9 Laliberte EN a COR 2

Actuality and Prospects of Pierre Schaeffer’s Thought Related as it is to the GRM’s 50th anniversary in 2008, this book on Pierre Schaeffer beckons memories, discussions, and development propositions. For my own contribution, I wanted to start by explaining my personal background and its complex ties to Schaeffer and his thought, and then quickly present how Schaefferian thought resonates in various ways throughout the pluridisciplinary department I manage and the research projects we work on. From Québec to Paris Via Los Angeles I received my initial music training in the ‘80s, in an outlying “French” capital called the city of Québec. The various “counter-cultural” – if not ‘68er – movements were coming to an end, movements in which electroacoustic music played a high-profile part as an acknowledged seal of modernity. In Québec, electroacoustic music was mostly carried by two musicians with a Schaefferian lineage: Nil Parent, at Université Laval’s music department, and Yves Daoust, at the Québec Conservatoire de Musique. There were also other active electroacousticians in the Association de musique actuelle de Québec1, such as Gisèle Ricard and Bernard Bonnier. Being a music fan and a curious-minded soul, I went on to work closely with Nil Parent from 1982 to 1987, and trained less closely with Yves Daoust and his pupils. So I was introduced to electroacoustic music composition in general and more particularly to the Schaefferian approach, through the teachings of Nil Parent, who had studied in Québec, Toronto, Stanford and Utrecht, and had been Henri Pousseur’s assistant for a while2. The ‘80s was a thrilling decade, marked by the transfer from analog to digital. Within four years, I switched from the most classical form of musique concrète (in keeping with the technical minimalism so dear to the GRM’s founder) to modular synthesizers (Moog and Arp), to computer music (via the studio’s Synclavier II or Macintosh computers hooked up to Yamaha’s DX-7 models, which were within the reach of a student’s budget3). This eclectic technology illustrates Nil Parent’s similarly eclectic aesthetics. As a seasoned post-modernist, he knowingly mixed hefty doses of concrète, pure electronic music, pop music, alternative music, and anti-trendy 1 TN: The Quebec New Music Association, although that translation is not quite right. In the Province of Quebec, the expression “musique actuelle” covers a wide range of experimental forms of music, from contemporary music to electroacoustics, free improvisation and avant- garde rock. This expression was popularized in the early ‘80s by the Montréal-based musicians’ cooperative Ambiances Magnétiques and the Festival international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville, who both use a broad, inclusive definition for “musique actuelle.” 2 His biography is available online on The Canadian Encyclopedia: http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=Q1SEC843295. 3 Back then, there was a significant difference in pricing policies between North America and Europe. aesthetics. The whole thing nicely balanced out our instrumental composition training, which was thorough and solid, but a bit on the safe side. The highlight of my formative years was Pierre Schaeffer coming to the Université Laval’s Berio Studio in 1986/87. It was a highly paradoxical – highly Schaefferian? – session. His first sentence was delivered with a finger fiercely pointed at our precious Synclavier II: “That, is the atomic bomb of music!” Then, he proceeded to denounce his music work as a whole, which was very unsettling for us. If my memory has not been too severely warped by time, Schaeffer told us that his music research project4 had partly failed, which was why he had gone back to writing. Michel Chion followed with a more “reassuring” lecture on music and picture. I believe this anecdote sheds some light on why I have been fascinated by Schaeffer but also very critical of him. I wanted to push back my horizons, so as soon as I felt strong enough music- wise, I went to L.A., California, to round up my education, in ’85-‘86. Northridge University5 also had a computer electroacoustic class led by Beverly Grigsby. This was the time of the Fairlight CMI popularized by Peter Gabriel. I wrote some film music for Hollywood with this tool filled with synthetic sounds, noise samples and symphony orchestra samples. I could measure the difference in music culture between my home community and America: my Californian colleagues knew very little about electroacoustic thought in general, and Schaeffer’s in particular. This surprising gap (at least from musicians who were otherwise well trained and open-minded) first intrigued me, then disappointed me, and finally bored me. Around that time, I met the team of the Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Ircam, during the Répons tour. I decided to go to France for a while. I completed a Ph.D. thesis at Ircam/EHESS in 1994, under Hugues Dufourt, followed by an accreditation