Can you name one piece of music that doesn't conform to conventions of music theory/genre?

Question

a totally original work.

OMFG WHIPPERS! that is original!

but is it music???

Answer 1

Harry Partch was a real hobo. His music is totally original. Of course, there is always some coherence, some method in a composition. Even John Cage realized that no matter how random the sounds, the human mind organizes anyway.

I remember listening to a two-piano piece by Stockhausen and at one point thinking that it was downright funky!

Answer 2

For other "unconventional" influential composers check out the music of:

Charles Ives ("The Unanswered Question" for trumpet and string players situated all over the auditorium; "Fourth Symphony" which effectively captures the sounds of multiple bands and orchestras playing different melodies in different keys all at the same time.)

Henry Cowell (whose music such as "Aeolian Harp" or "The Banshee" requires the pianist to play the piano using fists, pieces of wood, or by strumming the strings of the piano like a harp.)

Harry Partch (who wrote theatrical music pieces such as "Delusion of the Fury" and "On The Seventh Day The Petals Fell On Petaluma" for invented instruments made from found objects like spent nuclear reactor collection bowls which were tuned to 11 or 43 note microtonal scales.)

And the late Karlheinz Stockhausen (he recently passed away)- check out his pieces "Gesange der Junglinge" and "Kontakte" for electronically generated and processed sounds recorded onto reel-to-reel tape. They really sound like nothing else you have probably heard before!

Answer 3

Each great work had this problem, at the beginning of its own "life": each masterpiece IS a masterpiece for the reason that "it doesn't conform to conventions".
They are a few pieces that are more "unconform" than others. For example, the entire cycle of Wagner's "Ring": one opera in four evenings. Or, the music of Gesualdo (which can be so "wagnerian", in the XVI-th century).
I'll give you another example: Claude Debussy's "Trois Nocturnes pour Orchestre". I refer to the second nocturne, which has nothing to do with the musical and aesthetic meaning of the nocturne: it' a tarantella.

Answer 4

lol, well how about Cage's 4'33'' for piano? It's composed for solo piano and the pianist just sits there for four minutes and 33 seconds. That's original.

There is one composer, whom I am doing my thesis on, that invented his own style of composition called Tintinnabulation. Check out Arvo Part on Grove or Wikipedia. Preferably the former if you can access it.

Good luck!

Answer 5

Anything by Olivier Messiaen....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiaen

http://youtube.com/watch?v=OJ-GwxyJ2ZY&feature=related

Answer 6

Just about anything written by John Cage.
Example link follows.

Answer 7

Sibelius' 7th symphony which is in one movement only, rather than the usual 4.

Answer 8

VARESE!!!!