Musique concrète (French for "concrete music" or "real music") is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. The compositional material is not restricted to the inclusion of sounds derived from musical instruments or voices, nor to elements traditionally thought of as "musical" (melody, harmony, rhythm, metre and so on). The theoretical underpinnings of the aesthetic were developed by Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the late 1940s.

History

Pierre Schaeffer

The French composer and theorist Pierre Schaeffer is credited with originating musique concrete in five works for phonograph (known collectively as Cinq études de bruits, or Five Studies of Noises) including Etude violette (Study in Purple) and Etude aux chemins de fer (Study of Railroads). The works were premiered at a concert given in Paris on the 5th of October 1948 (Chion 1983). The development of musique concrète was facilitated by the emergence of new music technology in post-war Europe. Access to microphones, phonographs and later magnetic tape recorders (created in 1939 and acquired by the Schaeffer's Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (Research Group on Concrete Music) in 1952), facilitated by an association with the French national broadcasting organization, at that time the Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française, gave Schaeffer and his colleagues an opportunity to experiment with recording technology and tape manipulation.

Schaeffer developed an aesthetic practice that was centred upon the use of sound as a primary compositional resource and emphasised the importance of play (jeu) in the creation of music. Schaeffer's use of jeu, from the verb jouer, carries the same double meaning as the English verb play: 'to enjoy oneself by interacting with one's surroundings', as well as 'to operate a musical instrument'. This notion is central to the musique concrète aesthetic (Dack 2002).

Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète

In 1951 Schaeffer, along with the engineer Jacques Poullin, and composer-percussionist Pierre Henry, established the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (Research Group on Concrete Music) at RTF in Paris, the ancestor of the ORTF (Lange 2009, 173).

At RTF the GRMC established the first purpose-built electroacoustic music studio. It quickly attracted many who either were or were later to become notable composers, including Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Boulez, Jean Barraqué, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varese, Iannis Xenakis, Michel Philippot, and Arthur Honegger. Compositional output from 1951 to 1953 comprised Étude I (1951) and Étude II (1951) by Boulez, Timbres-durées (1952) by Messiaen, Étude (1952) by Stockhausen, Le microphone bien tempéré (1952) and La voile d’Orphée (1953) by Henry, Étude I (1953) by Philippot, Étude (1953) by Barraqué, the mixed pieces Toute la lyre (1951) and Orphée 53 (1953) by Schaeffer/Henry, and the film music Masquerage (1952) by Schaeffer and Astrologie (1953) by Henry. In 1954 Varèse and Honegger visited to work on the tape parts of Déserts and La rivière endormie (Palombini 1999).

Between 1952 and 1956 Schaeffer's commitments to RTF led him to appoint Philippe Arthuys with responsibility for the GRMC, with Pierre Henry operating as Director of Works. Pierre Henry’s composing talent developed greatly during this period at the GRMC and he worked with experimental filmmakers such as Max de Haas, Jean Gremillon, Enrico Fulchignoni, and Jean Rouch, and with choreographers including Dick Sanders and Maurice Béjart (Gayou 2007, 206). Schaeffer returned to run the group at the end of 1957, and immediately stated his disapproval of the direction the GRMC had taken. A proposal was then made to "renew completely the spirit, the methods and the personnel of the Group, with a view to undertake research and to offer a much needed welcome to young composers" (Gayou 2007, 207) .

Groupe de Recherches Musicales

Following the emergence of differences within the GRMC Pierre Henry, Philippe Arthuys, and several of their colleagues, resigned in April 1958. Schaeffer created a new collective, called Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) and set about recruiting new members including Luc Ferrari, François-Bernard Mâche, Iannis Xenakis, Bernard Parmegiani, and Mireille Chamass-Kyrou. Later arrivals included Ivo Malec, Philippe Carson, Romuald Vandelle, Edgardo Canton and Francois Bayle (Gayou 2007, 207).

GRM was one of several theoretical and experimental groups working under the umbrella of the Schaeffer led Service de la Recherche at ORTF (1960–74). Together with the GRM, three other groups existed: the Groupe de Recherches Image GRI, the Groupe de Recherches Technologiques GRT and the Groupe de Recherches Langage which became the Groupe d’Etudes Critiques (Gayou 2007, 207). Communication was the one theme that unified the various groups, all of which were devoted to production and creation. In terms of the question "who says what to whom?" Schaeffer added "how?", thereby creating a platform for research into audiovisual communication and mass media, audible phenomena and music in general (including non-Western musics) (Beatriz Ferreyra, new preface to Schaeffer and Reibel 1967, reedition of 1998, 9). At the GRM the theoretical teaching remained based on practice and could be summed up in the catch phrase ‘do and listen’ (Gayou 2007, 207).

Schaeffer kept up a practice established with the GRMC of delegating the functions (though not the title) of Group Director to colleagues. Since 1961 GRM has had six Group Directors: Michel Philippot (1960–61), Luc Ferrari (1962–63), Bernard Baschet and Francois Vercken (1964–66). From the beginning of 1966, Francois Bayle took over the direction for the duration of thirty-one years, to 1997. He was then replaced by Daniel Teruggi (Gayou 2007, 206).

Traité des Objets Musicaux

The group continued to refine Schaeffer's ideas and strengthened the concept of musique acousmatique (Peignot 1960, 111–23). Schaeffer had borrowed the term acousmatic from Pythagoras and defined it as: "Acousmatic, adjective: referring to a sound that one hears without seeing the causes behind it" (Schaeffer 1966, 91). In 1966 Schaeffer published the book Traité des Objets Musicaux (Treatise on musical objects) which represented the culmination of some 20 years of research in the field of musique concrète. In conjunction with this publication, a set of sound recordings was produced, entitled Le Solfège de l'Objet Sonore (Music Theory of the Acoustic Object), to provide examples of concepts dealt with in the treatise.

