Landscapes of Music: The more-than-human lives and politics of musical instruments

The forests around the German violin-making town of Mittenwald have been shaped for centuries to grow trees with wood that resonates particularly well for bowed string instruments, while the tropical woods used for bows link this craft to threatened Brazilian forests. This matters because musical instruments are usually studied as finished objects, not as things that connect people to living trees, landscapes, and ecosystems. The research fills a gap in understanding how instrument-making creates and depends on what the researcher calls "musical landscapes"—places where human craft and non-human nature have co-evolved over generations. It also examines the colonial and environmental politics of importing tropical woods for bows. If successful, the project will show how cultural heritage and environmental change are intertwined in ways that supply chains, conservation policy, and music history currently overlook. This is primarily curiosity-driven fundamental research in environmental musicology and anthropology. It will not produce a new technology or commercial product. But a clearer understanding of how craft traditions reshape landscapes—and how those landscapes in turn constrain or enable the craft—could inform sustainable sourcing decisions for instrument makers, conservation strategies for rare forest types, and cultural heritage management.