The Music: A novel through sound
- Submitting institution
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Canterbury Christ Church University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- U33.066
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Unbound
- ISBN
- 9781783525089
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2018
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
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- Request cross-referral to
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Matthew Herbert’s The Music is a novel through sound, an album in the form of a book. Taking roughly an hour to read, it posits the reader’s inner ear as the medium for an album-length sonic event, focusing on the dynamic connection between reading and hearing in the construction of narrative. Each sound within the book is technically possible with the advent of microphone technology, and what unfolds is a text that navigates a space between production notes for the making of an album; a treatment for a script; a curated sound walk across the globe and a manifesto for 21st century sonic culture. Structured in twelve chapters that take established musical terms as their reference point, each section of the book functions like a movement in a symphonic structure, playing with notions of tempo at the level of paragraph, sentence, phrase, word and syllable, ultimately leading the reader towards an unpredictable denouement where sound seems like a distant memory. Printed in the Linotype Avenir font designed by typeface pioneer Adrian Frutiger, The Music is the result of a new form of publishing via the Unbound website, where writers share their initial ideas with potential readers, those readers give feedback, pledge their support and eventually become the funders of the final work, akin to the historical act of commissioning new chamber music through concert series subscription. Published by Unbound in 2018, DJ Magazine described the work as “Like a See Hear audio description of being inside the mind of someone who sees the world in sound… this is writing you can hear”.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -