ABSTRACT
The sound-object is to be analysed for its intrinsic acoustic properties and not in relation to the instrument or physical cause which brought it into being. However, people are more often aware of the source of a sound than not and studies of behaviour and aural physiology would suggest that our mental apparatus is predisposed to allocate sounds to their source. It is important to differentiate the idea of landscape from that of association as it is frequently used in reference to programmatic music. The landscape of a sound-image is defined as the imagined source of the perceived sounds. The formalisation of acoustic space is found in all kinds of contemporary music production. With an understanding of various properties of the aural landscape, compositional techniques based upon transformations of the landscape are being built. Finally, the chapter provides information of landscape concepts being used extensively by composers of electro-acoustic music.
