ABSTRACT
In the seemingly limitless universe of sound offered by electroacoustic music, the identification of psychological threads that can meaningfully link sonic materials is a crucial aim. It is my contention here that the experience of listening in cultural and environmental contexts provides a broad platform for perceptual distinctions that can be usefully exploited in electroacoustic music. This contention is considered from two perspectives: firstly, the use of the medium as a virtual sonic world in which recognisably realistic sounds with different contextual associations can be combined to create “surreal” environments and, secondly, the potential to create distinctions between apparent “Reality” and “abstraction”. The latter also defines extreme possibilities in the overall sound palette in the medium ranging from environmental or cultural sources which are familiar to us in the material world to transf ormed or synthetic sounds which seem remote from sources found in the real world. Because they create a sense of detachment from known physical Reality these two perspectives may be taken as a metaphorical representation of the inner world of the imagination, where free and fantastic associations between objects and experiences can take place. But further discussion of how such representations might be utilised first requires discussion of the mechanisms of the listening process itself.
