Contemporary Music Review

ISSN: 0749-4467 (Print) 1477-2256 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gcmr20

Music and Ecology

Sabine Feisst

To cite this article: Sabine Feisst (2016): Music and Ecology, Contemporary Music Review, DOI:
10.1080/07494467.2016.1239383

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2016.1239383

Published online: 02 Nov 2016.

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Contemporary Music Review, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07494467.2016.1239383

INTRODUCTION
Music and Ecology
Sabine Feisst

Derived from the Greek οἶκος (house) and λογία (study of) and coined by biologist
Ernst Haeckel in 1869, ecology has become an increasingly popular concept and a buzz-
word in musical discourse over the last few decades. This comes as no surprise; ecolo-
gically motivated art dovetails public debates about environmental degradation, climate
change, and the growing desire for sustainable ecosystems. As is common in the huma-
nities, in music the scientific term ecology is understood and used in a broad sense,
reflecting, on the one hand, the idea of interconnections of organisms and their relation-
ship with inorganic components in a specific environment, and on the other hand, a
critical or activist attitude towards human impact on the environment.
Examples of ecologically inspired music abound throughout the centuries in both
non-Western and Western cultures, in rural and urban areas around the globe. In
the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Western composers from John Cage to
John Luther Adams have explicitly evoked ecology as a metaphor for some of their
works. In the late 1960s Cage announced: ‘Music, as I conceive it, is ecological. You
could go further and say that it IS ecology’ (Cage, 1981). For much of his compo-
sitional career, Adams has been ‘in search of an ecology of music, believing that
music can contribute to the awakening of our ecological understanding’ (Adams,
2009). In 2011 he won the Heinz Award in the Environment for creating innovative
works addressing environmental concerns. Since the late 1960s composers, including
Luc Ferrari, Maggi Payne, and Libby Larsen, as well as artists in the popular music
arena such as Pete Seeger, have created works that articulate environmental activism.
At the same time R. Murray Schafer, Hildegard Westerkamp, and Barry Truax among
other artists have explored acoustic ecology examining the sonic make-up of environ-
ments and pioneered acoustic communication and soundscape studies at Simon Fraser
University in Vancouver (Schafer, 1977). Yet others, including Pauline Oliveros and
Garth Paine, engaged in ecologically inspired performance and listening techniques,
creating site-specific music based on a profound engagement with place and many
hours of deep or whole-body listening (Paine, 2014).
Musicologists, in particular ethnomusicologists, have analysed music making
through the lens of ecology for several decades. Their scholarship has more recently
been classified as ecomusicology (conflating ecology and musicology), now a rapidly
growing field of interdisciplinary inquiry centring on the interrelationships between
music, culture, and nature, often using methods developed in literary ecocriticism.

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2 S. Feisst
Ecomusicology intersects with such other fields as sound studies, acoustics, bioacous-
tics, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, cultural studies, and environmental studies
and sciences. Pioneers in ecomusicology have looked at the sustainability of indigenous
music traditions threatened by environmental change, globalisation, and the Western
music industry (Feld, 1994, 1996). Influenced by Arne Naess’s concept of deep ecology,
Maria Anna Harley has called for critical studies of the relationship between human
music and the non-human sonic worlds (Harley, 1996). Ecomusicologists have com-
pared musical infrastructures to ecosystems (Archer, 1964; Boyle & Waterman, 2015;
Titon, 2009a, 2009b); explored how shortages of natural resources affect musical
instrument building (Dawe, 2015); and examined the carbon footprint of musicians
and music media (Devine, 2015). Ecomusicology is related to the so-called new musi-
cology which emerged in the 1970s as a reaction against positivistic music studies.
Building on sociology, postcolonial studies, feminism, race, gender, and queer the-
ories, new musicologists have shown that all music has political implications,
whether it is overtly activist or not and have engaged in activist scholarship
(McClary 1991; Sudbury & Okazawa-Rey, 2009). Similarly ecomusicologists have
drawn attention to music’s eco-political implications and to musicians devoted to
environmental activism in an attempt to engender ecological awareness.
This issue offers contributions from scholars and artists who for many years have
explored music and ecology in their research and creative activities. It will shed light
on this topic from different perspectives. In her essay, musicologist Denise Von
Glahn discusses the concept of ‘sacred place’ as manifested in the music of Minne-
sota-based composer Libby Larsen and offers close readings of two ecologically
inspired compositions: In a Winter Garden and Up Where the Air Gets Thin. Keenly
attuned to her natural surroundings, Larsen has drawn attention to environmental
degradation in many of her works. In my article, I will elaborate on musical represen-
tations of deserts in the American Southwest and focus on three provocative musical
mediations of Southwestern locales by Californian composer and desert dweller Maggi
Payne: Airwaves (realities), Desertscapes, and Apparent Horizon. I will argue that these
compositions are examples of gentle environmental activism. Ethnomusicologist, per-
former, and improviser Ellen Waterman shifts the attention to ecologically inspired
performance, featuring Western Front’s 2014 Music from the New Wilderness
concert. In her performance ethnography, she examines how the artists came to
terms with the complex concept of wilderness in their creative exploration of British
Columbia’s geopolitical and environmental history. Finally, composer, performer,
improviser, and scholar Garth Paine deliberates new perspectives in acoustic
ecology. He outlines a somatic approach to listening which involves the whole body
and which has led him to the proposal of an acoustic ecology 2.0. Such an upgraded
direction would focus on the development of new acoustic ecology tools and strategies
to engage large and diverse communities in environmental stewardship and would
initiate the rethinking and redesign of existing industrial and urban sound sources
whose sounds may consciously or not interfere with the well-being of human and
non-human species.
 Contemporary Music Review 3
The goal here is not to cover the topic of music and ecology in all its facets, but to
present a variety of ecomusicological discussions and research angles whilst offering
fresh insight into contemporary music practices.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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