SM4143 Sonic Arts & the History of Sounds and noises

[Notes on Meeting #8, November 13, 2006 / Cedric Maridet]

Pierre Schaeffer and the theory of sound objects

Schaeffer (1910-1995) started as a telecommunication engineer and started in radio ORTF in

1936. There, he had access to all the equipment for manipulation of sound, and was in
contact with latest technologies. The engineering aspect of his work is very present (i.e.
experimentation with tape splicing, turntables, etc.) Now the audio material is recorded and
then worked on in order to extract musical qualities of the sounds.
Experimental music (referring to the Koln Studio) aimed at composing music through
synthesis, and concrete only through recorded sounds, but both are composed without any
musical notation and performers. The magnetophone is a machine to create sounds, but also
to observe sounds, as they can be decontextualized comparison with what is done on
language with phonetics and phonology. He turns the recording studio and the radio studio as
an instrument and as a location for his experimentations. Schaeffers idea relies on new
possibilities of the possibilities to fix sound on a medium.

Sound recording: Schaeffer investigates here a few elements of the reproduction of

sounds. Fidelity of the reproduction has been the focus, but the transformation that occurs
has been occulted.
Transformation of the audio field: - change of the audio space (from 4 dimensions [3
spatial + 1 intensity] to one [mono-phony] or 2 [stereophony]} All the audio signals will merge
into the microphone, and the sound recording will be affected by the distance between the
microphone and the sound sources. Then when played back, the speaker will render the
distance effect into a new environment.
- transformation of the ambiance, difference of
perception between direct/indirect listener
change of reverberation: binaural listening allows localization. Thus in direct listening ears
filters 2 direct sounds and reverberated sounds. Microphone does not have this power and
both direct and reverberated sounds will be recorded equally.
change of content: all the senses of the audience are at stake during direct listening, thus
the psychological field is even more transformed than the acoustic one.
Dealing with the properties of the recorded sound, Schaeffer linked sound and vision [frame

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and focus on the object] The position of the microphone allows focusing on one sound
source or another, provoking an unusual listening.
However fidelity seems possible between direct/indirect sounds as some experiments tends
to show.
There are then 5 dimensions of transformations in a recorded sound: reverberation,
ambiance, frame, zoom, and fidelity. The sound engineer will govern these transformations.
Fidelity is not a reproduction, but a reconstitution. Recorded sounds allow not only having
new relationships with sounds, but also with the listening activity.

1. Prelimininary: historical situation of music

There is a need to revisit the way we deal with music because of its new developments.
3 new factors: - aesthetic development of new structure and style (i.e.
klangfarbenmelodie)
- technical new ways to create music (i.e. electronic / concrte)
- ethnomusicology attempt to deal with non western music through
western theories.

Tracklisting: Cinq Etudes de Bruits (Five Noises Studies), Pierre Schaeffer,

LOeuvre Musicale. (refer CD notes)

Schaeffer emphasizes the difficulties to match art and science, and in particular music as an
art and musical sciences (acoustics, psychology, etc.). Indeed, human perception cannot be
compared to the acoustics measurements, or else, we would have to deal with a theoretical
ear. Schaeffer questions the relations between art and science, between music and
mathematic, psychology and acoustic music as an interdisciplinary art.

As we discussed last week with Chapter 2 of Trevor Wishart s On Sonic Art, traditional music
theory is made of two noted notions, namely pitch and duration, and two less systematic
notions, timbre and intensity. On another pole, acoustic refers to three different parameters:
frequency measured in hertz, levels measured in decibel, and time measured in seconds. The
question for Schaeffer is to investigate whether these three parameters can render the reality
of musical objects. In case of the impossibility to achieve such a task, then correlations
between musical objects and the acoustical parameters can be identified.

