Music As Atmosphere: Collective Feelings And Affective Sounds (ambiances, Atmospheres And Sensory Experiences Of Spaces)

This book explores the atmospheric dimensions of music and sound. With multidisciplinary insights from music studies, sound studies, philosophy and media studies, chapters investigate music and sound as shared environmental feelings. This book probes into cutting edge conceptual issues at the forefront of contemporary discussions on atmosphere, atmospherology and affect. It also extends the spatial and relational focus towards fundamentally temporal questions of performance, process, timbre, resonance and personhood. The capacity of atmospheric relations to imbue a situation with an ambient feeling and to modulate social collectives is highlighted, as well as auditory experience as a means of connecting with feelings. In addition to original research, the volume features a first translation of an important text by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz, and a debate on affect and atmosphere between the philosophers Jan Slaby and Brian Massumi. This novel contribution to the field of music research provides a strong theoretical framework, as well as vibrant case studies, which will be invaluable reading for scholars and students of music, sound, aesthetics, media, anthropology and contemporary philosophy. Cover 1 Half Title 2 Series 3 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgements 8 Notes on contributors 10 Atmospheric relations: theorising music and sound as atmosphere 14 1 Musical meaning in between: ineffability, atmosphere and asubjectivity in musical experience 56 2 Intensity, atmospheres and music 73 3 Timbre, taste and epistemic tasks: a cross-cultural perspective on atmosphere and vagueness 83 4 Atmosphere and Northern music: ecomusicological-phenomenological analysis of Kalevi Aho’s Eight Seasons 108 5 The “right” kind of ḥāl: feeling and foregrounding atmospheric identity in an Algerian music ritual 126 6 Sonic atmospheres in an American jail 144 7 The substance of the situation: an anthropology of sensibility 160 8 Bodies in motion: music, dance and atmospheres in Palauan ruk 178 9 Acoustemologies of rebetiko love songs 197 10 The tune of the magic flute: on atmospheres and history 215 11 Between things and souls: sacred atmospheres and immersive listening in late eighteenth-century sentimentalism 231 12 Transformations in mediations of lived sonic experience: a sensobiographic approach 251 13 A pedagogy of the event: an introduction 268 14 Affect and atmosphere – two sides of the same coin? 275 15 Atmospheres – Schmitz, Massumi and beyond 287 16 Dim, massive and important: atmosphere in process 299 Index 315 "Music as Atmosphere - Collective Feelings and Affective Sounds is the first collection of essays on music, sound, and atmosphere. The volume assembles an impressively cross-disciplinary panoply of scholars from music studies, sound studies, philosophy, and media studies, all of whom investigate music and sound as shared environmental feelings, that is, as atmospheres. The contributors explore atmosphereological approaches to musical traditions and practices, aural histories and memory, music's relationship to the body, social collectives, and nature. They probe conceptual issues at the forefront of contemporary discussions of atmosphere and affect but then also extend the spatial and relational focus towards fundamentally temporal questions of performance, process, timbre, resonance, and personhood. In doing so they touch on the capacity of atmospheric relations to imbue a situation with an ambient feeling and to modulate social collectives but also underscore auditory experience as an acoustemology for atmosphere. In addition to original research, the volume features a first translation of an important text by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz, and a debate on affect and atmosphere between the philosophers Jan Slaby and Brian Massumi. This wide-ranging collection provides a strong theoretical framework and vibrant case-studies. It also proposes some intriguing new approaches. It constitutes a rich resource for scholars and students of music, sound, aesthetics, media, anthropology, and contemporary philosophy"-- Provided by publisher