1. Introduction
The focus on sound as heard as the basis for the composition of musique concrète, as proposed by Schaeffer (Reference Schaeffer1966), reveals his reaction against the ‘excess of abstraction’ found in the music of the period. Nevertheless, Schaeffer ‘did not shy away from “reclaiming” the musical abstract. A reclaiming which, for him, had necessarily to pass through a return to the concrete’ (Chion Reference Chion2009: 37). This ‘return to the concrete’ is based on reduced listening, defined as a listening attitude directed towards the appreciation of the inner features of the sounds to the detriment of the identification of a sound source or a meaning or any other kind of extra-musical references the sounds may convey. This listening attitude has the sound object as its correlate – the object of a listening intention directed towards intrinsic sonic aspects. The focus on the intrinsic aspects of the sounds, carried out through reduced listening, can be jeopardised by sounds that reveal their source in an unequivocal way or that make identifiable references of extra-musical nature. If the reference to a source or a meaning is very strong, a sound will probably impose difficulties for reduced listening to be carried out. This was one of the reasons why Schaeffer considered some sounds as inappropriate for the composition of musique concrète, which reveals the prescriptive side of his approach (see Windsor Reference Windsor1995 for considerations on this respect).
In spite of this belief, the richness of associations that ‘anecdotal’ sounds (and not only ‘abstract’ ones) can trigger on the listener’s mind has drawn the attention to the expressive potential they can bring to electroacoustic music, which can be traced back to the works by Luc Ferrari, for example. Since then, works by various composers have shown different degrees of attainment of Schaeffer’s prescriptive approach, from following it strictly to following it loosely or even completely disregarding it. In the theoretical field, Trevor Wishart’s influential book On Sonic Art, for example, was written with the assumption that all sounds are potentially appropriate for compositional exploration (Wishart Reference Wishart1996: 8), which shows the possibility of embracing a wider range of sounds than the ones envisaged by Schaeffer. Although the use of anecdotal sounds and the exploration of listening attitudes other than reduced listening are not new in electroacoustic music, it can be argued that they have only recently become an important trend in acousmatic thinking.
The possibility of combining reduced listening and listening attitudes focused on the extrinsic aspects of the sounds has emerged in compositional practice, as can be attested, for example, by Jonty Harrison’s comments regarding his own work, as follows:
My acousmatic journey seems to take me down a wide road. One side of the street has a sign saying ‘rue Schaeffer’ – here the preoccupation is with abstracting musical data from sound objects (‘objets sonores’), without reference to their provenance in any anecdotal way …. The name on the other side of the road is hard to read, but I am sure that ‘Schafer Street’ – where natural sound is used precisely ‘because’ of its provenance, and where signification does not reside in the ‘purely’ musical (whatever that is) – cannot be more than a block away. I wander along this broad avenue in a reverie of discovery, often without a definite goal in mind, frequently stopping without warning to examine (at length!) some wonderful sound which presents itself along the way. (Harrison Reference Harrison2000 – also quoted by Young Reference Young2007).
Nowadays, therefore, many composers tend to assume that all sounds can be considered appropriate for compositional exploration. Since the 1990s we have also witnessed an increasing interest on listening attitudes not restricted to reduced listening in the theoretical field (see Smalley Reference Smalley1996; Mandelbrojt Reference Mandelbrojt1996; Garcia Reference Garcia1998a; Adkins Reference Adkins1999; Atkinson Reference Atkinson2007; Young Reference Young2007; and Kim Reference Kim2008, for example). Even though approaching the subject from different perspectives, authors tend to converge to an understanding that listeners (including composers themselves) do not always adopt a listening attitude focused on sound ‘for its own sake, as a sound object, by removing its real or supposed source and the meaning it may convey’ (following the definition of reduced listening, as presented by Chion Reference Chion2009: 30).Footnote 1 This is confirmed by Atkinson (Reference Atkinson2007: 120), who mentions that post-Schaefferian music theory has shifted from the emphasis on the interactive listening attitude (focused on spectromorphology) to an acknowledgement of the indicative listening attitude (related to the extrinsic aspects of the sounds).Footnote 2
In this context, Young highlights the awareness on the role of imagery in recent electroacoustic music and states that ‘the capacity for electroacoustic music to project and manipulate sonic images is now acknowledged as a cornerstone of the medium’s aesthetic potential’ (2007: 25). Sonic images are understood as mental representations motivated by sonic stimuli that reach the listener. These images can be subjected to shifts and changes in accordance to the sonic manipulations and relationships established between the sounds in a composition. They are not restricted to intrinsic (spectromorphological) characteristics of the sounds, however, which opens up the consideration of the extrinsic aspects related to sonic experience.Footnote 3 Sonic image emerges, therefore, as a concept that can integrate different listening approaches and provide an understanding of both the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspects of sonic experience.
