Musique Concrete & Sound Sculptures

This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound.

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Musique Concrete & Sound Sculptures

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I. Musique Concrete and the emergence of electronic music

Musique Concrete is nothing new. It was pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer and his team in the early 1940xe2x80x99s at the Studio dxe2x80x99Essai de la Radiodiffusion Nationale, an experimental studio created initially to serve as a resistance hub for radio broadcasters in occupied France, in Paris. While Musique Concrete might not be anything new today, at the time however, it represented a major departure from the traditional musical paradigms. By relying entirely on recorded sounds (hence the name xe2x80x9cconcretexe2x80x9d, as in xe2x80x98realxe2x80x99) as a means of musical creation, Schaeffer opened the door to an entirely new way of not only making, but also thinking music. It represented a major push towards a number of new directions.

Timbre was all of a sudden an equally important musical dimension as pitch had been up until then, something that composers like Edgard Varese had long been thinking and writing about. It also paved the way for the emergence of new compositional forms and strucutures. As Pierre Boulez pointed out in xe2x80x9cPenser la musique aujourdxe2x80x99huixe2x80x9d, musical structures were traditionally perceived by the listener as a product of the melody. By removing the melody altogether, and working instead with sound objects, Schaeffer became a bit of an iconoclast. As he himself pointed out in his xe2x80x9cTraitxc3xa9 des objects musicauxxe2x80x9d, the composer is never really free. The choice of his or her notes is based upon the musical code that he himself and his audience have in common. When Musique Concrete was invented, the composer had moved one step ahead of his audience, and was, to some extent, liberated.

One of the earliest pieces of the genre, and perhaps the most famous to this day is Schaefferxe2x80x99s own xe2x80x9cxc3xa9tude aux chemins de ferxe2x80x9d, where the composer mixed a number of sounds recorded from railroads such as engines, whistles and others, in order to create a unique, and truly original composition.

You can listen to the piece here: http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/ ... ns-de-fer/

By todayxe2x80x99s standards, the techniques used by the pioneer of the genre were rudimentary at best, yet they were, and remain, crucial tools of electronic music creation to this day. By taking a look at these techniques, and applying them to a computer music language such as Csound, we can not only gain a better understanding of this pivotal moment in music history, but also deepen our knowledge of sound and composition.

II. Concrete Techniques

The early composers of Musique Concrete mostly worked with records, tape decks, tone generators, mixers, reverbs and delays. Compared to the tools available to the computer musician today, itxe2x80x99s a rather limited palette indeed. This however forced the composer to be much more careful in the selection of the source materials, mostly recordings of course, and far more judicious with the use of the processes to be applied. Using recordings as the main source of sounds confronts the composers with decisions early on in the compositional process, which will have profound consequences on the final piece.

1. Material Selection

While perhaps a bit reductive, the compositional process could be thought of as the selection and combination of various materials. When working with sound objects, the selection process is maybe even more crucial.

It could easily be argued that this process begins at the recording stage. If you happen to be recording your own material, the auditory perspective you chose will have a profound impact on the outcome of the sound. As Jean-Claude Risset pointed out in the analysis of his 1985 piece xe2x80x9cSudxe2x80x9d, the placement and choice of the microphone will hugely change the sound itself. For instance, placing the microphone very close to the source will have a magnifying effect on the sound, while moving it back a bit will give a broader view of the context within the sound is recorded, allowing more ambient sounds and atmospheres to seep in. This is something audio engineers have been very aware of for a long time, but that often gets overlooked by computer musicians. Ixe2x80x99m quite fond of small microphones, such as Lavalier mics for instance, which allow the engineer to place them in places where a traditional microphone will not fit, very close to the sound source. This makes for some very interesting results. For instance, a lav mic placed right below a rotating fan will make it sound like a giant machine, shaking and rattling as if it were 60 feet tall inside a giant wind tunnel. As always, experimentation and careful listening is key.

