Modernist music instruments

One of the greatest virtues of the human being is his limitless curiosity, which allows him to take something that already exists and continue his perpetual evolution by finding new elements to create. In art and music the changes are constant as well as the instruments that are used to create it, so that all the possibilities of sound are explored and the forms already established by tradition. In this lesson from a TEACHER we will talk about instruments of modernist music, a time of innovation and avant-garde.

It is called modernist music to one music stage arisen between the years 1910 and 1975 approximately. Musical currents prior to modernism were the Romanticism and Postromanticism. Eventually, modernist music would evolve into contemporary classical music. Be careful not to confuse modernist music with the music of the Modern Age.

Modernist music meets linked with the avant-garde (avant-garde, of experimental art) and continued with the values ​​of the general current of Modernism, which seeks to break with traditions and focus primarily on innovation.

Thanks to these principles, this was a time of great variety for music, with different movements and stages of evolution that include futurism, primitivism, microtonalism, twelve-tone and serialism, neoclassicism, electronic music, random music, micro-polyphony and sound masses, minimalism, jazz influences and incidental music and cinematographic.

The search for new elements for music caused factors such as the expansion or even total abandonment of the tonality, the use of techniques extended instrumental instruments and the inclusion of novel sounds in the composition, some of which may be considered noise. Unusual timbres and metrics, modal scales, and polytonal and atonal harmony were also incorporated.

Given that during this time innovation and the breaking of tradition were key elements, within musical instruments we find both those of classical tradition and other experimental ones that might not even be considered musical instruments directly.

String instruments

Violin, viola, cello and bass. They are stringed instruments They work on the same principle. They have 4 strings that are rubbed with a bow. They can be played with various techniques.

Woodwind instruments

Piccolo, flute, oboe, clarinet, French horn, bassoon. They are sweet and agile instruments that work with wind. They are blown and have holes in their bodies that can be covered by operating mechanisms with the fingers to change the notes. Some have variations of tessitura and tuning within the same type of instrument, such as the bass clarinet, or contrabassoon.

Brass Instruments

Trumpet, trombone, French horn (horn), tuba. They also work by means of wind, changing notes with the fingers through valves. Unlike woodwinds, brass instruments are louder and brighter, and are made mostly of a type of metal called brass.

Percussion instruments

Tympani, cymbals, suspended platter, ear tags, bass drum, snare, xylophone, marimba, glockenspiel and others. They are various instruments that are percussed (struck to produce sound). Some have a defined tuning such as the xylophone and glockenspiel and others, such as cymbals and kick drum, have no standard tuning.

Saxophones: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone

Despite being made of metal, they are categorized as woodwind instruments since they work by means of a reed in the mouthpiece. Thanks to this they have the ability to have a powerful sound but can also be very warm. Saxophones began to be included in the symphony orchestra with greater frequency during this century.

Guitar and Harp

They are plucked string instruments. The harp is usually included more frequently as part of the symphony orchestra.

Keyboard instruments

Piano, celesta. The classical grand piano tends to be the main instrument in works written specifically for show, but it is also used as a prop for the orchestra. The celesta for its part has a particular crystalline sound thanks to the fact that it works with metal plates.

Here are the new instruments that were included for innovative or experimental purposes.

Recordings and Sampling

It is a technique that consists of recording sounds to be used later in real time. Some recordings are of real instruments, while others can be any other type of sound, such as elements of nature. Recording and manipulation techniques, such as the use of magnetic tapes, were also experimented with.

Electronic instruments

The electronic instruments they are also part of modernist music. Since it goes hand in hand with innovation, technology was an interesting part of this era by including electronic instruments or computers. While some are electric versions of classic instruments such as the electric guitar and the keyboard (electronic piano), the synthesizers, They transform electricity into sounds by manipulating the doorbell to produce various types of sound.

Experimental instruments

The interpretation of musical events such as “happenings” that are usually conceptual works rather than merely musical, ventured into the search for unusual elements, even taking into account contradictory factors such as the silence itself. Some experimental instruments include radios, metronomes, and manipulated instruments such as the piano ready.

As you can see, the instruments of modernist music show us that a musical instrument is nothing more than an artifact. that we use in order to create sound, so the only limit is actually our own ability inventiveness.