11

Music and Non-Human Agency

Bernd Brabec de Mori

A well-known definition of music states that what we understand with this term may be subsumed
under "humanly organized sound:' This was formulated by John Blacking (1973, 3) in his cele-
brated book How Musical is Man? His proposal, however, was not uncontested, and many authors
have tried to complement, contradict, or reaffirm this idea of how the phenomenon music could
be framed. What is of interest here is the adverb humanly, because it limits musical action and
appreciation ofprocesses that are essentially human, thereby excluding non-human agency. In this
chapter, I will explore how far "the human" can be essentialized in relation to music and in which
sense agency beyond the human could be, or even has to be, acknowledged within this context. '
One restraint, however, must be made explicit up front: In order to judge if, for example, a mock-
ingbird or machines with artificial intelligence are able to create or understand "music:' we would
need a valid definition of what "music" is. As long as this is not defined-if it can be defined at all,
which I doubt-it is only possible to describe if non-human entities are able to produce and/or
recognize sonic patterns that possess characteristics of what is generally subsumed under "musical"
in a (Western!) human sense.'
In artistic contexts, the involvement of such sources from beyond the human realm is common. .
For example, Blackfoot people may tell the researcher that their songs come from the guardian
spirits (NettI2010, 221), or it is a deity who sings through a Warao healer's mouth (Olsen 1996,
169). Also in Western art music, divine (or other) inspiration is often mentioned as the ultimate
source of a work of music. For example, in an interview with Johannes Brahms conducted by Abell
(1981 [1955]), Brahms tells the author about establishing a direct connection to God during a medi-
tative state he achieved while composing. Hence it would be God who was actually composing while
the composer would retreat to the rather simple duty of notating what he received through this
inspiration. Or, for a newer case, in his film 20,000 Days on Earth, Nick Cave (Forsyth et al. 2014)
says that his music depends on his mood and his mood depends on the weather, and, conversely,
the weather depends on his mood (however, Cave humorously explains that he cannot control
the weather because he cannot control his moods). Consequently, the weather would-in direct
interaction-be responsible for Nick Cave's music, or at least for the moods communicated in his
songs. Although indigenous people seem to often abandon their traditional religions, the veridity
of Abell's conversation with Brahms is doubted, and Nick Cave's remark bears the characteristics
of a moody provocation by a rock musician, these examples show that inspiration is a topic open

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for vast speculation and artistic play, and is still far from being easily explained by scientific means
(see e.g. Drago and Finney 2013).
As the term indicates, inspiration refers to something from the outside going inside; an external
source that causes creative attitude inside a human mind:

Superficially, inspiration implies something outside the person, whether it is projected or

not. My view of my inspiration is external; my view of my creativity is internal. We imply
this in calling creativity an "innate gift:' So the difference between the two ideas, inspira-
tion and creativity, is that on the surface at least inspiration is objective and creativity is a
subjective matter. I am inspired by this, that or the other. Of course on close inspection the
external inspiration is usually revealed as a projected inner energy. But broadly speaking
and as a starting point we could say that inspiration comes from outside in, and creativity
comes from inside out.
(Deliege and Harvey 2006)

Usually, today, this is considered as a unidirectional flow of information, and agency is

understood to reside with the creating individual. For example, if a composer is inspired by
an impressive landscape or by the cruelty of some specific battle, the composer is still the
creative agent who actively perceives the landscape or acts of cruelty and transforms these
impressions into musical expressions. Therefore, in current public discourse, a human author
or composer can be (and has to be for copyright laws) attributed to any musical piece, despite
some difficulties with "tradition als," However, the separation of an "outside inspiration" and
an "interior creativity" is ultimately connected to what Descola (2005) calls the naturalistic
ontology, to a conceptual bifurcation! between the outside, unintentional nature, and the inte-
rior, intentional, and human culture. Among many indigenous or traditional, as well as some
New Age communities, this bifurcation is not made. Descola calls such ontologies "an imic,"
"analogic," and "totemic," where physicality and interiority are conceptualized differently
from modern scientific thought, which is grounded in naturalistic ontology. This means that
among many communities on Earth, a totally different approach to creativity and invention
has to be envisioned, an approach that is ethnographically grounded. By taking the position
of our research associates seriously, this approach acknowledges non-human actors as part
of, or even the source of, creativity in general and creating music in particular (see Brabec
de Mori 2016). I will expound on this subject in later sections of this chapter. Before that, I
wish to draw your attention to more tangible non-humans like animals and plants, but also
planets, artifacts and software.

