Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-vpsfw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T00:10:46.839Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Theories market: open for trading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2004

ROSEMARY MOUNTAIN
Affiliation:
Music Dept, Concordia University, RF312, 7141 Sherbrooke St. West, Montreal, Canada H4B 1R6 E-mail: mountain@vax2.concordia.ca

Abstract

Challenging the usual acceptance of electroacoustics as a distinct field of its own, this article leads the reader through a series of paths to show the extent to which concerns and techniques of electroacoustics are shared with other musical and artistic disciplines. It continues with a similar questioning of the usual interpretation of analysis by examining the variety of aims, methods, and characteristics of analytical methods, and encourages an increased awareness on the part of all analysts to appreciate where their own work is situated within the field. Typical concerns of electroacoustics, such as the design of timbral structures, gestures and textures are discussed within the realm of parametric analysis, but allusion is also made to other approaches which examine style and context. Disciplines from perception to semiotics are shown to have relevance for further development of adequate analytical tools. The author does not advocate one particular approach, but rather attempts to demonstrate the vastness and intricacy of the field. The conclusion is that analysis of electroacoustics could both contribute to, and benefit from, analysis in other areas of music and art.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2004

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.)

Footnotes

The current article, originally presented as a talk at the Electroacoustic Musics Conference in Paris, October 2003, draws heavily on the author's ongoing research into the variety of extant and developing analytical tools and methods, in preparation for a book–DVD–web resource, entitled The Interactive Tool Kit for Music Analysis.