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Book Cover
E-book
Author Schaeffer, Pierre, 1910-1995, author.

Title Treatise on musical objects : an essay across disciplines / Pierre Schaeffer ; translated by Christine North and John Dack
Published Oakland, California : University of California Press, [2017]
©2017

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Description 1 online resource (xli, 569 pages)
Series California studies in 20th-century music ; 20
California studies in 20th-century music ; 20.
Contents Introductory remarks: the historical situation of music -- Book one. Making music. The instrumental prerequisite ; Playing an instrument ; Capturing sounds ; Acousmatics -- Book two. Hearing. "What can be heard" ; The four listening modes ; Scientific prejudice ; The hearing intention -- Book three. Correlations between the physical signal and the musical object. Ambiguities in musical acoustics ; Correlation between spectra and pitches ; Thresholds and transients ; Temporal anamorphoses I: timbres and dynamics ; Temporal anamorphoses II: timbre and instrument ; Time and duration -- Book four. Objects and structures. Reduction to the object ; Perceptual structures ; Comparative structures: music and language ; The conventional musical system: musicality and sonority ; Natural sound structures: musicianly listening ; The reduced listening system: musical dualism ; Musical research ; Morphology of sound objects ; The laboratory ; Typology of musical objects (I): classification criteria ; Typology (II): balanced and redundant objects ; Typology (III): eccentric sounds ; Working at our instrument -- Book six. Theory of musical objects. Musical experience ; Generalising music theory ; Theory of homogeneous sounds: criterion of mass ; Theory of fixed masses: dynamic criterion ; Theory of sustainment ; Theory of variations ; Analysis of the musical object as it generally appears -- Book seven. Implementation ; The meaning of music -- Penultimate chapter : in search of music itself -- Post-script
Summary "The Treatise on musical objects by Pierre Schaeffer is regarded as his most important work on music and its relationship with technology. Schaeffer refers to his earlier research in musique concrète and expands this to suggest a methodology of working with sounds resulting from the recording process. Drawing on acoustics, physics, and physiology, but also philosophy and the relationship between subject and object, Schaeffer's book summarizes his theoretical and practical work in music composition. North and Dack present an important book in the history of ideas in Europe that will resonate far beyond electroacoustic music."--Provided by publisher
Notes Translated from the French
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes In English
Online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on March 04, 2020)
Subject Music -- Philosophy and aesthetics.
MUSIC -- Instruction & Study -- Theory.
MUSIC -- Individual Composer & Musician.
Music -- Philosophy and aesthetics
Form Electronic book
Author North, Christine, translator.
Dack, John, translator.
LC no. 2016055109
ISBN 9780520967465
0520967461
0520294297
9780520294295
Other Titles Traité des objets musicaux. English