Musique concrète uses recorded concrete sounds as compositional material rather than live instruments. Composers treat these sounds as having musical or abstract value rather than choosing them to represent literal sounds. So an abstract musical concept is created from concrete recorded sounds, in contrast to classical music where an abstract idea leads to a concrete live performance. Musique concrète performances also involve loudspeakers rather than live musicians.

1. Why Musique concrète?!
The music we are dealing with at the moment is called “Musique Concrète”. As you have
probably already guessed, this is French and means concrete music. Why ‘concrete’?
Pierre Schaeffer explained it that way: There are two ways of composing:
Composers for classical music like Mozart or Beethoven have an abstract concept for their piece in mind.
‘Abstract’ is something which is like an idea, and is the opposite to concrete. With help of the score and
real instruments this piece can be performed. So from an abstract concept (an idea) it comes to a
concrete performance. Of course you can’t touch the music either, but you can see the musicians, the
instruments, the conductor…

2. Why Musique concrète?!
Composers of Musique Concrète work a bit differently: They have recordings of concrete sounds on their
computer (or whatever device they use for composing), for example the barking of a dog. However, they
don’t choose the dog’s barking because they want to do a piece about barking dogs.
Instead they think that the barking of a dog (or any sound) has a musical value. So they use concrete sounds in
their pieces, but they use them because of their abstract/musical value and create a piece of Musique Concrète.
The performance, by the way, is also more or less abstract: Instead of musicians there are only loudspeakers on
stage.

3. Why Musique concrète?!
An abstract concept leads to a concrete music. Concrete sounds lead to abstract music.
 Musique concrète.

4. Why Musique concrète?!
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An abstract concept leads to a concrete music. Concrete sounds lead to abstract music.
 Musique concrète.