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Altman, R. (1992). Sound space. In R. Altman (Ed), Sound Theory Sound Practice. (pp. 46–64). New York: Routledge.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 16/02/2006, 07:28
As the image on screen flits about incessantly drawing our eyes hither and thither, it is the sound track, with its constant scale, that provides stability and an anchorage. "It is thus the sound track that provides a base for visual identification, that authorizes vision and makes it possible. The identity of Hollywood spectators begins with their ability to be auditors."
Summarizing 1930's film sound theoretician J.P. Maxfield "the sound track must carry, independently from the image, all the information necessary to reconstruct the "real" space of the scene (that is, the one represented by the image)."
An important point here is the relation between sound scale and image scale and the effect on film sound of single microphone technique, multiple mikes, mixing, sound editing, microhpone placements etc. In the early '30s, the emphasis was directed to authentic spatial recording (with a human body analogy) but, with the development of condensor microphones (required to be close to the sound source) and boom technology, this shifted to an emphasis on clarity (of dialogue). This had implications for mixing in post-production leading to the contruction of a sound track rather that its recording. By the end of the decade, attempts to match sound scale accurately to image scale had been all but discarded.
By the end of the '30s, sound scale/image scale proportionality had been discarded in favour of (dialogue) intelligibility. The notion of the internal auditor (point-of-audition) was developed -- the spectator is required to identify with or inhabit the body of an on-screen character who will hear for us. Reverberation is used to identify sound intended for this character (little or no reverb) or not (greater ratio of reverberated sound to direct sound). The spectator is inserted into the film narrative "at the very intersection of two spaces [film space and the internal auditor's space (the character's body)] which the image alone is incapable of linking, thus giving us the sensation of controlling the relationship between those spaces." (p.61)
Baddeley, A., & Logie, R. (1992). Auditory imagery and working memory. In D. Reisberg (Ed), Auditory Imagery. (pp. 179–197). Mahwah (NJ): Lawrence Elrbaum Associates.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 25/12/2014, 10:00
Bailes, F. (2019). Empirical musical imagery beyond the "mind's ear". In M. Grimshaw-Aagaard, M. Walther-Hansen & M. Knakkergaard (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Imagination. Vol. 2, (pp. 445–463). New York: Oxford University Press.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 19/05/2021, 09:01
Bench, J. (1971). Anticipatory elicitation of the middle-ear muscle reflex. The Journal of Laryngology and Otology, 85(11), 1161–1165.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/05/2014, 11:55
Bridgett, R. (1999). Aural imagery: Sonic ambiguity in time based media. Retrieved November 25, 2021, from http://web.archive.org/ ... design.org.uk/aural.htm
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 25/10/2021, 13:31
Claims that in between Chion/Schaeffer's polarity of reduced listening and causal listening exists a contimuum of aural imagery or sonic ambiguity. The lsitener is allowed her own interpretation and the sound may never be "nailed to the diegesis". Talking mainly of film sound but relates to games. cf. Christian Metz's aural object with semiotic meaning and Andrei Tarkovsky's ambiguous sound in film which "short circuit the very notion of culturally dependent notions of semiotics and the objects they represent."
Bunzeck, N., Wuestenberg, T., Lutz, K., Heinze, H.-J., & Jancke, L. (2005). Scanning silence: Mental imagery of complex sounds. NeuroImage, 26(4), 1119–1127.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 03/05/2014, 11:59
Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision: Sound on screen. C. Gorbman, Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 07/06/2021, 08:48
By his own admission perhaps oversimplying: "...everything spatial in a film, in terms of image as well as sound, is ultimately encoded into a so-called visual impression, and everything which is temporal, including elements reaching us via the eye, registers as an auditory impression." Chion views the senses (sight, hearing) as simply channels for preceptions that are neither necessarily one nor the other. Those things that are either purely visual or purely auditory are rare.
"Of two war reports that come back from a very real war, the one in which the image is shaky and rough, with uneven focus and other "mistakes," will seem more true than the one with impeccable framing, perfect visibility, and imperceptible grain. In much the same way for sound, the impression of realism is often tied to a feeling of discomfort, of an uneven signal, of interference and microphone noise, etc."
"For a shot of a hammer, any one of a hundred sounds will do."
