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85-490: The Qemists are an English electronic rock group, hailing from Brighton , Sussex. They are signed to Amazing Record Co., an indie record label based in the UK. The band have a separate deal with Beat Records for distribution in Japan and with Detroit-based label FiXT Music for North America. The Qemists were originally the drummer, bassist and guitarist in a rock band where they spent

170-400: A relief desk ( pupitre de relief , but also referred to as pupitre d'espace or potentiomètre d'espace ) and was intended to control the dynamic level of music played from several shellac players. This created a stereophonic effect by controlling the positioning of a monophonic sound source. One of five tracks, provided by a purpose-built tape machine, was controlled by the performer and

255-482: A shellac record recorder, a mixing desk with rotating potentiometers , mechanical reverberation units, filters , and microphones . This technology made a number of limited operations available to a composer: The application of the above technologies in the creation of musique concrète led to the development of a number of sound manipulation techniques including: The first tape recorders started arriving at ORTF in 1949; however, they were much less reliable than

340-536: A "symphony of noises". These journals were published in 1952 as A la recherche d'une musique concrète , and according to Brian Kane, author of Sound Unseen: Acousmatic Sound in Theory and Practice , Schaeffer was driven by: "a compositional desire to construct music from concrete objects – no matter how unsatisfactory the initial results – and a theoretical desire to find a vocabulary, solfège, or method upon which to ground such music. The development of Schaeffer's practice

425-436: A common motor, each tape having an independent spool . The objective was to keep the three tapes synchronised from a common starting point. Works could then be conceived polyphonically , and thus each head conveyed a part of the information and was listened to through a dedicated loudspeaker. It was an ancestor of the multi-track player (four then eight tracks) that appeared in the 1960s. Timbres Durées by Olivier Messiaen with

510-462: A fusion of rock and electronic, electronic rock features instruments found in both genres, such as synthesizers , mellotrons , tape music techniques, electric guitars and drums . Some electronic rock artists, however, often eschew guitar in favor of using technology to emulate a rock sound. Vocals are typically mellow or upbeat, but instrumentals are also common in the genre. A trend of rock bands that incorporated electronic sounds began during

595-457: A group of sound projectors which form an 'orchestration' of the acoustic image". As of 2010, the Acousmonium was still performing, with 64 speakers, 35 amplifiers, and 2 consoles. Although Schaeffer's work aimed to defamiliarize the used sounds, other composers favoured the familiarity of source material by using snippets of music or speech taken from popular entertainment and mass media, with

680-404: A lot of time touring UK and Europe as well as spending a lot of time in the studio. During this time in the rock band in the late 1990s, they acquired an interest in drum and bass and some of the group's early efforts started to get airplay. For many years they were performing in the rock band as their day job while producing and DJing drum and bass at night, and this conflict of interests led to

765-542: A manner of composing, indeed, a new mental framework of composing". Schaeffer had developed an aesthetic that was centred upon the use of sound as a primary compositional resource. The aesthetic also emphasised the importance of play ( jeu ) in the practice of sound based composition. Schaeffer's use of the word jeu , from the verb jouer , carries the same double meaning as the English verb to play : 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', as well as 'to operate

850-503: A means to define values as precisely as some other synthesisers of the day. The development of the machine was constrained by several factors. It needed to be modular and the modules had to be easily interconnected (so that the synthesiser would have more modules than slots and it would have an easy-to-use patch). It also needed to include all the major functions of a modular synthesiser including oscillators , noise-generators, filters , ring-modulators , but an intermodulation facility

935-1185: A musical instrument'. By 1951 the work of Schaeffer, composer- percussionist Pierre Henry, and sound engineer Jacques Poullin had received official recognition and the Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète, Club d 'Essai de la Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was established at RTF in Paris, the ancestor of the ORTF . At RTF the GRMC established the first purpose-built electroacoustic music studio. It quickly attracted many who either were or were later to become notable composers, including Olivier Messiaen , Pierre Boulez , Jean Barraqué , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Edgard Varèse , Iannis Xenakis , Michel Philippot , and Arthur Honegger . Compositional "output from 1951 to 1953 comprised Étude I (1951) and Étude II (1951) by Boulez, Timbres-durées (1952) by Messiaen, Étude aux mille collants (1952) by Stockhausen, Le microphone bien tempéré (1952) and La voile d'Orphée (1953) by Henry, Étude I (1953) by Philippot, Étude (1953) by Barraqué,

