An Entangled Language of Music and Nature: Exploring Musical Ecopoiesis

What does it mean for an ocean to be played like a drum? Could a dawn chorus be considered a form of orchestral music? How does one use sound to ‘paint an image’ of a mountain valley? An Entangled Language of Music and Nature: Exploring Musical Ecopoiesis will address questions such as these. I have devised the term musical ecopoiesis to refer to any creative process in music or sonic art that is informed, engendered, or otherwise inspired by the natural world. In musical practices that incorporate this approach, the poietic—or compositional—effort can be attributed to both human and more-than-human entities. Although the practice of musical ecopoiesis spans innumerable cultures and time periods, no generalised research framework exists that can disentangle its fundamental mechanisms. This dissertation and its accompanying portfolio of work seeks to address this, introducing a new practice-centric framework dedicated towards developing a holistic understanding of both the past and possible future of musical ecopoiesis.