Materials, Meaning and Metaphor: Unveiling Spatio-Temporal Pertinences in Acousmatic Music (original) (raw)

Teruggi. I am grateful to them for this exceptional occasion. Although amended for publication, the following text is based on my paper, which reflects my research in the frame of my doctoral dissertation, similarly entitled "Materials, Meaning, and Metaphor: Unveiling Spatio-Temporal Pertinences in Acousmatic Music." 1 This research owes much to the valuable advice and encouragement received from Denis Smalley and Annette Vande Gorne. I am indebted to them for their assistance. My paper will focus on the objective material inherent in my music as well as the way I attempt to convey meaning through my works. In order to examine these concepts, I shall elaborate on the sonic properties and structural characteristics indigenous to the works and, additionally, the personal opinions and imagined ideas employed during the compositional process. These different angles originate from preliminary research on listening patterns I conducted at the inception of my doctorate. This research had considerable bearing on the development of my reception behaviours framework, which, in turn, influenced my compositional strategies. My paper, therefore, is articulated on my reception behaviours framework (I) and its four components (II-V): I. Reception Behaviour Framework II. Sonic Properties III. Structural Attributes IV. Self Orientation V. Imaginary Realms EMS : Electroacoustic Music Studies Network-De Montfort/Leicester 2007 2/39 I. Reception Behaviour Framework It is necessary, first, to define the musical genre to which my reception behaviours and metaphorical elements pertain. Therefore, I would like to start by defining the kind of electroacoustic music that I compose and on which my research is centred. A. The Acousmatic Medium Acousmatic music is a type of electroacoustic music, which exists in a recorded format, transmitted and perceived, during performance, via the loudspeaker 2 , thereby eliminating all visual stimulation that the listener customarily associates with sound production. The listener, subsequently, is liberated from a type of perception that traditionally combines the visual with the auditory. Annette Vande Gorne proposes that this invisibility stimulates listeners to access their imagination, sensations, and emotions (Vande Gorne, 1999: 6). However, if invisibility is important, do recordings of instrumental or vocal music not incite similar types of responses, or is acousmatic music especially suited to this type of communication? While instrumental and vocal music do access the imagination, acousmatic music is particularly well adapted to this purpose for a number of reasons. Unlike instrumental music, there is no typical sound or sound world as defined by the timbres and registers of traditional instruments and their combinations. Neither are there human limits imposed on the execution of the sounds. Acousmatic music does not rely on the pulsed structuring of time. Rather, it respects the inherent rhythmic properties found in a sound or sound world. Each work therefore contains a unique set of rhythmic properties and rhythmic relationships. In addition, the combination of possible superpositions of sounds or sound worlds a composer may create in an acousmatic piece is infinite. According to John Young, these organised acoustic images function together in a continuum between the poles of reality and abstraction (Young, 1996: 83-84). If we accept the reality / abstraction continuum we can see that the distance between the points is barely measurable between the two poles. In addition, each acousmatic work not only shifts in its unique way between these two poles but, due to the complexity of the genre, it is also possible to perceive simultaneous, yet divergent, progressions within the reality / abstraction continuum. These concepts were particularly interesting from a compositional point of view during the preliminary stages of my doctoral research. Of equal intrigue were the seemingly inexhaustible types of listener responses to the same work. Judging from diverse listener reactions it became apparent that an acousmatic work expresses ideas exterior to itself. What, then, are the extra meanings in this music? Which sounds are 'carriers of meaning' (Smalley, 1997: 111)? Which meanings do they carry and for whom? B. Music Analysis and Reception Behaviours: Sommeil by Pierre Henry: A Summary of the Listening Strategies devised by François Delalande The listening strategies, devised by François Delalande at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris in 1997, were helpful for the orientation of my research. 3 The main objective of Delalande's listening experiment, conducted with the movement "Sommeil" from Pierre Henry's acousmatic work "Variations pour une porte et un soupir," was to study, describe and differentiate listening or reception behaviours.