Tape music in the context of "Different Trains"

Musique concrète (French pronunciation: [myzik kɔ̃kʁɛt]; lit. 'concrete music') is a type of music composition that utilizes recorded sounds as raw material. Sounds are often modified through the application of audio signal processing and tape music techniques, and may be assembled into a form of sound collage. It can feature sounds derived from recordings of musical instruments, the human voice, and the natural environment, as well as those created using sound synthesis and computer-based digital signal processing. Compositions in this idiom are not restricted to the normal musical rules of melody, harmony, rhythm, and metre. The technique exploits acousmatic sound, such that sound identities can often be intentionally obscured or appear unconnected to their source cause.

The theoretical basis of musique concrète as a compositional practice was developed by French composer Pierre Schaeffer, beginning in the early 1940s. It was largely an attempt to differentiate between music based on the abstract medium of notation and that created using so-called sound objects (French: l'objet sonore). By the early 1950s, musique concrète was contrasted with "pure" elektronische Musik as then developed in West Germany – based solely on the use of electronically produced sounds rather than recorded sounds – but the distinction has since been blurred such that the term "electronic music" covers both meanings. Schaeffer's work resulted in the establishment of France's Groupe de Recherches de Musique Concrète (GRMC), which attracted important figures including Pierre Henry, Luc Ferrari, Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgard Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis. From the late 1960s onward, and particularly in France, the term acousmatic music (French: musique acousmatique) was used in reference to fixed media compositions that utilized both musique concrète-based techniques and live sound spatialisation.

Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means (electroacoustic music). Pure electronic instruments depend entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer: no acoustic waves need to be previously generated by mechanical means and then converted into electrical signals. On the other hand, electromechanical instruments have mechanical parts such as strings or hammers that generate the sound waves, together with electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers that convert the acoustic waves into electrical signals, process them and convert them back into sound waves. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and electric guitar.

The first electronic musical devices were developed at the end of the 19th century. During the 1920s and 1930s, some electronic instruments were introduced and the first compositions featuring them were written. By the 1940s, magnetic audio tape allowed musicians to tape sounds and then modify them by changing the tape speed or direction, leading to the development of electroacoustic tape music in the 1940s in Egypt and France. Musique concrète, created in Paris in 1948, was based on editing together recorded fragments of natural and industrial sounds. Music produced solely from electronic generators was first produced in Germany in 1953 by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Electronic music was also created in Japan and the United States beginning in the 1950s and algorithmic composition with computers was first demonstrated in the same decade.

Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, institutionalized compositional, performing, and aesthetic conventions in music. Elements of experimental music include indeterminacy, in which the composer introduces the elements of chance or unpredictability with regard to either the composition or its performance. Artists may approach a hybrid of disparate styles or incorporate unorthodox and unique elements.

The practice became prominent in the mid-20th century, particularly in Europe and North America. John Cage was one of the earliest composers to use the term and one of experimental music's primary innovators, utilizing indeterminacy techniques and seeking unknown outcomes. In France, as early as 1953, Pierre Schaeffer had begun using the term musique expérimentale to describe compositional activities that incorporated tape music, musique concrète, and elektronische Musik. In America, a quite distinct sense of the term was used in the late 1950s to describe computer-controlled composition associated with composers such as Lejaren Hiller. Harry Partch and Ivor Darreg worked with other tuning scales based on the physical laws for harmonic music. For this music they both developed a group of experimental musical instruments. Musique concrète is a form of electroacoustic music that utilises acousmatic sound as a compositional resource. Free improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the taste or inclination of the musician(s) involved; in many cases, the musicians make an active effort to avoid clichés; i.e., overt references to recognizable musical conventions or genres.

Terrence Mitchell Riley (born June 24, 1935) is an American composer and performing musician best known as a pioneer of the minimalist school of composition. Influenced by jazz and Indian classical music, his work became notable for its innovative use of repetition, tape music techniques, improvisation, and delay systems. His best known works are the 1964 composition In C and the 1969 album A Rainbow in Curved Air, both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music. Subsequent works such as Shri Camel (1980) explored just intonation.

Raised in Redding, California, Riley began studying composition and performing solo piano in the 1950s. He befriended and collaborated with composer La Monte Young, and later became involved with both the San Francisco Tape Music Center and Young's New York collective, the Theatre of Eternal Music. A three-record deal with CBS in the late 1960s brought his work to wider audiences. In 1970, he began intensive studies under Hindustani singer Pandit Pran Nath, whom he often accompanied in performance. He has collaborated frequently throughout his career, most extensively with chamber ensemble the Kronos Quartet and his son, guitarist Gyan Riley.

Industrial music (or simply industrial) is a subgenre of experimental music inspired by post-industrial society, initially drawing influences from avant-garde and early electronic music genres such as musique concrète, tape music, noise and sound collage. The term was coined in 1976 by Monte Cazazza and Throbbing Gristle, with the founding of Industrial Records. Other early industrial musicians include NON and Cabaret Voltaire. By the late 1970s, additional artists emerged such as Clock DVA, Nocturnal Emissions, Einstürzende Neubauten, SPK, Nurse with Wound, and Z’EV, alongside Whitehouse who coined the subgenre "power electronics".

During the 1980s, industrial music splintered into a range of offshoots collectively labelled "post-industrial music", these included, EBM, new beat, hard beat, dark ambient, neofolk, power noise, industrial dance, electro-industrial, dark electro, aggrotech, industrial rock, industrial metal, cyber metal, Neue Deutsche Härte, martial industrial, industrial hip-hop and industrial techno. By the 1990s, elements of industrial music were made accessible to mainstream audiences through the popularity of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Rammstein, and Marilyn Manson, all of whom released platinum-selling records.