Modernism
Radical break from the past musical language, while maintaining strong links to tradition.
Expressionism
Music avoids all traditional forms of ‘beauty’ in order to express deep personal feelings through exaggerated gestures, angular melodies, and extreme dissonance. Schoenberg
Impressionism
Term that Debussy did not agree with. More geared toward art.
Symbolism
Poetic and literary term used to more accurately describe Debussy’s music.
Minimalism
Materials are reduced to a minimum and procedures simplified so that what is going on in the music is immediately apparent. Adams, La Monte Young
Primitivism
A deliberate representation of the elemental, crude, and uncultured. Stravinsky
Blues
Stemmed from rural work songs and other African American traditions.
Big Band Jazz
Jazz ensemble that used symphonic type composition styles. Group larger than the small jazz combos.
Ultra-Modernism
Developing American music with the new musical resources available.
Indeterminacy
Leaving the notes played up to the performer. Feldman’s Projection I
Chance Music
Musical composition left to chance. Music IS!
Electronic Music
New music that came along due to technological innovations with sound recording.
Futurism
Idea that music should be based off of noise. Came about from industrialism.
Avant-garde
Term used in art and music to describe works that seek to overthrow or stray from aesthetic conventions.
Serialism
The twelve tone method-arranging of pitches.
Neoclassicism
Trend in music where composers imitated or evoked the styles, genres, and forms of pre-romantic music.
Harlem Renaissance
Literary movement centered in Harlem, NY.
Self-aware and proud expressions of African American identity.
Sought to improve relations between blacks and whites.
Populism
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