Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T03:58:56.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sonic Image and Acousmatic Listening*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2010

Daniel L. Barreiro
Daniel L. Barreiro*
Affiliation:
Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), Faculdade de Artes, Filosofia e Ciências Sociais, Departamento de Música e Artes Cênicas, Av. João Naves de Avila, 2121 – Campus Santa Mônica, Bloco 1V, Uberlândia (MG), CEP 38408–100, Brazil
*
E-mail: dlbarreiro@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores the concept of sonic image in acousmatic music. Such a concept is understood as mental representations motivated by sonic stimuli that reach the listener in an acousmatic listening situation and that can be determined by a focus on either the intrinsic or extrinsic aspects of the sounds – or even a combination of both. The intrinsic aspects are related to the inner characteristics of the sounds and are, therefore, accessed through reduced listening. They are not dependent on the identification of the sources that caused the sounds or possible meanings and connotations conveyed by them. The extrinsic aspects, on the other hand, are the connotations, meanings and references that lay outside the sounds themselves and that can be related to human experience in a broader sense, including domains other than the sonic. Since sonic images are not exclusively dependent on intrinsic factors, they can be the result of various kinds of listening attitudes not restricted to reduced listening. The article highlights the links between ideas presented by different authors who approach the issue of sonic image or who present considerations on other issues that may inform an understanding of sonic image in the acousmatic context. Since sonic image is dependent both on the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspects of sound, it is argued that it is a concept that can integrate (and possibly unify) different approaches related to acousmatic listening. The considerations on sonic image presented here touch issues regarding different listening attitudes, the relationships between sound and source, and links between sound and gesture, amongst other aspects. The approach taken here is focused as much as possible on the perspective of the listener rather than on the composer, although some considerations related to compositional thinking are occasionally exposed.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 15 , Issue 1: Sonic imagery , April 2010 , pp. 35 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is an extended and reworked version of a paper presented at the EMS Conference 2009, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Some of the considerations presented here are also an extension of the research I carried out during my PhD in Musical Composition at The University of Birmingham (UK), supervised by Jonty Harrison and sponsored by the Brazilian Government through Capes Foundation.

References

References

Adkins, M. 1999. Acoustic Chains in Acousmatic Music. In Imaginary Space: Proceedings of the 1999 Australasian Computer Music Conference. Wellington, New Zealand: University of Wellington. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/4273 (accessed in June 2009).Google Scholar
Atkinson, S. 2007. Interpretation and Musical Signification in Acousmatic Listening. Organised Sound 12(2): 113–122.Google Scholar
Bayle, F. 1989. Image-of-sound, or i-sound: Metaphor/metaform. Contemporary Music Review 4: 165–170.Google Scholar
Chion, M. 2009. Guide to Sound Objects. Pierre Schaeffer and Musical Research, trans. John Dack and Christine North. http://www.ears.dmu.ac.uk/spip.php?page=articleEars&id_article=3597 (accessed in June 2009).Google Scholar
Garcia, D. H. L. 1998a. Modelos perceptivos na música eletroacústica. PhD Thesis, Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.Google Scholar
Garcia, D. H. L. 1998b. O conceito de imagem-de-som de François Bayle. Anais do Encontro Nacional da ANPPOM 1998. Campinas, Brazil: Unicamp, 273–277.Google Scholar
Godøy, R. I. 2004. Gestural Imagery in the Service of Musical Imagery. In A. Camurri and G. Volpe (eds.) Gesture-Based Communication in Human-Computer Interaction: 5th International Gesture Workshop. Genova, Italy, 2003, Selected Revised Papers. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 55–62.Google Scholar
Godøy, R. I. 2006. Gestural-Sonorous Objects: Embodied Extensions of Schaeffer’s Conceptual Apparatus. Organised Sound 11(2): 149–157.Google Scholar
Harrison, J. 2000. About Évidence matérielle. http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/imed_0052/notices/imed_0052–0001 (accessed in March 2009).Google Scholar
Janata, P. 2001. Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying Auditory Image Formation in Music. In R. I. Godøy and H. Jørgensen (eds.) Musical Imagery. Lisse (Holland): Swets and Zeitlinger.Google Scholar
Kim, S. J. 2008. Listeners and Imagination: A Quaternary Framework for Electroacoustic Music Listening and Acousmatic Reasoning. PhD thesis, University of Florida.Google Scholar
Mandelbrojt, J. (ed.) 1996. Les unites sémiotiques temporelles. Marseille: Laboratoire Musique et Informatique de Marseille.Google Scholar
McAdams, S. 1984. Spectral Fusion, Spectral Parsing and the Formation of Auditory Images. PhD Thesis, Stanford University, CA.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 1966. Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 1986. Spectro-morphology and Structuring Processes. In S. Emmerson (ed.) The Language of Electroacoustic Music. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 1996. The Listening Imagination: Listening in the Electro-acoustic Era. Contemporary Music Review 13(2): 77–107.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 1997. Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound-Shapes. Organised Sound 2(2): 107–126.Google Scholar
Windsor, W. L. 1995. A Perceptual Approach to the Description an Analysis of Acousmatic Music. PhD thesis, City University.Google Scholar
Wishart, T. 1996. On Sonic Art (second edition, revised by Simon Emmerson). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Young, J. 2007. Reflections on Sound Image Design in Electroacoustic Music. Organised Sound 12(1): 25–33.Google Scholar

DISCOGRAPHY

Batchelor, P. 2004. Studies on Canvas. Unpublished digital media.Google Scholar
Harrison, J. 2007. Free Fall (2006). On Environs. Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–0788-CD.Google Scholar