Pierre Schaeffer’s In Search of a Concrete Music (À la recherche d’une musique concrète) has long been considered a classic text in electroacoustic music and sound recording. Now Schaeffer’s pioneering work—at once a journal of his experiments in sound composition and a treatise on the raison d’être of “concrete music”—is available for the first time in English translation. Schaeffer’s theories have had a profound influence on composers working with technology. However, they extend beyond the confines of the studio and are applicable to many areas of contemporary musical thought, such as defining an ‘instrument’ and classifying sounds. Schaeffer has also become increasingly relevant to DJs and hip-hop producers as well as sound-based media artists. This unique book is essential for anyone interested in contemporary musicology or media history.
Composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910–1995) was the inventor of musique concrète music created by combining and manipulating recorded sounds (rather than being played on conventional musical instruments).
Translators:
John Dack is Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Sonic Arts Department at Middlesex University. Christine North is retired as Lecturer in French at Middlesex University.
"Few books have described with such precision the evolution of thoughts and concepts behind the invention of a new music as A La Recherche d’une Musique Concrete. In this book Schaeffer has unveiled the major philosophical problems of music of the second half of the twentieth century. An excellent translation by Dack and North." —Daniel Teruggi, Head of Institut National Audiovisuel, Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris
“A fascinating glimpse into the mind of Pierre Schaeffer, the creator of the very first kind of electroacoustic music, the Concrete music, here in a stellar translation. In this diary combined with musical considerations, Schaeffer gives the necessary keys and invites the reader to follow, step by step, how Concrete music became a major trend of the twentieth century." —Marc Battier, Professor of Musicology, University Paris-Sorbonne
“Pierre Schaeffer’s writings are fundamental to our understanding of twentieth-century music in general and all the sound arts that use technology. This book reveals a truly experimental journey with its detours and frustrations—yet with determination, dazzling imagination and insight, Schaeffer pieces together a coherent and radical theory of music made through sound as perceived. Christine North and John Dack’s translation brilliantly captures Schaeffer’s painstaking reinvention of the vocabulary of music.” —Simon Emmerson, Professor of Music, Technology, and Innovation, De Montfort University
244 pp.6 x 9Illus: 36 line illustrations
9780520265738$75.00|£63.00Hardcover
Nov 2012