Avant-garde in music, anyone?

[Whosis]

Does anyone out there besides me listen to avant-garde music? I have a copy of Hoodoo Zephyr by John Adams, and I find it soothing to listen to, despite its broken up form.

It's amazing how the repetition of a few notes can be relaxing. Avant-garde is John Adams, Steve Reich, John Cage, and Phillip Glass to name a few names. I always thought "Einstein on the Beach" by Phillip Glass to be one of the more creative titles, though this is not uncommon to avant-garde music. There was also "4'33"" by John Cage where he had a performer sit at a piano for this amount of time without playing it. It's not something commonly listened to, I'm sure, but the other stuff is great I think.

[cacian]

I thought Punk was avant garde? I may well be wrong but that is how it appeared to me.

apart from the Punk era that I thought the Clash and the Sex Pistol were also avant garde.

[108 fountains]

I can't say I listen to avante-garde music, but I have become dissatified with popular music for a number of years and have been looking for something to fill the void. I experimented with youtube and found some unusual and fascinating musical styles that I really enjoy. What I have found that I like best is midieval church music, including Gregorian chants, Scandinavian folk music, and Mongolian - yes, Mongolian - folk music. I'll copy a link to my favorite Mongolian musician, DaXun, playing the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle). I've never heard or seen anything like it for sheer musicianship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3cB20fZ1ZU

[YesNo]

I found John Adams HooDoo Zephyr: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtQDHceS0IE

The rapid repetition of the same notes was interesting. However, it didn't jar my expectations of what something should sound like enough to make me want to stop listening to it. Maybe there's an avant-avant-garde out there?

[Whosis]

For another example, Steve Reich in "Violin Phase" repeats the same measure (I believe) of a violin over and over with slight variation. I still can listen to it. I don't know that you have to be unable to listen to it for it to be avant-garde, and I think it is different from expectations. I've never before heard of Punk as being avant-garde either. I think Punk sounds enough like rock to me.

[YesNo]

I would expect the avant garde to provide something I don't really want to hear but might get used to if I catch up to them culturally. Otherwise, in what way are they ahead of me? I assume "avant" means "ahead", but maybe I'm wrong there as well.

Actually, I don't know what avant garde means. I'm quite happy with music having lyrics sung by Celine Dion or Melina Leon. From that perspective, just about anything is avant garde.

[Whosis]

The dictionary defines avant-garde music as using unorthodox and experimental methods in its tunes.

[stlukesguild]

How do you define the "avant garde" with regard to music...? With regard to what be deemed "classical music" you name Steve Reich, John Adams, and Philip Glass... all defined as Minimalists. To this list you might add the so-called "Holy Minimalists" of Europe including Henryk Górecki, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Pēteris Vasks, Vladimír Godár, Arvo Pärt, and John Tavener (among others). All of these composers work in a largely tonal manner... employing traditional harmonies... or even building upon earlier medieval modes. In this sense, some composers and music theorists posit that such composers are reactionary, rather than avant garde... rejecting the atonal concepts developed by Schoenberg and subsequent composers.

If we are simply putting forth a couple of names of contemporary composers/works (living or recently deceased) who we feel are worth investigating... I would include:

Henryk Górecki- Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
Pēteris Vasks- Pater Noster; Cantus Ad Pacem
Einojuhani Rautavaara- Cantus Articus; Symphony no. 7 "Angel of Light"
Veljo Tormis- Choral Music; Forgotten Peoples
Erkki-Sven Tüür- Crystallisatio
David Lang- Little Match Girl Passion
Arvo Pärt- In Principo, Berliner Mass, Te Deum
Valentin Silvestrov- Silent Songs
Jake Heggie- Songs of Lost Voices; Passing By
Peter Lieberson- Neruda Songs; Rilke Songs
Osvaldo Golijov- Ainadamar; Oceana; La Pasión según San Marcos
John Tavener- Shunya

[108 fountains]

Thanks very much, Whosis and YesNo, for turning me on to this. I've been listening to John Adams and Philip Glass all day. It's exactly the kind of music/sounds I've been searching for. You guys might also like Electric Arguments, a 2008 album by Paul McCartney and Youth (collectively calling themselves The Fireman). It has a couple of traditional Rock'n Roll songs, but the other tracks are really just experiments in sound. Some of them, like Sing the Changes, are really uplifting, and all of them have all sorts of fantastical musical ideas and sounds happening in them. McCartney had been doing experiments with sound ever since the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, but these sounds usually were just incidental to his traditional musical forms. Electric Arguments is the first time I've heard him shift the entire focus to experimental sounds, with the vocals and the traditional forms taking the more incidental role. In fact, it was after listening to Electric Arguments that I started looking around for other types of music.

