{"product_id":"9780226847696","title":"The Sound of Thinking : A Listener's Companion to Conceptual Music by Craig Dworkin","description":"\u003cp\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e PRE-ORDER NOW - Published: 30\/04\/2026 \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA lively compendium of musical practices and compositions that upend notions of creativity and expressivity while diversifying our sense of the musical canon.    ? An artist draws two octaves of pitches randomly from a hat, just enough to set each syllable of the dictionary definition of imprimer (to score, to print). Trawling the internet for cute videos of cats \"playing\" piano, an artist splices together a complete, note-perfect performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Opus 11. Half a century after the release of Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue, a jazz quintet spends months of focused practice to reproduce the original exactly. These performances share a common denominator: absolute fidelity to the outcome of a system. From Marcel Duchamp to Yoko Ono, Steve Reich to Sun Ra, The Sound of Thinking brings together a diverse array of musical or sonic works that are algorithmic, automatic, permutational, procedural, or otherwise structured in contrast to the creative expressivity typically associated with artistic production.    ? In twenty-six short essays, each keyed to a term that begins with a different letter of the alphabet, Dworkin discusses work composed or performed according to a predetermined rule, transforming artistic creation into a system running its course. The pieces detailed here, drawn from more than a century of musical experimentation, offer a fresh perspective on the history of innovative music by decoupling music from expression and by shunting creativity from the level of organizing sounds to the level of devising a system that can do the organizing. Not only does this book spotlight the critical role of music in twentieth-century conceptual art, but it also identifies previously overlooked links among diverse artists and movements.    ? ? \u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56367839412597,"sku":"9780226847696","price":92.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780226847696","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}