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Short form: non-musical sounds (e.g., natural or industrial sounds) presented in a musical context.
Long form: concrete as in real, solid—set in opposition to abstract music, i.e. anything presented in conventional musical notation.
Conventional abstract music isn't a thing, it's a idea: it has its true existence on paper, as a concept expressed in specialized symbols, representing intervals defined by mathematics.
In practical terms, when those abstract symbols are retranslated into "actual" sound, we find that the underlying concept is neither absolute nor immutable. You can write an F# on manuscript paper, and it will never sound the same way twice when it's played: its timbre will vary with the instrument, with the player, with the tuning system, with the humidity of the room fa chrissakes.
It's Plato's Cave all over again: the F# on paper is the true Form, the pure idea of F-sharp-ness, of which any actual rendering is only a Shadow.
Musique concrete seeks to remove all the uncertainties of abstract music. In its original form musique concrete is not at all based on performance, but on recording technology—the pieces exist only on tape. There are no questions of tuning or tempo, no room for "expression" or "interpretation," or "phrasing." The compositions are things, immutable and complete of themselves: A written F# sounds different every time it's played: but a recording of a hubcap being struck by a ball-peen hammer stays the same every time you play it back: the idea and the actuality are one.
The artistry of musique concrete is in the editing—the way the recorded sounds are arranged and put together, their context, is what makes it music ("organized sound").
The end result is not a musical score, but a physical thing—a reel of audiotape, a compact disc—which may be copied, but which stays the same as it is reproduced, unlike written music, which changes every time it is "reproduced," i.e. performed. Manfacturing, rather than interpretation.
As always, Google will tell you more.
Sidenote: the argument could be made that all recorded music is musique concrete: e.g., Elvis Presley's recording of "Heartbreak Hotel" sounds the same now as it did in 1957... |
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