# Music-A creation of nature or men?



## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Kind regards to all of the dear musicians on this lovely forum,
I would like to have a discussion about a matter of great importance-
Is music derived from nature, Or mostly from men's craft?
Have men shaped music more than the harmonies in nature?
We all know about the harmonic series, Or overtones.
The first overtone-Octave (The purest interval). The second-a fifth (The second purest) and so on.
This is a proof that harmony exists in nature.
But to what extent? Are the functions determined by men, Or by nature?
The second overtone is a fifth, Maybe it is a proof that the dominant, Which is what bases tonality, Exists in nature, Therefore tonal harmony may derive from nature?
Is atonal music going against nature?

Let's respect each other's opinion, And most importantly-Grow our knowledge about the fundamentals of the most beautiful thing that exists-Music.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Both. Humans are a part of nature.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Music was created by women.

Then men stole it and screwed it up so bad that it took 3,800 years before they were able to make it sound kind of good again.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Men are part of nature, But they can sit and create things that are artificial. Our intelligence let's us do unnatural things, Unlike animals.
Also, Wasn't atonal music created by men made rules only?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Men are part of nature, But they can sit and create things that are artificial. Our intelligence let's us do unnatural things.


I think the idea that humans create things which are artificial or unnatural is a very prevalent one that is nonetheless, a false dichotomy without any real basis.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

How can atonal music be "created by men made rules" when it means no more and no less than breaking one of the rules of tonality?


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

I was not precise-I meant the 12 tone system. I know there is a "free" atonal music.
Arnold tried to make rules of his own with the 12 tone system.
The rules of the tonal system were developed over the years, In a natural progress. Arnold just set a system at once.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Music is an artistic creation of man that occasionally serve to imitate nature. Take for example the very well known and loved Brandenburg Concerto 1 with the use of the natural horn. Or Beethoven's symphony 6. Pure and simple.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

No, Arnold tried to write long atonal compositions consisting of the development of themes, with the 12 tone system (as opposed to the long athematic free atonal works of 1909-1917, such as _Erwartung_) - and then people who never liked atonality in the first place heard the word "system" and realized they finally had a good-sounding excuse for disliking it.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

ArtMusic: And why does this purity remind you of nature and not the music of Schoenberg?
I think it is the use of tonality, Triads and aspects found in nature.
The first overtones create a dominant seven, Which leads you to the tonic.
Isn't the tonic so clearly represented in nature? How can this be forgotten?


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I would be very, very surprised if animals don't have something akin to music in their experience, in that they use sound to have an impact on others that isn't functional as far as survival goes. Or at least birds do, not sure about the others, but I'd bet my money on it.

It would seem really coincidental about the harmonic series and the lowest partials' strong similarity to western music's organization of tones, although there is powerful and exquisite music from other traditions that does not correlate as much, to the extent that I don't make too much of it and wouldn't use it as justification for the naturalness or appeal of WCM


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

One time one of my professors took recordings of birds, slowed them down and tried her best to translate it to music. It didn't sound anything at all like Beethoven or Bach, or what we would recognize as "triadic harmony".


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

violadude said:


> One time one of my professors took recordings of birds, slowed them down and tried her best to translate it to music. It didn't sound anything at all like Beethoven or Bach, or what we would recognize as "triadic harmony".


Maybe they got sick of hearing those composers.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> No, Arnold tried to base long atonal compositions on the development of melodies, with the 12 tone system - and then people who never liked atonality in the first place heard the word "system" and realized they finally had a good-sounding excuse for disliking it.


A new compositional method cannot be developed in a day. It is a very arrogant thing to do. It must be done in a natural process.
The modus was also created in a day, But based on nature-Aristo experimented with different lengths of a string. He first cut it to half and so on. Then he determined the notes of the modus. But he didn't invent it arrogantly by himself.
Then the music has been developed step by step, Until Bach, Who made music completely tonal. But he didn't completely reinvent it.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Pieces that use raw sounds of nature like some of Fransisco López work and Cage's 4'33" are the most natural forms of music I can think of. Pieces that use systems like traditional tonality or serialism are more artificial, but of course pieces of great beauty that can reflect aspects of nature can still be created using these more artificial systems.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> A new compositional method cannot be developed in a day. It is a very arrogant thing to do. It must be done in a natural process.
> The modus was also created in a day, But based on nature-Aristo experimented with different lengths of a string. He first cut it to half and so on. Then he determined the notes of the modus. But he didn't invent it arrogantly by himself.
> Then the music has been developed step by step, Until Bach, How made music completely tonal. But he didn't completely reinvent it.


Schoenberg's 12 tone compositions have plenty of other elements tying them to the past other than just the way he organized pitch material. It's not like he threw out every single bit of established knowledge about music. You keep speaking as if pitch organization is the only element of music anyone ever considers.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@Gustav Mahler

Your reply has nothing to do with I wrote. You're simply repeating yourself. And of course Schoenberg didn't pretend to have developed a "new compositional method" in the sense that you mean - you just pretend he did because that sounds better than "I'm mad at him for not ending on a triad."


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

The Cuckoo bird sings thirds. Mahler imitates it in his first symphony.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Engelbert Humperdinck imitates it in _Hänsel und Gretel_.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> @Gustav Mahler
> 
> Your reply has nothing to do with I wrote. You're simply repeating yourself. And of course Schoenberg didn't pretend to have developed a "new compositional method" in the sense that you mean - you just pretend he did because that sounds better than "I'm mad at him for not ending on a triad."


It actually has a lot to do with it.
You said I just don't like it and that I found the word "system" to cling on.
I explain why it's is not because I just don't like atonality that I criticize him.
He cannot make an artificial language in a day. That is all. This is math, Not music. Music is based on the overtones.
Also, You are right, He didn't create a new compositional method in a day.
There was another composer before him who is not very known that did actually invent it before him.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> The Cuckoo bird sings thirds. Mahler imitates it in his first symphony.


...except Mahler used fourths to imitate the Cukoo...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> The second overtone is a fifth, Maybe it is a proof that the dominant, Which is what bases tonality, Exists in nature, Therefore tonal harmony may derive from nature?


Yes, but have you ever seen a violin or a flute growing on a tree? Don't you think these kinds of instruments are going against nature?

No, the best way to experience natural music is to take a walk in the woods.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Gustav Mahler said:


> He cannot make an artificial language in a day.


He never pretended to. You just pretend he did because that sounds better than admitting you just don't like atonality.



Gustav Mahler said:


> This is math


No it isn't. I said what it actually is, and you of course simply ignored that.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

violadude said:


> ...except Mahler used fourths to imitate the Cukoo...


Of course, I don't know why I wrote third. It sounds better


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> He never pretended to. You just pretend he did because that sounds better than admitting you just don't like atonality.
> 
> No it isn't. I said what it actually is, and you of course simply ignored that.


I call it math because it focuses on numbers, When they appear and how many times instead of how it SOUNDS.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "tonal harmony may derive from nature". Do you mean anything besides the fact that thirds and fifths come from overtones of a plucked string?



Gustav Mahler said:


> The Cuckoo bird sings thirds. Mahler imitates it in his first symphony.


There is a paper which looked at potential harmonic properties of bird songs. The author tested the note intervals of 81 songs to see whether they conformed to the ratio of frequencies in chromatic, major diatonic, and major pentatonic scales. The author concluded "From 243 comparisons, only six (2%) were signiﬁcantly close to harmonic intervals, suggesting no consistent use of harmonic intervals." There are apparently reasons to believe that songs of other bird species would be even less likely to use harmonic intervals.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

The 12 tone system consists of the repetition of sounds.

If it "focuse[d] on numbers," there wouldn't be any sound, and you wouldn't be complaining.

And of course you're still ignoring the post you were ostensibly replying to.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "tonal harmony may derive from nature". Do you mean anything besides the fact that thirds and fifths come from overtones of a plucked string?
> .


The harmonic series create a dominant seventh chord. Isn't the dominant a necessary part of tonal music? It is what creates tonality. A dominant and tonic. The sub dominant is an "expansion", A harmony that leads to the dominant.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Epilogue: It doesn't matter why he invented the 12 tone system, Even if it is to support long atonal melodies-
In the end it is to "help" the atonal music "work" by inventing (mostly) new rules, Which mostly have nothing to do with the past (I corrected myself to mostly).
I think that his system has thrown the overtones away, The tonality which has been developed for HUNDREDS of years, And then people tell me "He didn't throw everything away."
Well, He should have thrown nothing away. Because the wisdom of thousands of people before you is greater than you almost by yourself.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Epilogue: It doesn't matter why he invented the 12 tone system, Even if it is to support long melodies-
> *In the end it is to "help" the atonal music "work" by inventing (mostly) new rules, Which mostly have nothing to do with the past (I corrected myself to mostly).*


That wasn't what I was referring to. Even if the rules regarding pitch organization were COMPLETELY new, there are still other elements of his music that have nothing to do with pitch organization that tie him to the past. He built off of older music in many other ways. He didn't, as you are suggesting, throw out all music theory and rewrite it from the ground up.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Epilogue: It doesn't matter why he invented the 12 tone system, Even if it is to support long atonal melodies-
> In the end it is to "help" the atonal music "work" by inventing (mostly) new rules, Which mostly have nothing to do with the past (I corrected myself to mostly).
> I think that his system has thrown the overtones away, The tonality which has been developed for HUNDREDS of years, And then people tell me "He didn't throw everything away."
> Well, He should have thrown nothing away. Because the wisdom of thousands of people before you is greater than you almost by yourself.


Well, so-called atonality really isn't a different thing from other music in the first place. It's just not in a key or dependent on triadic progressions, that's it. Literally, that's it.

Everything else in music is retained. Melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, form, etc. all work more or less the same way.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

violadude said:


> That wasn't what I was referring to. Even if the rules regarding pitch organization were COMPLETELY new, there are still other elements of his music that have nothing to do with pitch organization that tie him to the past. He built off of older music in many other ways. He didn't, as you are suggesting, throw out all music theory and rewrite it from the ground up.


How did he use the harmonic series in his music? How much of the past did he use and how?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> How did he use the harmonic series in his music? How much of the past did he use and how?


