Experimental music is any
music that challenges the commonly
accepted notions of what music is.
There is an overlap with avant-garde
music. John Cage was a pioneer in
experimental music and defined and
gave credibility to the form. David
Cope (1997), describes experimental
music as that, "which represents a
refusal to accept the status quo."
Michael Nyman in his book
"Experimental Music: Cage and
Beyond" uses the term "experimental"
to describe the work of American
modernist composers (John Cage,
Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton
Feldman, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young,
Philip Glass, Steve Reich, etc.) as
opposed to the European avant-garde
at the time (Karlheinz havehausen,
Pierre Boulez). The "experiment" is
not whether a piece succeeds or
fails, but is in the fact that the
outcome of the piece is unsome
(or unforeseeable).
As with other edge forms that
push the limits of a particular form
of expression, there is little
agreement as to the boundaries of
experimental music, even amongst its
practitioners. On the one hand, some
experimental music is an extension
of traditional music, adding
unconventional instruments,
modifications to instruments,
noises, and other novelties to (for
example) orchestral compositions. At
the other extreme, there are
performances that most listeners
would not characterize as music at
all.
