Talk:Avant-garde music/Archive 1

Archive 1

Confusion with experimental music

The original article partially confused this style with experimental music. I rewrote it a bit, but it might need some further clean-up. 87.171.233.12 (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

See also

The see also section seems cluttered. Does anyone agree? This article is suffering from being short, I don't think it needs a cluttered see also section. Bravo! Alfa! Papa! 02:51, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

I would say that it is not so much that the "see also" section is too long, as that the article is ridiculously short. I would agree that one or two items in that "see also" list may not be appropriate, but just which ones those are may be a matter of disagreement amongst different editors.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 05:24, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

First sentence

Doesn't this sound a little POV? :

...thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements...

It seems to be written from the perspective of someone who enjoys avant-garde music, rather than being objective. I'm sure that many people would listen to definitive music of the genre and think it's garbage, just like any other genre.—Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions ( 偉特 ) 03:21, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's possible to be completely objective about a musical work and even to think of it as uninteresting (or unengaging, whatever), while still acknowledging that it has innovative elements (for example, musique concrète back in the 1940s), and thus could be said to be ahead of its time. Depending on what you wish to achieve with music, "innovativity" is not necessarily a good thing. In fact, it may be your own POV (or one that you ascribe to other people) that innovativity is a good thing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:23, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I also do not think that any bias is expressed in that sentence, but it is a very good example of weasel language or, at best, a vague statement that could use some work. I suspect that it is meant to say "thought by its practitioners to be …", though it might be meant to say "generally regarded as being". Since the lede is meant to summarize the contents of the article, but I search in vain for anything in the article itself that makes this clear. In fact, the body of the article is leaning disappointingly toward being a list: "Look, there is an avant-garde composer. Oh, look, there's another one." For the moment, I am tagging the claim as unclear, in the hopes that someone can find better sources for a definition of the concept.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

merge?

shouldn't this be merged with experimental music, aren't they identical, because avant-garde metal and experimental metal are the same article so i think it would be appropriate if this was merged into experimental music as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Paco the 27th (talk • contribs) 22:31, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"Experimental music" is a weird term. Some people use it to mean any avant-garde music; some people use it only to refer to aleatoric music. This is even pointed out in the experimental music article (see: Nyman vs. Meyer etc). Regarding your point about metal, there is a bias towards art music in both articles -- especially weird considering that there is no genuine avant-garde in today's art music; the only people attempting to challenge basic ideas about music and listening experiences are working in pop genres. Could be in part because art music audiences lost the ability to be shocked or outraged sometime in the 60s. Temevorn 23:16, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

"Experimental music" is indeed a weird term, but the way Nyman defines it, experimental and avant-garde are mutually exclusive. "Some people" use some words to mean just about anything at all, so that is hardly a useful way of proceeding. I'm intrigued by the idea that it is only possible any longer to challenge pop-music audiences. Perhaps this is true, though if art-music audiences have lost the ability for shock or surprise, then these people working in pop genres are by definition only challenging audiences with particularly narrow ideas about what music is—not "basic ideas about music and listening experiences", since these appear to have been long since overcome. Insofar as the question of any difference between avant-garde metal and experimental metal are concerned, if there is no difference, then the articles Avant-garde metal and Experimental metal should probably be merged, yes. In fact, I see that the latter is merely a redirect to the former, so that merger must already have been accomplished. The way the terms are used in other areas, however, bears little resemblance to its use in this pop sub-genre.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 02:20, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Quite possibly, yes. This is a personal hypothesis of mine however, not an empirically supported theory. I just note that popular music enthusiasts do throw around terms like "avant-garde metal" and "avant-garde rock" and whatnot, while avant-garde art music composers and performers have really been part of the establishment for decades now. They've become academic -- show up in a composition class and people will be discussing Stockhausen, Xenakis and Ferneyhough, or Riley, Reich and Ligeti. And "establishment" and "avant-garde" are opposites by definition: the avant-garde is what challenges the establishment.

