Postmodern music is both a musical style and a musical condition. As a musical style, postmodern music might be characterised in similar ways to postmodern art, being both a break from and in some ways an extension of aesthetic modernism (see Modernism in Music. Like modernist music, postmodern composers tend to favor eclecticism in musical form and musical genre, and often combine characteristics from different genres, or employ jump-cut sectionalization (such as blocks). But unlike modernism, there tends to be a self-referential and ironic stance, and a more pronounced blurring of traditional boundaries between "high art" and kitsch. Daniel Albright summarizes the traits of the postmodern style as bricolage, polystylism, and randomness (Albright 2004,^{[citation needed]}). Image File history File links Question_book-3. ... Postmodern art is a term used to describe art which is thought to be in contradiction to some aspect of modernism, or to have emerged or developed in its aftermath. ... For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... Modernism in musicis characterized by a desire for or belief in progressand science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, politicaladvocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with tradition or common practice. ... Eclecticism is a kind of mixed style in the fine arts, in which features are borrowed from various sources and styles. ... The term musical form refers to two related concepts: the type of composition (for example, a musical work can have the form of a symphony, a concerto, or other generic type -- see Multi-movement forms below) the structure of a particular piece (for example, a piece can be written in... Musical genres are categories which contain music which share a certain style or which have certain elements in common. ... In music a section is a complete, but not independent musical idea (Bye 1993, p. ... A self-reference occurs when an object refers to itself. ... Ironic redirects here. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Kitsch is a term of German origin that has been used to categorize art that is considered an inferior copy of an existing style. ... Daniel Albright is the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard and the editor of Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. ... Look up Bricolage in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Polystylism is the use of multiple styles or techniques of music, and is seen as a postmodern characteristic. ... Random redirects here. ...

As a musical condition, postmodern music is simply the state of music in postmodernity, music after modernity. In this sense, postmodern music does not have any one particular style or characteristic, and is not necessarily postmodern in style or technique. Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used to describe the social and cultural implications of postmodernism. ... Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being related to modernism. ...

Postmodern music is not simply what people listen to after the modern era, a common misconception, but a style of music that keeps to the common themes of the post-modern movement in general.

The postmodern musical style

Modernist influences and postmodern philosophy

In the modern period, recording of music was seen as a way of transcribing an external event, as a photograph is supposed to record a moment in time. However, with the introduction of magnetic tape in the 1940s the ability to directly edit a recording, and create a result which did not actually occur, made it possible for a recording to be viewed as the end product of artistic work itself. Through the 1950s, most music, even popular music, presented itself as the capturing of a performance, even if that performance utilized amplification to facilitate the hearing of different parts. For other uses, see Photograph (disambiguation). ... Compact audio cassette Magnetic tape is a non-volatile storage medium consisting of a magnetic coating on a thin plastic strip. ...

Antecedents to this process, can be found dating back for several decades. From the late 1940s onwards composers in the classical music world, including such diverse personalities as Edgard Varèse, Pierre Schaeffer, Karlheinz Stockhausen and John Cage, created musical compositions that existed only as recordings, using such techniques as multi-channel recording, editing and varying the speed of recorded sounds as means to create music that could not be played by conventional instruments, that could only exist as a tape recording. Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer. ... Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (August 14, 1910–August 19, 1995) was a French composer, noted as the inventor of musique concrète. ... Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a German composer, and one of the most important and controversial composers of the 20th century (Barret 1988, 45; Harvey 1975b, 705; Hopkins 1972, 33; Klein 1968, 117; Power 1990, 30). ... For the Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ...

The same techniques would eventually become common in popular music as well. The elaborate multi-tracked recordings of the Beatles' later output (such as the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album) bore little relationship to what the four Beatles could perform live on a stage.

The rise of popular music led to another strand of post-modernity, namely the desire to create a large audience for works. In the Modernist view, such a connection was unnecessary - "serious" music was the place where serious ideas could be presented in musical form unfettered by the need to flatter or patronize an audience. "Popular" music was seen, as the Victorians had seen it, as subsidiary to the more "weighty" genres. As with Post-modern philosophy, post-modern music questioned whether this hierarchy of "high" and "low" culture was correct or appropriate. This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ... Postmodern philosophy is an eclectic and elusive movement characterized by the postmodern criticism and analysis of Western philosophy. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Low culture is a derogatory term for some forms of popular culture. ...

