Name: Music Studies Colloquium: Peter McMurray
Start: 2025-04-09T17:00:00
Location: University of California, Berkeley

Peter McMurray

UC Berkeley Department of Music

In 1883, the volcano Krakatau, located just off the island of Java, erupted violently, killing tens of thousands of people in its eruption and the aftermath. Alongside this devastation, the eruption produced what is often characterized as the loudest sound ever recorded. In this talk, I join an emerging conversation one might call geomusicology or geoacoustics to revisit Krakatau. While it is now internet-famous for its loudness, an equally significant acoustic phenomenon is also tied up with its eruption, namely the “discovery” of infrasound, or sound waves traveling at frequencies below the threshold of human hearing (c. 20 Hz). That discovery was made possible by a network of European scientists and colonial outposts that could measure the infrasound pressure waves circling the globe repeatedly in the days that followed the eruption. In many ways, this imperial discourse network—a mix of colonial administrators and outposts, advancements in acoustic measurement, scientific correspondence, and other communications media—heralds a new mode of geological listening; at the same time, it stands in stark contrast to the kinds of life-and-death listening that took place in and around Java and Sumatra, documented by local poetic forms that also sought to make sense of this precipitous moment and commemorate the loss of life it brought about.