Post Modernism in Music. questions with 100% correct answers 2023/2024

Post Modernism in Music.Characterize the idea of post-modernism. - correct answer This period of music comes after Modernism, basically post WWII so after 1945. It is the philosophical idea that spreads throughout music and art which entails the deconstruction of the categories that were set up before WWII. It is also the idea of dealing with common knowledge, common sense, specifically questioning what we know from the past, questioning the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution. Artists/musicians were working to find their place in the world after WWII and were working to find the root of knowledge. Derrida believed in deconstruction while Sartre believed in existentialism. This philosophy contains a lot of irony and can be generally summarized by epistemology, the study of questioning common knowledge and reinterpreting what we think we know. How is Post-Modernism applied to music? - correct answer The philosophy of Post Modernism is applied to music by breaking the rules of music, pretending as if those rules never existed. Musicians were asking questions such as ["What is good/What is bad? "What is music?" How do we write/create music?" "Do animals make music?"] Musicians were also in the process of rethinking the ideas of harmony, rhythm, and melody. They also rethought instruments, leading to the creation of the electric guitar, electric bass, and synth. What is sampling? - correct answer This process is creating music from other recorded music. Taking pieces of different recorded songs and putting them together. What is the prepared piano? - correct answer This type of piano had objects wedged between the strings of the piano. There is a different set up of these wedged objects for different pieces. These wedged objects were typically wooden or metal, they would also tie strings together. This type of piano was invented by John Cage in around 1930. Cage was friends with Duchamp so that could have been a possible motivation of this weird idea. Describe Sonata #2 for Prepared Piano. - correct answer This piece by Cage was done on the prepared piano. The prepared piano created a percussion and chimes like quality. The prepared piano gives the piano capabilities it would not have had if it wasn't prepared, which really shows the timbre and the entire capability of the piano. This piece was titled Sonata but it did not adhere to specific Sonata form and challenges assumptions about the piano, musical instruments in general, and the Sonata form. It presents the idea that "its a Sonata because Cage said its a Sonata, and Cage was a musician." This piece is the beginning of music being a performance centric idea, where its not only about music anymore, its about the combination of music, from, and the presentation. At the top of the sheet music for this piece there are instructions on how to prepare the piano for this piece, the preparation would take about an hour in total. Describe Etude. - correct answer This piece was created by Stockhausen in 1952. The title of the piece translates to "study", so this piece was an attempt to experiment. It was not used for performance, but as a training tool to practice specific techniques. He essentially used this piece to become a better musician. Here is how Stockhausen made this piece: 1) recorded somebody playing the prepared piano 2) pushed down on the tape which resulted in the tape stretching out 3) then he cut six sections (lengths) of the tape 4) then he stuck those six sections back together in a specific order. He decided to draw a 6x6 grid, like the sudoku of music to determine the specific order of the sections. He is basically doing serialism with the tapes and not notes, using every single piece of tape and not repeating a similar piece of tape in the same line. For these reasons this piece is considered serialist. It questions the viewer's ability to know what a piece of music is, but also provides a very basic definition of what music is. It also makes fun of all of the techniques they have learned. Who was Milton Babbitt? - correct answer He was a professor of music at Princeton during the 1930s-1940s. He supported this Post Modernist style, and wrote an article stating his opinion. His opinion was unpopular because most of the popular hated this type of Post-Modernist music. This article was titled "Who Cares if You Listen?" He says that nobody likes Post-Modern music but through their hate, this music is receiving a lot of attention. He basically told the people that they don't understand the music anyway so they should not be ones to judge it, and that this type of music could only be understood by specialists. Audiences were super quick to judge and often did not look beyond their snap judgements. This author encouraged the public to look for the context of the music and the message that the musician is trying to convey. The author is also attempting to elevate music as a complex idea, he asked the public how they knew whether they liked it or not if they did not understand it?" Because this music was hated by the public, the way these musicians made money was through employment by high paying, prestigious universities. Describe Composition for 12 instruments. - correct answer This piece was composed by Milton Babbitt in 1948. It contained recognizable instruments and it wasn't too painful to listen to. Each instrument came in on its own but the timbre of each instrument was noticeably off, the splats and gowls created by the instruments creates a somber atmosphere. This somber atmosphere reflects the historical events at the time, the Cold and Korean Wars. This time period created an ugly aesthetic, which led people to question "what is beauty?" "what is true?" "what is ugly?".