# I am developing a more tonal style and I am not sure if this is good or bad!



## etkearne

When I started composing (remember, I don't work right now, so I just compose music all day every day) about a year ago, I had a pretty good feel for general music theory but little knowledge of proper form and orchestration as well as lacking knowledge on voicing (although knowing quite a bit on chordal harmony). So my first eight months of composing involved usually incorporating a wide array of styles including serialism and more commonly, a form of extended tonality where I would use exotic scales and their harmonizations in a quasi-tonal fashion, but without a strong tonic.

Then, something clicked where I wanted more organization over my works. I began notating the hell out of my scores, whereas previously I just left it all in one dynamic (mf usually) and tempo. I got meticulous about things in a good way. But I also began, simultaneously, to get more interested in "proper" voice-leading techniques which in turn got me more interested in Common Practice tonality (albeit the 'stretched' version with Neopolitan chords and Augmented Sixth chords of every variety). I got exactly what I wanted for my recent birthday, the textbook "Tonal Harmony" by Kostka and Payne. I was excited to read the 20th century part but to tell you the truth, I have been captivated by the chapters on the "Post Romantic" era (but pre-Impressionism) since I got it.

I am now writing pretty proper voice-leadings and following pretty conventional rules on inversions which I never thought I would do. I still am just as interested in exotic scales but I use them more now to contrast with Diatonicity when I use them. 

I am at a cross-roads and I feel it is a good thing because my knowledge of all things composition has exploded the past two months, but I am concerned about becoming too tonal, as obviously tonal compositions aren't as popular these days outside of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, which I don't really enjoy writing. I like to write very dissonant and angular things but, now, with more tonal voicings. 

Please let me know of your thoughts on all of this.


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## PetrB

Whatever you compose, if with an eye to the market place, I (maybe a lone voice 'pro' this argument) feel you are already doomed. You must (I think) write what and how you can, assume you are part of the human race, no matter how esoteric your sensibilities and ear are, and that someone will find it of interest and worth.
_
[ADD: I go further, in that if you assume you are part of the human race, that you should not think of audience at all when composing. You only concern should be the piece, and performing considerations limited to 'what musicians can do.']_

It is the only way not only to maintain your personal integrity, but the best hope of the piece you are writing having any musical integrity.

Besides, the more ways you know how to write, and if you do it regularly, those become assimilated, and that is when you more readily are in a position of actually feeling / knowing / and being heard as 'Having Your Own Voice.'

That said, something sounding 'just like Mendelssohn' is an academic exercise, for you. Something sounding very much like Mendelssohn but with a twist is more pastiche or parody. Something 'Mendelssohn like,' in your own vocabulary, that is another story.

Besides, all those great atonal composers, first wave, second wave, etc, were more than fully fluid in common practice harmony, which is one of many reasons their atonal works are successful.

Keep at it.


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## Meaghan

Long Live Tonality!


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> I am concerned about becoming too tonal, as obviously tonal compositions aren't as popular these days outside of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, which I don't really enjoy writing. I like to write very dissonant and angular things but, now, with more tonal voicings. Please let me know of your thoughts on all of this.


My guess is that this concern for how you will be received must be a carry-over from strict parenting and a need to please. I can't help you in this regard at all, as my parents were completely different in this regard, to a fault, and I've always done exactly what I wanted to with regard to my creative work. In fact, I'd probably be seen as a bad influence on you by the powers that be.

My hero is Frank Zappa. He wrote orchestral scores in motel rooms while touring with a rock band. He wrote a lot of tonal music. But his ideas always "came" to him, and he was compelled to write them down, in order to hear what they sounded like.

The questions you are asking are "will" oriented, as if we could "guide your will" in the proper direction; but creativity is not "will" oriented, it is "receptive" in nature, the result of an inner compulsion.

You're going to have to learn to "lay off" of trying to "force" ideas, or force the direction your creative imagination takes. Don't be a "control freak," and you need to let your creative imagination come forth, if it compels you.

Music is written from an inner compulsion, not from outer considerations of "what should I do."

Of course, this "inner voice" might be drowned out by the static of outside pressure and expectations. Art is not business, art is a thing of nature which must take its own course.


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## juergen

etkearne said:


> obviously tonal compositions aren't as popular these days


Really? 99.995% of all today written compositions are tonal.


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## millionrainbows

juergen said:


> Really? 99.995% of all today written compositions are tonal.


Yes, yes...go on...more...next point...


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## etkearne

Uh oh. I think I might have phrased something wrong, because this has not gone in the direction I intended if my original post came out the way I had wanted it to.

Let me be clear, I NEVER force myself to write in a certain way. The reason I even pick and choose at certain times is because I love ALL aspects of music composition. What I was saying with this post was slightly sarcastic. I was saying the extent of:

"Well, after kind of making fun of hard-core diatonic music for awhile, after really getting in-to voice leading and such, I think I might "secretly" like it. A LOT. So, what am I to do now that I like tonal and atonal music so much!?"

The jest is simply in that OF COURSE it is a good thing deep down that I have discovered a knack and interest in Common Practice music. My "challenge" is simply to incorporate it all together with my original "style" in a way that sounds good. And by 'challenge', I mean a "fun journey full of exciting discoveries" not "dreadful work".

But, anyways, to who said people like Schoenberg were experts in tonality- that is exactly what I am saying now. Just like Schoenberg created his own style (pre-serial atonality) based on extended tonality, I am now faced with the task of melding my own style that will likely involve some pretty cool things like creating Diatonic Analogues in exotic scales. In fact, I already have been working with the Acoustic Scale and the Dorian b2 Scale in attempts to create a pseudo-diatonic relationship with dominants and such. Will it lead anywhere? Who knows, but it is fun.

Yeah, I never consider composing "work". It is something I couldn't imagine life without. Even if I never make a dime off of it, I will continue to compose until I die.


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## PetrB

etkearne said:


> Uh oh. I think I might have phrased something wrong, because this has not gone in the direction I intended if my original post came out the way I had wanted it to.
> 
> Let me be clear, I NEVER force myself to write in a certain way. The reason I even pick and choose at certain times is because I love ALL aspects of music composition. What I was saying with this post was slightly sarcastic. I was saying the extent of:
> 
> "Well, after kind of making fun of hard-core diatonic music for awhile, after really getting in-to voice leading and such, I think I might "secretly" like it. A LOT. So, what am I to do now that I like tonal and atonal music so much!?"
> 
> The jest is simply in that OF COURSE it is a good thing deep down that I have discovered a knack and interest in Common Practice music. My "challenge" is simply to incorporate it all together with my original "style" in a way that sounds good. And by 'challenge', I mean a "fun journey full of exciting discoveries" not "dreadful work".
> 
> But, anyways, to who said people like Schoenberg were experts in tonality- that is exactly what I am saying now. Just like Schoenberg created his own style (pre-serial atonality) based on extended tonality, I am now faced with the task of melding my own style that will likely involve some pretty cool things like creating Diatonic Analogues in exotic scales. In fact, I already have been working with the Acoustic Scale and the Dorian b2 Scale in attempts to create a pseudo-diatonic relationship with dominants and such. Will it lead anywhere? Who knows, but it is fun.
> 
> Yeah, I never consider composing "work". It is something I couldn't imagine life without. Even if I never make a dime off of it, I will continue to compose until I die.


Pulling certain technical aspects out of a drawer and working with them is academic exercise, mainly bound to produce 'academic' sounding music, though if you get free enough with it and forget dwelling upon the technical aspects, something quite good can come of it. It is difficult to trust your ear, if for nothing other than your own expectations and desires about what you make.

A very average human dynamic is present in both your posts: working in isolation, you are wanting to tell others you are 'busy with something,' part genuine enthusiasm, the other an odder need just to tell people you are 'busy with something.'

As I recall from your earlier posts, you are quite happy to be finding your own way, and also a bit happy to tell people you are a self-taught guy who is happily finding his own way.

Telling people by posting what pieces come out of your working and the various phases you go through, and the comments and reactions you get from those, is going to be far more interesting for us and beneficial to you than telling us, _"I am now faced with the task of melding my own style that will likely involve some pretty cool things like creating Diatonic Analogues in exotic scales. In fact, I already have been working with the Acoustic Scale and the Dorian b2 Scale in attempts to create a pseudo-diatonic relationship with dominants and such. Will it lead anywhere? Who knows, but it is fun."_

Dude, from my viewpoint that is far from interesting, hypo-theoretical (there is no piece _'there'_ from that verbal construct to listen to or make comment upon -- a general conceptual vapor), so sounding more like talk to please a fellow academic, 'win points,' while having nothing to show for it. -- Only mentioned because all that energy could have been better spent struggling with the piece.

You are not alone, post-modern deconstructionist hipster era you live in, to find it rather embarrassing you were dissing a perfectly at least utile canon of work and the techniques around it. Eat your crow quietly, know you were being the young (in mind stage, anyway) less than informed punk with more bulk on your shoulder than in your skull, and get back to the drafting board and complete that piece.

Looking forward to that.


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## etkearne

Wow. I am not trying to impress people. I simply am talking about composition techniques in the appropriate subforum for such talk. It might be a tad presumptuous to post this in the general forum, but I didn't do that because it would be ridiculous. I am sorry that my "story" is too average for you, but I am just telling you the facts: I like music theory, I like composing music (which is not necessarily linked directly to the acquisition of music theory "factoids"). I therefore discovered a forum for other lovers of classical music, and lo-and-behold, some other folks compose as well. So I simply attempt to start a friendly discussion about some of the challenges that WE ALL face as composers (be it novices or super-professionals mind you), and I get attacked for some perceived "neediness" or something (that is the best I can deduce from the post you wrote, Peter).

I really don't know why people on the internet get to forming such intense relationships with those they have never met. It is not a very healthy thing to do, be it the "love" or "hate" end of the spectrum. To everyone else here, we are simply the mass collection of the words we type. And if even one of the words we type happens to have, perhaps, an alternately interpreted meaning, it can subconsciously cause someone to hate you for no real reason and based not truly on the person, but their word choice and perhaps poor presentation of their thoughts (as I am guessing happened with me here). It has happened to me on other forums to be frank, so that is why I am not "mad" at you. 

I guess what I am saying is the following: I don't hate you. I don't love you. You are a person who likes classical music, thus we share an interest and have obviously one thing in common (at least). I simply want to ask that from NOW ON, you please remove the skewed view that you have of me from your mind and simply realize that I am just a very enthusiastic person who is a "budding" composer. I never said I was anything more than an amateur right now! 

But, yes, I really do hope, through hard work, possibly seeing a composition teacher, and talking to other composers (the important part), that I can make a few truly good works that I will be able to sit back and enjoy myself. That's it! So, what have you? Will you erase this image of me?


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## PetrB

etkearne said:


> Wow. I am not trying to impress people. I simply am talking about composition techniques in the appropriate subforum for such talk. It might be a tad presumptuous to post this in the general forum, but I didn't do that because it would be ridiculous. I am sorry that my "story" is too average for you, but I am just telling you the facts: I like music theory, I like composing music (which is not necessarily linked directly to the acquisition of music theory "factoids"). I therefore discovered a forum for other lovers of classical music, and lo-and-behold, some other folks compose as well. So I simply attempt to start a friendly discussion about some of the challenges that WE ALL face as composers (be it novices or super-professionals mind you), and I get attacked for some perceived "neediness" or something (that is the best I can deduce from the post you wrote, Peter).
> 
> I really don't know why people on the internet get to forming such intense relationships with those they have never met. It is not a very healthy thing to do, be it the "love" or "hate" end of the spectrum. To everyone else here, we are simply the mass collection of the words we type. And if even one of the words we type happens to have, perhaps, an alternately interpreted meaning, it can subconsciously cause someone to hate you for no real reason and based not truly on the person, but their word choice and perhaps poor presentation of their thoughts (as I am guessing happened with me here). It has happened to me on other forums to be frank, so that is why I am not "mad" at you.
> 
> I guess what I am saying is the following: I don't hate you. I don't love you. You are a person who likes classical music, thus we share an interest and have obviously one thing in common (at least). I simply want to ask that from NOW ON, you please remove the skewed view that you have of me from your mind and simply realize that I am just a very enthusiastic person who is a "budding" composer. I never said I was anything more than an amateur right now!
> 
> But, yes, I really do hope, through hard work, possibly seeing a composition teacher, and talking to other composers (the important part), that I can make a few truly good works that I will be able to sit back and enjoy myself. That's it! So, what have you? Will you erase this image of me?


You give us a list of ingredients, you love to cook. So do I. Let's have the dish. Those ingredients can be manipulated more than dozens of ways, is my point, so what is the use, really, of just listing them. Have a direct question, a bit of score where you are stuck, I or many others I'm sure would be happy to look it over and give any number of opinions and suggestions.

I don't know what else your post is about, really, except you are getting on with it (again, sincerely, I know first hand what that is, so, good) and that you had a mini satori or change of opinion about 'tonality.' I'm weary of the tonality / atonality thing, but there I see all music as (outside the academic usage which differentiates the two) as 'tonal' if the piece at all 'works.'

I've already advised you to be less concerned with the technical elements, though we all have to find a way and a vocabulary, want to investigate an aspect for ourselves, from mere curiosity (let's see what THIS yields or in more earnestly finding what interests and suits us best when we comp.

But what, pray tell, are we to do with 'the list of ingredients' other than wish you well and ask that you check back in with at least a few notes on paper?

Your addendum post says you were being sarcastic in your OP. Well, are you in earnest about penning some notes, really 'concerned' if you are 'a tonalist' like someone worried to the point of badly shaken when they have discovered another aspect of their sexuality which had been repressed? Or were you just making light of it all? Its music, after all. Perhaps I was annoyed with the lack of straightforwardness on your part, a post, after all, means the poster expects some form of attention from the readers.

I sincerely hope you 'get to it.' I know you will have a good time if you enjoy setting a problem and then finding a solution, or tossing a few well-chosen technical elements into a bowl and seeing what can be made of them. Given. Truly looking forward to what comes from that.

I must be missing something not written anywhere in your OP or addendum.


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## Guest

Evan,

Here's my take on all this.

It's 2012, soon to be 13. I don't get any sense from your posts of any awareness of any musical reality much later than 1913. That was a good year, but almost a century of some pretty intense music making has gone on since then, including quite a bit of music that does not reference common practice tonality in any way, a- or otherwise.

I'd say, get yourself caught up on all that. More history, less theory.

Listen to more music, too. More music, less theory.

You may be personally fascinated with tonality and fascinated by working out various patterns of that system and finding new variations. But the dilemma you say you face is roughly equivalent to a composer in Beethoven's time trying to choose between baroque and galante.

I guess it all depends on why you compose, to make things that are like what you already like or to make things that you do not yet like.


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## PetrB

some guy said:


> Evan,
> 
> Here's my take on all this.
> 
> It's 2012, soon to be 13. I don't get any sense from your posts of any awareness of any musical reality much later than 1913. That was a good year, but almost a century of some pretty intense music making has gone on since then, including quite a bit of music that does not reference common practice tonality in any way, a- or otherwise.
> 
> I'd say, get yourself caught up on all that. More history, less theory.
> 
> Listen to more music, too. More music, less theory.
> 
> You may be personally fascinated with tonality and fascinated by working out various patterns of that system and finding new variations. But the dilemma you say you face is roughly equivalent to a composer in Beethoven's time trying to choose between baroque and galante.
> 
> I guess it all depends on why you compose, to make things that are like what you already like or to make things that you do not yet like.


I agree with quite a lot of the above in principle, but differ in one way only. The way to 'get the history' is often to put yourself through paces imitative of different stages of that history. Ergo, the reason Schoenberg is Schoenberg, and all the other titans became titans.

Thank Apollo one does not have to compose 32 sonatas in a tonal period style to get it. Two bars of Tristan, from the theory book, can lead you into the late romantic, to Schoenberg and beyond, and so on.

That still takes time. I say work the tonality, but do not rue the time spent with serialism. Serialism is often very informative and a route of more direct access for some to first see 'how music works' in general by studying and working within that first Viennese school. One gets a lot of all the prior working principles in general from there, both horizontal, vertical, how harmonies are formed from a 'scale,' etc.

But I'll repeat vehemently, do not make a laundry list of technical elements and think you will come up with much more than an academic study which sounds like an academic study, unless you already have some degree of mastery.

This is a nearly infamous sort of trap which has an outwardly reasonable argument: It was HARD WORK making those technical premises work, and hard work is part of composition, after all, so that must have real merit.

It is Far More Difficult to come up with a fertile general premise, a few intervals, a harmony which has both intervals and some inherent 'within' which will yield also horizontals of interest, and pursue it. There is less textbook, or none, really, which has ever shown us, directly or simply, How To Do That. Ergo, that exploration and 'finding what is there' is much more difficult, risky (did anyone mention without real risk there is no real art?) to plummet an invented unknown than follow a recipe or pluck a few ingredients from a theory text.

