"Post"-Modernism

[Thatfabulousalien]

I'm agitated this terminology/categorization is even a thing, how about you guys?

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

it can be a useful term depending on how it's used, I guess. The modern era and the approaches to composition that came from it is one thing, stuff that happened afterwards that consciously went in a different direction I suppose could be called 'post-modern' to use broad terms. Broad terms come in handy occasionally.

Why do you feel agitated? Are you tense? Do you need a lie down or something?

[kishnevi]

1)Post-modernism is a term that has a meaning in literary criticism, philosophy, and the extra-soft sciences that has no real connection to its use in music.
2) "Modernism" covers a number of different approaches to music, not all of which really go together,  and some of which are now themselves part of the past. In other words,  we need to find a better term (or group of terms) to identify the music of the 1950s-1980/90s, and acknowledge that contemporary music (meaning the music of the last 15-20 years) is more than just a sequel to the music of the preceding decades.

[kishnevi]

For me, I feel the whole way that classical (and music in general) is categorized is fucking ridiculous, plus how something can be post-modern, I haven't the clue.


For me, Modernism was just late romantic music that started having wild futuristic ideas. Then The post-war period happens and those things are actually fulfilled.

If I can be a little facetious for a moment: post-modernism is the real modernism


But serious, terminology is all over the place and contradictory. Outside of their musical association, what is the fundamental difference between the terms "Modern" and "Contemporary"?


And no, I don't by the idea that an artist making reference to previous music (however old) differentiates it from other music that doesn't do it on an obvious way.


Also, everything is just so vague

True, all that.  I don't blame you for being irked.

[North Star]

Mozart was called a Romantic in his time, and now we think the generations after him are the 'actual' Romantics. So maybe being bothered about nomenclature of musical periods/styles of our lifetimes is best left for when we're dead.  0:) Also, there's really no way of making a sensible name for the music of our time that somehow describes the style - as there is no unified style.

And Modern is (when properly used, anyway - rather like atonal, when properly used, means that the tonality of the music is vague enough to be described by that word, and not just dissonant.) something associated with the ideas of Modernism, while contemporary is anything of our time, even if it's a Josquin imitation.

[Monsieur Croche]

I'm agitated this terminology/categorization is even a thing, how about you guys?

Groves now has 1890 - 1975 as 'Modern Era,' with 1975 - The Present as 'Contemporary.'

It may be that some are thinking the last forty-seven years now needs a more official and less generic name.  How long do you go on calling something "Contemporary" when it includes music that is now decades old?  I dunno.

The banal 'postmodern' could be a proffered new term meant to replace "Contemporary 1975 - present."  If so, it means "after the modern era," (sooo f'n imaginative). 

Of course "Contemporary 1975-present" should ultimately undergo a name-change... because -- wait for it -- if it does not get a change, music after the 'contemporary' period might then be "Post Contemporary" 
But, if "Postmodern" catches on, then the following era could be the Post-Postmodern.   

Clearly, a little more prudence and patience as to when, and a helluva lot more imagination, would be a good thing in assigning these eras official historical names.

Meanwhile, ignore the term.  We're living in 'modern times,' and I suppose we're also living in 'postmodern' times :-/

Pre-Columbian for American cultures simply means "before Columbus"  It might be nice if academics waited long enough for some future hot dog composer whose music shows such a marked departure from what has gone on from 1975 - the present that the 'contemporary' era gets redubbed "Pre-ComposerX." lol.

[Karl Henning]

I thought postmodern was twee, the first I heard it.

Just reporting the fact.

[some guy]

I was curious about the term when I first heard it, once the vomiting had stopped, so I looked it up.

Perhaps my source was not fully reliable--I wouldn't quibble with that if anyone brought it up--but what I read sounded for all the world like a description of Mahler.

You all remember Mahler, right? The great Bohemian pre-Modernist?

[kishnevi]

I was curious about the term when I first heard it, once the vomiting had stopped, so I looked it up.

Perhaps my source was not fully reliable--I wouldn't quibble with that if anyone brought it up--but what I read sounded for all the world like a description of Mahler.

You all remember Mahler, right? The great Bohemian pre-Modernist?

Another bit of evidence to prove the term is rather useless.

The Grove Dictionary usage means contemporary is anything from my adult lifetime.  That sort of marker makes sense for me, but no sense at all for younger folks like jessop and alien. 

My own view is that contemporary means music being produced now, in the year of creation 5777, or at least in the last few years.

[arpeggio]

I really do not know how to respond.  I have a definition and it works for me.  The one time I tried to explain it in another forum I got my head ripped off and rammed down my throat.

It seems to me that it is another term that is bantered about by members of the classical music community who dislike modern or contemporary music in an effort to invalidate it.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

So does "modern" for me, it simply put means the present....right? 

