Between Air and Electricity

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Beyond the curtain: the "true nature" of microphones and loudspeakers
An empty stage: listening according to the Konzertreform
A concert at home: the invention of sound reproduction technologies
Storage of air pressure waves
Transportation of air pressure waves
Amplification of air pressure waves
Between air and electricity
A standard, almost perfect amplifier and loudspeaker
Microphones and loudspeakers: the musical instruments of our age?
The "true nature" of microphones and loudspeakers
2 reproducing â" supporting â" generating â" interacting: four approaches towards microphones and loudspeakers
Made for music: concepts on musical instruments
Violins, mixing desks and spoons
Piano lessons or a phonograph: how sound reproduction technologies entered the living room
The instrumental phonograph and the reproducing radio
Semantic acts of sound creation
Hearing voices through the noise: completely satisfactory recordings in 1902
Electricity, bodies and diaphragms
Reproducing: one sound system for all music
Supporting: the same sound but louder
Transparent technology
The record as a copy of the concert and the concert as a copy of the record
Generating: music without musical instruments
Interacting: resonance and resistance
3 The sound of microphones and loudspeakers
Acoustic feedback: an electro-mechanical oscillator
The tuning fork: an early sine wave generator
Transforming sound into a researchable object
Hermann von Helmholtz: tuning fork experiments
Hermann von Helmholtz: tuning forks reproduce human vowels
The tympanic principle and the tuning fork principle
Alexander Bell: metal rods reproduce sound
Alexander Bell: metal plates reproduce sound
Richard Eisenmann: an electric piano with tuning forks
George Dieckmann: a piano string oscillator
Bechstein-Siemens-Nernst-piano: piano, radio and gramophone through the same loudspeaker
4 movement, material and space: interacting with microphones and loudspeakers
Acoustic feedback: from mistake to music
MOVEMENT
Quintet by Hugh Davies: changing the distance between microphone and loudspeaker
Pendulum Music by Steve Reich: introducing silence
Bird and Person Dyning by Alvin Lucier: listening as a performative act
Green Piece by Anne Wellmer: interacting with another sound source
Mikrophonie I by Karlheinz Stockhausen: amplification only
Speaker Swinging by Gordon Monahan and Three Short Stories and an Apotheosis by Annea Lockwood: moving loudspeakers
MATERIAL
coffee making by Valerian Maly and 0'00'' by John Cage: everyday actions amplified
Inside Piano by Andrea Neumann: musical instruments and contact microphones
Apple Box Double by Pauline Oliveros and Shozyg by Hugh Davies: new instruments through amplification
Nodalings by Nicolas Collins: acoustic feedback through objects
Rainforest by David Tudor: every loudspeaker a different voice
Aptium by Lynn Pook, and Merzbow: the audible becomes feelable
SPACE
Music for piano with amplified sonorous vessels by Alvin Lucier: interaction between microphones and small spaces
Loudspeakers in brass instruments and focused loudspeakers: interaction between loudspeakers and small spaces
â¦..sofferte onde serene⦠and Guai ai gelidi mostri by Luigi Nono: interaction between loudspeakers and performance space
Acousmonium by Fran§ois Bayle: loudspeaker orchestras
Performances by Eliane Radigue and Der t¶nende See by Kirsten Reese: sound unified in space and dispersed in space
Audible EcoSystemics by Agostino Di Scipio: closing the acoustic feedback loop again
5 Composing with microphones and loudspeakers
Beyond musical instruments: a hybrid of approaches
The Edison tone tests: no difference
Nothing Is Real (Strawberry Fields Forever) by Alvin Lucier: a piano in a teapot
Windy Gong by Ute Wassermann: singing through the gong
snare drum pieces by Wolfgang Heiniger: invisible beating
tubes by Paul Craenen: musicians, dancers and technicians
Open Air Bach by Lara Stanic: speeding up a sonata
Resistances and resonances of microphones and loudspeakers
The future of microphones and loudspeakers: between air and electricity
Appendix
Biographies
Bibliography