Well, in this week’s reading, The Soundscape by Murray Schafer, had me thinking, “I found my people!” I think I can pull out a dozen quotes from this reading that just had me nodding my head up and down like, “The eye points outward; the ear draws inward,” where I feel like I can point my annoying friends who always wonder why I close my eyes when I listen to music to this exact quote.
But as for the reading itself from an environmental and academic viewpoint, I actually found this spin on music in the world quite intriguing. In particular, towards the beginning of the reading, it brings up the idea of the changing definition of music and how “sound” is being accepted as a definition of music. I, of course, am familiar with John Cage’s “4:33” and never thought about how his piece literally revolves on the worldly noises to make up that “empty space” in his piece. Then that idea where the world is the music and we are all the musicians was in a way, a wake up call to me, to think about the sounds I was listening to; What my “special sense” was honing in on. What sounds am i producing in this world? What are others hearing? What kind of music are we all making together?
Although we never get to read past the introduction, I am curious as to see what the author means and how the author defines what sounds “matter”.