I do agree, however, that it's likely most avant-garde pop genres only can claim such a title because their listeners have never been exposed to Stockhausen, Xenakis et al. Their ideas about music are more limited than those of an art music listener and therefore easier to challenge; play an hour-long track of noise music at a nightclub vs. a concert hall and the club patrons might protest or walk out, while the concertgoers would almost certainly sit there politely, applaud tepidly when it's done and walk home murmuring things like "You know, that was very interesting, although I'm not sure I understand it...." Temevorn 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Temevorn said: "especially weird considering that there is no genuine avant-garde in today's art music..."

I disagree. Genuine avant-garde approaches are still active today in art music... Of course it depends what we call "avant-garde". But modernist art music approaches have often been associated with avant-garde in musicological litterature. Now, important composers like Horacio Vaggione, Agostino Di Scipio, Pascale Criton, Michel Chion, Brian Ferneyhough, or even Pascale Dusapin, etc... are current art music composers and their music is nowhere near to neo-classical, neotonal music and the current postmodernist aesthetic vogue (except for Dusapin's music, maybe, which occasionaly features strong references to baroque). Their music implies either electroacoustic, noise, atonal or microtonal techniques. Also even older avant-garde composers such as Pierre Boulez, Pierre Henry, FB Mâche, Jean-claude Risset are still active... Now all these approaches are far more chalenging for the common people ear than the popular "avant-garde" approaches which are still rooted in the tonal language for most of them. Such a harmonic language has been abandonned by avant-garde art music for more than a century. I'm not saying this to belittle popular musics, I listen to them, but the point is as long as you stay rooted in the tonal language you keep a part of tradition and convention in your music. Such approaches can't be regarded as the most chalenging approaches,as many others approaches are far more radical concerning such points of references. I'm not implying any value judgments saying so, I'm just saying that radical approaches such as atonal, serial, electroacoustic, concrete music, spectral musics are generally more chalenging for the listening experience than experimental music that still maintain some tonal references. And such radical approaches are active nowadays.

Also the point of such approaches was not particularly meant to "shock", as you seem to imply. Most of these approaches genuinely attempt to renew ways of thinking and listening music. Reducing such approaches to shoking values - as if the musical content had no aesthetic value or sense per se except for pure provocation - sounds like a serious bias against those musics as well.Alpha Ursae Minoris (talk) 11:33, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

That's not entirely what I meant to imply. More that the avant-garde has always had an element of, well, counterculture or opposition to the establishment. Consider the American "experimentalist" tradition of John Cage, Earle Brown, etc., which went so far as doing away with the 100-year-old tradition of public concerts altogether in favour of "happenings" -- this was bound up with music and language that sought to deliberately subvert expectations, for performers as well as listeners. But that was the 50s. Likewise, Boulez was a radical thinker who changed the way we think about music... in the 40s. Electronic music and spectralism revolutionised the art, with extensive repercussions extending well into the future.... in the 60s. Minimalism removed every element but process from music and broke down the boundaries between "pop" and "classical"... in the 70s. Nowadays? They all win major awards, get performed at the Proms and you can find scores by all of them in the University of Cambridge's Pendlebury Library of Music. Establishment-ified.

