Read more
From Music to Sound is an examination of the six musical histories whose convergence produces the emergence of sound, offering a plural, original history of new music and showing how music had begun a change of paradigm, moving from a culture centred on the note to a culture of sound. Each chapter follows a chronological progression and is illustrated with numerous musical examples. The chapters are composed of six parallel histories: timbre, which became a central category for musical composition; noise and the exploration of its musical potential; listening, the awareness of which opens to the generality of sound; deeper and deeper immersion in sound; the substitution of composing the sound for composing with sounds; and space, which is progressively viewed as composable.
The book proposes a global overview, one of the first of its kind, since its ambition is to systematically delimit the emergence of sound. Both well-known and lesser-known works and composers are analysed in detail; from Debussy to contemporary music in the early twenty-first century; from rock to electronica; from the sound objects of the earliest musique concrète to current electroacoustic music; from the Poème électronique of Le Corbusier-Varèse-Xenakis to the most recent inter-arts attempts.
Covering theory, analysis and aesthetics, From Music to Sound will be of great interest to scholars, professionals and students of Music, Musicology, Sound Studies and Sonic Arts.
Supporting musical examples can be accessed via the online Routledge Music Research Portal.
List of contents
Chapter 1. On timbre
Chapter 2. On Noise
Chapter 3. Listening (sounds)
Chapter 4. Immersion in sound
Chapter 5. Composing sound
Chapter 6. Sound-space
About the author
Makis Solomos was born in Greece and now lives in France, working as Professor of Musicology at the Université Paris 8 and as director of the research team MUSIDANSE. He has published many books and articles about new music, and he is one of the main international specialists of Xenakis’ music. Extending this book, he is now developing the frameworks for an ecology of sound and music.
Summary
From Music to Sound is an examination of the six musical histories whose convergence produces the emergence of sound, offering a plural, original history of new music. Both well-known and lesser-known works and composers are analysed in detail.
Report
'...compelling...a significant contribution to...both Musicology and Sound Studies...the ultimate value of Solomos' work is that it provides a centralized location for the ideas of the theorist-practitioners who aimed to reframe their labor as sound creation.' Kevin John Bozelka, Sound Studies, Volume 7, Issue 1 (2021)
'Without agreeing with everything [...] I really appreciate Makis Solomos' thesis-based music history of the long 20th century, because it provides both an overview of compositional directions and detailed analyses, it organizes both theoretical and aesthetic debates [...] and it develops both a thesis and its implications.' Julia H Schroëder, Journal of the German Musicological Society, Volume 73, Issue 4, (January 2020)
