Monday 19 April 2010

Leigh Landy

The distance between contemporary music and pop music might be less than you think when it comes to organising sounds

In the latter half of the 20th century with few exceptions a substantial gap existed between innovative forms of contemporary art music and mainstream popular music both in terms of content and popularity. Naturally there were cases in which elements were fused such as in the music of Michael Nyman and Philip Glass, but, as said, that was exception, not the rule. Much contemporary music was fairly marginal in terms of interest (and still is); only the most experimental forms of popular music suffered the same fate. Parallel to these developments new forms of music making evolved focusing on the sound, not the note. This keynote paper will attempt to demonstrate that such forms of music exist in their own ‘space’, one that is open to people with backgrounds in both popular as well as art music. Sound examples will be presented to illustrate how sound-based music is not only contemporary and innovative but much of it is also open to all and bridges the gap between the two formerly separate worlds.

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