2. Correlations between musical objects and acoustic parameters

Through rigorous experimentations within the studio, Schaeffer manages to identify crucial
parameters, which are starting points for his later attempt of classification of sound objects.
He studies in Book III of the Treatise the relation between the physical signal, which produces
the experience of the sound. There are correlations when there are no automatic and
systematic correspondences between the physical signal and perception.
a) Correlation between spectrum and pitch: concept of mass
Experimentations on the correlation between spectrum and pitch show that frequency is
not a parameter of pitch. In addition, as Schaeffer mentioned in his Solfge de lObjet
Sonore, experimentations with band-pass filters, brought out a new notion, labeled mass:
whether it is a tonal or complex, concise or diffuse, related to a harmonic or non-
harmonic spectrum, whether it consists of a single or an unlimited number of frequencies,
mass is a musical perception that accounts for the harmonic structure of a sound. (23)

It appears that mass is a new reference that is capital for the listening ear.
b) The notion of duration is also challenged. Musical theory can only account for duration for
sustained homogeneous sounds, as a parameter of form influences metric values. Another
idea is that the notion of qualitative comes out from quantitative emerges from the study of

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 the time threshold of the ear. Indeed, There is continuity from the perception of rhythmic
pattern to the perception of pitch. This fact can be experimented by repeating a pulse fast
enough until a pitch can be heard. The notion of grain is thus the mark or rhythm in a
sustained sound.

c) Anamorphose (distortion): the notion of time qualified into musical duration can be
distorted. Indeed, it had been found that in fact attack does not necessarily correspond
with the initial moment. Attack depends on two elements for percussion/resonance type
sounds: dynamic of the sound, and the color of attack. Other experimentations result in the
idea that dynamic is a factor of the equivocal notion of timbre. The latter is qualified
through 2 criteria: dynamic and harmonic. Thus it is possible to imitate a timbre of an
instrument synthetically through an operation of musical transmutation by applying the
same harmonic and dynamic on one to another. The timbre of an instrument is generally
the result of causality, but the study of correlations between physics and music proved to
be more helpful to define the notion, and identify its criteria, as well as other findings that
shows the limitations of traditional music theory.
evolution of dynamic of sound is important to identify the notion of timbre and attack.
remember the early experiment of Schaeffer with the sound of bell with its attack cut.
If repeated, it sounds like a flute sound: timbre is thus not only a notion defined in the
spectrum, but also in the form of the sound, as well as in its attack.

3. Towards a theory of sound objects:

When in 1948, I proposed the term of concrete music, I meant to make an inversion in the
way of music works. Instead of notate musical ideas by music theory symbols, and to entrust
their concrete realization to well-known instruments, the question was to gather the sonorous
concrete, whatever its origin, and to abstract the musical values which were already contained
in it. (23)
This first statement of Pierre Schaeffer is a starting point to the description of his musical
experiments, and identifies a few of the points that he will redefine, like a re-ordering of
concrete-abstract (different with notation), redefinition of the notion of instrument, and his
pursue of musicality.

a) The circuit of ordinary listening: the four listening

Schaeffer analyses the circuits of ordinary listening based on two dualism that are found in
perceptive activities: the dual notions of concrete / abstract, and the couple objective /
subjective.

Four French verbs are proposed in order to describe each sectors of this matrix: couter,
our, entendre, and comprendre. They are organized in a non-chronological circular circuit,
that can be traversed through many ways. Ecouter, on the concrete-objective pole, is to focus
on the indexical value of the sound. Our (concrete, subjective pole) is the most elementary
level, as listeners are passively hit by sounds. Entendre (abstract - subjective pole), refers to
a selection made by the listeners on the sounds that can be perceived. Theres a qualitative
listening intention. Comprendre (abstract - objective pole) brings out a notion of semantic in
this circuit, as the sounds are treated as signs with meaning.

chart of the functions of listening: (p.116)

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 4. COMPRENDRE I. ECOUTER

- for me: signs - for me: indices 1 and 4:

- in front of me: values (meaning- - in front of me: exterior events Objective

language) (agent-instrument)

Emergence of a content of sound Emission of sound

and reference, confrontation with
extra-sonorous.

3. ENTENDRE 2. OUR

- for me: qualified perceptions - for me: raw perceptions, outline

of the object.
- in front of me: qualified sound 2 and 3:
object - in front of me: raw sound object
Subjective
Selection of certain particular Reception of sound
aspects of sound

3 and 4: abstract 1 and 2: concrete

Two couples of common listening attitudes are founded on these dual notions of abstract/
concrete and objective/ subjective. These particular listening attitudes are founded on the
previous four sectors of the listening circuit, and they can be associated, or differentiated in
this circuit. However, they clearly show the different path that Schaeffer will take with his
reduced listening. The natural listening (coute naturelle) focuses on the event that creates
the sound, and corresponds to sector one (couter). In contrast, the cultural listening (coute
culturelle), oriented in the sector four, aims at decoding a message or a meaning. The other
couple, everyday (banale) and specialized (praticienne) listening, is constituted by a focus
on the causality and the source of the sound (sector one and four) for the everyday listening,
and by a focus on a specific domain of the sound depending on the intentions of the listener.
For example, a specialized listening done by an acoustician would focus on the physical
nature of the sound, measurable in decibel and hertz.

