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An electroacoustic musical work is a complex network of processes and elements: technical, musical, human, etc.; therefore, while the aesthetic perception is unified, its definition is fragmentary. This observation compels us to intensify our study of a taxonomy of agents and processes, with the aim of clarifying the identity of this music.The discussion is positioned according to two different vantage points: (i) analysis of works, and (ii) the writings devoted to the aesthetics of electroacoustic music. Musicological analysis is simultaneously the means, the goal and the motivation for getting to know this arborescent reality. It allows us to arrive at the identification of six agents and four processes associated with the work, whose main properties we will describe. These elements are used as a methodological and theoretical grid for organising the discussion about the works. The question centres on a paradigm which is created from the analysis and returns to it, as an essential link between hermeneutic knowledge and the knowledge of the internal logic of an electroacoustic work.

Fifty years down the line, the analysis of computer music is still a very complex issue, highly dependent on the identity of computer music itself: the variety of software, the lack of a common musical notation for scores, the absence or presence of computer data. This has led to the emergence of a multitude of analytical methods, including aesthesical analysis, which approaches music from the point of view of perception, and poietical analysis, which pays attention to the creative process.This study aims to combine these two methods of analysis in order to understand the relationship between technology and the actual piece of music. The article presents a methodological approach – focused on six pieces produced at IRCAM in Paris and at CSC in Padua, between 1975 and 1985 – via an in-depth consideration of Mauro Graziani's Winter leaves, a work conceived in 1980 at the CSC using Music360. The method used consists of comparing data collected using a diversity of practices: repeated listening, the tracing of graphical schematics, sonogram and spectrogram analysis, data listing analysis. An algorithm has also been created in order to calculate the degree to which the software is exploited and to enable a comparison between the different analyses. It is hoped that this procedure will combine traditional musicological methods with new approaches suited to the medium and grounded in a thorough knowledge of computer technology and musical environments.

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Throughout the history of electroacoustic music, creative collaboration has been a constant feature due to the complexity of the technology. All laboratories and electronic music studios involved the presence of different individuals with diverse, intertwined competencies. In particular, the embedding of technological tools into the process of musical creation prompted the rise of a new "agent" called the Computer Music Designer (CMD), who can work in writing, creating new instruments, recording and/or performance. Audiences as well as the academia have long been unaware of this emerging profession and its crucial role in the creative process of electroacoustic, electronic and computer music. This study sheds light on the socio-professional profile and expertise of the CMD in order to better understand how computer music design contributes to shaping electronic music as we know it. We present the methodology and outcomes of a questionnaire submitted to several CMDs. The purpose was to investigate this emerging community by means of an instrument permitting anonymity. Findings help to understand how the CMDs perceive their profession; trace common paths and habits among CMDs; and study this community from the point of view of their age, training, tasks, legal status, recognition, skills, professional identity and involvement in technological migration. The questionnaire instrument is appended.