Technology

Initial tools of musique concrete

In 1948, a typical radio studio consisted of a series of shellac record players, a shellac record recorder, a mixing desk, with rotating potentiometers, a mechanical reverberation, filters, and microphones. This technology made a number of limited operations available to a composer (Teruggi 2007):

Shellac record players: could read a sound normally and in reverse mode, could change speed at fixed ratios thus permitting octave transposition.

Shellac recorder: would record any result coming out of the mixing desk.

Mixing desk: would permit several sources to be mixed together with an independent control of the gain or volume of the sound. The result of the mixing was sent to the recorder and to the monitoring loudspeakers. Signals could be sent to the filters or the reverberation unit.

Mechanical reverberation: made of a metal plate or a series of springs that created the reverberation effect, indispensable to force sounds to ‘fuse’ together.

Filters: two kinds of filters, 1/3 octave filters and, high and low-pass filters. They allow the elimination or enhancement of selected frequencies.

Microphones: essential tool for capturing sound.

The application of the above technologies in the creation of musique concrete led to the development of a number of sound manipulation techniques including (Teruggi 2007):

Sound transposition: reading a sound at a different speed than the one at which it was recorded.

Sound looping: composers developed a skilled technique in order to create loops at specific locations within a recording.

Sound-sample extraction: a hand-controlled method that required delicate manipulation to get a clean sample of sound. It entailed letting the stylus read a small segment of a record. Used in the Symphonie pour un homme seul.

Filtering: by eliminating most of the central frequencies of a signal, the remains would keep some trace of the original sound but without making it recognisable.

Magnetic tape

The first tape recorders start arriving at ORTF in 1949; however, their functioning was much less reliable than the shellac players, to the point that the Symphonie pour un homme seul, which was composed in 1950–51, was mainly composed with records, even if the tape recorder was available (Teruggi 2007, 216). In 1950, when the machines finally functioned correctly, the techniques of musique concrete were expanded. A range of new sound manipulation practices were explored using improved media manipulation methods and operations such as speed variation. A completely new possibility of organising sounds appears with tape editing, which permits tape to be spliced and arranged with an extraordinary new precision. The ‘axe-cut junctions’ were replaced with micrometric junctions and a whole new technique of production, less dependency on performance skills, could be developed. Tape editing brought a new technique called ‘micro-editing’, in which very tiny fragments of sound, representing milliseconds of time, were edited together, thus creating completely new sounds or structures (Teruggi 2007, 217).

Development of novel devices

During the GRMC period from 1951-1958 time Schaeffer and Jacques Poullin developed a number of novel sound creation tools including a three-track tape recorder, a machine with ten playback heads to replay tape loops in echo (the morphophone), a keyboard-controlled machine to replay tape loops at twenty-four preset speeds (the keyboard, chromatic, or Tolana phonogène), a slide-controlled machine to replay tape loops at a continuously variable range of speeds (the handle, continuous, or Sareg phonogène), and a device to distribute an encoded track across four loudspeakers, including one hanging from the centre of the ceiling (the potentiomètre d’espace) (Palombini 1999).

The phonogene

Speed variation was a powerful tool for sound design applications. It had been identified that transformations brought about by varying playback speed lead to modification in the character of the sound material:

Variation in the sounds' length, in a manner directly proportional to the ratio of speed variation.

Variation in length is coupled with a variation in pitch, and is also proportional to the ratio of speed variation.

A sounds attack characteristic is altered, whereby it is either dislocated from succeeding events, or the energy of the attack is more sharply focused.

The distribution of spectral energy is altered, thereby influencing how the resulting timbre might be perceived, relative to its original unaltered state.

The phonogene was a machine capable of modifying sound structure significantly and it provided composers with a means to adapt sound to meet specific compositional contexts. The initial phonogenes were manufactured in 1953 by two subcontractors: the chromatic phonogene by a company called Tolana, and the sliding version by the SAREG Company (Poullin 1999). A third version was developed later at ORTF. An outline of the unique capabilities of the various phonogenes can be seen here:

Chromatic: The chromatic phonogene was controlled through a one-octave keyboard. Multiple capstans of differing diameters vary the tape speed over a single stationary magnetic tape head. A tape loop was put into the machine, and when a key was played, it would act on an individual pinch roller / capstan arrangement and cause the tape to be played at a specific speed. The machine worked with short sounds only (Poullin 1999).

Sliding: The sliding phonogene (also called continuous variation phonogene) provided continuous variation of tape speed using a control rod (Poullin 1999). The range allowed the motor to arrive at almost a stop position, always through a continuous variation. It was basically a normal tape recorder but with the ability to control its speed, so it could modify any length of tape. One of the earliest examples of its use can by heard in Voile d’Orphee by Pierre Henry (1953), where a lengthy glissando is used to symbolise the removal of Orpheus's veil as he enters hell.

Universal: A final version called the universal phonogene was completed in 1963. The device's main ability was that it enabled the dissociation of pitch variation from time variation. This was the starting point for methods that would later become widely available using digital technology, for instance harmonising (transposing sound without modifying duration) and time stretching (modifying duration without pitch modification). This was obtained through a rotating magnetic head called the Springer temporal regulator, an ancestor of the rotating heads used in video machines.

The three-head tape recorder

This original tape recorder was one of the first machines permitting the simultaneous listening of several synchronised sources. Until 1958 musique concrete, radio and the studio machines were monophonic. The three-head tape recorder superposed three magnetic tapes that were dragged by a common motor, each tape having an independent spool. The objective was to keep the three tapes synchronised from a common starting point. Works could then be conceived polyphonically, and thus each head conveyed a part of the information and was listened to through a dedicated loudspeaker. It was an ancestor of the multi-track player (four then eight tracks) that appeared in the 1960s. Timbres Durees by Olivier Messiaen with the technical assistance of Pierre Henry was the first work composed for this tape recorder in 1952. A rapid rhythmic polyphony was distributed over the three channels (Teruggi 2007, 218).

