1. Contemporary Classical Music

2. Influences Beginning in the 1950’s classical music was influenced by:
Experimentalism: Atonality, extended chords, polyrhythm, etc.
Multiculturalism: New instruments, scales, rhythms, styles, etc.
Electronic Instruments: Tape recorder, synthesizer, sound processing, etc.
Aleatoric Music: Songs where some elements like pitch or timing are left up to “chance.”

3. Examples John Cage: “4’33”” (1952) – absolute silence
Karlheintz Stockhausen: “Klavierstücke XI” (1954) – Aleatoric piece (play 19 sections in any order) sheetmusic
Steve Reich: “Music for 18 Musicians” (1976) - Repetition, electronic processing, aleatoric
Phillip Glass & Ravi Shankar: “Passages” (1990) – Mixes Indian and European music styles (Mozart in Egypt)
Reich: “Pendulum Music”

4. More Contemporary Techniques
Microtonal Music – Music that uses microtones, intervals that are smaller than a half-step (the smallest interval in traditional harmony) Tone Clusters – Chords with added adjacent notes (fists on the keyboard sound) Eric Whitacre: “When David Heard that Absalom was Slain” (1999) - Tonal Clusters, free meter

5. Examples
György Ligeti: “Lux Aeterna” (1966) - Microtonal clusters, “foggy” sound
Eric Whitacre: “Cloud Burst” (1992) - Tonal clusters, aleatoric effects
John Adams: “A Short Ride in a Fast Machine” (1986). - Poly-rhythms, clusters, repetitive