Beyond Listening: The Hidden Ways Sound Affects Us (Michael Heller)

There are sonic experiences that can’t be contained by the word “listening.” Moments when sound overpowers us. When sound is sensed more in our bodies than in our ears. When sound engages in crosstalk with our other senses. Or when it affects us by being inaudible. Dr. Michael Heller’s new book Just Beyond Listening: Essays of Sonic Encounter (2023, U of California Press) uses affect theory to open up these moments. In this conclusion to our miniseries on sound and affect, we explore topics such as the measurement and perception of loudness, the invention of sonar and the anechoic chamber, and Heller’s critique of the politics of silence in the work of John Cage. This interview was a blast–Michael is a great storyteller and we had a lot of laughs. Dr. Michael Heller is a musicologist, ethnomusicologist, and a jazz scholar. This fall he will join the musicology faculty of Brandeis University as an Associate Professor, after working for ten years at the University of Pittsburgh. Michael’s love for music began with playing saxophone in his youth, but his path took an academic turn during college at Columbia University. There, he dove deep into jazz history while working at WKCR radio under the mentorship of legendary programmer Phil Schaap.Michael’s scholarly pursuits were further shaped by his work with the Vision Festival, an avant-garde jazz festival in New York. Inspired by the experimental musicians he met there, he wrote his first book, Loft Jazz: Improvising New York in the 1970s (2017, UC Press), documenting the 1970s scene where adventurous artists staged performances in old factory spaces. Through his immersion in these innovative communities, Michael developed a keen interest in the borderlands between music and sound. Just Beyond Listening pushes out into the borderlands of sound itself, using affect theory to probe how sound is perceived in other parts of the body, how sound interacts with written text, how it’s weaponized by the military, and how it can haunt us in mediated form.To hear the extended version of this interview, including a segment on Louis Armstrong and Miachel’s “What’s Good” recommendations, sign up for a free or paid Patreon membership at patreon.com/phantompower.See also: Part One of this miniseries on sound and affect: Noise and Affect Theory (Marie Thompson).Mack’s own audio essay on John Cage and the anechoic chamber.TranscriptMack Hagood  00:00 Hey, everyone, it’s Mack. Before we get started, I have a quick request. I am going up for full professor and this podcast is going to be a part of my argument that I’ve been making a scholarly contribution to my field. And part of that argument will be that people are using this podcast in the classroom. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they use episodes of this show in their classes.  I’m asking right now, if you could just send me a quick email if you are such a person who uses Phantom Power in any kind of educational setting to teach anything to anyone as a kind of homework or what have you. If you could just send me a quick email. Let me know any details. You’re willing to share your name, your university’s name, the name of the class, You know, maybe how many years you’ve used it, as few or as many details as you’d care to share, I would be so grateful if you could just take that time. I know everyone’s super busy.  But it would be great for me to have that information. As I go up for full professor.