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1020-428: A new collective, called Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) and set about recruiting new members including Luc Ferrari , Beatriz Ferreyra , François-Bernard Mâche , Iannis Xenakis , Bernard Parmegiani , and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou . Later arrivals included Ivo Malec , Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and François Bayle . GRM was one of several theoretical and experimental groups working under

1105-486: A new wave of math rock , industrial rock , and noise rock . Synth-metal is the fusion of heavy metal and electronic music. It was pioneered in the 1980s with Iron Maiden 's album Somewhere in Time and Judas Priest 's album Turbo , both of which notably incorporate guitar synthesizers . They were both released in 1986. Besides synth-metal, electronicore , electrogrind , coldwave and dungeon synth , heavy metal

1190-570: A number of subsequent industrial dance , industrial rock and industrial metal acts. It also influenced the hardcore punk inspired digital hardcore , which combines hardcore punk with electronic music, noise and heavy metal . It typically features fast tempos and aggressive sound samples . In addition, pop punk fused itself with synth-punk to create a genre known as neon pop . Later revival instance include electronic body music, dance punk, and electroclash. Other artists, like Chicago 's Big Black , put guitars back in, and helped to spawn

1275-626: A performance situation; an attitude that has stayed with acousmatic music to the present day. After the longstanding rivalry with the electronic music of the Cologne studio had subsided, in 1970 the GRM finally created an electronic studio using tools developed by the physicist Enrico Chiarucci, called the Studio 54, which featured the "Coupigny modular synthesiser" and a Moog synthesiser. The Coupigny synthesiser , named for its designer François Coupigny, director of

1360-456: A presentation of Bayle's Expérience acoustique . The Acousmonium is a specialised sound reinforcement system consisting of between 50 and 100 loudspeakers , depending on the character of the concert, of varying shape and size. The system was designed specifically for the concert presentation of musique-concrète-based works but with the added enhancement of sound spatialisation. Loudspeakers are placed both on stage and at positions throughout

1445-458: A set of sound recordings was produced, entitled Le solfège de l'objet sonore (Music Theory of the Acoustic Object), to provide examples of concepts dealt with in the treatise. The development of musique concrète was facilitated by the emergence of new music technology in post-war Europe. Access to microphones, phonographs, and later magnetic tape recorders (created in 1939 and acquired by

1530-414: A sound collage in the film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), during the first transformation scene, as "pre-musique concrète". Ottorino Respighi 's Pines of Rome (1924) calls for a phonograph recording of birdsong to be played during the third movement. In 1942, French composer and theoretician Pierre Schaeffer began his exploration of radiophony when he joined Jacques Copeau and his pupils in

1615-444: A studio-based art. Although there was no direct line traceable between the two Pierres and Marley Marl , it was as if musique concrète went truant from the academy and became street music, the soundtrack to block parties and driving." He described this era of hip hop as "the most vibrant and flourishing descendant – albeit an indirect one – of musique concrète ". Chicago Reader ' s J. Niimi writes that when Public Enemy producers

1700-402: A system that involved three operators: one in charge of the machines, a second controlling the mixing desk, and third to provide guidance to the others. Because of this the synthesiser and desk were combined and organised in a manner that allowed it to be used easily by a composer. Independently of the mixing tracks (24 in total), it had a coupled connection patch that permitted the organisation of

1785-470: A three-track tape recorder ; a machine with ten playback heads to replay tape loops in echo (the morphophone); a keyboard -controlled machine to play tape loops at preset speeds (the keyboard, chromatic , or Tolana phonogène ); a slide-controlled machine to replay tape loops at a continuously variable range of speeds (the handle, continuous, or Sareg phonogène ); and a device to distribute an encoded track across four loudspeakers , including one hanging from

