1. Introduction
Acousmatic music is heavily informed by a central duality which lies at the heart of the art form. It is a duality which plays a significant role in defining how a listener receives a work, and as a result it profoundly informs the manner in which composers approach their work. The relative lack of agreed terminology and definitive literature makes discussion of such issues difficult, but we will attempt a consideration of the current approach to this duality, and then propose some possible shifts in perspective based on recent research and literature, and some possibilities for future directions.
2. Acousmatic Music and Musique Concrète
It is notoriously difficult to provide an adequate, inclusive definition of acousmatic music, and in fact the extent to which composers avoid doing so is sometimes remarkable, though understandable. Acousmatic music is a culture and a practice first, and a theory after; as a result its boundaries, if they exist at all, are fluid and only vaguely discernible at best, making an accurate definition close to impossible. Also, it could be argued that the ‘acousmatic’ is a creative act of listening rather than of composing; to some extent, any electroacoustic work – or, indeed, any musical work whatsoever – could in theory be successfully listened to from the acousmatic perspective, and thereby considered an acousmatic work. However, a body of work and a collection of composers who are identified or self-identify as ‘acousmatic’ do indeed exist, and while the remarkable range of work that can be found therein seems to defy any attempt at definition, there are a certain number of collectively accepted characteristics which can be offered here. This does not imply an intention to limit or confine by determining set boundaries, but rather to simply describe perceivable characteristics of acousmatic culture and practice.
Acousmatic music evolved from the musique concrète of the 1950s, and the concerns of musique concrète form the heart of acousmatic art. Central among these concerns is Pierre Schaeffer’s notion of ‘reduced listening’ (Schaeffer Reference Schaeffer1966: 270). This proposes a listening paradigm in which the source of a sound is deliberately ignored, in order to focus on the sonic properties and characteristics inherent to the sound. The argument is that we are blinded to the musical potential of the sounds that surround us by their roles as signifiers for the objects or actions which produced them, and that this potential is revealed once we, through a conscious act, remove their significative identities, redefining a sound according only to its own sonic characteristics.
We already find ourselves embroiled in a central terminological debate – use of the word ‘music’: ‘acousmatic music’, ‘musical potential’. The primary issue here is whether the materials and methods of both musique concrète and acousmatic works constitute a sufficient departure from previous musical forms to necessitate a break with the concept of the ‘musical’; it has often been accurately pointed out that much of the genre, in terms of both compositional processes and the completed works, share more in common with non-musical arts – primarily cinema, but also extending to painting, sculpture and literature. Our purpose here, however, is to eventually expose the aforementioned duality inherent in the acousmatic genre in as clear a manner as possible; to this end, we will here accept the idea of the acousmatic as a ‘musical’ art, leaving this aspect of the debate as an essentially terminological refinement to be discussed elsewhere.
Thus, we can further elaborate our definition of ‘reduced listening’ with the proposition that reduced listening allows for a musical appreciation of sound, regardless of source; while this includes sources traditionally considered ‘musical’, it also allows for the appropriation of real-world sounds as musical sound, or the redefinition of such sounds solely according to their musical properties. These include, but are not limited to, pitch, timbre, dynamics, and – very significantly – the ways in which these evolve over time;Footnote 1 thus, any sound including sounds previously considered non-musical – such as a car or train passing, footsteps or indeed any sound we hear around us – now becomes a musical object, with melodic shape, internal rhythm, colour, texture. While it can be argued that reduced listening’s concern with the objective, non-significative properties of a sound is not necessarily inherently ‘musical’ by definition – that it is possible to consider, and then work with, these qualities of sound without making reference to the ‘musical’ – it can be countered that, in practice, the connection with the musical is, though perhaps not the only perspective in reduced listening, essentially always present – even, perhaps, central.
This is the key concept of musique concrète, and later of acousmatic music: the emancipation of sound, such that works can be created which are shaped through the musical deployment of recorded sounds.
