Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays

How does sound ecology—an acoustic connective tissue among communities—also become a basis for a healthy economy and a just community? Jeff Todd Titon's lived experiences shed light on the power of song, the ecology of musical cultures, and even cultural sustainability and resilience. In Toward a Sound Ecology, Titon's collected essays address his growing concerns with people making music, holistic ecological approaches to music, and sacred transformations of sound. Titon also demonstrates how to conduct socially responsible fieldwork and compose engaging and accessible ethnography that speaks to a diverse readership. Toward a Sound Ecology is an anthology of Titon's key writings, which are situated chronologically within three particular areas of interest: fieldwork, cultural and musical sustainability, and sound ecology. According to Titon—a foundational figure in folklore and ethnomusicology—a re-orientation away from a world of texts and objects and toward a world of sound connections will reveal the basis of a universal kinship.

Table of Contents:
Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction I. Field Work: Folklore and Ethnomusicology 1. The Life Story 2. Ethnomusicology as the Study of People Making Music 3. Text 4. Knowing Fieldwork 5. Applied Ethnomusicology: A Descriptive and Historical Account II: Cultural and Musical Sustainability 6. 'The Real Thing': Tourism, Authenticity, and Pilgrimage among the Old Regular Baptists at the 1997 Smithsonian Folklife Festival 7. Music and Sustainability: An Ecological Viewpoint 8. Sustainability, Resilience, Adaptive Management, and Applied Ethnomusicology III: Toward a Sound Ecology 9. A Sound Commons for All Living Creatures 10. The Nature of Ecomusicology 11. Thoreau's Ear 12. The Sound of Climate Change 13. Sustainability and a Sound Ecology Notes References Selected List of Publications by Jeff Todd Titon Index

About the Author :
Jeff Todd Titon is Professor of Music, Emeritus, at Brown University. He has been active professionally both in folklore and ethnomusicology for more than 45 years. He is known for developing and practicing collaborative ethnographic field research based in reciprocity and friendship, for pioneering an applied ethnomusicology based in social responsibility, for his 1984 proposal that musical cultures could be understood as ecosystems, and for developing an ecological approach to cultural and musical sustainability.

Review :
Toward a Sound Ecology places many of Titon's key writings that were foundational to the development of ethnomusicology, as well as the subfield of ecomusicology, and continue to influence the field in one location where they can be in dialogue with one another. The reader can trace the trajectory of Titon's intellectual contributions to the discipline and his work with his fieldwork communities through the volume's clear chronological organization and thematic groupings. - Kate Galloway, Wesleyan University Titon is unquestionably one of the more important ethnomusicologists of the 20th century, providing leadership and direction in the field as it navigates and develops along various axes of inquiry. . . . Toward a Sound Ecology is a welcome contribution to the field of ethnomusicology and a valuable resource. - David A. McDonald, Indiana University Toward a Sound Ecology offers not only a retrospective on shifting thought in ethnomusicology throughout the length of Titon's career but also suggestions about where it may go in the future. Titon's book is a fascinating character study that shows the evolution of his thinking, situated within real-world ethnographic and biographical specifics, and proposes future expansions for the field in its current state. Each of the essays can be excerpted and used out of context for a variety of purposes, but the book as a whole serves as an excellent refresher on the field as a whole, as well as a suggestion of what it may soon become. - Julianne Graper (Journal of Folklore Research)