# Maryanne Amacher [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryanne_Amacher) (1938–2009) ## Description American composer of large-scale, fixed-duration sound installations and a central figure in research on sound spatialization and aural architecture. She is best known for "ear tone" music, built from otoacoustic emissions and combination tones that the listener's own ear produces in response to sustained tones played at high volume. ## Key Tags #sound #installation #durational #feminist ## Essential Works - [City-Links](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryanne_Amacher) (1967–1980) - series of long-duration telematic broadcasts, live-linking the sounds of distant city spaces - [Music for Sound-Joined Rooms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryanne_Amacher) - installation series generating "ear tones" through sustained tones and psychoacoustic distortion ## Details Studied composition with Karlheinz Stockhausen and worked closely with John Cage early in her career. "Ear tone" music exploits otoacoustic emissions — sounds the inner ear itself generates in response to certain combinations of tones at sustained volume — so that part of what the listener hears is produced by their own body, blurring the line between the piece and the listener's physiology. Her long-duration *City-Links* broadcasts, live-linking distant urban soundscapes over telephone lines, anticipated later telematic and network sound art by decades. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Music Studies]] - psychoacoustic and perceptual research extending sound and installation composition ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements - Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT - fellow, 1972–1976; developed early "ear tone" pieces using Marvin Minsky's Triadex Muse ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %% ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%