b) The acousmatic revelation:

Schaeffer underlined the fundamental notion of the acousmatic mode of listening. This term
refers to the practice of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who used to teach his followers by
addressing them through a curtain that would not allow them to see him, but only the sound of
his voice would reach them. It is now accepted as a term that would refer to a listening
situation where all visual cues would be eliminated. The significance of the acousmatic
experience might be deeper than one thinks, if only mundane examples like phone
conversations, radio are thought of. Michel Chion talks about the acousmatic revelation to
emphasis a deeper level of significance of this term, and the fact that it is more a reasoning
than a situation:
One should not misinterpret the acousmatic situation by distinguishing for example
the objective what is behind the curtain from the subjective the reaction to
these stimuli of the listener, in a physical reduction of the phenomenon. On the
contrary, the acousmatic corresponds to a reversal of the itinerary: the question is no
longer to know how a subjective listening interpret or transform reality, to study
reactions to these stimuli; its the listening itself which becomes which becomes the
origins of the phenomenon. The question is turned towards the subject: what do I
hear? What do you hear in fact? In that sense, we ask him/her not to describe the
exteriors references of sound that he/she perceives, but the perception itself.

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We can trace this idea of the acousmatic from the fact that Schaeffer started his investigation
in radio art.
This term of acousmatic is now used more extensively that Schaeffer did;
- Franois Bayle uses this notion in the context of an acousmatic music to refer to
a production made in studio and later projected into auditorium through
speakers (idea of the acousmonium)
- acousmatic music is defined by ABSO-absolument, an acousmatic art
movement created in 1991, and here recalled by Francis Dhomont:

Based on provisionary conclusions of a study group recently formed in France, I
would only sum up the eight principal points, which constitute, according to them the
fundamental elements of acousmatic art:
1 First of all, of course, the Pythagorean preliminary: to listen without
seeing (Bayle). 2 The decisive importance of fixation of sound (Chion) on a medium
(analogical, numerical, or else: tape, floppy disk, compact disc, etc.) I will come
back to that. 3 a creation mode founded on mental perception more than strictly
auditive (in the psycho-acoustic sense). 4 From that we postulate the acousmatic,
(its aims, its perceptive listening conduct) as a phenomenological discipline, 5 The
causal / non-causal problematic and virtual causality of sonorous elements put
together (from where narrative can emerge). 6 A rhetoric of objects and their
resonance. 7 A music of sound as being sonorous matter. 8 Space as a fully
compositional dimension, from the development of the work till its projection in the
auditorium. (p. 57-58)

c) Reduced listening:

Schaeffer focused on the perception of the subject as the main point of interest. Schaeffers
anchored reflection in phenomenology led to the creation of a reduced listening mode by
rejecting any idea of acoustic and physics as a descriptive tool for perceptive experience. The
notion of sound object derives from the theoretical background of Husserls phenomenology.
It can be reached through a process of bracketing. As Schaeffer mentioned, reduced listening
is one step further than the acousmatic situation (There is a sound object when I have
accomplished both materially and spiritually a reduction which is even more rigorous that the
acousmatic reduction p.268). Through the poch (from Greek cessation), the listener does
not only needs to separate visual and audio cues, but also to disconnect the sound from any
physical, cultural and psychological references and indexes. Schaeffer defines a new
listening intention, which demands a particular attitude and practice from the listener.

d) Definition of a sound object:

The sound object is to be found thanks to the encounter of an acoustic event and a particular
listening intention aimed at narrowing down the focus on the perception of the sound. It
represents a global perception, which is remains identical through different listening; an
organized whole that we can assimilate to a gestalt in the sense of the psychology of
form (Chion, 1983, p. 34)
The sound object is not:
- the instrument
- the magnetic tape
- a fragment of the tape
- a notated symbol on a score
- a state of mind (transcendental aspect of the sound object)

(Refer to the article in handout)

One of the main critics of Schaeffers work is the artificiality of reduced listening. Among the
detractors, Luke Windsor reasserts the importance of reconcile intrinsic and extrinsinc
characteristics of sounds. However, Schaeffer does not deny these aspects, as he wrote on
the 10th May 1948 in his first journal of concrete music:

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 Every sonic phenomenon can thus exist (like words of language) for their relative
signification, or for its own substance. As long as signification predominates, and that
one plays with it, there is literature, not music. But how is it possible to forget
signification, to isolate the sonic phenomenon for itself?
Two methods are preliminary:
To distinguish an element (to listen to it for itself, its texture, its matter, its
color).
To repeat it. To repeat twice the same sound fragment: there is no event
anymore, there is music. (p. 21)

The listening activity is very early in his reflection at the core of his research. According to
him, music theory is the art of better listening.

