself, if not at the expense of music theory, at least in the context of music theory-that can offer us some insight into that relationship. For to conceptualize the matter in this way is to conceptualize it in terms of disciplinarity, and if these essays are about anything, they are about disciplines: how and against what models they define themselves, how they create themselves as ways of thinking and bodies of knowledge, and especially how their knowledge colludes with their power. Or, as Michel Foucault put it, "There is no
Philosophical Considerations on Contemporary Music
The musical universe of the 20th and 21st centuries is a force-field in which styles, instruments, personalities and stories can be found that are ascribable to conceptual frameworks that may differ greatly one from another. Such complexity cannot be traced back to single theories or all-encompassing interpretations, but may be tackled, philosophically, starting from certain characteristics. This book identifies nine such characteristics: namely, Extremes, Noise, Silence, Technology, Audience, Listening, Freedom, Disintegration, and New Media. Each of these permits us to open up unforeseen philosophical-cultural paths and interpret, in its multifarious variety, the developments of contemporary music, profoundly interwoven with the history of thought, culture and society.
CALL FOR PROPOSALS: The 12th UPM International Colloquium for Music Research (ICMus19)
2019
Announcing the Call for Proposals for the 12th UPM International Colloquium for Music Research (ICMus19) to be held at Universiti Putra Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur – Serdang, Malaysia on 31 October - 2 November 2019. This year, we warmly invite local and international academicians to gather in Kuala Lumpur and dedicate their papers and audiovisual works which will be presented and discussed as research outcomes of broad topics in music and also music-related fields. Keynote Speakers: Yu Hui Professor, Yunnan University, China Eddin KHOO Director-Founder, PUSAKA, Malaysia We welcome panel and individual paper proposals, as well as proposals of acoustic/ electroacoustic/ audiovisual work, that allows discussions and presentations revolving the main theme of "Music and the Cosmos". Exploration into the designated sub-themes below is highly encouraged: 1. Interpreting an organised sound in a world-system: A world-system, in the general sense, has established or been establishing cultural, social, economic, political and techno spheres. The expression from music practices in the system delivers to the spheres a defining landscape illustrated with senses, order, reasoning and ideas that reflect the kind of the world the music exists. In this context, we question how an organised sound can be linked to the world it is meant to belong to, and how the carriers of the music practice connect themselves to the world, the universe, or the cosmos. Within this universal view, we encourage discussions on the scientific, cultural, or philosophical observation on the music in macrocosmos or microcosmos and its nature or reasons in existence, or on an intellectual discourse of a typical system as observed in such an organised sound. The discussion can also stretch into connecting ideas in organised sounds, as well as interpretations of interconnectivity of things with music or sound in a world-system. 2. Cosmopolitanism as a way of knowing about music: In the narratives of musicological scholarship, frameworks based of facts on obligatory affiliations, such as culture and nation in particular, are difficult to avoid or refrain from. However, from cosmos to cosmopolitanism with ‘localisation’, ‘globalisation’ and ‘glocalisation’ of music practices in mind, we look into the alternatives in the narratives of music across the dimension of space or time that embrace views of cosmopolitanism as a way of knowing about music. How is the knowledge on certain music practices constructed through the world view of carriers and practitioners with the status of ‘world citizen’? How does the approach of decolonisation influence ways of knowing music scientifically and artistically? And how difficult is it to achieve this notion? We welcome discussions on methodological strategies or a reconstruction of scholarship frameworks in light of the idea of cosmopolitanism. 3. Musicking in the digital age: Humans claim to have been advancing into a ‘new’, digital age when almost every single act in life involves a digital element. Living in a digital world and time, modern people seem to be universally driven with the phenomenal idea of ‘digitalisation’, and musicking in this age and time seems no different. When almost everything about music is digitalised, how obscure have all geographical boundaries in the world become? And what impact does time still have on music and the act of musicking? From electronica, electrophones, electroacoustic enhancements, digital workstations to the act of digital documentation of the musicking process including the application of computer-mediated communication and ‘cloud’ computing tools, we would like to hear about the research findings in light of a seemingly new and unchartered puzzle on the problematisation of the subject matter. 4. New Research: Any music- or sound-related investigations, projects, new findings of individual research or interdisciplinary fields within the broad area of ‘new research’ are welcomed. We encourage scholarship of novel research frameworks, methodologies, analysis and interpretation of the topic on music studies in line with the wide coverage of the theme of this colloquium. Limit of abstract length: max. 250 words (individual paper or compositional work)/ max. 300 words (panel proposal) The DEADLINE of proposal submission has been extended to July 15, 2019, 23:59 (UTC+8), and the notification of proposal acceptance will be announced via email by August 15, 2019. All proposals should be submitted via email in a word document attachment to icmus.upm@gmail.com. Please find in the attachment for submission criteria, instructions of submission, fees details and other related information.
