Books on Musique Concrète/GRM

[Fire]

Hey there,

does anybody have recommendations when it comes to books about (the evolution of) musique concrète, its theoretical background and/or the history of the GRM? Preferably in german or english language. Thanks in advance!

[Dan Warburton]

http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520265745 might be a good place to start, though I haven't read this translation. You're at a bit of a disadvantage not reading French, as many of the best things on the subject are in that language. Martial Robert's two volume biography of Schaeffer (L'Harmattan) is pretty comprehensive, but a bit of a slog. Michel Chion has written extensively on the subject http://www.michelchion.com/v1/index.php ... &Itemid=47 but I'm not sure how many of these have been translated into English or German. Lionel Marchetti's book on Chion himself is superb, but not translated either as far as I know. Ferrari is pretty hip these days - forgive me a smirk, I like to think that my old Wire article and PT interviews http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... rrari.html helped bring him back into the limelight. Oh, and I did one with Chion too http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... chion.html but that drifts off into cinema. In a final blast of self-publicity (sorry), the piece on Eliane Radigue I wrote for The Wire a few years back also touches on the subject. I think most of those Wire pieces are available online somewhere, haven't looked for ages. Hope this is of use.

[Fire]

Thanks a lot! I'll definitely purchase Schaeffers 'In search of concrete music'.

[concreteisland]

There's a German translation of one of Chion's books: Die Kunst fixierter Klänge

[Hayao Yamaneko]

http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magaz ... rrari.html[/url]

This is a great interview, thanks. Not someone I'd heard much of before reading this. I checked the two orchestral works mentioned - both excellent.
Seems like he must have been a pretty fascinating & entertaining guy to sit and have a drink with.

[Fire]

There's a German translation of one of Chion's books: Die Kunst fixierter Klänge

Thanks, this seems to be very interesting as well.

[cdeupree]

Chion's Guide to Sound Objects, his explanation of Schaeffer's massive (and not currently available in English) Traite des objets musicaux, is freely available in English at the Electroacoustic Resource Site. This site is a great resource in general.

The GRM has a number of books on different composers (Bayle, Parmegiani, etc), and at least some of these are available in English.

Denis Smalley's writings on spectromorphology are worth tracking down.

Simon Emmerson has a couple of academic collections published by Ashgate. Katherine Norman's book Sounding Art discusses contemporary musique concrete (my review here).

[Fire]

Thanks to you too, very useful info. Got some stuff to dive into now!

[chal4oye]

There's a German translation of one of Chion's books: Die Kunst fixierter Klänge