COLLECTIONS OF SOUND DESIGN THEORY (1)

PIERRE SCHAEFFER: THEORIES OF THE SOUND OBJECT

Pierre Schaeffer’s compositional studies in his work Solfege de L’objet Sonore (1998), establishes some of the fundamentals of theoretical approaches in sound design. In his foreword, he discusses how music composition is both a science and an art. As a science, music is essentially acoustic sounds that are received orally and can be calculated mathematically. However the listener will always project his or her own psychological and sociological disposition on what is received, rendering the process of fulfilling this criteria more of an art. Schaeffer acknowledges that both approaches are acceptable as long as they are both considered (ibid).

Schaeffer describes a sound as a ‘physical vehicle of music’ that ‘pertains to nature’ (1998: 11). How this vehicle is perceived constitutes a ‘sound object’, and how the sound object is perceived decides whether it is suitable for music, or, more specifically, the perceptive criteria of the audience. The choice and arrangement of sound objects forms the final composition music is created. Suitability is then assigned depending on whether the listener’s criteria is fulfilled (Schaeffer 1998).

Schaeffer (ibid), in three stages, diagnoses the basic problems of composition. Firstly, there is the difference between an acoustic sound and the perception of that sound. Secondly, the choice of sound objects based on their perceptive criteria needs to be considered, and thirdly, the consequences of the choice of sound objects within a composition must be evaluated. Schaeffer describes how Western Music has ignored these problems and relied on simple relationships between sounds, resulting in a musical typology or language. ‘Music cannot be boiled down to a well-defined language, nor can it thus be coded merely by usage’ (Schaeffer 1998: 11-13). Schaeffer’s Solfege de l’Objet Sonore (1998) seeks to consider the reception of the acoustic sound, but Schaeffer himself accepts that ‘each one of us hears with different ears’, making sound design a problematic art (or science).