Table of Contents

Part One: Theories; I. Music and its Others: Noise, Sound, Silence; Introduction / 1. Jacques Attali, Noise and Politics / 2. Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises: Futurist Manifesto / 3. Morton Feldman, Sound, Noise, Varese, Boulez / 4. Edgard Varese, The Liberation of Sound / 5. Henry Cowell, The Joys of Noise / 6. John Cage, The Future of Music: Credo / 7. R. Murray Schafer, The Music of the Environment / 8. Mark Slouka, Listening for Silence: Notes on the Aural Life / 9. Mary Russo and Dan Wamer, Rough Music, Futurism, and Postpunk Industrial Noise Bands / 10. Simon Reynolds, Noise / 11. The Beauty of Noise: An Interview with Masami Akita of Merzbow; II. Modes of Listening; Introduction / 12. Marshall McLuhan, Visual and Acoustic Space / 13. Hanns Eisler & Theodor Adorno, The Politics of Hearing / 14. Pierre Schaeffer, Acousmatics [first English translation] / 15. Francisco Lopez, Profound Listening and Environmental Sound Matter / 16. Ola Stockfelt, Adequate Modes of Listening / 17. Brian Eno, Amblent Music / 18. Iain Chambers, The Aural Walk / 19. Pauline Oliveros, Some Sound Observations / 20. J.K. Randall, Compose Yourself; III. Music in the Age of Electronic Reproduction; Introduction / 21. Glenn Gould, The Prospects of Recording / 22. Brian Eno, The Studio as Compositional Tool / 23. John Oswaid, Bettered by the Borrower: The Ethics of Musical Debt / 24. Chris Cutler, Plunderphonia / 25. Kodwo Eshun, Operating System for the Redesign of Sonic Reality; Part Two: Practices; IV. The Open Work; Introduction / 26. Umberto Eco, Poetics of the Open Work / 27. John Cage, Composition as Process: Indeterminacy / 28. Christoph Cox, Visual Sounds: On Graphic Scores / 29. Earle Brown, Transformations and Developments of a Radical Aesthetic / 30. John Zorn, The Game Pieces / 31. Anthony Braxton, Introduction to Catalog of Works; V. Experimental Musics; Introduction / 32. Michael Nyman, Towards (a Definition of) Experimental Music / 33. John Cage, Introduction to Themes & Variations / 34. Brian Eno, Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts / 35. Comelius Cardew, Scratch Music Draft Constitution / 36. David Toop, The Generation Game: Experimental Music and Digital Culture; VI. Improvized Musics; Introduction / 37. Ornette Coleman, Change of the Century / 38. Derek Bailey, Free Improvization / 39. Frederic Rzewski, Little Bangs: A Nihilist Theory of Improvization / 40. George E. Lewis, Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives; VII. Minimalisms; Introduction / 41. Susan McClary, Rap, Minimalism and Structures of Time in Late Twentieth-Century Culture / 42. Kyle Gann, Thankless Attempts at a Definition of Minimalism / 43. Steve Reich, Music as a Gradual Process / 44. Wim Mertens, Basic Concepts of Minimal Music / 45. Tony Conrad, LYssophobia: On Four Violins / 46. Philip Sherburne, Digital Discipline: Minimalism in House and Techno; VIII. DJ Culture; Introduction; 47. Laszio Moholy-Nagy, Production-Reproduction; Potentialities of the Phonograph' / 48. William S. Burroughs, The Invisible Generation / 49. Christian Marclay & Yasunao Tone, Record, CD, Analog, Digital / 50. Paul D. Miller, Algorithms: Erasures and the Art of Memory / 51. David Toop, Replicant: On Dub / 52. Simon Reynolds, Post-Rock; IX. Electronic Music and Electronica; Introduction; 53. Jacques Barzun, Introductory Remarks to a Program of Works Produced at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center / 54. Karlheinz Stockhausen, Electronic and Instrumental Music / 55. Karlheinz Stockhausen et al., Stockhausen vs. the Technocrats / 56. Ben Neill, Breakthrough Beats: Rhythm and the Aesthetics of Contemporary Electronic Music / 57. Kim Cascone, The Aesthetics of Failure: Post-Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music; Chronology / Glossary / Selected Discography / Selected Bibliography / Index of Quotations / Index

About the Author

Christoph Cox is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Hampshire College, MA. He writes regularly on contemporary art and music for Artforum, The Wire and other magazines. Daniel Warner is Professor of Music at Hampshire College, MA, where he teaches electronic and computer music.

Reviews

A philosophy and a music professor, respectively, Cox and Warner (both Hampshire Coll.) oversee this collection of 57 brief essays on contemporary music and aesthetics. The contributors include composers from the worlds of avant-garde classical music, pop, and jazz e.g., John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pauline Oliveros as well as cultural historians like Marshall MacLuhan and Jacques Barzun and literary experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. The quality of the essays varies considerably: some are thoughtful and contain illuminating ideas, while others tend toward didacticism and dense, jargon-laden prose. Students of contemporary music will find this compendium useful. Recommended for academic libraries to complement books like Mark Prendergast's The Ambient Century. Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.