Experimentation in Music Essay - 1462 Words

Experimentation in Music For thousands of years, music has been a part of people’s lives and has evolved through many different forms over time. Music is the art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre (American Heritage). One important component of analyzing music is whether it has musical value. In other words, music does not have to be organized sound or produced by instruments. This is what composers and artists of experimental music discover. Experimental music is an art form, makes use of instruments or other items that can produce sound, and can alter or expand the basic foundations of music and musicality. These are the†¦show more content†¦In experimental music, the composer is free to create their own work as art. Experimental music is an art form that is open to creativity. As well as being an art form, experimental music uses a variety of instruments and sound-producing items. In the last hundred years, many composers and music artists experimented with other noises and sources of sound. Composers such as Luigi Russolo and George Antheil used sirens, whistles, anvils, and machines to create sounds in their musical works (Ewen 95). In the 1930s through 1950s, some composers began to experiment with new types of sounds in music. The composer Edgard Varese felt that â€Å"music had to be freed of all the inhibitions that centuries of tradition and rules had imposed upon it (102).† Personally created instruments are also used in experimental music. One of the composers who devised his own musical scale and instruments was Harry Partch (158). He experimented with the new, unique instruments that he created to produce new music of strange and different sounds. John Cage, a composer, wrote a piece for a toy piano. Experimental music can use ne w, invented instruments and unconventional instruments. Many different items that produce sound have been used in experimental music. A comb is used in George Brecht’s â€Å"Comb Music† to create a unique, delicate sound (Nyman 64). LaMonte Young had a piece called â€Å"Poem for Chairs, Tables, and Benches, etc.† in whichShow MoreRelatedCambodia Rocks : The Struggle For Musical Experimentation1680 Words   |  7 PagesCambodia Rocks: The Struggle for Musical Experimentation Introduction In 1996, the New York City label Parallel World released a CD that introduced most Western listeners to a new world of music: Cambodia Rocks. This mixtape of songs performed by Khmer musicians and recorded in the 1960s and early 1970s fuses early garage and psychedelic rock from the West and traditional vocal techniques and lyrics from Cambodia. 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