Sonic Properties

We shall begin with the listening strategy, sonic properties. In this type of strategy, the listener has a tendency to focus on the ‘sound’ or ‘sound worlds’ in the music. The behaviour is borne from a myriad of listener responses where the discussion of ‘sound’ is cultivated, often exclusively, though speculations about the sound world may at times include personal assessments, forays into the listening imagination, or qualities that suggest an appreciation of structure. Articulation of sonic properties can take different forms in which the listener may:

(i) Identify and/or label sounds particularly those which are perceived to be source- bonded.

This strategy is frequently employed and it appears to be a method whereby a listener can create a useful, preliminary base from which to develop a more in depth response. The response to Lejeune’s work from International School of Brussels Listener L, which includes drawings of birds, a baby, a camera, a computer, an extra-terrestrial being, and a tree, exemplify this approach (Anderson, 2001: 22).17

(ii) Describe and discuss particular sounds or groups of sounds in a generalised fashion with less, or sometimes no, emphasis on their supposed sources or analysis of their components.

This strategy is a variation of (i). Listeners also frequently engage in this type of listening, an example of which is found in a response to Lejeune’s work from Académie de Musique de Soignies Listener A: “– Pleasant sounds in the ensemble […] – image of a free bird […] – almost rhythmic – certain sounds [are] recognisable like [a] camera, baby, bird, or a stringed instrument” (ibid.: 25). 18

(iii) Label and/or further elaborate on certain spectromorphological components of a sound or sound world.

These can include its morphology including description of non-instrumental gestures,

17

It is important to note that the listeners from the International School of Brussels were less experienced than listeners from the Académie de Musique de Soignies and City University. Hence, the custom of associating the visual with the auditory in the perception of music may have been called into question by the incongruity and inexplicability of the invisible aural images that streamed by them. This is why their responses often took the form of drawings ‘depicting’ the sonic properties they perceived (Anderson, 2001: 23).

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My translation of the response from Académie de Musique de Soignies Listener A: «– Sons agréable dans

l’ensemble […] – image d’un oiseau libre […] – presque rythmé – certains sons reconnaissable comme appareil photo, bébé, oiseau, ou instrument à cordes».

behaviour, texture, non-pitched spectral content including inharmonicity and noise, and the spatial properties inherent in these components, or otherwise describe transformational processes that enhance such spectromorphological qualities. An illustration of this strategy can be found in response to the extract from Bois by Vande Gorne from Listener H at City University: “[…] cultural artefacts, emphasis on objects/materials, a stronger narrative streak, nodal spectromorphologies […]” (ibid.: 30).

(iv) Comment on abstract musical properties that may be perceived to be allied to traditional Western music practice.

These can include spectral content (notably pitch and harmony), instrumental gesture and its vestiges, and their inherent spatial qualities. An example appears in the response, from City University Listener A, to an extract from Crystal Music by Roy: “[…] beautiful details, offset against instrumental/intervallic metric elements, removed by new arrival of context, more abstract, retains feeling of string instruments extended through elongation […]” (ibid.: 33).

Because spectromorphology comprises all aspects of the sounding flow, by definition, there can be an overlap between (iii) and (iv). This is often apparent in listener elaborations about space. However, in view of listener tendencies, the discussion of space is separated into two areas: those properties that are allied to less tangible musical characteristics, notably the vestiges of instrumental gesture, spectral values centering on pitch and harmony, and the spatial properties inherent in these components, or discussion of sonic properties that otherwise centres on morphology, behaviour, texture, inharmonic or noise-based spectra and their accompanying spatial properties.

Listeners may additionally articulate the function of a sound or sound world, in addition to distinguishing its aural features. Assigning a function to a sound allows listeners to allocate to it one of several purposes, notably a structural role. This is apparent in the designs from Listener D at The International School of Brussels who, in response to the second movement of Deux aperçus du jardin qui s’éveille, designed images of sound sources including two quavers, the face of a female vocalist, a submarine, and an apparently prehistoric bird. These images appear serially yet are united on a musical staff that emanates from the drawing of a radio (ibid.: 22). One could therefore surmise that the individual sounds function within a radiophonic work. The function of a sound or sound world can also imply purposes that can be

distant from the structure in a work. As I noted in 1.3.2, the function of sounds, in the listening imagination, can differ from and, hence, supercede their description and identification as well as their perceived importance within a musical framework.

A sound may play an evocative role for the listener. In this case, a listener will demonstrate an initial awareness of the existence of a sound or sound world and occasionally an awareness of its properties. The process of evocation, thus, usually begins with the qualification of the sound or sound world. However, the sound or sound world, or a mechanism internal to the listener propels or inspires the listener to engage in another strategy, which then becomes a harbinger for a secondary perceptual construction. My findings suggest that listeners initially tend to discuss the sound, sonic property or sounding flow, which subsequently appears to serve as a base for another image. The findings also intimate that it is more rare for listeners to begin the discussion with an image elicited by the sound or sonic properties and to conclude their observations by referring to the sound or sonic properties. This is, perhaps, because the image is catalysed and maintained in the listening imagination by the amalgamation of perceived sonic properties, though composer/listeners may also be influenced by their own composing experiences which consist, primarily, of assembling elements to create an image.

An illustration of evocation based on perceived sonic properties is witnessed in the remark about the extract from The Gates of H from Listener D at City University: “[…] explosions like trains appearing then running away […]” (ibid.: 42). The response might indicate that the explosions heard in the music evoke trains even if they are not perceived as such. The relationship between evocation and the imaginary is notable in a series of drawings, from International School of Brussels Listener Q, that are interspersed with labels describing perceived sound sources in response to the second movement of Deux aperçus du jardin qui s’éveille. The sound source labels include terms such as “birds, baby, band, another language, [and] robots […]”, and the drawings depicting the sound sources include images of a computer, a person sawing a tree and a space ship (ibid.: 23). However, other terms used by Listener Q, such as “Night, the future, outer space, [and] haunted house of doom”, indicate non-sounding ideas that may be evoked by the sound world apprehended during listening (ibid.: 23).