Pierre Schaeffer

France, 1948–1995

French engineer and composer. Inventor of musique concrète — recorded and processed real-world sounds as the basis of composition. Founder of the GRM studio.

MusicRoots documents 2 artists who influenced Pierre Schaeffer and 10 artists Pierre Schaeffer influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Pierre Schaeffer?

• Luigi Russolo — Russolo's manifesto 'The Art of Noises' is the direct conceptual predecessor of Schaeffer's idea of turning recorded sound into musical material.
• Edgard Varèse — Varèse's liberation of sound from traditional instruments inspired Schaeffer's radical approach to recording.

Which artists did Pierre Schaeffer influence?

• Jean-Michel Jarre — Jarre's style was most heavily shaped by Pierre Schaeffer — he joined Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1969 and learned tape-loop musique concrète under him from 1968 to 1972.
• Karlheinz Stockhausen — Stockhausen worked at Schaeffer's Paris studio, which led him directly into electronic and concrète experiments.
• Nurse With Wound — NWW's dream-collages are musique concrète by other means — Schaeffer's method carried into surrealism.
• Pierre Henry — Henry joined Schaeffer's studio in 1949 and co-composed the founding work of musique concrète, Symphonie pour un homme seul.
• Daphne Oram — Oram encountered Schaeffer's musique concrète in Paris and championed the technique at the BBC — the documented seed of the Radiophonic Workshop.
• Else Marie Pade — Pade heard Schaeffer on the radio in 1952, sought him out and studied with him — Denmark's electronic music began with that encounter.
• Tod Dockstader — His tape method was musique concrète learned from records — the self-taught American branch of Schaeffer's invention.
• Vladimir Ussachevsky — Ussachevsky's 1952 tape experiments answered the musique concrète arriving from Paris — the documented transatlantic spark.
• Luc Ferrari — Ferrari joined Schaeffer's GRM in 1958 — the apprenticeship he then subverted with anecdotal sound.
• Bernard Parmegiani — Parmegiani trained as Schaeffer's stagiaire at GRM from 1959 — De Natura Sonorum is the school's supreme graduate work.