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1870-418: A whole new technique of production, less dependent on performance skills, could be developed. Tape editing brought a new technique called " micromontage ", in which very small fragments of sound were edited together, thus creating completely new sounds or structures on a larger scale. During the GRMC period from 1951 to 1958, Schaeffer and Poullin developed a number of novel sound creation tools. These included

1955-473: A work of "blind cinema" without visuals, introduced recordings of environmental sound, to represent the urban soundscape of Berlin , two decades before musique concrète was formalised. Ruttmann's soundtrack has been retrospectively called musique concrète . According to Seth Kim-Cohen the piece was the first to "organise 'concrete' sounds into a formal, artistic composition." Composer Irwin Bazelon referred to

2040-505: Is a music genre that involves a combination of rock music and electronic music , featuring instruments typically found within both genres. It originates from the late 1960s when rock bands began incorporating electronic instrumentation into their music. Electronic rock acts usually fuse elements from other music styles, including punk rock , industrial rock , hip hop , techno and synth-pop , which has helped spur subgenres such as indietronica , dance-punk and electroclash . Being

2125-546: Is also associated with industrial rock , synth-pop , dance-punk , indietronica , and new wave , with electroclash , new rave , post-punk revival , post-rock , considered as subgenres. Sometimes, certain other electronic subgenres are fused with rock, such as trance and techno , leading to the use of the terms trance rock and techno rock, respectively. Punk rock has been mixed with electronic music as well, creating subgenres like synth-punk (also known as electropunk ) and dance-punk . Suicide , formed in 1970,

2210-428: Is also sometimes mixed with other electronic genres and their subgenres, inspiring terms such as electronic metal, electronic dance metal, trance metal and techno metal. Musique concr%C3%A8te The theoretical basis of musique concrète as a compositional practice was developed by French composer Pierre Schaeffer beginning in the early 1940s. It was largely an attempt to differentiate between music based on

2295-489: Is known as one of the most influential artists in the genre. Their sound over their five studio albums mixed punk rock with various electronic-based genres such as electronic rock, synth-pop , and disco . Their first album is widely regarded for setting the stage for subsequent post-punk , synth-pop and industrial rock acts. The Screamers were labeled "techno-punk" by the Los Angeles Times in 1978. Rather than

2380-413: The potentiomètre d'espace in normal use: One found one's self sitting in a small studio which was equipped with four loudspeakers—two in front of one—right and left; one behind one and a fourth suspended above. In the front center were four large loops and an executant moving a small magnetic unit through the air. The four loops controlled the four speakers, and while all four were giving off sounds all

2465-781: The "distorting-mirror" sound of psychedelic rock , and that concrète 's contrasting tones and timbres were suited to the effects of psychedelic drugs . Following the Beatles' example, many groups incorporated found sounds into otherwise typical pop songs for psychedelic effect, resulting in "pop and rock musique concrète flirtations"; examples include the Lovin' Spoonful 's " Summer in the City " (1966), Love 's " 7 and 7 Is " (1967) and The Box Tops ' " The Letter " (1967). Popular musicians more versed in modern classical and experimental music utilised elements of musique concrète more maturely, including Zappa and

2550-509: The "keyboard deconstructions" of John Cage and Conlon Nancarrow . The Beatles continued their use of concrète on songs such as " Strawberry Fields Forever ", " Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! " and " I Am the Walrus " (all 1967), before the approach climaxed with the pure musique concrète piece " Revolution 9 " (1968); afterwards, John Lennon , alongside wife and Fluxus artist Yoko Ono , continued

2635-493: The 1980s, deejays such as Grandmaster Flash utitlised turnables to "[montage] in real time" with portions of rock, R&B and disco records, in order to create groove -based music with percussive scratching ; this provided a parallel breakthrough to collage artist Christian Marclay 's use of vinyl records as a "noise-generating medium" in his own work. Reynolds wrote: "As sampling technology grew more affordable, DJs-turned-producers like Eric B. developed hip-hop into

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2720-480: The Beatles' musique concrète experimentation as helping popularise avant-garde art in the era, alongside Jimi Hendrix 's use of noise and feedback , Bob Dylan 's surreal lyricism and Frank Zappa 's "ironic detachment". In The Wire , Edwin Pouncey wrote that the 1960s represented the height of confluence between rock and academic music, noting that composers like Luciano Berio and Pierre Henry found likeness in

