Pierre Schaeffer

Sound coming from outside the field of vision, from somewhere beyond, holds a privileged place in the Western imagination. When separated from their source, sounds seem to manifest transcendent realms, divine powers, or supernatural forces. According to legend, the philosopher Pythagoras lectured to his disciples from behind a veil, and two thousand years later, in the age of absolute music, listeners were similarly fascinated with disembodied sounds, employing various techniques to isolate sounds from their sources. With recording and radio came spatial and temporal separation of sounds from sources, and new ways of composing music.

Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice explores the phenomenon of acousmatic sound. An unusual and neglected word, "acousmatic" was first introduced into modern parlance in the mid-1960s by avant garde composer of musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer to describe the experience of hearing a sound without seeing its cause. Working through, and often against, Schaeffer's ideas, Brian Kane presents a powerful argument for the central yet overlooked role of acousmatic sound in music aesthetics, sound studies, literature, philosophy and the history of the senses. Kane investigates acousmatic sound from a number of methodological perspectives -- historical, cultural, philosophical and musical -- and provides a framework that makes sense of the many surprising and paradoxical ways that unseen sound has been understood. Finely detailed and thoroughly researched, Sound Unseen pursues unseen sounds through a stunning array of cases -- from Bayreuth to Kafka's "Burrow," Apollinaire to Zizek, music and metaphysics to architecture and automata, and from Pythagoras to the present -- to offer the definitive account of acousmatic sound in theory and practice.

The first major study in English of Pierre Schaeffer's theory of "acousmatics," Sound Unseen is an essential text for scholars of philosophy of music, electronic music, sound studies, and the history of the senses.

Exploration of issues related to music composed for diffusion over loudspeakers, beginning with a historical overview. Subsequent chapters discuss terminology for the classification of such music, theories of listening, approaches to ear-training, the aesthetics of mimesis in music, and methods of analysis.

[PT]
Um dos paradigmas mais influentes na música contemporânea é o som como material composicional em si mesmo: a expansão das sonoridades, a primazia da escuta e os processos de estruturação que fogem dos parâmetros e formas tradicionais. Este desafio para a análise musical abriu novas possibilidades de abordagem. Pierre Schaeffer desenvolveu uma tipo-morfologia que classifica e descreve os objetos sonoros, inspirando metodologias analíticas especialmente úteis para a música eletroacústica. Lasse Thoresen propõe uma ferramenta gráfica que se baseia na tipo- morfologia schaefferiana, apropriando-se contudo do termo espectromorfologia (apontado pela primeira vez por Denis Smalley). A maior inovação de Thoresen, uma fonte de computador chamada Sonova, é adotada em nossa pesquisa como principal meio ilustrativo. Visamos aqui a abrir um precedente para o estudo da composição instrumental e da orquestração baseado na espectromorfologia, pois a música cujo suporte não é a gravação tem sido pouco pesquisada sob esse olhar, apesar da clara mudança nos paradigmas do último século. Uma abordagem tal, que considera as partituras sem deixar de falar em objeto sonoro, sustenta-se na “desconcretização da sonoridade” (como diria Didier Guigue) e numa revisão dos conceitos schaefferianos. Assim, através da análise de breves exemplos, realizamos uma primeira incursão na qual é evidenciada, ao mesmo tempo, a retroalimentação estético-criativa entre a música instrumental e a eletroacústica, evocando noções como tecnomorfismo e sinal tecnográfico.

[EN]
One of the most influential paradigms in contemporary music is the sound as compositional material in its own: the expansion of sonorities, the primacy of listening and the structuring processes which move away from traditional parameters and forms. This challenge for musical analysis opened up new approach possibilities. Pierre Schaeffer developed a typo-morphology which classifies and describes sonic objects, inspiring useful analytical methodologies especially for electroacoustic music. Lasse Thoresen proposes a graphic tool based on Schaefferian typo-morphology, and borrowing Denis Smalley's original term spectromorphology. Thoresen's greatest innovation, a computer font called Sonova, is adopted in our research as its leading illustrative means. Our aim is to set a precedent for the study of orchestration based on spectromorphology, once non-recording-based music hasn't been researched consistently under this optics, despite the clear change of paradigms in the last century. Such an approach —one that considers the score but still talks about sonic objects— is supported by both the “deconcretization of sonority” (as Didier Guigue would say) and the revision of Schaefferian concepts. Thus, through the analysis of brief excerpts, we conduct an initial research while also providing evidence of the creative and aesthetic feedback between instrumental and electroacoustic music, evoking the notions of technomorphism and technographic signal.

The main object of this paper is the composition Seven Circles completed in 1959 by Danish composer Else Marie Pade. It is the first piece of purely electronic music composed in Denmark. The paper has three primary focuses which are first: the evolution of electronic music that leads up to Seven Circles, second: Pade and the production of the piece itself, and third: how the techniques used by Pade point out the way towards the electronic music we know today.

The article presents the ideas of Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995), especially the idea of sonic object, and discusses them in the context of philosophical and literary inspirations. The argument is based on Treatise on musical objects (1966) and the comments given by contemporary scholars and composers: Michel Chion, Hugues Dufourt and Carlos Palombini among them. The four modes of listening derived from the French dictionary as well as the attempt to grasp the content of auditory experience are discussed in the context of phenomenology. The notion of sonic object and the search for the new language of sound description prove to be closely linked to literary concepts. The contexts
of Schaeffer’s reflection include the philosophical ideas by Descartes and Husserl, prose by Rabelais and poetry by Ponge as well as Heidegger’s reflection on technology. All the arguments prove that the idea of sonic object is complex and dynamic. It implies
not only sound recordings and their transformations but also the conscious attempt to grasp the content of auditory experience, the interaction of sound with listener and the sophisticated, changeable relation with the object of cognition.

