Art Music Essay

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Art music (or serious music[1] or erudite music) is an umbrella term used to refer to musical traditions implying advanced structural and theoretical considerations[2] and a written musical tradition.[3] The notion of art music is a frequent and well defined musicological distinction, e.g., referred to by musicologist Philip Tagg as one of an "axiomatic triangle consisting of 'folk', 'art' and 'popular' musics."[4] He explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria.[4] In this regard, it is frequently used as a contrasting term to popular music and traditional or folk music.[1][3][5] Contents [hide] 1 Definition 2 Characteristics 3 Relationship with popular music 4 Relationship with traditional music 5 See also 6 References [edit] Definition This term is mostly used to refer to music descending from classical tradition. This is the common definition referred by many musicologists and scholars including Susan McClary,[6] Lawrence Kramer,[7] Theodor Adorno,[8]Deryck Cooke,[9] Joseph Swain,[10] Nicholas Cook, Nicola Dibben,[11] Philip Tagg,[12] or Gregory Booth and Terry Lee Kuhn.[13] Many of these authors, however, tend to be critical or prudent with respect to certain implications of this classification. Those authors most particularly associated with critical musicology movement and popular music studies like Tagg tend to reject latent social elitism that has sometimes been associated with this classification. Some other authors interested in music theory may define art music differently. Musician Catherine Schmidt-Jones for example 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, "[t]his can include the more challenging types of jazz and rock music, as well as Classical."[14]
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