# Use of Avant-garde Techniques: Film Music Vs. Modern/Contemporary Music



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

What are the pros and cons of using avant-garde techniques in both?
Is their use in film music a more effective way to resonate with people (as Glass suggests)?

Debate: When is film music ‘classical’?

JD "That just proves how elements of your style have permeated the 'Hollywood' sound today, just as Rachmaninov did in movies of the '30s and '40s."

PG "Actually, my harmonic language usually is more adventurous in my film scores than in my concert music. It's much more dissonant. I'm more liable to sound like other people who write modern music."

JD "Is that because most people accept dissonance more readily in a cinematic context? Listeners who couldn't sit through Schoenberg's Second Chamber Symphony in concert wouldn't have trouble if it was the soundtrack to Attack of the Killer Tone Rows?"

PG "Absolutely. After all, wasn't it John Williams who made Stravinsky a popular idiom?"


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