Really? Classical Music…?

As a percentage of GDP and the general attention of music listeners in the United States, contemporary classical music holds a very small portion of the market share. The assumptions of overly academic and elitist practices come to mind, and they aren’t entirely wrong. However, discounting the genre altogether means we miss out on many stories and themes that are never touched by popular media. Additionally, many composers across the world are continuing to blur the lines between the classical and popular genres, opting to describe their music as simply that - music. We’ll take this opportunity to look at some of the more nuanced composing techniques as well in this module. So, bear with me for this one and I promise you’ll come out of it with a better appreciation for what we broadly consider contemporary classical music.

Expanding Narratives

One of my personal gripes with mainstream pop music is the relatively narrow window of experiences it manages to curate. I see a wide range of interpersonal stories that may loosely relate to my own life or others - but that’s about the extent of it. This could be for a couple of reasons, though I think the most evident would be the money motive that is inherent to all commercial music. This question is, as asked by media labels; how can we make music relatable and consumable for most audiences? While many commercial artists are able to escape this trap, it seems to be a starting point for most and certainly is prevalent in “Top 40” songs. I don’t usually belabor this point too much as folks ultimately have to eat - but what is possible when the commercial motive is removed from the equation? Well, you are at least provided the opportunity to freely explore different kinds of stories, as well as ways to present them. The following three pieces feature extended narratives about real-life events where the music’s sole purpose is to serve these narratives - not dissimilar to stage plays and musicals.

  Anthracite Fields by Julia Wolfe is a five-movement work that centers its narrative around the conditions of the 19th-century coal mining industry in Appalachia and the lives and legacies of the miners who worked in these horrifying and dangerous conditions. The term anthracite comes from a type of coal found in the Pennsylvania coal-mining regions near where Julia grew up. Instead of providing a chronological narrative across the movements, the work features five self-contained vignettes that provide a different perspective on the aforementioned topic. For example, the second movement portrays the work of “Breaker Boys,” young children who worked in mines separating coal. Meanwhile, the third movement of the piece features text from a speech by civil rights activist, John Lewis. As we move on, listen to some of the fourth movement of the work, Flowers.

The piece can be described as a modern oratorio or cantata, which provides us with several aesthetic and technical assumptions about the piece. Oratorios have pieces of music that feature a large ensemble combination of instruments, choir, and vocal soloists. While they have historically been sacred in nature, many oratorios have been made since the 1800’s that instead adopted secular and folk traditions - not unlike Anthracite Fields here. Another key distinction between oratorio is its presentation. In contrast to musical theatre or opera, oratorios are presented as a concert performance with little to no staging, costume, or set. Cantatas are similar to oratorios in all ways, though they are considered to be less dramatic. Though, nowadays these terms are used interchangeably depending on the composer’s perspective and how they want to frame the work. In any case, let’s now check out a piece that provides a bit more conventional drama, but with equally exploratory narratives.

Jonestown by Evan Williams is a chamber opera in 4 acts that outlines the events that occurred in 1978 regarding the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project. Jim Jones, an evangelical preacher/cultist from the United States, sought to create a commune in rural Guyana. Eventually, a delegation featuring U.S. congressman Leo Ryan would come to Jonestown to conduct interviews and assess the life of its inhabitants. On November 18th, Ryan and his delegation would attempt to leave Guyana with a few defectors of the commune, leading to a gunfight that would kill 5 members including Ryan. That same night, Jones would announce that the people of Jonestown would commit mass suicide to prevent the U.S. military from invading and killing all of the residents, a fabricated story. The mass murder/suicide event would take the lives of over 900 people.

Unlike Julia’s oratorio, the entirety of the chamber opera depicts a semi-chronological narrative of the events of Jonestown. Evan directs the perspective of the audience through the victims of the event, cultivating the stories from surviving family members and the few eyewitnesses who survived. Additionally, as heard in the example here, he utilizes now-infamous recording of Jones directives to the residents of the commune. Works that include some form of non-music media are called multi-media works, a relatively common practice that may combine visual art, audio, and video to provide depth to a musical work. I think Evan does a particularly brilliant job in balancing the music to the multi-media of the piece, treating it as part of the composition, and allowing the music to react to it appropriately.

Prisoner of Conscience by Jennifer Jolley is a multi-movement meta-critique of the cascading events that led to the persecution of some members of the Russian punk music group, Pussy Riot. In 2012, three members of Pussy Riot would eventually be arrested, tried, and sentenced for staging a performance protest inside a Christian orthodox church in Moscow - the crime being described as hooliganism and insulting religious beliefs. International groups would consider these three as “prisoners of conscience,” a term used to generally describe those punished for thought crimes. Despite the incarceration, Pussy Riot would maintain activism through several notable domestic and foreign moments, including the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the U.S. presidential election of 2016. Jenn takes the works of Pussy Riot and a libretto (lyrics) from Kendall A to shine a spotlight on the encroachment of free speech rights and, more broadly, women's rights. Jolley not only directly reflects the art of Pussy Riot and their activism in Russia but also by reflecting on the U.S.’s own issues with free speech rights and authoritarianism.

