The Japanese Society for Aesthetics

Aesthetics No.28 (2024): 28-38

What Max Neuhaus Called “Music” *KODERA Michiru
Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto
Abstract: Max Neuhaus (1939–2009) is generally regarded as a pioneer of sound installation and a firstgeneration sound artist. By reexamining his writings and the titles of his works, this article describes thechronological trajectory of what he called “music” and how he differentiated his works from “music.” The
trajectory is outlined in four points: (1) the title of his early sound installation, Drive-In Music (1967), includes
the word “music,” (2) in a booklet, Program Notes (1974), he called his works “music,” (3) the title of his wellknown installation, Times Square (1977–1992, 2002–present), was renamed from “Underground Music,” and(4) in the early 1980s, he provided a more in-depth explanation for his works’ spatial features to differentiatethem from “music” and declared that his installation works were foreign to “music.” These four points suggestthat the logical framework he used to show the differentiation had developed gradually, alongside thevocabulary he applied to characterize his works, as an afterthought following his sound works. In other words,
this article provides a significant case study about the formation of an art discipline with sound, today calledsound art.
Keywords: Max Neuhaus, sound art, music, sound installation

1. Introduction
Max Neuhaus (1939–2009) is generally regarded as a pioneer of sound installation and afirst-generation sound artist (Gál 2017: 79, Licht 2019: 60). By reexamining his writings and thetitles of his works, this article describes the chronological trajectory of what he called “music”
and how he differentiated his sound works from “music,” clarifying that the logical framework
he used to show the differentiation had developed gradually, alongside the vocabulary he applied
to characterize his works, as an afterthought following his sound works. In other words, thisarticle provides a significant case study about the formation of an art discipline with sound, today
called “sound art”.
Although there has never been a rigid definition of the word “sound art” so far, it is generally
understood as an art discipline which widely includes creation and activity with or involved insound except conventional music1. From a historical perspective, the first-generation of sound artists,
which included visual artists using sounds, appeared between the 1960s and early 70s after John
Cage’s experimental music: this led to the name “sound art” spreading broadly throughout the 90s.
This discipline enhanced its presence through some large-scale exhibitions in the 2000s (Wong 2012,* This paper is based on the Japanese version printed in Bigaku 72, No. 1 (2021): 84–95, published by theJapanese Society for Aesthetics.
1
For a recent discussion about the definition of “sound art,” see, for instance, Licht (2019: 5–10).

What Max Neuhaus Called “Music”

29

Gál, op cit., Licht, op. cit., 1–5, Nakagawa 2010). At least in the United States and Europe, sound art
has been described as an art discipline which expanded during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Max Neuhaus, the subject of this study, is an artist who was active from the 1960s to 2000s:
the period the discipline “sound art” appeared, expanded, and established itself. He started his
career as a virtuoso percussionist and performed experimental and avant-garde music in the 60s.
In the same decade, he began to exhibit some of his own works: Listen: Field Trips Thru Found
Environments (1966–76), the first work of the series called Public Supply (1966), and Drive-In
Music (1967), which is discussed below. He stopped performing as an instrumentalist in 1968,and since then has concentrated on and exhibited his creations, including his most famous soundinstallation, Times Square (1977–92, 2002–present). In 1994, a series of books, Sound Works,
vol. 1–3, which includes Neuhaus’s writings, interviews, critics’ articles, and images of his
drawings, was published (Neuhaus and Jargins (eds.) 1994a, b, c).
It should be noted at the beginning that Neuhaus regarded the word “sound art” negatively
as a name of a category for art works. In his essay “Sound Art?” which was a contribution for theexhibition, Volume: Bed of Sound, in 2000, he argued that “sound art” is not an appropriate term
for classifying art activities and it has been overused (Neuhaus 2000)2. According to his opinion,
it is necessary to withhold calling him “sound artist” and his works “sound art.” However, many
critics and researchers today recognize his works as a kind of sound art (Cooke 2009: 23, Pardo
2017: 40, Licht 2019: 1). It is therefore reasonable to regard him as a significant person who waspart of the establishing process of the art discipline called sound art.
Many important resources for surveying the activities and mindset of the artist are available.
This includes many of his own articles and interviews, his drawings3, as well as his installation
Times Square, which is still currently running and open for public access4.
Through these materials, it is well known that Neuhaus consciously differentiated his own
works from conventional music.
Traditionally composers have located the elements of a composition in time. One idea
which I am interested in is locating them, instead, in space ... and letting the listener placethem in his own time. (Neuhaus: 1974a5)
This quotation is the fourth paragraph of Neuhaus’s booklet, Program Notes, published in 1974,
and is reprinted in Sound Works in 1994. Many articles have excerpted it (LaBelle 2006: 147,
Potts 2009: 47, Joseph 2009: 67, Eppley 2017: 47, Pardo 2017: 40, Cox 2018: 139). In the2

