Turntablism

Turntablism had been around since the 1920’s, and it was now getting to a point where it was a possibility to change pitch and timbre, and manipulate recorded sounds. Exploitation of the turntable began to take place, and people started using the playback device as an instrument. Paul Hindemath, Varese, and Cage started using turntables in their compositions. Musique Concrete was a term for a type of music coined by Pierre Schaeffer in 1948, and it literally translates – music concrete, or real music – found sound. Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry were the most significant players of this type of electronic music. Schaeffer was a radio broadcaster and Henry was a percussionist. Schaeffer was able to borrow all kinds of professional gear and together they started created sounds that were unheard of. They started playing sounds backwards, slowing down and speeding up audio, and were beginning to use techniques that were not in people’s current vocabulary. Their compositions started referring to real world sounds that didn’t include a human instrument or interface. The goal of Musique Concrete was to enlighten humans to perceive these everyday, boring sounds in a new sensibility of what music could potentially be. Schaeffer’s original idea was to use any and all sounds apart from the traditional instrumentation. In his artistic development of sounds, he began warping them to sound like something completely different than the original. He invented what we know as sampling and looping. To record one of the most significant pieces, Etude De Bruits, they used a lathe disc, 4 turntables, 4 channel mixers, mics, audio filters and EQ, a reverb chamber, and previously recorded sounds. This was the official second era in the electronic music movement and for these reasons: It was an art form in which composing was happening through technological means. It used organic sounds, coming from non-musical sources. Their work could be replayed identically each time using mechanical means. The presentation of the music also did not require humans.