"Musicologies" Beyond the Human

For animals, a considerable amount of research has already been undertaken.' Evidence is fairly
clear that certain animals, especially humpback whales and certain songbirds, are able to produce
and perceive sonic patterns that may carry meaning; and what is remarkable, meaning beyond
obvious signal or pseudo-linguistic character. This meaning can also be perceived, recognized,
and reproduced by animals of the same species. Differences in sound structures can be observed
between populations of these animals within a certain habitat compared to animals of the same
species who dwell elsewhere. This phenomenon strongly suggests something "cultural" occurring
within these species. Whether such utterances can be termed "music" is still open to debate. Sorce
Keller stresses that "Ethnomuslcologists do not need to be reminded that the point is not to main-
tain that non-human animals make 'music' in the same sense that Homo sapiens does. There are
 MUSIC AND NON-HUMAN AGENCY • 183

things that non-human animals apparently never do. [... T]he embedding of words in a melody,
following a metrical pattern, appears to be uniquely human" (2012, 176).
Going further, let us consider that many plants are also ableto produce sounds. Evidence ofthis,
for example, is found in acoustic emissions that can be recorded in order to diagnose dehydration
distress in certain plants (Nolf et al. 2015). This ability to emit sounds extends to sonic phenom-
ena beyond creaking in the wind: by manipulating cell membranes, or water containment in cells,
vibrations can be generated that transmit energy waves to the adjacent medium, that is, into air, or
soil. Usually these sounds are located beyond human hearing range, between 20 and 300 kHz, as
well as between 10 and 240 Hz, but at very low intensity, still inaudible for human ears (Gagliano
2013). Following this thread of research in plant behavior sciences, it is considered possible that
plants also perceive sonic events within a certain frequency range. Gagliano also suggests that
plants are able to communicate by the means of sonic interaction and dispose of cognitive facilities
to act and react within a surrounding soundscape. The sonic phenomena applied by plants could
have a certain signal character; but likewise one could interpret this communication channel as
musical, because plants seem to transmit information about their "mood" through nonverbal sonic
patterns. This area, however, is totally speculative still, and despite recent advances, little reliable
research is available.
Finally, some neo-platonic ideas of sphere harmonies, earth tones, and planet oscillations are
regarded musical among certain communities. Such ideas are present in somewhat esoteric appli-
cations of music, namely in what I call "informal music therapy" and related areas, as well as in
contemporary art music.' Within these groups of people, powerful agencies are often attributed to
earth tones or planet sounds. Such musical practices often yield powerful results for practitioners
and participants. Although explications sometimes contrast with scientific findings-Cousto
(1984), for example, renders planets' tones and related sonic derivations of astronomical number
ratios executable through brilliant intellectual analogisms-an ethnomusicology of New Age
musical practices has to acknowledge its research associates' ontological concepts and the validity
of their practice.
It may, in the preceding examples, remain unclear whether one is listening to a soundscape
present in a certain environment, or one is actually confronted with something "musical"
emerging from a potentially non-human source. To conclude this section, it is not so relevant
if animals, plants, or planets understand the sounds they produce as musical. They are evidently
able to emit something that, in the end can be interpreted as, or translated into, music. Various
definitions of music allow listeners to judge whether certain sonic phenomena are musical or
not. Soundscape art plays extensively with this possibility: Trafficsounds are commonly regarded
non-musical noise, disturbing, and probably unhealthy in everyday life. However, if the same
noise is recorded and played back in an artistic context, it may suddenly acquire characteristics
of music. This is undoubtedly the case for animal sounds, even plant sounds," and the emissions
of astronomical objects received with radio telescopes and transposed into audible frequency
range, when they are used in compositions and renderings that target a "music-expecting"
audience. R. Murray Schafer, with his influential Tuning of the World (1977), invited artists to
explore environmental sounds as something one may actively listen to and work with in order
to produce artwork that can definitely be regarded music. Long before that, recordlngs-i-and
before recordings became available, instrumental or vocal imitations-of bird song and other
non-human sounds were extensively used and implemented in musical compositions and
improvisations alike.
It is clear however, that in these cases, the "music" is made by human soundscapers, composers,
or musicians who make use of sound sources originating (in part) from the realm ofthe non-human.
Back to the beginning: That many non-human entities are apt to emit sounds is obvious. Whether
they are apt to produce (or in turn perceive) music is still open to debate.
184 • BERND BRABEC DE MORI

