Notes, Sounds, Outside and Insides: Perspectives on Pitch in Acousmatic Music

Abstract

Acousmatic music has facilitated some of the most radical extensions of musical materials and methods available to the composer, moving beyond the traditional instrumental paradigm centred on melodic and harmonic forms derived from focal pitch that can be conveniently notated in the abstract form of a score. Two perspectives on the role and percpetion of pitch in acousmatic music are considered. Firstly in works of complex textural and spectral construction in which, as an inherently salient dimension of listening, perception of pitch can function as an important element of structural focus and definition. Secondly it is viewed from a spectralist approach to sound materials, where components of the partial structure of a physical object’s sound can be made available as individual and timbrally related pitch identities but which retain an organic connection to a source sound. Analytical examples are drawn form widely available works from the acousmatic repertoire.