Da Cage ai Pink Floyd, da Schaeffer e i suoi eredi ai Soft Machine, da Edgar Varèse a Iannis Xenakis, dai compositori acusmatici ai DJ contemporanei, la ricerca elettroacustica ed elettronica ha vissuto e continua a vivere una felicissima stagione in ogni parte del globo; una stagione che è il momento di ricostruire in modo più ampio e, laddove possibile, interpretare, non solo all'interno dei confi ni della storia della musica.

An analysis of the relationship between Pierre Schaeffer and the musical avant-garde of 1953, with particular reference to Pierre Boulez and to Schaeffer's shift from musique concrète to recherche musicale. The main source is Schaeffer's 'Vers une musique expérimentale' (La revue musicale 236); extensive excerpts are translated here into English. The antagonism between the Paris and Cologne studios is discussed in the light of two different approaches to technology and tradition; for the exponents of elektronische Musik new technology was a means to perfect Western music, while for Schaeffer it was simply a means to make new musical discoveries. [RILM]

Motivated by Marshall McLuhan’s suggestion that advances in technology serve to alter sense perceptions, and that it is the role of artists to be aware of such changes, the author explores intersections and contrasts among five different approaches to the subject and practice of ear training in the context of sound recording technology, with attention to how these approaches serve to expand and challenge traditional ear training pedagogy and what these changes to tradition reveal about how sound recording technology has altered our sense perceptions.

A música eletroacústica trouxe para o domínio musical todos os sons possíveis de serem capturados por microfones, possibilitando uma relação com o real similar à fotografia, uma representação acústica direta do real, ou ao menos a mais próxima disso. Essa possibilidade trouxe questões e dicotomias, gerando uma série de campos polares: musical/extra-musical, musical e sonoro, autonomia da música e referencialidade. O método usado para examinar estes termos foi a análise de obras cuja forte ligação com este real é notória.
Obras eletroacústicas não possuem notação, sendo fixadas diretamente no suporte. Obras acusmáticas não mostram a origem dos sons apresentados, sendo realizadas somente por via de alto-falantes. Por conta destas características a aproximação com as obras escolhidas, todas eletroacústicas e acusmáticas, se dá somente por via da escuta, em um processo analítico que não garante objetividade. O método analítico é então baseado nas idéias de Bachelard acerca do devaneio poético, tratado aqui como um modelo para a escuta musical.

We begin by listening. A whistle, shrill and piercing, captures our attention. A rhythmic chugging begins, a circular churning that informs us we are listening to the sound of a train. It doesn't take the ear long to make this assessment. About five seconds, long enough to hear the whistle and the initial chugging, are all it takes to identify what the ear is receiving. Nearly automatically, upon receiving this auditory information the mind begins to make associations, perhaps even conjuring up mental images of trains or personal recollections of traveling. At 0:16 the situation changes as one rhythmic train sound is replaced by another. The moment of timbral transition happens instantaneously; the first sound ends just as the second sound begins. The sound is cut, and we as listeners begin to realize we are not just hearing the sounds of trains, but instead are hearing arrangements of the sound of trains. We are not hearing a direct recording of the world, but instead a recording of the world that has been mediated in some fashion.

Ten papers or chapters on ORTF's Service de la Recherche. V3

Dix articles ou chapitres sur le Service de la Recherche. V3

Fims and TV-shows analysed among others : Psychodrame (Rossellini, 1956) ; Autoportrait Dubuffet (1964), Le Mystère Koumiko (1965), Les Grandes Répétitions (1964-72), Vocations (1969), Enseignants-Enseignés (1972)...

Briefly surveys the 1941–58 activities of Pierre Schaeffer, who created musique concrète in Paris in the late 1940s. Also outlined is his work of 1948–53 — between the beginning of his research into noises and the writing of his manifesto “Vers une musique expérimentale”, originally published in the Revue musicale 236 (1957). [RILM]

Les Éditions Allia et les Éditions Université de Minas Gerais publient en septembre, en France et au Brésil, l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma : esthétique et technique des arts-relais, 1941–1942, de Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995). Écrit à Marseille sous l’Occupation, cet ouvrage constitue son premier travail théorique de longue haleine, préparant l’art radiophonique de 1943, la musique concrète de 1948, la recherche musicale de 1958 et le Traité des objets musicaux de 1966. Le texte a été reconstitué par Carlos Palombini et Sophie Brunet, principale collaboratrice de Schaeffer, à partir de manuscrits inédits déposés à l’abbaye d’Ardenne, siège de l’Institut mémoires de l’édition contemporaine (Imec).

La radio a été un des instruments da l’ascension nazie et le cinéma français a connu un curieux âge d’or sous l’Occupation. L’ubiquité de la radio et du cinéma justifie l’étude de leurs données techniques et esthétiques : travaillant directement sur la réalité sonore et visuelle ils ont pouvoir sur le concret. La toile sonore du haut-parleur monaural et la toile bidimensionnelle de la projection cinématographique dépouillent les événements sonores et visuels de leur consistance matérielle, ne présentent ni l’événement ni sa reproduction ou transmission mais des simulacres. Cette évocation in absentia des choses est pareille à celle du langage qui rend présent l’intangible — des concepts, des idées, des relations — par l’intermédiaire du mot. La radio et le cinéma escomptent un égal pouvoir.

