Characteristics evident in music of the last 25 years

This is a summary I made based on pp. 365-369 of Roger Kamien's (2011) Music: an appreciation (10th Edition). Here are some characteristics to get you started with reference to some musical concepts:

TONE COLOUR

• Noise-like and percussive sounds are often used.

• Instruments are played at the very top of bottom of their ranges.

• Uncommon playing techniques have become normal e.g. glissando (a rapid slide up or down a scale), is more widely used.

• Woodwind and brass players are often asked to produce a fluttery sound by rapidly rolling their tongues while they play.

• String players frequently strike the strings with the stick of the bow, rather than draw the bow across the strings.

• Percussion instruments have become prominent and numerous, reflecting the current interest in unusual rhythms and tone colours.

• Instruments that became standard include xylophones, celesta and wood blocks to name a few.

• Composers occasionally call for noisemakers - typewriters, sirens, automobile brake drums.

• A piano is often used to add a percussive edge to the sound of an orchestra.

• Modern composers often draw hard, drum-like sounds from the piano in contrast to the romantics, who wanted the instrument to "sing."

• There is less emphasis on blended sound than there was in the romantic period. Even orchestral works often sounded as though they are scored for a group of soloists.

HARMONY (PITCH)

• CONSONANCE & DISSONANCE

• 19th century - composers came to use ever more dissonant chords as they treated dissonances with increasing freedom.

• 20th century up until very recently - A combination of tones that earlier would have been used to generate instability and expectation might now be treated as a stable chord, a point of arrival.

• Consonant chord = stable; functioned as a point of rest / arrival.

• Dissonant chord = unstable; its tension demanded onward motion, or resolution to a stable consonant chord.

• NEW CHORD STRUCTURES

• ​Some composers create fresh harmonies by placing one traditional chord against another. Such combination of 2 chords heard at the same time is called a polychord.

• Use of chordal structures not based on triads e.g. fourth chord, in which tones are a 4th apart instead of a 3rd.

• Tone cluster = a chord made up of tones only a half step or whole step apart.

MELODY (PITCH)

• Melody is no longer necessarily tied to traditional chords or to major and minor keys.

• Melody may be used on a wide variety of scales, or it may freely use all 12 chromatic tones and have no tonal centre.

• Melody often contains wide leaps that are difficult to sing.

• Rhythmic irregularity and changing meters tend to make current melodies unpredictable.

RHYTHM (DURATION)

• Rhythmic vocabulary of music expanded, with increased emphasis on irregularity and unpredictability.

• Rhythm = one of the most striking elements used to generate power, drive and excitement.

• Rapidly changing meters as opposed to a single meter maintained throughout a movement or section in Baroque, Classical or Romantic music.

• Beats are grouped irregularly, and the accented beat comes at unequal time intervals.

• Rhythmic repetition of a group of pitches is a unifying technique widely used.

• Many modern compositions contain an ostinato (a motive or phrase that is repeated persistently at the same pitch throughout a section).

• Ostinato may occur in the melody or in the accompaniment

• Ostinatos usually serve to stabilises particular groups of pitches