l
Music and autobiographical memory - Research Article
Memory as the Aspatial Domain
for the Perception of Certain
Genres of Contemporary Art Music
Riccardo Wanke1
Music & Science
Volume 4: 1–18
ª The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/2059204321997658
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and Vincenzo Santarcangelo2
Abstract
This paper enquires into the nature of the connections between memory and certain genres of contemporary art music
whose unique features rely particularly on our early mnemonic processes. Specific sound configurations of this music are
often associated, during listening, with visual and tactile sensorial qualities and with abstract geometries. They are perceived fundamentally as the results of acoustic-physical forces and energies and are organized according to Gestalt and
kinesthetic principles. This kind of music calls for a specific listening attitude, which we define as the vertical stance, and
seems particularly apt to respond to mechanisms of the working memory where echoic, short- and long-term memories
assume a central role. In this vertical stance, memory is involved in the mental construction (segregation, storage, and
prediction) of the Gestalt configurations of this music within a perceptual domain that crucially has no spatial connection
to the external world. In tying in neurophysiological and psychological research with musicological theories, we discuss
the perceptual approach to these music practices in the light of the philosophical concept of the ‘No-Space world’ as
conceived by the philosopher Peter Strawson. We propose that – under certain conditions – memory may be the realm of
the purely spectro-temporal features of music. The sound configurations of this music in particular are part of an internalexternal perceptual framework, being decoded in the conceptual space of perception and able to elicit high-order
recollections typical of an embodied engagement with the external world.
Keywords
Memory, contemporary art music, auditory perception, Gestaltic formation, auditory scene analysis
Submission date: 02 February 2021; Acceptance date: 02 February 2021
Introduction
The rich connections between music and memory assume a
particular significance when we start to consider contemporary art music1 (from now on CAM) and its listening
practices. How is contemporary art music related to mnemonic abilities? When we start to consider CAM, the discourse around memory relating to the more common genres
of Western classical, folk, or world music does not seem
to fit. The idea behind this paper is that the specific features of pieces belonging to certain genres of CAM, such
as post-spectralism, minimalism, electroacoustic music,
and various offshoots of electronica, may engage listeners
in a different way as compared to other forms of music.
On the one hand, both the variety and the limited diffusion and consumption of CAM hinder the consolidation of a
widespread repertoire that would assist in the identification
and retention of various features of the music by a listener.
On the other hand, it is evident that some 20th century music,
due to its unconventional character and inventive nature,
inherently demands a specific outlook capable of grasping
the distinctive facets of these music practices (Solomos,
2019). Traditional ‘[e]xamples of ways to make pieces difficult to represent [mentally] would be: building a piece with
virtually no repetition [ . . . ]; building a piece so that there
1
CESEM – Centre for the Study of the Sociology and Aesthetics of Music,
FCSH, NOVA University, Lisbon, Portugal
2
Polytechnic of Turin, Italy
Corresponding author:
Riccardo Wanke, CESEM – Centre for the Study of the Sociology and
Aesthetics of Music, FCSH, NOVA University, Lisbon 1069061, Portugal.
Email: rwanke@fcsh.unl.pt
Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
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on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2
appears to be only one repeating schema with variations
[ . . . ]; building a piece out of indefinite and uncategorizable
events such as indistinct pitches, slides, noises, etc.’ (Snyder,
2001, p. 101). These are just some of the characteristics of
aleatoric music, free improvisation, minimalism and drone
music, electroacoustic, noise and contemporary classical
music practices. The absence of tonal constructions, traditional narrative and temporalities, and the presence instead
of real-world sounds, noises and distorted sounds, acoustic
and electronic sounds, all potentially within non-linear temporal constructions, hampers conventional descriptions and
challenges the research to find new models able to explain
the mechanisms behind our apprehension of this music.
While the appreciation of this kind of music still largely
follows general mechanisms that are dependent on familiarity and background (Bourdieu, 1979; Grebosz-Haring &
Weichbold, 2020; Menger, 2001), our aim here is to discuss
how these genres of music escape conventional forms of
memorization and to examine the impact of this music on
the most essential areas of our perception, exploring new
perceptual pathways that these genres engage.
In this paper, we consider certain genres within CAM
that show an explicit interest in the intrinsic properties of
sound, rather than in any organized and planned construction. The focus of these genres revolves around the creation (and the experience of) sonic textures and masses in
motion, instead of a dialectic relation between tones (i.e.,
melodies). These pieces distinctly show a passage from
sound seen as a constituted element of musical phrases with
a given function to sound as constituent element of music,
autonomized in such a way that we may define it not through
its usage but through its nature (Bonnet, 2012, p. 130).
Listening to this music, which spans electroacoustic
music, mixed-source works, post-spectralism, minimalism,
glitch-electronica, drone music, microsound, sound art, and
dubstep, often leads to associations with visual and tactile
sensorial qualities and to abstract geometries (e.g., surfaces,
planes, lines, and points) (Godøy, 1997; Wanke, 2019), due
essentially to the sonic characteristics of these musical genres (Kendall, 2014; Kiss, 2004). This paper examines how
memory is involved and operates when we listen to these
specific music practices.
The key aspect which differentiates these styles of music
from others is that, apart from being grounded in the intrinsic properties of sound, this music displays essential sonic
forms, that we define here as sound configurations,
arranged and constructed following the principles of
Gestalt (Santarcangelo & Wanke, 2020). We aim to show
how the nature of these configurations is tied to the early
stage of perception and is strictly connected to the functioning of working memory (WM) (Joseph et al., 2015). By
describing our primary response to sonic information
which results from the combination of both the echoic and
short-term memory (STM) and auditory Gestalten formation (Koelsch & Siebel, 2005, p. 579), we focus on how
these configurations prompt a particular response from our
Music & Science
memory, favoring a specific perceptual stance. They
impact physically on our echoic memory, fortify STM, and
control the formation of long-term memories (LTMs).
If this music is based on Gestalt features, what do we
retain in memory when we remember an organized
sequence of sounds2? We suggest that these sound configurations are part of what we define as an internal-external
perceptual framework, being recognized and processed by
Gestalt principles of perception, stored by WM, and acting
as bridging elements for an embodied cognitive response.
The importance lies in the fact that listening to this music
goes beyond a cognitive abstraction (i.e., extraction of
invariants) for the formation of corresponding mental
representations in a listener’s mind. Instead, by matching
efficaciously the auditory Gestalten processing at the early
stages of perception, these sound configurations detach
themselves from their source of production, allowing for
a morphodynamic analogy between the external acoustic
features and the internal mental images (Reybrouck, 1997).
In giving a full description of this process, we attempt to
trace a connection between music, cognitive science and
philosophy of perception. Our argument relies on the concept of the ‘No-Space world’, the idea developed as a
thought experiment by Peter Strawson (1959). The auditory
system detects and identifies sources, but when we
approach music perceptually, and in particular this kind
of music, its sounds appear to detach themselves from any
actual origin and come to occupy a precise and distinct
perceptual domain. The experience of this music entails a
‘vertical’ perceptual state of consciousness (Kozak, 2020;
Kramer, 1988) in which primal impressions and the retention and protention of sound configurations are connected
within a perceptual domain. This domain, realized within
the functioning of WM, corresponds to an aspatial domain
of perception where the image schemata of this music
recall experiential associations reaching out towards an
embodied cognition.
Our aim with this paper is to propose an alternative
perspective that is able to explain our perceptual approach
to a series of music practices which elaborate unconventional sonic forms. The sonic stream that reifies itself in
auditory memory is actually an aspatial domain where only
pure sounds may exist.
Sonic Characteristics
Certain genres of CAM are intrinsically based on essential
sonic forms, rather than any complex and functional arrangement. This tendency has emerged in different musical currents over the past century and may be outlined as ‘the
process of emancipation of sound within the music practices of the 20th century’ (Solomos, 2019). We focus on
those music genres which develop a series of practices –
such as the restoration of a temporal continuity, the integration of different sound sources, and the extended
exploration of sonic spectrum – as cardinal principles,
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Wanke and Santarcangelo
including spectralism, minimalism, avant-garde music,
electroacoustic compositions and certain offshoots of
experimental improvisations, and electronica.
If we consider pieces by figures such Alvin Lucier,
Georg Friedrich Haas, Jacob Ullman, Éliane Radigue,
Ryoji Ikeda, Pan Sonic, Jürg Frey, or Richard Chartier,
we encounter a set of works that spill over the limits of our
perception. Retention and protention – following Husserl’s
terminology – of the sonic flow in these compositions are
intentionally put to the test. These compositions use material that in fact exceeds the definite form of a musical (or
sound) object: this material does not possess clear edges or
boundaries (being potentially confused with environmental
sound or creating acoustic challenges in perception), it
puzzles our perceptual segregation by shifting the intensity
of similar aural stimuli or by mixing different sounds into a
coherent perceptual chain (i.e., families of morphologically similar sounds), challenging our expectation of future
musical events. Some of these works use such primordial
structures that they minimize our predictive constructions.
Jürg Frey’s string quartets (e.g., second and third) are
exemplary in this sense. In composing a repetitive and
monolithic sequence of suspended sounds, Frey reduces
our processing of sonic streams to its essentials, favoring
a static apprehension of sounds. The listener is immersed in
a consistent state where dynamic and ADSR (attack, decay,
sustain, release) features of sound are uniform, allowing the
listener to take these elements for granted and thus be able
to focus on spectral characteristics.
