Hum of the World

Lawrence Kramer, Distinguished Professor of English and Music at Fordham University, is an award-winning composer and the author of fifteen previous books including The Thought of Music, winner of the 2017 ASACP Virgil Thomson Award for Outstanding Music Criticism.

"Summing Up: Recommended."

• PreludeSound and KnowledgeThe Audiable: An IntroductionSome LeitmotifsThe Standard of VisionA Philosophy of Listening?Constructive DescriptionSight, Sound, and LanguageThe Sound of WordsSeeing, Saying, and HearingThe Audiable: Variations on a ThemeMusic in the Air“No Sound without Music”Language and the HumanLord Bacon’s EchoesRipple Effects: Distant VoicesThe Infinite BroadcastImmanenceReading Transfigured: St. AugustineTo the Life: The ImageMoving PicturesModern Times: The CartoonThe Sound of MeaningMusic and the Audiable: A Suite in Three MovementsPlato’s Singing SchoolMusical SynesthesiaThe Music of LanguageThe SoundscapeSongNoise and SilenceFish, Flesh, or FowlSensory Hybrids“Waiting to Be the Music”Circle SongsForty-Part MotetsThe EtherElemental MediaElemental FluidsWriting the SoundscapeHaunting MelodiesThe Lifelike: The UndeadBeyond Words? 1The Audiable and the AudibleInto SilenceEnchantments of the NameThe InaudibleOn Saying “I am”The ShriekMetalHere Comes That Song AgainThe Mirror of SilenceRhythmic HearingMedia All the Way DownThe Auditory WindowCacophony: Dispossession (Beckett)Euphony: Repossession (Beckett)Worldly DissonanceSounds of Battle: The Civil WarSounds of Battle: World War IUlysses in AuschwitzIntermezzoSounding BodiesPandemonium?Songs of EntropyBy HandPast and PresentConsciousnessAcknowledgmentsIndex