# Was the Major/Minor-System a mistake?



## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

This is a question I've been wondering about since listening to classical music.

Of course I am fascinated by all these great composers from the Common-Practice era, like Bach and Mozart... and yet at the same time I often feel that they were too constrained by the conventions of their time, and hence couldn't fully express their artistic potential.

I'm in particular thinking about the Major/Minor system. I often feel that the various CPT-composers sound relatively similar because they were restrained to only two scales (major and minor). For example I think that two pieces by Ravel often sound more different than two pieces by different composers from the Classical era.
Earlier eras and exotic music had much more variety: Ancient greek music had over a dozen different scales. Medieval music had at least scales like dorian and lydian. And I'm not even getting into Indian scales...

I often wonder what music Bach and Mozart could have made if they weren't limited by the conventions of their time. I mean, imagine if Mozart also had access to mixolydian scales and quintal harmony. We can only dream what kind of potential he would have unlocked from these techniques.

I actually think that it may be a tragedy that Classical Music flourished most in an era where the musical language was so restricted, because it means we will never witness the true potential of the greatest composers in history.

What do you think? Was the major/minor system a mistake?


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

(copied from deleted thread)

No not a mistake imv and the flourishing of classical music was because of the system and it's 'limitations'. Not for one moment have I thought Bach and Mozart sounded hemmed in. Remember that the system was also enharmonic, something lacking in the modes and imv, offering greater expression and as it turned out, expansion.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

They weren't limited - that's just the period they were living in. If you go back to the beginnings of western music and trace the development from chant, through early polyphony, add in the various tuning systems and it's quite fascinating to see how the musical language available in Mozart's time came to be. The major/minor system was limited for a long time because of tuning, but once equal temperament came about, all the minor modes (natural, harmonic, melodic) became useful. Mozart and company were also quite limited by the instruments available. The slow march of musical progress led to even more expressive methods, witness the romantics and the 20th c composers. Although it's hard to imagine, someday in the future composers will probably laugh at the limitations of composers today.


----------



## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I don't really understand how anything in art can be a "mistake".


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Being a mistake implies that someone along the line was like "yo guys-let's do this major minor stuff" which is not how art generally works. These aren't like, specicic decisions, it's simply how music progressed.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Is this a troll thread? I'm asking genuinely, because I've considered starting this exact thread, but as a troll of course


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I don't see how the development of the diatonic major-minor system of tonality can be viewed as anything other than a historical fact. Napoleon choosing to invade Russia was a mistake. The Boston Red Sox trading Babe Ruth was a mistake. The major-minor system ... nah.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Yes. And it's a shame "we will never witness the true potential of the greatest [military leaders] in history." If only Attila the Hun had had Panzer tanks and T-34s! And what might Napoleon have accomplished if he had had tactical nuclear weapons? Your question is, to me, similarly odd and anachronistic.

But seriously: Common practice composers weren't "restrained to only two scales (major and minor)." The full compliment of traditional modes was available to them, they knew about them, understood them, and occasionally made use of them. "Imagine if Mozart also had access to mixolydian scales." He did. But from the perspective of the CP era, the Church modal system was not some exotic, overlooked, and exploitable resource, it was old news and without any obvious utility in exploring tonality, functional harmony, the musical space opened up by equal or well (equal-enough) temperament, the methods for modulating from one key to any other, forays into chromatic tonal harmony - all new territory for CP composers.

By the way, the minor mode doesn't reduce to a scale. It's a complex set of practices and conventions in which some scale degrees are variable depending on context and in which triads can be fluidly borrowed from the major mode (or other modes) and/or altered in quality.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Common practice composers weren't "restrained to only two scales (major and minor)." The full compliment of traditional modes was available to them, they knew about them, understood them, and occasionally made use of them. "Imagine if Mozart also had access to mixolydian scales." He did. ....


Good point. The 18th century masters also occasionally utilized or implied modality in their tonal language. Eg. Lydian (Mozart Fantasie K.475), Mixolydian (Bach Mass in B minor), Tonus peregrinus (Bach Magnificat, Mozart Requiem, Maurerische Trauermusik), the fifth Psalm tone (M. Haydn Missa sancti Nicolai Tolentini), etc.


