CAT 2025 Question Paper | VARC Slot 1

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The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.

Often the well intentioned music lover or the traditionally-minded professional composer asks two basic questions when faced with the electronic music phenomena: (1) . . . is this type of artistic creation music at all? and, (2) given that the product is accepted as music of a new type or order, is not such music “inhuman”? . . . As Lejaren Hiller points out in his book Experimental Music (co-author Leonard M. Isaacson), two questions which often arise when music is discussed are: (a) the substance of musical communication and its symbolic and semantic significance, if any, and (b) the particular processes, both mental and technical, which are involved in creating and responding to musical composition. The ever-present popular concept of music as a direct, open, emotional expression and as a subjective form of communication from the composer, is, of course still that of the nineteenth century, when composers themselves spoke of music in those terms . . . But since the third decade of our century many composers have preferred more objective definitions of music, epitomized in Stravinsky’s description of it as “a form of speculation in terms of sound and time”. An acceptance of this more characteristic twentieth-century view of the art of musical composition will of course immediately bring the layman closer to an understanding of, and sympathetic response to, electronic music, even if the forms, sounds and approaches it uses will still be of a foreign nature to him.

A communication problem however will still remain. The principal barrier that electronic music presents at large, in relation to the communication process, is that composers in this medium are employing a new language of forms . . . where terms like ‘densities’, ‘indefinite pitch relations’, ‘dynamic serialization’, ‘permutation’, etc., are substitutes (or remote equivalents) for the traditional concepts of harmony, melody, rhythm, etc. . . . When the new structural procedures of electronic music are at last fully understood by the listener the barriers between him and the work he faces will be removed. . . .

The medium of electronic music has of course tempted many kinds of composers to try their hand at it . . . But the serious-minded composer approaches the world of electronic music with a more sophisticated and profound concept of creation. Although he knows that he can reproduce and employ melodic, rhythmic patterns and timbres of a traditional nature, he feels that it is in the exploration of sui generis languages and forms that the aesthetic magic of the new medium lies. And, conscientiously, he plunges into this search.

The second objection usually levelled against electronic music is much more innocent in nature. When people speak—sometimes very vehemently—of the ‘inhuman’ quality of this music they seem to forget that the composer is the one who fires the machines, collects the sounds, manipulates them, pushes the buttons, programs the computer, filters the sounds, establishes pitches and scales, splices tape, thinks of forms, and rounds up the over-all structure of the piece, as well as every detail of it.

Question 9 : What relation does the “communication problem” mentioned in paragraph 2 have to the questions that the author recounts at the beginning of the passage?

Explanatory Answer

In the beginning of the passage, the author says that traditionally-minded professional composers ask whether electronic music is music and question whether such music is not inhuman. The 'communication problem' mentioned in the second paragraph relates to the unfamiliar terms used in electronic music. The author says that when these terms are fully understood by listeners, barriers between them and electronic music will be removed. The idea here is that unfamiliar forms and terms might get in the way of our seeing electronic music as music, but this can be overcome. Option 2 is the correct choice.
Option 1 is easily ruled out as it says 'music must be difficult to understand'. Option 3 is also out, as the communication problem is part of the reason why the question of whether electronic music is music comes up. Option 4 says electronic music does not employ traditional musical concepts. This is incorrect. Electronic music just uses different terms for the same concepts.

The question is " What relation does the “communication problem” mentioned in paragraph 2 have to the questions that the author recounts at the beginning of the passage? "

Hence, the answer is 'Unfamiliar forms and terms might get in the way of our seeing electronic music as music, but this can be overcome.'

Choice 2 is the correct answer.

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