# Memory Myths ...and Serialism



## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

Psychologists say the human memory can only hold 7 or 8 perhaps 9 'items' in the short-terms memory. To this rule there are said to be no exceptions...

...unless the test subject is using a mnemonic memory system to relate new items to associations already fixed in the mind.

So, most people can remember a phone number if they really want to, while anything longer requires a 'hook' system.

Okay, well I remember in school having a melodic memory test where a long string of random tones was played and I was only able to remember the first 5, 6 or 7 ...I suppose like anyone. I doubt now that the examiner could do any better and I don't really know if the likes of Bach, Mozart or Beethoven would remember them all ...although perfect pitch and visual memory of notated pitches would have helped them.

With real music, however, my memory is pretty good, because most melodies or chord progressions I can recognise as being similar to known sequences already encoded in my brain. 

I suspect this is the secret to exceptional memories reported about the great composers -with the added dimention that it was their own music that was being remembered! Isn't it to be expected that a composer would remember their own music in a genre based on rather rigid rules? Surely they'd tend to make the same reconstructive choices anyway!

I'm not underestimating their facility, just saying that it is to be expected after such intense musical training.

In the case of Mozart, he is also famous for transcribing Allegri's miserere as a child. Now, that piece consists of one section repeated four times, and it is believed that he heard it twice. IS that such an exceptional feat....? Essentially, he heard it eight times! Perhaps he just didn't underestimate his brain like adults might do.

On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed in the fact that it requires the listener to follow 12 pitches rather than fewer (albeit chromatically 'decorated') pitches of 5, 6, 7, or 8 tones. (This is according to the book 'A Geometry of Music', which also lists other essential features of music lacking in serial music). Is it even possible, then, to appreciate serial music on the first hearing? That would have some implications for first performances.

P.S. Research has revealed that exceptional memories for chess patterns, archetecture, card sequences, etc, is all done by breaking long strings/shapes down to about 6, 7 or 8 chunks.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Minona said:


> On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed in the fact that it requires the listener to follow 12 pitches rather than fewer (albeit chromatically 'decorated') pitches of 5, 6, 7, or 8 tones. (This is according to the book 'A Geometry of Music', which also lists other essential features of music lacking in serial music). Is it even possible, then, to appreciate serial music on the first hearing? That would have some implications for first performances.


If this were true, then it might be a problem, but in practice it almost never is.

In serial music, the row is not the foreground "subject" but the background from which the "subject" is drawn. The motifs that are formed from the row are more important to the listener's comprehension than the row as such. Usually, the row is broken up into smaller segments which are reflections of each other in some important way. Think of the bare fifths that open Berg's Violin Concerto.

That said, it's not at all difficult to grasp the outline of a tone row used melodically:





Note the inverted repetition at 4:08. Schoenberg makes it immediately obvious through form and rhythm that we are hearing the same material as before.

And I'm interested: what are "other essential features of music lacking in serial music"?


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks for that.

RE: "And I'm interested: what are 'other essential features of music lacking in serial music'?"

According to Tymoczko, “typical Western listeners prefer” tonality and “dislike atonal music because they think it sounds bad”. The presumably few who do like it have essentially developed a taste for something like “clam chowder ice cream”

At other times he claims Schenkerian ideas are "incompatible with what we know about human cognitive limitations” and it is obvious he considers serial music technique to be also.

Dmitri Tymoczko lists 5 constraints of 'common practice music' tonal music that he believes essential (due to tradition and biological inheritance such as limitations of human perception):

1. Conjunct melodic motion, 
2. Acoustic consonance, (*)
3. Harmonic consistency, *
4. Limited macroharmony, *
5. Tonal centricity. *

Four of these contraints (2 being partially present) are not present in serial music, at least part of the intentional technique.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> ...On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed in the fact that it requires the listener to follow 12 pitches rather than fewer (albeit chromatically 'decorated') pitches of 5, 6, 7, or 8 tones. Is it even possible, then, to appreciate serial music on the first hearing? That would have some implications for first performances.


Fred Lerdall and George Rochberg (that traitor!) have been the most eloquent spokesmen for the "comprehensibility requirements" of music. I paraphrase some of these requirements here:

1. Not "huge leaps" in register; melodies must be contours
2. Some sort of regular metric accents
3. No super-long melodies or strings of pitches

The list goes on. However, Lerdahl & Rochberg recognize the concept of "musical space" as opposed to a horizontal time-line of sequential events. This space juxtaposes large "blocks" or areas of sound next to each other.

Then again, the "requirements" don't apply to all serial music. For example, Boulez will put "clusters" of bass notes that are "incomprehensible" as pitch, but are used as "sonic stuff" or just sound; or super-high piano notes which are more percussive than meaningful as pitches.

Further, there are serialists like George Perle and David Froom who are producing beautiful "harmonic" serial music which is sensual to the ear.

Personally, I don't think "comprehensibilty" in the old sense is a requirement of any music or art. My requirement is that it be beautiful. and "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," not the art.

So, the goals of some serial music are different than traditional music; the goals are part of an overall artistic plan or way of treating the materials. This is where most traditional musical advocates "fail" at seeing or accepting artistic intents; the paradigm shift is too much for them.

Music in the 20th century and beyond is now "art" as well as music, involving and preferably requiring a rudimentary knowledge of modern art ideas; the older paradigm of music as a language of agreed-upon or implicit meanings, restricted in range, is being populated with new works which seek to expand those boundaries.

Not to worry; there is plenty of CP tonal and other "easily comprehensible" music still being made which has utilitarian functions, such as cinema, opera, and listening, for those who seek it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

"According to Tymoczko, “typical Western listeners prefer” tonality and “dislike atonal music because they think it sounds bad”. The presumably few who do like it have essentially developed a taste for something like “clam chowder ice cream”"

I've never been convinced that people who say they dislike atonal music can identify it with any accuracy. I've seen people say that everything by Schoenberg, even Verklarte Nacht, is atonal, and likewise that certain "atonal" works are tonal (Berg's Violin Concerto, Moses und Aron, Schoenberg's Piano Concerto).

I didn't have to develop a taste for atonal music. I developed a taste for music, and found the exact things that I enjoy in tonal music in non-tonal. It took time to fully appreciate Schoenberg, but that was because of the music's density, not "atonality".

"1. Conjunct melodic motion, 
2. Acoustic consonance, (*)
3. Harmonic consistency, *
4. Limited macroharmony, *
5. Tonal centricity. *"

There are tone centers in much "atonal" music, so No. 5 is present. Also, there may be a wider variety of harmonic relations, but the variety is not infinitely more; the same 12-note scale is used and limits the relations in exactly the same way as before.

It's also amusing that the author considers "Limited Macroharmony" a precondition of musical enjoyment, but discounts Schenker, whose ideas boil down to something similar.

Consonance is a matter of context more than anything else. You know the hideous last chord of Mozart's "A Musical Joke"? Debussy could have thrown it in one of his piano pieces and it would sound beautiful.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> ...At other times he (Dmitri Tymoczko) claims Schenkerian ideas are "incompatible with what we know about human cognitive limitations" and it is obvious he considers serial music technique to be also.


I don't see how Schenker analysis is relevant; it is a method of analysis which reduces "surface texture" to its most essential harmonic meanings, and unlike other analysis methods, it uses "comprehension of musical meaning" as its main technique of distillation. This seems at odds with the notion of "incomprehensibility," since Schenker analysis relies on an acute musical perception. And the world's most respected musical theorist, Alan Forte of Yale, co-authored a book on the subject. I trust him implicitly.



Minona said:


> Dmitri Tymoczko lists 5 constraints of 'common practice music' tonal music that he believes essential (due to tradition and biological inheritance such as limitations of human perception):
> 
> 1. Conjunct melodic motion,
> 2. Acoustic consonance, (*)
> ...


I disagree; all of these elements are present in any of Schoenberg's later works, and in George Perle, Wourinen, Froom, etc.

For Tymoczko to make such a list shows a basic mis-comprehension of the serial idea itself. In practice, the serial method might have been employed in contrast to Tymoczko's requirements, but these are in no way inherent to the serial method itself, but more due to a different set of artistic criteria, which don't include that list. The serial method itself is very flexible, as Perle has shown.