2. Listening Attitudes, Intrinsic And Extrinsic Aspects
Among the four listening modes articulated by Schaeffer (Reference Schaeffer1966), the first (écouter) and the third (entendre) ones relate to the extrinsic and intrinsic aspects of the sounds, respectively. The first mode (écouter) is related to indexical listening, focused on the identification of causal relationships between a sound and possible sources. The third mode (entendre), on the other hand, is related to the reduced listening approach and concerns the spectromorphological characteristics of the sounds. The second mode (ouïr) is a passive kind of listening, deprived of intentionality, whereas the fourth mode (comprendre) is directed towards the comprehension of the musical discourse and relates, therefore, to the relationships established between musical materials in a work. This listening mode can be also understood as dealing with the comprehension of the musical discourse in relation to the musical context (repertoire) (see Atkinson Reference Atkinson2007: 120).
Smalley (Reference Smalley1996) combines Schaeffer’s four listening modes with considerations of autocentricity and allocentricity articulated by Schachtel (apud Smalley Reference Smalley1996) and reorganises the listening modes into three kinds of listening relationships, two of which concern intrinsic and extrinsic aspects and are termed as interactive and indicative relationships, respectively. The other listening relationship, called reflexive relationship, derives from the autocentric mode proposed by Schachtel and concerns ‘basic emotional responses to the object of perception’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1996: 82). The interactive relationship is related to Schaeffer’s listening modes three (entendre) and four (comprendre) and also to Schachtel’s allocentric mode. It ‘embraces structural hearing, aesthetic attitudes towards music and sounds, and Schaeffer’s concept of reduced listening’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1996: 82). The indicative relationship, on the other hand, corresponds to Schaeffer’s mode one (écouter), although Smalley highlights that it is not restricted to sound understood as carrier of mere messages, events and information, but includes ‘a wider frame of references to experience outside and beyond music’, establishing a ‘relationship between musical experience and our experiences of living’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1996: 83).
Following Atkinson (Reference Atkinson2007), it is possible to notice that the interactive relationship is related to Jakobson’s concept of introversive semiosis, understood as the references established between each sonic event and the other events in a work. Therefore, it is interesting that the interactive listening relationship proposed by Smalley integrates Schaeffer’s modes three and four, embracing not only the apprehension of the inner features of the sounds (through reduced listening), but also the musical relationships established between different sonic events (structural hearing). Extroversive semiosis, on the other hand, relates to the indicative relationship and concerns the links with aspects of the world that lay outside the work and the sounds themselves.