A third strand of post-modern music is a change in the fundamental idea of what music is supposed to be "about". As the period wore on, the idea that "music is mainly about itself", became more and more firmly entrenched. Reference was not merely a technique, but the substance of music. Musical works allude to other musical works, not because they can, but because they must. This is part of the general change from Modernism which saw the basic subject of art being the most pure elements of musical technique - whether intervals, motivic fragments or rhythms - to Postmodernism which sees the basic subject of art being the stream of media, manufactured objects, and genre materials. In other words, post-modernity views the role of art to be commenting on the consumer society and its products, where as modernism sought to convey the "reality" of the universe in its most fundamental form. For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...

Postmodern techniques and their application

The ability to record and mix, and later sample, would feed into this idea, with the inclusion of "found sounds", snippets of other recordings, spoken voices, noises, and sampled tableux into music. Pioneers include Edgard Varèse, who began to experiment with the possibilities of new electronic instruments, using synthesizers and tape loops. John Cage used tapes, radios, and record players to reproduce prerecorded sounds in a wide variety of ways in works such as the series "Imaginary Landscape" and "Europera." Early examples in popular music include Abbey Road, Pink Floyd's Meddle and the "dub" style of music of Lee 'Scratch' Perry. As digital technology has made sampling easy, it has become very common in hip hop, and is taken to its extreme in Bastard pop. Methods and media for sound recording are varied and have undergone significant changes between the first time sound was actually recorded for later playback until now. ... Audio mixing is used in sound recording, audio editing and sound systems to balance the relative volume and frequency content of a number of sound sources. ... This article is about reusing existing sound recordings in creating new works. ... Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French-born composer. ... The term synthesiser is also used to mean frequency synthesiser, an electronic system found in communications. ... For the Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ... Back cover The back cover of the original 1969 UK LP. Note that Her Majesty is not listed, unlike later reissues and the compact disc version—originally making it a hidden track. ... Pink Floyd are an English rock band that initially earned recognition for their psychedelic rock music, and, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music. ... Alternate cover U.S./Canadian releases cover Meddle is an album by English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. ... Lee Scratch Perry, The Upsetter in Dub Lee Scratch Perry (born Rainford Hugh Perry March 20, 1936) is one of the most influential people in the development of reggae and dub music in Jamaica. ... Hip hop music is a style of music which came into existence in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. ... Bastard pop is a musical genre which, in its purest form, consists of the combination (usually by digital means) of the music from one song with the a cappella from another. ...

As composers became interested in incorporating pre-existing sounds, they also looked to emulate the effect using only conventional instruments, by extensive quotation from pre-existing material. Quotation and reference to earlier work in principle was not new, as composers such as Richard Strauss and Charles Ives are famous for its use in their tone poems and symphonies nearly a century before, and it is essentially the basis behind organum, parody mass, and other early musical genres. However, the completeness of the collage or thorough use of a pre-existing piece went far beyond earlier composers' brief quotations or use of a cantus firmus. George Rochberg has used pieces from the classical repertoire as the basis for many of his compositions, essentially composing a frequently ironic commentary on an earlier work. Olivier Messiaen's "Oiseaux Exotiques" and "Catalogue d'Oiseaux" are collages of bird songs, precisely notated by species in the score, gathered together in a musical form. This article is about the German composer of tone-poems and operas. ... This photo from around 1913 shows Ives in his day job. He was the director of a successful insurance agency. ... Organum (pronounced , though the stress is now sometimes incorrectly put on the second syllable) is a technique of singing developed in the Middle Ages, and is an early form of polyphonic music. ... A parody mass is a mass that uses a piece of secular music, typically a fragment of a motet or chanson as part of its melodic material. ... In music, a cantus firmus (fixed song) is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition, often set apart by being played in long notes. ... George Rochberg, (July 5, 1918, Paterson, New Jersey – May 29, 2005, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) was an American composer of contemporary classical music. ... Olivier Messiaen It has been suggested that List of students of Olivier Messiaen be merged into this article or section. ...