Anyway, the attack on serial music is irrelevant as such for advocates as myself; the real disconnect is an aesthetic one.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Minona said:


> Schenkerian


SCHENKER IS IRRELEVANT!!!! Booooo....

Schenkerian analysis cannot be applied to atonal/non-tonal music because it was developed to get an undertsanding of how tonal music operates. Schenker himself used it to diss music modernists and to "prove" their music is unworthy compared to music of composers such as _Brahms_ because their atonal music did not apply to his "rules."


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## Guest (Apr 5, 2013)

Minona said:


> Dmitri Tymoczko lists 5 constraints of 'common practice music' tonal music that he believes essential (due to tradition and biological inheritance such as limitations of human perception):
> 
> 1. Conjunct melodic motion,
> 2. Acoustic consonance, (*)
> ...


Well, that just means that Dmitri Tymoczko is a noodlebrain is all. Or maybe it's just that he doesn't get out enough, you know, to meet real people who go to electroacoustic concerts like the one I just attended at Centquatre, where none of the music had any of these "constraints."

The soldout house (SRO) seemed to like it just fine.

(For HC, who's interested in numbers, I'd estimate that the "hall" holds about 1000 seats. I can check tomorrow if you like.)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Don't misunderstand me; I think that "comprehensibility factors" apply just fine to music which requires this type of understanding, but I don't think they should be applied "politically" to serial music as criticism.

As to Schenker analysis, "...the goal of a Schenkerian analysis is to interpret the underlying structure of a _tonal_ work and to help reading the score according to that structure. The theory's basic tenets can be viewed as a way of defining _tonality_ in music."

So, although Schenker thought tonality was a "superior" system, this is irrelevant and need not be mentioned (in huge font sizes) or stir conflict, because it is a "subjective" system. The analysis represents a way of hearing (and reading) a piece of music. This neatly ties it to "comprehension," but this tenuous connection in applying it to serial music (or even Bartok) is not applicable because it is based on tonality itself in a self-referential way.

Formally, it is based on the tonal hierarchy of chord function (I-ii-iii-IV-V-vi-vii), and does not even account for modulation; it is a _monotonal_ system. So, the system assumes tonality implicitly.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Minona said:


> Psychologists say the human memory can only hold 7 or 8 perhaps 9 'items' in the short-terms memory. To this rule there are said to be no exceptions...unless the test subject is using a mnemonic memory system to relate new items to associations already fixed in the mind.


Regardless of how many numbers in how many strings, it seems all humans can only wholly conceive of or image the full quantity of NO MORE THAN FIVE before the breakdown into 'clumps' or sub-groups occurs. (Everyone, now look at your hand and its digits… 

*But the average John and Jane do 'the exception' all the time. * If you can recall learning from a textbook, and in memory is a paragraph, and whether it was on the left or right page, and about where it sat in the ranks of paragraphs, and all attached to an idea which the reader connected with some later material; then John or Jane quickly scans back to the sought related paragraph, retrieving the entirety, including the idea / premise the paragraph exposed at a glance - as one object, an 'icon' (Computers, folders, icons, are modeled upon 'how we think.') Native geniuses that John and Jane are, they then flip back and forth from Icon A to Icon B, and there comes the new thought, the new synergy - achieved by holding reams of info and flipping it into an icon,flip-booking those into yet a third complex thought object. ~
~ this as analogy is quite the same when we listen to music.



Minona said:


> *With real music...*


*B.T.W. -- What on Earth do you mean by That? *

A composer, artist, writer, architect… any who 'make up' things which are also judged / merited upon 'style' often have developed a ready and working sense of their voice, vocabulary, style (and instruments.) Professionals, who think along those lines full time (very) and who retain larger, longer ideas and structures are amazing to the most of us who do not.

There are still those whose ability is marked as 'astounding,' and that is not false. Back to that M.O. and content and style - Mozart only played, and composed, Mozart. Ditto for most of the others. Geniuses, yes and more than remarkable ones, but… Not The Miracle it is often made out to be, 'the miracle' is the glamorized version, verging on to realms of magic, but false 

Yet, Mozart is renown for transcribing Allegri's Miserere. 
He heard it once, went again to check what he had already transcribed -- (maybe made but a few little corrections.)
Repeats or none, a polyphonic piece of about 10 to 12 minutes duration with at least four voice modal counterpoint.
The composer was age 14 when he did the transcription. Yes he was also intensely talented, intensely trained from about the time he could stand or walk and had, by generally agreed upon guesstimates, a high digit genius IQ. Still, aged _fourteen_; the kid; his background; taking the piece down in dictation... the whole is seriously exceptional, I think.



Minona said:


> On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed in the fact that it requires the listener to follow 12 pitches rather than fewer (albeit chromatically 'decorated') pitches of 5, 6, 7, or 8 tones.


... and you do not think that a book titled 'A Geometry of Music', with that particular cant pro 'tonality' _does not have An Axe To Grind_, and a pseudo-science 'proof' pro tonality ( common practice style) to support that Grind? LOL.

You will instantly recognize the fact that you do not track a simple tune or an extended piece 'note by note,' nor do you 'get' a melody that way; instead as you've mentioned, 'in chunks.' That means, in other terms, you are hearing and recognizing 'gestures' - harmonic and linear. It is exactly the same manner of listening / 'processing' which allows for following serial music, atonal music in its many ways of being, forty minute long Classical Indian Sitar improvisations, Gamelan music, non-serial highly chromatic music, Antique Korean ritual choral music, or even 'Mary had a little lamb.'

Those who hold with 'the argument' and supportive 'evidence' on how unnatural is any music other than western common practice period tonality just do not have a truly supportable argument: acoustics, maths, have yet to 'prove' anything to us about any music or scale other than that the prime and a perfect octave are 'consonant.' How many steps in a scale, the disposition of their tuning, how many of those steps are used in any given vocabulary just cannot be 'proven' better, worse, right, wrong, untrue, etc.

Every music performance or composition major who has gone through undergrad has passed an exam successfully doing the following as part of their ear-training / solfege requirement. 
1.) via dictation, notate a brief four-part chorale (16 bars or so, common practice harmony) upon two hearings, the dictation given at a slow-ish tempo.
2..) via dictation, notate a twelve-tone atonal line.
3.) sight-sing a twelve-tone atonal line.
[[Right, assume that music majors are 'talented' etc. still, there are masses of people who can do this…]]
(... The final exam in modal counterpoint for one pal who trained as comp major at an exacting European conservatory sat him down in a room, manuscript paper and pen, and allowed two hours to write a six-voice motet: that is not 'average.' Ahem.)

It is either 'what you are used to' or 'what you study to get used to'… (younger generations, those already familiar with and listening to more 20th century music -- tonal and 'other -- seem to 'get' their modernist / atonal bearings faster than older generations or those whose realm of musical experience is 'tonal' only.)

There is nothing 'organically' or 'scientifically' better or inferior, or 'beyond the human capacity' of either intellectual or visceral perception re: high chromaticism in serial or other modes of working the vocabulary. More than a few composers, performers, and (cumulatively over decades) collectively great -- and slowly growing -- numbers of audience cannot be such 'exceptions' of humankind as some make that out to be


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

CP tonality is based on acoustic factors, because of the scale of consonance and dissonance in intervals (see chart in my blogs). It is a system _based _on these harmonic principles, but it takes these "vertical" intervals and _spreads them out over time horizontally, and gives functions to them._ This requires cognition and memory, applied over time. Thus, it is just as much a _"hidden system"_ as serialism or fractal composition, or any of the "pseudo-scientific" methods. For a listener to follow the harmonic scheme of a Beethoven symphony is just as arbitrary and cerebral as serial music. The only thing that makes CP tonality "seem" more "apparent" and comprehensible is the vertical sounding of harmonies and triads, along with rudimentary language-like phrasing. Debussy likewise seems comprehensible to many, because he uses "harmonic mechanisms" like triads based on thirds; there is no CP tonal function.

This is because the only harmonic "truth" which is intuitively and instantly comprehended by the ear/brain are intervals sounded simultaneously, as the harmonics of a "root" or fundamental note.

Therefore, if we are searching for "natural truth" in music, then North Indian raga is more "truthful," because it does not modulate, and is always in reference to a "drone" which is constant and always audible to the ear/brain. In fact, Schenkerian analysis is monotonal; its "truth" leads back to _one note and its harmonics (seen as chord functions in relation to a "root" or home chord).

