Introduction

Questions of value might seem beyond the pale in cases of sound and music. Both are objects of immense accumulation, appreciation, exploration, and investment—not just for the human species but also among other species, and indeed the world. Sound simply is, its existence is inexhaustible, and remarkable things happen in and through it—end of story. Why, then, the question of value? Divesting sound and music from naive notions of intrinsic value, the essays here examine heterogeneous modalities by which sound and music produce value in and as history, politics, and ontology. In turn, the very question of what sound and music are—of what constitutes them, as well as what they constitute—is precisely what is at stake.