CHAPTERfi62 New Sound Palettes: Mid- Twentieth- Century
American Experimentalists
a. vari ous materials inserted between the
strings: nails, bolts, nuts, screws, bits of rub-
ber, wood, or leather
b. varied effects: nonpitched thump, pitch and
timbre altered
2. focus on timbral effects, rhythmic groupings of
sound
3. four groups of four Sonatas, separated by Interludes
C. LG 56: Cage: Sonata V, from Sonatas and Inter–
ludes (1946– 48)
1. binary structure (A- A- B- B)
2. ethereal, otherworldly sounds
3. irregular phrase groupings; two– voice texture
4. A section:
a. regular rhythmic movement
b. upper line sustained, moving lower line
5. B section:
a. quicker tempo, more disjunct and accented
b. rests break music into sections
6. ending: sustained dissonance
III. George Crumb and Avant- Garde Virtuosity
A. George Crumb (b. 1929)
1. American avant– garde composer
2. education: Mason College of Fine Arts, Univer–
sity of Illinois, University of Michigan
3. teaching positions: Colorado, New York, Univer–
sity of Pennsylvania
4. Pulitzer Prize 1968, Echoes of Time and the River
5. influences: art music tradition, folk themes, non-
Western sounds
6. musical style: con temporary techniques,
expressive ends
a. new sonorities and timbres
b. Sprechstimme (spoken melody)
c. quarter tones
OUTLINE
I. Early Experiments
A. Mid- twentieth century, fertile musical expansion in
North Amer i ca
1. Henry Cowell (1897–1965)
a. drawn to non- Western musics
b. Asian instruments with traditional Western
ensembles
c. foreign scales harmonized with Western
chords
d. piano techniques: tone clusters, plucking of
piano strings
2. Harry Partch (1901–1974)
a. microtonal technique: scale of 43 microtones
b. original instruments: adapted Indian and
African instruments
c. focus on melody and timbre
II. The Music of John Cage
A. John Cage (1912–1992)
1. Los Angeles- born composer
2. experimental compositions, leader in postwar
avant- garde
3. student of Henry Cowell, early interest in non-
Western scales
4. 1938 in ven ted the “prepared piano”
5. interests: rhythm, opposition between music and
noise, indeterminacy (chance or aleatoric), the
role of silence (4′33″, 1952)
6. works: orchestral music, works for percussion,
prepared piano works, electronic music, indeter–
minate works, writings on music
B. Sonatas and Interludes
1. written for prepared piano: approximates sounds
of Javanese gamelan
ten for. Unless they know the piece already, students
should invariably respond with “instruments in the per–
cussion family.” Next show students Cage’s instructions
for preparing the piano and introduce the piece as an
example of the composer’s ability to transform the tra-
ditional sound of this instrument by inventing new ways
to play it.
2. Introduce to students the instrumentation and sound of
the Javanese gamelan (see “Encounter” on pages398–
99). Play Cage’s Sonata V for prepared piano and ask stu–
dents how the composer manages to re create the sound
of the gamelan orchestra on the piano. How does Cage
approximate on the piano the multiple and distinct tim-
bres that emerge from the gamelan?
3. Have students form pairs to listen to Crumb’s Caballito
negro, focusing on the musical ele ments of the piece
(melody, harmony, form, rhythm/meter, expression, tim–
bre). Ask students to rank these ele ments according to
which they believe are emphasized or most readily
detected in the piece. Does one ele ment emerge as more
impor tant than the others? Or do some ele ments seem less
impor tant than others? What qualities in the music give
this impression? Does the ranking of musical ele ments
have any bearing on any meaning derived from the text?
