eric 9/3, JENCKS

As I was perusing Jencks' The Emergent Rules, I noticed a distinct dearth of musical examples of the 11 "new rules." This set me to thinking are both popular music and the children of european art music too young to be postmodern? "Surely not," thought I.

Neigh, both popular music (Jazz, Rock and Roll, Blues, Punk, Adult Alternative, Contemporary country, Electronic Dance Music, Hardcore, Metal, Grind, Noise. [You get it, or if you don't: lookitup!]) and contemporary art music(John Cage, John Adams, Phillip Glass etc.) are elementally post-modern.

Many popular music groups choose names for themselves that SYMBOLISE (ISE ISE ISE) something about them; be it their politics, their tastes, their sound, or what they think sounds cool. Some particularly contempory groups pick ironic or clever names (Dead Kennedys, Joy Division, Tony Danza Tapdance extravaganza, I love you but I've chosen darkness, The Who).

Electronic music possesses a tremendous postmodernity. The foundations of many works of Electronic music are made from sequenced samples of other works of music, movies, or even everyday sounds.

contemporary art music mutilates the strictures of form and harmony into works that classical composers would regard as abberations. Some composers incorperate music from different cultures into traditional european art music peices. Others write music through the use of mathematics. Some use dissonance for the same purpose the composers of old used a particularlly dramatic chord change. John Cage's 4:33 is nothing but 4 minutes and 33 seconds of a pianist sitting at a bench and doing absolutly nothing.