Pierre Schaeffer quotes

Pierre Schaeffer was a French composer, musicologist, and pioneer of electronic music. Known as the founder of musique concrète, he significantly influenced the development of experimental and electroacoustic music. He inspired generations of artists and reshaped the landscape of twentieth-century music. Here are 19 of his quotes:

Barbarians always think of themselves as the bringers of civilization. (Pierre Schaeffer)
I was horrified by modern 12-tone music. I said to myself, 'Maybe I can find something different... maybe salvation, liberation, is possible. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
I do not want to heap coals of fire on anyone's head, but I would like to advise those who keep the living thought of the dead hidden away in cardboard boxes, to pass on as quickly as possibly such explosive material, whose only legitimate heir is the whole world, that is to say, my neighbor. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Sound is the vocabulary of nature... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music? View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
People who try to create a musical revolution do not have a chance, but those who turn their back to music can sometimes find it. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something - a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa... View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Has it struck you that the music which is regarded as the most sublime in western civilization, which is the music of Bach, is called baroque? View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
It's ridiculous that time and time again we need a radioactive cloud coming out of a nuclear power-station to remind us that atomic energy is extraordinarily dangerous. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Sound is the vocabulary of nature. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
The only hope is that our civilization will collapse at a certain point, as always happens in history. Then, out of barbarity, a renaissance. (Pierre Schaeffer)
Take a sound from whatever source, a note on a violin, a scream, a moan, a creaking door, and there is always this symmetry between the sound basis, which is complex and has numerous characteristics which emerge through a process of comparison within our perception. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
We live in an age dominated by the problem of limits. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
I'm very aware of what you're talking about as I was involved with the radio in Africa in the same period as I was doing Concrete - I was doing both at the same time. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
People who share the same language, French or Chinese or whatever, have the same vocal cords and emit sounds which are basically the same, as they come from the same throats and lungs. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
The moment at which music reveals its true nature is contained in the ancient exercise of the theme with variations. The complete mystery of music is explained right there. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
Noises have generally been thought of as indistinct, but this is not true. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
First, it doesn't surprise me that traditional music has experienced a kind of exhaustion in the 20th century - not forgetting that many musicians started to look outside the traditional structures of tonality. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer
The world changes materially. Science makes advances in technology and understanding. But the world of humanity doesn't change. View quote
Pierre Schaeffer