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Experimental Music and Japanese Aesthetics

Silence, Nature, and Hollow Listening

Experimental Music and Japanese Aesthetics cover

Experimental Music and Japanese Aesthetics

Silence, Nature, and Hollow Listening

Quantity
Pre-order. Available Aug 20 2026
$22.45 RRP $24.95 Website price saving $2.50 (10%)

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Description

A rich, interdisciplinary exploration of music through Japanese aesthetics that calls for a new way to think about nature and the role of silence.

The art, aesthetics, and philosophies of medieval Japan and its contemporary Kyoto School lie at the centre of this book. Daryl Jamieson applies East Asian aesthetics, rooted in nature and ways of being that are very different from those of late-capitalist subjects, to critique contemporary experimental music from both Japan and the western world.

Introducing the unique features of Japanese aesthetics, Jamieson connects it to the North American music tradition that includes John Cage and his deep interest in Zen and Fluxus artists such as Yoko Ono. His original interpretation of sound constructs a new way of being in the world, showing how we can cultivate a more ethical way of hearing which is grounded in our environment.

This is a treatise for an aesthetics grounded in Buddhism and a music based on the ethics of respect for the environment. For anyone interested in cross-cultural interpretations of art and reality, it tells us why listening to difficult, challenging and obscure music matters in our present era of crises.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Semiotics and soteriology of sound in the Capitalocene
1. No Sound: On Silences
2. Ueda and the Hollow Expanse
3. Shunzei and Nature/Culture Palimpsests
4. Fiction and Non-fiction in Field Recording
5. Soundwalking
6. Zenchiku and the Promise of Non-Anthropocentric Art
7. Future Silences
Afterwords
Bibliography
Index

Product details

Bloomsbury Academic Test
Published Aug 20 2026
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 224
ISBN 9781350549036
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions 9 x 5 inches
Series Bloomsbury Introductions to World Philosophies
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Daryl Jamieson

Daryl Jamieson is Assistant Professor of Compositi…

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