# I know of another reason why Schoenberg objected to the term "atonality"



## millionrainbows

I know of another reason why Schoenberg objected to the term "atonality," but nobody has ever mentioned it. 

Does anyone know the reason I'm referring to? It seems like a perfect reason to me, and for me, at least, it explains everything.


----------



## Mahlerian

Because it's nonsense?


----------



## millionrainbows

No, and before I reveal what it is, let's give the thread some time to attract those who might know, or have some ideas on this. It's a very simple reason, which has next to nothing to do with whether the term is nonsensical or not, and everything to do with human nature.

If Mahlerian knows, due to his encyclopedic knowledge of music, it will also require him to be much more specific in his reasoning. I want details.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> If Mahlerian knows, due to his encyclopedic knowledge of music, it will also require him to be much more specific in his reasoning. I want details.


I've explained my reasoning before, and people on this forum persist in not understanding it.

As the terms are normally understood, atonality is either not meant literally (as usually in academic texts) or it is self-contradictory.

It would be much more helpful to understanding if we talked about what is actually going on in the music harmonically and melodically without appealing to concepts like atonality. In my years here, the number of extended discussions about Schoenberg's actual music, and not irrelevant ideas like atonality, can be counted on one hand.

Imagine, we could treat his music like...music!


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I've explained my reasoning before, and people on this forum persist in not understanding it.
> 
> As the terms are normally understood, atonality is either not meant literally (as usually in academic texts) or it is self-contradictory.
> 
> It would be much more helpful to understanding if we talked about what is actually going on in the music harmonically and melodically without appealing to concepts like atonality. In my years here, the number of extended discussions about Schoenberg's actual music, and not irrelevant ideas like atonality, can be counted on one hand.
> 
> Imagine, we could treat his music like...music!


No, no, this has nothing to do with any of that. You're not even close.


----------



## KenOC

If you write the word "atonal" twice, it has 13 letters counting the space between the two words. There.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I've explained my reasoning before, and people on this forum persist in not understanding it.


That's not our fault. Maybe you are not communicating the idea well enough.



> As the terms are normally understood, atonality is either not meant literally (as usually in academic texts)…


If these texts you refer to do not mean the term 'literally,' you must think that 'atonal' refers simplistically to 'tone' as a sound, a pitch, or a timbre. This is a mistaken notion.



> ...or it is self-contradictory.


I think I see the distinction you are making. Not taking the term 'tone' 'literally' is not the mistake texts are making, because they are not taking 'tone' out of context; they are referring to 'tonality' as a system, not 'tone' as a sound.

'Self contradictory,' would be extracting the term 'tone' from 'atonal' and interpreting it literally, as in 'a sound.' You should not extract the term "tone" from 'atonal' in this literal way, because 'tonal' is the keyword which refers to an hierarchical system.

Not 'tone' as a sound, but 'tonal' as in 'atonal,' which is a system of music which is not using the tonal hierarchy.

You are misreading the term 'tone,' and your rebuttal on those grounds, that it is contradictory, only makes sense if you are taking the word 'tonal' to mean 'a sound,' 'a pitch,' 'a timbre,' or 'muscle-tone.'



> It would be much more helpful to understanding if we talked about what is actually going on in the music harmonically and melodically without appealing to concepts like atonality. In my years here, the number of extended discussions about Schoenberg's actual music, and not irrelevant ideas like atonality, can be counted on one hand.


The texts you refer to ARE talking about 'what is actually going on in the music harmonically and melodically.' They are using it to identify a certain system of composition.



> Imagine, we could treat his music like...music!


I gather from this that you think 'atonal' ALSO means 'unmusical' or 'not music.' Please define what you think the 'mistake' is. Now you are adding a new meaning to it, which has resonances which go beyond 'sound' as a tone.


----------



## millionrainbows

BTW, my secret reason has nothing to do with any of this.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> If you write the word "atonal" twice, it has 13 letters counting the space between the two words. There.


Ken, I will do you the rare honor of actually recognizing your existence as a 'person', because I think you might be the only person here who could even get close to the answer. This is judging from your past postings and general knowledge of music history.


----------



## millionrainbows

BTW, it's just 'another reason,' as I said in the opening post. There is no guarantee that anyone will agree or disagree with it; but I do think it is a key bit of information that has been left out of this long, long debate.


----------



## Xenakiboy

Mahlerian said:


> IImagine, we could treat his music like...music!


That'd be the day!! :angel:


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

Could it be his _triskaidekaphobia?_


----------



## Mahlerian

See? I'm misunderstood once again. Obviously I didn't mean tone in the sense you're talking about. I'm perfectly aware that you mean "tonal" as in a system of tonality.

The thing is, if you try to make atonal mean "not tonal," it's either in relation to a very specific, restricted sense of tonality or it's going to be self-contradictory. That's what I've been saying this whole time and if you don't understand it by now, I really wonder what you HAVE been reading from my posts.