2805-568: The Bomb Squad "unwittingly revisited" the concept of musique concrète with their sample-based music, they proved that the technique "worked great as pop". In 1989, John Diliberto of Music Technology described the group Art of Noise as having both digitised and synthesised musique concrète and "locked it into a crunching groove and turned it into dance music for the '80s". He wrote that while Schaeffer and Henry used tapes in their work, Art of Noise "uses Fairlight CMIs and Akai S1000 samplers and

2890-604: The Group for Technical Research, and the Studio 54 mixing desk had a major influence on the evolution of GRM and from the point of their introduction on they brought a new quality to the music. The mixing desk and synthesiser were combined in one unit and were created specifically for the creation of musique concrète. The design of the desk was influenced by trade union rules at French National Radio that required technicians and production staff to have clearly defined duties. The solitary practice of musique concrète composition did not suit

2975-590: The Hand People , Beaver & Krause and Tonto's Expanding Head Band . Many such 1960s acts blended psychedelic rock with avant-garde academic or underground influences. In the 1970s, German krautrock bands such as Neu! , Kraftwerk , Can and Amon Düül challenged rock boundaries by incorporating electronic instrumentation. In 2004, Uncut described Kraftwerk's "incalculable" impact on electronic rock as being felt on major records like David Bowie 's Low (1977) and Radiohead 's Kid A (2000). Since

3060-534: The Middle East Radio studios processed the material using reverberation, echo, voltage controls, and re-recording. The resulting tape-based composition, entitled The Expression of Zaar , was presented in 1944 at an art gallery event in Cairo. El-Dabh has described his initial activities as an attempt to unlock "the inner sound" of the recordings. While his early compositional work was not widely known outside of Egypt at

3145-707: The Mothers of Invention on pieces like the Edgard Varèse tribute " The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet " (1966), " The Chrome Planted Megaphone of Destiny " and Lumpy Gravy (both 1968), and Jefferson Airplane 's "Would You Like a Snack?" (1968), while the Grateful Dead 's album Anthem of the Sun (1968), which featured Berio student Phil Lesh on bass, features musique concrète passages that Pouncey compared to Varèse's Deserts and

3230-614: The Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (Research Group on Concrete Music) in 1952), facilitated by an association with the French national broadcasting organization, at that time the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, gave Schaeffer and his colleagues an opportunity to experiment with recording technology and tape manipulation. In 1948, a typical radio studio consisted of a series of shellac record players ,

3315-654: The United Kingdom at 49 pence, the album was described by writer Chris Jones as "a contender for the most widely heard piece of musique concrete" after "Revolution 9". Another German group, Kraftwerk , achieved a surprise hit in 1975 with " Autobahn ", which contained a "sampled collage of revving engines, horns and traffic noise". Stephen Dalton of The Times wrote: "This droll blend of accessible pop and avant-garde musique concrete propelled Kraftwerk across America for three months". Steve Taylor writes that industrial groups Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire continued

3400-503: The abstract medium of notation and that created using so-called sound objects ( l'objet sonore ). By the early 1950s musique concrète was contrasted with "pure" elektronische Musik as then developed in West Germany – based solely on the use of electronically produced sounds rather than recorded sounds – but the distinction has since been blurred such that the term "electronic music" covers both meanings. Schaeffer's work resulted in

3485-557: The action movie Blitz (2011) . In 2009, they supported Enter Shikari on their World tour, and underwent their own headlining UK tour. In November 2015, they signed to Amazing Record Co., planning the release of Warrior Sound , their third studio album, on 4 March 2016. With the band's origins in heavy rock music and their fusion of electronic rock and drum and bass, The Qemists are often compared to bands such as Pendulum and The Prodigy . Electronic rock Electronic rock (also known as electro rock and synth rock )

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3570-533: The approach as ' plunderphonics '. Oswald's Plexure (1993) was created using recognisable elements of rock and pop music from 1982 to 1992. In the 1960s, as popular music began to increase in cultural importance and question its role as commercial entertainment, many popular musicians began taking influence from the post-war avant-garde, including the Beatles , who incorporated techniques such as tape loops, speed manipulation, and reverse playback in their song " Tomorrow Never Knows " (1966). Bernard Gendron describes

