musique concrète

Musique concrète was pioneered by Pierre Schaeffer at the RTF studios in Paris in 1948. Unlike traditional composition that begins with abstract notation, musique concrète starts with "concrete" recorded sounds — whether environmental noises, instrumental tones, or vocal fragments — which are then transformed through techniques like speed alteration, reversal, looping, and splicing. This revolutionary approach fundamentally challenged the notion of what constitutes music, removing the boundary between "musical" and "non-musical" sound. Schaeffer's early études, created using phonograph turntables and later tape recorders, influenced virtually every subsequent genre of electronic music, from ambient to industrial to hip-hop sampling.