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Experimental music

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Experimentalism can refer to the state of philosophy, or a particular music style. If you are looking for the philosophical term, please bear in mind this is the incorrect article for use.
Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. There is an overlap with avant-garde music. John Cage was a pioneer in experimental music and defined and gave credibility to the form. David Cope (1997), describes experimental music as that, "which represents a refusal to accept the status quo."

For experimental popular music see: art rock.

Michael Nyman in his book uses the term "experimental" to describe the work of American modernist composers (John Cage, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, etc.) as opposed to the European avant-garde at the time (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez). The "experiment" is not whether a piece succeeds or fails, but is in the fact that the outcome of the piece is uncertain (or unforeseeable).

As with other edge forms that push the limits of a particular form of expression, there is little agreement as to the boundaries of experimental music, even amongst its practitioners. On the one hand, some experimental music is an extension of traditional music, adding unconventional instruments, modifications to instruments, noises, and other novelties to (for example) orchestral compositions. At the other extreme, there are performances that most listeners would not characterize as music at all.

While much discussion of experimental music centers on definitional issues and its validity as a musical form, the most frequently performed experimental music is entertaining and, at its best, can lead the listener to question core assumptions about the nature of music.

Contents

Keywords

Aleatoric music - Also called 'chance music' (Cage's habitual usage). Music in which the composer introduces the elements of chance or unpredictability with regard to either the composition or its performance.

Graphic notation - Music which is written in the form of diagrams or drawings rather than using “conventional” notation (with staves, clefs, notes etc).

Literalism - Music that rejects the aesthetic as motivating force for the creation and pursuit of sound, using either the basic building blocks of orchestral composition (strict literalism) or sounds present at the site of performance (direct literalism) instead.

Microtones - A pitch interval that is smaller than a semitone. This includes quarter tones and intervals even smaller. Composers have, for example, experimented in dividing the octave into 31 and 53 microtones, and using this scale as a basis for composition.

Techniques

Some of the more common techniques include:

* "Prepared" instruments—ordinary instruments modified in their tuning or sound-producing characteristics. For example, guitar strings can have a weight attached at a certain point, changing their harmonic characteristics (Keith Rowe is one musician to have experimented with such techniques). Cage's prepared piano was one of the first such instruments.
* Unconventional playing techniques—for example, strings on a piano can be manipulated directly instead of being played the orthodox, keyboard-based way (an innovation of Henry Cowell's known as "string piano"), a dozen or more piano keys may be depressed simultaneously with the forearm to produce a tone cluster (another technique popularized by Cowell), or the tuning pegs on a guitar can be rotated while a note sounds (called a "tuner glissando").
  • Incorporation of instruments, tunings, rhythms or scales from non-Western musical traditions.
  • Use of sound sources other than conventional musical instruments such as trash cans, telephone ringers, and doors slamming.
  • Playing with deliberate disregard for the ordinary musical controls (pitch, duration, volume).
  • Use of 'radical' scores which serve as non-conventional written/graphic 'instructions' to be actively interpreted by the performer(s). Cage is credited with the original development of the radical score and this influence continued through other composers/artists such as LaMonte Young, George Brecht, Yoko Ono etc. and far beyond. The most radical score of all is often said to be 'December 1952' by Earle Brown, who studied under Cage.
    • Cope (ibid) describes a "basic outline" from "simple to...complex":

    Notable composers and performers of experimental music

    Main article: List of experimental musicians

    See also

    Henry Cow

    Further reading

    Source

    External links

    Radio

    Miscellany

     

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