Of Genre, System and Process. Music Theory in a “Global Sonorous Space”

Abstract

Drawing on Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of a “global sonorous space”, this essay considers the radical nature of today’s listening environment; an environment saturated with musics from around the world. Made possible by such technologies as recording, ipods and the internet, any music can be anywhere at any given time. This situation has profound implications for traditional notions of genre in which musical systems and cultures are treated as isolated from one another; namely it can be argued that these systems are far more interconnected and dynamic than is generally thought. Following Michael Tenzer’s speculation about the potential for a “world music theory”, a conceptual space is laid out in which such a theory could be founded. This space is modelled upon concepts developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari such as the rhizome, smooth space and the idea of unstable systems “at the edge of chaos”.