Music Composition DUMmIES

Early 20th century (1910–1950) ........................................................

This period of time is the true bridge between what was known as classical

music and what became known as the avant garde. In Austria, composer

Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) experimented with using the 12-tone scale

in his music (as opposed to the 8-tone system considered “normal”), creating

some truly disturbing and dark pieces perfectly fit for future horror films. In

Hungary, Béla Bartók drew heavily on the dying folk music of his countrymen

to create beautifully dark pieces for both orchestral arrangements and solo

piano.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., Charles Ives (1874–1954) mixed complex harmonies,

polyrhythms, and polytonalities with early American hymns and folk music,

leading to his eventual winning of the Pulitzer Prize for Music. His country-

man John Cage (1912–1922) laid some of the groundwork for future minimal-

ists in his compositions, requiring audiences to listen to his recorded works

via dozens of radios and record players simultaneously — almost overnight

making the United States the birthplace of experimental music.

This period of music especially is earmarked by a desperation of composers

to really speak to audiences in a time of world-wide turbulence (the two

World Wars). Much of the classical music of this time is drawn directly from

native traditional music in an attempt to connect with the “common man,” as

opposed to previous generations of composers, who admittedly were trying

to attract the attention of the well-heeled genteel classes.

Minimalism (1950-present) ...............................................................

If you ever find yourself in a conversation with composer Steve Reich, don’t

dare refer to his music as minimalism, because he’ll threaten to wash your

mouth out with soap. However, his work, as well as that of Philip Glass, Terry

282 Part V: The Part of Tens

Nick Currie, a.k.a. Momus

I love baroque music. Bach, of course, is my

favorite classical composer. I love that basso

continuo thing, that simple, strong counter-

point that happens in baroque music. I love

how it defines chords in a fleeting, subtle way

rather than the sledgehammer way rock and

folk tend to do, with their strummed or fuzzed

chord sequences filling out the whole dynamic

spectrum of the sound, leaving no space, no

ambiguity. I call rock’s tendency to hog the

whole audible sound area — from deep bass

to the hiss of the high-hats — “full-spectrum

dominance,” and I really think of it as some-

what fascist. Baroque music is more like a

sympathetic relationship between two lines,

which create harmony and chords by their

courtly dance around each other.