Living Stereo: Histories and Cultures of Multichannel Sound eds. by Paul Théberge, Kyle Devine, and Tom Everrett

Abstract

Stereo: Histories and Cultures of Multichannel Sound. Edited by Paul Theberge, Kyle Devine, and Tom Everrett. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. [viii, 289 p. ISBN 9781623565169 (hardcover), $120; ISBN 9781623566654 (paperback), $29.95; ISBN 9781623566876 (PDF ebook), $25.99; ISBN 9781623565510 (EPUB e-book), $25.99.] Figures, timeline, bibliographic references, index. At a casual glance a reader might be tempted to ask, there really a need for an entire book on stereo? Stereo and multichannel sound is so pervasive in our lives today, and technology is so easily available, one might feel comfortable taking it for granted. But what does one really know about how, when, and why stereo was developed? How did it become norm for average listener? In my work with stage production and media room designers, I found that even professionals configure stereo setups as two speakers placed on left and right of a projection screen fed from a single mono sound source, unaware that stereo actually requires two discrete audio channel outputs. Such situations demonstrate that there is an ongoing need for both a surface and deeper understanding of stereo. A book addressing this issue is well timed, as generation of people involved in evolution of stereo is aging and many students and young professionals did not grow up during an era when stereo was rare and not an expectation (whether it be mono LPs in early 1960s or even mono TVs that were standard well into 1980s). In spring 2012, Sound Studies Group at Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art & Culture organized a conference, Living Stereo: History, Culture, Multichannel that challenged presenters to reflect on the history and significance of stereo sound reproduction in aural culture. The call for conference presentations noted that although the whole culture and industry of music and sound became organized around principle of stereo during mid twentieth century ... nothing about this--not invention or acceptance or ubiquity of stereo--was inevitable. Nor did aesthetic conventions, technological objects, and listening practices required to make sense of stereo emerge fully formed, out of blue (from http://www.iaspm.net /living-stereo-history-culture-multichannelsound/ [accessed February 20, 2017]. The original link to conference call at http://carleton.ca/icslac/livingstereo is no longer active). Casting a wide net, organizers solicited contributions from researchers in disciplines ranging from popular music, musicology, ethnomusicology, sound and media studies, sociology, gender studies, film theory, to science and technology studies. A key result of this symposium was publication of Stereo: Histories and Cultures of Multichannel Sound, which consists of a substantial introductory chapter and eleven essays written by fifteen authors with expertise in a variety of disciplines. Starting from common but broad theme of history and significance of multichannel sound reproduction, individual essays cover a range of topics and address aspects of research, technical development, history, and culture of multichannel sound playback. In Introduction: Stereo, editors note that given significance and even, perhaps, centrality of stereophony in contemporary musical and acoustic culture, it is surprising that stereo's widespread aesthetic, social and economic implications have been largely ignored in music, sound, and media studies (p. 1). After reading through book and its extensive reference list as well as searching other web, WorldCat, and journal resources, it is clear to me this is first book to pull together a significant collection of historical, cultural, and musical research on this topic. While each chapter overlaps with a variety of fields of study, what is common to all of chapters is that they intersect, in one way or another, with interdisciplinary field of sound studies. …