Music Abstract – Find Your Own Associations And Meanings

music abstract

Music Abstract depends heavily on processed sounds where the concepts of rhythm and melody are dissolved and the sounds take on a complex inner structure that is constantly morphing and changing.

Music Abstract is a concept in music that describes music as an art form separated from formalisms or other considerations; it is not explicitly about anything; it is non-representational. In contrast to program music, Music Abstract makes sense without accompanying words, images, drama, or dance, or other kind of extra-musical idea. The idea of Music Abstract developed at the end of the 18th century in the writings of authors of early German Romanticism, such as Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck, Richard Wagner and E. T. A. Hoffmann.
Music Abstract usually focuses not on the known and familiar, but rather the alien and otherworldly, where the listener must find his own associations and meanings.
Music Abstract can range from completely abstract soundscapes to songs that only implement abstract elements but within a more regular song structure with rhythms and melodies, with the latter type usually labeled abstract because of an unusual structure consisting of sound effects and unusual rhythms. A lot of times artists will aim for a psychedelic and dreamlike effect by implementing abstract elements.