Acoustic Chains in Acousmatic Music

The notion of ‘acoustic chains’ will be posited. It will be argued that ‘acoustic chains’ link certain acousmatic works at what Denis Smalley terms the ‘indicative listening mode’ through their common ‘affordances’ - a term originally used by James Gibson to interpret visual culture and adapted by Luke Windsor to acousmatic music. It will be contended that the listener to an acousmatic work, when presented with a sounding object, perceives its affordance in relation to previous works before considering what the sounding object affords within the internal structure of the work.