One of our previous study (Wanke, 2015) illustrates how
authors belonging to these genres center their work on a
series of specific sonic morphologies and evolutions. Morphological aspects span a large variety of sound types: the
use of microtonality and sonic layers; the construction of
sonic masses; the creation of systematic continuous pitch
movements (i.e., glissandi) and repetition. These characteristics are embedded within musical evolutions such as
metric structures and the opposition of different elements
according to certain sonic dimensions (e.g., dynamic or
timbric). Composers and performers within these genres
employ a ‘plastic’ use of sounds based on their various
identities – whether according to their sonic properties,
spatial character, their role, intensity, or presence. In this
sense, sounds appear and emerge possessing a sort of tactile
and sculptural presence within a depicted sonic domain of
perception as they occupy a particular spaciousness. These
artists use a limited set of elements that are part of a unique
conception of sonic flow and they focus on the presentation
of aural elements minimizing their articulation and mutual
interplay. These pieces exhibit a reduced dialectic between
musical elements that behave more as structural constituents of a complex sound rather than as part of a narrative
exchange. Therefore, given the potential variety of sound
types, this music reflects an idea of convergence of elements and behaviors. This idea is more evident in those
pieces which include continuous musical episodes made
up of sustained and overlapping tones, building a kind of
material thickening, a layering up in perception. When discrete sounds are employed, pieces (or episodes) proceed by
developing families of sounds in such a way as to create a
natural internal coherence in which each aspect is perceived as part of an integrated form.
Most essentially, this kind of music is based on ineffable
and overwhelming sonic dimensions accessed through sonic
phenomena at the threshold of hearing (microsound and
glitch-electronica), transient impressions (spectralism), distorted sonic aggregates (noise, electroacoustic music), or
even specifically constructed illusory effects (minimalism).
Perceptual Grammar
We argue that, due to the unfamiliar constructions present
in these genres of CAM, this type of music engages our
memory more easily at a phenomenological and sensorial
level rather than through establishing long-term associations. In referring to this kind of music, Snyder talks about
a ‘memory sabotage’: a music that tries to exist outside of
memory by flouting the structural principles of more conventional music, that is ‘by constructing patterns whose
distribution of information makes them difficult to process,
or [ . . . ] by using events or silences whose time lengths
exceed the limits of short-term memory’ (2001, p. 235).
It may be difficult, for instance, to remember exactly long
musical passages from pieces such as String Quartet n 4
(1964) by Scelsi, Trilogie de la Mort (1993) by Radigue,
Lontano (1967) by Ligeti, or þ. (1996) by Ikeda. These
pieces possess an ambiguous evolution and frequently consist of a continuous ever-changing sonic stream where liminal and ephemeral sonic effects pop up without the listener
being fully aware of them. Solomos, for instance, describes
listening to Scelsi’s String Quartet n 4 as a kind of invention: ‘not only do I hear different things each time I listen, in
addition, it is always difficult for me to know whether what I
hear (or think I hear) is “there” (in the score or in the recording) or whether my mind is inventing it’ (Solomos, 2019, p.
126). It is more likely that one would have a precise recollection of colors and chord combinations than of extended
temporal or formal structures. There are still, of course,
rhythmic patterns, distinct evolutions and sonic gestures
which may leave vivid memories, but the restricted dialectic
and the overall continuity and unicity of sound both favor the
memorization of brief episodes over larger structures and the
recollection of sonic situations of sound elements arranged
within a spectro-temporal range rather than the equivalent of
a precise sequence of notes and melodies.
The characteristics of this music account for a field of
sound configurations covering both structural (e.g.,
extended spectral exploration, microtonality, repeated glissandi, sonic masses) and unfolding characteristics (e.g.,
rhythmic and reiterated figures, sonic contrasts), their
effects (e.g., hypnotic, cumulative) as well as their arrangements (e.g., non-functional, sculptural, limited variety,
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Music & Science
Table 1. Sonic characteristics and typologies (Wanke, 2015).
Types
Morphologies
Evolutions
Effects
Arrangements
Characteristics
The use of an expanded spectrum
Interactions between neighboring
frequencies (e.g., microtonality, binaural
beats)
Systematic frequency-based glides (glissando)
Static masses of sound (e.g., sustained tonebased aggregates, drones)
Metric structures (e.g., rhythm, repetitive
clusters)
Dynamic and timbric contrasts
Hypnotic reiterations
Auditory challenges at macro/micro sound
scales (e.g., distortions, illusory effects,
psychoacoustic phenomena)
A plastic and sculptural arrangement of sound
Restricted number of elements conceived
globally
Limited dialectic among elements
extended temporal and spectral presentations) (see Table 1).
Taken as a whole, these sound configurations relate to the
so-called intrinsic properties of sound. This is the portion of
the acoustic stimulus where sound expresses its inner
content, its ‘colours, light effects, tactile sensations, all
properties of a physical matter’3, and where it possesses a
quasi-objective presence and material nature: it is the place
of the palpable qualities of sound, its volume, its density
and grain (Bériachvili, 2010, p. 32). In this portion of the
acoustic stimulus, we experience a direct appraisal of
intrinsic sonic features and a reduced ability in spatial localization and origin identification. The use of complex tone
aggregates, the unconventional decay of inharmonic series,
the presence of noises and distortions puzzle in fact phase
discernment and sound localization (i.e., bases of binaural
hearing). The use of microtonal interactions, in particular,
leads to suspended non-linear patterns that ‘include those
parametric values [which] do not change over time, but
merely repeat; fluctuate between fixed values in no particular order’ (Snyder, 2001, p. 65). The acoustic phenomenon
of binaural beats – a beat originated by an interference
between two sounds of slightly different frequencies and
frequently used in spectralism, and materialist minimalism
(Corbett, 2000) – is an acoustic illusion which has a similar
basis (i.e., phase difference) to binaural hearing – that is,
our ability to locate sound ‘out there’. Precisely because of
this common ground, binaural beats challenge our capacity
to recognize a sound’s position in the outer world and can
generate the sensation that sounds contributing to this interference pattern are located somewhere in the head (Oster,
1973). Moreover, it is worth resolving some of the ambiguity in the use of the term ‘space’ in relation to sound.
Among the large variety of possible meanings4, here we use
this term to refer to the outer physical space. In order to
avoid confusion, we denote a general three-dimensional
extent, such as that of the frequency/time/intensity set of
parameters, as a ‘domain’. This distinction may help the
reader in grasping the key difference between the domain
of a figure/background sonic construction versus, for example, the spatial direction of a sound of a car passing by ‘out
there’.
Due to their nature, these sound configurations are often
used in combinations (e.g., glitch-electronic music usually
exhibits repetitive clusters within rhythmic frameworks,
while the repetition of musical units in longer pieces of
contemporary classical music can at times be associated
with non-rhythmic hypnotic reiterations or more complex
structures (Wanke, 2015)) which are typical of interdependences and hierarchies. In this sense, they form a sort of
perceptual grammar which incorporates internal principles
and synergies. The concept of perceptual grammar parallels
Kanizsa’s visual grammar (1979), insofar as this perceptual
grammar embodies Gestalt principles of proximity and
similarity and embraces a series of essential (identity, difference, motion, and stasis), structured (ascending/descending, figure/background), and dynamic or kinesthetic
(tension, linearity, amplitude, projection) patterns (Cruys
& Wagemanns, 2011; Sheets-Johnstone, 1999; Tenney,
1988). Indeed, the very first encounter with this music
reproduces forms shaped by spectro-temporal boundaries
(Kubovy & Van Valkenburg, 2001), such as figure/ground
segregation, complex multiple plane arrangements, clashes
between pulses vs. sustained stimuli, time-based frames
eliciting causal chains in perception, and the unfolding of
contrasting profiles. The essential feature that unites these
forms is their abstract nature: they do not resemble anything in the world but instead, as will be made clear later
on, possess a fundamental link to the world in terms of
potential.
A Memory Sabotage or a New Engagement
Characteristics of this perceptual grammar – which traditional studies on music perception attribute to a kind of
‘memory sabotage’ (Snyder, 2001) – are the essential elements of a series of music practices today. This music does
not search for unexpected resolutions of conventional
schemes of expectation (Huron, 2006; Raffman, 2003), but
rather points to another perceptual appraisal, a new engagement, that Kramer described as a ‘vertical perspective’
(1988) of listening and to which Meyer alludes as the
‘simultaneous deviation’ (1956). If ‘musical groupings
[of more conventional genres] are often created by composers so as to fit within the limitations of STM, thus giving
their music a clearer and more memorable structure’ (Snyder, 2001, p. 37), this music intentionally pushes listeners
to find more uncommon perceptual approaches. This shift
of perspective is evident if we consider composers such
Xenakis, Grisey, or Lucier or performers such Autechre
and Jacob Kirkegaard. These figures incorporate psychoacoustic phenomena in their pieces (e.g., Kirkegaard’s
Wanke and Santarcangelo
Labyrinthitis (2008) exploits the phenomenon of the
evoked otoacoustic emission) and the study of neural networks to design algorithms for composition (e.g., Xenakis,
Vaggione, Autechre) (Kiss, 2004). The general idea behind
the work of these authors is to stimulate the audience to
find other ways to listen which may include particular listening attitudes (Grisey, López, Oliveros) or the resonance
of physical space (Xenakis, Lucier) and therefore expand
toward immersive experiences (electroacoustic, sound art
and soundscape). Many composers working in this area
explicitly reject the idea of music expressing a meaning
or representing something (e.g., an emotion) in favor of
an idea of music as stimulating an aural experience that
is engaged with by each listener in their own way (López,
2004; Oliveros, 2005).