Smalley emphasises that the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic aspects does not need to be restricted to ‘sounding experience’, but can also embrace other kinds of perception related either to ‘human physical movement … or environmental experiences’ (1997: 110), or even human experience in a broader sense, which resonates with considerations regarding the nine indicative fields or networks presented in Smalley (Reference Smalley1996). The indicative fields or networks are gesture, utterance, behaviour, energy, motion, object/substance, environment, vision and space. The reference to experiences rooted in the non-sounding world can be noticed in several of these fields. Gesture – which will be discussed later in the context of the considerations presented by Godøy (Reference Godøy2004, Reference Godøy2006) – is related, for example, to the ‘consequences of the energy-motion trajectory’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1996: 84), to human relationship (interpreted in terms of force and gentleness) and also to perception of effort and resistance in broadly terms, which ‘does not stop with the physical act since tension and resistance also concern emotional and psychological experiences’ (1996: 84). Sounds of the voice or produced by the vocal tract (related to the utterance field) can indicate human presence. The behaviour field concerns the relationships established between the sounds in a work in connection to general references of human behaviour, manifested as dominance/subordination, conflict/coexistence and cause/effect, for example. Energy and motion can be associated with the creation and release of tension and present connections with the gesture field. These fields can be manifested in many different ways, such as spectral motions ‘detected both in external contour and internal, textural behaviour’ (1996: 88), among other possibilities. In the object/substance field ‘the popular sense of “thingness” is intended’ (1996: 89), which can be related, for example, to the notion of tactility presented by some sounds – mentioned by Young (Reference Young2007) in relation to the notion of sonic image. The appreciation of the sonic qualities presented by different environments and the identification or the imagination of an environment concerns the environment field, which presents obvious links with the space field. The vision field has connections with many of the other indicative fields, such as gesture, object/substance and space. It concerns analogies between the sonic and the visual domains and presents obvious links with the notion of sonic image. The space field is related to three main areas, namely: ‘the use of space to articulate sounds and musical structure’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1996: 90); sound diffusion, understood as ‘the articulation of the composed spatial content in public performance’ (1996: 90); and ‘the affective interpretation of space’ (1996: 90) – related to the perception of intimacy and immensity, confinement and vastness, among other references related to human experience. These indicative fields or networks, therefore, support the understanding of sense modalities other than listening as cooperative elements in the perceptual process, helping ‘to extract meaning from what we hear in our environment’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2004: 56). This notion supports the understanding of human audition as a phenomenon that benefits from experiences related to other areas of human perception and experience, thus supporting the view of human audition a cross-modal phenomenon.
The identification of listening attitudes directed either to the intrinsic or to the extrinsic aspects of the sounds can inform an understanding of how they operate in relation to each other in acousmatic listening. Smalley approaches this issue by stressing the importance of the intrinsic aspects as the ‘carrier’ of extrinsic relations. He mentions that ‘the intrinsic qualities and relations as created by the composer determine the impact of extrinsic messages’, and ‘an extrinsic foundation in culture is necessary so that the intrinsic can have meaning’ (Smalley Reference Smalley1997: 110).
The appreciation of an acousmatic work as the result of the interplay between different listening attitudes is a core aspect of Kim’s theoretical work (Kim Reference Kim2008). He highlights that, while listening to electroacoustic music, listeners carry out what he calls acousmatic reasoning based on the continuous interplay between a semiotic listening mode (centred on sonic images motivated by the identification of a signification or references the sounds may convey) and a spectromorphological listening mode (centred on the identification of the inner qualities of the sounds and related, therefore, to reduced listening). Semiotic listening, in this case, is related to the depiction of sonic images highly determined by the references of ‘Body’, ‘Place’, ‘Non-body’ and ‘Non-place’ as the poles of a quaternary framework that supports acousmatic reasoning. Kim mentions Klang, by Jonty Harrison, as an example of work that plays with ‘Body’ and ‘Non-body’ as references. ‘Body’, in this case, emerges as a sonic image related to the initial sounds that suggest the presence of a human agent who plays with a metallic object. As the work unfolds, however, processed sounds depart from this initial frame of reference and do not support the sonic image of a ‘performer’ playing with the metallic object anymore, which guides imagination towards the axis of ‘Non-body’.
According to Kim, sonic images are derived not only from the elements that our perception collects from the sounds, but also from the contribution of our imagination in completing what is missing in the representations we elaborate based on the sounds we hear. Imagination also contributes in elaborating relationships between sonic images and expected ways they may unfold through time in a work.
Although Kim argues that his semiotic listening mode concerns the signifying process related to issues of source and context identification, and that it is not related to processes of introversive and extroversive semiosis, it is possible to notice a proximity between his two listening modes and the indicative and interactive listening relationships proposed by Smalley.