The morphophone

This machine was conceived to build complex forms through repetition, and accumulation of events through delays, filtering and feedback. It consisted of a large rotating disk, 50 cm in diameter, on which was stuck a tape with its magnetic side facing outward. A series of twelve movable magnetic heads (one each recording head and erasing head, and ten playback heads) were positioned around the disk, in contact with the tape. A sound up to four seconds long could be recorded on the looped tape and the ten playback heads would then read the information with different delays, according to their (adjustable) positions around the disk. A separate amplifier and band-pass filter for each head could modify the spectrum of the sound, and additional feedback loops could transmit the information to the recording head. The resulting repetitions of a sound occurred at different time intervals, and could be filtered or modified through feedback. This system was also easily capable of producing artificial reverberation or continuous sounds (Teruggi 2007, 218).

Early sound spatialisation system

At the premiere of Pierre Schaeffer's Symphonie pour un homme seul in 1951, a system that was designed for the spatial control of sound was tested. It was called a "relief desk" (pupitre de relief, but also referred to as pupitre d'espace or potentiomètre d'espace) and was intended to control the dynamic level of music played from several shellac players. This created a stereophonic effect by controlling the positioning of a monophonic sound source (Teruggi 2007, 218). One of five tracks, provided by a purpose-built tape machine, was controlled by the performer and the other four tracks each supplied a single loudspeaker. This provided a mixture of live and preset sound positions (Poullin, 1957). The placement of loudspeakers in the performance space included two loudspeakers at the front right and left of the audience, one placed at the rear, and in the centre of the space a loudspeaker was placed in a high position above the audience. The sounds could therefore be moved around the audience, rather than just across the front stage. On stage, the control system allowed a performer to position a sound either to the left or right, above or behind the audience, simply by moving a small, hand held transmitter coil towards or away from four somewhat larger receiver coils arranged around the performer in a manner reflecting the loudspeaker positions (Teruggi 2007, 218). A contemporary eyewitness described the potentiomètre d'espace in normal use:

One found one’s self sitting in a small studio which was equipped with four loudspeakers—two in front of one—right and left; one behind one and a fourth suspended above. In the front center were four large loops and an “executant” moving a small magnetic unit through the air. The four loops controlled the four speakers, and while all four were giving off sounds all the time, the distance of the unit from the loops determined the volume of sound sent out from each.The music thus came to one at varying intensity from various parts of the room, and this “spatial projection” gave new sense to the rather abstract sequence of sound originally recorded. (Gradenwitz 1953)

The central concept underlying this method was the notion that music should be controlled during public presentation in order to create a performance situation; an attitude that has stayed with acousmatic music to the present day (Teruggi 2007, 218).

The Coupigny synthesiser and Studio 54 mixing desk

After the longstanding rivalry with the "electronic music" of the Cologne studio had subsided, in 1970 the GRM finally created an electronic studio using tools developed by the physicist Enrico Chiarucci, called the Studio 54, which featured the "Coupigny modular synthesiser" and a Moog synthesiser with VCA (Gayou 2007, 208). The Coupigny synthesiser, named for its designer François Coupigny, director of the Group for Technical Research (Battier 2007, 200), and the Studio 54 mixing desk had a major influence on the evolution of GRM and from the point of their introduction on they brought a new quality to the music (Teruggi 2007, 220). The mixing desk and synthesiser were combined in one unit and were created specifically for the creation of musique concrete.

The design of the desk was influenced by trade union rules at French National Radio that required technicians and production staff to have clearly defined duties. The solitary practice of musique concrete composition did not suit a system that involved three operators: one in charge of the machines, a second controlling the mixing desk, and third to provide guidance to the others. Because of this the synthesiser and desk were combined and organised in a manner that allowed it to be used easily by a composer. Independently of the mixing tracks (twenty-four in total), it had a coupled connection patch that permitted the organisation of the machines within the studio. It also had a number of remote controls for operating tape recorders. The system was easily adaptable to any context, particularly that of interfacing with external equipment (Teruggi 2007, 219).

Before the late 1960s the musique concrete produced at GRM had largely been based on the recording and manipulation of sounds, but synthesised sounds had featured in a number of works prior to the introduction of the Coupigny. Pierre Henry had used oscillators to produce sounds as early as 1955. But a synthesiser with parametrical control was something Pierre Schaeffer was against, since it favoured the preconception of music and therefore deviated from Schaeffer's principal of ‘making through listening’ (Teruggi 2007, 219). Because of Schaeffer's concerns the Coupigny synthesiser was conceived as a sound-event generator with parameters controlled globally, without a means to define values as precisely as some other synthesisers of the day (Teruggi 2007, 219–20).

The development of the machine was constrained by several factors. It needed to be modular and the modules had to be easily interconnected (so that the synthesiser would have more modules than slots and it would have an easy-to-use patch). It also needed to include all the major functions of a modular synthesiser including oscillators, noise-generators, filters, ring-modulators, but an intermodulation facility was viewed as the primary requirement; to enable complex synthesis processes such as frequency modulation, amplitude modulation, and modulation via an external source. No keyboard was attached to the synthesiser and instead a specific and somewhat complex envelope generator was used to shape sound. This synthesiser was well-adapted to the production of continuous and complex sounds using intermodulation techniques such as cross-synthesis and frequency modulation but was less effective in generating precisely defined frequencies and triggering specific sounds (Teruggi 2007, 220).

The Coupigny synthesiser also served as the model for a smaller, portable unit, which has been used down to the present day (Battier 2007, 200).

The Acousmonium

In 1966 composer and technician Francois Bayle was placed in charge of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and in 1975, GRM was integrated with the new Institut national de l'audiovisuel (INA - Audiovisual National Institute) with Bayle as its head. In taking the lead on work that began in the early 1950s, with Jacques Poullin's potentiomètre d’espace, a system designed to move monophonic sound sources across four speakers, Bayle and the engineer Jean-Claude Lallemand created an orchestra of loudspeakers (un orchestra de haut-parleurs) known as the Acousmonium in 1974. An inaugural concert took place at the Espace Pierre Cardin in Paris with a presentation of Bayle's Experience acoustique (Gayou 2007, 209).

