Description
Book SynopsisUnsayable Music presents theoretical, critical and analytical reflections on key topics of contemporary music-including acoustic, electroacoustic, and digital music-and audiovisual and multimedia composition. Six essays by Paulo C. Chagas approach music from different perspectives such as philosophy, sociology, cybernetics, musical semiotics, media, and critical studies. Chagas's practical experience, both as a composer of contemporary music and sound director of the Electronic Music Studio of Cologne, nourishes his observations on the specific creativity that emerges with the use of the technical apparatus, the development of the electronic music studio, the different aesthetics of electroacoustic music, and the forms of audiovisual and multimedia composition. The title Unsayable Music is a reference to Wittgenstein, who suggested that sound is only the surface of music and that the musical work conceals something more profound that can hardly be described by philosophical models or scientific theories.
Trade Review"Paulo C. Chagas is one of those remarkable composers well versed not only in the methods and means of musical creation but also in theoretical issues of aesthetics, semiotics, mathematics, and philology. This book displays an exceptional grasp of a wide range of complex theoretical and philosophical issues, all of them nonetheless directly connected to the act of composing music. Indeed, it is precisely because of his passionate intellectual engagement that Chagas's music always exhibits emotional immediacy as well as technical sophistication. Both his works and his ideas draw their inspiration from the wellspring of daily life and its frequently harsh realities."-Walter Clark, University of California, Riverside
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Musical Understanding: Wittgenstein, Ethics, and Aesthetics 2. Spectral Semiotics: Sound, Temporality, and Aff ect in Chopin 3. Communication and Meaning: Music as Social System 4. The Creativity of Electroacoustic and Digital Music 5. The Temple of Electronic Music: The Electronic Music Studio of Cologne in the 1990s 6. Audiovisual and Multimedia Composition: The Relationship between Medium and Form
APPENDIX I WDR Studio of Electronic Music: Works produced from 1987 to 2000
APPENDIX II WDR Studio of Electronic Music: Studio equipment used from 1990 to 2000
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