Dans les pages de l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma : esthétique et technique des arts-relais, le langage reflète la radio et le cinéma, qui reflètent le langage, à l’infini.

L’œuvre s’accompagne d’un appareil critique dans lequel Carlos Palombini présente la situation des études sur le travail de Schaeffer et énonce les principes du travail d’édition. En décrivant et analysant les documents, il décèle le projet d’incorporation d’une partie de l’Essai sur la radio et le cinéma à un ouvrage abandonné. Une série d’extraits inédits de 1938 à 1964 où Schaeffer prépare, reprend ou reformule le thème des arts-relais illustre le développement de sa pensée. Les annexes contiennent une variante et une ébauche ainsi que le compte-rendu d’une visite à André Malraux.

　Cette recherche de thèse vise à reconstruire des éléments de genèse de la composition électroacoustique de Pierre Boulez dans les années cinquante à travers l’étude d’esquisses et de manuscrits conservés au Paul Sacher Stiftung. Notre thèse s’est fondée sur deux approches complémentaires : la reconstitution du contexte musical, esthétique et historique et l’étude des esquisses. Dans la Partie I, nous avons tout d’abord examiné les Fonds Pierre Schaeffer afin de retracer le déroulement du premier stage de musique concrète au GRMC. La réorganisation des esquisses et la reconstitution du processus de montage sonore nous ont permis de souligner que la composition des deux études de musique concrète (1951-52) était une étape indispensable pour le développement de la pensée sérielle de Boulez dans le sérialisme intégral.
　Dans la Partie II, nous avons mis en
relation la composition de Symphonie mécanique (1955) et Poésie pour pouvoir (1958) avec le concept de « sons organisés » dans Déserts (1954) d’Edgard Varèse en traçant la transition de la musique concrète à la musique mixte. Boulez y a développé la notion de « blocs sonores » originairement exploitée dans l’écriture instrumentale et orchestrale. Notre étude a éclairé que Boulez avait procédé par tâtonnements de façon cohérente et développée afin de réaliser l’intégration des mondes instrumentaux et électroacoustiques. En ce sens, il est raisonnable que Poésie pour pouvoir soit considérée comme l’origine de la « musique mixte » chez Pierre Boulez. Par ailleurs, cette tentative de confrontation était inévitable pour Boulez afin de réaliser la transmutation musicale de l’exorcisme corporel du poème de Henri Michaux.

NOTE: A  more comprehensive analysis of Schaeffer's "sound object" based on this essay appears as chapter 1 of Sound Unseen. I recommend to researchers working on Pierre Schaeffer to consult that chapter.

ABSTRACT: The work of Pierre Schaeffer (theorist, composer and inventor of musique concrète) bears a complex relationship to the philosophical school of phenomenology. Although often seen as working at the periphery of this movement, this paper argues that Schaeffer’s effort to ground musical works in a ‘hybrid discipline’ is quite orthodox, modelled upon Husserl’s foundational critique of both ‘realism’ and ‘psychologism’. As part of this orthodoxy, Schaeffer develops his notion of the ‘sound object’ along essentialist (eidetic) lines. This has two consequences: first, an emphasis is placed on ‘reduced listening’ over indicative and communicative modes of listening; secondly, the ‘sound object’ promotes an ahistorical ontology of musical material and technology. Despite frequent references to Schaeffer and the ‘sound object’ in recent literature on networked music, concatenative synthesis and high-level music descriptors, the original phenomenological context in which Schaeffer’s work developed is rarely revisited. By critically exploring Schaeffer’s theorising of the ‘sound object’, this paper aims at articulating the distance between contemporary and historical usage of the term.