The Acousmonium is a specialised sound reinforcement system consisting of between 50 and 100 loudspeakers, depending on the character of the concert, of varying shape and size. The system was designed specifically for the concert presentation of musiques concrete based works but with the added enhancement of sound spatialisation. Loudspeakers are placed both on stage and at positions throughout the performance space (Gayou 2007, 209) and a mixing console is used to manipulate the placement of acousmatic material across the speaker array, using a performative technique known as sound diffusion (Austin 2000, 10-21). Bayle has commented that the purpose of the Acousmonium is to "substitute a momentary classical disposition of sound making, which diffuses the sound from the circumference towards the centre of the hall, by a group of sound projectors which form an ‘orchestration’ of the acoustic image" (Bayle 1993, 44).

Other notable composers

Hugh Le Caine

Delia Derbyshire

Francis Dhomont

Jonty Harrison

Denis Smalley

Frank Zappa (Lowe 2007, 35 and 64)

See also

Audium

Computer music

Electronic music

Electroacoustic music

Experimental music

Noise (music)

Sound engineering

Sound design

Sound art

Sound collage

References

Austin, Larry, and Denis Smalley (2000). "Sound Diffusion in Composition and Performance: An Interview with Denis Smalley". Computer Music Journal 24, no. 2 (Summer), pp. 10–21,.

Battier, Marc (2007). "What the GRM Brought to Music: From Musique Concrète to Acousmatic Music". Organised Sound 12, no. 3 (December: Musique Concrète's 60th and GRM's 50th birthday—A Celebration): 189–02.

Bayle, François (1993). Musique acousmatique, propositions...positions. Paris: INA-GRM Buche/Chastel.

Chion, Michel. (1983). Guide des objets sonores, Pierre Schaeffer et la recherche musicale, Ina-GRM/Buchet-Chastel, Paris.

Dack, John (2002). Technology and the Instrument,musik netz werke - Konturen der neuen Musikkultur. Lydia Grün, Frank Wiegand (eds.). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. ISBN 3-933127-98-X. 39-54.

Emmerson, Simon (2007). Living Electronic Music. Aldershot (Hants.), Burlington (VT): Ashgate. ISBN 0754655466 (cloth) ISBN 0754655482 (pbk)

Gayou, Évelyne. (2007). "The GRM: Landmarks on a Historic Route". Organised Sound 12, no. 3):203–11.

Gradenwitz, Peter (1953). "Experiments in Sound: Ten-Day Demonstrationin Paris Offers the Latest in 'Musique Concrète'". New York Times (9 August).

Jaffrennou, Pierre-Alain. 1998. "De la scénographie sonore". In Le son et l'espace: 1ères Rencontres musicales pluridisciplinaires, Lyon, 1995, edited by Hugues Genevois and Yann Orlarey, 143–56. Musique et sciences. Lyon: GRAME & Aléas. ISBN 2-908016-96-6.

Lange, A. Musique concrète & Early Electronic Music in Young, Rob (ed.) The Wire Primers: A Guide To Modern Music. London: Verso, 2009. pp. 173–180

Reprint of 2006 edition, Westport, CT: Praeger.

Manning, Peter (1985) Electronic and Computer Music, Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0193119188

Palombini, C. (1999). Musique Concrète Revisited, Electronic Musicological Review 4 (June): Federal University of Paraná, Brazil.

Peignot, J. (1960). "De la musique concrète à l'acousmatique". Esprit, No. 280.

Poullin, Jacques (1957) The application of recording techniques to the production of new musical materials and forms. Applications to ‘Musique Concrete’ National Research Council of Canada Technical Translation TT-646, Translated from the original in L’Onde Électrique 34 (324): 282-291, 1954 by D.A. Sinclair, Ottawa 1957

Poullin, Jacques (1999). "L’apport des techniques d’enregistrement dans la fabrication de matieres et de formes musicales nouvelles: applications à la musique concrete". Ars Sonora, no. 9. (this appears to be the text of the original 1954 article)

Schaeffer, Pierre (1952), A la Recherche d’une Musique Concrète. Éditions du Seuil, Paris 1952

Schaeffer, Pierre (1966), Traité des objets musicaux. Paris: Le Seuil.

Schaeffer, Pierre, and G. Reibel (1967). Solfege De L'Objet Sonore, Reedition 1998, preface by Daniel Teruggi, Guy Reibel, and Beatriz Ferreyra. Paris: Coedition Ina-Publications.

Teruggi, Daniel (2007). "Technology and Musique Concrete: The Technical Developments of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales and Their Implication in Musical Composition". Organised Sound 12, no. 3:213–31.

Further reading

Dack, John (1994). "Pierre Schaeffer and the Significance of Radiophonic Art". Contemporary Music Review 10, no. 2: 3–11.

Dack, John (1993a). "La Recherche de l'Instrument Perdu". Electroacoustic Music: Journal of the Electroacoustic Music Association of Great Britain 7:.

Dwyer, Terence (1971). Composing with Tape Recorders: Musique Concrète for Beginners. London and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0193119129.

Kane, Brian (2007). "L’Objet Sonore Maintenant: Pierre Schaeffer, Sound Objects and the Phenomenological Reduction". Organised Sound, 12, no.1:15–24.

Schaeffer, Pierre (1952b). "L'objet musical". La Revue Musicale: L'œuvre du XXe siècle, no. 212: 65-76.

Schaeffer, Pierre (1967). La musique concrète. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

External links

INA-GRM website

Francois Bayle's personal website

Electroacoustic Music Studies Network

Bernard Parmegiani's personal website

ElectroAcoustic Resource Site at De Montfort University

INA-GRM 31st Season (2008/2009). Multiphonies program of events.

Organised Sound: An International Journal of Music and Technology.

