Pierre Schaeffer: The Godfather Of Sampling

Pierre Schaeffer, commonly referred to as the “godfather of sampling,” accomplished some impressive feats during his time, one of which being the establishing of Musique concrète, a genre of music that disassembled traditional music into raw, organic material.

Listening to Schaeffer’s Orphée 53, you can probably understand why many people found his work disturbing and unpleasant to listen to. During a time when music didn’t stray far from the traditional path, having music like this in 1953 was truly bizarre; making his work all the more significant.

Schaeffer transformed the compositional process and broke the barriers of musical sounds.

“Sound is the vocabulary of nature” – Pierre Schaeffer