From Music to Sound. The Emergence of Sound in 20th-and 21st-Century Music
Routledge, 2020
From Debussy to this early 21st century, sound has become one of the major wagers of music. Music had begun a change of paradigm, going from a culture centred on the note to a culture of sound. It could be wagered that this radical change is at least as founding as the revolution that gave birth to tonality. The emergence of sound in music happened through six parallel histories: timbre, which became a central category of composition; noise and the exploration of its musical potential; listening, with awareness having opened up to sound in itself; the increasingly intensive immersion in sound; the substitution of the composition of sound for composition with sounds; and space, which is increasingly thought of as ‘composable’. It is in crossing, combining and converging that these histories have ended up provoking this paradigmatical change. The book proposes a synthesis, one of the first of its kind, since its ambition is to delimit the emergence of sound systematically and globally. It sometimes refers to little-known or unknown musical works next to others more frequently mentioned by musicologists and music lovers. It also seeks a balance between sections comprising analytical developments and others of a more synthetic nature – it hopes to address the general public and specialists alike.
The Key Concepts has become a popular handbook for many interested in music research, primarily because it offers a practical introduction to important concepts on musicology. Within its 219 pages, the first edition covered a substantial range of issues pertinent to current research on music, in a form of almost ninety short essays with suggested further readings. The topics include a range of broad concepts, such as Analysis, Nationalism, Popular Music and Romanticism, and more specialised concepts such as Alterity, Body, Feminism, Gay Musicology, Semiotics and Sublime. In a way it is somewhat daunting to think that in just over a decade since the first edition, a diligent student of musicology has to consider twenty new entries (concepts), which are neatly elaborated in the second edition of the book (2016). Some entries from the first edition have been substantially revised and updated, even though the authors had effectively already achieved their goal in the first edition, as stated in their preface: "to make available a range of ideas for further consideration and discussion". These additional concepts actively call for consideration and discussion, not only because some key entries, such as Form, are expanded in the second edition, but also because important new concepts offer plenty to reflect on. The new entries comprise a striking list of new concepts, indicating widening horizons on music research that circulate the Anglo-Saxon (ethno)musicology: Autobiography, Cold War, Conflict (music and conflict), Consciousness, Creativity, Decadence, Disability, Ecomusicology, Emotion, Ethics (music and ethics), Film music, Gesture, Lateness (late works/late style), Listening, 9/11, Politics (music and politics), Popular musicology, Sound/soundscape/sound studies and Stance. The list of added concepts is commendable, although someone from the non-English-speaking world would also welcome entries on Glocalisation beside the already given Globalisation, on Post-Cold War Music Cultures beside the Postcolonial/Postcolonialism, on Cultural Economy of Music besides Value, on Musical Practices beside Cultural Industry (the differences are huge in many parts of the world), on Universalism and Subcultures beside Nationalism (a common topic for many), and on Music and Media beside Music and Politics (technology is, after all, an omnipresent concept in the last century). But taking practical considerations into account, the second edition of Musicology: The Key Concepts is nonetheless a notable enterprise that informs D .