Is A New Musical Movement Needed?

[EigenUser]

Ah, yes, but they feel different when they come full circle.

Interesting you say that, because a few weeks ago I thought of it like a spiral, which pretty much is what you mean. They've rotated 360, but they are further out than before . Maybe like Shostakovich and late Penderecki, or Bartok and late Ligeti. I don't know...

[Karl Henning]

Stockhausen essentially put electronic music on the map;  it's just the map of a place where no one particular need go.

[Karl Henning]

The most interesting musicians I know of that are working today seem to have multiple influences and try to find new syntheses of various styles--not really conducive to building a "new movement."  And I too like the delta analogy.

Of course, there's the old question: "What do you do for a revolution when the last revolution eliminated all the rules?"  The answer, as it seems to have appeared in recent years, is to go "forward to the past."  There's good precedent for this: Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner are fine historical examples of musicians who looked ahead by looking back.  (And anyone who says anything about Bruckner being a mere Wagnerite obviously does not know his scores, which draw greatly on medieval and Renaissance church music for some of their most impressive moments.)  Ravel, Vaughan Williams and Bartok are others who looked to various old traditions to create new music.

Emphasis mine 

How do you have an avant-garde in music, when the revolution-before-last said "Anything goes"?

[Cato]

Popular current trends? nothing much "new" happens in popular music .

Many many moons ago, when magazines like Stereo Review carried articles about classical music and recordings, I recall reading an essay in one such magazine, where the reviewer was recounting a conversation with a friend who was pushing the latest group of '60's geetar-strummers as "geniuses."

"They've really got something NEW there!" said the friend.  The reviewer demurred: "No, what they have are a few major and minor chords."  He went on to demonstrate that popular music has produced nothing "new" in the sense of pushing polyphony or harmony into unknown territory.  (Jazz aficionados later protested the comment about harmony.)

"Concert-hall" composers may not yet have absorbed certain technological  things now used in popular music.  Having machines beat out 120 slaps per minute or more might be something not envisioned by e.g. Mahler, but I suspect Varese would have latched onto such things.

On the other hand, the monotony involved with it probably is not an attraction for most composers.

In any case, the old reviewer's comments would seem to stand in general: e.g. Taylor Swift has not created a new tonality, or even  embraced 19-tone 1/3- or 1/4-tone scales, or created "catapoint"      polyphony.  Neither has Adele, nor Foo Fighters nor Hellyeah, althought the last group - according to one review - dared to use a 6/8 time signature for a song called Moth.   

See:

http://loudwire.com/best-rock-songs-of-2014/

[some guy]

I find the statement that "indeterminacy" is "probably more powerful than tonality was" to be questionable.

Me too. But as that is not what I said, your quote marks concealing your elisions, well....

I saw too many crappy, experimental "cut-along-this-line" scores in the 1960's and '70's to believe it has seriously challenged tonality as a compositional technique.  Is it one of many possibilities?  Sure, but is it really dominant over tonality?

I have seen lots of crappy stuff. So what? All that means is that there's lots of crappy stuff.

As for the rest of this, you have turned my words into claims that I never made. And so the point is completely missed. Do over.

[Cato]

There are a lot of musical trends that you have not mentioned, though. Quite a lot.

A couple of years ago, right around the time Luc Ferrari died, if I recall, the idea of a "great" composer came up, the influential, trend-setting kind of composer whom everyone knew and who set the tone for his (of course it has to be "his," doesn't it? ) followers.

One of the composers present said he didn't think there was anyone like that any more and that that was "just fine."

Which reminded me of Cage's comment about "mainstream" as a metaphor--that we are now in the delta and maybe even already in the ocean.