Based on the considerations presented by both authors it is possible to identify the potential of sonic image as a concept that provides an understanding about acousmatic listening (even though the concept of sonic image itself is hardly mentioned by Smalley). It is plausible to assert that the concept of sonic image can articulate the different listening approaches in an integrated manner. The focus of attention during the listening process can change continuously from the intrinsic to extrinsic aspects, but the result of such a process, anyway, is the emergence of sonic images that can change, adapt and be related to each other in different ways during the listening process, providing connections between the sonic events and, ultimately, articulating viable understandings about the musical discourse.
3. Sound and Source
Sonic images can be motivated by any kind of sound. Some sonic features, however, tend to stimulate listening attitudes oriented towards the appreciation of references that lay outside the sound itself, which offers the extrinsic counterpart that contributes for the emergence of sonic images. Among these features, the identification of plausible or imagined sound sources plays an important role. One usual way of classifying sounds in relation to a source is to call them either as ‘abstract’ (when a source is not easily identifiable) or as ‘anecdotal’ (when the source is evident). This classification, however, is too simplistic to embrace the complexity of the sound world put into place in an acousmatic composition. ‘Abstract’, on one hand, and ‘anecdotal’, on the other hand, are only the extremes of an opposition that can have many intermediate levels.
The concept of ‘source bonding’, formulated by Smalley (Reference Smalley1997), approaches this issue in a more refined fashion as it deals with ‘the natural tendency to relate sounds to supposed sources and causes, and to relate sounds to each other because they appear to have shared or associated origins’ (1997: 110). Smalley highlights that source bonding results from the interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic aspects associated with the sounds and that the ‘imaginative and imagined extrinsic connections’ are encouraged by ‘the wide-open sonic world of electroacoustic music’ which relies, amongst other things, on ‘the variety and ambiguity of its materials’ (1997: 110). In this respect, it is important to notice that associations may happen not only in relation to sounds that clearly reveal their sources but also in relation to sounds that do not present an obvious reference to a source – which can potentially stimulate the listener’s mind to find associations with possible sources (either known or imagined) that may correspond to the spectromorphological characteristics identified. Sonic images, in this case, can be motivated by this exercise of searching for a plausible or imagined source.
One interesting approach concerning the sound–source relationship in acousmatic music is presented by Adkins (Reference Adkins1999) under the notion of acoustic chains. As it will be mentioned later, this approach can offer elements for understanding the notion of sonic image and the listening activity in acousmatic music. Adkins’ conceptual apparatus is based on the distinction between the sound of a concrete object – which is termed a ‘sounding object’ – and its perception within an acousmatic context – termed a ‘sound object’. In other words, ‘the term “sounding object” refers to the physical source of the acoustic stimuli, and the term “sound object” to a phenomenological unit given “meaning” within the context of an acousmatic work’ (Adkins Reference Adkins1999: 1).Footnote 4 According to Adkins, the notion of acoustic chains is an appropriation of Lacan’s metaphor of the signifying chain, which is defined as a group of signifiers that are linked in some culturally determined manner. Likewise, ‘individual sounding objects within an acousmatic work have the potential to stimulate references within another’ (1999: 2), establishing an acoustic chain between different works. Adkins highlights that acoustic chains can even happen when the sounding object is not exactly the same, but presents some similarities or, using Gibson’s terminology (mentioned by Adkins), when a similar affordance is stimulated.Footnote 5 He advances with this notion and formulates an understanding of the emergence of signification during the listening process, especially when a work is being auditioned for the first time. In such cases, ‘as insufficient information is available to the listener … [he or she] is forced to assign to the sounding object affordances and signification from previous know models, be they from other acousmatic works or environmental or socio-cultural models’ (1999: 5). This attribution of signification can be later reformulated by the listener as the work progresses and reveals other possibilities of signification.