_20th century music has its own logic and methods, much of it based on symmetry rather than being directly derived, as CP tonality is, from strictly vertical harmonic factors; _but music is more than the sensual vibrations of the eardrum; it involves cognition through time as well. 
_
If the insistence on "totally natural and apparent" music were really the case, then ET would not exist, and we'd all be listening to La Monte Young's perfectly-tuned pure intervals.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> SCHENKER IS IRRELEVANT!!!! Booooo....
> 
> Schenkerian analysis cannot be applied to atonal/non-tonal music because it was developed to get an undertsanding of how tonal music operates. Schenker himself used it to diss music modernists and to "prove" their music is unworthy compared to music of composers such as _Brahms_ because their atonal music did not apply to his "rules."


It is worse than that, but not surprising considering the era in which and the place from whence this sprung up: Shenker had a prime intention that his system of analysis would also prove out that German (tonalist, natch) classical music was 'superior' to all the rest 

Charming.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

PetrB said:


> It is worse than that, but not surprising considering the era in which and the place from whence this sprung up: Shenker had a prime intention that his system of analysis would also prove out that German (tonalist, natch) classical music was 'superior' to all the rest
> 
> Charming.


Ah ha- a German Wig conspiracy mmm, there you go!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Ah ha- a German Wig conspiracy mmm, there you go!


Naw, just another real person caught up in the parochial / global ethos of his own times: Adorno is another shining example of something very similar, both redolent with sentiment for the old music (and its representing the sentiment of the good old days, all formulated and written in much later 'bad' days post one or two world wars which your country lost, along with its face and sense of 'glory.') -- as much a cause for their elaborately constructed pedant 'rationales' as anything else.

[Living and writing where and when Adorno did, under the less than subtle pressure of his political surrounds, is it any surprise he would 'dis' the great contemporary Russian Stravinsky while out of the other nostril whingingly and most reluctantly whistle grudging 'apologist' arguments for his fellow countryman Schoenberg? ... When talking about those who "spoke" so pointedly, and what they said has / had any degree of wide influence, the historic context of what shaped their pathos -- their reactions to all that which affected their purpose, direction and thinking -- is once again highly important.]


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Regardless of how many numbers in how many strings, it seems all humans can only wholly conceive of or image the full quantity of NO MORE THAN FIVE before the breakdown into 'clumps' or sub-groups occurs.


I think you're talking about dividing random items into clusters, but I'm really talking about strings of items. Yes, like the scene in Rainman, where he counts the toothpicks, that is done by isolating small groups and summing them up. A chess champion who could glance at a chessboard and remember it, revealed that she saw always saw it as a small collection of 'shapes' that were merely (6 or 7) symbols to her.



PetrB said:


> *But the average John and Jane do 'the exception' all the time. * If you can recall learning from a textbook, and in memory is a paragraph, and whether it was on the left or right page...


But that could be remembered with a single mental image if you include the mental picture of the L/R corner of the book, how far up, etc. Similarly, a lot of physical motor sequences are automatic and backed up by logic. For example, with computer icons, we can also use logic to support our recall and orientation.



PetrB said:


> *B.T.W. -- What on Earth do you mean by That? *


I only meant 'real music' as opposed to random sequences of notes that I was expected to recall as part of a test.



PetrB said:


> Repeats or none, a polyphonic piece of about 10 to 12 minutes duration with at least four voice modal counterpoint.


But 'Miserere' didn't require Mozart to remember 12 minutes of music in two hearings.



PetrB said:


> by generally agreed upon guesstimates, a high digit genius IQ.


New studies are suggesting that the type of intelligence tested by IQ tests might actually get in the way of creativity.



PetrB said:


> and you do not think that a book titled 'A Geometry of Music', with that particular cant pro 'tonality' _does not have An Axe To Grind_, and a pseudo-science 'proof' pro tonality ( common practice style) to support that Grind? LOL.


Well, he's a professor at Princeton and I'm just a self-taught amateur musician struggling to grasp these difficult aspects of music. However, there's an excellent overview & review of this book by Dave Headlam, and even a suggestion of a book with the same aims that is more successful:

'Foundations of diatonic theory -a mathematically based approach to music fundamentals' ~Timothy A Johnson

As for serial music, I'm sure it is interesting, but I'm probably not ready for it yet. Also, tonal music is universal -even in cultures where 'non tonality' exists (equal scale division, etc) there is always tonal music alongside it as part of the _same_ tradition. In the west, it's a 1000+ year tradition embracing many diverse genres.

So the fact that one man (Schoenberg) comes along in 1921 and invents serial music does not stand equally against all that in my view. I don't think he was 'a genius of geniuses' for instance.

At the time, many such composers were claiming serial music will be heard in much the same way at tonal music, but I think this has been shown to be a mistake. It also seems to be a mistake the claim, at that time, that tonal musical materials have 'ran their course' ...given the subsequent development of blues, jazz and continual ignorance towards a whole world of tonal resources (e.g. Indian & Arabian musical technique) still not fully explored today.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> ...tonal music is universal -even in cultures where 'non tonality' exists (equal scale division, etc) there is always tonal music alongside it as part of the _same_ tradition. In the west, it's a 1000+ year tradition embracing many diverse genres.


"Tone-centric" music is universal, and found in most folk music, but this is an umbrella term, of which CP tonality is a subset. CP tonality does not "own the rights" to all tone-centric, harmonically-based musics.

Only CP tonality has the chord functions assigned to it which make it what it is. It does not "own" the idea of chord function, either; it is simply a special-case tradition of chord function.
Rudimentary chord functions, such as I-IV-V can be found in many folk song forms, and in blues with its arbitrary I7-IV7-V7 forms. These are based on the harmonic principle of the fifth/fourth 3:2 interval being the most audible harmonic, then the fourth. This principle is not "owned" by CP tonality, but is a fact of nature.



Minona said:


> So the fact that one man (Schoenberg) comes along in 1921 and invents serial music does not stand equally against all that in my view. I don't think he was 'a genius of geniuses' for instance.


It shouldn't, nor was it intended to. Schoenberg did not want to "reveal" his 12-tone method, and did so only because he felt he had to, in response to Hauer's publication of his 12-note book and "trope" method (tropes were like scales, unordered). Schoenberg would have rather just continued writing music without this "system" ever being mentioned. Not out of "secrecy" or fear of misunderstanding (which turned out to be a valid fear), but for "musical" reasons: he saw his music, even the 12-tone stuff, as being a continuation of chromaticism, plain and simple. This is how he thought: as a musician, not a theorist. Schoenberg in fact never discussed the 12-tone method with anyone other than his "special" students, Berg & Webern, maybe a few others.

The point I'm making is that Schoenberg saw his music as continuing the "chromatic" way of thinking, a late version of tonality, which he was already using before he developed the "system." Bartok, Stravinsky, and others were already thinking this way as well. So for me this reinforces the view of Schoenberg as a tonalist.



Minona said:


> ...At the time, many such composers were claiming serial music will be heard in much the same way at tonal music, but I think this has been shown to be a mistake. It also seems to be a mistake the claim, at that time, that tonal musical materials have 'ran their course' ...given the subsequent development of blues, jazz and continual ignorance towards a whole world of tonal resources (e.g. Indian & Arabian musical technique) still not fully explored today.


The point which must be acknowledged is that the development of serial thinking was not intended to replace tonality, but that Serialism is directly and intimately tied to CP tonality via the gradual emergence of chromatic thinking. It is thus an outgrowth, side path, and development of CP tonal thinking.

The success and proliferation of blues and jazz simply represents different cultural/aesthetic approaches; and these genres are based on a "popular" model/paradigm, not a direct continuation of Western classical "composer" tradition, or of CP tonal thinking.

Jazz, while using the basic chord functions of CP tonality, also incorporates elements of African rhythm _(compound "shuffle," dividing the 4/4 pulse into 3 beats per pulse, which Western notation cannot recognize except as a 12/8, which is counter-intuitive to a 4/4 walking bass)_ and African pentatonics with b7s, also used in blues. It does not pretend to "continue the Western CP tonal tradition," nor should it be seen that way; it is a genre invented in New Orleans by African Americans as an expression of black (African) culture & mindset.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Minona said:


> So the fact that one man (Schoenberg) comes along in 1921 and invents serial music does not stand equally against all that in my view. I don't think he was 'a genius of geniuses' for instance.


