Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music

The electronic medium allows any audible sound to be contextualized as music. This creates unique structural possibilities as spectrum, dynamics, space, and time become continuous dimensions of musical articulation. What we hear in electronic music ventures beyond what we traditionally characterize as musical sound and challenges our auditory perception, on the one hand, and our imagination, on the other. Based on an extensive listening study conducted over four years, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the cognitive processes involved in the experience of electronic music. It pairs artistic practice with theories from a range of disciplines to communicate how this music operates on perceptual, conceptual, and affective levels. Looking at the common and divergent ways in which our minds respond to electronic sound, it investigates how we build narratives from our experience of electronic music and situate ourselves in them.

The Cognitive Continuum of Electronic Music provides an excellent model for students who wish to integrate perceptual or cognitive listening experiments with their personal practice. The book contextualizes the studies, conveys the necessary details to evaluate the experimental design, and draws conclusions that are driven both empirically and through practice. The extensive bibliography covers subjects and sources that are critical to electronic music scholarship, perception, listening, cognition, and experimental design., This book traces electronic music from its infancy to the present day, acknowledging many of the field’s important figures and influential developments. Building on this foundation, it draws on novel research approaches which illuminate important areas, including insights into the relationships between electronic music and the listener, thus holding potential to inform not only future studies, but also the continuing development of electronic music’s creation and consumption.

Anil Çamci is a composer and professor of Performing Arts Technology at the University of Michigan, USA. His work deals with new tools and theories of worldmaking across a variety of media ranging from electronic music to virtual reality. Previously, he held positions at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Istanbul Technical University, where he founded the Sonic Arts Program. He holds an MS in Multimedia Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a PhD in Creative and Performing Arts from Leiden University. His work has been featured throughout the world in leading conferences and journals. He has been given numerous awards including the ACM CHI Artist Grant and NIME Best Installation Prize.