For anyone that has ever come across experimental music should have heard the names John Cage and Pierre Schaeffer, two people that have helped pave the way for the creative artists of today to not be constricted in their work; with many of their works with technology being what has shaped the industry today.
John Cage had an amateur artist and journalist for a mother, and an inventor for father (an inventor who has said to have been “both revolutionary and eccentric” (Wolf, 2016)) and grew up being a pianist and a writer, which evidently was not his real passion as was proved by his work later on in life, especially as he made to drop out of college as he felt he was not being challenged enough as a writer. Evidently more ambitious and creative than anyone could have realized, including himself. His first experience with different art forms came after leaving college and going travelling, experiencing painting and architecture, and this travelling opened him up to Asian philosophy, which is said to have influenced his work later on; as well as influences from composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Igor Stravinsky, Stravinsky being quite divers himself, creating scores in all types of genres. As the years went by Cage started to experiment more and more with technology and sound, and then in 1952 he made quite possibly his most popular piece; 4’33”. This was displayed in a concert hall where David Tudor, a fellow composer of experimental music, sat down at a piano for 4 minutes and 33 seconds and didn’t play one single note – this piece was about the ambience created by the audience in the concert hall, left up to chance, which was something important to John Cage. Chance, which he saw as an important factor. Another influential piece was Theatre Piece No.1 (1952) that really combined numerous different art forms – this included poetry readings, dance, film, projections, art and music – and this included Cage himself either giving a lecture or being completely silent. This piece was also a chance exhibition as the participants were left to do whatever they pleased at their assigned intervals. Many have praised John Cage for his experimental work which is said to have paved the way post-modern art, breaking down the barriers which then existed between the different forms of art; showing this by challenging the conception that music has to consist of only the traditional instruments.
“Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise. When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at 50 m.p.h. Static between the stations. Rain. We want to capture and control these sounds, to use them, not as sound effects, but as musical instruments” (Kostelanetz, 1968)
Pierre Schaeffer is another figure that has been extremely influential in the world of electronic music, being known for his radical innovations as a composer, engineer, educator and philosopher (Patrick, 2016) and it was he who coined the term Musique Concrète – experimental music that consists of recorded sounds, and the identity of those sounds being manipulated, these sounds being from the environment to instruments as well as the use of synthesizers. Schaeffer drew inspiration from Futurist Luigi Russolo, who in The Art of Noise says “machines create today such a larger number of varied noises that pure sound, with its littleness and its monotony, now fails to arouse any emotion” (Russolo, 1913:5) this boosting Schaeffer’s experimental mind, then receiving a grant to put his experimental ideas into music and technology, into practice. In 1942 he then had his own studio The Studio d’ Escai’ (then renamed Club d’ Escai) and this he filled with a massive library of sound effects – important for any musical experimentalist – and mixers. A few years later he then created the first studio that specialized in electroacoustic music with Pierre Henry, also a composer considered a pioneer in electronic music. Electroacoustic music basically being any form of technology that works with sounds, so the ability of whichever piece of technology having the ability to manipulate or create different sounds from recordings. This studio was names Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète and it was here that not only did they have countless innovations, but they were also successful in technology; amongst these successes being creating looping and a three track recorder. All of this work shows that his aim was to join together music and science, and to bring technology to the forefront rather than it being in the background of an end product because as he says “why should a civilization which so missuses its power have, or deserve, a normal music?” (Patrick, 2016). Pierre Schaeffer, just as John Cage, opened up everything at their time and this has majorly shaped and influenced todays music, as music no longer consists of purely natural instruments; a composition could now be made purely from recordings and effects, just as he did when manipulating his own field recordings, both natural and mechanical.
Although there have been many experimental composers that have influenced what we know it to be today, Cage and Schaeffer are the two that I feel have paved the way in reflection to my own project. John Cage being because he was very much interested in joining together different arm forms and showing there are no boundaries, and this is something that has influenced me personally in my work seeing as I have combined sound and visual together in one piece. Schaeffer was very forward on showing that compositions can consist of recordings and synthesizers only but still be music, and this is what I have achieved; recordings that I have gone out and recorded and, some of them, manipulated, and bringing in synthesizers. Musique Concrète, this being the influence behind my project title A Concrète Composition, is what I feel I have embodied in my audio piece and my accompaniment of the visual piece reinforces Pierre Schaeffer’s work of the arts having no boundaries.
References:
Kostelanetz, R. (1968) John Cage, An Anthology. [online] New York: Media Art Net. Available from: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/41/ [Accessed 12 December 2016].
Patrick, J. (2016) A Guide to Pierre Schaeffer, the Godfather of Sampling. [online] Fact. Available from: http://www.factmag.com/2016/02/23/pierre-schaeffer-guide/ [Accessed 11 December 2016].
Russolo, L. (1913) The Art of Noise. [online] A Great Bear Pamphlet. Available from: http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf [Accessed 11 December 2016].
Wolf, J. (2016) John Cage: American Composer, Theortician, and Writer. [online] The Art Story. Availabel from: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cage-john.htm [Accessed 12 December 2016].
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