The Treatise on Musical Objects and the GRM, by Daniel Teruggi
Translators’ Introduction, by Christine North
Pierre Schaeffer’s Treatise on Musical Objects and Music Theory, by John Dack
Introductory Remarks: The Historical Situation of Music
Need for a Reappraisal • Three New Phenomena • The Three Dead Ends of Musicology • A Priori Music • Musique Concrète • Experimental Music • No-Man’s-Land • Divergence of Disciplines • Music as Interdiscipline • Resources for Musical Experimentation • The Aims of Musical Experimentation: Objects, Structures, Languages • Musical Research
1. The Instrumental Prerequisite
1. Homo Faber or Homo Sapiens • 2. Neanderthal Music • 3. The Instrumental Paradox: The Birth of Music • 4. From the Instrument to the Work • 5. From the Instrument to the Musical Domain: Musical Civilizations • 6. Concrete and Abstract in Music • 7. Registers and Musical Domains • 8. Limitations of “Musical Catechisms”
1. Definition of an Instrument • 2. Composition of Instruments • 3. Simple or Multiple Instruments • 4. Instrumental Analysis • 5. Triple Nature of the Instrument • 6. The Electronic Instrument • 7. Musique Concrète • 8. Confusion over Instruments • 9. Critique of the Electronic Instrument • 10. Critique of “Musique Concrète” • 11. Faults Common to Both Musics • 12. Concept of the Pseudo-instrument
1. The Paradox of Discovery • 2. Mystery of the Cylinder and Powers of the Ear • 3. The Historical Contribution of Radio Broadcasting • 4. The Myth of Sound Reproduction • 5. From One Sound Field to Another • 6. The Physical Object in the Transformation • 7. Transformations in the Sound Field • 8. Properties of Recorded Sound • 9. Fidelity • 10. Timbre of the Equipment • 11. The Sound Recordist as Interpreter • 12. Musicians Have No Ear • 13. Prose Composition and Translation • 14. “Radiogenicity” • 15. Advice from an Elder • 16. Nothing New under the Sun
4. Acousmatics
1. Relevance of an Ancient Experiment • 2. Acoustic and Acousmatic • 3. The Acousmatic Field • 4. On the Sound Object: What It Is Not • 5. Originality of the Acousmatic Approach
1. To Hear (Entendre) According to Littré • 2. To Perceive Aurally (Ouïr) • 3. To Listen (Écouter) • 4. To Hear (Entendre) • 5. To Understand (Comprendre)
1. The Functional Aspect of the Ear • 2. Littré (Cont.): The Communication Circuit • 3. The Individual and Objects: Perceptual Intentions • 4. Stages and Outcomes of Listening: Diversity and Complementarity • 5. Two Pairs: Subjective-Objective and Concrete-Abstract • 6. Two Pairs of Listening Modes: Natural and Cultural, Ordinary and Specialized • 7. Exclusives of Specialized Listening • 8. Comparison between Specialized Modes of Listening
1. The Prestige of Logic • 2. Practice: Musical Communication • 3. An Option for Music: A Language in Itself • 4. Another Option: Synthetic Music • 5. From Physics to Music • 6. The System • 7. Ambitions and Inadequacies of Physics • 8. Possible Musical Experimentation
1. Pleonasm • 2. The Two Pathways • 3. The Hearing Intention from a Scientific Point of View • 4. The Stumbling Block • 5. Correlations • 6. The Hearing Intention from a Philosophical Point of View • 7. On Some Musical Hearing Intentions • 8. Musical Listening Modes • 9. Final Summary of Intentions
BOOK THREE.CORRELATIONS BETWEEN THE PHYSICAL SIGNAL AND THE MUSICAL OBJECT
9. Ambiguities in Musical Acoustics
1. An Ambiguous Concept • 2. Sight and Hearing • 3. The “Theory of Theories” • 4. Traditional Doctrine: Acoustic Basis of Music • 5. The Acoustics of Music • 6. Psychoacoustics and Experimental Music • 7. Investigate or Use the “Black Box”
