Illustration: Adià Fruitós
[Introduction to] Terrain n°68 “L’emprise des sons”, p. 4-25.
Full text available online (in French).
In various societies around the world, certain sound practices are invested with the capacity to transform the psyches or bodies of listeners, with or without their consent. This article offers an overview of some of these theories. The analysis of the various principles of efficacy invoked shows that sounds sometimes appear as active principles (drugs or medicines), sometimes as facilitators of relations, and sometimes as social agents in their own right, thus indicating their polymorphous character. Taken together, these theories, along with the other contributions gathered in this volume, demonstrate that the forces which animate inspiring, captivating, enchanting or cathartic music are the same as those which, in a more obscure way, run through possession, alienation, enchantment and depressive ruminations.