Another often cited post-modern musical collage is the third movement of Luciano Berio's "Sinfonia", which uses the scherzo of Gustav Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony" as a musical foundation, and text from Samuel Beckett's "The Unnameable," but adds quotations spanning classical repertory, as though they were sampled or found haphazardly by spinning a radio dial. Berio himself, though, in "Two Interviews" and elsewhere, rejects and distances himself from notions of "collage," arguing that each reference is hardly haphazard; rather, each quotation carefully evokes the context of its original work, creating an open web, but an open web with highly specific referents and a vigorously defined, if self-proliferating, signifier-signified relationship. "I'm not interested in collages, and they amuse me only when I'm doing them with my children: then they become an exercise in relativizing and 'decontextualizing' images, an elementary exercise whose healthy cynicism won't do anyone any harm," Berio tells interviewer Rossana Dalmonte, in what reads like Berio attempting to distance himself from composers like John Zorn or Uri Caine, for whom juxtaposition itself can provide meaning. Berio's self-distinction, while it does not need to be believed by analysts or musicians, nevertheless runs counter to the later postmodern practice of mixing "high" and "low" found objects "haphazardly" or without regard to an affirmative or negative sense of constructive quality. In other words, it is not only the composition of the "collage" that conveys meaning; it is the particular composition of the component "sound-image" that conveys meaning. (And in the sense Berio clings to the notion of music conveying an affirmative, even extra-musical, meaning, perhaps he, or other composers like Messiaen or Stockhausen, is not so postmodern in the sense that it is, for better or worse, used in current critical circles to convey some sort of eternal, neutral equivocation between musical texts.) In some sense, Berio's third movement in "Sinfonia" is closely linked to Roland Barthes's semiology (semiotics) and European poststructuralist thinking than later postmodern practices. Luciano Berio (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian composer. ... Sinfonia is a landmark 20th Century composition by Luciano Berio. ... Mahler redirects here. ... Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. ... John Zorn (born September 2, 1953 in Queens, New York) is an American avant-garde composer, arranger, record producer, saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist. ... Uri Caine (born June 8, 1956 in Philadelphia) is an American classical and jazz pianist and composer. ... Roland Barthes Roland Barthes (November 12, 1915 – March 25, 1980) (pronounced ) was a French literary critic, literary and social theorist, philosopher, and semiotician. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ...

A related aspect of post-modern classical music was an interest in reducing the role of a composer in musical composition, not by the use of pre-composed material, but instead by the use of random procedures in composition and performance. This began as a reaction to elements of late modernism, specifically the modernist project of atonality, begun by Arnold Schoenberg, which had been taken to its logical conclusion, total serialism, by such late modernist composers as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and others. A group of composers, including Boulez, Stockhausen, and especially John Cage began introducing elements of 'chance' in their music to create aleatory music. Cage is famous for using the I Ching to direct his compositions, essentially removing himself from the compositional procedure. On the other hand, his piece 4'33" is performed by a silent pianist, and is said to consist entirely of environmental noise. Aleatory music began to blur the boundaries between the composer and the audience, and between the musician and the environment, which was a postmodern trend. Modernism in musicis characterized by a desire for or belief in progressand science, surrealism, anti-romanticism, politicaladvocacy, general intellectualism, and/or a breaking with tradition or common practice. ... Atonality describes music not conforming to the system of tonal hierarchies, which characterizes the sound of classical European music between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːrnÉ”lt ˈʃøːnbÉ›rk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. ... Serialism is a rigorous system of composing music in which various elements of the piece are ordered according to a pre-determined ordered set or sets, and variations on them. ... Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez (IPA: /pjɛʁ.buˈlÉ›z/) (born March 26, 1925) is a conductor and composer of classical music. ... Karlheinz Stockhausen (born August 22, 1928) is a German composer, and one of the most important and controversial composers of the 20th century (Barret 1988, 45; Harvey 1975b, 705; Hopkins 1972, 33; Klein 1968, 117; Power 1990, 30). ... For the Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ... Look up aleatory in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Alternative meaning: I Ching (monk) The I Ching (Traditional Chinese: 易經, pinyin y jīng; Cantonese IPA: jɪk6gɪŋ1; Cantonese Jyutping: jik6ging1; alternative romanizations include I Jing, Yi Ching, Yi King) is the oldest of the Chinese classic texts. ... 433 is a musical work by avant-garde composer John Cage, often described (somewhat erroneously) as four and a half minutes of silence. ...

