The Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music

Anil Çamci is an artist and professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan, USA. His research deals with new tools and theories of worldmaking across a variety of media ranging from electronic music to virtual reality. Previously, he held positions at the University of Illinois Chicago, USA, and Istanbul Technical University, Turkey, where he founded the Sonic Arts Program. He holds an MS in Multimedia Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA, and a PhD in Creative and Performing Arts from Leiden University, the Netherlands. His work has been featured worldwide in leading conferences and journals and received numerous awards.

List of Figures
Introduction
Overview of the Book
1. Defining Electronic Music
Early Years of Electronic Music
The Electronic Medium
Non-musical Sound
Birth of the Electronic Music Studio
A New Frontier
Electronic Music Nomenclature
The Medium is the Genre
Acousmatic Music
Electroacoustic Music
Broadening Horizons
2. Situating the Electronic Music Experience
Foundations of Musical Behavior
Evolutionary Perspectives
From Biology to Culture
The Material and Language of Music
Music and Emotion
Affect in Music
Experiential Idiosyncrasies of Electronic Music
The Composer, who is also a Listener
From Parameters to Instincts
Complexity of Listening
An Amalgamation of Languages
Threads of Communication in Electronic Music
The Poietic Thread
The Esthesic Thread
3. A Study on Listening Imagination
A Cognitive Approach
Experimental Studies on Electronic Music
“Talking about music is like…”
Stimuli
Birdfish (2012, 4’40”)
Sound Design
Form
Element Yon (2011, 3’45”)
Sound Design
Form
Christmas 2013 (2011, 2’16”)
Sound Design
Form
Diegese (2013, 1’54”)
Sound Design
Form
Touche pas (by Curtis Roads, 2009, 5’30”)
Study Design
Preliminary Studies
Participants
Setup
Procedure
Initial Listening Session
General Impressions Task
Real-time Descriptors Exercise
Real-time Descriptors Task
Results
Data Visualizations
Single-timeline Dynamic Visualization
Multiple-timeline Visualization
Analysis Methods
Categorization of Descriptors
Comparative Analysis
Correspondence Analysis
Discourse Analysis
4. The Electronic Gesture
Events in the Environment
Environmental Sounds
Models of Mental Representation
Affordances
Gestures in Electronic Music
…is a meaningful narrative unit…
…operates within causal networks…
…coexists with other gestures in various temporal and spatial configurations…
…implies intentionality
5. Worldmaking in Electronic Music
Diegesis
An Interdisciplinary Contextualization of Diegesis
Coalescence of Mimesis and Diegesis
Presentationality
Narrativity
Diegetic Affordances and Affect
Music as A Diegetic Actor
Quoting Music within Music
A Diegetic Actor as Music: Electronic Music and Science Fiction
6. Tracing the Continuum
Domains of Experience
The Physical Domain
Awareness of the Physical Self
Stream Segregation
Habituation
The Semantic Domain
Effects of Semantic Context
Semantic Gestalts
Signs of Life
Contacts Between the Two Domains
Inside and Outside the Diegesis
Sense of Time
Experienced Listeners
Presence of the Composer in the Work
Case Study: Little Animals
Macro-scale Analysis
Gestural Layers
Organic and Environmental Sounds
Physical Causalities
Pitched and Droning Elements
Temporal Flow
Diegetic Disposition of the Listener
Coda
Acknowledgments
Bibliography