Audium A Theatre Of Sound-Sculptured Space

Category:Electroacoustic improvisation Category:Electronic music genres Category:Experimental music genres Category:French words and phrases Category:Musical techniques Category:Musique concrète Category:Pierre Schaeffer Category:Sampling

Pierre Henry (born 9 December 1927 in Paris, France) is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music.

Pierre Henry began experimenting at the age of 15 with sounds produced by various objects, and became fascinates with the integration of noise into music. studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, and Félix Passerone at the Paris Conservatoire from 1938 to 1948 (Dhomont 2001).

Between 1949 and 1958, Henry worked at the Club d'Essai studio at RTF, which had been founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1943 (Dhomont 2001). During this period, he wrote the 1950 piece Symphonie pour un homme seul, in cooperation with Schaeffer; he also composed the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film, the 1952 short film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie. Henry has scored numerous additional films and ballets.

Two years after leaving the RTF, he founded with Jean Baronnet the first private electronic studio in France, the Apsone-Cabasse Studio (Dhomont 2001).

Among Henry's best known works is the experimental 1967 ballet Messe pour le temps présent, written with Michel Colombier, and one of several cooperations with choreographer Maurice Béjart featuring the popular track "Psyché Rock." In 1970 Henry collaborated with British rock band Spooky Tooth on the album Ceremony.

Composer Christopher Tyng was heavily inspired by Henry's "Psyché Rock" when writing the theme to the popular animated cartoon show Futurama. The theme is so reminiscent of the Henry's song, it is merely a variation of the original (Cohen 2001).

References

Cohen, David X. 2001. Commentary track to Futurama, Season 1 (television series, 13 episodes). 3 DVD set. Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Dhomont, Francis. 2001. "Henry, Pierre". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.

Further reading

Chion, Michel. 2003. Pierre Henry, new, revised edition. Paris: Fayard. ISBN 2213617570.

Kennedy, Michael. 2006. The Oxford Dictionary of Music. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-861459-4

External links

Discography of vinyl records.

Live in Berlin 2008

Category:1927 births Category:Living people Category:French electronic musicians Category:French experimental musicians Category:Electroacoustic music composers Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Sound artists Category:French composers Category:Musique concrète

issued by the United States Postal Service]].

John Luther ("Casey") Jones (March 14, 1864 – April 30, 1900) was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee, who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad (IC). On April 30, 1900, he alone was killed when his passenger train, the "Cannonball Express," collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi, on a foggy and rainy night.

His dramatic death, trying to stop his train and save lives, made him a hero; he was immortalized in a popular ballad sung by his friend Wallace Saunders, an African American engine wiper for the IC. Thanks to this song his life and legend have been celebrated worldwide for over a century.

Promotion to engineer

Jones went to work for the Mobile & Ohio RR and performed well and was promoted to brakeman on the Columbus, Kentucky, to Jackson, Tennessee, route, and then to fireman on the Jackson, Tennessee, to Mobile, Alabama, route.

Famous train whistle

Jones was also famous for his peculiar skill with the train whistle. His whistle was made of six thin tubes bound together, the shortest being half the length of the longest. Its unique sound involved a long-drawn-out note that began softly, rose and then died away to a whisper, a sound which became his trademark. The sound of it was variously described as "a sort of whippoorwill call" or "like the war cry of a Viking.” People living along the Illinois Central right-of-way between Jackson, Tennessee, and Water Valley, Mississippi, would turn over in their beds late at night upon hearing it and say “There goes Casey Jones” as he roared by.

Service at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

During the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago, Illinois, in 1893 the I.C. was charged with providing commuter service for the thousands of visitors to the fairground. A call was sent out for trainmen who wished to work there and Jones answered it, spending a pleasant summer there with his wife. He shuttled many people from Van Buren Street to Jackson Park during the exposition. It was his first experience as an engineer in passenger service and he liked it.

It was at the fair (also called The Chicago World's Fair), that he became acquainted with No. 638, a big new freight engine the I.C. had on display there as the latest and greatest technological advancement in trains. It had eight drive wheels and two pilot wheels, a 2-8-0 "Consolidation" type. At the closing of the fair No. 638 was due to be sent to Water Valley for service in the Jackson District. Jones asked for permission to drive the engine back to Water Valley himself. His request was approved, and No. 638 ran its first 589 miles with Jones at the throttle all the way to Water Valley. Jones liked No. 638 and especially liked working in the Jackson District because his family was in Jackson. They had once moved to Water Valley but Jackson was really home to the Jones family. Jones drove the engine until he transferred to Memphis in February 1900. No. 638 stayed in Water Valley. That year he would drive the engine that became most closely associated with him through tragic circumstances, and he would drive it only one time. That was Engine No. 382, known affectionately as "Ole 382." The engine Jones drove the night of his fateful last ride was a steam-driven Rogers 4-6-0 "Ten Wheeler" with six drivers, each approximately six feet high. Bought new in 1898 from the Rogers Locomotive Works, it was a very powerful engine for the time. When a potential disaster arose, all of Jones' skill and its responsiveness would be put to the greatest test.

His regular fireman on No. 638 was his close friend, John Wesley McKinnie, with whom he worked exclusively from about 1897 until he went to the passenger run out of Memphis with his next and last fireman, Sim Webb in 1900.

Rescue of child from the tracks

A little-known example of Jones' heroic instincts in action is described by his biographer and friend Fred J. Lee in his 1939 book Casey Jones: Epic of the American Railroad. The book describes an incident that occurred sometime around 1895 as Jones’ train approached Michigan City, Mississippi. He had left the cab in charge of fellow Engineer Bob Stevenson who had reduced speed sufficiently to make it safe for Jones to walk out on the running board to oil the relief valves. He advanced from the running board to the steam chest and then to the pilot beam to adjust the spark screen. He had finished well before they arrived at the station as planned and was returning to the cab when he noticed a group of small children dart in front of the train some sixty yards ahead. All cleared the rails easily except for a little girl who suddenly froze in fear at the sight of the oncoming iron horse. Jones shouted to Stevenson to reverse the train then told the girl to get off the tracks in almost the same breath. Realizing that she was still immobile, he quickly swung into action. He raced to the tip of the pilot or cowcatcher and braced himself on it as he reached out as far as he could to pull the frightened but unharmed girl from the rails.A similar thing was done in The Brave Engineer.

