Edited Books by Friedlind Riedel
The Oxford Handbook of the Phenomenology of Music Cultures, 2024
A source of profound insights into human existence and the nature of lived experience, phenomenol... more A source of profound insights into human existence and the nature of lived experience, phenomenology is among the most influential intellectual movements of the last hundred years. The Oxford Handbook of the Phenomenology of Music Cultures brings ideas from the phenomenological tradition of Continental European philosophy into conversation with theoretical, ethnographic, and historical work from ethnomusicology, anthropology, sound studies, folklore studies, and allied disciplines to develop new perspectives on musical practices and auditory cultures. With sustained theoretical meditations and evocative ethnography, the book’s twenty-two chapters advance scholarship on topics at the heart of the study of music and culture today—from embodiment, atmosphere, and Indigenous ontologies to music’s capacity to reveal new possibilities of the person, the nature of virtuosity, issues in research methods, the role of memory, imagination, and states of consciousness in musical experience, and beyond. Thoroughly up-to-date, the handbook engages with both classical and contemporary phenomenology, as well as theoretical traditions that have drawn from it, such as affect theory or the German-language literature on cultural techniques. Together, these essays make major contributions to fundamental theory in the study of music and culture.
This book explores the atmospheric dimensions of music and sound. With multidisciplinary insight... more This book explores the atmospheric dimensions of music and sound. With multidisciplinary insights from music studies, sound studies, philosophy and media studies, chapters investigate music and sound as shared environmental feelings.
The contributions probe conceptual issues at the forefront of contemporary discussions on atmosphere and affect and extend the spatial and relational focus towards fundamentally temporal aspects of performance, process, timbre, resonance and immersion. Through examples from diverse musical traditions, the contributors pursue questions about music’s and sound’s capacity to imbue a situation with an ambient feeling and to modulate social collectives. In addition to original research, the volume features a first translation of an important text by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz, and a debate on affect and atmosphere between the philosophers Jan Slaby and Brian Massumi. This novel contribution to the field of music research provides a strong theoretical framework, as well as vibrant case studies, which will be invaluable reading for scholars and students of music, sound, aesthetics, media, anthropology and contemporary philosophy.
Handbook entries by Friedlind Riedel
Affective Societies: Key Concepts, 2019
Jan Slaby & Christian von Scheve, eds., (2019). Affective Societies: Key Concepts. New York: Rout... more Jan Slaby & Christian von Scheve, eds., (2019). Affective Societies: Key Concepts. New York: Routledge
Introductions by Friedlind Riedel
Music as Atmosphere. Collective Feelings and Affective Sounds, 2019
This book explores the atmospheric dimensions of music and sound. With multidisciplinary insights... more This book explores the atmospheric dimensions of music and sound. With multidisciplinary insights from music studies, sound studies, philosophy and media studies, chapters investigate music and sound as shared environmental feelings.
Articles by Friedlind Riedel
Lebenswelt, 2015
In this paper I offer critical attention to the notion of atmosphere in relation to music. By exp... more In this paper I offer critical attention to the notion of atmosphere in relation to music. By exploring the concept through the case study of the Closed Brethren worship services, I argue that atmosphere may provide analytical tools to explore the ineffable in ecclesial practices. Music, just as atmosphere, commonly occupies a realm of ineffability and undermines notions such as inside and outside, subject and object. For this reason I present music as a means of knowing the atmosphere. The first part of this paper points to the limits of an understanding of atmosphere as a constellation of things, as proposed by Gernot Böhme. In contrast to this, Hermann Schmitz conceptualises atmosphere as half-thing which suggests movement. By expanding on this point, I argue that it is not solely an effect of music to trigger movement but that music itself is movement. Hence I propose to methodologically approach atmospheres as movements. Consequently, in the second part of this paper I closely analyse two motions as they cohere in Closed Brethren worship services: first, becoming (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement on the level of the individual worshiper; secondly, territorialisation (Deleuze and Guattari), a movement of the atmosphere towards its solidification. Here music as atmosphere is not a system of moral signification but a generative power affording intimate processes of divine encounter, whilst producing affective denominational difference.
Chapters in ed Volumes by Friedlind Riedel
Atmosphere and Aesthetics. A Plural Perspective. ed. by Tonino Griffero & Marco Tededsci, 2019
Music as Atmosphere. Collective Feelings and Affective Sounds, 2019
Sounding out New Phenomenology through Music at China’s margins
Exploring Atmospheres Ethnographically. Sara Asu Schorer, Susanne B. Schmitt (Eds.). London: Rout... more Exploring Atmospheres Ethnographically. Sara Asu Schorer, Susanne B. Schmitt (Eds.). London: Routledge.