Abstract



La musica elettroacustica, nata sul finire degli anni quaranta del Novecento e diffusa in seguito all’assunzione della radio a medium comunicativo di massa, ha segnato un passaggio epocale nel modo di concepire la musica in generale.
Il suono da nota del solfeggio musicale, e in quanto tale riconosciuto e studiato in funzione della sua rappresentabilità sul pentagramma musicale, diventa, con la musica elettroacustica, “materia sonora” apprezzabile attraverso una serie di nuovi parametri che fanno riferimento alla sua specifica forma strutturale.
I suoni della musica elettroacustica, definiti impropriamente rumori, sono stati acquisiti immediatamente dalle forme d’espressione multimediali contemporanee, in primis dal cinema.
I rumori nel cinema, identificati in tempi recenti anche come “effetti sonori”, hanno la funzione di riprodurre il suono del mondo rappresentato nel film. Pur rimanendo invariata la loro funzione nel cinema, gli effetti sonori, nel corso di oltre cinquant’anni, hanno subito una radicale trasformazione, non solo dal punto di vista della qualità sonora, ma anche e soprattutto per il contributo che essi apportano alla narrazione dei film. I film più recenti testimoniano una trasformazione del cinema che è sempre più uno spettacolo di effetti sonori e visivi, e che è sempre meno interessato alle parole.
All’evoluzione degli effetti sonori nel cinema non ha fatto seguito un’adeguata riflessione teorica che rendesse giustizia alla rilevanza sempre maggiore della componente sonora nei film.
In questo scritto ci proponiamo di mettere in evidenza la trasformazione che hanno subito gli effetti sonori nei film dagli anni cinquanta del cartone animato Tom and Jerry, all’attualità del film X-Men tratto dai fumetti. Da questo confronto vogliamo verificare se ci sono differenze tali da permetterci di distinguere effetti sonori “vecchi” da effetti sonori “nuovi” e di individuare nella loro evoluzione la formazione di un linguaggio.
Il linguaggio degli effetti sonori testimonierebbe la multiforme natura della musica elettroacustica, non più facilmente identificabile come linguaggio a se stante ma forma madre dei nuovi linguaggi “sonori” del Novecento.
Gli strumenti d’analisi degli effetti sonori sono forniti dalla teoria della musica elettroacustica che ha un testo capitale nel Traité des objets musicaux di Pierre Schaeffer. Integreremo nel nostro scritto la teoria della musica elettroacustica con i concetti elaborati da Michel Chion, l’unico teorico del cinema che si è avventurato nello studio sistematico degli effetti sonori producendo un importante contributo teorico.
I risultati della nostra ricerca saranno riportati su una serie di schede da noi elaborate per la valutazione delle caratteristiche degli effetti sonori nei film.
Il risvolto metodologico e didattico di questo scritto è nella procedura d’analisi degli effetti sonori che qui proponiamo. Studieremo, infatti, gli effetti sonori nei film attraverso un approccio psico-percettivo, che assegna all’ascolto un valore primario nella comprensione dei suoni.

How to cite: Syroyid Syroyid, B. (2021). Traité des objets musicaux de Pierre Schaeffer: Breve guía conceptual para las correlaciones entre la señal física y el objeto musical. Sul Ponticello, Cofa del vigía, 79, pp. 1-16. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Este artículo profundiza en el segundo libro del Tratado de los Objetos Musicales (1966) de Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) "Correlaciones entre la señal física y el objeto musical", proponiendo un resumen comentado de sus cuatro respectivos capítulos. El objetivo de este segundo libro consiste en reflexionar acerca de las intersecciones, límites y posibilidades de la física y la música. Se articula en cuatro secciones: equívocos de la acústica musical, umbrales y transitorios, anamorfosis temporales y tiempos y duraciones. En la introducción del presente artículo se explora el concepto de objeto sonoro en relación a la escucha reducida.

El Tratado de los Objetos Musicales de Pierre Schaeffer (1966/2008) es una obra que ha moldeado la estética del arte sonoro actual mediante un nuevo paradigma para concebir la música a través del prisma del objeto sonoro. Schaeffer fue un hombre muy polifacético, recordado en las esferas de música electroacústica como fundador de la musique concrète [música concreta]. Una de sus obras musicales más emblemáticas en este género es Cinq études de bruits [Cinco estudios de ruido] (1948), obra compuesta en el Studio d'Essai de la Radiodiffusion Nationale de Paris. El principal objetivo del presente artículo es proporcionar una guía orientativa a modo de recorrido sintético sobre las ideas más relevantes del primer libro "Hacer y oír. Incitar a la escucha de los sonidos" del Tratado de Objetos Sonoros de Pierre Schaeffer.

‘Pierre Schaeffer's Typo-Morphology of Sonic Objects’ proposes to present to the English-speaking reader the two accomplished stages of Schaeffer's 1966 solfège, namely typology and morphology, as expounded in Traité des objets musicaux, situating them in the larger context of Schaeffer's musicological work, and in the specific context of the solfège. This is done through translation of and commentary on Schaeffer's writing.

Chapter I surveys the years 1948–57, exposing the shifts of priorities that define three phases: research into noises, concrete music, and experimental music. Particular attention is paid to Schaeffer's conception of experimental music, and through the analysis of ‘Vers une musique expérimentale’, what has generally been seen as an antagonism between the Paris and the Cologne studios emerges as the conflict between two opposing approaches to technology and tradition. Chapter II delineates three notions that underpin the fourth phase of Schaeffer's musicological work, musical research, of which the 1966 solfège is the programme: acousmatic listening, four listening functions, and sonic object. Chapter III elaborates on the premisses of typology and morphology. Chapter IV expounds typology proper, whilst chapter V presents morphology and the sketch of the subsequent operations of solfège: characterology and analysis.

From this study, it emerges that Traité des objets musicaux is first and foremost an inexhaustible repository of insights into sound perception. Typology, the first stage of the solfège, is doubtless a successfully accomplished project. However, as a method for discovering a universal musicality, the solfège enterprise needs to be viewed with caution. It suffers from the almost open-ended nature of its metaphorical vocabulary, the emphasis the text lays on reactive rhetoric, its reliance on ‘methods of approximation’, and from a gradual distancing from perceptual reality itself. This notwithstanding, Traité des objets musicaux appears as a fundamental text of twentieth-century musicology. It brings to the fore two crucial issues: technology and the ways it alters our manner of perceiving and expressing reality, and reality itself thereby; the friction between sounds and musical structures, transparent in the text as the friction between isolated words and the discourse, transparent in Schaeffer's life as the friction between the man and the social structures he has needed to fit in.