Also, I meant "discussing it as music, rather than as some theoretical abstraction or demonstrative of some technique." You know, the way we discuss any other music without all this recourse to talking about how it was put together. That latter isn't really important to Schoenberg's music compared to the actual music itself, which is so vital, so lyrical and expressive. Techniques and theories are pointless in the face of art.


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> I've explained my reasoning before, and people on this forum persist in not understanding it.
> 
> As the terms are normally understood, atonality is either not meant literally (as usually in academic texts) or it is self-contradictory.
> 
> It would be much more helpful to understanding if we talked about what is actually going on in the music harmonically and melodically without appealing to concepts like atonality. In my years here, the number of extended discussions about Schoenberg's actual music, and not irrelevant ideas like atonality, can be counted on one hand.
> 
> Imagine, we could treat his music like...music!


We understand. Some of us just think you are wrong.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> We understand. Some of us just think you are wrong.


But you yourself were saying that there were things you considered neither tonal nor atonal. Surely then atonal means more than simply its literal connotation for you.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

'Dodecaphonism' is 13 letters wide.


----------



## Pugg

Richannes Wrahms said:


> 'Dodecaphonism' is 13 letters wide.


I count them and you are right.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> See? I'm misunderstood once again. Obviously I didn't mean tone in the sense you're talking about. I'm perfectly aware that you mean "tonal" as in a system of tonality.
> 
> The thing is, if you try to make atonal mean "not tonal," it's either in relation to a very specific, restricted sense of tonality or it's going to be self-contradictory. That's what I've been saying this whole time and if you don't understand it by now, I really wonder what you HAVE been reading from my posts.


Then the real problem is that you don't see how modernist musical thought, as in Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartok, etc, is still essentially tonal, even though it may use modernist ideas, such as different octave division, local areas of seed-centricity, etc.; as well as in many cases having a much weaker sense of tone-centricity.

Apparently you haven't made the connection between tonal music and harmonic principles which relate to other 'less tonal' music. Both are essentially tonal, since both are based on harmonic principles, although the latter may have a much weaker sense of tone centricity. They are both still 'harmonic' forms of music, for numerous reasons which can both be heard and demonstrated.

As I said about Debussy, it doesn't matter if the whole-tone scale has no 'root,' it is still a construct which relates to the tonal system, and more importantly, it is a scale, or can be used as one. 'Harmonic' means that it follows a harmonic hierarchy of some sort.

As soon as you realize that tonality, and harmonic constructs, are both essentially tonal, then you can proceed.

The dividing line is 12-tone, and ordered rows. This ordering obliterates any harmonic or tonal hierarchy, and replaces it with the row order.

That doesn't mean 12-tone music is not 'harmonic sounding,' because, after all, it is sound. Tensions can be created between stacked 'chords' and can follow a definite logic of tension and release, and the results can be quite beautiful. But these areas of harmonic tension are not derived from a harmonic hierarchy, but are based solely on their 'self contained' sonance, unrelated to harmonic models or tonality. You have to be able to make this distinction. As well, I maintain that it is audible.



> Also, I meant "discussing it as music, rather than as some theoretical abstraction or demonstrative of some technique." You know, the way we discuss any other music without all this recourse to talking about how it was put together. That latter isn't really important to Schoenberg's music compared to the actual music itself, which is so vital, so lyrical and expressive. Techniques and theories are pointless in the face of art.


Well, the reason Woodduck and I keep bringing up these technical issues of hierarchies, etc, is because you refuse to recognize that 12-tone is a "game-changer," in that it negates the tonal hierarchy.

I agree that Schoenberg's 12 tone music is great, but I know it is not tonal, or based on tonal principles except in the sense that he created these tonal allusions; they are not a "no-brainer" part of the music as tonality's meta-structures are. The 12-tone method is just a method, not an integrated syntax.


----------



## millionrainbows

@Mahlerian (who else? Pugg? ha ha) Another thing I have a problem with; why should your rejection of the term 'atonality' mean that, as an additional requirement, that Schoenberg's 12-tone music is tonal? 

I don't see how the rejection of the term should necessarily lead us to that conclusion. It gives the term too much power.

The issue is confused; not only do you reject the term 'atonality,' but it seems to have driven you to maintain the converse, that Schoenberg's music is not 'atonal' but is 'tonal.' 

That seems like a simplistic conclusion, based on negating the term, not how the music is constructed.

One is led to believe that you think NO music is non-tonal, even hard-core serialism like Boulez. Or is this only in regard to Schoenberg? 

I think a good case could be made (and the post-war generation already came to this conclusion) that as early as Webern, music was being composed that for all intents and purposes, was 'not tonal,' i.e. "atonal."


