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Many composers searched for new materials to incorporate into their music, often looking to the East for inspiration. For instance, John Cage creates new sounds by "preparing" the piano, nuts, bolts and screws, pieces of rubber and plastic are fixed under, over and between certain strings in the piano. This affects both the timbre and pitch of those notes, producing richly varied sounds which suggests the sounds of eastern bells, gongs and drums.
Several composers have made similar experiments in producing new sounds. Penderecki, a Polish composer, sometimes asks the string players to bow between the bridge and the tailpiece, or to strike the sounding board with the heel of the bow. In choral works, he includes, besides normal singing, muttering, speaking, whispering, shouting, hissing and whistling. Like several other 20th Century composers he also used note clusters and microtones (intervals smaller than a semitone).
For descriptions of new musical styles see below
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Schaeffer began experiments in what he called Musique Concrete. Music was composed in a 'concrete' way directly onto magnetic tape. The sounds he recorded were man-made sounds, such as a slamming door, a cork popping from a bottle, clocks ticking, and sounds of nature etc. These recordings were transferred to another tape; blended together, superimposed one on top of another, and modified in various ways. The pitch of the sound could be altered by changing the speed of the tape or the original recording might be played backwards. The resulting composition was stored on tape and could be played back without the need of a 'performer'. |
| The American composer John Cage created a new piano sound by carefully placing nuts, bolts, screws, plastic etc between the strings of the piano. The resulting sound was unusual and sounded almost percussive. Occasionally actual piano sounds are heard in the music where there are no nuts or bolts placed between these strings. John Cage went on to experiment with music for 24 radios and created a piece of music called 4"33' (Four Minutes Thirty Three Seconds). In this music the performers on stage play nothing and remain silent for 4 minutes 33 seconds ! The music (random sounds) are provided by the audience shuffling, muttering and wondering when the music will start. |  |
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Similar to 'Musique Concrete', this utilised any sounds picked up by microphone but also sounds produced from electronic sound generators. Recordings were modified in a similar way to 'Musique Concrete' but also included electronic modification; filtering, cutting out unwanted frequencies, adding delay or reverb, tape-loops etc. Stockhausen explored electronic music. Click to listen to modern popular music using synthesizers by Jean Michel Jarre |
By the 1920's music was extremely atonal: no key centre or much structure. Shoenberg invented a new way of structuring atonal music. This new way of composing was called 'Serialism' and this style of compsition continued through his students Berg and Webern. In writing Serial music the composer arranges all twelve notes of the chromatic scale in their chosen order. This is called a note row upon which the entire composition will be based. All twelve notes are of equal importance and the music sounds atonal (strange and no key centre). The composer then creates three more versions of these notes by first writing them backwards (called 'retrograde'), then by taking the original row and inverting it (called 'original inversion'), and finally the 'retrograde' version is inverted (called 'retrograde-inversion') |
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In this music the composer involves a degree of chance or unpredictability either in the composing process, in performance, or in both. A composer may have musical ideas which are selected by the throwing of a dice or choosing from a hat etc. In the printed music a composer may indicate the pitches of the note but assign no rhythm patterns; the choice of rhythm will be dependant on the performer. In chance music there is also an element of inprovisation. In some pieces no notes may be provided at all but a diagram or drawing or symbols may require the performer to interpret the ideas freely. |
| Music inspired by French Impressionist painters. Images were blurred and only gave mere impressions of the scene. Music by Debussy and Ravel reflected this and heavy use of the pedal on the piano, for example, merged the melodies together. The music often used whole tone scales eg. C, D, E, F#, G# and A#. Click to listen to a piece of music by Debussy |  |
Atonal Music - music with no key centre and sounds extremely strange to our ears
Microtones - music that uses intervals smaller than a semitone. This music is easily playable on stringed instruments and trombones.
Polytonal - music that uses two keys simultaneously. This sound can be very grating on the ears!