3655-509: The approach on their solo works Two Virgins (1968) and Life with the Lions (1969). The musique concrète elements present on Pink Floyd 's best-selling album The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), including the cash register sounds on " Money ", have been cited as notable examples of the practice's influence on popular music. Also in 1973, German band Faust released The Faust Tapes ; priced in

3740-409: The audience, rather than just across the front stage. On stage, the control system allowed a performer to position a sound either to the left or right, above or behind the audience, simply by moving a small, hand held transmitter coil towards or away from four somewhat larger receiver coils arranged around the performer in a manner reflecting the loudspeaker positions. A contemporary eyewitness described

3825-520: The centre of the ceiling (the potentiomètre d'espace ). Speed variation was a powerful tool for sound design applications. It had been identified that transformations brought about by varying playback speed lead to modification in the character of the sound material: The phonogène was a machine capable of modifying sound structure significantly and it provided composers with a means to adapt sound to meet specific compositional contexts. The initial phonogènes were manufactured in 1953 by two subcontractors:

3910-572: The chromatic phonogène by a company called Tolana, and the sliding version by the SAREG Company. A third version was developed later at ORTF. An outline of the unique capabilities of the various phonogènes can be seen here: This original tape recorder was one of the first machines permitting the simultaneous listening of several synchronised sources. Until 1958 musique concrète, radio and the studio machines were monophonic . The three-head tape recorder superposed three magnetic tapes that were dragged by

3995-459: The concept of musique acousmatique . Schaeffer had borrowed the term acousmatic from Pythagoras and defined it as: " Acousmatic, adjective : referring to a sound that one hears without seeing the causes behind it ". In 1966 Schaeffer published the book Traité des objets musicaux (Treatise on Musical Objects) which represented the culmination of some 20 years of research in the field of musique concrète . In conjunction with this publication,

4080-474: The concrète tradition with collages constructed with tape manipulation and loops, while Ian Inglis credits Brian Eno for introducing new sensibilities "about what could be in included in the canon of popular music", citing his 1970s ambient work and the musique concrete collages on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), which combines tape samples with synthesised sounds. With the emergence of hip hop music in

4165-411: The disk, in contact with the tape. A sound up to four seconds long could be recorded on the looped tape and the ten playback heads would then read the information with different delays, according to their (adjustable) positions around the disk. A separate amplifier and band-pass filter for each head could modify the spectrum of the sound, and additional feedback loops could transmit the information to

4250-629: The establishment of France's Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète (GRMC), which attracted important figures including Pierre Henry , Luc Ferrari , Pierre Boulez , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Edgard Varèse , and Iannis Xenakis . From the late 1960s onward, and particularly in France, the term acousmatic music ( musique acousmatique ) was used in reference to fixed media compositions that utilized both musique concrète- based techniques and live sound spatialisation. In 1928 music critic André Cœuroy wrote in his book Panorama of Contemporary Music that "perhaps

4335-428: The ethic that "truly contemporary art should reflect not just nature or the industrial-urban environment but the mediascape in which humans increasingly dwelled", according to writer Simon Reynolds . Composers such as James Tenney and Arne Mellnäs created pieces in the 1960s that recontextualised the music of Elvis Presley and the singer's own voice, respectively, while later in the decade, Bernard Parmegiani created

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4420-603: The foundation of the Studio d'Essai de la Radiodiffusion nationale . The studio originally functioned as a center for the French Resistance on radio, which in August 1944 was responsible for the first broadcasts in liberated Paris. It was here that Schaeffer began to experiment with creative radiophonic techniques using the sound technologies of the time. In 1948 Schaeffer began to keep a set of journals describing his attempt to create

4505-440: The functions (though not the title) of Group Director to colleagues. Since 1961 GRM has had six Group Directors: Michel Philippot (1960–1961), Luc Ferrari (1962–1963), Bernard Baschet and François Vercken (1964–1966). From the beginning of 1966, François Bayle took over the direction for the duration of thirty-one years, to 1997. He was then replaced by Daniel Teruggi. The group continued to refine Schaeffer's ideas and strengthened

