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Chapter 18 continued…
Technological developments after WWII?
General compositional developments:
►
Newer musical systems were developed.

►
►
electronic music
Some composers attempted to destroy all systems.
Innovations dealt primarily with tone color, rhythm,
and form.
Maximum Rational Control by the
Composer
►
►
control over every aspect of performance
predetermined control of choices the
composer makes in writing the piece to
begin with
-serial organization, serialism, or the
twelve-tone technique
Minimum Rational Control by the
Composer
►
►
►
The whole result of a composition is left
up to the performer or to the operation of
chance
chance music is also known as aleatoric
music
Most important composer of chance music:

John Cage (1912-1992)
Henry Cowell
► Inventor
of the tone cluster
► Asked performer to play directly on the
strings of the piano
► Influenced by Asian music
► The Banshee (1925)
-Listen for sweeping sound effects
New Technology and the New Music
►
►
►
magnetic tape recording
Synthesizers
digital revolution: MIDI and sampling
What effect did these developments have on
live performance?
Minimalism
► Reduction
of compositional materials – relies
heavily on repetition, short simple patterns,
and subtle changes
► First appeared in music in the 1960’s
► Demonstrates the increased interest in
Asian and African music and a reaction to
serialism
Steve Reich
► influential
composer of minimalist music in
the mid-1960s
► Coined the concept of “phase shifting”
► Piano Phase (1967)
► Other
minimalist composers:
-John Adams
-Philip Glass
Multimedia Art and Concept Music
 efforts to “theatricalize” the basic concert
situation
 performance art of the 1980s and 1990s
-Laurie Anderson
Concept music - Music consisting merely of ideas
for “pieces,” the actual realization of which
would either be impossible, ambiguous, or
manifestly pointless.
American Composers Forum
► Each
of the 50 states commissioned to
produce a new work celebrating the new
millennium – Continental Harmony
► Great example of the diversity of American
music
Bushy Wushy Rag
► Written
by Philip Bimstein in 2000
► Baseball and ragtime
► Musical quote from Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag
► Electronic manipulation of sound – baseball
sounds specifically