Reviews by Friedlind Riedel
Burma, Kipling and Western Music: the Riff from Mandalay
Ethnomusicology Forum , 2017
MacLachlan, Heather (2011) Burma's Pop Music Industry: Creators, Distributors, Censors. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
the world of music (new series), 2014
CfP by Friedlind Riedel
Whether sung or sampled, private or alien, composed, amplified, passed down, recorded or imagined... more Whether sung or sampled, private or alien, composed, amplified, passed down, recorded or imagined, music and sound are operative forces for shaping feelings. It seems that wherever music resounds, feelings or moods are likely to unfold as perhaps vague, but nonetheless intrusive and pervasive atmospheres. A recurrent radio-tune, a symphony, a jarring sound, a call for prayer, a soundtrack, a marching band or the hoot of an owl may all evoke, embody, radiate, alter, narrate, intensify, subvert or diffuse a situational atmosphere or Stimmung. In turn, the phenomenal spheres of music and sound have been key to the various philosophical genealogies of Stimmung, mood, or atmosphere theories. In this vein, German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz (1978, 2014) invokes music as evidence for his redefinition of feelings as atmospheres; Gernot Böhme (1995) mobilises the musical instrument as a prime example of his New Aesthetics of atmosphere; and Timothy Morton (2007) turns to timbre and tone to elaborate what he terms “ambient poetics”.
Despite these fertile intersections of music and atmosphere, music scholarship has often referred to phenomena of atmosphere or collective mood only in passing. This contrasts with contemporary sound studies, in which notions of atmosphere along with ambience and affect have gained currency to investigate music and sound as phenomena of space and place. This panel thus invites papers that advance and challenge existing concepts of atmosphere,Stimmung or mood through music and sound. We welcome in particular contributions that go beyond a notion of atmosphere, Stimmung or mood as spatial intensity, and that widen the focus to include performance, process, duration, dynamism, tension, timbre, resonance, or rhythm. Furthermore, this panel seeks to foster dialogue between the burgeoning anglophone scholarship on atmosphere as grounded in affect theory and germanophone notions of atmosphere that bear on New Phenomenology. Topics of interest might include, but are not limited to:
• Music and collective feelings
• Musical movement and feelings of being moved
• Stimmung, mood, atmosphere – conceptual continuities and differences
• Methodological implications of music as atmosphere, mood or Stimmung
• Modalities of listening in atmospheres
• Atmosphere and the musical furnishing of (religious) rituals
• Schmitz’ Atmosphere and Heidegger’s Stimmung
• Vagueness of atmosphere and the notion of the musical ineffable
• Music as affective force
• Diffuse meaningfulness versus musical meaning
• Timbre and tone
• Atmosphere theories as New-/Post-Phenomenology
• Music and/as environment
• Music, imagination, and felt presence
• Ontologies of music in relation to atmosphere
• Moods and modes
ATMOSPHÄRE | MUSIK. Werkstattgespräch mit Hermann Schmitz und Tonino Griffero. 20.-21. November 2014
BEWEGUNGSSUGGESTIONEN DER NEUEN PHÄNOMENOLOGIE IN DIE MUSIKWISSENSCHAFT (UND ZURÜCK?).
Im Rahm... more BEWEGUNGSSUGGESTIONEN DER NEUEN PHÄNOMENOLOGIE IN DIE MUSIKWISSENSCHAFT (UND ZURÜCK?).
Im Rahmen des Workshops sollen Sprechweisen über Musik erprobt werden, die im Sinne der Neuen Phänomenologie die unwillkürliche Lebenserfahrung in mit Musik durchdrungenen Situationen dem Begreifen zugänglicher machen, um so das musikalische „Betroffensein der Besinnung anzueignen“ (Schmitz 2009). Zentrale Begriffe der Neuen Phänomenologie wie solidarische Einleibung, Resonanz, Bewegungssuggestion, flächenlose Räume und Halbdinge werden von Hermann Schmitz entlang von Beispielen aus der Musik eingeführt. So schreibt Schmitz auch, Musik ergänze „als harmonische [Bewegungssuggestion] die rhythmischen Bewegungssuggestionen um tonale (Leittonspannung, Kadenz, Dissonanz mit Auflösungen usw.). […] Sie zeichnet durch Bewegungssuggestionen spezifische Bewegungen vor und fährt mit diesen als Tanz- oder Marschmusik den Menschen in die Glieder“ (ebd.). Doch nicht nur Musik im engeren Sinn, sondern auch „die massenpsychologischen Effekte rhythmischen Rufens, Trommelns und Klatschens“ stiften in ihren Bewegungssuggestionen leibliche Kommunikation (ebd.). Musik kann daher nicht auf einen etwaigen Notentext oder auf ihr akustisches Moment reduziert werden; vielmehr ist sie auf das eigenleibliche Spüren zu beziehen. So verstanden liegt Musik dem Konzept der Atmosphäre sehr nahe. Beiden spricht Hermann Schmitz dann etwa auch Halbdinglichkeit zu und verortet sie in flächenlosen Räumen. Diese Nähe ist jedoch nicht allein konzeptuell: Musik ruft Atmosphäre als räumlich ergossenes Gefühl hervor und lädt so gleichsam Situationen atmosphärisch auf. Dieser Nexus fordert ein reziprokes Nachdenken über Atmosphäre und Musik ein, das sowohl für das begriffliche Fassen von Atmosphären als auch von musikalischen Situationen gewinnbringend sein kann.
