Listening Bodies, Digital Production, and the Pursuit of Invigorated Sonic Experiences

Steph Ceraso will discuss her in-progress book project, Sounding Composition, Composing Sound, which re-imagines the teaching of listening in relation to digital media and multimodal experience. Drawing from the listening and composing practices of deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie, acoustic designers, and automotive acoustic engineers, Ceraso proposes an expansive, explicitly embodied listening pedagogy that is based on the concept of multimodal listening—attending to the sensory, material, and contextual aspects that comprise and shape a sonic event. Unlike ear-centric listening practices in which listeners’ main goal is to hear and interpret audible sound (often language), multimodal listening moves beyond the exclusively audible by emphasizing the ecological relationship between sound, bodies, and environments. In this talk, Ceraso will demonstrate how multimodal listening practices enable students to become more thoughtful, savvy consumers and producers of sound in digital composing environments and in their everyday lives.