The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #149377 Message #3476840
Posted By: GUEST,DDT
07-Feb-13 - 04:26 PM
Thread Name: [Formerly BS:] Musical snobbery
Subject: RE: BS: Musical snobbery
Avant-garde music has little to no melody or rhythm but is pure art. To dismiss it as "stupid" noise made by talentless hacks is the same as saying that because Picasso or Ernst or Pollack or Mondrian didn't try to render photograph-perfect real images, they too were talentless and stupid. Classical and jazz composers and musicians have drawn endless inspiration and ideas from avant-garde pieces. Most of vinyl and CDs of avant-garde were purchased at stores that specialize in classical music because few others will stock them.
The guy who did the music for Looney Tunes was Raymond Scott whose band was primarily jazz and classical. Scott, however, was primarily and avant-garde artist who invented his own electronic keyboards and music machines. He hired an assistant one day to help him. The assistant was skilled at building theremins--a strange electronic instrument used for sound fx in movies and TV but which was a serious instrument (see Clara Rockmore). The assistant was so overwhelmed by Scott's devices and knowledge that he went into making synths. His name was Bob Moog.
John Cage with a very early tape collage from 1952. An example of musique concrete:
Williams Mix
Milton Babbitt composition performed on the enormous RCA Mark II synthesizer housed at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center:
Occasional Variations