http://movingmusic.uni-goettingen.de/events/werkstattgesprach-mit-prof-hermann-schmitz/
Uploads
Edited Books by Friedlind Riedel
The contributions probe conceptual issues at the forefront of contemporary discussions on atmosphere and affect and extend the spatial and relational focus towards fundamentally temporal aspects of performance, process, timbre, resonance and immersion. Through examples from diverse musical traditions, the contributors pursue questions about music’s and sound’s capacity to imbue a situation with an ambient feeling and to modulate social collectives. In addition to original research, the volume features a first translation of an important text by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz, and a debate on affect and atmosphere between the philosophers Jan Slaby and Brian Massumi. This novel contribution to the field of music research provides a strong theoretical framework, as well as vibrant case studies, which will be invaluable reading for scholars and students of music, sound, aesthetics, media, anthropology and contemporary philosophy.
Handbook entries by Friedlind Riedel
Introductions by Friedlind Riedel
Articles by Friedlind Riedel
Chapters in ed Volumes by Friedlind Riedel
Reviews by Friedlind Riedel
CfP by Friedlind Riedel
Despite these fertile intersections of music and atmosphere, music scholarship has often referred to phenomena of atmosphere or collective mood only in passing. This contrasts with contemporary sound studies, in which notions of atmosphere along with ambience and affect have gained currency to investigate music and sound as phenomena of space and place. This panel thus invites papers that advance and challenge existing concepts of atmosphere,Stimmung or mood through music and sound. We welcome in particular contributions that go beyond a notion of atmosphere, Stimmung or mood as spatial intensity, and that widen the focus to include performance, process, duration, dynamism, tension, timbre, resonance, or rhythm. Furthermore, this panel seeks to foster dialogue between the burgeoning anglophone scholarship on atmosphere as grounded in affect theory and germanophone notions of atmosphere that bear on New Phenomenology. Topics of interest might include, but are not limited to:
• Music and collective feelings
• Musical movement and feelings of being moved
• Stimmung, mood, atmosphere – conceptual continuities and differences
• Methodological implications of music as atmosphere, mood or Stimmung
• Modalities of listening in atmospheres
• Atmosphere and the musical furnishing of (religious) rituals
• Schmitz’ Atmosphere and Heidegger’s Stimmung
• Vagueness of atmosphere and the notion of the musical ineffable
• Music as affective force
• Diffuse meaningfulness versus musical meaning
• Timbre and tone
• Atmosphere theories as New-/Post-Phenomenology
• Music and/as environment
• Music, imagination, and felt presence
• Ontologies of music in relation to atmosphere
• Moods and modes
Im Rahmen des Workshops sollen Sprechweisen über Musik erprobt werden, die im Sinne der Neuen Phänomenologie die unwillkürliche Lebenserfahrung in mit Musik durchdrungenen Situationen dem Begreifen zugänglicher machen, um so das musikalische „Betroffensein der Besinnung anzueignen“ (Schmitz 2009). Zentrale Begriffe der Neuen Phänomenologie wie solidarische Einleibung, Resonanz, Bewegungssuggestion, flächenlose Räume und Halbdinge werden von Hermann Schmitz entlang von Beispielen aus der Musik eingeführt. So schreibt Schmitz auch, Musik ergänze „als harmonische [Bewegungssuggestion] die rhythmischen Bewegungssuggestionen um tonale (Leittonspannung, Kadenz, Dissonanz mit Auflösungen usw.). […] Sie zeichnet durch Bewegungssuggestionen spezifische Bewegungen vor und fährt mit diesen als Tanz- oder Marschmusik den Menschen in die Glieder“ (ebd.). Doch nicht nur Musik im engeren Sinn, sondern auch „die massenpsychologischen Effekte rhythmischen Rufens, Trommelns und Klatschens“ stiften in ihren Bewegungssuggestionen leibliche Kommunikation (ebd.). Musik kann daher nicht auf einen etwaigen Notentext oder auf ihr akustisches Moment reduziert werden; vielmehr ist sie auf das eigenleibliche Spüren zu beziehen. So verstanden liegt Musik dem Konzept der Atmosphäre sehr nahe. Beiden spricht Hermann Schmitz dann etwa auch Halbdinglichkeit zu und verortet sie in flächenlosen Räumen. Diese Nähe ist jedoch nicht allein konzeptuell: Musik ruft Atmosphäre als räumlich ergossenes Gefühl hervor und lädt so gleichsam Situationen atmosphärisch auf. Dieser Nexus fordert ein reziprokes Nachdenken über Atmosphäre und Musik ein, das sowohl für das begriffliche Fassen von Atmosphären als auch von musikalischen Situationen gewinnbringend sein kann.
http://movingmusic.uni-goettingen.de/events/werkstattgesprach-mit-prof-hermann-schmitz/