Baseball player

Jones was an avid baseball fan and watched or participated in the game whenever his busy schedule allowed. During the 1880s he had played at Columbus, Kentucky, while he was a cub operator on the M & O. One Sunday during the summer of 1898 the Water Valley shop team was scheduled to play the Jackson shop team and Jones got to haul the team to Jackson for the game.

Rules infractions

Jones was issued 9 citations for rules infractions in his career, with a total of 145 days suspended. Railroaders who worked with Jones liked him but admitted that he was a bit of a chance taker. Unofficially though, the penalties were far more severe for running behind than breaking the rules. He was by all accounts an ambitious engineer, eager to move up the seniority ranks and serve on the better-paying, more prestigious passenger trains. Passenger trains took priority on the rails. A passenger train never had to "go in the hole" for a freight train to pass. The only time a passenger train ever went to a side track or "passing track" was to allow another passenger train to pass.

Engineer Willard W. "Bill" Hatfield had transferred from Memphis back to a run out of Water Valley thus opening up trains No. 2 (north) and No. 3 (south) to another engineer. It meant moving his family to Memphis and separation from his close friend John Wesley McKinnie and No. 638 as well, but Jones saw the move as a good one, and had bid for and got the job. Jones would drive Hatfield's Engine No. 384 until the night of his fateful last ride on Engine No. 382.

Death

On April 29, 1900 Jones was at Poplar Street Station in Memphis, Tennessee, having driven the No. 2 from Canton (with his assigned Engine No. 384). Normally, Jones would have stayed in Memphis on a layover; however, he was asked to take the No. 1 back to Canton, as the scheduled engineer (Sam Tate), who held the regular run of Trains No. 1 (known as "The Chicago & New Orleans Limited", later to become the famous "Panama Limited") and No. 4 ("The New Orleans Fast Mail") with his assigned Engine No. 382, had called in sick with cramps.

A fast engine, a good fireman (Simeon T. Webb would be the train's assigned fireman), and a light train were ideal for a record-setting run. Although it was raining, steam trains of that era operated best in damp conditions. However, the weather was quite foggy that night (which reduced visibility), and the run was well-known for its tricky curves. Both conditions would prove deadly later that night.

Normally the No. 1 would depart Memphis at 11:15 PM and arrive in Canton (188 miles to the south) at 4:05 AM the following morning. However, due to the delays with the change in engineers, the No. 1 (with six cars) did not leave Memphis until 12:50 am, 95 minutes behind schedule.

The first section of the run would take Jones from Memphis 100 miles south to Grenada, Mississippi, with an intermediate water stop at Sardis, Mississippi (50 miles into the run), over a new section of light and shaky rails at speeds up to . At Senatobia, Mississippi (40 miles into the run) Jones passed through the scene of a prior fatal accident from the previous November. Jones made his water stop at Sardis, then arrived at Grenada for more water, having made up 55 minutes of the 95 minute delay.

Jones made up another 15 minutes in the 25-mile stretch from Grenada to Winona, Mississippi. The following 30-mile stretch (Winona to Durant, Mississippi) had no speed-restricted curves. By the time he got to Durant (155 miles into the run) Jones was almost on time. He was quite happy, saying at one point "Sim, the old girl's got her dancing slippers on tonight!" as he leaned on the Johnson bar.

At Durant he received new orders to take to the siding at Goodman, Mississippi (eight miles south of Durant, and 163 miles into the run) and wait for the No. 2 passenger train to pass, and then continue on to Vaughan. His orders also instructed him that he was to meet passenger train No. 26 at Vaughan (15 miles south of Goodman, and 178 miles into the run); however, No. 26 was a local passenger train in two sections and would be in the siding, so he would have priority over it. Jones pulled out of Goodman, only five minutes behind schedule, and with 25 miles of fast track ahead Jones doubtless felt that he had a good chance to make it to Canton by 4:05 AM "on the advertised".

But the stage was being set for a tragic wreck at Vaughan. The stopped double-header freight train No. 83 (located to the north and headed south) and the stopped long freight train No. 72 (located to the south and headed north) were both in the passing track to the east of the main line but there were more cars than the track could hold, forcing some of them to overlap onto the main line above the north end of the switch. The northbound local passenger train No. 26 had arrived from Canton earlier which had required a “saw by” in order for it to get to the “house track” west of the main line. The saw by maneuver for No. 26 required that No. 83 back up and allow No. 72 to move northward and pull its overlapping cars off the south end, allowing No. 26 to gain access to the house track. But this left four cars overlapping above the north end of the switch and on the main line right in Jones' path. As a second saw by was being prepared to let Jones pass, an air hose broke on No. 72, locking its brakes and leaving the last four cars of No. 83 on the main line.

Meanwhile, Jones was almost back on schedule, running at about 75 miles per hour toward Vaughan, unaware of the danger ahead, since he was traveling through a 1.5-mile left-hand curve which blocked his view. Webb's view from the left side of the train was better, and he was first to see the red lights of the caboose on the main line. "Oh my Lord, there's something on the main line!" he yelled to Jones. Jones quickly yelled back "Jump Sim, jump!" to Webb, who crouched down and jumped about 300 feet before impact and was knocked unconscious. The last thing Webb heard when he jumped was the long, piercing scream of the whistle as Jones tried to warn anyone still in the freight train looming ahead. He was only two minutes behind schedule about this time.