----------



## millionrainbows

BTW, the answer to the OP will be released on September 30, to commemorate the expiration of my infraction which went into effect in the Spring, and has lasted throughout the entire Summer. (unless somebody gets the reason)


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> @Mahlerian (who else? Pugg? ha ha) Another thing I have a problem with; why should your rejection of the term 'atonality' mean that, as an additional requirement, that Schoenberg's 12-tone music is tonal?
> 
> I don't see how the rejection of the term should necessarily lead us to that conclusion. It gives the term too much power.
> 
> The issue is confused; not only do you reject the term 'atonality,' but it seems to have driven you to maintain the converse, that Schoenberg's music is not 'atonal' but is 'tonal.'
> 
> That seems like a simplistic conclusion, based on negating the term, not how the music is constructed.
> 
> One is led to believe that you think NO music is non-tonal, even hard-core serialism like Boulez. Or is this only in regard to Schoenberg?
> 
> I think a good case could be made (and the post-war generation already came to this conclusion) that as early as Webern, music was being composed that for all intents and purposes, was 'not tonal,' i.e. "atonal."


It is because YOUR OWN definitions of tonal require that atonal music also be tonal by definition. Your definitions are so broad that they must necessarily encompass all music, bar none. The only reason they don't is because you're adding on ad hoc hypotheses, as in the following:

- All things that are gold are made of the chemical element Au.

- Gold rings are not made of Au because they are round.

- Golden spheres are still Au though.

You're appealing to irrelevant characteristics like the 12-tone method to justify your division between tonality and atonality, a distinction which I can't even perceive as you define the terms.

Like I've said in the past, the way you define tonality and tonal centers, I hear tonal centers throughout Schoenberg. Very clear ones too. It's not a question of theory or something I'm looking for, it's just something that's right there and I can't NOT perceive it even if I tried.


----------



## Gordontrek

September 30? I'll be old then!!
Curious to know how many pages you two plan to go back and forth until then....
But in the meantime, if I may ask, does it have something to do with his rejection in his home country (Austria during the Third Reich years) because of his being Jewish?


----------



## millionrainbows

Gordontrek said:


> September 30? I'll be old then!!
> Curious to know how many pages you two plan to go back and forth until then....
> But in the meantime, if I may ask, does it have something to do with his rejection in his home country (Austria during the Third Reich years) because of his being Jewish?


No, that's not it. It also has nothing to do with whatever meaning the term "atonality" has. There was a good reason why Schoenberg objected to the term 'atonal,' and nobody has ever mentioned it, to my knowledge.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

That it resembles the word 'Adonai' ? 
Nobody ever has any idea where are you going with anything.


----------



## millionrainbows

Gordontrek said:


> September 30? I'll be old then!!


Yes, I thought that it was rather a long time as well.


----------



## Bulldog

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, I thought that it was rather a long time as well.


So be a reasonable guy and shorten it.


----------



## millionrainbows

Bulldog said:


> So be a reasonable guy and shorten it.


I'm still waiting to see if KenOC or anybody comes up with some info. It's out there, readily available.


----------



## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> We understand. Some of us just think you are wrong.


Hey! I was going to say that!

I am still waiting for some clear, comprehensible examples of "tonality" in Schoenberg's 12-tone music. A few suggestions have been made, and it's obvious to me that none of them demonstrate any tonal system at work. My post of today here:

http://www.talkclassical.com/4505-arnold-schoenberg-1874-1951-a-45.html#post1100430

mentions a few of my own efforts to find genuine tonal resolutions in the concluding bars of a few works. For the reasons I give there, the nearest I can find are "pseudo-tonal" or "quasi-tonal" tricks not grounded in the principles of "the method," and thus irrelevant to the basic nature of the music.

An individual's insistence that he hears "tonal centers" in Schoenberg (and in Boulez and Wuorinen?) can hardly be expected to weigh heavily in favor of the presence of tonality. Would anyone accept that as sufficient evidence that there is tonality in Monteverdi, Bach, Wagner, Debussy, or Shostakovich? If there were really an unbridgeable opposition between theory and someone's ears, a choice between them might be arbitrary. But if there's tonality to the ear, it ought, after a hundred years, to be recognizable on the page, both as notes on the staff and as theory. And it ought not to be so convoluted and arcane - in either location - as to be unrecognizable as tonality to highly sensitive and knowledgeable musicians. Such people do not go on referring to Schoenberg's dodecaphony as "atonal" out of sheer perversity, but because they are convinced the term actually means something.

If Schoenberg merely substituted one tonal system for another (say, "System X" for "Common Practice"), we need to know the laws of that system. If he didn't do that, we need to know in what sense, and by what means, the resulting music can be identified as "tonal." Otherwise, ATONAL it is!


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Such people do not go on referring to Schoenberg's dodecaphony as "atonal" out of sheer perversity, but because they are convinced the term actually means something.


CLUE: The term came into use, but the reason it came into use was not as a perjorative term.



> If Schoenberg merely substituted one tonal system for another (say, "System X" for "Common Practice"), we need to know the laws of that system. If he didn't do that, we need to know in what sense, and by what means, the resulting music can be identified as "tonal." Otherwise, ATONAL it is!


