Micro Music Laboratories, Avant Garde Music 02

Avant Garde Music
The Microcosm of Music

JOURNALIST: I would like to come back to the old question: “What is disharmonical music?”

PETER HUEBNER: Disharmonical music is music which in its elements but also as a whole is perceived by the plain healthy human being as acoustic to his ear, brain, organism and ultimately also from an holistic point of view as physically and spontaneously unpleasant.

And as already said earlier, this phenomenon of unpleasant feeling is based on the fact that the biological systems and therefore also the human being himself are harmonically structured, the biological processes run harmonically and these organ structures automatically reject everything that does not correspond to its natural harmonical framework.

One can educate oneself and/or be educated to be seemingly insensitive or tough – as we also know it from swimmers who, in the winter when there is snow, swim in rivers or from smokers, alcoholics and drug consumers.

But just as the organism normally and naturally, spontaneously rejects the bitter cold and accordingly nicotine, alcohol and drugs, it rejects the structure of disharmony which is foreign to its nature.

JOURNALIST: You talked about dissonance and disharmony ...

PETER HUEBNER: It is very important, to differentiate between dissonance and disharmony. Dissonance is correctly described as the rejection of the natural volume conditions of overtones, and disharmony is sensibly described as the disregard of the harmonical, of the naturally harmonious from the side of the modern avant-garde music creators, as well as the modern interpreters of classical music.

With the avant-garde group, the disregard mainly stands out tonally, and the simple listener spontaneously perceives their music, as out of tune. And with the modern interpreters of classical music the disregard of the harmonical mainly stands out rhythmically. However, both more or less applies for the whole industry of light music – from so-called folk-music to rock and pop music.

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