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a. Tin Pan Alley, street in Manhattan
b. popu lar music writers/publishers set up business
c. Irving Berlin: most successful Tin Pan Alley
composer
D. Between Two Wars: Music in the Great Depression
1. Roaring 20s: growth of radio, film
a. Harlem Re nais sance celebrated African
American culture
b. Jazz Age spread ballroom culture
2. Great Depression
a. Tin Pan Alley faded
b. jazz clubs, films, Broadway musical theaters
offer brief escape
c. big- band jazz (swing) dominated popu lar music
3. WWII: musicians toured with USO
a. patriotic songs; Berlin’s God Bless Amer i ca
II. Features of Early Musical Modernism
A. The new rhythmic complexity
1. nonsymmetrical patterns
2. changing meter: shift constantly within a piece
3. polyrhythm: complex rhythmic patterns used
si mul ta neously
4. achieved complexity of Asian and African rhythm
5. material from popu lar styles: ragtime, jazz
B. The new melody and harmony
1. melody: not conceived vocally
a. wide leaps, dissonant intervals
b. rejected balanced phrase repetitions
2. harmony: highly dissonant, increased tension
a. polychords: stacked chords, more notes added
b. polyharmony: two or more streams of harmony
c. extension or replacement of major- minor system
d. atonality: elimination of harmonic center; led
to serialism, twelve- tone technique
OUTLINE
I. Modernisms
A. Self- conscious attempt to make art “modern”
1. creative vision, progressive directions
2. departures from tradition, “making art new”
3. multiple musical “modernisms”
4. rejections of nineteenth- century models
5. suspicion of mass culture
6. modernists grappled with vernacular traditions
B. Early Modernist Art (1890–1940)
1. two inuential arts movements: futurism and
Dadaism
2. futurism: 1909 manifesto
a. alienation from established institutions
3. Dadaism, Switzerland 1916
a. reaction to horrors of war
b. works of absolute absurdity, simplicity of
child’s worldview
4. Dada group merged into surrealism
a. explored world of dreams
5. other styles:
a. Cubism, Paris- based: geometric patterns
b. Expressionism, impact on music (Chapter52)
6. new styles referred to as avant- garde
a. French military phrase
b. breaking social and artistic conventions
c. distinguished from high culture and mass-
market taste
C. Musical Markets in the United States
1. emphasis on marketplace, distinct American
musical traditions
2. minstrel shows gave way to vaudev ille
3. New York City, prolific center of music publishing
PRELUDE 6 Making Music Modern
214 | Prelude 6
Dadaism of Satie, the Expressionism of Schoenberg, the
neo- Classicism of Ravel and Stravinsky.
3. To introduce students to the stylistic ele ments of early
musical modernism, play brief excerpts from a master-
work of the repertory. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring is a good
example because it neatly embodies the traits of early
musical modernism discussed in Part 6: changing meter
and polyrhythm, polyharmony, and leaner orchestral tex-
tures. Play for students the excerpt from The Rite of Spring
and direct their listening to these defining musical traits.
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. What defines something as “modern”? Can something
such as a work of art be considered modern if it was com-
posed 100years ago? What is the relationship between
time, or temporality, and modernity? Do the cultural and
creative activities and products of today proj ect a spirit
of modernism? If so, how are they dif fer ent from or con-
trary to early twentieth-century examples of modernism?
2. Ask family members or friends not taking this course
what springs to mind when one describes a work of art
as “modern.” Compile a list of descriptions and compare
them with the characteristics of modern art as defined
in the textbook. Is there a difference in the popu lar con-
ception of modern art and the “academic” understand-
ing as noted in your book? Do your family members’ or
friends’ responses mention the correlation between def-
initions of modern art and the social and cultural factors
that contributed to shaping such works? If not, how
would an understanding of modern art change if the cul-
tural and social contexts were factored in?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
When they are introduced to examples of modernist art (from
the worlds of both visual art and music), some students are
likely to react negatively to the abstraction, oddness, even
ugliness of the images and sounds. In this case, begin a class
dialogue about the motivation of modernist artists to create
something new, visionary, even shocking. How is the origi-
nality of modernist art connected to its value? And under
such conditions, how can we understand these works that
challenge traditional aesthetic sensibilities?
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
C. Orchestration
1. smaller orchestra; leaner, brighter sound
2. instrumental color brings out counterpoint
3. strings no longer heart of orchestra, attention on
woodwinds
4. emphasis on rhythm, percussion
5. piano joined the orchestra
III. Per for mance Matters
A. Modernist gesture
1. composers seek dispassionate clarity
2. inspiration from twentieth- century technological
innovations
3. division between musicians
a. preserving tradition
b. specializing in “avant- garde” approaches
OVERVIEW
This prelude introduces music of the modernist period in the
early twentieth century. Students are given a preview of the
major early twentieth- century musical styles, all of which are
discussed within the aesthetic category of modernism.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand the general characteristics of modernist
art and music of the early twentieth century
2. To recognize the vari ous “isms” (futurism, Cubism,
Dadaism, Expressionism, and neo- Classicism) of early
twentieth- century modernist art
3. To understand the impact of the marketplace and the
Great Depression on American music- making in the
early twentieth century
4. To understand the musical characteristics (new rhythmic
complexity, melody, harmony, and orchestration) of
musical modernism
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Share with your class some representative examples of
modernist art; the Dadaism of Dali and Miró, the Cub-
ism of Picasso and Braque, and the Expressionism of
Munch and Schoenberg. Ask students to identify the sty-
listic features, content, and subject matter that charac-
terize these artworks. How and why do these works fit
within their respective “isms”? What defines their
Making Music Modern | 215
places rhythm at the forefront of the listening experience. At
the same time, there are moments where it is very difficult
ments more as noisemakers than as melody- makers creates
a very disorienting listening experience.
Orchestration. The percussion section is greatly amplified
in this piece, and the elaborate use of percussion immediately
are growling, strings are playing at extremely high places in
their registers, and woodwinds produce shrieking tones by
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
YOUR TURN TO EXPLORE
Amériques, composed by the French- American composer
Edgard Varèse in 1918–21, is a piece that vividly captures the
MODEL RESPONSES