There I agree with 'just write' and don't think so much or dwell on technique, certainly don't make a technical device the fundamental premise, but after a bit of 'just writing' you will detect a working premise inherent to the kernel idea - much more wrestling, a much higher chance of 'musical' success.

Wishing the OP the bravery and faith to proceed in that direction, and many happy discoveries, relying upon inventing your own techniques specific to the initial creative idea.


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## neoshredder

Neo-Baroque ftw. I'd say mix up Baroque with modern stuff. Though Schnittke already did that. Don't let citicism bother you. You got my full support whatever you do.


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## PetrB

Stretching my neck out on that chopping block again here, but Schnittke, as per my hearing and thought, seems infinitely and painfully burdened with his European cultural heritage, and more 'working it out,' than having a great time playing with it: it is a particularly European Cultural curse, all those dead Titan heroes to kill, ala Freud's notion you hypothetically have to kill your father to become a true adult male. Burdened, even tortured, the music very creative but filled with this sense of 'working something out' almost as if it is a personal therapy session made public. My personal taste wants no truck with your sessions with the shrink: I'm more interested in you when you've 'recovered' and are your own man without the accompanying spooks.

Contrast that with either the neoclassicism of Stravinsky, Martinu or Milhaud, playful, having fun, looking forward.

Americans are both cursed and blessed in not having that cultural burden: I think they are much better off if they don't identify too deeply (which would be wrong, I think) with the European tradition. As Virgil Tompson said, it is easy to be 'an American composer,' be American and write however you wish 

Besides, neoclassicism, the excellent neoclassicism, requires a deep familiarity with theory, form, and most importantly an intimate familiarity with the literature itself, absorbed, listened to, played through. Then one can start the new dance with assurance. Otherwise, just like working from a straight ahead theoretic premise, it ends up academic, or as bad, a shallow pastiche or a bad parody vs. a knowing and loving wink.

Find your own style by floundering about a bit. Far less comfortable, absolutely no guarantees, training wheels off. You'll never find that center of balance to ride the bike until you take the risk of going ahead with enough momentuum without the training wheels, and that means RISK of falling, scraping a bit of flesh. The young composer will survive that.

"You'll just have to take my word on that." "Trust me."

Band-aids and antiseptic ready and handy? Begin to write.

_P.s. Wherever you are in the state of development, I think the real motivation to write is because there is a piece which does not exist which you badly want to hear. Why else bother?_

P.p.s. To answer the original OP, "It's all good."


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## etkearne

Thank you for being civil, seriously. I appreciate your recent comments. They are exactly geared towards what I was hoping to get out of this thread. I will truly take them to heart. I am sorry things had to start sour with us.


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> Thank you for being civil, seriously. I appreciate your recent comments. They are exactly geared towards what I was hoping to get out of this thread. I will truly take them to heart. I am sorry things had to start sour with us.


Do you remember those monster movies, where a guy and a girl are trying to get away from the monster, and the girl can't run fast enough, she falls down, and he has to back-track and help her up, and then she sprains her ankle? It's quite frustrating, and I think this thread has had the same effect on some of us.


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## PetrB

Me too. But it seems we did, inadvertently, supply a little bit of grade B summer horror/suspense genre thrills for some readers


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## millionrainbows

Now, etkearn, you know I love you, and I'll be following your progress closely. *Whoops!* I got too involved!:lol:


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## neoshredder

Time for tonality to come back.  Be the first to reinvent tonality to the a new Era coming.


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> Time for tonality to come back.  Be the first to reinvent tonality to the a new Era coming.


Okay, I'll apply serial ideas to it. *Whoops!* That's already happened!


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Time for tonality to come back.  Be the first to reinvent tonality to the a new Era coming.


When did tonality leave us, exactly?


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## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> When did tonality leave us, exactly?


Did it? Turn on your radio and tell us what you hear.

Well, we have one major classical radio station here. That's what they have played last hour:
Giovanni Battista Granata: Toccata; Francesco Corbetta: Caprice de Chaconne; Gaspar Sanz: "Paradetas"; Alessandro Piccinini: Folias; Antonio de Santa Cruz: Jacaras; Santiago de Murcia: Tarantelas; Gaspar Sanz: "Canario" (David Mayoral, Tamburin); Robert de Visée: Suite; Johann Kapsberger: "Arpeggiata"; Alessandro Piccinini: Ciaccona

Now, which of those pieces is atonal?

The question must therefore be asked differently: Why do some contemporary composers have left the real world and decided that they want to live on a tiny island?


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## Mahlerian

juergen said:


> The question must therefore be asked differently: Why do some contemporary composers have left the real world and decided that they want to live on a tiny island?


No, that's just rephrasing what the person I responded to asked. When did tonality leave us? In other words, when were there NOT contemporary composers composing tonal music?


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## neoshredder

millionrainbows said:


> Okay, I'll apply serial ideas to it. *Whoops!* That's already happened!


That wasn't what I was thinking. Maybe something with a neo-Baroque feel with a little more freedom to allow some dissonances. The combination of a Baroque with surprise Romanticism.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> No, that's just rephrasing what the person I responded to asked. When did tonality leave us? In other words, when were there NOT contemporary composers composing tonal music?


You'll have to define your terms. As far as I'm concerned, Bartók was not "tonal" in that he did not use the diatonic scale as an hierarchy of tonal functions; he was aware that it was a projection of fifths (fourths) as well. I do not consider "interval projection" like this as being "tonal" in nature. In fact, any compositional approach which deals with symmetries occurring in the 12 note chromatic scale, or dividing it equally at the tritone rather than the fifth, I do not consider to be "tonal."

By your (rhetorical) question, are you saying that "tonality never left us?" If so, that statement does not satisfy me. Even the simplest soundtrack music (like the James Bond excerpt discussed elsewhere) is "tone-centric but not tonal" in an 18th century sense. Parallelisms are rampant, things change very quickly, chords whiz by; there is no "normal" modulation as we studied it in the past.

So to call today's contemporary "free/tone-centric" music "tonal" is unfair to serial thought; modern music owes just as much to ideas of symmetry, chromaticism, interval projection, and other ideas rooted in Schoenberg and serialism as it does to "normal tonal function," which would now be hard to pull off in something like a Bond soundtrack. Audience ears expect more color, more daring ideas than "plain-jane tonality" is able to give.


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> I am at a cross-roads and I feel it is a good thing because my knowledge of all things composition has exploded the past two months, but I am concerned about becoming too tonal, as obviously tonal compositions aren't as popular these days outside of Minimalism and Post-Minimalism, which I don't really enjoy writing. I like to write very dissonant and angular things but, now, with more tonal voicings.
> 
> Please let me know of your thoughts on all of this.


Etkearne, listen to soundtracks! Listen to the new James Bond soundtrack! You need to get ideas from that, not us! They do everything in soundtracks. Parallelism, weird modulations, obsessive melodies, deadly ostinatos. They all use that "orchestra-in-a-box" software. IMHO, this is the logical route you should pursue: listen, listen, listen!

Here's a fave of mine, and appropriate for this particular time:


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> You'll have to define your terms. As far as I'm concerned, Bartók was not "tonal" in that he did not use the diatonic scale as an hierarchy of tonal functions; he was aware that it was a projection of fifths (fourths) as well. I do not consider "interval projection" like this as being "tonal" in nature. In fact, any compositional approach which deals with symmetries occurring in the 12 note chromatic scale, or dividing it equally at the tritone rather than the fifth, I do not consider to be "tonal."
> 
> By your (rhetorical) question, are you saying that "tonality never left us?" If so, that statement does not satisfy me. Even the simplest soundtrack music (like the James Bond excerpt discussed elsewhere) is "tone-centric but not tonal" in an 18th century sense. Parallelisms are rampant, things change very quickly, chords whiz by; there is no "normal" modulation as we studied it in the past.
> 
> So to call today's contemporary "free/tone-centric" music "tonal" is unfair to serial thought; modern music owes just as much to ideas of symmetry, chromaticism, interval projection, and other ideas rooted in Schoenberg and serialism as it does to "normal tonal function," which would now be hard to pull off in something like a Bond soundtrack. Audience ears expect more color, more daring ideas than "plain-jane tonality" is able to give.


I know that this is the case, but the word "tonal" is often used (rightly or wrongly, but mostly wrongly) to include Bartok, Debussy, Minimalism, and other kinds of tone-centered but not functionally tonal music. Heck, people call modal music "tonal" in some debates. I tend to think of a lot of 20th century music as "tonal by assertion" rather than "tonal by function", where something is felt as a center simply because it is made to stand out above others, usually by repetition of some kind. It is important to understand that this is different (and how it is different, as well) from tonality as a hierarchical system of pitches.

In the wide sense that includes functional and tone-centric music, tonality has never left us entirely. In the narrow sense of functional harmony, tonality has not been given more than the merest lip service since the early 20th century.


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## BurningDesire

There is nothing wrong or shameful about composing in a tonal system.


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## clavichorder

BurningDesire said:


> There is nothing wrong or shameful about composing in a tonal system.


Simple and true. All the convoluted guiding principals put forth here, while containing life experience and wisdom, have very little to do with you and what you feel like doing. Relax a little.


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## aleazk

etkearne said:


> Please let me know of your thoughts on all of this.


My thoughts are about a person who is learning and is excited because of that, has a lot of doubts and curiosities, just a very natural human process. I don't have much more to say, keep studying, practising, reading, composing, etc.


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## clavichorder

And you are free to doubt too. I don't mean to be dismissive when I say, "relax a little," I could use the advice myself.


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Time for tonality to come back.  Be the first to reinvent tonality to the a new Era coming.


You poor deluded sod: it never 'went away.'

You weren't one of those duped by all that pseudo agitprop journalism that tonality was dead, were you?


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> That wasn't what I was thinking. Maybe something with a neo-Baroque feel with a little more freedom to allow some dissonances. The combination of a Baroque with surprise Romanticism.


I am so not surprised ~ didn't you have a whole thread dedicated to being referred to works of neoclassicism? Did you just accumulate some titles and not listen to any of it?

At any rate, if I am mistaken about that, here are but a few as per your description....
Stravinsky:
Concerto in Eb, 'Dumbarton Oaks'




Concerto in D for Strings




Duo Concertant for Violin and Piano








(The middle movement of Concerto in D for strings is somewhat late romantic 'balletic' / the Dithyramb from the Duo Concertant one of the more 'romantic' and directly expressive things Stravinsky ever composed.)
Concerto for two pianos solo (here, 1st movement, Con Moto)




The delightful 'Septet' - tonal, serial, and neoclassical...
...quarter note equal 88 




... Passacaglia 




... Gigue -- (from a playlist, not sure if link will work)





Just about all of Martinu:
Sinfonia 'la Jolla'




Toccata from 'Toccata et due Canzone'




(Martinu also 'went back' to forms of the Renaissance as well....)

Darius Milhaud
Symphonie de Chambre No. 1





The 'romanticism' in your dream mix is an antithetical aesthetic -- most composers, other than a few brief excursions into 'polystylism,' knew better to mix their substances, "Never Mix, Never Worry." Part of what you are doing in projecting this sort of 'ask' is what many a listener does -- imagine that composers will make exactly what you want to hear. Funny, that is what composers do... write what they want to hear. The only way to satisfy that personally is to pick up a pencil, have a supply of music manuscript paper, and have a go at it 

There is a more literal and unimaginative (imho 'tacky') pseudo-baroque -- which Carl Jenkins provides for those who care for it


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> You poor deluded sod: it never 'went away.'...You weren't one of those duped by all that pseudo agitprop journalism that tonality was dead, were you?


*Yeah, but it ain't yer grandpa's tonality! Touché!*


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> *Yeah, but it ain't yer grandpa's tonality! Touché!*


I'm shocked, stunned, dismayed. I thought it was, like, Grampa's tonality forever, ya know? I mean, doesn't art stand still while everything else moves forward? Isn't that how you can tell art is any good, wait one hundred years to be sure it has "withstood the test of time?"

_*(Waaaaah! Disappointed.)*_
http://www.thewambulance.com/


----------



## BurningDesire

PetrB said:


> I'm shocked, stunned, dismayed. I thought it was, like, Grampa's tonality forever, ya know? I mean, doesn't art stand still while everything else moves forward? Isn't that how you can tell art is any good, wait one hundred years to be sure it has "withstood the test of time?"
> 
> _*(Waaaaah! Disappointed.)*_
> http://www.thewambulance.com/


Its equally wrong to shame an artist for their choice of technique or idiom. Just because something is new doesn't make it superior to something old. Minimalism isn't _better_ than serialism, and atonality isn't _better_ than modal or diatonic or tonal music either. The people who adamantly oppose new ways of writing music say cruel things sometimes, but you don't retaliate by basically being the same way to those who write in more traditional means.


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> I'm shocked, stunned, dismayed. I thought it was, like, Grampa's tonality forever, ya know? I mean, doesn't art stand still while everything else moves forward? Isn't that how you can tell art is any good, wait one hundred years to be sure it has "withstood the test of time?"


Well, sorry, Granpa. It's a new. genetically-mutated tonality. It must have been that absinthe the mother was drinking during pregnancy.


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## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> Its equally wrong to shame an artist for their choice of technique or idiom. Just because something is new doesn't make it superior to something old. Minimalism isn't _better_ than serialism, and atonality isn't _better_ than modal or diatonic or tonal music either. The people who adamantly oppose new ways of writing music say cruel things sometimes, but you don't retaliate by basically being the same way to those who write in more traditional means.


Oh, please! And exactly who was I 'out to shame' in that post? Any one Artist? Any one Poster? Did it mandate to anyone that they abandon any system of harmony or change their taste in music? No.

I was lampooning those who seem so shocked the arts move in time with everything else. (Those very few seem to me to be like someone who woke up in their beds, 2012 a.c.e. more than shocked and dismayed that the room has electric lights in it.)

Did I tell anyone: what to listen to; how to listen to it; advocate one way to compose over another? Thought not.

I pointed a finger at no one. There are those who 'know what they like' and have no other thought to supply in arguing about why 'music died after that.' There is a counterfoil set who think anything composed prior some point in the 20th century is worthless. Both are those who have no other well-argued reason as to why either point of view is supportable, but who think their 'pronouncement,' is worthy of everyone's time and consideration as a well argued point of view.

ERGO: I was out to make a point about anyone who knows little but their taste who nonetheless comes forth as if they had the force of deep and knowing experience, while instead all that is really said and heard are whines about whatever sort of music they don't care for. That is dissing both the composers and those who understand and care for them.

Those have a freedom of voice on a forum, even though I wonder why they feel at all 'qualified' to make the pronouncements they do. I have little or no time for those who are like that, even less time to take to mock those with such severe limitations.

Million Rainbows comment, clinically, was correct. Monteverdi's tonality was not that of Bach; Bach's not that of Mozart's; Mozart's not that of Mahler's; Mahler's not that of Stravinsky, ad infinitum. That is something, it seems, that many need to first grasp and then get over, immediately.

Besides, if there is a sacred cow anywhere, it cannot be in Western classical music. If there is a sacred cow in western classical music, you can be certain that another composer, if no one else, will make hamburger of it, use the leather to make a belt and shoes, and not write music exactly as the last generation did. The public, too, will willingly and happily ingest that hamburger, 'that hamburger' is actually just about any composer of any period you care to name.


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## neoshredder

Tonality will always be superior to atonality. It's just the way it is.


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> Tonality will always be superior to atonality. It's just the way it is.


* Ha ha haa! Thanks for the comic relief! If you would put down your graffiti spray can for a minute and think about it, it's more complex than that. Tonality had to change. It had to take on new ideas from serial thought, to become a "brave new tonality of the future," thus guaranteeing the supremacy of "harmonic music" for the next 300 years. *


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## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> Tonality will always be superior to atonality. It's just the way it is.


If I rolled my eyes any harder, I might injure myself. o3o


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## neoshredder

BurningDesire said:


> If I rolled my eyes any harder, I might injure myself. o3o


Glad you liked my comment.


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## PetrB

WATTOLFME (Wiping Away The Tears Of Laughter From My Eyes.)

On the frontispiece of my college music theory textbook, this quote...
*"Everything is in flux."* ~ Herodotus


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## Renaissance

millionrainbows said:


> * Ha ha haa! Thanks for the comic relief! If you would put down your graffiti spray can for a minute and think about it, it's more complex than that. Tonality had to change. It had to take on new ideas from serial thought, to become a "brave new tonality of the future," thus guaranteeing the supremacy of "harmonic music" for the next 300 years. *


And serialism came out of nothing, yeah ?  Let us not make such prophecies ...


