Stili postonali e suono, oggetto sonoro, oggetto uditivo, oggetto musicale

On the terminological, ontological, perceptual, phenomenological, psychological, and musical-historical level, the article discusses, in succession, the interconnected categories of sound, sound object (also in the sense proposed by the school of Pierre Schaeffer), auditory object and musical object, particularly in the light of the developments of contemporary post-tonal music. A key difference is found between the physical level of existence of the sound (which has four dimensions: time, frequency, amplitude, space) and the phenomenal level of existence of the auditory objects (which are considered as mental representations, endowed with five elementary dimensions: duration, pitch, intensity, timbre, space). During the twentieth century music has gradually expanded its boundaries, coming to include any kind of sound object (therefore the noise, and all the sounds of the whole extra-artistic reality). Moreover, certain musical styles (e.g. minimalism, drone music, spectralism) have given value to what might be termed “minimal musical object”: the smallest difference perceptually salient in any of the five dimensions. This means that a musical object can even be something smaller than a sound defined in its four dimensions. A special reflection is dedicated to the category of timbre, which becomes the main working area for the composers of the post-tonal trends; then to the category of duration, which does not coincide with that of time and is made object of a specific elaboration in music.