Technology

If animal, plant, traffic, and planet sounds are made into music by human actors or mediators,
much music that is understood as created by humans is actually mediated by musical instruments.
This leads us to the problem of technological actors , of possibly creative "beings of technology"
(Latour 2013). In classic actor-network theory (ANT),? any musical instrument could obtain the
role of a non-human actor or mediator. In ethnomusicology, some attempts have been under-
taken in order to gain insights into the active role of musical instruments. Jan Mrazek (2008), for
example, presents an analysis of the Thai xylophone ranaat eek and compares it with the Javanese
gambang, a xylophone very similar in construction. Mrazek's goal is to provide a comparative
phenomenology of the instruments in order to dethrone Hornbostel and Sachs's (1914) omni-
present classification system of musical instruments." By describing the construction of the ranaat
eek, how to learn to play it, the attitudes required from a successful player, as well as its ritual and
supernatural functions, he suggests treating instruments as individuals, or at least as things with a
certain "personality:' His work is not explicitly presented as an actor-network analysis but it uses
some of ANT's approaches and thus deserves mention. Eliot Bates finally makes his intention clear
when describing "The Social Life of Musical Instruments" (2012a). He however only scratches the
surface of ANT's possibilities when summarizing some important steps in constructing, selling
or giving, playing, and exhibiting long-necked lutes in the Middle East, especially the saz ? The
paper is a groundbreaking step, albeit lacking the arduous in-depth empirical dimension of classic
ANT in science and technology studies. In his paper "What Studios Do;' the same author (Bates
2012b) likewise flirts with ANT, highlighting the active roles recording studios play in Istanbul
and elsewhere. Bates intends to explain that music recorded in a given studio is marked by the
studio, because musicians have to implement what the studio provides or requires in order to
be "played." P. Allen Roda (2014) uses ANT in his in-depth study of the Indian drum set tabla,
focusing on the process of customized tuning of the instrument in the workshop during the
process of selling, thus highlighting the influence that changes on an instrument influences the
music that is played on it.
Other kinds of musical instruments have appeared since the mid- twentieth century,when electron-
icallycreated sequences of sounds were initially applied in music composition. This resulted in newly
developed instruments whose properties (or agencies) shaped entire styles and musical cultures-for
example, the electric guitar or the Moog synthesizer. Consequently, electronic devices today facilitate
truly non -human generation of music. With rapid advances in computer sciences and applications,
it became possible to further develop the initially used random number series into series that follow
given sets of rules that can also be learned by machines . Neural networks are not only able to generate
data series for sonification, but rather to interpret random inspiration through a learned set of rules in
order to create melodic-rhythmic structures that are undoubtedly recognized as musical by the vast
majority of human listeners (see for example the "chaotic inspiration algorithm" developed by Coca
et al. 2013). If the process of musical composition is mainly performed through a transformation
of inspiration (data obtained through input, e.g. of a certain landscape or war-time acts of cruelty)
into melodic-rhythmic structures following a certain set of rules, non-human machines are today
able to compose music. Visual information, like the colors or outlines of a mountain, or numerics
like the estimated ratio of deaths per time unit occurring during the battles of Verdun, may serve as
inspiration for human composers or machines alike.
Again, it is popular to play with such topics in artistic approaches. I only have to listen to
the left and the right of my office to notice that contemporary composers are creating musical
projects around computer aided and computer created music. For example, a recent performance
at the institute of electronic music and acoustics at the University of Music and Performing
Arts Graz presented Eiiypothese de l'Atome Primitif Sonore for digitalfeedback with live elec-
tronics by Stelios Gagliardi, with computer generated sounds based on cosmological data (the
 MUSIC AND NON-HUMAN AGENCY • 185

"Big Bang") in interaction with a human life performer. At the same time, Viennese composer
Johannes Kretz developed his Turing Testfor Dancers-the essential part of the performance
was the task given to human dancers, to convince the audience that they are interacting with
an avatar projection of another human dancer instead of a machine generated avatar. These
are just two random examples from my own close vicinity that underline that the ambiguity
of human and machine capabilities in creating contemporary music is at the core of today's
musical creativity in post-modern societies.
Furthermore, the music and sound effects a computer game player hears are in some cases
mediated by another kind of interface: In many contemporary games, sound is created when the
player interacts with the gameworld environment in certain ways (Grimshaw et al. 2013) . Hence
what the player hears is not pre-composed but "improvised:' namely by an algorithm that displays
other-than-human properties. Although the algorithm was probably designed and coded by a
human game sound programmer, it is not the programmer who mediates between the "environ-
ment" (the gameworld) and the listening player, but instead the algorithm itself.
In ethnomusicology we often describe or faithfully reproduce what people tell us about more
traditional instruments. Lutes that are persons, flutes that embody deities or spirits, drums that
wield powers of dead ancestors or predator animals can be found among a variety of communities.
To givejust one example,the complex of sacred wind instruments in Lowland South America is tied
to the indigenous conception that the instruments are parts of the body of a divine being (Wright
2015), are worldly manifestations ("bodies") of otherworldly powers ("spirits"), or are imbued with
the power of spiritual or divine entities that manifest when the instruments are blown. These wind
instruments are subjected to a rigid and gendered set of taboos, in order to protect their special
status, and likewise to protect humans, especially the uninitiated, from the powers of the forces
associated with them."
With such cases, we encounter the methodological divide between indigenous or "traditional"
epistemologies (Simpson 2001; Brabec de Mori 2016) that contrast with a contemporary, disen-
chanted (like diagnosed by Max Weber), scientific approach to organology. On the one hand,
instruments are considered "enchanted" entities in Gell's (1992) sense among non-modern
communities. On the other hand, in naturalistic ontology, instruments are understood as mate-
rial tools for enhancing humans' capabilities of sound production. This identifies a bifurcation
that is significant to the aims of this chapter and extends to all areas mentioned above. When
considered from a naturalistic, scientific point of view, music (or other) agency of animals,
plants, planets, algorithms, and instruments appears to be far-fetched. The "disenchantment"
of the modern world created animals, plants, and instruments that are merely automatons
reacting to stimuli and being devoid of intentionality and creativity. Contemporary advances
in treating this problem, like zoomusicology, animal and plant cognition studies, as well as
phenomenological or actor-network related analyses of musical instruments do not intend to
"reenchant" these entities. Instead, they aim to show on empirical grounds that large networks of
interrelatedness between these entities, historical and social environments, and human agency
provide possibilities for these beings and objects to exert certain influence on what humans
understand as musical creativity.
Contrastingly, in non -naturalistic ontologies, active contribution to musical (or other) pro-
cesses from such non-human entities goes largely unquestioned. The animic, analogic, or totemic
ontologies (Descola 2005) conceptualized in many non-modern or non-Western societies enable
non-human entities to have agency, even intentionality, and allow socializing with them from
human side. Especially in animic ontology, in Descola's words, physicalities (i.e. bodies) are dis-
continuous, while interiorities (soul, mind) are continuous among beings. 111is means that animals,
plants, instruments, or stars have a body different from the human but a soul, mind, or culture
that is similar to the human. Therefore, these "human" interiorities in non-human entities enable
the latter to be creative, intentional, and musical in the way humans are. Of course, such beings
186 • BERND BRABEC DE MORI

are incompatible with a scientific conceptualization of the world . Their existence and agency has
to be grounded in (religiou s) "systems of belief" or indigenous constructions of knowledge (see
e.g. Simpson 2001) that ontologically contrast with scientific thought.