----------



## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

But Gesualdo was right on the cusp of a glorious epoch 400 years of integral serialism. The German national anthem, still taken from a Haydn string quartet, would have been two all-interval hexachords with serial rhythms and dynamics, imagine the fear invoked by those goosestepping landsers


----------



## Livly_Station (Jan 8, 2014)

You seem to think that the similarities between compositions of the classical period is due to the harmonic system, but it's actually much more than just harmony.

If anything, tonality is one of the most unlimited, colorful and complex harmonic systems out there. Musicians are making different music with it from the late baroque to this day. And let's not forget the unequivocal popularity of this model. (Not that music should be restricted to tonality, of course.)

And old composers seemed to be pretty happy with composing inside the bounds of tonality. It was something new, fresh, which gave them a musical language able to express the thoughts of the time, that went very well with other formal developments which came together.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

mikeh375 said:


> (copied from deleted thread)
> 
> No not a mistake imv and the flourishing of classical music was because of the system and it's 'limitations'. Not for one moment have I thought Bach and Mozart sounded hemmed in. *Remember that the system was also enharmonic, something lacking in the modes *and imv, offering greater expression and as it turned out, expansion.


You lost me here. The word 'enharmonic' refers to two different names for the same note, I'm having difficulty grasping why that concept would apply to tonality but not modality.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

It seems like maybe some posters are conflating the idea of tuning systems capable of modulation and tonality itself in this thread, I find it a little confusing.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Poll: Was the Major/Minor-System a mistake?*

I listen to Bach's great Mass in B minor, I listen to Brahms's Symphony No. 2 in D Major ... I listen to Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor, I listen to Schubert's great Symphony No. 9 in C Major ... I listen to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in C minor and Sibelius's Fifth in E-Flat Major ... and I try to remember: What was that "mistake" I am supposed to provide a comment upon?

I listen to Mozart's Symphony No. 41 in G minor, I listen to Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 7 in B-Flat Major ... I listen to César Franck's Symphony in D minor, I listen to Ravel's String Quartet in F Major ....


----------



## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

The only mistake I can find is with this thread!


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

tdc said:


> You lost me here. The word 'enharmonic' refers to two different names for the same note, I'm having difficulty grasping why that concept would apply to tonality but not modality.


Yes, I meant compositional practice in an historical sense (16thC vocal polyphony as opposed to Classical through to the start of the 20thC). As music and tuning developed, the duality of the notes in equal temperament eventually led to the expansion of the language via increase used of enharmonic _modulation_. I should've been a little more precise as my implication wasn't clear.

So far from being a mistake, the maj/min system (and equal temperament), gradually opened up an almost unlimited world of expression.


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> Yes, I meant compositional practice in an historical sense (16thC vocal polyphony as opposed to Classical through to the start of the 20thC). As music and tuning developed, the duality of the notes in equal temperament eventually led to the expansion of the language via increase used of enharmonic _modulation_.


I don't agree. While what you said is somewhat true, there was plenty of way more enharmonic (mostly forgotten) music even in Late Medieval and Renaissance music than what followed later on. "Enharmonicity" was a problem only on keyboards (split keys were the solution - usually 14 to 16 keys. (Gesualdo had a "cimbalo cromatico" with 19.) (Fretted instruments were often times tuned as close to 12 equal as they could do it using geometric techniques and not popular in "serious" music.) Bach type tunings - a hybrid between equal and meantone temperament - were worse than both of them except in a few keys, I am not sure how popular they were.
Commercial manufacturing of pianos lead to somewhat simplification of the keyboard designs (and not only in terms of tuning) and did overthrow the diatonic system - I have seen computational analyses in some academic journal with statistical data showing how classical music becomes way more chromatic/non-diatonic.

So, equal temperament did not open anything new (actually, it did - symmetrical chords and scales, but their value is somewhat questionable even today among people that prefer more harmonious/tonal sounds).


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

BabyGiraffe said:


> I don't agree. While what you said is somewhat true, there was plenty of way more enharmonic (mostly forgotten) music even in Late Medieval and Renaissance music than what followed later on. "Enharmonicity" was a problem only on keyboards (split keys were the solution - usually 14 to 16 keys. (Gesualdo had a "cimbalo cromatico" with 19.) (Fretted instruments were often times tuned as close to 12 equal as they could do it using geometric techniques and not popular in "serious" music.) Bach type tunings - a hybrid between equal and meantone temperament - were worse than both of them except in a few keys, I am not sure how popular they were.
> Commercial manufacturing of pianos lead to somewhat simplification of the keyboard designs (and not only in terms of tuning) and did overthrow the diatonic system - I have seen computational analyses in some academic journal with statistical data showing how classical music becomes way more chromatic/non-diatonic.
> 
> So, equal temperament did not open anything new (actually, it did - symmetrical chords and scales, but their value is somewhat questionable even today among people that prefer more harmonious/tonal sounds).