What does it mean to "use the harmonic series" in music? That's like asking if you're using vocal resonance when speaking. It's just a fact of sound that it has a harmonic series. So I can say, of course the music uses the harmonic series and its relations.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> How did he use the harmonic series in his music?


If the harmonic series is the natural element of music, that means it happens _naturally_ in other words every time a string is plucked the harmonic series is occurring in music regardless of the system.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, so-called atonality really isn't a different thing from other music in the first place. It's just not in a key or dependent on triadic progressions, that's it. Literally, that's it.
> 
> Everything else in music is retained. Melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, form, etc. all work more or less the same way.


That may be true that besides not having a tonic and triads it is the same, But with all due respect, Having a central tone has always been the key feature of music since at least the Gregorian Chant.
I also think that birds, Even though they don't sing triads etc., They mostly return to their "Tonic".
They have a central tone when they sing. They can sing intervals, But they will get back to the initial tone. I will have to look into it.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

- So after calling him mathematical over and over again, _now_ suddenly his reasons don't matter.

- Throwing _nothing_ away is an infallible way to be a mediocre (at best) artist.

- Thousands of people are never wise.

- I half hope that just intonation really catches on, merely so that I can watch all the people who now invoke the overtone for the sake of moldy old grudges against atonality switch to singing exactly the opposite tune.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> That may be true that besides not having a tonic and triads it is the same, But with all due respect, Having a central tone has always been the key feature of music since at least the Gregorian Chant.
> I also think that birds, Even though they don't sing triads etc., They mostly return to their "Tonic".
> They have a central tone when they sing. They can sing intervals, But they will get back to the initial tone. I will have to look into it.


But Schoenberg's music _does_ have central tones. It's not in a key, but there are notes that are used as points of attraction and arrival, emphasized by harmonic background, rhythm, and so on just as in other music.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> What does it mean to "use the harmonic series" in music? That's like asking if you're using vocal resonance when speaking. It's just a fact of sound that it has a harmonic series. So I can say, of course the music uses the harmonic series and its relations.


That's not what I meant. Of course sound has harmonic series.
What I meant is, That tonal music used the FIRST tones of the harmonic series and used them as triads.
How did Schoenberg utilize nature?


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> But Schoenberg's music _does_ have central tones. It's not in a key, but there are notes that are used as points of attraction and arrival, emphasized by harmonic background, rhythm, and so on just as in other music.


Central NOTES, Not TONES as you said 
Why strip down the music from its pitch?
I think it was rather a move of despair than of taste.
They really wanted something new.
When someone composes in order in innovate rather than composing what you want and imagine in your head, It is wrong.
It is my opinion (And quite some other people's) that this music was invented in order to innovate rather than an artistic expression.
Now excuse me as I am going to sleep, See you tomorrow my dear friends!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> I've learned that the notes should have no emphasis. They may have some, But a very minimal emphasis, No?


This is one of those persistent ideas about 12-tone music which has absolutely no basis in any piece so composed, and misconstrues something Schoenberg said, but still won't disappear.

When Schoenberg says that 12-tone music is "a method of composition using 12 notes only related to one another," all this means is that the relationships created by the row are not reducible to the background relationships of a diatonic key, and thus the relationships within the series define the harmonic and melodic content of the work. It doesn't mean that there are no relationships or that all tones are now equal, that's _not even POSSIBLE_.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> I think it was rather a move of despair than of taste.
> They really wanted something new.
> When someone composes in order in innovate rather than composing what you want and imagine in your head, It is wrong.
> It is my opinion (And quite some other people's) that this music was invented in order to innovate rather than an artistic expression.
> Now excuse me as I am going to sleep, See you tomorrow my dear friends!


But Schoenberg _did_ compose what was in his mind. That's exactly what led him away from traditional methods in the first place. And he believed firmly in expression and the emotional power of music. Any cursory reading of his writings would give you all of these things.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

From Wikipedia: All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> From Wikipedia: All 12 notes are thus given more or less equal importance, and the music avoids being in a key.


In theory perhaps, but I don't think Schoenberg or those that were influenced by him often used the 12 tone technique in that strict of a way.

Regardless I still don't see how that would make the music more unnatural than traditional tonality.
Go out in nature for a walk and let me know how many triads and tonic-dominant relationships you can identify.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Epilogue said:


> Music was created by women.
> 
> Then men stole it and screwed it up so bad that it took 3,800 years before they were able to make it sound kind of good again.


Please send me this history sometime. It would be a fascinating read.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Gustav Mahler said:


> It is my opinion (And quite some other people's) that this music was invented in order to innovate rather than an artistic expression.


Well, you know what they say about opinions...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Gustav Mahler said:


> this music was invented in order to innovate rather than an artistic expression.


There are a few false dichotomies running wild in this thread (starting with the title), but this is the most interesting one to me.

Innovation and art do not exclude each other.



Gustav Mahler said:


> When someone composes ... It is wrong.


I clipped out part of that sentence because it doesn't matter. You can put anything you want in place of that ellipsis, and I'll disagree. No composition is ever wrong. You don't have to listen to it or like it or anything; but it is not wrong. Murder, rape, and cruelty are wrong. Music is never wrong.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

It's all part of the same universe, it's all part of nature. The universe makes music through us (and hopefully through others as well).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Gustav Mahler said:


> The Cuckoo bird sings thirds. Mahler imitates it in his first symphony.


Except that Mahler's is the only cuckoo in the world that sings a descending fourth. 

(Sorry Violadude -- I hadn't gotten to your post yet.)


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Humans are great apes (Hominidae), one bit of the animal kingdom.

But atonal music is the work of the devil, and therefore NOT natural.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Oh, the evading, the misrepresenting, the obfuscating of the simple truth implied in the OP's inquiry! This is not esoteric. Mankind around the world has evolved music which is tonal, and tonal systems are indeed rooted, in varying ways, in the naturally occurring acoustical properties of tone and its overtone structure. When people say that tonality seems "natural," this is one of the main things that they mean. The fact that harmony and tonal structure relate to the perception of tone in different ways in different cultures does not negate (except for those determined to negate it) the _natural_ origin - the origin in a natural phenomenon - of the sense of tonality.

No music is "the music of nature," obviously; music is a human creation. But it can reflect and evoke natural processes and perceptions, and can make greater or lesser use of the qualities of sound. Tonal music is music which reflects and embodies the perceived nature of a certain kind of sounds - sounds of periodic vibration, or tones - by basing its structural features in various ways (depending on the tonal system in question) on the hierarchies of subordinate tones ("overtones") we know as the harmonic series. These hierarchies, translated into the harmonic structures of music, are recognized and enjoyed by the human mind when it perceives music, and are felt as "natural" for the simple reason that they occur in the nature of tones. Pointing up the variations and complexities in various types of music shouldn't obscure this general truth.

Western music, with its triads based on the principal overtones, its key relationships beginning with the elementary tonic/dominant relationship, and its extrapolation into complex tonal hierarchies, seems to explore more fully than any other music the suggestiveness of the harmonic series in the structuring of music. This is surely one reason why Western tonal music has spread so easily and has such general appeal throughout the world, adding the appeal of Western harmony (sometimes a bit incongruously, it's true) even to ethnic musical styles remote from it. That we've heard, for generations, music of China and India harmonized in Western fashion, and that this is now quite traditional in such cultures, is not mere "cultural imperialism." Neither is the fact that Western music has long been a prominent part of non-Western societies, thoroughly enjoyed by non-Western audiences and brilliantly practiced by non-Western musicians and musical organizations. That this should have occurred is perfectly "natural."

The harmonic property of tones is not the only basis of the sense of tonality, of the preference for tonal organization, and of the development of tonal systems. But it is the most obvious place to look in beginning an investigation of the origins of tonality, and in understanding one sense in which a musical idiom can be thought of as "natural." Dismissing the whole question of naturalness as an illusion or a prejudice, instead of attempting to define it more precisely, is mere defensive obnubilation. It's just too easy to say that no music is natural, or all music is natural, or all music is artificial, or all music is tonal, or all music is music, or that birdsong is music, or that silence is music - and on and on in a labyrinth of quibbles until we are saying nothing at all and we forget the original question. Maybe that's exactly what some of us want.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Well, African rhythm has by now conquered the world just as much as Western harmony - and I'm sure if I could stomach the search I'd easily find some extensive arguments for why African rhythm is most attuned to the "natural" rhythms of the human body or whatever - so...


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I agree that the harmonic series and whole-number ratio harmonies are important to how we perceive music, and that these things are more or less "natural" rather than "socially constructed," a view that has gotten me in trouble here before.

However, the OP went much further and made extremely strong and specific claims that are not tenable at all.

-He says the Western tonal system follows naturally from the overtone series. I don't see how this can be true. The main functional chords of tonal music, the dominant and the subdominant, are not contained in the overtone series. There is no obvious principle of acoustics that corresponds to the dominant-tonic polarity. I would rather say that the Western tonal system exploits certain natural properties of sound in a very particular way, which is not inherently the most "natural" way.

-He says that atonal music, by which I understand he means the Viennese free atonal and twelve tone music and its offshoots, does not exploit these natural properties of sound. But as other people have point out, it in fact does. It doesn't do so as obviously as e.g. Palestrina, but neither does Mozart or Wagner. So this is a non-starter. (I do, contra many other members, believe that early 20th c. atonality represented an important and sharp split with earlier Western music, but I strongly dispute that this can be characterized in terms of "naturalness.")

-The overtones of a vibrating string or air column, and the consonance of simple ratio harmonies, are properties of sound in nature. They are not the _only_ properties of sound in nature. In fact, they occur rarely in nature and could be said to represent an artificial simplification, by humans, of natural sound phenomena, which are much more complex. There are many other, completely unrelated ways that nature can be represented in music. Messiaen tried his best to reproduce actual bird songs (which are not at all diatonic). Spectralist composers use pitch material derived from the actual overtones of recorded sounds, which are more complicated than the ideal harmonic series. Ligeti found ways to use consonance, dissonance and scales that exploit their natural properties but have absolutely nothing to do with traditional tonality.