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## Couchie

Tonality: Suspend it, but never lose it.


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## StevenOBrien

millionrainbows said:


> * Ha ha haa! Thanks for the comic relief! If you would put down your graffiti spray can for a minute and think about it, it's more complex than that. Tonality had to change. It had to take on new ideas from serial thought, to become a "brave new tonality of the future," thus guaranteeing the supremacy of "harmonic music" for the next 300 years. *


*Why must you write so small? I can barely read your comments. e_e*


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## PetrB

RichardWagner said:


> Tonality: Suspend it, but never lose it.


LOL. That still does not mean there is any necessary call to cryogenically freeze it on a particular date.


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## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by millionrainbows (me): 
"Ha ha haa! Thanks for the comic relief! If you would put down your graffiti spray can for a minute and think about it, it's more complex than that. Tonality had to change. It had to take on new ideas from serial thought, to become a "brave new tonality of the future," thus guaranteeing the supremacy of "harmonic music" for the next 300 years."



Renaissance said:


> And serialism came out of nothing, yeah?  Let us not make such prophecies ...


That's interesting; I'll call it "Variation on an Incomplete View of the Nature of Tonality."

So to answer the question, we must find out why Western classical music started getting more and more chromatic in the late Romantic era, until it finally reached its breaking point.

This is where, as implied above, that serialism came from. It does seem very suggestive, on the face of it: from extreme chromaticism, Schoenberg came up with his 12-tone method, which led to total serialism.

There's a glitch in this view: Tonality is based on the 7-note diatonic scale system. Chromatic notes outside of this scale were used when modulating to another 7-note key area. So tonally, these chromatic notes were never anything more than extras, the result of modulation, or mere passing tones.

When the modulation and chromaticism became so pervasive that tonal function and analysis was no longer applicable, we had entered a non-tonal world of total chromaticism.

It was Schoenberg who finally accepted the 12-note scale as the starting point, and developed his system. Schoenberg was the first proto-serialist. The term "serial" is derived from "series," which refers to the ordered series of 12 notes of the chromatic scale.

_The grey area of total chromaticism is what I see as the biggest stumbling-block in defining and understanding tonality and its gradual diminishment._

Tonal function and tonal thinking, which divided the octave by the fifth, was replaced by "12-note/chromatic thinking," which divided the 12-note scale equally at the tritone, and exploited inherent symmetries. These symmetries were the smaller divisions of 3 and 4, which naturally suspended tonality by diminished seventh, whole-tone, and augmented harmonies and scales.

_I see these chromatic ways of thinking, although connected to tonality, as being more of a departure from tonality, and sharing more concerns with modern serial thought than with tonality._

So, to say "serialism came from tonality" is misleading and incomplete. To say we are now in an era of "tonality" is also misleading.

We are in a new era of chromatic thinking, which is also "harmonic" in sound. "Harmonic chromaticism" would be a better term, but the term "tonality" has lost its usefulness, except in describing 18th century common practice, and slightly beyond.


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## Crudblud

millionrainbows said:


> It was Schoenberg who finally accepted the 12-note scale as the starting point, and developed his system. Schoenberg was the first proto-serialist.


Not to be a pedant, but Hauer was the first to devise such a system.


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> Funny, that is what composers do... write what they want to hear.


Some composers. Only some. There are other ways. There's writing in order to hear, too. And there's an interesting take on the matter by Herbert Brün, who wanted to define a composer as someone who wrote the things that he or she did not yet like. ("It is foolish to say 'I write a piece that I like.' That piece is not needed. The piece I like someone else probably wrote already.")

Otherwise, it is very disheartening generally to see conversations like this play themselves out over and over again around the dichotomy of tonal/atonal, as if that were the only thing going on in music. There is plenty of music that does not reference tonality at all, a- or otherwise. Cage's _Water Walk_ and _Cartridge Music._ Varese's _Ionisation._ Sachiko M's _1:2._ Otomo Yoshihide's _Turntable Solo._ Just a tiny glimpse of thousands of hours of music that does not reference tonality in any way.

Tonality at its most fundamental is tone-centric music. Modality, common practice, pantonality, dodecaphony, serialism--these are all systems about how to manage synchronous pitches, both vertically and horizontally. But in the twentieth century, at least since Kurt Schwitter's Ursonate (1922-32), there were all sorts of musics that built their various structures with little or no reference to synchronous pitch at all. Much percussion music, most electroacoustic music, most EAI, noise.

Even in music of the common practice period, there was a lot going on in any given piece that was not a part of the system for managing synchronous pitch. Space, dynamics, timbre, tempo--none of those musical elements is essentially part of any system for managing synchronous pitches. That is, space, dynamics, timbre, and tempo are elements that any music has, independent of any system like serialism or common practice.

I understand that the OP has set up that tiresome and reductionist dichotomy between tonality and "atonality" as the starting point for this discussion. But it's still dishearting to see everyone blithely fall into step with that, as if that were the only way of talking about music, as if nothing important happened in the twentieth century aside from just more "tonality" except a couple of alternate ways of managing synchronous pitches (which can also be called "tonality"). Indeed, the debate isn't even between opposites (as the words "tonal" and "atonal" might seem to suggest) but between different ways of managing tones.

And yes, I understand that the real debate is between what is euphonious and what is discordant. But even there.... And that's not only reductionist but misdirected, too, as euphony and discord point to responses by listeners and not to anything in the music itself. Life is so much more various and so much more interesting than is expressed with those two broad brush strokes. Truly.


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## paulc

My uninformed, student opinion. 

Isn't the whole discussion about tonality vs. atonality kind of irrelevant?

I envisage music progressing from simple pitches to melodies (succession of pitches), to polyphony (multiple pitches forming intervallic harmonies), to polyphony containing multiple melodies (counterpoint), to strict imitative counterpoint and canon, to free imitative counterpoint and fugue limited by the entrance interval of voices and mode, to the same unlimited by entrance interval and mode (move to tonal harmony), to later styles (involving chromaticism, atonality and other features). Progression (or regression, depending on your point of view ) is commonly motivated by the need for variety.

Music has tended towards a mixture of familiarity and variety, in order to keep the listener interested without confusing them. Moving from modes to tonality was a way of adding variety. As with the real (vs. tonal) answer, tonality became restrictive. Later styles downplayed tonality in favour of other forms of familiarity. An increase in intervallic and melodic cohesion at the expense of consonance - not that these are mutually exclusive.

At the end of the day, the listener appreciates a piece for whatever reason. Whatever the style, technique or form, there is usually craft.



some guy said:


> Even in music of the common practice period, there was a lot going on in any given piece that was not a part of the system for managing synchronous pitch. Space, dynamics, timbre, tempo--none of those musical elements is essentially part of any system for managing synchronous pitches. That is, space, dynamics, timbre, and tempo are elements that any music has, independent of any system like serialism or common practice.


Absolutely.


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## millionrainbows

Crudblud said:


> Not to be a pedant, but Hauer was the first to devise such a system.


Usually when somebody says "I'm not trying to be...", they _are_ being that.
So, tell us about Hauer. What was the difference between his system and Schoenberg's?


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> ...it is very disheartening generally to see conversations like this play themselves out over and over again around the dichotomy of tonal/atonal, as if that were the only thing going on in music...I understand that the OP has set up that tiresome and reductionist dichotomy between tonality and "atonality" as the starting point for this discussion. But it's still dishearting to see everyone blithely fall into step with that, as if that were the only way of talking about music, as if nothing important happened in the twentieth century aside from just more "tonality" except a couple of alternate ways of managing synchronous pitches (which can also be called "tonality"). Indeed, the debate isn't even between opposites (as the words "tonal" and "atonal" might seem to suggest) but between different ways of managing tones....And yes, I understand that the real debate is between what is euphonious and what is discordant. But even there.... And that's not only reductionist but misdirected, too, as euphony and discord point to responses by listeners and not to anything in the music itself. Life is so much more various and so much more interesting than is expressed with those two broad brush strokes. Truly.


If they want to talk about pitch, I'll talk about pitch, and try to clean the mess up. Complaints, complaints.


----------



## Crudblud

millionrainbows said:


> Usually when somebody says "I'm not trying to say...", they _are_ saying that.
> So, tell us about Hauer. What was the difference between his system and Schoenberg's?


I wasn't saying "not trying to say", I was just saying that I didn't mean to appear pedantic with that response. I also didn't say that they were different, just that Hauer devised his system first. From listening to his pieces, it seems to present a more traditionally "pleasant" sound, and it seems odd to me that it wasn't taken up by less radical composers of the day in response to serialism, although Hauer also appeared to be much less academic than Schoenberg and likely his ideas did not carry the same weight. I don't know where you might find his writings, but his principal theoretical work is _Vom Wesen des Musikalischen_, from 1920. There's also a basic description of his system on Wikipedia in his article, but it doesn't go in to much detail regarding how all the materials are derived and so on.

This piece is supposedly a thorough study of his dodecaphony, so see for yourself.


----------



## juergen

Crudblud said:


> This piece is supposedly a thorough study of his dodecaphony, so see for yourself.


Very interesting. This piece reminded me immediately on that one from the first round of our TC Composition Competition:


----------



## Mahlerian

Crudblud said:


> I wasn't saying "not trying to say", I was just saying that I didn't mean to appear pedantic with that response. I also didn't say that they were different, just that Hauer devised his system first. From listening to his pieces, it seems to present a more traditionally "pleasant" sound, and it seems odd to me that it wasn't taken up by less radical composers of the day in response to serialism, although Hauer also appeared to be much less academic than Schoenberg and likely his ideas did not carry the same weight. I don't know where you might find his writings, but his principal theoretical work is _Vom Wesen des Musikalischen_, from 1920. There's also a basic description of his system on Wikipedia in his article, but it doesn't go in to much detail regarding how all the materials are derived and so on.


It's interesting that Hauer came up with a 12-tone system around the same time as/slightly before Schoenberg did, independently. It reminds me a bit of the discovery of calculus. Something was just in the air at that point.

But I think millionrainbows was referring to atonality, which predated 12-tone writing of any kind. It was music based on the chromatic, rather than diatonic, scale.


----------



## millionrainbows

Crudblud said:


> ...I was just saying that I didn't mean to appear pedantic with that response. *I also didn't say that they were different, just that Hauer devised his system first. *


Who came first is irrelevant, because the two systems are different in crucial ways.

Here's what you said:


Crudblud said:


> Not to be a pedant, but *Hauer was the first to devise such a system.*


"Such a system" is a vague characterization, and that "Hauer was first" is irrelevant, because there are crucial differences between Hauer's and Schoenberg's methods.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> It's interesting that Hauer came up with a 12-tone system around the same time as/slightly before Schoenberg did, independently. It reminds me a bit of the discovery of calculus. Something was just in the air at that point.


"It's interesting" until you read about it, then the differences emerge. Any expert pedants out there care to explain the differences, rather that celebrate the notion that "Hauer was first?" First at what?

I hope that Crudblud and Mahlerian do not assume that Hauer's can be equated with Schoenberg's method.



Mahlerian said:


> But I think millionrainbows was referring to atonality, which predated 12-tone writing of any kind. It was music based on the chromatic, rather than diatonic, scale.


Yes, the "free atonal" period of Schoenberg (this particular period is the only time I feel comfortable using the term "atonal") was "very chromatic," but I dispute the notion that it was "based on the chromatic scale."

The term "atonal" is still misleading, because music from this period of "free atonality" is still derived from "tonal" considerations (as voice-leading shows), and the chromaticism must still be seen in terms of tonal function of key areas.

Key areas have 7 diatonic notes, not 12. If any "total chromaticism" involving all 12 notes appears to be occurring in "freely atonal" music I refer to, this is the cumulative result of vaguely defined key areas and constant modulation using passing tones, not a "starting point" of 12 notes, or a "premise" of the 12-note chromatic scale.

When the premise _did become_ the 12-note chromatic scale, _tonality and tonal function had been abandoned._ From such a point, the 12-note chromatic scale was the "prime cause" of what happens in the music, not a tonal hierarchy. At this point, the hierarchy of a pervasive "root" is gone, and via symmetry and other considerations more related to serial thought, "local areas" of tone-centricity are used instead of "function in an hierarchy." This happens in Bartók, and Stravinsky, if you ignore the tonal ideas they tended to throw in the mix.

Schoenberg's system basically "cleaned up the mess" with his system, and severed these tenuous, distracting tonal references.


----------



## Renaissance

millionrainbows said:


> Originally Posted by millionrainbows (me):
> 
> Tonal function and tonal thinking, which divided the octave by the fifth, was replaced by "12-note/chromatic thinking," which divided the 12-note scale equally at the tritone, and exploited inherent symmetries. These symmetries were the smaller divisions of 3 and 4, which naturally suspended tonality by diminished seventh, whole-tone, and augmented harmonies and scales.
> 
> _I see these chromatic ways of thinking, although connected to tonality, as being more of a departure from tonality, and sharing more concerns with modern serial thought than with tonality._
> 
> So, to say "serialism came from tonality" is misleading and incomplete. To say we are now in an era of "tonality" is also misleading.
> 
> We are in a new era of chromatic thinking, which is also "harmonic" in sound. "Harmonic chromaticism" would be a better term, but the term "tonality" has lost its usefulness, except in describing 18th century common practice, and slightly beyond.[/SIZE][/FONT]


Nothing new about these thing, we all know them, but I was referring to something else. Atonality/serial/12-tone stuff didn't appear until the breakdown of tonality which started with Wagner. And not because there wasn't anybody capable of doing it, but because it was no interest. Let's not forget that even Mozart wrote stuff using harsh & chromatic harmonies, extended tonality techniques like bi-tonality made popular by Stravinsky in 20th century and so on... For Mozart it was all a musical "joke", intended as humor. And not only Mozart, but Beethoven too has some parody pieces... They considered such things to be "bad" writing. Gesualdo's case is also well-known around here...His contemporaries (and not only them) saw him as an amateur.

So, we must conclude that these stuff you promote here so hard is not new or modern. It has been done before, certainly not to the same degree...but enough for us to figure out that they knew about these things. Schoenberg himself saw his own techniques as a kind of compromise...He considered himself a conservative forced to become radical. He liked more composers like Brahms, Mozart or Mahler...Serialism came only after there was nothing new to do with the tonal system... (or at least this is what they say). That's why I said that serialism didn't come out of nothing...It is the opposite of tonality in many ways...So it is connected with it, you like it or not.


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> ...it is very disheartening generally to see conversations like this play themselves out over and over again around the dichotomy of tonal/atonal, as if that were the only thing going on in music. There is plenty of music that does not reference tonality at all, a- or otherwise.


I agree; I just happen to go into these things in more detail. There are some fundamental misconceptions occurring, which I would rather "fix" than write-off as bothersome.



some guy said:


> Tonality at its most fundamental is tone-centric music. Modality, common practice, pantonality, dodecaphony, serialism--these are all systems about how to manage synchronous pitches, both vertically and horizontally.


I agree totally, without reservation. What I'm trying to do is to get the OP to see the possibilities of a "free tone-centric chromatic" approach, and to see that it is separate from strict serialism, yet holds certain concepts in common with chromatic tone-centric music: symmetry, interval multiplication, George Perle's "12-tone tonality," etc.

I see soundtrack music as the freest, most practical "rough and ready" use of this mix of ideas.



some guy said:


> I understand that the OP has set up that tiresome and reductionist dichotomy between tonality and "atonality" as the starting point for this discussion. But it's still dishearting to see everyone blithely fall into step with that...


"The secretary will disavow any knowledge of my involvement in that blithe stepping."



some guy said:


> Indeed, the debate isn't even between opposites (as the words "tonal" and "atonal" might seem to suggest) but between different ways of managing tones.


True, but this simply negates the argument, rather than "cleaning up" misconceptions. Come to us with solutions, not problems, and we'll see the full extent of what is actually known by the contributors to this discussion.


----------



## millionrainbows

Renaissance said:


> ...Nothing new about these things, we all know them, but I was referring to something else. *Atonality/serial/12-tone stuff didn't appear until the breakdown of tonality which started with Wagner.*


I disagree with the vague thrust of that statement, and it embodies too many closely-packed misconceptions for "cleanup."



Renaissance said:


> And not because there wasn't anybody capable of doing it, but because *it *was (of) no interest.


That's your opinion. I happen to_ like_ Bartók and late Strauss, and Mahler's late work. (This answer is not based on the erronious assumptions which preceded it).