Agency within Music

Gell, in his groundbreaking though difficult work Art and Agency (1998), defines agency as a
point where the possibly infinite chain of causality is broken, and a "beginning" is attributed to a
certain entity. This is a very common procedure in human cognition, because it is impossible for
a human mind to trace every causality back to a prior action; therefore this chain is broken at a
point convenient to understanding a specific process in specific circumstances. To give a simple
example: A human driver tries to start a car engine, but the engine does not respond to the driver's
attempts because a connection in the car's electric system is corroded due to lack of maintenance.
The driver will arrive late in her office, so she calls her boss, saying "my car doesn't want to start:'
She does not have.to explain the whole causal chain of events that led to the situation. Here, the
circumstances suggest to attribute agency (or delegate the guilt for being late) to "the car:' Similarly,
a concert visitor may tell her friend that "the Beethoven concerto moved me deeply" instead of,
for example "the way the mu sicians interpreted the score written by Beethoven triggered memo-
ries about important emotional situations in my own past" or the like. In the western Amazonian
Lowlands, indigenous people say that they feel "pierced by a song" when it is well performed in
a ritual setting (Brabec de Mori 2015, 27), whereas the chain of causality might be traced back
through the singing style of the ritual specialist, his personal history, and his reputation that was
acquired through a series of successful rituals, and so on. It is possible to attribute agency-the
potential to "move" the listener "deeply" or to even "pierce" somebody-to the performance, and
consequently to the music itself.
Besides"moving" or "piercing:' a given melody can also obtain a state, it can be "happy:' "solemn:'
or "sad;' for example. This does not mean, however, that the musicians interpreting the melody are
sad themselves while perfo rming the melody. This was shown by Stoichita (2008) in his work with
Romani musicians. Neither the performers on stage are sad, nor was the bandleader sad when he
conceived the tune. Also in the case of written works, the composer was not necessarily sad while
writing down the score. Even the listener can be happy during the piece being performed and still
perceive the melody as "sad:' Therefore, the question arises, who or what is actually "sad;' who or
what is in the emotional state of "sadness"? One possibility is to trace the chain of causality back
to the performer or composer who has probably learned to use certain socially and historically
constructed musical "tricks" (Stoichita 2008, 24) that convey the impression of sadness , and fur-
ther to how these "tricks" have been developed in a certain historical and local tradition, and so
on . Another possibilit y, and probably the more common one , is to break the chain and attribute
"sadness" to the melody. This process corresponds to what Gell would call "enchantment:' The
emotion of sadness is not a property of the sonic pressure waves perceived by the listener's ear.
Within a given social and cultural context, the listener adds the notion of "sadness"to the perceived
sound sequence, therefore "enchanting" it with a quality that is not a property of the object by
itself (as for example "amplitude" or "pitch" would be). If the melody by itselfissad in the mind of
a listener, the listener attributes the agency of conveying the feeling of sadness to the melody. This
does not, in Gell's words, "impljy a] particular kind of agency, [but] only the polarity of agent/
patient relations" (1998, 66). A unique relation between one melody and one listener is constructed
th at identifies the melody as agent and the listener as patient in the course of the transmission of
"sadness" in a specific context.
In aesthetic theorizing, the problem of emotions conveyed to a listener by (or through) a certain
piece of music has received much attention, including the "persona theory" of musical emotion, as
 MUSIC AND NON-HUMAN AGENCY • 187