This work is similar in narrative structure to an oratorio like Julia’s piece earlier. The work itself would be considered a concert work instead of an oratorio or a cantata. The main difference here is that the whole piece is written for 4 treble voices without any other instrumentation. Vocal music with no additional instruments is referred to as a capella - a relatively common arrangement even in parts of pop music. Stylistically, Movement 5 and others in the work blend together elements of pop/rock styles reminiscent of works Pussy Riot has done as well as the genres as a whole. Finding moments of familiarity in this kind of music is not only a great way to form connections to what you’re already familiar with, but also to consider how this specific sound ideal serves the narrative of the piece.

(Experimental) Electronics

In the last module, we covered some of the most common processing techniques that are found in popular music. With the JPEGMAFIA example found in the assignment, we also saw how these techniques can be combined into more experimental aesthetics. This sect of hip-hop is probably the best example of a genre that seeks to experiment with novel electronic ideas, perhaps seconded only by electronic music composers. I’m using the term electronic music (as opposed to its popular counterpart, electronica) to generically define electronic pieces that are classical in aesthetic with electronics included or are defined by the technical use of electronics. Let’s take a look at a couple of these works now!

Reality Rounds by Alex Dowling is another multi-movement, multi-media art piece that contains an extended narrative. The narrative follows a specific theoretical concept called dataism, and the piece reflects a hypothetical convergence of the human mind with data. That’s cool, but I really wanted to take the time to focus on how Alex utilizes electronic processing techniques throughout the piece - many techniques you are now familiar with. As you read on, listen to the two examples I’ve provided here for you.

As you’re listening to In Silence, In Cold, you are certainly able to recognize immediately the auto-tune used with each of the voices. Much like T-Pain, Cher, Kanye, etc., the auto-tune used in the song is intentionally taken to its extreme parameters that create digital-sounding vocal timbres and artificial pitch slides. This seems to be a deliberate effect that adds to the concept of dataism I referred to and is further supported by other timbral processing techniques, including reverb and an octave pitch displacement for the bass voice (taking the sung pitch and moving it down an octave).

Vesper also combines a few techniques that we are already familiar with - most notably delays! As you are listening, you would be forgiven thinking there is more than one voice singing at a time, but this movement is in fact a solo. The initial input from the singer is delayed about half a second, sounding a quarter note late in metered time. That delay is then delayed by another quarter note creating what sounds like 3 voices singing at once. Additionally, each occurrence of the delay shifts the pitch down an interval of fourth, incidentally creating relatively intricate sounding harmonies and rhythms. This piece is ostensibly mimicking counterpoint in motets; counterpoint being multiple independent lines heard against one another while a motet is a type of sacred, a capella, vocal work that often features counterpoint.

Each and every piece in this work is a trove of interesting use of electronic techniques, most of which are brilliantly used to serve the greater narrative. This extends to the performance itself and the use of live electronics. Live electronics, both analog and digital, are quite common in live rock and pop through the use of guitar pedals, sound systems, and the like. These are usually pre-built standards that are useful in the situation I described, but can also be restrictive. However, you can use programming software to create your own effects, and with it maintain a great deal of control and detail. The program that I use for music programming is Max - and I’m near certain it’s the same program that Alex is using for most of the vocal processing in this piece. The performers are then able to control the processing themselves through the use of video game controllers that communicate with Max and the electronics. Live electronics are well and good, but only make up a portion of electronic media. Let’s now take a look at one more piece that forces a completely new perspective in music.

Sk(etch) by Leah Reid is an example of a purely acousmatic piece. Acousmatic music, also referred to as fixed-media, are pieces that are designed for playback through speakers as opposed to a live performance. This may seem counterintuitive, as most music we listen to is from speakers and not live performances. To help with this distinction, I like to view the speakers as the sole performers of acousmatic music. This is in fact the case when these kinds of works are presented publically with speakers on stage in a room full of listeners.

But what about the piece itself? It doesn’t contain any perceivable pitch, harmony, or rhythm - at least in the ways that we are used to experiencing with music. Well, then how is it music? Leah describes the piece as an exploration of “sounds, textures, gestures, and timbre…” We have used some of these terms before ourselves to describe other music, including texture and timbre. By removing the other core components of pitch and rhythm, we are forced to consider how these other components are musical in their own right. For example, the piece has a relatively narrative pace to it: we are exposed to new information (sketching sounds), there is a rising of action (increase in density of sketching sounds), a twist (addition of new sounds), a climax (culmination of dense and fast textures from all sounds), and finally, a short reprieve to end the piece (a slowing down and thinning of the overall texture). On the surface, the piece is a kind of brilliant example of pacing within a piece of music, and it has almost none of the core components we associate with music! This doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it personally, but it should provide you with an interesting consideration to make; what is music?

