From the Loudspeaker: Listeners and Analysis of Electro-acoustic Music

Abstract

The very nature of electro-acoustic music production and reception stimulates a new framework for the relationship between the work and the listener. The absence of a score as a tangible reference for analysis forces us to redefine the analytical strategies generally used.

The following text is linked to the line of research instigated by François Delalande on the Behaviour of reception or Behaviour of listening. From the analysis of the responses given by twenty four subjects after listening to an initial extract of Points de Fuite by Francis Dhomont (1982), the three categories of taxonomic, figurativising and emphatic, as described by Delalande, are confirmed. Each of these three approaches involves a specific selection from among the numerous possible features contained within the sound material and provides a different and complementary perspective from which to approach the analysis.