-As others have noted, the human mind is not separate from nature. The products of our mind are natural, including the twelve tone system. I don't think the twelve tone system is particularly "mathematical" - it's just putting the notes in an order that serves as a guide for composition - but it's worth noting that mathematics itself is natural, both in the sense that it is a product of our minds and that it turns out to describe natural phenomena. Xenakis wrote music based on mathematics developed to describe the behavior of gas molecules, among other things. I don't think it's an accident that his music often evokes natural phenomena.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Oh, the evading, the misrepresenting, the obfuscating of the simple truth implied in the OP's inquiry! This is not esoteric. Mankind around the world has evolved music which is tonal, and tonal systems are indeed rooted, in varying ways, in the naturally occurring acoustical properties of tone and its overtone structure. When people say that tonality seems "natural," this is one of the main things that they mean. The fact that harmony and tonal structure relate to the perception of tone in different ways in different cultures does not negate (except for those determined to negate it) the _natural_ origin - the origin in a natural phenomenon - of the sense of tonality.
> 
> No music is "the music of nature," obviously; music is a human creation. But it can reflect and evoke natural processes and perceptions, and can make greater or lesser use of the qualities of sound. Tonal music is music which reflects and embodies the perceived nature of a certain kind of sounds - sounds of periodic vibration, or tones - by basing its structural features in various ways (depending on the tonal system in question) on the hierarchies of subordinate tones ("overtones") we know as the harmonic series. These hierarchies, translated into the harmonic structures of music, are recognized and enjoyed by the human mind when it perceives music, and are felt as "natural" for the simple reason that they occur in the nature of tones. Pointing up the variations and complexities in various types of music shouldn't obscure this general truth.
> 
> ...


Woodduck,

Thank you for a very profound statement in this thread - BRAVO!!!:tiphat::clap::cheers:


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Epilogue said:


> Well, African rhythm has by now conquered the world just as much as Western harmony - and I'm sure if I could stomach the search I'd easily find some extensive arguments for why African rhythm is most attuned to the "natural" rhythms of the human body or whatever - so...


The influence of traditional African rhythm on American popular music is pretty weak, and most of the world-dominating popular music these days doesn't show much trace of it anyway.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> The influence of traditional African rhythm on American popular music is pretty weak


I guess the key word here is "traditional," implication being that the rhythm of American popular music was developed in America - which of course doesn't change the fact of its African origin.



isorhythm said:


> and most of the world-dominating popular music these days doesn't show much trace of it anyway.


Whatever gets you through the night.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

> Woodduck: Neither is the fact that Western music has long been a prominent part of non-Western societies, thoroughly enjoyed by non-Western audiences and brilliantly practiced by non-Western musicians and musical organizations. That this should have occurred is perfectly "natural."







Great music is ecumenical.

Our emotions from it come from our common aural physiology.

- "Othello, huh?. . . Take it away, Namdoo Kim."


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

I suspect that great music is xenophobic more often than not. (God knows Verdi was.)


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Epilogue said:


> I guess the key word here is "traditional," implication being that the rhythm of American popular music was developed in America - which of course doesn't change the fact of its African origin.
> 
> Whatever gets you through the night.


I don't know what this means.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> I suspect that great music is xenophobic more often than not. (God knows Verdi was.)


Verdi was xenophobic?

- Do tell.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> Well, African rhythm has by now conquered the world just as much as Western harmony - and I'm sure if I could stomach the search I'd easily find some extensive arguments for why African rhythm is most attuned to the "natural" rhythms of the human body or whatever - so...


So what? What tangent is this intended to take off on?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@isorhythm

The first part or the second?

The first part means that what the kids are dancing to today is as much African as Western.

The second part means that if denying that makes you happy, well, okay, no big deal.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@Marschallin Blair

Let me know if the link doesn't work: https://books.google.com/books?id=kRo48TDPd08C&pg=PA153 (The last three paragraphs on the page are the most relevant.)


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@Woodduck

I'm saying that if you want to present global influence, and ad hoc arguments about "naturalness," as evidence for the superiority of Western tonal music over atonal music, then the same things can be presented as evidence for the superiority (or at least equal greatness) of African music compared to Western music.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Epilogue said:


> @isorhythm
> 
> The first part or the second?
> 
> ...


I like both pop music and traditional African music. The latter is much more rhythmically interesting than the former, however. My happiness has nothing to do with this fact.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> @Marschallin Blair
> 
> Let me know if the link doesn't work: https://books.google.com/books?id=kRo48TDPd08C&pg=PA153 (The last three paragraphs on the page are the most relevant.)


the link only leads to the cover of the book. There is no opportunity to 'look inside' the book


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> -He says the Western tonal system follows naturally from the overtone series. I don't see how this can be true. The main functional chords of tonal music, the dominant and the subdominant, are not contained in the overtone series. There is no obvious principle of acoustics that corresponds to the dominant-tonic polarity. I would rather say that the Western tonal system exploits certain natural properties of sound in a very particular way, which is not inherently the most "natural" way.


To my knowledge, the most elaborate argument for the natural basis of tonal relationships was made by Arnold Schoenberg(!) in his harmony book. If memory serves, he argued that the tones of the major scale are like members of a society, each attempting to assert its natural rights to its own overtone series. Those related to the tonic pitch by the most fundamental interval in the harmonic series (other than the octave), that is the 5th, get to assert their rights most fully. Thus the dominant and subdominant pitches get to assert their "natural" 5ths and 3rds, whereas other scale degrees, the supertonic, mediant, and submediant, get only their 5ths and must settle for minor 3rds. The leading tone gets neither natural fifth nor third.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> @Marschallin Blair
> Let me know if the link doesn't work: https://books.google.com/books?id=kRo48TDPd08C&pg=PA153 (The last three paragraphs on the page are the most relevant.)


Okay.

So where's the 'xenophobia'?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

@Headphone Hermit

I was afraid of that. National difference.

Okay, here are the relevant passages (all from letters by Verdi):



> I admire the Minister's wish to reform our music schools, but in the final analysis I do not think he will succeed. Nowadays one can no longer find either composers or pupils who are not infected by the teutonic outlook, and it would be impossible to form a Committee untainted by the disease, which like other diseases must run its course... Europe and the world once had two schools of music: the Italian and the German (from which all others derive). We have been bewitched by foreign charms and have renounced our own, and chaos has resulted! (1883)





> Our young Italian composers are not good patriots. If German composers, setting out from Bach have arrived at Wagner, they have acted as good Germans, and that is fine. But if we descendants of Palestrina imitate Wagner, we commit a musical crime and create useless, or even harmful works. (1889)





> If the artists of the North and South exhibit different tendencies, it is good that they are different! They should all preserve the character of their own nation, as Wagner quite rightly says. You are fortunate in still being the sons of Bach! We too, sons of Palestrina , used to have a great tradition, and our own! It has now become bastardized, and ruin threatens us! If only we could go back to the beginning?! (1892)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> @Woodduck
> 
> I'm saying that if you want to present global influence, and ad hoc arguments about "naturalness," as evidence for the superiority of Western tonal music over atonal music, then the same things can be presented as evidence for the superiority (or at least equal greatness) of African music compared to Western music.


The arguments for the naturalness of tonality, however one defines it, are hardly "ad hoc," but extensively discussed and studied. As for superiority, I wasn't arguing for that. It's a loaded word I had no intention of unpacking. I was only concerned to say that there are senses in which certain musical phenomena can legitimately be called natural (and have broad appeal because of it), so long as we understand what we're talking about.

Rhythm is a different element of music which might be similarly discussed. Some musical rhythms would certainly relate more closely to rhythms in nature, especially of the body, and would therefore be felt as more primal or "natural" than others. That doesn't mean that irregular, disruptive rhythmic accents are "inferior" or shouldn't be used in music. That would be a gross oversimplification of the subject, as well as a simple non sequitur. Music is about more than elementary phenomena, but elementary phenomena, such as the harmonics of tone and regularity of pulsation, have a peculiar power and prevalence in musical structures precisely because they are elementary - i.e., basic elements of existence and experience.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

So you'd _not_ saying tonality is superior to atonality?

(I _would_ say that, for the record! More precisely, Schoenberg's atonality is superior to Sibelius' tonality, but Haydn's tonality is superior to Schoenberg's atonality. But not because tonality is more "natural.")


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## k1hodgman (Sep 8, 2015)

Both. You need only to listen to the birds chirp.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The arguments for the naturalness of tonality, however one defines it, are hardly "ad hoc," but extensively discussed and studied. As for superiority, I wasn't arguing for that. It's a loaded word I had no intention of unpacking. I was only concerned to say that there are senses in which certain musical phenomena can legitimately be called natural (and have broad appeal because of it), so long as we understand what we're talking about.
> 
> Rhythm is a different element of music which might be similarly discussed. Some musical rhythms would certainly relate more closely to rhythms in nature, especially of the body, and would therefore be felt as more primal or "natural" than others. That doesn't mean that irregular, disruptive rhythmic accents are "inferior" or shouldn't be used in music. That would be a gross oversimplification of the subject, as well as a simple non sequitur. Music is about more than elementary phenomena, but elementary phenomena, such as the harmonics of tone and regularity of pulsation, have a peculiar power and prevalence in musical structures precisely because they are elementary - i.e., basic elements of existence and experience.


There's no transcending one's physiological sensory apparatus- no matter how much Lysenko or Schoenberg may have thought to the contrary.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> So you'd _not_ saying tonality is superior to atonality?
> 
> (I _would_ say that, for the record! More precisely, Schoenberg's atonality is superior to Sibelius' tonality, but Haydn's tonality is superior to Schoenberg's atonality. But not because tonality is more "natural.")


No, I'm not saying it. Any sound or combination of sounds may have its uses and its place. One would have to ask: superior in what sense and for what purpose? I might say that a given piece of music, or even a given composer, is in certain ways superior to another, but that's a different and more specific, and thus more meaningful, question.

I disagree about Sibelius and Schoenberg, by the way.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> There's no transcending one's physiological sensory apparatus- no matter how much Lysenko or Schoenberg may have thought to the contrary.