Renaissance said:


> Let's not forget that even Mozart wrote stuff using harsh & chromatic harmonies, extended tonality techniques like bi-tonality made popular by Stravinsky in 20th century and so on... For Mozart it was all a musical "joke", intended as humor. And not only Mozart, but Beethoven too has some parody pieces... They considered such things to be "bad" writing. Gesualdo's case is also well-known around here...His contemporaries (and not only them) saw him as an amateur.
> 
> So, we must conclude that these stuff you promote here so hard is not new or modern. It has been done before, certainly not to the same degree...but enough for us to figure out that they knew about these things. Schoenberg himself saw his own techniques as a kind of compromise...He considered himself a conservative forced to become radical. He liked more composers like Brahms, Mozart or Mahler...


This shows a basic comprehension of how "free atonality" and chromatic _*tonal*_ music (late Romantic, not to be confused with Schoenberg's system) had roots in instances of previous _*tonal*_ musical thinking; but all those examples were in the context of tonality.



Renaissance said:


> Serialism came only after there was nothing new to do with the tonal system... (or at least this is what they say). That's why I said that serialism didn't come out of nothing...It is the opposite of tonality in many ways...So it is connected with it, (whether) you like it or not.


There is a flaw in this way of seeing it. Common-practice tonality (with tonal functions based on one root) needs to be separated from music in which the chromatic scale is the starting-point, and there is no "one root" hierarchy.

Here is a simple chart:

1. Common-practice tonality (with tonal functions based on one root)

2. Chromatic music; music in which the chromatic scale is the starting-point, and there is no "one root" hierarchy

3. Schoenberg and all serialism which followed

In truly chromatic music, local tone-centers can be established, the music "sounds" harmonic, but there is no tonal hierarchy of "one root."

In the more accurate view, common tonality, up to late-Romantic chromaticism, gave rise to a totally chromatic approach, which then gave rise to Schoenberg and all serial thought.

The problem most people have in sorting out this is that common tonality and chromatic music are both "harmonic" and based aurally; chromatic music does not have a single root, but is broken-down into localized tone-centric events which follow their own logic.

Schoenberg and serial music is not inherently harmonic, but by using "special case" sets which exhibit symmetry under transformation, harmonic consequences of rows can be controlled, if this is desired.

To get back to Hauer, where does he stand in all of this? I'm still waiting for a demonstration of knowledge on this.


----------



## Crudblud

Good lord, all I said was that Hauer developed a dodecaphonic system before Schoenberg in response to you saying that Schoenberg was "the first", which in hindsight I believe I misread. If I'd known this was to be the result I would never have bothered posting.


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## BurningDesire

To claim that all music in the 20th Century owes something to serialist thought it silly. Serialist music does, but not all dissonant music comes from serialism.


----------



## millionrainbows

Here's what you said:



Crudblud said:


> Not to be a pedant, but Hauer was the first to devise such a system.


You did not use the term "dodecaphonic."



Crudblud said:


> Good lord, all I said was that Hauer developed a dodecaphonic system before Schoenberg in response to you saying that Schoenberg was "the first", which in hindsight I believe I misread. If I'd known this was to be the result I would never have bothered posting.


I made two statements:

1. ...from extreme chromaticism, Schoenberg came up with his 12-tone method, which led to total serialism.

2. It was Schoenberg who finally accepted the 12-note scale as the starting point, and developed his system.

Hauer's method is different than Schoenberg's, so mentioning it in the context of my explanation is IMHO irrelevant. Nobody here seems to know any details about Hauer's system.



BurningDesire said:


> To claim that all music in the 20th Century owes something to serialist thought it silly. Serialist music does, but not all dissonant music comes from serialism.


*I disagree.*


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Hauer's method is different than Schoenberg's, so mentioning it in the context of my explanation is IMHO irrelevant. Nobody here seems to know any details about Hauer's system.


Something to do with "tropes" consisting of a number of chords such that they as a group comprise the notes of the chromatic scale, right? As far as I know, it was nowhere near as developed and nuanced as Schoenberg's. Other than that, he's seen as a minor figure overall.



Renaissance said:


> Let's not forget that even Mozart wrote stuff using harsh & chromatic harmonies, extended tonality techniques like bi-tonality made popular by Stravinsky in 20th century and so on... For Mozart it was all a musical "joke", intended as humor.


Wrong on several counts. First of all, Mozart used chromatic harmonies in several situations, some of which were quite serious (parts of the Symphony No. 40 are an obvious example). Secondly, Mozart's use of bitonality was not as an expressive gesture of any kind, or as an integral part of the music, but as a foreign element. Music history is full of things that were once considered "effects" but became integral parts of later compositions (the pedal on the piano, percussion, irregular phrasing), so Mozart's use of bitonality (or better yet, the whole-tone scale, which also appears in A Musical Joke) as a joke does not in any way reflect on the far different uses of these devices by later composers.



Renaissance said:


> So, we must conclude that these stuff you promote here so hard is not new or modern. It has been done before, certainly not to the same degree...but enough for us to figure out that they knew about these things.


But they didn't know about their possibilities in the way that later composers did. I don't think you should make a single piece by Mozart the basis of an entire argument trying to tear down a sizable part of the canon. It would be as inane to say that the novel is not a worthy development because prose existed beforehand, but had never been used for that purpose.



Renaissance said:


> Serialism came only after there was nothing new to do with the tonal system...


If Schoenberg believed this, then why did he continue to teach his students common practice theory? Why did he write a few tonal pieces after the turn to serialism? I don't think I need to invoke the C major remark.


----------



## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> *I disagree.*


I know you do. :3 You were the person I was talking to.


----------



## millionrainbows

Hauer's system of "tropes" differs from Schoenberg's because it is inherently harmonic, and Schoenberg's method was not.

Hauer's tropes are 6-note sets (hexads). They are in complementary pairs, giving the full 12 notes. I think there are 144 of them.

Hauer's system is really a form of set theory. Hauer's tropes are unordered. This makes them similar to scales. When one examines the interval content of a scale, all constituent interval relations are accounted for. For example, if the hexad were A-Bb-Db-Eb-F-B, this set would be analyzed in terms of every possible interval relation in the set: A-Bb/A-Db/A-Eb/A-F/and A-B; then Bb-Db/Bb-Eb/Bb-F/and Bb-b; then Db-Eb/Db-F/and Db-B, etc., finally yielding a table of intervals listing the frequency of occurrence of each interval.

This results in a "harmonic content inventory." The trope is seen in terms of its harmonic effect, as well as its symmetry characteristics.

Schoenberg's tone rows are _ordered_. The harmonic content the row will possess is limited to these 12 consecutive interval relations.


----------



## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> Hauer's system of "tropes" differs from Schoenberg's because it is inherently harmonic, and Schoenberg's method was not.
> 
> Hauer's tropes are 6-note sets (hexads). They are in complementary pairs, giving the full 12 notes. I think there are 144 of them.
> 
> Hauer's system is really a form of set theory. Hauer's tropes are unordered. This makes them similar to scales. When one examines the interval content of a scale, all constituent interval relations are accounted for. For example, if the hexad were A-Bb-Db-Eb-F-B, this set would be analyzed in terms of every possible interval relation in the set: A-Bb/A-Db/A-Eb/A-F/and A-B; then Bb-Db/Bb-Eb/Bb-F/and Bb-b; then Db-Eb/Db-F/and Db-B, etc., finally yielding a table of intervals listing the frequency of occurrence of each interval.
> 
> This results in a "harmonic content inventory." The trope is seen in terms of its harmonic effect, as well as its symmetry characteristics.
> 
> Schoenberg's tone rows are _ordered_. The harmonic content the row will possess is limited to these 12 consecutive interval relations.


It is when music begins to be discussed in this manner that I kinda lose interest X3 I'd rather just hear the music. I don't care about the pseudo-scientific rationalization for the poetry of sound.


----------



## PetrB

some guy said:


> Some composers. Only some. There are other ways. There's writing in order to hear, too. And there's an interesting take on the matter by Herbert Brün, who wanted to define a composer as someone who wrote the things that he or she did not yet like. ("It is foolish to say 'I write a piece that I like.' That piece is not needed. The piece I like someone else probably wrote already.")


Pedantry over a semantic fuzziness of word choice on my part... surely you know what I meant, composing that which does not yet exist, and that which interests the composer


----------



## Vaneyes

"I am developing a more tonal style and I am not sure if this is good or bad!"

It's good. Take it to the bank. Of course, I'd say the same thing for atonal.


----------



## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> It is when music begins to be discussed in this manner that I kinda lose interest X3 I'd rather just hear the music. I don't care about the pseudo-scientific rationalization for the poetry of sound.


_ Hmm...back when you were "interested," you sounded very pseudo-scientifically rational yourself when you said the following:_



BurningDesire said:


> To claim that all music in the 20th Century owes something to serialist thought it silly. Serialist music does, but not all dissonant music comes from serialism.


_ I'll put the gist of what I've said in my newest blog. _


----------



## kamalayka

Tonal music will akways reign surpreme because it is natural. The human brain looks for patterns - somethjng which tonal music offers.

In my opinion, the best music is that which balances between new frontiers and established idioms.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> Tonal music will akways reign surpreme because it is natural. The human brain looks for patterns - somethjng which tonal music offers.
> 
> In my opinion, the best music is that which balances between new frontiers and established idioms.


How is atonal music unnatural? (For that matter, how is tonal music natural?)

Name an atonal piece in which no patterns can be found.


----------



## kamalayka

Mahlerian said:


> How is atonal music unnatural? (For that matter, how is tonal music natural?)
> 
> Name an atonal piece in which no patterns can be found.


 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...l-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html

In my opinion, it seems that the difference between modern composers and those of the past is that the former tries to convince the listener what to like. None of the greats did this.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> In my opinion, it seems that the difference between modern composers and those of the past is that the former tries to convince the listener what to like. None of the greats did this.


I don't understand what you're saying here. What composers (besides perhaps Boulez in his polemic days) did or are doing this?

And I've seen that article before, and find it confusing. I can predict what pitch will come next in a good deal of atonal music, especially by the Viennese school. There are clear repetitions and patterns, except in some works from the "free atonal period" between 1908 and 1923. Even there, the coherence of the music should be clear to one familiar with a post-Wagnerian idiom, as the style is pretty much derived from that language.

One's perception of music is culturally influenced, and this includes tonality, voice leading, counterpoint, and all the other trappings of the Western classical tradition. Don't believe me? Listen to world music that uses odd scales or tunings. There's nothing inherently natural about the equal tempered scale with A=440, and there's certainly nothing inherently natural about the tonal system that developed in 17th century Europe.


----------



## kamalayka

Mahlerian said:


> I don't understand what you're saying here. What composers (besides perhaps Boulez in his polemic days) did or are doing this?
> 
> And I've seen that article before, and find it confusing. I can predict what pitch will come next in a good deal of atonal music, especially by the Viennese school. There are clear repetitions and patterns, except in some works from the "free atonal period" between 1908 and 1923. Even there, the coherence of the music should be clear to one familiar with a post-Wagnerian idiom, as the style is pretty much derived from that language.
> 
> One's perception of music is culturally influenced, and this includes tonality, voice leading, counterpoint, and all the other trappings of the Western classical tradition. Don't believe me? Listen to world music that uses odd scales or tunings. There's nothing inherently natural about the equal tempered scale with A=440, and there's certainly nothing inherently natural about the tonal system that developed in 17th century Europe.


I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I'm simply saying that most people - myself incuded- do not like comprehend stuff like this:






And for the record, I am not familiar with anything post-romantic.


----------



## Crudblud

That cat is fantastic.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I'm simply saying that most people - myself incuded- do not like comprehend stuff like this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And for the record, I am not familiar with anything post-romantic.


Well, there's nothing to comprehend there. Just a bunch of note clusters (but with some oddly feline attributes...)

And I didn't say post-romantic, I said post-Wagner. Strauss (circa 1905), Mahler, Debussy, and their like have more in common with Schoenberg than they have with, say, Beethoven.

If you are seriously suggesting that the following sounds like random notes...


----------



## millionrainbows

kamalayka said:


> I don't disagree with most of what you are saying. I'm simply saying that most people - myself incuded- do not like comprehend stuff like this...(video of cat creating tone-clusters)





Mahlerian said:


> Well, there's nothing to comprehend there. Just a bunch of note clusters...


Oddly enough, Mahlerian is correct, but perhaps not in the way I will apply it.

Even in Boulez' First Piano Sonata, there is often "nothing to comprehend;" it's just sound. Boulez will put a tone cluster in the bass range, and it is incomprehensible in terms of pitch; it may contain notes which fulfill certain tone-row requirements, but other than that, the particular cluster only functions as "sound." I think this comes from electronic music and Cage's treatment of "unmusical" sound.

I think kamalayka is over-thinking a lot of modern music which only asks to be heard, not "comprehended."

Likewise, I don't "comprehend" a chair; I sit in it.

Why did the chicken compose serial music? So he could hear it.

I suppose the cat in the video is creating music without intent, a truly ego-less triumph in sound! Cage and Boulez would be proud!


----------



## kamalayka

Mahlerian said:


> And I didn't say post-romantic, I said post-Wagner. Strauss (circa 1905), Mahler, Debussy, and their like have more in common with Schoenberg than they have with, say, Beethoven.
> 
> If you are seriously suggesting that the following sounds like random notes...


I never meant to imply that. I simply stated a fact about myself. As a matter of fact, even the Romantic period can be too ambiguous with tonality.

I will listen to your video now.


----------



## kamalayka

millionrainbows said:


> Oddly enough, Mahlerian is correct, but perhaps not in the way I will apply it.
> 
> Even in Boulez' First Piano Sonata, there is often "nothing to comprehend;" it's just sound. Boulez will put a tone cluster in the bass range, and it is incomprehensible in terms of pitch; it may contain notes which fulfill certain tone-row requirements, but other than that, the particular cluster only functions as "sound." I think this comes from electronic music and Cage's treatment of "unmusical" sound.
> 
> I think kamalayka is over-thinking a lot of modern music which only asks to be heard, not "comprehended."
> 
> Likewise, I don't "comprehend" a chair; I sit in it.
> 
> Why did the chicken compose serial music? So he could hear it.
> 
> I suppose the cat in the video is creating music without intent, a truly ego-less triumph in sound! Cage and Boulez would be proud!


Ego-less music to me is Bach. Modern stuff is all about ego.


----------



## kamalayka

I had to stop listening by the 1:03 mark. I got tired of cringing.

'Guess I'm just not _sophistimacated_ enough to evolve beyond the Common Practice Period.

I'll always be a sucked for coherent music, I suppose!


----------



## BurningDesire

kamalayka said:


> Ego-less music to me is Bach. Modern stuff is all about ego.


Puts his name into his music, is not egotistical.

Seems legit...

How do you find modern music to be "all about ego"? If anything is ego-less it would be music composed by anonymous monks in medieval times, not taking any credit for their work.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> I had to stop listening by the 1:03 mark. I got tired of cringing.
> 
> 'Guess I'm just not _sophistimacated_ enough to evolve beyond the Common Practice Period.
> 
> I'll always be a sucked for coherent music, I suppose!


But it is coherent. Just because you don't enjoy it...



Millionrainbows said:


> Even in Boulez' First Piano Sonata, there is often "nothing to comprehend;" it's just sound. Boulez will put a tone cluster in the bass range, and it is incomprehensible in terms of pitch; it may contain notes which fulfill certain tone-row requirements, but other than that, the particular cluster only functions as "sound." I think this comes from electronic music and Cage's treatment of "unmusical" sound.


I've been reading Charles Rosen's The Romantic Generation since his recent passing, and I was intrigued by his statement that the very inaudibility of certain phenomena, such as the release of a note that has already been released in the piano, was a part of the romantic aesthetic. All of these impossible, inconceivable notions have been a part of art for a long time.

Years ago, I thought it was strange that Strauss, in his opera Salome, used certain of his motifs as chords, because the vertical and horizontal aspects of music are heard quite differently, and certainly not interchangeably. Later, after immersing myself in the Second Viennese School and their successors' music, I realized that the effect is subconscious, as the connection between horizontal and vertical is not as clear-cut as one may think in polyphonic music. Much of the time, what is felt as the vertical aspect of the music, the harmony, is a projection of the various horizontal elements, the melody, and the mind grasps this even if one does not realize it.


----------



## Guest

kamalayka said:


> I had to stop listening by the 1:03 mark. I got tired of cringing.


Cringing? Really? At this gorgeous music?

Wow.


----------



## oogabooha

kamalayka said:


> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/...l-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html
> 
> In my opinion, it seems that the difference between modern composers and those of the past is that the former tries to convince the listener what to like. None of the greats did this.


1) greats is subjective
2) haven't you ever thought that our brains gravitate towards certain patterns _due_ to tradition and inheritance?


----------



## kamalayka

BurningDesire said:


> Puts his name into his music, is not egotistical.
> 
> Seems legit...
> 
> How do you find modern music to be "all about ego"? If anything is ego-less it would be music composed by anonymous monks in medieval times, not taking any credit for their work.


