Avant Garde and Experimental Music: Defined?

As a genre, the avant garde seems impossible to define, except to supply it with a time period. As stated in Grove (Oxford Music Online), the avant garde began in the late 19th century and continues into the present day.  Attempting to define avant garde as a whole would be futile, it seems more prudent to label it as what it is not.


The avant garde, therefore, is a variety of art and music that is non-mainstream or non-popular, non-commercial, and non-classical. Not to say that avant garde does not break into mainstream art and music, it does. This point functions to reason that it's creation lies outside the purposes of mainstream media. In Grove, a departure from the norm defines avant garde. Built as an attempt to break away, avant garde simply relies on forcing a response from the intended audience. This response could be intended or not, but avant garde never relies on face value as would classical and baroque art. This distinction can be seen by juxtaposing avant garde art with Renaissance art, where the idea represented and the motive behind a work are clear. In avant garde, a point need not be made, it may simply be a work intended to provoke thought and require attention from the audience.

David by Donatello (1469, above) is a Renaissance work that requires little, if any, audience interaction. Raphael lays out all the information the viewer needs to discern the meaning of the work, as well as what the work represents.  Below that rests Kandinsky's Composition VII (1913). In this work, what is the meaning? Whom or what does it portray? What does the orange color in the bottom right hand corner signify? This work, unlike David, requires consideration. Could the distinction of what is avant garde be so simple? If so, would the timeline have to change?

Experimental music flows in the same vein as avant garde, a variety of music that allows for the element of uncontrolled and unpredictable noise. Wikipedia makes this statement at the beginning of the article on experimental music. However, does music not inherently have this quality? Is there not always uncontrolled sound and unpredictable noise in every piece of music and art? It seems redundant to label anything that way. By nature, music will have that element. There is no way for a composer to know that a horn player will not frack a note, that the brass will play every chord in tune. At the most professional level, the noises sounds spit valves being released, pages turning, and other miscellaneous sounds remain.

A departure from the norm permeates both genres, which also begs a question. Does not all music seek to create something new? If we accept that one piece differs from another in function or style, than music has been changing since it began. Following this line of thinking, all music would be different than that which came before. Did not some composers attempt to separate themselves from their peers by creating something new? Criticism of art would play a role in this as well. With self criticism or public, an artist would change what he/she had done in order to create a 'better' project. This again leaves questions. By attempting to create a better project, a different project, would not an artist inherently be departing from the norm?

The only fast and true statements that can be gleamed from studying the definitions of what avant garde and experimental music are, are that avant garde began (in name) just before the turn of the twentieth century, and that they make an attempt to break away from what they consider to be 'normal art'.