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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
Martin Parker Dixon*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Music, School of Culture and Creative Arts, University of Glasgow, 14 University Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QH
*
E-mail: Martin.Dixon@glasgow.ac.uk
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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
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 16 , Issue 2: Performance Ecosystems , August 2011 , pp. 115 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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