Subject: Shaeffer's =?iso-8859-1?Q?Trait=E9?= des objets musicaux -- was From: Kevin Austin <kevin.austin(at)VIDEOTRON.CA> Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 06:34:30 -0400re: Shaeffer's Traité des objets musicaux Frédéric Maintenantwrote: >I still don't understand why what seems to be the bible of >electro-acoustics (can it be compared to Helmholtz's On sensation of >tone?..) hasn't been translated, at least in English (German?). While perhaps more suited to another list (eg <cecdiscuss> / <cec-conference>), three comments. To me, Helmholtz appears to have written much of "On the Sensation of Tone as a Physiological Basis for a Theory of Music" as a 19th century justification for the 'naturalness' (= superiority) of (western european) tonal music. He appears to explore the 'perceptual' to explain the 'cognative'. Regarding Shaeffer, the Traite (in my experience) is less a bible than an early chapter. There have been attempts to translate the text into english, but there is little general agreement on "what he meant". I have always found his thinking 'fuzzy', (which is fine for for an artist), in that his 'support' lacks a clear framework. His aim seems to be the justification of musique concrete (cognative experience) through a (weak) discussion of perception and 'interpretation' of this perception. A number of years later, Dennis Smalley attempted a slightly different path in his development of the term "spectromorphology". (Google produces 623 hits.) A possibly useful link ... http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/EARS/Data/node122.html notes at the beginning: >Spectromorphology > >Spectromorphology is an approach to sound materials and musical >structures which concentrates on the spectrum of available pitches >(sic) and their shaping in time. > >The concepts and terminology of spectromorphology are tools for >describing and analysing listening experience. The two parts of the >term refer to the interaction between sound spectra (spectro-) and >the ways they change and are shaped through time (-morphology). I have found this to be (like Helmholtz and Schaeffer) a melange of cognition and perception that fails when there is an attempt to apply it 'rigorously' in a "meaningful" (non-trivial) way. (The ability to apply the results of the analysis as a creative tool.) But that may be a discussion for other places. Part of the recent history of this attempt to classify may be the search for 'the' "unified field theory" of (sonic) perception and cognition, including the drive to develop some kind(s) of analytical tools that will allow the 'final classification' of all sounds / noises, (possibly in a way parallel to Forte's attempt to provide such a framework for 12 tone equal temperament in "The Structure of Atonal Music"). Even without touching the voice, I find that the classification of noise has a contextual evaluative component that needs to be included. For example, ... at three o'clock in the morning a very loud siren is a noise if I am asleep, but is not a noise if it is near my bleeding unconscious body. (This is (?) a psychometric definition of noise rather than an acoustical one (?).) Therefore the classification system needs to acknowledge the two parts (perceptual and cognitive -- the sensation / what the sensation is interpreted to mean). There are many other layers to this thread, to be followed up in other places. For more links on electroacoustics, follow (among many others): http://cec.concordia.ca/ http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/ http://www.spectromorphology.com/ and, of course, Ircam ... http://www.ircam.fr/ Best Kevin