In the same contribution, Neuhaus says that we cannot “call what is essentially new music something else.”
Right before this statement, he also refers to Edgard Varèse’s and John Cage’s expansion of the definition of music.
Therefore, Neuhaus seems to consider that “essentially new music” must be called “music” based on its expandeddefinition. Also see note 15.
3
Neuhaus’s drawing has not been exhibited with the work the drawing depicts. He says “they [drawings] are
not works within works” (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.) 1994b: 11), so they can be regarded as independent works fromother kinds of his works with sound.
4
Neuhaus’s new official website lists up in the page of “Vectors” the fourteen works which are running today.
5
This booklet has no page numbers. Its left-hand pages are blank and the sentences are printed on only its righthand pages.

30

KODERA Michiru

quotation, Neuhaus differentiates his works from conventional music by the contrast between
time and space, and in the respect of the mode of listening.
In the essay titled “Modus Operandi” (1980), he also said about his Drive-In Music that“[i]t was a radical departure from the current, and still prevalent form of production of sound art,i.e. the arrangement where a group of people gather together at a specific time and place andwatch and listen to a usually smaller and more specialized group make sound” (Neuhaus andJardins (eds.) 1994a: 18). Although he uses the words “sound art,” what the term means here is,according to his description, certainly conventional concert, not including visual art with sounds
nor reproduction of sounds like field-recording. In fact, he also notes in the same essay that his
audiences are overexposed to the music of the 18th and 19th centuries (ibid.).
A few previous studies have examined Neuhaus’s transitional process from the field of
conventional music to the field of non-music, i.e. sound installation. Charles A. Eppley’s
dissertation submitted to Stony Brook University (2017) might be the most exhaustive researchon the materials written by Neuhaus himself and the previous studies on him. Eppley’s thesis
illustrates Neuhaus’s background and activities from the 1960s to 1980 in detail and loosely
periodizes Neuhaus’s career into the three phases: musical, anti-musical, and post-musical.
Neuhaus performed existing musical instruments as a percussionist in the musical phase,exhibited his own works without existing percussion in the anti-musical phase, and concentrated
on creation of his sound installation in the post-musical phase6.
Eppley regards the completion of Times Square as the turning point where Neuhaus left thefield of music, and writes in his postscript, “[a]s revealed by this research, much of his[Neuhaus’s] work, despite its anti-musical aspirations, retained lingering musical connections.
These were largely severed with his completion of Times Square, which redirected, andultimately cemented, his practice within the context of art museums, galleries, and the open fieldof contemporary art” (264). The author also implies (see on pages 206 and 210) that the year
1980 was the artist’s turning point in terms of his creation method and his financial resources.
Depending on his suggestions mentioned here, Eppley seems to recognize the latter half of the
1970s as Neuhaus’s transition.
This paper is compatible with Eppley’s outline of Neuhaus’s career. However, it reexamines
his transition from music to non-music from another perspective by focusing on Neuhaus’s
personal word usage of “music”7. The commentaries which show how Neuhaus uses the word“music” are scattered, and there is no research which has chronologically reordered his remarks
for the purpose of reexamining his use of the word “music.” The reordering and reexamination
outline Neuhaus’s career in a new way.
Generally speaking, the explanation of what is conventional music is inevitable to clearly
differentiate some types of art works from music, also to clarify logically these art works’
originality or novelty. Neuhaus is no exception. He also explains the distinction between
6

Although Eppley does not clarify the specific period of these three phases, it is presumed that the musicalphase is until about 1968, the anti-musical one from about 1966, and the post-musical one after about 1970s. (Themusical and anti-musical phases are partly overlapped.)
7
Eppley outlines a chronicle of the vocabulary Neuhaus used to describe his own works (2017: 150–151).
However, Eppley does not show the references one by one.