Tracklisting: Etudes aux Allures, Etudes aux sons anims, Etudes aux
Objets. Pierre Schaeffer, LOeuvre Musicale. (refer CD notes)

4. The musical research program (PROGREMU)

The sound object is the main unit for the elaboration of a program for a musical research.

Method: through reduced listening one can be conscious of the sound object itself, then
different objects will be described through their comparisons.

Two poles: theme and version. The first notion is on the side of the making, while the other
corresponds to the listening activity. In a more traditional approach, sounds have been
classified within a framework of the definition of instrument through its triple aspect of a
physical apparatus, aesthetic aim, and performance tool. When dealing with recorded sound
listened in an acousmatic situation, taxonomy depends as we mentioned earlier on how
sounds are perceived. In other words, do we know how to write what we listen, and do we
know how to listen what we write?

On typo-morphology:

The forms of sound object will be a subject matter in order to be able to define different types
of objects. This is the aim of a typo-morphology.

Criteria:
The description and definition of types of objects follows a particular orientation in the choice
of the criteria:
- the aim of the identification is defined by a musical intention. Also, there is a clear aim to
render all the sonorous categories, from traditional language, noise, and music.

Then how to cut the sound chain into units?

These three categories can be differentiated by different listening intentions, respectively
identification of a message, identification of an index, listening for itself. Different units can be
grasp according to these intentions: units of meaning are defined on a language level, causal
induction for noise, and the couple stress-articulation for music. The latter couple can in fact
be used for any sonorous chain, which fulfill the aim to find a universal unit that can render
any kind of sound. Thus the sound chain can be cut at time when there is an energetic
discontinuity. A musical orientation of this couple underlines the importance of how the energy
is communicated (articulation) and how we can say that there is a certain fixity in pitch. These
new dual notions of sustainment-intonation (appui-intonation) will be used as criteria for
classification used in the typo-morphology. The criteria of facture, or how the energy is
communicated and manifest itself in time, will serve to qualify the sustainment itself. Three
types of mass describe the intonation, namely tonic, complex and varied mass.

a) Typology:

Three main types: well-balanced objects, which are the most suitable objects, short or
redundant objects (mainly a temporal criteria), and eccentric objects, which bare too many
information in them to be suitable. The diagram tableau recapitulatif de la typologie or

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TARTYP (p.459) is an attempt to combine all the relevant criteria for a typology: a
morphological couple based on mass/facture, a temporal couple (duration-variation) and a
structural couple (balanced-originality). In order to avoid a six entries chart and to facilitate
the use of the diagram, the first two couples have been arbitrarily united. Thus, temporal
variation is integrated into the notion of facture. As a consequence, the three main types of
sound objects can be identified according to two axis: the horizontal axis, defines the
qualitative sustainment through time; Impulsions are located in the centre, continuous
sustainment on the left, and discontinuous or iterative objects on the right. The vertical axis
render the notion of mass and variation; fixed mass objects are located in the centre,
identifiable pitch sounds upward, and varying mass objects downward.

Well-balanced objects: most musical objects. Unity of facture, possibility to memorize, usual
mass used in orchestra (fixed masse of percussion, specific pitch of notes, or glissandi, etc.)
(443)
analysis according to the facture: 3 types of facture, to maintain or not the vibration of the
sound. Null facture (percussion), constantly, or repetitively. Close relation with the
indication of play in traditional music theory (link with gesture?)
N= note well formed
N= impulsion
N= iteration

analysis according to the criteria of mass

3 cases:
N mass is a fixed point in tessitura which can be identified (normal note)
X complex note fixed mass by not really possible to identify pitch
Y mass changed in time (Hawaiian guitar, glissando)

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 b) Morphology:

The form of the sounds objects will be described into a morphology of sounds. This is done
by an intensive reduced listening exercise of many sounds in order to identify different
morphological criteria. Again, as the aim of this approach is to try to create a metalanguage
for a whole diversity of sounds, the idea of values cannot be relevant, and some categories
will be looked for. The notions of form and fabric (matire) are used in order to identify the
proprieties of the sound objects.

