# What Is the Purpose of Experimental Music?



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

The term "experimental music" does not appear well defined. On TC it seems to be used to describe avant-garde or simply new music. Wikipedia lists several definitions and quotes describing experimental music. Their entry quotes David Nicholls saying that "...very generally, avant-garde music can be viewed as occupying an extreme position within the tradition, while experimental music lies outside it." Pierre Schaeffer, who organized the First International Decade of Experimental Music, apparently later favored the term "recherche musicale" (music research). All definitions, I believe, refer to completed musical works.

Maybe because I'm an experimentalist, "experimental music" seems like it ought to refer to something else. I think of experimental music as music that a composer writes or thinks about when exploring something new (true music research). Throughout time, that could be new harmonies, new methods of modulating, new timbres or instruments, pan-tonal music, electronic sounds, etc. To me the composer is experimenting with sound and trying to find something that "works". Obviously I use "works" in a very general sense - beautiful, interesting, striking, startling, unsettling, unexpected, or anything else the composer might be attempting to create.

The key idea is that experimental music is not a finished product (i.e. a published work) but rather an unfinished exploration. The composer is experimenting. Once the experiment is complete, the composer unleashes his work or works on the audience (whoever that may be). The final work is no longer experimental but a finished product. In that sense the audience never really hears the experimenting. One might say the final part of the experiment is the audience reaction, but I suspect that most composers are much less interested in the audience reaction than in their own reaction.

What do think experimental music actually is? Who is its target (the composer, the audience, other composers, posterity)?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

[pedantic rant deleted]


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Purpose of experimental music: keeping the scientists and composers at IRCAM studying/in employment


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Who said this?*

I can not remember who said this but I remember one modernistic composer who said something to the effect that when he completed a piece it was no longer an experiment.

Can anyone remember the exact quote and who said it?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

In my layman's opinion experimenting is an essential part of the creative process, so if music or whatever art from is not experimental it is a transcription at best. On the other hand, some pieces may have more of this experimental quality than would normally be deemed a safe bet for connecting with the listener. The latter is what I think the term usually implies. As with everything else about creativity there are no black and white definitions, nor should there be.

Unfortunately one cannot usually sit down and intend to be more creative than at other times, so the term more often than not appears to refer to rubbish, but that doesn't and shouldn't stop artists from experimenting, and the listener approaches these experimental pieces with this understanding. Or at least most do. We all know there are those who expect us to listen to hours and hours of virtuoso bubble wrap popping before we are qualified to an opinion on the matter.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

The same as any other experiment - to find out something new, or newly put together elements to make something which did not exist before. Of course, recalling Edison or Fleming, there are thousands of failed experiments along the way.

I'm old school: "experimental music" used to be just that, and was presented only to others interested in the experiment / ing itself. Only when the experiment was considered "successful," would a "finished product" then be presented outside of the lab / workshop. (This is where I believe that 'finished piece' definition comes in, but I agree that very much conflicts with the nature and meaning of "Experiment.")

Presently, with "experimental" music having a somewhat hipster glam alternative gloss, the term is applied to all sorts of genres and music in various stages -- including failed experiments I'm sure the composers thought successes, but were more accidental messes -- they "I made this, and without regard to actual merits, it is great and you should think so" crowd 

Avant-garde is working also beyond the very outer established boundaries, and I think it therefore overlaps a bit in meaning. Again, the big boys and girls who are not just messing around or playing at it usually withhold their drafts, attempts or "experiments" until they are convinced enough that what is presented is a working finished product.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> I can not remember who said this but I remember one modernistic composer who said something to the effect that when he completed a piece it was no longer an experiment.
> 
> Can anyone remember the exact quote and who said it?


Edgard Varese: "I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment."


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

rrudolph said:


> Edgard Varese: "I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment."


That's it. Thanks.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

'Experimental music' is surely a catch-all term for a load of different styles which will each have their own technique from which someone has to bring their own individual creativity to (just like any other type of music) to please the audience who wants to listen to it.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

To experiment and to discover how to shock and alienate ...


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2013)

Around the beginning of this century, I co-taught a course in experimental music. We noticed after awhile a certain restiveness among some of the students, but not until right before the end of the course did an open rebellion reveal the cause. Some students had signed up for the class expecting to get something very different from what we presented. For them, "experimental" was the term that had replaced "alternative." So that's what they wanted from the course.