10. Correlation between Spectra and Pitches
1. The Traditional Doctrine • 2. Helmholtz’s Resonators • 3. Fourier’s Series • 4. The Perception of Pitches • 5. Experiments on Residuals • 6. Experiment on Unisons • 7. Musical and Psychoacoustic Calibrations • 8. Pitch Differentiation Thresholds: Importance of Context • 9. Conclusions: The Various Pitch Structures • 10. Sound Mass and Filtering • Appendix: Experiment on Unisons
1. Transient Phenomena • 2. Physicists’ Musical Postulates • 3. Critique of the Approach to Music through Transients • 4. The Ear as a Device • 5. Temporal Thresholds • 6. Mechanical Time Constant of the Ear • 7. Time Constant of the Ear’s Physiological Power of Integration • 8. Pitch, Articulation, and Timbre Recognition Thresholds • 9. Comparison between Time Thresholds and Duration of Transients • 10. Spatialization • 11. Mechanism and Function
12. Temporal Anamorphoses I: Timbres and Dynamics
1. Time Localization • 2. Beginnings of Sounds • 3. The Spliced Piano • 4. Scissor Attack • 5. Cutting Sounds Other Than Percussive • 6. General Interpretation of These Findings • 7. Laws of Perception of Attack • 8. Effect of Dynamic on the Perception of Timbres
13. Temporal Anamorphoses II: Timbre and Instrument
1. Timbre of an Instrument and of an Object • 2. Timbre of Piano Notes • 3. Concept of a Musical Instrument: Law of the Piano • 4. Experiments on the Timbre of the Piano: Transmutations and Filtering • 5. Timbres and Causalities • 6. Causalities and Harmonic Structures: Functional Anamorphoses • 7. Causality and Music
1. A Long Digression • 2. Rhythms and Durations • 3. Experiment on the “Seven Dissymmetrical Sounds” • 4. Duration and “Information” • 5. Sound Played Backward • 6. Temporal Symmetry and Dissymmetry: Aspects of Temporal Anamorphosis • 7. Hearing Time • 8. Musical Durations • 9. Duration and Information
BOOK FOUR.OBJECTS AND STRUCTURES
1. From Experiment to Explanation • 2. Transcendence of the Object • 3. The Naive Theory of the World: Époché • 4. The Sound Object • 5. Reduced Listening • 6. Gestalttheorie • 7. Gestalt, Form, Structure • 8. The Object-Structure Pair
1. The Two Infinities • 2. Ambition for the Elementary • 3. Significance of Values • 4. Code and Language • 5. Linguistic Structures, Musical Structures • 6. The Levels of Language: Signification and Differentiation • 7. Phonemes: Or Distinctive Features • 8. From the Phoneme to the Musical Note • 9. Sound Object and Phonetics • 10. Direction of Research
17. Comparative Structures: Music and Language
1. The Higher Level • 2. Language • 3. The Rules of Language • 4. Application of the Rules of Language to Music • 5. Permanence and Variation in Musical Structures • 6. Values and Characteristics • 7. Divergences • 8. Language Systems and Speech • 9. The Two Exclusives in Language Systems • 10. A Possible Musical Language System: Pure Music, Musical Writing • 11. Instrumental Music
18. The Conventional Musical System: Musicality and Sonority
1. A Delightful Assortment • 2. A Dangerous Intersection • 3. Musicality and (Traditional) Sonority • 4. Instrumental Overview • 5. What Is Your Favorite Instrument, and Why? • 6. Identification and Description • 7. Diabolus in Musica
19. Natural Sound Structures: Musicianly Listening
1. The Universal Symphony • 2. The Repertoire of Causalities • 3. The Language of Things • 4. The Child with the Grass • 5. The Musical in Embryo • 6. The Child with the Violin • 7. Overview of “Sonority” • 8. Relationship between Musicianly and Natural Listening • 9. Toward a Musicianly Classification of Sound Objects • 10. From Sound to the Musical
