A new approach to musical composition that moves beyond the centrality of the composer and recognises the listener as an active participant in shaping musical experience. Published in the international journal Organised Sound, the study proposes a theoretical and compositional manifesto for ecological music.
Rethinking music from the perspective of the listener, moving beyond a conception of composition based exclusively on the organisation of sounds and the intentions of the composer. This is the central idea behind Ecological Music: A Listener-Centred Approach to Composition, a new article by Michele Biasutti of the University of Padua, published in the internationally recognised scholarly journal Organised Sound by Cambridge University Press.
The article introduces an innovative theoretical and artistic perspective on ecological music, outlining its fundamental principles and establishing a conceptual framework that can be regarded as a manifesto for a listener-centred approach to musical composition.
A New Understanding of Ecological Music
In Biasutti's perspective, ecological music is not simply associated with natural sounds, soundscapes or references to the environment. Instead, it concerns the relationships that emerge between sound, the body, perception, attention and the context in which listening takes place.
Musical composition is therefore reconceived as the design of sonic conditions that enable listeners to explore, recognise, interpret and actively construct musical meaning.
Drawing on ecological psychology, embodied cognition and contemporary theories of perception, this approach understands listening not as the passive reception of auditory information, but as a dynamic, situated and participatory process.
This represents a significant shift in perspective: rather than determining a single musical meaning, the composer creates the conditions through which meaning can emerge from the interaction between sound and listener.
Connecting Scientific Research and Compositional Practice
The article brings together several strands of research and artistic exploration that Michele Biasutti has developed over the years, integrating studies on musical perception, cognitive processes, improvisation and composition.
A distinctive feature of the study is its integration of theoretical reflection and artistic practice. Through the analysis of selected works from his own compositional output, Biasutti demonstrates how repetition, ambiguity, recognition, abstraction, perceptual thresholds and temporal transformations can become powerful resources for activating different modes of listening.
Sound is consequently understood not merely as material to be organised according to formal principles, but as a resource capable of activating perceptual and cognitive processes.
From this perspective, musical composition acquires an exploratory dimension: it can direct attention, reshape expectations, engage memory and encourage new forms of awareness of sonic experience.
Towards a Manifesto for Ecological Music
The study proposes a theoretical and methodological framework that extends across different musical practices, from instrumental and electroacoustic composition to improvisation and experimental or hybrid forms of sound creation.
Ecological music is not presented as a new musical genre, but rather as a broader artistic orientation that redefines the relationship between musical creation and perceptual experience.
In this sense, the article can be understood as a manifesto: it articulates a conception of ecological music, identifies its underlying compositional principles and opens new avenues of research into the role of listeners in constructing musical meaning.
The publication also represents an important point of convergence between scientific research and artistic production, demonstrating how compositional practice itself can serve as a means of investigation, reflection and knowledge generation.
Rethinking the Future of Musical Composition
The study opens new possibilities for investigating the relationships between music, perception, the body and the environment, with implications for musicology, contemporary composition and research into listening processes.
Biasutti's perspective invites a reconsideration of music as a relational experience in which the listener is not simply the recipient of an artistic work, but an active participant in its perceptual realisation.
The fundamental principle is that music does not reside solely in the sounds organised by the composer. It also takes shape through the possibilities for listening, exploration and interpretation that those sounds make available.
By shifting attention from the composer's intentions to the listener's experience, ecological music offers a new conceptual foundation for understanding how musical meaning emerges.
The article thus represents a significant synthesis of Biasutti's scientific and artistic work, while suggesting a broader direction for contemporary musical thought: from composition as the organisation of sound to composition as the creation of possibilities for perceptual experience.
Publication Details
Author: Michele Biasutti
Affiliation: University of Padua, Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology (FISPPA), Italy
Article title: Ecological Music: A Listener-Centred Approach to Composition
Journal: Organised Sound
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication date: 29 July 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1355771826101472
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