S4E5: Animal Music with Martin Ullrich
In this episode Claudia talks to musicologist Martin Ullrich about animals and music. Together they touch on the multiple ways in which music and animals intersect from how animals inspire human music, to how animals make and listen to music, and the ethics of more-than-human musical encounters. They find that the focus on animals and music destabilizes anthropocentric understandings of both culture and aesthetics.
Martin Ullrich studied piano in Frankfurt and Berlin as well as music theory in Berlin too. He received his PhD in musicology in 2005. His main research area is sound and music in the context of more-than-human aesthetics (nonhuman animals and music, artificial intelligence and music), with an emphasis on human-animal studies. He has presented and chaired at international conferences and has published on animal music and the relationship between animal sounds and human music. Martin was a professor for music theory at Berlin University of the Arts from 2005 to 2009 and the president of Nuremberg University of Music from 2009 to 2017. Since 2017, he has worked as a professor for interdisciplinary musicology and human-animal studies at Nuremberg University of Music. You can connect with Martin and the Group via Facebook and Twitter (@MResearchHAS).
Mentioned:
Human-Elephant Encounters in Music by Martin Ullrich;
Animal Music: David Rothenberg, Dario Martinelli, and Martin Ullrich Exchange Their Views on the Topic Minding Animals: Studies and Research Contributions by Jessica Ullrich;
The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, people and significant otherness by Donna Haraway;
The Critical Posthumanities; Or, Is Medianatures to Naturecultures as Zoe Is to Bios? by Rosi Braidotti;
Piano for Elephants by Paul Barton on Youtube;
The War Against Animals by Dinesh Wadiwell;
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness by Peter Godfrey-Smith;
How Musical are Animals by Hollis Taylor;
Sound files: Old Forest in Spring
Woodland in Late Spring; Piano trio in C minor op.1 no.3 / Beethoven (1905) from the British Library;
Traffic and phone clips taken from Free Sound Effects.
"This kind of nature aesthetics has particular cultural relevance in the Anthropocene. Following the work of Vinciane Despret (2012), one might argue that if zoömusicologists are successful in making animals interesting, people will be more interested in them. A number of authors observe that the climate crisis and decrease in the planet’s biodiversity are as much cultural as scientific in nature, with climate contrarians’ distrust mounting as scientific consensus solidifies. In this situation, facts are not enough to change human attitudes, behaviors, and institutions, but spaces energized by animal music do enjoy such potential. Understanding that the success of a performance to deliver an environmental message and inspire change is not automatic, zoömusicologists are nonetheless ideally placed at this time to produce works that function in terms of artistic quality, while also being relevant—ecologically, ethically, and even politically" - Hollis Taylor (2020), How Musical Ate Animals
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Thank you to Animals in Philosophy, Politics, Law and Ethics (A.P.P.L.E) for sponsoring this podcast; the Sonic Arts Studio and the Sonic Arts of Place Laboratory (SAPLab) for sponsoring this season; Gordon Clarke (Instagram: @_con_sol_) for the bed music, Jeremy John (Website) for the logo, and Hannah Hunter for the Animal Highlight