New Music and the Crises of Materiality: Sounding Bodies and Objects in Late Modernity

by Samuel Wilson

Overview

This book explores the transformation of ideas of the material in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century musical composition. New music of this era is argued to reflect a historical moment when the idea of materiality itself is in flux. Engaging with thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Sara Ahmed, Zygmunt Bauman, Rosi Braidotti, and Timothy Morton, the author considers music's relationship with changing material conditions, from the rise of neo-liberalisms and information technologies to new concepts of the natural world.

Drawing on musicology, cultural theory, and philosophy, the author develops a critical understanding of musical bodies, objects, and the environments of their interaction. Music is grasped as something that both registers material changes in society whilst also enabling us to practice materiality differently.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781000405989
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	07/04/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	182
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Samuel Wilson's research focuses on music and twentieth- and twenty-first-century modernity. He lectures in music aesthetics at Guildhall School of Music and Drama and interdisciplinary theory at London Contemporary Dance School. He is the editor of Music--Psychoanalysis--Musicology (Routledge, 2018).

Table of Contents

Introduction: New Musical Materialisms

Part 1: Musical Bodies

Chapter 1: The (Dis)possession of the Musical Body

Chapter 2: The Composition of Posthuman Bodies

Part 2: Musical Objects

Chapter 3: Orientations and the Piano-Object

Chapter 4: Contemporary Composition and/as Plastic Art

Part 3: Musical Materials

Chapter 5: On the "Material" of Musical Material

Chapter 6: Natures and Ecologies of Composition