Early Experimental and Electronic Music
Today you will listen to early experimental and electronic music composed in the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. Think about the following questions as you listen to the music.
1. One of your listening assignments, “Valse Sentimentale,” is played by Clara Rockmore, a virtuoso on the theremin, an early electronic instrument. Look at the YouTube videos of Theremin and Clara Rockmore playing the theremin. How is the instrument played? Why has it been used only infrequently as a serious musical instrument?
2. When was the theremin developed and who was its inventor?
3. As an additional listening assignment, listen to “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys (in the listening for Monday). Where do you hear an electro-theremin, which is similar to the theremin, but easier to play?
4. What are the connections between the theremin and modern-day synthesizers?
5. What instrument is being played in “Oriason?” From your reading, what is unusual about the use of this instrument in this recording?
6. Watch the YouTube video of Thomas Bloch playing Messian piece on the Ondes-Martenot. How does is this instrument similar to but yet different from a piano? What does it have in common with the theremin.
6. People often think that experimental music is difficult and not beautiful. Is that true of all the music in these lessons? Is it true sometimes? Give examples.
7. The well-tempered scale usually used in Western music has 12 pitches in an octave.
Well-tempered scale (12 pitches in an octave)
In the section on Partch in Gann’s American Music in the Twentieth Century, Partch is said to have rebelled against the “acoustic lie” of the well-tempered scale. What is this “acoustic lie”? What did Partch do to avoid it?
8. Watch the YouTube video of Partch playing his Harmonic Canon. Where did he get this instrument? Did he buy it? How would you describe the sound of this instrument.
9. The chapter on “The Maverick Core” comments that Partch’s music owes little to the Western tradition. What traditions did inspire Partch’s music? As told in this chapter, what kind of ”dramatic gesture” did Partch make when he rejected Western music?
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10. Listen to Harry Partch’s Delusion of the Fury . • Gann comments on the original work upon which Partch based Delusion of the Fury ? How does this support your answer in question #9 about what traditions inspired Partch’s music? • Do you hear some of the instruments in the YouTube video also used in Delusion of the Fury ? • Partch’s music is based on just intonation. (See “Just Temperament” in the Music Theory handout.) How are the just-tempered sounds in Delusion of Fury different from the well- tempered sounds to which you are accustomed in Western music?
11. In your reading, what did you learn was unique about Brant’s music and the reason why it is so seldom performed? How can your hear this in Kingdom Come ? Comment on the styles of the two orchestras? How does Brant use this effectively.
12. In this course we will follow five general trends that characterize most, if not all, of the ways that the avant-garde music has influenced popular music. Which of these trends do we begin to hear in this lesson? • Simplicity • Decomposition of Musical Structure • Electronic Music • Noise as Music • Pastiche
29-Dec-09