initially put forward by Levinson (1990). While prior scholars usually tended to correlate a musical
persona with the composer or musician, Levinson argues that this has not been the case. He sug-
gests that the persona can also be virtual, a non-physically-existing protagonist whose emotional
trajectory is described by the musical work." Despite much criticism, this theory has gathered
considerable support by other scholars; for example, by Robinson and Hatten, who conclude that
"if listeners hear music as expressing emotion, it is often because they are able to infer one or more
implied, virtual agents who can genuinely feel and express the trajectory of emotional states the
music is heard as expressing" (2012, 104). Following their argument, it becomes convincing that
a listener has at least the option to infer such an agent , a virtual persona, that exists "within" the
music, in cases even independent from a composer's or interpreters' intentions.
In 2012, Stoichita and Brabec de Mori introduced "sonic beings" into musical research. Stoichita
(2011) suggests that Levinson'spersona can be understood as an "enchantment" of a musical piece.
In any context besides the Western classical "work;' it may be difficult or meaningless to anthro-
pomorphize one personas trajectory within one "work:' Attribution of agency or even personality
may occur in certain forms of enactment during performance. For example, certain tunes or specific
rhythms may "fill" a human person with non-human interiority like in Caribbean or Afro-Brazilian
"possession trance" events." Furthermore, applications of specific musical techniques like "voice
masking" indicate that in a given performance style, in this case vocal timbre, a non-human force
makes its appearance in the way music sound s." Finally, through the interaction of specific motives,
timbres, or parts of a musical piece, a series of different beings can be addressed, so that a sequence
of musical items reproduces a chain of entities, a procession of "sonic beings. ?" The musical realm
contains a virtual causality of its own, which animates the elements that are joined by it (Scruton
1997). That said, within music it is possible that causal relations are built between its elements (e.g.
between specific pitches, like the leading-tone in major-minor tonality and the "tension resolving"
tonic), relations that only exist as additions to the sonic events perceived. Thus, such relations
can be understood again as an "enchantment" of the perceived stimuli. "Enchanted listening"
(Stoichita and Brabec de Mori, in press) endows the listener (as Gells "patient") with the faculty
of experiencing the effects of interactions, summons, transformations, etc. of those elements that
are (as Gell's "agents") present within, and only within, the hearing space construed by the music.
It is important to note that these agents are, like Levinson's persona, neither physically present in
the sonic event, nor necessarily intended by the composer or musician, but instead added by the
listener. Therefore, the sonic event becomes "enchanted:'
The common Western way oflocating such experiences and attributions of agenc y is however to
situate the whole process within the listener's mind. If we employ a scientific perspective, the virtual
persona does not physically exist in the musical work and the sonic being is by no means more
material, so they have to be located in the mind, if they exist at all.IS Conversely,in non-naturalistic
ontologies, such entities are often externalized and situated in the environment. In the following,
I will present two examples that illustrate the ways non-human entities can be coded in musical
motives or even cause music to sound in certain ways. One is from Papua New Guinea, and the
second from the South American Lowlands. Similar concepts , however, can be found elsewhere, too.
The first example treats the rnuni bird and waterfalls and their interactions with the Kaluli's
vocal performances. The Kaluli are an indigenous people living in Papua New Guinea, and the
description of their musical relations with their environment by Feld (2012 [1982]) is now consid-
ered a milestone in the history of ethnomusicology. For certain song genres, namely in the gisalo
ceremony, the language employed by the Kaluli when speaking about their "music theory" uses
repeated references to waterfalls. There are different kinds of waterfalls (high and low ones, carry-
ing much water, or little) that therefore "generate" different vocal performances. Feld writes that:

At the level of conceptualization, there is a theoretical frame of reference organizing patterns

of sound in intervals, contours, and phrases that descend and balance like waterfalls, ru sh
188 • BERND BRABEC DE MORI

forth like white water over rocks, or gently surge gulu like even creek falls. More importantly,
these notions about sonic structure, coded in metaphors of water, are explicitly linked to
notions about textual structure in a concept of composition "like water falling down and
mixing in a waterpool" The creative moment of text coming to mind and flowing into the
pool of swirling melody is the act of musical composition.
(Feld 2012[1982], 214)

Feld, in 1982, called the relations between melodic and textual structure and waterfalls "meta-
phors:' The notion of metaphor, however, is not as simple as often taken for granted, as shown
by Lakoffand Johnson (1980) , and is deeply rooted in experience. It is the distributed experience
of seeing and hearing a waterfall and seeing and hearing a gisalo performance within the Kaluli
framework of cosmology that makes a waterfall not merely like the song and therefore good for
describing the singing verbally. It is rather a source that engenders the structure used for Kaluli
vocal art. One may see this relation as a form of inspiration, like the bad English weather that
is allegedly responsible for the dire moods in Nick Cave's songs. However, the waterfall (sa in
Kaluli language) is not only used as a metaphor in the discourse about singing. It is an integral
part oflanguage, as it is also constituent of the terms for "speaking with an inner meaning;' and
for any utterances that convey text, or are performed with an association of text, like "whistling
with a text in mind" (Feld 2012 [1982], 133). It denotes performance of speaking, salan, and
thus acquires a status much more rooted in experience and behavior than a mere likeness. In the
light of contemporary animism, the agency and animic personhood of waterfalls can account
for the Kaluli's fondness of waterfalls as a source for such pre-eminently human capabilities like
speaking and singing." It is the waterfall that makes the landscape speak, and the voice of Kaluli
people seems to be their "waterfall:'
The agency of the muni bird in Kaluli poetics and singing is more explicitly person-centered.
Kaluli people hear drumming (especially by the ilib drum) as an utterance of the muni bird.
The muni bird, furthermore, is heard as the crying of a child, based on the narrative "the boy who
became a muni bird:' When the ilibis beaten in ceremony, Kaluli listeners are so deeply touched by
the callof the bird -child that they start weeping, may collapse on the floor, or even burn dancers or
the drum itself with a torch. It should be clear by now that this goes beyond a game of words: The
experience of hearing the drum is so profoundly rooted in the conviction that the spirits of lost
children call through the muni bird so that Kaluli listeners actually break into tears and collapse
and retribute their grief to the musicians.
Gisalo is also performed by spirit mediums in what Feld calls "seances:' The medium performs
songs that likewise move people to tears, but the collapsing and burning does not take place.
The medium sings similar songs in ceremonies, but Feld makes clear that "Theoretically the
songs are not pre-composed or rehearsed but rather represent compositions by various spirits
of the dead and local spirits of lands that are manifest through the mouth of the medium"
(2012[1982], 179-180). Of course, Feld is skeptical here, and he says, "theoretically." This is
due to the abovementioned bifurcation between culture and nature, between mind and envi-
ronment, which is strictly upheld in Western naturalism but less pronounced or even absent
in many indigenous societies. In naturalism, the agent is the singing person who intentionally
changes his vocal timbre in order to make the "worshippers" "believe" that spirits are present.
Among people who hold a conceptualisation of the world structured in what Descola (2005)
calls animism, non-human beings like birds , waterfalls, other animals, plants, or mountains,
are understood as irreducible persons who have human-like culture, and minds, too. Therefore,
processes like musical creation can be externalized and attributed to "spirits;' or to personified
animals, plants, and so on. One main task of specialists (like "mediums:' "priests;' "healers;'
"shamans") is to gain access to socialize with such non-human entities in order to instruct
them, learn from them, to drive them off, to seduce them; in short, to use these relations in
 MUSIC AND NON-HUMAN AGENCY • 189