Let’s take a minute to look at the technical sides as well. I believe Leah used standard microphones for capturing some of the sounds she uses throughout the piece, including the vocalizations and tearing of paper. For most of it, though, she seems to be using contact microphones to clearly capture the sounds of sketching that make up most of the piece. Contact mics are small diaphragms that you connect directly to the surface you are recording, not unlike a stethoscope. Unlike standard mics which capture sound waves through the air, contact mics record sound through other, solid mediums. While this is the most notable information technically about the piece, you can also hear a culmination of standard processing techniques including cross-fades and spatialization.

As I brought up before, we can create somewhat of a distinction between the electronica music from previous modules and the electronic music here. However, I want you to again question the usefulness of these distinctions. The definitions alone can get us into some trouble as they are inherently exclusive. Both of the examples here feature some elements of harmonic progressions that we are familiar with in pop music, especially Alex’s work. On the other hand, a major issue right now in electronic music circles is the aversion to beat-oriented music. However, as we’ve seen with artists like Peggy, clipping., Tkay Maidza, etc., these artists are often at the precipice of experimental use of electronics themselves - they just so happen to be rooted in a history of hip-hop and pop. While this discourse doesn’t specifically affect the aforementioned artists, I think it can stymie cross-genre experimentation among younger composers in these fields.

Instrumental Works

When creating this module, I may have buried the lead a bit on the scope of contemporary music. Most of the works presented so far have been vocal works, though this is actually the minority of works in the new music scene. Perhaps we’re spoiled when we consider our experiences with popular music that almost always features vocals, but there are so many other instruments and combinations thereof that musicians have been experimenting with for centuries. While the lyrics associated with vocal pieces provide another layer of contextualization to a piece, instrumental works ask us to appreciate the music in its absolute essence - this is the case whether the piece is classical or popular in style! Anyways, let’s take a look at just a couple more pieces before we move back to the commercial world.

Three Formosan Amis Legends by Shi-Hui Chen is a four-movement work for solo violin. Composed for a film during her time in Taiwan, the piece is an amalgamation of the “mythological stories of the Han and indigenous peoples of Taiwan and modern-day realities.” The three Amis legends referred to in the title are three wooden icons that had been removed for preservation purposes after a typhoon hit the community. To the Ami people, the removal of the three icons meant the removal of the legends’ souls from the village. Chen's music incorporates traditional, improvised melodies from musicians of the villages, and is used in the first movement as a cohesive element to tie the four pieces together. I’ve provided the first and last movement of the four pieces for you here, though you are more than encouraged to go through the Spotify links to listen to the rest.

The idea of creating melodies that represent a larger idea a generally referred to as themes or motives. Just like motives or motifs found in literary works or films, they are used to call the viewer’s attention to an idea or situation in real-time. Musical motives often repeat verbatim or are changed ever so slightly as the story continues on. This is the point I’m explicitly trying to demonstrate here as you listen to the beginning and end of the piece. In the first movement, the motive is heard on the violin as its switches or slides from the high chord to the low chord over and over again. There is often incidental music in between these instances, but we consistently return to this gesture over and over again. Compare that to the last movement which contains subtle but distinct changes. In the very first iteration, the texture is thinner in the motive, consisting of a single note melody instead of chords. This beginning motive is also much higher in pitch than the first movement before returning fully to what we heard in the first movement.

For some, this may be an absolute musical choice, though it could also be read in the context of the narrative described earlier - the returning of the wooden icons to the Amis people. In any case, it demonstrates a change of character and development within music - without any lyrics to support it! While not terribly common in most commercial music, themes and motives are often in musical theatre and the like.

Strum by Jessie Montgomery is a string orchestra piece, meaning it is for a collection of violins, violas, cellos, and basses. This piece is about as close to an absolute music piece as we get in this module, and it’s a good example of one at that. As I alluded to earlier absolute music stands into programmatic music. Whereas programmatic music contains some kind of narrative associated with the music, like almost all pieces in this module up until this point, absolute music stands only for itself. Absolute music may provide insight into the technical aspect of music or its instruments, or may even imply a narrative that its listeners need to fabricate for themselves. Obviously, that means there is less to definitively provide for context with a given piece, but I would argue that Jessie’s piece here gives us both of these elements.

As suggested by the name, Jessie features a type extended technique that is used throughout the duration of the piece - strumming! Extended techniques are specific actions performed on an instrument to create a specific sound(s) that are not found if playing the instrument normally. In some cases, extended techniques require a great deal of set-up or modification of instruments. In this case, the extended technique of strumming isn’t terribly intrusive, and incredibly easy to do with the smaller string instruments. This small choice, however, provides us with a really interesting sonic foundation for which the rest of the piece is built off-of. To me, in addition to the harmonic content and the percussive effect provided by the strumming, the piece takes on an almost folk or pop character because of this. As you’re finishing you’re listening to this piece, keep an ear out for how the strum idea continues to develop throughout the piece, or what other gestures lend themselves to the strumming technique.