Here is the real problem. If we wish to distinguish 12-tone music from other forms of modernism, a basically "exclusionary" process (called non-tonal if you wish), then to convince Mahlerian, it will also be necessary to provide an "inclusionary" definition or set of requirements which includes almost all the music by Debussy, Stravinsky (excluding his 12-tone works), Bartok, Shostakovich, etc.
I have been calling this kind of modernism "harmonic" music, or music which exhibits principles based on harmonic models. _Note that "harmonic" is used not as a noun, but an adjective here._

These harmonic principles are what tie it, however loosely, to music that is largely tonal. 
Tone-centricity is no longer the key issue here, since tonality in many of these cases is weak to non-existent in terms of tone-centricity, key areas, and the like.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> These harmonic principles are what tie it, however loosely, to music that is largely tonal.
> Tone-centricity is no longer the key issue here, since tonality in many of these cases is weak to non-existent in terms of tone-centricity, key areas, and the like.


Oh, so tonality that's non-tonal, but not pseudo-tonal, which would be atonal. Makes perfect sense.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I am still waiting for some clear, comprehensible examples of "tonality" in Schoenberg's 12-tone music. A few suggestions have been made, and it's obvious to me that none of them demonstrate any tonal system at work….the nearest I can find are "pseudo-tonal" or "quasi-tonal" tricks not grounded in the principles of "the method," and thus irrelevant to the basic nature of the music.


The problem is, this could be said of lots of other modernist examples as well. We still need to identify exactly what principles or qualities are at work which still distinguish 12-tone as definitively "non tonal" even next to other "pseudo-tonal" or "quasi-tonal" works; otherwise, 12-tone is indistinguishable from these, which is the crux of Mahlerian's argument of why not to distinguish 12-tone.

My solution is to identify harmonic principles which connect these forms of "quasi-tonality" to tonality, which are in these other forms of modernism (Debussy, Shostakovich) which the ear recognizes as a form of "the harmonic logic of hearing." Howard Hanson and Vincent Persichetti have already done this.

My ear does not recognize these harmonic elements in 12-tone and other "atonal" music, because these forms are not based on harmonic hierarchies to any extent. We may hear "harmonic tensions" which ebb and flow according to their self-contained, self-referential sonances and interval qualities, but these are self-referential in that they do not relate to harmonic hierarchies or harmonic principles such as interval-content of scales which cover octaves. Even unordered hexads in 12-tone cannot accomplish this, as 12-tone is inherently a 12-note system which must constantly change.



> An individual's insistence that he hears "tonal centers" in Schoenberg (and in Boulez and Wuorinen?) can hardly be expected to weigh heavily in favor of the presence of tonality. Would anyone accept that as sufficient evidence that there is tonality in Monteverdi, Bach, Wagner, Debussy, or Shostakovich? If there were really an unbridgeable opposition between theory and someone's ears, a choice between them might be arbitrary. But if there's tonality to the ear, it ought, after a hundred years, to be recognizable on the page, both as notes on the staff and as theory. And it ought not to be so convoluted and arcane - in either location - as to be unrecognizable as tonality to highly sensitive and knowledgeable musicians. Such people do not go on referring to Schoenberg's dodecaphony as "atonal" out of sheer perversity, but because they are convinced the term actually means something.


This is the ear hearing harmonically. Whether or not it is "tonal" is now beside the point, really. This needs to be approached from the harmonic angle, and the fact that tonality is based on harmonic principles needs to be explored in more specific detail, in order to articulate the similarities in harmonic models and principles with "tonality." Both are derived from the same source, and that is what will articulate the position that 12-tone principles are not harmonic in the sense that tonality is.


> If Schoenberg merely substituted one tonal system for another (say, "System X" for "Common Practice"), we need to know the laws of that system. If he didn't do that, we need to know in what sense, and by what means, the resulting music can be identified as "tonal." Otherwise, ATONAL it is!


Still we need to emphasize the harmonic aspects; "tonality" won't cut it, as tonality had already been weakened.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Oh, so tonality that's non-tonal, but not pseudo-tonal, which would be atonal. Makes perfect sense.


For the reasons you sarcastically demonstrate, "tonality" is no longer up to the task of this discussion.

Neither is "diatonic function."

I'm afraid that Mahlerian is going to have to let go of his definitions for a moment, and actually think about these things.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> My ear does not recognize these harmonic elements in 12-tone and other "atonal" music, because these forms are not based on harmonic hierarchies to any extent. We may hear "harmonic tensions" which ebb and flow according to their self-contained, self-referential sonances and interval qualities, but these are self-referential in that they do not relate to harmonic hierarchies or harmonic principles such as interval-content of scales which cover octaves. Even unordered hexads in 12-tone cannot accomplish this, as 12-tone is inherently a 12-note system which must constantly change,


My ear doesn't recognize any difference in kind between the works you label as modernist tonal and the ones you call non-tonal. The difference is the use of non-triadic harmony, as far as I can tell. Otherwise, the principles of construction and contrast are the same, with similar methods of establishing hierarchy and prominence of certain tones over others.

