What is experimental music?

John

Rather than give you my definition (which is half-baked), I ask you in the most pretentious way possible: What is music? What is experimentation? Where do the two meet?

Matthewthebig

Music is noise that sounds good.
Experimentation is a way of achieivng this that is not the norm.

That's something like it. Well to me anyways.

Ghost Rider

Music is sound that is organised. Experimental music consists of experiments with sound and with the ways in which sound can be organised.

jimi_t

Hmm.... So is discussion about groups who are pushing/pushed the boundries of their genres (Pink Floyd, Thomas Dolby,Radiohead, Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin) and the techniques they employ permitted or are we going to be inundated with postmodern waffle? Methinks that a charter is going to be very hard to draw up

Ghost Rider

Easy, cowboy. This town should be big enough for both.

And anyway: one man's waffle is another's breakfast.

jimi_t wrote:

Hmm.... So is discussion about groups who are pushing/pushed the boundries of their genres (Pink Floyd, Thomas Dolby,Radiohead, Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin) and the techniques they employ permitted or are we going to be inundated with postmodern waffle? Methinks that a charter is going to be very hard to draw up

cornbb

Experimental music is something that's never been done before. I'm not talking about something like doing a disco remix of Beethoven's fifth. I'm talking about things like John Cage using turntables playing sine waves in 1939, Kraftwerk embracing the synthesiser, Aphex Twin inserting screws and bits of rubber amongst the strings of a MIDI-controlled grand piano to create an entirely new instrument, and Autechre using complex algorithms to morph notes from crotchets into quavers without the listener even noticing. THATS the good stuff. That is the experimental stuff which actually adds something real and new to the world of music, much of which is greeted with confusion and horror when it is first heard, but is considered a normal part of music in 10, 20 or 50 years time.

Then there's the weird stuff, like David Tudor offering his piano a bale of hay to eat during a performance. But I suppose there's no harm in discussing that either

Hurray for the new forum, I hope to learn a lot and discover loads of new music.

jimi_t

Supoib! I'm really looking forward to this forum kicking off - I nominate myself for modship

John

To quote the charter:

Any posts which are do not fall under the heading "Experimental Music" will be moved or deleted. This includes porn people! There are loads of other boards covering the different Genres like Music/Radio, Rock/Metal, Punk, etc. However, being an experimental forum if the metal, jazz, folk, etc. you want to talk about falls into the realms of experimental then it is more than welcome.

Could be better worded but I like the vagueness of the forum. There's no reason why pioneering artists in any genre shouldn't be discussed here.

c_o_ck p_i_ss chillage

What is experimental music?
I would say that question is relative to what each individual thinks is "experimental".
So what do each of you think is "experimental"?
Regards,
Paul Chillage

fish-head

But what am music?

What are experiment?

projectmayhem

John wrote:

Rather than give you my definition (which is half-baked), I ask you in the most pretentious way possible: What is music? What is experimentation? Where do the two meet?

music is the artistic expression of a person through the use of various arrangements using instruments, vocals etc.

experimentation is taking these arrangements and doing something that's against the grain

(imo )

Ghost Rider

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fish-head wrote:

But what am music?

What are experiment?

c_o_ck p_i_ss chillage

Ghost Rider wrote:

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Think Mr. Fish was being "experimental" in his response. I got it. Then again I'm a good audience. Ehem.
P

Ghost Rider

You don't say...

To get back to the topic, or something resembling it, how do you judge the success of experimental music? Is it by measuring its influence on others? If so, doesn't that mean it no longer sounds experimental?

For example, much of what was considered experimental or "modern" in the 1920s doesn't sound experimental now, partially because it had such influence (particularly on film soundtracks) and is now part of a musical heritage.

Does that mean experimental music only lasts in so far as it doesn't influence other music...?

c_o_ck p_i_ss chillage wrote:

Think Mr. Fish was being "experimental" in his response.

John

Ghost Rider wrote:

To get back to the topic, or something resembling it, how do you judge the success of experimental music? Is it by measuring its influence on others? If so, doesn't that mean it no longer sounds experimental?

For example, much of what was considered experimental or "modern" in the 1920s doesn't sound experimental now, partially because it had such influence (particularly on film soundtracks) and is now part of a musical heritage.

Does that mean experimental music only lasts in so far as it doesn't influence other music...?

It's experimental the first time it's done. So the original is still an experimental piece but any imitations are just an imitation (or an homage if they're good ). However influencing a subsequent generation of artists doesn't mean imitation, Cage was influenced by Satie but you'd hardly say that Cage wasn't experimental.