What we were doing was presenting a survey of some strands of the mid-century. 

The wiki article's first sentence, curiously enough, gets it right: "Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable." In this regard (and this is not the whole story), experimental is roughly equivalent to "indeterminacy."

Nothing to do with experimentation in a scientific sense. And nothing to do with eventually producing a "successful" piece, either, or even a "finished" piece. (And nothing to do with "alternative" music, either.)

Everything to do with setting up situations in which things will happen. Everything to do with events. Everything to do with playing with the ideas of music, as the Fluxus movement did.

La Monte Young's piano piece for Terry Riley #1 instructs the performer(s) to push a piano through the wall. If it goes through, continue pushing until it won't go through anything or the performers are exhausted.

Nam June Paik's "action with a violin on a string" just has the performer tie a string to the violin and drag it along the ground.

Tom Johnson's "Celestial Music for Imaginary Trumpets" consists of a single chord that's over a hundred ledger lines above the staff. (Treble clef, yes.)

None of those have much to do with unforseeable outcomes, but they are also within the experimental tradition.

The wiki article also references the two most pertinent discussions of experimental music, those by Michael Nyman and by David Cope, who contrast the experimental tradition in the U.S. with the avant garde tradition in Europe. The main difference is that in Europe, "the identity of a composition is of paramount importance." Cage's idea was that experimental should be "understood not as descriptive of an act to be later judged in terms of success or failure, but simply as of an act the outcome of which is unknown." 

This is a shoal where a lot of discussions on new music (experimental or not) go aground. Success and failure and any idea of quality are not pertinent to discussions of experimental music. You hear this a lot "Are you saying that X (Y or Z) is just as good as Bach?" Well, no. What's being said is that "just as good" is not pertinent.

So, to attempt a brief answer to the question, the purpose of experimental music as an extension of Cage's ideas of indeterminacy is to make an action. The focus is on the action itself, not the action insofar as it is successful in producing an object. The action qua action.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

rrudolph said:


> Edgard Varese: "I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment."


Varese's point is clear and expresses my feelings about music composition much cleaner than I did.



some guy said:


> The wiki article's first sentence, curiously enough, gets it right: "Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable." In this regard (and this is not the whole story), experimental is roughly equivalent to "indeterminacy."


When I read the Wiki article, I realized that there appeared to be a "technical" definition of the term, which you quote above. I knew in some sense that I was saying something (silly) along the lines of, "Yes, I know what a stone is, but I think the term ought to refer to vanilla pudding instead."

There does, however, appear to be some dispute about just what experimental music entails. The Wiki article described several varying views of experimental music so it was not obvious to me that the definition above had gained majority support. I guess my view was that "experimental" was a poor choice for that type of music. In my opinion it is a bad choice for any completed work. Of course, in my former field of particle physics we talk of the charm quark (a basic constituent of matter), and there is nothing charming about that particular quark. People are free to use any terms they like when naming new things.


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## Guest (Oct 5, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> In my opinion it is a bad choice for any completed work.


But many of the things people were doing then were not "completed works." They weren't "works" at all.

They were events, or happenings, or actions, or processes.

Probably "indeterminacy" is a more descriptive term for many experimental things, including the ones that _are_ pieces. One can compose a piece in such a way that the notes you put down on paper are not notes that you chose. They are notes that a process has "chosen" for you. The process is the thing. But the finished product is, in that situation, a product. Completed.

But "indeterminacy" does not cover as much stylistic ground as "experimental" does.

Baroque and classical and impressionism are also very questionable terms. Even "romantic" has its flaws as a term. And "atonal"? Absurd!! So yeah, ultimately, all terms resemble "charming quarks" in some way. And we muddle along, regardless.

Makes for spirited discussion, anyway. (Or perhaps, in a few rare instances, "rancorous bickering." :lol


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> But many of the things people were doing then were not "completed works." They weren't "works" at all.
> 
> They were events, or happenings, or actions, or processes.


Ahhhh and sigh. I remember _happenings_  Thing is, and not a joke, "You had to be there." LOL.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I still think experimental music is a catch-all term, often for things not even normally put under classical music as well. In fact is classical music (as we normally define it) really what most would describe as experimental _now_?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> But many of the things people were doing then were not "completed works." They weren't "works" at all.
> 
> They were events, or happenings, or actions, or processes.


Point well taken..........