20. The Reduced Listening System: Musical Dualism
1. Dilemma or Dualism • 2. Argument for a General Musicology • 3. Argument for Sound as Given • 4. Musical Activity • 5. Two Pitfalls • 6. Musicianly Invention • 7. Musical Invention
21. Musical Research
1. Fundamental Research • 2. Interwovenness of Levels of Complexity and Sectors of Activity • 3. Preparatory Exercises • 4. How the Experimental System Works • 5. Contents of the Traditional System • 6. Origins of the Experimental System • 7. Invariants in the Experimental System • 8. Suitable Objects • 9. Perceptual Field • 10. Object and Structures • 11. Meaning and Signification • 12. Constituent Activities: The Four Axioms of Music • 13. Synthesis of Musical Structures or the Invention of Musics • 14. Properties of the Perceptual Musical Field • 15. Contents of the Experimental System
BOOK FIVE.MORPHOLOGY AND TYPOLOGY OF SOUND OBJECTS
22. Morphology of Sound Objects
1. Theory and Practice • 2. Prose Composition and Translation in Sound • 3. Prose Composition • 4. Translation • 5. Example of a Classification • 6. Morphology and Typology • 7. The Form-Matter Pair • 8. Objects with Fixed Form: Criterion of Matter • 9. Objects with Fixed Matter: Criterion of Form • 10. Evolving Sounds: The Norm
23. The Laboratory
1. Electroacoustic Prerequisites • 2. The Electroacoustic System • 3. Repercussions of the System on Fundamental Research • 4. Description and Use of Sound Bodies • 5. Factures: Invention of Sound Objects and Sound Recording • 6. Preparing the Object • 7. The Transpositions of the Object • 8. Transmutations of the Object • 9. Electronic Generators • 10. The Bare Essentials • Appendix A: The Time Regulator • Appendix B: The Form Modulator
24. Typology of Musical Objects (I): Classification Criteria
1. The Parable of the Attic • 2. The Search for Typological Criteria • 3. Duration and Variation • 4. Objects in Sheaves • 5. Balance and Originality • 6. Summary of Typological Criteria • 7. A Study of the Diagram Column by Column • 8. A Study of the Diagram Row by Row • 9. Foundational Schema of the Typology of Sound Objects
25. Typology of Musical Objects (II): Balanced and Redundant Objects
1. Balanced Objects • 2. Analysis Based on the Criterion of Facture • 3. Analysis Based on the Criterion of Mass • 4. Redundant or Not Very Original Objects • 5. Pure Sounds • 6. Summary Diagram of Redundant or Not Very Original Sounds
26. Typology of Musical Objects (III): Eccentric Sounds
1. Eccentric Sounds • 2. Samples • 3. Accumulations • 4. Cells, Ostinati, and Fragments • 5. Large Notes and Wefts • 6. Unisons • 7. Summary Diagram of Typology
1. Sound Reels • 2. Makeup of a Translation Reel • 3. Study of Internal Morphology • 4. External Morphology • 5. Relativity of Analyses • 6. Typological Formulae • 7. Prose Composition: The Study of Sustained Sounds • 8. General Plan for a Reel of Sustained Sounds • 9. Comments on the Experimental Technique
BOOK SIX.THEORY OF MUSICAL OBJECTS
1. Moving toward the Musical • 2. The Sociological Factor in Musical Experience • 3. Deconditioning Exercises • 4. Reconditioning Exercises • 5. Talking about Sounds, or the “Metalanguage” • 6. Two Sorts of Musical Experiences • 7. Inventing Objects • 8. Experimental Reels • 9. Studies on Objects
