Subject: Re: Acousmatic - do the intent and the listening conditions alter it?
From: Louis Dufort (siuol@sympatico.ca)
Date: Sat Dec 30 2006 - 11:44:46 EST
> My questions are:
>
> Would an otherwise acousmatic piece cease to be acousmatic if it were
> performed as the sound for a dance? i.e. does the act of presenting
> a visual happening in conjunction with the sound nullify the
> acousmatic nature of the composition, even though the dancer is not
> making the sounds, nor miming to them - but IS creating a parallel
> (and intimately related) art form presentation in the same space at
> the same time?
Well, you hit exactly were the confusion is. Acousmatic for me is a
listening experience, in the dark with no stimulie experience. But I think,
with the years acousmatic term also got attached to a certain esthetic, I
would say a specific branching of the large family of electroacoustic music.
I must pointed out that inside acousmatic music there's is some very
personal approach, Gobeil and Normandeau are both acousmatic composer but do
not share same approach to composition. I think that Francis Dhomont is
very ambiguous about using the term acousmatic music as for describing an
esthetic. Still we use that term and it makes his way; which mean a music
that involve "reduced listening" (écoute réduite) for it's making and as to
be perform on an array of speakers, in a complete the dark hall for a better
resolution on the perception.
I did make a lot of music for dance (Marie Chouinard), and although it may
sound like acousmatic, it is not, because it's serving the dance and in that
way, relationship to the timeline is quite different and could not make
perfect sense in a standalone piece.
>
> If the piece were to have been created specifically for the purpose
> of accompanying (in the sense of journeying with, and serving, but
> not of being subservient to) the dance - would that preclude forever
> it being an acousmatic piece?
>
> I'm not so much bothered about performance here - my feeling is that
> if the music makes little sense without the dance, then it should not
> be played alone, and a concert piece should be made from it for
> concert performance. What I'm worrying about is whether it makes any
> sense to talk about it as an acousmatic composition (based on those
> ambiguities of source IN the sound, the abstract constructs built
> from concrete but de-contextualised sound material, the creation of
> the otherworldly in the listener's imagination) when it will be being
> heard as part of an integrated audio and visual experience.
Well yes it's transform itself into another kind of experience. For me I
like it a lot. As I said before, using visual stimuli permit me to change
the relation with time, and sometime to also have a more conceptual than
perceptual approach. I once rework a piece for dance, did some editing, and
the piece was becoming a standalone acousmatic concert piece. The piece is
call "Le Cri du monde".
Best!
>
> So I'm interested in thoughts and opinions from all - and especially
> from people who have written for dance - and then perhaps wanted to
> talk/write about it!
>
> (The programme notes are easy - it's an electroacoustic score - it's
> the conversations that are interesting me!)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Lisa
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