My Old New Media Icon
One of my all time favorite new media artist/scientist has to be the French born Peirre Schaeffer (1910-1995), mainly for his pioneer work in avant-garde music. He is seen as the father of audio sampling. Taking pre-recorded material, cutting them into smaller chunks, transforming them and rearranging them into a musical composition. The techniques he used where rather unknown at the time. The compositions that he (and others with him) created were termed (by Schaeffer in 1948) Musique-concrète. His most famous works are five études, collectively called Cinq études de bruits (1948); or Five studies of noises. It features my most memorable composition called Étude aux chemins de fer (Railroad study). This was one of the first avant-garde compositions that really inspired me to continue my venture into new electronic music. I first heard this piece at my intake exam at the Conservatory. It gave me a new perspective on music and timbre; the (non)use of melody, and conventional rhythms.