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