Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:50:57.939Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Acousmate: History and de-visualised sound in the Schaefferian tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2012

Brian Kane
Brian Kane*
Affiliation:
Department of Music, Yale University, PO Box 208310, New Haven, CT 06520-8310, USA
*
E-mail: brian.kane@yale.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Composing Motion: A visual music retrospective , August 2012 , pp. 179 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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

Battier, M. 2007. What the GRM Brought to Music: From Musique Concrète to Acousmatic Music. Organised Sound 12(3): 189–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayle, F. 1993. Musique acousmatique: propositions – positions. Paris: INA.Google Scholar
Béclard, A. et al. . 1821. Nouveau dictionnaire de médecine, chirurgie, pharmacie, physique, chimie, histoire naturelle, etc., vol. 1. Paris: L.-T. Cellot.Google Scholar
Berthelin, P.-C. 1762. Abrégé du dictionnaire universel françois et latin, vulgairement appelé dictionnaire de Trevoux: contenant la signification, la définition & l'explication de tous les termes de sciences et arts. Paris: Libraires associés.Google Scholar
Burkert, W. 1962. Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism, trans. Edwin L. Minar, Jr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Carnoy, E.H. 1884. Les acousmates et les chasses fantastiques. Revue de l'histoire des religions 9: 370–378.Google Scholar
Chion, M. 1999. The Voice in Cinema, trans. Claudia GorbmanNew York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, M. 1964. Apollinaire. New York: St Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Dawson, D. 1992. Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dhomont, F. 1996a. Acousmatic, What Is It?. Liner notes for Cycle d'errance. Montréal: Diffusion i Média. Sound recording.Google Scholar
Dhomont, F. 1996b. Is There a Québec Sound? Organised Sound 1(1): 24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dhomont, F. [Written anonymously.] 2001. Entry on the term ‘Acousmatics’ in ‘New Media Dictionary’. Leonardo 43(3): 261.Google Scholar
Dictionnaire de l'Académie françoise, nouvelle edition. 1762. Vol. 1, A–K. Paris: Brunet.Google Scholar
Diogenes, Laertius. 1925. Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. R.D. Hicks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dorland, W.A.N. 1907. The American Illustrated Medical Dictionary. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fara, P. 1996. Lord Derwentwater's Lights: Prediction and the Aurora Polaris Astronomers. Journal for the History of Astronomy 27: 239–258.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feydel, G. 1807. Remarques morales, philosophiques et grammaticales, sur le Dictionnaire de l'académie françoise. Paris: Antoine-Augustin Renouard.Google Scholar
Gayou, E. 2007. Le GRM: le groupe de recherches musicales. France: Éditions Fayard.Google Scholar
Kane, B. 2007. L'objet sonore maintenant: Pierre Schaeffer, Sound Objects and the Phenomenological Reduction. Organised Sound 12(1): 15–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, B. 2008. L'acousmatique mythique: Reconsidering the Acousmatic Reduction and the Pythagorean Veil. Proceedings of EMS08. http://www.ems-network.org/ems08/papers/kane.pdf.Google Scholar
La Gorse, L. 1805. Souvenirs d'un homme de cour: ou, Mémoires d'un ancien page. Paris: Dentu.Google Scholar
Langlois, E.-H. 1852. Essai historique, philosophique et pittoresque sur les danses des morts. Roue: A. Lebrument.Google Scholar
Larousse, P. 1900–. Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXe siècle, 15 volumes. Paris: Administration du Grand dictionnaire universel.Google Scholar
Le Gendre, C. 1758. Traité historique et critique de l'opinion, vol. 6, corrected and enlarged edition. Paris: Briason.Google Scholar
Le Roy, P.C. 1764. Traité de l'orthographie Françoise en forme de dictionnaire. Paris: Poitiers.Google Scholar
Mairan, J.-J. 1733. Traité physique et historique de l'aurore boréale. Paris: Imprimerie royale.Google Scholar
Morellet, A. 1807. Observations sur un ouvrage anonyme intitulé: remarques morales, philosophiques et grammaticales, sur le dictionnaire de l'académie françoise. Paris: A l'Impr. de l'Institution des Sourds-Muets, sous la direction d'Ange Clo.Google Scholar
Nancy, J.L. 1983. The Inoperative Community, trans. Peter Collins, Lisa Garbus, Michael Holland and Simon Sawhney Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1991.Google Scholar
Power, H., Sedgwick, L.W. 1881. The New Sydenham Society's Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences. London: New Sydenham Society.Google Scholar
Prévost, A.F. 1755. Manuel lexique ou dictionnaire portatif des mots françois dont la signification n'est pas familière à tout le monde, vol. 1. Paris: Chez Didot.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 1952. À la recherche d'une musique concrète. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Schaeffer, P. 1966. Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Thiot. 1901. Report [on 18 November] in Société Académique d'Archéologie, Sciences et Arts du département de l'Oise, Compte-rendu des séances. Beauvais: Moniteur de L'Oise.Google Scholar
Treüillot de Ptoncour. 1730. Lettre de M. Treüillot de Ptoncour, Curé d'Ansacq, à Madame la Princesse de Conty, troisième Doüairiere, & Relation d'un Phénomène très extraordinaire, &c. Mercure de France (December): 2804–2833.Google Scholar