# "Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music"



## Guest (Jul 14, 2016)

*"Indifference to dissonance in native Amazonians reveals cultural variation in music"*

Research published in Nature magazine suggests culture plays a more important role than biology in aesthetic perceptions of consonance and dissonance.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature18635.html

Interesting!

You can also find more simplistic headline claims in other media.

International Business Times

PBS Newhour

The Atlantic


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

These reports are pretty shallow and simplistic. Only the Atlantic article presents any nuanced discussion and includes qualifying remarks (by Daniel Bowling and Diana Deutsch).

Music doesn't consist of raw sonic data, but of organized sounds. Consonance and dissonance are perceived in the context of musical styles, and music is perceived in the context of culture. I find most interesting the fact that people exposed to Western music - unlike the Tsimane - generally find more consonant intervals more pleasant. What that says to me is that they have heard consonance and dissonance used in a musical context which affects the way in which they perceive it, possibly by making them more sensitive to the distinctive qualities of intervals and chords and to their expressive potential when used as part of a harmonic system. And, as Diana Deutsch points out, specific harmonies may sound more or less consonant or dissonant, and pleasant or unpleasant, depending on their musical context. The Tsimane don't have harmony in their music, so these considerations don't play a part in how they perceive individual sounds.

Merely exposing people to sounds as if they were taste-testing food or drink tells us little of interest about musical perception - which, like all perception, has to begin with nature and is then shaped by culture.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Interesting read but it's a worthless study. Can't we find better ways to use money?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I'm not sure there's even an objective definition for "consonance" other than "not dissonant" and for "dissonance" other than "not consonant". EXCEPT in the context of the cultural baseplate, these words have no meaning.

The Greeks tuned the western ear to the Perfect 5th, a mathematically pure ratio of 3:2, and the Pythagorean scale constructed based on this ratio. It worked great for perfect 5ths, but other intervals sounded like crap. Improvements sound-wise (and sacrifices mathematically) were made to the tuning (just intonation, then equal temperament) as appetite for other intervals (and tolerance for dissonance, ie. deviation from the perfect 5th), grew over the centuries.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Well, this was obvious already, but it's nice to have something that shows it more objectively.

I think that since the early 20th century, with the rise of jazz and the popular music influenced thereby, dissonance has already become less associated with "unpleasant" or "ugly" even in the popular mind. A song that ends on a dominant seventh harmony can sound resolved, a major seventh or major second can add a pleasant thickness and bite to an otherwise banal progression. None of this is in doubt except by extreme reactionaries who think that Common Practice is a biological law on the basis of their own lack of appreciation for other things.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> None of this is in doubt except by extreme reactionaries who think that Common Practice is a biological law on the basis of their own lack of appreciation for other things.


Yikes. There is a lot in between "Mozart is natural law" and "consonance and dissonance are entirely social constructs."

Both of those are wrong.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Yikes. There is a lot in between "Mozart is natural law" and "consonance and dissonance are entirely social constructs."
> 
> Both of those are wrong.


I have never said the latter, though I've been accused of it. Obviously different intervals sound different. Even different tunings of the same interval sound different. I'm not tone deaf, and can distinguish extremely fine gradations of pitch on top of having an excellent pitch memory.

People who maintain that reactions to dissonance and consonance are entirely a matter of nature are spewing complete nonsense, though.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I have never said the latter, though I've been accused of it. Obviously different intervals sound different. Even different tunings of the same interval sound different. I'm not tone deaf, and can distinguish extremely fine gradations of pitch on top of having an excellent pitch memory.
> 
> People who maintain that reactions to dissonance and consonance are entirely a matter of nature are spewing complete nonsense, though.


I agree with this. To some extent both extreme arguments are strawmen - I think very few people actually make either.

I do think Woodduck makes a good point above, though, in that if you present people with sounds divorced from any social context in which they would normally encounter music, the results may not tell you much about how music works.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I do think Woodduck makes a good point above, though, in that if you present people with sounds divorced from any social context in which they would normally encounter music, the results may not tell you much about how music works.


Funny, last time a study like this was mentioned, that was my line.

http://www.talkclassical.com/23993-dissonance-pleasure-post422026.html#post422026


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Funny, last time a study like this was mentioned, that was my line.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/23993-dissonance-pleasure-post422026.html#post422026


I like it when Mahlerian agrees with me.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Couchie said:


> I'm not sure there's even an objective definition for "consonance" other than "not dissonant" and for "dissonance" other than "not consonant". EXCEPT in the context of the cultural baseplate, these words have no meaning.
> 
> The Greeks tuned the western ear to the Perfect 5th, a mathematically pure ratio of 3:2, and the Pythagorean scale constructed based on this ratio. It worked great for perfect 5ths, but other intervals sounded like crap. Improvements sound-wise (and sacrifices mathematically) were made to the tuning (just intonation, then equal temperament) as appetite for other intervals (and tolerance for dissonance, ie. deviation from the perfect 5th), grew over the centuries.


Consonance and dissonance do not have "objective definitions" (as you put it) because they are _comparative_ terms derived from "sonance."

That's like saying that the fraction 1/2 has no "objective definition" as a quantity. Half of what? Half a million? Half of twenty?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> ...Consonance and dissonance are perceived in the context of musical styles, and music is perceived in the context of culture. I find most interesting the fact that people exposed to Western music - unlike the Tsimane - generally find more consonant intervals more pleasant. What that says to me is that they have heard consonance and dissonance used in a musical context which affects the way in which they perceive it, possibly by making them more sensitive to the distinctive qualities of intervals and chords and to their expressive potential when used as part of a harmonic system. And, as Diana Deutsch points out, specific harmonies may sound more or less consonant or dissonant, and pleasant or unpleasant, depending on their musical context. The Tsimane don't have harmony in their music, so these considerations don't play a part in how they perceive individual sounds.
> 
> Merely exposing people to sounds as if they were taste-testing food or drink tells us little of interest about musical perception - which, like all perception, has to begin with nature and is then shaped by culture.


Are we talking about sound as a real, physical phenomenon, or about social perception of music, which boils down in most cases to a matter of opinion? I think everyone on this forum is more comfortable with the "Nine Inch Nails sounds like crap" sort of mindset than they are with really exploring the physical reality of sound.

We all have eardrums, and they vibrate in the same way. Complex, "dissonant" waves, such as 9:16, especially if played loudly, would cause actual physical discomfort, or even damage. 
This chart illustrates this:

_Most dissonant _intervals to _most consonant _intervals, within one octave, using C as the reference, tonic, and "1" to which the ratios are part of:

1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1

The intervals have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; our ears/brain experience this as an instantaneous visceral sensation.

There is an objective, physical reality to sounds. The science of this is called _acoustics.

…(sarcastically) _Of course, we are not interested in science, but in _art.

_And any "objective facts" about sound are the natural enemy of people who like dissonant music; so that's their agenda, and that's what will be defended, and that's what will determine the parameters of this "opinion-fest."

Meanwhile, back in the real world, an octave is an octave is an octave is an octave…hey, I think I'm a poet.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

million - you're missing the tritone.

Also there are different ways of arriving at a minor seventh, and the "purest" one is the sixth overtone, giving you a ratio of 7:4 - actually one of the more consonant intervals, and probably closest to what you'll hear in certain kinds of unaccompanied singing.

While I agree that the relationship between acoustics and musical perception is interesting and important, I don't think it allows us to make an objective ranking of most to least dissonant intervals as you propose. Cultural conditioning plays too large a role.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *Are we talking about sound as a real, physical phenomenon, or about social perception of music, which boils down in most cases to a matter of opinion?* I think everyone on this forum is more comfortable with the "Nine Inch Nails sounds like crap" sort of mindset than they are with really exploring the physical reality of sound.
> 
> We all have eardrums, and they vibrate in the same way. Complex, "dissonant" waves, such as 9:16, especially if played loudly, would cause actual physical discomfort, or even damage.
> This chart illustrates this:
> ...


We're talking about subjective responses. The Tsimane were asked "Does this sound pleasant?", not "Does this sound consonant or dissonant?" Presumably, acoustical science isn't part of their culture and they have no opinion about it.

The experimenters may have thought that by seeking out people with no exposure to Western music they would find some kind of "universal," culturally neutral perceptual trait, such as a natural, physiological aversion to dissonance. The problem is, all the experiment appears to prove is that some humans, under some circumstances, don't appear to dislike certain selected more dissonant sounds, heard in isolation (i.e. outside of any musical context), more than certain more consonant sounds.

This is, at best, a trivial piece of information, and shouldn't tell us more than we already know, or can guess. As I said, the most interesting fact in these superficial articles is the fact that people who have been exposed to Western - i.e. complex harmonic (and presumably tonal) - music _tend_ (_tend_ being the important word) to find more consonant sounds more pleasing. What this tells me is not merely that people have acquired cultural associations with certain sounds, but that they've acquired a sense of how sounds can affect one another. They no longer hear the sounds as mere isolated sense data.