This essay introduces the reader to Jean-Luc Nancy’s writing on listening, by focusing on his use of two French verbs that both mean ‘to listen’, namely entendre and écouter. By playing close attention to way that Nancy differentiates these verbs, and the historical context in which they have played a role, one discovers an entryway into Nancy’s challenging thinking about sound, sense, and subjectivity. Écouter and entendre are discussed in relation to the phenomenological theories of listening of Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer emphasizes entendre, which is etymologically related to word intentionality, as the privileged mode of listening to the sound object, an intentional object, whose sense is grounded on the closed reference back to the listening subject. Nancy critiques this mode of listening—and the implicit subject posited—by emphasizing écouter, which holds open the threshold between sense and signification. Listening reveals sound as a structure of resonance—an infinite sending and resending. Nancy’s analyses also reveal that resonance is the structure of the subject and of sense.

Pierre Schaeffer's notion of reduced listening, closely related to his concept of the objet sonore (sound-object), encourages analytical attention to internal sound relationships only, downplaying real-world associations. This approach to analysis mirrors conventional practice in the analysis of Western instrumental music, with its philosophical underpinning in German metaphysics. However, such methods run the risk of missing the full potential that audio technology holds in altering sense perceptions, as they fail to recognize how the affordance of virtual events and spaces can play a central role in the experience of certain electroacoustic works. Short analyses of three works—Hildegard Westerkamp's "Cricket Voice" (1987), Judy Klein's "The Wolves of Bays Mountain" (1998), and Yves Daoust's "Mi Bémol" (1990)—are presented, revealing a key structural role in each case to the play between abstracted and real sound- worlds. In conclusion, the author argues in favor of real-world contextual-awareness in mapping the listening experience as a model for the analysis of electroacoustic works, along with a re-positioning of the aims of analysis.

The discussion on uses of the concept of “musical object” highlights the difficulties of the project – put forward by Pierre Schaeffer (1966) – of basing his definition on the idea of “objet sonore”. Moreover, the idea of assimilating the functions of the “objet sonore” to those fulfilled by the concept of “musical work” turns out to be no less problematic. A new definition is proposed: a musical object is a social object resulting from the inscription of perceived sound(s) or of the acoustic event(s)/object(s) in a system of references recognized as musical by a group consisting of at least two people.

This essay elucidates a connection between site, sound and memory by looking to the ways that those aural experiences are framed in works of sound art. I focus on the ambient / experimental / sound art work of Alan Lamb and Lawrence English. The essay also deals with the question of Australian silence and noise.

Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci yarısıyla birlikte Batı klasik müzik geleneğinden gelen avangart müzisyenler kompozisyon anlamında müzik dünyasına yeni tanımlamalar getirmişlerdir. Bu tanımlamaların bir sonucu olarak müzik geleneğinden özgürleşen ses konsepti görsel/plastik sanatlar alanında da bir ifade biçimine dönüşmüştür. Bu çalışma 1960’lı yıllarda Batı sanat ortamında ortaya çıkan ve günümüzde ses sanatı olarak kabul edilen üretim alanını tanımlayarak müzikteki ses ile ses sanatındaki ses kavramı arasında bir ayırım yapmayı amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmada yer alan ve ses sanatı kapsamında değerlendirilen farklı sanatçılara ait yapıtlar John Cage, Pierre Schaeffer ve Ergard Varése’nin eserleri ile karşılaştırılarak mekan konusuna odaklanılacaktır .

Robin Maconie  et -ce qui est un peu plus surprenant -de Michael Nyman  , dans les années soixante-dix, Pierre Schaeffer était encore présenté comme le perdant, sur les plans technique et intellectuel, de l'affrontement entre musique concrète et musique électronique. En France, ses écrits ont été pris entre deux feux. D'une part, la dépréciation, par Pierre Boulez  et l'  , de l'homme et son oeuvre. D'autre part, la dévalorisation du lexique de la typo-morphologie pour cerner des préoccupations de compositeur, comme pratiquée dans le cadre du Groupe de recherches musicales (que Schaeffer a fondé en , mais avec lequel il a progressivement pris ses distances)  . Pendant la seconde moitié des années quatre-vingt, un afflux d'idées nouvelles inspirées par le livre de Joseph Kerman, Contemplating Music  , et par "l'impact tardif des modes de pensée interdisciplinaires poststructuraux"  a commencé à bouleverser la musicologie angloaméricaine. La new musicology des années quatre-vingt-dix aurait pu ouvrir la voie à de nouvelles interprétations alors que le prestige de l'école de Darmstadt déclinait. Cependant, cherchant, par comparaison, à mettre en valeur leurs propres recherches, l'exercice de dénigrement systématique de Pierre Schaeffer par les avant-gardes institutionnalisées a continué, même sous une forme atténuée.

Giorgio Battistelli negli anni’70 è un giovane compositore che studia e frequenta i grandi maestri che hanno rivoluzionato la concezione musicale del dopo guerra e soprattutto degli anni’50 come Berio e Stockhausen ma che non avevano a disposizione quell’innovazione tecnologia che invece lo stesso Battistelli ha negli anni’70. Il giovane studente si muove fra Roma e il Nord Europa, ricevendo una serie di stimoli unici per quel momento storico che potremmo considerare irripetibili.

