Sound, Music, Affect features brand new essays that bring together the burgeoning developments in sound studies and affect studies.
The first section sets out key methodological and theoretical concerns, focussing on the relationships between affective models and sound. The second section deals with particular musical case studies, exploring how reference to affect theory might change or reshape some of the ways we are able to make sense of musical materials. The third section examines the politics and practice of sonic disruption: from the notion of noise as 'prophecy', to the appropriation of 'bad vibes' for pleasurable aesthetic and affective experiences. And the final section engages with some of the ways in which affect can help us understand the politics of chill, relaxation and intimacy as sonic encounters.
The result is a rich and multifaceted consideration of sound, music and the affective, from scholars with backgrounds in cultural theory, history, literary studies, media studies, architecture, philosophy and musicology.
Introduction: Somewhere Between the Signifying and the Sublime
Marie Thompson and Ian Biddle
SECTION 1 - AFFECTIVE (RE)THINKING: SOUND AS AFFECT AND AFFECT AS SOUND
Non-cochlear Sound: On Affect and Exteriority - Will Schrimshaw
Felt as Thought (or, musical abstraction and the semblance of affect) - eldritch Priest
My Mother's Scream - Patricia Ticineto Clough
SECTION 2 - HEARING, PLAYING, FEELING: MUSIC AND THE ORGANIZATION OF AFFECT
So Transported: Nina Simone, 'My Sweet Lord' and the (Un)folding of Affect - Richard Elliott
(I Can't Get No) Affect - John Mowitt
Listening to the Talking Cure: Sprechstimme, Hypnosis, and the Sonic Organization of Affect - Clara Latham
SECTION 3 - AFFECTS OF TURBULENCE
Spread the Virus: Affective Prophecy in Industrial Music - Dean Lockwood
Brace and Embrace: Masochism in Noise Performance - Paul Hegarty
Three Screams - Marie Thompson
SECTION 4 - PALLIATIVE SOUNDS AND THE MARKETING OF AFFECTION
Music for Sleeping - Anahid Kassabian
Relax, Feel Good, Chill Out: the Affective Distribution of Classical Music - Freya Jarman
Quiet Sounds and Intimate Listening: the Politics of Tiny Seductions - Ian Biddle
