Genesis of the Electronic Ear — A testimony by Christophe Besson
Testimony of Christophe Besson, manufacturer of the Electronic Ear (Tomatis Effect) since 1992 and a former close collaborator of Alfred Tomatis. This text first appeared as the author’s contribution to the book TOMATIS — Une expérience à partager (Juan Antonio Timor Pineda and Chaime Marcuello Servós). It is reproduced here as a first-hand testimony: as the personal account of a witness, it engages its author alone and completes, in a subjective register, the factual presentation found in the Museum section.
I should introduce myself: Christophe Besson, a former close collaborator of Alfred Tomatis. I will attempt to set out briefly the evolution of that re-education machine that is the Electronic Ear (Tomatis Effect), of which I have been the manufacturer since 1992.
A large part of this information comes from a re-reading of the autobiographical work L’Oreille et la Vie, published by Robert Laffont in Paris in 1977 and again in 1990, as well as from anecdotes I personally lived or gathered from those closest to him.
The origins: the Arsenaux (1945-1946)
It all began in 1945. After leaving the air force and completing his medical studies, specialised in otorhinolaryngology, Alfred Tomatis was working both as an external phoniatrist in the department of the Bretonneau hospital, under Dr Maurice Lallemant, and as consulting physician at the Arsenaux de l’Aéronautique.
Having obtained permission to carry out a few investigations in the auditory field with the employees of the Arsenaux, who worked in conditions of almost continuous acoustic aggression, Alfred Tomatis set up his first laboratory. The installation was in fact no more than a coal cellar fitted out in the most rudimentary fashion: a table, a few chairs, a makeshift lighting system and an audiometer.
He began to collect audiometric results from workers who, at the time, feared that the examination might serve to exclude those whose hearing was deemed insufficient. Strikingly, in that climate of anxiety, the results were rather good.
Encouraged by Dr Lallemant to continue, Tomatis set up in 1946, at his own expense, in an apartment that served at once as personal laboratory and private surgical consulting room. He then published, in collaboration with Drs Maduro and Lallemant, a work devoted to the problems of occupational deafness. This publication earned him a far better reception from the personnel of the Arsenaux — who, this time, hoped to obtain financial compensation. The results immediately collapsed. From this Tomatis drew a fundamental conclusion: the ear listens with its state of mind as much as with its physiological mechanisms.
The audio-vocal loop (1946-1947)
While seeking to help two baritones sent to him by his father — who were losing control of their voices as soon as they reached the high notes — Tomatis, out of curiosity, subjected them to the same audiometric tests as the workers. He found that their auditory curves both presented a weakness at the same level, identical to that which he observed in persons affected by occupational deafness.
The answer imposed itself progressively. If these singers were singing out of tune, it was because they were hearing themselves poorly. And if they were hearing themselves poorly, they could not control themselves. The voice reproduces only what the ear hears — such was the lapidary formula that would become the foundation of all his research. This was 1947.
He then worked on the recordings of the great singers he could not examine directly, in particular Enrico Caruso. He found that Caruso presented an 18 dB drop in the high frequencies by air conduction — he heard his own high notes poorly, but reconstituted them through bone conduction, which gave him that uncommon vocal control. The idea arose: why not give Caruso’s ear to his patients in difficulty?
Auditory balance and the directing ear (1948)
Pursuing his research, Tomatis brought to light the fact that the two ears do not play the same role in vocal self-monitoring. The right ear proves to be the directing one: the nerve pathway linking the cortex to the larynx is shorter on the right side, which places the right ear nearer to the phonatory organs. He thus established that the right auditory circuit comprises five stages against six for the left circuit, the latter requiring an additional inter-hemispheric transfer — the source of measurable delays of between 0.10 and 0.40 seconds. It is within the window of 0.10 to 0.20 seconds that stammering appears systematically.
The first Electronic Ear (1952)
In 1950, Tomatis began to design an apparatus for audio-vocal education and re-education. The gating mechanism was suggested to him by an experience with a French singer who, after having recovered his voice through treatment, was stumbling obstinately on the first syllable of the word trono. Comparing his emission with that of Caruso, Tomatis noticed that Caruso introduced a brief click — a slight discontinuity — before the difficult passages. This preparation time gave the ear the moment it needed to dispose itself to listen.
