![]() The classic definition of indeterminacy derives from John Cage, according to which indeterminacy “refers to the ability of a piece to be performed in substantially different ways”. It was Olivier Messiaen’s unordered series for pitch, duration, dynamics, and articulation from the pre-serial Mode de valeurs et d’intensités which provided the prototype for Pierre Boulez and other Darmstadt composers. This procedure is sometimes called Total Serialism or Absolute Serialism. One of the most important developments of the serialist composers of the 1950s, and after, was to serialize durations, dynamics and articulations, as well as, the pitches. Most often, they would segment the row into smaller units, three notes (trichord) four notes (tetrachord) etc., and use these as motives for development, placing the notes in any register and, in fact, often exploiting octave displacement in a melodic line as much as possible. But Webern was somewhat unique in this regard, since usually Schoenberg and other 12-tone composers would utilize the tone row as raw material for the composition. The preferred term is “pitch class” since this phrase underscores the distinction between the entire class of a pitch as opposed to one specific instance of it.Īnton Webern, however, would repeat the same note in the same register and this later provided inspiration for Philip Glass and other Minimalist composers. ![]() ![]() As employed by Schoenberg and his school, generally, the row series did not stipulate the octave register for the pitch and instances of the pitches would occur either in a high, low or middle register. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of post-tonal thinking. Serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. This style became popular long after the other three, but can be viewed as either a continuation of, or reaction against, and heavily influenced by one or more of the other three. They would splice together and layer these audio samples to create musical works.Īlso included in the title to this article is Minimalism. They discovered that if they removed the attack of the sound, the beginning of the audio file, they could create a pure sound divorced from its context. Schaeffer and Henry recorded the sound of locomotive engines, street sounds, doors closing, etc. However, the term “concrete” is a bit misleading for English speakers, since the French term has nothing to do with cement pavement, but might better be translated as “real” sounds. ![]() Musique concrète was created in the studios of Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, around the same tme. Indeterminacy, while used earlier by Charles Ives and Henry Cowell, the most important contributions were by John Cage and the New York School including Morton Feldman, Earle Brown and Christian Wolff. Specifically, Serialism was taken up by the composers of the European continent, most famously at the Darmstadt conferences by composers such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Karel Goeyvaerts and others. Serialism, Indeterminacy, Musique concrète all gained ascendancy between 1948-1952. While these methods of composing have lost much of their initial momentum, their influence continues to effect composers even today. Around the middle of the 20 th century several new compositional styles (while not emerging entirely new) came to represent dominant streams, almost establishing a kind of “common practice”, for at least a few years. ![]()
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