order to obtain favorable results for their peers. Feld mentions that also among the Kaluli, the
medium's singing allows listeners to hear which spirit or entity is singing "through the mouth
of the medium" (2012, 180).

Agency outside Music

It is exactly this problem of mediumship that poses a methodological challenge of how to treat such
performances (see also Iankowsky 2007). As scholars trained in Western academic institutions, or
institutions that adhere to a naturalistic distinction between culture and nature, we are supposed
to follow the principle of Ockam's razor, that is to prefer the explanation that requires fewer enti-
ties to explanations that require many entities. A sociological interpretation of such mediumship
would explain the people's "belief system" based on the Durkheimian separation of the sacred
and the profane: The sacred is located in a universe of symbols that stand for processes within the
profane. With that, Kaluli mediumship can be understood as a belief system using certain songs
and singing styles in order to symbolize and indicate certain actions and processes that should
then be executed by the believers. Taking, however, our research associates seriously, we have to
apply an ontological pluralism: Although we "know" that spirits do not exist outside of the human
mind, people in the community in question may likewise "know" that they do exist, and that it is
possible, and in certain circumstances perfectly reasonable, to socialize with a tree. Many indige-
nous or traditional communities, and with them a number of post-modern New Agers, and even
concert audiences who "believe" in Beethoven do not employ Ockams razor. A reality with many
entities is perfectly feasible.I?
In the western Amazon, musical healing is widespread and frequently applied. The importance of
sound for indigenous conceptions of the world is so high that Lewy (2015) terms this way of inter-
acting with the environment "arnerindian sonorism," Sessions for curing (and likewise for sorcery)
are conducted by specialists that excel in singing specific songs they claim that they have learned
from spirits. As the Kaluli example demonstrates, this is not a local phenomenon. The Taiwanese
Tao, for example, likewise tell that they have learned the mikarayagpolyphonic singing from the
anita, spirits of the dead (Lin 2013, 236). Among Peruvian lowland people, including indigenous
and mestizo populations, knowledge in general, and with that the ability of singing magical songs for
healing or Witchcraft, is obtained through what is locally called "diet": a person ingests a substance,
for example a decoction of a tree bark, usually repeatedly every day for a certain span of time (e.g.
one week). Meanwhile, and during a decided time that follows (e.g, some weeks or months), strict
alimentary and social taboos have to be followed. This procedure leads the practitioner to dreams or
wake-time visions of the spirits of the plant ingested; within these dreams or visions the apprentice
can obtain power, most often in the form of songs, from the spirits. When later conducting healing
sessions, the healer can use the songs or the singing styleshe or she has obtained from the spirits in
order to apply them in specific situations. Within the healing session, the song itself is not thought
to affect the patient directly-the song serves for instructing allied beings or repelling malevolent
forces (e.g. a spirit that caused an illness). Circumstances are manipulated, resulting in healing if
the songs are applied correctly (see Brabec de Mori 2009, 2012, 2015).
It is however not exactly the rhythmic-melodic structure of the songs that is obtained from
the plant spirits. The melodies are most often learned through oral transmission from teachers.
The diet instead imbues the healer with the power of socializing with the spirits. During the
actual healing session, the healer "hears" or "feels" the songs performed by the spirits in the
spirit world, inaudible for lay people, and sings a human song in human language in the singing
style of the spirit the healer is in contact with. This contact, that is the actual presence of spirits
in the healing ritual, can be heard by listeners in changes of tempo, timbre, or register. This
was called "voice masking" by Dale Olsen, who remarked for the Venezulean Warao, that the
190 • BERND BRABEC DE MORI