Your expert posts on tuning are always an illuminating education BG..

We do seem to agree on the big picture though, which is all I was painting in an attempt to show how fertile the maj/min system was/is and how it led to a maximal expression.
As you understand, enharmonic modulation became one of the principle drivers for the ultimate dissolution of tonality. This was largely because of the gradual use of a creative paradigm that recognised and exploited the burgeoning potential of enharmonic modulation within the equalised maj/min system and being able to more readily and practically use it as a compositional technique. The resulting, expanded expressive scope imv, renders the concept of the maj/min system being a mistake and somehow limiting as per the OP, quite wrong.

We will have to disagree on the questionable validity of symmetrical harmony and for that matter, any other techniques benefitting from ET beyond common practice. This is because the fertility of such approaches can still yield much music and can even justify and technically underpin freer usage of all 12 notes when used with inventive, lateral application.


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> Your expert posts on tuning are always an illuminating education BG..
> 
> We do seem to agree on the big picture though, which is all I was painting in an attempt to show how fertile the maj/min system was/is and how it led to a maximal expression.
> As you understand, enharmonic modulation became the reason for the ultimate dissolution of tonality. This was largely because of the gradual use of a creative paradigm that recognised and exploited the nascent potential within the equalised mj/min system of enharmonic modulation and being able to more readily and practically use it as a compositional technique. The resulting, expanded expressive scope imv, renders the concept of the maj/min system being a mistake and somehow limiting as per the OP, quite wrong.
> ...


There is no real to justify anything - any equal temperament is a unique system with valuable resources as long as they are used in the right way (which is definitely not related to permutating all the pitch classes without repetition, but that's another topic).

Datonic (pentatonic and heptatonic), augmented (hexatonic and nonatonic) and diminished (octatonic) scales are the only proper tonal systems that don't employ "extended" type of intervals outside of major-minor triadic chords (diminished and augmented intervals) after tempering and are not mistuned.
12 ET considered as system on its own is not a proper triadic scale in any theoretical temperament - if we move into jazz/romantic era extended chords we can say 12 ET is a proper scale, because these types of music are basically based on chromatic tonality.

I find the idea about dissolution of tonality a little too radical - there is little music in this vein and it was never received well by the general public. Labeling non-diatonic musical resources as atonal only reveals the limitations of popular theoretical understanding. (Still, because of the nature of our cognitive system symmetrical chords/scales are not heard in the same way as non-symmetrical ones - this makes me question the validity of the idea that a 12 notes equalized scale can be employed freely).

One thing is for sure - people back in the day followed popular trends as we still do and they did not learn "major-minor system". Counterpoint and figured bass were the dominant paradigms. 
Modality (as in old Medieval and early Renaissance music, and folk music) was considered old fashioned; extreme chromaticism (as practiced by some composers from Italy or France) - unmusical.


----------



## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Didn't seem to hem in Beethoven.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

BabyGiraffe said:


> *There is no real to justify anything - any equal temperament is a unique system with valuable resources as long as they are used in the right way (which is definitely not related to permutating all the pitch classes without repetition, but that's another topic).
> *
> Datonic (pentatonic and heptatonic), augmented (hexatonic and nonatonic) and diminished (octatonic) scales are the only proper tonal systems that don't employ "extended" type of intervals outside of major-minor triadic chords (diminished and augmented intervals) after tempering and are not mistuned.
> 12 ET considered as system on its own is not a proper triadic scale in any theoretical temperament - if we move into jazz/romantic era extended chords we can say 12 ET is a proper scale, because these types of music are basically based on chromatic tonality.
> ...


I believe composers feel differently about the validity of expression with a more liberal use of all 12 notes BG, even if comprehension is difficult for the general listener. (EDIT - on re-reading, I see you questioned the validity of the _"free"_ use of 12 tones, so depending on how nuanced you where, we may well be in agreement because I believe control is a more artistically viable approach, see below. Others might disagree however).