Ghost Rider

There's a very fine line between imitating and being influenced. (The literary theorist Harold Bloom writes about this extensively. He believes great writers make their mark by wrestling with their influences and "creatively misreading" their work. It's intriguing to think how this theory of influence might apply to composeres of music...)

Anyway, this all raises the interesting question "Is it possible for there to be a tradition of experimental music?" Experimentalism often involves a conscious attempt to make a break with what has gone before, so that would seem to preclude the possibility of a tradition. Yet, as you say, Satie was an influence on Cage - and what is it to be in a tradition if not to be influenced by a predecessor...?

It's a regular paradox, init?

John wrote:

It's experimental the first time it's done. So the original is still an experimental piece but any imitations are just an imitation (or an homage if they're good ). However influencing a subsequent generation of artists doesn't mean imitation, Cage was influenced by Satie but you'd hardly say that Cage wasn't experimental.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

Music is like...stuff what sounds deadly n' ****...

Experimental is like...stuff that sounds deadly n' **** but you don't realise it till like the 10th listen or sumthing. Or maybe you got it first time but your bruvva's in the hood are all like "what's this wack ass zhit"

Just my two cents

metrovelvet

Is there such a thing anymore? Wasnt this an avante gard term? Is there still an avant gard?

They need a new term: unexperimentable - for all the music that is so complex, so math driven that there are no musicians with the skill or ability to play this music.

Its a stupid term, like alternative, because its dependent upon a norm, which doesnt always exist.

Wasnt rap once upon a time "experimental?"

John

But surely experimental music always exists and it's what is new and never been done that is experimental? Like rap was initially.

metrovelvet

Ok I can see what you're saying but I was under the impression that people arrived at the "everthing is derivative - there's no such thing as orginality" conclusion. And Rap would never have been called experimental, even though that is what it was, because it never had academic backing the way "experimental" music does, whether it be jazz, contemporary, or modern classical or whatever new genres are merging these days.

Have you noticed that music of the streets is never called experimental? Jazz was once new, so was swing, so was hip hip, etc etc but it never got that classification?

cornbb

Yeah, this is true. 'Experimental' music shouldn't just be limited to just 'serious' music, which is what academia dictates. Although if studying any sort of 20th century music in college/whatever, its really interesting to watch the evolution from the classical/romantic music of the end of the 19th century into the multitude of different types of 20th century 'serious' music.

metrovelvet

Sure. And what your describing is essentially the evolution of court music, having moved out of the castle and into the academy.

cornbb

Something like that. Correspondingly, folk music has become pop/jazz/rock music. Although there's a lot more cross-pollination now. Especially with many types of electronic music, which has an equal place in academic or popular music. all made possible through experimentation, or course.

metrovelvet

Yep and technology enabled that evolution of folk to become pop/jazz/rock -the music of the common people so to speak.

And yes the experimenters completely facilitate the hybrid genres or the poly -istic forms and like in other art forms, they do the trying and the failing, or the trying and the succeeding and then the more conventional artists appropriate it and use it.

Im not a musicologist and I maybe mistaken, but jazz didnt really earn "legitimacy" until white academics started studying,using and writing it, and moreso until they found its common heritage with classical.

dross

you are mistaken

JC 2K3

This forum could be called "Other" and serve the exact same purpose.

Basically the term "Experimental Music" can be used to describe any kind of music that does something non-generic. In practice, it generally means music that is modern, not very accessable and therefore not very popular or commercially successful.

metrovelvet

Can you elaborate?

DadaKopf

[quote=because it never had academic backing the way "experimental" music does, whether it be jazz, contemporary, or modern classical or whatever new genres are merging these days.[/quote]
NEVER? That's rubbish. Look at Zappa.

To me, 'experimental music' is a catchall for people who are devising new forms of sound that go beyond what's considered 'normal' - that being 'good music' or other terms people apply to it in common chatter. Mostly, it's an intentional approach by some people making music, but 'traditions' of experimental music are generally categories applied in retrospect, and other 'movements' of experimental music might happen because a bunch of people hang our, email and get excited about the same stuff together. 'Experimental' might just be a category today to replace 'avant garde' in a day when 'the avant garde' seems impossible.

Inevitably, experimentalism finds itself incorporated into 'normal music'. Is Tom Waits considered 'experimental' be most today? Or hip hop? Or Gorecki or Part, who are popular these days.

Or what about the Moog? Robert Moog reckoned 'experimental' music was just a bunch of brave people who worked the most to get the most out of new sound-making technologies. Advances in woodworking led to the violin and Mozart. The industrial revolution led to the piano and some piano guy. The circuit let to the Moog and Kraftwerk.

