MUSICAL STYLE IN THE 20th CENTURY

---

• All sounds are possible (even no sounds).
  
• New instruments and the sounds of popular music have changed the soundscape of the twentieth century.
  
• Contrapuntal textures prevail in art traditions. Popular traditions are centered on homophonic textures.
  
• Rhythmic language can be enormously complex.
  
• Melodies can be long and abstract or reduced to small gestures.
  
• Any harmonic combination is possible. Composers have made use of extreme dissonance as well as microtonal intervals.
  
• Form can be controlled to an almost infinite degree, or it may be the result of improvisation and chance.