Experiencing Organised Sounds

“In another outstanding contribution to music analysis, Leigh Landy’s Experiencing Organised Sounds is an important text for anyone interested in understanding and discussing score-less sound-making. With each chapter, diverse sound-based art forms and analytical approaches demonstrate multiple pathways into making art and analysing it. The book is organised by umbrella topics: fixed medium, live and sound art, within which each chapter discusses an example of the most common genres. Building on Landy’s extensive history of promoting sound-based art through insightful texts, this book is an impressive addition to his bibliography.”
Dr. Kerry Hagan, University of Limerick, President – International Computer Music Association

“This book goes far beyond sonic creativity. It is a definitive text for those of us who create music and teach sonic creativity. Written for a wider audience and with electroacoustic music at its core, it allows us not only to understand the full potential of creative listening to organised sound, but also to identify and appropriate the concepts and strategies that underlie the listening process. The practical application of the ideas of sonic creativity and the discussion of the influence of listening circumstances are framed by a set of diverse relevant examples. The contribution of this text also lies in the possibility of understanding the listening process as a creative act and thus generating a virtuous circle that informs how to teach and create sonic art and music today. This is one of the most interesting, useful and innovative books I have read in many years.”
Dr. Rodrigo Sigal, Director of the Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts, Full-time professor at ENES, UNAM. Mexico

"This is a book that opens new worlds of listening. Leigh Landy concentrates on perception, on hearing. In the case of a sound-based composition, analysis must take listening into account. The big step forward here is the confrontation of media-based listening (headphone listening on the bus, stereo in the living room, etc.) versus live performance. The situational nature of listening influences the perception of a piece of music enormously. Although, as he states, this is not a new insight, Landy systematically approaches this issue via case studies across highly different genres - including sound art - thus providing the reader with new insights into sound-based works. This extraordinary book broadens the musicological horizon greatly and is equally suitable for scholars, composers and the general public."

Prof. Dr. Martin Supper, University of the Arts – Berlin, author of Elektroakustische Musik und Computermusik