The Future of Modern Music: A Vibrant New Modernism in Music for the Future

Rating:
Summary: insightful; cursory at times philosophically
Review: The Future of Modern Music (TFMM) highlights the tradition and changing role of modernity in classical music of the 20th century. As a student participant of the 2001 summer CCMIX program ... I firsthand gained from the pedagogy founded on sound based composition which is the focus of both CCMIX and McHard's book. ....

I categorize TFMM as a book that attempts to place the compositional modernity of the last century into a hyper modern role in the present. By hyper modernity I posit that TFMM supports the Western assumption that the detached theoretical viewpoint is superior to the involved practical viewpoint. Nevertheless, TFMM succeeds in relating the important transitions that classical music has made in the 20th century and is a worthy book to read especially for the classical listener who is not familiar with the advances of composition in this past century.