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The soundscape--a term coined by the author--is our sonic environment, the ever-present array of noises with which we all live. Beginning with the primordial sounds of nature, we have experienced an ever-increasing complexity of our sonic surroundings. As civilization develops, new noises rise up around us: from the creaking wheel, the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer, and the distant chugging of steam trains to the “sound imperialism” of airports, city streets, and factories. The author contends that we now suffer from an overabundance of acoustic information and a proportionate diminishing of our ability to hear the nuances and subtleties of sound. Our task, he maintains, is to liste...
R. Murray Schafer: A Creative Life is the authoritative exploration of the life and work of this preeminent Canadian composer, artist, educator, and activist. Working closely with the composer and his family, L. Brett Scott has created the most up-to-date and accurate exploration of Schafer. Scott draws on many public and private sources, including the composer’s own journals and correspondence, which have not been previously available to researchers. Scott discusses Schafer’s extensive writings, including his research writings on Ezra Pound and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and his multiple works of fiction. The volume also includes a detailed summary of Schafer’s work in the field of acoustic ecology and recognition of his role as founder of the World Soundscape Project as well as an overview of his writings on creative music education. With complete discussions of his theater works, choral compositions, compositions for voice, chamber pieces, orchestral compositions, and early and transitional works and a chronological list of compositions and select discography, this volume presents the most comprehensive study of Schafer and his enduring legacy.
Here was a very special ritual - completely without a sense of striving, and promising no rewards. You wandered about amused and amazed, never sure whether you were there to be entertained or entertaining - for the moment you won a balloon or lost your money while upside down on a sky ride, you became an actor, watched by others and excited by their watching. Patria (Latin for 'homeland') is composer R. Murray Schafer's life's work, a cycle of ten related music dramas created and performed over the last thirty years. Each play in the cycle has a common theme - the search of two lovers for one another through the many labyrinths of life on Earth. Though many of the same characters reappear in...
Journey with Jesse as he captures the biography of one of culture's most colourful characters, R. Murray Schafer. Starting with their search for a lost child in the Haliburton Forest, to exploring soundscapes of Japan, to an unexpected battle with the mysterious Morgellons, Jesse exposes an insidious plot to destroy the planet and arrives at the same conclusion as Murray. Art should be dangerous. Over a period of one year the author shadowed R. Murray Schafer to penetrate the multifaceted genius of Canada's preeminent composer, artist, agitator, environmental activist and the originator of the term "soundscape."