When sounds are heard in relation to one another, they acquire _meaning._ Dissonance, in a musical context, may connote, and evoke a physiological state of, unease, tension, or discomfort. Resolution of dissonance may bring satisfaction and pleasure. Alternatively, consonance may seem bland, and dissonance may create feelings of arousal, anticipation, excitement, etc. - again, depending on its musical context. If we have such a context to refer to, consciously or unconsciously, our feelings about individual sounds are apt to be influenced by it - i.e, by what those sounds _mean_ to us. Without a context, consonances and dissonances sound different, but the difference has little meaning; they're just individual percepts, points along a perceptual continuum, like colors or flavors.

I would add that the experiment doesn't prove that there are _no_ widely experienced differences in the physiological effects of consonant and dissonant sounds, even heard out of context. It tells us only what certain people, given certain sounds to react to, say they "like."

Sounds like an idea for a poll on TC. Personally, I "like" French sixths.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Morimur said:


> Interesting read but it's a worthless study. Can't we find better ways to use money?


Yeah, like protecting indigenous people from being murdered and driven off their land by militias hired by global corporations.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

starthrower said:


> Yeah, like protecting indigenous people from being murdered and driven off their land by militias hired by global corporations.


Exactly! Why can't we put Starthrower in charge of the world?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> million - you're missing the tritone.
> 
> Also there are different ways of arriving at a minor seventh, and the "purest" one is the sixth overtone, giving you a ratio of 7:4 - actually one of the more consonant intervals, and probably closest to what you'll hear in certain kinds of unaccompanied singing.
> 
> While I agree that the relationship between acoustics and musical perception is interesting and important, I don't think it allows us to make an objective ranking of most to least dissonant intervals as you propose. Cultural conditioning plays too large a role.


I meant major seventh, 8:15. I notice also in that chart that the minor second is not listed. That's a whopper of a dissonance.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Morimur said:


> Exactly! Why can't we put Starthrower in charge of the world?


The world wouldn't make any money with yours truly in charge. But we could listen to Schoenberg with the Amazonians.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> We're talking about subjective responses. The Tsimane were asked "Does this sound pleasant?", not "Does this sound consonant or dissonant?" Presumably, acoustical science isn't part of their culture and they have no opinion about it.


But they have sound. All the science did was quantify what was already there. These intervals exist in reality as wave on your eardrum which you could actually count.
Subjective responses are meaningless, and are better applied to things like "Does this taste pleasant?" where eating worms is good to some people, bad to others. This tells us nothing about the actual taste of worms, only the "idea" of eating them.



> The experimenters may have thought that by seeking out people with no exposure to Western music they would find some kind of "universal," culturally neutral perceptual trait, such as a natural, physiological aversion to dissonance.


The military developed a "sound cannon" which used dissonance. "Like or dislike" aside, certain intervals like the minor second, with lots of chaotic interference patterns, are have much more potential to cause physical damage, destroy speakers, etc...especially if played loudly.



> The problem is, all the experiment appears to prove is that some humans, under some circumstances, don't appear to dislike certain selected more dissonant sounds, heard in isolation (i.e. outside of any musical context), more than certain more consonant sounds.


Let's see which dissonances cause the most damage to their eardrums.



> This is, at best, a trivial piece of information, and shouldn't tell us more than we already know, or can guess.


It says nothing about "socially conditioned responses" because there is no musical context. What a useless study, unless we turn it up really loud and break wine glasses and stuff.



> As I said, the most interesting fact in these superficial articles is the fact that people who have been exposed to Western - i.e. complex harmonic (and presumably tonal) - music _tend_ (_tend_ being the important word) to find more consonant sounds more pleasing.


Have you noticed (refer to chart) that the simpler ratios are more consonant, and the larger ratios are more dissonant? This is the whole basis of Western music, and also a natural, universal aspect of sound itself (sustained discreet pitches).



> What this tells me is not merely that people have acquired cultural associations with certain sounds, but that they've acquired a sense of how sounds can affect one another. They no longer hear the sounds as mere isolated sense data.


"Mere" sense data? You mean "actual sound. This "acquired sense" is whatever it turns out to be, but certainly not a natural or predictable response.



> When sounds are heard in relation to one another, they acquire _meaning._ Dissonance, in a musical context, may connote, and evoke a physiological state of, unease, tension, or discomfort.


 That's getting sloppy. "Dissonance" is not an isolated quality; you just said this.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> But they have sound. All the science did was quantify what was already there. These intervals exist in reality as wave on your eardrum which you could actually count.
> Subjective responses are meaningless, and are better applied to things like "Does this taste pleasant?" where eating worms is good to some people, bad to others. This tells us nothing about the actual taste of worms, only the "idea" of eating them.
> 
> The military developed a "sound cannon" which used dissonance. "Like or dislike" aside, certain intervals like the minor second, with lots of chaotic interference patterns, are have much more potential to cause physical damage, destroy speakers, etc...especially if played loudly.
> ...


Of course there is such a thing as acoustic dissonance, and it is measurable. I think we get that. It just isn't what this study was studying, so what's the point of going on about it? No one was blowing out speakers or piercing eardrums. If they were, the Tsimane would no doubt have found that quite unpleasant. But that's not what the study was studying.

Nothing I said was "sloppy." I'm simply not talking about mathematical ratios, and there was no need to talk about them. The study was not studying ratios - but neither was it denying that "dissonance" has a physical meaning as well as a subjective one. In fact, I suspect that the experimenters used the harmonic ratios to choose the consonant and dissonant sounds they were playing to their subjects. They were simply finding out which of these consonant or dissonant sounds people liked.

Although this study, for reasons I've stated, was not very meaningful, subjective responses are not "meaningless." They are a legitimate object of study, and quite a bit more important than scientific descriptions to most people who have them. Apparently you just don't find them interesting. When you say "This tells us nothing about the actual taste of worms, only the 'idea' of eating them," you have it precisely backward. There is no such thing as "the _actual_ (i.e. intrinsic) taste of worms"; there is only "what worms taste like to people." You can study chemistry and the structure of taste buds till the cows come home and you will learn nothing about taste, which, like sound, is a phenomenon of perception. What food tastes like, and what music sounds like, is essentially subjective - which doesn't mean arbitrary, or unrelated to measurable physical phenomena. It just means that there is no taste without a taster, and no sound without a hearer. It's not subjective hearing, but mathematical measurement, which gives us only "an idea."

Sometimes, million, I think you get so carried away wielding the hammer of acoustic theory that everything begins to look like a nail. In this case, I doubt that you'd actually disagree with anything I said if you could just set aside that tool and take this study on its own (admittedly trivial) terms.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> And any "objective facts" about sound are the natural enemy of people who like dissonant music; so that's their agenda, and that's what will be defended, and that's what will determine the parameters of this "opinion-fest."


I don't like dissonant music, I just like music that's beautiful and well-constructed, which happens to include music which some perceive as dissonant. Dissonances in themselves are like consonances; just more intervals that can be used well or poorly.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

The perfect fourth used to be considered dissonant (in the medieval era). That already had me convinced that consonance and dissonance were to some degree debatable. 
That plus Debussy, I mean.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> The perfect fourth used to be considered dissonant (in the medieval era). That already had me convinced that consonance and dissonance were to some degree debatable.
> That plus Debussy, I mean.


Actually, it was considered consonant in the medieval era (while thirds were slightly dissonant and required resolution), and then reclassified as a dissonance in the renaissance and throughout the common practice era, except under certain conditions.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> These reports are pretty shallow and simplistic. Only the Atlantic article presents any nuanced discussion and includes qualifying remarks (by Daniel Bowling and Diana Deutsch).
> 
> Music doesn't consist of raw sonic data, but of organized sounds. Consonance and dissonance are perceived in the context of musical styles, and music is perceived in the context of culture. I find most interesting the fact that people exposed to Western music - unlike the Tsimane - generally find more consonant intervals more pleasant. What that says to me is that they have heard consonance and dissonance used in a musical context which affects the way in which they perceive it, possibly by making them more sensitive to the distinctive qualities of intervals and chords and to their expressive potential when used as part of a harmonic system. And, as Diana Deutsch points out, specific harmonies may sound more or less consonant or dissonant, and pleasant or unpleasant, depending on their musical context. The Tsimane don't have harmony in their music, so these considerations don't play a part in how they perceive individual sounds.
> 
> Merely exposing people to sounds as if they were taste-testing food or drink tells us little of interest about musical perception - which, like all perception, has to begin with nature and is then shaped by culture.


That explains why people who don't listen to classical music often find, say Mozart or a Bach tune appealing. It is inherently communicative.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> That explains why people who don't listen to classical music often find, say Mozart or a Bach tune appealing. It is inherently communicative.


They do? Why aren't most of them interested in listening to it then?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> They do? Why aren't most of them interested in listening to it then?


