[2] This leads to the acousmatic situation that is focused on subjective "listening itself which becomes the phenomena under study"[3] rather than the object sound source.
[4] Curtis Roads, in his 2001 book 'Microsound', while attributing the origin of the term to Pierre Schaeffer, describes the sound object as "a basic unit of musical structure, generalizing the traditional concept of note to include complex and mutating sound events on a time scale ranging from a fraction of a second to several seconds."
Macro The time scale of overall musical architecture or form, measured in minutes or hours, or in extreme cases, days.
Micro Sound particles on a time scale that extends down to the threshold of auditory perception (measured in thousandths of a second or milli-seconds).
Subsample Fluctuations on a time scale too brief to be properly recorded or perceived, measured in billionths of a second (nanoseconds) or less.
[5] English composer Trevor Wishart derives his own version of sound object from Schaeffer's, but unlike Schaeffer Wishart favours a materialist or physicalist notion, saying:Given that we have established a coherent aural image of a real acoustic space, we may then begin to position sound-objects within the space.
[6]Denis Smalley, inspired by Schaeffer's theories, developed 'spectromorphology’ (Smalley, 1997) as tool for analysing sound materials, he states:"I have developed the concepts and terminology of spectromorphologyas tools for describing and analysing listening experience… A spectromorphological approach sets out spectral and morphological models and processes, and provides a framework for understanding structural relations and behaviours as experienced in the temporal flux of the music."
[7]An important aspect of spectromorphology is, what Smalley calls ‘source bonding’, which he describes as the duality of any given listening situation.