Insights in Music and Culture
How we Hear: Recreating the World through Sound
Summary
Contrary to what you may expect, sound is not ‘out there’ in the world but a product of our brains. In fact, sound develops through a recreation of vibration information from the external environment. This poses interesting questions about the nature of perception and reality, and the way we experience the world. The article starts with a discussion about the biological nature of sound and hearing, and then moves to a Philosophy of Sound that challenges the way we think about the world and our role within it.
“I Make Content, not Art!”How we Traded Deep Musical Experience for Consumerism, and How to Revert the Trend.
Today, music is often considered ‘content’, used to satisfy social media algorithms and streaming platforms. This modern development not only affects musicians ability to earn, but devalues many of the traditional views of music used for health, social cohesion, and spiritual development. In this article, we explore the development of music since the Enlightenment, suggesting that the role of music in the West has drastically changed with modernity. The article offers ways to bring our intuitions about music back into harmony with the most pressing issues of our times, offering a new vision of music’s function based upon an understanding of the past.