Most people grow up hearing 3 to 5 minute bits of music we'll call "songs". Mostly singing. The success of the smallish handful of these songs that are adapted from classical works, from Bach to Borodin, suggests to me that a dedicated effort to mine the classical repertoire for catchy, songworthy tunes, performed on the instruments common to popular song and with sung lyrics, would yield dozens, nay hundreds, thousands? of such songs that most people would immediately be interested in listening to. People would listen to Bach and Mozart then, just under other names.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> take this study on its own (admittedly trivial) terms.


Trivial? Given the frequency and intensity with which some members here debate the subjective v objective, and the nature v nurture, I beg to differ. The articles reporting the study may have simplified, but I don't agree that providing evidence (not 'proof', for those who prefer that interpretation of the word 'evidence') towards the hypothesis that perceptions of 'pleasant' are more dependent on cultural conditioning than biology is a trivial matter...

(...although in comparison with the question, "What does it all mean?" or "Whither civilisation?", it won't solve the problems of humanity!)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Trivial? Given the frequency and intensity with which some members here debate the subjective v objective, and the nature v nurture, I beg to differ. The articles reporting the study may have simplified, but I don't agree that providing evidence (not 'proof', for those who prefer that interpretation of the word 'evidence') towards the hypothesis that perceptions of 'pleasant' are more dependent on cultural conditioning than biology is a trivial matter...
> 
> (...although in comparison with the question, "What does it all mean?" or "Whither civilisation?", it won't solve the problems of humanity!)


We differ on the value, and possibly the meaning, of this study. It does prove that there is no simple, universally shared response to any particular degree of dissonance in an isolated, contextless sound. Well, its hard for me to imagine anyone with a basic understanding of perceptual processes thinking otherwise. I guess its good to know that people who have never heard major thirds and perfect fourths don't have a preference. But why would we expect them to? Our own perceptions of these intervals, and our affective responses to them, are musically context-related and quite varied. Without that context, we would expect at least a substantial absence of such differential responses. To a person without context, a sound is just a sound.

I find this statement interesting: _"What we found is the preference for consonance over dissonance varies dramatically across those five groups," McDermott says. "In the Tsimane it's undetectable, and in the two groups in Bolivia, there's a statistically significant but small preference. In the American groups it's quite a bit larger, and *it's bigger in the musicians than in the non-musicians.*"_

That statement suggests to me that the matter may be more complex than "biology versus culture." The question it raises for me - especially that last clause about musicians - is whether the alternative to biologically innate responses to sonance is not merely acculturated preference, but, as I suggested in my initial response, the effect of a structured musical context on the perception of sonance. The brain's desire to create, and ability to perceive, musical structure - particularly, but not only, hierarchical tonal structure - is quite powerful, and when such structure is perceived, individual tones and harmonies take on meaning they don't possess when heard purely as isolated sounds. Plausibly, musicians are likely to be most sensitive to contextual meanings (affective and intellectual) of sounds in context. (They will also tend to be most sensitive to such purely perceptual differences as timbre, pitch, and tuning.) Musical experience is acculturation of a sort, but is more than a matter of habituated preferences. We may experience sounds differently when we have learned - possibly by performing them - what sounds can mean in relation to one another.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> They do? Why aren't most of them interested in listening to it then?


I am referring to the popular tunes by Mozart or Bach for example that people can whistle and feel good about. There is something "naturally communicative" about such tunes.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ah, the Tsimane' of Amazonia don't prefer consonant sounds to dissonant sounds? Have we discovered a tribe of tone-deaf people?

Many years ago there was one of these expeditions to the pygmies of Africa, to see what kind of Western music they preferred. Their choice seemed to be Back organ fugues. I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from that.

I add the experience of a professor who surveyed the isolated villages in Hungary in the early 1900s, playing Haydn on his phonograph and asking if the villagers knew these tunes. The villagers quickly learned that they would get better tips if they said, “Yes, of course. This is a tune from the next village, over beyond those hills!” And so it went. To this day, the villagers sing the tunes that the professor taught them.


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## Guest (Jul 17, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I guess its good to know that people who have never heard major thirds and perfect fourths don't have a preference. But why would we expect them to? Our own perceptions of these intervals, and our affective responses to them, are musically context-related and quite varied. Without that context, we would expect at least a substantial absence of such differential responses. To a person without context, a sound is just a sound.


Yet even 'contexless' (I'll come to that word in a minute) one group had no preference yet two other groups did. If what you say is so, why did all the groups not return the same result?



Woodduck said:


> That statement suggests to me that the matter may be more complex than "biology versus culture." The question it raises for me - especially that last clause about musicians - is whether the alternative to biologically innate responses to sonance is not merely merely acculturated preference, but, as I suggested in my initial response, the effect of a structured musical context on the perception of sonance.


"More complex" - I agree. Yet those who offer the reason we like Mozart over Xenakis (I thought it would make a change from Schoenberg) is because CPT is natural - we were made to like CPT and everything that seems a rejection of CPT is unnatural - won't accept complexity.

Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by your idea of context. Are you saying that taking solitary tones alone is not enough - the tones need to be heard in a musical context? Or are you saying that an individual's appreciation of music depends on the environment they listen in, or their inherited listening habits and preferences? Or all of it?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Without knowing completely the exact methodology of this study, I would set it aside as providing evidence for anything. Consider: Were the Tsimane' asked to verbally express a preference, or to press a button, or were their responses obtained through physiological monitoring via instrumentation? Westerners armed with magic and goodies arrive in my village; they put things on my head and I hear odd noises--what to do or say? I like goodies but fear magic--what is the proper response? Does the Chief provide a powerful cue? Nope, we need to know a lot more about this study before we buy in.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Without knowing completely the exact methodology of this study, I would set it aside as providing evidence for anything. Consider: Were the Tsimane' asked to verbally express a preference, or to press a button, or were their responses obtained through physiological monitoring via instrumentation? Westerners armed with magic and goodies arrive in my village; they put things on my head and I hear odd noises--what to do or say? I like goodies but fear magic--what is the proper response? Does the Chief provide a powerful cue? Nope, we need to know a lot more about this study before we buy in.


They explain in the article that they were asked how pleasant or unpleasant they thought the sounds were. It is further explained that they understood the question being asked (when asked whether gasps or laughter were more pleasant, they strongly preferred the latter) and that they were in fact able to tell the difference between the different intervals (which a tone deaf person could not do).

So the study finds that, contrary to many studies conducted in the past, not everyone has an innate preference for thirds and sixths over sevenths and tritones.

I myself find a minor second in isolation very unpleasant (and a minor ninth more so), though naturally in context they can be expressive and beautiful, so it's not that the study confirms my own perceptions so much as that it suggests a variety in perceptions that I had suspected existed.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I retain my skepticism until I can see the exact details of the methodology fully, completely discussed. The Gold Standard experiments of this (or any) sort are double-blind and repeated. The researchers may have satisfied themselves that they were getting valid data, but only time will tell.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> I retain my skepticism until I can see the exact details of the methodology fully, completely discussed. The Gold Standard experiments of this (or any) sort are double-blind and repeated.


It was repeated, in fact (this is also mentioned), with a different group from the same tribe. I'm not sure how a study that gauges preferences could be double-blind.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

People prefer what they're exposed to most. There's no 'natural' predisposition for liking one set of sounds over another. Are there exceptions? Sure. I grew up with Latin music (Salsa, Cumbia, etc.) and always _hated_ the sound of it. I resented that my parents would blast the horrible noise whenever we had company.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> It was repeated, in fact (this is also mentioned), with a different group from the same tribe. I'm not sure how a study that gauges preferences could be double-blind.


It's not that I have any horse in this race; it's just that I'd like to see the full methodology but am too cheap and lazy to access the original, entire study. It does make a difference whether the researchers record voluntary, non-"biased" responses, or whether they are reading physiological data: heartrate, GSR, blood pressure, or something else. Maybe they are or aren't looking at knotted brows, squinting eyes--who knows? I don't. Different members of same tribe? Did Group 2 know about/observe/speak with Group 1 before/after testing? I'd also like to see a setup wherein naïve researchers have no idea what sounds the testees are hearing; they are just asked to record the responses. I could go on, but won't.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, it was considered consonant in the medieval era (while thirds were slightly dissonant and required resolution), and then reclassified as a dissonance in the renaissance and throughout the common practice era, except under certain conditions.


ok, wrong period, thanks Mahlerian  but proves my point even further!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> *Yet even 'contexless'* (I'll come to that word in a minute) *one group had no preference yet two other groups did. If what you say is so, why did all the groups not return the same result?*
> 
> "More complex" - I agree. Yet *those who offer the reason we like Mozart over Xenakis (I thought it would make a change from Schoenberg) is because CPT is natural - we were made to like CPT and everything that seems a rejection of CPT is unnatural - won't accept complexity.*
> *
> Anyway, I'm not sure what you mean by your idea of context.* *Are you saying that taking solitary tones alone is not enough *- the tones need to be heard in a musical context? *Or are you saying that an individual's appreciation of music depends on the environment they listen in, or their inherited listening habits and preferences?* Or all of it?


OK. I'll try again.