2.1. The narrative layer
Initially, this was in essence the end of the definition. However, as musique concrète evolved it very quickly became apparent that, while this was indeed a significant revolution in the concept of music and process of composition, the theoretical emphasis on reduced listening was not, in practice, the end of the story on an esthesicFootnote 2 level. There is no doubt that the deliberate erasure of a sound’s source in order to objectively apprehend the sound’s musical qualities is a critical step in both the creation and appreciation of an acousmatic work. However, as this musical practice developed, it soon became clear that, without such constant, wilful, active denial of the possible sources of the sounds being heard, it is nearly impossible for the human mind not to ascribe, even if only unconsciously, a string of causes and sourcesFootnote 3 for the sounds. These perceived sources are not necessarily directly linked with the actual source of a given recorded sound; the source may be surprising, or the sound may have been generated or altered in the studio, and may be either entirely synthetically created, or only distantly related to an original source, and may be extremely abstract in nature. The mind, however, will almost always ascribe an active source for the sound, however vague – if not an actual object, then at least a sense of generative motion or activity.Footnote 4 What matters to us here is not the actual source of the sound, but the perceived source or cause, or imagined possibilities for such.Footnote 5
As a result, no matter how focused the creative act might be on the purely musical qualities of the sound, in practice, the listener – although also fully capable of appreciating this musical level – is almost certain to simultaneously create, perhaps unwittingly, an evolving mental image constructed from the reemergence of the sounds’ previously denied role as signifiers. While reduced listening was revolutionary in adding a further dimension to our appreciation of the sounds thus arranged, it did not succeed in erasing or negating our in-built response to sound – the automatic and instinctive linking of a given sound with a source.
2.2. The dual layers of acousmatic music
Far from implying a failing of musique concrète, the unique beauty of the genre lies precisely in this duality: the purely musical world on the one hand – in which sound objects become musical objects, grow into phrases, and develop to become the musical flow of the piece as a whole – and on the other hand, the stream of sources and images these sounds evoke. This stream of images and identities has a tendency to coalesce and, over the duration of the work, to create a constructed identity for the piece. However, once again we run into a terminological problem regarding this second layer. A number of possibilities present themselves, and several are in use, each carrying its own perspective – for example, Denis Smalley’s ‘source-bonding’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1994), Luc Ferrari’s ‘anecdotal music’ (Ferrari and Gayou Reference Ferrari and Gayou2007: 29), Trevor Wishart’s ‘landscape’ (Wishart Reference Wishart1986: 43), John Young’s ‘imagery’ (Young Reference Young2007: 25), and ‘mimesis’ (Emmerson Reference Emmerson1986: 17).
Several of these, however, refer to a quality of the material; the dichotomy we are considering here, however, is not one between referential and abstract material,Footnote 6 although there is certainly a relationship between these two dichotomies. Rather, we particularly wish to emphasise the evolving experience of a work, as experienced over the duration of the work, resulting in a cumulative impression built from the flow of material – an experience which develops in two parallel and opposing streams. The first of these is musical; the second we will refer to as the ‘narrative layer’. This should not be seen as an implication of the presence of a ‘plot’ or storyline, or to emphasise linearity; rather, it is intended to draw attention to the identity constructed from the evolving stream of local images and identities over the duration of the piece, and hopefully to be an easily understood description of this aspect of the listening process. The possibilities offered by the narrative layer and the many processes and mechanisms by which it operates present a fascinating universe, accessed by composers through the manipulation of material to create symbols, metaphors, and an intricate and powerful network of relationships between these and related identities; indeed, composers such as Trevor Wishart and John Young have made such tools and methods a centrepiece of their compositional style.Footnote 7
This, then, is the duality under consideration, from which acousmatic music draws its identity: the simultaneous and parallel existence of the musical and narrative layers. It should again be stressed that these terms – ‘narrative’ and ‘musical’ – are not here used to distinguish between different kinds or qualities of material; they are not, for example, intended to group real-world sounds on the one hand, and instrumentally related sounds on the other. Rather, they refer here to two distinct but simultaneous qualities of a work, and of the way in which the work is experienced; any and all material will tend to contribute to both of these two streams. It is this duality, essentially unique in the history of music,Footnote 8 which makes acousmatic music a particularly rich listening experience.
