Downtown Music - Related Terms

Related Terms

There is a considerable overlap between Downtown music and what is more generally called experimental music, especially as that term was defined at length by composer Michael Nyman in his influential book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (1974, second edition 1999). Nyman opposes the term to avant-garde, as generally being American/British versus Continental, experimental music being more open to process, surprises, and accidents and less focused on the artistic personality. In this respect, as a general descriptive, and without reference to any particular scene, experimental and Downtown have sometimes been used synonymously. Another, even more coextensive term is new music, which took on currency following the "New Music New York" festival presented by The Kitchen in 1979, which visibly showcased the music referred to as Downtown; the term remained in widespread use during the years of the New Music America festival (1979–1990). Due to its obvious and inconvenient applicability to many types of music, use of "new music" as describing a specific type of contemporary composition has fallen off in recent years.