Still, plenty of musical activity going on. Plenty that has nothing at all to do with tonality in any regard (i.e., CPT or serialism or neo-tonalism). Plenty that has to do with noise and improvisation and live electronics and even still some fixed media stuff and just exploring sound generally wherever it is, however produced. Musique concrète started in 1947 by using a reproducing machine to produce music. Turntables had been similarly used for about 17 years before that. And became significant instruments for many different composer/performers by the early '80s. And every other sound producing device, speakers, CD players, cassette players, radios, and so forth, have been used as instruments to produce music. Indeterminacy is still a powerful idea, probably more powerful than tonality was. Hard to say. We'll see. Or our greatgrandchildren's children will see. Point being that many new -isms will doubtless take place somewhere inside indeterminacy just as many new -isms in the past took place somewhere inside tonality.

Otherwise, as someone who has been involved in new music since 1972, I have no confidence in Siegel's conclusions at all. No surprise there.

Okay, there is the quotation.  If you do not see that as hyperbole, well, fine, (or does "Hard to say" diminish the idea?), but it would seem to overstate the case for indeterminacy as a widespread compositional technique.

Art music composers of course were using technology & studios in much deeper and more forensic ways prior to commercial pop instruments, or a commercial pop music industry boom ..  & surpasses it's usage in Pop music on a creative scale and in terms of refinement. Even with all these techno/electronic musicians & festivals .. much of that stuff isn't put together in the deeply skilled way that you find in real professionally trained composers, like Stockhausen, Jonathan Harvey & others..

Amen!

[jochanaan]

Karl, thanks for the Wuorinen original, which I see I garbled rather badly--as I thought I had at the time.

[some guy]

Traditional concert halls are only a smidgeon of the bigger picture....

I have to say, it is very nice to hear this coming from someone aside from myself. Until everyone knows this, I'm sure I will never tire of hearing it.

[bigshot]

Music history doesn't validate that assertion, bigshot.  First, the concert hall is a very new thing in music, only developing into its present form in the last 100 years or so.  Until about 1800, music of the sort we now call "classical" happened mostly in homes (including royal and noble palaces), theaters, and churches.

same same. Music is now created for media, not for performance in a venue like a concert hall or palace or whatever. Classical music is primarily defined by being written down so performers can play it to a live audience. That used to be the mainstream way of creating and delivering music. No more. Now music is created in a recording studio or on a computer for playback on electronic devices. It's a totally different process of creation and delivery to the audience. And that different process has forever altered what music is. We won't see any more major movements based on writing music down for performers to play live to an audience in a room ever again.

Classical music of the past has a future though. It will be recorded and distributed alongside the new musics. Eventually, jazz and pop and rock and whatever comes next will be the continuity of "concert hall music". But there will always be that dividing line in the 20th century created in the music by technology. None of this is a bad thing. Personally, I think Jazz is a truly great musical creation that stands up alongside any classical tradition. It is interesting, because Jazz straddles the transition from live performance to media based distribution. It was the music that took serious music to the new world.

[Ken B]

same same. Music is now created for media, not for performance in a venue like a concert hall or palace or whatever. Classical music is primarily defined by being written down so performers can play it to a live audience. That used to be the mainstream way of creating and delivering music. No more. Now music is created in a recording studio or on a computer for playback on electronic devices. It's a totally different process of creation and delivery to the audience. And that different process has forever altered what music is. We won't see any more major movements based on writing music down for performers to play live to an audience in a room ever again.

Classical music of the past has a future though. It will be recorded and distributed alongside the new musics. Eventually, jazz and pop and rock and whatever comes next will be the continuity of "concert hall music". But there will always be that dividing line in the 20th century created in the music by technology. None of this is a bad thing. Personally, I think Jazz is a truly great musical creation that stands up alongside any classical tradition. It is interesting, because Jazz straddles the transition from live performance to media based distribution. It was the music that took serious music to the new world.

Jazz is a branch of theclassical of the future, as you note.
But you neeglect the third branch
1 written for live performance
2 recorded for playback
3 lip synched.

[Karl Henning]

Karl, thanks for the Wuorinen original, which I see I garbled rather badly--as I thought I had at the time.

At your service, friend!

