MUSIQUE CONCRETE
PRINCIPLE
Originally, a kind of music created by Pierre Schaeffer in the late 40s.
This music was based on the use of "real" sounds : for instance, when one records sounds of squeaking doors and makes a whole music piece out of it.Two musique concrète pieces :
"Etude aux chemins de fer" ("Railway study") by Schaeffer himself
"Variations pour une porte et un soupir" ("Sigh and door variations") by Pierre Henry
DETAILS
To make musique concrète :
1. Record - a "real", "noisy" sound
2. Forget its origin, and consider it from a morphological point of view (see "reduced listening" here)
3. Now it's a word - make sentences, phrases, out of it
A bit of vocabulary :
- the physical object that actually produced the sound is called a corps sonore - a sound body
- the recorded sound, considered from a morphological point of view only is called an objet sonore - a sound object
- when it comes to combine sound objects to create musical phrases, one can use different names
Schaeffer wanted to use un solfège de l'objet sonore - I will translate that as "sound object grammar".
Denis Dufour uses the expression séquence-jeu, litteraly "sequence-game".
Both Schaeffer and Dufour combine sound objects using morphological profiles, energy evolutions etc.
Musique concrète can be considered a specific kind of electroacoustic music.
MUSIQUE CONCRETE TODAY
Nowadays, musique concrète doesn't really exist anymore : practically noone's going to make a whole piece out of noises using this "solfège de l'objet sonore" . It would be a bit like trying to cook a dish out of hot pepper only. A few specialists may like it, but for most listeners it's just not possible.
However, it remains one of the most important aspects of today's music : a theoretical and formal support on how to use "raw" sounds in electroacoustic music.
Musique concrète can't exist as a "standalone" kind of music - but it's a new vocabulary that can be used, and which is actually being used : look at all the samples we find in most records from the 90s and afterwards.