Electroacoustic music, legend has it, was born in 1956 when, in Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge, the materials of musique concrète and those of elektronische Musik blended. Musique concrète and elektronische Musik, however, amounted to more than the choice between two different kinds of materials. This bibliography’s compiler asks: what then if, rather than acting as one of the pillars upon which electroacoustic music rests, musique concrète had been the apex of something else? The bibliography consists of a selected list of Schaeffer’s writings and is intended to act as a starting point in the compiler’s investigation. The bibliography describes and briefly comments on ten titles on Pierre Schaeffer’s research on sound. Published in France from 1967 to 1999, most of these writings were written by members of his circle and himself. It is unfortunate that only a couple of these books has appeared in English translations. Such titles as Pierret’s Entretiens avec Pierre Schaeffer, Brunet’s De la musique concrète à la musique même and Chion’s Guide des objets sonores, if they were accessible to an English speaking readership, would allow Schaeffer’s thinking on sound to interact with a less — or differently — biased environment.

A música permeia a vida das pessoas das mais diversas culturas. Sua prática, independentemente do fim a que sirva, perpassa diversas civilizações. Sua recepção, por conseguinte, também. Desde a invenção da rádio, o acesso a repertórios musicais cada vez mais diversos vem sendo facilitado, e, talvez, encontremo-nos, hoje, no apogeu desse acesso: na era dos downloads. Mas acesso não implica necessariamente em qualidade de escuta, nem na consolidação de uma escuta musical por parte dos ouvintes. Como seria, pois, esta escuta musical? Visa-se, aqui, delinear um modelo de escuta partindo da revisão critica de três autores que se debruçaram sobre este tema no século passado, mirando-o de diferentes ângulos: Theodor Adorno, Pierre Schaeffer e Murray Schafer. O objetivo do modelo é referenciar o estabelecimento de uma relação propriamente musical com a música no ato de sua recepção e cujo usufruto seja possível tanto para músicos (profissionais e estudantes) quanto não músicos. O trabalho se justifica pela importância do reconhecimento da escuta musical como uma prática ativa, bem como a importância do ouvir na formação musical do sujeito, quer este tenha como foco a profissionalização ou o amadorismo. Finalmente, o presente trabalho pretende esclarecer que é por meio da escuta que as pessoas se interessam pela prática musical, e que é necessário orientação na atividade de escuta, a fim de potencializar a aprendizagem e mesmo a fruição estética por parte dos educandos.
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Music pervades the life of most different cultures. Its practice, despite the goals intended, spans all civilzations. Thus, also its reception. Since the birth of radio, the access to a variety of musical repertoires was being facilitated, and, perhaps, today, this very access has found its peak – the downloads’ age. But, from access, an adequate listening does not simply emerge, nor a musical relation between both music and listener. But, how would it look like, this listening? The goal, here, is to sketch a listening model out of a Theodor Adorno’s, Pierre Schaeffer’s and Murray Schafer’s critical review. In the last century, these three authors turned themselves over this topic from different angles. The model’s aim is allowing the establishment of a proper musical relation with music in the moment of its reception, and whose application be possible for both musicians and non-musicians. This research is justified by the importance of recognizing listening as an active practice, as well as the importance of this very listening to a subject’s musical education, no matter he wants to be a professional, an amateur or neither. Finally, it’s through listening people become interested in musical practice: guidance is needed to the listening activities, willing to potencialize learning and even the students’ aesthetical pleasure obtained from music.

I suoni e le immagini sembrano appartenere a due forme dell’esperienza profondamente distinte. Due registri sensoriali antitetici cui corrispondono due fenomeni accostabili, ma mai completamente unibili. Eppure si ricorre spesso all’espressione immagine sonora, che cosa si intende precisamente? Esiste un punto in cui i suoni e le immagini si appartengono reciprocamente? Può un’immagine risuonare e un suono essere anche un’immagine? Il testo cerca di rispondere a questi quesiti scavando e intarsiando una concettualizzazione dell’immagine sonora attraverso un dialogo con la semiotica, la fenomenologia e la filosofia dell’arte. Arricchendosi di una riflessione sul rapporto con il pensiero, l’indagine sull’immagine sonora si declina in tre momenti distinti: il suono con un fondamento d’immagine in cui l’elemento fondante è dato dalla presenza dell’immagine nel suono; il suono e l’immagine che si equivalgono orizzontalmente fondendosi l’uno con l’altra; l’immagine con un fondamento sonoro, in cui si rintracciano presenze sonore nell’immagine visiva.

This paper will explore how narratives of listening have been incorporated into sound studies' analyses over the last three decades. By narratives of listening I mean narratives borrowed from literary works whose focus lies primarily on sound or in which 'auditory images' are privileged. The mobilisation of literary instances for the purpose of investigating sound and listening predates the establishment of a field of inquiry named sound studies, as Pierre Schaeffer's 1966 Traité des Objets Musicaux exemplifies. 1 In his treatise, Schaeffer analyses an excerpt from Max Frisch's Homo Faber in order to account for the oppositional pair écouter-entendre (listen-hear), which lies at the heart of his theory of

