Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the Theory and Philosophy of Music

Traditionally speaking, The study of music has considered the musical work to be transcendent in one form or another: formally distinct, beautiful, sublime, ineffable, timeless, ideal, masterful, The creative work of pure genius. In recent decades this tradition has been called into question. But many on-going debates seem to indicate that the study of music has not been able to fully think past this transcendence. it is the contention of the editors and contributors to this collection, that Gilles Deleuze has made extremely interesting and important contributions To The understanding of music. Deleuze is a vigorous critic of the Western intellectual tradition, which he terms 'the philosophy of difference', and, despite its ambitions, he is convinced that Western philosophy fails to truly grasp (or think) difference as such. it is argued that longstanding methods of conceptualizing music are vulnerable to Deleuze's critique. But, As Deleuze himself stresses, more important than merely critiquing established paradigms is developing ways to overcome them and by using Deleuze's own concepts this collection aims to achieve that.