NEW MUSIC

A new kind of music that broke with the tonal system established since the Renaissance appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, through the impetus of the second Viennese school, and going by the name of “contemporary music”. Electrical power, the magnetic tape, then the microgroove, electronics and micro-computing enabled this music to infinitely extend its field of expression through many diverse currents: “concrete” music, “electro-acoustic”, “acousmatic”, “electronic” and “digital”. The development of these new musical forms took as many different paths as the creative potentialities offered by the processes of recording and mixing and the many new technologies.

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 LANDMARKS  

From 1912 to 1960, the “new music” created by Schoenberg, Varèse, Messiaen, Webern, Stauckhausen, Boulez, Reich, Riley, Glass, Cage, Schaeffer (inventor of concrete music and founder of the GRM in 1948 at INA) and Henry, was accessible only to a small circle of intellectuals. Such music was known as “learned music”. In the early 1070s, some of the young “students” of these composers (Krafwerk, Can), more intent on exploring the world of rock than the research of the musicologists, together with a handful of others (Schultz, Eno) started adapting the new music to their own tastes and environment.  They opened the way to the “techno” culture. Not long after this (during the 1980s), it was the turn of the disc jockeys to inject a new “electronic” current (Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier). With their turntables and mixers they created new musical combinations, spinning a powerful new thrust into disco, soul and salsa, electrifying the dance floor and laying the foundations of House and Electro Movement (Free party, Rave). Out of these three main categories have come the majority of musical styles that are now grouped under the generic title “new music” or “electronic music”.  From “learned” to “experimental”, from “atmospheric” to “popular” to “dance” - the range is forever expanding. 

 FEATURES / SPECIFICS  

 What do we mean by "new music"?   The term “new music” covers instrumental and vocal works that have been specifically conceived, composed and produced using electronic instruments or machines: recording, then transformation and mixing of sounds (natural, concrete or purely electronic), the use of synthesisers, samplers, computers. New music can be played live, in real time, by the musicians in person, or entirely pre-recorded (tapes), or using a combination of the two. New music is also a philosophy - an anti-conformist one - free of dogma, without borders, an inventive, innovative music in perpetual motion, an interaction of every kind of influence and alliance, of the experimental and the traditional. Note: the interpretation and orchestration of a musical score with electric instruments or electronic machines is not sufficient to qualify as “new music”.