In this paper the authors outline a phenomenological approach to the description of acoustic images, arguing that the visualist dimensions of acousmatic experiences can be a vital component to the meaning and intent of sonic works.

This paper will present methods for the analysis of form-building patterns in general, formulating analytical principles across stylistic borders. We will demonstrate the use of two selected analytical tools on a specific work by the Swedish composer Åke Parmerud. We identify, firstly, time-fields which describe the segmentation of form sections and, secondly, dynamic forms tracing the perceived directions of energy flow. Eventually we will discuss a semiotic interpretation of the music analysed. The present paper is a continuation of two previous papers that have presented conceptual and graphic tools for an aural, spectromorphological analysis of music. The first paper, published in Organised Sound 12/2, demonstrated the spectromorphological categories for the transcription of sound objects (level one). The second paper, published in Organised Sound 14/3, demonstrated their application, and expanded the scope of analysis through a discussion of the Schaefferian terms of values/characters.

Stockhausen’s graphically notated Pole für 2 was created for the multi-channel diffusion system in the spherical auditorium at the German pavilion at the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970. The work is remarkable for the way in which spatiality is explored through new developments in graphic notation – both for three-dimensional and sound projection, and to indicate musical imitation and transformation of short-wave radio signals. These two notational systems unite through the synchronous unfolding of time in Pole, and similarly through the spatial structure of auditorium’s architecture that housed over 50 loudspeakers in 6 layers. By using the sound projection score as the basis for the construction of a NURBS (non-uniform rational B-spline) model, each of the player’s sound projection geometries within the auditorium can be transmediated, thus allowing for a visual representation of the spatial design of the work. Examining the topology of the models produced from the work’s six sections further allows for emergent architectonic characteristics of volume, manifold and envelope to be tracked, thus pointing to Stockhausen’s characterisation of design space. The strong connection of the work to the auditorium’s spherical structure also points to the nature of the composer’s sound design as one predicated on the ability of patterns of sound projection to articulate tangible space, and therefore produce ephemeral aural architectures.

Mixed works combining live performance with non-live sound sources projected over loudspeakers are commonplace in the field of electroacoustic music. A peculiarity of the mixed-work experience is that only some of the sound sources are seen, while many others may be heard. Consequently, a perceptual dissonance often arises between visual and aural stimuli, drawing particular attention to the relationship between the live and non-live components. Such a heightened perceptual focus on relations suggests the need for an analytical framework and terminology. This paper proposes a multidimensional framework of relations between live and non-live component pairs in mixed works, which can both serve as a model and foundation for analysis as well as provide composers with pathways of relations available under certain conditions.

The prospect of being able to gain a better understanding of how the brain processes music is very exciting for musicians and developers of music technology. Composers would certainly welcome the possibility of being able to predict more objectively the effect of particular musical configurations on their audiences. Furthermore, new music technologies are bound to emerge from such understanding. Despite an impressive amount of ongoing research into the neuroscience of music, progress in this field still remains largely uncharted for musicians and unexplored by developers of technology: the literature is complex and difficult to disentangle. This paper is an attempt to chart the field for the readership of this journal. It articulates a working hypothesis for the neural basis of mental imageries elicited by music, based on the notion that such imageries are by-products of the inherent abstracting and predicting properties of the brain. It is argued that such mental imageries are scaffolds for music perception. The paper also speculates on the impact that a better understanding of the musical brain may have on the development of future technology for electroacoustic music, which may include the development of new analysis tools such as the olivogram and the thalamogram.

This article is an introduction to the specialised area of spatialised broadcasting experiments associated with radio art practices. This subject is investigated primarily from two perspectives: artistic works that explore the dissemination of radio waves (the ‘spectrumscape’) and the multichannel broadcasting/listening experience. It also discusses some of the history and ideas that form the undercurrents for radio art practice and explores radio art’s uses and concepts of spatiality.

In the context of current developments towards an exchange format for spatial audio, it is important to consider the interactions and tensions between spatial composition techniques and spatial audio technologies. This paper gives an overview of common compositional techniques and audio technologies used for spatial compositions, and discusses various forms of hybrid uses of audio technologies. A spatial composition created using certain audio technologies may lose integrity when transferred to another audio technology, when the compositional intent is not taken into account. Tools that are flexible with regard to the spatial audio reproduction technology applied are useful for the comparison of various spatialisation methods during the compositional process, but are also essential to enable a hybrid use of technologies within one composition.

