This paper is a discussion of these concerns, and a survey of some sound artists' works responding to those concerns through their use of technology. Artists have unique ways of creating, of interacting with their chosen materials in the creative process. Many sound artists feel most comfortable working with their sound physically, allowing the visceral contact with materials to influence their choices. Their work is a dialogue between the creation of physical objects and the sound generated by those objects. Musician's are trained to work with sound largely as an abstraction.
Music theory is developed almost entirely from abstract systems of organizing pitch and rhythm.
These concepts of pitch and rhythm are generalized, idealized. The composer's materials are not physical materials, they are physical phenomena. The act of composing, except in the case of improvisation, is the act of instructing people how to create a phenomenon. These people attacked materials physically, with the hands. Burning things, hammering things.