I will hate myself in the morning for taking this bait, but there's been no quesion of transcending one's physiological sensory apparatus by anyone here, nor by Schoenberg. (Not sure how Lysenko got into this conversation.)

Look at it this way, if there is indeed no transcending one's physiological sensory apparatus, and there are people who enjoy Schoenberg's music or even this, say:






...and there are, then they must be doing it without transcending their physiological sensory apparatus, hence bringing up this claim has no utility for this discussion. The only utility it could possibly have is to bolster an idea that somehow certain kinds of systems--tonality, say--are superior to others, more natural to listen to than other systems--serialism, say--or other kinds of things like the Tone. And that is done by a kind of intellectual sleight-of-hand which suggests that enjoying Schoenberg requires that one transcend one's physiological sensory apparatus, which, since that's impossible, means that no one enjoys Schoenberg, which is quite obviously wrong.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I have a question that I hope is simple and straightforward. If it's not, I apologize! 

Prior to Schoenberg, was all human music that we know of tonal?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

science said:


> I have a question that I hope is simple and straightforward. If it's not, I apologize!
> 
> Prior to Schoenberg, was all human music that we know of tonal?


The answer is NO.

Tonality is a European phenomenon which developed in the 17th century and appeared independently in no other culture.

Any definition of tonality which would include all music in the history of the world before Schoenberg would also include Schoenberg, unless ad hoc arguments are used to exclude him.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

No.

[Wow. Mahlerian beat me to it. By microseconds must have been.]


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> The answer is NO.
> 
> Tonality is a European phenomenon which developed in the 17th century and appeared independently in no other culture.
> 
> Any definition of tonality which would include all music in the history of the world before Schoenberg would also include Schoenberg, unless ad hoc arguments are used to exclude him.


Thank you!

I guess that settles the question.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

It was barely a question!


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

science said:


> There are a few false dichotomies running wild in this thread (starting with the title), but this is the most interesting one to me.
> 
> Innovation and art do not exclude each other.
> 
> I clipped out part of that sentence because it doesn't matter. You can put anything you want in place of that ellipsis, and I'll disagree. No composition is ever wrong. You don't have to listen to it or like it or anything; but it is not wrong. Murder, rape, and cruelty are wrong. Music is never wrong.


False?
Dear sir, How can an opinion in such a subjective matter be false? This is the most interesting false statement in this thread for me.
You can be poetic and say that "Everything that a man creates is natural because we are part of nature".
But I simply disagree with that. This is not the way I define natural.
Also, It is very nice to say "There can be nothing wrong in music. Everything is free" And those rather romantic statements that I heard a thousand times while I studied composition from beginning composers. Do you think that my composition teacher had nothing to correct me with?
Many repetitions, Lame melody etc. can be BAD COMPOSING. Also, My opinion is that composing should come from an expressive urge, Not from the thought of "Well, I want to be an innovator, What should I innovate then"?
I will reply to the other messages soon


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Oh, the evading, the misrepresenting, the obfuscating of the simple truth implied in the OP's inquiry! This is not esoteric. Mankind around the world has evolved music which is tonal, and tonal systems are indeed rooted, in varying ways, in the naturally occurring acoustical properties of tone and its overtone structure. When people say that tonality seems "natural," this is one of the main things that they mean. The fact that harmony and tonal structure relate to the perception of tone in different ways in different cultures does not negate (except for those determined to negate it) the _natural_ origin - the origin in a natural phenomenon - of the sense of tonality.
> 
> No music is "the music of nature," obviously; music is a human creation. But it can reflect and evoke natural processes and perceptions, and can make greater or lesser use of the qualities of sound. Tonal music is music which reflects and embodies the perceived nature of a certain kind of sounds - sounds of periodic vibration, or tones - by basing its structural features in various ways (depending on the tonal system in question) on the hierarchies of subordinate tones ("overtones") we know as the harmonic series. These hierarchies, translated into the harmonic structures of music, are recognized and enjoyed by the human mind when it perceives music, and are felt as "natural" for the simple reason that they occur in the nature of tones. Pointing up the variations and complexities in various types of music shouldn't obscure this general truth.
> 
> ...


Precisely, Just precisely!
Finally there is someone else who agrees about the relation of nature to western music.
You can all stop saying things like "Men are nature" and all other philosophical opinions-
We are talking about PHYSICS. The overtones are not in our imagination and they have a central part in the evolution of western music since Aristo.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The arguments for the naturalness of tonality, however one defines it, are hardly "ad hoc," but extensively discussed and studied. As for superiority, I wasn't arguing for that. It's a loaded word I had no intention of unpacking. I was only concerned to say that there are senses in which certain musical phenomena can legitimately be called natural (and have broad appeal because of it), so long as we understand what we're talking about.
> 
> Rhythm is a different element of music which might be similarly discussed. Some musical rhythms would certainly relate more closely to rhythms in nature, especially of the body, and would therefore be felt as more primal or "natural" than others. That doesn't mean that irregular, disruptive rhythmic accents are "inferior" or shouldn't be used in music. That would be a gross oversimplification of the subject, as well as a simple non sequitur. Music is about more than elementary phenomena, but elementary phenomena, such as the harmonics of tone and regularity of pulsation, have a peculiar power and prevalence in musical structures precisely because they are elementary - i.e., basic elements of existence and experience.


Talking about natural rhythms-Listen to the beginning of the spectacular Mahler's 9th. He is imitating the beats of his sick heart with the pulse the horns play.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

science said:


> I have a question that I hope is simple and straightforward. If it's not, I apologize!
> 
> Prior to Schoenberg, was all human music that we know of tonal?


It was not tonal in a sense of harmonic functions, But it had a TONIC, A central tone.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> The answer is NO.
> 
> Tonality is a European phenomenon which developed in the 17th century and appeared independently in no other culture.
> 
> Any definition of tonality which would include all music in the history of the world before Schoenberg would also include Schoenberg, unless ad hoc arguments are used to exclude him.


This is not an adequate response to science's question. "_Common practice_ tonality" is a European phenomenon, yes. Tonality _as such_ - the organization of musical structure with reference to a tonal center felt and perceived as fundamental to a musical idiom or language and functioning as a point of reference, departure and resolution - is a worldwide phenomenon in music.

If the discussion is one of the "naturalness" of musical phenomena, it is tonality in this broader sense that must be considered.

Though I am not an ethnomusicologist, I would venture to say that the answer to science's question is: "very nearly all music prior to Schoenberg is tonal." Schoenberg's "atonal" music does not entirely obliterate the listener's tonal sense; in music consisting of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale that would be difficult or impossible to do. But its treatment of harmony certainly does not fulfill any meaningful definition of tonality and is in fact intended to prevent the establishment of a tonal center. Transient "tonal centers" (pitches of greater importance or prominence) do not necessarily establish real tonality, which is felt as a fundamental element and principle of style and structure. It is so felt in Western music all the way up through the highly chromatic music of Wagner, Mahler, and early Schoenberg.

"Atonality," whether one finds the term precise enough in a given context or not, is something new.


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> The answer is NO.
> 
> Tonality is a European phenomenon which developed in the 17th century and appeared independently in no other culture.
> 
> Any definition of tonality which would include all music in the history of the world before Schoenberg would also include Schoenberg, unless ad hoc arguments are used to exclude him.


I feel compelled to add that i think both these definitions are valid in that they describe two different but related things (One being the harmonic tendencies of WCM from a certain point in history onward, and the other being a 'you know it when you hear it' tonality that is not predicated on the same harmonic relationships but some of which would nonetheless sound recognizably similar to them, and where there isn't tonality or a tonality but only more distantly tonal and less so), I just think there aren't good enough terms to adequately distinguish them, so they both get called 'tonality'.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Is it actually the case that all music before Schoenberg has a central tone? I don't know, as I am also not an ethnomusicologist.

I would be willing to bet it all involves scales that feature fifths, fourths, thirds and seconds, but I'm less certain about a central tone.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

I have to clarify a point:
I do appreciate Schoenberg very much and I enjoy his music, Even the atonal. I have listened today to one of his three piano pieces and his trio, And it was fantastic, And indeed full of passion.
What I am trying to say is that we can use this music, But we cannot throw away tonality, We should use it to. Its basis is natural, Not an invention.
It is like saying that one should've thrown away the car after inventing the car-No, You should use both of them.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Is it actually the case that all music before Schoenberg has a central tone? I don't know, as I am also not an ethnomusicologist.
> 
> I would be willing to bet it all involves scales that feature fifths, fourths, thirds and seconds, but I'm less certain about a central tone.


But Schoenberg's music DOES have central tones. Are all of you forgetting this? Unable to hear it?

Really, the idea of atonality is poisonous.



Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> That's just one definition of tonality that could be used to distinguish between music with somewhat diverging harmonic tendencies. I think the keyword is somewhat, even though I agree with your second paragraph', but given the kinds of music you hear around the world which sometimes easily surpasses WCM in antiquity , I think of tonality as something that's more like "you know it when hear it", and it's not tonality or lack of tonality that is heard, but only more distantly tonal and less so.


When I say there is no definition whatsoever that will both include all world music and modal music and exclude Schoenberg, I am being absolutely literal.

What does it mean to be more and less tonal?


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> Is it actually the case that all music before Schoenberg has a central tone? I don't know, as I am also not an ethnomusicologist.
> 
> I would be willing to bet it all involves scales that feature fifths, fourths, thirds and seconds, but I'm less certain about a central tone.


Gregorian chants had a main tone, Though not always ending on the same note. It was not a tonic in the sense of the tonal music, But there was a kind of a central tone there.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> But Schoenberg's music DOES have central tones. Are all of you forgetting this? Unable to hear it?
> 
> Really, the idea of atonality is poisonous.
> 
> When I say there is no definition whatsoever that will both include all world music and modal music and exclude Schoenberg, I am being absolutely literal.


NOTES, Not TONES. It is not PERSISTENT, It is at random points, While in the music before Schoenberg had generally a persistent main tone.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Gustav Mahler said:


> NOTES, Not TONES. It is not PERSISTENT, It is at random points, While in the music before Schoenberg had generally a persistent main tone.