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

starry said:


> I still think experimental music is a catch-all term, often for things not even normally put under classical music as well. In fact is classical music (as we normally define it) really what most would describe as experimental _now_?


I hear the term more often in so called electronic dance music. It's often a label the producer uses for stuff that didn't work as planned.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I remember in college listening to composer Kim Richmond's promotional sample catalog of jazz pieces. He had a rock category, one for jazz, and one titled experimental. The experimental pieces were weird sounds - more events than pieces. I wondered at the time what the experiment was supposed to produce - was he supposed to be experimenting or were we? - and why, then, would we want to pay him for it, other than for college-elitist snob appeal? And after all this time, I don't think any of these experiments are still around. 

I think if he were serious about his experiments, he would have had more success in collaborating with college lab bands to develop the next stage in jazz band music. After all, they have free musicians with above-average skill and tons of enthusiasm.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

starry said:


> I still think experimental music is a catch-all term, often for things not even normally put under classical music as well. In fact is classical music (as we normally define it) really what most would describe as experimental _now_?


Oh please, no -- that is like the pop usage of neoclassical -- just wrongly appropriated and now in wide circulation and applied to all sorts of things that are in no way neoclassical.

Most of what we hear, even the more "avant-garde" is "finished product," the trial and error being left, so to speak, on the cutting room floor.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

I think every composer who has composed good music has experimented. In fact, most of the day of a composer is probbably spent "experimenting", trying out different things, evaluating them for aesthetic value and deciding to keep or discard them. The experiment is the beginning of the process, the way to move beyond a state of rest to a state of discovery and hence creation. Some experiments are conservative and do not veer very far from the status quo, others are more wild. These wild and audacious experiments have a small chance of coming off, because they are excursions into previously unknown territory. But some of these do come off and end up producing good music. There are examples like the Grosse Fuge by Beethoven.

Labeling certain music as experimental is just a way of announcing that it is by definition more wildly deviant from the music before. This labeling is often meant to generate interest, but does not at all guarantee the quality of the music. Of course, sometimes experimenting can be fun and worthy without the aesthetic worth.

Today's experimental music is a lot freer and wayward than a lot of 18th century experimental music. Of course we dont know for sure, but I can gather this much from the evidence. Musicians back then spent more time studying the extant structures and possibilities before taking a big risk and composing something highly experimental. Today's musicians are sometimes plagued by a confusion related to aesthetics, out of which some of them infer that music should always sound as new and groundbreaking as possible. They tend to leave behind lots of aesthetic demands that the listener puts on the music behind in the process. The music becomes a vehicle for rebellion, defiance, publicity, etc. and ceases to serve a function - satisfying the aesthetic needs of the listener. So as a response, listeners are expected to raise their levels.

Of course you raise your "level" of attention and concentration when you listen to say, Bach, but if you listen to it even casually, you are aware of the qualities that might be present in it. A Bach fugue is like a cryptic crossword message, and provides for an engaging and intriguing listen during which you have to pull your capacities together and pay attention, and then reaches a climax where you are satisfied because you actually comprehend the merits of it. A lot of "experimental" music tends to scoff at the listener, it eludes and eludes, goes on for too long and inspires tedium, confusion or disgust. And then, these are claimed to be aesthetic qualities in themselves. The original needs of the listener are completely forgotten.

Also, sometimes the problem with experimental music is that it tries to overcome or transcend the very idea of music. The music is used as a way to present sound as music, accidental noises as music, or very mathematical ways creating music. All these are attempts to transcend the whole process of making music and trying to change its definition - as if its definition is in our hands in the first place. More and more elaborate and strange conditions of music-making are produced to achieve an almost metaphysical effect - all in vain. Because the appeal of music may be ephemeral and transcendental, but it has to be experienced physically first. The roots of music are very rudimentary, actually. Anybody ever wondered how the classical masters created such magic with only a 7-tone scale? Only 7 degrees, why not 25 or 47? Because that's not how it seemed to work. The more composers tried to expand their vocabulary, the less they seemed to be able to express with it.

