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Beethoven Was Wrong Assignment

I will cover a few points that Alex Ross argues in this article. First, in general Ross
argues that avant-garde music goes pop during this time period. For example, the Beatles
starting as a rock band but slowly transforming into a band that absorbs avant-garde influence,
from John Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen, and others. This is just one example of a pop band
being influenced by avant-garde techniques, but in a way every genre was somehow influenced
by some aspect of avant-garde music.
Interestingly enough, Ross begins his chapter by starting with Charles Seeger, a
musicologist, calling him the future dogmatician of American Popular Front music. (p. 521)
Seeger taught at UC Berkeley, and had many avant-garde ideas about music. Ross continues on,
talking about Seegers first student, Henry Cowell, who wrote the famous piece he is very well-
known for, The Banshee. Try to read the title without hearing Cowells voice, its quite
difficult.
Ross continues on to talk about Cowells unorthodox musical works, then moves on to
Henry Partch, an American composer, music theorist, and custom music instrument creator.
Ross says Partch looked to jettison the entire discourse of European music as it had bee
practiced since at least the time of Bach. (p. 522) This, of course, would be quite a challenge
and a magnificent accomplishment if Partch were to do this. After studying the history of tuning,
Partch decided to use the tuning principles of the ancient Greeks, who were said to have derived
their musical pitches from the natural harmonic series. Partch made a forty-three note scale after
doing his research, and because he could not create his microtone on traditional instruments, he
created his own.
Next is John Cage, an American composer, music theorist, writer and artist. He was a
pioneer in electroacoustic music, extended techniques of musical instruments, and of
indeterminacy in music. Because of this, he was one of the leading figures of post-WWII avant-
garde music. Ross discusses how Cage found many of his inspirations on the West Coast, ands
says that Cage took Cowells classes on non-Western music in New York, then drove across the
country with him at the end of that year, 1934, and American music was never the same
afterward. (p. 525) Ross continues on to talk about other artists, linking artists mentioned
previously together in different ways, whether it be a similar philosophy of music, having been
influenced by one another, or something else significant that the two artists have in common.
Ross then moves on to uptown versus downtown music, followed by West Coast and
New York minimalism, where comparisons and contrasts between the two sides of the United
States music culture are clearly outlined to the reader. In the late 1960s, the music culture and
the world in general was flooded with violence.
I agree with Ross when he says: In the last years of the twentieth century, minimalism
acquired a degree of popularity with mainstream audiences, saturating American music with its
influence. (p. 547) In the present day, not music is a surprise anymore as far as new music is
concerned. Avant-garde music does not appear on Billboards Top 100, so to speak, but it has a
more accepted place in society than it did the first few years it was being invented, arguably. I
have learned from this chapter the techniques and influences behind many of the avant-garde
musicians of the mid to late twentieth century, and how they may or not be linked to one another.
It is an interesting and in-depth analysis and it furthers what we have learned in the modern
music history course.

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