Pierre Schaeffer was one of the first pioneers of the acousmatic to undertake analysis of perception of the sound-object. One of his main theoretical legacies was the so-called 'listening modes'.
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4. COMPRENDRE Emergence of a sonic context and reference, confrontation of extrinsic notions |
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ÉCOUTER Emission of sound |
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3. ENTENDRE Selection of certain aspects particular to the sound |
2. OUÏR Reception
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sound [sound-data] |
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Figure 1 shows the four listening modes, described as follows: Mode One: écouter, 'to hear'. This is the realm of the so-called 'indexical signifier', or sound as sign. Mode Two: ouïr, 'to receive'. This is raw sound-data with no extrinsic qualities attached. Mode Three: entendre, or 'to listen'. Schaeffer calls this 'qualified hearing', that is selection of particular sound qualities that the listener wishes to perceive. Mode Four: comprendre, or 'to understand'. This is placing the sound in a wider metaphoric environment, understanding the interrelationships that have been effected by a sound object, relating to the other objects previously or simultaneously encountered. One may think of this level as 'musical listening', a mode we tend only to enter when apprehending a 'piece of music'.
Smalley (1986) outlines a rigorous analytical approach to describing the features of a sound object through the temporal evolution of its spectrum, following the legacy of Schaeffer. The methodology described in the spectromorphological approach must be viewed as being the idealised description of a sound-object without reference to any level other than the trace. That is to say, a spectromorphological description of the sound, while being a 'gateway' to other descriptive levels, can only give us access to an intrinsic level, which should be, in theory, confirmable through spectral analysis. Below is a diagrammatic representation of the components of a spectromorphological approach:
I have here divided up Smalley's general analytical areas into three main areas of concern: analysis of features concerning the spectrum, features concerning the temporal evolution of the sound, and features concerning the spatial interplay. The note-to-noise continuum is arguably one of the most important features of sonic art; the notion of filtration, that is progressively narrowing a filter until a pitched perception arises, is perhaps as old a technique as electroacoustic music-Ligeti's Atmosphères explores an instrumental version of filtration, gradually dropping instruments out of a full orchestral sound-mass, until only the high instruments are left. The note-to-noise continuum is actually called spectral density by Smalley-an indication of the degree to which an object fills out the spectrum. Through progressive filtration, we can essentially thin out the spectral density. I will discuss this very musical device later, in relation to Trevor Wishart's Tongues of Fire. The reverse (from note to noise) can be achieved through many different methods as well; in Tongues of Fire, this is often done through constructive distortion.
The other elements of the spectral features include spectral space: the area of the spectrum that a particular object inhabits; and pitch trajectory: the type of motion in the spectral space which the object undergoes, which may be in the form of a spectral or formant glide, or through a progressive change in spectral density (see footnote).
While Smalley's spectromorphology is based on the authority of Schaeffer, his developments of the theory deviate in several important directions. Firstly, the notion of the indicative field is introduced as explaining the extrinsic in sound, although the two theoretical viewpoints remain to a large extent unintegrated. It does, however, influence Smalley's thoughts on the role of spectromorphology in a wider context: spectromorphology acts as a 'sonic gateway' to the intrinsic, producing the notion of intrinsic-extrinsic thread:
The power of a concrete sound-image to portray things, events or psychological circumstances, rests not just on the immediacy of the images themselves but on how the sounds are constructed and combine - their spectromorphology - and that involves using reduced listening to investigate the more abstract dimension
Furthermore, Smalley develops the notion of source bonding, a reflex action on the part of the listener to place a sound-object within the realm of physical experience:
I define source bonding as the natural tendency to relate sounds to supposed sources and causes and to relate sounds to each other...
The innateness of source bonding that Smalley is alluding to here is an admission to the hypothesis that the indexicality is forms a part of the signification of all sound objects. This is especially true of sound sources with a close sonic relationship to traditional sounding models, where the allegory of the human agent remains perceivable. Smalley codifies this humanistic reaction to sounding models thus:
When we hear spectromorphologies we detect the humanity behind them by deducing gestural activity... Everyone uses this spectromorphological referral process when listening to recordings of instrumental music.
When dealing with sounds of remote surrogacy, however, the sense of human involvement becomes obfuscated:
...some vestiges of gesture might still remain. To find them we must refer to tensile, proprioceptive properties... But in order for such a gesture to be felt there has to be sufficient directed, propagating or reinjected energy in the spectromorphology.
While sufficient energy may be needed to ensure the deduction of a human agent, one does still place oneself in a psychological and environmental relationship with the sound in question regardless of this deduction. A sound still retains the physical properties of momentum, dimensions and mass even when human agency is undetectable, and thus, even in the case of background sonic detail, all sound-objects form part of a complex of perceptual strata, defining a 'virtual landscape' and providing contextual information for coexistent layers of activity and consequently furnishing our aural imaginations with the unavoidable extrinsic trappings-the indexical and symbolic.