At the same time, there was also a new interest in non-Western music, early music (typically meaning pre-Baroque), and popular music. This attention to all musical traditions is a general post-modern feature; for them the division between "high" and "low art" is illusory. György Ligeti found rhythmic elements of Pygmy song that fit his own sensibilities, and they influenced his later compositions. Olivier Messiaen studied Indian music and medieval music thoroughly, and some of his scores make reference to Indian tala or plainchant. Tan Dun, born in China, has sought ways in his compositions to unite the Chinese and Western strands of music. Steve Reich studied West African drumming, Indonesian gamelan, and Hebrew cantillation, and his works are sometimes compared to Pérotin or rock music. Further eroding the wall between "art music" and "popular music," a number of DJs have remixed his work on the album Reich Remixed. Glenn Branca and Rhys Chatham have worked with rock musicians and combined the techniques of classical and popular music. For other uses, see Baroque (disambiguation). ... “Ligeti” redirects here. ... This does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Olivier Messiaen It has been suggested that List of students of Olivier Messiaen be merged into this article or section. ... Indian music is: The music of India or Native American music This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In Indian classical music, Tala (tāl (Hindi), tāla (anglicised from talam; in Sanskrit), literally a clap, is a rhythmical pattern that determines the rhythmical structure of a composition. ... Broadly speaking, plainsong is the name given to the body of traditional songs used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. ... Tan Dunn (pinyin: Tán Dùn, 譚盾; born August 18, 1957) is a Chinese composer, most widely known as the Grammy and Oscar award winning composer for the soundtracks of the movies Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. ... Music of China appears to date back to the dawn of Chinese civilization, and documents and artifacts provide evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC _ 256 BC). ... Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. ... Javanese gamelan at the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings, and vocalists may also be included. ... Gen. ... Pérotin was a European composer, believed to be French, who lived around the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. ... This article is about the genre. ... A disc jockey scratching a record. ... A remix is an alternative version of a song, different from the original version. ... Glenn Branca (born October 6, 1948 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is an avant-garde composer and guitarist. ... Rhys Chatham (b. ...

The approach of post-modern and modern composers with regard to foreign, obsolete or popular musical idioms differs substantially from the "exotic" references of earlier composers. One key difference is the thoroughness of the study. Mozart's "Rondo alla Turca" is supposedly influenced by Turkish music, but it is a superficial and stereotypical reference imposed in a pure classical form. Post-modern composers have continued the modern trend begun by Béla Bartók in making systematic studies and have generally sought in earnest to understand the underlying principles of exotic music by years of study or performance in the idiom. The result is often more subtly incorporated into the composer's vocabulary, so much that one may not imagine the source of the foreign elements until they are pointed out. “Mozart” redirects here. ... Bartok redirects here. ...

The emergence of postmodern styles

In classical music, minimalism is usually regarded as the first "post-modern" style.^{[citation needed]} Minimalism was in part a reaction to the perceived inaccessibility and sterility of modernist classical music of such composers in the tradition of Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, the early John Cage, and others among the avant-garde.^{[citation needed]} The earliest minimalist composers included LaMonte Young, who had studied under Schoenberg and incorporated elements of serialism in his early minimalist works, and Terry Riley, who was largely influenced in his composition by the repetitiveness of Indian music and rock music. This article is about a musical style. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 Arnold Schoenberg (pronounced [ˈaːrnɔlt ˈʃøːnbɛrk]) (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian and later American composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. ... Pierre Boulez Pierre Boulez (IPA: /pjɛʁ.buˈlɛz/) (born March 26, 1925) is a conductor and composer of classical music. ... For the Mortal Kombat character, see Johnny Cage. ... La Monte Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer whose eccentric and often hard-to-find works have been included among the most important post World War 2 avant garde or experimental music. ... Terry Riley – (Portrait by Betty Freeman) Terry Riley (born 24 June 1935) is an American composer associated with the minimalist school. ... Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ...

