Edited sentence: A precursor to postmodern classicism would be found in the third-stream style of music of the 1970s and 80s, with such popular artists as Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, and the band Pink Floyd.Arnold Schoenberg makes plain his own stance regarding the visual nature of western musical tradition when he spent a few weeks after completing the composition of the Gurre-Lieder in 1911 avoiding music composition altogether, devoting himself to painting instead.It is little wonder the atonalists pride themselves more upon grace of line and oddness of tone in general, rather than plumbing the soul of nature for musical sounds as yet undiscovered.It was inevitable with the ingrown cynicism of much intellectual and emotionally sterile academic music of the second half of the twentieth century, that there would come a time when "popular music" eventually found as much if not more seriousness than so-called "serious" music.One of the most notable uses of modernistic experimentation has been to create a music so detached from common mores of communication, that it has been found useful in expressing such ideals as insanity, detachment, self-absoption and abject cynicism.This is an outgrowth of the academic fascination with the way music looks upon the page, rather than what it sounds like.While much good has come out of the experiments of the atonalists and serialists, it is the artist steeped in the maintaining of a rich, western music tradition which will contribute to the eventual hope of the art's advancement