POST-MODERNISM
M. Inman
I've been using the word Post-Modern to describe my music, until it hit
me that I don't exactly know what it is.
So:
What exactly is post-modernism? Is it the step after serialism?
Is the Post-modern era just beginning, or did I miss something, and it
is already over.
What is the style of Post- Modern?
Please help,
J. Mark Inman
Smiley
Well, Postmodernism is really a term from philosophy and
literary criticism that someone migrated over first to visual arts and
then music. Briefly and naively put, one of the characteristics of
modernism seems to be a desire to systematize meaning, and concentrate
artistic control in the hands of the first creator (i.e. writer,
painter, sculptor, composer). Postmodernism is a denial of and
reaction against these trends.
It occurs to me that there is a newsgroup somewhere on
postmodernism (something like alt.postmodernism or
alt.philosophy.postmodernism or talk.philosophy.postmodernism...).
They may have an FAQ that could answer your question much better than
I can.
-Smiley
(Alexand...@williams.edu)
D.G. Porter
I think we've entered a period in music best described as
"post-avant-garde."
Robert Caponi
Well, from what little I know, Postmodernism denies the "next step
after..." Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Some say Ives was postmodern and he predated serialism by years.
My advice as an undoubtedly less prolific but at least slightly older
composer; just describe your music in more technical terms.
...and good luck!
--
T.W.I.D.N € http://www.infi.net/~tagutcow/
Chris Myers
M. Inman wrote:
>
> I've been using the word Post-Modern to describe my music, until it hit
> me that I don't exactly know what it is.
>
> So:
>
> What exactly is post-modernism? Is it the step after serialism?
>
> Is the Post-modern era just beginning, or did I miss something, and it
> is already over.
>
> What is the style of Post- Modern?
>
> Please help,
>
> J. Mark Inman
post-modernism is a movement which attempts to blend "artsy" (I don't
like that term, but I think you know what I mean) elements with
"popular" elements. It's a reaction against the modernist films
(so-called "art films") of the 60s and 70s. Modernism, in turn, was a
reaction against Hollywood classical film. Krzysztof Kieslowski's _Red_
(1994) is a recent film that falls into the modernist category.
A good example of post-modernism would be _Shakespeare's Romeo and
Juliet_, which has been out for a few months now. It attempts to look
"artsy" (look at the colors, production design, cinematography) while
embodying "popular" elements as well (listen to the large amount of rock
music on the soundtrack).
So post-modernism boils down to an attempt to make art out of
pop-culture. I don't exactly know how this would apply to music, though,
or what music would fall into the post-modern category. Any ideas?
jaq...@en.com
> So post-modernism boils down to an attempt to make art out of
> pop-culture. I don't exactly know how this would apply to music, though,
> or what music would fall into the post-modern category. Any ideas?
By that definition, composers as disparate as Michael Torke, Jeff
Harrington, William Bolcom. I assume that "current" is part of the
definition; accusing Brahms of being post-modernist for the Hungarian
Dances seems a little strange.
--
Jeffrey Quick
http://www.en.com/users/jaquick
Chris Myers
jaq...@en.com wrote:
> I assume that "current" is part of the
> definition; accusing Brahms of being post-modernist for the Hungarian
> Dances seems a little strange.
before that can't be post-modernist, since modernism didn't occur until
the 50s and 60s. I don't know where the chronological point for musical
post-modernism would begin. Once again, this is a term from the other
arts (like impressionism and minimalism) that has occassionally been
brought in to apply to music.
I suppose we can consider the serialists to be the "modernists" of
music, since they were the ones who rebelled against the tonality of
classical and romantic music (I realize that statement will probably
cause some debate). If that's the case, then I guess the post-modernists
would be composers such as Torke (already mentioned), the minimalists,
and other composers who worked to "revive" (not that it was dead)
tonality and to blur the lines between "classical"/"art" music and other
forms.