The focus here is on sound and its impact on our perception. Grisey himself explains that ‘[t]he more we expand
our auditory acuity to perceive the microphonic world, the
more we draw in our temporal acuity, to the point of needing fairly long durations’ (1987, p. 259). This dilated time
provides a predictable experience for the listener and this
allows them to focus on minimal sonic events (Imberty,
2005). However, this music is not frozen. It possesses an
unconventional set of hierarchies (i.e., perceptual grammar), a sense of motion generated by forces in action and
expectation, but it is not linearly goal-oriented: the everchanging macro-structure incorporates dynamic and vectorial tensions (Imberty, 2005). Scelsi’s Quattro Pezzi
(1959) shows a sense of construction (for example, using
the ‘tension/resolution’ schema) together with unconventional sonic meters (Menesson, 2008). There is a sort of
expectation and structural hierarchy; the musical time is not
linear, but a progressing sonic flow is discernible. There is
a narrative but not a linear teleological profile: the listener
is absorbed (or immersed) into a sonic stream. In other
words, these music practices are founded on a series of
essential sound configurations – based on frequency proximity, spectral similarity, comparable evolutions in acoustic properties – which mirrors a wide variety of experiential
Gestalten of the physical world, and this – as we will see –
is the key for an embodied engagement. Like all sounds,
these configurations can engage echoic memory, STM, and
LTM, but their particularity emerges in the working memory (WM).5 The primal grouping6 which often exceeds the
time-limits of STM, the essential redundancy, repetition,
and regularity which reinforces STM and opens WM up to
‘semiactivated’ portions of LTM (Snyder, 2001, p. 48), the
lack of goal orientation and closures, the limited functional
role of sound configurations and their formal independence
from external causality, all these elements impact our
memory – echoic, STM, and LTM – in different ways,
essentially by strengthening STM and limiting the consolidation of LTM.
Echoic memory. These pieces use sound types that
emphasize their material nature. On the one hand,
5
they consist in massive pulsations, enveloping constructions of layered sounds, sonic clusters, all made
of intricate textures. On the other hand, they explore
the extremes of the audible spectrum, challenging
listeners to deal with fragile sounds which lie at the
threshold of audibility. Composers frequently
exploit acoustic interferences based on the auditory
phenomenon of critical bands and, as a consequence,
due to the pervasive effect of aural beating, this
sound gives the sensation that a concrete imprint has
been left behind. Binaural beats, distortions, and
sonic contrasts overtly show that to experience this
music is to have a sense of a physical material that is
stretched, cut, and expanded. The distorted sonic
textures of Triptych #2 (2008) by Verrando give the
sensation that the music is being played (or emitted)
very close to the listener’s ear. When we listen to
distorted blocks of noisy sound – as in Verrando’s or
Pan Sonic’s music – we experience a sense of saturation, as if the sound material is physically filling a
kind of ‘container’. We have the sense of an acoustic
pressure but also of restriction and a channeling of
energy-forces. This kind of sonic impact is also
revealed when sound disappears – that is, when the
acoustic pressure of sound is relieved and the listener experiences a post-experiential absence
marked in auditory sensory memory (Bonnet,
2012). A prototypical example may be found in
þ/– (1996) by Ryoji Ikeda. The Japanese sound
artist uses sounds outside of the audible frequency
range (e.g., in the piece entitled –., he adds to tones
at 11 and 18 Hz) which leave a sort of unheard but
felt sign.7 In particular, the last track of þ/– consists
of a very soft sound which is almost inaudible but
which possesses an aura, a shadow of sound. Ikeda
suggests ‘a synthesis of opposites through its barely
audible volume, short duration, and reliance on the
faintest gossamer sound grains’ (Demers, 2010, p.
87). In describing this last piece, he talks about ‘a
high frequency sound [ . . . ] that the listener becomes
aware of only upon its disappearance’ (Ikeda, 1996).
Echoic memory of this perceived acoustic stimulus
is therefore the key to constructing the identity of the
sound.
Short-term memory. In these pieces, primal grouping
often goes beyond the time-frame of STM. A piece
like Pithoprakta (1955) by Iannis Xenakis is conceived starting from stochastic principles and statistical laws, and its perceptual result challenges the
listener to deal with contrasts of density and continuity rather than the succession of traditional tonebased constructions. Homogeneous musical sections
often extend over one minute (e.g., bars 60–100;
123–170; 209–251) and are defined by their internal
spectral coherence: a continuous sonic flow constructed on a micro-scale by entangled instrumental
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Music & Science
voices (i.e., 46 solo string parts). Others contain long
silences and detached sonic interventions that – due
to the uniformity of the technique used (only glissandi, pizzicati, or sul ponte; bars 108–122; 187–
207; 252–end) – define specific spectral ranges. In
the piece in vain (2000) by Haas, the opening figure
(being mirrored at the end) – which lasts over 5 min –
recalls the never-ending development of some
acoustic illusions such as the Shepard scale.8 The
particular complexity of this episode favors the
‘bouncing mode’ of listening (Bregman, 1990): the
intricate layering of glide patterns is heard following
the principle of frequency proximity which chooses
to group glides of the same spectral region. Thus, we
are not able, during listening, to follow single instrumental lines but we engage a fluctuating sonic scene
where distinct spectral regions are variably
explored. Both Xenakis’s and Haas’s constructions
interfere with any short-term grouping, but the continuous and repetitive profiles support listeners’
memorization of single patterns which continue to
be restored in memory.
Long-term memory. Similar to other music genres,
schema-driven processes involving LTM draws on
specific domains of experience. Several studies
show how greater familiarity and competency favor
an informed engagement: the typical public for
CAM today is a sort of ‘new omnivore’ group made
up of well-educated higher-status individuals whose
likings and backgrounds embrace a broad set of
musical practices (Grebosz-Haring & Weichbold,
2020). Trained listeners show a greater ability to
discern instrumentation and deal with these uncommon sonic constructions, thus favoring mnemonic
abilities (Wanke, 2019). However, the ‘memory
sabotage’ of this music impacts physiological and
more essential levels of perception that depends only
to a small extent on training. The characteristics of
this music restrict in fact formal-based recollection
in LTM while exploiting the abstract nature of these
sound configurations to favor LTM’s spontaneous
processes (reminding and recognition).9 Listeners
draw on familiar patters which concern essential
forces and shapes identified in their general experience of the physical world rather than on consolidated musical recollections. If this music sabotages
the construction of long stable memories, the
schema-based segregation here emerges from the
nature of the perceptual grammar itself: listeners
grasp Gestalt and kinesthetic forces, in the sense that
sound configurations are defined like one particular
sensory dimension of some more general physical
energy that could have been glimpsed with the other
senses but which in this case is only present through
sound (Bregman, 1990, pp. 401–402; Lehar, 2003).
As we discuss later on, these forces pass internally to
our perception in the form of references to a quasiphysical realm (Fingelkurts et al., 2010). Schemabased processing recognizes sound configurations as
profiles, shapes, or groups that unfold, expand, or
collapse. The sense of this music concerns a series
of forces and geometries – lines, planes, layers,
degrees of density – that call in the physical world
as potential: experiential Gestalten, kinesthetic patterns, textures, and immersive motifs that, due to
their nature, lead to a non-sonic (but sonic-related)
area made of intentions, processes, movements and
appearances (Godøy, 1997; Wanke, 2019).10 This is
to say that sound configurations such as contrasting
sound masses, transient appearances of fragile overtones, or entangled descending lines are processed as
energy-forms that we experience as impacting on us
directly, and the schema-driven associations arising
from these forces draw on our experiential and
embodied cognition of the external world.
A piece such as in vain, for instance, by displaying a
large variety of frequency-time configurations, is based on
a continuous clash of harmonies and intonations (natural
harmonic series vs. 12-tone equal temperament) (Hasegawa, 2015). Listeners may be unaware of the theories
behind this acoustic relationship and still be captivated by
the dynamic contrasts, the forms of the infinite descending
movement, or the temporality of the progressive accelerations. But through these contrasting intonations, Haas also
plays with our habits as trained or untrained listeners and
our (un)certainties, such that one may wonder why horns
and harp suddenly appear to be detuned or why some notes
seem to come from another tuning system. These unnatural
mismatches immediately offer the most engaged listeners
the potential to construct through perception interactive
relations with non-musical features by constructing
high-level recollections with life events (which may recall
contradictions or conflicts), or with corporeal and natural
processes (in the form of frictions or the sense of loss), or
even related to social conducts and cultural beliefs.