In my last, I was not referring to the techniques of serialism nor even specifically atonality, rather a form of control and application by a composer of enharmonic processes (specifically the many functional properties a note can have or can be made to take on post CPT), that can encourage exploration of ideas and also give a justifying foundational foothold when searching for material whilst looking at a blank ms.

Most importantly, lateral technical thinking that adapts established practice, isn't random and haphazard but procedural and can grant a composer a sense of purposeful control in the disorientating and expanded environment of 12 tones. The all important foundations, procedures and principles of progression one might find or rather create in this way, also has the potential to become governing principles that spawn a 'work'. The value in an esoteric technique such as harmony based on symmetry that is subjected to enharmonic principles for example, is not necessarily in that it can be instantly perceived by the listener, but in the fact that it can act as an initial generator of music for the composer - and also as a means of continuing.

This is composing within and yet outside of, standard theory and the personalising of technique is an immensely fruitful and important trait to develop imv. It goes without saying that it needs no academic or standard theoretical justification, only a musical one....oh and perhaps a composer who also understands and has absorbed standard theory in the first place....


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

mikeh375 said:


> This is composing within and yet outside of, standard theory and the personalising of technique is an immensely fruitful and important trait to develop imv. It goes without saying that it needs no academic or standard theoretical justification, only a musical one....oh and perhaps a composer who also understands and has absorbed standard theory in the first place....


I am not the biggest fan of standard theory. I believe that all good textbooks in the future will be more similar to some current post-tonal texts - focusing on combinatorial possibilities of the musical systems and maybe employing more psychological understanding on how listeners hear the actual music (I consider Westergaard as the only person that manage to create logical contrapuntal theory - using Schenkerian theory as a starting point - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Westergaard's_tonal_theory).


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some composers did consider equal temperament a bit of a straightjacket. Harry Partch, for example, said he had little interest in anything between Bach and Schoenberg, and he developed his own microtonal system which went back to the ancient modes and incorporated Asian and African influences.

I get the point that the 20th century moved music beyond harmony to the essence of sound. That said, the 19th century orchestra was still quite a powerhouse, and the 18th century orchestra - especially when combined with choir - was also. At the same time, it might be that a lyrebird can produce a greater variety of sounds than anything up until electronic music :lol:


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

BabyGiraffe said:


> So, equal temperament did not open anything new (actually, it did - symmetrical chords and scales, but their value is somewhat questionable even today among people that prefer more harmonious/tonal sounds).


So you don't think the ability to modulate to distant keys formerly unavailable and to perform sequential modulations and circle back to the starting point was a new frontier? Or are you saying that some lute and keyboard tunings had already facilitated such modulations (even though they had little influence on the mainstream of CP music), so equal temperament (or its approximation) in its general adoption didn't accomplish anything new?


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I marked the third option. I don't really understand why we needed to wait so much time to see many distinct scales flowering in music, this could have happened from the beginning.


----------



## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> Remember that the system was also enharmonic, something lacking in the modes and imv, offering greater expression and as it turned out, expansion.


But the modes are enharmonic as well! For example the A# in B-Lydian is enharmonically equivalent to the B-Flat in C-Mixolydian.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

chipia said:


> But the modes are enharmonic as well! For example the A# in B-Lydian is enharmonically equivalent to the B-Flat in C-Mixolydian.


yes they can be but see posts 16 and 18. I rather hoped I'd made the point clear as it pertains to your OP.


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> So you don't think the ability to modulate to distant keys formerly unavailable and to perform sequential modulations and circle back to the starting point was a new frontier? Or are you saying that some lute and keyboard tunings had already facilitated such modulations (even though they had little influence on the mainstream of CP music), so equal temperament (or its approximation) in its general adoption didn't accomplish anything new?


In general, the only thing that various temperaments change is the sound as long as you stick to n-notes per octave framework, in terms of melodic countours - anything is playable even in the more extreme tunings ( and I doubt the general public can hear any fine difference between different possible intonations). 
Still, there are always tradeoffs - what was gained was probably not worth it compared to what was lost when we consider only triadic styles.
In terms of temperament extensions including higher harmonics - meantone (standard tuning) is pretty good, diminished - totally awful, augmented - passable. I think one day the mainstream of music will return to meantone. You can try them with the free app for windows, if you have touch screen monitor - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/xenharmonic-keyboard/9ppbl2brsk6z#activetab=pivot:overviewtab
7th harmonic is C - A# in the "key of C" in meantone, isomorphic keyboard designs are also not bounded by the topology of various n-tone equal temperaments, so pretty much anything is possible as long as you play the right enharmonics.