Your only reasons for saying that 12-tone music is non-harmonic seem to be completely circular. You're saying that it's non-harmonic because it's not based on the harmonic model. This doesn't explain anything, and once again, I have no clue what you're talking about. I know that when I write 12-tone music I think about it harmonically as well as melodically and rhythmically and so forth, and that Schoenberg felt the same way. Boulez used harmonic fields in his music within which he could freely play with the elements he had chosen. I don't see the rationale or the point of distinguishing some treatments of harmonies as "non-harmonic."


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> You're saying that it's non-harmonic because it's not based on the harmonic model.


Be careful that you do not use the phrase "the harmonic model," but only "a harmonic model."

Any problem with that distinction?


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Be careful that you do not use the phrase "the harmonic model," but only "a harmonic model."
> 
> Any problem with that distinction?


Yes, now I have even less of an idea what you're talking about. I can't understand how you conceive some harmonic relationships, such as those found in 12-tone works, to be non-harmonic.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Boulez used harmonic fields in his music within which he could freely play with the elements he had chosen.


Boulez had already freed himself from many of the restrictions of the 12-tone method. By this time, "pitch" was not his concern, or the dialectic of "tonal vs. atonal," which by Boulez' time had been discarded for other concerns.

Boulez' music is not connected to what I call 'harmonic models' which are based on relation to a fundamental pitch, and which exerts a meta-structural influence over the materials. Whatever "harmonic fields" are there, he created the circumstances and conditions under which they operate as harmonic, for reasons of timbre and color, not "tonality," which by this time was old-hat.

The 12-tone method and its requirements are basically what exclude it from what are other harmonically-based methods of composition, whatever those "system X's" or quasi-tonalities happen to be; if I hear it, I know it.

So instead of justifying and explaining all the disparate ways of composing which come under the umbrella of 'harmonic,' and which relates them to the same source as tonality, which would be a gargantuan task, we merely need to identify those elements of 12-tone thinking which make it an inherently non-harmonic form.

These elements are:

1.) The row is ordered, unlike a scale. Therefore it has restricted interval relations; "only to each other" as Schoenberg himself said.

2.) 12-tone is an inherently 12-note form of music; all 12 notes are in circulation all the time. This automatically weakens tonality. The more notes that are present, the more interval relations are present, which creates redundancies to the point that there is no harmonic limiting factor. Tonality is the result of not only what is there, but what is left out.

3.) "Tonality" becomes almost a moot issue, anyway. Schoenberg devised the 12-tone system as a way of continuing and controlling a musical texture which was already chromatic, with a weakened sense of tonality. How can one hear 'tonality' in an environment which is already on the verge of non-tonality?

4.) If the ordered row is treated as 'thematic' or linear 'melodic' material, it follows no tonal or harmonic logic, since all 12 notes must be used.

5.) If the ordered row is treated as a series of "root" movements or stations, it follows no tonal progressional goal except that of the row order. Harmonic reference is gone.

6.) Even if strategies such as hexads are used, and these are "combined" with hexads of similar content (not order), then a quasi-harmonic situation is created, but this can only be fleeting, as the other 6 notes must be used.

7.) A word on hexads: this is related to a principle known as 'complementary' scales. The C diatonic scale, C-D-E-F-G-A-B, has a complement of whatever notes are left over out of the total chromatic, and this is F#-G#-A#-C#-D#, a pentatonic scale which can be called a C# major pentatonic. Note the tritone relationship, and hear that it is harmonically about as far away from C major as the ear can get.

This is true of the WT scale as well; it is basically a "hexad," and there are two of them, a semitone apart: C-D-D-F#-G#-A# and C#-D#-F-G-A-B. Debussy and Berg both exploited this principle, of creating two areas of harmonic 'tonality' which are distinctly different and provide contrast.

The same principle holds true of any two hexads: they will be complements, and will have maximum contrast and difference. This is not good for creating any kind of "harmonic unity" from the 12-tone row; intact, it does just the opposite: it creates maximum difference, clash, and contrast.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, now I have even less of an idea what you're talking about. I can't understand how you conceive some harmonic relationships, such as those found in 12-tone works, to be non-harmonic.


I didn't say "non-harmonic," but only that they are not based on an overriding harmonic set of relations which involve every note, i.e, an hierarchy. The fact that 12-tone is using all 12 notes, contributes greatly to this.

You would likewise be hard-pressed to find anything harmonically distinguishing in highly chromatic music composed without the 12-tone method.

_"...these forms are not based on harmonic hierarchies to any extent. We may hear "harmonic tensions" which ebb and flow according to their *self-contained, self-referential sonances and interval qualities,* but these are self-referential in that *they do not relate to harmonic hierarchies or harmonic principles such as interval-content of scales which cover octaves."*_


----------



## millionrainbows

CLUE: Can you write the word "atonal" in German?


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> CLUE: Can you write the word "atonal" in German?


In German it is "atonal ".


----------



## millionrainbows

Traverso said:


> In German it is "atonal ".


I've seen it spelled much differently. And this is a clue, remember; it should lead you somewhere else.


----------



## millionrainbows

The short version from me is: I can instantly hear Schoenberg as being non-tonal and different from almost all other modernism. 

