Twitch is a virtual performance venue and a space for relational and playful listening. It positions sound and play as events and activities that gather physically isolated listeners. In this paper I study four ethnographic vignettes that highlight varied genres of Twitch streaming. Observing these vignettes I identify key elements of the Twitch space: the Streamer, the Chat, the Listening, and the Venue of Twitch itself. Matthew Rahaim’s ethnography on vocal relationality maps the relational circuit between Streamer and Chat. The Streamer initiates and the Chat reacts; the Streamer internalizes the reaction, then adjusts the performance answering to Chat’s feedback. Each circuit of sound is idiosyncratic to every stream since every Chat gathers differently, and because the Streamer administers what audial and non-audial “sounds” Chat can make. Considering Rajni Shah’s performance study Experiments in Listening I interpret Twitch Listening as compassionate “besideness” akin to theater. Furthermore, Karen Collins’ theory on interactive spectatorship and Melanie Fritsch’s position on games and music as playful performance practice explains Chat’s tendency to engage in declamatory and participatory listening. Finally, I use Jacques Attali and Shah to understand Twitch the Venue: both a corporate entity that oppresses and censors performance and an online invitation to listen to new voices. Analyzing Twitch through these key elements demonstrates how Twitch allows Small's “musicking” to take place even while in physical isolation. Please note that this paper contains discussions of isolation and illness from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as brief commentary on surveillance and online harassment.

I settled onto the floor of the Cedar Cultural Center at 7 pm as the first notes of the Drone Not Drones event wafted to my ears from the strike of a gamelan gong. From tambura to synthesizer, drum to accordion, Bulgarian chorus to powwow song, a drone was sustained for 28 continuous hours over the course of more than 45 performing groups. Designed by the organizers to “protest the extrajudicial and immoral drone program and raise money for the victims of the United States military-industrial complex,” Drone Not Drones facilitated transformational experiences for participants. Some felt that the drone-based music sonically represented the sounds of war, from the relentless cacophony of bomb blasts and airstrikes to the lingering ringing in one’s ear during the “silence” after an attack or the sorrowful wails of mourning for victims. Others found the long-span sonic journey to be spiritually healing and restorative, a form of meditation that allowed them an opportunity for introspection and recentering. My paper will draw on my ethnographic research at Drone Not Drones to explore how the sonic and durational properties of the event generated transformative experiences that allowed participants to reflect on violence and imagine a world at peace. I also consider how contemporary military conflicts and local protests added a heightened sense of immediacy and relevance to the event. This paper will provide new ways of thinking through the impact of drone-based music as a vehicle for exploring both dystopia and utopia.

The link between sounds, environments and social agents has been the focus of numerous discussions in academia. Proposals such as those of Schafer (1977) and Feld (2012) were references from which, for example, sound studies were developed. Even within a more traditional area such as historical musicology, the concern for the intersection between the three elements (sound, environment and society) became evident in works such as Strohm (1985), a landmark for urban musicology, and Ruíz Jiménez (2020). On the other hand, ethnomusicology demonstrated that in Amerindian societies the triad sounds-environments-social agents presents a particularity in its last aspect insofar as non-human entities (animals and "owners'' of species or places) occupy a relevant place in sound production and audition (Lewy, Brabec de Mori & García, 2015). The present paper, which is part of the field of historical ethnomusicology, seeks to investigate this triad based on the Mocoví case (Amerindian culture of the southern Chaco in Argentina). For this purpose, I take the territoriality model (Barabas, 2004) systematized by López (2009) for the mocoví case and try to show how the acoustic dimension, among others elements, allowed to impregnate the space with meaning (territorialization process) within this culture during an extensive lapse of time (a research that has not yet been systematically explored for this case). My approach is based on a heterogeneous set of historical and ethnographic sources from the late Eighteenth Century to the beginning of the Twentieth.