Disregarding those horrendous, nonsensical prefixes for a moment, are there any significant differences between what "Modern" and "Contemporary" means? 
(ignoring how history has tried to assign dates to those terms)

I think 'modern' is one thing and 'modernism' is another, but there is overlap between the way I understand these terms. I think the way I like to understand musical 'modernism' is through the stylistic focus of composers in the late 19th and early 20th century as a stylistic point of departure from the previous centuries and generally a branching out of individual styles, exploring aesthetic possibilities that became the foundation of music in the century to come. The music I'd call 'modern' would be music today that somehow links back to this idea. 'Modernism' as a general term for movements in the early 19th century which consciously reject a number of stylistic features of Romanticism. I think sooner or later, once these early 20th century movements start to fall within the mainstream (every composition student learning to write serial music and festivals featuring this prominently, huge number of new works for percussion, lots of new neoclassical works etc etc) then the post-modernists start to find something new to do. All ideas that composers have must be new ideas anyway.........so I guess history just repeats itself and styles go in and out of fashion and people just do different things all the time and people create all these isms to describe styles and then people get worked up about other people misunderstanding their music because they were attributed the wrong 'ism' and it goes on and on and on.


So basically, 'modern' is probably more of an 'attitude' to music, and 'modernism' is more of an historical movement i think.

[kishnevi]

So does "modern" for me, it simply put means the present....right? 

Disregarding those horrendous, nonsensical prefixes for a moment, are there any significant differences between what "Modern" and "Contemporary" means? 
(ignoring how history has tried to assign dates to those terms)

For me, Contemporary is a subset of Modern.  Modern reaches further back into the past, although how far back is rather subjective.  Boulez and Carter are Modern.  Higdon and Henning are Contemporary.
The key difference is that Contemporary is being produced Now, Modern was produced Recently.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

For vagueness why don't we try this:

Early music
Classical music (classical era + romantic)
Modern music (anything not neo-romantic after 1920 to the present)

for metal:

Early metal
Heavier Metal (anything starting with thrash in the mid 80s to the late nineties)
Modern Metal (anything from about 1999 to the present)

For Jazz:

Early jazz (1910s to 1930s)
Modern jazz (1940s to current)


For folk music:

Traditional
American
Indie




Yeah, it's a mindf**ck 

Now this is the hardest thing to look at...ugh

Monteverdi has more in common with Mahler than with plainchant..... no way anyone can categorise him outside of what we already know as the Common Practice Era!!!!

[kishnevi]

Where would you put neoRomantic music? For me it's just as much modern as anything by the Darmstadt school.

But it's not Modernist.

(This is a rather po-mo exercise we are doing. We are deconstructing Post Modernism.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

I can relate 


Berlioz: The pre-impressionist, Stravisnky the post-impressionist. Varese: the one that actually left an impression 

Beethoven: Post-classical

Gesualdo post-renaissance?

idk, there no real line is there to draw for this kind of stuff 

It all depends on the context in which they're used......in the context you have provided, they are pretty much meaningless.

[Karl Henning]

Is something like neo-contemporary even possible? 

Without satiric intent, you mean?  0:)  ;^)

[Monsieur Croche]

I thought postmodern was twee, the first I heard it.

Just reporting the fact.

B b b b but, Karl!  Do you mean to say... gasp ... that postmodern did not nicely inform your sensibility? 

I'm a thinkin' along with the politically correct movement, that within all sorts of disciplines touched on by academia, there have since been a plethora of seriously pretentious, and oh, yes, precious neologisms.

That's the report from the street, anyway ;-)

[millionrainbows]

I think "postmodern" art will always look "modern."I don't think there are artists who will replicate Beethoven style (unless it's done with a computer, and then it's modern), or painters who will replicate Da Vinci's painting technique down to the last detail. Postmodernism is still "of our time" so the subject matter of a Da Vinci-clone painting will give it some element which we will perceive as "modern" to some degree. Otherwise, it will be too much like forgery or reproduction, and Lord knows we have enough of reproduced art.

[North Star]

Well of course you should know I'm exaggerating but all these prefixes and suffixes are.....

... too much to handle for an alien who can't count to six?  0:)

[millionrainbows]

I think the key word is "post." It implies looking at history "after it has ended."

To me, art became "modern" when its function changed and it had to function "for itself."
Art used to function as a way of seeing other places (landscapes), people (portraits), & things, but photography took that over, and does it easier;

Art used to depict & record historic events (Washington crossing the Delaware) and inform people, but now the news does that;

So art, after all this technology got perfected, had to take on "new" functions, and this is what Picasso & Braque tried to do with Cubism (after seeing early cinema in France); they tried to capture time, movement, and multiple views (crude, but charming).

Now it has 'ended.' Art is what it is going to be.