spirits "and the wisiratu [healer] are one entity during spiritual affairs such as curing; and the
wisiratu's masked voice is the hebu's [spirit's] voice" (1996,162). Likewise among the Peruvian
Shipibo- Konibo, the patients or audience present during a curing session can judge if spirits are
present in the singer's voice, and even define the category of spiritual being (e.g. a water spirit, a
celestial entity) that sings through the healer's mouth. The healer is not possessed by the entity;
he or she is still consciously active as a translator: The spirits' inaudible song is performed in a
way that human audience can hear and understand it. The singing style, that is the voice mask,
indicates that the performed song is actually a powerful spiritual entity's song (cf. Brabec de
Mori 2015) . Here, the voice mask indexes the powerful beings at work. The difference between
the Kaluli hearing and imitating the muni bird, and for example the Shipibo-Konibo hearing
and imitating the matataon bird, was formulated by Brabec de Mori and Seeger (2013, 272).
One can imitate the acoustic shape of a bird call, but on the other hand, it makes sense in an
animist world to translate a birds calling or singing into a human song with human lyrics. In
both cases, however, the source for the song itself, for its lyrics, or its sound (the voice mask)
is definitely regarded non-human and exteriorized. It is either the bird (embodying a child
spirit) calling , the-waterfall "speaking;' or the spirit person of a plant, animal, or another entity
that is the "composer" or source of the music finally heard by the audience or recorded on
tape or flashcard: "Although in general it is rather assumed that the bobinsana-person or the
kawoka-spirit do not exist in a literal, 'physical' sense, they are evident as musical motifs or
music-inspiring agents. They manifest themselves in sound transmission and execute agency
via music performance" (Brabec de Mori and Seeger 2013,282).

Conclusion: Musical Agency Correlated

It is rather difficult to judge if non-human entities, ranging from animals, plants , mountains, or
waterfalls to planets, computers, or spirits and divine forces , are able to produce music. In some
cases it is even difficult to define their ontological status (whether spirits exist) or their capability
to initiate action (do mountains want to sound in the wind?). Finally it is impossible to deter-
mine if what they produce is music. It may be in good time to reiterate here that agency should
not be confused with intentionality. For the New Age people listening to planet sounds on the
Klangwirkstofflabel, Jupiter has power (Cousto 1984), and maybe is conceptualized in a person-like
way. Among the indigenous Venezulean Hohodene, wind instruments are the body of the divine
Kuwai (Wright 2015). For the Kaluli people, the muni bird embodies the spirit of a lost child, and
even songs or drum sounds that sound alike to the bird's call transport the grief for the loss (Feld
2012 [1982]). A Shipibo-Konibo healer performs the song of the bobinsana-plant spirit he hears
sounding "from the spirit world" (Brabec de Mori 2015). In any case, the translation of sound
emitted by non-humans, regardless if they are conceptualized as physical or ethereal , into patterns
recognized as music or music's corresponding local terms, is mediated by humans. Artists, guides,
and specialists, like healers, apply techniques and methods of translation and transmutation (Severi
2014) of non-human agency into what human audiences understand as music. Agency can be
attributed, in Gell's sense, to any entity in the chain of causality. The planet emits electromagnetic
waves that can be transposed to sounds, and if these sounds have meaning to a certain audience,
this audience can legitimately attribute musical agency to the planet. If for a specific audience, a
musical instrument "speaks:' it has agency.
But attributing intentionality is different. If the entity in question shall have the intention to
produce music, song, or power and meaningful sound, it needs human or human-like qualities,
human-like "cultural" understanding, and a human-like mind. Therefore , human-like qualities
are attributed to entities in an animist ontology, in order to understand their intentionality. It is
counterintuitive for a naturalist to assume that birds , plants, or computers have the intention to
 MUSIC AND NON-HUMAN AGENCY • 191

make music . But if the birds, plants, and computers are conceptu alized as persons, it becom es
perfectly possible.
Finally,there are some specificcharacteristics of sonic occurrences on the one hand, and musical
phenomena on the other, that seem meaningful for the question of non-human agency. This is
mainly the property that sounds can be heard in a way we termed "enchanted:' Musical motives
or passages can be sensed either as expressions of a virtual persona or as elements that relate to
each other, "sonic beings" that can be endowed with an agency of their own. Consequently, such
"mu sical entities" can easily be correlated with extra-musical entities. This is what Lowland South
Americans do: They hear the voice mask of a singing healer, a specific quality of timbre, for exam-
ple. The healer sings in a harsh voice, summoning, identifying, and repelling the spiritual cause
of the illness, before calling upon his or her benevolent allied beings, thereby changing the tone
of voice. Towards the end of the ritual singing , when the patient is going to be cured, the song has
another quality, perfectly observable in sound recordings. The entities correlated with the sonic
phenomenon are distinct: First, the illness, the malevolent spirits, are made present within the
audio space and in the end the celestial allies are heard by the patient and aud ience.
Such processes, however, are not confined to societies with an animist ontology. Agency can
be attributed to exteriorized malevolent and benevolent spirits, but likewise to other entities. For
example, in Western music entrainment therapy-lacking any traceable connections to indigenous
animism-something very similar occurs: First, therapist and patient together identify musical
sounds that "sound like the pain:' Then, a sonic quality is again agreed upon that "sounds like
painless wellbeing:' After these definitions are done , the therapist (or the patient, or both, depend-
ing on the situation) improvises a piece of music, starting by emphasizing the "pain sound" and
transforming the piece to finish by exclusivelyusing the "wellbeing sound:' This method is evidently
effective (Bradt 2010). The principle in these two examples is the same: A specific quality of sound
is correlated to a specific extra-sonic quality ; in the beginning with the illness-causing spirit or the
perception of pain, and towards the end with the allied benevolent spirit or the feeling of wellbeing.
From one perspective, the music is created by non-musical agents (spirits and pain); from another
perspective, the music itself exerts agency on non-musical entities (again, spirits and pain). And
in both cases, intentionality is located with the human healer or therapist, but agency is attributed
to the spirits, or the musical sounds respectively.
One way to approach non-human agency in musical processes is therefore to look at and listen
to non -human beings and try to determine their role in musical proce sses, as I demonstrated
in the first part of this chapter. Another way is to listen to music or other vocal or instrumental
expression in order to correlate properties of the sound, or properties of the sound's enchantments
with non-human agents, as was exemplified in the subsequent sections.
It was demonstrated in this chapter that non-human agency in music production and percep-
tion is a complex issue, especially for the ethnomusicologist who is not only indebted to scholarly
scrutiny but also to her or his research associates and their respective ontological positioning.
Ethnomusicological research can contribute to social and cosmological understanding by analyzing
how music is brought into the world and how it is perceived , received, and made effective by the
respective audience.
When treating issues of agency, the question of whether sounds produced or mediated by
non-humans "are" music cannot be answered , because a valid definition of what music "is" among
humans is still lacking. Maybe future research will show, or refute, that a lark hears bird song in a
way similar to humans who listen to music, or even that one tree perceives the vibrations caused by
another "as mu sic:' Anyway, intentionality, that is to purposefully make music, at this point cannot
be attributed to most non-human agents. It seems that in order to be able to speak of music, sound
must either be made into music by human mediators, for example by inspired composers, sound-
scape artists, New Age performers, or Amazonian indigenous healers; or human intentionality and
therefore human interiority has to be attributed to non-humans, as it is done in animist societies.
192 • BERND BRABEC DE MORI