Elucidar o papel da técnica da Escuta Reduzida no Solfejo do Objeto Sonoro (SOS) de 1966 de Pierre Schaeffer por métodos: (1) diacrônico, construindo sua gênese como exposta numa seleção de textos escritos, publicados ou citados por Schaeffer entre 1938 e 1977; (2) sincrônico, interpretando criticamente os Livros II, V e VI de Traité des objets musicaux (1966), onde Schaeffer desenvolve sua investigação da escuta (Livro II), a "morfologia e tipologia dos objetos sonoros" (Livro V) e o "solfejo dos objetos musicais" (Livro VI), as duas últimas, as etapas mais acabadas do SOS. • Ilustrar sonoramente os critérios perceptivos do SOS por métodos de (1) pré-composição, (2) amostragem, (3) manipulação, (4) síntese e (5) organização de objetos sonoros representativos: (1) dos principais exemplos sonoros citados textualmente por Schaeffer, sobretudo em Traité; (2) do Solfège de l'objet sonore de 1967; (3) das tabelas de Traité; (4) das seis etapas do Solfejo do Objeto Sonoro de 1966 enquanto método de descoberta de uma "musicalidade polimorfa universal". Introdução Em busca de formação musical no Brasil e no exterior nos anos oitenta, deparei-me com propostas pedagógicas que me pareciam inadequadas, dados não só o conservadorismo das técnicas tratadas, mas, sobretudo, as limitações estéticas impostas. Descobri então o texto de Pierre Schaeffer. O presente trabalho é um desenvolvimento de pesquisa conduzida pelo proponente no final dos anos oitenta e início dos anos noventa tendo por objeto os Livros V e VI de Traité des objets musicaux, pesquisa esta que resultou na tese "Pierre Schaeffer's Typo-Morphology

The article presents a phenomenological investigation of body and music, with particular emphasis on electronic music. The investigation builds on theoretical framework developed in phenomenological investigations in art by Edmund Husserl, Mikel Dufrenne and Roman Ingarden. It is guided beyond these analyses by investigations of particular musical examples in avant-garde acoustic and electronic music. In the former case it tackles music from which body is being consciously erased. In the latter case, the erasure occurs instantly. This negative approach elucidates the function of body in music. In case of electronic music, the article focuses on writings and music of pioneer of musique concrète, Pierre Schaeffer. Central argument is that electronic music always has been and still is defined by absence of body, here phenomenologically considered as Leib. As a consequence of the phenomenological elucidation, it is ultimately shown that erasure of body has been one of the avant-garde music's crucial techniques, and that this avant-garde residue remains in electronic music as such, both experimental and mainstream.

Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice, by Brian Kane, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press, 2014, 336 pp., £44.99 (hardback), ISBN 9780199347841 / 2016, 336 pp., £18.99 (paperback), ISBN: 9780190632212 The Order of Sounds: A Sonorous Archipelago, by François J. Bonnet, Falmouth, Urbanomic, 2016, 364 pp., £14.99 (paperback) ISBN: 9780993045875

Refaço, através da exposição diacrônica de excertos sobre a percepção aural escritos por Pierre Schaeffer entre 1938 e 1969, a trajetória que me leva da música eletroacústica ao estudo musical do funk carioca. Ela implica uma pedagogia baseada na reflexão sobre a escuta, que poderia tomar para si o antigo moto empirista: nihil est in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu — na formulação de Tomás de Aquino. Confluem ao funk carioca problemas de nosso tempo: as culturas da diáspora africana nas Américas, a análise da música eletrônica dançante, a história das técnicas de produção musical, as garantias individuais, a segurança pública, a criminalização da pobreza, o racismo estrutural, a financeirização do espaço urbano. E “a massa [ainda] é a matriz onde se engendra hoje a atitude nova frente à obra de arte” (Benjamin 1936: 63). Como entendê-la?

Tese de doutorado, publicada originalmente pela Educ (PUCSP), 1998 (esgotado). Leitura do conceito de diferença de Gilles Deleuze e sua pertinência à escuta musical.  O livro traz analises de obras de Messiaen, Brian Ferneyhough; uma discussão sobre a noção de objeto em Pierre Schaeffer e o necessário ultrapassamento da fenomenologia da escuta; e uma abordagem histórica contrapondo a repetição conceitual da música serial e a diferenciação material presente no minimalismo.

The word ‘acousmatic’ has a strange and complicated history. Recent Schaefferian accounts have replicated Franc ̧ ois Bayle’s sketch of the ‘histoire du mot’ from his Musique acousmatique – in particular, the assumed synonymy between ‘acousmatique’ and ‘acousmate’. However, this synonymy is mistaken. The word ‘acousmate’ was first coined in an article from 1730 to describe a strange noise heard one evening in the small French village of Ansacq. A discussion of the article follows, which shows how the word is unrelated to the Pythagorean acousmatics, and how its author understood his ‘acousmate’ in the context of contemporary natural science. Additionally, a sketch of the term’s changing signification in three discourses – scientific, psychological and literary – is presented. The goal of this article is to articulate a set of problems concerning the historiography of acousmatic listening in the Schaefferian tradition. These problems include: 1) the need to authorise a practice of musique acousmatique, which has limited historical investigation
The word ‘acousmatic’ has a strange and complicated history. Recent Schaefferian accounts have replicated François Bayle’s sketch of the ‘histoire du mot’ from his Musique acousmatique – in particular, the assumed synonymy between ‘acousmatique’ and ‘acousmate’. However, this synonymy is mistaken. The word ‘acousmate’ was first coined in an article from 1730 to describe a strange noise heard one evening in the small French village of Ansacq. A discussion of the article follows, which shows how the word is unrelated to the Pythagorean acousmatics, and how its author understood his ‘acousmate’ in the context of contemporary natural science. Additionally, a sketch of the term’s changing signification in three discourses – scientific, psychological and literary – is presented. The goal of this article is to articulate a set of problems concerning the historiography of acousmatic listening in the Schaefferian tradition. These problems include: 1) the need to authorise a practice of musique acousmatique, which has limited historical investigation to moments where the word ‘acousmate’ or ‘acousmatique’ appear in the archive; 2) a mistaken assumption that ‘acousmate’ and ‘acousmatique’ are synonymous, which has forced together historical moments that are not in fact affiliated; 3) an adherence to this affiliation, which has foreclosed the opportunity to consider acousmatic listening as a set of culturally and historically specific practices concerning the relationship of seeing and hearing.

