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Insights through spatial visualization of the compositional decisions regarding auditory perception in a hemispherical loudspeaker array (2025)

Jakob Gille
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This research explores the crucial role of spatialisation within electroacoustic composition through a detailed analysis of a section of the author's work 'Motion', composed in 5th order Ambisonics for hemispheric loudspeaker arrays. It focuses in particular on how spatial analysis tools can reveal perceptual relationships that traditional spectral analysis alone cannot adequately capture. While spectral analysis provides invaluable insight into timbre and frequency content, it cannot show the dynamic interplay of sound sources in a three-dimensional environment. As spatialisation profoundly influences how listeners perceive individual sound events, their interactions and the overall coherence of a composition within a given acoustic space, the analysis of it is even more important. The author also draws on the importance of analysing spatialisation to provide insights that are otherwise not easily understood. One of the many challenges faced by a composer working with multichannel audio is the uncertainty of the actual loudspeaker configuration of the concert space. A spatial analysis of immersive electroacoustic works can provide insights into how these problems can be addressed through compositional decisions based on auditory perception. Such analysis can help composers to anticipate potential problems arising from different room acoustics or listener positions, ultimately leading to a more consistent and effective listening experience in different venues. Linked to this, the research provides an overview of auditory perception within hemispheric reproduction systems, building on Kendall's framework that "listeners experience electroacoustic music as full of meaning and significance, and they experience spatiality as one of the factors contributing to its meaningfulness". Drawing on Bregman's auditory scene analysis, specifically stream segregation, the analysis thus focuses on how spatial techniques can address masking effects through spatial separation, as discussed also in Brümmer's work on the decomposition of sound material through spatialisation. By combining multiple analytical perspectives in the form of spectral analyses, contextualised with spatial analysis tools, this research aims to provide new insights into the relationship between spatial composition and auditory perception in contemporary electroacoustic composition, contributing to the growing body of knowledge on spatial perception and compositional practice in immersive audio environments.
typeresearch exposition
keywordselectroacoustic music, ambisonics, Visualization, Perception and Consciousness, psychoacoustics, spatialization
date18/06/2025
published24/09/2025
last modified24/09/2025
statuspublished
affiliationKUG Graz
copyrightJakob Gille
licenseCC BY-NC-ND
languageEnglish
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/3760606/3760648
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/rc.3760606
published inResearch Catalogue

References

  • Barrett, Natasha, “Spatio-Musical Composition Strategies”, Organised Sound, 7.3, 2002, p. 313-23 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771802003114>
  • Bregman, Albert S, Auditory Scene Analysis: The Perceptual Organization of Sound (MIT Press, 2006)
  • Catena, Stefano, and Enrico Dorigatti, “Missing Memories: Why We Need to Analyse and Notate Spatialisation”, 2024
  • Catena, Stefano, “Concepts and Approaches in Analysing Spatial Sound Movements: A Link Between {Mozart} and Acousmatic Music”, 2022
  • Kendall, Gary, and Mauricio Ardila, “The {Artistic} {Play} of {Spatial} {Organization}: {Spatial} {Attributes}, {Scene} {Analysis} and {Auditory} {Spatial} {Schemata”, 2007 <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85035-9_8>
  • Kendall, Gary, “Spatial {Perception} and {Cognition} in {Multichannel} {Audio} for {Electroacoustic} {Music”, Organised Sound, 2010, p. 228-38 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771810000336>
  • Smalley, Denis, “Space-Form and the Acousmatic Image”, Organised Sound, 12.1, 2007, p. 35-58 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771807001665>
  • Smalley, Denis, “Spectromorphology: Explaining Sound-Shapes”, Organised Sound, 2.2, 1997, p. 107-26 <https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771897009059>
  • Zotter, Franz, and Matthias Frank, Ambisonics: {A} {Practical} {3D} {Audio} {Theory} for {Recording}, {Studio} {Production}, {Sound} {Reinforcement}, and {Virtual} {Reality (Springer International Publishing, 2019) <http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-17207-7>

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