to supervise research at Université de Paris-8, under Horacio Vaggione. I also followed the classes of Iannis Xenakis at Université de Paris-1 and Gérard Grisey at the Conservatoire de Paris. My eclectic background, at least when it comes to obedience to an esthetic school (my training combined post-serial instrumental music, analog electroacoustic and interactive computer music, spectral music, and several forms of post-modern music), has strongly influenced my viewpoint on Schaeffer. And that is why I have presented it in detail – besides, it may hold documentary interest for people interested in how my generation was trained. As you can see, I am not a member of the GRM and I have been trained more by friends of the GRM than by its active members. I thought it would be worth saying so, as many of us have approached Schaeffer that way, indirectly or “imperfectly,” through the complexities of de facto post-modernism, which was 4 The text of this communication still lies in the Schaeffer collection, now resting at the IMEC, but I have yet to read it again. 5 At the music department of the old San Fernando Valley College, founded by Gerald Strang and Californian students of Schönberg and Stravinsky. all we knew. In fact, when I arrived in Paris, the topic du jour was SYTER, then GRM-Tools coupled (rather than opposed) to Max/MSP, Pro-Tools, and the Akai sampler. This kind of pragmatic hybridization is a recurring feature in the history of electroacoustics, as we all know6. Following my education – in which Schaefferian teachings played an important part, although in a practical guise or in the form of certain implicit viewpoints, rather than a systematic theoretical process – I rekindled with Schaeffer after his death, while I was at the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Pierre-Schaeffer7 from 1998 to 2003. That is when the theoretical component of the Schaefferian work hit me much deeply: cross-contacts between witnesses from the ‘50s and ‘60s, documents from the Schaeffer collection, and other active members of the CERPS have had a tremendous impact on my path. I truly realized the Schaefferian aspect of my own approach. From this deepening came two papers8 and most of the following paragraphs. Actuality: Teachings at the CAASN Department, Université de Paris- Est Since 2006, I am the head of the Cinema, Audiovisual, Sound Arts & Digital Arts Department of UFR Lettres, Arts, Communications et Technologies, Université de Paris-Est-Marne-la-Vallée. Our department has inherited part of its predecessor – the Stage Arts Department founded in 20029 – and its projects, to which I had largely contributed since 200110, before distancing myself from 2003 to 2006. Since 2006, we11 have completed a full review of our university’s arts 6 In Goethals’ words: “The electroacoustic child is bad-mannered but mannered just the same.” 7 Directed by Sylvie Dallet from 1995 until its final closing in 2003. 8 “Problématique générale des outils dans l’histoire de l’électroacoustique,” in S. Dallet & A. Veitl (ed.), Du sonore au musical, 50 années de recherches concrètes (1948-1998) (Paris: l’Harmattan), 2001, pp. 33- 53, and; “Sons naturels et sons industriels dans la musique concrète de Pierre Schaeffer,” in Gianmario Borio & Pierre Michel (ed.), Suono e natura. Composizione e teoria musicale in Francia : 1950-2000, Musicalia, 1 (Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionale), 2004, pp 65-88. 9 By Didier Arquès and Sylvie Dallet. 10 With Giordano Ferrari, Jorge Campos, Sylvain Michelin, and Benoît Piranda. 11 With Sylvie Thouard, Jocelyne Kiss, Kevin Dahan, Geneviève Mathon, David Faroult, and Steven Bernas. department, switched UFRs12, and entirely rebuilt its educational programs, blueprints, and techniques. Our department is highly focused on an interdisciplinary mission. The composite nature of the name we chose for it comes from our project of interaction between these contemporary art forms. None of us want to stay tucked in his or her own speciality. On the contrary, we try to build exchanges and crosspollinations, something especially illustrated by our Recording Arts & Sciences master’s profile, where a student’s specialization through a major in cinema & audiovisual, music, digital arts, or archiving is complemented by a minor in another of these disciplines. This spirit of complementarity also applies to the three diplomas we offer and the engineering school I co-head, the IMAC13. So, in a world where, since the rise of the music video, music needs to rely on image, where the telephone often becomes a videophone or a multimedia tool, and where images are largely fit with sound, teachings should rest on systematic thought about these interactions. This comes back to the “interdisciplines” of Schaeffer, the author of both the Traité des objets musicauX and Machines à communiquer14. Our students – whether in cinema, audiovisuals, music, or digital arts – receive complementary training in electroacoustics, audiovisuals, or multimedia.

Load more