Here is the default preset:


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> I marked the third option. I don't really understand why we needed to wait so much time to see many distinct scales flowering in music, this could have happened from the beginning.


You haven't read the thread. The "scales" (modes) the OP cites had all been used for hundreds of years before the CPE. The classical composers he mentions knew all about them. They simply chose not to use them widely because these scales and modes didn't meet their current needs.

Once again, scales per se were not on the cutting edge of new developments in musical style at that time. Tonality, functional harmony, new chromatic chords, distant modulations, and forms based on contrasts of key and mode were where things were changing and experimentation was taking place.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The more modes, the better.


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> You haven't read the thread. The "scales" (modes) the OP cites had all been used for hundreds of years before the CPE. The classical composers he mentions knew all about them. They simply chose not to use them widely because these scales and modes didn't meet their current needs.
> 
> Once again, scales per se were not on the cutting edge of new developments in musical style at that time. Tonality, functional harmony, new chromatic chords, distant modulations, and forms based on contrasts of key and mode were where things were changing and experimentation was taking place.


You're right, I hadn't read the thread. 

Anyway, I had western classical music in mind in my last post, even if I didn't say so, my mistake. I wonder why it took so much time to scales that weren't heptatonic (I'm of course including the Greek modes) to take prominence in classical music, at least from the Baroque era onwards. When Debussy used the whole-tone and pentatonic scales, it was a revolution. When twentieth century composers started to use other kinds of scales, including microtonal ones, it was a sensation. You say that the CPT-era composers were aware of other scales but chose to not use them because they were interested in other aspects of composition, but using say pentatonic scales together with the major/minor system wouldn't have expanded the expressive capabilites in their music? I'm of the opinion that the generalized use of the same heptatonic scales (almost always the major/minor, rarely the modes) was a limitation of the era. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a mistake though, more like a characteristic.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Xisten267 said:


> Anyway, I had western classical music in mind in my last post, even if I didn't say so, my mistake. I wonder why it took so much time to scales that weren't heptatonic (I'm of course including the Greek modes) to take prominence in classical music, at least from the Baroque era onwards.


We're also talking about the use of modal scales in the periods before the advent of tonality and the common practice (ie. the Medieval and Renaissance periods).



Xisten267 said:


> When Debussy used the whole-tone and pentatonic scales, it was a revolution.


There's use of pentatonic scales in Chopin (the Black key Etude) and Wagner (the Immolation scene, I believe) too, btw. There's use of whole-tone scales in Mozart K.465, K.522.



Xisten267 said:


> When twentieth century composers started to use other kinds of scales, including microtonal ones, it was a sensation. You say that the CPT-era composers were aware of other scales but chose to not use them because they were interested in other aspects of composition, but using say pentatonic scales together with the major/minor system wouldn't have expanded the expressive capabilites in their music? I'm of the opinion that the generalized use of the same heptatonic scales (almost always the major/minor, rarely the modes) was a limitation of the era. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a mistake though, more like a characteristic.


Why not also say; "Why did they always use the V7-I cadence? It sounds so cliched!" or "Why didn't they use the Petrushka chord? It would have sounded so cool!"
I disagree with what you say. The idea of "bringing in everything" just cause it would seem/sound cool is against the 18th century music philosophy; "to achieve the maximum in expression with the greatest economy", which is the antithesis (in analogy) of how the Japanese writing system developed, for example; 







and I disagree with the OP's view ("I think that two pieces by Ravel often sound more different than two pieces by different composers from the Classical era."). Here's an example of how two late 18th century composers can sound drastically different: https://www.talkclassical.com/72824-where-beauty-music-18.html#post2156504


----------



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> There's use of pentatonic scales in Chopin (the Black key Etude) and Wagner (the Immolation scene, I believe) too, btw. There's use of whole-tone scales in Mozart K.465, K.522.


They are absolute rarities, exceptions to the rule. Debussy used whole-tone and pentatonic scales systematically.


----------



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I feel like Chipia's going to publish a book called The Major-Minor Mistake.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




----------



## Eriks (Oct 10, 2021)

chipia said:


> This is a question I've been wondering about since listening to classical music.
> 
> Of course I am fascinated by all these great composers from the Common-Practice era, like Bach and Mozart... and yet at the same time I often feel that they were too constrained by the conventions of their time, and hence couldn't fully express their artistic potential.
> 
> ...


