R. Murray Schafer's Books

My Life on Earth and Elsewhere

By: R. Murray Schafer

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My Life on Earth and Elsewhere

By: R. Murray Schafer

Music is central to many of R. Murray Schafer’s memories. ‘One of the sounds that I’d almost forgotten until I began to write this chronicle was the tinkling of the piano keys when my mother used to wipe them with a wet cloth,’ he writes. ‘In the early years the high and low keys would be passed over quite quickly while the middle notes got the heavy scrubbing.’ The detail of this small, nearly-forgotten childhood memory is a poignant example of the way sounds can remain present in the imagination even when they are originated in the distant past. Schafer recounts childhood summers spent in Manitoba lassoing gophers (and being paid two cents a head for them) and a music education marked by his cheerful but total resistance to the conventional instruction that was available. His youthful travels in Germany, France, Austria, Italy and Eastern Europe are recreated in a lively, impressionist style with plenty of comic and melancholy stories gleaned from his diaries of the time, including an account of a folk music convention in Communist Romania (which he attended with imaginative but shaky credentials identifying him as a representative of the CBC, The Globe and Mail, the University of Toronto Press and even the Kiwanis Club). The conference proving dull, Schafer eluded the government minders and took an unauthorized trip to see a girl he had met on the train, and despite knowing nothing of the language spent an idyllic few days with her at her parents’ remote village -- while the police questioned every young man with a beard in the area of Bucharest in a fruitless search for the suspected ‘spy.’ On his return to Canada, teaching assignments took him first to Newfoundland, then to Vancouver, where he created the World Soundscape Project. In 1975 Schafer resigned from university teaching and for many years has devoted himself full time to writing and composing. My Life on Earth and Elsewhere continues the story of his domestic and international musical adventures up to the present day.

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Page Count

284

Publisher

The Porcupine's Quill

Published Date

ISBN 10

1123669082

ISBN 13

9781123669084

The Soundscape

Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

By: R. Murray Schafer

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The Soundscape

Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

By: R. Murray Schafer

The soundscape--a term coined by the author--is our sonic environment, the ever-present array of noises with which we all live. Beginning with the primordial sounds of nature, we have experienced an ever-increasing complexity of our sonic surroundings. As civilization develops, new noises rise up around us: from the creaking wheel, the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer, and the distant chugging of steam trains to the “sound imperialism” of airports, city streets, and factories. The author contends that we now suffer from an overabundance of acoustic information and a proportionate diminishing of our ability to hear the nuances and subtleties of sound. Our task, he maintains, is to listen, analyze, and make distinctions. As a society we have become more aware of the toxic wastes that can enter our bodies through the air we breathe and the water we drink. In fact, the pollution of our sonic environment is no less real. Schafer emphasizes the importance of discerning the sounds that enrich and feed us and using them to create healthier environments. To this end, he explains how to classify sounds, appreciating their beauty or ugliness, and provides exercises and “soundwalks” to help us become more discriminating and sensitive to the sounds around us. This book is a pioneering exploration of our acoustic environment, past and present, and an attempt to imagine what it might become in the future.

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Page Count

323

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published Date

ISBN 10

1594776687

ISBN 13

9781594776687

E.T.A. Hoffman and Music

By: R. Murray Schafer

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E.T.A. Hoffman and Music

By: R. Murray Schafer

E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) was a man of diversified talents -- an artist, composer, conductor, critic, jurist, and writer. This book presents an over-all picture of romanticism in its incipient years.

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Page Count

220

Publisher

Heritage

Published Date

ISBN 10

1487582013

ISBN 13

9781487582012

Book's by R. Murray Schafer

My Life on Earth and Elsewhere

My Life on Earth and Elsewhere

The Soundscape

The Soundscape

E.T.A. Hoffman and Music

E.T.A. Hoffman and Music

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