Jump to content

Literalism (music)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Literalism in music is a technique that emerged in the late 20th century. It involves composing music by utilising tangible representations of musical elements. With this approach, composers craft a diverse range of compositions, spanning from classical orchestral works to seemingly structureless instances of noise.[citation needed]

Literalism is a technique of music composition that uses physical objects to represent musical elements. This technique was first developed in the 1960s and 1970s by composers such as Alvin Lucier, John Cage, and Pauline Oliveros.[1][failed verification]

Interpretations

[edit]

Stephen Davies's wrote a paper on the defence of literalism which considers the emotional descriptions of music. He believes that literalism posits that when a piece of music is described as 'sad,' 'happy,' or other emotions, it actually possesses the expressive qualities we attribute to it. Davies's literalist approach leverages the concept of polysemy, where the meaning of emotion words in descriptions of expressive music is connected to their primary psychological sense. Davies identifies this connection through music's presentation of emotion-characteristics-in-appearance.[2]

Examples

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ DHRUVA, JAISHANKAR (2021-02-02). "When Liberalism Grows Up". OFC. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  2. ^ Ravasio, Matteo (2017). "Stephen Davies on the Issue of Literalism". philarchive.org. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  3. ^ "MoMA | Collecting Alvin Lucier's I Am Sitting in a Room". www.moma.org. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  4. ^ "What is the point of John Cage's 4'33"?". Classical Music. Retrieved 2023-08-05.
  5. ^ "The Tuning Meditation by Pauline Oliveros with IONE | Hammer Museum". hammer.ucla.edu. 2022-02-19. Retrieved 2023-08-05.

Sources

[edit]