In short, it would not be wrong to claim that if classical and baroque music is like building a cathedral stone by stone, a lot of modern music is like destroying the cathedral and claiming that the very concept of this destruction is the art. Marcel DuChamp comes to my mind at this point. If you are aware of his work, you can safely say that it's not art. Because while it can sound trite to you, art is supposed to "please" you. Art is supposed to connect with the listener. Notice how in Mozart's music, even when sadness or alienation is expressed, it comes as a relief to the listener, because there is a connect, a recognition, an acknowledgement. Art serves a very physical purpose, not a metaphysical one, because nothing serves a metaphysical purpose other than concepts. Art is not a concept. It's not an idea. It's the actual result that counts, not even the process.

PS: I don't "hate" modern music, but I am appalled by how so much of it serves no purpose for the listener. It is like a jungle - out there for everybody to see, but no purpose or connection to us. Sometimes, it feels like some musicians are trying to "do away" with music.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Most of what we hear, even the more "avant-garde" is "finished product," the trial and error being left, so to speak, on the cutting room floor.


On the cutting room floor for many to step on.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

shangoyal said:


> Also, sometimes the problem with experimental music is that it tries to overcome or transcend the very idea of music. The music is used as a way to present sound as music, accidental noises as music, or very mathematical ways creating music. All these are attempts to transcend the whole process of making music and trying to change its definition - as if its definition is in our hands in the first place. More and more elaborate and strange conditions of music-making are produced to achieve an almost metaphysical effect - all in vain.


I would say that the definition of music is _completely_ in the hands of musicians. Those who create music define it. Composers may push the boundaries here or there, and perhaps some or even most of what they try doesn't quite work. They will try again until they find something that works for them. If enough listeners like the new music, it becomes mainstream. If fewer enjoy it, maybe it stays on the fringe, but that's OK. The process of change in music started many centuries ago and continues today. Without the experimentation of the past, we would not have any of the past 500 years of music. And what a colossal shame that would be.



shangoyal said:


> In short, it would not be wrong to claim that if classical and baroque music is like building a cathedral stone by stone, a lot of modern music is like destroying the cathedral and claiming that the very concept of this destruction is the art.


That reminds me of non-Euclidean geometry. No one could imagine geometry that was not Euclidean until a few centuries ago. At that time mathematicians created new geometries that were rather bizarre (How could space be curved?). In a sense those mathematicians destroyed the cathedral of Euclidean geometry. Now we realize that space itself is curved and the non-Euclidean geometries represent reality while Euclidean geometry is only an approximation (if a very good one). Not all attempts to destroy past knowledge or art succeed so spectacularly, but I can't imagine great thinkers won't continue trying.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

shangoyal said:


> In short, it would not be wrong to claim that if classical and baroque music is like building a cathedral stone by stone, a lot of modern music is like destroying the cathedral and claiming that the very concept of this destruction is the art.


You are incorrect. We destroy the old cathedral, but for replacing it for this:










Stones are old material. We build our modern cathedrals with steel and glass.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I would say that the definition of music is _completely_ in the hands of musicians. Those who create music define it. Composers may push the boundaries here or there, and perhaps some or even most of what they try doesn't quite work. They will try again until they find something that works for them. If enough listeners like the new music, it becomes mainstream. If fewer enjoy it, maybe it stays on the fringe, but that's OK. The process of change in music started many centuries ago and continues today. Without the experimentation of the past, we would not have any of the past 500 years of music. And what a colossal shame that would be.
> 
> That reminds me of non-Euclidean geometry. No one could imagine geometry that was not Euclidean until a few centuries ago. At that time mathematicians created new geometries that were rather bizarre (How could space be curved?). In a sense those mathematicians destroyed the cathedral of Euclidean geometry. Now we realize that space itself is curved and the non-Euclidean geometries represent reality while Euclidean geometry is only an approximation (if a very good one). Not all attempts to destroy past knowledge or art succeed so spectacularly, but I can't imagine great thinkers won't continue trying.


I acknowledge that both your points are well made. It's just that my points were made with aesthetics as almost the sole motive, with music being a product having aesthetic qualities. You are talking from a point of view with progress as being a fundamental necessity. I agree that is so. But progress without an aesthetic goal is an empty goal in art.

Also, art and science (geometry) are a little separate. Art thrives on connection and familiarity, while science is more "hard". Beyond a point, I think art is left behind in the race to "understand it all", and philosophy and science take over from there.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

aleazk said:


> You are incorrect. We destroy the old cathedral, but for replacing it for this:
> 
> Stones are old material. We build our modern cathedrals with steel and glass.