The characteristics (and our experience) of these pieces
focus on the immanent aspect of sound, its characteristics
and behavior. A potential criticism of this point of view is
given by Erik Clarke, who claims that ‘[w]hen perception
proceeds in an unproblematic way, we are usually unaware
of the sensory aspect of the stimulus information and are
only attuned to the events that are specified by stimulus
structure. But when that relationship is problematic, the stimulus structure itself can become more evident’ (2005, p.
32). We argue here that it is precisely this kind of ‘problematic’ perception that arises when faced with today’s experimental music which allows some works in the genre to focus
on immanent sensory aspects (the ‘stimulus structure’): the
music of composers such as Haas, Lucier, Ullman, or performers such as Pan Sonic, Boards of Canada, or Thomas
Brinkmann, is based precisely on unconventional sound
7
Wanke and Santarcangelo
configurations that exploit sonic effects embedded within
musical episodes, favoring a sensorial impact (cf. Kendall’s
phenomenal qualities (2014, p. 200)) and allowing the
physical-acoustic energies of sonic stimuli to be central during listening.
We are not suggesting that an elaborated response does
not exist or that this kind of music does not have in some
way an emotional impact; rather it is that the best way to
understand how we process this music is by thinking in
terms of the mechanisms of perception we use in relation
to sounds from the wider physical world. Our perceptual
engagement with these pieces seems then to revolve around
an embodied experience, a connection or bridge to the
world in an everyday sense, more so than with other kinds
of music where the knowledge of specific musical languages and cultural codes is central, and where the types
of sound material cover a narrower range. It is not a complete novelty: studies (Bonnet, 2012; Clarke, 2005; Voegelin, 2010) examining the subject of perception in the
context of CAM frequently draw on phenomenological
perspectives and Gestalt theories (Koffka, 1935/1999;
Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1976; Varela et al., 1991), elaborating on several disciplines within the so-called information
sciences such as cognitive semantics, philosophy of art, and
ecological approaches (Clarke, 2005; Gibson, 1979). The
embodied experiences examined by these scholars reactivate certain concepts coming from early formalism but
enrich the debate with a complex series of corporeal and
environmental elements that expand the idea of music listening largely beyond its acoustic dimension. In going
beyond Schaeffer’s reduced listening (i.e., a listening attitude which focuses on as intrinsic sonic dimension and that
disregards sound’s production and origin), these authors
elaborate theories that suggest the possibility of sounds
holding a value that is either inherent to sound within a
context (e.g., ‘affordance’ (Kozak, 2020; Windsor, 2000))
or that is part of wider poietic and esthetic spheres and
which ‘refers to the world beyond the musical work’
(Demers, 2010, p. 36) (e.g., ‘Intention/Reception’ project
(Weale, 2005)).
Given the nature of its properties, this music is particularly apt to undergo an early stage perceptual segregation
based on the same principles (Gestalt and kinesthetic) of
which it is made. Even if it is true that perceptual segregation is central to how we perceive all music (given it is
fundamental to perception), it seems that this music suits
this type of perceptual processing particularly well. This
music appears to be specifically grounded in the basic
essentials of auditory perception rather than in articulated
culturally-based musical forms and figures. These elements
are actually time-spans, or ‘temporal Gestalt-units’ – as
they are defined by James Tenney – ‘whose perceptual
boundaries are largely determined by the nature of the
sounds and sound-configurations’ (Tenney & Polansky
1980, p. 205; see also Reybrouck, 1997, p. 65). A piece
such in vain by Haas, for instance, displays several forms of
repetition (Massoud, 2017) exploring a limited set of sonic
features (Varga, 2011, p. 106) and these aspects certainly
constitute ‘a kind of implicit rehearsal that eases memory
load’ (Snyder, 2001, p. 52). Nonetheless, it includes musical episodes (which correspond with the extinguishing of
the lights in the performance space and that are unmetered
in the score) that are characterized by a sequence of sustained sonic aggregates (using both tempered and natural
tunings) which merge into a unique sonic flow with indistinct temporal indications. These episodes – as mentioned
above – extend beyond STM’s time-frame, but in lacking
teleology and functional organization, hamper the construction of long-term memories of sequential information.
More generally, characteristics such as redundancy, repetition, and source ambiguity challenge our perceptual
approach. The early stage of perception seems the crucial
level to examine in order to understand how we listen to
this music and – more specifically – how we organize and
recall these sounds in a meaningful way. It appears evident
that the link between memory and this kind of music needs
a broader perspective capable of encompassing neurological and psychoacoustic models of our early stage of perception and opening up to different perceptual stances and
expectations.
Perceptual Pathways
Academic enquiry into music and sound perception tends
to follow one of two main approaches: on the one hand,
analytical assessments mainly in psychology and neuroscience tend to explore sonic qualities through empirical
testing and to promote consistency in the research (Giordano & McAdams, 2010; Grey, 1977). On the other hand,
philosophical and semiological scholarship conventionally
refer to the Western classical repertoire, world music, and
popular music (Davies, 1994; Kivy, 2002; Ridley, 2004).
Within this large group of studies on music perception,
only a small number deal with CAM moving across these
two different approaches. Some studies tackle this research
using theoretical premises (Terrien, 2012; Windsor, 1995),
while others use bottom-up empirical methods, employing
surveys or subjective resources (Frey et al., 2009; Glover
et al., 2018; Weale, 2005). A number of studies, which deal
with perception of atonal music (Dibben, 1999; Mencke
et al., 2019; Ockelford & Sergeant, 2012), inaugurate a
research-based potential toward 20th- and 21st-century
music that is very promising. However, within the large
panorama of experimental music practices, classical atonal
music occupies a limited portion. This, in particular, in
continuing to be largely based on 12-tone equal temperament (12-TET) invents new note-based approaches beyond
tonality. The key aspects of the music considered in this
paper come from those music practices which cut across
12-TET rather than just going beyond tonality (e.g., inharmonic spectra, microtonality, noise, concrete sounds,
psychoacoustic phenomena). The lack of perceptual studies
8
on this music seems paradoxical as many genres in this
context are themselves concerned with these very questions
of sonic perception, but the reasons for this are to be found
in the peculiarity of this music in challenging the listener
with a wide range of sounds and evolutions against the
more restricted set of conventional musical sounds.
The music we consider here does not use established
cultural codes and, as yet, there is no established repertoire,
but it is still presented to the listener as music. At the same
time, the material used includes many sound shapes and
forms that appear to reflect everyday sounds. So, the challenge for the listener and the analyst is how to understand
and describe this music that does not use established musical forms, but equally is not simply a catalogue of field
recordings. Does perception operate in a particular way
here? We propose it does. In examining in detail our auditory process, our contention arises from the belief that the
range of sounds used in this music changes the way we
should look at and understand the role of these early stages
of perception and their importance. We map out an overview of these stages in order to tie in neurophysiological
processes and memory steps.
Stephen McAdams, Tim Griffiths, and their colleagues
(Egermann & McAdams, 2013; Griffiths & Warren, 2004)
isolate a first step of encoding or transduction in which our
perceptual system reacts within a psychophysical dimension and carries out a primary grouping of sounds identified
by Albert Bregman as primitive segregation (1990) and by
Michael Kubovy and Van Valkenburg as the early perceptual stage (2001). Within this early stage, lasting approximately between 250 and 500 ms (Koelsch & Siebel, 2005),
a series of decoding steps deal with sound features starting
from the most essential ones, such as event fusion (echoic
memory) and pitch and temporal cues (continuous vs. transient), to arrive at more complex sorting tasks that include
harmonic and rhythmic grouping (STM) (Koelsch & Siebel, 2005; Norman-Haignere et al., 2015; Snyder, 2001).
What seems to be clear is that a considerable part of the
segregation and matching of spectro-temporal patterns, i.e.
the auditory scene analysis and auditory stream segregation
(in particular the formation of auditory Gestalten which
entails the processes of melodic, rhythmic, timbral, and
spatial grouping), occurs in the primary auditory cortex
(Koelsch & Siebel, 2005) and largely involves the STM.
Once the sonic message is segregated, the next steps correspond to Bregman’s schema-based segregation which
activates the knowledge of familiar patterns stored in LTM.
At this stage, the perceptual attention leads to a figure/
ground segregation (Kubovy & Van Valkenburg, 2001),
thus allowing the activation of abstract knowledge structures (McAdams, 1996). From this stage, psychoacousticians propose the activation of induced emotive
mechanisms, those related to episodic memory (implicit
and explicit) and the initial representation of musical forms
and complex expectancies (Juslin et al., 2010).
Music & Science
The Vertical Stance
The juncture in perception where memory starts to take on
a fundamental role coincides with the formation of Gestalt
structures. We advanced the idea that our primitive segregation of an acoustic stimulus is, in some ways, connected
with our ability to store (memorize) and predict stimuli, and
that our image schemata emerge from a set of frequency vs.
time constructs (Fingelkurts et al., 2010; Griffiths & Warren, 2004). When we consider the sonic characteristics of
specific styles within CAM, we believe that the integrated
process of segregation, storage, and prediction of upcoming
stimuli becomes a powerful function of our auditory system. This process is performed by the WM, which allows
the performance of STM and semi-activated portions of
LTM to be connected together in the present (Snyder,
2001).11 A recent study suggest that our WM deals with
unified auditory objects rather than separated acoustic features (Joseph et al., 2015), and the sound configurations,
described above, appear to correspond to these fundamental perceptual units as coherent configurations in which
acoustic components are segregated by spectro-temporal
cues such as common onset, frequency range, and modulation. Moreover, the lack of articulation and limited dialectic
in this music, the global unicity and variety of sound types,
the systematic repetition, the non-teleological construction,
all these factors may entail a particular functioning of WM.
