ABSTRACT
Electronic sound-generation and magnetic tape-recording have provided the composer with a new medium, whose main feature is that it enables him to work directly in actual sound, as directly as a painter, for instance, works in paint. The claim made by electronic composers that they have direct access to the intrinsic structure of sound boils down to this: they can produce an entirely new range of colours. The strands of pure electronic sound and those of vocal origin blend and interact in a way which is more satisfactory, because it is more adequate to the technical resources brought into play. The basic materials of musique concrete – and that’s where it differs from synthetic electronic music – are all or nearly all of acoustic origin, that is to say, their prime source is not the frequency oscillator but the microphone.