What Max Neuhaus Called “Music”

31

conventional music and his works several times. Hence, examining the context he uses the word“music” offers the clue to consider the logic of his differentiation8. In addition, it is worth paying
attention to the titles of his works to better understand how he characterized his own creations.
Although much information this paper refers to is already known, its chronologicalrearrangement and reconsideration contribute to understanding the trajectory of Neuhaus’s
personal description method and promoting strategy for his pieces. In the following, this paper
will focus on his Drive-In Music in 1967, a booklet, Program Notes, in 1974, Times Square in
1977, and an interview and a lecture in 1982.

2. “Music” in Neuhaus’s writings and the titles of his works
2.1. In 1967—Drive-In Music
Drive-In Music, which was installed in Buffalo, New York, from October 1967 to April
1968, has been credited as Neuhaus’s first sound installation work9. However, since Neuhaus said
during a 1982 interview that he coined the term “sound installation” in the early 1970s (Neuhaus
and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 42)10, the inclusion of Drive-In Music into his sound installation series
seems to have happened retrospectively. Drive-In Music is an installation of transmitters along
Lincoln Parkway, each of which sends radio waves to cars driving through. Car radios in turn
receive the radio waves and emit sounds. The received signals depended on the area where thetransmitters are set, and drivers listen to the sound changing as the car drives through.
Some recent studies on sound art also mention this work in relation to the transitional processof Neuhaus’s activity from conventional music to non-music. Christoph Cox says “Drive-In
Music (1967) marks Neuhaus’s final break with music and his first foray into “sound installation””(2018: 147). On the other hand, Eppley emphasizes the connection between the work and music.
The work was directly associated with the Department of Music [in which Maryanne
Amacher, who invited Neuhaus to Buffalo, stayed as a resident artist], an affiliation
prominently featured on advertisements for the piece [...]. The title itself makes thisconnection clear, albeit ironic (as it references kitschy drive-in theaters of the 1950s, a
product of popular culture anathema to the concert hall). Despite an attempt to abandon
the institution of music, Neuhaus’s transition [from music to non-music] was not swift[...]. (Eppley 2017: 139)11
8

Eppley states “[...] Neuhaus is not arguing that what he does is not music in any way, but rather that the way
in which we understand what is or is not music is largely irrelevant. Avoiding the musical frame was not an
ideological stronghold for Neuhaus, but rather a tactical effort to prevent people from leaning back on theirpreconceptions of how to listen” (2017: 200). This paper is not inconsistent with Eppley’s statement, but focuses on
Neuhaus’s logic of “avoiding the musical frame” rather than his “ideological stronghold.” However, it is doubtfulthat actually “Neuhaus is not arguing that what he does is not music in any way.” Eppley himself notes in anotherpage that Neuhaus tried to characterize his work as “anything but music” when applying for public grants (ibid., 210).
9
Eppley points out that Fan Music (1967) is Neuhaus’s first sound installation, since it was exhibited a few
months before Drive-In Music (2017: 129).
10
Alan Licht indicates assertively without any references it was 1971 when Neuhaus coined the term “soundinstallation” (2019: 9).
11
See Packer (2010: 63–72) in detail.

