Musique Concrète

Musique concrète is music that is made in part from acousmatic sound. It can features sounds derived from recordings of musical instruments, voice, and the natural environment as well as those created using synthesizers and computer-based digital signal processing. Also, compositions in this idiom are not restricted to the normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm and so on. It's based solely on the production and manipulation of electronically produced sounds rather than recorded sounds. The theoretical basis of musique concrèteas a compositional practice was developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the early 1940's.

Our task was to create and absract piece which took inspiration from the 60's/70's. I choose to replicate the psychedelic soundscape which opens Pink Floyd's album. I created my soundscape using recordings taken in my kitchen and decided against adding any additional instruments as I wanted the piece to remain as abstract as possible. Once I had recorded my everyday sounds I edited them in the style of Pierre Schaeffer using cutting, delay, reverb and reverse which are all original concrète techniques.

Many albums in these era's were concept albums, meaning one idea ran through every song and these were often comments on society. The concept behind my piece was to comment on the way that women are labelled cooks, there's many a joke about a woman's place being in the kitchen or that a woman is only good for making her man a sandwich. So, my piece uses the sounds of the kitchen to express a feminist stance on this.

The sound of a boiling kettle runs all the way through, under-pinning the piece and providing the main beat. It starts off with the sound of a reversed oven door closing, to which I applied heavy reverb (something also very reminiscent of Pink Floyd) and the sound of my squeaky kitchen tap turning, which has been time stretched. The opening of a packet of crisps was then cut, sampled and repeated throughout, as were the cupboard door closing and the saucepan lid being placed on the pan. The piece finishes with a reversed microwave ping which is also time stretched so that it takes longer to fade out, a technique that The Beatles used in "A Day In The Life" in which a C chord was recorded on four different pianos and then sustained for 42 seconds as it faded out.