Jones reversed the throttle and slammed the airbrakes into emergency stop, but "Ole 382" quickly plowed through a wooden caboose, a car load of hay, another of corn and half way through a car of timber before leaving the track. He had amazingly reduced his speed from about 75 miles per hour to about 35 miles per hour when he impacted with a deafening crunch of steel against steel and splintering wood. Because Jones stayed on board to slow the train, he no doubt saved the passengers from serious injury and death (Jones himself was the only fatality of the collision). His watch was found to be stopped at the time of impact which was 3:52 AM on April 30, 1900. Popular legend holds that when his body was pulled from the wreckage of his train near the twisted rail his hands still clutched the whistle cord and the brake. A stretcher was brought from the baggage car on No. 1 and crewmen of the other trains carried his body to the depot ½-mile away.

The headlines in the Jackson, Tennessee, Sun read: "FATAL WRECK - Engineer Casey Jones, of This City, Killed Near Canton, Miss. - DENSE FOG THE DIRECT CAUSE - Of a Rear End Collision on the Illinois Central. - Fireman and Messenger Injured - Passenger Train Crashed Into a Local Freight Partly on the Siding-Several Cars Demolished."

A Jackson, Mississippi, newspaper report detailed the accident this way:

Legend begins

Jones' legend was quickly fueled by headlines such as, "DEAD UNDER HIS CAB: THE SAD END OF ENGINEER CASEY JONES," The Commercial Appeal, Memphis, Tennessee; and "HEROIC ENGINEER – Sticks to his post at cost of life. Railroad Wreck at Vaughan's on Illinois Central Railroad – Terrible Fatality Prevented by Engineer's Loyalty to Duty – A passenger's Story," The Times-Democrat, New Orleans. but of course this was no legend.

The passenger in the article was Adam Hauser, formerly a member of The Times-Democrat telegraph staff (New Orleans), who was in a sleeper on Jones' southbound fast mail and made these (excerpted) comments after the wreck:

"The passengers did not suffer, and there was no panic."

"I was jarred a little in my bunk, but when fairly awake the train was stopped and everything was still."

"Engineer Jones did a wonderful as well as an heroic piece of work, at the cost of his life."

"The marvel and mystery is how Engineer Jones stopped that train. The railroad men themselves wondered at it and of course the uninitiated could not do less. But stop it he did. In a way that showed his complete mastery of his engine, as well as his sublime heroism. I imagine that the Vaughan wreck will be talked about in roundhouses, lunchrooms and cabooses for the next six months, not alone on the Illinois Central, but many other roads in Mississippi and Louisiana."

Funeral

The next morning Jones' body made the long trip back home to Jackson, Tennessee on passenger train No. 26. On the following day the funeral service was held in St. Mary’s Church where he and Janie Brady had married fourteen years before. Burial was in Mount Calvary Cemetery. Fifteen enginemen rode 118 miles from Water Valley to pay their last respects, which was something of a record.

Illinois Central Railroad report on accident

A conductor's report filed just five hours after the accident stated "Engineer on No.1 failed to answer flagman who was out proper distance. It is supposed did not see the flag." This was the position the I.C. would later take in its official reports.

The final I.C. accident report was released on July 13, 1900 by A.S. Sullivan, General Superintendent of the I.C., and stated that "Engineer Jones was solely responsible having disregarded the signals given by Flagman Newberry." John M. Newberry was the flagman on the southbound No. 83 that Jones hit. According to the report he had gone back a distance of 3,000 feet where he had placed torpedos on the rail. He then continued north a further distance of 500 to 800 feet, where he stood and gave signals to Jones's train No.1. But doubt still lingers about the official findings and some wonder where Newberry was positioned that night. Some feel he wasn’t there at all. Some say Jones was "short flagged," but Newberry was an experienced man and he had flagged No. 25 a short time before. In the report Fireman Sim Webb states that he heard the torpedo explode, then went to the gangway on the engineer's side and saw the flagman with the red and white lights standing alongside the tracks. Going then to the fireman's side, he saw the markers of the caboose of No. 83 and yelled to Jones. But it would have been impossible for him to have seen the flagman if the flagman had been positioned 500–800 feet before the torpedoes as the report says he was. Once the torpedoes exploded the train would have already been too far past the flagman’s reported position for him to be visible. So if Webb did see the flagman at this point, he had to be out of position at about 3,000 feet north of the switch, not 3,500–3,800 feet north as stated in the report, which means Jones was indeed "short flagged." It's possible that after the flagman flagged the No. 25 freight through, he heard the commotion as No. 72's air hose broke and everything got jammed up with No. 83 fouling the main line. He may have gone to No. 83 to find out what the situation was, assuming he had time before Jones arrived. He then headed north along the tracks and placed the torpedoes, but by then Jones may have come roaring out of the fog before he made it to his reported position. If this is what happened, Jones lost a good 500–800 feet of stopping distance, which might have prevented the collision. In any event, some railroad historians have disputed the official account over the years, finding it difficult if not impossible to believe that an engineer of Jones's experience would have ignored a flagman and fusees (flares) and torpedoes exploded on the rail to alert him to danger.

Contrary to what the report claimed, shortly after the accident and until his death Webb maintained that "We saw no flagman or fusees, we heard no torpedoes. Without any warning we plowed into that caboose."

Injuries and losses from the wreck

The personal injury and physical damage costs of the wreck were as follows:

Simeon T. Webb, Fireman Train No. 1, body bruises from jumping off Engine 382 – $5.00

Mrs. W. E. Breaux, passenger, 1472 Rocheblave Street, New Orleans, slight bruises – Not settled

Mrs. Wm. Deto, passenger, No 25 East 33rd Street, Chicago, slight bruises left knee and left hand – Not settled

Wm. Miller, Express Messenger, injuries to back and left side, apparently slight – $25.00

W. L. Whiteside, Postal Clerk, jarred – $1.00

R. A. Ford, Postal Clerk, jarred – $1.00

Engine No. 382 – $1,396.25

Mail car No. 51 – $610.00

Baggage car No. 217 – $105.00

Caboose No. 98119 – $430.00

I.C. box car 11380 – $400.00

I.C. box car 24116 – $55.00

Total – $2,996.25

Surprisingly, there are no clearly authentic photographs of the famous wreck in existence.