2.3. Acousmatic theory
It would perhaps be useful here to consider similar dualisms in acousmatic theory. The first of these is from Schaeffer’s four listening modes; it is perhaps fair to suggest that the first and third of these – listening and hearing – find equivalents in what we have been referring to as the narrative and the musical: ‘Mode one takes the listener outwards from the sound itself, reaching out into wider relationships with the objects, events and experiences beyond. Mode three draws the listener into the sound itself, into a contemplation of its sounding shape’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1992). It could also be argued that two other of Schaeffer’s listening dualisms – ordinary vs. specialised and natural vs. cultural – can similarly be likened to our narrative–musical dichotomy (Schaeffer Reference Schaeffer1966: 120–2 and Landy Reference Landy2007: 82).
Smalley extended Schaeffer’s four listening modes with three ‘listening relationships’ – indicative, reflexive and interactive (Smalley Reference Smalley1992); there are similarities in the relationships between the indicative and interactive modes and our narrative–musical duality: ‘Whilst in Smalley’s indicative mode the sounding object acts as message, or as information carrier, pertaining to environmental events or actions, the interactive mode implies ‘an active relationship on the part of the subject in exploring the qualities and structure of the [sound] object’ (Adkins Reference Adkins1999: 57).
Although these refer to qualities of the listening act, whereas our dichotomy is concerned with qualities of the work and the listener’s experience of the work, there are clearly useful similiarities between these models.
2.4. Limitations
Any theoretical model is likely to be more readily applicable to some examples of a genre than others; this is unquestionably true of the model under consideration. The proposal of a musical/narrative dichotomy as the central element of acousmatic experience clearly privileges works which include a certain degree of recognisable, real-world sound material – both objects and actions, sources and causes. Works which are largely devoid of such material – whose material involves primarily or exclusively remote surrogacy (Smalley Reference Smalley1992) – are not as fully or comfortably described by this model. Works which are heavily texture-carried also fall less comfortably inside the proposed model, compared with gesture-carried works, primarily because the latter more easily evoke narrative imagery of action and energy, in contrast with the self-propagating qualities of texture (Smalley Reference Smalley1986). Pieces such as François Bayle’s La langue inconnue, in which synthesis-derived textures are dominant (Bayle Reference Bayle2000), might be said to fall into such categories. Of course, such works remain ready subjects for acousmatic listening, which can certainly allow for the full experience of our dichotomy despite the apparent lack of significative association; see for example Philippe Mion’s analysis of La langue inconnue (Mion Reference Mion2000). Generally speaking, however, in such works the listener’s attention is commonly drawn primarily to the musical layer, with the narrative layer often constructed through metaphors gleaned from the musical layer, in a manner not dissimilar to programme music.
Works at the other end of the spectrum also pose a problem for our dichotomy. Works with a strong emphasis on soundscape – Ferrari’s Presque rien (Reference Ferrari2004), for instance – heavily prioritise the narrative layer to an extent sufficient to limit the relevance of our model. It could be argued, however, that the identification of such a work as ‘acousmatic’ amounts to a challenge to the listener to explore and develop the musical layer of such a work through applied listening, in which case our model perhaps remains tenable.
2.5. Musical and narrative in compositional practice
The acousmatic composer accesses an unparalleled range of possibilities in the approach to the musical and narrative layers and their combination. The composer can move freely between layers, with the compositional emphasis shifting between the two layers according to the whim and vision of the composer. In fact, in many ways these layers are self-sustaining, in that, even if completely ignored during the composition process, each will spring up fully formed from the material of the completed work: while a composer may work only according to the musical properties of the sounds, the listener will almost inevitably construct a string of mental imagery – built from imagined possibilities for source objects and causal actions – and thus a narrative layer, from the results; and conversely, should a composer consider only the imagery and storytelling properties of the material, the work that results can still be appreciated as a musical flow through reduced listening. Of course, most acousmatic composers will generally opt for careful crafting and control of both layers; indeed, it is through the subtle interplay and interaction between these two layers that much of the best acousmatic work generates its depth.
