The Animist Ear

For centuries American musicians have found creative agency and ethical empowerment through animist listening. Spirit invocations, imaginal soundscapes, and cosmic forces pervade the music of the free world—and most of all when that freedom is threatened. Artist and director of the American Museum of Paramusicology, Matt Marble leads this single-lecture class exploring animism as a technology of empathic listening and its indispensable role in the creative process and the American dream.

Drawing from archival research and comparative metaphysics, we will look at how American musicians have found creative agency, ethical orientation, and progressive praxis through animist listening across the centuries. We’ll examine and listen to various animist music cultures, from Native American dream songs and Shaker gift songs to 19th-century séance music, and 20th-century musical luminaries like Merceditas Valdes, Sun Ra, and Pauline Oliveros, noting how these animist musics navigated and challenged colonial forces. Across musical styles and metaphysical traditions,…