It is persistent, though. Schoenberg's works are invariably very carefully constructed in terms of harmony and the implications thus followed through on. There is nothing in them that was "random" at all.

If you say it has to have a "persistent main tone," what does this do to works that change their primary tonality over the course of the piece, such as many of Mahler's symphonies?


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

I fear we are all going slightly insane. Well, fear.. more like undercurrents of enthusiasm.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I fear we are all going slightly insane. Well, fear.. more like undercurrents of enthusiasm.


We should avoid both extremes - neither too insane nor too sane. The Principle of the Golden Mean.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I fear we are all going slightly insane. Well, fear.. more like undercurrents of enthusiasm.


Or should that be asane?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

_There is an area of the mind that could be called unsane, beyond sanity, and yet not insane. Think of a circle with a fine split in it. At one end there's insanity. You go around the circle to sanity, and on the other end of the circle, close to insanity, but not insanity, is unsanity._


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> But Schoenberg's music DOES have central tones. Are all of you forgetting this? Unable to hear it?


I'm honestly unable to hear it. Remember when you said that Schoenberg's op 25 first movement has centered on G as a main tone? I couldn't hear it, even with listening with the score multiple times and squinting my ears and eyes out. I suspect this is the case with most beginners as well. Not that that makes me dislike Schoenberg of course, but I cannot hear it at all.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Tonal centres don't exist. All music is atonal.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

But let's say for a moment that Schoenberg's music really is a-whatever and that no other music in the history of all human or animal cultures is a-whatever. 

Why would that matter? 

I'm not sure there's anything at stake in the discussion.


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

Mahler's music may change keys frequently, But you have a central tone for almost every given moment.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> I'm honestly unable to hear it. Remember when you said that Schoenberg's op 25 first movement has centered on G as a main tone? I couldn't hear it, even with listening with the score multiple times and squinting my ears and eyes out. I suspect this is the case with most beginners as well. Not that that makes me dislike Schoenberg of course, but I cannot hear it at all.


Does it sound disorganized to you? Can you recall sections of it offhand without reference to a score? I'm just wondering how your brain makes sense of something that you perceive as being without any focal points.

Perhaps more importantly, when you hear a work by Schoenberg or someone else that you perceive as without tonal center, does it sound finished at the end in the way that other works do?


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## Gustav Mahler (Dec 3, 2014)

science said:


> But let's say for a moment that Schoenberg's music really is a-whatever and that no other music in the history of all human or animal cultures is a-whatever.
> 
> Why would that matter?
> 
> I'm not sure there's anything at stake in the discussion.


It is a matter of great importance for today's composers. What should we compose? What styles should we adapt and what should we throw away?
My opinion: Why not using it ALL, Both tonality and atonality, To have both worlds.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Gregorian chants had a main tone, Though not always ending on the same note. It was not a tonic in the sense of the tonal music, But there was a kind of a central tone there.


Yeah but you're talking about all the music in the world here, not just Western music. You've got to account for Uzbekh work songs and gamelans and such.

I wonder what we make of something like this? Maybe it's polymodal? My ear isn't good enough. It's definitely pretty far from European tonality.






@Mahlerian, I have nothing more to say about Schoenberg and tonality - I've said it all in the other threads.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Gustav Mahler said:


> It is a matter of great importance for today's composers. What should we compose? What styles should we adapt and what should we throw away?
> My opinion: Why not using it ALL, Both tonality and atonality, To have both worlds.


If you want to be offended, read the OP of this thread.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Gustav Mahler said:


> It is a matter of great importance for today's composers. What should we compose? What styles should we adapt and what should we throw away?
> My opinion: Why not using it ALL, Both tonality and atonality, To have both worlds.


What you should compose is not at stake at all. You should compose whatever you want. That's regardless of whether Schoenberg's a-whatever is unique in the history of human music. That's not at stake.

_Is there anything actually at stake?_


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> _There is an area of the mind that could be called unsane, beyond sanity, and yet not insane. Think of a circle with a fine split in it. At one end there's insanity. You go around the circle to sanity, and on the other end of the circle, close to insanity, but not insanity, is unsanity._


Declare this quote or I shall out you!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I did not understand what the OP meant by natural or "a creation of nature" until Woodduck's post above and Gustav Mahler's agreement of its main points. I think it's not unreasonable to suggest there is something natural in that sense with the creation of tonal music. The immediate question would then be, "Is there something _unnatural_ with non-tonal music?" One could argue that it's not natural _in the same sense _as tonal music, but I'm not sure that gets us anywhere. Obviously all music is natural in that it depends on the laws of physics and the biology of humans.

But I really like _science's_ question:



science said:


> But let's say for a moment that Schoenberg's music really is a-whatever and that no other music in the history of all human or animal cultures is a-whatever.
> 
> Why would that matter?
> 
> I'm not sure there's anything at stake in the discussion.


I imagine one could make similar arguments about the painting styles realism and impressionism. Realism could be viewed as more natural; whereas, impressionism changes what the brain "sees" into something that emphasizes other aspects. If we accepted realism as more natural, would that matter in comparing realism and impressionism? Once you agree (if one does) that realism is more natural, what then?

So does it matter that tonality might be more natural in the sense that Woodduck outlined?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

dogen said:


> Declare this quote or I shall out you!


Italics imply a quote, don't they?


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

They do. Timothy who?


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> I did not understand what the OP meant by natural or "a creation of nature" until Woodduck's post above and Gustav Mahler's agreement of its main points. I think it's not unreasonable to suggest there is something natural in that sense with the creation of tonal music. The immediate question would then be, "Is there something _unnatural_ with non-tonal music?" One could argue that it's not natural _in the same sense _as tonal music, but I'm not sure that gets us anywhere. Obviously all music is natural in that it depends on the laws of physics and the biology of humans.
> 
> But I really like _science's_ question:
> 
> ...


You might not think it unreasonable, but on what basis? I do not see it myself.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Does it sound disorganized to you? Can you recall sections of it offhand without reference to a score? I'm just wondering how your brain makes sense of something that you perceive as being without any focal points.
> 
> Perhaps more importantly, when you hear a work by Schoenberg or someone else that you perceive as without tonal center, does it sound finished at the end in the way that other works do?


I suspect that SeptimalTritone might have a better grasp of music than I do, but I can say that I generally cannot recall sections of similar music unless I listen over and over (as for Berg's violin concerto and more often than for tonal works).

But the last question is very interesting. In general non-tonal works do not sound finished to me. They end and so does my listening. For me I find that there's much less connection _that I hear_ between measures or sections of non-tonal works than tonal ones (CPT). Obviously if I become more and more familiar with a work I will make more connections, but those connections require much more listening than for tonal works.

For me that just means a different type of listening for my enjoyment.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

dogen said:


> You might not think it unreasonable, but on what basis? I do not see it myself.


The overtones are generated by physical properties in the vibration of certain things that "make music" (e.g. strings or columns of air). Using the lower overtones as fundamental notes in compositions is a simple way to arrange music. These overtones lead to less dissonance which is generally viewed as unpleasant. I think it's reasonable to see how a system based on those ideas or facts could have evolved.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I suspect that SeptimalTritone might have a better grasp of music than I do, but I can say that I generally cannot recall sections of similar music unless I listen over and over (as for Berg's violin concerto and more often than for tonal works).
> 
> But the last question is very interesting. In general non-tonal works do not sound finished to me. They end and so does my listening. For me I find that there's much less connection _that I hear_ between measures or sections of non-tonal works than tonal ones (CPT). Obviously if I become more and more familiar with a work I will make more connections, but those connections require much more listening than for tonal works.
> 
> For me that just means a different type of listening for my enjoyment.


When I listen to this, or most other music in traditional phrygian mode, my sense of tonality is in semi-rebellion and I cannot hear the endings as final. I hear them as half-cadences.






My tonal sense has no such issue for anything by Schoenberg. All of the music sounds like it resolves and ends where the harmony implies that it should.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

isorhythm said:


> Yeah but you're talking about all the music in the world here, not just Western music. You've got to account for Uzbekh work songs and gamelans and such.


Given the OP, I think we might have to include bird and whale songs, choruses of frogs or crickets, maybe even rain and wind.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> I suspect that SeptimalTritone might have a better grasp of music than I do, but I can say that I generally cannot recall sections of similar music unless I listen over and over (as for Berg's violin concerto and more often than for tonal works).
> 
> But the last question is very interesting. In general non-tonal works do not sound finished to me. They end and so does my listening. For me I find that *there's much less connection that I hear between measures or sections of non-tonal works than tonal ones (CPT).* Obviously if I become more and more familiar with a work I will make more connections, but those connections require much more listening than for tonal works.
> 
> For me that just means a different type of listening for my enjoyment.


Why assume that finding some music less coherent ("less connection") implies any deficiency in your perception? Music really does vary in coherence, sometimes just as a function of its style or form, and sometimes because the composer can't do any better!

Tonality is a fundamental tool for giving music coherence, though not the only one. In the absence of tonal organization, the composer's task is infinitely harder. I'd say Schoenberg's task was heroic and couldn't be entirely fulfilled, a main reason why his works took so long to write (and why Haydn's didn't), and why you and most (?) of the rest of us do not find atonal works entirely comprehensible (whether we enjoy them or not) and do not hear those supposed "tonal centers" that come and go.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> The overtones are generated by physical properties in the vibration of certain things that "make music" (e.g. strings or columns of air). Using the lower overtones as fundamental notes in compositions is a simple way to arrange music. These overtones lead to less dissonance which is generally viewed as unpleasant. I think it's reasonable to see how a system based on those ideas or facts could have evolved.


Well I can't speak for the 8 billion other people currently alive, or anyone that's ever lived, but I actively like dissonance.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

dogen said:


> Well I can't speak for the 8 billion other people currently alive, or anyone that's ever lived, but I actively like dissonance.


Of course, we don't live during the period when CP tonality was being created or during the early evolution. My understanding is that composers gradually included more and more dissonant chords over time because _at any given time_ there were chords considered too dissonant for the majority of listeners. Eventually dissonance itself became less of an issue for _some people_ (I assume that relatively few people today would be happy with dissonances found in much modern music).


