ABSTRACT

In the preface to the second edition of Michael Nyman’s Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond, the possibility of a sequel is mooted.1 This is not that book. It is not a history of experimental music, it does not present an exhaustive overview of current practice, and there is no aĴempt to categorically define experimental music. As the title suggests, The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music is a sourcebook and commentary on selected work by experimental musicians. It is in two parts: nine authored chapters exploring aspects of experimental music, and fourteen interviews with experimental musicians, which contextualize and exemplify each other respectively. Whilst focusing on notated music, the texts encompass related aspects of performance, improvisation and sonic art, with many of the interviewees being referenced in the opening chapters as might be expected. Through both these approaches the book considers a range of issues pertinent to recent and historical developments in experimental music, including definitions of experimentalism and its relationship with a broader avant-garde; experimentalism and cultural change; notation and its effect on composition; realizing open scores; issues of notation and interpretation in live electronic music; the performance practice of experimental music; improvisation and technology; improvisation and social meaning; instrumentalizing objects; visual artists’ relationship to experimental music; working across interdisciplinary boundaries; listening and the soundscape; and working methods, techniques and aesthetics of recent experimental music.