Technology and WWII Avant-Garde

Question 1

Postwar Avant-Garde

Answer 1

Diverse groups of composers seek new means to work with sound.

Question 2

Second Wave of Modernism

Answer 2

Control vs. Chance. Total Serialism. Experimentalism and Chance music.

Question 3

Electronic Music

Answer 3

Microphones, magnetic tape, speakers.

Question 4

Musique Concrete

Answer 4

Concrete music. Actual sounds of life that are recorded.

Question 5

Synthesizers

Answer 5

A sound synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones.

Question 6

Computer Music

Answer 6

Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition.

Question 7

Manipulation of Time

Answer 7

Linear progress, vs. randomness/timelessness.

Question 8

Chance Music

Answer 8

• Pitches specified, not durations.
• Durations specified, not pitches.
• Everything specified, performed in any order.

Question 9

Ligeti

Answer 9

• Lux Aeterna.
• 16 solo singers plus chorus.
• Notated pitches (clusters).
• Micropolyphony.
• Listen for sound rather than musical language.

Question 10

Who came up with the idea of micropolyphony?

Answer 10

Ligeti.

Question 11

Varese

Answer 11

• Poeme Electronique.
• Electroacoustic modernity.
• Brussels Worlds Fair, Philips Pavilion.
• Audio/visual experience.
• Played through multiple speakers as visitors walked through pavilion.
• Musique concrete and synthesized sounds.

Question 12

Cage

Answer 12

• Water walk.
• What is music?
• Concept as important as the piece.

Question 13

Reactions and Consolidation

Answer 13

• Little audience outside universities.
• New expressionism, minimalism, net-romanticism, New Age, etc.
• The challenge was to create relevant music that audiences appreciated.
• Accessible, expressive, but embrace new innovations.

Question 14

Reich

Answer 14

• Music for 18 Musicians.
• Returns to tonality.
• Minimalism – playing with time.
• Simple melodies, motives, harmonies.
• Manipulation of time.
• Hypnotic state.

Question 15

Crumb

Answer 15

• Dialogue with the past.
• Modernist elements.
• Instrumentation, score production.
• Emotional states.
• Atonality, rhythm.
• House of the Rising Sun.
• Hallelujah, I’m a Bum.
• Reimagining of standards.
• Colour, atonality, tonality merge.

Question 16

Leon

Answer 16

• Blend of cultural styles.
• Latin America and Africa.
• Modernist elements.
• Instrumentation.
• Melody, rhythm.
• Harmony: atonal/tonal mix.
• Indigena.
• Latin American Carnival celebration.
• Modernist elements with cultural influences.