32

KODERA Michiru

Taking these comments into account, while Drive-In Music largely deviated from theconventional exhibiting and listening style of music, like traditional concert style, the association
with the institution and its title were still deeply tied to music.
This paper pays attention to the word “music” used in the naming of Drive-In Music, like
Eppley does. It is, of course, too shallow to conclude that Neuhaus categorized the work intomusic simply because the title includes the word “music.” However, while Neuhaus did notrecognize his own work as conventional music, he neither explained it as “non-music” nor“something irrelevant to music” explicitly. For Neuhaus, naming his work with “music” might
be effective as a metaphor that this work does comprise of important auditory elements. In
addition, it is unlikely that his naming was as strategic as the musical group “Group Ongaku”: its
members are Mieko Shiomi, Yasunao Tone, Takehisa Kosugi, etc. They used the word “music”(“ongaku” in Japanese) in their group’s name based on the idea that their activity would be calledmusic in the future (Shiomi 2005: 64). If Neuhaus had intentionally used the word “music” in his
work’s title as Group Ongaku did, one can assume he would have explained this reason
somewhere. However, such an explanation cannot be found in his writings.
From the above, it is not probable that he hesitated to call his own work with the word “music.”
2.2. In 1974—a booklet, Program Notes
It is not only the title of his work that indicates the possibility that he did not hesitate to use
the word “music.” The booklet Program Notes, published in 1974, explains the following.
I’m not interested in making music exclusively for musicians or musically initiatedaudiences. I am interested in making music for people. (Neuhaus: 1974a)
This paragraph follows the paragraph quoted above in which Neuhaus explains his own works
contrasting between time and space. Although this booklet consisted of thirteen paragraphs, only
the above mentioned two (fourth and fifth paragraphs) were reprinted in Sound Works (Neuhaus
and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 34). While the artist differentiates his works from conventional musicin the fourth paragraph, he calls what he makes “music” in this fifth. In other words, it seems thatthe word “music” is not an inappropriate description of his works to him at that time. Previous
studies have overlooked this significant point.
On the other hand, as Pardo (2017: 41) and Eppley (2017: 3) emphasize, Neuhaus’s strategic
differentiation in this booklet also shows that his “music” is “for people” rather than “formusicians or musically initiated audiences.”
Furthermore, in the sixth paragraph of the booklet it is said that “[a]ccusing a musician of
becoming a technologist if he learns audio circuitry is like accusing a painter of becoming a
French impressionist if he learns to speak French” (Neuhaus 1974a). Here Neuhaus seems tojustify his method of using electric circuits as a “musician’s” approach.
Program Notes tries to differentiate Neuhaus’s works from conventional music in otherways too. Its first paragraph says “[i]f one looks at the vast range of sounds the human ear iscapable of hearing, it is not hard to see what a small area music has been concentrating on for the
past several hundred years”. This paragraph characterizes music in terms of the limitation ofWhat Max Neuhaus Called “Music”

