Monday, January 02, 2006
experimental music?
There are a lot of terms going around these days: "uptown/downtown," "postminimalism," "totalism," etc. Even the term "classical music" is not entirely clear as to what it means, at least to me. It's very un-Taoist to categorize things, but the fact is that as humans, we generally want to put things into neat (or more often, not so neat) boxes. Kind of like the red state/blue state thing. So I'm fine with it overall, with the caveat that it's understood that we often use terms as a lingua franca, but that they may not mean exactly what they imply in a strict, academic sense.
However, one term that I've always had trouble with is that of "experimental music." I've seen it applied to music by Varese, Antheil, Ornstein, Partch, and many others. What does it really mean, anyway? Is music ever really "experimental?" When I've done experiments, it was usually in a laboratory setting where one is trying to prove a theory either correct or incorrect. In other words, there is either an inductive or deductive process going on where the end result should be validation or invalidation of the theory.
I'm not sure I understand how that relates to music. Why is Varese's or Cage's or Ives' music considered "experimental" by some while John Adams' music might not be? My sense is that the term "experimental" was applied somewhat derisively, to denote music that is "out there" and perhaps not in the same "acceptable" styles as Mozart or Brahms, or else using some new form of instrumentation (such as electronics or novel instruments) or traditional instruments played in new ways. If that is true, then it is somewhat perjorative in intent, to signify that the resulting music is not polished, not codified in some way...in other words, "an experiment." Similarly, if it is not meant that way, what makes some music "experimental?" Is it experimental in that it is relatively uncertain, or meant to prove or disprove something?
I can't stand the term. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. There is certainly some degree of "experimentation" in any work I compose, and suspect that is true for everyone else. But if the final result is ok with me, why should it be viewed as "experimental?" Similarly, while Partch's music of course largely involves new, often homemade instruments and microtonal tunings, I believe that Partch knew exactly what he was doing, felt strongly about his music (as he should have) and created music that I have genuine affection for. How is that experimental? Microtonality is nothing new, and Partch was not experimenting with new instruments; rather, he was finding new modalities to realize the music he wanted to create. Nothing new about that either.
So I'd be more than happy if, with all the categorizing that we all do in this musical world, we ditch the term "experimental music." It signifies nothing, can be perjorative, and is really nonsensical the more I have thought about it over the years. Let's leave experimentation to the scientists among us.
posted by David Toub
6:11 PM
|
