View source for Postmodern music

{{Short description|Music of the postmodern era}}
{{Use shortened footnotes|date=February 2021}}
{{History of Western art music}}

'''Postmodern music''' is music in the [[art music]] tradition produced in the [[postmodern]] era. It also describes any music that follows aesthetical and philosophical trends of [[postmodernism]]. As an aesthetic movement it was formed partly in reaction to [[modernism]] but is not primarily defined as oppositional to [[Modernism (music)|modernist music]]. Postmodernists question the tight definitions and categories of academic disciplines, which they regard simply as the remnants of modernity.{{sfn|Rosenau|1992|pp=6–7}}

==The postmodernist musical attitude==
Postmodernism in music is not a distinct musical style, but rather refers to music of the [[Postmodernity|postmodern era]]. Postmodernist music, on the other hand, shares characteristics with [[postmodern art|postmodernist art]]—that is, art that comes after and reacts against [[modernism]] (see [[Modernism (music)|Modernism in Music]]). Rebecca Day, Lecturer in Music Analysis, writes "within music criticism, postmodernism is seen to represent a conscious move away from the perceptibly damaging hegemony of binaries such as aestheticism/formalism, subject/object, unity/disunity, part/whole, that were seen to dominate former aesthetic discourse, and that when left unchallenged (as postmodernists claim of modernist discourse) are thought to de-humanise music analysis".{{sfn|Day|2017|p=56}}

[[Fredric Jameson]], a major figure in the thinking on [[postmodernism]] and culture, calls postmodernism "the cultural dominant of the logic of late capitalism",{{sfn|Jameson|1991|p=46}} meaning that, through globalization, postmodern culture is tied inextricably with capitalism ([[Mark Fisher]], writing 20 years later, goes further, essentially calling it the sole cultural possibility).{{sfn|Fisher|2009|p=4}} Drawing from Jameson and other theorists, David Beard and Kenneth Gloag argue that, in music, postmodernism is not just an attitude but also an inevitability in the current cultural climate of fragmentation.{{sfn|Beard|Gloag|2005|pp=141–145}} As early as 1938, [[Theodor W. Adorno|Theodor Adorno]] had already identified a trend toward the dissolution of "a culturally dominant set of values",{{sfn|Beard|Gloag|2005|p=141}} citing the commodification of all genres as beginning of the end of genre or value distinctions in music.{{sfn|Adorno|2002|pp=293–295}}

In some respects, Postmodern music could be categorized as simply the music of the postmodern era, or music that follows aesthetic and philosophical trends of postmodernism, but with Jameson in mind, it is clear these definitions are inadequate. As the name suggests, the postmodernist movement formed partly in reaction to the ideals of [[modernism]], but in fact postmodern music is more to do with functionality and the effect of globalization than it is with a specific reaction, movement, or attitude.{{sfn|Beard|Gloag|2005|p=142}} In the face of capitalism, Jameson says, "It is safest to grasp the concept of the postmodern as an attempt to think the present historically in an age that has forgotten how to think historically in the first place".{{sfn|Jameson|1991|p=ix}}

==Characteristics==
[[Jonathan Kramer]] posits the idea (following [[Umberto Eco]] and [[Jean-François Lyotard]]) that postmodernism (including ''musical'' postmodernism) is less a surface style or historical period (i.e., condition) than an ''attitude''. Each philosopher interprets the term Postmodernism differently. Lawrence Kramer uses it very loosely and explains it as susceptible to mere trends. He loosely follows Jean Francois Lyotard's views of synthesizing schemes, unity coherence, generality, totality, and structure losing their authority.  These strategies of understanding are incorrigibly interdisciplinary and plural and rather see it made as a system over an ethos.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kramer |first=Lawrence |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520918429/html |title=Classical Music and Postmodern Knowledge |date=1995-12-31 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-91842-9 |pages=5 |doi=10.1525/9780520918429}}</ref> Kramer enumerates 16 (arguably subjective) "characteristics of postmodern music, by which I mean music that is understood in a postmodern manner, or that calls forth postmodern listening strategies, or that provides postmodern listening experiences, or that exhibits postmodern compositional practices." According to Kramer,{{sfn|Kramer|2002|p=16–17}} postmodern music:

# is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension
# is, on some level and in some way, ironic
# does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present
# challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles
# shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity
# questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values
# avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold)
# considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts
# includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures
# considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music
# embraces contradictions
# distrusts binary oppositions
# includes fragmentations and discontinuities
# encompasses pluralism and eclecticism
# presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities
# locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers

[[Daniel Albright]] summarizes the main tendencies of musical postmodernism as:{{sfn|Albright|2004|p=12}}
#[[Bricolage#Music|Bricolage]]
#[[Polystylism]]
#[[Aleatoric music|Randomness]]