While STM is strengthened (rehearsal, continuity,
coherence), the semi-activated LTM is involved as a platform to construct progressively higher-level associations.
More importantly, the combined process of segregation/
storage/prediction leads to the formation of a kind of stable
matrix – generated by the periodicity of repeated patterns
or continuous textures – combined with fluctuating elements (i.e., sonic transients, combination tones, minor
interferences and resonances, noises, distortions, all the
way to minor psychoacoustic phenomena). By incorporating unstable sonic elements, this stable matrix, a vertical
‘now’,12 allows for both a full predictability and a complete
openness to unpredictable events.
We associate this specific perceptual stance with a vertical temporality in perception (Kozak, 2020; Kramer, 1988).
While Kramer’s idea of verticality in perception relates to a
lack of hierarchies and an absence of musical discourse,
Kozak recently advances the idea of a vertical stance that
belongs to a personal perceptual state and is seen as a flow of
consciousness which moves vertically (orthogonally with
respect to linear time) (2020, p. 238–247). This perceptual
stance with respect to music clearly applies to spectralist and
minimalist perspectives. Bergson also gave an account of
this idea of an inner time that is non-linear. His notion of
duration applies to a music that is an expression of time and
where the musical material is a manifestation of pure duration. This description brings to mind the work of Grisey.
The innermost temporality of Grisey’s music, inspired
by Bergson’s intuitions, is realized through a distortion of a
Wanke and Santarcangelo
sound’s perspective in memory (Hervé, 2004). Memory,
for Grisey, is the locus of the mental resonance of sound:
a sort of re-exposition of the trace of sound: ‘through to its
retroactivity’, memory becomes the way in which we
‘rebuild the trace described in time by what lasts’ (Imberty,
2005, p. 53). Music manifests itself as pure duration, or –
seen through Grisey’s eyes – ‘[music] gives us to be perceived what Proust called “a little time in a pure state”’
(Grisey, 1987, p. 269). In this perspective, WM is the locus
of the mental resonance of sound, a re-exposition of the
sound, within this everchanging matrix, allowing us to perceive a sound’s identity and continuity. The chronometric
time (i.e., linear time) of these pieces is then transformed
through the process of segregation, storage, and prediction
into a sort of personal dimension of consciousness in which
this resonant time provides the domain in which sound’s
essential features exist, entering or exiting our experiential
frame. This vertical stance, which establishes itself through
a shift from a real-time perception of music to a postexperiential condition, is characterized by the constant link
between external and internal temporalities.13 During listening, the transition between external (chronometric) and
internal temporalities involves in fact a long chain of events
which begins with elemental physical operations that have
a non-phenomenal and purely neurophysiological nature.
These operations are ‘local fields’ consisting of neural
activity synchronizations (i.e., electrical current patterns
of amplitude, phase, spatial and temporal rates of change)
(Fingelkurts et al., 2010). Successive synchronizations of
these ‘local fields’ lead to complex brain operations.
These – by holding both neurophysiological and phenomenal/subjective ontologies – could be mutually synchronized within a new time-scale, leading to abstract and
more complex spatio-temporal patterns which are at the
base of integrated phenomenal experiences (ibid., 2010).
Due to the specific traits of this music, listeners are in
fact able to construct a continuous instant in perception –
based on the matrix defined above – where experiential
Gestalten and kinesthetic forces occur. This continuous
instant is periodically fed by new recollections and anticipations: memory glues together retentions, real-time
experiences and forthcoming events into a suspended
ever-changing temporal domain. This spectro-temporal
domain of perception is accessed within this vertical stance.
The Internal-External Framework: A Morphodynamic
Analogy
In listening to this music, we perceive an external acoustic
stimulus that goes beyond its source and spatial location
and reifies itself within our internal perceptual domain.
When listening to Haas’ String Quartet n 2 or to Lucier’s
Two Circles, these sonic sensations seem to concern something more complex than can be accounted for simply in
terms of source production (Wanke, 2016). The sound originally produced by the instruments becomes a sort of
9
perceptual entity independent from any apprehension of
source. The actual source seems indeed as if it is not sufficient to account for our experience of the sound, a sound
that exists in the domain of our perception. This is due in
part to how the sounds used seem to lack external spatial
cues, how the sounds are formed over time, as well as the
continuous shifting between the reality of external sonic
experience and the nature of the perceived sound configurations of the perceptual grammar. This grammar mirrors
the forces and shapes of the external world but crucially
does not include elements relating to external space (sound
origin, directionality, source position).
This is the key characteristic of the sound configurations
present in this music: sounds in these pieces, coming from
either acoustic instruments, electronic or natural sources, at
first bear both intrinsic features and external information
relating to the actual origin of sound. When we approach
this music ‘vertically’, the portion of sound concerning
external cues (interaural level and phase differences) is
naturally processed and then left behind, allowing us to
better focus on the internal sonic cues. The elements of
sound belonging to the perceptual grammar pertain to the
intrinsic spectro-temporal properties of sound which disregard sound’s external origin and position. When we listen
to a descending glissando in Haas’ String Quartet n 2
(1998), to an opposition of sound masses in Ilmenemismuoto (2004) by Pan Sonic, to fluctuating interferences
in Lucier’s music, or to the fragile evolutions of Ullman’s
pieces, we grasp these sonic figures separate from any
search for an actual cause or concern for the movement
of a sonic source: we access a sonic domain in perception.
Listeners grasp this domain made of profiles, shapes,
and groups that unfold, expand, and collapse, and articulate their perception of sound in terms of lines, planes,
layers, and degrees of density (Godøy, 1997; Wanke,
2019). This perceptual domain, we argue, is a sort of
conceptual extent where the sonic geometries of the outer
world-sounds are internally reproduced. Within an
internal-external framework, the sound configurations are
transduced internally, from physical to electrical energy,
through the processing of our perception in which the
‘cochlea constructs sound images with dimensions that
correspond to time and frequency domains’ (Griffiths &
Warren, 2004, p. 888). The Gestalt forms described here
correspond to the internal Gestalt process of segregation,
storage and prediction. During listening, we process the
external acoustic features of sound – which can be effectively represented on a spectrogram – and we take in these
features internally as a sort of ‘perceptual spectrogram’.
This parallel, a sort of morphodynamic analogy, between
an external spectrogram and an internal perceptual spectrogram is precisely based on this spectro-temporal processing that our memory stores and predicts, a region
defined by spectro-temporal dimensions and not spatial
ones. 14 The perceptual spectrogram is a domain, as
defined by Peter Gärdenfors (2000), ‘a set of integral
10
dimensions’ where these (quality) dimensions assume a
key role in representing concepts.15 A ‘high pitch’ is not
literally high in our world, but neurophysiology tells us
that a physical distance between high and low frequencies
exists in hair cells along the tonotopic axis (Shamma,
2001). Therefore, to what extent does the mental representation of the descending glissando in Haas’ String
Quartet n 2 as a descending profile depend on a metaphorical construction or a physical distance between stimuli?
While the vertical representation of pitch distance seems
to not be congenital (Eitan et al., 2012) and while in other
musical cultures this frequency dimension is described as
an axis of ‘sharpness/heaviness’ or ‘small/large’ (Eitan &
Granot, 2006; Zbikowski, 2008, 2017), there is a common
perspective in conceiving the separation between frequencies as a kind of extent in our perception and certain
studies seem to advance suggestions in this sense (Fingelkurts et al., 2010; Gallistel, 1990; von der Malsburg,
1999). Several authors discuss the metaphorical descriptions of music listening, mainly accounting for the potential of these figures of speech. Snyder, for instance,
reports the sensation of motion provided by a sequence
of notes (i.e., stable pitches) as an illusion, but sound
configurations such as glissandi, binaural beats, and
microtonal cross-fading transitions concern real movements in the dimensions of frequency or intensity. Therefore ‘if phenomenal consciousness is a biological
phenomenon within the confines of the brain, then there
must be some specific level of organization and some
specific spatial-temporal grain in the brain where consciousness resides’ (Fingelkurts et al., 2010, p. 217).
In trying to match the brain and mind’s spatio-temporal
dimensions, Fingelkurts and co-workers discuss in fact the
presence of an operational space-time in the brain that is
functionally isomorphic to the phenomenal space-time in
the mind (2010). The isomorphism is not of a first order
(i.e., an internal neuronal process that corresponds to the
experience of an external stimulus of a ‘circle’, for
instance, does not involve neurons arranged in the form
of a circle) but rather is functional. The crucial shift here
is between ‘sharing physical properties’ and ‘mirroring
functional relationships’, that is to say that neurological
and experiential systems consist in the different realization
of the same kind of process. While Lakoff and Johnson talk
about ‘orientational metaphors’ in the case of language
(2008, p. 14) and Godøy puts forward the shape-paradigm
in the discussion of music cognition (1997),16 we find
appropriate for the definition of these internal geometries
the notion of ‘image schemata’, which by having an inherent spatial structure and a kinesthetic character, are able to
bridge our perception to the external world within an embodied experience (Johnson, 1987).