Nattiez critiques Schaeffer's reduced listening thus:
I believe that Schaeffer's "concentrated hearing" is, contrary to his own implicit claim, essentially poietical in that it is in fact hearing as experienced by a composer, who hears sounds with extreme attentiveness before integrating them into a work.
Nattiez seems here to be confusing the issue of reduced listening; obtaining the status of "hearing as experienced by a composer" does not imply that the listener practicing this somehow contributes to the poietic structures! It would seem Nattiez is confusing what is simply an esthesic question of cognitive focus, with a poietic act. This is not to say that reduced listening on the part of the composer contributes to the poietics; listening to a work from the creator's point-of-view is considerably different, however, from the listener's perspective!
I propose that reduced listening merely represents an idealised approach to electroacoustic music; the best a listener can do is to concentrate on the sound's inherent morphologies, and try to 'background' any indexical associations one may make with the sound. Wishart posits an anthropological hypothesis for the innateness of the indexical association: "We can see in a very crude way how this ability was essential for our survival in the period before our species came to dominate the entire planet." While Smalley originally seemed confident that: "the listener used to a more abstract perceptual attitude can easily disregard the mimetic dimension of interpreting sounds", his later developments forced a rethink on this position: "... I consider that it is impossible for music to be purely intrinsic" This confers with my earlier statement that the three levels of sound-signification are really all inherent simultaneously in a sound-object.
Smalley explains the indicative fields as describing the extrinsic features of a sound object: "The indicative relationship represents Schaeffer's mode one: sound as message, or information about environmental action, events, occurrences." Smalley describes nine indicative fields, three of which are universal indicative fields-that is to say, indicative fields which Smalley feels which have provided us with our traditional ideas of musical form and play. Here then are the indicative fields, as Smalley views them:
I have here attempted to place the indicative fields into some sort of interrelationship, with the more foreground fields at the bottom (vocal utterance will, without fail, grasp the listener's attention) and the background fields at the top (a sense of environment and space). I have also chosen to put 'vision' and 'behaviour' on the outside, as 'vision' represents extremely individualised internal sense responses to the sounds, and 'behaviour' represents the traditional 'conflict/coexistence-type relationships between the fields. We can also begin to imagine the ways in which the spectromorphological levels of description act as gateways to the fields; I have sketched my own relationships thus:
As we can see, most of the levels of description are inextricably intertwined; another reason why the fields play an important part in perceptual analysis.
Taking a semiotic and psychoacoustic approach to Emmerson's previously-mentioned subdivision, we may critique Emmerson's model of esthesis as being purely 'affective' information. In doing so, we must first outline the hierarchies involved in the apprehension of salient information of a sound object. Perception may be split up into the following categories: a) 'hearing' a sound b) analysing the sound's spectromorphological characteristics c) attempting to give a physical source to a sound-in the case of the acousmatic, this may be some vague characteristic such as 'volume' or 'density'-d) deriving some emotive response from the sound object and e) apprehending the interconnectedness and unity of sound objects; one might say apprehending a work's 'structure'. These categories may now be approached semiotically.
'Hearing' a sound constitutes the trace in Emmerson's redefinition of the trace level. It is a passive, cognitive act. Upon apprehending the sound object, our brain then instantly analyses the sound to see if it is worthy of further investigation-of course, this is dependent on our cognitive focus, as well as other factors such as sudden contrasts in sonic energy, in the case of an alarm clock. This can be viewed as a 'trace analysis'. 'Recognition', that is to say apprehending the signified source of the sound (index referral), may be passive or active, which is, in general, determined by the degree to which the listener is familiar with a sound. An emotive response is perhaps the traditional notion of 'esthesis', or at least aesthetics, but in fact only constitutes a small part of this. We may derive pleasure or distaste from either the spectromorphological or indicative components of a sound-object. It is my contention that these latter three areas of perception, that is trace analysis, index referral and affective/metaphorical response, are all practiced simultaneously when concentrating on the listening act. It may seem that cognitive focus switches between any one of these states, although upon further reflection and description, it may also seem we were practicing them simultaneously.
Apprehending a sonic structure requires the listener to draw upon the apprehension and expectation of spectromorphological and indicative information to form a sense of temporal flow. In creating a macrostructural impression, the listener finds routes of connectedness through the sonic material, which may be from a spectromorphological or inductive point-of-view. The intelligent composer is one who knows how to exploit both levels of perception in the instigation of a structure. In my recent composition, Chrysalis for flute and tape, the dual climaxes come at moments of spectromorphological consolidation-the disparate opening materials are granulated and pulsated in such a way as to relate to the metal/breath percept of the flute's sounds. (Sound examples 1 & 2)
We may now visualise the esthesic level in diagrammatic form:
This model approaches musical perception in an electroacoustic domain from a semiological point-of-view, assuming, if you like, that musical perception is a spontaneous act of analysis, but from the esthesic level only.