In the rapid search for originality in music that has occurred during the twentieth century, it may be suggested that only one form of music truly escaped from the bounds of traditional instrumental practice. With the advent of the electroacoustic medium, a new paradigm in Western musical practice has been heralded: the autonomy of the 'musical note' has been subverted in favour of the structuring of raw sound. This 'sonic art' has the potential to predicate a dialectic between the intrinsic qualities and broader extrinsic associations of a multi-levelled collage of sounds; by using 'sound for sound's sake', the composer is free to escape the confines of a formalised structural articulation and style. This is not to say that composers such as Saariaho, Penderecki and Ligeti were not a part of this paradigmatic shift, as their approach to instrumental writing promotes the emancipation of timbre and texture as structural parameters through the notion of the sound-mass, or sound-object. In the acousmatic environment, however, the inherent limitations of a fixed physical system percept (i.e. instrumental timbre), performer technique and spatial logistics are absent. Moreover, with the arrival of digital technology and, more specifically, the computer, the field of sound processing has been widened to an unprecedented extent. Notice, however, I only use the word 'widen'; although the 'solution-space' of electroacoustic music is, theoretically speaking, as wide as possible within the limits of human perception, the tools and techniques with which the electroacoustic composer surrounds themselves tend to suggest particular aesthetic concerns and approaches to form. The use of digital sound transformation has therefore not only opened up new possibilities, but has also created structural and aesthetical problems for composers. While certain scholars have developed ideas about the way we perceive sound and structure in an acousmatic environment, there has been precious little practical literature dealing with how these tools affect the sound material and formal concerns, and thus how they may be utilised most effectively in the act of composing in the electroacoustic medium.
The aim of this dissertation is to develop critical thought about the perceptual and aesthetical effects of a digital sound process, with particular reference to their use in electroacoustic composition. This has been motivated by my dual practices as an electroacoustic composer and computer programmer, and the realisation of a need for interaction between the two disciplines. Without this, the composer runs the risk of ignoring the rich 'vocabulary' of digital processes available, while the computer programmer may remain unaware of the musical implications inherent in a particular algorithm. The Canadian composer and programmer Barry Truax sums up this concern:
The crucial difference seems to be between the composer being regarded simply as a 'user' of a piece of software, and the composer-software system being treated as an interplay between two forms of musical knowledge. In the second case, the composer's musical insights that are provoked through use of the system are ideally channelled back into it in the form of new control possibilities.
The composer-technology relationship can be problematic at best. A composer can unwittingly subsume themselves into a given technological environment without the realisation of the effect the environment has on their output. This problem was nowhere more evident than in the differences of opinion between the early protagonists of electronic music at the Cologne and GRM music studios, with their respective ethics of sound synthesis and musique concrète. Even nowadays in the so-called 'digital revolution', this aspect of the technology-composer relationship arises when a composer remains unaware of the extent to which particular limitations, techniques or indeed the 'user-friendliness' of a given hardware and software setup play a part in their own compositional output. As Rajmil Fischman explains:
In a sense, committing oneself to a certain hardware-software configuration is also committing oneself to specific idiosyncrasies: in a given setup, there are operations that are more adept to be successful than others; therefore it is sensible to make use of available tools in a way which is "natural" to their particular configuration.
This problem arises due to the current position of information technology-programs tend to serve an extremely specific task which may be more or less time-consuming/flexible/sonically clean/user-friendly than another program. Therefore, its use may be dictated not so much through the conceptual or aesthetical outlook, but more from a pragmatic point-of-view. In an ideal world of information technology, a solution should be postulated where the technology acts at the subservience of the composer, rather than the dictating a set of particular aesthetic bounds. Philippe Manoury warns us about these problems:
... what should be the role of an algorithm within the totality of the work? The attempts at total axiomatization of musical discourse have been rich in lessons in this regard: they betray the role of the system in what we have imagined, and above all the void which exists between this and what we had hoped for...
Systems are only good if they are the handmaidens of thought.
In the current situation of a plethora of digital sound processes, the composer needs to become aesthetically and perceptually conversant with their particular technological environment. This paper is intended as a practical step in the aesthetical and perceptual approach to a wide variety of digital processes.
While it goes without saying that in the acousmatic medium, where all sounds are theoretically possible, the requirement for a critical perceptual analysis is paramount, the subjectivity of such judgements has resulted in an almost complete lack of literature in the field. This is partly due to the problem of notation in the acousmatic domain-it is exceedingly difficult to capture the salient details of a work for which the pitch-rhythm domain is of lesser importance than other parameters. While there have been some attempts made at such a notation system, they generally fail to reflect the perceptual and cognitive experience with any degree of accuracy and clarity. One the one hand, the notation problem is a strength: by defying codification it retains the primacy of the ear in all aspects. On the other hand, it is a stumbling-block to analysts wishing to discover the deeper, internal mechanisms of electroacoustic music, as Marco Stroppa remarks:
The absence of a notation is due neither to laziness nor to indifference, but rather to the musical impossibility of really knowing and understanding the material and its laws, in a way necessary to offer a description. The means of expression are the measure of the ideas which support them.
For this reason, we must construct a formalised approach to cover the different levels of sound signification. With this in mind, we may be able to go some way down the track toward thinking not only in terms of sound, but also in terms of other cognitive levels affected in the perceptual experience.
This dissertation will take into account a historical perspective of metatheoretical and aesthetical discourse, with a particular slant towards discussion of the problems of the electroacoustic medium. The metatheoretical aspect will be taken primarily from writings by Nattiez, who espouses a semiological model of musical discourse, as well as Emmerson who critiques and expands this model. My overview of aesthetics in the electroacoustic medium will take into account syntactical issues derived from Emmerson and Wishart, as well as studies of the relationship between the listener and the sound-object from Schaeffer and Smalley. Finally, I will examine existing models for the perceptual criteria used in distinguishing the salient traits of sounds in an acousmatic environment, and these will be studied and expanded. These criteria shall then be applied to specific digital sound processes, and shall be supported by musical analyses.