Riots, Rebels, and Noise: Listening to 20th Century Classical Music

 

Dissonance is basically calculated noise.  Dissonance often sounds like the musicians are playing the wrong notes.  Until early in the 20th century, dissonance was rarely played in classical music, and when it was played it was quickly followed by consonance, which is the opposite of dissonance.  Consonance is pleasing to the ear.  Dissonance is often upsetting.  Going from dissonance to consonance is called resolution, and for most of classical music’s history composers were expected to always end their songs and pieces with resolution.

Early in the 20th century, many composers began writing music with dissonance that did not resolve into consonance.  One of the most famous composers to experiment with dissonance was the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.  Stravinsky used unsettling and jarring rhythms as well as dissonance that went on for a long time and never resolved.

Stravinsky’s most famous piece is called The Rite of Spring.  Played by a symphony orchestra, the music is accompanied by ballet dancers who dance violently to the dissonant music.  When The Rite of Spring was first played in Paris in 1913 a riot broke out because of the dissonance.  People were so disturbed by the dissonant music that they started fights and tried to force the musicians and dancers to stop the performance.

Go here to listen to a sample of The Rite of Spring.  While you are listening, think about how the dissonance in the music makes you feel.  Many punk, rock, rap, hip-hop, and jazz artists use dissonance in their music.  Can you think of any bands or artists that you listen to that use dissonance?
 

 

Avant-garde can mean many things, but it is generally used to describe progressive, experimental, or just plain weird art.  Beginning in the late 1940s, a group of classical musicians often called the “post-war avant-garde” began composing and performing music that broke from nearly every classical music tradition. 

One of the most famous of post-war avant-garde musicians was John Cage.  Cage experimented with new musical ideas that often upset other musicians and listeners.  In 1952, Cage wrote a piece called 4’33” where the musician sits at a piano but does not play any notes.  The “music” of 4’33” turns out to be nothing more than a combination of silence and various noises from the audience, such as someone coughing or moving around in their seat.

Cage was also one of the first composers to create new instruments.  He created a prepared piano, which is a piano that has been altered, often by placing pieces of metal and other objects in the piano strings or by tuning the piano differently.  Cage was also one of the first composers to use electronic instruments.  Electronic instruments, such as keyboards and synthesizers, were looked down upon by classical musicians when they were first being played in the 1940s and 1950s.

Go here to listen to some of John Cage’s music.  While you are listening, think about whether or not this music sounds like what you think classical music normally sounds like.

Minimalism arose out of the avant-garde experiments of musicians like John Cage, though minimalism was revolutionary less for how it sounded than the principles and ideas behind minimalist music.  Minimalists realized that entire musical pieces could be based upon a single chord or idea, rather than an intricate system of musical forms and structures, which had dominated classical music’s history.

Steve Reich is generally considered to be the pioneer of minimalism in music.  Reich was influenced by diverse music ranging from Stravinsky to West African drumming.  Some of his earliest pieces were recordings of single spoken lines played on different tape reels simultaneously.  Reich would alter the speed of some of the tape reels so that the speech would be out of phase with the other reels.  Reich called this phase shifting.

Reich is also famous for composing music for smaller ensembles (5-20 musicians).  The piece Drumming is about an hour long and it is built around a single musical idea, in this case particular rhythms.  While many musicians and listeners find minimalism repetitive, the slight alterations in rhythm, volume, or style in minimalist pieces make the music interesting throughout.

Minimalism has significantly influenced a lot of contemporary music.  In fact, most pop, rock, electronica, and hip-hop songs contain just a few chords, which is a minimalist concept.  Bands and musicians like Sonic Youth, Sufjan Stevens, King Crimson, and DJ Spooky have all said that Steve Reich is a huge influence on their music.

Go here, and scroll down to the section called Minimalism, to listen to some of Reich’s music.  Be sure to also watch the video performance of Drumming.  While you are listening and watching, pay attention to the slight changes in the repetitions.

1. What is dissonance and why was it so controversial?  How does listening to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring make you feel?

2. What does it mean to call something avant-garde?  What was avant-garde about John Cage’s approach to classical music?

3. The pieces by Steve Reich that we listened to weren’t very dissonant, but they were revolutionary in the way they were written.  What is revolutionary about minimalist music?  

 

4. Can you think of any of your favorite bands and musicians that play music that might by called dissonant, avant-garde, or minimalist?