The role of the body in the contemporary definition of an intersubjective approach to music

Electroacoustic music and sound arts are practices defined by the fundamental dimension of their sensitive relationship with matter. In this sense, they could be defined as experimental practices that involve a singular experience of the body. Listening to sound material for its own sake leads us to consider its tactile nature, which calls up a little-explored dimension of our sensitive perception. The musicologists Salomé Voegelin and Mariusz Kozak are respectively studying bodily involvement in listening to music and the involvement of the body in defining musical temporality. Their works reveal a change in trend that shifts the focus of analysis from the notion of object to that of space. Indeed, the notion of space includes the existence of the listening body as a “network of intentionalities” (Merleau-Ponty). It would therefore be interesting to revisit Pierre Schaeffer's four listening functions, ouïr, entendre, écouter and comprendre (Schaeffer) from an ecological approach to perception. Andrea Valle identifies the pivotal role of the hearing function, outlining iconic listening (Valle), where the four listening functions are constantly interconnected. It is in this constant movement of tensions involving the listener's body that we might be able to account for the musical experience and its symbolic dimension.