Keywords in Sound
David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation, also published by Duke University Press.
Matt Sakakeeny is Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University, and the author of Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans, also published by Duke University Press.
David Novak is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation, also published by Duke University Press.
Matt Sakakeeny is Associate Professor of Music at Tulane University, and the author of Roll With It: Brass Bands in the Streets of New Orleans, also published by Duke University Press.
Echo is a faded facsimile of an original sound, a reflection of time passed. It invites a habit of listening that allows us not only to locate origin (temporally and spatially) but, more important, to test authenticity: how illustrative the sound was of the historical moment in which it was produced. The acoustic world in which echoes are generated after the original ring, bang, vocal moment—sound generally—is, inherently, a historical world. For this reason, historians, either consciously or unwittingly, think and write about echoes when analyzing sounds of the past.
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