"When we listen acousmatically to recorded sounds it takes repeated hearings of a single sound to allow us gradually to stop attending to its cause and to more accurately perceive its inherent traits."
"...negative sound" is sound that does not exist on film but is created by the combination of viewer's memory, imagination and film image (at the point of viewing).
Talking of music video: "music video's image is fully liberated from the linearity normally imposed by sound."
suspension: "...when a sound naturally expected from a situation (which we usually hear at first) becomes suppressed, either insidiously or suddenly." This is specific to sound films and creates an enigma or emptiness. Sometimes the spectator is aware of the effect but unable to pinpoint the origin.
Acousmêtre: A sound, often vocal, whose source is not seen (therefore it's acousmatic) but is clearly "implicated in the action" p.129. Does not include dettached film narrators but does include unseen voices such as the mother in Psycho and HAL9000 in 2001 A Space Odyssey. The acousmêtre (in film) is: a) all-seeing b) all-knowing c) all-powerful d) everywhere "paradoxical acousmêtres" (p.130) are those lacking one or more of the four powers above. The unmasking of acousmêtre or "[D]e-acousmatization consists of an unveiling process that is unfailingly dramatic." (p.131). Accompanies a loss of power and descent to human vulnerability. Chion points out that technological developments in cinema sound (ie. surround sound) blur the distinction between onscreen/offscreen and therefore weaken the power of the acousmêtre.
Describes a "universal spatial symbolism of musical pitches" (p.121) in which the direction of a musical scale follows the trajectory of the object on screen.
"Reinforcement with materializing indices (or, on the other hand, erasing them) contributes toward the creation of a universe, and can take on metaphysical meaning."
While reverberation can add to MSI, unrealistic reverb can be "dematerializing and symbolizing."
Uses the term render to indicate a sound that gives away its source. Not all sounds render their source. Additionally, Chion states that some sounds (which presumably are as yet unrendered) can be rendered by verbal explanation/description. This dispels the "common ... illusion of a natural narrativity of sounds." p.111
Discussing authenticity and realism of sound truth and sound verisimilitude. There are sound conventions and "specific codes of realism" that produce anything but authentic sound but rather provide "the impression of realism". These conventions become "our reference for reality itself."
Chion defines nondiegetic sound as: "sound whose supposed sound source is not only absent from the image but is also external to the story world".
"...audiovisual media .. place their spectators -- their audio-spectators -- in a specific perceptual mode of reception, which ... I shall call audio-vision."
"...the editing of film sounds has created no specific sound unit ... sound splices [do not] permit us to demarcate identifiable units of sound." "Sounds have been edited since it became technically possible in radio ... and in phonograph and tape recording. In none of these instances, regardless of whether images are involved, has the notion of an "auditory shot" or unit of sound montage emerged as a neutral, universally recongnizable unit."
Sound "can become an insidious means of affective and semantic manipulation."
Acousmatic sound "intensifies causal listening in taking away the aid of sight." We can shut our eyes but not our ears -- sound is omnipresent -- can saturate. Especially the case with passive, as opposed to active, perception.
"...the figurative value of a sound in itself is usually quite non-specific." Acoustical realism is of less importance to the viewer than the sound's synchronicity with the image.
Sound with moving images imposes a "real and irreversible time". Sound in a reversed film always discloses that the film has been reversed. Many images are (visually) reversible.
"A smooth and continuous sound is less "animating" than an uneven or fluttering one." The latter, when combined with image, more insistently draws our eyes to the image or part of it. The same is also true for a sound with little repetition and therefore less predictability. To a point -- cf. the tension created in Who Want's to be a Millionaire? where we await a change. What is important in grabbing the audience's attention is not the speed of the sound but the rate of change of the sound. Sounds rich in high frequencies (i.e. sharp) command attention.
"...the eye is more spatially adept and the ear more temporally adept."
Uses the term 'added value' to describe sound's relationship to image -- specifically its enrichment of image. The impression given is that the sound "is already contained in the image itself."
"We never see the same thing when we also hear; we don't hear the same thing when we see as well."
"...reality is one thing, and its transposition into audiovisual two-dimensionality ... which involves radical sensory reduction, is another." At the start of this chapter (5), Chion is discussing that attempts to make film using sounds recorded while filming (as unprocessed as possible) don't work. Makes the point that what works in cinema (both audio and visual) is a stick figure drawing (works) when compared to a Dürer drawing (won't work).
