Music Deconstruction

Looking into sonic cultures to research, I reflected on one of my previous blog posts about Believer, Smerz (2021), and the element of deconstructing sound. In deconstructing music, the artist is (basically) giving permission to the listener to question how and why the piece is deconstructed, and more importantly what is left to construct? Jaques Derrida can be looked to in order to see the philosophy behind this practice and how it has an infinite range of use. ‘Deconstruction can be thought of as a reading and writing strategy that takes notice of traces of the other, of the unthought, the invisible, the unheard without absorbing, assimilating or reducing it to the same.’ (Cobussen, 2018) This idea of emphasizing the listener to interpret sonic elements is something that I showed strong interest in at the end of 2020 with my piece Midheaven, where I let the viewer interpret the environment through sonic elements. Whereas in deconstruction, ‘To present deconstruction as if it were a method, a system or a settled body of ideas would be to falsify its nature and lay oneself open to charges of reductive misunderstanding’ (Norris, 1982,). It is both a structuralist and post-structuralist practice. and Though deconstructive music is a fluid practice, the minimalism that hides the vast nature behind a deconstructed piece is something that piques my interest and I am curious to incorporate it in the future. 

Cobussen, Marcel. “Deconstruction in Music : Deconstruction: Between Method and Singularity.” Www.deconstruction-In-Music.com, 2002, www.deconstruction-in-music.com/deconstruction/deconstruction-between-method-and-singularity/230. 

Sunarto, Dr. “Deconstruction in Music.” Aesthetics Philosophy, 9 Oct. 2018, sunartofilsuf.wordpress.com/2018/10/09/deconstruction-in-music/.

—. “Deconstruction | Criticism.” Encyclopædia Britannica, 27 Sept. 2018, www.britannica.com/topic/deconstruction.