Well, he was a genius. Nearly entirely self-taught in music, perfect pitch, merged the disparate legacies of Brahms and Wagner into a single style...but he did none of that to prove that he was a genius. He composed the way he did because he felt drawn to. (EDIT: And yes, he "heard" all of his music in his head before he wrote it down. He did not compose at the piano, and conceived of musical ideas polyphonically.) Serialism was not intended as a replacement for the entirety of Western music, but an extension of it. It is built upon and cannot have existed without it.



> At the time, many such composers were claiming serial music will be heard in much the same way at tonal music, but I think this has been shown to be a mistake.


Why, if everyone here who listens regularly to serial and post-tonal music tells you otherwise? I listen to a work by Boulez or Webern more or less the same way I listen to music by Mozart or Beethoven. Does it sound different? Of course. About as different from the chromatic music that preceded it (Reger, Strauss) as Baroque music is from Classical, but really not much more than that.



> It also seems to be a mistake the claim, at that time, that tonal musical materials have 'ran their course' ...given the subsequent development of blues, jazz and continual ignorance towards a whole world of tonal resources (e.g. Indian & Arabian musical technique) still not fully explored today.


A lot of contemporary composers, tonal and non-tonal, have been inspired by world music. There was heavy world music influence on the Darmstadt generation of serial composers (Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis), who frequently integrated elements from African and Asian music. One of the foremost teachers of the period, Olivier Messiaen (who wrote music that had tonal and non-tonal elements, but is in any case more closely related to Debussy than Common Practice technique), integrated Indian-influenced rhythms throughout his work.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I listen to a work by Boulez or Webern more or less the same way I listen to music by Mozart or Beethoven. Does it sound different? Of course. About as different from the chromatic music that preceded it (Reger, Strauss) as Baroque music is from Classical, but really not much more than that.


I have about the same listening pattern as Mahlerian, and them perhaps some even more modern! What I fail to understand is *WHY* people who intensely dislike Schönberg and the music post him put so extremely much effort in to detracting this relatively minor movement?

To the OP: Wouldn't You be better of Listening to/Thinking about/Playing music You venerate instead of all this misspent effort on something that really doesn't threaten You? Or are You so incredibly threatened by a few dissonances that you can't stop Yourself?

Amazing?

/ptr


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I still find much of the "pro tonality" argument, which seems to almost uniquely exist as a reaction to 'atonality,' as a hugely rationalized argument armed with selective points dependent upon 'science' and / or 'maths' -- excluding so much in order to make its point it prove itself 'legitimate' -- but which only exists simply because the majority do find tonality to be their greatest comfort zone.

I do hear anything I listen to, harmonic vein aside, as 'tonal,' so my comfort zone must be wildly divergent from the norm. Some people get very upset with 'tonal' music which is of the progressive tonality sort, i.e. the piece may or may not begin at home and does not, ultimately, return to 'tonic;' some listeners get horribly upset when a piece does not begin and ultimately 'return them home.' That does not bother me, nor does a piece have to end on a root position chord of any sort, which is another thing many find disconcerting.

Arguments for tonality being 'organic' or 'highly favored' or 'spontaneous' within the entire population handily avoid mention that a similar construct could be argued about spoken and written language, i.e. a straightforward plain language occurs most everywhere spontaneously.

Get to 'developed' language and literature, though, and find the many sophisticated later additions to that fundamental vocabulary, usage, syntax and the subsequent literature which developed / uses it, and compare that to the more spontaneous and 'universal' simple folk tale, and... well there, similarly, goes the like argument 'against' serial / atonal.

The 'average person' now readily 'sees' and likes impressionist painting, can readily without any conscious effort extract the image from a cubist painting, appreciate to some degree the abstract expressionists, reflexively gets and 'deals with' split-screen action in television and film, take in and readily comprehend simultaneously spoken dialogue as found in Altman films and some stage plays; _yet when it comes to any or all of those procedures as found occurring in 20th century music literature, those same elements have people wincing and whining about how, essentially, those are terrible corruptions of the older art._

Sentimentalism, not science, has got to be behind much of this pro-tonal / anti modern - chromatic argument.

Go figure.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Fred Lerdall and George Rochberg (that traitor!) have been the most eloquent spokesmen for the "comprehensibility requirements" of music. I paraphrase some of these requirements here:
> 
> 1. Not "huge leaps" in register; melodies must be contours
> 2. Some sort of regular metric accents
> ...


Interesting read, thank you. Music and philosophy go quite nicely here. Who are some Serialist composers' and which pieces might be worth a listen to demonstrate the above? Your favourites?


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

I have not heared the 'why comprehensivity?' argument before. I learned something. Thanks!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"So, the goals of some serial music are different than traditional music; the goals are part of an overall artistic plan or way of treating the materials. This is where most traditional musical advocates "fail" at seeing or accepting artistic intents; the paradigm shift is too much for them."

Once again, the problem lies with the listener! Maybe if this is repeated enough times, its truth will become apparent to all...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> "So, the goals of some serial music are different than traditional music; the goals are part of an overall artistic plan or way of treating the materials. This is where most traditional musical advocates "fail" at seeing or accepting artistic intents; the paradigm shift is too much for them."
> 
> Once again, the problem lies with the listener! Maybe if this is repeated enough times, its truth will become apparent to all...


Well, no one has satisfactorily 'proven' the repertoire 'faulty,' though by the fact of this O.P. many (even those with Doctorates who are professors at Princeton!) have tried.

That, uh, pretty much leaves the rest upon the audience, now, doesn't it?

Besides, with no ear for it, how could one without the ear for it presume in any way to begin to rationally critique it? EH? Mmmmm.

...seems more like a matter of that infamous, empiric, and epigrammatic,
"I don't know art but I know what I like."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> "So, the goals of some serial music are different than traditional music; the goals are part of an overall artistic plan or way of treating the materials. This is where most traditional musical advocates "fail" at seeing or accepting artistic intents; the paradigm shift is too much for them."
> 
> Once again, the problem lies with the listener!


So, _that's_ why the chicken crossed the road: because someone told him not to! But no, it's not an either/or situation: art is a two-way street.

Some traditionalists are simply not ready to leave the limitations of the tonal system. In this sense, they have "failed" to engage the art which has already passed muster, and is engaged by those willing & able to engage it.

If the traditionalist refuses to accept the "different goals" and "different ways of treating the materials of music," then they should stop beating their heads against that wall.

That's fine with me, and there is no need to see this as a deficiency on their part. I'm sure not going to argue with masters like James Levine and history just to spare hurting some sensitive traditionalist's feelings.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Well, no one has satisfactorily 'proven' the repertoire 'faulty,' though by the fact of this O.P. many (even those with Doctorates who are professors at Princeton!) have tried. That, uh, pretty much leaves the rest upon the audience, now, doesn't it?


Point ceded! Since the smart people from Princeton haven't proved there's anything wrong with the music, then it must be pretty good!

Certainly the musical peasants should stay in their favelas in the other part of town while those of greater discernment and attainment carry on their elevated discussions. Absinthe, anyone?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Point ceded! Since the smart people from Princeton haven't proved there's anything wrong with the music, then it must be pretty good!


If this post was intended to have anything to do with PetrB's, I'd check on your logic a little...as it stands, it's a non-sequitur followed by an insinuation.

Perhaps you chose the wrong forum?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I'd check on your logic a little...as it stands, it's a non-sequitur followed by an insinuation.


I may be a little slow, but I can't see that. Explain? BTW I admit to being irritated by appeals to academic authority in matters musical...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Repertoire has not been proven invalid != Repertoire is excellent

You are equating the two to invalidate an argument that he never made.

He never said it was good _because_ it has not been proven invalid.

Also, the only appeal to academia so far has been the one at the beginning of the thread, which attempted to prove the opposite.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Pardon me, but would you happen to have any Grey Poupon? Oh, you don't like mustard? Hmmm...I guess I'll have to eat this cheap hot dog dry! :lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Point ceded! Since the smart people from Princeton haven't proved there's anything wrong with the music, then it must be pretty good!
> 
> Certainly the musical peasants should stay in their favelas in the other part of town while those of greater discernment and attainment carry on their elevated discussions. Absinthe, anyone?