Reasons why: it is chromatic, using all 12 notes all the time, therefore gives no sense of tonality; (unlike Stravinsky, Orff)

It is 'classical' in syntax, meaning it is about traditional materials of pitch and rhythm, not pure, abstracted 'sound' per se; (unlike Varese)

It is not as harmonic sounding as music composed and freely-drawn from scales; (unlike Debussy, or Shostakovich)

It has no consistent-through-time, prominent or distinct acoustic sonorities (harmonic effects) which would be created by limiting the number of notes (sonorities must be extractions from the set of 12 notes, other wise they are a cluster with no color); (unlike Stravinsky, Bartok)

It is not as repetitive as music freely-drawn from scales, or which would be created by limiting the number of notes; it changes constantly, in a state of harmonic unrest (unlike everything else)


----------



## clavichorder

Richannes Wrahms said:


> That it resembles the word 'Adonai' ?
> Nobody ever has any idea where are you going with anything.


The thinking of this man...phenomenal.

I will probably puzzle over this thread lightly until the answer is released.


----------



## Xinver

I can't understand how Schönberg's model (atonality, pantonality, contratonality, whatever....) can be a non-harmonic system. The fact that there is no harmonic hierarchy means that the harmony is non-functional, but there is harmony.
But where there are two or more pitches, there is harmony. A different thing is that there is not a theory about dodecaphonic atonal harmony. When I studied this system, I spent lots of time analysing every kind of chord (formed by two to twelve notes), and how to make harmony sound soft or hard (which is one of the essentials here for the tension-relax cycle).
Besides, a 12-tone scale can be totally tonal and functional. The Axis system of Bartok says so.

Tonal functional = common period
Tonal non functional = impressionism and others
Atonal (non functional) = Schönberg
Modal ("functional" in other terms different from tonality)
Any scale of 1, 2, 3, ..... 8, 10, 11, 12 pitches or grades = some can be used like modal


----------



## Barbebleu

Millionrainbows vs Mahlerian - the very definition of irresistible force meets immovable object. Unlike the term 'atonal' which seems to defy definition!! :lol:


----------



## millionrainbows

Xinver said:


> I can't understand how Schönberg's model (atonality, pantonality, contratonality, whatever....) can be a non-harmonic system. The fact that there is no harmonic hierarchy means that the harmony is non-functional, but there is harmony.
> But where there are two or more pitches, there is harmony.


If you want to take the term 'harmony' literally, that's correct.



> A different thing is that there is not a theory about dodecaphonic atonal harmony. When I studied this system, I spent lots of time analysing every kind of chord (formed by two to twelve notes), and how to make harmony sound soft or hard (which is one of the essentials here for the tension-relax cycle).


That's correct; dodecaphony has all kinds of harmonic contrast.



> Besides, a 12-tone scale can be totally tonal and functional. The Axis system of Bartok says so.


Yes, that's correct.


----------



## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> I know of another reason why Schoenberg objected to the term "atonality," but nobody has ever mentioned it.
> 
> Does anyone know the reason I'm referring to? It seems like a perfect reason to me, and for me, at least, it explains everything.


My understanding is that Schoenberg saw a continuous progression in Western music from tonality, which is "[t]he idea that one basic tone, the root [or key], dominated the construction of chords and regulated their succession", to "extended tonality", where a tonal center became increasingly less necessary, to the "emancipation of the dissonance", in his words, where the idea of a tonal center is renounced altogether and each note is equally important. Maybe he would have preferred "atonalcentric" or "keyless", but if used in this broad sense, I'm not sure why he would reject "atonal" [ed.: other than the negative connotation, which I believe was his stated reason]. The word has also been given other, more narrow meanings, but to me that just sows confusion.


----------



## Xinver

fluteman said:


> My understanding is that Schoenberg saw a continuous progression in Western music from tonality, which is "[t]he idea that one basic tone, the root [or key], dominated the construction of chords and regulated their succession", to "extended tonality", where a tonal center became increasingly less necessary, to the "emancipation of the dissonance", in his words, where the idea of a tonal center is renounced altogether and each note is equally important. Maybe he would have preferred "atonalcentric" or "keyless", but if used in this broad sense, I'm not sure why he would reject "atonal" [ed.: other than the negative connotation, which I believe was his stated reason]. The word has also been given other, more narrow meanings, but to me that just sows confusion.


Yes, by those years, tonality had been expanded to the limits of where a tonal center can be appreciated (Tristan, etc...). Even Strauss went farther (Salome and Elektra). Schöenberg believed that music based on tonality had died, no more tonal music had sense. And then, as an evolutios (as a concept), he thought that in a new music, every (and all) pitch should have the same importance. All of them were "centers", no hierarchy. That's why he preferred the name pantonal, instead of atonal.


----------



## fluteman

Xinver said:


> Yes, by those years, tonality had been expanded to the limits of where a tonal center can be appreciated (Tristan, etc...). Even Strauss went farther (Salome and Elektra). Schöenberg believed that music based on tonality had died, no more tonal music had sense. And then, as an evolutios (as a concept), he thought that in a new music, every (and all) pitch should have the same importance. All of them were "centers", no hierarchy. That's why he preferred the name pantonal, instead of atonal.


