Musique concrete
Musique concrète, translating to "concrete music," is a genre of composition that emerged in France in the mid-20th century, focusing on the use of real-world sounds. Developed by Pierre Schaeffer at the Studio d'Essai in 1948, this innovative technique involves recording, manipulating, and assembling environmental sounds—both natural and synthetic—into compositions that are played through speakers rather than traditional instruments. The intention behind musique concrète is to liberate these sounds from their conventional meanings, allowing both composers and listeners to perceive them subjectively.
Schaeffer's landmark composition, "Symphonie pour un homme seul," showcases the use of human voices and everyday noises, emphasizing rhythm and structure in a new auditory framework. Over time, the movement evolved, leading to the formation of the Groupe de Musique Concrète, which further explored concepts of acousmatic music—listening to sounds without seeing their sources, fostering a state of "reduced listening." Techniques such as tape manipulation, splicing, and layering characterize the genre, which significantly influenced the development of contemporary electronic music. Musique concrète raises intriguing questions about the nature of music and noise, inviting diverse interpretations of what constitutes musicality in the auditory experience.
On this Page
Musique concrete
Musique concrète is a French term that translates as "concrete music." It refers to music that is recorded and composed from real sounds—sounds in the surrounding environment, either natural or deliberately generated—and used to develop compositions that are played through speakers, rather than with musical instruments. It is a modern musical technique, developed in France in the mid-twentieth century, and is considered the origin of contemporary electronic music. The earliest goal of the musique concrète technique was to take common, recognizable sounds and, by manipulation and reorganization in the composition, free them of their meaning—making the sounds completely subjective to both the listener and the composer—essentially giving the composer freedom from traditional music theory and composition and developing a new musical art.
Brief History
Musique concrète was first developed in 1948 at an experimental French radio studio, the Studio d'Essai, by Pierre Schaeffer. Schaeffer was a radio engineer, not a composer or trained musician, and he developed this new composition technique using real (concrete) sounds, recorded on disks or tapes. Schaeffer compared his technique to figurative painting, in the way that it brought different objects together in a collage-type piece of art. Musique concrète composers would record any sounds from the world around them, whether natural or synthetic. These recorded sounds were then blended, manipulated, and combined into unique compositions. Musique concrète is considered the earliest form of electronic music, and the precursor to the development of computer-based music.
The primary difference in musique concrète performances is that instead of the presence of conductors, performers, and instruments, the performance is conducted through speakers. The first musique concrète concert of its kind from Schaeffer's studio was called Concert de bruits (Concert of Noises), and was made up of percussive sounds, sounds that were recorded in a kitchen, and sounds recorded from trains—but Schaeffer's goal was to organize it all based on traditional musical elements such as rhythm, solos, and crescendos. Much of the public reacted to this concert with either derision or anger, but Schaeffer's performance intrigued other composers of his time, some of whom began to work with him at the studio, including Pierre Henry. Schaeffer's most notable and frequently referenced composition is Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950; Symphony for One Man Only). This symphony was composed primarily of human voices, from single words to screams, moans, laughs, sighs, and more, along with footsteps and other sounds from the surrounding environment. In 1951, Schaeffer and Henry formed the Groupe de Musique Concrète, which was soon renamed the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM), and was eventually taken over by composer François Bayle.
In the 1970s, Bayle began to refer to the musique concrète technique as acousmatic music. Bayle's usage of the term was based on Schaeffer's goal of facilitating a state of "reduced listening," which is intended to deliberately conceal the source of the sound so that the listener is only experiencing the actual properties of the sound itself, rather than what it usually signifies (the activity, object, or cause with which the sound is usually associated). In this method of listening, the sounds become completely objective, both to the composer and to the listener. The usage of the term acousmatic comes from Pythagoras, whose students were known as akusmatikoi because they received lectures from behind a curtain, which Pythagoras believed would reduce distraction and improve understanding. Researchers soon found, however, that reduced listening was not possible without constant vigilance on behalf of the listener—and that in fact, listeners to musique concrète actively construct a mental image of the source of the sounds based on what they hear, which is based on instinctual human behavior. After some initial resistance to this fact, acousmatic composers soon embraced it and began to use the recorded sounds to add symbolism to their work.
Overview
Composers of musique concrète used a number of different techniques to develop and manipulate their recorded sounds and turn them into a single composition. These included manipulating the speed of the tape, which alters the pitch; playing the tape backward; looping the tapes; splicing to add new sounds or alter the order in which sounds are played; filtering, to change the frequency of the sound; and layering sounds. Composers of electronic music today have many more computer-generated options, which significantly reduce the time required to record and allow for a wider variety of sound manipulation options. As a result, from the 1970s until the present, musique concrète, acousmatic music, and electronic music have continued to evolve. Even people who choose not to listen to electronic music (referred to as techno or electronica) have nonetheless experienced it, typically as sound effects and background music in films.
By its nature, the primary musical element in musique concrète compositions is timbre, which refers to the quality of a sound, rather than its pitch or its melody. Many examples of musique concrète may not even have a discernible melody line. This fact has raised questions about the actual musicality of musique concrète or acousmatic music, with some acoustic researchers going so far as to question the differences between noise and music—considering what makes one sound musical (with its usually pleasant connotations) and one sound, or combination of sounds, noise (with its typically unpleasant associations). Some experts believe some of the answers seem to lie in whether or not the sound brings aesthetic pleasure and therefore a positive sensation, or whether the sound causes sensory dissonance and a feeling of unpleasantness. The causes of sensory dissonance can include the volume and distance from the source of the sound, its frequency, and its immediate effect—for instance, if the sound is startling. However, much like Schaeffer's and Bayle's theories of reduced listening, it is very difficult to be completely objective in the context of a pleasant or unpleasant sound, as what may be pleasing to one person may be irritating to another.
Bibliography
Andean, James. "Sound and Narrative: Acousmatic Composition as Artistic Research." Journal of Sonic Studies, vol. 7, 2014. www.researchcatalogue.net/view/86118/86119. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.
Emmerson, Simon. Music, Electronic Media and Culture. New York, Routledge, 2016.
Fox, Christopher. "Electronic Music's Sound of Futures Past." Guardian, 4 Oct. 2013, www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/04/electronic-music-sound-futures-past. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.
"Musique Concrète: Overview." AllMusic, www.allmusic.com/subgenre/musique-concr%C3%A8te-ma0000012319. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.
Rakowski, A. "Noise as Music." Archives of Acoustics, vol. 21, no. 3, 1996, pp. 267–274. acoustics.ippt.pan.pl/index.php/aa/article/view/996/838. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.
Schaeffer, Pierre. In Search of a Concrete Music. Translated by John Dack and Christine North, U of California P, 2012.
Sinclair, Jean-Luc. "Organizing Sounds: Musique Concrète, Part I." Codehop, 29 Sept. 2011, codehop.com/organizing-sounds-musique-concrète-part-i/. Accessed 20 Jan. 2017.
Taylor, Timothy D. Strange Sounds: Music, Technology & Culture. New York, Routledge, 2001.