3. Sound and Echoes from Different Philosophical Perspectives 

 

3.1 Immaterial Understandings


 

The classical ontological understanding of sounds as events, or pure events, requires that sounds be considered as immaterial entities, ephemeral in nature (Scruton 1997: 12; Calleja 2013: 96). From this perspective, sounds relate to each other by forming different configurations and units of temporal signification – metaphorically speaking, sounds compress, stretch, fade away, move forward, and so on (e.g., Piana 1991). Composer and musicologist Pierre Schaeffers (2017 [1966]) related concept of reduced listening refers to a mode of listening where attention is focused on the qualities of the sound or sonic object, leaving aside its source, cause, and externally associated meaning(s). Such an aesthetic mode of listening is considered particularly characteristic of acousmatic situations, where the sound source is invisible and thus not affecting perception. The term acousmatic derives from an ancient Pythagorean teaching method in which the teacher speaks to the pupils from behind a curtain or screen to encourage greater focus on the content of the teachings (Chion 1990: 25–34; Kane 2007).

 

Reflected sounds can be considered acousmatic in nature, as their sources are often ambiguous or indeterminate. Drawing on a definition from physics, echoes are repetitions of direct sounds reflected with sufficient magnitude and delay to be perceived as distinct events (Kuhl 1977). When considering echoes as pure events, attention is drawn to the fact that such sounds reproduce and replicate earlier sounds, distort and displace past events, and split primary phenomena from their original sources and contexts (O’Callaghan 2007: 27; Smith 2015), creating confusing or unnerving schizophonic experiences (Schafer 1969: 43–47). Overall, from these more or less immaterial perspectives, echoes are defined primarily in relation to the preceding direct sounds, which gives them a kind of secondary or subordinate status.[15]