NEW MUSIC
The improvement of old instruments and the introduction of new ones will call for an unprecedented revision of old music and a creation of new. When music was written for the well-tempered clavichord it was limited to the resources of that instrument. The same is true of music for all instruments. The music had to be limited to the available resources of the instrument. It is reasonable to suppose that composers will respond from time to time with up-to-date adaptations and new creations, taking advantage of each of the new resources for range of pitch and loudness and new resources for variety in harmony and richness of tone. It is equally conceivable that the composer may set up new demands to which the inventor and instrument maker may respond on call. It is difficult to realize what extraordinary enrichment in musical resources may spring up under the impetus of new instrumental resources. There will be new treatments of scales and intervals, since the pitch control will be far more flexible than it has been. Perhaps one of the largest innovations will be in the freer use of intonation not built on any particular scale but soaring with the greatest freedom on an instrument as we now hear it, for example, in the singing of Negro spirituals. Performance scores show that these natural singers defy scales, but produce beautiful effects through their free and soaring pitch inflection. Stringed instruments have been hampered by accompaniment and by tradition and theory. We can anticipate significant developments outside of our diatonic scale which has come to be a sort of strait-jacket, at least theoretically. It has been shown, for example, that a quarter-tone instrument is not of much use unless music is written not only for these intervals but in modes, themes, and atmosphere adapted to such purpose. The pitch range of the composition will be extended; so also will the dynamic range. Countless new features can be introduced for enrichment of tone and variety of harmony. Nomenclature will develop so that the composer may not only think in definable terms but may be able to inject new elements of terminology into the score. For various types of ensembles the music will, of course, have to be written or adapted specifically. Stunt music will here find unlimited opportunities for novelty and escape from conventional tone. This may give us relief from the limitations of jazz and swing, which have been so boring in recent years. There will undoubtedly be great bewilderment as to the limits of tolerance for new media and new forms for musical creations. History has revealed clearly that the adaptation of taste and tolerance requires time, and conservatism is often a beneficent safeguard.
The most fundamental recent achievement in the building of new instruments is that of producing pure tones as well as rich tones in perfect harmonic structure without accessories. But for various reasons music has always utilized more or less inharmonic structures and has imitated, or at least tolerated, noises in the forms of hisses, twangs, and all kinds of inharmonic and noisy distortion. Recourse to discord will always be demanded in music; but it is a question as to what extent aperiodic sounds or noises are necessary. We have learned to accept the hisses, scratches, rattles, thuds, and bangs of countless varieties in musical tone. Some such accretions are present in the tone production of every instrument now in use. They have arisen as impediments in construction, but have come to be accepted as characteristics of the instrument and therefore have added greatly to the individuality of each instrument. Will the future musical public insist on having these or will there be a feeling of relief when we can get rid of them? The answer is probably in the middle ground because music, at least as we know it now, calls for a great variety of noises in the interest of realism. Possibly in the future, noise may be given a chastened and more honorable place in the family of tone qualities.
The significant thing to note here is that in new types of instruments any kind of crude sound or noise can be introduced at will. This will answer the purpose of program music in that perfectly realistic reproductions can be made of the sound of steps in marching, the slam of a door, the squeal of a pig, the bleat of a lamb, the crow of a rooster, the roar of an airplane, the sigh of the wind. A comparatively small outfit of sources for accessory noises can serve a great variety of purposes in the hands of the artist. New responsibilities for the composer in these respects may be foreseen.