Pierre Schaeffer

In Search of a Concrete Music is comprised of four parts:
1 - First Journal of Concrete Music (1948-49)
2 - Second Journal of Concrete Music (1950-51)
3 - The Concrete Experiment in Music (1952)
4 - Outline of a Concrete Music Theory

So the first two parts are Shaeffer's diaries, with notes on studio efforts, ideas for experiments, and comments on the results (whether considered successful or not). Short entries for individual days, with some longer reflections on recent trends. The third is more an essay on what he'd learned, Schaeffer still in the studio but foregoing daily entries in favour of a more focused, deliberate conception of musique concrete and its place in music and art. The last part is an analytical piece on methodology, terminology, and structure of musique concrete, written in collaboration with Andre Moles.

Schaeffer comes across as an intriguing blend of technician and intuitivist, a lab tech when experimenting in the studio while declining lab instruments as the basis for assessing his success, preferring his "musician's ear". His journals display an equal measure of sensitivity to musical theory and history. (The translators are at pains to note Schaeffer was a true polymath, underscoring his wide range of interest and familiarity.)

Schaeffer notes at various points he seeks a music separate from the legacy of the dramatic, whether that be from a text (programme music) or from the Western tradition, based in the dominant. [citing in agreement Ernest Ansermet, 106] Not because he does not admire Western music, especially the Western classical tradition: clearly he does, for instance discussing his "always growing" admiration for Bach in contrast with his increasing boredom with Mozart. But distancing from this because for Schaeffer, it is what a concrete music would be: a new musical form, separate from the established connections between human and tempered or pure tones, as explored through major and minor keys and scales (whether octaves, six-tone, or twelve tone). At the same time, Schaeffer also claims he suspects there are other ways humans are linked to or resonate with nature ("the secret correspondence between the cosmos and man" [107]). More, that music generally and musique concrete specifically "is not only useful but necessary for an understanding of the world, and of man." [162]

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How unusual that Schaeffer had access to the resources of a national radio studio for research and performance? How likely that Schaeffer or another would have provided us a similar portfolio, without it?

The distinctions and affinities between musique concrete and the elektronisches Musik of Cologne, the modern music schools of Schoenberg and Stravinsky: serial music and abstract music. Schaeffer's musings seem insightful but fair, though clearly not sufficient.

Repeated efforts to understand how a sound is heard, how to characterise it or classify it, and whether that's productive at all. Primarily concerned with the music object, and to separate it from the dramatic connotations it holds for anyone accustomed to hearing Western music, in order to make of it something else entirely.

Schaeffer affirms my suspicion of a physioneurological basis for octaves / major & minor keys / scales of all kinds, Western and Eastern. In citing Ernest Ansermet, he claims the dominant is in fact a "crucial phenomenon", an affective correspondence between human sense and arithmetic ratios, specifically those of 2:1 and 3:2 (the fifth / dominant and the octave / tonic) which underly all scales. [116] He sees a potential place for concrete music both within this tradition built upon the dominant, and outside it, though admits as yet he has not found it within the tradition.

Occasional diagrams throughout, primarily standard notation of musical scores or technical sound waves, but also efforts to discuss the unique musical objects found by Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, and others.… (mais)