After asking pairs to offer their thoughts, ask the remain–
ing students what they believe to be the meaning of the
poem and how the music underscores this meaning.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. The music of John Cage challenges our assumptions
about music and how it is defined. The most famous of
his works is a piece titled 4′33″, which—as the textbook
notes— requires the performer to walk on stage and sit
temporary madrigal by the American composer George
Crumb. Do you find any ele ments of the Re nais sance era
madrigal in Crumb’s twentieth- century madrigal? Apart
from their obvious stylistic differences (such as harmony,
melody, and instrumentation), to what extent do these
pieces share a common expressive purpose?
d. “white” tones
e. extramusical and symbolic content, theatri–
cal concepts
7. works: orchestral music, vocal music, four books
of madrigals, chamber music, music for ampli-
fied piano
B. Caballito negro ( Little Black Horse)
1. last song from Madrigals, Book II
2. soprano with metallic percussion instruments
and flute or piccolo
3. voice as virtuosic instrument
4. text: Frederico García Lorca poem (Spanish)
a. extracts two refrains, alternates between them
b. image of death
5. phrase endings: descending, ominous words
C. LG 57: Crumb: Caballito negro ( Little Black
Horse) (1965)
1. three- part form (A- B- A′)
2. regular pulsations, no firm sense of meter
3. extended techniques: flutter– tonguing, glissan–
dos, whispering
4 opening: pounding rhythm, piccolo and percus–
sion, disjunct vocal line
5. return of A section: vocalist neighs like a horse
OVERVIEW
This chapter covers more experimental approaches to musi–
cal composition after World War II. The music of John Cage
and George Crumb is introduced to illustrate the ways in
which con temporary composers push the envelope in order
to reach new levels of creativity and innovation.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Before introducing Cage’s Sonata V for prepared piano,
play the piece and ask students if they can detect what
instruments or family of instruments the piece is writ–
266 | Chapterfi62
the angle of the mouthpiece and forcing a fast stream of air
through the flute), multiphonics (producing two or more
pitches at the same time), microtonal trills, and harmonics
(overblowing to play a higher pitch without changing the fin-
gering). Although each of these techniques has the potential
my favorite repertoire to perform is from the Baroque era,
and it is nearly impossible to imagine these techniques in the
Examples of extended techniques:
Compositions (all by
Robert Dick) Techniques
Air Is the Heaviest Metal https://
www . youtube . com / watch ? v =
– TUu – pFPWIY
Includes percussive tonguing
and multiphonics, glissandi,
circular breathing.
Flames Must Not Encircle
Sides https:// www . youtube . com
Virtuosic display of multipho-
nics (usually as multiple trills)
“ANOTHER HEARING” SAMPLE
MINI- ESSAY & RUBRIC
TEACHING CHALLENGES
This chapter pres ents students with some of the most self–
consciously avant– garde and challenging music in the entire
textbook. If they haven’t already done so in this class, (some)
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cage, John. Silence: Lectures and Writings. Middletown, CT: Wes–
leyan University Press, 1961. A collection of lectures, program
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
Choose an instrument that you find in ter est ing (the human
MODEL RESPONSE
American flutist Robert Dick has done more than any other
the conventional sense. Both per for mances, however, dem–
onstrate the versatility of prepared piano and how the art of
RUBRIC
—The student has answered, in an or ga nized way, the main
directions of the prompt:
— The student should address the pauses/silences.
— The student attempts to apply terminology and concepts
from the book in general and the chapter specifically
whenever pos si ble (see boldface text).
— The student engages in thinking contextually about the
prepared piano.
the same. Pierce’s per for mance is the faster of the two and
seems far more percussive, focusing on the rhythmic pat–
The emphasized pitched and ringing timbres in the Pierce
per for mance seem to delineate a melody in the A section that
leaps downward then steps up over a fast pattern of rhythmic
drumming. In the Berman per for mance, on the other hand,
lic (0:52–0:53), almost as if hitting an anvil, whereas the
actual piano sound seems to come through in Berman’s
recording (1:11-1:12).
Berman’s per for mance also makes more dynamic contrast
between the A and B sections. This lends the per for mance a
real sense of phrasing, even within the dif fer ent sections of