University Lectures
Guest Speaker
Brian Kane (profile)
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
Yale University
Location: Humanities 2650
Acousmatic sound—a sound that one hears without seeing the causes behind it—is often associated with the work of Pierre Schaeffer and the tradition of musique concrète. Although no treatment of acousmatic sound can neglect Schaeffer's theory, the history of acousmatic sound predates Schaeffer. A close study of literary sources can help supplement a theory of acousmatic sound, for numerous writers have addressed the psychological and cultural implications of acousmatic sound, without ever using the term. Franz Kafka, like other writers of the early 20th century, is useful for articulating the new conditions of aurality that directly impacted the development of acousmatic sound. In fact, Kafka presents one of the finest analyses of acousmatic sound in his late tale, “The Burrow.” In this tale, the protagonist, a mole, suddenly hears a high-pitched whistle in his burrow. An endless series of hypotheses are tested but the mole, unable to locate its source or cause, grows more and more anxious. By comparing Kafka's treatment of acousmatic sound against Schaeffer's concrète works, I will develop a theory of acousmatic listening based on the premise that sonic effects necessarily underdetermine attributions of source and cause. Underdetermination encourages anxiety and uncertainty, and marks acousmatic listening as site of tense unsettledness. In addition, by following Kafka’s high-pitched whistle into related contexts—such as tinnitus, auditory hallucinations, and deaf composers—where subjectively produced sounds take on an uncanny objectivity and persistence, I demonstrate that acousmatic listening is often culturally deployed when the secure differentiation of subject and object is compromised.
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