The Tsimane were the only group tested who had no exposure to Western music. The other groups were Bolivian town dwellers, city dwellers from La Paz, American non-musicians, and American musicians, each group having more such exposure than the last - and each group, correspondingly, having a stronger preference for consonant chords or intervals.

The "context" I refer to is - to quote myself - _"the effect of a structured [harmonic] musical context on the perception of sonance [consonance or dissonance]."_

To every new perception we have, we bring the context of our past experience and the sense of reality that experience has given us. The Tsimane listened to these sound with no relevant experiential context. Tsimane music has no harmony; they are not used to the effect of tones sounding together. The other groups brought that context to bear in varying degrees, and the greater the degree of harmonic experience, the greater their preference for consonant combinations of tones.

Concerning people who have no experience with harmonic music, an obvious question is: what would they prefer if they did? And if, as appears to be the case given the preferences of the other groups, they did end up preferring consonance to dissonance, how could we know whether that preference indicated mere habituation, or might - instead or additionally - result from an awakened awareness of qualities in sounds, and of the potential meaning of sounds, resulting from the perception of sounds heard in a new context: a complex musical context? The fact that musicians - the group most intimate with the nature and possibilities of sounds in combination - had the greatest preference for consonance, is at least suggestive.

My point is that there is possibly more to the preference for consonance than habituation to music in which consonance predominates. A conclusion, based on this experiment alone, that the preference for consonance has no biological basis and is determined purely by what our culture tells us to like is simplistic and premature. That may turn out to be true, but we're not there yet.

(BTW, who is claiming that all music outside of common practice is unnatural?)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Consonance is simpler vibration, and dissonance is more complex, even chaotic vibrations.

Western tone-centered music, including folk, popular, and classical, and all forms of basic tone-centered music globally, are based on harmonic (adj.) models.

These "models" are not the harmonics themselves (used as a noun), but "harmonic models" based on divisions of the octave to "1" or a key note. This can be done with any division of the octave. It produces a "harmonic model" of ratios to "1." 

What this does is, in effect, is to create a "tonality" with the scale-steps (the divisions), and each step (division) will be a ratio. 

These ratios can be classified in order of their consonance (close relation to "1") or dissonance (more distant relation to "1"). 

These can be called "functions" when triads or other chords are built on them, and that "root" will have a function which is a measure of its "tonal gravity" or its tendency to "pull" or "repel" our ear to or from "home" or the key note.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Tone-centered tonality, and the harmonic models, are a metaphor for our relation to God (a term I use for convenience, meaning 'all things centered, the essence of being, nirvana, cosmic consciousness,' etc.)

God is "1," and the center around which everything else revolves and is related to, rather like the Sun and the planets.

The closer we are to "1" (as a ratio), the more closely we are related, and at peace, at rest. Dissonant intervals away from this, waves which do not "resonate in sympathy" to God ("1") are turbulent and restless, and complicated and unnatural.

It is natural, and inherently right, for all beings to be in resonance more closely with "1" or God, or the sacred essence of being. This means closely-related ratios, the simpler the better: 1:1 (unison with God), 2:1 (octave), 2:3 (perfect fifth), 3:4 (perfect fourth), etc.

Our measure of time expresses this primacy of being: there is no zero in clocks (except evil military time) or calendars, since zero is nothingness, and God created everything. 

Being starts at "1" (babies are one year old), and before that are fractions of years (six months, four weeks) but not years, which start at "1" since we are creations of God.
_____________________________________________________________________

In terms of music, this means that Man's art embodies his relation to God, the other, the sacred, the metaphysical, in the way that it is structured.

Serial music uses scientific nomenclature, and a number line. There is no tonic, no relation to "1" or "God," but a democratic humanism in which pitches, like planets or human beings, no longer orbit around a center. Science is at odds with Religious sensibility in this regard. Most of the turbulent music of modernism reflects this separation from the sacred (with exceptions).

Minimalism reflects a return back to the center; Philip Glass and Terry Riley, as men, are obvious examples; they are both very 'religious' men in that they have a great concern for matters of the sacred, and their music reflects this.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Of course there is such a thing as acoustic dissonance, and it is measurable. I think we get that. It just isn't what this study was studying, so what's the point of going on about it? No one was blowing out speakers or piercing eardrums. If they were, the Tsimane would no doubt have found that quite unpleasant. But that's not what the study was studying.


I think the ideal state of being for all humans is to resonate with the sacred. The natural state of "wholeness of being" or "Oneness with God" is the healthiest, most natural state of being. Going away from that, into more dissonance and chaotic turbulence, is an aberration, like a disease model. Being is organic, and its natural state is "consonance" or a closer sympathetic relation to the center of being, whether you wish to call it God or the sacred.



> Nothing I said was "sloppy." I'm simply not talking about mathematical ratios, and there was no need to talk about them. The study was not studying ratios - but neither was it denying that "dissonance" has a physical meaning as well as a subjective one. In fact, I suspect that the experimenters used the harmonic ratios to choose the consonant and dissonant sounds they were playing to their subjects. They were simply finding out which of these consonant or dissonant sounds people liked.


Mathematical ratios are the perfect metaphor for this.



> Although this study, for reasons I've stated, was not very meaningful, subjective responses are not "meaningless." They are a legitimate object of study, and quite a bit more important than scientific descriptions to most people who have them. Apparently you just don't find them interesting.


"Subjective responses," as you call them, are meaningless if they do not reflect a universal element common to all humans. They could go anywhere, mean anything. Unless they are tied to some form of universality, or "constants" of human existence, like the fact that all humans have ears which hear similarly, then subjective ramblings are lost in a great void.



> When you say "This tells us nothing about the actual taste of worms, only the 'idea' of eating them," you have it precisely backward. There is no such thing as "the _actual_ (i.e. intrinsic) taste of worms"; there is only "what worms taste like to people." You can study chemistry and the structure of taste buds till the cows come home and you will learn nothing about taste, which, like sound, is a phenomenon of perception. What food tastes like, and what music sounds like, is essentially subjective - which doesn't mean arbitrary, or unrelated to measurable physical phenomena.


We have such similar taste responses that we have categorized them: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, etc.
Usually bitter means poisonous: that's why we have taste buds, for survival.



> It just means that there is no taste without a taster, and no sound without a hearer. It's not subjective hearing, but mathematical measurement, which gives us only "an idea."


There is an objective dimension to this; and the fact that we all share more in common than not is better proof; at least it is physical, in the form of eardrums and taste buds. "A taster" is just an empty posture, an illusion.

If they ran this test on John Cage, he would say "It's just sound," and I would agree. Even if they played him Beethoven, he's say it was no better or worse than the sound of a glass breaking. So it's all just a big posturing of illusion.



> Sometimes, million, I think you get so carried away wielding the hammer of acoustic theory that everything begins to look like a nail. In this case, I doubt that you'd actually disagree with anything I said if you could just set aside that tool and take this study on its own (admittedly trivial) terms.


This study is no more "trivial" than any attitude or posturing. It's all meaningless in the end. Sound is sound.


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## Guest (Jul 18, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> OK. I'll try again.
> 
> The Tsimane were the only group tested who had no exposure to Western music. The other groups were Bolivian town dwellers, city dwellers from La Paz, American non-musicians, and American musicians, each group having more such exposure than the last - and each group, correspondingly, having a stronger preference for consonant chords or intervals.
> 
> ...


So the answer to my question about 'context' is none of those that I offered (which were the only interpretations I could make sense of) and the one which you repeat is the one I didn't understand at first posting, and still don't understand at repetition.

As for the conclusion - I don't think anyone is drawing a simplistic and premature conclusion (except the shorter magazine articles doing the reporting, and those dismissing the research out of hand) - we both agree on that.

To your last question, I would suggest that over time on this Forum, there is an accumulation of a sense of where people stand and what their general words have been on such subjects as nature v nurture etc. I can think of a few regular posters who, AFAIR, have suggested, if not actually stated in terms, that some types of music are more 'natural' to listen to than others; that this Mozart is a melody whereas that Schoenberg isn't; that the reason 'we' prefer CPT over 'atonal' is because our listening apparatus is designed that way, not because we are acculturated to CPT...etc etc etc.

I'm not about to go and rummage through the threads I've joined in over the past x years where this has cropped up. But you might note millionrainbows' latest post (#41) in this thread!



> The natural state of "wholeness of being" or "Oneness with God" is the healthiest, most natural state of being. Going away from that, into more dissonance and chaotic turbulence, is an aberration, like a disease model.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

From the listening thread, here is a comment:









Originally Posted by *Florestan* 
_Just listened to this. I guess this must be what they call atonal music? It has it's merits but I think long term exposure to this stuff could be as bad as root canal procedure._

Perhaps there IS something to the natural aversion to atonal music. I love it, myself, because I find it challenging. But maybe it's like a toxin, or like a drug of some sort, and certain people have lower tolerances to it. Maybe atonal music, since it takes us "away" from centeredness, sends us into harsh, Man-made realms of dissonance which some people simply cannot handle in large doses.