It really does reduce in prime as being an individual's taste. Most _everyone_ has listening limits of all sorts; harmonic vocabulary / number of pitches in a scale and its tuning / form / shape (it is well determined that people have varied preference for one melodic contour over another even within like pieces within one genre) / texture (some people hate seeds in their jam). All matter of fact, sans tests, grading, grades, or 'class distinction.' The only announced 'competitions' I've seen are all about new music from composer members of the forum, where only those wishing to participate do.

Re: tonal / atonal, form vs. 'formless' (if it has a shape; that is its form -- yada shazam.)
The long (and to my ears, rather whine-laden) 'war of attrition' against, in general, the non-common practice modernists was first launched from the 'tonal' quarters, and the voluble contumely heaped from same quarters upon later music is the explanation for a reasonable, if not excusable, reaction from the other quarter.

Really, the first ambuscade and the subsequent sieges upon one musical mode over another have first come, and continue to come, from the 'tonalist' quarter. It is virtually a one-way street!

Then there is often an accompaniment to the onslaught of a supposed highly indignant personal moral / aesthetic outrage having to do with no little more than a sentimental attitude I can only call 'the offended 19th / 18th / 17th century." - choose your preferred stylistic era / century, please, or you will be drafted later. 

Another common quality in some of those complaints sounds more like a disappointed soul who has been excluded from admission to the club, or some prestigious inner circle, and feel they are missing something, a group is dismissing them, withholding something cool or valuable - a melodramtic soap-opera made out as arcane or, conversely, child-like. Best to remind any feeling like that: no lifeguards on duty but feel free to jump in, best to take the clothing off first, though. You already know how to swim, and the water is just fine!

Then perhaps the eerier-weird conceit that a covert coven of cognoscenti (The C.C.C.) have you on 'their stupid list of those who do not get it,' or some fantastical some-such, may begin to take its real place... in the realms of the genre of _fiction_ named "magical reality."

Whatever anyone listens to or performs, that, and the fare, gets them on the bus.

Hell, I completely get and yet do not care for Bruckner, similarly get yet don't cotton much at all to Tchaikovsky, either: failed those tests, I guess. Yet, I am a bona fide peasant who slips readily and more than comfortably into the repertoire of the 20th and current century. Hey, nobody 'gets' everything. I have understanding but little sympathy for anyone seeking the sentiments of yore in works of the present. I am ever so rarely a sentimental tourist. I've found it takes / gets you no where.

It helps to realize that music theory, and theory about music theory (LOL) _*is,* _uh, _*theory, not fact*_: there are no laws, no regulated body of written dictates with which anyone can 'convict' any one else. I think those 'intimidated by academe' and many an academic theorist more than tend to lose sight of that little factoid.

Keep harping on what some of the music I love so lacks, and against all politic of decency, after a while I might cave in and begin harping on what you or the music you enjoy lack... evidently something the contumely flingers feel they have license for or are entitled to do? At any rate, too many fail to see that dynamic is in action, miss or deliberately avoid it, thinking something more 'important' is at stake. Nope, music is just a bunch of notes, same as always.

All the while, over cumulative decades, more and more of the general audience for the contemporary musics has increased. Are they 'despicable converts,' 'traitors,' part of a generation who got a rare and highly exclusive cognoscenti chip implant… or have they just found more music they like which engages and entertains?

Others, I swear, not getting excitement through more 'normal' avenues, like jaywalking a four lane avenue or rock-climbing, instead keep their adrenaline up by making of this sort of argument 'a sport.' I've never been in to sport, real guy that I am


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> "So, the goals of some serial music are different than traditional music; the goals are part of an overall artistic plan or way of treating the materials. This is where most traditional musical advocates "fail" (or refuse) at seeing or accepting artistic intents; the paradigm shift is too much for them."
> 
> Once again, the problem lies with the listener! Maybe if this is repeated enough times, its truth will become apparent to all...Since the _smart people_ from Princeton haven't proved there's anything wrong with the music, then it must be pretty good!...Certainly the _musical peasants_ (?) should stay in their favelas in the other part of town while _those of greater discernment and attainment_ (?) carry on their elevated discussions. Absinthe, anyone?


Maybe a drink would help you, because to "play the victim" after assaulting forms of music one dislikes, seems disingenuous, and I'm not falling for it.

This response pretends to want to focus on _the horrible music,_ making the point that modern music (and all music) is an "it."

This pretends that the problem resides _in the music,_ not the _victimized_ _people_ who listen to it, and _certainly not the people who constantly voice their hatred about it! _That's a nice, tidy position, but essentially flawed.

The truth is, _music is not just an "it;" music is an expression of people's world view, culture, identity, values, and being. 
_
For me, this suggests that _tolerance_ for a wide range of musical tastes must be exercised. This means to put a damper on the hate-speech concerning one's musical taste, because music is an expression of human values.

It must constantly be remembered that in making hateful statements about modern music, this is, at the same time, _invalidating the taste and values, and identities of the listeners for whom that music stands as an expression of their value system:_ which hopefully includes tolerance, if not respect, for opposing views.

So, _there is no difference between music and the people who listen to it; they are intimately connected. Attempts at separating music from humanity is flawed._

My advice to critics of serial music, etc., is to not waste time in expressing dislike for this music, or blame this music for "destroying" or replacing tonality; rather, express your likes, and ignore that which you dislike. A constant barrage of negative and hateful rhetoric only provokes and invites defensive response.


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

So, okay, some music (often serial forms) isn't about 'comprehensivity' of e.g. harmonic functions, etc. It is a sonic effect...perhaps?

In that view we should not (necessarily) judge serial melodies and harmonies in the same way as for tonal music, but e.g. consider it like a 'timbre', which is beyond criticism and purely a matter of taste. Similarly, 'ambient music' either appeals or it doesn't, and we can't criticise it logically because it's all about sounds (not functions), timbres which appeal or don't...?

I get that, and it rings true with what Stockhausen was saying about his work (using serial technque as a way to detract from tonal functions and focus the listener's ear on sounds and other kinds of structuring).

But how does human perception fit into all this...?

I mean, if a composer (e.g. Stockhausen) uses processes in his music that result in structures which *cannot be distinguished from randomness* (or cannot even be detected/deciphered/appreciated by humans) ...what is their musical purpose in the end?

Can you, in favour of serialism, really recognise the difference between serialized pitches and random pitches (assuming the composer has evened out tonally suggestive clusters in the latter)...? Does it matter, and if not, why bother with serialized melodies?

It seems Stockhausen intended his listeners to detect the processes. Stockhausen talks a lot about 'expansion of the consciousness' but if his processess cannot be detected (because they are beyond human cognition and perception) then will they succeed in expanding our consciousness?

There is a similar criticism of the color pointillism technique used by painters like Georges Seurat (e.g. in his _Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte_). Research has determined the approach was based on myths about human color perception and that the artist's intention has therefore failed. Though I still think the artwork looks interesting, should we really stop recognising the application of psuedoscience in music and art?

Returning to comprehensivity for the moment... there is an opinion that Beethoven's music reflects the limits of the human brain (i.e. it is structured in such a way that it can be grasped, followed, 'comprehended' by *listening alone.* (I suppose the listener must have listening experience of music leading up to that point.) Any more complex and 'it must be formally studied to be comprehended'. Then again, is that a problem? Can't music study, even following scores be part of the new art?

A rather hardline opinion of Stockhausen in the Guardian Newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/dec/12/changetherecord

...with some interesting comments underneith.


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

---------------


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Minona said:


> In that view we should not (necessarily) judge serial melodies and harmonies in the same way as for tonal music, but e.g. consider it like a 'timbre', which is beyond criticism and purely a matter of taste. Similarly, 'ambient music' either appeals or it doesn't, and we can't criticise it logically because it's all about sounds (not functions), timbres which appeal or don't...?


No, it should be judged like any other music. Harmony, melody, form, and so forth.



> I get that, and it rings true with what Stockhausen was saying about his work (using serial technque as a way to detract from tonal functions and focus the listener's ear on sounds and other kinds of structuring).
> 
> But how does human perception fit into all this...?
> 
> I mean, if a composer (e.g. Stockhausen) uses processes in his music that result in structures which *cannot be distinguished from randomness* (or cannot even be detected/deciphered/appreciated by humans) ...what is their musical purpose in the end?


