Electronic Instruments and 20th Century Music History

Electronic Instruments

Electronic instruments are those that produce or modify their sound electronically and transmit it to the listener, amplified through speakers. In the 20th century, amplification began to be used. In classical music, microphones were used. Other instruments that generate sound by electronic means are keyboards and synthesizers.

Computers offer the ability to:

• Hear music from a CD.
• Type scores.
• Record music with sequencers.
• Create music with music-creating programs.

Twentieth Century Music

It is a period of history in which political, social, cultural, and artistic music developed very quickly. Impressionism and expressionism were created. The world wars and economic crises led artists to seek new forms of expression. Features of this period include a break with traditional harmony, adding new elements, and creating new graphs.

Impressionism

It is a pictorial-musical movement that emerged in France in the last third of the 19th century as a reaction to realism.

Post-Romanticism

In recent years of the 19th century, Germany continued with its great symphonic tradition. They sought perfection through formal texts that were no longer descriptive.

Expressionism

It is a movement that uses art or music to reflect the drama of man in the years following the First World War.

Neoclassicism

Compared to other streams in search of abstraction, it intended to connect with the public and offer pleasant music to the ear. It is a musical movement that began in France and involves a rejection of impressionism and expressionism. It revisited classical and baroque styles.

Jazz and American Music

Jazz is a musical style that emerged in New Orleans around 1850. Its origins go back to the songs of black plantation slaves, to blues and gospel, songs of African Americans who converted to Protestantism.

The blues, as opposed to gospel and spirituals, is not a religious song, but rather fun and entertaining, with affectionate and loving themes. It has a rhythmic-harmonic structure of a twelve-bar type, in which there is a succession of chords I, IV, and V.

Avant-Garde Music

The various avant-gardes that developed from the Second World War used new technology and pursued the exploration of new possibilities.