It is nevertheless sometimes tempting to propose that a composer’s compositional motivations might be weighted towards one or the other of these layers. One might suggest, for example, that composers such as Young and Wishart are compositionally preoccupied with the narrative layer, seeking structure primarily within this layer, with the musical layer constituted, to some extent, by what might be described as the musical byproducts of their development of imagery, symbols and metaphor within the narrative layer.Footnote 9 Denis Smalley, on the other hand, in works such as Pentes (Smalley Reference Smalley2000), clearly prioritises the musical layer, allowing the narrative layer to unfold in a rather vaguer, less direct manner, with occasional windows to more direct use of source-bonded sound. The listener is guided towards the musical layer in the quest for meaning, as opposed to the much more literal use of narrative-based metaphor of Wishart and Young. Pentes also offers a clear example of the distinction between our musical/narrative dichotomy and dualisms focusing on the ‘reality–abstraction continuum’ (Young Reference Young2007) of the sound material. The work climaxes with the appearance of a traditional melody on the Northumbrian pipes; in models based on qualities of material, this will tend to fall on the ‘reality’ end of the spectrum, as the sound’s source-bond with the real-world instrument is perfectly clear at this point in the piece. This might seem to imply an identification, in our dual-stream dichotomy, with the narrative layer; on the contrary, however, this melody is obviously far more engaged with the creation of the musical layer, while the appearance of an instrumentalist, though clearly a relevant moment in the narrative layer, quickly gives way to more programmatic scenery as the melody continues, until this is in turn shifted away by a return to more traditionally ‘acousmatic’ textures and gestures.
There is infinite variety and subtlety in the manners in which the interaction between these layers can be effected; the most obvious, perhaps, is the use of both layers towards a single goal – using the musical and narrative qualities to support each other and thereby create an exponentially stronger image.Footnote 10 Francis Dhomont, for example, is a notable master of such procedures; an excellent case in point is his work Points de fuite (Dhomont Reference Dhomont1996), in which the central themes of escape and flight are supported by both the narrative material – planes, gestures which roll away into the far distance – and the musical material – melodic gestures which glide upwards, disappearing into the upper registers, for example.Footnote 11
These, however, are fairly straightforward descriptions of musical–narrative relationships; the webs woven between these two layers are extremely rich and complex. Material in which the two layers support one another may give way to the surprise of contradiction where the imagery of one layer stands in contrast to the material of the other; the narrative material can be used to add many additional layers, subtleties and possibilities to the themes suggested by the musical material (common in Dhomont’s work and in Points de fuite in particular).
Thus, where the combination of two parallel strands running through acousmatic art already seemed a rich extension of the possibilities of previous musical genres by the superposition of a second layer to experience in a work, in fact this expansion of possibility is far greater than one might initially assume; the two layers interact and inform one another to create a multi-dimensional, somewhat holographic experience, in which the whole is significantly greater than the simple sum of its two parts.
2.6. Further examples
To consider a contrasting example, Jonty Harrison’s …et ainsi de suite… (Harrison Reference Harrison2004) suggests an apparent lack of thematic or symbolic agenda; unlike Dhomont’s piece, there is no identifiable theme here to be supported by the appropriate deployment of musical and narrative material. It employs a limited range of source material, dominated by sounds derived from a set of wine glasses, a source which would seem to carry very little symbolic baggage; the original identity of these sounds offers limited potential in and of itself for symbolic or metaphoric elaboration. (The only hint the listener is given regarding any such intentions is the title of the seventh of the work’s eleven sections: ‘souffle d’insectes’ – the breath of insects.) Despite these factors, however, …et ainsi de suite… boasts a vibrant narrative layer. This layer of the piece is less concerned here with identifiable objects, and more concerned with movement, motion and action. The sound material engages in a broad and captivating display of a wide variety of activity; and while at times there is no clear object identified with the performance of a given action, the listener easily draws imagery from these recognisable movements.Footnote 12 The narrative layer in this work is thus driven by questions of both source and cause – by the sounding objects, and the actions, movements and gestures we are hearing, be they embedded in the source recording or crafted in the studio.
