The Musical–Narrative Dichotomy: <i>Sweet Anticipation</i> and some implications for acousmatic music

Abstract

Acousmatic music is heavily informed by a central duality which lies at the heart of the art form, between the musical layer on the one hand, and the narrative layer on the other. Emphasis shifts between these two layers, and they interact to construct further layers of meaning. In his book Sweet Anticipation: Music and the Psychology of Expectation , David Huron proposes that our responses to musical stimuli are in fact identical to our responses to real-world stimuli, and follow the same processes. This appears to negate somewhat the dichotomy of musical and narrative layers. We propose a shift in perspective away from a vision of parallel musical and narrative layers, and towards a dualism built from staggered response times to different aspects of the same material.