Method: By listening and comparing deponent sounds (sons dponents), sounds which lack
one or another distinctive feature, or with fixed properties, particular criteria can be identified
and studied.

Schaeffer sets up of a limit of seven morphological criteria by adding to the notions of

sustainment (entretien) and variation to the previous form and fabric. There are two criteria
of fabric (matire), mass and harmonic timbre, two criteria of sustainment (entretien), grain
and allure, one criteria of form, dynamic, and two criteria of variation, melodic profile and
mass profile.

Criteria of fabric (matire): it is possible to define the two notions of mass and harmonic
timbre. Mass is the way a sound objects occupies the pitch field. Typology defines a tonic,
complex, variant mass. Morphology defines seven classes: pure sound (tonic mass without
harmonic timbre, i.e. a tuning fork), white noise (characterized by the fact that mass
occupied the whole field of pitches), tonic sound (mass is represented by an identifiable
pitch, i.e. a key note), nodal sound (mass formed by a group of sounds which pitches are not
identifiable), tonic group (composed of several tonic sounds, i.e. a piano note), nodal group
(mass formed by several distinct nodal sounds, i.e. different size cymbals together), fluted
sound (sons cannels, ambiguous mass constituted by sounds from the previous classes,
i.e. sound of a gong).

The idea of harmonic timbre can be sometimes difficult to perceive or analyze separately from
mass, as it corresponds to the perception of the harmonic spectrum of a sound. As Schaeffer
defines it as annex qualities to mass, as a more or less diffused halo (1966, p. 516), the
division into classes correspond to the classes of mass, except for the pure sound and white
noise, as the harmonic timbre will be void, either because there is no harmonic timbre, or it
can be perceived when the mass occupies all the field of pitches.

Criteria of sustainment: grain and allure.

Grain refers directly to a tactile quality of the sound, a microstructure of fabric referring to the
grain of a textile or mineral. Grain can thus be grasp through a continuum from very fine, soft
to very rough and coarse according to the three main types of sustainment: null or impulsion,
sustained, or iterative. The other characteristic of sustainment, allure, is a vibrato, or slight
oscillations in the sound characteristics. Typology recognizes three different characteristic
agents: mechanical, alive, and natural, referring to the causality of the sound. The nine
classes of allure correspond to finer distinctions from the three main groups namely order,
fluctuation and disorder.

Criteria of form: (the evolution of the intensity of the sound in time.) The notion of
attack can be identified: frequently, especially for percussion-resonance type sounds, the
attack is the determining element for the evolution of the dynamic. This criteria is about the
history of the sound energy. As a consequence, if the sound is not sustained, attack will not
play a great role. Several profiles are determined: crescendo, decrescendo, in
delta (crescendo then decrescendo), hollow (en creux, decrescendo then crescendo), and
mordant (when theres a peak of intensity, then a lower fixed intensity.) If dynamic is regular
and immobile, the class is labeled amorphe. However, if the sound is not sustained,
dynamic is then shaped by attack (profile is anamorphous.) Shock and resonance can be
either intermingled or distinct.

Criteria of variations: The melodic profile is the general profile of a sound whose pitch
varies through time. The variation affects the whole mass of the sound. There are two general
axis for these variant sounds: continuous (corresponding to the variations of one object), and
discontinuous (in the case of a series of objects). Types are defined through the crossing of a

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factor of rate of variation (in relation to the speed and density of information) and a variation
of fabric (factors of fluctuation, in case of slight instability, of evolution, in case of progressive
and continuous variation, and modulation, in case of a scalar variation). Classes, which are
only defined for continuous varying sounds, are inspired by the Gregorian neumes of podatus
(ascending variation), clivis (descending variation), torculus (ascending then descending) and
porrectus (descending then ascending). The other criteria of variation is the mass profile, an
internal variation of mass, as if sculpted though time, it grows thicker or thinner. Types and
classes here follow the same logic as for melodic profile, using the three models of variation
of fabric (fluctuation, evolution, and modulation), as well as the four neumatic principles.

c) Characterology

It consists in the definition of genre of sounds according to the seven criteria of the vertical
axis of the PROGREMU.