Also important to the narrative layer of this piece is what Leigh Landy refers to as the ‘5ième écoute’, or fifth listening mode (Landy Reference Landy2007), which involves what Smalley has termed ‘listening to technology’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1992). Harrison opens the piece by presenting us with a straight rendition of his sound material, in which the source is readily identifiable; he then invites us into the work through a gradual transformation of this material. This process plays a central role in structuring the piece: Harrison regularly returns to the untreated source, develops this material through transformation and chains of transformations, to again return to the untreated source, in a constant flux between the real and the surreal. As a result the listener’s attention is directed towards the process of transformation; the listener becomes aware of the action of the composer’s craft and will upon the material, and follows the transformations of the material with a curiosity regarding the techniques being used, and where the composer might lead the transformation next. This process plays a significant role in the narrative layer of this work; the listener follows the composer’s virtuosity in the same way one might be attentive not just to the musical qualities of a concerto, but also to the physical prowess of the soloist.
Over the course of the work, the listener is welcome to engage with the narrative layer to the degree of their choice. A literal interpretation of events, while perhaps less obvious a choice in this work than in some, is still a valid possibility: what is happening to the glass? Is there one glass, or many? The glass is falling; it moves towards us, away from us. The glass is transformed; movement of this new, more abstract sound is recognised, despite uncertainty as to its identity… and so on. On the other hand, the listener may instead maintain a more abstract sense of the narrative layer, guided instead by shifts in mood across the work: calm, uneasy, tense, worrying, dramatic…
It might be argued, though, that …et ainsi de suite… places greater emphasis on the musical layer, and it is likely that the listener will gravitate towards this layer. Both source material and treatments have clearly been chosen primarily for their beauty, interest and appeal, and the piece is structured with careful attention to the rhythms of the material, as well as its timbres and textures. The listener is free at any point to pull away from the narrative layer entirely, to simply enjoy the rich palette of the work’s musical layer, and equally free to consider the potential details of the narrative layer, temporarily ignoring the tactile beauty of the piece.
Next we will consider Trevor Wishart’s Red Bird (Wishart Reference Wishart2000), which stands in fairly stark contrast to …et ainsi de suite… in that it is structured primarily according to an extremely elaborate, explicit sequence of symbols and metaphors, thereby heavily prioritising the narrative layer. Despite this key difference, however, there is a certain degree of similarity in the types of movements and gestures employed. Remarkably, however, where in Harrison’s piece the listener is struck by the associative properties of these gestures, thereby placing them within the narrative layer, in Red Bird these gestures act as an accompaniment to the stream of semi-linguistic metaphors which dominate the narrative layer of the work, and so this material, which tended towards the narrative in …et ainsi de suite…, here is more strongly associated with the musical layer.
Wishart deploys transformation of his material with primarily narrative intent. Where Harrison’s transformations tended to be guided by purely aesthetic concerns, Wishart employs transformation to build explicit links between materials in support of his thematic subtext. For example, the transformation of the human voice into the sound of machinery is clearly intended to deliver a message, rather than based on musical considerations. Thus, as previously suggested, the musical layer of Red Bird might be described as, to some extent, the byproduct of such transformations and development within the narrative layer. Wishart focuses on transformation within and between narrative elements as a method to construct meaning; the musical layer results from the beauty and craft with which these transformations are constructed.Footnote 13
Like Dhomont, Wishart is here deploying both the musical and narrative layers in support of his themes; here, however, musical and narrative elements tend to be combined to simultaneously produce a single metaphor,Footnote 14 where Dhomont layers them to collectively produce metaphor. Red Bird is, as a result, a rather more linear sequence of ideas; it also allows for a much more direct communication of the composer’s ideas.
