E-book
Sounding human : music and machines, 1740/2020 / Deirdre Loughridge.
Summary:
"From the mid-eighteenth century on, there was a logic at work in musical discourse and practice: human or machine. That discourse defined a boundary of absolute difference between human and machine, with a recurrent practice of parsing "human" musicality from its "merely mechanical" simulations. In Sounding Human, Deirdre Loughridge tests and traverses these boundaries, unmaking the "human or machine" logic and seeking out others, better characterized by conjunctions such as and or with. Sounding Human enters the debate on posthumanism and human-machine relationships in music, exploring how categories of human and machine have been continually renegotiated over the centuries. Loughridge expertly traces this debate from the 1737 invention of what became the first musical android to the creation of "sound wave instruments" by a British electronic music composer in the 1960s, and the chopped and pitched vocals produced by sampling singers' voices in modern pop music. From music-generating computer programs to older musical instruments and music notation, Sounding Human shows how machines have always actively shaped the act of music composition. In doing so, Loughridge reveals how musical artifacts have been-or can be-used to help explain and contest what it is to be human"-- Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9780226830100
- ISBN: 0226830101
- Physical Description: 1 online resource (238 pages) : illustrations (black and white), music
- Publisher: Chicago ; The University of Chicago Press, 2023.
- Copyright: ©2023
Content descriptions
- Bibliography, etc. Note:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Formatted Contents Note:
- Introduction: Sounding human with machines -- Becoming android : reinterpreting the automaton flute player -- Hybrids : voice & resonance -- Analogies : Diderot's harpsichord & Oram's machine -- Personifications : piano death & life -- Genres of being posthuman : chopped & pitched -- Coda: Learning machines.
- Language Note:
- In English.
- Source of Description Note:
- Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on January 12, 2024).
Search for related items by subject
- Subject:
- Auto-tune (Computer file)
Mechanical musical instruments > History.
Music and technology > History.
Electronic music > History and criticism.
Music > Performance > Philosophy and aesthetics.
Popular music > Production and direction.
Instruments de musique mécaniques > Histoire.
Musique et technologie > Histoire.
Musique > Exécution > Philosophie et esthétique.
MUSIC / General.
Music.
Music. - Genre:
- Electronic books.