Since the identification of a sounding object can play an important role in the emergence of sonic images, it can be argued that Adkins’ considerations can be easily appropriated for approaching the notion of sonic image. In this case, different sonic images conveyed in the context of a single work or in different works, or even in relation to environmental sonic experiences, can present similarities that connect them together in a chain, contributing to the assigning of signification in the appreciation of a work. A certain sonic image can, therefore, be linked by the listener to other more familiar sonic images from his or her repertoire of sonic experiences and guide him or her through the audition of an acousmatic work. However, there are occasions when sonic images do not necessarily derive from the identification of a sounding object, but from other factors – for example, when a sonic image derives from intrinsic aspects presented by ‘abstract’ sound not necessarily related to specific sounding objects. Even in such cases, relationships with familiar sonic images can be established in the listener’s mind generating chains that link different sounds and different works together.
4. Gesture–sound Relationships and Signification
Besides the relationships established between a sound and an identified or imagined source, there can be associations between a sound and the physical gesture (or gestures) that may have caused it. In this respect, the concept of gestural surrogacy, also devised by Smalley (Reference Smalley1986, Reference Smalley1997), can shed some light on this issue and highlight the role of gesture in suggesting sonic images. Gestural surrogacy refers to the association between spectromorphological characteristics of the sounds and physical gestures acting upon sound sources that may have caused them. Smalley (Reference Smalley1997) presents four different levels of surrogacy that reveal a process of increasing remoteness from the identification of the source and gestural cause of the sounds (first- and second-order surrogacy), passing by the cases ‘where a gesture is inferred or imagined’ (third-order surrogacy) towards the level of remote surrogacy that happens when ‘source and cause become unknown and unknowable as any human action behind the sound disappears’ (1997: 112). In an acousmatic work, the presence of sounds that suggest first- or second-order surrogacy alongside sounds related to third-order or remote surrogacy can potentially motivate different listening perspectives, causing the attention to move continuously between sounds that are strongly connected to gestures and sounds in which this connection is blurred or apparently absent. Sonic images strongly related to gestures can be, therefore, interwoven with sonic images related to other kinds of associations (when the relation to a gesture is not apparent).
Considerations on sonic image as a perceptual phenomenon are sometimes approached in connection to considerations on mental imagery, which is defined by Finke (apud Janata Reference Janata2001), as ‘the mental invention or recreation of an experience that in at least some respects resembles the experience of actually perceiving an object or an event, either in conjunction with, or in the absence of, direct sensory stimulation’ (Janata Reference Janata2001: 28).
Godøy (Reference Godøy2004) highlights the links between musical imagery and gesture (motor) imagery, and also between sound and gesture in music perception and cognition. The links between musical imagery and gesture can be noticed when one mimics sound-producing movements as a way to trigger images of musical sound while trying to recall a piece of music, for example. Godøy mentions that the use of non-invasive methods in neurophysiological researches has shown that there is a ‘close resemblance between the neuronal apparatus involved in actual actions and/or perceptions and in the imagined actions and/or perceptions’ (2004: 56). This research also shows that ‘certain motor areas of the brain seem to be activated when imagining sound, hence that action imagery is activated concurrently with tasks of musical imagery’ (2004: 56). Such evidence demonstrates that our experiences in the world inform an embodied knowledge about the relationships between the role of actions (gestures), the resonant features of sounding bodies and the acoustics of different environments in the perception of sounding events. Motor imagery can, therefore, be understood as a component of musical imagery, based on the fact that ‘there is a mental simulation of sound-producing gestures going on when we perceive and/or imagine music’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2006: 155). This points out to ‘understanding perception, cognition and imagery in music as an active, embodied re-enactment of the gestures we believe belong to musical sound’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2004: 61). Perception, therefore, ‘is not a matter of abstract processing of sensory data, but rather a process of re-enactment of whatever we perceive’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2006: 155).
Based on this information, it seems relevant to understand that approaching sonic images as mental representations does not necessarily correspond to considering them as something related to the abstract processing of sonic stimuli, but that these mental representations are the result of a perceptual process that connects the sounds with embodied experiences – in this case gestural (motor) experiences.
