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Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, "Musique Savante (Serious music)", ''Dictionnaire des mots de la musique'' (Paris: Outre Mesure): 242. or a written musical tradition.Denis Arnold, "Art Music, Art Song", in ''The New Oxford Companion to Music, Volume 1: A–J'' (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983): 111. In this context, the terms "serious" or "cultivated" are frequently used to present a contrast with ordinary, everyday music (i.e.
popular Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group. Popular may also refer to: In sociology * Popular culture * Popular fiction * Popular music * Popular science * Populace, the total ...
and
folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
, also called " vernacular music"). Many cultures have art music traditions; in the
Western world The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to the various nations and states in the regions of Europe, North America, and Oceania.
the term typically refers to
Western classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" ...
.


Definition

In Western literature, "Art music" is mostly used to refer to music descending from the tradition of
Western classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" ...
. Musicologist Philip Tagg refers to the elitism associated with art music as one of an "axiomatic triangle consisting of 'folk', 'art' and 'popular' musics".Philip Tagg, "Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice", ''Popular Music'' 2 (1982): 41. He explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. According to Bruno Nettl, "Western classical music" may also be synonymous with "art music", "canonic music", "cultivated music", "serious music", as well as the more flippantly used "real music" and "normal music". Musician Catherine Schmidt-Jones defines art music as "a music which requires significantly more work by the listener to fully appreciate than is typical of popular music". In her view, " is can include the more challenging types of jazz and rock music, as well as Classical". The term "art music" refers primarily to classical traditions (including contemporary as well as historical classical music forms) that focus on formal styles, invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, and demand focused attention from the listener. In strict western practice, art music is considered primarily a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of
music notation Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
, as opposed to being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings (like
popular Popularity or social status is the quality of being well liked, admired or well known to a particular group. Popular may also refer to: In sociology * Popular culture * Popular fiction * Popular music * Popular science * Populace, the total ...
and
traditional music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
).Philip Tagg, "Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice", ''Popular Music'' 2 (1982): 37–67, here 41–42.


Popular music

There have been continual attempts throughout the history of popular music to make a claim for itself as art rather than as popular culture, and a number of music styles that were previously understood as "popular music" have since been categorized in the art or classical category. According to the academic Tim Wall, the most significant example of the struggle between
Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...
, African-American, vernacular, and art discourses was in
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
. As early as the 1930s, artists attempted to cultivate ideas of "symphonic jazz", taking it away from its perceived vernacular and black American roots. Following these developments, histories of popular music tend to marginalize jazz, partly because the reformulation of jazz in the art discourse has been so successful that many (as of 2013) would not consider it a form of popular music. At the beginning of the 20th century, art music was divided into "serious music" and " light music". During the second half of the century, there was a large-scale trend in American culture toward blurring the boundaries between art and
pop music Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former descri ...
. Beginning in 1966, the degree of social and artistic dialogue among
rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States an ...
ians dramatically accelerated for bands who fused elements of composed music with the oral musical traditions of rock. During the late 1960s and 1970s,
progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. In ...
bands represented a form of
crossover music Crossover is a term applied to musical works or performers who appeal to different types of audience. This can be seen, for example, (especially in the United States) when a song appears on two or more of the record charts which track differi ...
that combined rock with high art musical forms either through quotation, allusion, or imitation.
Progressive music Progressive music is music that attempts to expand existing stylistic boundaries associated with specific genres of music. The word comes from the basic concept of "progress", which refers to advancements through accumulation, and is often de ...
may be equated with explicit references to aspects of art music, sometimes resulting in the reification of rock as art music. While progressive rock is often cited for its merging of
high culture High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society con ...
and
low culture In sociology, the term Low culture identifies the forms of popular culture that have Commoner, mass appeal, which is in contrast to High culture, which has a limited appeal to a smaller proportion of the populace. Culture theory proposes that b ...
, few artists incorporated literal classical themes in their work to any great degree, as author Kevin Holm-Hudson explains: "sometimes progressive rock fails to integrate classical sources ... tmoves continuously between explicit and implicit references to genres and strategies derived not only from European art music, but other cultural domains (such as East Indian, Celtic, folk, and African) and hence involves a continuous aesthetic movement between
formalism Formalism may refer to: * Form (disambiguation) * Formal (disambiguation) * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scie ...
and
eclecticism Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories i ...
".


See also

* List of classical and art music traditions * Art song * Music genre *
Progressive music Progressive music is music that attempts to expand existing stylistic boundaries associated with specific genres of music. The word comes from the basic concept of "progress", which refers to advancements through accumulation, and is often de ...
*
Traditional music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...


References


Further reading

* * *


External links

* {{Authority control Music genres Musicology