Musique Concrete: A Radical Re-Thinking of Sound and Performance

If there’s an over-riding theme across the last several episodes, it is that music can be whatever we say it is.  In this third and last episode on this theme, we’re talking about Musique Concrete. It’s the name applied to a one of the most radical descriptions of music ever imagined.  Think of this music like you do when you think of abstract, visual art.  For instance, Picasso’s Guernica.  There aren’t too many people that think of that painting as traditionally beautiful, but there is a shocking, provocative, stirring power to it. The same holds true with this challenging music.With musique concrète, (French: “concrete music”), natural and mechanical sounds were captured or created using new inventions, the tape recorder, and later the computer and the synthesizer.   Sounds can either be used in their natural forms, or they could be processed and changed and then combined with other sounds to create a montage.   Other traits that define musique concrete include randomness, and the discard of the traditional composer-performer roles.  Sounds can be looped, played backward, sped up, slowed down, cut short or extended.  Their natural pitches could be varied, echoes could be added and so on.  As I did with episodes 14 and 15, I'm also going to show you how these really bizarre ideas eventually made their way into our current popular music scene.  Musique Concrete has made an impact in jazz and rock, too.   This is fun stuff!In This Episode:Pierre SchaefferPierre HenryJohn CageHarry PartchKarlheinz StockhausenThe BeatlesPink FloydIndustrial bandsPlunderphonics