The present methods of writing music, principally those which employ harmony and its reference to particular steps in the field of sound, will be inadequate for the composer, who will be faced with the entire field of sound.
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings, p. 4. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.
Before this happens, centers of experimental music must be established. In these centers, the new materials, oscillators, turntables, generators, means for amplifying small sounds, film phonographs, etc., available for use. Composers at work using twentieth-century means for making music. Performances of results. Organization of sound for extra-musical purposes (theatre, dance, radio, film).
Cage, J. (1961). Silence: Lectures and writings, p. 6. Middletown, Conn: Wesleyan University Press.
IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique) is a European institute for science about music and sound and avant garde electro-acoustical art music. It is situated next to, and is organizationally linked with, the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The extension of the building was designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers.
~Wikipedia
The UC Berkeley Center for New Music and Audio Technologies (CNMAT) was conceived and established by composer and Professor Emeritus Richard Felciano in the late 1980s — the operating budget officially commenced on July 1, 1989. CNMAT houses a dynamic group of educational, performance and research programs focused on the creative interaction between music and technology. CNMAT’s research program is highly interdisciplinary, linking all of UC Berkeley’s disciplines dedicated to the study or creative use of sound (such as music, architecture, mathematics, statistics, mechanical engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, psychology, physics, space sciences, the Center for New Media, and the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies). CNMAT’s educational program integrates a Music and Technology component into the Department of Music’s graduate program in music composition – it also supports the undergraduate curriculum in music/technology for music majors and non-music majors.
~From http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/about
So, John, particular steps in the field of sound have clearly become inadequate these days.