Esta pesquisa coloca em discussão a escuta e seu objeto – o som – no intuito de afirmar um caráter de construção para ambos. Voltando-me para a escuta musical, o foco é nos escritos de Pierre Schaeffer, compositor, teórico da música, engenheiro, escritor, inventor da música concreta, entre outras coisas. Para me auxiliar nesta reflexão trago autores de diversas áreas: Merleau-Ponty e James J. Gibson entram para ajudar a repensar a noção de “sentidos da percepção” assim como a relação entre sujeito e objeto percebido; Claude Lévi-Strauss contribui numa discussão sobre a dualidade natureza/cultura, fundamental para Schaeffer; Marshall McLuhan e Friedrich Kittler me ajudam a pensar nos efeitos da tecnologia na experiência e no pensamento musical. Por fim discuto alguns pontos que me interessam mais no projeto teórico de Pierre Schaeffer: primeiro faço uma contextualização de seu esforço teórico, discutindo também a proposta da música como interdisciplina; discuto a teoria das funções da escuta, tentando demonstrar o caminho que Schaeffer faz para chegar ao objeto sonoro, valorizando certos aspectos e criticando outros; por fim discuto os conceitos de objeto sonoro, escuta reduzida e escuta musicista, fazendo o caminho do sonoro ao musical, no intuito de entender melhor a questão da “musicalidade” em Schaeffer.

A reassessment of musique concrète, comprising historical contextualization, critical synopsis, and interpretation of Schaeffer's trajectory, from the Études de bruits (1948) to Traité des objets musicaux (1966). Henry's Variations pour une porte et un soupir (1963) are presented as emblematic of the concrete procedure.

Aiming at examining Schaefferian phenomenology from the viewpoint of phenomenology proper, and in particular, critically observing how successfully Schaeffer understood the workings of key phenomenology concepts and applied them to his research on sound objects and listening, this paper conducts a short survey on the relationship between natural and phenomenological attitudes as well as the concept and implications of phenomenological reduction understood by phenomenology proper as well as by Schaefferian phenomenology. The survey shows that, while Schaefferian phenomenology rightly—and timely—recognized the acousmatic situation, or more accurately, acousmatic attitude, as the phenomenological attitude under which our listening experience can be investigated phenomenologically, it misunderstood the workings of phenomenological reduction and employed only part of it. Consequently, as this essay argues, Schaefferian phenomenology limited the totality of listening phenomena to its part, thus endangering the phenomenological project that it set out to do.

Keywords: phenomenology; Pierre Schaeffer; acousmatic; reduced listening; listening phenomena; phenomenological reduction; epoché; natural and phenomenological attitudes

An analysis of the relationship between Pierre Schaeffer and the musical avantgarde of 1953, with particular reference to Pierre Boulez and to Schaeffer’s shift from musique concrète to recherche musicale. The main source is Schaeffer’s “Vers une musique expérimentale” (Revue musicale 236); extensive excerpts are translated here into English. The antagonism between the Paris and Cologne studios is discussed in the light of two different approaches to technology and tradition; for the exponents of elektronische Musik new technology was a means to perfect Western music, while for Schaeffer it was simply a means to make new musical discoveries. [RILM I]

Schaeffer’s research on different sound sources — including electronic devices and concrete sounds — led him to experiment with compositional techniques such as serialism. His role in the development of musique concrète has been misunderstood by those who focus on his sound sources rather than his compositional methods. His later phase can be categorized as experimental, as he used his earlier experiences with sound sources as a stimulus for investigating new compositional procedures and forms. [RILM II]

Pierre Schaeffer – engenheiro, músico, escritor, inventor da música concreta – publicou em 1966 seu Traité des objets musicaux, resultado de uma pesquisa de pelo menos 15 anos realizada por seu grupo de pesquisas (GRM – Groupe de Recherches Musicales), onde o autor expõe sua busca por uma nova musicalidade generalizável, formulando uma teoria que viria substituir noções da teoria musical consideradas pouco apropriadas para as práticas musicais da época. A pesquisa de Schaeffer parte de uma investigação da escuta que tem a finalidade de formular um método de pesquisa que utilize a escuta como meio observação. Neste artigo irei discutir uma parte fundamental desta investigação: a teoria das quatro funções da escuta, exposta no livro II do Traité. Tentarei demonstrar como Schaeffer, partindo de um modelo complexo, vai isolar certos aspectos da percepção possibilitando que se chegue ao conceito de objeto sonoro e ao método da escuta reduzida, discutindo alguns pressupostos e implicações do modelo schaefferiano.

A reassessment of musique concrète, comprising historical contextualization, critical synopsis, and interpretation of Pierre Schaeffer's trajectory, from the Études de bruits (1948) to Traité des objets musicaux (1966). Pierre Henry's Variations pour une porte et un soupir (1963) are presented as emblematic of the concrete procedure. Includes extended bibliography and list of works.