The irony is, tonality in western music as we know it today came about in the middle ages and didn't evolve into its current form until the 18th century. Early on, only unisons, perfect fifths and octaves were considered consonant. Then the imperfect thirds and sixths were accepted, and the triad became the basic construct. Finally, the equal-tempered scale came about in the 18th century, an artificial construct that rendered every interval at least slightly imperfect, but with the great advantage that every interval in every key became exactly equivalent, greatly increasing the opportunities for modulation, but also, since the keys had lost their unique characteristics, greatly increasing the opportunities for tonal ambiguity and paving the way for atonality. Now our western ears are so used to equal temper, anything else sounds at least slightly dissonant (including much medieval and renaissance western music). Of course equal temper itself is dissonant, though with its dissonance distributed equally across all 12 tones.

Given this history, I wonder why so many seem to view modern tonality as an immutable permanent law of nature. Rather, over the course of human history, people have devised often ingenious but always artificial systems for music and other art forms, each with advantages and drawbacks, that have gradually surged and then eventually faded away in popularity, perhaps over the course of several centuries, as people come up with other ideas and civilizations rise and fall.

On the other hand, Schoenberg's idea of the end of tonality seems equally naive. To assume that a concept of tonality that had been brought to a highly sophisticated level only in the previous 60 years or so was suddenly useless and finished for good seems just as ignorant of history as those who see modern western tonality as inevitable and immortal. To me, his great contribution was helping to further expand the potential of the 12-tone, equal tempered scale, so it was no longer solely limited to the western system of tonality.

I do wonder why Schoenberg apparently never considered the fact that with the equal-tempered scale, much of the rationale for 12 tones is gone. One could just as easily use an 11-tone or 16-tone scale. Of course, that raises practical and technological issues that were really only solved in the electronic era, and I suppose one great innovative leap was all he could handle, as he was quite tradition-bound in other ways.


----------



## Mahlerian

fluteman said:


> On the other hand, Schoenberg's idea of the end of tonality seems equally naive. To assume that a concept of tonality that had been brought to a highly sophisticated level only in the previous 40 years or so was suddenly useless and finished for good seems just as ignorant of history as those who see modern western tonality as inevitable and immortal. To me, his great contribution was helping to further expand the potential of the 12-tone, equal tempered scale, so it was no longer solely limited to the western system of tonality.


Schoenberg didn't see his work in being the end of tonality so much as a renewal of the resources available to the artist. The consistent use of all 12 notes as well as the treatment of dissonances as stable nullified a key in most cases, of course, but not necessarily a harmonic center in the broader sense (like Bartok, say, or Stravinsky). He said that he was confident that later generations would discover the tonality in his "atonal" music, by which he meant the harmonic coherence of it, the way the "tones" in his harmonic/motivic dialogue worked together and complemented each other.

It is also true that Schoenberg taught all of his students traditional theory, because this was the only ground possible, he believed, for a truly new music to be nurtured. Learn the classics as he had learned them, and only then if the student feels the inclination and the necessity to do so would they go on to contemporary practice.



fluteman said:


> I do wonder why Schoenberg apparently never considered the fact that with the equal-tempered scale, much of the rationale for 12 tones is gone. One could just as easily use an 11-tone or 16-tone scale. Of course, that raises practical and technological issues that were really only solved in the electronic era, and I suppose one great innovative leap was all he could handle, as he was quite tradition-bound in other ways.


He was aware of the differences between the tempered scale and the natural overtone series and called the former a "product of art" in contrast to a "product of nature." In Harmonielehre, he mentions the use of other scales as a possibility, but his own ears were far too tuned to equal temperament to consider much of anything else.


----------



## millionrainbows

Xinver said:


> I can't understand how Schönberg's model (atonality, pantonality, contratonality, whatever....) can be a non-harmonic system.


Then you might look at what makes tonality work. Tonality is based on a harmonic hierarchy. Western tone-centered music, including folk, popular, and classical, and all forms of basic tone-centered music globally, are based on harmonic (adj.) models.

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

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

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

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



> The fact that there is no harmonic hierarchy means that the harmony is non-functional, but there is harmony.
> But where there are two or more pitches, there is harmony.


If you are getting snagged on this, then you are not understanding how I'm using the term "non-harmonic" when referring to the 12-tone method.

I've never said that the _atonal music which results from the 12-tone method_ was "not harmonic" (whatever is meant by that); I say that _the 12-tone method as a method of structuring music_ is not based on a harmonic model; i.e., it is 'non-harmonic' by nature.



> A different thing is that there is not a theory about dodecaphonic atonal harmony.


That's true; 12-tone is not a complete, comprehensive system like tonality is. There are some crucial differences, though: The 12-tone method uses ordered tone rows, not scales.

