Frederic Bousquet, sound explorer
An explorer of the world of sound, Frédéric Bousquet (1974) has a triple training in music (Toulouse Conservatoire prize in percussion), science (Doctorate in Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts, University of Paris 8 - Master's degree in Mechanical Design, Aeronautical Techniques, University of Bordeaux 1) and technology (sound sculpture, François and Bernard Baschet).
Inventor (Soundwall®, Ludophones®), acoustic synthesist, Designer (cristal Baschet & Titanium Euphone), Master craftsman in Métiers d'Art, author of poetry books and scientific publications. President of TitaniumSound® EPV, President of SWB_Facteurs d'instruments Sans Frontières ONG, President of the Union Française de Facteurs d'Instruments à Percussion (UFFIP). Musicologist associated with the MUSIDANSE laboratory. Founder and co-artistic director of INVENTŎR Nouvelles lutheries. Member of the Société Française d'Acoustique, the Réseau Musique et Handicap, the Union pour la Promotion de la Propulsion Photonique (U3P), the Aéroclub de France, the SACEM and the SACD.
A child gifted with hyperacusis, a pioneer of digital mixed music and oriented towards SpaceArt, Frédéric Bousquet is regarded as the world specialist in euphone, whose original repertoire he has rediscovered and extended through the creation of a great deal of contemporary music. Artist in residence at the Laborie Foundation in Limousin (2009 to 2013), associate artist at the Genette Verte theatre (2018 to 2021), he has been a guest on the biggest national and international stages on all five continents since 1992.
In 2018, he founded INVENTŎR Nouvelles lutheries, an international ensemble of musical instrument inventors made up of virtuosos of rare instruments and new lutheries. Supported by a club of excellent heritage companies, INVENTŎR is an ambassador for innovation in contemporary instrument making. INVENTŎR composes forward-looking music in favour of sound ecology, using new sounds and new sound gestures, and incorporating natural sound heritage into 2.0.
Regularly invited by foundations, institutes and international universities, Frédéric Bousquet is helping to extend the research field of sound ecology to that of sound environment education, to which he has dedicated the book « SUPERSONIC Introduction to sound education » in 2020.
From the Euphon to the Titanium Euphone, via the Lasry Baschet glass organ and the Baschet crystal
Summary
The EUPHON is a friction instrument, an evolution of the Armonica by B. Franklin (1706-1790) invented by Pr. Ernst Florenz Friedrich Chladni (1756-1827) in 1789. It is magnified from 1955 onwards by François Baschet (1920-2014) and Bernard Baschet (1917-2015), alongside Jacques (1918-2014) and Yvonne Lasry (1921), in the form of the Lasry-Baschet glass organ (1955). Frederic Bousquet was trained in sound sculpture by the latter, designer of the latest generation of Baschet crystals from 1999 to 2012 and custodian of their know-how.
For more information, please refer to the HISTORIOGRAPHY OF THE EUPHONE, intended for musicians, composers and sound designers, teachers but still turned towards a NEW GENERATION OF EUPHONE BUILDERS !
- BOUSQUET, F., An approach to the instrument making of the Titanium Euphone through the study of the Lasry Baschet glass organ and the Cristal Baschet, extended to that of the Euphon by E. F. F. Chladni. Thesis, Frédéric Bousquet, University of Paris 8, 2018
The Euphon is an original musical instrument invented by Pr. E. F. F. Chladni (1756-1827) in 1789 and completed in 1790; which he considered to be an evolution of the Armonica by Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). Its acoustic functioning (CHLADNI, E. F. F., Beiträge zur Akustik. Breitkopf und Hàrtel, Leipzig, 1821 fig. 39), which has been exhibited since 1801 in a dictionary of musical instruments, is based on the setting into vibration by glass bows (b) of cylindrical metal rods (a), embedded in a metal soundboard. The coupling system is initially provided by a sound box, but also by acoustic horns or tubes. Various effects and systems (reverberation plate, filament or spring reverberation) can be added to the instrument. As a friction instrument, the existence of anteriorities can be traced back to the family of verrophones and nail violins made during the High Middle Ages, as well as to the traditional instrument making of the Mbira.
Euphone m. (From the Greek Bon; sound). 1819. 1823. 1839 A friction musical instrument of the harmonica genre invented by Doctor Chladni in Wittemberg in 1790. It consisted of a square case about three feet long and eight inches high, containing 42 small glass cylinders whose friction, and therefore vibration, took place on an inner mechanism (...).
Excerpt from the Dictionary of Musical Instruments. Study of lexicology by Rowland Wright, 1941
Since the publication of Prof. Chladni's scientific research, thanks to a research grant awarded to him by Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), the continuity of scientific research has contributed to the invention of metallic harps in the 19th century, under the impetus of Calhoun Deagan (1853-1954), in connection with the work of Albert Marloye (1785-1874), and then the research of Prof. Chladni. Henri Bouasse (1866-1953) consolidated the development of the instrumental family of vergeophones, notably with the invention of the Waterphone by Richard A. Waters (1935-2013). Various evolutions of the Euphone (French translation) - including Pr. Chladni complains that no reference is made to his invention (1) - such as the Clavicylindre or the Terpodion, by Ludwig Buschmann (1805-1864) and Johann Christian Dietz (1773-1849) of copies such as the Lasry-Baschet glass organ, by François (1920-2014) and Bernard Baschet (1917-2015) in collaboration with Jacques (1918-2014) and Yvonne Lasry (1921), and magnifications, the Cristal Baschet, accompany his writings, adding contemporary technologies to the instrument's construction.
The academic rediscovery of the Euphon in 2010 offers considerable prospects for the establishment of the historiography of this instrument. The knowledge of the organotope of this instrument comes from organological data belonging to the field of instrument making extended to musical creation (repertoire, performers) and transmission (know-how, instrumental technique), distinguished according to production and prospective (transmission). It characterises the different phases of its development. The potential qualitative and quantitative adjustment of the organological factors that it brings together determine its degree of precision. Its knowledge, gathered by Frédéric Bousquet in his doctoral thesis entitled "Une approche de la facture instrumentale du Titanium Euphone à travers l'étude de l'orgue de verre Lasry Baschet et du Cristal Baschet, étendue à celle de l'Euphon de E. F. F. Chladni", supported at the University of Paris 8 in 2018, considerably enriches the design and contemporary making of the Euphone, towards the consolidation of a dedicated repertoire.