In 1952, the first Electronic Ear was built. Schematically, the apparatus comprised two Baxandall-type tone correctors — channels C1 and C2 — allowing the ear to be conditioned: C1 favours the low frequencies (relaxation), C2 favours the high frequencies (activation). Manual switches handled the gating between the two. This alternation compelled the ear to react ceaselessly, like a trained muscle.
Electronic gating (1954)
In 1954, Tomatis automated the gating by means of electronic commands — hence the definitive name of the machine: Electronic Ear. This system of electronic gating was to revolutionise everything.
It was at this time that he received Daniel Sorano, a former singer and great actor who had lost the modulation of his stage voice. Tomatis applied to him the same treatment as to his singers: Daniel Sorano recovered his voice. By experimentally suppressing Sorano’s right ear, Tomatis observed that he immediately began to stammer — proof that it is indeed the right ear that controls the audio-vocal loop.
The line input and delay (1955-1956)
In 1955, Tomatis enriched the Electronic Ear with a Line input allowing the patient to listen to music in addition to their own voice. Then, in 1956, the work of the Americans Lee and Black on delayed feedback led him to introduce the delay parameter — that lag corresponding to the neurological latency time, variable from one individual and one language to the next, which conditions the quality of vocal self-monitoring.
On 4 June 1957, the Tomatis Effect was officially presented to the scientific community by Drs Moulonguet and Husson at the Académie de médecine in Paris, and by Drs Monnier and Husson at the Académie des sciences.
Audio-psycho-phonology and bone conduction (1960-1965)
In 1960, Tomatis left the Arsenaux and devoted himself entirely to his new discipline: audio-psycho-phonology. In 1965, the work of Strumsta — a pupil of Dr Black who had come to work alongside him — led him to add bone conduction to the Electronic Ear, thereby allowing direct work on self-monitoring through the cranial pathway, essential for singers and for those who stammer.
The international network and precession (1976-1982)
In 1976, Tomatis was simultaneously running centres in Madrid, Geneva, Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal. In 1980, in collaboration with the engineer Ed Agnew in Toronto, he took a decisive step: the passage from electronic tubes to transistors, and the introduction of the precession parameter — that vestibulo-cochlear preparation time that precedes the act of listening, the response to the desire to listen which mobilises the whole body even before the sound arrives.
Filters and industrialisation (1988-1992)
In 1988, Tomatis integrated directly into the machine 6th-order high-pass filters on nine frequencies, from 500 to 8,000 Hz. The machine so constituted — the EE3PFR2 — was the first to allow him to carry out the whole of his treatments without any additional accessory. It is the machine most often represented in the literature devoted to the method.
In 1992, faced with rising orders and reliability problems, Tomatis entrusted me with the manufacture of all his products. It is thus that, barely out of my studies, and thanks to a generous associate, I was able to create in Neuchâtel, in Switzerland, an independent company — Acoustic System Besson SA — entirely dedicated to the development and production of his equipment.
The NewTec and the difficult years (1995-2004)
Several years of digital research, with the University of Gdańsk and the Institute of Microtechnology of Neuchâtel, finally enabled us to understand in depth all the parameters of gating. In 1995, we redesigned an analogue machine with infinite response, very close to the physiology of the human ear: the NewTec, or A1 NewTec.
Tomatis died in Carcassonne at the end of December 2001. From that moment on, I found myself almost alone in producing these machines.
Continuity (2004 to today)
In 2004, the impromptu visit of Juan Antonio Timor — who had come from Saragossa to Neuchâtel in a van, with his wife and daughters, to convince me not to give up — changed everything. Since September 2004, I have recreated the complete equipment from A to Z, including the high-definition sound sources and the listening test. Since then, I have continued the manufacture of the analogue Electronic Ear, in fidelity to the principles established by Alfred Tomatis.
Christophe Besson — Neuchâtel, September 2013.