"Theories of the cinema until now have tended to elude the issue of sound, either by completely ignoring it or by relegating it to minor status."
Murch's foreword: Unlike the instantaneous fusion of the left and right eye images into stereoscopic vision, the fusion of sound and image "is -- and should be -- continuously changing and flexible". The more instantaneous such fusion the flatter and less dimensional the result is.
Murch's foreword: Talking of metaphoric gap between image and sound: the larger the gap the greater the "added value" (Chion's term) that sound brings to film. There are limits to how far the metaphor can be stretched.
Murch's foreword: Talks of stretching sound/image relationship to create a "fruitful tension" between the image on screen and the mind of the audience. Chion's sound 'en cheux' or sound 'in the gap'. Sound "doesn't possess the built-in escape valves of ambiguity" that other media possess "by virtue of their sensory incompleteness". "...the metaphoric use of sound" in film "can open up a perceptual vacuum into which the mind of the audience must inevitably rush."
Murch's foreword: Humankind's mutual habit of always associating/subjugating sound to the image object if they are rendered simultaneously, works in favour of film sound designers who, for example, can provide the "sound of a watermelon being crushed instead of a human head."
Murch's foreword: Claims far back in history that sounds "seemed to be ... a shadow to the object that caused them." Recording broke this duality separating sound from image allowing for an appreciation of sound for its innate qualities (cf. Musique Concrète) and to associate sounds with disparate objects.
Murch's foreword: "Such a 'biological' approach -- sound first, image later -- stands in contrast not only to the way most people approach film -- image first, sound later -- but, as we have seen, to the history of cinema itself."
Murch's foreword: talking of sound in cinema: "If we do notice [sound] consciously, it is often only because of some problem or defect."
"...there is spatial magnetization of sound by image." In terms of film, the perceived location of a sound source is psychological and is usually tied to on-screen image or imagined off-screen action regardless of the loudspeaker (the real source) positioning.
"...for sound pieces the temporal dimension seems to predominate, and the spatial dimension not to exist at all."
"The most widespread function of film sounds consists of unifying or binding the flow of images." -- bridges visual gaps, -- provides an acoustical container for the images, -- "unity through non-diegetic music ... casts the images into a homogenizing bath".
"...elements of auditory setting (E.A.S.)" are point source sounds emitting infrequently and which "help create and define the film's space".
Silence "is the product of a contrast." i.e. it has to be prepared for and is the polar opposite of what we've heard before.
"Film uses sounds as synonyms of silence". The cliché is the film shot where the only sound to be heard (or at least that given prominence in the mix) is the ticking of a clock - i.e. it's now so quiet that only now can you hear sounds you would normally not hear.
"What we hear is what we haven't had time to see."
A continuum: Acousmatic sound <---------------> Visualized sound Sound source not seen <------> Sound source seen. "A sound or voice that remains acousmatic creates a mystery of the nature of its source, its properties and its powers, given that causal listening cannot supply complete information about the sound's nature and events taking place." p.72 Non-diegetic sound is a form of acousmatic sound but one with no connection to the story world.
Offscreen Space: "Let us call ambient sound sound that envelops a scene and inhabits its space, ... birds singing, churchbells ringing." Although lacking a visual source they "identify a particular locale through their pervasive and continuous presence." p.75 "Internal sound ... corresponds to the physical and mental interior of a character." The physical sounds (breathing, crying etc.) are "objective-internal sounds" and mental thoughts or memories are "subjective-internal sounds". p.76 Acousmatic sounds "transmitted electronically [are] on-air sounds" (e.g. telephone, radio etc.). p.76
"Spatially speaking, a sound and its source are two different entities." Chion expands this to pointing out that in an enclosed space (i.e. with reverb etc.) a sound is actually an approximation of many sounds from many sources. Additionally, sound "tends to spread out, like a gas, into whatever available space there is."
'Offscreen sound' requires an image to work -- without an image there is no difference between offscreen and onscreen sound. Ofscreen sounds "interact with a screen where they [encounter] the void of their presence." p.83
Active offscreen sound is acousmatic sound that excites the audience's curiosity. It "propels the film forward and it engages the spectator's anticipation." Passive offscreen sound anchors the viewer in a space, stabilizing the image and requiring no questions to be asked. e.g. Territory and EAS sounds.