Maybe it has to do with how secure your being is; if you are secure in your identity, then atonal music's excursions away from centeredness are tolerable, even a "flirting with disaster."

Maybe it is an acquired taste. Maybe some people's "filters" are weaker, and atonal music has a strong effect which is unsettling. Or, like I said, even weak-filtered people can build up "tolerance" or the "muscle" to get through it, and even to savor it.

Maybe some people are on a different "trajectory" than others; they don't need "centering" but are on an excursion away from that, into the world of outward accomplishment and feats of ego. This might be temporary, and they will eventually be headed back for "center" after they have been kicked around.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Or perhaps the idea of atonal music was fabricated to explain something that theorists and academics and critics were uncomfortable with, because they couldn't explain it?

The idea that "atonal music" is unnatural is risible. Unless you told someone that these pieces were atonal, would anyone hear them that way? If "atonal" means "without a central tone," I certainly don't hear them that way.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> ...I can think of a few regular posters who, AFAIR, have suggested, if not actually stated in terms, that some types of music are more 'natural' to listen to than others; that this Mozart is a melody whereas that Schoenberg isn't; that the reason 'we' prefer CPT over 'atonal' is because our listening apparatus is designed that way, not because we are acculturated to CPT...etc etc etc.
> 
> I'm not about to go and rummage through the threads I've joined in over the past x years where this has cropped up. But you might note millionrainbows' latest post (#41) in this thread!


But don't take this at face value, because human consumption changes everything! I'm just stating my centeredness/being hypothesis as a starting point. Maybe the reason atonal music is appealing (to those who like it) is precisely the fact that it IS unnatural.

Here's another possibility: MAYBE, since art and music are closely associated with: religion and ritual, Man's connection to the sacred, etc. (and this is true of almost all art and music), and since tone-centeredness is universal in almost all music, then 12-tone, serial, or atonal music gives us an area in which to "get away" from religion and the use of music to attain spirituality and all the that kind of stuff, and gives us a chance to experience and explore the mundane or secular aspects of music, or as an intellectual exercise.

Yes, serial music reflects the scientific worldview, as it uses a number line, and quantities and distances rather than relationships; "all is NOT one" in the serial world; all things are relative.

Perhaps that's another reason for the aversion; most people listen to music because they are in search of art, which has always been concerned with proportion, rather than science or mathematics, which is about discrete quantities.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> The idea that "atonal music" is unnatural is risible. Unless you told someone that these pieces were atonal, would anyone hear them that way? If "atonal" means "without a central tone," I certainly don't hear them that way.


You are 'hiding behind' both of these examples, because they are polyphonic and linear. That aspect fits perfectly into the 12-tone ethos, because polyphony is linear, and harmony (tone-centeredness) is vertical; plus, they both have pseudo-religious overtones.

They (Stravinsky, Schoenberg) can dress it up by using choirs, or sung polyphony which is reminiscent of Gregorian chant or early music, and use religious texts, etc, but it's still based on "secular" and scientific principles; principles which arose during the demise of the religious worldview (the Enlightenment, etc.).

__________________________________________________________________

12-tone and serialism are more "brain" music than "ear" music, although the results of 12-tone in actual sound-terms can be fantastic, strange, unsettling, mysterious, frightening, transcendently beautiful. But that's not based on my "ears" primarily, but is nonetheless based on the experience of hearing the music. 

In _visceral_ terms, the ear and body are opposed to the intellect as feelings are opposed to thinking.

In this way, most of the 12-tone music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg evoke all sorts of "feelings" and states of being, because they are sensual and visceral sounds. 
This is in spite of the fact that the 12-tone method itself is not based on visceral principles, but on mathematical and quantitative principles which are in the realm of intellect and mind.

12-tone music is beautiful music; I love it. 
It's just that it is not based on "natural" principles of proportion, but on more mathematico-scientific principles: number line, relative quantities of pitch.

12-tone music was born out of the secular, scientific, rational mindset, not the older religious worldview from which the rest of the Western canon embodied.

In this way, 12-tone music separates itself from the long religious, liturgical origins of Western music and thought, and the Western (and universal) use of tone-centeredness as a metaphor for God (or the sacred, or spirituality) and that hierarchy, in which everything is traceable, and centered on, God or the sacred.
________________________________________________________________________________

Perhaps Schoenberg felt that the old system of tonality was too potent a metaphor for God, and in his view, felt that it was "taboo" to try to imitate or 'model' God, the unnameable, Yaweh, with a tonal system which was too closely modeled after the God hierarchy.

So he created a system which had nothing to do with God, and everything to do with music as a mathematical/geometric form, rather like Islam, who also believe it is taboo to create images referring to God, and instead use geometric forms in their mosques.




> Or perhaps the idea of atonal music was fabricated to explain something that theorists and academics and critics were uncomfortable with, because they couldn't explain it?


You are saying that "atonal" is a "name" or epithet fabricated by "haters."

*epithet* ‎(_plural_ *epithets**)*


*A term used to characterize a person or thing.*
*A term used as a descriptive substitute for the name or title of a person.*
*One of many formulaic words or phrases used in Iliad and the Odyssey to characterize a person, a group of people, or a thing.*
*An abusive or contemptuous word or phrase.*

In other words, "people who don't like 12-tone music and call it "atonal" are just stupid bigots? That is too simplistic to be productive. There you go again on this weird social agenda.

Are you implying that the origins of the word "atonal" are tied-in with social history somehow; and that these "theorists and critics" who coined the term were ignorant, stupid, biased or even anti-semitic? If so, that creates your own bias, which will impede the progress of any discussion.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Perhaps Schoenberg felt that the old system of tonality was too potent a metaphor for God, and in his view, felt that it was "taboo" to try to imitate or 'model' God, the unnameable, Yaweh, with a tonal system which was too closely modeled after the God hierarchy.


All written evidence seems to indicate the exact opposite, that he felt pantonality, as the merging of tendencies toward all keys and key areas, was close to union with God. Note in that connection the hexachords used to represent God in Moses und Aron.



millionrainbows said:


> Are you implying that the origins of the word "atonal" are tied-in with social history somehow; and that these "theorists and critics" who coined the term were ignorant, stupid, biased or even anti-semitic? If so, that creates your own bias, which will impede the progress of any discussion.


They were certainly ignorant. Some of them were anti-Semitic, and you can note what Bax said about it: "Atonalism appears to be a cul-de-sac, cluttered up with morbid growths emanating from the brains rather than the imagination of a few decadent Central European Jews."

At any rate, I don't think that the word should be thrown away because of its history, but rather because it is useless and does not communicate anything about music whatsoever.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> All written evidence seems to indicate the exact opposite, that he felt pantonality, as the merging of tendencies toward all keys and key areas, was close to union with God. Note in that connection the hexachords used to represent God in Moses und Aron.


Well, that's easy to counter: Schoenberg, with his new non-representational, geometric 12-tone system, now felt _liberated_ from the previous taboo of tonality and its imitation of the God hierarchy, and could use music to describe and express his new interest and conversion back to Judaism.

Remember that in Judaism, God must remain "unnamable." Therefore, his new music couldn't be tonal, or use that same God-hierarchy of 'centeredness to God' which tonality is based on. That would be too metaphorical, too much like a 'graven image.' Besides, Schoenberg was now Jewish again in his religion, and the history of the Western CP tradition, which he was very much a part of, was all based on Christianity. Now, with his new method, he could continue in that tradition, albeit without the tonal hierarchy, but with the same rhetoric and devices and large, glorious forms of CP tonality.

As well, Schoenberg had a new way of expressing his art, since 12-tone music is still a very potent and visceral way of expressing feelings, even though it is not directly based on "visceral" principles of harmonic hierarchies of the ear.



> They were certainly ignorant. Some of them were anti-Semitic, and you can note what Bax said about it: "Atonalism appears to be a cul-de-sac, cluttered up with morbid growths emanating from the brains rather than the imagination of a few decadent Central European Jews."


So is that it? Is this the real "hidden" reason you have been so obstinate on the issue of "atonality?" I think it would be better to put this all out in the open.



> At any rate, I don't think that the word should be thrown away because of its history, but rather because it is useless and does not communicate anything about music whatsoever.


I doubt that. I think you have a social agenda, and refuse to see that the term is still in common usage.

But because I am a sensitive guy, and I don't want to offend anyone here, I will stop using the term "atonal."

*….NOT!* :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> I would suggest that over time on this Forum, there is an accumulation of a sense of where people stand and what their general words have been on such subjects as nature v nurture etc. I can think of a few regular posters who, AFAIR, have suggested, if not actually stated in terms, that some types of music are more 'natural' to listen to than others; that this Mozart is a melody whereas that Schoenberg isn't; that the reason 'we' prefer CPT over 'atonal' is because our listening apparatus is designed that way, not because we are acculturated to CPT...etc etc etc.
> 
> I'm not about to go and rummage through the threads I've joined in over the past x years where this has cropped up. But you might note millionrainbows' latest post (#41) in this thread!


