Sound Directions

I started this blog off a little over a month ago with a post dedicated to the profusion of terms that have attempted to ‘define’ this music we’ve been calling ‘new music.’ Trying to ‘invent’ a new genre is not unique to ‘contemporary classical music.’ Carles, who authors the always brilliant Hipster Runoff blog, is also wondering “how genres of music r invented. It seems like there hasn’t really been a good genre name for the past 10 years before chillwave. Everything is ‘alternative _______’ or ‘indie ______.’” Indie-classical. Alt-classical. Wow, more and more similarities between streams are uncovered every day. It must be a sign that this marriage was meant to be?

Anyway, as ‘new music’ continues its endeavor to ‘define’ itself, now is a good time to remember some of the most important elements of genre naming (via Hipster Runoff):

• Timeliness
• Relevancy
• Quality of Product / Artists / MP3s
• Effectiveness/Utility of generalization
• Stupid name that makes u giggle
• Entry level music critics/regional publications that really ‘buy in’ to the name
• A roster of artists who are actively touring and promoting their product

Okay, so who’s got some new names?
Maybe one term isn’t enough. Should ‘new music’ have sub-genres?
Who is the most indie indie-classical bandsemble?

Let’s kick things off by making a list of some of terms that have been used to describe a certain kind of music: New Music. New-Music. newmusic. “New Music.” Contemporary Classical. Modern Classical. Avant Classical. Alt-Classical. Post-Classical. Indie Classical. Unpop. Non-Pop. Totalist. Avant Garde. Uptown. Downtown. Get the Hell Out of Town? Okay, I made that last one up, but If you’re not sure exactly what kind of music I’m talking about, I can’t blame you.

In the not too distant past, categorizing this music—and by “this music” I mean music written by living composers connected to the classical tradition in some way, shape, or form—was a little bit easier because many composers indentified themselves with a specific stylistic camp within Modern Classical Music. There was Serialism, a style of composition that “democratized” the process by doing away with traditional Western musical hierarchical conventions, like harmony. And Minimalism, which is built on the repetition of a small amount of musical material. Sure, people are still writing music like this and would likely identify themselves with the given category, but recently, like in the last 10 years or so, more and more young composers have been creating music that defies this kind of simple categorization.

But it’s not just that this new musical movement defies categorization; it resists it. A lot of the new music being created these days doesn’t want to be (and simply can’t be) bound by the constraints of being labeled.

Depending on who you are—composer, performer, journalist, marketer, PR person—there are certainly benefits and drawbacks to making everything so neat and tidy. How much does it matter if there is or isn’t a catch-all term for this music? Is it necessary? Got a new term? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.