Differentiates between definition and [hi-]fidelity. The latter is a commercial and subjective concept while the former is objective and concerned with the recording and manipulation of higher frequencies for improved intelligibility, more information and more "materializing indices" p.99. Says that definition is what counts and that it "lends itself to a more lively, spasmodic, rapid, alert mode of listening, particularly to agile phenomena that occur in the higher frequencies" p.99.
(As part of a longer section on strategies for analyzing film sound.) When analyzing sound in a series of images: lasting noises extend throughout the sequence, punctual noises are isolated sounds. Lasting noises provide continuity across varying textures, shots, content etc. in the sequence.
Presents the idea of [film] sound used as punctuation -- to accent a bit of dialogue for example, to end a scene.
Chion's synchresis is the melding of synchronous aural and visual objects such that we believe them to be one. In reality, the sound may have nothing to do with the image or action. This phenomenon is not fully automatic but is a product of meaning. Context, volume, rhythm all play their part. cf and his description of synchrony (Anderson 1996, p.83).
Mentions the 'in-the-wings' effect in cinema sound (i.e. the sound of a visual object continues as it moves off-screen). This has been gradually dropped (even though it was only made possible by later multi-tracking )because it makes no distinction between screen space and cinema space -- an actor is in the wings or an aisle waiting to appear on screen again. Exits and entrances.
Discusses points of audition - i.e. similar to point of view -- where, within the film, are we listening from? Chion points out the omnidirectional nature of sound as opposed to the directionality of light (not strictly ture -- see my comments earlier) therefore, there is no point of audition but a "zone of audition" p.91. Further points out that we must also ask: who, on-screen, hears what I hear? Usually it is the image grabbing our attention on screen (defined by focus, close-up etc. rather than something indicated by the sound's characteristics.
Chion resurrects the old notion of phonogeny -- 'he has a very phonogenic voice'. Claims that the notion has died out as, while at the birth of recorded sound (and marriage of sound + image) it was possible to compare the natural voice with recorded (and make dismissive comparisons due to the low definition of early recording playback devices), today the recorded voice is so often heard it is the natural voice.
Some sound FX in films do duty in rendering multiple sensations (mass, pain, violence, etc.) which is how we sense anyway (in multiples).
Defines the term materializing sound indices first mentioned on p.99. Any sound has either zero MSI or (up to) an infinity of them. Sounds rich in MSI are concrete and easily rendered (when separated from image) and provide rich information about the sound source, the sound's production and the envrionment. Sounds poor in MSI and that are acousmatized are particularly enigmatic.
Chion, talking of MSI, makes the interesting point that the concept of noise is cultural and intimately related to MSI. Using music practice as an example; some music cultures strive for an ethereal sound where all extraneous noise is banished and we are left solely with the notes (low MSI); others gladly incorporate such 'noises' as enriching the music (high MSI -- source easily rendered).
Talking of the relationship between image and sound (in film) using musical compositional terminology such as counterpoint and harmony. For Chion, there is no such thing as a 'soundtrack' when the (film) image is also being perceived since the film only makes sense when image and sound are viewed vertically (harmony: dissonance/consonance) rather than horizontally as two independent streams (counterpoint).
Provides three modes of listening: Causal Listening as a means of gathering information about the sound's physical object (its cause). The most common and deceptive form of listening. It rarely operates alone and is usually influenced by non-sonic factors. Also, usually more than one source object creates the sound -- recording and playback influence heard object(s). Semantic A code or language is required to interpret the sound. Differential listening -- operates on similarites and opposites. Reduced Named by Pierre Schaeffer. The sound itself is observed unencumbered by meaning or source/cause. An "objectivity-born-of-intersubjectivity" (p.29). Requires the fixing (recording) of the sounds so that they can be reduced to objects. Our descriptive tools (language even jargon) are wholly unsuited to define sound objects. The three modes overlap and combine.
pp.5 onward suggest that film sound is 'verbocentric' in which primacy is given to the spoken voice with other sounds being simply additional sound FX.
Murch's foreword: Introduces Chion's concept of acousmêtre -- complete separation of sound and image object such that the image object is only displayed much, much later often to confound the audience's imagination that, in the meantime, has supplied a possibly quite different image object for the sound. In this case, maximum use has been made of the audience's imaginations.