33

sound materials. The third paragraph of Program Notes indicates the exhibiting form of
conventional music by the term “the proscenium situation”, on which Eppley focused as well
(2017: 93–94). Based on these points, it can be said that in 1974 Neuhaus has already shown thevarious aspects in which he differentiates his own works from conventional music.
2.3. In 1977—Times Square
As mentioned above, Neuhaus allowed his own works to be called music in Program Notes.
When, then, did he stop using the word “music” to signify and to explain his works? Hismasterpiece Times Square is remarkable to answer this question. Times Square is located at thetriangle pedestrian area surrounded by Broadway, Seventh Avenue, and 46th Street in Manhattan,
New York. Here, Neuhaus’s electronic quiet drone comes from under the ventilation grating.
When pedestrians (possible audience) notice such a quiet sound and strain their ears, the drone
makes them pay attention to the auditory environment surrounding them. Previous reviews relate
Times Square to the contemporary practices of land art, minimal music, and postminimalism
sculpture (Licht 2019: 54, Joseph 2009: 66–68, Cox 2018: 152–156).
It is well known that Neuhaus at first named this work “Underground Music” (Cooke 2009:27, n. 1). He conceptualized the idea for Times Square by 1973 (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.)
1994a: 143). An archive at Battler Library of the Columbia University, Max Neuhaus Papers,
includes a typed document titled “UNDERGROUND MUSIC(S)” signed by the artist and dated
in 1974 (Neuhaus 1974b), which can be assumed to be a kind of proposal for Times Square. Like
was seen in the writings of Program Notes, the original title for Times Square also suggests that
Neuhaus, in 1974, did not necessarily hesitate to indicate his own work by the word “music”.
Since there is no material in which the artist called the work “Underground Music” after
1974, it is not clear when he abandoned this particular name. However, based on related materials,
it is possible to estimate when this happened. Some documents, including a newspaper article,
call the work “Underground Music” after its opening (Ericson 1977, Lorber 1978, “Underground
Music” 1978), but the exhibition catalog in 1981 introduces it as just a “sound installation”(Neuberger Museum (ed.) 1981: 74). Then, other two exhibition catalogs, both in 1983, whichcall it “Times Square” imply that the current name might have been fixed around that time (Muséed’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris (ed.) 1983, Kunsthalle Basel (ed.) 1983: 16). It can be inferredfrom these facts that Neuhaus discarded the original title, “Underground Music,” at least by the
beginning of 1980s.
It is to be noted that, through the constant renaming of Times Square, the word “music”
disappeared from the title of Neuhaus’s works. (Other works whose title include “music” are theseries of works called Underwater Music. Its fourth and final work was exhibited in 1978.)
Although Eppley insists that the connection between Neuhaus’s activity and music was “largely
severed with his completion of Times Square,” the timing of this work’s renaming suggests that
Neuhaus’s connection with music was not perfectly severed when this work opened. In otherwords, his severance with music was achieved more thoroughly when he finally abandoned theoriginal title. Moreover, the renaming makes it possible to discuss his permanent soundinstallations, including Times Square, without the need to use the word “music.” Previous studies
have overlooked this important point.

34

KODERA Michiru

2.4. In 1982—Interview and Lecture
How had Neuhaus’s vocabulary changed since 1980s?
His interview conducted by composer William Duckworth in 1982 is printed in Sound Works(Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 42–49). In the same year as this interview, he came to Japanand had a lecture at Studio 200, which was an art space on the eighth floor of Seibu Ikebukuro
department store. Sound Works and The Digest of the Studio 200: 1979–1991 both include what
Neuhaus talked about during this lecture (ibid., 58–70, Studio 200 (ed.) 1991: 76–77, 79)12.
At the beginning of the interview by Duckworth, Neuhaus explains two main categories of
his works: “sound installation” and “broadcast work.” In broadcast work, the audience provided
sound materials to Neuhaus through telephones, and then Neuhaus generally mixed andmodulated them, and broadcasted the edited sounds by radio. The series of works Public Supply(1966–73) and Radio Net (1977) are the typical examples of this category.
Depending on this categorization, Neuhaus says:
Broadcast works are very much about music. [On the other hand, t]he [sound]installations are related completely to their location. I don’t start to conceive of them until
I’m in the actual context; and that context is not only aural, but also visual and social.
These are ideas which are foreign to music and seem hard for people oriented to music
to understand. (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 42)
Three interesting points can be derived from this excerpt. First, he makes it clear here his
broadcast works are “music.” The artist declares that his role in the broadcast works is unlike a
conventional composer and instead “the catalyst for the situation” (ibid., 48), in which people
make sounds. He also says “[m]aybe [this is] a new concept or role for a composer” (ibid.). Since
the word “composer” is closely associated with music, it is reasonable to assume that his
description of broadcast works is only within the territory of music. In the lecture at Studio 200,
Neuhaus also clarifies that a part of his activity is related to music (Studio 200 (ed.) 1991: 76).
Therefore, this important part of his activity does not fit within the simplified scheme of
Neuhaus’s transition “from music to non-music.”
Second, it is obvious in the excerpt that his sound installations have non-musical elements.
During the above interview, Neuhaus also analogizes his sound installation with visual art,
especially sculptures (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 42). This indicates that he started
explaining his sound installations as something outside of music by 1982. In other words, thedistinction between sound installation and broadcast work makes it possible to differentiate
between Neuhaus’s sound installations and those works he considers to be “music” more strictly.
Third, this quotation also refers to the visual and social contexts of sound installation, as
well as aural. During his lecture at Studio 200, he mentions these three types of contexts (ibid.,

12

Although Sound Works indicates that the lecture was held at Seibu Museum Tokyo on the twelfth floor of
Seibu Ikebukuro, two literatures (Sezon Museum of Art (ed.) 1989, 1999) which summarize the museum’s
exhibitions and events do not mention any about Neuhaus’s lecture. Therefore, Neuhaus probably had the lecture
only at Studio 200, and Sound Works seems to confuse the locations.