I disagree. For Bach, music was about glorifying God. For modern composers, it's all about, "hey-look how different I am!"

I am not saying that all composers of the past were altruistic in their motives, but here is something to consider: in the past, new musical ideas were met with apprehension, but before long they became part of the standard vocabulary.

Can the same be said for atonality? A hundred years of this stuff and people STILL overwhelmingly reject it as unnatural.


----------



## kamalayka

oogabooha said:


> 1) greats is subjective
> 2) haven't you ever thought that our brains gravitate towards certain patterns _due_ to tradition and inheritance?


1. In my opinion, greatness (in the context of art, anyways) is measured by how much of it people are willing to give to someone.

2. Our brains' desire to see patterns owes itself more to evolution/survival than anything else. If I am wrong, then show me a society that does NOT have patterns of some kind. (Name a people who never had art, or music, or numbers.)


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> I disagree. For Bach, music was about glorifying God. For modern composers, it's all about, "hey-look how different I am!"
> 
> I am not saying that all composers of the past were altruistic in their motives, but here is something to consider: in the past, new musical ideas were met with apprehension, but before long they became part of the standard vocabulary.


I doubt that the following Biblically-inspired examples were composed simply as pieces for their respective composers (one Jew, one Catholic) to show off.

I may be forgiven for the following not being an atonal example, but I'm sure you'll hate it all the same.






And here's some atonal music for you to hate.








kamalayka said:


> Can the same be said for atonality? A hundred years of this stuff and people STILL overwhelmingly reject it as unnatural.


I asked you before. How is it unnatural? You linked to an article which has obvious flaws, not least among which is that the writer seems to have little to no awareness of the music he's talking about, judging from the phrase "modern symphonies by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, neither of whom wrote any symphonic works, the tonal Chamber Symphonies of the former excepted. Furthermore, most people don't like classical music, period. What are you trying to prove?



kamalayka said:


> 1. In my opinion, greatness (in the context of art, anyways) is measured by how much of it people are willing to give to someone.


So Schoenberg, a composer performed and recorded (one of the top 100 most-recorded classical composers of all time, in fact) over a half century after his death, is not great?



Kamalayka said:


> 2. Our brains' desire to see patterns owes itself more to evolution/survival than anything else. If I am wrong, then show me a society that does NOT have patterns of some kind. (Name a people who never had art, or music, or numbers.)


Once again, name atonal pieces that do not have recognizable patterns in them. Even things as extreme as Erwartung or Webern's pieces for String Quartet work in ways clearly related to common practice voice leading, resolution of dissonance into (relative) consonance, and the like.


----------



## kamalayka

I give up. I don't want to get involved in an internet argument. 

I just don't think atonal stuff sounds good. I see no reason in forcing myself to like something.


----------



## Guest

What is it, exactly, that you are giving up? 

You're already involved in an internet argument. You have already convinced us that you do not like "atonal" stuff. I can think of several reasons to force oneself to like something, but that's as may be. That's not really an issue here. It's just a big old red herring.

So what is it, exactly, that you're giving up? Here's my guess. See how close it is to your hidden agenda. You're giving up the attempt to convince us that the things that don't sound good to you are not, objectively, good sounding things. That, possibly, you are trying to convince us to stop liking them. Hah! Good luck with that one. It's obviously difficult to convince someone to like things that they don't like (but not impossible). But trying to convince someone to dislike the things that they like? That's much closer to impossible. And for why would you want to do that, anyway?

Let's all of us please try to get over the whole like/dislike thing. It's impertinent. Of course different people will like different things. Of course different people will dislike different things. None of this conversation has anything to do with what any one person likes or dislikes. We're trying to think about music, here, aren't we? To think about it and to talk about it. Hey! Let's do that instead!!


----------



## BurningDesire

kamalayka said:


> I disagree. For Bach, music was about glorifying God. For modern composers, it's all about, "hey-look how different I am!"
> 
> I am not saying that all composers of the past were altruistic in their motives, but here is something to consider: in the past, new musical ideas were met with apprehension, but before long they became part of the standard vocabulary.
> 
> Can the same be said for atonality? A hundred years of this stuff and people STILL overwhelmingly reject it as unnatural.


I would not call glorifying god altruistic. Somebody expressing themselves means a hell of a lot more imo. And atonality is everywhere. There are successful rock bands and electronic dance music composers who's music is atonal. Sure alot of people don't know the music of say Milton Babbitt, or George Crumb or Charles Ives, but alot of people don't know the music of Franz Schubert or Modest Mussorgsky or Robert Schumann. o3o


----------



## BurningDesire

Mahlerian said:


> I doubt that the following Biblically-inspired examples were composed simply as pieces for their respective composers (one Jew, one Catholic) to show off.
> 
> I may be forgiven for the following not being an atonal example, but I'm sure you'll hate it all the same.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And here's some atonal music for you to hate.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I asked you before. How is it unnatural? You linked to an article which has obvious flaws, not least among which is that the writer seems to have little to no awareness of the music he's talking about, judging from the phrase "modern symphonies by composers such as Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, neither of whom wrote any symphonic works, the tonal Chamber Symphonies of the former excepted. Furthermore, most people don't like classical music, period. What are you trying to prove?


Webern wrote a symphony, as well as other orchestral pieces.


----------



## neoshredder

A big mistake for anyone dissing atonal. The Modernism crowd will be all over you if you choose this route. I don't hate Modernism but I do prefer older Classical Music.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> I give up. I don't want to get involved in an internet argument.
> 
> I just don't think atonal stuff sounds good. I see no reason in forcing myself to like something.


I can't force you to do anything. I have no interest in getting you to enjoy anything. That's your own taste and your own decision.

I have a distinct interest in your not stating falsehoods and misrepresenting an important line of musical thought. I don't like people trying to justify their prejudices with appeals to supposed universals when those universals do not exist. I have not attacked you or your views. You have every right to like what you like and dislike what you dislike, and I respect that entirely. Instead of responding to my arguments, you restated exactly what you said in the first place, and then gave up. You never seemed to have any interest in discussion.



Burningdesire said:


> Webern wrote a symphony, as well as other orchestral pieces.


Point well taken, of course. It just strikes me as a wording that one would not generally use.


----------



## PetrB

kamalayka said:


> I had to stop listening by the 1:03 mark. I got tired of cringing.
> 
> 'Guess I'm just not _sophistimacated_ enough to evolve beyond the Common Practice Period.
> 
> I'll always be a sucked for coherent music, I suppose!


As a listener, you are within a context which is only the thinnest thread of less than one full chapter of the entire context of classical music.

I cannot think of any music much more highly ordered and 'coherent' than the first-wave serialism of the First Viennese 'school'

Your association of context with what is coherent, as attached to classical music, is idiosyncratic and personal.

You have opted _(yes, it is a matter of will and choice)_ to listen to that mere fraction of the entire body of literature within the relatively brief years of 'the common practice' period. You also said later romantic era music, you thought, was already too far gone from tonality -- you've shaved down your listening envelope to music written within about just seventy or eighty years out of a repertoire spanning 1000 years or so in the continuum of classical music.

That is fine and well. It also means your saying of later repertoire, 'I don't like it.' would be a much safer bet than any attempt to criticize it as 'not coherent.' "Not coherent" and your not understanding it can be, and here are, two entirely different things.

Besides the fact your response is _the cliché lame defense of tonality / tonal music which needs no defending whatsoever_, to say something more accurate about you and art would prompt less word wars -- say, "I don't know art but I know what I like." 
That is 'as good as any' declaration of personal taste which does not put foot / both feet in mouth


----------



## PetrB

kamalayka said:


> Tonal music will akways reign surpreme because it is natural. The human brain looks for patterns - somethjng which tonal music offers.


All classical music is one of the greatest and most synthetic and 'unnatural' constructs, from its scales to its various harmonic 'systems' and forms, all artifice, nothing organic there at all.

'Organic' and 'natural' are completely fallacious arguments in defense of what is _Just An Agreed Upon Set Of Conceits._ There is nothing more 'natural' about a five tone scale than a seven note scale, or a nineteen pitch unequally divided scale, nor is there anything 'natural' about chord function as defined within the very period of classical music you prefer.

Your taste in the older music needs absolutely no defenses -- again, without a more informed background, each and every additional argument you present does more damage to an argument 'pro tonal music,' than it does any kind of music any favors or help.

Of course, more people would be much better off recalling that classical music, throughout all its history, has done a very good job of keeping itself together, and needs no 'defense' argument from its listeners.

Just admit you like a certain narrow bandwidth of what is classical music, that that style speaks directly to you, and do not feel you have to talk as if you know music as a professional would from the inside out. You know it from the outside only, as most do -- and that is perfectly alright.


----------



## kamalayka

I created some atonal music for you guys.

http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/882cf112385106e31d4285e9a3cde00b26147b0e

I call it. . .

_". . . BonBonBon's Little Freak Show"_

It's a masterpiece.


----------



## Mahlerian

kamalayka said:


> I created some atonal music for you guys.
> 
> http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/882cf112385106e31d4285e9a3cde00b26147b0e
> 
> I call it. . .
> 
> _". . . BonBonBon's Little Freak Show"_
> 
> It's a masterpiece.


Thank you once again for the cheap shot. It's terribly clever. (Also, it's not, strictly speaking, atonal. By assertion, it focuses on G more than any other pitch.)

Would you like to actually start a discussion, say, by responding in a meaningful way?


----------



## millionrainbows

kamalayka said:


> Ego-less music to me is Bach. Modern stuff is all about ego.


Schoenberg's Second string quartet (1907) embodies a very characteristic Schoenbergian emotional progression: the experience and exploration of fear, disorientation, near-despair; the cry for strength to endure these trials; and the fulfilment-awakening from the nightmare, the tortured self emerges into mental clarity, consolation, union with God. A triumphant climax blazes at the words "I am an ember of the Holy Fire, I am but an echo of the Holy Voice." -from _*Schoenberg,*_ Malcolm MacDonald


----------



## tdc

PetrB said:


> All classical music is one of the greatest and most synthetic and 'unnatural' constructs, from its scales to its various harmonic 'systems' and forms, all artifice, nothing organic there at all.


But there can be forms of music that are based much more on natural, organic patterns, than other forms, no? The _harmonic series_ is a naturally occurring phenomenon, is it not? These sounds ring out at distinct intervals like P8 and P5 etc. So in a sense would music using these intervals be mimicking a natural phenomenon? How about music that encodes the golden mean or Fibonacci sequence? Those geometrical patterns are found throughout the natural world, so I think it could be argued that music that uses these types of intervals and geometric patterns is following a more 'natural order' than music that doesn't use any of these types of intervals or geometric relationships.


----------



## Mahlerian

tdc said:


> But there can be forms of music that are based much more on natural, organic patterns, than other forms, no? The _harmonic series_ is a naturally occurring phenomenon, is it not? These sounds ring out at distinct intervals like P8 and P5 etc. So in a sense would music using these intervals be mimicking a natural phenomenon? How about music that encodes the golden mean or Fibonacci sequence? Those geometrical patterns are found throughout the natural world, so I think it could be argued that music that uses these types of intervals and geometric patterns is following a more 'natural order' than music that doesn't use any of these types of intervals or geometric relationships.


But the equal tempered scale doesn't use perfect fifths, let alone thirds. Moreover, atonal music makes use of tones just the same way that tonal music does, it just uses them in a different way. And I don't see how you can't write mathematically sound atonal music.

The most natural music would be simpler, like folk music, or something based on the natural, not tempered, overtone scale. The body of western classical music is neither of these things.


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## Ramako

Mahlerian said:


> The most natural music would be simpler, like folk music, or something based on the natural, not tempered, overtone scale. The body of western classical music is neither of these things.


'Tis a compromise. Complexity at the expense of purity. What extent does one go to? I like some of the purest music best of all.


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## Ramako

some guy said:


> So what is it, exactly, that you're giving up? Here's my guess. See how close it is to your *hidden agenda*. You're giving up the attempt to convince us that the things that don't sound good to you are not, objectively, good sounding things. That, possibly, you are trying to convince us to stop liking them. Hah! Good luck with that one. It's obviously difficult to convince someone to like things that they don't like (but not impossible). But trying to convince someone to dislike the things that they like? That's much closer to impossible. And for why would you want to do that, anyway?


Hidden Agendas? Good grief this is TC not the Cold War, though it may look like it sometimes.


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## tdc

Mahlerian said:


> But the equal tempered scale doesn't use perfect fifths, let alone thirds. Moreover, atonal music makes use of tones just the same way that tonal music does, it just uses them in a different way. And I don't see how you can't write mathematically sound atonal music.
> 
> The most natural music would be simpler, like folk music, or something based on the natural, not tempered, overtone scale. The body of western classical music is neither of these things.


Interesting, so in this post you agree that some forms of music can actually be more 'natural' than others...am I correct in assuming that for a time a lot of 'classical music' did in fact use the natural overtone scale? You kind of avoided the topic of the golden ratio here, I'm not sure how often that is applied in electronic music or 'atonal'.

I would also suggest any music created on acoustic instruments is more natural than music created on electronic instruments. For these reasons I do think a lot of earlier classical music can certainly be considered closer to nature than a lot of more recent music.


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## Mahlerian

tdc said:


> Interesting, so in this post you agree that some forms of music can actually be more 'natural' than others...am I correct in assuming that for a time a lot of 'classical music' did in fact use the natural overtone scale? You kind of avoided the topic of the golden ratio here, I'm not sure how often that is applied in electronic music or 'atonal'.
> 
> I would also suggest any music created on acoustic instruments is more natural than music created on electronic instruments. For these reasons I do think a lot of earlier classical music can certainly be considered closer to nature than a lot of more recent music.


Well, theoretically at least. As soon as human intervention enters in the process of composition or improvisation, it's difficult to justify calling one thing more natural than another.

Prior to the advent of equal-tempering of the octave, musicians used other tunings, such as meantone, that differed less in the important intervals (3rd, 5th) for a few keys, but would not be usable in modulation.

The following is useful in proving exactly the opposite of what the poster set out to do. Debussy depends entirely on the equal-tempered scale for coherence. Here's what it sounds like in (a probably ad hoc) nonequal temperament.






Now, perhaps the scale is "more natural" in that some of its fundamental intervals extremely closely approximate the natural overtone series, but it makes nonsense out of the music, especially the third movement, where the delicate balance of pitch relationships that Debussy strove for has been destroyed.

The equal tempered scale is not natural. No one would argue with that. It's also not a bad thing that it's not natural, and I don't see why you would want to base any arguments on that fact.


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## tdc

Mahlerian said:


> The equal tempered scale is not natural. No one would argue with that. It's also not a bad thing that it's not natural, and I don't see why you would want to base any arguments on that fact.


That's not what I'm questioning, I'm not trying to argue whether anything is good or bad, and my reason for bringing this up is not for or against any kind of music, just whether or not some kinds of music could be considered more natural than others. The way I see it is this: Early music used a completely natural instrument - the human voice. I'm assuming no adjustments needed to be made to 'tune' these vocal instruments in these early churches, so in essence a piano is tuned to emulate the sounds of a natural instrument the way we perceive pitches. These pitches (for reasons that have not been fully explained to me) seem to have been organized or coincidentally are very similar to the _harmonic series_, a naturally occurring phenomenon. So music using pitches arranged in these intervals, the way we like to hear them - similar to the human voice, is something that is very very influenced by nature. Neither a salad nor a pizza are natural objects, but one could point out that one is in fact closer to nature than the other. I think it is the same with forms of music. To say because neither is 100% natural they are both equally distant from nature I think is inaccurate.


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## millionrainbows

"Natural" intervals are simple ratios; Pythagoras showed this. 

Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals, within one octave:

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

Indian music uses "just" intervals like those above, because Indian music doesn't modulate. The sitar has a perfect 2:3 fifth, and a perfect 4:5 major third.

Western music used various "mean tone" tunings to try and correct the third.

In our modern-day equal temperament, our fifth is 700 cents, and our maj third is 400 cents. Perfect would be 702 and 386, respectively.


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## kamalayka

What's all this talk about 'natural' and 'unnatural' music?

Doesn't music presume the existence of a listener?

Can an 'unnatural' human exist?

Why is folk considered more 'natural' than classical?

If we can assume anything to be 'natural' in music, it's those things which all music has in common. I think all music has rhythm. . .

I suppose that the extent to which a piece of music is 'natural' or 'unnatural' correlates to how far it strays from the common features all music possesses.

How can we define what these features are? Well, I think they are not set in stone. I think they are determined by the listener.

Mayne it's all relative. Maybe a the 'naturalness' of a particular piece od music depends on the listener.

Maybe everything I just wrote is a bunch of cheesy fluff that does nothing more than to state the obvious. (A lot of people here are good at that sort of thing.)


