How to start making musique concrète?

Question

This is probably one of the more obscure music styles, and some of you may not even consider it as a style of music. Music or not music, it is a form of art that I am interested in making. I am a rock musician and only know very few good examples of avant-garde music and musique concrète, such as The Beatles' *Revolution 9*. My brother and I both like how this kind of music sounds, and after having played music with more convenient instruments for over a decade, we've been wanting to try things with tape recorders and sound samples instead. Note that, as my brother said, we are not looking to create bad music and call it avant-garde; we want to make actual, half-decent musique concrète (or at least have a good time trying). Specifically we want to compose and record music, but later on we may also want to try performing it live.Are there any good tips on how to start out completely from scratch? The do's and don'ts, maybe even some articles that take you by the hand and guide you through the steps of creating a concept and successfully conveying that through musique concrète... anything that could be helpful to a musician who is completely uneducated about this kind of music.

Answer 1

I don't know of any articles or how-to books for musique concrete. As a historical phenomenon, it was pretty short lived, although as you note its influence ranged far and wide over both avant garde classical and pop music.

There is no right or wrong way to do it, though! And with today's music software, it's far, far easier to create than it was in the 1940s when every piece of tape had to be spliced by hand.

Are you planning to record your own sounds or use stock recordings? Once you have your source materials, you need to organize them, which is not that different from organizing other musical materials. What repeats? What varies? What is surprising? Is there a climax? How is it reached and reacted to?

I'd listen to (and maybe read about) some of the original creators of the genre and their immediate successors: Pierre Schaeffer (e.g "Railway Study"), John Cage ("Williams Mix"), Karlheinz Stockhausen ("Gesang der Jungling"). That should give you some jumping-off places. Best of luck!