Murch's foreword: Talking of added value. Murch makes comparison with stereo-scopic vision where the gap between the eyes and consequent image differentiality is resolved into depth - sight's added value.
Walter Murch's foreword: claims sound is the primary pre-natalk sense that, after birth, competes with sight. Cinema reversed this hierarchy by initially (1892-1927) being a sight-only medium.
Crowder, R. G., & Pitt, M. A. (1992). Research on memory/imagery for musical timbre. In D. Reisberg (Ed), Auditory Imagery. (pp. 29–44). Mahwah (NJ): Lawrence Elrbaum Associates.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 25/12/2014, 10:00
Garner, T. A., & Grimshaw, M. (2014). Sonic virtuality: Understanding audio in a virtual world. In M. Grimshaw (Ed), The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality. (pp. 364–377). New York: Oxford University Press.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 18/01/2014, 11:55
Hoshiyama, M., Gunji, A., & Kakigi, R. (2001). Hearing the sound of silence: A magnetoencephalographic study. NeuroReport, 12(6), 1097–1102.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/05/2014, 11:56
"Our results suggested that the initial activity for sound retrieval was not related to the primary auditory cortex but to the IF-INS regions, although the activities of the primary auditory cortex might follow later in the neural processes of retrieval."
Hughes, H. C., Darcey, T. M., Barkan, H. I., Williamson, P. D., Roberts, D. W., & Aslin, C. H. (2001). Responses of human auditory association cortex to the omission of an expected acoustic event. NeuroImage, 13, 1073–1089.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/05/2014, 12:06
King, A. J. (2006). Auditory neuroscience: Activating the cortex without sound. Current Biology, 16(11), 410–411.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 18/04/2014, 06:57
Kraemer, D. J. M., Macrae, C. N., Green, A. E., & Kelley, W. M. (2005). Musical imagery: Sound of silence activates auditory cortex. Nature, 434(158), 158.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/05/2014, 12:00
Kramer, G. (1994). Some organizing principles for representing data with sound. In G. Kramer (Ed), Auditory Display: Sonification, Audification, and Auditory Interfaces. (pp. 185–221). Reading MA: Addison-Wesley.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 21/10/2005, 14:49
Defines audification: "A direct translation of a data waveform to the audible domain for purposes of monitoring and comprehension". As it is a direct translation, the data must exist in the form of a waveform (it is shifted to the audio domain) and no sound-generators are involved. Sometimes referred to as 0th-order sonification.
Sonification is defined as "[T]he use of data to control a sound generator for the purpose of monitoring and analysis of the data". This involves mapping of one or more parameters of the data set to the audio domain e.g. size ---> loudness.
Audiation is the formation of "an imagined auditory image" and involves memory and recall. Little research has been done in this area. Sometimes called auralization, which itself is sometimes described as realistic sonic spatialization.
"When a complex multivariate auditory stream is used to convey data, an important perceptual process comes into play. In addition to the system user's ability to scan his or her attention through the sound, relationships between variables and entire system states are perceived "at a glance." Which is to say, without attention-directed effort, all the auditory variables are perceived as a whole, or a "gestalt."
Discusses the use of metaphor to link abstract sounds to data sets where, for sonification purposes, no realistic sounds are available (e.g. stock market sonifications). When sonifying 'more' and 'less', metaphorical associations for 'more' might be: louder (larger objects, more sensory impact) brighter (more partials or more high-frequency energy) faster (more sound in the same time frame) higher pitch (more cycles per second) Affective associations relate to the feelings aroused by sound. For example desirable and undesirable qualities in the sonified data set may be mapped to sound ugliness, richness, in-tune/out of tune etc. There may be some interaction between metaphorical and affective mappings and subjectivity plays its part.
Provides two categories of human-computer interface sound: Realistic -- may be recorded or designed/synthesised to emulate 'real-world' sounds. Kramer includes natural sounds, animals, speech, machinery in this category. Abstract -- no obvious associations with 'real-world' sound. Includes Blattner's (1989) earcons, non-imitative synthetic sounds and acoustic musical instruments.