Our hypothesis here is that this music appears particularly capable of prompting the formation of these ‘internal
geometries’ which are essentially temporal-based rather
than spatial-based (i.e., they incorporate dimensional extent
Music & Science
but do not hold specific external spatial information). In
line with Kubovy & Schutz’s thesis (2010), our contention
is that the intrinsic properties of sound relate to temporal,
spectral and dynamic dimensions, while spatial elements
do not pertain to this constitutive portion of sound. This
perceptual domain – accessed through the vertical stance
and realized by WM – is characterized by the following
aspects:
it exists within a precise experiential frame (typically during listening and acoustic recollection);
it can leave this experiential frame and return in
memory, thus we grasp its presence and absence;
it originates in a low-level physiological spatial delimitation (along the tonotopic axis of hair cells in the
inner ear) which is preserved in terms of topographic
distributions in the brain (according to high- and
low- frequency spectral occupancy, transient and
continuous characteristics, (Norman-Haignere
et al., 2015)) and is functionally reproduced in this
perceptual domain;
this topographic map in the auditory cortex defines a
domain – in the sense of cognitive semantics –
which is constituted in terms of integral dimensions.
This domain may present a kind of inner dimensional functioning (vectorial)17 and is aspatial, that
is it does not hold specific cues from external space.
Given this, a perceived glissando, i.e. an effective continuous motion in the realm of frequency/time/intensity, may
originate a set of responses in our brain that are reproduced
in this perceptual domain as a functionally coherent set of
conscious references. The functional isomorphism between
brain and mind (Fingelkurts et al., 2010) allows us to
hypothesize that these references elicited by the activity of
listening to a glissando preserve essential elements of its
nature such as those of wholeness, continuity, directionality,
movement, and progressive change. This domain is then
embodied domain in our memory, a pure temporal realm
of auditory consciousness that is aspatial. In order to give
sense to the apparent paradox in conceiving of a physical
domain in our brain, defined by time/frequency/intensity
dimensions but that holds an essential aspatial nature, we
draw on the analogous concept of the No-Space world formulated by the philosopher Perter Strawson.
The World of Sounds and Memory in
Strawson’s No-Space World
We have seen how certain musical practices of CAM are
based on a set of Gestalt features which are processed by
our auditory system in a sequence of operations within a
realm that exists as a reconstructed spectro-temporal
domain of our perception. But what do we preserve as the
essence of a sonic experience in memory when we remember a sound stream?
Wanke and Santarcangelo
We can reformulate the question as follows: where do
sounds go when they exit the frame of experience? The way
in which we experience an entity ceasing to exist is different from the way in which we experience our inability to
keep perceiving it. There seems to be such a distinction in
our ordinary experience (consider the difference between
seeing something blurry and seeing something evaporating
or a stone falling into water vs. a drop of water falling into
the sea). Can we assume that a similar distinction also holds
in a world of ‘pure events’ – like the musical one – or in
what Peter Strawson called a No-Space world?
Strawson conceives of the No-Space world as a merely
auditory world, possessing only a temporal dimension and
no spatial dimensions.18 He treats sounds as a paradigmatic
case of entities that may appear to exist solely in the temporal dimension. He wonders if there really can be merely
temporal entities or if, instead, even when an entity seems
to be merely temporal, there is some underlying spatial
dimension that has to be made explicit. Strawson’s NoSpace world thought experiment rests upon the assumption
that we can conceive of an experience of sounds lacking a
spatial dimension, and this argument appears to match with
the idea of an aspatial domain in memory achieved during a
perceptual vertical stance. Although most sounds are experienced as involving a certain distance or direction, there
are cases, such as listening to music through headphones
or – as mentioned above – experiencing acoustic illusions
(binaural beats) (Wenzel, 1992), in which the auditory
experience seems to be purely temporal and to not have
any spatial component. In particular cases, when listening
to music, the more we set aside information relating to the
external world whether acoustic (directionality, localization and spatialization) or visual (when closing our eyes,
our listening capacity seems to be sharpened), the more we
feel able to grasp the intrinsic matter of sound (Degerman
et al., 2006; Farthofer, 2007; Ross, 2010).
For Strawson’s hypothesis to hold, it is sufficient to
admit that we do not individuate sounds (only) spatially,
or that they are only contingently spatial:
Sounds can maintain their identity even when they lose their
spatial properties [ . . . ] You can identify and selectively attend
to a particular sound non-spatially. [ . . . ] We can hear a sound
without hearing it to have any spatial property at all [ . . . ] We
can imagine the actual world of sounds as a no-space world
(Nudds, 2001, p. 215).
According to Strawson, the basic notion of objective
reality, which we will hereafter call thinghood, involves
the existence of self-standing re-identifiable individuals.
These individuals exist independently of any experience
of them. Yet, some of them are, and others – in suitable
conditions – would be objects of experience for a subject,
who in principle can re-identify them in distinct experiences occurring at different times. Re-identification on the
part of the subject rests upon the fact that an individual
11
remains the same not in the sense of mere qualitative sameness, but in the much stronger sense of numerical identity.
As Swanson puts it in his discussion of Strawson’s thought
experiment, ‘this is the crux of the notion of thinghood’
(1967, pp. 223–224).19 The main question that Strawson
addresses in Chapter II of Individuals is whether this notion
of thinghood can be satisfied by entities existing only in
time. He considers sounds whose experience involves a
temporal succession but not a spatial ordering. As merely
temporal individuals, sounds are characterized just by their
frequency and loudness, as well as by their position in the
temporal succession.20 Such an account of sounds leads
Strawson to conceive of a merely auditory world that could
do without spatial ordering, namely a ‘No-Space world’
(1959, p. 63). This world is inhabited by audible sounds,
and by at least one subject of experience who can hear
sounds that exist only in time – a pure hearer whom, following Evans (1980, p. 276), we will call ‘Hero’.
If the No-Space world has thinghood, then Hero should
have the possibility of ‘identifying a particular sound as the
same again after an interval during which it is not heard’
(Strawson, 1959, p. 70). Without the idea of existence as
being perceived at times and unperceived at other times,
then indeed, perceived objects cannot be detached from the
experience of them, and therefore there cannot be any idea
of thinghood as an objective reality.
In our spatiotemporal world, re-identification is possible
because the experience of space involves a distinction
between what is inside and what is outside with respect
to the spatial frame of experience. By providing locations
in which things can also exist beyond the frame of experience, space allows things to exist unperceived, thereby
having what we will call, in analogy with an off-stage
situation in theater, an off-experience existence. Still, if the
only available dimension is time, as seems to be the case in
the No-Space world, then both Hero’s experience and all
sounds will occur in that unique dimension, and therefore
there seems to be no room for an off-experience existence.
If a sound is in time when Hero’s experience occurs, Hero
necessarily hears it; if it is not in time, it does not exist.
In order to have thinghood also in the No-Space world, we
would need a dimension capable of containing potentially
perceivable but actually unperceived individuals. A sound
in the No-Space world must be able to exit from the frame
of Hero’s experience, to exist for some time while unperceived, and then to possibly re-enter into the frame of Hero’s
experience. For this purpose, we would need ‘the necessary
non-temporal dimension for, so to speak, the housing of the
objects which are held to exist continuously, though unobserved [ . . . ] It seems we must have a dimension other than the
temporal in which to house the at present unheard sensory
particulars, if we are to give a satisfactory sense to the idea of
their existing now unperceived, and hence to the idea of reidentification of particulars’ (Strawson, 1959, p. 74).
Strawson addresses this problem by introducing the
notion of master-sound, i.e. a sound that is always audible
12
by Hero and that has its own peculiar timbre, constant
loudness, and varying pitch. In the No-Space world, the
master-sound determines the frame of Hero’s experience.
At a certain point in time t, Hero can only experience the
sounds that, at t, are in the proper relation with the mastersound’s pitch at t.
It seems plausible that, if Hero simultaneously hears
two distinct melodies, he can identify them as distinct
individuals simply by virtue of their intrinsic features of
pitch, loudness and timbre. Therefore, the non-temporal
dimensions needed in order to have thinghood are frequency and intensity. In this sense, Hero can simultaneously experience distinct individuals even if he lacks the
direct perception of a spatial distance: he does not need a
spatial relation to the sound/individual but only a time/
frequency/intensity world.
This claim can be strengthened by considering a series
of empirical cases. Kubovy (1981) outlined the so-called
‘Theory of Indispensable Attributes’ (TIA), which
hypothesized the indispensable attributes that are necessary
for a perceptual object to be such. In the years when psychologists and neuroscientists – followed by philosophers –
began to pay attention to modalities of perception other
than vision, Kubovy was the first to actually speak of auditory objecthood, by extending the TIA to audio and audiovisual objects. As Kubovy and Van Valkenburg put it:
‘Notions of objecthood have traditionally been cast in
visuocentric terminology. [ . . . ] we re-examine the concept
of an object in a way that overcomes the limitations of the
traditional perspective. We propose a new, cross-modal
conception of objecthood which focuses on the similarities
between modalities instead of the differences’ (2001, p.