I can't speak for millionrainbows, some (but not all) of whose ideas I agree with, but I think most people here who engage in these discussions would recognize a distinction between saying that a sense of tonality and a recognition of consonance and dissonance come naturally to humans and saying that all music other than common practice is "unnatural." The distinction is clear to me at least. "Natural" is a word with several meanings. What is natural in one sense may not be so in another. Let's not mix up our definitions.

You seem to be identifying common practice with tonality. But common practice is not the only music embodying a principle of tonality; most music does. Moreover, even monolinear (without chords) music tends to be guided, not wholly but to one degree or another, by harmonic principles; notes in sequence tend to obey a "logic" (a hierarchy of relationships) just as chords do. This is plainly observable in music around the world.

I believe that tonality is indeed natural, in the sense that it has causes found in both physical nature and in the nature of human cognition and psychology, causes which have exerted a powerful and clearly audible influence on most of humankind's music. This does not imply that all tonalities need be the same, or that any music which doesn't make some particular use of phenomena relevant to the physics of harmony is "unnatural." Not every dish needs to contain all possible ingredients to be either tasty or nutritious - or "natural."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I can't speak for millionrainbows, some (but not all) of whose ideas I agree with…


…and that's why I hesitate to "friend" you...:lol:



> ...but I think most people here who engage in these discussions would recognize a distinction between saying that a sense of tonality and a recognition of consonance and dissonance come naturally to humans and saying that all music other than common practice is "unnatural." The distinction is clear to me at least. "Natural" is a word with several meanings. What is natural in one sense may not be so in another. Let's not mix up our definitions.


I go with that, as I see do not see "unnatural" as a derogatory term used in my context of this.



> You seem to be identifying common practice with tonality. But common practice is not the only music embodying a principle of tonality; most music does. Moreover, even monolinear (without chords) music tends to be guided, not wholly but to one degree or another, by harmonic principles; notes in sequence tend to obey a "logic" (a hierarchy of relationships) just as chords do. This is plainly observable in music around the world.


Finally! Someone who understands the general meaning of the term "sense of tonality" and furthermore, even sees how it is universal and primary! Don't worry about getting me a birthday present, Woodduck…or can I call you "Woody?":lol:



> I believe that tonality is indeed natural, in the sense that it has causes found in both physical nature and in the nature of human cognition and psychology, causes which have exerted a powerful and clearly audible influence on most of humankind's music. This does not imply that all tonalities need be the same, or that any music which doesn't make some particular use of phenomena relevant to the physics of harmony is "unnatural." Not every dish needs to contain all possible ingredients to be either tasty or nutritious - or "natural."


Now if I can only get you to support my "tonality is God" metaphor...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Well, that's easy to counter: Schoenberg, with his new non-representational, geometric 12-tone system, now felt _liberated_ from the previous taboo of tonality and its imitation of the God hierarchy, and could use music to describe and express his new interest and conversion back to Judaism.


That's making the unwarranted assumption that Schoenberg related "tonality" to God, as you do, and also that he wanted to liberate music from tonality in the first place. Like he maintained, he was merely extending the inherited harmonic system, not replacing or destroying it.



millionrainbows said:


> So is that it? Is this the real "hidden" reason you have been so obstinate on the issue of "atonality?" I think it would be better to put this all out in the open.


Huh? No. I'm not even Jewish, though I don't approve of any hatred of people on the basis of their heritage.



millionrainbows said:


> I doubt that. I think you have a social agenda, and refuse to see that the term is still in common usage.


I see that it's in common usage. I would prefer that it weren't, for the reason I gave above.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Finally! Someone who understands the general meaning of the term "sense of tonality" and furthermore, even sees how it is universal and primary! Don't worry about getting me a birthday present, Woodduck…or can I call you "Woody?":lol:
> 
> Now if I can only get you to support my "tonality is God" metaphor...


I have always understood the meaning of the sense of tonality, and have come to understand it better partly as a result of the stimulating battles waged right here, millionrainbows...or can I call you "Millie"? (On second thought, no. Let's maintain at least a facade of dignity.)

Tonality as God? Hmmmmm... It _is_ a metaphor, of course, and not obligatory. My view is that both tonality and God are, in part, products of the basic structure of human consciousness, of the way the mind works. Man perceives and thinks hierarchically. The desire to reduce phenomena to the simplest possible order and to find a center is innate. If we want to feel the tonal center as representing the center of the cosmos, that's our prerogative. Or if we want to imagine God in the "merging of all key areas," that's a nice metaphor too (not one I care for, I confess).

I think probably that God needs tonality more than tonality needs God (a fortunate circumstance for atheists).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> That's making the unwarranted assumption that Schoenberg related "tonality" to God, as you do…


I think it reflects the entire mindset of the West. And Western music IS religious, remember.



> ...and also that he wanted to liberate music from tonality in the first place.
> 
> 
> > You dispute that? We'll get nowhere...
> ...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> I think it reflects the entire mindset of the West. And Western music IS religious, remember.


No, not exclusively. Religious and secular music have coexisted within the tradition for a millennium.



millionrainbows said:


> You dispute that? We'll get nowhere...


Sorry if you feel the truth isn't enough for you.



millionrainbows said:


> Then what IS the 12-tone method? Just another style?


Less than that. It's a method, like fugue or canon is a method. It leaves the composer open to compose however they like. The 12-tone method aids the composer in keeping a consistency in the material, but it doesn't do anything to structure a work on its own.

I wouldn't say that Copland's Piano Fantasy is in the same style as Berg's Lulu. They're so different in aesthetic and technique that you can really only relate them in terms of the basic idea of dodecophony and the general modernist idiom.



millionrainbows said:


> Me either. But I think you, at the least, or on some kind of "social" agenda.


Which is...? I've been very open about why I express the views I do. I think they're the most accurate and correspond best with acoustic and perceptional reality.



millionrainbows said:


> Well, it is, and there's not a thing you can do about it.


Unfortunately, ignorance based on emotional reactions trumps logical argument and examination of the facts every time.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I have always understood the meaning of the sense of tonality, and have come to understand it better partly as a result of the stimulating battles waged right here, millionrainbows...or can I call you "Millie"? (On second thought, no. Let's maintain at least a facade of dignity.)


What is it you think Mahlerian is up to? Why this obstinate attitude to hear 12-tone as tonal?



> Tonality as God? Hmmmmm... It _is_ a metaphor, of course, and not obligatory. My view is that both tonality and God are, in part, products of the basic structure of human consciousness, of the way the mind works. Man perceives and thinks hierarchically. The desire to reduce phenomena to the simplest possible order and to find a center is innate. If we want to feel the tonal center as representing the center of the cosmos, that's our prerogative.


I think we resonate with it, as in "sympathetic vibration," whether we will it or not. It's the natural way things work.



> Or if we want to imagine God in the "merging of all key areas," that's a nice metaphor too (not one I care for, I confess).


No, that's called "The Big Bang Theory" where the whole thing explodes. No tonal gravity. See? We even use terms like "gravity" in discussing tonality. And remember, at one time, scientific thought was religious as well; the sun and the planets were big areas of concern and interest. And as I've pointed out, this religious pre-scientific way of thinking determined the way we measure time (without zeros), and even the avoidance of the use of zero.



> I think probably that God needs tonality more than tonality needs God (a fortunate circumstance for atheists).


Let God have tonality; he laid claim to it long ago. This whole way of thinking will return.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Unfortunately, ignorance based on emotional reactions trumps logical argument and examination of the facts every time.


Hey, don't say that word around here or you'll get an infraction.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Unfortunately, ignorance based on emotional reactions trumps logical argument and examination of the facts every time.


So who should I believe about the term "atonal," you, or those ignorant, biased guys Allen Forte and John Rahn? Ha ha!!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> So who should I believe about the term "atonal," you, or those ignorant, biased guys Allen Forte and John Rahn? Ha ha!!


As I've explained before, the way "atonal" is used in textbooks and academia is much more restricted than the way it's applied here...or much broader, depending. Forte, for example, includes Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in that category, and Bartok probably as well. It's still not a clearly defined term.

Anyway, if you want to go simply by whom you think most informed, why not the list of composers who disagreed with the term as applied to their own music?

- Schoenberg
- Stravinsky
- Bartok
- Sessions
- Babbitt
- Berg
- Webern
- Perle
- Carter


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> *What is it you think Mahlerian is up to?* Why this obstinate attitude to hear 12-tone as tonal?


I don't think he's "up to" anything, _or_ obstinate (except perhaps in trying to abolish the term "atonal," which will never happen). He's just describing what he perceives, as are you. I'm inclined to think we hear the same things, but identify them differently. I can hear internal relationships among the separate voices in S's serial music that some might call tonal, but they don't represent a tonal system, either explicitly or implicitly.