What Max Neuhaus Called “Music”

35

58, Studio 200 (ed.) 1991: 76). This reference expands and sophisticates the discussion about the
spatial aspect of his works, which was emphasized in Program Notes. His emphasis on spacerather than time in the booklet from 1974 can be applied to some kinds of art works which control
spatial factors, i. e. directions where sounds come from, as one of the musical parameters in aconcert hall. However, concert halls and the other kinds of live venues are isolated from theirsocial context13. On the other hand, by referring to the social context, his lecture in 1982 makes
it clear that what Neuhaus images is his works’ social environment of the site, not the controllable
parameter of the isolated space. (It is meaningful that the final title for his work Times Squarereflects the name of the site where the work resides14.)
This close attention to the social context of a work can also be seen in his works before 1982.
He declared, by 1980, that he tailored his Drive-In Music for Buffalo where people frequently
drive their cars (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.). 1994a: 18). That is to say, what he did for the firsttime in 1982 seems to formulate the explanation that juxtaposed the social context with the visualand aural contexts, not just recognizing the existence of a social context.
His lecture in Studio 200 also has an interesting statement.
Not using sound recordings to describe them [my own works] is a basic principle of mine.
There are also some practical reasons for it—the first being that they are, in fact, unrecordable. Many of them have sound components which cannot be recorded. They arealso sometimes made up of sound topographies; instead of being spatially one
dimensional like music, they have two or three dimensions—they have different sounds
in different places. So the question of where to record a work comes up. (ibid., 58)
Although he had already explained the un-recordability of his works in an interview in 1975
(Neuhaus 2019: 171), he here obviously contrasts his works with music, which is spatially onedimensional, and then differentiates his works from that. Moreover, since he asserts that the unrecordability is an inevitable nature of his two- or three-dimensional works, the feature and his
strategy of differentiation based on the spatiality mentioned above are compatible. The unrecordability of his works thus makes a rigid logic which clearly discerns Neuhaus’s works frommusic—Licht also presents a similar idea (2019: 14–15).
In addition, the word “topographies” used here should be given some attention. Because theterm appears repeatedly in Neuhaus’s latter lectures (Neuhaus and Jardins (eds.) 1994a: 10, 75,
77, 104, 120, 125), “topographies” has been functioning to reinforce his differentiation, based on
spatiality, of his works from music.
13

According to Kotz (2009: 103), Neuhaus regarded La Monte Young’s Dream House (1962) as a kind ofmusic. Dream House controls sounds (standing waves) in a space separated from social contexts. In addition,
Nakagawa (2010), which discusses the “relativization” of the Cagean experimental music in the 1950s, also focuseson the “sociality.” Nakagawa argues that sound artists after John Cage, concretely Bill Fontana, attempt to relativize
their own works to Cage’s experimental music by criticizing the repression of meanings of sound in Cage’s music.
Nakagawa also calls this repression “the loss of the sociality.” Although Neuhaus’s “social context” and Nakagawa’s“sociality” are not necessarily same, they both imply that “the restoration of the sociality” was a shared problem forthe artists after Cage.
14
This idea is largely indebted to a comment of a peer reviewer for the original paper in Japanese.

36

KODERA Michiru

Since the early 1980s, Neuhaus had categorized his works into broadcast works and soundinstallations, based on a distinction between something musical and not. He then, on the one hand,described differences between the former and conventional music and, on the other hand,strengthened the logic with which he explains the latter as not music.