97). By presenting to an observer two spots of light on a
surface, for example, Kubovy & Schutz (2010) first demonstrate that spatial separation is an indispensable attribute for
vision. Both spots of light are yellow and they coincide; in
this case, the observer will report one light. Now suppose
the color of the lights is changed by the experimenter, so
that one spot is blue and the other is yellow, but they still
coincide; in this case, the observer will report one white
light. For the observer to see more than one light, the spots
of light must occupy different spatial locations. In an analogous manner, pitch separation is an indispensable attribute for sound. Imagine playing two simultaneous 440 Hz
sounds for a listener. Both of them are played through the
same loudspeaker; the listener will report hearing one
sound. Now suppose we play these two sounds through two
loudspeakers; the listener will still report hearing one
sound. For the listener to report hearing more than one
sound, they must be separated in pitch. We can thus draw
the following conclusion: in audition pitch is an indispensable attribute for perceptual numerosity whereas, unlike
the case of vision, space is not. After all, the manifest
independent processing of spatial and non-spatial properties of acoustic stimuli in WM (Alain et al., 2001; Furukawa et al., 2013) is evidence that the identification of
Music & Science
sound (pitch, spectral and temporal issues) and spatial location (based on interaural time differences) are – at a primal
stage –retained and processed in separate streams. Moreover, Alain and his colleagues demonstrate to which extent
processing sound identity and sound location depends on
diverse, specialized auditory pathways within the same
individuals. In particular, processing pitch information
recruited brain areas distributed in the ventral part of the
brain, whereas sound localization recruited areas distributed in dorsal regions. The conclusion is that ‘the neural
systems involved in identifying and localizing auditory
objects are functionally and neuroanatomically segregated
based on task demands even when stimuli are identical
across tasks’ (2001, p. 12305). Their results suggest that
the ‘ventral and dorsal prefrontal areas are involved in
representing two distinct types of information about the
environment, “what” and “where”’.
Applying these insights to the relation between a realtime experience and the post-experiential condition (memory) of a musical episode, we can see how a particular
listening experience – that we call the vertical stance – of
certain currents of CAM offers to the listener the opportunity to grasp the gist of sounds. By processing auditory
objects, the WM is the nexus of convergences of these very
different perspectives. The crucial step here is the introduction of the term ‘auditory event’ (Blauert, 1996) to describe
the subjective perception of a subject listening to a certain
situation. The definition was also meant to clearly distinguish between the physical sound field and the auditory
perception of the sound: ‘Terms such as “sounds source”,
“sound signal” and “sound wave” will always be used to
describe physical phenomena that are characteristic of
sound events. What is perceived auditorily will be denoted
by the adjective auditory, as in the term “auditory object”,
or, preferably “auditory event”’ (Blauert, 1996, p. 3). This
distinction matches the external-internal framework
described above where the morphodynamic analogy
between external acoustic features and internal auditory
objects is realized.
Seen from this perspective, the sound configurations
outlined earlier represent the very essence of sound, i.e.
refined from data coming from its effect in the physical
space. These sound configurations are essential components retained in memory which may (or not) enter our
experiential frame. Conscious of the fragility of this
cross-disciplinary parallel, we put forward the idea that our
recollection of sound in memory can be nothing but the reidentification of parts of several process-like individuals.
Given that the spatial features of an incoming acoustic
stimulus are a non-intrinsic property of sound, the recollection of sound in memory is essentially the reification of
pure sound itself without extrinsic information. If our listening is an articulated (often multimodal) process in which
frequency, dynamic, temporal, and spatial features are processed, then the ‘offline’ recalling process of memory
Wanke and Santarcangelo
occurs in a time/frequency/intensity domain, the Strawson’s No-Space world.
Being characterized by a set of integral dimensions
which guarantee the thinghood, Strawson’s No-Space
world, the memory, is the domain where Hero may experience auditory objects without external spatial references.
Memory, seen as containing non-spatial representations of
sounds, is in fact both experiential – in the sense that is
capable of exciting emotional, motor-programmatic, and
even linguistic dimensions – and a housing for sounds outside of experience (Grimshaw & Garner, 2015; Zatorre &
Halpern, 2005).
From an Aspatial Domain Towards
a Direct Embodied Experience.
Working memory is a crucial meeting point between the
philosophy of perception and several studies in cognitive
science. We embarked on this discussion by starting from
specific musical characteristics and empirical observations
(Santarcangelo & Wanke, 2020). The unique features of
certain music practices today challenge analysts and scholars and encourage researchers to propose new perspectives
to approach perceptually a kind of music that is still largely
considered an isolated (and even elitist) form of musical
expression. We have seen how some authors of CAM
develop a musical discourse based on intrinsic sonic characteristics, thus making use of physical acoustic phenomena to compose their pieces. Moreover, the impact of this
music is often radically embodied, in the sense that it
relates to corporeal and material facets of our experience,
such as in the immersive sonic experiences of sound art and
electroacoustic performances, or with concerts of noise
music and electronica where the audience is faced with the
physical materiality of sound. In order to account for this
embodied engagement, we present the idea that the potential of this perceptual grammar is realized through a vertical
perceptual stance within an internal-external framework.
In a first step, from external world to internal perception,
Gestalt configurations of the perceptual grammar are processed as image schemata in a domain which reflects the
external dimensions of sound (time, frequency and intensity). While this grammar does not include spatial information relating to sound types and origins, the image schemata
in such domains depict information that is somehow
dimensional (presence/absence, stasis/motion, ascending/
descending). The difference is easily grasped when we
compare the types of kinesthetic information provided by
a descending glissando or a sound of a car passing by.
Essentially, the glissando gives rise to a sense of spatial
movement that occurs internally: our relation to it is not
spatial, as it is in the case of the sound of the car. As in the
‘No-Space world’, we do not relate to a glissando in terms
of a certain positioning away from us, rather these sound
configurations express tensions, forces, and movements
that seem to occur directly to us.
13
Indeed, a second step, from internal perception toward
the external world, should also be considered as it realizes
the idea of embodied experience. The perceptual grammar
of this music is determined by Gestalt categories with hierarchies and interrelations, and is made up of basic and
structured principles, motions, and general forces. This
field of forces mirrors tensions and movements of the external physical world. This apparent conflict – the lack of
external information of sound vs. the connection to the
experiential world through the presence of essential forces
in sound – is the essential characteristic of this music: a
music that explores sonic forces which refer to a quasiphysical realm. The listener apprehends not just a sonic
material but also a potential physical energy-form. The
experience of sound then pushes beyond the sonic to a
potential concrete form. To listen to this music is to search
within a personal sense of physicality and relation of perceiving body to the world, a relation made of tensions,
motions, contrasts, and recognitions.
This is the crucial step from the aspatial perceptual
domain towards the embodied experience. These sound
configurations are in fact of a dual nature: abstract and
concrete. On the one hand, by tying in with the auditory
Gestalten processing at the early stages of perception, they
detach themselves from their origin, thus they are abstract
and do not hold figurative elements of the world. On the
other hand, precisely due to their intrinsic sonic nature, they
pass into perception as energy-forms: they discard the
superficial appearance of things and go beyond a straightforward cognitive abstraction or any elaborated constructions, being able to instead reproduce these forces directly.
The potential prompted by these sound configurations represents both a vivid concreteness and a lack of precise
identification, thus leading to a set of associations which
are largely unpredictable.
In other words, the listener of this music, facing a sonic
substance in motion, is forced to reflect and make sense of
these aural forms which do not point to anything specific in
the world (i.e., aspatiality) but convey general tensions,
forces, and impulses of the world. This situation
encourages not just a reflection on the experience in the
moment of a sound but draws in a more complete consideration involving that particular listener’s embodied identity in the world, their experience in memory and context.
Therefore, a descending line moving in this aspatial world
of sounds acts immediately on our body giving us, for
instance, a sense of falling. This is due to the fact that this
sound configuration reproduces an energy-form as happening to us, and the sense of falling is nothing more than our
experiential response to this impulse. In this sense, our
primal associations are embodied as they meet a demand
for a link to our bodily experience. Sound configurations
here are auditory events in the sense that they are prone to a
subjective embodied engagement. These configurations tie
in with the wider area of our perception of the world as a
mass of material energies. Within the No-space world,
14
there is not a self-projection of the Hero in a kind of spatial
relation to the sound, but rather this domain is directly
embodied thus allowing sound configurations to impact
directly on the Hero.
We can see therefore this grammar as made of ‘bridging
elements’ for their potential in reproducing the most fundamental set of external forces in our perception. The
potential internal-external link is what allows embodied
experience to handle these Gestalt configurations in this
way, even if it is not linking them to a specific external
origin. The bridging elements of this music open up to a
listener’s experience of the world and constitute the means
to access the non-sonic dimension made of high-level cognitive associations (that we have only mentioned here).