If you are working with already recorded material, an interesting approach is to work with different sounds, but that evoke similar emotions. This approach was favored by the American composer Tod Dockstader, who in his 1963 piece xe2x80x9cApocalypsexe2x80x9d used a recording of Gregorian chant as a vocalization to the slowed down sound of a creaky door opening and closing. Dockstader came from a post-production background, and perhaps it is no accident that Schaeffer had a background in broadcasting and engineering as well.

You can listen to an excerpt of Apocalypse here:

This technique, of using very different sounds that evoke similar or complementary emotions, is also often used by film sound designers.

Star Warsxe2x80x99 sound designer Ben Burtt often speaks of this in his process. By working with familiar sounds, combining them in unexpected ways and putting them to picture, he has been able to create some of the most successful and iconic sounds in the history of film.

2. Sound techniques and manipulations

While the technology available to the pioneers of musique concrete was fairly primitive, composers managed to come up with a number of creative methods for sound manipulation and creation. A non exhaustive but comprehensive list of these would include:

xe2x80x93 Vari-speed: changing the speed of the tape to change the pitch of the sound.

xe2x80x93 Reversal: playing the tape backwards

xe2x80x93 Comb Filtering: by playing a sound against a slightly delayed version of itself various resonant frequencies are brought in or out.

xe2x80x93 Tape loops: in order to create loops, and grooves out of otherwise non rhythmic material, composers would repeat certain portions of a recording.

xe2x80x93 Splicing: to change the order of the material, or insert new sounds within a recording

xe2x80x93 Filtering: to bring in or out different frequencies of a sound and change its quality and texture

xe2x80x93 Layering: Either done by recording multiple sources down to a new reel or by mixing them in real time via a mixing board.

xe2x80x93 Reverberation, delay: used to create a sense of unity, or fusion between sound sources coming from different origins, and a great way of superimposing a new sense of space on an existing recording.

xe2x80x93 Expanded-compressed time: by slowing down, or speeding up then reversing the direction of a sound.

xe2x80x93 Panning: allowing the composer to place the sound within a stereo or multichannel environment

xe2x80x93 Analog Synthesis: Although the genre was based on recorded sounds mostly, composers sometimes inserted tones and sweeps from oscillators in their compositions.

xe2x80x93 Amplitude modulation: Often done by periodically varying the amplitude of a sound or applying a different amplitude envelope over it.

xe2x80x93 Frequency Modulation: Although frequency modulation as a synthesis technique was discovered long after the beginnings of tape music, vibrato was a well-known technique long before then.


Sampler Concrete

Many tape techniques are simplistic in nature and are easily mimic-able in the digital domain. After all, a sampler can be thought of as a high-tech featured-endowed tape machine. A more apt comparison would be that of a waveform editor such as Peak, WaveLab or Audacity.

Csound instrument called xe2x80x9csplicexe2x80x9d that is about as basic as it gets when it comes to samplers.

https://gist.github.com/jacobjoaquin/1270309

Letxe2x80x99s take a look at the score interface to xe2x80x9csplicexe2x80x9d:

i "splice" start_time duration amplitude begin_splice end_splice

The start time and duration are both default parameters of a score instrument event. Three additional parameters are included for setting the amplitude, specifying the beginning time (in seconds) of the sample and specifying the end time (in seconds) of the sample to be played.

With this short list of instrument parameters, the following techniques are showcased in the Csound example: Splicing, Vari-speed, Reversal, xe2x80x9cTapexe2x80x9d Loop, Layering, Delay and Comb Filtering.

Continuing Schaefferxe2x80x99s tradition of using recordings of train, Ixe2x80x99m using a found sound that I found on SoundCloud of the Manhattan subway. The recording is approximately 30 seconds in length. Most of the splicing in the examples take place between 17 and 26 seconds into the recording. Here are the results.

With this one simple instrument, it is entirely conceivable to compose a complete piece in the style of classic tape music.

http://codehop.com/sampler-concrete/


eye have created several tools specifically for composing concrete musique as main function then realized they could perform way more functions so evolved them over time....
plus have habit of creating sample source libraries for using in compositions

Share any of your music concrete in theory and practice here
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