Zwischen Lärmkontamination und Verstummen

Abstract

In a time of ubiquitous availability of diverse musics, in which noise pollution and the silencing of sounds represent simultaneous challenges and make crises audible, a rethinking of hearing, listening and music-making becomes necessary. This builds upon an ongoing discussion on the understanding of the environmental crisis as a failure of culture and the demand to pay increased attention to the protection of the natural environment through music. Current developments in music research give new impetus to discussions about greening processes in and through sound as reactions to environmental and social crises. For example, in the areas of Acoustic Ecology, Ecomusicology, Multispecies Ethnomusicology, Soundscape Ecology, Zoomusicology, and Human-Animal Studies, other-than-human beings are understood as agents also in terms of music-making and receiving. These disciplines call for the openness of musics to dialogue across cultures, species, and academic disciplines. Hence, every sound – whether classifiable as music or not – is a legitimate topic of music research. This in turn questions human exceptionalism, speciesism, anthropocentrism, ethnocentrism, and their effects on the environment. This paper focuses on sustainable examinations of the role of sound and musics regarding the solution or intensification of current problems for which conscious listening is primarily required.