Acousmatic music is heavily informed by a central duality which lies at the heart of the art form, between the musical layer on the one hand, and the narrative layer on the other. Emphasis shifts between these two layers, and they interact to construct further layers of meaning. In his book Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation, David Huron proposes that our responses to musical stimuli are in fact identical to our responses to real-world stimuli, and follow the same processes. This appears to negate somewhat the dichotomy of musical and narrative layers. We propose a shift in perspective away from a vision of parallel musical and narrative layers, and towards a dualism built from staggered response times to different aspects of the same material.

Composers working with sounds and moving images are immediately confronted with a paradox. On one hand, audiovisual materials appear to offer the possibility of complementing one another – of forming a highly effective means of communicating artistic ideas – and on the other, they appear to carry the risk of detracting from one another – of deforming the musical language that he or she has worked so hard to create. Durk Talsma and Max Mathews succinctly state the opposing principles. ‘Many behavioural studies have provided evidence for the hypothesis that integrating visual and auditory stimuli serves the purpose of enhancing perceptual clarity … These results suggest that communication between the visual and auditory brain areas is a highly effective and relatively automatic process’ (Talsma, Doty and Waldorff 2007: 679). ‘I personally find most combined music-video art problematic. It seems to me that the sound and images often compete for my attention … If I pay attention to what I am seeing, I often miss what I am hearing, and if I try to concentrate on the music, the images can often be an irritating distraction…’ (Mathews 2007: 94). This article seeks to transcend this paradox through the identification of audiovisual materials that function in different ways. Examples of creative work are offered to illustrate more general points of ‘language’, a model for classifying media pairs is put forward, and practical methods of audiovisual composition are proposed. The narrow findings of the study offer a vocabulary for discussing the functionality of audiovisual materials, detailed methods of media pairing, and techniques of parametric alignment, while the wider findings extend to associated domains such as live electronic music, and hyper-instrument design.

By comparison to contemporary artists in other disciplines, such as the visual and literary arts, composers of sound-based art and electroacoustic music sometimes appear strangely diffident in articulating their motivations in other than material-based terms, or at least seem so within scholarly debate. Reception-based investigations (such as Weale 2005) seem either at a relatively early stage or understandably inconclusive, with an emphasis on how the listener accesses, or might access, the work. While this might appear a semantic nicety, I suggest that it could be fruitful to proceed instead from considerations of how the work might ‘access’ the listener, via considering diverse experience, rather than direct associative responses to sound, as material that is organised in both creating and listening to sound-based work – and by whom left open to negotiation.

This article explores the concept of sonic image in acousmatic music. Such a concept is understood as mental representations motivated by sonic stimuli that reach the listener in an acousmatic listening situation and that can be determined by a focus on either the intrinsic or extrinsic aspects of the sounds – or even a combination of both. The intrinsic aspects are related to the inner characteristics of the sounds and are, therefore, accessed through reduced listening. They are not dependent on the identification of the sources that caused the sounds or possible meanings and connotations conveyed by them. The extrinsic aspects, on the other hand, are the connotations, meanings and references that lay outside the sounds themselves and that can be related to human experience in a broader sense, including domains other than the sonic. Since sonic images are not exclusively dependent on intrinsic factors, they can be the result of various kinds of listening attitudes not restricted to reduced listening. The article highlights the links between ideas presented by different authors who approach the issue of sonic image or who present considerations on other issues that may inform an understanding of sonic image in the acousmatic context. Since sonic image is dependent both on the intrinsic and the extrinsic aspects of sound, it is argued that it is a concept that can integrate (and possibly unify) different approaches related to acousmatic listening. The considerations on sonic image presented here touch issues regarding different listening attitudes, the relationships between sound and source, and links between sound and gesture, amongst other aspects. The approach taken here is focused as much as possible on the perspective of the listener rather than on the composer, although some considerations related to compositional thinking are occasionally exposed.