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## Crudblud

kamalayka said:


> Maybe everything I just wrote is a bunch of cheesy fluff that does nothing more than to state the obvious. (A lot of people here are good at that sort of thing.)


Yes, but you must consider that most internet users are human beings and most human beings are thick, therefore those who state the obvious provide a useful service to their fellow man.


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## Renaissance

Drone music has no rhythm.


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## millionrainbows

kamalayka said:


> What's all this talk about 'natural' and 'unnatural' music?
> Maybe everything I just wrote is a bunch of cheesy fluff that does nothing more than to state the obvious. (A lot of people here are good at that sort of thing.)


No, it's just that you don't seem to be grasping the essence of what is meant by these terms in this context. Anyone with common sense can see that a "just" major third (5/4) is more natural than an ET major third (578/433).


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## millionrainbows

Renaissance said:


> Drone music has no rhythm.


If you are referring to North Indian raga, you are sadly mistaken. Indian music is very complex rhythmically, sometimes using large 17-beat cycles divided 4-4-4-5, etc.
Alla Rakha was one of the greatest tabla players in history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_Rakha

The Grateful Dead's Mickey Hart, admired him and studied his technique, benefiting greatly even from single meetings. Hart, a published authority on percussion in world music, said "Alla Rakha is the Einstein, the Picasso; he is the highest form of rhythmic development on this planet."

Alla Rakha also collaborated with jazz drummer Buddy Rich, on their 1968 album Rich à la Rakha.


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## BurningDesire

Renaissance said:


> Drone music has no rhythm.


any sound existing in a duration of time has rhythm. Even if the sound is a single pitch held out for 3 hours, that is a rhythm. Rhythm is a measure of sound in time, and therefore all music has rhythm. o3o


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## Renaissance

1) I wasn't referring to Indian music. 
2) "Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός-rhythmos, "any regular recurring motion, symmetry"[1]) may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." - wiki.

After all we can consider that any sound has rhythm because any sound is vibrational in nature, but I won't. I prefer this definition instead.


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## PetrB

kamalayka said:


> What's all this talk about 'natural' and 'unnatural' music?
> 
> Doesn't music presume the existence of a listener?
> 
> Can an 'unnatural' human exist?
> 
> Why is folk considered more 'natural' than classical?
> 
> If we can assume anything to be 'natural' in music, it's those things which all music has in common. I think all music has rhythm. . .
> 
> I suppose that the extent to which a piece of music is 'natural' or 'unnatural' correlates to how far it strays from the common features all music possesses.
> 
> How can we define what these features are? Well, I think they are not set in stone. I think they are determined by the listener.
> 
> Mayne it's all relative. Maybe a the 'naturalness' of a particular piece od music depends on the listener.
> 
> Maybe everything I just wrote is a bunch of cheesy fluff that does nothing more than to state the obvious. (A lot of people here are good at that sort of thing.)


"What all music possesses"
Pitch (not necessarily specific)
Duration (not necessarily 'metric')
Intensity

There is no music which does not fit those common criteria - Ergo, anything that fits those criteria is 'natural' music.


----------



## PetrB

Renaissance said:


> Drone music has no rhythm.


Rhythm has nothing to do with metric time. It is simply duration over time. Any two sound events over any duration of time create 'rhythm.'

A lot of drones (especially in pop music or electronically generated ones) have a 'dynamic pulse' i.e. crescendo / decrescendo 'vibrato' whether natural or performed.


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## Renaissance

PetrB said:


> Rhythm has nothing to do with metric time. It is simply duration over time. Any two sound events over any duration of time create 'rhythm.'
> 
> A lot of drones (especially in pop music or electronically generated ones) have a 'dynamic pulse' i.e. crescendo / decrescendo 'vibrato' whether natural or performed.


Those drones, yes, but not a constant sine wave.


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## Renaissance

PetrB said:


> "What all music possesses"
> Pitch (not necessarily specific)
> Duration (not necessarily 'metric')
> Intensity
> 
> There is no music which does not fit those common criteria - Ergo, anything that fits those criteria is 'natural' music.


How about noise ? What is the difference ? Or you call noise music too ?


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## Crudblud

Renaissance said:


> How about noise ? What is the difference ? Or you call noise music too ?


You'll have to clarify. Do you mean noise as in the sound of a car engine or noise as in the experimental harsh electro-acoustic movement that started around the 1970s in Japan?


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## Renaissance

Crudblud said:


> You'll have to clarify. Do you mean noise as in the sound of a car engine or noise as in the experimental harsh electro-acoustic movement that started around the 1970s in Japan?


Noise is noise...by its nature. I don't talk about movements, fashions...I was just asking for criteria which separate noise from music, if there are any.


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## Crudblud

Renaissance said:


> Noise is noise...by its nature. I don't talk about movements, fashions...I was just asking for criteria which separate noise from music, if there are any.


No, you said "what about noise?" so I asked you to clarify what you meant since there are several meanings of the word "noise", particularly when used in a conversation about music, as such your query remains vague at best.


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## millionrainbows

Renaissance said:


> Noise is noise...by its nature. I don't talk about movements, fashions...I was just asking for criteria which separate noise from music, if there are any.


@Renaissance: Most percussion is noise, unless pitched (timpani, woodblocks, glockenspiel, etc.) and even then it has some noise content.

As far as the "criteria which separate noise from music," it's up to you what criteria you use to draw the line. 
------------------------------------
This part is not for Renaissance, since he doesn't talk about the "movements" throughout music history, or the large factions of listeners, composers, and record company executives who *do *happen to think in broader, more inclusive artistic terms about what music is, or can be. Also, look in any current music history text. History has already validated this broader view, rendering any maverick views as being "fringe." We traditionalists will accept what history has deemed to be.

John Cage was interested in percussion for this very reason, as well as Varése. This approach to music as "just sound" was being explored by them, as electronic music and musique concrète were being developed.

Here's a validation of "noise considered as music," this series of 2-CDs on the Sub Rosa label:

----








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








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


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## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> This part is not for Renaissance, since he doesn't talk about the "movements" throughout music history, or the large factions of listeners, composers, and record company executives who *do *happen to think in broader, more inclusive artistic terms about what music is, or can be. Also, look in any current music history text. History has already validated this broader view, rendering any maverick views as being "fringe." We traditionalists will accept what history has deemed to be.


[Music] history is written by [music] academics...


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## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> [Music] history is written by [music] academics...


And music history is *re-*written by guys on the internet. So it's all crap, is that the desired result? I happen to like music history. Suit yourself.


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## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> And music history is *re-*written by guys on the internet. So it's all crap, is that the desired result? I happen to like music history. Suit yourself.


Haha, nice answer! But still, the judgement calls that are made in music history are therefore primarily made by a specific group of people, which may have a general set of characteristics (biases). Of course, there are also more commercial attempts, but these will I suppose tend to centre around Mozart, Beethoven etc. possibly extending as far forward as Shostakovich and back as Bach, and will be somewhat sensational. I have been called out on quoting from these in the past. Mind you, even from my limited experience, there are some academic articles which sacrifice fact for sensation too!


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## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> Haha, nice answer! But still, the judgement calls that are made in music history are therefore primarily made by a specific group of people, which may have a general set of characteristics (biases). Of course, there are also more commercial attempts, but these will I suppose tend to centre around Mozart, Beethoven etc. possibly extending as far forward as Shostakovich and back as Bach, and will be somewhat sensational. I have been called out on quoting from these in the past. Mind you, even from my limited experience, there are some academic articles which sacrifice fact for sensation too!


So? All you're saying is that history is not science, which we already know. However, historians use a set of criteria to determine their conclusions, and I trust historians more than I trust some guy on the internet in his underwear.


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## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> So? All you're saying is that history is not science, which we already know. However, historians use a set of criteria to determine their conclusions, and I trust historians more than I trust some guy on the internet in his underwear.


Yes, but this isn't about history per se. You were saying that what is written in music history has a greater value as _artistic judgement_, not as _historical fact_ or hypothesis if we must go down that road. You were saying that because something has been validated by current historians it is therefore the mainstream view: other's fringe. Other views may be fringe in the academic world, but that is not the same thing.

And yes, facts should be got straight.


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## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> Yes, but this isn't about history per se. You were saying that what is written in music history has a greater value as _artistic judgement_, not as _historical fact_ or hypothesis if we must go down that road. You were saying that because something has been validated by current historians it is therefore the mainstream view: other's fringe. Other views may be fringe in the academic world, but that is not the same thing...And yes, facts should be got straight.


Art is not facts; it necessarily involves judgement. History tries to consolidate those judgements into a consensus perception. Again, history is not fact, but is a supra-personal consensus based partly on events and/or perceptions which outweigh "fringe" possibilities.

"The sun will set tomorrow." No, that's not a fact, but I would bet money on it. If "the horizon is rising," the net perception is the same.

The newspaper critics who decried Beethoven's music are now rotting in obscurity, while Beethoven's name lives on. History has a way of becoming as good as "fact" as time passes.

If members of this forum try to rewrite John Cage and Varèse out of the historical record as having produced historically significant music, excuse me while I LMAO.


----------



## PetrB

Ramako said:


> [Music] history is written by [music] academics...


Name, please, those better suited _and qualified_ to write it, then.


----------



## Ramako

PetrB said:


> Name, please, those better suited _and qualified_ to write it, then.


Naturally, no one knows more about the facts than academics. I question the mainstream-ness of academic taste if all else is to be called fringe, however, which was what millionrainbows appeared to be asserting. There is certainly a mainstream in the academic world. It doesn't always correlate with everyone else however.


----------



## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> Art is not facts; it necessarily involves judgement. History tries to consolidate those judgements into a consensus perception. Again, history is not fact, but is a supra-personal consensus based partly on events and/or perceptions which outweigh "fringe" possibilities.
> 
> "The sun will set tomorrow." No, that's not a fact, but I would bet money on it. If "the horizon is rising," the net perception is the same.
> 
> The newspaper critics who decried Beethoven's music are now rotting in obscurity, while Beethoven's name lives on. History has a way of becoming as good as "fact" as time passes.
> 
> If members of this forum try to rewrite John Cage and Varèse out of the historical record as having produced historically significant music, excuse me while I LMAO.


Those negative reviewers of Beethoven are frequently raised from the dead to be held accountable for their views. But people raised up other composers on pedestals at the time who are thoroughly forgotten now.

It is all irrelevant anyway. Napoleon was huge in the 19th century, just a historical figure today. That was because he represented a passing philosophical idea very relevant to his time, since become unpopular. If any composer relies on faddish philosophy for his fame it is John Cage, who is better known for what he didn't write than what he did. What matters is what effect the composer has. If he/she has only a small effect, if it be good, then it is better than the composer who has a big effect, but its effect is only for the worse of his/her listeners and for music in general.


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> So? All you're saying is that history is not science, which we already know. However, historians use a set of criteria to determine their conclusions, and I trust historians more than I trust some guy on the internet in his underwear.


What underwear?


----------



## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> So? All you're saying is that history is not science, which we already know. However, historians use a set of criteria to determine their conclusions, and I trust historians more than I trust some guy on the internet in his underwear.





PetrB said:


> What underwear?


Also, is this some guy we're talking about, or just some guy? :lol:


----------



## PetrB

Ramako said:


> Those negative reviewers of Beethoven are frequently raised from the dead to be held accountable for their views. But people raised up other composers on pedestals at the time who are thoroughly forgotten now.
> 
> It is all irrelevant anyway. Napoleon was huge in the 19th century, just a historical figure today. That was because he represented a passing philosophical idea very relevant to his time, since become unpopular. If any composer relies on faddish philosophy for his fame it is John Cage, who is better known for what he didn't write than what he did. What matters is what effect the composer has. If he/she has only a small effect, if it be good, then it is better than the composer who has a big effect, but its effect is only for the worse of his/her listeners and for music in general.


only the most barely informed refer only to John Cage's 4'33'' - and to obliterate your incorrect idea of it, it is a score, with movements, timing, and specific instructions; that means 'he wrote it.' That the plebes have picked up on nothing else is no ones fault but their own.

Music history shifts, according to opinion. It actually sounds like you haven't fully read one of the more encyclopeadic ones other than a Beethoven specific book or such. If you do, Read Groves, the LaRousse Encyclopedia of Music an Musicians, The Penguin diptych from earliest to the latest. Read a vintage copy of Groves, find a miserable and less than complimentary entry on Rachmaninov, whom the particular author of that article clearly did not like, and which the editors let stand. The 'encycopaedic' books are written by a collection of authors, articles on this composer or that farmed out. Then the editors have a go.

Tastes change, opinion, even expert from one generation to the next, shifts. Read enough and you will be able to discern what a sour grapes article on Rachmaninov that was, even if you don't think much of him.

They are all better than some random inexperienced blogger's 'history' or 'best ten' list taken from the internetz.


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## PetrB

Re: NOISE

Noise - in music - is not what, but when and where, very much like in gardening a weed is not a what, but where.

The three elements absolutely any kind of music have in common...
Pitch (not necessarily specific)
Duration (not necessarily 'metric' or 'patterned rhythm)
Intensity

Then we have the even more fundamental premise that music, to call it music, is _organized sound._

From that set of criteria, 'noise' is relative, as are all other parts of what make up 'music.'


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## PetrB

Ramako said:


> Also, is this some guy we're talking about, or just some guy? :lol:


Take your pick, even someone 'anonymous.' Could be a very sage expert, sitting at home, at the computer, and wearing nothing, or, cheap shot, a homeless guy, mentally ill, online at the library. You have to go on the content alone.


----------



## PetrB

Ramako said:


> Naturally, no one knows more about the facts than academics. I question the mainstream-ness of academic taste if all else is to be called fringe, however, which was what millionrainbows appeared to be asserting. There is certainly a mainstream in the academic world. It doesn't always correlate with everyone else however.


Do we advocate a 'alternate' musician's index to what is thought worthy or great? Assembled, zine or published, does that not, too, become 'one-sided' and 'academic?'

Are we talking petty academic or 'sage' academic? Hmmmm? An acquaintance of mine had a comp teacher who was adamant that form, and form still in some context of sonata, symphony, etc. was all that people could ever relate to.... really preaching it from the lectern, so to speak. All around him, from time before, and to present, were existing works which controverted his preference.

'Academics' are human and fallible, like anyone else. My experience was with the least judgmental, most highly demanding of profs, who kept their mouths shut as to their personal preference and steered you to simply writing a 'good piece,' very much including how you chose to go at it. Many are not so fortunate.

Younger people in the academic environment should realize that, while complying. Often enough, even those teachers with the limited views are nonetheless teaching the 'basics' in undergrad, and the young person should take the more distinctly personal opinions delivered along with the technical into consideration, but know they are not 'the law' or the only possibility.

A lot of what you come back with in the way of argument smacks of the supposedly downtrodden student not free to do what they want. For anyone like that, it might be critical to decide if academia is for you, whether you wish instead to stumble through composition on your own, or grab the tools offered -- here's the important part -- to use as you wish when you get a better sense of both music and yourself. No one of any real creativity, or the slightest of personal resolve, is going to be 'bent' or much negatively influenced by an advocate conservative (or 'modernist') theory or comp teacher, especially in undergrad.


----------



## PetrB

Ramako said:


> [Music] history is written by [music] academics...


LOL. ALL history is written by those who prevail and / or those who survive.


----------



## Guest

Ramako said:


> Also, is this some guy we're talking about, or just some guy? :lol:


:lol:

Made _me_ grin.


----------



## Ramako

PetrB said:


> only the most barely informed refer only to John Cage's 4'33'' - and to obliterate your incorrect idea of it, it is a score, with movements, timing, and specific instructions; that means 'he wrote it.'


I was aware of that, but you know what I mean.



PetrB said:


> Music history shifts, according to opinion. It actually sounds like you haven't fully read one of the more encyclopeadic ones other than a Beethoven specific book or such. If you do, Read Groves, the LaRousse Encyclopedia of Music an Musicians, The Penguin diptych from earliest to the latest. Read a vintage copy of Groves, find a miserable and less than complimentary entry on Rachmaninov, whom the particular author of that article clearly did not like, and which the editors let stand. The 'encycopaedic' books are written by a collection of authors, articles on this composer or that farmed out. Then the editors have a go.


I shall look up that article on Rachmaninov, it sounds interesting :lol:

I am curious, what is in an encyclopedic entry on Beethoven, rather than in a specific book? (you are right, I haven't read Beethoven in Grove or anything, and can't until term starts)



PetrB said:


> Do we advocate a 'alternate' musician's index to what is thought worthy or great? Assembled, zine or published, does that not, too, become 'one-sided' and 'academic?'


