In the late 1940’s, tape machines had started to become readily available to the public. Musique Concrète was recorded on and from shellac. And in 1952, Pierre Schaeffer’s Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète acquired a tape machine that would solidify his place in music history. Tape would prove to be an excellent medium to cut and paste sound together. Relying heavily on reverberation, sound clips, or samples, could be held together almost seamlessly.
Musique Concrète is considered one of the earliest forms of avant-garde music. The key aesthetic was the non traditional use of sound. Earliest compositions consisted of manipulated field recordings and non musical notes. With reverberation effects, either spring or plate type, the sporadic cuts in the audio could be masked or the sound glued together. Another popular technique using reverb was to play the tape backwards with the reverb, so when played forward, there would be a reverse echo sound. Flanging was also used for a brief period as well. By having two machines running in sync in stereo, one would slightly press on the tape “flange”, causing the sound to go slightly out of sync, creating a metallic comb filter effect.
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