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

There are a number of cultures that actively prefer dissonance over consonance. Georgian music on top of being dissonant is also polyphonic.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> There are a number of cultures that actively prefer dissonance over consonance. Georgian music on top of being dissonant is also polyphonic.


Well yes but they are sick and perverted cultures. In some cultures people enjoy football. That doesn't mean it is natural or moral.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

The overtones have overtones too.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> When I listen to this, or most other music in traditional phrygian mode, my sense of tonality is in semi-rebellion and I cannot hear the endings as final. I hear them as half-cadences.
> 
> My tonal sense has no such issue for anything by Schoenberg. All of the music sounds like it resolves and ends where the harmony implies that it should.


I'm sure there may be exceptions to my general feeling that CP tonality sounds "right" when a work ends and non-tonal works don't give me the same feeling. But there's a huge difference between you and me. You have learned much music theory, followed scores when listening to many works, and thought hard about the theory and associated sounds of music. That's obvious from many of your wonderful posts. I have not. I hear music enormously differently than you do.

When I listen to Baroque music, I often find that I cannot hear the harpsichord very well and certainly don't hear the harpsichord's critical contribution to the music. My daughter, who has played in Baroque ensembles for many years, has studied music theory, and constantly listens for the theory in the music she heard, easily hears the harpsichord and its relation to the rest of the music.

I have always assumed that modern music is well organized and painstakingly constructed. I just can't hear those aspects. Still, the more I listen, the more I enjoy.


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## Guest (Sep 24, 2015)

Gustav Mahler said:


> Is music derived from nature, Or mostly from men's craft?


Mostly from men's craft. Some might argue that in the absence of man, you can find "music" abounding in the natural world. I wouldn't argue that, though I agree that having once accepted the concept of 'music', one might describe the sounds of nature as having 'musical' similarities.

However, all 'music' is a human construct and no one type of music is more 'natural' than another.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

As I read this, I can't help but remembering that great discussion of Bruno Heinz Jaja's famous work from the 1950's _Punkt Contrapunkt_. Here is part of it...

_"Then comes the whole punkt, so quasi-lyrical as to be quasi-emotional, three bars of silence. The first [bar] is in 7/8, the third is also in 7/8 but the second bar of silence is in 3/4 and this gives to the whole work a quasi-Viennese flavour. But what makes this middle bar of silence so important is that the silence makes a crescendo because it is the only moment in the whole piece where every instrument in the orchestra has the mute off. But there is yet more of a climax, the violas have a bottom B-flat in this bar marked 'tremolanda ma quasi pensato', they must not play this note, only think it. In fact they can only think it because the bottom B-flat is not on the instrument."_


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> Of course, we don't live during the period when CP tonality was being created or during the early evolution. My understanding is that composers gradually included more and more dissonant chords over time because _at any given time_ there were chords considered too dissonant for the majority of listeners. Eventually dissonance itself became less of an issue for _some people_ (I assume that relatively few people today would be happy with dissonances found in much modern music).


I don't think most classical listeners nowadays have a problem with any dissonant chords as such, since we've heard so much of them. But dissonance has always been most meaningful and powerful in contrast to consonance, and in one sense only exists relative to it. We hear a minor second as a dissonance largely because we associate it with a musical context in which adjacent intervals are less dissonant (although there is the basic acoustical fact of clashing overtones too), and in such a context the close interval may be universally accepted or liked and can have a powerful expressive effect. Yet, heard in isolation, it is merely a noise with no necessary effect on us at all - or, if sustained long enough, an effect of irritation. The problem people report with "modern" music - that it's "too dissonant" - has to do with sustained or constant dissonance which seems not to have a more consonant context or a function within such a context to give it meaning. The effect, again, is one of irritation. This is why the extremely intense gestures and dense textures of Schoenberg's music, highly expressive to some, quickly become merely irritating and wearisome to others: the music refuses to "relax" into consonances that allow the listener to refresh himself, and that allow dissonances to make the peculiar stimulating effect they would have in a more consonant context.

Obviously, everyone's tolerance for sustained dissonance, especially outside a tonal context, is different.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

"Musical people, as a rule, have not as yet got 'educated' by the 'music of the future to the point where they may enjoy passage after passage bereft of all tonality by meandering through doors of modulation, around corners of accidentals, and through mazes of chromatics that lead nowhere in particular unless it be to the realm of giddiness." - 1882, referring to Brahms' Serenade in D

Idiotic criticism never ages well, but it can be recycled for every new generation's bugbears.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Mostly from men's craft. Some might argue that in the absence of man, you can find "music" abounding in the natural world. I wouldn't argue that, though I agree that having once accepted the concept of 'music', one might describe the sounds of nature as having 'musical' similarities.
> 
> *However, all 'music' is a human construct and no one type of music is more 'natural' than another.*


Isn't that statement merely tautological? If you're simply defining _natural_ as "not constructed by humans," it's inarguable. But that isn't what people mean when they speak of the relative "naturalness" of human actions and products.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> "Musical people, as a rule, have not as yet got 'educated' by the 'music of the future to the point where they may enjoy passage after passage bereft of all tonality by meandering through doors of modulation, around corners of accidentals, and through mazes of chromatics that lead nowhere in particular unless it be to the realm of giddiness." - 1882, referring to Brahms' Serenade in D
> 
> Idiotic criticism never ages well, but it can be recycled for every new generation's bugbears.


Idiotic criticism is even idiotic in its own time. It's a mistake to take it as the prevailing view. At the work's first performance in 1860 the audience applauded and shouted and forced Brahms to come to the front of the hall and take a bow. Who knows what ailed that Boston critic twenty-two years later, aside from being a Boston snob upholding his prestigious calling.

When will we stop hauling out stupid remarks about music from the past to prove that criticism of modern music is just "recycled" ignorance?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I don't think most classical listeners nowadays have a problem with any dissonant chords as such, since we've heard so much of them. But dissonance has always been most meaningful and powerful in contrast to consonance, and in one sense only exists relative to it.


Dissonance is an interesting phenomenon. There are both objective (wave interference creating beating) and subjective (personal distaste) definitions. People do find individual chords heard out of musical context dissonant presumably because they compare them to their recollection of consonant chords. I suspect that those who dislike modern music may have several reasons but among them would be lack of resolution and extreme (to them) dissonance. Perhaps they would consider those equivalent.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> Dissonance is an interesting phenomenon. There are both objective (wave interference creating beating) and subjective (personal distaste) definitions. People do find individual chords heard out of musical context dissonant presumably because they compare them to their recollection of consonant chords. I suspect that those who dislike modern music may have several reasons but among them would be lack of resolution and extreme (to them) dissonance. Perhaps they would consider those equivalent.


I'd like to modify your two definitions to three: acoustical (wave interference creating beating: harsh sounds), structural (functional in a harmonic context, with dissonance needing relief or resolution), and subjective (personal discomfort). In listening to music, the subjective sense of discomfort may result from the perception of either or both of the others ("these are harsh sounds," or "these harsh sounds are not relieved by or given meaning by consonance"). Whichever the cause, the impression is of "too much dissonance."


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Does it sound disorganized to you? Can you recall sections of it offhand without reference to a score? I'm just wondering how your brain makes sense of something that you perceive as being without any focal points.
> 
> Perhaps more importantly, when you hear a work by Schoenberg or someone else that you perceive as without tonal center, does it sound finished at the end in the way that other works do?


I can derive a lot from Schoenberg, including motifs, structure, and melody. I can recall certain pertinent parts of the Schoenberg pieces I'm more familiar with and "play" them in my head to some degree, just like with other composers before and after.

Electronic music, at least the mostly un-pitched variety like La Selva etc. has no "focal notes" because it's not based on notes at all and yet works just fine. And focal notes are not necessary to enjoy music that even is based on notes, like Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, or Xenakis' orchestral sound walls.

For your second paragraph, I do perceive endings, but I'm not sure if I do entirely just from the rhythym and phrasing, or if I can hear harmonically that it's an ending. Like I sometimes wonder if Schoenberg changed the chords at the end of a section or a movement (yet still following his 12-tone harmony and counterpoint rules) I would be able to sense that something is wrong. I might not be able to...


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> At the work's first performance in 1860 the audience applauded and shouted and forced Brahms to come to the front of the hall and take a bow.


Well, the first performances of _Pierrot lunaire_ were popular successes too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> Well, the first performances of _Pierrot lunaire_ were popular successes too.


My point was that there are always ignorant remarks we can dig up and cite, but that they prove nothing about anything except that there are always ignorant people, for which we already have plenty of proof. The idea that "new music has always been misunderstood, unpopular, unappreciated," etc., etc., keeps getting trotted out to prove that the difficulties posed by modern - atonal, electronic, spectral, whatever - music are no different than those posed by, say, Brahms or Bizet for audiences of their day. But the premise is largely untrue and the conclusion does not follow.

I'm not sure what the success of _Pierrot_ tells us either. It's a unique and striking piece, wouldn't you agree? Apparently its subject matter, and the medium of melodrama, were rather fashionable in cultured circles at the time.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

You said Mahlerian is wrong to equate "stupid remarks" on Brahms' serenade with "criticism of modern music" because Brahms' serenade was immediately popular.

The fact that _Pierrot lunaire_ was also immediately popular tells us your argument is not valid.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> You said Mahlerian is wrong to equate "stupid remarks" on Brahms' serenade with "criticism of modern music" because Brahms' serenade was immediately popular.
> 
> The fact that _Pierrot lunaire_ was also immediately popular tells us your argument is not valid.


You mistake my argument. I do not argue what you claim, but what I just told you in my last post that I argue. The two are not the same.

Mahlerian did appear to be equating the criticism of Brahms's _Serenade_ with criticisms of "modern" music, and I contend that Mahlerian's citation does not show an equivalence between one stupid argument and another, or an equivalence between one era's musical culture and another's, and in fact would not even show such an equivalence if it were not a stupid and aberrant opinion from a generation after the _Serenade_ was successfully premiered. I cited the actual public reception of the Brahms as an example of the fact that the notion that new music was generally misunderstood in its day is a myth propagated by such selective and misleading quotes.

