Found Sounds and Musique Concrete

To fully understand how technology for music has developed and where it might lead in the future, we should go right back to the beginning again and examine sound in it's simplest form. 'Music' does not necessarily need to originate from a 'musical instrument'. We've already talked about taking sounds and editing them to then trigger as samples and manipulate. Some of you may have already done this in projects.





Definitions:

FOUND SOUND - a sound made by a non-musical object

ACOUSMATIC - music created to be listened to and not performed

SAMPLE - a section of previously recorded sound

PLUNDERPHONICS - creating new music by altering existing recordings

SOUND COLLAGE - music created entirely by gluing samples together.

EXAMPLES

TASK: using your DAW of choice, create a short piece using non-musical sounds or a collage of samples. You have total freedom. Forget any notion of harmony, lyrics or genre and just focus on sounds. Please upload to classroom as an mp3.


EXTENSION - if you want to explore this more, let your inner geek loose on this.....

A more recent development in repurposing electronic toys and circuit bending them to use as musical instruments:



Plunderphonics is another interesting subject within the realms of sampling/re-purposing existing music...

"Plunderphonics, or Audio Piracy as a Compositional Prerogative" - Otswald
Chris Cutler - Plunderphonia