2.7. Phenomenological roots
There is a further point which is important to consider regarding the birth and evolution of musique concrète and acousmatic music, which is of some relevance to our discussion here. Of the several revolutionary musical theories and systems invented and developed during the twentieth century, musique concrète is (together, perhaps, with soundscape composition) the only one to have based itself entirely on detailed analysis of the ways in which the listener perceives and responds to sound, with the entire theoretical construct not only built upon this premise, but tested at every stage against this principle. This is in stark contrast to other musical systems proposed around the same time, which tend to strictly bend their material to the rigours of a theoretical system imposed from the outside. Musique concrète was thus decidedly based in the esthesic act from its very inception. (A happy consequence of this approach is that, again in contrast with other contemporaneously developed musical systems, the central concerns of acousmatic music can be distinguished and understood relatively instinctively by the uninitiated, or with at most a basic introduction to the concept of reduced listening.)
This is a crucial quality of the genre, and is to a significant degree responsible for its success as a new musical form. As a result of this approach, its evolution has often been guided by the discovery of methods, techniques and materials which are effective and successful, with the understanding of the underlying reasons and resulting theory often following behind, and already based on established success in the proving ground of new work. Alternately, when an aspect of theory is proven untenable through further compositional exploration, it is either adapted or dropped – the acceptance of the narrative layer as a valid aspect of composition and listening being a key example of this.
As a result of this insistence on phenomenological study and analysis as the only valid basis for this new art form, acousmatic art is in the rare position of not only being derived from experiential analysis and experiment, but also bearing the capacity to lead such analysis. Acousmatic music is effective precisely because it was founded on careful detailed study of what is and is not effective in the listening experience; consideration of the reasons for the effectiveness of a given technique, material or approach is thus fertile ground for ongoing examination and discovery. It is not only that the study of our listening and cognitive processes can help to develop acousmatic theory; a study of acousmatic work, and the manners in which we respond to it, can help to develop our understanding of our listening and cognitive processes.
3. Sweet Expectation
In 2006, David Huron published his book Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation. In some ways an extension of Leonard B. Meyer’s work in the 1950s into the psychology of music and the musical experience (Meyer Reference Meyer1956), Huron makes many important propositions which, although built primarily around considerations of more traditional instrumental music, could have significant implications for acousmatic music.
Huron’s central thesis is, in essence, that much of our response to music stems directly from our instinctive and reflexive responses to real-world scenarios and situations. Dealing with paradigms such as tension, surprise, prediction and expectation, the originality of Huron’s work lies in the extremely detailed analysis of the ways in which our relationships with the world around us define our musical responses. In contrast, previous work, while also discussing these and similar paradigms, tended to focus on their effects only within the language and closed systems of musical forms.
3.1. Expectation and surprise
For example, much of what we consider to be central to the musical experience is related by Huron to two contrasting experiences of pleasure – the pleasure of confirmed expectation, and the pleasure of surprise. He explains these as biological imperatives: ‘Since accurate predictions are of real benefit to an organism, it would be reasonable for psychological rewards and punishments to arise in response solely to the accuracy of the expectation … When the stimulus is expected, the emotional response is positively valenced; when the stimulus is unexpected, the emotional response is negatively valenced’ (Huron Reference Huron2006: 12–13). While this explains the pleasure of confirmed expectation – say, for example, the resolution of a perfect cadence – further investigation is required regarding the pleasure of surprise. Huron suggests that surprise inevitably triggers a ‘fight, flight, [or] freeze’ response, but that ‘[m]usical responses are capable of initiating these responses, but [they] are short-lived because an ensuing appraisal ultimately judges the stimuli as nonthreatening’, the biological responses to which he lists as ‘frisson, laughter or awe’ (Huron Reference Huron2006: 39). He terms such responses ‘contrastive valence… Pleasure is increased when a positive response follows a negative response’ (2006: 39). Thus, musical stimuli are described as triggering the same responses as real-world events and situations, for the same reasons and in the same manner.
