Avant-garde music
Encyclopedia
Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres.
Historically speaking, musicologists primarily use the term "avant-garde music" for the radical, post-1945 tendencies of a modernist style
in several genres of art music
after the death of Anton Webern
in 1945. In the 1950s the term avant-garde music was mostly associated with serial music.
Today the term may be used to refer to any other post-1945 tendency of modernist music not definable as experimental music
, though sometimes including a type of experimental music characterized by the rejection of tonality
.
Historically speaking, musicologists primarily use the term "avant-garde music" for the radical, post-1945 tendencies of a modernist style
Modernism (music)
Modernism in music is characterized by a desire for or belief in progress and science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, political advocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with the past or common practice.- Defining musical modernism :...
in several genres of art music
Art music
Art music is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations and a written musical tradition...
after the death of Anton Webern
Anton Webern
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...
in 1945. In the 1950s the term avant-garde music was mostly associated with serial music.
Today the term may be used to refer to any other post-1945 tendency of modernist music not definable as experimental music
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
, though sometimes including a type of experimental music characterized by the rejection of tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
.
See also
- Experimental musicExperimental musicExperimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
- Aleatoric musicAleatoric musicAleatoric music is music in which some element of the composition is left to chance, and/or some primary element of a composed work's realization is left to the determination of its performer...
- Indeterminacy in musicIndeterminacy in musicIndeterminacy in music, which began early in the twentieth century in the music of Charles Ives, and was continued in the 1930s by Henry Cowell and carried on by his student, the experimental music composer John Cage beginning in 1951 , came to refer to the movement which grew up around Cage...
- Surrealist music
- Noise musicNoise musicNoise music is a term used to describe varieties of avant-garde music and sound art that may use elements such as cacophony, dissonance, atonality, noise, indeterminacy, and repetition in their realization. Noise music can feature distortion, various types of acoustically or electronically...
- Avant-garde jazzAvant-garde jazzAvant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
- Avant-garde metal
- Experimental rockExperimental rockExperimental rock or avant-garde rock is a type of music based on rock which experiments with the basic elements of the genre, or which pushes the boundaries of common composition and performance technique....
- Free improvisationFree improvisationFree improvisation or free music is improvised music without any rules beyond the logic or inclination of the musician involved. The term can refer to both a technique and as a recognizable genre in its own right....
- Free jazzFree jazzFree jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...
- Industrial musicIndustrial musicIndustrial music is a style of experimental music that draws on transgressive and provocative themes. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by the band Throbbing Gristle, and the creation of the slogan "industrial music for industrial people". In general, the...
- Art rockArt rockArt rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, with influences from art, avant-garde, and classical music. The first usage of the term, according to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, was in 1968. Influenced by the work of The Beatles, most notably their Sgt...