The relation of electroacoustic music to the visual domain is based on an inherent paradox. All electroacoustically reproduced sound, whether speech, music, environmental sound, or synthesized timbres are by definition "disembodied" from their unseen source.
This schizophonic condition Truax, , as originally described by R. Murray Schafer, tends to become banalized in its everyday acceptance, unless its presence in an environment is thought to be overly intrusive e.
In fact, the embedding of one soundscape within another, has become so commonplace that it is sometimes termed an "accompaniment medium" because it is designed to be just that, an unseen presence that overlays an everyday acoustic environment. The changes brought about via electroacoustics are not merely in the soundscape, but perhaps mainly in the effects on listening habits. Listeners become accustomed to interpreting, even relying on music, radio, media presentations and so on, as a "natural" presence in the environment, even if they are not "of" the environment, i.
Any cognitive dissonance largely disappears, unless the reproduced sound is unfamiliar, somehow threatening, or particularly offensive. In fact, it is possible to trace the life cycle of such sounds from the phobic reactions that often greet them when first experienced, through to an habituated acceptance, and finally to their status as a "disappearing sound" that may eventually become a nostalgic sound romance. Given the evolution of the electroacoustic soundscape and listener over the course of the 20th century, it is somewhat puzzling why electroacoustic music which I will define simply as music created and distributed via audio technology, regardless of aesthetic style has not received greater acceptance.
Perhaps it is the transition from "the new" to "the familiar" that is somewhat slower than with other related phenomena. Within the electroacoustic community, this absence of the visual has in fact been celebrated with the term "acousmatic", even if it is a word that is unfamiliar to the general public.
