The Book of Music and Nature: An Anthology of Sounds, Words, Thoughts

by David Rothenberg (Editor), Marta Ulvaeus (Editor)

Overview

A provocative book with audio explores the relationship of music and the natural world

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780819573902
Publisher:	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date:	02/15/2013
Series:	Music / Culture
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David Rothenberg is a composer and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. In 1996, he founded Terra Nova: Nature and Culture, a literary and artistic quarterly that looks at the cultural possibilities of environmentalism. Marta Ulvaeus received a PhD from NYU in Performance Studies. She was Assistant Editor of TDR (The Drama Review) for three years before becoming Associate Editor of Terra Nova.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Does Nature Understand Music?
I. Roots of Listening
Hazrat Inyat Khan, The Music of the Spheres
Rainer Maria Rilke, Primal Sound
John Cage, Happy New Ears
John Cage, Diary: Emma Lake Music Workshop 1965
Tim Hodgkinson, An Interview with Peirce Schaeffer
Evan Eisenberg, Deus ex Machina
. Murray Schafer, Music and the Soundscape
Tsai Chih Chung, The Music of the Earth
II. Wild Echoes
Rafi Zabor, From The Bear Comes Home
Steve Lacy, Sax Can Moo…
Russell Sherman, from Piano Pieces
Jaron Lanier, Music, Nature, and Computers: A Showdown
David Dunn, Nature, Sound Art, and the Scared
David James Duncan, My one Conversation With Collin Walcott
Michael Ondaatje, from Coming through Slaughter
III. The Landscape of Sound
Steve Erickson, from Rubicon Beach
Claude Schryer, The Sharawadji Effect
Pauline Oliveros, Sonic Images
Pauline Oliveros, The Poetics of Environmental Sound
Brian Eno, Ambient Music
Hildegard Westerkamp, Speaking from Inside the Soundscape
Douglas Quin, Toothwalkers
Francisco Lopez, Blind Listening
David Toop, from Exotica
Robert Schneider, from Brother of Sleep
IV. Many Natures, Many Cultures
John Luther Adams, The Place Where You Go to Listen
Toru Takemitsu, Nature and Music
Steven Feld, Lift-Up-Over Sounding
Eric Salzman, Sweet Singer of the Pine Barrens
Bernie Krause, Where the Sounds Live
Junichiro Tanizaki, from “A Portrait of Shunkin”
V. The Disc of Music and Nature (audio)
Contributors
Permissions
Index

What People are Saying About This

John Schaefer

"The Book of Music and Nature cheerfully debunks the old ‘music is the universal language’ cliché; pays homage to masters like John Cage, Brian Eno and Toru Takemitsu; detours for a koan-like story by David James Duncan and a tall tale from David Toop; and, finally, acknowledges the written word’s ultimate limitations in the face of music with an illuminating CD. The Book of Music and Nature is an impressive work: important, provocative and comprehensive."