Musical Meaning Blog_Lam Vo
TOPIC: MUSIC AND EXPERIMENTALISM
1) Imaginary Landscape No. 1 - John Cage
The song that I wanted to talk about is Imaginary Landscape No. 1 by John Cage. As the module was introduced, John Cage was an American composer. He was one of the pioneers in experimentalism, indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and the non-standard use of musical instruments. He was also involved in the modernism branch of the avant-garde. He was also lauded by critics to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. Thus, I think is proper to pick one of his pieces due to how related he and the piece he made to our module since this piece make use of a technique that is relevant to the topic.
The piece is a composition made from records of constant or variable frequency. It also has string piano and Chinese cymbal as accompaniments as well. The piece has only one movement for a duration of 6 minutes. Listening to the piece, I felt a strange harmony that I felt should not have been there. The way the different harmony are spliced together without any pattern or reason seems to strike a chord with me, making me feel like it was music and bringing along the feeling of fleeting possibility in music and the way the music will evolve. It was deviant and euphonious at the same time. I think that this feeling ties up with the musical element of the piece. The song was played at a steady tempo with instruments that seems to mismatch just like the frequency used. It also shows the feeling of exploration of possibility I mentioned earlier due to it using electroacoustic. Using these sounds makes the music neutral and not fitting with any individual taste but strangely still harmonic with its ascending contour. While this is mostly due to the frequency, by splicing them and adding a buffer, he was able to have that ascending contour. The instrument of the Chinese cymbal was also of interest since its origin coincides with Cage’s chance music. It is also interesting in his range as it is indicated very clearly in the section that has a radio sound following each beat which is a few small leaps and then a big leap. Its tone was neutral as mentioned and I think that ties in with the feeling of possibilities since it was up to the audience to interpret and see the pattern which may change their perception of the tone like how some of the sound effects he used were linked with suspension and scary thing nowadays thanks to horror movies so audiences of today time my find the tone scary and suspenseful instead of neutrality of the radio sound.
2) Composition for Synthesizer - Milton Byron
The next song I wanted to talk about is “Composition for Synthesizer” by Milton Byron Babbitt, an American composer famous for his serial and electronic music. I think this piece is related to this module because it was a modernism piece and because I wanted to expand more on electronic music.
The “Composition for Synthesizer” was written in 1961 in the second period of Milton's musical career. When listening to it, I first noticed the electronic element in this piece. While it may seem chaotic at first, I can feel the similarity with other electronic pieces of the time. The sound was entirely electronic but instead of the gloomy, neutral, or heartless sound like most electronic pieces that I have heard, I felt a more cheerful and positive tone in this piece. Even the low-pitch synthesizer sound that was mostly associated with something ominous still felt cheerful for me in this piece. I think this was an interesting concept that Milton explored with the synthesizer. For the musical element aspects of the piece, this song was part of the total serial music that Milton was amazing at. This means that the musical composition of the piece was based on prior arrangements of not just a few but all 12 pitches on the chromatic scale. In addition, the duration, timbre, dynamics, and register of the piece were also arranged prior. Milton was able to achieve this level of control over musical elements by using machines that fit the trend of exploring musical limits using technology rather than just generating sound that normal instruments cannot. This total control of musical elements fits with the feeling of similarity with other electronic pieces since most of them also strive for control using machines. I think the arrangement of all 12 pitches on the chromatic scale and other elements to create a harmonic sound is why the piece has a cheerful tone instead of the gloomy, neutral, heartless, and ominous one that most synthesizers would produce.
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