Are not constraints necessary in order to create music? Perhaps the classical era music correspond to one type of profitable balance between constraints and freedom?


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

They used this sometimes for effect, e.g. in Mozart's Abduction the "crusader song" (Pedrillo's "Im Morgenland gefangen war") is obviously supposed to be archaic, and there is a pentatonic melody (not sure if taken from a real chinese tune) in Weber's "Turandot" music (more famous as variations in the Hindemith Metamorphoses on Weber). 
Later, some Russians and others also used similar things for exotic effect and this was probably one source for Debussy. Debussy was obviously in a different situation than Mozart. In Mozart's time the possibilities for major-minor-tonality were still endless, the sonata form was based on clear harmonic contrasts, all this would have been weakened by dabbling in exotic scales (unless for local effect in the special cases mentioned) whereas in the late 19th century many composers felt that the system had been almost exhausted and were looking for other options.


----------



## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

Eriks said:


> Are not constraints necessary in order to create music? Perhaps the classical era music correspond to one type of profitable balance between constraints and freedom?


Yes, constraints are necessary _within a single piece of music_, but there is no need for a constraint to restrain ALL compositions, let alone compositions by different composers.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I am not majorly happy today. Minorly a little sad.


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

chipia said:


> Yes, constraints are necessary _within a single piece of music_, but there is no need for a constraint to restrain ALL compositions, let alone compositions by different composers.


Music becomes a kind of dialogue with rules for grammar, these were the grammatical rules in place, breaking rules too fast leads to music being perceived as cacophony. The vast system of tonality went through many permutations before it exhausted itself (if it has even exhausted itself). That was simply how the process went. In some ways I think it is hard to grasp how music was perceived before the recorded era. With all these different sounds available at our finger tips today it is not so hard for us to say why wasn't this or that done before, but pre 20th century life was very different, I'm certain societal conditions were a major factor as to why musical changes unfolded slower back then. Your question is a bit like asking why weren't all scientific discoveries discovered simultaneously.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Cacophony is ok now. As it has always in all ways. Anarchy does not equal chaos.


----------



## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

I listen to a lot of modal and non-western music and love it. There's such ethereal beauty in Renaissance polyphony like in no other music, Hindustani classical has long, astonishing melodies that envelop the listener completely, the best Gamelan is utterly rhythmically hypnotic. But what European music lost of that timeless, 'floaty' aesthetic, beautiful as it is, common practice gained ten times back with the tension from dissonance and modulation and the drive towards resolution, which creates directedness and an intensity of drama that exists in no other music on the planet. Is there any modal music that takes the listener on a journey in the same way that a 19th century symphony does? That has the same individual character, debate, conflict packed into it? So no, not a mistake.


----------



## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

There exists the drive toward resolution. Let it be.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Tikoo Tuba said:


> There exists the drive toward resolution. Let it be.


Yeah, in the example I posted in [#35]; I sense use of modality in the "et incarnatus est" (3:38), it is eventually resolved to the tonic, with the "et sepultus est" (4:26). So there, a sense of drive toward resolution.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

W.A. Mozart's Fantasy in C minor, K. 475, And the Generalization of the Lydian Principle Through Motivic Thorough-Composition: https://archive.schillerinstitute.com/fid_97-01/984_sub_moral_appen_PDFs/chapter-5.PDF
https://www.cmpcp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/PSN2011_Chueke.pdf#page=8
"...Yes, the missing tonality was in fact C minor... ...transforming musical language « only indirectly, by means of the amplification of the tonal space and not through its abolition»..."


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

mikeh375 said:


> (copied from deleted thread)
> 
> No not a mistake imv and the flourishing of classical music was because of the system and it's 'limitations'. Not for one moment have I thought Bach and Mozart sounded hemmed in*. Remember that the system was also enharmonic, something lacking in the modes* and imv, offering greater expression and as it turned out, expansion.



I mean, aren't ionian and aeolian modes? Also, modes have been used not only in modern classical music and jazz with a enharmonic system, and I think also during the common practice era. Wasn't Beethoven for instance who wrote "A Convalescent's Holy Song of Thanksgiving to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode"?

sorry, I've seen now this has been discussed already


----------

