Captured spaces

One day in 1948 while riding a crowded subway I came up with the idea of mixing random noise with composed music. More precisely, it was then that I became aware that composing is giving meaning to that stream of sounds that penetrate the world we live in¿ The music I composed at that time certainly had nothing to do with people. We were all in our own little worlds, isolated from one another. But I found it increasingly intolerable to work as a composer in such isolation. I craved some kind of relationship to those around me¿ I recorded various sounds and frequencies on tape. Surrounded by these random sounds I found they triggered emotional responses in me, which, in turn, I preserved as sound on tape. I conceived of my approach as something akin to action rather than expression¿ In 1948 the French composer Pierre Schaeffer first composed musique concrète, based on the same ideas as mine. This was a happy coincidence for me. Music was changing, slightly perhaps, but nevertheless changing. (Takemitsu, 1995: 79-82)