Godøy also shows that ‘there is a gesture component embedded in Schaeffer’s conceptual apparatus’ (2006: 154), since several of the typomorphological categories from the Schaefferian solfège demonstrate links with, and can be described by, sound-producing gestures on a general and basic level. The implicit gestural components related to the typomorphological categories are general and have a certain degree of abstraction ‘in the sense that they may be applied to many rather different sounds’ (2006: 154) and that they can be ‘transferable from one setting to another, both with regard to effectors (i.e. hand, fist, finger) and instrument (drum, string, metal sheet, computer)’ (2006: 155), which is termed as motor equivalence.
These considerations could raise questions regarding the kinds of sound–gesture connections that may take place in the case of heavily processed sounds that do not seem to be linked to known gestures as their causes. Such sounds – that could be understood as examples of third-order surrogacy, using Smalley’s terminology – may well be just appreciated in terms of spectromorphology (focused, therefore, on their intrinsic aspects). On the other hand, they could also be related to imagined causes by the listener, in which case it would be interesting to understand the main associative reason that supports such a relationship. Also, it would be interesting to know if the attribution of an imagined cause is supported by the kind of embodied cognition mentioned by Godøy. In other words, since sound–gesture connections are not so obvious in such cases, it seems plausible to wonder about the human experiences that may support the associative process between the sound and an imagined source. One possible hypothesis is that more general aspects of movement – not necessarily related to sound-generating gestures, but somehow connected to them – are the basis for these associations. The answer is hinted at by Godøy when he mentions that ‘motor imagery draws on knowledge of various biomechanical and motor control constraints, meaning that we also have included kinematic and dynamic images, hence also images of effort, of chunking, of coarticulation, etc., in short, images of real-world movement elements, in our images of musical sound’ (2006: 155).
The gesture–music links explored in motor theory support the view, according to Godøy, that our images of musical sound tend to be structured as gesture units, which enables us ‘to understand music as organized not only by traditional principles for pitch, harmony, consonance-dissonance, motives, melodies, thematic development, etc. but equally well by principles for motor cognition, i.e. action-units or action-gestalts, motor programmes, motor-hierarchies, coarticulation, etc.’ (2004: 58). The approach taken by Godøy is, therefore, not restricted to pointing out that the relationships between gesture and sound are based on an embodied knowledge of sound-producing gestures and that, based on the concept of motor equivalence, these relationships are general and abstract enough to include ‘kinematic and dynamic images … in our images of musical sound’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2006: 155). In addition to an understanding about the basis on which gestural sonic images are conveyed, his considerations support the notion that these sonic images are the perceptual meaning and content of music. In Godøy’s own words, ‘meaning or content of music is actually a matter of gestural images: images of effort, velocity, contours, trajectories, gait, etc., could all be understood as gestural phenomena, as gestural images transmitted by sound and “decoded” in listening back to a gestural language’ (Godøy Reference Godøy2004: 57).
The relationship between sonic image and meaning in music can be also understood from the perspective of indexical and iconic processes that take place in acousmatic listening, as presented by Windsor (Reference Windsor1995) based on Peirce’s semiotics. Among the three types of sign – icons, indices and symbols – Windsor highlights that ‘indexical and iconic forms of semiosis may be equally important in defining extrinsic reference in music’ (1995: 52). An index signifies through a causal relationship with an object. Sounds may convey images of effort interpreted as musical meanings due to a causal relationship between gesture and sound. In this case, an indexical form of semiosis takes place. If a sound’s causation is otherwise more ambiguous – for example, in cases of remote surrogacy – ‘the listener is forced into a metaphorical relationship’ (Windsor Reference Windsor1995: 53), which is not based on the identification of the sound’s causation, but on other aspects such as the resemblance of the sound to a trajectory or the ‘resemblance to prosody in speech or emotive bodily gestures’ (1995: 52). In such cases, an iconic form of semiosis takes place.
Sonic images, therefore, can emerged in an acousmatic listening situation as the result of either indexical or iconic processes. The prevalence of one process over the other is determined in each case by the intrinsic aspects presented by the sounds in relation to their extrinsic references. The result of such a process is the emergence of sonic images that can change and establish links with other sonic images during the listening situation.