Also of relevance to our discussion here is the detailed description of the paths through the brain that trigger reactions to various stimuli. Huron states for example that ‘(w)hen a surprising event occurs, two brain processes are initiated: a rapid reaction response and a slower appraisal response’ (Huron Reference Huron2006: 19). The first of these is in essence a reflexive reaction to a dangerous situation, while the second is a more rational, considered response. Huron tracks the paths each of these takes through the human brain, and discusses the emotional reactions that result from the differences in response times.
3.2. Huron and acousmatic art
There is much detail in Sweet Anticipation that will prove of great value to the acousmatic composer, including, for example, detailed analysis of the creation of predictability and surprise, of rhythm and expectation, all of which could provide much insight into the details of acousmatic compositional technique – particularly as Huron’s biological approach speaks in broad terms, which are often easily applicable to acousmatic work. However, we will here focus on extrapolations which admittedly rest on only the broadest interpretation of Huron’s work, and constitute an oversimplification which may at times constitute a slightly questionable departure from his thesis. Hopefully, however, our results will validate any such liberties, and readers are referred directly to Sweet Anticipation itself for a more thorough and accurate discussion of the details.
4. Implications for musical–narrative duality
Let us return to the theme of Huron’s work, and consider its impact on the dual streams of acousmatic music. The summary of acousmatic theory above assumes the musical and narrative layers to be distinct, separable, and the results of different responses and processing by the listener. It could be argued, however, based on Huron’s work, that this in fact is not the case: that the listener’s responses to the musical layer, and the listener’s responses to the narrative layer, in fact rely on the same processes, the same reflexes, the same responses – indeed, that there is no identifiable difference in listener response between these two layers, and that, by extension, this duality is therefore, in essence, an illusion – that these are, at most, different perspectives on a single response.
While at first this might not seem to be so great a departure, consideration of the consequences of this argument – albeit taken here to a perhaps questionable extreme – reveals a significant impact on the basic premises of acousmatic art. Reduced listening assumes the ability to ‘turn off’ our real-world responses, in order to respond solely to the musical characteristics of what we are hearing. If we follow our current line of reasoning to its extended conclusion – that musical response is, in fact, indistinguishable from reflexive real-world response – then the musical and narrative layers collapse, and, in fact, the very possibility of the notion of ‘reduced listening’ appears to be negated.
4.1. A step back
Does this, then, announce the end of reduced listening? Presumably not. Let us fall back on the phenomenological, experientially based premise of the acousmatic genre: we can confidently state that there is, in fact, a distinction between the musical layer and the narrative layer – between reduced listening and significative listening – by virtue of the fact that we experience this distinction as listeners. We know from experience that it is, in fact, possible to perform reduced listening, and that we do distinguish a difference of experience between the two layers.
Let us take a step back, then, in our reasoning, and return from this nihilistic extreme to the more moderate suggestion that perhaps the two layers – previously considered distinct and separate – are, in fact, two different perspectives on a single response. Stepping further back still, we can argue that, while the processing of the responses may be the same, and the material we are responding to may be the same, we may in fact be responding to different aspects of this same material – which, perhaps, is not much of a departure from the dual-layer paradigm. For example, recognition of a source action or movement may lead to a particular expectation: when presented with a sound we identify as ‘falling’, we may anticipate an impact. Our musical expectations, however, are based to a significant extent – as discussed by Huron – on learned patterns; thus, our expectation based on the musical interpretation of the phrase derived from the ‘falling’ material may, in fact, lead us to expect something quite different. However, we have seen through our consideration of Huron’s work that musical expectation is generally derived directly from real-world experience; thus, in our example, it is quite probable that the expected resolution of the phrase derived from the ‘falling’ material would, in fact, be a musical impact – which once again seems to argue for a collapsing of the two layers.