Conclusions
The rigid pulsations of Etäisyys (2004) by Pan Sonic or the
intricate descending line traced by Haas in in vain are
sound configurations: they hit our ears and capture us
through the acoustic pressure. They leave geometries,
shapes, motions, and tensions, and all these acoustic traces
convey a presence and a set of gestures that we assimilate
and integrate within and according to our diverse backgrounds, enriching these with our experience in a continual
relationship between the sonic and the personal. What differentiates this interaction between sonic perception and a
broader cognitive apprehension from the processes at work
in the perception of more traditional music is that the kind
of music discussed in this paper deliberately seeks out and
opens up this territory while still remaining grounded in a
certain kind of sound. This is made possible through the
unique characteristics of this music, its perceptual grammar, the particular processing of its Gestalt concatenated
sonic structures, the way it is presented, and how it pushes
listeners to assume a particular perceptual stance.
Some time ago, just after a concert of British electronic
duo Emptyset, a friend of us asked: ‘Why, when I listen to
this music, do I think of scrap metal and wish to break
everything?’ The embodied experience of this music
appears to be fully realized through its sound configurations. These seem to detach themselves from the actual
origin of the sound in external space and are processed and
retained in memory while still having an implicit connection to the world, namely in the nature of constituting
forces and energies. By lacking spatial information of the
external world, these forces and energies hold the potential
to access a large variety of high-level cognitive responses
impacting directly on the perceptual self, the Hero. This
kind of potential, whether contained in a suspended frequency interaction, a descending spiral profile, or a dense
alternation of sonic aggregates, leads to an unpredictable
set of high-level associations. This is why when we listen to
continuous descending glissandi or a massive contrast
between distorted and almost imperceptible sonic situations, we realize this extra-sonic potential in sound by
Music & Science
engaging in high-level associations, experiencing for
instance a sense of falling down a cliff or the mental imagery of solid blocks.
We have shown the multifaceted connection that may be
found between certain genres of contemporary art music
and memory. It is not a question of mere mechanisms of
memory recollection, but rather that listening attitude and
memory take a fundamental role in the perception of this
music. This function is so intense that we may equate auditory memory with a time/frequency/intensity domain in
which this music reifies itself in our perception. The experiential Gestalten of this music may be efficaciously represented as a three-dimensional domain of our inner
perception of sound. This domain is without extension, that
is, without information of the external space (sound origin
and directionality), but with a potential to construct a
bridge toward an embodied engagement. From this point
of view, our perspective may open up the possibility that
the ‘No-space world’, the physically impossible idea in the
world, actually exists in our memory.
Peer review
Lawrence Zbikowski, University of Chicago, Music Department.
One anonymous reviewer.
Lindsey Reymore, McGill University, Schulich School of Music.
Action editors
Amy Belfi, Missouri University of Science and Technology,
Department of Psychological Science.
Kelly Jakubowski, Durham University, Department of Music.
Contributorship
All authors researched literature and conceived the study. All
authors wrote, reviewed, and edited the manuscript and approved
the final version of the manuscript.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:
Authors received funding for this research by CESEM - Nova
University of Lisbon and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
(FCT), Portugal (grant number UID/EAT/00693/2019) (R.W.);
and by University of Bergamo, Italy (grant: STaRs Supporting
Talented Researchers 2019) (V.S.).
ORCID iD
Riccardo Wanke
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5480-7905
Notes
1. We use the term ‘contemporary art music’ to refer to a large
set of current genres and esthetics, both institutional and
underground, that are generally included within current
15
Wanke and Santarcangelo
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
experimental music practices. This is an impartial term that
takes the place of other common terms such as ‘new music’,
‘contemporary and experimental music’, or ‘avant-garde
music’ (Grebosz-Haring & Weichbold, 2020).
We refer here to the famous definition of Edgar Varèse and
Wen-chung of music as ‘organised sounds’ (1966).
‘des couleurs, des effets de lumière, des sensations tactiles,
des propriétés des matières physique’ (Bériachvili, 2010, p.
12, our translation).
E.g. Michel Chion’s relation between inner and outer musical
space or Annette Vande Gorne’s distinction between real,
designed, and virtual spaces. For an exhaustive description
please refer to Chouvel & Solomos (1998) and Solomos
(2019). In the philosophical literature, the relation between
auditory perception, its objects, and spatiality is highly
debated (see, for example, Nudds, 2001; O’Callaghan,
2010; and, for a review, O’Callaghan, 2020).
The working memory is a definite portion of memory which
includes STM and portions of LTM (Snyder, 2001, p. 48) and
is the crucial system for the maintenance and manipulation of
information, taking on an active role and being characterized
by a mutual functioning of storage and processing. Recent
findings put forward the idea that WM is the emergent property of a multiregional network in the brain (Fingelkurts et al.,
2003).
This is the very first process of segregation which takes place
at the ‘bottom’ of the perceptual-cognitive system and uses
basic and largely involuntary processes that are therefore
referred to as ‘bottom-up’ and have been formed through the
evolution of our sensory systems (Bregman, 1990).
These are inaudible infrasounds which may provoke neural
entrainments, organ resonance effects, nausea, physical
impact, and respiration inhibition (Goodman, 2010, p. 11).
The initial descending pitches are tritones, G#6/D6/G5/C#5/
G4/C#4/F#3/C3, while when the section reappears (bars 344–
413), the descending line consists of an almost chromatic
series.
‘[R]ecollection [occurs] where we intentionally try to cue a
memory; reminding, where an event in the environment automatically cues an associated memory of something else; and
recognition, where an event in the environment automatically
acts as its own cue. Recognition and reminding are spontaneous processes that are going on constantly’ (Snyder, 2001,
p. 70).
In preserving the frequency-time nature of sound configurations, ‘geometry must be the primary element in representation, primordial to other more abstract, symbolic and/or
numerical representations. [ . . . ] Also, geometric representations of qualities as shapes have the advantage of being more
in accordance with the approximate nature of perception and
cognition, [ . . . ]. In this respect, cognition by shapes is well in
accordance with connectionism principles [ . . . ]’ (Godøy,
1997, p. 94).
It is still debated whether the component of the ‘Baddeley
working memory model’ – the phonological loop – is specialized in processing only language or also other meaningful
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
sounds, in particular music (Baddeley, 2012). According to
Schulze and Koelsch (2012), the phonological loop can be
involved in music processing or even incorporate subsystems
specialized in processing non-phonological information (i.e.,
music). Moreover, Robert G. Crowder and Morton has elaborated on the idea of a ‘precategorical acoustic storage’ for
linguistic perception that is a system where acoustic material
is subject to overwriting and to decay with time and where
STM and LTM definitions lose their meaning and instead the
presence of such a perceptual field would permit a series of
straightforward conclusions to be made about immediate
memory (1969).
The phenomenal present of our consciousness develops over
time in the form of an ever-moving ‘now’ and neurophysiology is currently investigating the experiential phenomena of
timelessness which – in its most extreme cases – ‘can occur
during near-death experiences, during intense suffering and
emotions, violence and danger, altered states of consciousness, concentration and meditation, and shock’ (Fingelkurts
et al., 2010, p. 216). The latter cases are often invoked in
listening stances of certain practices within CAM (e.g., Oliveros’ deep listening; Voegelin, 2010; López, 2004).
Linear temporality of traditional music (e.g., familiar or popular songs, well-known classical music) has been proved to
variably match the perceived and imagined musical tempo
(Jakubowski, 2020, p. 189).
The idea of a perceptual spectrogram is a metaphor: it derives
from the fact that our sensation of these Gestalt configurations appears to be very well described in terms of frequency/
time/intensity (i.e., the dimensions of a spectrogram). However, several studies make use of neurograms to represent the
incoming sounds in the auditory nerve (i.e., the firing rate
distribution across this population of auditory nerve fibres).
This ‘neurogram in many ways resembles the short-time
spectrogram’ (Schnupp et al., 2011, p. 80).
Dimensions are integral when it is not possible to assign an
object a value in one dimension without giving it a value on
the other. Three of these integral dimensions – measured as
electric potentials for neuronal activity – comes directly from
the first transduction of frequency, time, and dynamic.
Godøy’s account, in particular, prefigures an epistemological
foundation for this paradigm that consists in the idea that
‘musical objects [could be seen as] as a retentional image
in memory’ (1997, p. 99).
On this matter, we may find an important reinforcement in the
work of Gallistel which shows evidence that spatial representations in the nervous system have a vectorial form (i.e.,
functioning like a vector space) (1990).
In a similar vein, Nicod (1924) wonders what conception of
the world could a being have with no sense other than
hearing.
Here, following Swanson, we will use the term ‘thinghood’,
although in the recent literature on auditory objects (see, for a
review, Griffith & Warren, 2004), the term ‘objecthood’
seems to be more appropriate. The concept of ‘auditory
object’ has recently attracted much attention among
16
neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, and philosophers.
Although an auditory object is a sense-specific concept, it
‘raises fundamental questions about the nature of object perception in all sensory systems’ (Griffiths & Warren, 2004, p.
887).
20. In audition, there are edges in pitch, and edges in time, but not
in space. The claim that there are edges in pitch may seem
strange, but a moment’s thought will show that the idea is
quite natural. A biologically important source is periodic, at
least over short periods of time. Therefore, it is characterized
by a fundamental frequency that can be thought of as its lower
edge in pitch. The heard individual sound is further characterized by the shape of its leading edge in pitch-time, its
attack, its trailing edge in pitch-time, and its decay (i.e.,
ADSR features).
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