Rethinking Music through Science and Technology Studies

Antoine Hennion is Professor at Mines ParisTech, and the former Director of the Centre for the Sociology of Innovation. He has written extensively on the sociology of music, media, and cultural industries.Christophe Levaux is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liège, Belgium. His research focuses on approaches to 20th-century American music and Actor-Network Theory.

• Foreword Howard S. BeckerIntroduction Antoine Hennion and Christophe LevauxI. Histories1. Rameau and Harmony: Can Theory Make Reason of Music? Antoine Hennion2. Sounding Standards: A History Concert Pitch, between Musicology and STSFanny Gribenski3. Is DIY a Punk Invention?: Learning processes, Recording Devices, and Social Knowledge François Ribac4. Secure and Insecure Bases in the Performance of Western Classical Music Daniel Leech-Wilkinson5. Deep Structure: The Generative Subject in Actor-Network Theory and MusicologyPatrick ValiquetII. Instruments6. Sonic Imaginaries: How Hugh Davies and David Van Koevering Performed Electronic Music’s Future James Mooney and Trevor Pinch7. Following the Instruments: The Designers and Users of the Fairlight CMI Paul Harkins8. The Interface and Instrumentality of Eurorack Modular Synthesis Eliot BatesIII. Technologies9. Human Sounds and the Obscenity of Information David Trippett10. STS Confronts the Vocaloid: Assemblage Thinking with Hatsune Miku Nick Prior11. Similarity and Difference in Sound Studies (and elsewhere) Basile ZimmermannIV. Practices12. Smartphones, Streaming Platforms, and the Infrastructuring of Digital Music PracticesPaolo Magaudda13. Tracing the Music Actor-Network: Losing the Meaning of Musical Experience? The Limits of a Routinization of Science and Technology Studies Applied to Techniques and Knowledges of Music François Debruyne14. Musicalized Images: Composing, Playing, Remixing, and Performing Net Art Jean-Paul Fourmentraux