1. Traditional Music Theory • 2. The Two Scores • 3. Signs and Musical Thought • 4. Objective of a Music Theory • 5. Sound Architecture • 6. The Four Musicianship Procedures • 7. Typological Recapitulation (Sector 2) • 8. Morphological Criteria (Sector 3) • 9. Music Theory of Extreme Examples: Deponent Sound Objects • 10. Musical Analysis of the Criteria (Sector 4) • 11. The Three Dimensions of the Musical Perceptual Field • 12. Final Diagram for the Theory: Types, Classes, Genres, Species of Sounds • 13. Analogical Criteria
30. Theory of Homogeneous Sounds: Criterion of Mass
1. Experimental Material • 2. Analogical Criteria from Traditional Musical Experience • 3. Scientific Criteria: Additional Properties of Pure Sounds • 4. Method of Approach • 5. Harmonic Timbre and Mass • 6. Classes of Mass in Homogeneous Sounds • 7. Characteristic of Mass: Texture of a Sound • 8. Species of Mass • 9. The Two Pitch Fields • 10. Pitch Calibrations • 11. Temperament • 12. Criterion of Harmonic Timbre: Classes and Characteristics • 13. Species of Timbre • 14. Importance of the Criterion of Mass
31. Theory of Fixed Masses: Dynamic Criterion
1. Concept of the Note • 2. Method of Approach • 3. Criterion of Attack: Genres of Forms • 4. Criterion of Profile: Classes of Forms • 5. Manipulations on Forms • 6. The Dynamic Field • 7. Dynamic Sound Species
1. Concrete Criteria • 2. Sustainment Criteria • 3. The Signature of Facture • 4. Types of Grain • 5. Genres of Grain • 6. Species of Grain • 7. Analogical Criteria: Classes of Grain • 8. Allures • 9. Typomorphology of Allures • 10. Species of Allure
1. Musical Variation • 2. Perception of Variations • 3. Variation and Structure • 4. Typology of Variations • 5. Variation Criteria • 6. Typology of Melodic Variations • 7. Musical Tradition of Melodic Variations: Neumes • 8. Classes, Genres, and Species of Melodic Variations • 9. Mass Variations • 10. Sustainment Variations • 11. Structures of Variations
34. Analysis of the Musical Object as It Generally Appears
1. The Troublesome Example • 2. Analytical Diagram • 3. Summary Diagram • 4. Layout of the Diagram • 5. Evaluation of Criteria in the Perceptual Field • 6. Musical Scales • 7. Numbers and Nuances • 8. Object Identification Chart • 9. Meaning of the Analytical Diagram and How to Use It
BOOK SEVEN.MUSIC AS A DISCIPLINE
35. Implementation
1. How Should We Make and What Should We Listen For? • 2. On the Right Use of a Music Theory • 3. Attempt at an Exploration of Traditional Musics • 4. Calibrations of Values • 5. Simple Relationships • 6. Reference Structures • 7. Listening to Contemporary Musics • 8. A Priori Musics • 9. Serial Genetics in Electronic Music • 10. Outside the Series • 11. The Three Tiers • 12. Musics • 13. Tablatures • 14. Music and Machines • 15. The Two Musics • 16. The Continuous and the Discontinuous • 17. Polyphony and Polymorphy • 18. Music and Aesthetics • 19. Music and the Disciplines
1. Orpheus • 2. Musical Consumption • 3. The Musical Environment • 4. Musicians • 5. The Inspiration of the Moment • 6. From the Scribe to the Acrobat • 7. The Experts • 8. The Role of Orpheus • 9. Respect for Humankind • 10. Orpheus in the Underworld • 11. A Spiritual Technique • 12. The Meaning of Words • 13. The Language of Things
Penultimate Chapter: In Search of Music Itself
Anamorphoses between Music and Acoustics • Return to the Object and the Musical Endeavor • The Four Listening Modes • Beyond the Mark, Short of the Mark • The Musical Relationship • Back-to-Front Music • The Composer’s Noise • Typology of Contemporary Musics • An Undesirable Teaching Method • The Three Levels of the Score • Music as Will or Representation • The Target