Comparison of Comprehensibility of Analytical
Representations of Electroacoustic Music: Pictographic versus Symbolic
Stéphane Roy (2003) and
Lasse Thoresen (2007) propose two different approaches to analytical notation
of electroacoustic music: Roy's approach is pictographic while Thoresen's is a
symbol system. Both approaches have been proposed for the purpose of producing
practical listening scores that have analytical usefulness. Each bases his
approach on Nattiez's (1990 [1987]) semiology of music, but Thoresen modifies
the semiological tripartition and allows the listener to actively determine the
listening mode employed, whereas Roy adapts Nattiez's 'neutral' listening mode.
In practice, how does
Thoresen's symbol system compare to Roy's pictographic representations of
electroacoustic sound, in terms of musicians' comprehension of sonic
characteristics? How accessible are these approaches to musicians who are not
specialists in electroacoustic music? To begin to answer these
questions, I conducted an experiment to compare how the two approaches could
facilitate the creation of listening scores by non-specialists. I used the same
works that Roy and Thoresen analysed: Points de Fuite by composer
Francis Dhomont (Roy 2003) and Les objects obscurs by composer Åke
Parmerud (Thoresen 2009). The subjects were conservatoire student musicians and
composers who had little or no previous experiences of these particular
approaches to representation of sound. I examine the subjects' attempts at
transcriptions of the two works using the two approaches. Then I consider the
subjects' written and spoken comments, that resulted from their introductions
to learning these approaches for representation of sound.
In response to the
experiment results, I propose a higher level transcription approach that adapts
transformation analysis (Lewin 1993) for work segmentation. This approach seems
compatible with detail from both pictographic and symbolic notations, and may
be more immediately accessible for non-specialists.
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