Well, there isn't much we can do about it, except be aware of it. My favourite, Haydn, has recently (well, from about 50-60 years ago I think) risen greatly in esteem so I'm certainly not complaining entirely! But we could have lived in a time where the Papa Haydn image was the one generally accepted... The times change, and we change with them... There is nothing to do about it, except try and be aware of it.



PetrB said:


> A lot of what you come back with in the way of argument smacks of the supposedly downtrodden student not free to do what they want. For anyone like that, it might be critical to decide if academia is for you, whether you wish instead to stumble through composition on your own, or grab the tools offered -- here's the important part -- to use as you wish when you get a better sense of both music and yourself. No one of any real creativity, or the slightest of personal resolve, is going to be 'bent' or much negatively influenced by an advocate conservative (or 'modernist') theory or comp teacher, especially in undergrad.


Re: my attitude towards academia, my parents are academics, my grandfather is an academic, my uncle is an academic... I have a host of distant-relation academics. In completely different subjects from music, true (mostly maths and physics)... While my attitude might be somewhat skewed on account of these things, it doesn't render it untrue, merely biased :devil:


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## millionrainbows

_*Mainly @ Rennaissance:
All this talk of "academic bias" is totally irrelevant to the historical record. Have you guys read any music encyclopedia or music history lately, even on WIK? They never give opinion on if the music is "good or bad," but just state the historical record.

John Cage and electronic music are both already enshrined in the history of music and its record. It's absurd to even try to question this, no matter how tradition-bound you are.

Cage was very influential in the New York scene of the 1950's, and even if you hate his music, you must acknowledge his infuence. He was the American who welcomed Pierre Boulez on his visit, for God's sake.

This "diss-ing" of established history is just ridiculous, and I've always thought it was one of the most egotistically presumptive argument strategies I have had to deal with. Wake up and smell the coffee.*_


----------



## PetrB

Ramako said:


> I was aware of that, but you know what I mean.
> 
> I shall look up that article on Rachmaninov, it sounds interesting :lol:
> 
> I am curious, what is in an encyclopedic entry on Beethoven, rather than in a specific book? (you are right, I haven't read Beethoven in Grove or anything, and can't until term starts)
> 
> Well, there isn't much we can do about it, except be aware of it. My favourite, Haydn, has recently (well, from about 50-60 years ago I think) risen greatly in esteem so I'm certainly not complaining entirely! But we could have lived in a time where the Papa Haydn image was the one generally accepted... The times change, and we change with them... There is nothing to do about it, except try and be aware of it.
> 
> Re: my attitude towards academia, my parents are academics, my grandfather is an academic, my uncle is an academic... I have a host of distant-relation academics. In completely different subjects from music, true (mostly maths and physics)... While my attitude might be somewhat skewed on account of these things, it doesn't render it untrue, merely biased :devil:


'Bias' has a big time tendency to skew the clinical truth. It is easier to talk plain without one or more of your feet in your mouth.

Mistakes made and at least privately self-acknowledged is a vital process to learn to do, and thereafter a process to embrace and practice, especially if you hope to invent any worthwhile music


----------



## Renaissance

millionrainbows said:


> _*Mainly @ Rennaissance:
> All this talk of "academic bias" is totally irrelevant to the historical record. Have you guys read any music encyclopedia or music history lately, even on WIK? They never give opinion on if the music is "good or bad," but just state the historical record.
> 
> John Cage and electronic music are both already enshrined in the history of music and its record. It's absurd to even try to question this, no matter how tradition-bound you are.
> 
> Cage was very influential in the New York scene of the 1950's, and even if you hate his music, you must acknowledge his infuence. He was the American who welcomed Pierre Boulez on his visit, for God's sake.
> 
> This "diss-ing" of established history is just ridiculous, and I've always thought it was one of the most egotistically presumptive argument strategies I have had to deal with. Wake up and smell the coffee.*_


I don't deny the historical facts. It is as you said. I accept that Hitler was influential too, and many believed his propaganda because it was "right"/"correct". But I also believe that in a normal and sane world, this wouldn't have been the case. You don't have to deal with me, I am fine and I don't want to distract you from your work here. 

The same with Cage. I accept he is famous, but in a normal world this wouldn't have been the case. I don't need others to tell me what to accept and what not. Nor do I need "experts" of any kind to teach me what I can teach myself. Cage, Boulez, etc are all composers who established themselves in history. So what ? Do I have to love their music because of this ?


----------



## millionrainbows

Renaissance said:


> Cage, Boulez, etc are all composers who established themselves in history. So what ? Do I have to love their music because of this ?


No, but in your criticisms you have done more than that. Your general thrust, along with other members here, seems to be to completely invalidate the composers and their music as being "noise created by charlatans."

The "normal world" you speak of (which doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did) seems to vaguely evoke a religious outlook, pessimistic in tone, which longs for "the good old days" when tonality and The Church ruled. It also rings of religiosity in its denial of the "gross material world" we live in, which is controlled by The Devil, and which will ultimately perish as we enter the pure spiritual realm of Heaven.


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## juergen

The normal world is that the question of whether something is music or noise is dependent on the perception of the viewer. There are also people who say that the sound of a Porsche engine is music. Scrooge McDuck would say that the jingling of coins is music. I can accept all that. Therefore, I accept of course that there are people who like the piano sonatas of Boulez. But honestly, to me it sounds like random notes.


----------



## Renaissance

millionrainbows said:


> No, but in your criticisms you have done more than that. Your general thrust, along with other members here, seems to be to completely invalidate the composers and their music as being "noise created by charlatans."
> 
> The "normal world" you speak of (which doesn't exist anymore, if it ever did) seems to vaguely evoke a religious outlook, pessimistic in tone, which longs for "the good old days" when tonality and The Church ruled. It also rings of religiosity in its denial of the "gross material world" we live in, which is controlled by The Devil, and which will ultimately perish as we enter the pure spiritual realm of Heaven.


What you see in others is a reflection of yourself, not me.  I am not religious. But this doesn't mean that the modern society is fine. Actually, there is a kind of religion in it, as it was in the past. Only the "leader" has changed.  But it is still pretty much the same religion, you like it or not. Academicians , people who consider themselves the ultimate experts in their area, scientists who speak nonsense as universal truth, politicians who know what is "best" for us, and so forth. If this is your model of "modern" society and progress, I respect your view but I don't agree with it. Religion is also politics, and always have been. I am not religious, ignorant, stupid, paranoid, I am just a guy who is tired of all these and need to think for myself. Things are really more complicated than you might consider. It is not enough to be on the same line with the "truths" of your time, these are always changing according to the needs of those who spread them.

So, once and for all, I am not interested in such facts, I don't care if a bunch of "academicians" put Cage on a pedestal. It is their opinions. I don't live with their opinions. It is a free world (hell, not) so if I want to listen to 400 years old music only, I have the right to do it. If I want to completely ignore modern music, again, I have the right to do it. (yet). Don't worry, there aren't many people like me on this forum, so I won't make you much trouble.  You can keep promoting your idols, I won't distract you from doing this. I won't tell a single bad word about modern &contemporary composers, I promise you.  I was an "open-minded" listener too, no one believes me.  You can check my first posts to convince yourself that I was interested in contemporary classical music too. It is not that I don't understand it or something.


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## Mahlerian

Renaissance said:


> So, once and for all, I am not interested in such facts, I don't care if a bunch of "academicians" put Cage on a pedestal. It is their opinions. I don't live with their opinions. It is a free world (hell, not) so if I want to listen to 400 years old music only, I have the right to do it. If I want to completely ignore modern music, again, I have the right to do it. (yet). Don't worry, there aren't many people like me on this forum, so I won't make you much trouble.  You can keep promoting your idols, I won't distract you from doing this. I won't tell a single bad word about modern &contemporary composers, I promise you.  I was an "open-minded" listener too, no one believes me.  You can check my first posts to convince yourself that I was interested in contemporary classical music too. It is not that I don't understand it or something.


Of course one can understand Boulez, Schoenberg, and Webern and dislike their music. But if you try to make the leap from that to saying that they have no talent or simply threw together random collections of notes without any aesthetic purpose, then you are factually wrong. Open-mindedness has nothing to do with it. It is not an opinion, it is not up to you, and if you think that, then you clearly and obviously do not understand their music.

Also, there is no need for another Hitler comparison.


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## Renaissance

I didn't say they wrote random notes. I know what serialism is.


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## Mahlerian

Renaissance said:


> I didn't say they wrote random notes. I know what serialism is.


One can write serially and use the notes haphazardly, though, just as you could have a computer generate a random series of notes generated from a diatonic collection. Also, Schoenberg and Webern's early atonal works are neither serial nor in any way random.


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## Guest

Anyway, all this talk about random as if that were a bad thing....

In 2013, no less.

And thinking for oneself is all well and good. But it has to be thinking and not just making stuff up. I think that Mt. Everest is a vast savannah, with gorillas and penguins. Because I think for myself.

(Who decides what thinking is? Just because a bunch of academics, et cetera.... Indeed, most of these discussion do indeed come round to being questions of episteme.)


----------



## Ramako

PetrB said:


> 'Bias' has a big time tendency to skew the clinical truth. It is easier to talk plain without one or more of your feet in your mouth.
> 
> Mistakes made and at least privately self-acknowledged is a vital process to learn to do, and thereafter a process to embrace and practice, especially if you hope to invent any worthwhile music


You are right . I have made a fool of myself on this thread. Never mind.


----------



## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> One can write serially and use the notes haphazardly, though, just as you could have a computer generate a random series of notes generated from a diatonic collection. Also, Schoenberg and Webern's early atonal works are neither serial nor in any way random.


I also didn't say that they wrote random notes. I know very well that the pieces by Schönberg, Boulez etc. are profoundly composed works. I just said that some pieces sound like random notes to my ears.

I often find it very interesting, when someone enthusiastically explains a particular piece and the composer's intentions. Then I listen again to the piece. And I still hear random notes. Serialism is simply a compositional method, which does not work for my ears.

But that's not true at all contemporary. For example I can listen to some pieces by Cage with some pleasure.


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## Mahlerian

juergen said:


> I also didn't say that they wrote random notes. I know very well that the pieces by Schönberg, Boulez etc. are profoundly composed works. I just said that some pieces sound like random notes to my ears.
> 
> I often find it very interesting, when someone enthusiastically explains a particular piece and the composer's intentions. Then I listen again to the piece. And I still hear random notes. Serialism is simply a compositional method, which does not work for my ears.
> 
> But that's not true at all contemporary. For example I can listen to some pieces by Cage with some pleasure.


Rather than serialism, it could just be Schoenberg. What do you think of his tonal works, eg. the Chamber Symphonies and the first String Quartet?


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## BurningDesire

Renaissance said:


> I don't deny the historical facts. It is as you said. I accept that Hitler was influential too, and many believed his propaganda because it was "right"/"correct". But I also believe that in a normal and sane world, this wouldn't have been the case. You don't have to deal with me, I am fine and I don't want to distract you from your work here.
> 
> The same with Cage. I accept he is famous, but in a normal world this wouldn't have been the case. I don't need others to tell me what to accept and what not. Nor do I need "experts" of any kind to teach me what I can teach myself. Cage, Boulez, etc are all composers who established themselves in history. So what ? Do I have to love their music because of this ?


You just compared John Cage to Hitler.... I think we're done here.


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## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> Rather than serialism, it could just be Schoenberg. What do you think of his tonal works, eg. the Chamber Symphonies and the first String Quartet?


No, I don't have a particular problem with Schönberg. I can listen to his early works, like the String Quartet No.1 (although I must admit that they are not really my favorites). But a direct comparison between the String Quartets Nos. 1 and 4 should make it clear what I mean:

No.1:





No. 4:





Although No. 4 is not entirely "serial" it sounds much more like "random notes" than No.1. At least to my ears. But don't get me wrong. I absolutely accept that also No. 4 is a masterpiece. It's just that my ears do not want to understand it.


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## Mahlerian

juergen said:


> No, I don't have a particular problem with Schönberg. I can listen to his early works, like the String Quartet No.1 (although I must admit that they are not really my favorites). But a direct comparison between the String Quartets Nos. 1 and 4 should make it clear what I mean:
> 
> No.1:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> No. 4:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Although No. 4 is not entirely "serial" it sounds much more like "random notes" than No.1. At least to my ears. But don't get me wrong. I absolutely accept that also No. 4 is a masterpiece. It's just that my ears do not want to understand it.


That is interesting. Most people I've met (online or in person) who don't like Schoenberg's atonal/serial works (not the same thing, although the example you gave is indeed serial) don't like his tonal works either, with the possible exception of Verklarte Nacht.

I love all of Schoenberg's string quartets, and wouldn't be without any of them. I can hear that the same person who composed the #1 in D minor composed the 2nd in F# minor, and the 12-tone 3rd and 4th as well. Have you heard his very early (1890s) Quartet in D major? It sounds more like Brahms than Schoenberg (and was in fact approved by the elder master). You might want to check it out, if you haven't.


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## millionrainbows

Renaissance said:


> I don't deny the historical facts. It is as you said. *I accept that Hitler was influential too, and many believed his propaganda because it was "right"/"correct". *But I also believe that in a normal and sane world, this wouldn't have been the case. You don't have to deal with me, I am fine and I don't want to distract you from your work here.
> 
> The same with Cage. I accept he is famous, but in a normal world this wouldn't have been the case. I don't need others to tell me what to accept and what not. Nor do I need "experts" of any kind to teach me what I can teach myself. Cage, Boulez, etc are all composers who established themselves in history. So what ? Do I have to love their music because of this ?





juergen said:


> Although No. 4 is not entirely "serial" it sounds much more like "random notes" than No.1. At least to my ears. But don't get me wrong. I absolutely accept that also No. 4 is a masterpiece. It's just that my ears do not want to understand it.


It's just like Hitler, isn't it? They tried to tell him that all people were human, but he just didn't believe them; he couldn't see the humanity in the 6,000,000 people he killed. He just went ahead and acted on what he saw, and exterminated them.


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## Crudblud

Renaissance said:


> The same with Cage. I accept he is famous, but in a *normal world* this wouldn't have been the case.


I'm curious as to how you define "normal world" when there are no other known worlds to reference. Furthermore, it seems highly unlikely that any of those worlds, if they even exist, would be anything like ours or like each other. So please, tell me what is "normal"?


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## juergen

Mahlerian said:


> Have you heard his very early (1890s) Quartet in D major? It sounds more like Brahms than Schoenberg (and was in fact approved by the elder master). You might want to check it out, if you haven't.


Ah yes, that's more "my" music! You are right, I didn't know it. Thanks for the hint.

(BTW: Have you seen the comments at this video? This one is very funny: "Ah, this is so beautiful. What's the point of atonal music then. Can someone explain me, why 12 tone music is so ugly?" LOL)


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## Mahlerian

juergen said:


> Ah yes, that's more "my" music! You are right, I didn't know it. Thanks for the hint.
> 
> (BTW: Have you seen the comments at this video? This one is very funny: "Ah, this is so beautiful. What's the point of atonal music then. Can someone explain me, why 12 tone music is so ugly?" LOL)


Glad you liked it. It's a surprisingly accomplished work for a young, untried composer, even if he did already have the hairline of a mature composer. Since my ears are accustomed to 12-tone music, it doesn't sound at all inherently ugly, but I understand that it can sound very "different" at times.


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## Faell

As student musicology I can say that there is nothing wrong with tonal music in a 21 century context. If you want to be "new", "original", you certainly don't have to reinvent the sonata form and other well known forms and patterns. If you write today dodecafonic compositions in a traditional way, you'll get the same critic as when you reinvent the classical symphony. Critics will say that you are a copyist. But using existing things as introducing tonality again in a (total) new way isn't bad, and is even interesting.


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## Guest

juergen said:


> Although No. 4 is not entirely "serial" it sounds much more like "random notes" than No.1. *At least to my ears.* But don't get me wrong. I absolutely accept that also No. 4 is a masterpiece. *It's just that my ears do not want to understand it.*


This is very well put, and it raises the question these kinds of discussions raise for me most frequently, and that is why so many people think that their ears are interesting to other people.

We could do a poll!!

(Actually, there is another question all this raises. A much more fundamental question. But perhaps we should save that for later....)


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## Ravndal




----------



## juergen

some guy said:


> This is very well put, and it raises the question these kinds of discussions raise for me most frequently, and that is why so many people think that their ears are interesting to other people.
> 
> We could do a poll!!
> 
> (Actually, there is another question all this raises. A much more fundamental question. But perhaps we should save that for later....)


I totally agree with that. But then we can stop the discussion about music completely. Because everyone can only refer to its own perception. Nobody can listen to music with the ears of others.


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## hreichgott

:/

etkearne, if you're still around, sorry that your OP resulted in such a dogpile. If you post a sample, I'd love to hear whatever you come up with, and to offer feedback that has to do with your actual work.


