Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T00:52:24.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Meaning in Electroacoustic Music and the Everyday Mind

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2010

Gary S. Kendall*
Affiliation:
Sonic Arts Research Center, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK

Abstract

The key question posed here is how listeners experience meaning when listening to electroacoustic music, especially how they experience it as art. This question is addressed by connecting electroacoustic listening with the ways that the mind constructs meaning in everyday life. Initially, the topic of the everyday mind provides a framework for discussing cognitive schemas, mental spaces, the Event schema and auditory gist. Then, specific idioms of electroacoustic music that give rise to artistic meaning are examined. These include the creative binding of circumstances with events and the conceptual blending that creates metaphorical meaning. Finally, the listener’s experience of long-term events is discussed is relation to the location event-structure metaphor.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References

Arnheim, R. 1969. Visual Thinking. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bregman, A. 1990. Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, E. 2005. Ways of Listening: An Ecological Approach to the Perception of Musical Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coulson, S. 2001. Semantic Leaps: Frame-Shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, G. 1994. Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fauconnier, G., Turner, M. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gaver, W. 1993. What in the World Do We Hear? An Ecological Approach to Auditory Event Perception. Ecological Psychology 5(1): 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, S., Cooke, M., König, P. 2008. Auditory Gist Perception: An Alternative to Attentional Selection of Auditory Streams?. In L. Paletta and E. Rome (eds.) Attention in Cognitive Systems. Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer.Google Scholar
Hommel, B., Müsseler, J., Aschersleben, G., Prinz, W. 2001. The Theory of Event Coding (TEC): A Framework for Perception and Action Planning. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24: 849937.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Johnson, M. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. 2007. The Meaning of the Body. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall, G. 2006. Juxtaposition and Non-motion: Varèse Bridges Early Modernism to Electroacoustic Music. Organised Sound 11(2): 159171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendall, G. 2008. What is an Event? The Event Schema, Circumstances, Metaphor and Gist. Proceedings of the 2008 International Computer Music Conference. Belfast: ICMA.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Minsky, M. 1975. Frame System Theory. In P. N. Johnson-Laird and P. C. Wason (eds.) Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 355376.Google Scholar
Narayanan, S. 1997. Knowledge-based Action Representations for Metaphor and Aspect (KARMA). PhD dissertation. Berkeley: University of California.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 1966. Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P., Reibel, G. 2005. Solfège de l’objet sonore. Paris: INA-GRM.Google Scholar
Schank, R. C., Abelson, R. P. 1977. Scripts, Plans, Goals, and Understanding: An Inquiry into Human Knowledge Structures. Hillside, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Schenker, H. 1935. Der freie Satz. Vienna: Universal Edition.Google Scholar
Sheets-Johnstone, M. 1999. The Primacy of Movement. Amsterdam: John Bejamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smalley, D. 1986. Spectromorphology and Structuring Processes. In S. Emmerson (ed.) The Language of Electroacoustic Music. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.Google Scholar
Stern, D. 1985. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Developmental Psychology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar

DISCOGRAPHY

Dhomont, F. 1996. Novars (1989). On Les dérives du signe, Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–9608-CD.Google Scholar
Dunn, D. 2006. The Sound of Light In Trees. Earth Ear, ee0513.Google Scholar
Ferrari, L. 1995. Presque rien n o 2 (1977). On presque rien, Paris: INA/GRM, INA c 2008 275482.Google Scholar
Normandeau, R. 2005. StrinGDberg (2001–03). On Puzzles, Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–0575-CD.Google Scholar
Risset, J.-C. 2001. Sud (1985). On Jean-Claude Risset, Paris: INA/GRM, INA C 1003 275572 750.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 2000. Pentes (1974). On Sources/scènes. Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–0054-CD.Google Scholar
Smalley, D. 2000. Empty Vessels (1997). On Sources/scènes. Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–0054-CD.Google Scholar
Stockhausen, K. 1995. Hymnen (1966–67). On Stockhausen 10, Kürten, Germany: Stockhausen Verlag, 10 A-D.Google Scholar
Stockhausen, K. 1995. Telemusik (1966).On Stockhausen 9, Kürten, Germany: Stockhausen Verlag, 9.Google Scholar
Stockhausen, K. 2001. Kontakte (1959–60). On Stockhausen 3, Kürten, Germany: Stockhausen Verlag, 3.Google Scholar
Truax, B. 1980. Riverrun (1986). On Digital Soundscapes, Burnaby, CA: Cambridge Street Records, CSR-CD 8701.Google Scholar
Truax, B. 2001. Island (2001). On Islands, Burnaby, CA: Cambridge Street Records, CSR-CD 0101.Google Scholar
Varèse, E. 1998. Poème électronique(1957–58). On Varèse: The Complete Works, New York: London, 289 460 208–2.Google Scholar
Westerkamp, H. Kits Beach Soundwalk. On Transformations, Montreal: Empreintes Digitales, IMED–9631.Google Scholar
Wishart, T. 1989. VOX–5 (1986). On Computer Music Currents 4. Austria: Wergo, WER2024–50.Google Scholar