The problem with classifying 20th century music is that the lines are
all blurred, even within a single composer's body of work (look at
Bernstein- he tried just about everything at least once). It'd be nice
to be able to look at a composer and say, "he's a modernist" or "he's a
post-modernist" and know exactly what you mean, but it just doesn't work
that way. Maybe in a hundred years there will be some more obvious
dividing lines in twentieth century music, but I don't know. I'd like to
be able to throw a label on every composer to keep things simple, but I
try to content myself with the fact that music is music, whether it's
classical Mozart, romantic Brahms, or minimalist Adams.
bhene...@aol.com
In article <32D9FD...@scf.usc.edu>, Chris Myers <cmy...@scf.usc.edu>
writes:
>The movement (once again, in cinema) began in the late 1970s; Anything
>before that can't be post-modernist, since modernism didn't occur until
>the 50s and 60s.
Strictly speaking yes. But remember Borges's remark about writers creating
their own predecessors - he pointed out how, for example, it was possible
to detect Kafka-esque traits in certain writers (don't ask me which) from
previous centuries. After all, any style/movement/school is going to
consist of a number of stylistic attributes any one (or more) of which
might be present in earlier schools. Isn't it the combination that's
distinctive more often than the individual components? In fact, Chris goes
on to say something on those lines later that same post....
Speaking as a particular combination of commonplace elements,
best wishes
Ben Heneghan
Ben Heneghan
Michael Hassell
God, I love to read this kid's posts. Would that we were all as
honest, no?
Lukas Schulze
> Well, Postmodernism is really a term from philosophy and
> literary criticism that someone migrated over first to visual arts and
> then music. Briefly and naively put, one of the characteristics of
> modernism seems to be a desire to systematize meaning, and concentrate
> artistic control in the hands of the first creator (i.e. writer,
> painter, sculptor, composer). Postmodernism is a denial of and
> reaction against these trends.
> It occurs to me that there is a newsgroup somewhere on
> postmodernism (something like alt.postmodernism or
> alt.philosophy.postmodernism or talk.philosophy.postmodernism...).
> They may have an FAQ that could answer your question much better than
> I can.
>
>
Indeed, too big of a can of worms to deal with sufficiently here, I'll
just add that I'm not convinced it's clear that the term exists primarily
in the purview of Philosophy--it has meanings in Architecture, for
example, that are much more telling than in the critical circles.
Further, its meaning there is somewhat helpful (though again not at all a
matter of consensus) as applied to a musical stlye: stylistic
multiplicity, borrowing from other periods and styles with a collage
technique, the feeling of play and irreverence, allusion, popular
elements.....the list goes on. Difficult term and IDEA.
Luke
Chris Koenigsberg
Other important associations brought up by that word (po-mo) include
the "death of the author", by the way -- true "post-modernist",
post-structuralist music could not, by its very nature, have a
"Composer" credited, no "copyright", "royalty payments", no
"compositional structure to be analyzed", etc.
Also in the post-modernist world there can be no more original
"creations", everything is a combination of, and commentary on, things
which already existed previously. Think "Sampling" and
"appropriation", folks. That's po-mo.
So I'm afraid that the only "true post-modernist music" is that which
was described by DJ Spooky (Paul D. Miller) when he fielded questions
along with Iannis Xenakis recently -- I think he may have been
referring to the "SSYO Koan Music" application -- basically you
download the program to your Pee-Cee, turn it on, and it cranks out
random music forever afterwards. That's it, folks. Music as an
appliance.
So if you don't dig this as the ultimate goal, then you're not really
a true hardcore "postmodernist"....
By the way I had a roommate in graduate school who was majoring in
English and literary critical theory and all that stuff so I got the
hardcore post-modernist theory stuff from him, as he was studying it
in his graduate seminars.
--------------------
Chris Koenigsberg: c...@pobox.com
<URL: http://www.pobox.com/~ckk>
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