Étune No. 1

Abstract

Towards the end of his career, Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of musique concrete, stated his opinion that all music is 'DoRéMi' - nothing is possible outside this system, the explorations in musical language in the 20th century were fruitless, and the 'way forward is behind us'. With this is mind, is there any evidence of DoRéMi in his own compositions? Are there hidden, underlying pitch systems that can be revealed through careful spectral analysis? This étune is a creative reassessment of his 1971 version of his étude aux chemins de fer. Using Schaeffer's work as a template, I create a new work that draws frequencies and rhythms from the original - revealing the hidden tunes in this seminal work