Pierre Schaeffer Quotes

Sound is the vocabulary of nature... noises are as well articulated as the words in a dictionary... Opposing the world of sound is the world of music.

I was horrified by modern 12-tone music. I said to myself, 'Maybe I can find something different... maybe salvation, liberation, is possible.'

Barbarians always think of themselves as the bringers of civilization.

I do not want to heap coals of fire on anyone's head, but I would like to advise those who keep the living thought of the dead hidden away in cardboard boxes, to pass on as quickly as possibly such explosive material, whose only legitimate heir is the whole world, that is to say, my neighbor.

We live in an age dominated by the problem of limits. We are witnessing the end of progress. We have reached the saturation point. Are we going beyond these limits? Are we going to take the risk? There is much work to do to maintain the planet.

Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music?

Music has to do with sounds, so we need to find them somewhere and it is preferred to find musical ones. You have two sources for sounds: noises, which always tell you something — a door cracking, a dog barking, the thunder, the storm; and then you have instruments. An instrument tells you, 'la-la-la-la.' Music has to find a passage between noises and instruments. It has to escape. It has to find a compromise and an evasion at the same time; something that would not be dramatic because that has no interest to us, but something that would be more interesting than sounds like Do-Re-Mi-Fa...

People who try to create a musical revolution do not have a chance, but those who turn their back to music can sometimes find it.