Recording
Étude aux chemins de fer
Pierre Schaeffer
- Released
- 1948
- On one list
- Musique Concrète
- Updated
- 2026-08-30
Analysis
4 sections, the first drop of 4 at 0:09, 5% of the way in, 30% of it spent climbing.
- Tempo
- 152 BPM
- holds throughout
- Dynamic range
- 12.5 dB
- wide open — the quiet parts are genuinely quiet
- Length
- 2:53
- measured from the YouTube master
The record, end to end
Click the track to jump · ← → move between sections
- 0:00Abuild0
- 0:52Apeakbar 33
- 1:32Bbreakdownbar 59
- 2:22Coutrobar 90
Drops at 0:09 (bar 6), 1:22 (bar 52), 2:16 (bar 86), 2:45 (bar 105). A drop is a moment, not a stretch — marked on the track above rather than shaded across it.
0:00 · A · build
energy and brightness climbing without a break · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (A)
- Lasts
- 0:52
- Energy
- 63
- Brightness
- 92
- Density
- 98
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
sits at the top of this record's range · instrumental · one of 2 stretches of the same music (A)
- Lasts
- 0:40
- Energy
- 100
- Brightness
- 59
- Density
- 67
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:50
- Energy
- 18
- Brightness
- 100
- Density
- 100
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
the closing fall · instrumental
- Lasts
- 0:31
- Energy
- 0
- Brightness
- 0
- Density
- 0
- drums
- bass
- vocals
- other
Brightness and density are scored against this record's own sections, not against music in general — they say how its parts differ from each other, and nothing about how it compares to anything else.
- drums
- the drum kit, separated from the mix
- bass
- the bass part, separated from the mix
- vocals
- the voice, separated from the mix
- other
- everything else — synths, guitars, keys, strings
Separated into parts by a source-separation model, so each lane is the instrument it names.
- build
- energy and brightness climbing without a break
- peak
- sits at the top of this record's range
- breakdown
- energy falling away mid-record, percussion thinning
- outro
- the closing fall
Measured from the YouTube master on . Section labels describe how the energy of the recording moves, not its musical form — a machine can see loudness climb and jump, it cannot hear a chorus arrive. Anything we were not confident enough to state is left out rather than shown with a caveat.
Ranked No. 1 in Musique Concrète
Six locomotives, cut and looped on shellac discs. The first piece of music made entirely from recordings of things, and the founding act of everything sample-based that followed.