The introduction of new techniques for audio reproduction such as HRTF-based technology, wave field synthesis and higher-order Ambisonics is accompanied by a paradigm shift from channel-based to object-based transmission and storage of spatial audio. Not only is the separate coding of source signal and source location more efficient considering the number of channels used for reproduction by large loudspeaker arrays, it also opens up new options for a user-controlled interactive sound field design. This article describes the need for a common exchange format for object-based audio scenes, reviews some existing formats with potential to meet some of the requirements and finally introduces a new format called Audio Scene Description Format (ASDF) and presents the SoundScape Renderer, an audio reproduction software which implements a draft version of the ASDF.

Listeners experience electroacoustic music as full of significance and meaning, and they experience spatiality as one of the factors contributing to its meaningfulness. If we want to understand spatiality in electroacoustic music, we must understand how the listener’s mental processes give rise to the experience of meaning. In electroacoustic music as in everyday life, these mental processes unite the peripheral auditory system with human spatial cognition. In the discussion that follows we consider a range of the listener’s mental processes relating space and meaning from the perceptual attributes of spatial imagery to the spatial reference frames for places and navigation. When considering multichannel loudspeaker systems in particular, an important part of the discussion is focused on the distinctive and idiomatic ways in which this particular mode of sound production contributes to and situates meaning. These include the phenomenon of image dispersion, the important consequences of the precedence effect and the influence of source characteristics on spatial imagery. These are discussed in close relation to the practicalities of artistic practice and to the potential for artistic meaning experienced by the listener.

This article examines the possibilities afforded by the use of ecological models in electroacoustic compositions within a semiotic framework for composition. The ecological model is defined and distinguished as a signifier which is recognised through its syntax, and is examined in relation to theoretical writings in the field of electroacoustic composition, as well as approaches adapted from ecological psychology. Several approaches to ecological models – most significantly, those explored by Keller and Barrett – are surveyed while focusing on both technical and conceptual approaches. Finally, the author suggests new compositional possibilities and modes of engagement using ecological models, specifically through the lens of a semiotic framework and relating to the hybridisation of signs afforded by manipulation of computer models – illustrated through the author’s recent compositional work.

Discussing listeners and their listening process in electroacoustic music has always been a difficult task because of the apparent subjectivity of listening. If we understand, however, that listening is a phenomenal process, the subjectivity of listening should be considered an important and crucial factor that can be discussed and explained by phenomenological approaches. This paper first conducts a brief survey of some electroacoustic music and observes primary sound-images – body, place and their negations – that emerge from the phenomenological approaches. The observation of the emergence of these primary sound-images then leads us to consider two listening processes, perceiving and imagining, that act as the main correlates of the listening process in which listeners engage with electroacoustic music. This paper also discusses the phenomena of sound-images, the product of the two listening processes, and explains what we as listeners imagine and how we imagine when we listen to electroacoustic music. Finally, the paper examines the properties of body and place as sound-images and how these sound-images are negated in imaginal listening of electroacoustic music.

This paper contrasts three composers’ relationships with the ‘natural’ and the uses of chance in electroacoustic works which follow from these relationships. John Cage is well known for use of chance methods as an organising principle in his works from the early 1950s onward, based on a professed desire to reflect ‘nature’ in art. Cage’s close colleague David Tudor presents a quite different relationship to the ‘natural’ in his live-electronic music, showing distinctly non-Cageian uses of chance means. Alvin Lucier, whose interaction with Cage and Tudor as a young ‘experimental’ composer was important, frequently describes his work as having a close connection to the ‘natural’, but shows a third quite different way of allowing this relationship to inform his work.

Based on innumerable informal accounts and a number of scientific studies, there can be no doubt that people often have quite vivid images of musical sound in their minds, and that this is the case regardless of levels of musical training. Various introspective accounts and more recent neurocognitive research seem to converge in suggesting that imagery for music is closely linked with imagery for music-related actions. In this paper, the consequences of sound–action links for our notions of the sonic image are discussed, with a particular focus on the relationship between sonic objects and action chunks. In conclusion, the exploitation of action imagery is seen as holding great promise in enhancing our means for musical imagery in various creative, research and educational contexts.