Sure, post-tonal music is more challenging in a variety of respects. More difficult to play. More difficult to get to know. More difficult to write. Hearing something that's not tonal at a concert will not surprise anyone, however; it will not lead them to reconsider any of their fundamental ideas about music. Even if they only purposefully listen to the pinkest of bubblegum pop, it's difficult to escape some exposure to post-tonality -- film scores, for just the most obvious example; it's the go-to bucket of styles for neurotic, dramatic or frightening scenes. Temevorn 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Now concerning the issue. I don't think they should be merged. Because use of both terms are not always synonymous as Paco seems to believe. The comparison "experimental/avant-garde metal" with "experimental/Avant-garde music" is not necessarilly revelant. It's extremely misguiding to believe one can extrapolate the model of avant-garde metal to every avant-garde music. As Jerome rightfully noted, the way the terms are used in other areas bears little resemblance to its use in this pop sub-genre. The use of similar terms ("avant-garde"/"experimental") may actually be semanticaly misguiding, as such terms may have far different meanings in art music compared to the acceptions used in metal. I'm familliar with both avant-garde metal and modernist/avant-garde art music. And I can tell you, aesthetic considerations and comprehesion of the term may strongly differ in art music compared to the acceptions used in popular music. Originally in art music, notion of avant-garde and experimental have frequently been articulated with rejection of tonal language. Also it is frequently associated with sociological & philosophical considerations (cf. Adorno, Deleuze, most notably). Now, this is not the case in popular music such as art rock or avant-garde metal which still refer to tonal inflections and notion of "avant-garde" is looser within this context.

The problem is the term "experimental music" is polysemic. As underlined by Vignal in his Dictionary of music, the term has been used in different contexts to refer to different things implying many different subtle nuances (Marc Vignal," Expérimentale (musique)" Dictionnaire de la Musique, Larousse, p.298). So its meaning depends on the aesthetic, geographical and historical context. Sometimes its meaning is synonymous with avant-garde, sometimes it is not. So things are not as simple as Paco seems to believe.

As Vignal noted, in Europe, in the 50's, the term was originally used to refer to electroacoustic (art music) approaches as opposed to serialist approaches considered as "avant-garde". So there was basically a dichotomy/distinction between both terms : experimental vs avant-garde. At the same time, in US, the word experimental was used to refer to approaches like Cage's music as opposed to serialists movements like Babbit's music (considered as "avant-garde"). Here again we had a dichotomy opposing avant-garde to experimental. Later, neotonal composers such as Nyman extended the term to minimalist/repetitive music. Yet such music are less chalenging than Cage's or electroacoustic music. Also the term was mostly used to refer to art music modernist approaches. But since late 60's/early 70's, with the rise of many popular music tendencies such as progressive rock, psychedelic music, industrial music, no wave, and more recently avant-garde metal, the term epxerimental or avant-garde have been extended.

I'll just quote from our own page on the avant-garde: "Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism....The concept of avant-garde refers exclusively to marginalised artists, writers, composers and thinkers whose work is not only opposed to mainstream commercial values, but often has an abrasive social or political edge."

Article's not perfect, but it does confirm that at one point (for two decades or so in midcentury) "avant-garde" was generally taken to have a concrete meaning; but after a while it became just a buzzword, so widely used as to be practically meaningless.

It's my view that this article should either correlate with the definition in the general avant-garde article, or limit itself to a narrower definition ("musicians identified by others as avant-garde and what they have in common" or "musicians working against the status quo between about 1940 and 1970".) -- the experimental music article is probably fine, referring mainly to musical traditions that have some experimental component, but we should decide whether we'll side with Schaeffer/Cage/Nyman in distinguishing "experimental" from "avant-garde" or against them by suggesting that experimental music can be avant-garde or vice versa. NPOV taken into account, the best solution is probably a "Some music theorists blah blah, while others blah" deal. Temevorn 00:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