We will return to the example, discussed above, of Dhomont’s Points de fuite. In fact, in this light, our interpretation of the rising pitch material is based on a response which is indistinguishable from our reaction to the plane and other recognisable images. The difference remains, however, that we continue to identify the source of this pitch material as musical. This distinction, however, is perhaps of limited relevance to our reception and understanding of the work; thus, in this instance, our distinction between musical and narrative material here is largely unimportant – our experience of the work is shaped by identical methods of processing and response to both the musical and narrative layers.
5. A proposal
In fact, what might be proposed based on such considerations might be not so much a complete reconsideration of the dual acousmatic layers, but rather a slight reinterpretation. We can continue to assume the coexistence of musical and narrative streams, but reconsider our interpretation of these as distinct and independent qualities. While our mental processing of the two layers operates on the same principles, it could be posited that, where our response to the narrative layer is immediate and reflexive, our response to the musical layer is, in fact, mediated by an additional stage of mental processing, or at least activated less quickly, perhaps, than our more reflexive reactions. Huron describes various consequences of differences in processing times, which result variously from differing paths through the brain, differences between learned and reflexive responses, and degree of familiarity. Is it possible, then, that what we experience as dual layers in acousmatic music is, in fact, the result of different processing times for different aspects of the same stimuli? Our reflexive expectation of an impact after a fall could be assumed to be an extremely rapid process; our musical expectation of an impact after an equivalent musical phrase is more of a culturally learned response, and thus, according to Huron, while still reflexive, might be expected to take longer to process.
Such an interpretation – that the dual quality of acousmatic experience relates rather to differences in processing time of different aspects of the same material, rather than distinct identities of independent streams – is in some ways an attractive one. It points to the possibility of subtle shifts in compositional approach, away from the construction of connections between two distinct streams, and towards the subtle manipulation of the direct experience of the material. For example, interplay between the musical and the narrative through alternately contradicting, contrasting or supporting relationships was a central element of the dual approach; these possibilities remain in this new perspective, but slightly different methodologies present themselves. The former paradigm perhaps privileges symbolic relationships between the musical and narrative materials, which are decoded and cognitively recognised by the listener. Under our proposed paradigm, however, such relationships are secondary, as they at best take significantly longer to process, or can even be considered as existing outside the temporal experience of the piece entirely, to be constructed after the listening experience. Instead, the composer would work with a scale of degrees of familiarity and expectation from the dual musical and narrative perspectives, thereby playing with processing times of these coexisting qualities – for example withholding simultaneity for climactic moments in a work, in the hopes of creating a cumulative and powerful impression on the listener, or teasing the listener with changing values of disjuncture between the musical and the narrative. Ideas of ‘tension’ and ‘resolution’ would in this manner be linked directly to the relative distance or simultaneity between the listener’s processing, and thereby experience, of the narrative and musical qualities of the material.
5.1. Acousmatic déjà vu
There is a sense of awed epiphany which results from the multifaceted experience of the peak moments of the finest acousmatic works, in which a listener experiences the conjuncture of these different streams to create an immediate and powerful impression which results from the poetic combination of the musical and narrative qualities to create an impact far beyond the capacities of either of these aspects alone. A further extension of our hypothesis might lead us to suggest that this sense of awe results from the closely spaced arrival of dual processing of the same material or stimuli. The impact of such dual processing or perception is theorised, for example, as a possible cause for the common sensation of déjà vu (Brown Reference Brown2004), which can also be described as a sense of awe or epiphany. It is tempting to imagine a similar process at work in this manner in acousmatic music.
6. Conclusion
Of course, such theorising would benefit enormously from empirical study, testing and experiment; hopefully what we have proposed here might offer fruitful prospects for such research. It can also hope to offer, if not new avenues for acousmatic composition, perhaps possibilities for slight changes in compositional perspective which might prove rewarding. Regardless, these subjects – David Huron’s propositions regarding our responses to musical stimuli, the qualities at the heart of acousmatic music, and the acousmatic listening experience – are rich and fascinating topics which warrant further consideration and discussion, and can surely benefit from both speculative conjecture such as that presented here, and more detailed exploration and experiment.
