[C] Session taught by Prof. Ian Condry
[H] Session taught by Prof. Stefan Helmreich
Session 1: Introduction to the Course [C & H]
No readings assigned.
Session 2: Soundscapes, Acoustemologies, Space, Culture [H]
Schafer, R. Murray. “Introduction.” In The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Destiny Books, 1993. ISBN: 9780892814558. [Preview with Google Books]
Feld, Steven. “A Rainforest Acoustemology.” Chapter 12 in The Auditory Culture Reader. 1st ed. Edited by Michael Bull and Les Back. Berg Publishers, 2004. ISBN: 9781859736180.
Thompson, Emily. “Introduction: Sound, Modernity and History,” and“The Origins of Modern Acoustics.” Chapter 1 and excerpts from Chapter 2 in The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900–1933. MIT Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780262701068. [Preview with Google Books] (If you’re interested, there is a lecture version of parts of Chapter 2 here.)
Henriques, Julian. “Sonic Diaspora, Vibrations, and Rhythm: Thinking through the Sounding of the Jamaican Dancehall Session.” African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 1, no. 2 (2008): 215–36.
Scott, Sarah Mayberry. “Sonic Lessons of the Covid-19 Soundscape.” August 2, 2021. Sounding Out!
Session 3: Make a Beat to Share in Class [C]
Ueno, Toshiya. “Resilience through Rituals.” The Bulletin of the Faculty of Representational Studies 14 (2014): 41–51.
Session 4: Listening Machines [H]
Sterne, Jonathan. “Machines to Hear for Them.” Chapter 1 in The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction. Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780822330134. [Preview with Google Books]
Behrendt, Frauke. “Telephones, Music and History: From the Invention Era to the Early Smartphone Days.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 27, no. 6 (2021): 1678–95.
Friedner, Michele, and Stefan Helmreich. “Sound Studies Meets Deaf Studies.” Senses and Society 7, no. 1 (2012): 72–86.
Semel, Beth M. “Listening Like a Computer: Attentional Tensions and Mechanized Care in Psychiatric Digital Phenotyping.” Science, Technology & Human Values 47, no. 2 (2022): 266–90.
Session 5: Propose the Sound Object You Will Work on this Term; Bring a Clip to Demo Ideas [C]
No readings assigned.
Session 6: Phonograph Records, Tape, Compact Discs, MP3s, Algorithmic Streaming [H]
Davis, Erik. “Recording Angels: The Esoteric Origins of the Phonograph.” In Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music. Edited by Rob Young. Continuum, 2002. ISBN: 9780826464507. [Preview with Google Books]
Bohlman, Andrea F., and Peter McMurray. “Tape: Or, Rewinding the Phonographic Regime.” Twentieth-Century Music 14, no. 1 (2017): 3–24.
Downes, Kieran. “‘Perfect Sound Forever’ - Innovation, Aesthetics, and the Remaking of Compact Disc Playback.” Technology and Culture 15, no. 2 (2010): 305–31.
Sterne, Jonathan. “The MP3 as Cultural Artifact.” New Media and Society 8, no. 5 (2006): 825–42.
Seaver, Nick. “Captivating Algorithms: Recommender Systems as Traps.” Journal of Material Culture 24, no. 4 (2019): 421–36.
Session 7: Mid-Term Sharing of Sound Object Project [C]
No readings assigned.
Session 8: Sound, Culture, Technology, Property [C & H]
Feld, Steven. “Pygmy POP: A Genealogy of Schizophonic Mimesis.” Yearbook for Traditional Music 28 (1996): 1–35.
Clayton, Jace (aka DJ Rupture). “Confessions of a DJ.” Chapter 1 in Uproot: Travels in 21st-Century Music and Digital Culture. FSG Originals, 2016. ISBN: 9780374533427. [Preview with Google Books]
Condry, Ian. “Cultures of Music Piracy: An Ethnographic Comparison of the US and Japan.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 7, no. 3 (2004): 343–63.
Marshall, Wayne. “Mashup Poetics as Pedagogical Practice.” Chapter 16 in Pop-Culture Pedagogy in the Music Classroom: Teaching Tools from American Idol to YouTube. Edited by Nicole Biamonte. Scarecrow Press, 2010. ISBN: 9780810876637. [Preview with Google Books]
Thaemlitz, Terre. “Social Media Content Removal Fail.” September 24, 2013. Comatonse Recordings.
“What the Hell is Terre’s Problem?!!” Comatonse Recordings.
Session 9: Mixing, EQ, Compression, Other Effects [C]
No readings assigned.
Session 10: Sonic Privacy, Sonic Publics [H]
Hsieh, Jennifer C. “Piano Transductions: Music, Sound and Noise in Urban Taiwan.” Sound Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 5, no. 1 (2019): 4–21.
Hagood, Mack. “Beats by Dre: Race and the Sonic Interface.” Chapter 6 in Hush: Media and Self Control. Duke University Press Books, 2019. ISBN: 9781478003809. [Preview with Google Books]
McDaniel, Byrd. “A New Age of Protest Music.” Boston Review, June 22, 2020.
Session 11: Mastering vs. Spatializing for Final Mixes [C]
No readings assigned.
Session 12: The Sounds of Silence [H]
Helmreich, Stefan. “An Anthropologist Underwater: Immersive Soundscapes, Submarine Cyborgs, and Transductive Ethnography.” American Ethnologist 34, no. 4 (2007): 621–41.
———. “Gravity’s Reverb: Listening to Space-Time, or Articulating the Sounds of Gravitational Wave Detection.” Cultural Anthropology 31, no. 4 (2016): 464–92.
Supper, Alexandra. “Lobbying for the Ear, Listening with the Whole Body: The (Anti-) Visual Culture of Sonification.” Sound Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2, no. 1 (2016): 69–80.
Listening
- Heard Laboratories. Ernst Karel. and/OAR, 2009. Bandcamp.
- Sonic Antarctica. Andrea Polli. Gruenrekorder, 2009.
- Spring Bloom in the Marginal Ice Zone. Jana Winderen. 2018. Bandcamp.
- Sound Samples, SoSH Project: Sonification of Solar Harmonics. Stanford Solar Center.
- Voyager: The Golden Record. Jet Propulsion Library, California Institue of Technology.
- Scrambles of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, Remixed by Extraterrestrials. SETI-X. Seeland, 2010. Spotify.
- Various music made with Artificial Intelligence:
- AAI. Mouse on Mars. 2021. Bandcamp.
- “Deep Time and Intelligence panel presentation at MIT: 2021 ‘Unfolding Intelligence’ Symposium.” (Holly Hernon presentation.) YouTube.
- Murray, Eoin. “Recognise: Debit.” DJ Mag, February 2, 2022.
Session 13: Discussion and reflection on final recording projects, processes of learning, and participant-observation in music and technology [C & H]
No readings assigned.
