Abstract

TheMartinelli, DariopresentStefani, Gino study aims at three main goals. Firstly, there will be an effort to define and describe the notion of “soundSound” in popular musicPopular music, not in its denotative sense, but within the complex semantic field of discourses and practices occurring among musicians and music listeners. Far from simply addressing the idea of soundSound as “physical” phenomenon, such field tends to incorporate a varied range of musical and extra-musical elements, including production, performance, arrangement, sensorial perceptions, taste, cultural conventions and much more. Secondly, an investigation will be performed on the relationship between soundSound and human subject, in terms of impact, conducts and, so to speak, “familiarity” between the two parties. In other words, the research will attempt to understand how and how much the soundSound manages to impose itself on the listener's attention, if it is possible to speak reasonably of a specifically “sonic” musical conduct, and finally of what nature is the relationship existing between soundSound and subject, in terms of importance and, in a way that shall be clarified later, of ‘priority’. Both this and the previous goal will be highly informed by the theories of the late Gino StefaniStefani, Gino, the first musical semiotician who has devoted attention to this particular acceptation of the term “soundSound”, and, at the same time, to its relationship with the subject, within his well-known theoretical framework of the “musical competenceMusical competence”. Finally, the above reflections will be empirically applied in a traditional “Stefanian” sense, through the transcription and the analysis of a full “From experience to theoryFrom experience to theory” workshop focused on soundSound.