Acousmatic sound is sound that is heard without an originating cause being seen. The word ''acousmatic'', from the French ''acousmatique'', is derived from the
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
word ''akousmatikoi'' (ἀκουσματικοί), which referred to probationary pupils of the philosopher
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His politi ...
who were required to sit in absolute silence while they listened to him deliver his lecture from behind a
veil
A veil is an article of clothing or hanging cloth that is intended to cover some part of the head or face, or an object of some significance. Veiling has a long history in European, Asian, and African societies. The practice has been prominent ...
or screen to make them better concentrate on his teachings. The term ''acousmatique'' was first used by the French composer and pioneer of
musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...
. In
acousmatic art one hears sound from behind a "veil" of
loudspeakers
A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or "l ...
, the source cause remaining unseen. More generally, any sound, whether it is natural or manipulated, may be described as acousmatic if the cause of the sound remains unseen. The term has also been used by the French writer and composer
Michel Chion in reference to the use of off-screen sound in film. More recently, in the article ''Space-form and the acousmatic image'' (2007),
composer and
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
Prof. Denis Smalley has expanded on some of Schaeffers' acousmatic concepts.
Since the 2000s, the term acousmatic has been used, notably in North America to refer to fixed media composition and pieces.
Origins
In 1955,
Jérôme Peignot and Pierre Schaeffer were the first to use the term acousmatic to define the listening experience of musique concrète. In his 1966
publication
To publish is to make content available to the general public.[Berne Conve ...](_blank)
''Traité des objets musicaux'' Schaeffer defined the ''acousmatic'' as: ''Acousmatic,
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
: referring to a sound that one hears without seeing the causes behind it'' (Schaeffer 1966: 91). Schaeffer held that the acousmatic listening experience was one that reduced sounds to the field of hearing alone. The concept of reduction (
epoché), as used in the
Husserlian phenomenological tradition, underpinned Schaeffer's
conceptualization
In information science a conceptualization is an abstract simplified view of some selected part of the world, containing the objects, concepts, and other entities that are presumed of interest for some particular purpose and the relationships betw ...
of the acousmatic experience. In this sense, a subject moves their attention away from the physical object responsible for
auditory perception and toward the content of this
perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
. The purpose of this activity is to become aware of what it is in the field of perception that can be thought of as a certainty. This
reductive procedure redirects awareness to hearing alone. Schaeffer remarked that: ''Often surprised, often uncertain, we discover that much of what we thought we were hearing, was in reality only seen, and explained, by the context'' (Schaeffer 1966: 93).
Schaeffer derived the word ''acousmatique'' from ''akousmatikoi'' (hearers), a term used in the time of Pythagoras to refer to his uninitiated students. According to historical records followers of Pythagoras underwent a three-year probationary period, directly followed by a five-year period of "silence", before being admitted to Pythagoras' inner circle as ''mathêmatikoi'' (learned). The use of silence related to the
protocols
Protocol may refer to:
Sociology and politics
* Protocol (politics), a formal agreement between nation states
* Protocol (diplomacy), the etiquette of diplomacy and affairs of state
* Etiquette, a code of personal behavior
Science and technology ...
of rituals connected with the mystery-like instruction and religious ceremonies of the Pythagorean order. These ceremonies took place behind a veil or curtain with only those who had passed the five-year test being allowed to see their teacher face to face; the remaining students partaking acousmatically. More recent research suggests that the Pythagorean "veil" itself was a euphemism for the figurative language with which Pythagoras taught, and the actual practice of speaking occluded by either a veil or the dark likely never occurred.
Musique concrète
Film sound
According to the French film sound theorist Michel Chion (1994), in cinema, the acousmatic situation can arise in two different ways: the source of a sound is seen first and is then "acousmatized", or the sound is initially acousmatic with the source being revealed subsequently.
The first scenario allows association of a sound with a specific image from the outset, Chion calls this ''visualised'' sound (what Schaeffer referred to as ''direct'' sound). In this case it becomes an "embodied" sound, "identified with an image, demythologized, classified". In the second instance the sound source remains veiled for some time, to heighten tension, and is only later revealed, a dramatic feature that is commonly used in mystery and suspense based cinema; this has the effect of "de-acousmatizing" the initially hidden source of the sound (Chion 1994, 72). Chion states that "the opposition between visualised and acousmatic provides a basis for the fundamental audiovisual notion of offscreen space" (Chion 1994, 73).
See also
*
Diegesis
Diegesis (; from the Greek from , "to narrate") is a style of fiction storytelling that presents an interior view of a world in which:
# Details about the world itself and the experiences of its characters are revealed explicitly through narr ...
*
Schizophonia
References
External links
*Chion, Michel.
Acousmatic Sound” ''FilmSound''. Excerpted from Chion's ''Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen''.
*Dhomont, Francis.
” ''eContact! 12.4 — Perspectives on the Electroacoustic Work / Perspectives sur l'œuvre électroacoustique'' (August 2010). Montréal:
CEC.
*McFarlane, Matthew.
The Development of Acousmatics in Montréal''eContact! 6.2 — Activités électroacoustiques au Québec / Electroacoustic Activities in Quebec'' (Fall 2003). Montréal:
CEC.
*Windsor, W. Luke.
A Perceptual Approach to the Description and Analysis of Acousmatic Music” Unpublished doctoral thesis. London: City University, 1995.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acousmatic Sound
Cinematic techniques
Electronic music
Music technology
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