While "experimental" and "avant-garde" are often understood in common language as similar notions, many modernist approaches still reject the term "experimental". Certain connotations of the term are felt as pejorative, because it tends to suggest that they "experiment", that is to say: they don't really control what they write... as if they were attempting things without really knowing what would be the resultAlpha Ursae Minoris (talk) 13:46, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Aleatoric music, for example, could be called "experimental" in this sense; any music, indeed, that is not actually written by a human composer in the traditional sense but generated through some sort of algorithm (possibly even highly sophisticated music generation software). As a teenager, I wrote a simple computer program converting the contents of a binary input file, interpreted as a sequence of 32-bit words, into a series of very short beeps (generated by the built-in PC speaker of the computer; mine didn't have a soundcard back then), every word determining the frequency of a beep (and the duration as short as the computer could produce); this was probably inspired by another similar program of mine, which read a file as a binary stream of bytes and converted it into pixels on the screen. Usually, the resulting sound effect would remind me of gurgling water. I understand that this simple idea could be called a form of experimental music, as in algorithmic music (though it is still deterministic, not aleatoric). In fact, since the PC speaker was frequently used to produce simple melodies, this description is not that far off (my original goal, however, was to experiment with the PC speaker and find out what it was really capable of, as I noticed that a game I had actually managed to generate comparably complex sounds using only the speaker, which I had thought impossible with a soundcard – I didn't know about pulse-width modulation at the time, which I suspect was what the game used to generate these "organic" sounds). In a completely different way, 4'33" could be described as experimental in this sense because (in Cage's original conception at least) the audience and environment is the (unwitting) performer and the result therefore unpredictable. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:25, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Removal of reference to Wagner & DesPrez

I'm going to remove the sentence referring to these two. It just didn't make any sense. This is not an article about modernism, for which a case might be made for Wagner (assuming the poster meant Richard Wagner), but about the avant-garde. Arguably datable to Schoenberg's innovations or perhaps more distantly to Debussy, but even that is a stretch and pertains more to modern music of the 20th C in general. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.29 (talk) 19:50, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

You removed two statements verified by citations to Edward Lowinsky and The Harvard Dictionary of Music, both of which are solidly respected reliable sources in the field of music. The contradictory statement (which you evidently prefer) is also cited, to Paul Du Noyer who, although also a respected writer, is being quoted here outside of his field of expertise (which is pop and rock music). On balance, if one of these sources is to be dismissed in favour of another, it would have to be Du Noyer, not the other two. You cannot simply remove statements you happen to disagree with, when they have got sources of this pedigree supporting them. (If this were permitted on Wikipedia, then I would have removed the claim ascribed to Du Noyer instead of pointing out the contradiction, which needs to be resolved, but not through the authoritarian intervention of Wikipedia editors, who are all of us anonymous by design). If this does not make any sense to you, then perhaps you need to read further and deeper. You May come to understand that the concept of "avant garde" has to do first and foremost with attitude; its application within various historical frameworks varies with the context.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:58, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Rewrite