This is amusing. Well taken 

But the definition of this building as a cathedral is one of your own creation. Of course you are entitled to do so. Also, I don't really have a problem with these buildings, I was talking about other things.


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> the definition of this building as a cathedral is one of your own creation.


Nope. It may be many things, but aleazk's own creation is not one of them. This building is indeed a cathedral. Not because aleazk says so, but because it fits the definition of "cathedral."



shangoyal said:


> Of course you are entitled to do so.


Are you threatening him?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> PS: I don't "hate" modern music, but I am appalled by how so much of it serves no purpose for the listener.


Can You please give some examples of purposeless music, I don't ever think I've ever heard any!



> It is like a jungle - out there for everybody to see, but no purpose or connection to us. Sometimes, it feels like some musicians are trying to "do away" with music.


You might want to research You statements a little better, anyone with the slightest knowledge of biology know that the Jungle is one of the three most important environments for creating and sustain life, without the jungle You could not make such boldly inconsistent statements! 
Just because one might not posses the knowledge, understanding or vision to connect the threads of the weave of life and music, does not make it less important to explore all kinds of new possibilities!

I believe that the eminent visionary that Gene Roddenberry was, had it all right in the title sequence of Star Trekk TOS!






Just exchange Music for Space and that's the purest reason; To Boldly compose what no man has composed before!

For me it is one of the basic foundations of being a human to want to push beyond the boundaries of what is possible, if you don't, You just become a Cultural Animal suspended in Status Quo!

/ptr


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Should have started a poll "Will Experimentalism Become Accepted"? That would be fun.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Should have started a poll "Will Experimentalism Become Accepted"? That would be fun.


That would be as fruitful as asking: Why can't the descendants of the of the Post Abrahamitic religions solve their petty issues in peace? (Just being rhetoric!) :angel:

/ptr


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

ptr said:


> Can You please give some examples of purposeless music, I don't ever think I've ever heard any!


Yeah the idea of exploration is a fundamental one and I don't even need to acknowledge its importance. But to what end? Remember that music was not always present in human cultures. At least not music of the degree of complexity as we are discussing here. Do you realize it's not conceivable to construct classical music if you are not stationed within a stable society? That is why classical music came about in an aristocratic society, which could afford to establish its musicians. I think we can co-relate the fall of the aristocratic patriotism with a growing confusion of principles within the musical community - continued periods of exploration and intense discovery but with only limited redemption in terms of aesthetic worth.

I agree with exploration, but it is a wasted effort if it is in the wrong hands - the answer for a failed experiment is not more experimentation. You experiment when you are grounded in tradition - nobody can ever be grounded in experiment.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> I agree with exploration, but it is a wasted effort if it is in the wrong hands - the answer for a failed experiment is not more experimentation. You experiment when you are grounded in tradition - nobody can ever be grounded in experiment.


But whose hands are wrong or even right? Are You qualified to judge? I'd really want to scrutinise anyone who claims that he/she can judge! And Furthermore, what You deem as tradition might not be relevant to anyone else but You!
Myself, I grounded in a tradition that says; the bolder the better and BTW, I cant see that grounded experimentation furthers anything, experimentation should be limitless, it is only when You throw Yourself over the cliff without safety-nets that You are truly experimental. (And few are those that dear be challenge without safety-nets!)

I might even say that being grounded and being experimental are opposites on the scale!

/ptr


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## Guest (Oct 6, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> with only limited redemption in terms of aesthetic worth.


A concise expression of the meretriciousness of merit.

I would say that the point of artistic endeavor is to provide the possibility of having experiences.

I first heard the music of Christian Marclay (



) in 1984 in LA, part of the Olympics Arts Festival there. I was enthralled. My friend? Not so much. His question (the wrong question I have since come to conclude) was "Is it art?"

My answer, then, was "Of course. The purpose of art is to give you experiences you would never ordinarily be able to have. Certainly you wouldn't want to do this kind of thing at home with your own stereo system!"

Focusing on the quality of the objects, it seems to me, always distracts from the real point of living, which is to have great experiences. Some objects, Bach's b minor mass, for instance, seem to give a large number of people a positive experience. Tempting to conclude.... But that's really not the point. The actual sounds of the b minor mass, any individual listener's experience with listening to it, do not change one bit when one identifies the mass as a "great" piece of music. Those unable to appreciate it will be put off by the designation. Those able to appreciate it will be able to do so without any factitious designations.