==Timescale==
One author has suggested that the emergence of postmodern music in popular music occurred in the late 1960s, influenced in part by [[psychedelic rock]] and one or more of the later [[The Beatles|Beatles]] albums.{{sfn|Sullivan|1995|p=217}} Beard and Gloag support this position, citing Jameson's theory that "the radical changes of musical styles and languages throughout the 1960s [are] now seen as a reflection of postmodernism".<ref>{{harvnb|Beard|Gloag|2005|p=142}}; see also {{harvnb|Harvey|1990}}</ref> Others have placed the beginnings of postmodernism in the arts, with particular reference to music, at around 1930.<ref>{{harvnb|Karolyi|1994|p=135}}; {{harvnb|Meyer|1994|pp=331–332}}.</ref>

==See also==
*[[List of postmodernist composers]]
*[[20th-century classical music]]
*[[21st-century classical music]]
*[[Neoconservative postmodernism]]

==References==
{{reflist|15em}}

===Sources===
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Adorno|2002}}|reference=[[Theodor W. Adorno|Adorno, Theodor W.]] 2002. "On The Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of Listening". In his ''Essays on Music'', selected, with introductions, commentary, and notes by Richard Leppert; new translations by Susan H. Gillespie. Berkeley, 288–317. Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press. {{ISBN|0-520-22672-0}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Albright|2004}}|reference=Albright, Daniel. 2004. ''Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources''. University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-01267-0}}.}}
* {{cite book |last1=Beard |first1=David |last2=Gloag |first2=Kenneth |date=2005 |title=Musicology: The Key Concepts |location=New York City |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0415316927}}
* {{cite journal|last=Day|first=Rebecca|title='There Is No Such Thing as an Interdisciplinary Relationship': A Žižekian Critique of Postmodern Music Analysis|journal=International Journal of Žižek Studies|volume=11|number=3|date=September 2017|pages=53–74|url=http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/IJZS/article/view/1026}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Fisher|2009}}|reference=Fisher, Mark. 2009. ''Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?'' Winchester, UK, and Washington, DC: Zero Books. {{ISBN|978-1-84694-317-1}}.}}
* {{cite book|last=Harvey|first=David|author-link=David Harvey|year=1990|title=The Condition of Postmodernity|location=Oxford|publisher=Basil Blackwell|isbn=0-631-16292-5}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Jameson|1991}}|reference=Jameson, Fredric. 1991. ''Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism''. Durham: Duke University Press. {{ISBN|0-8223-0929-7}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-8223-1090-2}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Karolyi|1994}}|reference=[[Ottó Károlyi|Karolyi, Otto]]. 1994. ''Modern British Music: The Second British Musical Renaissance—From Elgar to P. Maxwell Davies''. Rutherford, Madison, Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson University Press; London and Toronto: Associated University Presses. {{ISBN|0-8386-3532-6}}.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Kramer|2002}}|reference=[[Jonathan Kramer|Kramer, Jonathan]]. 2002. "The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism." In ''Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought'', edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Aunder, 13–26. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-8153-3820-1}} Reprinted from ''Current Musicology'' no. 66 (Spring 1999): 7–20.}}
* {{cite book|last=Meyer|first=Leonard B.|author-link=Leonard B. Meyer|year=1994|title=Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture|edition=2nd|location=Chicago and London|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=0-226-52143-5}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Rosenau|1992}}|reference=Rosenau, Pauline Marie. 1992. ''Post-Modernism and the Social Sciences: Insights, Inroads, and Intrusions''. Princeton: Princeton University Press. {{ISBN|0-691-08619-2}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-691-02347-6}} (pbk).}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{harvid|Sullivan|1995}}|reference=Sullivan, Henry W. 1995. ''The Beatles with Lacan: Rock 'n' Roll as Requiem for the Modern Age''. Sociocriticism: Literature, Society and History Series 4. New York: Lang. {{ISBN|0-8204-2183-9}}.}}
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==Further reading==