If that were true, then you might have a point, but it isn't. Serial music can be easily distinguished from randomness.



> Can you, in favour of serialism, really recognise the difference between serialized pitches and random pitches (assuming the composer has evened out tonally suggestive clusters in the latter)...? Does it matter, and if not, why bother with serialized melodies?


Yes, one can easily tell the difference.



> It seems Stockhausen intended his listeners to detect the processes. Stockhausen talks a lot about 'expansion of the consciousness' but if his processess cannot be detected (because they are beyond human cognition and perception) then will they succeed in expanding our consciousness?


But they can be detected. I don't even like Stockhausen, but it still sounds like music to me.



> There is a similar criticism of the color pointillism technique used by painters like Georges Seurat (e.g. in his _Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte_). Research has determined the approach was based on myths about human color perception and that the artist's intention has therefore failed. Though I still think the artwork looks interesting, should we really stop recognising the application of psuedoscience in music and art?
> 
> Returning to comprehensivity for the moment... there is an opinion that Beethoven's music reflects the limits of the human brain (i.e. it is structured in such a way that it can be grasped, followed, 'comprehended' by *listening alone.* (I suppose the listener must have listening experience of music leading up to that point.) Any more complex and 'it must be formally studied to be comprehended'. Then again, is that a problem? Can't music study, even following scores be part of the new art?


I doubt many people can comprehend the late Beethoven scores _by listening alone_ unless they have otherwise studied music at a high level, and have thus trained themselves to listen in a certain way.

By listening alone, I have come to understand scores by Bruckner, Schoenberg, Webern, Messiaen, Takemitsu, Boulez, and many others who wrote using post-Beethoven structures and forms. Does it take more than a single listen? Usually. That doesn't mean they are beyond human comprehension.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Minona said:


> So, okay, some music (often serial forms) isn't about 'comprehensivity' (sic. comprehensibility) of e.g. harmonic functions, etc. It is a sonic effect...perhaps?


The ear/brain will seek out "roots" or tone centers in any kind of music; this is because this is the way the ear hears: by relating harmonics to fundamentals.
"Harmonic meaning, " or attempting to hear meaning, is a consequence, intended or unintended, of any music _which uses sustained tones perceived as pitch_ (percussion has rhyhmic meaning). (I hear tones in power tools and lawnmowers)

Serial music _by its nature_ does not have harmonic function built-in to its infrastructure like tonality, where horizontal functions-through-time are based on the vertical intervals built on its scale degrees. _This does not mean that "function-through-time" does not, or cannot exist in serial music. _"Function" is just one option among many in this very free, choice-based music which assumes nothing.

[i.e. "function" does not have to be based on hierarchy-based (root-based) vertical factors of consonance/dissonance, but can be structurally based]

Serial composers may be interested in meanings other than harmonic ones, or meanings related to other aspects of _sound,_ such as dynamics, rhythm, color, duration, etc., or "blocks" of sound, or symmetry. These are just as "meaningful" as harmonic functions...unless you are not prepared to accept that, or don't have the willingness or tools to perceive it (sorry, it's not the composer's fault).



Minona said:


> In that view we should not (necessarily) judge serial melodies and harmonies in the same way as for tonal music, but e.g. consider it like a 'timbre', which is beyond criticism and purely a matter of taste. Similarly, 'ambient music' either appeals or it doesn't, and we can't criticise it logically because it's all about sounds (not functions), timbres which appeal or don't...?


You can listen to serial music "tonally;" they say Schoenberg did (Allen Shawn). Try some George Perle wind quintets; it's a good ear/brain workout.



Minona said:


> I get that, and it rings true with what Stockhausen was saying about his work (using serial technque as a way to detract from tonal functions and focus the listener's ear on sounds and other kinds of structuring).


Yes, early serial works like Stockhausen's Klavierstucke and Boulez' Structures are probably more about beautiful, non-representational "splatters" of sound and structural considerations than about "harmonic meaning." There comes a time to just relax and listen, stop trying so hard, and "let sound be itself." Morton Feldman and John Cage are good for this, as is Ligeti.



Minona said:


> But how does human perception fit into all this...? I mean, if a composer (e.g. Stockhausen) uses processes in his music that result in structures which *cannot be distinguished from randomness* (or cannot even be detected/deciphered/appreciated by humans) ...what is their musical purpose in the end?


What do _you_ think the purpose should be? I don't have to deal with these questions, because I accept each work on its own terms. I don't constantly "expect" music to be what I want it to be, or what I think it should be.



Minona said:


> Can you, in favour of serialism, really recognise the difference between serialized pitches and random pitches (assuming the composer has evened out tonally suggestive clusters in the latter)...? Does it matter, and if not, *why bother with serialized melodies?*


I think so, in most cases. Ligeti, for instance, seems random to me, but very artistic. He has parameters. Also, in some Morton Feldman: I get the idea that he chooses his pitches "artistically" in most cases. However, in some Feldman (and Cage's) indeterminate music, there is an element of randomness, within parameters, as in Feldman's graphic scores, and his "music by numbers" works.

Serialism does not always mean "twelve notes in a row, incomprehensible because it's too long." Schoenberg broke his rows into hexads. Also, he was a thematic composer. He used all his knowledge of "tonal mechanisms and meanings" in his atonal works, so the "incomprehensibility" argument is flawed from the start.



Minona said:


> It seems Stockhausen intended his listeners to detect the processes. Stockhausen talks a lot about 'expansion of the consciousness' but if his processess cannot be detected (because they are beyond human cognition and perception) then will they succeed in expanding our consciousness?


How can music be "beyond cognition and perception? A tree is beautiful, but it is not "meant for me," nor do I understand the "hidden processes" that created its structure. It is what it is. A rose is a rose is a rose...

Much of Stockhausen's music (like Kontakte/on Wergo) does wonders for my "left brain," or that part which works by intuition rather than control-freak logic.



Minona said:


> There is a similar criticism of the color pointillism technique used by painters like Georges Seurat (e.g. in his _Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte_). Research has determined the approach was based on myths about human color perception and that the artist's intention has therefore failed. Though I still think the artwork looks interesting, should we really stop recognising the application of psuedoscience in music and art?


Photography changed the agenda and purpose of painting. Painting used to be a way of "documenting" people and events; photography and film and TV have changed all that. Painting became about "paint" and what the "inner" artist felt, not about documentinf objective outside events. Seurat's method was just one possibility. Like music, art deals with its own history, language, and materials.



Minona said:


> Returning to comprehensivity (comprehensibility-ed.) for the moment... there is an opinion that Beethoven's music reflects the limits of the human brain (i.e. it is structured in such a way that it can be grasped, followed, 'comprehended' by *listening alone.* (I suppose the listener must have listening experience of music leading up to that point.) Any more complex and 'it must be formally studied to be comprehended'. Then again, is that a problem? Can't music study, even following scores be part of the new art?


While the Beethoven example is true to an extent, his tonal music is also based on a "system" of functions, and also by centuries of tradition and agreed-upon meanings and conventions. For example, "Ta-da!" means an ending. If a listener is "immersed" in the certain kinds of "meanings" Beethoven presents us, then he might tend to take these meanings as "givens," and pervasive, and try to apply them to music which cannot provide these types of meanings. This seems to be a paradigm/mindset conflict, not the fault of the creators of other music. (sorry)

---------------------



Minona said:


> P.S. Those 'if you don't like it, don't listen to it' arguments, as well as those 'shouldn't you focus on music you like' questions aren't valid to me. *We're not going to stop criticising people's 'tastes'*, because for all I know, those people claiming to like this or that MAY be engaged in self-deceit or being pretentious, or perhaps like things because they have an invested interest in it (for example, they compose such music).


Or, perhaps, the music pleases them, and reflects their mindset and values. Proponents of new music wouldn't have to react with "if you don't like it, don't listen to it" if the critics would stop complaining.

Do we all criticize people's taste here? Not according to some. :lol: It seems that "music" is separated from people's taste when convenient (to post negatives), but is conveniently re-connected when "playing the victim" and blaming modernists for being "bullies."



