20th Century Music

This unique era lasted throughout the 1900s, including a transitionary period from the romantic era at the beginning of the period. It has a very abstract style, making it difficult to distinctly recognise.

General characteristics of 20th Century Music:

  • Unpredictable Rhythm Patterns
  • Unbalanced melodies
  • Unusual chord
  • Dissonance
    • Hardly any cadences
    • Few diatonic chords used
  • Micro-tonality
    • Intervals smaller than a semitone
    • Quarter tones (half a semitone)
    • Sounds similar to dissonance
  • Homophonic texture (sometimes polyphonic)
  • Wide range of instruments, played in inconvenient ways
  • 12 Bar Blues
    • Composed of three phrases:
    • Phrase 1
      • Tonic
      • Tonic
      • Tonic
      • Tonic
    • Phrase 2
      • Subdominant
      • Subdominant
      • Tonic
      • Tonic
    • Phrase 3
      • Dominant
      • Subdominant OR Dominant
      • Tonic
      • Tonic
  • New Instruments
    • Cor Anglais
    • Piccolo
    • Double Bassoon
    • Bass Clarinet
    • Tuba
    • Celeste
    • Piano used in orchestra
    • Brass prominent
  • Tonality
    • Whole Tone Scale
    • Where there is a whole tone in between each note (think of the notes on a piano)
    • For C it would be C, D, E, F#, G#, A#, C
  • Advanced instrumental techniques
  • Large orchestra
  • Unexpected modulations
  • Syncopation

There are several types of 20th Century Music, each with different characteristics:

  • Impressionism
    • Gives impressions of the object it describes
    • Implicit, with subtle emotion
    • Programmatic
    • Dreamy
    • Parallel chords
    • Whole Tone Scale
    • Specifically Debussy
    • Advanced chromatic harmonies
    • Dissonance
    • Wife range of timbres
    • Free rhythm, absence of pulse
    • Composers:
    • Debussy
    • Ravel
  • Minimalism
    • Simple melodic fragments
    • Simple time signature
    • Simple dynamics
    • Repetitive
    • Gradual change to elements
    • Recurring motifs
    • Contrapuntal texture
    • Many melodies
    • Ostinato
    • Short collection of notes repeated once and once again
    • Cells repeated again and again
    • Steady beat
    • Layered textures
    • Interlocking phrases
    • Diatonic Harmony
    • Composers:
    • Steve Reich
    • Terry Riley
    • John Adams
    • Philip Glass
    • Terry Riley
  • Serialism
    • Expressionism
    • Clashing
    • Disjointed melodies
    • Extreme dynamics
    • Made use of the prepared piano
    • Objects like nuts, bolts, screws and rubber bands placed between or wrapped around piano strings
    • Atonal music
    • Music with no tonic note
    • Unresolved dissonance
    • Difficult to identify the time signature
    • Angular melody
    • Large leaps in melodic lines
    • Chamber music
    • Complex rhythms
    • Varied rhythm and dynamics
    • Minimal instruments
    • Prime order
    • Every chromatic note is used, but no repetition in the same phrase
    • Retrograde
    • Playing sequences backwards
    • Inversion
    • Intervals flipped
    • Retrograde inversion
    • Playing sequences backwards, with the same intervals but opposite directions
    • Klangfarbenmelodie
    • The tone row is distributed to multiple instruments, thus varying timbre
    • Cluster chords used
    • Verticalisation
    • Form of harmonisation with the formation of chords
    • Composers:
    • Schoenberg
    • Berg
    • Webern
  • Neoclassical
    • Return to balanced forms
    • Emotional restraint however embraces jazz
    • 18th-century composition processes and techniques
    • Modern elements:
    • Bitonality
    • Frequent modulations
    • Unexpected harmonies
    • Unexpected chord sequences
    • Deliberate chromaticism
    • Baroque / Classical elements:
    • Alberti Bass
    • Sequence and imitation
    • Music not describing anything
    • Devoid of emotion
    • Forms
      • Sonata
      • Concerto
      • Symphony
    • Clear texture
    • Regular rhythms
    • Types of music:
    • Programme music
    • Ballet
    • Clarity of sounds in solos
    • Ostinatos
    • Traditional harmonic and tonal progressions
    • Deliberate dissonance
    • Rhythmically complex
    • Polyrhythms
    • Stepwise AND angular melodies
    • Dance styles
    • Composers:
    • Stravinsky
    • Poulenc
    • Tippett
    • Prokofiev
    • Hindemith
  • Jazz
    • 12 bar blues used
    • Syncopation
    • Swing Rhythm
    • Straight quavers relaxed into triplet feels
    • Walking bass
    • 7th and 9th chords
    • Improvisation
    • Scat singing
    • Blue notes
    • Blues scale
    • Composers
    • Duke Ellington
    • Louis Armstrong
    • Ella Fitzgerald
    • Ska
    • Fast dance from the late ‘50s
    • Fuses R'n'B with mentor rhythms
    • Electric guitars, jazzy brass section
    • Characteristic offbeat jumpy rhythms
    • Lyrics about local issues
    • Rocksteady
    • Dance music
    • From the Mid ‘60s
    • More relaxed rhythms
    • Stresses on beats 2 and 4
    • Loud bass guitar, steady 4/4 beat
    • Political lyrics
    • Reggae
    • Slower than Ska
    • From the ‘60s
    • Electric guitars and drums
    • Bass riffs
    • Rastafarianism association
      • Religious movement
    • Rhythm of 4/4, emphasis on missing beat
    • Repeated offbeat quavers
    • Dub remixing
      • Delays added
    • Simple chord sequences
    • Verse-chorus form
    • Political themes
  • Musicals
    • Catchy music
    • Popular style
    • Solo songs, duets, choruses
    • Orchestra or band accompaniment
    • Spoken dialogue
    • Dance sequences, sets, costumes

In 20th Century music, some instrumental techniques were very common and unique to the time period. They make the era much easier to identify (especially neoclassical):

  • Col Legno
    • Striking strings of a string instrument with the back of the bow
    • ie violin, viola etc
  • Trumpet Mute
    • Putting a mute on a trumpet or a trombone
    • Aka the Harmon mute
    • Usually used in jazz
    • Has a cork completely blocking airflow
  • Flutter Tonguing
    • Done on a flute
    • Makes a trill kind of sound