{{div col|colwidth=45em}}
* {{cite web|last=Bell|first=Max|title=Frank Zappa: How The Hungry Freak Turned DIY pioneer|url=https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/frank-zappa-hungry-freak-diy-pioneer/|website=uDiscover Music|date=6 August 2020|ref=none}}
* Berger, Arthur Asa. 2003. [https://books.google.com/books?id=z-GSXQLnHJ4C&dq=david+bowie+postmodernism&pg=PT27 The Portable Postmodernist]. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. {{ISBN|0-7591-0313-5}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-7591-0314-3}} (pbk).
* Bertens, Hans. 1995. ''The Idea of the Postmodern: A History''. London and New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|978-0-415-31692-7}}.
* Beverley, John. 1989. "The Ideology of Postmodern Music and Left Politics". ''[[Critical Quarterly]]'' 31, no. 1 (Spring): 40–56.
* Born, Georgina. 1995. ''Rationalizing Culture: IRCAM, Boulez, and the Institutionalization of the Musical Avant-Garde''. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
* [[J. Peter Burkholder|Burkholder, J. Peter]]. 1995. ''All Made of Tunes: Charles Ives and the Uses of Musical Borrowings''. New Haven: Yale University Press.
* Carl, Robert. 1990. "Six Case Studies in New American Music: A Postmodern Portrait Gallery". ''College Music Symposium'' 30, no. 1 (Spring): 45–63.
* [[Christopher Butler (literary scholar)|Butler, Christopher]]. 1980. ''After the Wake: An Essay on the Contemporary Avant-Garde''. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press.
* Connor, Steven. 2001. "The Decomposing Voice of Postmodern Music". ''New Literary History'' 32, no. 3: Voice and Human Experience (Summer): 467–483.
* {{cite news|last=Croft|first=Clare|title=Baltimore rocks (... and raps ... and scats)|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/music/bal-artslife-baltrocks-story.html|newspaper=[[The Baltimore Sun]]|date=10 February 2015|ref=none}}
* [[Hermann Danuser|Danuser, Hermann]]. 1991. "Postmodernes Musikdenken—Lösung oder Flucht?". In ''Neue Musik im politischen Wandel: fünf Kongressbeiträge und drei Seminarberichte'', edited by Hermann Danuser, 56–66. Mainz & New York: Schott. {{ISBN|3-7957-1772-8}}.
* {{cite journal |last1=Delville |first1=Michel |author1-link=Michel Delville |last2=Norris |first2=Andrew |title=Disciplined Excess: The Minimalist / Maximalist Interface in Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart |journal=Interval(le)s |volume=I |issue=1 |date=Autumn 2004 |url=http://labos.ulg.ac.be/cipa/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2015/07/delvillenorris.pdf|ref=none}}
* Edwards, George. 1991. "Music and Postmodernism". ''Partisan Review'' 58, no. 4 (Fall): 693–705. Reprinted in his ''Collected Essays on Modern and Classical Music'', with a foreword by [[Fred Lerdahl]] and an afterword by Joseph Dubiel, 49–60. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2008. {{ISBN|978-0-8108-6203-6}}.
* [[Christopher Fox (composer)|Fox, Christopher]]. 2004. "Tempestuous Times: The Recent Music of Thomas Adès". ''[[The Musical Times]]'' 145, No. 1888 (Autumn): 41–56.
* Gagné, Nicole V. 2012. ''Historical Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Classical Music''. Historical Dictionaries of Literature and the Arts. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. {{ISBN|0-8108-6765-6}}.
* Gloag, Kenneth. 2012. ''Postmodernism in Music''. Cambridge Introductions to Music, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. {{ISBN|9780521151573}}.
* Harrison, Max, Charles Fox, Eric Thacker, and [[Stuart Nicholson (jazz historian)|Stuart Nicholson]]. 1999. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=x0a_wkS4gUkC&dq=miles+davis+postmodern&pg=PA582 The Essential Jazz Records: Vol. 2: Modernism to Postmodernism]''. London: Mansell Publishing. {{ISBN|0-7201-1822-0}} (cloth); {{ISBN|0-7201-1722-4}} (pbk).
* [[Robert Heilbroner|Heilbroner, Robert L.]] 1961. ''The Future as History''. New York: Grove Press.
* Hiekel, Jörn Peter. 2009. "Die Freiheit zum Staunen: Wirkungen und Weitungen von Lachenmanns Komponieren". ''[[Musik-Konzepte]]'', no. 146 (July): 5–25.
* Hurley, Andrew W. 2009. "Postnationalism, postmodernism and the German discourse(s) of Weltmusik". ''New Formations'', no. 66 (Spring): 100–117.
* {{cite magazine|last=Kahn|first=Ashley|title=Art-School Exuberance: Talking Heads' ''Remain in Light'' Turns 40|url=https://tidal.com/magazine/article/talking-heads-remain-in-light-turns-40/1-74912|magazine=TIDAL Magazine|date=8 October 2020|ref=none}}