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## millionrainbows

hreichgott said:


> :/
> 
> etkearne, if you're still around, sorry that your OP resulted in such a dogpile. If you post a sample, I'd love to hear whatever you come up with, and to offer feedback that has to do with your actual work.


I don't feel like we owe etkearne any apology. He ran off and left us early on, saying people get "too involved" online. This post oughta lure him back. Just wait, in an hour he'll be graciously accepting your apology and ignoring me.


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## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> I don't feel like we owe etkearne any apology. He ran off and left us early on, saying people get "too involved" online. This post oughta lure him back. Just wait, in an hour he'll be graciously accepting your apology and ignoring me.


Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I only signed up for the 'roughest' teachers, who were brilliant, completely civil, but rounded off no corners and spared nothing when it came to helping me improve.... They never let even a tender freshman get by with deferential jokes, the slightest of cavalier attitudes, or anything but the most clear and straightforward earnestness of intent, always demanding that attitude from all students about their study and their work -- vague 'I wannas' and 'thought maybe I woulds' all got directly shot down in no gently couched terms -- because those teachers knew it was 'that rough out there.'

[Thinking back further, the age when any coddling or ego stroking from my piano teachers ceased, was about age 11 or 12 -- the antique traditional one where children are supposed to put away their toys, etc. (The same age it is time to stop making a big deal of your birthday  They still knew I was and let me be a kid, of course, but I wouldn't have had a modest journeyman career without those expectations guiding their tutoring.]


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## neoshredder

Any mention of creating tonal music in this modern day will always lure the modernists to criticize your decision. I am not a modernist and will clap my hands at creating beautiful music despite the avant-garde music of nowadays which is far less popular than earlier music.


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## Guest

juergen said:


> I totally agree with that. But then we can stop the discussion about music completely. Because everyone can only refer to its own perception. Nobody can listen to music with the ears of others.


Um, no. Listening is something one can do only with one's own ears. That is true. But that has nothing to do with whether or not anyone's ears are interesting to anyone else. Why do you assume that it's interesting to us to hear over and over again that your ears don't understand late Schoenberg? Why do you think that that's the only way to talk about music? Far from stopping completely, discussion about music would finally be able to open up to something fruitful and useful if we could get away from talking simply about our own ears and their (usually) limitations.

Which brings us back to that more fundamental question I referred to earlier. It's already time to ask that, I think: *What are we really saying when we insist, over and over again, that our ears cannot or do not like this or that?*


----------



## Sid James

hreichgott said:


> :/
> 
> etkearne, if you're still around, sorry that your OP resulted in such a dogpile. If you post a sample, I'd love to hear whatever you come up with, and to offer feedback that has to do with your actual work.


Yes in hindsight posting the work as a 'real' reference point is a good idea. All I can say is that if we go back in history, numerous composers struggled with prejudices against them for not being fully with modern trends. Or going as far with them as some others, as more experimental composers. Among these are Sibelius, Barber and Rachmaninov yet their music has endured regardless of all that (& if anything, is more popular now than it ever was). So?


----------



## Guest

neoshredder said:


> Any mention of creating tonal music in this modern day will always lure the modernists to criticize your decision. I am not a modernist and will clap my hands at creating beautiful music despite the avant-garde music of nowadays which is far less popular than earlier music.


neo, I wish I could do a little shredding right about now, myself. Let me see if I can shred, again, this extraordinarily aggravating position.

Tonal does not equal beautiful. Get over it! TONAL DOES NOT EQUAL BEAUTIFUL. (Did I mention that tonal does not equal beautiful? Well, it doesn't.)

"Beautiful music." Right. What is that? Schoenberg's _Variations_? Vareèse's _Poème électronique_? Penderecki's _Threnody_? Otomo Yoshihide's _Turntable Solo_? Merzbow's _Venereology_? All those things sound very beautiful to my ears. Not to yours? Well, too bad for you. But that doesn't mean this kind of music doesn't get to be called beautiful. Just because you don't happen to like it? Guess what, it does.

And, just for the record, I also find Monteverdi's _Madrigals,_ Bach's _Passions,_ Mozart's _Requiem,_ Beethoven's symphonies, Berlioz' operas, and Schubert's string quartets, for example, to be beautiful as well.

And, finally, for the thirteen trillionth time, what does "popular" have to do with anything?

Right. Nothing. Not a thing.

You really need to get over this idea that your liking or disliking (especially the disliking) means anything important. Maybe your reasons why you like or dislike something. Maybe. If you could talk sensibly and reasonably and descriptively about music without the whole thing being simply one gigantic "I AM NEOSHREDDER AND MY TASTES ARE THE ONLY TASTES WITH VALUE," that would be even better.

"Tonal" and "beautiful" are code for "music that I, neoshredder, can enjoy right away." Where's your spirit of adventure, son? Where, if you personally canna be a wee bit adventurous, is your spirit of fair play, your sense that if other people like music you detest, they should be able to enjoy that and promote that without you whinging about the lack of "beauty," by which all you mean is "pretty."

Gag me.

"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror
which we are barely able to endure, and it amazes us so,
because it serenely disdains to destroy us." --Rilke


----------



## juergen

some guy said:


> Um, no. Listening is something one can do only with one's own ears. That is true. But that has nothing to do with whether or not anyone's ears are interesting to anyone else. Why do you assume that it's interesting to us to hear over and over again that your ears don't understand late Schoenberg? Why do you think that that's the only way to talk about music? Far from stopping completely, discussion about music would finally be able to open up to something fruitful and useful if we could get away from talking simply about our own ears and their (usually) limitations.


Any kind of discussion of music can only relate to personal perceptions. There is no "objective point of view" in music. If you remove all the posts from this forum that deal with personal perception of music, then the forum will be almost empty. 
Examples? From this thread:

"Tonality will always be superior to atonality. It's just the way it is."
"Noise is noise. By it's nature",
"I'm simply saying that most people - myself incuded- do not like comprehend stuff like this"
"If you are seriously suggesting that the following sounds like random notes..."
"I had to stop listening by the 1:03 mark. I got tired of cringing."
"Cringing? Really? At this gorgeous music?"
...

The last post from the list above is from you. Now tell me: What make you belive that we are interested in your opinion that the music to which you are referring here, is "gorgeous"?

BTW: Why do some people not want to accept that the term "tonal music" is an equivalent to "beautiful music"?:lol: (just kidding)


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Any mention of creating tonal music in this modern day will always lure the modernists to criticize your decision. I am not a modernist and will clap my hands at creating beautiful music despite the avant-garde music of nowadays which is far less popular than earlier music.


*Here, slightly revised, so the intent of reminding you of this universally understood maxim is clear:*
*"Beauty is in the ear of the listener."*

Oh, please. Please make an appointment for all of us with those 'detracting atonalists.' Complete silliness, and furthering a synthetic polarity which barely exists except on forums with less than professional musicians.

Those 'modernists' have not said, that I can think of, that 'modern' or 'contemporary' = 'beautiful' and tonal = 'not beautiful.'

It does seem, though, that the more conservative are always QUITE ready to leap on anything not using basic triads (to exaggerate) as 'not beautiful.' It is just absurd.

The 'crusade' to write serial / atonal music wasn't even a crusade, but a fad, and it occupied the late fifties and sixties of the 20th century, after which just about everyone, composer and audience, got on with it and continued moving on.

It is astonishing how many people on this forum seem to be stuck back in time some thirty to forty years ago, and others about a century plus thirteen years ago -- I guess that is where you have to go to get 'evidence' to support an otherwise insupportable argument.

I think anyone here, regardless of 'camp' would be delighted for any of the more initiate composers if and when the come up with anything cohesive -- as long as it is not a complete 'model' copy of a baroque concerto, or like, (which is like showing off your homework assignment, the materials chosen and dictated by the teacher) -- and if the piece has some distinct musical personality.

_I can't recall one posting in this thread which said, "Oh, NO! Don't go tonal - it will be innately ugly." or such...._

It is in a way utterly hopeless and pointless to bring 'Beauty' into a discussion about music, art, literature, etc. Remember, there is an ancient maxim which almost all agree upon as a truth, about the complete subjectivity of 'what is beautiful.' _(Back to the first few lines, above _


----------



## neoshredder

Yeah atonal music has been around for a century now. That style is going out. People writing atonal music are living in the past. Time to go a different direction. Anyways just supporting my boy etkearne for choosing a more tonal style. Don't let anyone change your mind. Btw I'm in support of whatever direction anyone wants to Compose. I'm not an anti-modernist. I'm against those who criticize other peoples Composing styles.


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## StevenOBrien

Ugh.

Just let people compose whatever the hell they want and stop arrogantly "discussing" it, acting as if you have a right to say who should compose what. "Atonality is beautiful", "No! Tonality is beautiful", WHO CARES? If you don't want to listen to something, then don't listen to it, it's none of your concern. If you absolutely loathe all of the music being written today and you feel you have a right to make a difference, then GO COMPOSE SOMETHING YOU LIKE! Why on earth should there be any discussion beyond that? This thread is a joke.

We live in a word today where there doesn't seem to be any single dominant musical "style". The early 21st century will probably be remembered as a period of great eclecticism in classical music. This is great news for all of you people because you have SO much variety and SO much choice in what there is for you to listen to, so you can just go and listen to what you like, and let others listen to what they like.

Other people composing in a style you don't like is of absolutely no concern to you, because there will always be other composers that will be happily composing something that you do like, and the GREATEST part is that even in the rare case where you feel there isn't anything you like, notation software is cheap, virtual instruments are cheap, so again, I ask; Why not go compose something?

Sorry if I'm coming across as a little hostile, but these discussions annoy the hell out of me. Frankly, it's a little annoying to constantly see this thread on top of everything else.


----------



## Praeludium

You can't prevent anyone from arguing and discussing, because it's in the human nature.

And everything would be boring without this aspect of humanity. Everything would be stagnant.


----------



## millionrainbows

StevenOBrien said:


> If you absolutely loathe all of the music being written today and you feel you have a right to make a difference, then GO COMPOSE SOMETHING YOU LIKE! Why on earth should there be any discussion beyond that? This thread is a joke.


The people who are loathing music do not seem to be composers; they are speaking as listeners and critics. What if they are newspaper reviewers or bloggers? What if they influence what people listen to and consume? What if they attack _your_ music? _What if they get you banned from this forum, depriving you of the means to show and promote your music?_



StevenOBrien said:


> We live in a word today where there doesn't seem to be any single dominant musical "style". The early 21st century will probably be remembered as a period of great eclecticism in classical music.


This is not a question of "style;" these critics want to rewrite history, and plan to leave John Cage out of it! These critics want to exclude Milton Babbitt, Boulez, and Stockhausen from being discussed in a classical forum, because they want to exclude these composers from the Western classical tradition!



StevenOBrien said:


> Sorry if I'm coming across as a little hostile, but these discussions annoy the hell out of me. Frankly, it's a little annoying to constantly see this thread on top of everything else.


Then don't get hostile with me for defending the integrity of the music I like. This is a battle of ideas, and these critics wish to dominate this forum and eliminate all that they do not deem "desirable."

If you think this is an exaggeration, I was "run-out" of another CM forum because of this. I see this as a very serious bttle, with possible "banning from the forum" being the stakes; a "fight to the virtual death."

As one of the critics from that other forum posted after my banning:

*"Banned posters are unpersons. They do not exist. They never existed. Their posts have not been deleted because there were never any posts from the beginning."

"An unperson is a person who has been...effectively erased from existence. Such a person would be written out of existing books, photographs, and articles so that no trace of their existence could be found in the historical record.... Mentioning his or her name, or even speaking of their past existence, is thoughtcrime."*

Much to this person's chagrin, and the lack of common respect evident in leaving these posts up without deleting them, and then having the nerve to follow me over to this forum and expect interaction, *I still do exist,* and plan to fight the good fight hereafter. If you find this distracting, so be it.


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## Ravndal

An example of beauty of atonal music 




oh the transition from tonal to atonal :kiss:


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## mmsbls

A couple of comments to cool things down a bit:

1) If you think a thread is garbage/useless/stupid/etc., you can always ignore the thread. It's _very_ easy to do. If you feel there are violations of the Terms of Service, contact moderators (report posts or PM).

2) No one "can get you banned" from this forum. Only _you_ can post in a manner that accomplishes that. While some posts or posters may raise your blood pressure, _by far_ the most effective responses are explicitly those that do not violate the Terms of Service.


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## StevenOBrien

millionrainbows said:


> The people who are loathing music do not seem to be composers; they are speaking as listeners and critics. What if they are newspaper reviewers or bloggers? What if they influence what people listen to and consume? What if they attack _your_ music? _What if they get you banned from this forum, depriving you of the means to show and promote your music?_
> 
> This is not a question of "style;" these critics want to rewrite history, and plan to leave John Cage out of it! These critics want to exclude Milton Babbitt, Boulez, and Stockhausen from being discussed in a classical forum, because they want to exclude these composers from the Western classical tradition!


I'm not exclusively referring to people who are already composers. Everyone has an opportunity to become one if they so wish it, and they're probably at a great advantage if they come into the practice with their own original ideas on how to approach it. Every music lover should attempt to compose at least one piece of music in their life, in my opinion.

A reviewer or a blogger cannot change someone's innate tastes, and I'd even go as far as arguing that a person cannot change their own tastes either. From my admittedly limited experience, I believe that tastes are absolutely set in stone from the day someone is born, and that growing to like composers that someone once disliked is a process of finding ways to fit such works into their existing set of tastes, not changing their tastes to fit the works.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous to think, for instance, that a simple newspaper article can suddenly make a Mozart lover decide that they now hate everything related Mozart and never want to listen to him again. Perhaps in the case of an uniformed Wagner lover, one can read up on his antisemitic views and feel guilty about listening to his music due to this external influence, but the tastes themselves cannot be changed.

Maybe your argument leans a little towards the latter example, and in that case, maybe it does have some validity. If that is the case, however, I believe that any fight being fought should not be to defend your style of music from people who are apparently bigoted enough to be "against" it, but rather to educate the people who are naive enough to fall into such traps, and make damn sure that they know that it's absolutely okay to listen to the music that they can't help but like, no matter what other people have to say about it.

We're all human (to my knowledge ) and we're still susceptible to following people who seem like genuine figures of authority, and to holding the view that there is one universal right way of doing things, that there's an objective good and bad to everything that must be sought out.

Also, I love it when someone "attacks" my music, because it allows me to see things from their perspective which I would not be able to see from my own. If what they say is not agreeable to my ultimate compositional goals, however, if what they say does resonate with me in some way, then it can only help me to better write music the way I want to write it, if that makes sense.



millionrainbows said:


> Then don't get hostile with me for defending the integrity of the music I like. This is a battle of ideas, and these critics wish to dominate this forum and eliminate all that they do not deem "desirable."


Again, be broader and defend the rights of everyone to hold their own tastes! In my opinion, the best way to defend your music from such people is to defy them and discuss the hell out of the composers that you want to discuss.



millionrainbows said:


> If you think this is an exaggeration, I was "run-out" of another CM forum because of this. I see this as a very serious bttle, with possible "banning from the forum" being the stakes; a "fight to the virtual death."
> 
> As one of the critics from that other forum posted after my banning:
> 
> *"Banned posters are unpersons. They do not exist. They never existed. Their posts have not been deleted because there were never any posts from the beginning."
> 
> "An unperson is a person who has been...effectively erased from existence. Such a person would be written out of existing books, photographs, and articles so that no trace of their existence could be found in the historical record.... Mentioning his or her name, or even speaking of their past existence, is thoughtcrime."*
> 
> Much to this person's chagrin, and the lack of common respect evident in leaving these posts up without deleting them, and then having the nerve to follow me over to this forum and expect interaction, *I still do exist,* and plan to fight the good fight hereafter. If you find this distracting, so be it.


I mean absolutely no offense, but I really don't think that things are as bad as you make them out to be. It's only a serious issue if you enable it to be one.



mmsbls said:


> 1) If you think a thread is garbage/useless/stupid/etc., you can always ignore the thread. It's _very_ easy to do. If you feel there are violations of the Terms of Service, contact moderators (report posts or PM).


Yes, you're right, I apologize, I was being a little immature. It's just a little frustrating that this exact discussion seems to happen over and over again, yet nobody seems to learn that much from it, and every new discussion is going right back to square one. That's just the way I see it, at least.


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## millionrainbows

StevenOBrien said:


> It's just a little frustrating that this exact discussion seems to happen over and over again, yet nobody seems to learn that much from it, and every new discussion is going right back to square one. That's just the way I see it, at least.


You have made some excellent points, OBrien, and I'm figuring out a way to "retire" from battle. The first thing I will do is discard the term "atonal," along with its evil twin "tonal," and speak in more precise and specific terms.


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