Taylor Lents

MUGN 401

10th October 2019

Reflective Writing Assignment 5

For this assignment, I chose to read Judy Lochhead’s article What’s in a Name? Music

of the Present. In her article, Judy presents the argument that the simple designation

of ‘music of the twentieth and twenty-first century’ is no longer a suitable temporal

designation for more recent music. Given a more narrow span of time when

classifying eras of music, it can be much easier to connect canonic composers

through compositional trends and threads of their time. However, as the gap

between the past and the present widens for ‘contemporary music,’ this method of

synchrony and connection begins to exclude more and more compositional voices

that existed simultaneously but that didn’t neatly fall into those historical themes,

narratives, or trends. Lochhead goes on to argue that as the temporal span of ‘Music

since 1950’ continues to grow, musicologists and music historians should refocus

and establish a new demarcation point centering, perhaps, in the late 1980s. She

also argues for and suggests a focus on the ‘the music of the present,’ which will

allow for different approaches to the categorization and study of music while also

drawing attention to the fact that attitudes towards present music is often affected

by general notions of music of the past.

 I very much agree with Locchead’s overall point in this article. As the

temporal window for ‘music since 1950’ grows, the discussion of historical trends

and compositional threads in ‘contemporary music’ requires much more detailed

and nuanced approaches and discussions. Such general examinations only serve to

exclude many composers that could offer a unique musical voice to our

contemporary musical history. And this threatens to gloss over important

connections between the music of our time and social, political, and economic

events. Still, in many educational institutions, the blanket ‘music of the twentieth

and twenty-first century’ designation still remains as the standard in most music

history survey courses. We have approached an important tipping point in the

history of music that requires attention and care to refocus the musical discourse of

‘music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.”