* Klemm, Eberhardt. 1987. "Nichts Neues unter der Sonne: Postmoderne". ''[[Musik und Gesellschaft]]'' 37, no. 8: 400–403.
* Kutschke, Beate. 2010. "The Celebration of Beethoven's Bicentennial in 1970: The Antiauthoritarian Movement and Its Impact on Radical Avant-garde and Postmodern Music in West Germany". ''[[The Musical Quarterly]]'' 93, nos. 3–4 (Fall–Winter): 560–615.
* LeBaron, Ann. 2002. "Reflections of Surrealism in Postmodern Musics". In ''Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought'', edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Aunder, 27–74. New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-8153-3820-1}}.
* {{cite journal|last=McNeilly|first=Kevin|title=Ugly Beauty: John Zorn and the Politics of Postmodern Music|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/27505|journal=[[Postmodern Culture]]|volume=5|number=2|date=January 1995|doi=10.1353/pmc.1995.0005|s2cid=144579458|ref=none|url-access=subscription}}
* Mankowskaya, Nadia. 1993. "L'esthétique musicale et le postmodernisme". ''New Sound: International Magazine for Music'', no. 1:91–100.
* Morris, Geoffrey. 2009. "The Guitar Works of Aldo Clementi". ''Contemporary Music Review'' 28, no. 6 (Aldo Clementi: Mirror of time I): 559–586.
* O'Reilly, Tim. 1994. "[http://theprince.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/princeton?a=d&d=Princetonian19940203-01.2.23&cl=search&srpos=7&dliv=none&e=-------en-Logical-20--1----Let-ILLUSTRATION---1994 Bad Religion Takes Postmodern Punk Mainstream]". ''[[The Daily Princetonian]]'' 118, no. 4 (3 February): 10.
* Ofenbauer, Christian. 1995. "Vom Faltenlegen: Versuch einer Lektüre von Pierre Boulez' Notation(s) I(1)". ''[[Musik-Konzepte]]'', nos. 89–90:55–75.
* {{cite Grove|last=Pasler|first=Jann|year=2001|id=40721|title=Postmodernism|ref=none}} {{Subscription required}}
* [[José Ortega y Gasset|Ortega y Gasset, José]]. 1932. ''[[The Revolt of the Masses]]''. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company. {{ISBN|0-393-31095-7}} [http://www.4literature.net/Jose_Ortega_y_Gasset/Revolt_of_the_Masses/ Online edition]
* Petrusëva, Nadežda Andreevna. 2003. "Новая форма в новейшей музыке" [The Formal Innovations of Postmodern Music]. ''Muzyka i vremâ: Ežemesâčnyj naučnyj kritiko-publicističeskij žurnal'', no. 8: 45–48.
* Pickstock, Catherine. 2011. "Quasi una sonata: Modernism, Postmodernism, Religion, and Music". In ''Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology'', edited and introduced by Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie, with an afterword by John D. Witvliet, 190–211. Calvin Institute of Christian Worship Liturgical Studies. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans. {{ISBN|978-0-8028-6277-8}}.
* {{cite magazine|last=Rickards|first=Guy|date=2017|title=Paus – Odes & Elegies|url=https://www.gramophone.co.uk/review/paus-odes-elegies|magazine=[[Gramophone (magazine)|Gramophone]]|access-date=28 December 2020|ref=none}}
* Sanches, Pedro Alexandre. 2000. ''Tropicalismo: Decadência Bonita do Samba''. São Paulo: Boitempo Editorial. {{ISBN|8585934549}}
* Siōpsī, Anastasia. 2010. "On the Various Roles of Tradition in 20th-Century Greek Art Music: The Case Study of Music Written for Ancient Dramas". In Простори модернизма: Опус Љубице Марић у контексту музике њеног времена, edited by Dejan Despić, Melita Milin, Dimitrije Stefanović, and Danica Petrović, 197–214. Naučni skupovi, no. 130; Odelenje za likovne umetnosti i muziku, no. 7. Belgrade: Srpska Akademija Nauka i Umetnosti. {{ISBN|978-86-7025-526-5}}.
* Smart, Barry. 1993. ''Postmodernity''. Key Ideas, series editor Peter Hamilton. London and New York: Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-06961-0}}.
* {{cite news|last=Stayton|first=Richard|title=The Trickster of Modern Music: Composer John Adams Keeps Reinventing Himself, to Wilder and Wilder Applause|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-06-16-tm-1335-story.html|newspaper=[[Los Angeles Times]]|date=16 June 1991|ref=none}}
* Taylor, Anthony. 2010. "John Adams' Gnarly Buttons: Context and Analysis: I". ''The Clarinet'' 37, no. 2 (March): 72–76.
* Varga, Bálint András, and Rossana Dalmonte. 1985. ''Luciano Berio: Two Interviews'', translated and edited by David Osmond-Smith. London: Boyars. {{ISBN|0714528293}}.
* Wellmer, Albrecht. 1991. ''The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics and Postmodernism'', translated by David Midgley. Cambridge [Massachusetts]: MIT Press. {{ISBN|0-262-23160-3}}.
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