Music and spatial verisimilitude
Etienne Deleflie · Research Online (University of Wollongong) · 2013
Electroacoustic composers have developed a variety of approaches to the use of space within music. Relatively recent technological and scientific advancements have augmented synthesised space with the promise of verisimilitude: the sensation of spatially authentic audible reality. How does this promise correspond to musical concerns? The thesis develops a new perspective in which composers' interest in spatial verisimilitude is characterised as more concerned with auditory illusion, than with notions of space. This perspective describes a departure from past compositional engagement with isolated spatial parameters, and signals a movement towards the pursuit of realistic illusion within music. The exploration of this pursuit, and its significant technological mediation, highlights fundamental and complex tensions that affect spatial music composition.