5. Some Examples
Regarding sonic–gestural relationships, Young (Reference Young2007) mentions that the sensation of tactility – presented by sounds that seem to be manipulated or played with – is an important reference for establishing perceptual relationships between sonic images articulated in an acousmatic work. Since the extrinsic aspects of the sounds can vary from person to person, such general frames of reference tend to assume important roles, guiding the listener while he or she listens to an acousmatic work (especially when listening to a work for the first time). Young also highlights that sonic transformations – devised by means of sound-processing techniques – usually cause alterations in the sonic image the sounds convey, since the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic aspects is altered in such cases.
Sonic images conveyed by sounds that present a tactile character can be experienced in the installation Studies on Canvas (2004), by Pete Batchelor. The listener/spectator faces a blank canvas behind which there are 30 loudspeakers. The installation presents a series of electroacoustic pieces based on sounds of familiar materials and objects such as stones, wood and water set in motion along the canvas surface. Since the canvas does not present any visual images, and since the sounds have a very tactile aspect, the images that the spectator experiences are actually the sonic images that emerge in his or her mind based on the suggestions presented by the sounds. The listener is thus ‘invited to “look” into a churning mud-pool in bubbles or at a timber frenzy in wood, “watch” marbles rolling around a bagatelle board and “gaze” upon an (apparently) idyllic woodland “scene” in during foot and mouth in Devon’.Footnote 6
Another potentially rich example of tactile sonic images is the eight-channel acousmatic work Free Fall (2006), by Jonty Harrison. In this composition the sensation of ‘free fall’ – experienced when jumping from an aeroplane – is articulated by sonic images related to sounds of the wind and the experience of movement and speed. They are conveyed by very tactile sounds of materials such as cloth set in motion by the wind and ‘objects’ that sweep through the listening space very fast.
6. Summary
In the process of listening to an acousmatic work, sonic images are constantly generated in the listeners’ mind based both on the characteristics presented by the sounds and on the listener’s imagination which ‘completes’ the musical scene presented by the sounds. Incoming sonic events may determine the emergence of new sonic images or impose alterations in sonic images previously conveyed. In either case, as the context changes, the listener may face new and changing sonic images as he or she reformulates the way he or she has interpreted the relationships and connections established between different sounds. The listener may also feel inclined to reformulate his or her interpretation of the role that certain sonic images play in the general context of the work – in a process that demonstrates similarities with the inferences that support the interplay of the listening modes in Kim’s acousmatic reasoning (see Kim Reference Kim2008).
Due to the influence of several aspects such as source identification, sound–gestural links, the familiarity presented by some sounds, and the listeners’ listening habits and musical background, amongst others, some sonic images may suggest connections with other sonic images conveyed in the same work, sonic images conveyed by other musical works and also sonic images related to everyday sonic experiences. Therefore, a relational process that resembles the one described by Adkins (Reference Adkins1999) regarding the acoustic chains takes place.
Sonic images derive from the interplay of many aspects related not only to the characteristics of the sounds, possible references to plausible or imagined sources, gestures that may have caused the sounds, the way different sound materials are integrated in the musical discourse, the listeners’ experiences and perceptual habits, amongst other issues. Based on the theoretical framework that was presented in this article it is possible to notice that the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic sonic characteristics can be conceptually embraced by the notion of sonic image. One consequence of this consideration, therefore, is to envisage the integration of the different listening attitudes around one single concept. The different listening attitudes can, therefore, be directed towards ‘sonic image’ as a concept that unifies the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspects of sound in the acousmatic listening situation.
As this paper has tried to highlight, listening to electroacoustic music is a multifaceted task which relies on the intrinsic features of the sounds, their potential extrinsic messages and the interplay of such aspects in the emergence of sonic images. The understanding of such processes and their nuances is relevant for understanding the listening experience in acousmatic music – and it can also inform compositional practice, not in the form of prescriptive statements, but as an aid to foster new ideas on ways of integrating and structuring sonic material in acousmatic music with the aim to providing different perspectives to be appreciated by the listeners in terms of sonic images.
