Noise In And As Music

I have just sent off the final proof for the book I have edited with my colleague Aaron Einbond, titled Noise In And As Music and published by Huddersfield University Press. The book will be formally launched at the Noise In And As Music Symposium at the Centre for Research in New Music (CeReNeM) at the University of Huddersfield, 4-6 October 2013.

The central focus of the book is the practice of noise: noise in music, noise and music, noise as music. More importantly, it is about the state of that practice now. One hundred years after Luigi Russolo’s “The Art of Noises,” the book exposes a cross-section of the current motivations, activities, thoughts, and reflections of composers, performers, and artists who work with noise in all of its many forms. In particular, the book examines the role of noise as musical material—as form, as sound, as notation or interface, as a medium for listening, as provocation, as data. Its contributors are first and foremost practitioners, which inevitably turns attention toward how and why noise is made and its potential role in listening and perceiving.

The book also features a collection of short responses to a two-question “interview”—“what is noise (music) to you?” and “why do you make it?”—by some of the leading musicians working with noise today. Their work spans a wide range of artistic practice, including instrumental, vocal, and electronic music; improvisation; notated composition; theater; sound installation; DIY; and software development.

It has been a massive project that has taken many months and hundreds of hours, but we’re very excited about the results. The complete contents are listed below.

Contents

Introduction
Aaron Cassidy and Aaron Einbond

Part 1: Theories, Speculations, & Reassessments

Interview: Ben Thigpen

Chapter 1. Black Square and Bottle Rack: noise and noises
Peter Ablinger

Interview: Antoine Chessex

Chapter 2. Un-sounding Music: noise is not sound
James Whitehead (JLIAT)

Interview: Alice Kemp (Germseed)

Chapter 3. Noise and the Voice: exploring the thresholds of vocal transgression
Aaron Cassidy

Interview: Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje

Chapter 4. Subtractive Synthesis: noise and digital (un)creativity
Aaron Einbond

Interview: Pierre Alexandre Tremblay

Chapter 5. Noise Music Information Retrieval
Nick Collins

Interview: Eryck Abecassis

Chapter 6. Inside Fama’s House: listening, intimacy, and the noises of the body
Martin Iddon

Part 2: Practices

Interview: George Lewis

Chapter 7. “We Need You To Play Some Music”
Phil Julian

Interview: Lasse Marhaug

Chapter 8. Beyond Pitch Organization: an interview with Michael Maierhof
Sebastian Berweck

Interview: Kasper Toeplitz

Chapter 9. Materiality and Agency in Improvisation: Andrea Neumann’s “Inside Piano”
Matthias Haenisch

Interview: Franck Bedrossian

Chapter 10. Noise-Interstate(s): toward a subtextual formalization
Joan Arnau Pàmies

Interview: Diemo Schwarz

Chapter 11. Molding the Pop Ghost: noise and immersion
Marko Ciciliani

Interview: Ryan Jordan

Chapter 12. Qubit Noise Non-ference: a conversation
Bryan Jacobs, Alec Hall, and Aaron Einbond

8 Comments

  1. Hi Aaron! Can I buy this book in amazon or other place?

  2. is this book still available, anywhere?

  3. Aaron Cassidy

    In case anyone stumbles across this thread … hardcopies of this book can now be purchased here: https://gazellebookservices.co.uk/products/9781862181182?_pos=1&_sid=4c4b2ae69&_ss=r (The open-access pdf is still available through the University of Huddersfield Press.)

  4. Anastasia

    Hello, is the book translated in any languages? In German maybe?
    Thank you!

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