Creative Computing Major

Concrete Harmony
Luke Digance
2’30

In writing this piece I hope to challenge the musical ideals behind music concrete, and establish the foundations of traditional western music within music concrete.

To begin this process I started off gathering a group of ‘found sounds’ in which I could use. When editing these sounds I did not use any technique that was not typically used within music concrete.

I then proceeded to challenge the ideal that ‘found sounds’ need to be treated as sounds that are de-referenced from their source yet treated as sonic objects and not harmonic or melodic ones.

I continued to de-reference the sounds from their source, employing a number of traditional music concrete techniques to do this, but furthering this I analysed the fundamental frequencies of each sound and referenced them to a pitch. From this a chordal structure was born which progressed into a traditional western harmonic chord progression.

In doing this I feel that I haven’t actually bridged any gaps between the two musical schools of thought, but rather highlight the already existing union between the two in a lot of modern ‘computer music.’ This is also why the last part of the piece becomes slightly more modern with the use of a beat to tie the last 30 seconds together.

Harmonic Concrete