Article

Listening to dissonance: Invoking a reflexive listening practice in researching musical experience

Helen O’Shea

Published in: Ethnomusicology Ireland 5 (2017)

Pages: 134-150 | Published Online: July 2017

https://doi.org/10.64208/EYIO8562

Abstract

The recent “sonic turn” in the human sciences has introduced new sets of questions and methodologies, foregrounding sound, hearing and listening and critiquing conventional ways of understanding them. In this article I examine theories of listening and trace the history of analytical listening practices, which aim to produce objective knowledge. I compare these with receptive listening practices, which aim for subjective understanding. I then examine seminal musical ethnographies in which encounters with dissonant sounds, social interactions and listening practices led to transformations in understanding musical experience. I conclude that a reflexive and open listening practice in fieldwork would precede, but not replace, analytical listening.

Keywords: Listening, phenomenology, fieldwork, methodology, epistemology, sound studies

Author: Helen O’Shea