Interesting, really.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

metrovelvet wrote:

And Rap would never have been called experimental, even though that is what it was, because it never had academic backing the way "experimental" music does

I think it did, in the late 80's, considered an exciting new area in music, by other "established" artists in the "experimental" genre, but people swiftly became disillusioned with it as the genre appeared to stagnate ( I don't think it really stagnated, it just managed to amass an enormous mainstream following, which lead to a plethora of hacks and a very low signal:noise ratio)

metrovelvet

DadaKopf wrote:

NEVER? That's rubbish. Look at Zappa.

To me, 'experimental music' is a catchall for people who are devising new forms of sound that go beyond what's considered 'normal' - that being 'good music' or other terms people apply to it in common chatter. Mostly, it's an intentional approach by some people making music, but 'traditions' of experimental music are generally categories applied in retrospect, and other 'movements' of experimental music might happen because a bunch of people hang our, email and get excited about the same stuff together. 'Experimental' might just be a category today to replace 'avant garde' in a day when 'the avant garde' seems impossible.

Inevitably, experimentalism finds itself incorporated into 'normal music'. Is Tom Waits considered 'experimental' be most today? Or hip hop? Or Gorecki or Part, who are popular these days.

Or what about the Moog? Robert Moog reckoned 'experimental' music was just a bunch of brave people who worked the most to get the most out of new sound-making technologies. Advances in woodworking led to the violin and Mozart. The industrial revolution led to the piano and some piano guy. The circuit let to the Moog and Kraftwerk.

Interesting, really.

Yeah but Zappa wasnt a exclusively a rap artist.

Otherwise I would agree with your perspective here Dada. The only thing is that with culture become more and more fragmented its harder and harder to find whats normative, and without that norm you cant really have "experimental" as a category, the latter is dependant on the former. Im really only questioning its label more than anything.

dross

"Can you elaborate?"

was that for me? i think you were being racist and classist. then you said classical music, but jazz isn't good because of its heritage with classical music, its good because its a cooking improvisational expression thing between players, and i dont know classical too well but i dont think classical is like that.

metrovelvet

First of all, I never said jazz wasnt good. There are so many variants of jazz these days, Im not going to come out with a statement like that. Where did you read that? No its that theorists have found some common "theoretical" heritage between classical and jazz [which is debatable but its a discussion nonetheless], which may have contributed to it becoming more "high brow".

Think about jazz and how it moved from being scandalous to elite and how and why that happened. Why did this genre which was once scandalous and full of earth and sex, now sits on the shelf of every yuppy intellectual.

You got me so so wrong. You have no idea how much.

And by the way Dadakopf there are plenty of people in music departments across the US anyway studying Zappa.

dross

ah, i was mistaken in thinking you meant good when you said legitimate, i should have payed more attention to your inverted commas.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

metrovelvet wrote:

Think about jazz and how it moved from being scandalous to elite and how and why that happened. Why did this genre which was once scandalous and full of earth and sex, now sits on the shelf of every yuppy intellectual.

What? Is this not the way of all genres of music? Look at Elvis Presley and the Beatles...music of the establishment, music of our parents and even grandparents nowadays.

metrovelvet

Sure but the academy hasnt quite adopted Elvis and the Beatles they way they have with jazz or people like Glass and Cage, and Im not saying whether they should or shouldnt either, Im just noting that academy backing has a lot to do with it.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI

metrovelvet wrote:

Sure but the academy hasnt quite adopted Elvis and the Beatles they way they have with jazz or people like Glass and Cage, and Im not saying whether they should or shouldnt either, Im just noting that academy backing has a lot to do with it.

Very true

JC 2K3

Experimental music is music that glorifies the chromatic scale and minor 2nd intervals.

Ghost Rider

Now we're gettin' somewhere! En garde!

JC 2K3 wrote:

Experimental music is music that glorifies the chromatic scale and minor 2nd intervals.

sonic juice

I suppose it might be the music that challenges the musical conventions-though I admit that is quite nebulous

Ghost Rider

I think it's a relative definition, rather than a nebulous one. It's not all that hard to say to what musical conventions exist at any given time (for many conventions don't disappear, even after being "challenged"). There's not much that's nebulous about identifying what's currently out there.

What is hard to say is whether or not a piece of music that was once experimental will continue be. Beethoven's symphonic innovations don't sound experimental now, but they were once.

So I'm inclined to think a definition of the experimental will always be a relative one.

sonic juice wrote:

I suppose it might be the music that challenges the musical conventions-though I admit that is quite nebulous