4590-621: The fusion of the two styles to form The Qemists sound that is known today. They had previously worked as live sound engineers for Basement Jaxx , Kano and Lady Sovereign . Their debut release on Ninja Tune was a remix of Coldcut 's "Everything Is Under Control" which was supported by Zane Lowe , Coldcut and Pendulum . Their first single, "Stompbox", appeared on the soundtrack for the film Jumper . "Dem Na Like Me" and "Your Revolution" were used in Clay Porter's mountain bike movie 3 Minute Gaps (2011). "Stompbox" and "Tom Cat" appeared in

4675-511: The group at the end of 1957, and immediately stated his disapproval of the direction the GRMC had taken. A proposal was then made to "renew completely the spirit, the methods and the personnel of the Group, with a view to undertake research and to offer a much needed welcome to young composers". Following the emergence of differences within the GRMC, Pierre Henry, Philippe Arthuys, and several of their colleagues, resigned in April 1958. Schaeffer created

4760-420: The idea of a creative role for the recording medium was introduced and Arnheim stated that: "The rediscovery of the musicality of sound in noise and in language, and the reunification of music, noise and language in order to obtain a unity of material: that is one of the chief artistic tasks of radio". Possible antecedents to musique concrète have been noted; Walter Ruttmann 's film Wochend ( Weekend ) (1930),

4845-510: The introduction of the Coupigny. Pierre Henry had used oscillators to produce sounds as early as 1955. But a synthesiser with envelope control was something Pierre Schaeffer was against, since it favoured the preconception of music and therefore deviated from Schaeffer's principle of "making through listening". Because of Schaeffer's concerns the Coupigny synthesiser was conceived as a sound-event generator with parameters controlled globally, without

4930-631: The late 1960s. According to critic Simon Reynolds , examples included the United States of America , White Noise and Gong . Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, authors of the 2004 book Analog Days , credit the Beach Boys ' 1966 hit " Good Vibrations " with having "popularly connected far-out, electronic sounds with rock 'n' roll." Other early acts to blend synthesizers and musique concrète 's tape music techniques with rock instrumentation included Silver Apples , Fifty Foot Hose , Syrinx , Lothar and

5015-405: The late 2000s, electronic rock has become increasingly popular. The term " progressive rock " (or "prog rock") was originally coined in the 1960s for music that would otherwise be described as "electronic rock," but the definition of "prog" later narrowed into a specific set of musical conventions as opposed to a sensibility involving forward-thinking or experimental approaches. Electronic rock

5100-532: The lead on work that began in the early 1950s, with Jacques Poullin's potentiomètre d'espace, a system designed to move monophonic sound sources across four speakers, Bayle and the engineer Jean-Claude Lallemand created an orchestra of loudspeakers ( un orchestre de haut-parleurs ) known as the Acousmonium in 1974. An inaugural concert took place on 14 February 1974 at the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris with

5185-403: The machines within the studio. It also had a number of remote controls for operating tape recorders. The system was easily adaptable to any context, particularly that of interfacing with external equipment. Before the late 1960s the musique concrète produced at GRM had largely been based on the recording and manipulation of sounds, but synthesised sounds had featured in a number of works prior to

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5270-424: The manner in which sound recording revealed what was hidden in the act of basic acoustic listening. Epstein's reference to this "phenomenon of an epiphanic being", which appears through the transduction of sound, proved influential on Schaeffer's concept of reduced listening. Schaeffer would explicitly cite Jean Epstein with reference to his use of extra-musical sound material. Epstein had already imagined that "through

5355-404: The mixed pieces Toute la lyre (1951) and Orphée 53 (1953) by Schaeffer/Henry, and the film music Masquerage (1952) by Schaeffer and Astrologie (1953) by Henry. In 1954 Varèse and Honegger visited to work on the tape parts of Déserts and La rivière endormie ". In the early and mid 1950s Schaeffer's commitments to RTF included official missions that often required extended absences from