[Whosis]

Sure thing, 108 fountains.

I know for a fact John Cage was defined in class as an avant-garde artist. I'm pretty sure John Adams and Steve Reich were in that boat too. They certainly fit the definition I found. Phillip Glass I may have come across later, but it was so much as the others, I categorized it as such. The definition for minimalism seems to fit the music of John Adams and Steve Reich in the least. Who knows? It's like labeling Steinbeck as a realist despite being a naturalist perhaps, or something like romanticism that by one definition might be more broadly applied in literature.

[stlukesguild]

Minimalism is music is not quite the same as Minimalism in the visual arts where the image is stripped down to one or two elements repeated. Still the structures are far more limited than traditional tonal music and there is a clear emphasis upon repetition/variation. Reich may be the strongest of the American Minimalists. I quite like the following:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5lgAUHVFC4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCkd46hcRag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHMBoDoFwj0

I drove my studio mates nuts with Drumming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9n6pwpK0A

But you might see why some would find the Minimalists less "avant garde" in comparison to some of what is available:

Erkki-Sven Tüür: Architectonics VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFXUEfW6xJU

György Ligeti: Lux Aeterna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iVYu5lyX5M

Giacinto Scelso: Pfhat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnacs3kPg-I

Tristan Murail: Gondwana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utQAXK15ZGM

Osvaldo Golijov: Ainadamar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epOfX6Jh-S0

David Lang: Little Match Girl Passion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tn5-gHJ4Nk

Kaija Saariaho: Lonh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ZQTYhO4fM

Matthias Pintscher- Osiris

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYywoMfsmbE

Robert H. P. Platz- Flotenstucke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzq6wvJyjvs

Arvo Pärt: Spiegel im Spiegel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dweiGyjxhHs

[Whosis]

I think I remember now that in school, avant-garde had been defined by at least two parameters: does it shock, and does it take a while to find an audience? I think it's like asking what is kitsch, as it is less attached to a movement and more about a something. It is newer, though.

I'm not sure what you're having me look for in the pieces you consider avant-garde. Are you suggesting they've more dissonant? Because I find that's possible in the music I suggested. Also, for "Little Girl Match Passion," how would you not liken that to Phillip Glass where he has a chorus singing "One, two, three, four..."?

Thanks for sharing that, too. Got any more?

[YesNo]

I drove my studio mates nuts with Drumming:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH9n6pwpK0A

I'm glad I listened to it. I suppose it kept going longer than the 18 minutes in the video.

[mortalterror]

The only three living classical style composers I enjoy are Osvaldo Golijev, Philip Glass, and Steve Reich. I keep an eye out for new artists, and try them from time to time, but it's usually far from rewarding. So much of contemporary art is nonsense, hackery, and fads. Unless you devote a lot of time and effort to keeping your finger on the pulse it's better just to wait fifty years and let the dust settle. Unearthing obscure gems of the past is easier and more fruitful. There's always some famous opera, cantata, or symphony from the 17th, 18th, or 19th century I've been meaning to get around to but never heard by an artist I already know is good.

A few weeks back, StLukesGuild dropped a list of modern composers and their compositions on me. I hadn't heard about twenty of them, so I spent three or four hours listening to the links on youtube and I didn't like any of them. For days afterwards I was kicking myself for my naive trusting nature and open mind. "Never try new things," I said to myself. "You're always disappointed." It's nearly May of 2014 and I've been watching last years movies on DVD. So far I've seen about 30 of them and I still haven't seen one I'd recommend. I tried a bunch of the Oscar nominees and they are all so terrible! The world makes about 1,000 films every year and only one or two are really good. Finding that one or two is such a pain. Meanwhile, I've invested 60 hours of my life with nothing to show for it. "New art, feh!" Hrrumph.

P.S. You really need a reliable guide for these sorts of things or else you are lost at sea in an ocean of information. I tried checking this list of modern compositions over at Talk Classical with some very little results. I tried looking up Classical Music Awards, and the new compositions Gramophone gave awards to did nothing for me. I wish I knew what critic or award was the gold standard for this sort of thing, the way the Oscars, Emmies, or Tonys offer hints that lead inquiring minds in the right direction, but so far I've got nothing. There's no short cuts here. You have to either do the work or remain in ignorance.

[prendrelemick]

I tried some Birtwistle the other day - does he count? - I normally like some discordant (atonal?) content in orchestral music, as it can be stimulating, but it was all a bit dreary.