This is, in one significant respect, what distinguishes his music from earlier examples of "atonal" music - say, the opening of Liszt's _Faust Symphony_, or the prelude to Act 3 of _Parsifal._ In those cases the context of the whole work is distinctly tonal, and the passages that suspend tonal orientation are given meaning by virtue of that fact. They are attempts at expressing in tones dramatic or poetic ideas, entering a familiar tonal world in order to disturb it, piquing the tonal sense by questioning it - whereas, with S, I hear a basic idiom in which systematic tonality is systematically disallowed.

That basic - and very audible - difference in intent and effect is one reason I think S's teleological dream of serialism as the necessary next step in the evolution of tonal music was wrong (there are other reasons). I see it as a particular development that suited a composer's intensely intellectual temperament, not as an evolution - and, from a world-music perspective, I would call it an aberration, despite it's mid-20th-century appeal to composers who felt scientific and oracular addressing each other with words like "relativities," "combinatoriality," "pitch qualia," and "modulus-12."



> No, that's [the "merging of all key areas"] called "The Big Bang Theory" where the whole thing explodes. No tonal gravity. See? We even use terms like "gravity" in discussing tonality. And remember, at one time, scientific thought was religious as well; the sun and the planets were big areas of concern and interest. And as I've pointed out, this religious pre-scientific way of thinking determined the way we measure time (without zeros), and even the avoidance of the use of zero.
> 
> *Let God have tonality; he laid claim to it long ago. This whole way of thinking will return.*


Well, God can have it if he wants it. But since man invented God, tonality is really about us, regardless of our way of thinking.


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## Guest (Jul 19, 2016)

I see things have come _such _a long way since I last posted, it seems a shame to drag it back to definitions of 'natural'...so I won't (we'll only quarrel!)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> I see things have come _such _a long way since I last posted, it seems a shame to drag it back to definitions of 'natural'...so I won't (we'll only quarrel!)


We could start (if we must) here:

1. Existing in or formed by nature (opposed to artificial ):
a natural bridge.

2. Based on the state of things in nature; constituted by nature:
Growth is a natural process.

3. Of or relating to nature or the universe:
natural beauty.

4. Of, relating to, or occupied with the study of natural science:
conducting natural experiments.

5. In a state of nature; uncultivated, as land.

6. Growing spontaneously, without being planted or tended by human hand, as vegetation.

7. Having undergone little or no processing and containing no chemical additives:
natural food; natural ingredients.

8. Reasonable or expected in a particular situation.

9. Inborn rather than acquired

10. Not sharped or flatted (of musical notes)


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Just read an article about the study in the Washington Post.

Discovered this thread. 

Interesting responses by members to the study. Why am I not surprised that most of the members who have an animas toward contemporary music think the study is bogus?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

arpeggio said:


> Just read an article about the study in the Washington Post.
> 
> Discovered this thread.
> 
> Interesting responses by members to the study. Why am I not surprised that most of the members who have an animas toward contemporary music think the study is bogus?


It's the Carnival of the Animus.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> Just read an article about the study in the Washington Post.
> 
> Discovered this thread.
> 
> Interesting responses by members to the study. Why am I not surprised that most of the members who have an animas toward contemporary music think the study is bogus?


.

The study has not been shown to be bogus. The question is about the rigor of its methodology, which is unknown outside of the original _Nature_ article. It may turn out to be bogus; it may turn out to be valid.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> It's the Carnival of the Animus.


I certainly have no animus toward modern music. That's too mild a word. More like a blinding, raging, all-consuming hate. In fact, I regret only that all the modern music in the world won't fit on a single CD, so that I can refuse to listen to it all at once!

Oh wait. I can already do that.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> I certainly have no animus toward modern music. That's too mild a word. More like a blinding, raging, all-consuming hate. In fact, I regret only that all the modern music in the world won't fit on a single CD, so that I can refuse to listen to it all at once!
> 
> Oh wait. I can already do that.


Luckily modern music doesn't need your approval, KenOC!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Morimur said:


> Luckily modern music doesn't need your approval, KenOC!


Come the revolution, we'll see about that!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I wonder if Chomsky's (admittedly controversial) idea of the "universal grammar" in language is relevant here.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Come the revolution, we'll see about that!


Yes, we'll see about that, monkey man.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

You lack of submission to the will of the masses is noted.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> I wonder if Chomsky's (admittedly controversial) idea of the "universal grammar" in language is relevant here.


Metaphorically, maybe. In 1973 Bernstein tried going beyond metaphor in his Norton Lectures at Harvard. They were heavily criticized. The basic and most obvious problem is that language is denotative and music isn't. That doesn't mean there are no innate cognitive laws that contribute to music's structure. I just don't know to what extent Bernstein addressed them. There has been a lot more work in the area of musical structuring and perception as cognitive activities since, but I've only begun to research the subject myself.

In the larger musical scheme of things, the question of innate preferences for specific musical intervals, heard as isolated sounds outside of any conscious or unconscious reference to music (as in the experiment), affords a pretty inconsequential datum. Its only implication for our knowledge of music may be to explain partially the relative occurrence, or non-occurrence, of particular sounds in various musics of mankind. But that datum, taken in isolation, will be deceptive, since tones (or chords) as such are not music and will be experienced differently in different musical contexts. Music happens in time, and it's in the structuring of sounds in time - or the structuring of time by means of sounds - that cognition, including any universal functions thereof, comes into play.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I see things have come _such _a long way since I last posted, it seems a shame to drag it back to definitions of 'natural'...so I won't (we'll only quarrel!)


Even when it can be proven that there's no such thing as a "natural" tonality by looking at the various traditions around the world, biased people like those found here will simply shut down their rational thinking and resort to pointing out completely irrelevant similarities in order to justify their emotionally based rejection of some 20th century modernist music.



isorhythm said:


> I wonder if Chomsky's (admittedly controversial) idea of the "universal grammar" in language is relevant here.


The difference would be that Chomsky's ideas are descriptive of all languages that can possibly exist and be taken up by populations.

Using those ideas to create a description intended specifically to shut out and dismiss specific languages, widely used throughout the musical world, would be pseudoscientific nonsense.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

The only observation that I can add to this discussion is that is appears that the study seems to reinforce John Dewey's discourse on esthetics _Art and Experience_ (1932).


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> The difference would be that Chomsky's ideas are descriptive of all languages that can possibly exist and be taken up by populations.
> 
> Using those ideas to create a description intended specifically to shut out and dismiss specific languages, widely used throughout the musical world, would be pseudoscientific nonsense.


Right, I was sleepy and thinking out loud. It doesn't really work on further examination.

Chomsky's main evidence for his idea is the fact that there are many sentences that neither children nor second language learners need to be taught not to use, e.g. "What did John meet a man who sold?" No child or language learner will ever say something like this and need to be corrected.

Obviously there's nothing equivalent to this in music.

The analogy I was thinking of was that different languages' grammar can differ radically from one another, but still (maybe) conform to a universal grammar. Similarly musical systems could be radically different but still share an underlying...something.

This would need to be understood very loosely, because whatever the underlying something is, you could almost certainly find music that doesn't conform to it - it would be more a way of understanding some general trends or tendencies.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> That's making the unwarranted assumption that Schoenberg related "tonality" to God, as you do, and also that he wanted to liberate music from tonality in the first place. Like he maintained, he was merely extending the inherited harmonic system, not replacing or destroying it.


I disagree; he was replacing, as well as taking over its tradition. Not 'destroying' it, as he wanted the connection to traditional tonal rhetoric to remain, but giving it his own spin.

I maintain that Schoenberg considered his 12-tone method as the new "gospel" of music (recall his infamous 'next 300 years' pronouncement), and that this was from his new religious perspective, as well as being opposed (because it was not tonal) to the "old" paradigm of Western God-centered (Christian) tonal music.

In the second string quartet, the finale of which is 12-tone, not only is the "air of another planet" mentioned, but also a reference to God:

"Deep is the sadness that gloomily comes over me, Again I step, Lord, in your house."

This is a reference to his return to his religion.

and also:

"I am only a spark of the holy fire
I am only a whisper of the holy voice."

This is a reference to his being the new "voice of God" (a whisper of the holy voice).



> Huh? No. I'm not even Jewish...


That doesn't mean much to say that. It's not specific enough. Schoenberg and Mahler could have said the same thing after they were Baptized, but apparently it didn't work, did it? Both men got kicked out of Germany. Both saw themselves as part of the German classical tradition, and wanted to dis-identify with being Jewish. 
That's like all these people running around saying they're "Christians," and it turns out they don't even believe that he was 'more than human,' or the son of God; just human.

Read Joan Peyser's book, and you will realize how megalomaniacal Schoenberg really was. Imagine his resentment as he slowly realized that he was not really an "insider" like he wanted to be; at his gradual realization that he had been, and would be, recognized as "Jewish," the identity he wished to misidentify with. It's as if he was "the last one to know."

I think this gradually emerging realization of his true heritage & identity drove him to create the 12-tone method, for myriad reasons all related to this growing social awareness of his place in the Germany of the early 20th century. This could all easily apply to Mahler as well.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Even when it can be proven that there's no such thing as a "natural" tonality by looking at the various traditions around the world…


But it can't, and Woodduck & I both realize what the term 'natural sense of tonality' is and means. Most music created by Man, throughout the history of the work's music, is tonal, meaning that it is tone-centric and based on the harmonic model.



