Spiders and Music / Sound

Spiders and Music / Sound

by Abigail Eve Sanders -
Number of replies: 1

Hello,

I was just wondering if anyone had come across evidence of sound or music culture / phenomena in arachnids?

I met a jazz composer and teacher the other day, actually see is a former student of HfM, who asked me about this because she has a debilitating phobia of spiders.  She is very serious about treating her phobia and thought that if she thought of them more as musicians or artists then perhaps this could help her to appreciate them more.

I remember it coming up maybe once in our Masters Programme  but only breifly and it got me curious. I would also like to help her by sending her articles that might help her to alleviate her fear.  So if anyone comes across anything in their research, please post it here!

Thanks,

Abigail

In reply to Abigail Eve Sanders

Re: Spiders and Music / Sound

by Martin Ullrich -
Hello Abigail and all,

That is a very interesting topic.

The historically most important phenomenon concerning spiders and music is tarantism, a performative act of trance-like dancing in certain parts of Italy that in contemporary thinking was connected with being bitten by a spider (said to be a tarantula, hence tarantism and also the well known tarantella). There is a vast topic on research on this phenomenon. Very influential was De Martino, Ernesto (2005): The Land of Remorse: A Study of Southern Italian Tarantism. 1st ed. London: Free Association Books, originally in Italian from the 1960s.

Nowadays, artist Tomás Saraceno often collaborates with spiders to create sculptural objects. David Rothenberg has partnered with Saraceno to perform with spiders, see Rothenberg, David (2018): “Spider Music.” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art. 40/1 (118), pp. 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1162/PAJJ_a_00392.

As I said, it is a huge topic. I have 40 Zotero entries on Tarantism alone.

Kind regards,

Martin