Phonomnesis

This effect refers to a sound that is imagined but not actually heard. Phonomnesis (phonomnèse) is a mental activity that involves internal listening: examples include recalling to memory sounds linked to a situation, or creating sound textures in the context of composition. Close to anamnesis because of its inner, rather than sonic, nature, the phonomnesis effect consists of imagining a sound. In this case, it is not a sound situation that stimulates a memory process, but rather a lived situation that engenders an inner and silent listening. There is no strict causality between the lived and the imagined sound. The latter can be expressed in multiple ways: the remembered tune, the mental elaboration of that same melody interpreted by instruments of different timbres, the invention of sound images, musical or not. Phonomnesis remains one of the great methods of composition, since a theme – before it is actually played, whistled, or hummed – is a mental act. Listening is an act that can sometimes be totally mental and silent. Graphic sonic effects, characteristic of strip cartoons and real phonomnesic indicators, transpose the sonic world into the visual field, in which the occupied surface and the shapes of letters combine to illustrate or invent the intended effect.