THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSICESSENTIAL LISTENING

EDITION

by

Kristine ForneyAndrew Dell’Antonio

Joseph Machlis

SECOND EDITION

Lecture Slides

Chapter 52 New Sound Palettes: A Mid-Twentieth-

CenturyAmerican Experimentalist

Experimental and Technological Music

New Compositional Techniques: Composer Control

• Increased use of 12-tone system• Serialism

– Total serialism-expanded further by Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Milton Babbitt, Karlheinz Stockhausen

• Musique Concrète: use of everyday sounds captured and manipulated with tape recorders

• Electronic Music: sounds produced on electronic oscillators; recorded, stored, and used in compositions

• Computer and Mixed Media: use of digital formats to create, manipulate, and organize sounds into compositions

Early Experiments

Important experimenters:• Henry Cowell (1897–1965)

– non-Western music – Japan, India, Iran, rural Ireland,

America – foreign scales – tone clusters

• Harry Partch (1901–1974)• Microtonal music

“I believe composers must forge out of the many influences that play upon them and never close their ears to any part of the world of sound.” —Henry Cowell

New Compositional Techniques: Composer Control

• Electronic Music– Pioneers-Edgard Varese & Karlheinz Stockhausen– Varese-French, lived in US

• 1st work, Ameriques, unusual combo of percussion instruments; Poeme electronique, World Fair 1958

• Ionisation-37 different percussion instruments played by 13 musicians, Density 21.5(flute)

• Trained in engineering & mathematics• Contact with Bell Telephone Co. to create machines to synthesize

musical sounds• First to explore magnetic tape recorders’ potential for music

making• Stockhausen- Gesang der Junglinge

Electronic Music

• Poéme èlectronique– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-

R3F3ZVbi8&index=144&list=PLD2FA7A1A4352F58A

• Gesange der Junglinge– https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=nffOJXcJCDg&index=18&list=PLxgWBmUi9H8Jzi4NNNlPrw1mOF5QDWJPH

New Compositional Techniques: Performer Control

• Aleatoric Music: many important performance decisions left to performer, although specific instructions are given regarding some aspects of music; interdeterminancy

• Chance Music: less precise notation than aleatoric music; instructions very general

• Silence: forces audience to focus on other aspects of experience• Deck of Cards: shuffle deck, pull cards, numbers and suits determine

aspects of music• Throw music on floor• Based on “no such thins a progress”-existential philosophy & Asian

religions, things just “happen”

The Music of John Cage

• American composer• Prepared piano to simulate

Javanese gamelan– items inserted in the piano

strings• East Asian philosophy• Quest for tranquility• Indeterminacy• Role of silence: 4’33”

“I thought I could never compose socially important music. Only if I could invent something new, then would I be useful to society.” —John Cage

Chapter 53: John Cage4’33”

• Probably the most controversial composition ever written

• Said to be 4’33” of silence, but not truly silence– Audience sounds, ambient noise, etc. create the

“piece.”– Cage was attempting to get the audience to listen

carefully to sounds around them.

Cage: Sonata V, from Sonatas and Interludes (Listening Guide)

• Sixteen pieces for the prepared piano

• Javanese gamelan

• Meditative

Sonata V from Sonatas & Interludes

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYsx5Di3bso

John Cage Gathering Wild Greens--1971

by

Kristine ForneyAndrew Dell’Antonio

Joseph Machlis

Lecture Slides

THIRD EDITION

THE ENJOYMENT OF MUSICESSENTIAL LISTENING EDITION

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