The central question is then: is it possible to document the acoustic features of sound objects that constitute the basis for the subjective labels in the Solfège? In other words: can we correlate the subjective feature labels of the sound objects with their acoustic features, as was indeed the long-term project of musical research proposed by Schaeffer? Solfège CD3, tracks 25, 26, and 27, see Figure 1 below). The challenge in this paper is to explore how to bridge the gaps between the subjective labels and the acoustic features of the sound objects in research, in particular as these labels are applied across different sounds e.g., across that of a drumroll, a deep bassoon tone, and of a processed sound, all with prominent so-called iterative feature (cf. The empirical material in this paper is then the collection of metaphor labels and their corresponding sound examples in Schaeffer’s theory, as manifest in the text and sound work Solfège de l’ objet sonore ( Schaeffer et al., 1998, here called Solfège), specifically the labels of the typology (the overall dynamic and pitch-related shapes of sound objects), and of the morphology (the various detail contents of sound objects). ![]() A follow-up aim here is to demonstrate how the metaphors of Schaeffer and co-workers may be related to the acoustic substrate of sound objects, now that we have readily available methods and technologies to explore such relationships. The aim of the present paper is first of all to highlight the extraordinary role of the sound object focus in music theory, not only relevant for the musique concrète, but relevant well beyond that to many different musical genres and styles, because sound objects are inherently holistic and thus capable of conceptualizing temporally distributed features of music such as the various dynamic, textural, timbral, and expressive envelopes that has not be possible within the more traditional Western music theory frameworks. In being founded on perceived sound, and not on Western notation or other abstract paradigms, this theory emerged ahead of its time, and may from our present day vantage point be regarded as just as much a project of music psychology as of music theory. It is top-down in the sense of taking the subjective (or what we could call experiential) features as point of departure for systematic exploration, all the time guided by the seemingly naïve method of numerous listening to any sound fragment and trying to depict what we are hearing. This focus on sound objects and their perceptually salient features was, and still is, a remarkable development in music theory. These labels, largely related to motion shapes such as impulsive, iterative, sustained, rough, smooth, etc., grew out of practical composition work in the musique concrète and ensuing discussions at the Groupe de recherches musicales in Paris. ![]() Yet there was also an attempt to find some common features among individual experiences of sound objects by the use of metaphor labels. These perceptual images are largely influenced by our individual attitudes and schemas, including our attentional focus during listening. Although based on recorded fragments of sound, typically in the 0.5-5 s duration range, sound objects are actually perceptual images of these sound fragments, i.e., images in our minds of sound fragments we listen to. In parallel with the emergence of the musique concrète, Pierre Schaeffer and coworkers also dedicated much attention to the perceptual issues of this new kind of music, in particular to the so-called sound objects and their various features. This sound object theory makes extensive use of metaphors, often related to motion shapes, something that can provide holistic representations of perceptually salient, but temporally distributed, features in different kinds of music. Sound objects and their features became the focus of an extensive research effort on the perception and cognition of music in general, remarkably anticipating topics of more recent music psychology research. ![]() Furthermore, the term sound object was used to denote our perceptual images of such fragments. Centered in Paris around the composer, music theorist, engineer, and writer Pierre Schaeffer, this became known as musique concrète because of its use of concrete recorded sound fragments, manifesting a departure from the abstract concepts and representations of Western music notation. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, there emerged a radically new kind of music based on recorded environmental sounds instead of sounds of traditional Western musical instruments.
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