Music after Deleuze

Despite the multitude of musical references in the writings of Gilles Deleuze, the explicit treatment of music in his work is arguably less important than how his concept-based philosophy can help us to rethink music. Deleuzian concepts offer interesting ways of thinking about repetition and variation in a range of musics including Western art music from the medieval period to the avant-garde, jazz improvisation, popular, folk and liturgical music. The concept of the ‘assemblage’ provides a productive way of thinking the specificity of any new musical work as the meeting of lines of flight and as part of a dynamic account of musical change. Chapters on musical space and musical time consider a range of music in terms of the parameters of pitch/timbre and tempo/rhythm/duration. Deleuzian philosophy, which rethinks the nature of signs, offers valuable insights for a new musical semiotics.