There has been some controversy about exactly how Jones died. Massena Jones (former postmaster of Vaughan and director of the now-closed museum there), said "When they found Jones, according to Uncle Will Madison (a section hand who helped remove Jones' body from the wreckage), he had a splinter of wood driven through his head. Now this is contrary to most of the stories, some of which say he had a bolt through his neck, some say he was crushed, some say he was scalded to death. But we have to go along with Uncle Will Madison. He was there, we were not."

Later history of engines

For at least 10 years after the wreck, the imprint of Jones' engine was clearly visible in the embankment on the east side of the tracks about two-tenths of a mile north of Tucker's Creek, which is where the marker was located. The imprint of the headlight, boiler and the spokes of the wheels could be seen and people would ride up on handcars to view the traces of the famous wreck. Corn that was scattered by the wreck grew for years afterward in the surrounding fields.

January 1903: criminal train wreckers caused 382 to wreck, nearly demolishing the locomotive. Norton's legs were broken and he was badly scalded. His fireman died 3 days later.

September 1905: Norton and the 382 turned over in the Memphis South Yards. This time, however, the train was moving slowly and Norton was uninjured.

January 22, 1912: 382 (now numbered 2012) was involved in a wreck that killed 4 prominent railroad men and injured several others. It is called the Kinmundy Wreck as it happened near Kinmundy, Illinois. An engineer by the name of Strude was driving this time.

Jones' beloved Engine No. 638 was sold to the Mexican government in 1921 and was still running there in the 1940s.

Other people involved

Jones' African American fireman, Simeon T. Webb (born May 12, 1874), died in Memphis on July 13, 1957 at the age of 83. Jones' wife, Janie Brady Jones (born October 29, 1866), died on November 21, 1958 in Jackson at the age of 92. At the time of Jones' death at age 37, his son Charles was 12, his daughter Helen was 10 and his youngest son John Lloyd (known as "Casey Junior") was 4.

Jones' wife said she never had any thought of remarrying.

Jones' tombstone in Jackson's Mount Calvary Cemetery gives his birth year as 1864 but according to information written in the family Bible by his mother he was born in 1863. The tombstone was donated in 1947 by two out-of-town railroad enthusiasts who accidentally got his birth year wrong. Until then, a simple wooden cross had marked his grave.

Casey Jones references in music

The Ballad of Casey Jones - The fame of Casey Jones can almost certainly be attributed to this traditional ballad recorded by Mississippi John Hurt

Casey Jones - The Grateful Dead performed not only The Ballad of Casey Jones, but in 1969, lyricist Robert Hunter and guitarist Jerry Garcia teamed up to write "Casey Jones," which was first released on their "Workingman's Dead" album in 1970.

To the Dogs or Whoever - Josh Ritter from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Casey Jones - This Bike is a Pipe Bomb

Casey Jones - Pete Seeger

Casey Jones - Johnny Cash

Casey Jones - Tom Russell

Casey Jones - Leonid Utyosov

Casey Jones - Billy Murray

Casey's Last Ride - Kris Kristofferson

Casey Jones - The New Christy Minstrels

April the 14th (Part 1) and Ruination Day (Part 2) - Gillian Welch from Time (The Revelator) — Casey Jones becomes a simile for another great collision, that of the RMS Titanic, on April 14, 1912.

St Luke's Summer - Thea Gilmore from 'Rules For Jokers'

KC Jones - North Mississippi Allstars

Kassie Jones Parts I and II - Furry Lewis

Casey Jones - Skillet Lickers

Ridin' With the Driver - Motörhead

Casey Jones Was His Name - Hank Snow

Freight Train Boogie - Marty Stuart

What's Next to the Moon - AC/DC

Ballad of a Thin Man- Bob Dylan

Casey Jones - The Jubilaires

Casey Jones media references

Casey Jones (1927) was a movie made about Jones and his famous wreck. It starred Ralph Lewis as Casey Jones, Kate Price as his wife, and a young Jason Robards as Casey Jones, Jr.

In 1950 The Walt Disney Company made a new animated cartoon based on Casey Jones, such as "The Brave Engineer."

Casey Jones was a television series loosely based on Jones' legend. It starred Alan Hale, Jr. as Casey Jones; Hale would later become well remembered for his role as "The Skipper" on the TV series Gilligan's Island.

In an episode of The Simpsons, Casey Jones was mentioned by Mr. Burns' son, Larry; the episode is entitled "Burns Baby Burns".

There is a PS3 trophy called "Casey Jones" for the video game "inFamous" which is awarded after performing a stunt on a train.

Casey Jones is the vigilante comrade of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

In the 1993 movie The Fugitive, while walking through the crash site, involving a prisoner transport bus and a train, Deputy Gerard says that the conductor "did a Casey Jones."

An episode of The Real Ghostbusters (titled "Last Train To Oblivion") (1987) features the ghost of Casey Jones. He abducts Peter, and always yells at Peter for more coal. Peter eventually realizes that Jones wants to repeat the journey that killed him, so that he can avoid the collision this time.

Casey Jones is mentioned in the AC/DC song: "What's Next to the Moon", in the lines: "Engineer wishing he was home in bed, dreaming about Casey Jones"

Museums in Casey Jones's honor

The Historic Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum in Jackson, Tennessee

Water Valley Casey Jones Railroad Museum in Water Valley, Mississippi

Casey Jones Railroad Museum State Park in Vaughan, Mississippi Museum Closed in 2004

See also

List of rail accidents (pre-1950)

John Axon

Jesús García

References

External links

Ballad of Casey Jones

Casey Jones on Find-A-Grave

Category:American folklore Category:Railroad engineers Category:Railroad accident victims in the United States Category:People from Fulton County, Kentucky Category:People from Missouri Category:People from Jackson, Tennessee Category:Railway accidents in the United States Category:Disasters in Mississippi Category:1863 births Category:1900 deaths Category:Tall tales