Perhaps you are citing the success of _Pierrot_ to show that "modern" music can be successful with audiences? I don't think anyone doubts that, but it certainly doesn't invalidate my point.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> a stupid and aberrant opinion from a generation after the Serenade was successfully premiered.


Stupid maybe, but not aberrant - Americans were just hicks where new European classical music was concerned (just like today!).



Woodduck said:


> I cited the actual public reception of the Brahms as an example of the fact that the notion that new music was generally misunderstood in its day is a myth propagated by such selective and misleading quotes.


So you're saying _Pierrot lunaire_ wasn't "generally misunderstood in its day" (ha ha).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> For your second paragraph, I do perceive endings, but I'm not sure if I do entirely just from the rhythym and phrasing, or if I can hear harmonically that it's an ending. Like I sometimes wonder if Schoenberg changed the chords at the end of a section or a movement (yet still following his 12-tone harmony and counterpoint rules) I would be able to sense that something is wrong. I might not be able to...


If it were just from the rhythm and phrasing, surely I would perceive the ending of the Ockeghem as being equally as strong as the Schoenberg. I can tell that it's a cadence, for sure. It's just that it musically doesn't sound as resolved as the Variations for orchestra does.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> Stupid maybe, but not aberrant - Americans were just hicks where new European classical music was concerned (just like today!).
> 
> So you're saying _Pierrot lunaire_ wasn't "generally misunderstood in its day" (ha ha).


I'm saying nothing at all about _Pierrot Lunaire_. It has no relevance to any point I'm making.

Is there a third person in the room?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

It's relevant because it was immediately popular, and your point depends on Brahms' serenade being immediately popular.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Everything in this universe is natural. Not all of it is pleasant or 'good' but there's nothing unnatural about it.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Morimur said:


> Everything in this universe is natural. Not all of it is pleasant or 'good' but there's nothing unnatural about it.


This was my point from the beginning. I don't understand the distinction being made. Does most of the music we listen to come from mankind's craft, yes. Mankind is still a part of nature, no? So the music comes from mankind, which in turn makes the music natural.


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Morimur said:


> Everything in this universe is natural. Not all of it is pleasant or 'good' but there's nothing unnatural about it.


Unless we discover an "unnature" somewhere, yup, totally agreed. Music from unnature would be unnatural. Of course people use the word unnatural to mean "manmade" which really is a more accurate term for what they're talking about. With that definition, everything from pointed sticks (spears) to computers are unnatural. What about dogs, corn, bananas, and other various things we've been breeding for the last 10,000 years? Are they natural? Unnatural? Somewhere in between? What about hedge gardens?


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

violadude said:


> This was my point from the beginning. I don't understand the distinction being made. Does most of the music we listen to come from mankind's craft, yes. Mankind is still a part of nature, no? So the music comes from mankind, which in turn makes the music natural.


I didn't miss it. You said my thought right from the beginning, so I felt no need to say what you already said for me...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> It's relevant because it was immediately popular, and your point depends on Brahms' serenade being immediately popular.


<Sigh!> Let me quote myself: _"I cited the actual public reception of the Brahms as an example of the fact that the notion that new music was generally misunderstood in its day is a myth propagated by such selective and misleading quotes." _ I might have cited any number of other examples, but that one was very conveniently provided by Mahlerian.

Now what does the popularity of _Pierrot Lunaire_ have to do with it, and how does it disprove what I just said? It actually supports what I just said, doesn't it?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

So you're saying _Pierrot lunaire_ wasn't misunderstood in its day.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> If it were just from the rhythm and phrasing, surely I would perceive the ending of the Ockeghem as being equally as strong as the Schoenberg. I can tell that it's a cadence, for sure. It's just that it musically doesn't sound as resolved as the Variations for orchestra does.


Fair enough. The ending of this 



 does sound sort of half cadence-ish. Indeed, the bass goes up by a fifth rather than down.

But the gigue final movement in op 25 just sort of ends, at least to my ears. Actually, the ending feels like a sort of surprise "that's it?" even after repeated listening. It actually feels like... a "half cadence"!

GAAH it's almost like I'm admitting to the entire internet that I'm a plebian.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> So you're saying _Pierrot lunaire_ wasn't misunderstood in its day.


I'll take your word for it, but whether _Pierrot _was or wasn't "understood" (whatever you mean by that), my point about earlier eras and the fallacy of taking them as equivalent to later eras, stands quite independent of it. So why keep harping on it? To be annoying?

Why don't you try expressing and supporting an opinion of your own instead of needling other people who have made themselves perfectly clear? I'm not going to paraphrase or quote myself again. If you don't get a point after multiple explanations, just get off it. Constant carping and baiting is just rude, and I will take further behavior of this sort as harassment.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Not my word, your word!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Fair enough. The ending of this
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Hmm. Not to my ear (and that ending came into my ear as I read your post). I don't hear the last upwards stab of notes as a cadential figure at all. The cadence happens before that, and that vaulting figure is just a final gesture after the piece is resolved.



SeptimalTritone said:


> GAAH it's almost like I'm admitting to the entire internet that I'm a plebian.


Eh. I don't consider myself a patrician. I'm just familiar with Schoenberg's music.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Epilogue said:


> Not my word, your word!


No, Woodduck absolutely did not say anything relevant to how Pierrot lunaire was understood or misunderstood. His point has nothing whatsoever to do with the appreciation of modern music. His point related to statements on TC about how those _earlier_ works (e.g. Brahms) were unappreciated in their day (1800's in Brahms time). People sometimes say all new works have been misunderstood or unappreciated _even before 1900_.

Woodduck made 2 observations:

1) Works from earlier times (Romantic for example) were largely _not_ misunderstood or unappreciated.

2) Any statements about the misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for those _earlier_ works do not imply that later works (1900s) might be misunderstood or unappreciated for similar reasons.

Neither of these observations says is relevant to how Pierrot lunaire was actually received.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> No, Woodduck absolutely did not say anything relevant to how Pierrot lunaire was understood or misunderstood.


Yes he did. His argument consisted in saying that because the audience liked Brahms' serenade at the first performance, therefore it wasn't "misunderstood" or "underappreciated in its day" - in which case he has to assert the same about _Pierrot lunaire_, because the audience liked that at the first performance too.



mmsbls said:


> 1) Works from earlier times (Romantic for example) were largely _not_ misunderstood or unappreciated.


Which is flagrantly untrue.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> 2) Any statements about the misunderstanding or lack of appreciation for those _earlier_ works do not imply that later works (1900s) might be misunderstood or unappreciated for similar reasons.


Even if the EXACT same words could be substituted? Really, if I hadn't said that that note was about Brahms' Serenade, and without the hot-button topicality of the "music of the future" label, would people assume that the "bereft of all tonality," "labyrinths of modulations" and such were meant to describe that piece or any piece remotely similar to it?

See, for example, the post that immediately precedes it, claiming that reasonable people just can't become used to Brahms/Schoenberg on account of senseless dissonances.

To claim that the reasons were different without explaining how they are different is the definition of special pleading.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Epilogue said:


> Yes he did. His argument consisted in saying that because the audience liked Brahms' serenade at the first performance, therefore it wasn't "misunderstood" or "underappreciated in its day" - in which case he has to assert the same about _Pierrot lunaire_, because the audience liked that at the first performance too.


Isn't extrapolation a wonderful thing?



> In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole. And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have joined their streets together and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
> - Mark Twain, _Life on the Mississipp_i


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Where exactly am I "extrapolating"? Which part of his argument did I leave out?

(Also, write your own jokes.)


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Mahlerian said:


> Hmm. Not to my ear (and that ending came into my ear as I read your post). I don't hear the last upwards stab of notes as a cadential figure at all. The cadence happens before that, and that vaulting figure is just a final gesture after the piece is resolved.


So, I have the score with the measure numbers. Which beat of which measure is the final cadence then? I actually have no idea from my auditory intuition where it is...

Is it measure 73? The first "chord" or the second "chord"?


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Oh, the evading, the misrepresenting, the obfuscating of the simple truth implied in the OP's inquiry!


What you mean is that the OP didn't really want to talk about manmade v nature, but just provoke another opportunity to bang the drum for the totally false idea that 'atonal'/12-tone/Schoenberg' is unnatural.

It is not a simple truth when it misrepresents and obfuscates the OP's real purpose.

Actually, it's not a simple truth at all.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> So, I have the score with the measure numbers. Which beat of which measure is the final cadence then? I actually have no idea from my auditory intuition where it is...
> 
> Is it measure 73? The first "chord" or the second "chord"?


Why put "chord" in quotes? Any harmony of at least three notes is a chord, regardless of whether or not it can be classified easily.

No, I'd say those are preparatory for the F-E dyad which expands outwards through tritones and major sevenths in that jabbing gesture. The B-flat - A dyad on top is just an extension of the F. An ending of F is prepared by the repeated F in the bass at measure 75.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Isn't that statement merely tautological? If you're simply defining _natural_ as "not constructed by humans," it's inarguable. But that isn't what people mean when they speak of the relative "naturalness" of human actions and products.


I'll take tautological over nonsensical any day.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> When will we stop hauling out stupid remarks about music from the past to prove that criticism of modern music is just "recycled" ignorance?


That's an easy one. When we stop criticizing modern music with recycled ignorance.



Woodduck said:


> Idiotic criticism is even idiotic in its own time.


Exactly.



Woodduck said:


> It's a mistake to take it as the prevailing view.


And it's intellectually dishonest to put words into people's mouths. No one in this discussion as taken it as the prevailing view. That was not Mahlerian's point at all.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Epilogue said:


> Yes he did. His argument consisted in saying that because the audience liked Brahms' serenade at the first performance, therefore it wasn't "misunderstood" or "underappreciated in its day" - in which case he has to assert the same about _Pierrot lunaire_, because the audience liked that at the first performance too.


You're still missing the point of his argument. You seem to be focusing on charateristics of specific works (e.g. how many people appreciate them); whereas, Woodduck's argument suggests that one should not assume that the rationale for comments made about Romantic or earlier works also applies to later works.

