The focus of the listener shifts in and out from one layer to another or from one group of layers to another.
According to my proposal, in the next stage, termed holophony, the listener focuses on the synthesis of the simultaneously-layered sound streams and their morphopoiesis over time. In polyphony, the listener follows the melodic activity from one voice to another and, later, in homophony, which has a melody with chordal accompaniment, the listener focuses on the melody in the predominant voice. In monophony, with only one voice, the listener’s attention is focused solely on a single melodic line. In each period the focus of attention, not only for the composer but also for the performer and for the listener, differs. This is a continuous reformation which, with each development, requires different ways of listening to and understanding music. Alternatively, the middle column in Figure 1 illustrates how the different textures are traditionally constructed, but also shows the continuous accumulation of layers over the succession of periods. Electroacoustic scores usually show information about the texture and its changes over time. The graphic representations shown as Figure 1 resemble part of an electroacoustic score, and this is not accidental. In the programme notes for Pithoprakta (1955-56), Iannis Xenakis wrote that the individual sounds lose their individual importance to the benefit of the whole and are perceived as a block, in its totality ( Xenakis, 1965). Jean-Claude Risset uses the term spectral fusion to describe the quality of sound consisting of a number of integrated components into a single sonic entity that is attributed to a single real or imagined source ( Risset, 1991). He defined the term integration as a sonic physiognomy within which the distribution of spectral components or subgroups of components in spectral space, and their behaviour over time, should not be perceived as independent entities ( Smalley, 1994). Smalley introduced the term integration which, from a theoretical point of view, possesses a spectral and a morphological dimension.
Twenty years later, Denis Smalley’s examination of the same issue proposed a systematic reformulation and enlargement of Schaeffer’s observations, preserving some of their original characteristics and conferring generality on many aspects. In Schaefferian theory, the definition of sound object refers to any sound phenomenon and event perceived as a whole, as a coherent entity ( Schaeffer, 1966). Pierre Schaeffer, in his book Traitè des Objects Musicaux from 1966, built up a theoretical framework within which he discussed fundamental methodological and terminological issues of electroacoustic music composition.
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