Redemption indeed. (Not sure "redemption" is the right word in any case, of course.) Aesthetic worth my grandmother's eye. We're talking about art, here. Art. You know, that thing that really pisses you off when it's new and really elevates your soul when it's old. That thing that is constantly changing, because it's constantly searching and exploring. That thing that doesn't care whether it's pleasing you or not (especially when it's new) because it's got its own agenda. That thing that once it's become assimilated miraculously seems able to please almost everyone.

That thing.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Everything will be a mix of experimentation and tradition, the creativity coming out of that mix. I don't think experimentation has to mean unfinished, maybe because experimentation can often be evident in more minimalist work people can think it sounds unfinished. Experimentation really can be in all genres or mix up genres, it's one of those general terms that some of the audience probably look at in more limited ways now, but artists themselves don't.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

starry said:


> Everything will be a mix of experimentation and tradition, the creativity coming out of that mix. I don't think experimentation has to mean unfinished, maybe because experimentation can often be evident in more minimalist work people can think it sounds unfinished. Experimentation really can be in all genres or mix up genres, it's one of those general terms that some of the audience probably look at in more limited ways now, but artists themselves don't.


Yeah, you hit it at the right spot, man. We were in quite a fix here.


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2013)

Except that "experimental music," at least as it arose out of Cage's ideas about indeterminacy, has nothing to do with experimenting. So all this commentary about experimenting and failed experiments and successful experiments has nothing to do with the experimental tradition of the 50's and 60's. Only in the sense of setting things in motion over which you have little or no control is "experiment" germane.

It is not about trying things out in order to get a result. It's about acting without having a goal. Or the actions themselves are the goal. That's all.

And the idea of experimenting is even less germane when applied to the successors of "alternative."

If I were to simply answer the OP, it would be "to make new listeners."

shangoyal mentioned redefining music awhile back. And that certainly did happen. The ideas both of noise and of purposelessness did indeed redefine "music." But I would say that the most profound goal of experimental music was to involve the listener at a fundamental level, not as a mere spectator, but as a co-creator. As the necessary element to "finish" the "composition." Not that that hasn't always been true. But with familiar music, presented in familiar ways, it's easy to forget what we do when we listen. So easy, that many people's complaint about any new music is that it makes them work. And music is for enjoyment. "I don't have to work to enjoy Mozart." Well, actually you do. You're just so used to it, you don't notice it.

With George Brecht or La Monte Young, you notice it.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

some guy said:


> It is not about trying things out in order to get a result. It's about acting without having a goal. Or the actions themselves are the goal. That's all.


Yeah, I think we agree that there are two kinds of experiment. One of these kinds is more fundamental and subtle, actually part of the creative process. Something without which creation is impossible.

This experiment has got us thus far, of course. Right from cave paintings to Monet. But I feel we are at a kind of saturation or at least nearing a saturation which will present (or is already presenting) unprecedented conditions. I think we are at a stage when the function of music is going to change from one of an abstract connection to a more active and immediate participation, as you mentioned. Not that I prefer it, but I acknowledge these realities nonetheless. It is the way forward.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

ptr said:


> But whose hands are wrong or even right? Are You qualified to judge? I'd really want to scrutinise anyone who claims that he/she can judge! And Furthermore, what You deem as tradition might not be relevant to anyone else but You!
> Myself, I grounded in a tradition that says; the bolder the better and BTW, I cant see that grounded experimentation furthers anything, experimentation should be limitless, it is only when You throw Yourself over the cliff without safety-nets that You are truly experimental. (And few are those that dear be challenge without safety-nets!)
> 
> I might even say that being grounded and being experimental are opposites on the scale!
> ...


That is a self-referential comment as it is itself quite experimental, IMO. 

I don't thing being grounded and being experimental are opposites. I think that's at the very heart of the argument I am making. IT IS possible to be experimental while being "grounded", provided you define grounded properly. If you read the history books, it is not the anarchists who demanded a conceptual and complete kind of freedom who got much success. Making something durable and making a statement are usually different things. We need some of both.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Various forms of what people call experimental music have surely established their own traditions and styles by now, that might mean you have to redefine what 'experimental' means.


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## Musician (Jul 25, 2013)

*What Is the Purpose of Experimental Music?*

To experiment


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## Guest (Oct 7, 2013)

Well there goes three pages of conversation down the drain.


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