[Cato]

This was sent to me: a Wikipedia article on 21st-Century trends in Music:

For its October 2009 edition,[1] the BBC Music Magazine asked 10 composers, mostly British, to discuss the latest trends in western classical music. The consensus was that no particular style is favoured and that individuality is to be encouraged. The magazine interviewed Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Nyman, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Henri Dutilleux, John Adams, James MacMillan, Jonathan Harvey, Julian Anderson, John Tavener, and Roxanna Panufnik. The works of each of these composers represent different aspects of the music of this century but these composers all came to the same basic conclusion: music is too diverse to categorise or limit. In his interview with the magazine, Dutilleux argued that "there is only good or bad music, whether serious or popular"....

Often styled the "Father of New Complexity", English composer Brian Ferneyhough has recently started writing works which reference those of past composers. His Dum transisset are based on Elizabethan composer Christopher Tye's works for viol; the fourth string quartet references Schönberg.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st-century_classical_music

"New Complexity" as a style going beyond Ferneyhough and a few others is now 3 decades old or so.  Perhaps the experimentation in those scores will seed ideas for a new generation.  But have any New Complexity scores been on the same level as e.g. the Five Pieces for Orchestra by Schoenberg or Penederecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima ?  Or is such an expectation unrealistic, or somehow unfair even?

[Cato]

Cato .. I'm a bit miffed that this is at all new to you? Being an individual has been central to the arts for how long?

Every major composer of note has their own voice ... i.e. being an individual.

You misunderstand for some reason: the emphasis is to show that an unboxable individuality may be the "-ism" of our age, as opposed to Impressionism, Expressionism, Surrealism, Serialism, etc.

[petrarch]

Yes, I think 4'33" would benefit from a fourth movement. And all those one- and two-movement sonatas? Tack a couple of movements on them too!

[Cato]

I think it is you who misunderstands, and are looking at things the wrong way .. all of these categorical words are meaningless really, and the composers themselves often despise them. No true artist likes to be boxed. Folks will always label, box and categorize things regardless though, as history has shown .. individuality doesn't come in a box, that doesn't even apply, but it is achieved.

You continue to misunderstand and have forgotten the original impetus of this topic: an article pushing the idea that an "ism" of some sort is important for art.

My purpose was to open up the question for music, and I also commented:

Is there anything wrong about a culture's creativity if you have everyone following their own styles and paths?  Here at GMG we have Karl Henning and Luke Ottevanger whose compositions can show certain influences of course, but are difficult if not impossible to classify as a "type" of style.   The personality of the composer is the only thing, it seems, unifying their output, which I find quite acceptable! Of course, possibly in 20 years, one might step back and see that their works were in fact part of a larger, currently unconscious, "movement."  But I am currently skeptical about that. And one could predict that a future musicologist will define our era's main movement as Individualism!   0:)

[Cato]

And I'm saying "individualism" (if you want to now label it that) has always been there .. it isn't a "movement" and if you want to say that it is, then it is the longest one going. Every composer of note finds their own individual voice .. they don't consider these stupid boxes really, they just do their thing.

Again, you continue to misunderstand: I have no intention of labeling anything, and I do not "want to say" anything about naming the era.   By posing the questions and offering an idea on what the future might say I am not supporting the ideas, but simply offering them for consideration.

Individualism has always been there, of course, even within a named era.  One hears the individual voices of e.g. Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner while hearing also that they are in a post-Wagnerian, post-Romantic era.  If one dislikes those names for the epoch, one can ignore them and simply run with the composer.

[ibanezmonster]

Ubloobideegaism is the future trend of classical music. 

[Cato]

Ubloobideegaism is the future trend of classical music. 

Heh-heh! Now that would be a true Zukunftsmusik!   

[Karl Henning]

Yes, I think 4'33" would benefit from a fourth movement.

Ongoing . . . .

[RJR]

Jazz is a branch of theclassical of the future, as you note.
But you neeglect the third branch
1 written for live performance
2 recorded for playback
3 lip synched.

4 Karaoked