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Area of Study 2 Changing directions in Western Classical music from 1900. Experimental Music. Basics. Around the same time as minimalism (1960’s – 1970’s) Experimental music started.
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Area of Study 2Changing directions in Western Classical music from 1900 Experimental Music
Basics • Around the same time as minimalism (1960’s – 1970’s) Experimental music started. • Composers set out to make music that rewrote or totally ignored the old rules about what is music and what is not music. • Aleatoric music is created using chance. • A composer will decide on some initial ideas with approximate pitch, and maybe rhythm, a chord and duration but the decisions about how the piece should be played are left up to the performer. They could decide on the pitch, dynamics, pitch, tempo, phrasing etc. • Some pieces ask the performer to throw a dice to decide on repeats or flip a coin to decide in what order to play the different sections in. • No ‘aleatoric’ music will ever sound the same and there are unpredictable results.
Graphic Scores * Aleatoric music can be written out on a graphic score. A graphic score uses symbols, shapes and pictures to suggest what to play. * Pitch is along the vertical axis and time along the horizontal axis. * The composer gives a key explaining what the performers should play for each picture, shape or symbol but they’re just a rough guide.
And more weird… • Voices and instruments were used to make new sounds… • Voices can hum, whisper, cough, scream, whistle, rap, sing in different languages. • Pianos can have the wood hit, the strings inside be plucked, string players using the other side of their box, wind instruments using their mouthpieces only. • Household objects and anything else can be used in this type of music. * Think of ways your musical instrument can be used in an unusual or experimental way.
Performing • Experimental music was also performed in different ways using ideas from the theatre and dance. • Some performances had performers move, act, mime, wear costumes, and interact with the audience.
Composers • Stockhausen • John Cage • Cornelius Cardew • Gavin Bryars • Luciano Berio • Mike Westbrook
ELECTRONIC MUSIC AOS 2
Using electricity to make sounds offered composers a number of new possibilities.
The invention of the tape recorder in the late 1940’s opened up great opportunities. They could play the music at different speeds or play it backwards. • Musique concrete used everyday sounds but edited and transformed them into new timbres. Stokhausen’s Kontakte used tape, piano and percussion. • Varese’s Poeme Electronique (1958) used a three track tape including sounds for bells, drums, organ and electric voices.
SYNTHESIZERS • allowed composers to create new sounds from a keyboard.
SYNTHESIZERS • Analogue synths from the 70’s and 80’s had knobs and sliders to effect the sounds. • Digital synths from the 80’s were much more powerful, had more possibilities and stored and altered sound digitally. • Software synths from the 90’s worked as a computer programme with everything being on screen.
SEQUENCERS • are a method of recording, editing, storing and replaying music stored digitally as MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)
SEQUENCES • Many tracks can be played back simultaneously but each tracks has its own set of instructions so can be changed at will. • Sequencers display music as notation or in boxes. • Modern sequencers can record audio (voices and acoustic instruments) as well as digitally using keyboards etc.
MULTITRACKING • allows a separate recording of each part. This allows for mixing of the parts and rerecording as needed.
SAMPLING. • A sampler uses prerecorded or ambient (natural) sounds, saves them in digital form and then alters the sounds using effects like attack, decay and release. • Samplers often take existing music and reuse it in a new form. • They work in 2 phases firstly a transient period when the initial sound attack happens and then a sine wave when the characteristics of the unique sound are produced. A sample can be looped on a keyboard by simply holding down the key.
Homework • Write about two experimental performances and describe in detail in what ways they are ‘experimental’.