Minona said:


> Stranger things have happened. There are several religions with millions of followers but only 1 or 0 will be correct. That leaves billions of people plain wrong in their beliefs... so why should art be any different? It's just discussion.


Or then again, there is no "truth" in metaphysical things except what works for oneself.

Furthermore, how can we not factor-in people's tastes, preferences, and capacities when invited into discussing music which they say they do not like? All of the questions posed here seem to be about how music is perceived or comprehended. How can this not involve a "human subject??


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

_There are several religions with millions of followers but only 1 or 0 will be correct. That leaves billions of people plain wrong in their beliefs... so why should art be any different? It's just discussion._

It is then possible that the billions of people who have listened to common-practice tonal music for hundreds of years could be "plain wrong" with respect to John Q. Public's intolerance towards dodecaphony.


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

Yes, but obviously I am sold on such music because it is self-evident to my ears. Since I can only listen through my ears I have to take another's words for serial music.

I suppose some of my suspicion for this ability to discern certain abstract qualities and complexities comes from outside music composition. For instance, there are audiophiles who claim to tell the difference between certain levels of quality (bit depth, sample rates) where it has been shown via blind tests to be untrue.

There have been similar studies in wine-tasting where cheaper wines with expensive labels are judged to be better than expensive wines in cheaper labels.

(As 'Anonymous' pointed out in my other thread) Stockhausen's use of a scale for 'loudnesses' (i.e. between [shortest notes=loudest] to [longest notes-softest]) doesn't really work because the human ear is more sensitive to higher pitched sounds (and especially those around the frequency of a human babies cry). So that principle wouldn't work in reality. Neither would many of Joseph Schillinger's equations.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Minona said:


> I suppose some of my suspicion for this ability to discern certain abstract qualities and complexities comes from outside music composition. For instance, there are audiophiles who claim to tell the difference between certain levels of quality (bit depth, sample rates) where it has been shown via blind tests to be untrue.


http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2010/06/chance_vs_serialism_redux.html

I posted this before, but apparently it made little impression. The contention that serial music sounds random has been pretty conclusively proven false. As you put so much stock in (pseudo-)scientific studies, I think you might be interested.

Note that Kyle Gann is an outspoken _critic_ of serial music, not a proponent.

And all of the Stockhausen-bashing is besides the point. You don't have to like Stockhausen to enjoy other serial music, just as you don't have to like Beethoven to enjoy other classical-era music (not that I would put Stockhausen on the level of Beethoven et al). These are composers with distinct and recognizable personalities, who wrote music that appeals to varying tastes.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lucia Dlugoszewski ~ Fire Fragile Flight 





"Yes, Virginia," music has always been about color and shape, going way back.

Pity it seems your arguments and preconceptions, habits, have it that you will not hear Ms. Dlugoszewski's lovely forest for what it is, nor will you find it to have a structure -- which it does, simple, elegant and effective -- but instead you are pleased to be busy with dwelling on the pseudoscience of how people perceive a tree.

Time to drop all pseudoscience coming from either quarter: That opinion of Beethoven as the limits of human perception without specialized study is hysterical, 'gales of laughter' worthy If that is true, then listening to these:
Schubert ~ Nacht und Träume




Brahms ~ Piano Quartet in C minor, opus 60, 3rd mvt.




Debussy ~ Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune




Schoenberg ~ Verklärte Nacht, Op.4








...etc. are all 'beyond human perception' without a truckload of prior formal training.... Bah, Humbug and Silly! General audiences for any music post Beethoven would have dropped down to a tiny handful of people and stayed there. They did not. They have not.

Also gales of laughter worthy is the one about Seurat's technique being a fail: so this is why his works hang in museums, and people who know nothing of painting techniques or color theory -- by the hundreds of thousands per annum -- stand in front of a Seurat canvas and directly 'get' the image, the painting, completely unaware of the specifics of Seurat's particular technical mode?

A group of seemingly random pitches are no longer random if they were chosen and then written down. Upon repeat listen, and another repeat, what was first sounding random is no longer, because it is the same upon repeat listening. If one were 'coming from' a much earlier time, the extraordinary display of an an ensemble playing long runs of sixteenth notes in a Mozart finale might just as readily, to that listener, sound like an array / assault of 'random notes.'

You've assembled a small hill of arguments 'against,' and no matter how 'objective,' one must always consider the source. If that source, unwittingly, was hoping for a specific result with a particular slant, that will be the result, and That Happens All The Time. Much of that material you've presented is spurious, dubious, and of course 'conclusions found' as per the intention as they were set up.

Those psychologists surveyed whom, exactly? -- the guy off the street; the amateur listener with a near professional dedication of years of progressive skilled - trained listening / musicians? Are they speaking of people who don't listen to classical at all and how they process 'Mary had a little lamb,' then threw at those same subjects a Stockhausen piece? If that was what was essentially done, should anyone be surprised at their resulting 'findings?'

Pseudoscience from either artists, psychologists or scientists remains 'pseudo.'

In Art, anyway, it is the piece, and your visceral perception of it, which 'count' most. Very few composers are at all intending for you to 'know the process' before you can listen to a piece on the visceral plane -- their 'processes' are for them, to come up with what they hope is an interesting piece.

You've quite zealously, it seems, spent a good deal of time and energy assembling a small hill of material which collectively 'proves' the music of Stockhausen and other serialist composers is 'beyond human perception,' etc. The degree of continued energy you have put into that, or this series of posts, also shows the music must be very powerful indeed, to cause such a reaction.

All you've demonstrated, displayed, really, are the far end of your listening habits / personal tastes, and then presented a small hill of dreadfully pedant and equally pseudo-scientific back up arguments to rationalize that the limit of your listening habits / taste is 'right.' That stamp of pedantry has never well proven anything, nor created any great music -- it is too small minded to accommodate anything more.

But built that all up you have, to a degree involving much effort that I believe you have also built a permanent wall for yourself, from which you will never be able to climb up over and out of, to access this other music. Nor is it worth a moment engaging in a 'discussion' to convince you otherwise, since your mind seems so set in stone. You're pretty much fixed for life on this particular dislike / issue unless you abandon looking for these feeble proofs against and instead open up both ears and mind and give some of the music you say is beyond perception a healthy and active and concentrated attention, with more than a few repeat listens, leaving your conditioned set of expectations of 'what music is' at the door. Our perception of earlier tonal music is not at all 'intuitive' but rather a conditioning as per a couple of collective centuries of what has become our semiotic base from which most of us operate. That semiotic base needs acknowledgment -- without so doing you will not realize why you do not need 'formal training' to listen to Bach -- where someone from outside our cultural experience just may well need a lot of 'explanation' to listen to Bach -- or why you are so ruffled / disconcerted with this later music.

I would have been much happier with a genuine, 'this is not for me,' from you vs. the reams of self-justification for your personal taste. It certainly would have been more on the point, far less disingenuous or pedant sounding, and I may have 'cared' more 

P.s. I am more than earnestly curious as to what your music comps 'sound like,' and if they are written with the calculations as to general listeners' expectations and 'limits of perception.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Pardon me, but would you happen to have any Grey Poupon? Oh, you don't like mustard? Hmmm...I guess I'll have to eat this cheap hot dog dry! :lol:


Sorry, I don't wear grey poop.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Schoenberg's music has ties to tradition; in fact, Schoenberg did not consider his 12-tone method as a self-contained system unto itself, but only as an aid to make his way through the chromatic jungle....But this is also the reason that Boulez criticized Schoenberg and embraced Webern. Webern and the serialists who followed saw it as a self-contained system apart from tonality; so much of serial music is indeed different from Schoenberg, and wished to sever the connections to the tonal paradigm.



> I am sold on such music because it is self-evident to my ears. Since I can only listen through my ears I have to take another's words for serial music. I suppose some of my suspicion for this ability to discern certain abstract qualities and complexities comes from outside music composition. For instance, there are audiophiles who claim to tell the difference between certain levels of quality (bit depth, sample rates) where it has been shown via blind tests to be untrue.


The ability to perceive serial music is likewise self-evident, and the inability or unwillingness to engage with the music will never be changed with statements from people who have already stated that they do not hear it, or discussions of people or their perceptions of it...or by my wasted reams of long-winded explanations, constructed to gingerly avoid any hint of ad hominem attacks or accusations of "bullying" those who openly and rudely disdain it....I accept Stockhausen and Boulez because I like the way it sounds.

