Experimentieren – improvisieren – zuhören
Silvia Elisabetta Pagano · University of Vienna · 2009
This research examines contemporary experimental music of an electronic character, with view to understanding the reason this music developed in the way it did together with the motivation of the respective musicians. This information then provides a basis to hypothesise how the listener could regard this music in order to understand it. For this reason the topic is addressed from the point of view of different musicological fields. On the one hand the historic developments and its connections as well as some philosophical aspects are analysed. On the other hand psychological and technical aspects are integrated. Some interviews, which were held with musicians operating in Vienna, complete the work. In the course of this dissertation it is shown that the contemporary experimental electronic music is the result of complex mutual reactions of different musical genres. In the age of globalisation it even has no real cultural identity. Furthermore, the growing affordability of computers has changed the musical world. This also has an effect on electronic music. As far as contemporary experimental music is concerned, free improvisation is very important. As in musical therapy, it also involves subconscious processes. Both the technical development, and the free improvisation require a “new” hearing in favour of sound and an extended, conscious listening. Tonal hearing of our traditional western world doesn’t seem to enhance the understanding of this music. The interviews reveal there is a wish to induce a thinking process in the musician and in the listener through emotional content. To what extent this ideal is reached on the listeners’ side still has to be investigated. Previous emotion studies allow the assumption that the musicians succeed at it, if only rudimentarily.