Freak Out: The 1960s Musical Avant-garde Revisited

3813 Words8 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Modernist essay

Freak Out: The 1960s Musical Avant-garde Revisited

“This is my happening and it freaks me out!” Z-man Barzel in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)

The title of this essay “Freak Out: The 1960s Musical Avant-garde Revisited” invites me to explore the explosion of new ideas that permeated many forms of western musical expression in the 1960s. When I was given a new course to teach at the University of Guelph called “The Musical Avant-garde” (2002) no one could quite tell me what they meant me to teach, except that it would cover all that “difficult music” of the second half of the 20th century. By this my colleagues meant serious European art music by gold-plate composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, and Gyorgy Ligeti.

Shortly after the end of WWII, the “new music” coalesced around the Darmstadt summer courses in composition where these young European composers, cut off from each other during the war, rediscovered the music of early 20th century modernists such as Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and especially Anton von Webern, and were inspired by their radical ideas of creating new systems for composing music. Young European composers didn’t try to write music like Schoenberg and Webern, rather they took to heart these composers’ basic principles: the idea of pre-ordering musical elements (serialization) and the idea of treating each sound as a discrete event, independent of the sounds around it. From these two premises, all sorts of exciting new ground was opened up – from rigorous compositional control to the notion that one could choose to leave things wide open to chance - so that by the 1960s musical elements such as tone colour and texture took the place of traditional ha...

... middle of paper ...

... our site but under no conditions are the texts and images to be copied and mounted onto another site server. Researchers using the site should accredit it following standard MLA guidelines on how to do so. Correct citation of information from the site is as follows:

Waterman, Ellen. Sounds Provocative: Experimental Music Performance in Canada. University of Guelph. 2005. .

This research has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at the University of Guelph who can be contacted at 519-824-4120 x 56606. The project is generously supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the College of Arts, and the School of Fine Art and Music, University of Guelph.

Copyright © 2005 Waterman, Ellen. Sounds Provocative: Experimental Music Performance in Canada. University of Guelph. All Rights Reserved

Show More
Related

  • Daniel Felsenfeld Rebel Music Summary

    618 Words  | 2 Pages

    Daniel Felsenfeld reveals a positive, impactful significance — one that has completely changed his life — in his literacy narrative “Rebel Music” by drawing upon what his early adolescent years of music were like before his shift into a new taste for music, how this new taste of music precisely, yet strangely appealed to him, and what this new music inspired him to ultimately become. Near the beginning of his narrative, Felsenfeld described his primal time with music in Orange County, Calif. He had developed his musical skills enough to jumpstart a career around music — working in piano bars and in community theater orchestra pits. However, Felsenfeld stated that the music he worked with “... was dull, or at least had a dulling effect on me — it didn’t sparkle, or ask questions,” and that “I [he] took a lot of gigs, but at 17 I was already pretty detached” (pg. 625). Felsenfeld easily

    Read More

  • The Musical Style Of Alexina Diane Louie

    2929 Words  | 6 Pages

    Louie not only made a name for herself as a Canadian composer through her unique style, but also was an strong figure in the advocacy for Canadian composers. Louie advocated for Canadian music to be played properly, to increase awareness of Canadian composers and their music, spoke with corporate sponsors, and hosted informal meetings with the public to discuss Canadian music. Most importantly, she was intimately involved with the Esprit Contemporain orchestra, which continues to perform Canadian music today. Through her advocacy for Canadian composers and their compositions, as well as her distinctive style of composition, Alexina Louie has truly left a strong, positive impact in the world as a Canadian composer.

    Read More

  • Collaborative Processes Between Directors and Composers

    2054 Words  | 5 Pages

    In this essay I am going to explore the unique collaboration between director and composer and how much a long-term collaborative process between the two can influence the establishment of the former as an author. An author, in this case, stands for an authority actively shaping the film’s story and message but at the same can be understood as an author of music, I will try to consider both factors. In this process I want to begin with filmmaker’s general relationship to music, then while answering the main question I will give examples of the European collaboration of Theo Angelopoulos and Eleni Karaindrou, focusing on their approach of using music in new ways, as well as examples from the more known collaborations between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann and David Cronenberg’s collaboration with Howard Shore. Furthermore, I am going to include conclusions from my personal experience I have had with my friend and director Nuno Miguel Wong. Concurrently this Essay is not an analysis of the music in the films of the above-mentioned collaborations, but rather focuses on their distinct working relationship and how it might have affected their musical approach and productivity.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Cecile Mclorin Salvant's Performance

    1011 Words  | 3 Pages

    Music is magical: it soothes you when you are upset and cheers you up when you are down. To me, it is a communication with souls. I listen to different genres of music. When appreciating each form of music, with its unique rhythm and melody, I expect to differentiate each other by the feelings and emotions that it brings to me. However, I would definitely never call myself “a fan of jazz” until I witnessed Cécile McLorin Salvant’s performance last Friday at Mondavi Center. Through the interpretations and illustrations from Cécile’s performance, I realized that the cultural significance and individual identity are the building blocks of jazz music that create its unique musical features and support its development.