5440-427: The musical values they were potentially containing". According to Pierre Henry , "musique concrète was not a study of timbre, it is focused on envelopes, forms. It must be presented by means of non-traditional characteristics, you see … one might say that the origin of this music is also found in the interest in 'plastifying' music, of rendering it plastic like sculpture…musique concrète, in my opinion … led to

5525-406: The other four tracks each supplied a single loudspeaker. This provided a mixture of live and preset sound positions. The placement of loudspeakers in the performance space included two loudspeakers at the front right and left of the audience, one placed at the rear, and in the centre of the space a loudspeaker was placed in a high position above the audience. The sounds could therefore be moved around

5610-400: The performance space and a mixing console is used to manipulate the placement of acousmatic material across the speaker array, using a performative technique known as sound diffusion . Bayle has commented that the purpose of the Acousmonium is to "substitute a momentary classical disposition of sound making, which diffuses the sound from the circumference towards the centre of the hall, by

5695-421: The pieces Pop'electric and Du pop a l'ane , which used fragments of musical genres such as easy listening , dixieland , classical music and progressive rock . Reynolds writes that this approach continued in the later work of musicians Matmos , whose A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure (2001) was created with the sounds of cosmetic surgery , and the "pop- collage " work of John Oswald , who referred to

5780-416: The question "who says what to whom?" Schaeffer added "how?", thereby creating a platform for research into audiovisual communication and mass media, audible phenomena and music in general (including non-Western musics). At the GRM the theoretical teaching remained based on practice and could be summed up in the catch phrase do and listen . Schaeffer kept up a practice established with the GRMC of delegating

5865-409: The recording head. The resulting repetitions of a sound occurred at different time intervals, and could be filtered or modified through feedback. This system was also easily capable of producing artificial reverberation or continuous sounds. At the premiere of Pierre Schaeffer's Symphonie pour un homme seul in 1951, a system that was designed for the spatial control of sound was tested. It was called

5950-486: The revue Kultur und Schallplatte that "there will be a greater interest in creating music in a way that will be peculiar to the gramophone record". The following year, 1931, Boris de Schloezer also expressed the opinion that one could write for the gramophone or for the wireless just as one can for the piano or the violin. Shortly after, German art theorist Rudolf Arnheim discussed the effects of microphonic recording in an essay entitled "Radio", published in 1936. In it

6035-783: The same year Schaeffer discussed, in writing, the question surrounding the transformation of time perceived through recording. The essay evidenced knowledge of sound manipulation techniques he would further exploit compositionally. In 1948 Schaeffer formally initiated "research in to noises" at the Club d'Essai and on 5 October 1948 the results of his initial experimentation were premiered at a concert given in Paris. Five works for phonograph – known collectively as Cinq études de bruits (Five Studies of Noises) including Étude violette ( Study in Purple ) and Étude aux chemins de fer (Study with Railroads) – were presented. By 1949 Schaeffer's compositional work

6120-684: The shellac players, to the point that the Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950–1951) was mainly composed with records even if the tape recorder was available. In 1950, when the machines finally functioned correctly, the techniques of the studio were expanded. A range of new sound manipulation practices were explored using improved media manipulation methods and operations such as continuous speed variation. A completely new possibility of organising sounds appeared with tape editing, which permitted tape to be spliced and arranged with much more precision. The "axe-cut junctions" were replaced with micrometric junctions and

6205-580: The skyscrapers of multitrack recording to create their updated sound". As described by Will Hodgkinson , Art of Noise brought classical and avant-garde sounds into pop by "[aiming] to emulate the musique concrète composers of the 1950s" via Fairlight samplers instead of tape. In a piece for Pitchfork , musicians Matmos noted the use of musique concrète in later popular music, including the crying baby effects in Aaliyah 's " Are You That Somebody? " (1998) or Missy Elliott 's " backwards chorus ", while noting that

6290-449: The studios. This led him to invest Philippe Arthuys with responsibility for the GRMC in his absence, with Pierre Henry operating as Director of Works. Pierre Henry's composing talent developed greatly during this period at the GRMC and he worked with experimental filmmakers such as Max de Haas, Jean Grémillon , Enrico Fulchignoni, and Jean Rouch and with choreographers including Dick Sanders and Maurice Béjart. Schaeffer returned to run