Minimalism and related postmodern musical styles laid the groundwork for re-integrating popular and "highbrow" music, which had been separated since the rise of modernism.^{[citation needed]} By the 1970s, avant-garde rock and pop musicians had become interested in electronic instrumentation, the use of Eastern rhythms and unconventional instruments (for example the use of the sitar by the Beatles) and drone-like or repetitive music, stylistically similar to minimalism (such as the music of The Velvet Underground, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, and later, Stereolab). Tape loops also prefigured the use of sampling in techno music and house music, and the "scratching" of hip hop music. Moreover, the ironic "cut and paste approach" of Stockhausen's later work (which used elements from both "high" and "low" art)^{[citation needed]} was highly influential on many pop and rock composers in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s: see, for example, The Residents.^{[citation needed]} The spread of Minimalism in contemporary music has led to the creation of similar movements within modern electronic music, particularly microhouse and minimal techno, with artists such as Basic Channel freely adapting the traditional minimalist approach of Steve Reich and Philip Glass in a dancefloor context.^{[citation needed]} For other uses, see Minimalism (disambiguation). ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... A work similar to Marcel Duchamps Fountain Avant garde (written avant-garde) is a French phrase, one of many French phrases used by English speakers. ... Diagram of some sitar parts. ... This article is about the rock band. ... Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced [], German for power station) is a German musical group from Düsseldorf that has made immense contributions to the development of improvisational rock and electronic music, most notably within the latter categorys sub-genres which later became known as synthpop, electro, techno, house and IDM. Early musical... Stereolab are an English alternative music band formed in 1990 in London. ... Techno is a form of electronic dance music that became prominent in Detroit, Michigan during the mid-1980s with influences from electro, New Wave, Funk and futuristic fiction themes that were prevalent and relative to modern culture during the end of the Cold War in industrial America at that time. ... House music is a style of electronic dance music that was developed by dance club DJs in Chicago in the early to mid-1980s. ... Hip hop music is a style of music which came into existence in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. ... For other uses, see Resident. ... For other uses, see Minimalism (disambiguation). ... Microhouse music also known as Buftech takes minimal house to a new level, focusing on the essential dance-inducing elements of house music: the beat, the bass and the melody. ... Minimal techno, a minimalist sub-genre of Techno music, is characterized by a stripped-down, glitchy sound, simple 4/4 beats (usually around 120-135 BPM), repetition of short loops, and subtle changes. ... Basic Channel is a minimal techno duo of Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus that originated in Berlin, Germany in 1993. ... Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is an American composer. ... Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is a three-times Academy Award-nominated American composer. ...

The postmodern musical condition

As a musical condition, postmodern music is music situated after the modern age, during the present period, where music has become valued primarily as a commodity and a culture, rather than a form of idealized modernist expression for its own sake. Some authors have suggested that the transition in music from modern to postmodern occurred in the late 1960s, influenced in part by psychedelic rock and the late Beatles album (Sullivan 1995, 217), while others place the onset of musical postmodernism much earlier, around 1930 (Karolyi 1994, 135; Meyer 1994, 331–32). In the 1970s, the postmodern condition continued with the advent of disco, heavy metal, Punk, Post-punk, and a newly-commodified country music. For Christian theological modernism, see Liberal Christianity and Modernism (Roman Catholicism). ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969. ... Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that attempts to replicate the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs. ... The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 as part of their first tour of the United States, promoting their first hit single there, I Want To Hold Your Hand. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ... This article is about the music genre. ... Heavy metal redirects here. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Post punk generally refers to the particularly fertile and creative period following the initial punk rock explosion. During the first wave of punk, roughly spanning 1976-1983, bands such as The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Ramones and The Damned began to challenge the current styles and conventions of rock... Country music is a blend of popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. ...