Anyway, we don't seem to be making progress so perhaps it's better to let this go.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> Anyway, we don't seem to be making progress so perhaps it's better to let this go.


Did you get to be a mod with ideas like that? Heresy!

Anyway, I still haven't understood what is at stake or really what the subject of conversation is. It seems a little bit like one side of the conversation is just looking for an explanation of why they don't like Schoenberg and the other side is taking their explanations far more seriously than synonyms for "I don't like" should be taken.

Now, everyone in the conversation seems to be a couple orders of magnitude smarter than I am in this are, so what seems to me to be the case is likely not the case. I do wish, though, that someone could tell me what we're talking about and why.

(Edited portion in green. As I'd written it, it could seem like I was trying to get folks in trouble, which was not my intention.)


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> I'll take tautological over nonsensical any day.


I'll take nonsensical any day. When people repeat some obvious truth over and over again, I get this urge to to argue for the opposite, just to counter the boredom of banalities.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Morimur said:


> Everything in this universe is natural. Not all of it is pleasant or 'good' but there's nothing unnatural about it.


For what purpose the word "natural" exists then? Seems a tad redundant word for me if that's the definition.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> I'll take nonsensical any day. When people repeat some obvious truth over and over again, I get this urge to to argue for the opposite, just to counter the boredom of banalities.


Well I'd prefer neither. I don't believe the point I was making was either, but I certainly think the point made by the OP was nonsensical.

Just because there is music which capitalises on or exploits the laws of physics (doesn't all music in some way?) doesn't make it more 'natural'.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> @Headphone Hermit
> 
> I was afraid of that. National difference.
> 
> Okay, here are the relevant passages (all from letters by Verdi):


Thank you for posting the content. However, I do not accept the paragraphs as evidence of xenophobia at all. Verdi appears to be regretting the usurption of one influence by another - that is not xenophobia. Indeed he says in the third quote that it is good that there are differences but he regrets what he sees as the abandonment of a 'native' tradition - that is not xenophobic.

As for your claim "I suspect that great music is xenophobic more often than not" - well, this appears to be an absurd generalisation for which you have provided (as yet) no evidence


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> What you mean is that the OP didn't really want to talk about manmade v nature, but just provoke another opportunity to bang the drum for the totally false idea that 'atonal'/12-tone/Schoenberg' is unnatural.
> 
> It is not a simple truth when it misrepresents and obfuscates the OP's real purpose.
> 
> Actually, it's not a simple truth at all.


What qualifies you to tell us the OP's "real purpose"? Shouldn't the poster of that OP be allowed to tell us himself? I believe he tried to do that and was dumped on by those who can't stand to have their own views questioned. Quite typical of the bias and the gang mentality that prevails on this forum.

Please note: I said that there was a simple truth "implied by" the OP's inquiry - _implied._ I then went on to state what I thought that was. You may think that the idea of naturalness cannot in any way apply to music. I and many others think otherwise, and I was at pains to explain why. If you are unimpressed by that explanation I suggest you analyze mine and similar remarks responsibly and discuss them in a civilized manner instead of aiming thoughtless accusations.

You owe member Gustav Mahler an apology for accusing him of presenting his question under false pretenses.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> You're still missing the point of his argument. You seem to be focusing on charateristics of specific works (e.g. how many people appreciate them); whereas, Woodduck's argument suggests that one should not assume that the rationale for comments made about Romantic or earlier works also applies to later works.


Oh, I get his point perfectly well. He wants people to stop telling him he's like the pedants of the past just because he is.

It's just he supported his point with an argument easily disposed of by counter-example - and he can't even admit _that_.



mmsbls said:


> Anyway, we don't seem to be making progress so perhaps it's better to let this go.


Great idea!


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Thank you for posting the content. However, I do not accept the paragraphs as evidence of xenophobia at all. Verdi appears to be regretting the usurption of one influence by another - that is not xenophobia. Indeed he says in the third quote that it is good that there are differences but he regrets what he sees as the abandonment of a 'native' tradition - that is not xenophobic.


If you don't like calling xenophobia xenophobic, well, okay, but it still is - and of course not "ecumenical," which is where this conversation started.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> Oh, I get his point perfectly well. He wants people to stop telling him he's like the pedants of the past just because he is.
> 
> It's just he supported his point with an argument easily disposed of by counter-example - and he can't even admit _that_.


Personal insults are not permitted here, Epilogue. Take them elsewhere.

You did not succeed in "disposing of" any argument. You didn't even present an argument. Do you have one? Let us know and we'll deal with it. Telling people that they're "like the pedants of the past" with no support for your contention is simply rude.


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## Guest (Sep 25, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Just because there is music which capitalises on or exploits the laws of physics (doesn't all music in some way?) doesn't make it more 'natural'.


But that's just it. All music does obey (or "obey") the laws of physics.

That to me seems the weakest part of the OP's assertion. Not obeying the laws of physics is not a thing. It's a non-starter because it's simply not possible. The strings and the air in the tubes and the membranes vibrate according to physics whether the music is by Bruckner or by Karkowski. Music made on laptops with sound files and filters and conveyed through loudspeakers--an entirely artificial situation--follows the laws of physics just as much as music made with violins and flutes. And our ears vibrate, too, for both, according to human physiology.

The differences don't really arise until all the signals hit some processing software--memory, bias, experience, prejudice, stuff like that. And that's what all this is really about, whose ideas about music get to be privileged. Nature and artificial is just so much distraction from the real point, which is that those who think tonal music is the most valuable are the ones who obviously just have to win.

Um. No.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Originally Posted by Woodduck:

I_sn't that statement merely tautological? If you're simply defining natural as "not constructed by humans," it's inarguable. But that isn't what people mean when they speak of the relative "naturalness" of human actions and products.

_


MacLeod said:


> I'll take tautological over nonsensical any day.


The word "natural" may mean several things. Before you start calling people's views "nonsensical" you need to give some evidence that you understand the words they're using and how they're using them.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Personal insults are not permitted here, Epilogue.


Oh please, what I wrote is no more a personal insult than mmsbls telling me I'm "still missing the point" - except of course that mine is about you.



Woodduck said:


> You did not succeed in "disposing of" any argument.


So you're saying _Pierrot lunaire_ wasn't misunderstood in its day.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

some guy said:


> But that's just it. All music does obey (or "obey") the laws of physics.
> 
> That to me seems the weakest part of the assertion. Not obeying the laws of physics is not a thing. It's a non-starter because it's simply not possible. The strings and the air in the tubes and the membranes vibrate according to physics whether the music is by Bruckner or by Karkowski. Music made on laptops with sound files and filters and conveyed through loudspeakers--an entirely artificial situation--follows the laws of physics just as much as music made with violins and flutes. And our ears vibrate, too, for both, according to human physiology.
> 
> ...


I don't recall anyone saying that "tonal music is the most valuable." It may of course be that to some people, but that was hardly a contention of the OP. So whose "real point" is it? I would guess that most people are content for others to value whatever music they value.

And who is suggesting that the laws of physics are being suspended? Have we passed through a wormhole here?

The dance around the question of music's origins in nature, and how it expresses those origins, seems to be making you dizzy. Better sit this one out.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Thank you for posting the content. However, I do not accept the paragraphs as evidence of xenophobia at all. Verdi appears to be regretting the usurption of one influence by another - that is not xenophobia. Indeed he says in the third quote that it is good that there are differences but he regrets what he sees as the abandonment of a 'native' tradition - that is not xenophobic.
> 
> As for your claim "I suspect that great music is xenophobic more often than not" - well, this appears to be an absurd generalisation for which you have provided (as yet) no evidence


A healthy cultural pluralism can be a wonderful thing and is to be encouraged (I have the cultural flowering of the _fin de siècle_ of the Hapsburg Empire in mind), but it doesn't necessarily mean that one endorses 'all' culture out there. . . or even wants illegal trespassers sleeping in one's back yard.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I have the cultural flowering of the _fin de siècle_ of the Hapsburg Empire in mind


I'd say cultural ferment - as in, palpably about to become just plain rotten.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> I'd say cultural ferment - as in, palpably about to become just plain rotten.


Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

And by what standard?

I love hearing from the coteries of the Self Righteous and the Self Annointed.


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Yeah, what am I talking about - I mean, Austria had a _great_ time through the first half of the 20th century!

"Self righteous" - _you're_ the one who's been making claims of righteousness (for music, granted, not for yourself, but I haven't been making them for anything!).


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> Yeah, what am I talking about - I mean, Austria had a _great_ time through the first half of the 20th century!


The Austrian Habsburgs are hardly to be blamed for an assassination intrigue linked to Serbian intelligence.



Epilogue said:


> "Self righteous" - _you're_ the one who's been making claims of righteousness (for music, granted, not for yourself, but I haven't been making them for anything!).


I only make claims to beauty and fierceness- everything else is just wind in the chimes. _;D_


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

How about for the fact that the Bosnian Serbs wanted out in the first place?

"Ecumenical" sure doesn't sound fierce.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Epilogue said:


> How about for the fact that the Bosnian Serbs wanted out in the first place?
> 
> "Ecumenical" sure doesn't sound fierce.


What ever happened to peaceably-assembled secession and non-compliance?

Or is there a preemptive ""right"" to murder others?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> What ever happened to peaceably-assembled secession and non-compliance?
> 
> Or is there a preemptive ""right"" to murder others?


It's safe to say that that any attempt at "peaceably-assembled secession and non-compliance" would have been met with murder. They always are.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Hmmm, what would I rather read?

The same old, same old about Modern music, or a debate over the origins of WW1?


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## Epilogue (Sep 20, 2015)

Claude Debussy caused World War I.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> It's safe to say that that any attempt at "peaceably-assembled secession and non-compliance" would have been met with murder. They always are.


Pre-emptive aggression 'against' individuals is never permitted.

Defensive actions 'from' aggression always are.

- that is to say, from a 'moral' and not a _Realpolitik_ point of view.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Once again, another great thread shot to hell with politics. This thread is about MUSIC, not war. 

People, kindly leave your political views at the door or create your own social group for those discussions. 

Thread is temporarily closed for repairs


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