Experiencing Sound: The Sensation of Being

by Lawrence Kramer

From the winds of Mars to a baby's first laugh, a prolific philosopher-composer reflects on the profound imperative of sound in everyday life.  Experiencing Sound presents its subject as fundamental to all experience—sensation, perception, and understanding. Lawrence Kramer turns on its head the widespread notion that vision takes pride of place among the senses and demonstrates how paying attention to sound can transform how we make meaning out of experience.   Through a series of brief, lyrical forays, Kramer shows that sound, whether heard or unheard, is the object of a primary need and an essential component in the sensation of being alive and the perception of time. It is something that we may suffer—or be made to suffer—as well as enjoy. Like its predecessor The Hum of the World, this book ranges widely across music, philosophy, literature, art, media, and history, from classical antiquity to the present, as it invites us to experience sound anew.

Genres: Music

196 pages, Hardcover

Published September 3, 2024

About the author

Lawrence Kramer is Professor of English and Music at Fordham University
and co-editor of the journal 19th-Century Music. He has held visiting
professorships at Yale, Columbia, the University of Graz, the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne, and McMaster University. His work, focused on the
interrelations of music, culture, and society, comprises numerous essays
and a series of seven books, most recently including Musical Meaning:
Toward a Critical History (2001) and Opera and Modern Culture: Wagner and
Strauss (2004), both published by the University of California Press.
Next year California will bring out Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing
Music in Cinema, a collection he edited with Daniel Goldmark and Richard
Leppert on the basis of an international conference that the three
organized in 2004.

Reviews

[KBiagioli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-researched book with excellent references to other's musical compositions and writings. I was moved to look up several pieces of music.

I don't want to give the book a low rating just because it was a tough slog for me. After the first opening of the book, I never once looked forward to sitting down with it again. This book is probably going to be enjoyable for someone, just not me. I felt like a kid in school who got assigned a book that I just didn't want to read.