Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (August 14, 1910–August 19, 1995) was a French composer, noted as the inventor of musique concrète. He is generally acknowledged as being the first composer to make music using magnetic tape. August 14 is the 226th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (227th in leap years), with 139 days remaining. ... -1... August 19 is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Tape music. ... Music is conceptual time expressed in the structures of tones and silence. ... Compact audio cassette Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip. ...

Schaeffer was born in Nancy. His parents were both engineers, and at first it seemed that Pierre would also take this as a career. He studied at the École Polytechnique and after a stint as a telecommunications engineer in Strasbourg from 1934, he found a job in 1936 at Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF) in Paris. It was there that he began to experiment with recorded sounds, convincing the radio station's management to let him use their equipment. He tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds, all techniques which were virtually unknown at that time. His first completed piece as a result of these experiments was the Étude aux chemins de fer (1948) which was made from recordings of trains. Location within France Nancy (pronounced in French) (German: Nanzig) is a city and commune which is the préfecture (capital) of the Meurthe-et-Moselle département, in the Lorraine région of northeastern France. ... For other Écoles Polytechniques, see École Polytechnique de Montréal and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. ... City motto: – City proper (commune) Région Alsace Département Bas-Rhin (67) Mayor Fabienne Keller (UMP) (since 2001) Land area 78. ... The Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) was the national agency charged, between 1964 and 1974, with providing public radio and television in France. ... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city, with the skyscrapers of La Défense business district 5 km/ 3 mi behind. ...

By that time, Schaeffer had founded the Jeune France group, which had interests in theatre and visual art as well as music. In 1942, he co-founded the Studio d'Essai (later known as the Club d'Essai), which played a role in the activities of the French resistance during World War II, and became a centre of musical activity afterwards. It has been suggested that Drama (art form) be merged into this article or section. ... The French Resistance is the name used for resistance movements that fought military occupation of France by Nazi Germany and the Vichy France undemocratic regime during World War II after the government and the high command of France surrendered in 1940. ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II...

In 1949, Schaeffer met Pierre Henry, and the two founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC) which received official recognition from ORTF in 1951. They gave him a new studio, which included a tape recorder. This was a significant development for Schaeffer, who had previously had to work with turntables to produce his music. His continued experimentation led him to publish A la recherche d'une musique concrète (The Search for a Concrete Music) in 1952, which was a summation of his working methods up to that point. Pierre Henry (born December 9, 1927 in Paris, France) is a French composer, considered a pioneer of the [[musique concr�te]] genre of electronic music. ... In general, a tape recorder, tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is any device that records and plays back, fluctuating signal by moving a strip of magnetic tape across a tape head. ...

Schaeffer left the GRMC in 1953, but reformed it in 1958 with Luc Ferrari and François-Bernard Mâche as the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM). Luc Ferrari (February 5, 1929 – August 22, 2005) was a French composer, particularly noted for his tape music. ... François-Bernard Mâche (born April 4, 1935 Clermont-Ferrand) is a French composer of contemporary music. ...

With the founding of the Service de Recherche de l'ORTF in 1960, of which he was made director, Schaeffer began to wind down his compositional activities in favour of sound research and teaching. One of his last pieces came in 1959, the Etudes aux Objets. In his new post, he continued to conduct his research into the sonic properties of objects, publishing an important work on the subject, Traité des objets musicaux, in 1966. In it, he attempts to classify all sound producing objects by dividing their characteristics into seven categories, which he called mass; dynamic; harmonic timbre; melodic profile; mass profile; gain; and inflection. Up to now no English translation of this massive work has appeared. In music, timbre, also timber, (French, IPA /tæmbÉ™r/ as in the first two syllables of tambourine) is the quality of a musical note or sound which distinguishes different types of sound production or musical instruments. ...

Schaeffer took a number of teaching posts, including an associate professorship at the Paris Conservatoire from 1968 where he taught electronic composition. Towards the end of his life, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease. He died in Aix-en-Provence. Aix (prounounced eks), or, to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, Aix-en-Provence is a city in southern France, some 30 km north of Marseille. ...

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Pierre Schaeffer

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Recordings

• CDeMusic Distribution for EMF / Electronic Music Foundation - also INA-GRM Recordings