On the Paradigmatic Behaviour of Sound-based Music

Following François Delalande’s description of ‘an electroacoustic music paradigm’ (“Le son des musiques”, 2001), an alternative based on sound-based music (music based on sounds as opposed to notes) will be presented. It will be demonstrated that Delalande’s notion focuses solely on production whereas the latter is related to both creative production and the listening experience. Furthermore, using a play-on-words, it will also be shown that sound-based music offers greater ‘co-hear-ence’ (co-ouïr-ence en français) than electroacoustic music does. Brief aural examples will be included to support the sound-based paradigm. Acknowledging sound-based music as a ‘supergenre’ would be beneficial to this broad musical corpus. Recognition would influence both questions of access related to this body of work as well as its field of studies. One of the most interesting results of the recognition of paradigmatic behaviour is the fact that certain established means of classification of music will be found to be largely irrelevant such as the German E- vs. U-Musik separation (art vs. popular music, musique savante vs. musique pop). This paper presents a summary of the research that led to my recent book, “La musique des sons/The Music of Sounds” (2007, Sorbonne MINT/OMF).