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Dwelling and the Sacralisation of the Air: A note on acousmatic music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2011

Martin Parker Dixon*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Music, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow, 14 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QH

Abstract

This paper adapts Martin Heidegger's philosophy of ‘dwelling’ in order to effect a liaison between acousmatic music and ecological concern. I propose this as an alternative to both the propagandist use of music as a means of protest and to using the science of ecology as a domain that might furnish new compositional means. I advance the interpretation that acousmatic music ‘occupies the air’ in ways that transform the meaning of that dimension. It allows the sky to be sky and the earth, earth. I use the precedent of bell ringing as an example of sonic activity that occupies the air in order to further dwelling.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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