Editing Pierre Schaeffer (section)

=== Early experimentation ===
Later in 1934 Schaeffer entered his first employment as an engineer, briefly working in [[telecommunications]] for the Postes et Télécommunications in [[Strasbourg]].<ref name="Schaeffer8"/><ref name="Schaeffer5">{{cite book | title= Excerpt from ''Music of the Twentieth-century Avant-garde'' | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9-M_jhnOuboC&pg=PA432 | access-date=26 December 2008| isbn= 9780313296895 | last1= Sitsky | first1= Larry | year= 2002 | publisher=Bloomsbury Academic }}</ref> In 1935 he began a relationship with a woman named Elisabeth Schmitt, and later in the year married her and with her had his first child, Marie-Claire Schaeffer.<ref name="Schaeffer8"/> He and his new family then officially relocated to Paris in 1936 where began his work in radio broadcasting and presentation.<ref name="Schaeffer4"/> It was there that he began to move away from his initial interests in telecommunications and to pursue music instead, combining his abilities as an engineer with his passion for sound. In his work at the station, Schaeffer experimented with records and an assortment of other devices—the sounds they made and the applications of those sounds—after convincing the radio station's management to allow him to use their equipment. This period of experimentation was significant for Schaeffer's development, bringing forward many fundamental questions he had on the limits of modern [[musical expression]].<ref name="Schaeffer4"/>
[[Image:Psconcer.jpg|thumb|right|Pierre Schaeffer presenting the [[Acousmonium]] (1974) that consisted of 80 loudspeakers for tape playback at [[Groupe de Recherches Musicales|GRM]]]]

In these experiments, Pierre tried playing sounds backwards, slowing them down, speeding them up and juxtaposing them with other sounds,<ref name="Schaeffer9"/> all techniques which were virtually unknown at that time.<ref name="Schaeffer4"/> He had begun working with new contemporaries whom he had met through RTF, and as such his experimentation deepened. Schaeffer's work gradually became more [[avant-garde]], as he challenged traditional musical style with the use of various devices and practices. Eventually, a unique variety of electronic instruments—ones which Schaeffer and his colleagues created, using their own engineering skills—came into play in his work, like the [[chromatic phonogene|chromatic, sliding and universal phonogenes]], [[François Bayle]]'s [[Acousmonium]] and a host of other devices such as [[gramaphones]] and some of the earliest [[tape recorders]].<ref name="Schaeffer9">{{cite web |title=''A-Z of Instruments – Other'' |work=The Foundry Creative Media Company Ltd. 2005: sec. 2 |url=http://www.foundry.co.uk/musicfirebox/a-zofinstrumentb.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030422021238/http://www.foundry.co.uk/musicfirebox/a-zofinstrumentb.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 April 2003 |access-date=7 December 2009 |df=dmy-all }} "Musique concrète was an experimental technique that combined pre-recorded sounds natural as well as musical to make musical compositions. Using only the earliest tape recorders, sounds were edited, played backwards and speeded up and down to create fascinating 'sound-scapes'. Pierre Henry was a prolific composer of musique concrète and collaborated with Schaeffer on many compositions. Luciano Berio and Steve Reich are also key figures in musique concrète composition. Karlheinz Stockhausen combined electronic and concrète sounds to become a leader of avant-garde music making."</ref>