Locke, J. (1690). An essay concerning human understanding. 2nd ed.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 14/05/2021, 13:58
"How often may a man observe in himself, that whilst his mind is intently employed in the contemplation of some objects, and curiously surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice of impressions of sounding bodies made upon the organ of hearing, with the same alteration that uses to be for the producing the idea of sound? A sufficient impulse there may be on the organ; but it not reaching the observation of the mind, there follows no perception: and though the motion that uses to produce the idea of sound be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of sensation, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ, or that the man’s ears are less affected than at other times when he does hear: but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in by the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding, and so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation."
Nishimoto, S., Vu, A. T., Naselaris, T., Benjamini, Y., Yu, B., & Gallant, J. L. (2011). Reconstructing visual experiences from brain activity evoked by natural movies. Current Biology, 21, 1641–1646.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 26/03/2014, 11:45
Raij, T., McEvoy, L., Mäkelä, J. P., & Hari, R. (1997). Human auditory cortex is activated by omissions of auditory stimuli. Brain Research, 745, 134–143.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 02/05/2014, 10:03
Rheingold, H. (1991). Virtual reality: The revolutionary technology of computer-generated artificial worlds -- and how it promises and threatens to transform business and society. New York: Summit Books.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 28/04/2005, 20:58
A description of the Convolvotron developed at NASA/Ames Laboratory in the late 1980s. Basically an early HRTF system modelling the human outer ears' perception of audio. Interesting for a mention of historical work in the positioning of sound in 3D virtual reality and early use of the term 'auditory visualization'.
Riddoch, M. 2012, September 9–14. On the non-cochlearity of the sounds themselves. Paper presented at International Computer Music Conference, Ljubljana.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 23/09/2020, 21:36
"This sensitivity is exhibited even in newborns indicating that an attunement to organized sound is an evolutionary adaptation in the human species."
Cochlear sound is "the perceived sound associated with the kinetic energy vibrations within the cochlea that produce electrochemical signals in the brain."
"non-cochlear sounds are perceived sounds associated with the excitation of the auditory cortex in the human brain by means other than cochlear vibrations transmitted through the hair cells to the auditory nerve."
"Sounds, whether associated with cochlear vibrations or not, are always in the first instance meaningful sounds."
Riddoch provides a fourth definition of sounds "as first and foremost meaningful, worldly phenomena."
"The fact that the sounds we hearken to are already meaningful would indicate that the conceptual in sound is not merely an afterthought, an artistic abstraction, or a subjective, psychological construction. The meaningfulness of what we hear is a fundamental aspect of the sounds themselves as we encounter them in the first instance."
"I would like to propose that there is therefore no such thing as a cochlear sound in any demonstrable empirical sense, there are only in the first instance the sounds themselves we hear and hearken to. By simple inference all sound, as something heard in the world, is therefore non-cochlear (or more precisely a nonphysical phenomenon)."
Riddoch proposes three types of non-cochlear sound: Synaesthetic -- the perception of sound via stimulation of another sense. Infrasonic sound -- sound waves below 20Hz can be detected by the skin and the chest cavity resonates at 80Hz and below. Riddoch also points to the example of profoundly deaf (from birth) percussionist Evelyn Glennie who maintains that hearing is a specialized form of touch (Glennie 1993). Auditory imagination -- including memory, imagination, hallucination, dreaming which all excite the auditory cortex.
Truppin, A. (1992). And then there was sound: The films of Andrei Tarkovsky. In R. Altman (Ed), Sound Theory Sound Practice. (pp. 235–248). New York: Routledge.
Added by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard Last edited by: Mark Grimshaw-Aagaard 11/01/2006, 01:08
In Tarkovsky's later films, audiences choose between "accepting that a sound proves the existence of an unseen object and that of believing in the existence of an invisible spiritual world. Because we posit a source for every offscreen diegetic sound, we believe in the existence of this source even when we cannot produce a viable mental image of it. We believe, although we cannot explain or prove." Truppin explains the last paradox as a fundamental of religious faith.
"...offscreen sound enlarges the film space beyond the borders of the screen. We imagine not only the reality of the world seen on screen, but that of a larger world stretching on indefinitely beyond it."
Tarkovsky's films: "...Tarkovsky's sounds assume a great richness of meaning. ... All sounds of the world [Tarkovsky's film world] can have meaning; all sounds can be signs. ...his ambiguous sounds call out for explanation that is often withheld." Tarkovsky's sounds are very often ambiguous and/or disconcerting.