In musique concrete and electronic music theory the term sound object (originally l'objet sonore) is used to refer to a primary unit of sonic material and often specifically refers to recorded sound rather than written music using manuscript or a score. It was coined by Pierre Schaeffer in his publication Traité des objets musicaux (1966). Definitions Pierre Schaeffer According to Schaeffer: This unit of sound [sound-object] is the equivalent to a unit of breath or articulation, a unit of instrumental gesture. The sound object is therefore an acoustic action and intention of listening. Schaeffer believed that the sound object should be free from its sonic origin (its sound source, or source bonding) so that a listener could not identify it, what he termed as acousmatic listening. Schaeffer's four functions of the "What Can be Heard" include: 1. A sonic entity is detected by its signal being picked up by the autonomous mechanism of hearing (ouïr) 2. The signalled sonic entity (having been detected) 'sound character' is deciphered by the active perception of listening (écouter) 3. The signalled sonic entity is then subjected to a twofold focused attention that judges then describes it 4. The signalled sonic entities' significance is then understood by abstraction, comparison, deduction and by linking it to different sources and types (either the initial meaning is confirmed or if denied an additional meaning is worked out. This leads to the acousmatic situation that is focused on subjective "listening itself which becomes the phenomena under study" rather than the object sound source. Music theorist Brian Kane, in his book Sound Unseen notes that Schaeffer states, "the sound object, is never revealed clearly except in the acousmatic experience.” Schaeffer's theory of acousmatic experience, the sound object, and a technique he called reduced listening (écoute réduite) utilizes a phenomenological approach derived from the work of Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. According to Kane a good grasp of Husserlian theory is required in order to fully comprehend the relationship between the three. Curtis Roads 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." This broader interpretation includes the following categories of sound objects:1. Infinite The