Experimental

Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. There is an overlap with

Experimental music is any music that challenges the commonly accepted notions of what music is. There is an overlap with avant-garde music. John Cage was a pioneer in experimental music and defined and gave credibility to the form. David Cope (1997), describes experimental music as that, "which represents a refusal to accept the status quo."

Michael Nyman in his book Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond uses the term "experimental" to describe the work of American modernist composers (John Cage, Christian Wolff, Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Terry Riley, LaMonte Young, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, etc.) as opposed to the European avant-garde at the time (Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis). The "experiment" is not whether a piece succeeds or fails, but is in the fact that the outcome of the piece is uncertain (or unforeseeable).