I can? :lol:
Well, I can try...
When it comes to art music peeps are experimenting all the time. So I guess first it's experimental, then it gets labeled as something else once it's established.
Some of the great experimentalists/innovators of the last hundred or so years were:
Claude Debussy - increased the harmonic spectrum by introducing extended chords and harmonies, introduced regular use of the whole tone, pentatonic scales etc., created works with no real tonal centres, works used a much freer construction that previously.
Arnold Schoenberg - expanded on Debussy's ideas by making music with an entirely new system where all notes of the scale have equal strength.
John Cage - created music that challenged the very notion of what music is or should be. Employed new sounds by old instruments, such as in his prepared piano pieces (objects placed on strings).
Edgar Varèse - Use of tape, new sounds
Luciano Berio
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Wait; this'll take forever. I'll find a link to post. :lol:
Edit- Ok, this is a very good overview of what's been going on in the recent past; from
The Rest Is Noise by Alex Ross
http://www.therestisnoise.com/2007/01/book-audiofiles.html
Edit 2- Just realized, the beginning of my post sounds a bit snotty; I just mean that there's so much stuff going on that it's impossible for me to keep up with it all.
Edit 3- Even though this vid does a disservice to twelve tone music and composers (sorry!) by stereotyping their music, I have to post it, cuz it makes me laugh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LACCAF04wSs
:lol: