Late posting.
Concrete Music (Musique Concrete)
Concrete Music uses prerecorded sounds (often natural sounds) as the source of all of its sounds for a composition. The French were the first to develop this technique, and it draws upon their focus on color (think Debussy, Ravel, etc.), but their development is only a historical origin point. Concrete music draws its name from the technique of actually manipulating the sound source to create a composition, rather than working with abstractions (notated music) on paper.
The basic techniques of concrete music include:
- change of tape speed
- change of tape direction
- tape loops
- cutting and splicing
- tape delay
Electronic Music Synthesis
Rather than manipulating prerecorded sounds, synthesis creates music through the use of elementary wave forms and electronic components that create all audible aspects of a sound. The original development of synthesis is tied to Germany, and associated with the same goals of serialism.
Although a lot of components and techniques go into synthesis, our focus for this class is limited to the elementary waveforms:
- sine (only the fundamental frequency present)
- sawtooth (all harmonic partials present)
- square (odd harmonic partials)
- triangle (like a square with odd harmonic partials, but with less energy in upper partials than the square)
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