6375-576: The technical assistance of Pierre Henry was the first work composed for this tape recorder in 1952. A rapid rhythmic polyphony was distributed over the three channels. This machine was conceived to build complex forms through repetition, and accumulation of events through delays , filtering and feedback . It consisted of a large rotating disk, 50 cm in diameter, on which was stuck a tape with its magnetic side facing outward. A series of twelve movable magnetic heads (one each recording head and erasing head, and ten playback heads) were positioned around

6460-478: The time is not far off when a composer will be able to represent through recording, music specifically composed for the gramophone ". In the same period the American composer Henry Cowell , in referring to the projects of Nikolai Lopatnikoff , believed that "there was a wide field open for the composition of music for phonographic discs". This sentiment was echoed further in 1930 by Igor Stravinsky , when he stated in

6545-579: The time, El-Dabh would eventually gain recognition for his influential work at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in Manhattan in the late 1950s. Following Schaeffer's work with Studio d'Essai at Radiodiffusion Nationale during the early 1940s he was credited with originating the theory and practice of musique concrète. The Studio d'Essai was renamed Club d'Essai de la Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française in 1946 and in

6630-428: The time, the distance of the unit from the loops determined the volume of sound sent out from each. The music thus came to one at varying intensity from various parts of the room, and this spatial projection gave new sense to the rather abstract sequence of sound originally recorded. The central concept underlying this method was the notion that music should be controlled during public presentation in order to create

6715-461: The transposition of natural sounds, it becomes possible to create chords and dissonances, melodies and symphonies of noise, which are a new and specifically cinematographic music". As a student in Cairo in the early to mid-1940s, Egyptian composer Halim El-Dabh began experimenting with electroacoustic music using a cumbersome wire recorder . He recorded the sounds of an ancient zaar ceremony and at

6800-486: The umbrella of the Schaeffer-led Service de la Recherche at ORTF (1960–1974). Together with the GRM, three other groups existed: the Groupe de Recherches Image GRI, the Groupe de Recherches Technologiques GRT and the Groupe de Recherches Langage which became the Groupe d'Etudes Critiques. Communication was the one theme that unified the various groups, all of which were devoted to production and creation. In terms of

6885-479: The usual electric guitars, the band's instrumentation included a heavily distorted Fender Rhodes electric piano and an ARP Odyssey synthesizer . Devo , whilst better known for their 1980 synth-pop song " Whip It ", also had an electronic sound rooted in punk rock. The term synth-punk (or electropunk) was coined in 1999 by Damien Ramsey. In the early 1980s, synth-punk fused with various electronic genres to create electronic body music , which would influence

6970-499: Was informed by encounters with voice actors, and microphone usage and radiophonic art played an important part in inspiring and consolidating Schaeffer's conception of sound-based composition. Another important influence on Schaeffer's practice was cinema, and the techniques of recording and montage, which were originally associated with cinematographic practice, came to "serve as the substrate of musique concrète". Marc Battier notes that, prior to Schaeffer, Jean Epstein drew attention to

7055-408: Was known publicly as musique concrète . Schaeffer stated: "when I proposed the term 'musique concrète,' I intended … to point out an opposition with the way musical work usually goes. Instead of notating musical ideas on paper with the symbols of solfege and entrusting their realization to well-known instruments, the question was to collect concrete sounds, wherever they came from, and to abstract

7140-488: Was less effective in generating precisely defined frequencies and triggering specific sounds. The Coupigny synthesiser also served as the model for a smaller, portable unit, which has been used down to the present day. In 1966 composer and technician François Bayle was placed in charge of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and in 1975, GRM was integrated with the new Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA – Audiovisual National Institute) with Bayle as its head. In taking

7225-476: Was viewed as the primary requirement; to enable complex synthesis processes such as frequency modulation , amplitude modulation , and modulation via an external source. No keyboard was attached to the synthesiser and instead a specific and somewhat complex envelope generator was used to shape sound. This synthesiser was well-adapted to the production of continuous and complex sounds using intermodulation techniques such as cross-synthesis and frequency modulation but

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