Schafer contends that we suffer from an overabundance of acoustic information, and explores ways to restore our ability to hear the nuances of sounds around us.

In this intimate meditation on listening, Peter Szendy examines what the role of the listener is, and has been, through the centuries. The role of the composer is clear, as is the role of the musician, but where exactly does the listener stand in relation to the music's/he listens to? What is the responsibility of the listener? Does a listener have any rights, as the author and composer have copyright? Szendy explains his love of musical arrangement (since arrangements allow him to listen to someone listening to music), and wonders whether it is possible in other ways to convey to others how we ourselves listen to music. How can we share our actual hearing with others? Along the way, he examines the evolution of copyright laws as applied to musical works and takes us into the courtroom to examine different debates on what we are and aren't allowed to listen to, and to witness the fine line between musical borrowing and outright plagiarism. Finally, he examines the recent phenomenon of DJs and digital compilations, and wonders how technology has affected our habits of listening and has changed listening from a passive exercise to an active one, whereby one can jump from track to track or play only selected pieces.

In prehistoric caves, drummers used natural acoustics to recreate natural sound. In classical Europe, orators turned the human voice into a lyrical instrument. In Buddhist temples, the icons' ears were exaggerated to represent their spiritual power. And in modern metropolises we are battered by the roar of sound that surrounds us.
In the first narrative history of the subject which puts humans at its centre, and coinciding with the author's major Radio 4 series on the same subject, acclaimed historian David Hendy describes the history of noise - which is also the history of listening. As he puts it himself: 'By thinking about sound and listening, I want to get closer to what it felt like to live in the past or be caught up in the major events of history. The book is a chance for readers to discover more of the personal and social background to those stories featured in the radio series.'
This unusual book reveals fascinating changes in how we have understood our fellow human humans and the world around us. For although we might see ourselves inhabiting a visual world, our lives are shaped by our need to hear and be heard.

Intervenes in contemporary debates about the relationship between literature and field recordingA field recording is any audio recording made outside of the studio. Such recordings have lately become important to contemporary musicians, sound artists and environmentalists. However, less attention has been given to the relation of sound, as manifested in the theory and practice of the field recording, to writing. The 11 essays collected here take the recent explosion of interest in field recording as the point of departure for an investigation of the sounded field in music and its relationship to literature and writing. Including seminal pieces on field thinking by John Berger and Lisa Robertson, 'Writing the Field Recording' analyses contemporary text scores, histories, composer statements, critical literature, poetry and nature writing in the context of sound studies. Drawing on expertise from a range of backgrounds, including composers, musicians, poets and critics, the collection presents an inter-disciplinary exploration of the various registers in which the field recording is written, such as the essayistic, the creatively exploratory, the experimental and the philosophical alongside critical reflections on artistic practice.Key FeaturesFocuses on sound in relation to poetry, poetics and nature / landscape writingIncludes contributions from published poets Lisa Robertson, Carol Watts and Jonathan SkinnerIncludes the classic essay, 'Field', by John BergerAccompanying sound recordings made accessible via the Resources tab on the Edinburgh University Press website

From Edison’s invention of the phonograph through contemporary field recording and sound installation, artists have become attracted to those domains against which music has always defined itself: noise, silence, and environmental sound. Christoph Cox argues that these developments in the sonic arts are not only aesthetically but also philosophically significant, revealing sound to be a continuous material flow to which human expressions contribute but which precedes and exceeds those expressions. Cox shows how, over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, philosophers and sonic artists have explored this “sonic flux.”
Through the philosophical analysis of works by John Cage, Maryanne Amacher, Max Neuhaus, Christian Marclay, and many others, Sonic Flux contributes to the development of a materialist metaphysics and poses a challenge to the prevailing positions in cultural theory, proposing a realist and materialist aesthetics able to account not only for sonic art but for artistic production in general.

"Bathurst is a restless, curious writer… After reading this book, I found myself listening in a richer and more interested way." — GuardianA profound, beautifully written exploration of sound by a young woman who lost her hearing, then regained it.In this surprising and moving book, award-winning writer Bella Bathurst shares the extraordinary true story of how she lost her hearing and eventually regained it and what she learned from her twelve years of deafness. Diving into a wide-ranging exploration of silence and noise, she interviews psychologists, ear surgeons, and professors to uncover fascinating insights about the science of sound. But she also speaks with ordinary people who are deaf or have lost their hearing, including musicians, war veterans, and factory workers, to offer a perceptive, thought-provoking look at what sound means to us.If sight gives us the world, then hearing―or our ability to listen―gives us our connections with other people. But, as this smart, funny, and profoundly honest examination reveals, our relationship with sound is both more personal and far more complex than we might expect.

这是对在作品中使用field recording （田野录音，或实地录音）的当代声音艺术家的采访集。Field recording从早期作为记录野生动物的声音和民族志研究的方式，在过去的几十年里，已经延伸到各类实践。创作者、研究者们通过录音这种媒介，去探索和调研生活环境的各个方面，从微观视角到全景式的观察。这些对话探讨了作为声音艺术家们活动核心的field recording发展背后的基本问题。 反复出现的主题包括early motivations,
aesthetic preferences, the audible presence of the recordist and the nature of the field.
受访艺术家：Andrea Polli, Annea Lockwood, Antye Greie, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Christina Kubisch, Davide Tidoni, Felicity Ford, Francisco López, Hildegard Westerkamp, Hiroki Sasajima, Ian Rawes, Jana Winderen, Jez riley French, Lasse-Marc Riek, Manuela Barile, Peter Cusack, Steven Feld and Viv Corringham.