Like the man said,


> ...open up both ears and mind and give some of the music you say is beyond perception a healthy and active and concentrated attention, with more than a few repeat listens, leaving your conditioned set of expectations of 'what music is' at the door.


 I think that's good advice, and I agree totally that


> our perception of earlier tonal music is not at all 'intuitive' but rather a conditioning as per a couple of collective centuries of what has become our semiotic base from which most of us operate. That semiotic base needs acknowledgment -- without so doing you will not realize why you do not need 'formal training' to listen to Bach -- where someone from outside our cultural experience just may well need a lot of 'explanation' to listen to Bach -- or why you are so ruffled / disconcerted with this later music....I would have been much happier with a genuine, 'this is not for me,' from you vs. the reams of self-justification for your personal taste.


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

Thanks for all that. Appreciated! I'm actually a big fan of Stockhausen's work (in particular). Sorry, I needed to know how such basic criticisms would be answered. Are there any other discussions here or elsewhere online about this?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Our perception of earlier tonal music i*s not at all 'intuitive'* *but rather a conditioning* as per a couple of collective centuries of what has become our semiotic base from which most of us operate. That semiotic base needs acknowledgment -- without so doing you will not realize why you do not need 'formal training' to listen to Bach -- where someone from outside our cultural experience just may well need a lot of 'explanation' to listen to Bach -- or why you are so ruffled / disconcerted with this later music.


That's a rather extreme position, and I must disagree in part. While I do agree that there is much conditioning in our perception of CP tonal classical music, especially its "harmonic function through time," the _vertical_ harmonic component, which is not exclusive to CP tonality, but is inherent in all "tone-centric" musics, is a visceral response based on the way our ears hear fundamentals and their harmonics, and the way our eardrums vibrate in response to consonant and dissonant intervals.

This vertical, visceral response of the ear is why anyone with a good ear/brain connection will involuntarily hear tone-centers in otherwise "atonal" music (or lawn-mowers, car horns, and power-drills) even if these tone-centers are fleeting and localized.

Thus, armed with our pair of "visceral ears" and a brain that's not so over-conditioned that it rejects any "discrepancies" from its CP tonal expectations, there is no reason why one cannot approach and yes, even enjoy the most hard-core serial music. After all, it does use the same twelve-note "alphabet" that other CM is derived from.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Minona said:


> On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed in the fact that it requires the listener to follow 12 pitches rather than fewer (albeit chromatically 'decorated') pitches of 5, 6, 7, or 8 tones. (This is according to the book 'A Geometry of Music', which also lists other essential features of music lacking in serial music).


You really do a disservice to Tymoczko in claiming that his book supports your argument. Here is a direct quote from 'A Geometry of Music.' (page 8)



> Now for an important disclaimer. While I think that typical Western listeners prefer music that exemplifies the five features, I do not mean to suggest that such music is intrinsically better than any other kind of music. "Tonal" for me is not synonymous with "good." (Nor is "popular" for that matter: there is plenty of unpopular, nontonal music that I happen to like, from Nancarrow to Xenakis to Ligeti.) In particular, I have no interest in arguing that atonal composers are misguided, fighting against biology, or anything of the sort.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SuperTonic said:


> You really do a disservice to Tymoczko in claiming that his book supports your argument. Here is a direct quote from 'A Geometry of Music.' (page 8)


I kind of suspected that, especially as it is phrased "...On the other hand, it has been claimed that serial music may be flawed..."

That's the danger of quoting stuff out-of-context. I've seen this book on Amazon, and it looks like a good one. There are very few books, if any, that would attack serialism, if they pretend to be any sort of objective study of music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

"Another thing that is different in more "modern" art and music is that that the paradigm has changed. The real significance of, say, serial music, is not so much in the artifact itself, but in the way of seeing the world that it instigates or constructs. No longer are there absolute artistic standards or syntaxes, rooted in externals; instead, artistic value lies in the experience of the listener, who is no longer detached from the artistic process, but becomes an essential participant in it. In this way the basic assumptions of classical aesthetics are inverted.

"To resist or refuse to engage with modernism amounts to a refusal to engage as an active participant, in the new paradigm, and to slide back into the 'easy chair' role of the mass audience, who demand to be entertained, and who expect composers to cater to this idea of an audience.

"It's easy to see that nothing really new will be accomplished if this "entertainment" minded audience simply wants more of what it already knows it likes. The idea behind modernism is to explore the new, not repeat familiar, comfortable experience.

"Instead, the 'reception-based' approach to music says that we can best understand music by being in the middle of it. It says the starting-point must be how we use, internalize, and care about music. It avoids prescriptive judgements, and in particular prescriptive judgements inherited from another age.

"It assumes that to study music is to study your own participation in it - to study yourself."

-excerpted from Nicholas Cook's_ Music - A Very Short Introduction_ (Oxford)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> To resist or refuse to engage with modernism amounts to a refusal to engage as an active participant, in the new paradigm, and to slide back into the 'easy chair' role of the mass audience, who demand to be entertained, and who expect composers to cater to this idea of an audience.


Again, the denigration of the audience as a response to perceived non-acceptance of "modern" music. Why does this remind me of Babbitt's swipe at "the conspicuous consumer of musical culture"?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Again, the denigration of the audience as a response to perceived non-acceptance of "modern" music. Why does this remind me of Babbitt's swipe at "the conspicuous consumer of musical culture"?


What was this swipe? Or are you putting words into Babbitt's mouth again?

He had a far higher opinion of his audience than most critics of serialism seem to.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> What was this swipe? Or are you putting words into Babbitt's mouth again?


Again? Did I ever? The quote is exact and not at all out of context. See the last paragraph:

http://www.palestrant.com/babbitt.html


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Again? Did I ever? The quote is exact and not at all out of context. See the last paragraph:
> 
> http://www.palestrant.com/babbitt.html


"Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed. But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live."

Right. No swipe involved, except perhaps a little bit of self-deprecation.

Now, who among the following two has a higher opinion of their audience?

Composer X, who, thinking that what the audience wants is undemanding, light music, writes it.

or

Composer Y, who writes difficult music, sure that there will be some to whom it will communicate, regardless of difficulty?

Lower than both of these, in my opinion, is:

Critic C, who acknowledges that there is value in difficult music, but rails against it because it's not what "the audience wants".


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## Minona (Mar 25, 2013)

"You really do a disservice to Tymoczko in claiming that his book supports your argument."

The quote about the 7-note 'limit' was from a footnote in an early chapter of the book (I don't have it here). Also, Tymoczko is a rather more direct about his opinions on serial/C20th music in his lectures, comparing it to 'randomness':






(07.30)

I suspect he decided upon a more considered/flexible approach in some later draft of his book since this lecture.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Right. No swipe involved, except perhaps a little bit of self-deprecation.


I find it difficult to see how that's "self-deprecation." Babbitt is talking about the broader audience, which he believes are not educated or "trained" enough to appreciate the "new" music, and probably never will be.

Perhaps Babbitt can be considered the godfather of the "blame the audience" movement!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> Originally Posted by *millionrainbows*
> To resist or refuse to engage with modernism amounts to a refusal to engage as an active participant, in the new paradigm, and to slide back into the 'easy chair' role of the mass audience, who demand to be entertained, and who expect composers to cater to this idea of an audience.





> Again, the denigration of the audience as a response to perceived non-acceptance of "modern" music. Why does this remind me of Babbitt's swipe at "the conspicuous consumer of musical culture"?...Babbitt is talking about the broader audience, *which he believes are not educated or "trained" enough to appreciate the "new" music, and probably never will be....*


Babbitt never said why this audience would "not be disturbed," and now words are being put into Babbitt's mouth by saying "...he believes (they) are _n_ot educated or "trained" enough to appreciate the "new" music, and probably never will be..."

Perhaps the reason is that this "broader audience" is the "mass audience" of Adorno; the same _"it"_ that Adorno raged against.

This audience is simply molded by the built-in values and economic principles of the society that perpetuates its existence; a technological golem.

This "audience" is simply "the _idea_ of what an audience_ should_ be," determined by - who? Market research focus groups hired by composers? The day is coming.

A thinking, involved participant in music is threatening to this, and is counter to the aims of a consumer culture.


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