Intuitive Music

Pierre Schaeffer

Genre of music based in the use and manipulation of real (concrete) sounds, sampled or recorded, as part of the creative and composition process. Concrete composition is opposite to “abstract” classical music, which is traditionally composed by writing down the score on paper and later performed by musicians.

Pierre Schaeffer is credited to be the father of musique concrete, who in 1948 started a series of experiments with natural sounds recorded and played back in a musical context. In 1951 Schaeffer co- founded the Groupe de Recherche de musique concrete where other composers where involved, such as Pierre Henry (Schaeffer’s collaborator and one of the main concrete composers), Messiaen, and his pupils Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and George Barraque.

Ianis Xenakis was also one of the most important concrete composers, who in 1958 composed the piece “Concret PH” using just an amplified burning charcoal as the sound source. He also published “The Crisis of the Serial Music” (1955), which was one of the most important concrete observations on polyphony and musical objects.

Some of the rock artists from the 70’s that were influenced by concrete music were Faust, Brian Eno, Conrad Schnitzler, and kraftwerk.

Concrete music is a main key to understand a big part of modern electronic music and it has influenced to all styles related with the techniques of sampling, including ambient and noise. Some of the styles that have been developed from concrete music are isolationism (Bernhard Günter, Jim O’Rourke), or other more personal styles, and Francisco Lopez “Absolute Concret Music”.