Compositional Concepts and Techniques (439-0-2)

Topic

Aesthetics of Psychoacoustics

Instructors

Milan Alex Mincek

Meeting Info

RCMA 1-168: Mon, Wed 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

This course will examine issues relating to the experience of hearing and listening in complex contexts - defined in part as situations and environments that further blur the ambiguous thresholds between the physical acoustic nature of sound and subjective interpretations of it.

We will discuss a wide range of issues pertaining to cognitive psychology, physics, psychoacoustics and: "the science which has the unique function of criticizing all the others and itself at the same time…phenomenology." - Husserl

We will also discuss examples of composers implicitly and explicitly using specific and general forms of psychoacoustic phenomena for expressive purposes. Additionally, we will examine examples of composers using ‘meta-cognitive' and ‘meta-phenomenological' practices, wherein theories of perception are themselves used as models for musical expression: "I strive to make ‘perception' perceptible...There is a way that one person can perceive sound as if they were two different people and that is what I try to achieve." - Ablinger

Teaching Method

Seminar

Class Materials (Required)

Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound by Albert S. Bregman
Open Access
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/1486.001.0001

Class Materials (Suggested)

"Psychoacoustic Phenomena in Musical Composition" - Maryanne Amacher
"Auditory Scene Analysis" - Albert Bregman
"Selected Writings" - Jurg Frey
"What Is Phenomenological Music…" - Aaron Helgeson
"Embodied Mind…" -Vijay Iyer
"Pierre Schaeffer, the Sound Object…" - Brian Kane
"Introduction to Deep Listening" - Pauline Oliveros
"Cognitive Psychology and Music" - Roger Shepard
"Psychoacoustics: A Brief Historical Overview" - William A. Yost