ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches the processes of development, in point to an overarching aspect that has a fundamental relevance to music research: that the epistemological parameters with which music is theoretically viewed are already given in the respective culturally formed matrixes that underlie sound as a material medium of music. The Canadian composer, R. Murray Schafer, diagnosed a similarly fundamental change after the introduction of phonographic technology at the onset of twentieth century, describing it as 'schizophonia'. By this he referred to the technological split between the production and the perception of sounds, the binary simulation of sonic events marks the transition to 'paraphonia'. The percussive use of the body through vocal forms of tone production, the origin of performance in many non-Western societies, forms the basis of a musical universe quite different from the complexities of musical instruments. The microphone and amplification technology associated with singing renders the softest vocal sounds audible, which is distinct from natural singing techniques.