The difference between modern music and postmodern music then is that modernist music was characterized by a focus on musical fundamentals and expression. In postmodern music, however, the commodity being sold by record companies and pop stars is not the fundamentals of the music, but the cultural image surrounding the music, which reverberates through film, television, and other media.^{[citation needed]}

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. Kramer enumerates 16 "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, postmodern music: Jonathan Donald Kramer (December 7, 1942, Hartford, Conn. ... Umberto Eco (born January 5, 1932) is an Italian medievalist, semiotician, philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

(1) is not simply a repudiation of modernism or its continuation, but has aspects of both a break and an extension; (2) is, on some level and in some way, ironic; (3) does not respect boundaries between sonorities and procedures of the past and of the present; (4) challenges barriers between 'high' and 'low' styles; (5) shows disdain for the often unquestioned value of structural unity; (6) questions the mutual exclusivity of elitist and populist values; (7) avoids totalizing forms (e.g., does not want entire pieces to be tonal or serial or cast in a prescribed formal mold); (8) considers music not as autonomous but as relevant to cultural, social, and political contexts; (9) includes quotations of or references to music of many traditions and cultures; (10) considers technology not only as a way to preserve and transmit music but also as deeply implicated in the production and essence of music; (11) embraces contradictions; (12) distrusts binary oppositions; (13) includes fragmentations and discontinuities; (14) encompasses pluralism and eclecticism; (15) presents multiple meanings and multiple temporalities; (16) locates meaning and even structure in listeners, more than in scores, performances, or composers. (Jonathan Kramer, "The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism," in Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp. 16-17)

Causes and theories of post-modernity in music

For some, post-modernity is degenerate modernity. The critic Theodor Adorno believed that trends of music after serialism represent the banalization of and regression from modernity.^{[citation needed]} Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ...

For others, post-modernity is merely "the modernism of the present" (Danuser 1991, 63), or an expanded modernism (Wellmer 1991, passim).

Still others^{[weasel words]} follow Fredric Jameson, who holds that post-modernity is the condition of late capitalism and the decline of identity-creating metanarratives, such as nation-states (Jameson 1991,^{[citation needed]}). Fredric Jameson (b. ... Late capitalism is a term sometimes used to refer to capitalism of the late 20th century. ... In critical theory, and particularly postmodernism, a metanarrative is a grand overarching account, or all-encompassing story, which is thought to give order to the historical record. ... The term nation-state, while often used interchangeably with the terms unitary state and independent state, refers properly to the parallel occurence of a state and a nation. ...

Another theory advanced is that post-modernism is the explicit reaction to the rise of a mass production consumer society, and is linked to a loss of a belief in the imminence and immanence of change for the better, and the consequent need to create coherence and aesthetic value from the artifacts and patterns of that society, a condition firmly in place by 1930 (Heilbroner 1961, 47–48; Meyer 1994, 331–32), the year in which Ortega y Gasset published La rebelión de las masas. While of course never using the term "postmodern", Ortega describes these same conditions as gradually emerging after 1830, and reaching maturity in the 1890s (Ortega 1932, 50, 56, 125, 135, 181).

See also

• 20th century classical music
• Musical montage
• Plunderphonics
• Postmodern composers
• Sound collage
• Theodor Adorno
• Walter Benjamin

Sources

• Albright, Daniel. 2004. Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.
• 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 3795717728
• Heilbroner, Robert L. 1961. The Future as History. New York: Grove Press.
• Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822309297 (cloth); ISBN 0822310902 (pbk)
• 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
• Kramer, Jonathan. 1999. "The Nature and Origins of Musical Postmodernism." Current Musicology 66:7–20. Reprinted in Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought, edited by Judy Lochhead and Joseph Aunder,^{[citation needed]} New York: Routledge, 2002. ISBN 0-8153-3820-1
• Meyer, Leonard B. 1994. Music, the Arts, and Ideas: Patterns and Predictions in Twentieth-Century Culture, second edition. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-52143-5
• Ortega y Gasset, José. 1932. The Revolt of the Masses. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-31095-7 Online edition
• 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.
• Wellmer, Albrecht. 1991. The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics and Postmodernism, trans. David Midgley. Cambridge [Massachusetts]: MIT Press. ISBN 0262231603