The New York and Stavanger, Norway-based contemporary artist Cory Arcangel is widely known and respected…
Search Results for: schoenberg
Technotonal
By Brendan O’Brien Techno is unpleasant. For the many it’s music reserved for eccentrics who have…
3 Atonal Techniques for Adventurous Songwriters
Inspired by Arnold Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School, here are three ways to use atonal composition techniques in your pop music-making!
Sounds of Battle: Compositions That Defined the Wars of the Early 20th Century
In 1942, half-starved and weak from war and lack of supplies, members of Leningrad’s Philharmonic…
An Introduction to the Prepared Piano and How to Notate It
American composer John Cage was arguably the most prolific composer of prepared-piano music and is…
On Alban Berg’s Great Musical Palindrome
Hidden in plain sight in a second act interlude of Berg’s monumental Lulu, sits a full orchestra musical palindrome unlike anything in music history.
4 Different Ways to Start a Musical Sentence
When you’re composing music, you kind of have to split yourself into a bunch of…
An Introduction to Zappa’s ‘Black Page #2’: Modality, Polyrhythms, and Intervals
We explore the fundamental rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts at play in one of Frank Zappa’s most lauded compositions.
Loud Silence & Quiet Sound: The Illuminating Music of Toru Takemitsu
Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was arguably the most well-known and influential Japanese composer of the 20th…
György Ligeti’s ‘Musica Ricercata’: Is It Possible to Compose with Just One Note?
We look at Ligeti’s famous composition in order to decide how much, or how little, the use of music’s foundational parameters really matter in composing.