3. Conclusion
After the latter 1980s, Neuhaus continued to try to categorize his own works without theterm “music”. Since the mid 1980s, Neuhaus started to use the word “sound works” to indicate
his oeuvre (ibid., 43), and in an article in 1992 referred to the subcategories of “place piece” and“moment piece” under the category of “sound installation.” He then classified his works into theeight categories called “vectors” 15 . Dasha Dekleva says “ [t]he vector diagram distilled
Neuhaus’s sound activities by displacing the often confusing dichotomy of music – not-music”(2003: 44). This vector classification reorganized the use of vocabulary to illustrate Neuhaus’s
works into a system or scheme unbound from the dichotomy of music – not-music.
This paper has described hitherto how Neuhaus differentiated his works from conventionalmusic, focusing on what he called “music.” It outlines the chronological trajectory of his
differentiation in four points: (1) the title of his supposed first sound installation, Drive-In Music(1967), includes the word “music,” (2) in his booklet, Program Notes (1974), he not only
differentiates his works from conventional music based on their spatiality but also calls them“music,” (3) when the artist abandoned the original title, “Underground Music,” of Times Square(1977), the word “music” disappeared from his works’ titles by at least the 1980s, and (4) in theearly 1980s, he declared that his installation works were foreign to “music” and refined his
differentiation based on spatiality. Previous studies have not emphasized these second and third
points enough. Rather than to suggest these points, the most critical contribution of this paper is
by arranging these points chronologically to clarify the process, or at least a summary of it.
Through the process of differentiating between his works and music, Neuhaus has establishedand renewed his use of logic and vocabulary—especially which are relevant to his installations’spatiality.
Neuhaus’s process is also a significant case which shows the formulation of the art discipline
called sound art. Particularly, this process depicts the development of the logic and vocabulary
behind the concept of spatiality, which is regarded frequently as a characteristic element of soundart (Pardo 2017: 40, Licht 2019: 6). Comparisons of Neuhaus’s case with other contemporary
artists’ might be effective to widen this paper’s perspective.

15“Networks,” a succeed category of “Broadcast works,” is explained as a category whose works propose akind of new types of music. For Neuhaus’s “Vectors” in detail, see the web page “Sound Works” in his new official
website, Dekleva (2003: 43–44), and Eppley (2017: 21–28).

What Max Neuhaus Called “Music”

37

References
Cooke, Lynne. 2009. “Introduction,” in Max Neuhaus: Times Square, Time Piece Beacon, 23–
27, Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly with Barbara Schröder (eds.), New York: Dia Art
Foundation; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Cooke, Lynne, and Karen Kelly with Barbara Shröder (eds.). 2009. Max Neuhaus: Times
Square, Times Piece Beacon, New York: Dia Art Foundation; New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Cox, Christoph. 2018. Sonic Flux: Sound, Art, and Metaphysics, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Dekleva, Dasha. 2003. Max Neuhaus: Sound Vectors, master’s thesis, University of Illinois at
Chicago.
Eppley, Charles. 2017. Soundsites: Max Neuhaus, Site-Specificity, and the Materiality of Sound
as Place, Ph.D. diss., Stony Brook University.
Ericson, Raymond. 1977. “Max Neuhaus Music Made Especially for Times Square,” The New
York Times, November 27, p. 113.
Gál, Bernhard. 2017. “Updating the History of Sound Art: Additions, Clarifications, More
Questions,” Leonard Music Journal, Vol. 27: 78–81.
Joseph, Branden W. 2009. “An Implication of an Implication,” in Max Neuhaus: Times Square,Time Piece Beacon, 59–81, Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly with Barbara Schröder (eds.),
New York: Dia Art Foundation; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kotz, Liz. 2009. “Max Neuhaus: Sound into Space,” in Max Neuhaus: Times Square, Time
Piece Beacon, 93–111, Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly with Barbara Schröder (eds.), New
York: Dia Art Foundation; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Kunsthalle Basel (ed.). 1983. Max Neuhaus: Sound Installation, Basel: Kunsthalle Basel.
LaBelle, Brandon. 2006. Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art, New York: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
Licht, Alan. 2019. Sound Art Revisited, New York: Bloomsbury.
Lorber, Richard. 1978. “Max Neuhaus, Times Square,” Artforum, Vol. 16-5: 64.
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris (ed.). 1983. Sound Installation, Paris: Musée d’Art
Moderne de la Ville, Paris.
Nakagawa, Katsushi. 2010. “The Logic to Relativize John Cage in the 1950s: On the Problemsof Cagean “Experimental Music”,” Journal of Kyoto Seika University, Vol. 37: 3–22 [中川克志 2010 「一九五〇年代のケージを相対化するロジック——ケージ的な実験音楽の問題点の考察」『京都精華大学紀要』Vol. 37: 3–22].
Neuberger Museum (ed.). 1981. Soundings, Purchase, NY: Neuberger Museum.
Neuhaus, Max. 1974a. Program Notes, Toronto: York University.
———. 1974b. “UNDERGROUND MUSIC(S),” unpublished, Max Neuhaus Papers (Box 10,
Folder 12), Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Butler Library, Columbia University.
———. 2000. “Sound Art?” liner notes for Volume: Bed of Sound, at MoMA PS1, New York,https://www.max-neuhaus.estate/en/sound-works/sound-works-texts/sound-art, Nov.
24th, 2023.
———. 2019. “Max Neuhaus Entretien par Lucio Pozzi,” in Les pianos ne poussent par sur les

