{"product_id":"the-sound-of-thinking-a-listeners-companion-to-conceptual-music","title":"The Sound of Thinking: A Listener's Companion to Conceptual Music","description":"\u003cb\u003eA lively compendium of musical practices and compositions that upend notions of creativity and expressivity while diversifying our sense of the musical canon.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e An artist draws two octaves of pitches randomly from a hat, just enough to set each syllable of the dictionary definition of \u003ci\u003eimprimer\u003c\/i\u003e (to score, to print). Trawling the internet for cute videos of cats \"playing\" piano, an artist splices together a complete, note-perfect performance of Arnold Schoenberg's \u003ci\u003eOpus 11\u003c\/i\u003e. Half a century after the release of Miles Davis's album \u003ci\u003eKind of Blue\u003c\/i\u003e, a jazz quintet spends months of focused practice to reproduce the original exactly. These performances share a common denominator: absolute fidelity to the outcome of a system. From Marcel Duchamp to Yoko Ono, Steve Reich to Sun Ra, \u003ci\u003eThe Sound of Thinking\u003c\/i\u003e brings together a diverse array of musical or sonic works that are algorithmic, automatic, permutational, procedural, or otherwise structured in contrast to the creative expressivity typically associated with artistic production. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In twenty-six short essays, each keyed to a term that begins with a different letter of the alphabet, Dworkin discusses work composed or performed according to a predetermined rule, transforming artistic creation into a system running its course. The pieces detailed here, drawn from more than a century of musical experimentation, offer a fresh perspective on the history of innovative music by decoupling music from expression and by shunting creativity from the level of organizing sounds to the level of devising a system that can do the organizing. Not only does this book spotlight the critical role of music in twentieth-century conceptual art, but it also identifies previously overlooked links among diverse artists and movements. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Craig Dworkin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44267800789034,"sku":"9780226847719","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0690\/0891\/6522\/files\/the-sound-of-thinking-a-listeners-companion-to-conceptual-music-9093699.jpg?v=1776560833","url":"https:\/\/thepoetryshop.com\/products\/the-sound-of-thinking-a-listeners-companion-to-conceptual-music","provider":"The Poetry Shop LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}