The Sound of Thinking: A Listener's Companion to Conceptual Music

A lively compendium of musical practices and compositions that upend notions of creativity and expressivity while diversifying our sense of the musical canon.

An artist draws two octaves of pitches randomly from a hat, just enough to set each syllable of the dictionary definition of imprimer (to score, to print). Trawling the internet for cute videos of cats “playing” piano, an artist splices together a complete, note-perfect performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Opus 11. Half a century after...