Most of the content needed a complete re-write. Although I don't have the book handy, one of the primary sources for my edits would be a texts which I'd borrowed from the library and returned a few years ago. Any relevant texts should be sufficient to document the basic ideas: "Music Since 1945" was the name of the one I'd read, but there are multiple similar titles by different authors that should do just as well. Brindle's "The New Music: Avant Garde Since 1945" perhaps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.29 (talk) 20:13, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, "I saw this in a book I borrowed from the library" is not an adequate citation. The book you are thinking of is almost certainly Paul Griffiths's Modern Music: The Avant Garde since 1945. It is a respected source, but not the only opinion on the subject. Other points of view are currently documented in the article, but Griffiths's book is not mentioned (it should be). I shall add it to a "Further reading" section for the time being. In the meantime, please do not remove statements verified by reliable sources, simply because you or a book you once read happen to disagree with them.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 20:38, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I'm inclined to say that it was "Music Since 1945" by Schwartz and Godfrey. http://www.lib.miamioh.edu/multifacet/record/mu3ugb1794577 Please consider restoring at least some of my edits, as I consider the state of the article without my edits to be unacceptable - not even providing a decent definition of the subject to its readers. The tone of the article should not be about one single view about the political intentions of composers, but about a well-established style of music. Readers are currently getting no sense whatsoever of the existence of a style. Instead, they're getting a more generic view that might as well go into the general avant-garde article. This article currently lacks any insight on the music itself - something that I made an effort to provide, which others should build upon. As for a "respected" source - a source that is cited in a manner that doesn't provide a decent perspective to readers here is not accomplishing much, no matter how respected. The article avoids the topic rather than describing it, far too heavily weighted toward what the music supposedly isn't, without bothering to describe what it is - in actual musical terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.29 (talk) 21:13, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, Elliott Schwartz is no fool, but I would be surprised to learn that he claims "avant garde" is a style. If you can find a statement in that book that says so, I'm sure I will have no trouble at all finding a dozen sources contradicting that position. I can't think what "stylistic" elements may be found in common between, say, John Cage's Atlas Eclipticalis, Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Webern's Symphony Op. 21, and Harry Partch's Barstow, all of which in one place or another have been labeled "avant-garde" music. This sounds like you may be mistaking timbral listening and Varèse's "composing with sound" (both of which are certainly important to some segments of the post-1945 avant-garde) with the much larger notion of avant-garde music.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:44, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Bartok and Webern died in 1945. It's the question of a post-1945 style commonly referred to as "avant-garde" that I feel should be included here, rather than keeping it the article phrased in purely relative and subjective terms. The Cage piece does fit that style. I had tried to describe the characteristic musical elements (e.g. non-contrapuntal polyphony) in my large edit, as well as to name the most predominant composers associated with it. For example, in the Wiki articles about those composers (Penderecki, Ligeti) you can see that people have independently used the term avant garde to refer to the new style that those composers became renowned for - strarting primarily (to my knowledge) with Penderecki's "Threnody... Hiroshima). The Partch piece is very modern sounding, but has a clear emphasis upon melodic and rhythmic elements that Ligeti, Xenakis, etc. avoided. I'm not the best person to define this, since I haven't formally studied music theory, but I'll look for an authoritative source by checking the references that I do have. If the style I'm referring to has some other name, I should have heard of it. It certainly isn't timbral listening, which doesn't describe a style. Only in this Wiki article have I ever come across anything to contradict my understanding of this set of works as a specific style that thrived between the late 1950s through at least the 1990s. I've assembled a collection of discs in this style, and don't recall any of the liner notes suggesting any name for it other than avant-garde, even though clearly it was an established style by the age of CDs and thus not literally avent-garde anymore, in the sense that you refer to. If the style has another name, there doesn't seem to be any Wiki entry for it. This is why I think room needs to be made here. I first read about Threnody in a Music Appreciation book from the 1960s - obviously not the best reference anymore - but saw nothing to contradict the avant-garde classification when I took an appreciation course just a couple years ago, nor the various supplemental reading I've done, such as the Schwartz book. I'll check into some references, and it's fine to balance the ideas with others if you have good reason, but the information should not be withheld from this entry if I go through the work of backing the concepts with sources that match the ones provided so far (on what I consider a different topic - a different meaning of the term). Thanks for your patience and consideration... No doubt the label avant-garde had accommodated all sorts of music, but most of them had earned more specific terms, such as the "total serialism" that Boulez and others went into after Webern's last works. Xenakis, Lutoslawski, Ligeti, Penderecki, much Stockhausen, that which I've heard of Nono, and certainly some Cage had gone in a different direction. If I'm remembering correctly, Schwartz had referred to one of the composers expressing that the style of music involved the "moment" as its key feature - the transition between contrasting moments rather than the development of specific melodic or rhythmic content. Since you are knowledgeable, if you can save me some work in pinning this down (naming the "style") then that would be helpful for me. I have the impression that it continues to be referred to as "avant-garde," even if only because no alternative name has yet been applied. Perhaps it falls under a branch of minimalism? (non-repetitive minimalism?) Thanks 136.181.195.29 (talk) 20:12, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Things are now becoming clearer to me. This article is not, as far as I can see, restricted to the period after 1945. Even if it were, it is now helpful that you are naming some composers, which helps me to direct you to articles about specific styles associated with their names. For Ligeti's style from the early 1960s, see Micropolyphony; for Penderecki's Threnody style, see Sonorism and Timbral listening; for Xenakis's statistical mode of writing, see Stochastic music; for associated techniques (not styles) used by ther composers, see Aleatoric music and (especially for Cage, including Atlas Eclipticalis) Indeterminacy (music). As for the term "moment", the article you want is Moment form, but you may wish to know that the composer who created this term once said, "My music has no style; I don't want any style", and insisted that each work had to develop its own style, based on criteria particular to that and only that work. As for "total serialism", well, the article on Serialism does not give a very good account of what that term really involves, but it does at least give some hint of the problems with the use of that term to describe anything at all, and makes clear that it is not a style but rather a technique. You might also want to take a look at Punctualism in connection with what is sometimes called "strict" integral serialism, Multiplication (music) for Boulez's post-1954 techniques, and Acousmatic music for an approach I suspect may lie behind some of the other things you may be conflating into a single "style".—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:08, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. There is definitely some new info here for me. And more than seems to be explained anywhere else on Wikipedia. As a non-theorist, I cannot explain when a style can properly said to have formed from a set of techniques and aesthetics that appear to be shared by a set of contemporaneous composers. I had felt that this was sufficient to mark a style. Some of what you refer to is broader than what my own focus was aimed at (I had already been introduced to stochastic/aleatoric approaches, indeterminacy, etc. but these and the serialist ideas were not what my focus was). I notice that you actually used the word style, as well, in the process of identifying the very thing I was looking for but which I hadn't previously been able to call by name: Sonorism. (Micropolyphony sounds like a technique, but to me, sonorism sounds like it encompasses more - and the very approach to composition that I felt had deserved to be called a style.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.181.195.29 (talk) 01:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

"Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man" and "4'33""

@Ilovetopaint:

 "(If "Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man" is meant to be a humorous piece, then it's not even avant-garde to begin with)" --you

lol, yeah that might be true, but it's all about who defines what as what. I will assume that it's your opinion (WP:OR) that a humorous intent precludes the label of "avant-garde". Art majors can call whatever they want, whatever they want. but, cf.Surreal humour

 "In the early 20th century, several avant-garde movements, including the dadaists, surrealists, and futurists began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical."

As to the article Avant-garde_music, if the media file is omitted the article doesn't need to mention "Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man", but when it's included it becomes especially important to explain it's relevance by contrasting it with a later, musically identical work that is commonly cited as an example of "avant-garde". This is because publishing a (serious) work that is identical to a 55 year old (humorous) work is, objectively, behind ("en arrière") not ahead ("en avant").

If scholars decided to call the Roman Triarii an example of vanguards, then it's fine for an encyclopedia to reflect that, but it's even better if it is clear to the savvy reader that this is just a convention and that, in fact, the Triarius often took up the rear.

I will let you and any other editors decide amongst yourselves on whether the article should make any mention of "Funeral March for the Obsequies of a Deaf Man" and the fact that it is the same as "4'33"".

I am going to cordially insist that the language be changed from "The most commonly cited example" to "A commonly cited example". This is to avoid "weasel words"; There have been no scientific studies on the prevalence of specific examples of "avant-garde" in society at large. Any claim as to the "most common" example is purely conjecture and it dirties the article to create the impression that there is meaningful evidence suggesting a true and specific "most common" item. 198.84.171.88 (talk) 20:20, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

References

Quite apart from your perfectly reasonable change from "the" to "a" commonly cited example, your claim of identity of the 1897 work with Cage's masterpiece is totally laughable. The recording lasts only 59 seconds.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 03:23, 21 December 2017 (UTC)

I originally added Funeral purely because I couldn't find a 4'33" sample. As for "most common" versus "a common", I'm (personally) unaware of any avant-garde "musical" works outside of 4'33".--Ilovetopaint (talk) 11:52, 21 December 2017 (UTC)