Maybe music is a phenomenon tied to humanity, although its distribution among a multitude of
non-human agents is evident, too.

Notes
1. Agency beyond the human is no t by any means a new topic to the study of mu sic. Long before the era of enligh ten-
ment and the bIrth of what we kn ow tod ay as musicology. divine Intervention and Inspiration were often taken for
gra nted or were subjec ted to mor e or less spec ulative musings about meaning. origin. or teleology of music. Likewise.
th inking about the POSl ible musicality ofani mal . especially birds, has bee n common among specla lists and lay people
respectively since Immemorial times. However. du ring the histor y of academic musicology. the seriou consideration
of other-than -human musical ou rces is rather ne w.
2. For discussions on how music can be defined see e.g. Nettl (2010, 216- 227).
3. This distin ction of nature from cultu re was initially criticized by Alfred Whitehe ad who defin ed it as the "great
Bifurcation." For contempo rary trea tm ent of the top ic see e.g., Descola and Pdlsson (1996). Descola (2005). and Latour
(2013); in conn ection with music. see Lewy (2015) and Brabec de Mori and Seeger (20 13). among others.
4. For examples and overviews see Mache (1997), Martinelli (2009). and Sorce Keller (2012).
5. See e.g. Laack (2012) for the Glastonbury neo-pagan communities, or check the German mus ic label Klangwirkstoff
that focuses on astronomical ana logisms. Also the work by Stelios Gagliardi present ed in the next section makes use
of data gathered from calculating the un iverse.
6. For example. conside r the curre nt project 1\ Stage for a 'free Audiellceby German artistic researcher Lucie Strecker to
be realized at Wha repuke Sculp ture Tra il in New Zealand in 20 17.
7. For introductions to and the appli cability of ANT see, for example. Calion and Latour (1981) , Latour (2005), and
Bueger and tockbruegger (20 16).
8. Mraze k argue that thinking in Hornbostel-Sachs (HS) categories directs one's understanding towards mat erialism ,
suppressi ng any pheno mena more mean ingful to players, builders, aud ience , and scholars, especially "all ambig uities
an d shade of meaning" (Mrazek 2008, 96). He the reby compar es the HS system with George Or well's "Newspeak:'
Taking into account the power of the HS system, the system by itself has to be acknowledged as an influential actor in
the past centu ry of organology.
9. Note that contrarily to Mrazek, Bates doe s make use of the category "long -necked lute" from the HS system without
critic ism.
10. For det ails see the volum e Burst of Breath. edited by Hill and Chaum eil (2011).
11. Note that the persona theory is centered on Western "classical" art mus ic in Levinson's analysis.
12. See Schaffler and Brabe c de Mori (2015), or more generally Rouget (1985), Gell (1998, 70), and Jankowsky (2007).
13. See Olsen (1996, 169), for further examples see also Brabec de Mori (2012, 2015).
14. See also Brabec de Mor i and Seeger (2013) for a more detailed account, and Severi (2014) for some very good exam ples
from South America .
15. 'Ole mentioned "Western" point of view relics muc h on the psychoanalytic idea that the human mind i able to create
many entities within . However. more recent psychologica l and anth ropological approaches propose a more externa lized
interpretatio n. too. see for examp le th e concepts of "dis tribuled cognition" (Salomon 1997). or the "distributed person"
an d "the extended mind" proposed by Gell (1998).
16. Among the Ecuadorian Achuar (Mader 1999), water falls are th e h om e of Arutam, the primordial power of being
likewise respon sible for many forms of mu sic (cr. Bummer de Rod riguez 2015).
17. On e main point in the discussion about th e "ontological turn" in anth ropology is the effect th at ont ological pluralism
creates "realities" that are inflated with bein gs and con tradic tion s that can often easily be refuted from a strong natu-
ralistic position .

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