1st Edition
Experiencing Organised Sounds The Listening Experience Across Diverse Sound-Based Works
Experiencing Organised Sounds investigates a wide horizon of sound-based works using a template consistently across its 16 studies. It has been written for both specialist and non-specialist readers aiming to address means of increasing appreciation and understanding related to the experience of sonic creativity (music involving any sounds, not just musical notes) across this repertoire, as well as to launch a discussion about how the reception of sonic creativity can be influenced by the circumstances of listening – in particular, regarding the qualitative difference between the in-situ as opposed to mediated experience. Although listening is the volume’s focus, complementary information from the musicians is offered to facilitate holistic work overviews. As the first composition presented was composed by a 15-year-old, the intention is to demonstrate that what might be considered a niche area of the contemporary arts is one in which both increased appreciation and participation could and should easily be achieved. The book’s work discussions are divided over three central chapters focused on fixed-medium compositions, performed and sound artworks. Experiencing Organised Sounds can be used as an undergraduate textbook, by experienced readers or those new to the area. All works discussed and related materials are available to readers online.
Table of Contents
1 To start
What this book is all about
Building on the author’s previous work
Regarding the central part of the book
2 Work discussions across sound-based creativity – Fixed Medium
Acousmatic/1 – Florian Sulpice: C’est wiizzz!!!
Acousmatic/2 – John Young: Three Spaces in Mid-Air
Soundscape – Katerina Tzedaki: a soundwalk
lowercase – Simon Atkinson: interiorities viii
+ Kerry Francksen/Simon Atkinson: Betwixt & Between
Electronic/formalised – Kevin Dahan: Gravitational Landscape
(with tinnitus)
Visual music – Bret Battey: Three Breaths in Empty Space
Text-sound + sample-based – Leigh Landy: On the Éire
3 Work discussions across sound-based creativity – Live
Mixed music – Simon Emmerson: Solo Flute Quartet
Improvised – James Andean: Third Space
Live coding – Anna Xambó: MTI@20 – Leicester, UK
DIY electronics – John Richards: Motor Music
Turntablism – dj sniff (Takuro Mizuta Lippit):
untitled performance
Performance art – Neal Spowage: Noise Loop Bootstrap
4 Work discussions across sound-based creativity – Sound art
Installations/1 – Francesc Martí: Speech cycle
Installations/2 – Peter Batchelor: Contraption
Objects – Sam Topley: Noisy Pompoms
5 To end
References
Appendix – The Intention/Reception Form Used in the Book
Glossary
Biography
Leigh Landy directs De Montfort University’s Institute for Sonic Creativity. He has been performed and offered keynote talks on every continent. He is editor of Organised Sound (CUP), author of eight books, directs the ElectroAcoustic Resource Site (EARS) projects and is co-director of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network (EMS).
“In another outstanding contribution to music analysis, Leigh Landy’s Experiencing Organised Sounds is an important text for anyone interested in understanding and discussing score-less sound-making. With each chapter, diverse sound-based art forms and analytical approaches demonstrate multiple pathways into making art and analysing it. The book is organised by umbrella topics: fixed medium, live and sound art, within which each chapter discusses an example of the most common genres. Building on Landy’s extensive history of promoting sound-based art through insightful texts, this book is an impressive addition to his bibliography.”
Dr. Kerry Hagan, University of Limerick, President – International Computer Music Association
“This book goes far beyond sonic creativity. It is a definitive text for those of us who create music and teach sonic creativity. Written for a wider audience and with electroacoustic music at its core, it allows us not only to understand the full potential of creative listening to organised sound, but also to identify and appropriate the concepts and strategies that underlie the listening process. The practical application of the ideas of sonic creativity and the discussion of the influence of listening circumstances are framed by a set of diverse relevant examples. The contribution of this text also lies in the possibility of understanding the listening process as a creative act and thus generating a virtuous circle that informs how to teach and create sonic art and music today. This is one of the most interesting, useful and innovative books I have read in many years.”
Dr. Rodrigo Sigal, Director of the Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts, Full-time professor at ENES, UNAM. Mexico"This is a book that opens new worlds of listening. Leigh Landy concentrates on perception, on hearing. In the case of a sound-based composition, analysis must take listening into account. The big step forward here is the confrontation of media-based listening (headphone listening on the bus, stereo in the living room, etc.) versus live performance. The situational nature of listening influences the perception of a piece of music enormously. Although, as he states, this is not a new insight, Landy systematically approaches this issue via case studies across highly different genres - including sound art - thus providing the reader with new insights into sound-based works. This extraordinary book broadens the musicological horizon greatly and is equally suitable for scholars, composers and the general public."
Prof. Dr. Martin Supper, University of the Arts – Berlin, author of Elektroakustische Musik und Computermusik
