Atonal section

I've been noticing that the purpose of the experimental/atonal section is slightly confusing, since most of the music there is not atonal or experimental in its mechanics. I appreciate that "experimental" is a broad word, but in the largest context refers to music using a wide variety of extended techniques. Would it be possible to separate these categories to make things clearer?

I've been noticing that the purpose of the experimental/atonal section is slightly confusing, since most of the music there is not atonal or experimental in its mechanics. I appreciate that "experimental" is a broad word, but in the largest context refers to music using a wide variety of extended techniques. Would it be possible to separate these categories to make things clearer?

Christopher, I believe the fault (if you can call it that) should go mostly on the people who judge their music as experimental. However, one must also notice that there isn't a clear definition to "experimental" or "other". People should vote on this.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of people who are not aware of what constitutes "experimental" in the sense intended here. I could experiment with Ars Nova, but that doesn't make it experimental music.

I dunno...maybe separating them is a good idea. Right now it's just a catch-all for anything that doesn't seem to fit anywhere else.

Lee is right in saying that it is a catch-all, because it is called Experimental, Atonal, or Other. Some people in fact originally found it a little demeaning to the genre that we had lumped "Other" in with Experimental, but because experimental music is on the fringe, so to speak, we decided to just slot it in there with Other for convenience's sake. The effect of this is that the works in the Experimental, Atonal, or Other forum can in fact be any pieces which don't fit into the other categories provided (i.e. Orchestral, Chamber, etc.).

As for an Atonal section, this is an interesting idea. However, I have always been wary of having too many forums on here. The more fragmented the place is, the less user-friendly the environment. Furthermore, I don't feel we would get many suitable submissions for an Atonal forum, because thus far most of the music posted on YC has been tonal.

I do think the idea of seperating them out makes sense aside from the fragmentation issue, though, and am interested to hear others' opinions on the matter.