> ...biased people like those found here will simply shut down their rational thinking…


You are the one who is making emotionally-charged statements with words like 'biased."



> ...in order to justify their emotionally based rejection of some 20th century modernist music.


I never "rejected" Schoenberg's 12-tone music, or method; I simply asserted the fact that if it's 12-tone, it's not tone-centric, or harmonically-based.



> The difference would be that Chomsky's ideas are descriptive of all languages that can possibly exist and be taken up by populations. Using those ideas to create a description intended specifically to shut out and dismiss specific languages, widely used throughout the musical world, would be pseudoscientific nonsense.


Neither I or anyone else here has done a blanket-rejection of 12-tone music, or the method. We just don't classify 12-tone as "tonal" in any sense. It's got plenty of CP tonal-era pseudo-tonal rhetoric, but it is not tone-centric, and it is misguided to perceive it as tone-centric.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Even when it can be proven that there's no such thing as a "natural" tonality by looking at the various traditions around the world, biased people like those found here will simply shut down their rational thinking and resort to pointing out completely irrelevant similarities in order to justify their emotionally based rejection of some 20th century modernist music.


It's unclear exactly what views you are criticizing here, or who you think is advancing them.

Some people have said that human beings possess a natural tendency to organize music tonally - not a "natural tonality" - and have given some reasons for thinking so. Do you disagree, and what are your reasons? Do you disagree that the predominance of some form of tonal organization in completely separate musical traditions worldwide from antiquity to the present is a phenomenon requiring explanation? Are the people making a study of this subject irrational and biased? Are they motivated by a "rejection" of 20th-century music?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> But it can't, and Woodduck & I both realize what the term 'natural sense of tonality' is and means. Most music created by Man, throughout the history of the work's music, is tonal, meaning that it is tone-centric and based on the harmonic model.


Yes, like late Schoenberg. The bias enters in when you say that all of that music is tonal, but not Schoenberg. There's no basis for that.



millionrainbows said:


> Neither I or anyone else here has done a blanket-rejection of 12-tone music, or the method. We just don't classify 12-tone as "tonal" in any sense. It's got plenty of CP tonal-era pseudo-tonal rhetoric, but it is not tone-centric, and it is misguided to perceive it as tone-centric.


Why should comparisons to CP tonality be relevant? I thought we were talking about tonality _in a general sense_, but the second anyone asks what makes atonality atonal you and others start listing off features specific to common practice.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, like late Schoenberg. The bias enters in when you say that all of that music is tonal, but not Schoenberg. There's no basis for that.
> 
> Why should comparisons to CP tonality be relevant? I thought we were talking about tonality _in a general sense_, but*the second anyone asks what makes atonality atonal you and others start listing off features specific to common practice. *


Now you really _are_ being obstinate!

It is simply false that " the second anyone asks what makes atonality atonal, [millionrainbows] and others [what others?] start listing off features specific to common practice." Common practice is not _fundamentally_ different from other tonal systems. Tonal systems are made from scales so structured that they contain tones of central importance and specific, hierarchical relationships among their tones. _Schoenberg's 12-tone music is not based on a tonal system, and it doesn't sound as if it is. _Period.

_That_ is what "others" say when asked what makes atonality atonal.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I did some research on Indian classical music recently, trying to learn a bit. The Indians have more scales than Liszt had groupies; the "subject" of a raga typically uses two scales, one going up and the other coming down. What most scales have in common is the presence of the interval of a fifth, and much is made of the tension between the first and the fifth (the equivalent for instance of C and G).

So the music is definitely tonal, although certainly not CPT. I have to believe that use of tonic/dominant tension, just like our CPT, is more than an accident.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I did some research on Indian classical music recently, trying to learn a bit. The Indians have more scales than Liszt had groupies; the "subject" of a raga typically uses two scales, one going up and the other coming down. What most scales have in common is the presence of the interval of a fifth, and much is made of the tension between the first and the fifth (the equivalent for instance of C and G).
> 
> So the music is definitely tonal, although certainly not CPT. I have to believe that use of tonic/dominant tension, just like our CPT, is more than an accident.


It's also not missing in so-called atonal music. A fifth is still a fifth even when the material is completely chromatic. Parts of a piece may be related by fifth or fifths may be important to the material.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> It's also not missing in so-called atonal music. A fifth is still a fifth even when the material is completely chromatic. Parts of a piece may be related by fifth or fifths may be important to the material.


But there's a basic difference. A fifth may be a fifth, but there needn't be any tension, any dynamic pull, between its tones, or between it and any preceding or succeeding harmony. If there is no functionally differentiated scale in which it plays a recognized role, it - or any note or interval - may be important to the material of a piece without entailing a tonal relationship. As far as I'm aware, any so-called tonal relationships in S.'s 12-tone works which anyone has pointed out so far on this forum have been of a "pseudo-tonal" nature, representative of pitch-patterning but not of an inherently tonal dynamic.

Schoenberg wrote of replacing the structural functions of tonality with the patterning of the row, its permutations and combinations. He certainly did not view the 12-tone method as just another formal technique, like rondo or canon or ground bass, which serve merely as armatures for tonal structures, not as creators and directors of the music's syntax. Unlike those devices, the "method" is syntactically determinative. Tonal music, by contrast, doesn't create a system, it utilizes one. Serialism was intended as a means of holding musical structures together and articulating their parts in the absence of the dynamic, narrative, syntactic forces of tonality, which not only differentiate and unify on a macro level but pervade every subordinate level, because they contain within themselves potentialities, tendencies and goals _independent of the specific notes chosen_. It is a different musical "logic" altogether, and S. detailed his strategy to avoid mixing his new "logic" with the "logic" of tonality by avoiding, among other things, harmonies which might induce a sense of tonal centering.

If Schoenberg had wanted his music to be tonal, and had thought of his "row" as just another useful formal device, he would have said so, he would not have felt a profound need for the 12-tone method, he would not have considered it the earth-shattering "discovery" he clearly did, and he would not have considered himself the savior of German music. His music wasn't just a complexified outgrowth of post-Wagnerian chromaticism hybridized with post-Brahmsian forms. It was something new in the language of music, his serialist followers knew it, and listeners still know it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I thought we were talking about tonality _in a general sense_, but the second anyone asks what makes atonality atonal you and others start listing off features specific to common practice.


I never listed CP tonal features as reasons why 12-tone music is 'atonal.' I've always asserted that the main reason 12-tone is 'non-harmonic' (atonal) is because it uses ordered rows, not scales. The ordered row does not refer all pitches to a central reference note, but only to each preceding and succeeding pitch ("12 notes related only to each other").

The CP tonal "rhetoric" is what Schoenberg _kept_ of tonality, albeit in imitative form.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> It's also not missing in so-called atonal music. A fifth is still a fifth even when the material is completely chromatic. Parts of a piece may be related by fifth or fifths may be important to the material.


The reason a fifth (3:2) is "a fifth" tonally, and is called "dominant," is because it is the most consonant interval, which is most closely related to the key note.

The SOUND of the INTERVAL of a fifth might be important to an atonal piece, and we can hear this in Webern, where we enter areas where fifths, or tritones, or thirds, might be prevalent. 12-tone treats "fifths" or "tritones" or any other intervals as 'stand-alone' intervals, or sonorities. The fifth has no gravitational or tonal function; it's just a distance, a quantity, and a sonority.

Schoenberg might end a row with a C, and begin the next row with a G; that's a fifth, occurring at a 'boundary' point, to imitate a tonal function, but it's not the same thing as tonal function.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> I never listed CP tonal features as reasons why 12-tone music is 'atonal.' I've always asserted that the main reason 12-tone is 'non-harmonic' (atonal) is because it uses ordered rows, not scales. The ordered row does not refer all pitches to a central reference note, but only to each preceding and succeeding pitch ("12 notes related only to each other").


Like I keep telling you, a tone row is not a piece of music, and does not determine the usage and the relationships of a piece (though it shapes them).

And weren't you just saying that modes in Renaissance music are also non-scales and non-harmonic?


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## JosefinaHW (Nov 21, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> Are we talking about sound as a real, physical phenomenon, or about social perception of music, which boils down in most cases to a matter of opinion? I think everyone on this forum is more comfortable with the "Nine Inch Nails sounds like crap" sort of mindset than they are with really exploring the physical reality of sound.
> 
> We all have eardrums, and they vibrate in the same way. Complex, "dissonant" waves, such as 9:16, especially if played loudly, would cause actual physical discomfort, or even damage.
> This chart illustrates this:
> ...


*
Thank you, MRainbows!!!* I wish I had read this two days ago; I'm not abandoning the project but the first part of this post is what I imagine was discussed and demonstrated in the music studies of the Quadrivium in the Middle Ages, and the second part is what I meant by our common sense and the natural order.


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