    Read More

  • A Feminist Journey through Beethoven's Musical Structure

    3005 Words  | 7 Pages

    William Henry Hadow and Charles Rosen are two historians who talk primarily about musical context. Hadow sets his discussion in the framework of classical composers' movement away from Baroque forms. He says that when Beethoven and his contemporaries chose ternary form over Baroque binary, typified in the dance suite, they chose a structure that was then used successfully into the twentieth century. This was only poss...

    Read More

  • Georg Phillip Telemann: The Culture Of The Baroque Period

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the concrete structure of the Baroque period to the free-form structure of the Modern period each composer brings forth a new understanding and value to their time period. Within these pieces that they creatively compose it brings new light and displays the culture of the time period. The composers each have story to tell and has each creatively constructed their own works within the diameters of their era.

    Read More

  • Benny Goodman's Jazz, And The Swing Era

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    The word “jazz” is significant to America, and it has many meanings. Jazz could simply be defined as a genre or style of music that originated in America, but it can also be described as a movement which “bounced into the world somewhere about the year 1911…” . This is important because jazz is constantly changing, evolving, adapting, and improvising. By analyzing the creators, critics, and consumers of jazz in the context of cultural, political, and economic issue, I will illustrate the movement from the 1930’s swing era to the birth of bebop and modern jazz.

    Read More

  • Leonard Bernstein Essay

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    When one considers the history of classical music, often images of Vienna, Prague, and other European cities come to mind. Centuries of European musical achievement and development have implanted in society the idea that classical music is an inherently European creation. Considering the accomplishments of countless composers such as J.S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Antonin Dvorak, this preconception is certainly not unfounded. However, Leonard Bernstein's rise to international fame proved that one cannot neglect American composers in a discussion of the development of Western music. Combining elements of a vast array of musical styles, Bernstein's unique compositions reached a wide variety of audiences and often bridged gaps between distinct musical genres. Through his long conducting career, profoundly influential compositional output, and televised music lectures, Leonard Bernstein left a lasting legacy which came to define American music in the 20th century.

    Read More

  • The History of Music

    1756 Words  | 4 Pages

    Western Music has developed in many ways since the middle ages through its form, sound, and message. Throughout these different periods in western music one thing has remained constant, the true essence of music, a way to communicate with someone on a much more divine level than be by rudimentary conversation. Though Ludwig Van Beethoven and Paul McCartney may seem completely opposite they have one in common through their music they changed the world’s perception of its self

    Read More

  • Music For Eighteen Musicians By Steve Reich

    658 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the 1950s music academies all over America were prominently concerned with a form of composition known as serialism. Serialism in it’s most basic and initial form can be characterized by twelve-tone rows, but is a much broader term that covers “series” that can be devised for other musical aspects such as dynamics and rhythmic duration. The alternative to this cerebral music was indeterminate music, which was being pioneered by John Cage during the 50s. Minimalist music throughout the late 50s and 60s developed largely as a reaction against the complexities of both serialism and indeterminate music.

    Read More

  • The ‘60s: Culture and Music

    1486 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history, music have defined or depicted the culture and social events in America. Music has constantly played an important role in constituting American culture, where people have expressed themselves through music during flourishing and turbulent times. In the 1930’s, Swing music created a platform for audiences to vent their emotions in the midst of Great Depression and political unrest. Such strong relationship between music and culture can be seen throughout history, especially in the sixties.

    Read More

  • Essay On West Side Story

    666 Words  | 2 Pages

    Most of all, those values that the American musical celebrated — and that is those values of American life, American philosophy, American belief — what we find is by the mid-1960s all of those beliefs, all of those philosophies, are being challenged, are being upset. As in all genres, the musical has had its share of failures. Some worthy dramas have been pressed into service and musicalized and sometimes butchered in the process, and audiences have had to watch a fine play diluted into a mediocre musical. But the successes have been many and spectacular, and they have left a long lasting effect on the American art and culture.

    Read More

  • Shostakovich's Contribution to Soviet Propaganda

    1954 Words  | 4 Pages

    Horton , Andrew J. . "The Forgotten Avant Garde: Soviet Composers Crushed by Stalin." Central Europe Review 1.1 (28 June 1999): n. pag. Web. 19 Mar 2011. .

    Read More

  • A Complete Analysis of The Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Opus 26

    2023 Words  | 5 Pages

    Wharram, Barbara. Elementary Rudiments of Music. Ed. Kathleen Wood. 2nd ed. Mississauga, Ont.: Frederick Harris Music, 2010. Print.

    Read More

  • Avant Garde Theatre Essay

    1002 Words  | 3 Pages

    In popular entertainment, if not in literature, yesterday's avant garde is often tomorrow's mainstream, so the term can function as a label simply identifying the next trend. As the American poet John Ashbery pointed out in an influential 1968 essay on the nature of the avant garde, where once an innovative artist had to wait a whole career to see their work absorbed into m...

    Read More

More about Freak Out: The 1960s Musical Avant-garde Revisited

Open Document