38

KODERA Michiru

arbres, gathered and presented by Daniele Balit and Matthieu Saladin, 171–175, Dijon:
Les presses du réel (first published in 1975. Revue DATA ARTE, no. 18).
Neuhaus, Max and Gregory des Jardins (eds.). 1994a. Max Neuhaus: Sound Works, Vol. 1,
Inscription, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Cantz.
———. 1994b. Max Neuhaus: Sound Works, Vol. 2, Drawings, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany:
Cantz.
———. 1994c. Max Neuhaus: Sound Works, Vol. 3, Place, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Cantz.
Packer, Renée Levine. 2010. This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Pardo, Carmen. 2017. “The Emergence of Sound Art: Opening the Cages of Sound,” The
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 75-1: 35–48.
Potts, Alex. 2009. “Moment and Place: Art in the Arena of the Everyday,” in Max Neuhaus:
Times Square, Time Piece Beacon, 45–57, Lynne Cooke and Karen Kelly with Barbara
Schröder (eds.), New York: Dia Art Foundation; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Sezon Museum of Art (ed.). 1989. New Museology of SMA, Tokyo: Libro Port [セゾン美術館
1989 『新しいミュゼオロジーを探る——西武美術館からセゾン美術館へ』
東京：リブロポート]。
———. 1999. The Seibu Museum of Art – Sezon Museum of Art, 1975–1999, Tokyo: Sezon
Museum of Art [セゾン美術館 1999 『西武美術館・セゾン美術館の活動：
1975–1999』 東京：セゾン美術館].
Shiomi, Mieko. 2005. What is Fluxus? People Connecting Daily Life and Art, Tokyo: Filmart[塩見允枝子 2005 『フルクサスとは何か？——日常とアートを結びつけた人々』 東京：フィルムアート社].
Studio 200 (ed.). 1991. The Digest of the Studio 200: 1979–1991, Tokyo: Seibu Department [スタジオ 200（編） 1991 『スタジオ 200 活動誌［1979–1991］』 東京：西武
百貨店].
“Underground Music,” 1978. MoMA, no. 7: 7.
Wong, Mandy-Suzanne. 2012. “Sound Art,” Grove Music Online,
https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2219538, Nov. 24th, 2023.
* Former official website of Max Neuhaus has been closed, but its several pages are now
available through the Wayback Machine by the Internet Archive. His new official website has
been opened in January 2021. Former website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180626212725/http://www.max-neuhaus.info/, current website:
https://www.max-neuhaus.estate/en.
This paper is supported by JSPS KAKENHI, Grant Number 19K12982. For their instructive
comments, I appreciate Katsushi Nakagawa and the peer reviews of the original version of this paper.