d) Analysis and synthesis

They are an attempt to move from an identification and description of sounds (typology,
morphology and charaterology) to a more musical aspect. Analysis is based on the couple
criteria / dimension. It confronts morphological criteria to the perceptive field of the ear (pitch,
intensity and duration). It exploits their potential to be expressed as values. For each of these
three dimensions, site and caliber are defined. The site of a criteria is its position in the field,
its caliber is the obstruction of the field. for example, the caliber of a white noise will be
maximum in the field of pitch, as it occupies the full spectrum. Schaeffer uses a different
terminology for each of the site / caliber in the three fields. In the field of pitch, site is labeled
tessiture and caliber cart. Considering the field of intensity, the site of a criteria is
poids (weight) and its caliber is relief. Finally, in the field of duration, the site is named
impact, and the caliber of a criteria is a module.

Synthesis aims at the creation of musical objects, which relies on the conception of adapted
new instruments. Schaeffer rejects traditional classification of instruments based on either
material of the instrument, or technological attributes. He asserts the importance of
permanence of characteristics and variations of values. In case of an invisible apparatus
created in the studio, referring to a virtual source, Schaeffer coins the term of pseudo-
instrument. In this case, there is a permanence of a genre (characterology). John Dack
illustrates this notion of pseudo-instrument through the example of Kalheinz Stockhausens
Kontakte fr elektronishe Klange, Klavier and Schlagzeug:

For example, a group of metallic, pitched notes occurs in subsection IC at 39,9 seconds. On
inspecting the score three actual sources are revealed: the high register of a piano, antique
cymbals and resonated electronic impulses . . . . Sounds objects from these three distinct
sources combine to produce the impression of a metallic pecussion-resonance genre and thus
a pseudo-instrumental source. As a result, by means of the sounds intrinsic qualities the worlds
of real instruments and electronic synthesis make contact.

The way sound objects can be grouped according to their perceptive characteristics comes
from a long training from the composer. Pierre Schaeffer does not elaborate too much on the
implementation on his theory. However, theres is a strong emphasis on the idea that
exercising the ear either in a theme or version mode is very important to be able to be familiar
with the tools and metalanguage he attempts to provide.

References:

Battier, Marc, A Constructivist Approach to the Analysis of Electronic Music and Audio Art
Between Instruments and Faktura. Organised Sound 8(3) (2003): 249-255.

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Battier, M., and Schnell, N. 2002. Introducing composed instruments: technical and
musicological implications. In Proc. of the 2002 Conf. on New Instruments for Musical
Expression (NIME-02). Dublin, Ireland, 2426 May.
Bayle, Franois. Musique Acousmatique, Propositions... ...Positions. Paris: INA-GRM, 1993.
Chion, Michel. Guide des Objets Sonores. Pierre Schaeffer et la Recherche Musicale. Paris:
INA, 1983.
Dhomont, Francis. Petite Apologie de lArt des Sons Fixs. Cicuit, Revue Nord-Amricaine
de Musique du XXe sicle 4(1-2) (1993): 55-66.
Emmerson, Simon (ed.). The Language of Electroacoustic Music. Palgrave Macmillan, 1986.
Field, Ambrose. Simulation and reality: the new sonic objects. Emmerson, Simon (Ed.),
Music, Electronic Media and Culture. Ashgate, 2000.
Schaeffer, Pierre. A la Recherche dune Musique Concrte. Editions du Seuil, 1952.
Schaeffer, Pierre. Trait des Objets Musicaux. Editions du Seuil, 1966.
Schaeffer, Pierre. and Rebel, Guy. Solfge de lObjet Sonore. Nouvelle edition, Paris: INA-
GRM, 1988-2005.
Windsor, Luke, Through and around the acousmatic: the interpretation of electroacoustic
sounds. Emmerson, Simon (Ed.), Music, Electronic Media and Culture. Ashgate, 2000.
Wishart, Trevor. On Sonic Art. New and Rev. Ed. Contemporary Music Studies, Vol.12,
Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996.

World Wide Web Source:

Dack, John. A la Recherche de lInstrument Perdu, <http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/sonic/
research/dackperdu.html>
Dack, John. Instrument and Pseudoinstrument. Acousmatic Conceptions, <http://
www.mdx.ac.uk/www/sonic/research/dacklabber.html>
Ubu sound: http://www.ubu.com/papers/sch.html / http://www.ubu.com/sound/sch.html

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