The Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music

The electronic medium allows any audible sound to be contextualized as music. This creates unique structural possibilities as spectrum, dynamics, space, and time become continuous dimensions of musical articulation. What we hear in electronic music ventures beyond what we traditionally characterize as musical sound and challenges our auditory perception, on the one hand, and our imagination, on the other. Based on an extensive listening study conducted over four years, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the cognitive processes involved in the experience of electronic music. It pairs artistic practice with theories from a range of disciplines to communicate how this music operates on perceptual, conceptual, and affective levels. Looking at the common and divergent ways in which our minds respond to electronic sound, it investigates how we build narratives from our experience of electronic music and situate ourselves in them.

Table of Contents:
List of Figures Introduction Overview of the Book 1. Defining Electronic Music Early Years of Electronic Music The Electronic Medium Non-musical Sound Birth of the Electronic Music Studio A New Frontier Electronic Music Nomenclature The Medium is the Genre Acousmatic Music Electroacoustic Music Broadening Horizons 2. Situating the Electronic Music Experience Foundations of Musical Behavior Evolutionary Perspectives From Biology to Culture The Material and Language of Music Music and Emotion Affect in Music Experiential Idiosyncrasies of Electronic Music The Composer, who is also a Listener From Parameters to Instincts Complexity of Listening An Amalgamation of Languages Threads of Communication in Electronic Music The Poietic Thread The Esthesic Thread 3. A Study on Listening Imagination A Cognitive Approach Experimental Studies on Electronic Music “Talking about music is like…” Stimuli Birdfish (2012, 4’40”) Sound Design Form Element Yon (2011, 3’45”) Sound Design Form Christmas 2013 (2011, 2’16”) Sound Design Form Diegese (2013, 1’54”) Sound Design Form Touche pas (by Curtis Roads, 2009, 5’30”) Study Design Preliminary Studies Participants Setup Procedure Initial Listening Session General Impressions Task Real-time Descriptors Exercise Real-time Descriptors Task Results Data Visualizations Single-timeline Dynamic Visualization Multiple-timeline Visualization Analysis Methods Categorization of Descriptors Comparative Analysis Correspondence Analysis Discourse Analysis 4. The Electronic Gesture Events in the Environment Environmental Sounds Models of Mental Representation Affordances Gestures in Electronic Music …is a meaningful narrative unit… …operates within causal networks… …coexists with other gestures in various temporal and spatial configurations… …implies intentionality 5. Worldmaking in Electronic Music Diegesis An Interdisciplinary Contextualization of Diegesis Coalescence of Mimesis and Diegesis Presentationality Narrativity Diegetic Affordances and Affect Music as A Diegetic Actor Quoting Music within Music A Diegetic Actor as Music: Electronic Music and Science Fiction 6. Tracing the Continuum Domains of Experience The Physical Domain Awareness of the Physical Self Stream Segregation Habituation The Semantic Domain Effects of Semantic Context Semantic Gestalts Signs of Life Contacts Between the Two Domains Inside and Outside the Diegesis Sense of Time Experienced Listeners Presence of the Composer in the Work Case Study: Little Animals Macro-scale Analysis Gestural Layers Organic and Environmental Sounds Physical Causalities Pitched and Droning Elements Temporal Flow Diegetic Disposition of the Listener Coda Acknowledgments Bibliography

About the Author :
Anil Çamci is an artist and professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan, USA. His research deals with new tools and theories of worldmaking across a variety of media ranging from electronic music to virtual reality. Previously, he held positions at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA, and Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, where he founded the Sonic Arts Program. He holds an MS in Multimedia Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, and a PhD in Creative and Performing Arts from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His work has been featured worldwide in leading conferences and journals and received numerous awards.

Review :
The Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music provides an excellent model for students who wish to integrate perceptual or cognitive listening experiments with their personal practice. The book contextualizes the studies, conveys the necessary details to evaluate the experimental design, and draws conclusions that are driven both empirically and through practice. The extensive bibliography covers subjects and sources that are critical to electronic music scholarship, perception, listening, cognition, and experimental design. This book traces electronic music from its infancy to the present day, acknowledging many of the field’s important figures and influential developments. Building on this foundation, it draws on novel research approaches which illuminate important areas, including insights into the relationships between electronic music and the listener, thus holding potential to inform not only future studies, but also the continuing development of electronic music’s creation and consumption.