Scales are conventionally depicted as a sequence of notes from low to high, as if they were "progressing" through time horizontally, but this is only a convention. Scales do not actually "exist" as realized musical entities; they are just an index of notes, with a starting point, which covers that octave.

Tone rows are melodic musical entities, unlike scales, because they are horizontal, melodic entities (intervallic relations, regardless of pitch) with order, which must proceed in a sequence of time, like a melodic construct, in order to have meaning. The intervallic relations of a tone row are fixed, similar to a melody, but are really about interval relations.

What are scales useful for, then? They are unordered, so there are cross-relations between every note in the scale with every other note. What does this mean? It means that scales have a harmonic content, unlike tone rows.

What is harmonic content, and what are cross-relations in a scale? I means this: every note is related to every other note:

*C Major scale: C-C-E-F-G-A-B*
Relations: First note, *C: *
C-D; C-E; C-F; C-G; C-A; C-B

Then, next note, *D: *
D-E; D-F; D-G; D-A; D-B

Then, next note, *E: *
E-F; E-G; E-A; E-B

Then, next note, *F: *
F-G; F-A; F-B

Then, next note, *G: *
G-A; G-B

Then, next note, *A:*A-B

These intervals can be counted, to come up with a "harmonic content" of the scale: 
minor thirds: 2 (E-F, B-C)
major seconds: 5 (C-D, D-E, F-G, G-A, A-B)
minor thirds: 4: D-F, E-G, A-C, B-D)
major thirds: 3: C-E, F-A, G-B
fourths: 5: C-F, D-G, E-A, G-C, A-D
tritones: 1: (B-F)

20 relations; with 6 basic interval types (the rest are inversions): m2/M7, M2/m7, m3/M6, M3/m6, 4th/5th/, and tritone.

You can't do this with a tone-row, because the relations are restricted by ordering.



> When I studied this system, I spent lots of time analysing every kind of chord (formed by two to twelve notes), and how to make harmony sound soft or hard (which is one of the essentials here for the tension-relax cycle).


There can be harmonic tension of varying degrees in these 12-tone 'chords.' These tensions and relaxations will create contrasts, but they will not produce tonality, or tone-centricity. That's why they are called 'atonal.'



> Besides, a 12-tone scale can be totally tonal and functional. The Axis system of Bartok says so.


If Bartok is referring to a scale rather than an ordered row, this is true. I have already posted a chart of the relations in a 12-note scale.




> Tonal functional = common period





> Tonal non functional = impressionism and others
> Atonal (non functional) = Schönberg
> Modal ("functional" in other terms different from tonality)
> Any scale of 1, 2, 3, ..... 8, 10, 11, 12 pitches or grades = some can be used like modal




These models are too rigid for my thinking. As Woodduck so eloquently put it in his post #135 in the "I want to learn non-tonal theory?" thread, in the Music Theory forum:

_The idea that "function" can apply only to common practice harmony is of a piece with the idea that only that sort of music can be tonal. What gives common practice a monopoly on these terms? Tonality, of any sort, is all about how tones __function in relation to each other within a hierarchical system of functions centered on a specific pitch. Those functions may be few or many, simple or complex. But their specific nature identifies what tonal system we're working with, and they are determined by conventional usage and recognized and expected by listeners._


----------



## fluteman

Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg didn't see his work in being the end of tonality so much as a renewal of the resources available to the artist. The consistent use of all 12 notes as well as the treatment of dissonances as stable nullified a key in most cases, of course, but not necessarily a harmonic center in the broader sense (like Bartok, say, or Stravinsky). He said that he was confident that later generations would discover the tonality in his "atonal" music, by which he meant the harmonic coherence of it, the way the "tones" in his harmonic/motivic dialogue worked together and complemented each other.
> 
> It is also true that Schoenberg taught all of his students traditional theory, because this was the only ground possible, he believed, for a truly new music to be nurtured. Learn the classics as he had learned them, and only then if the student feels the inclination and the necessity to do so would they go on to contemporary practice.
> 
> He was aware of the differences between the tempered scale and the natural overtone series and called the former a "product of art" in contrast to a "product of nature." In Harmonielehre, he mentions the use of other scales as a possibility, but his own ears were far too tuned to equal temperament to consider much of anything else.


Thanks for that sensible post. I don't mean to harp on about Schoenberg's personality or ego, and it's always important to think of an artist's work and his personal quirks at least somewhat separately, but Schoenberg, when young, does seem to have believed all composers would quickly follow him in the emancipation of dissonance, and as he aged, to have become increasingly bitter and ill-tempered as he saw that would not be the case, famous and influential as he did become. That makes him an easy target for some critics. 
And yes, Schoenberg was aware that the equal tempered scale is a product of art, not nature. But some posters HERE seem not to be so aware of this.


----------



## Mahlerian

fluteman said:


> Thanks for that sensible post. I don't mean to harp on about Schoenberg's personality or ego, and it's always important to think of an artist's work and his personal quirks at least somewhat separately, but Schoenberg, when young, does seem to have believed all composers would quickly follow him in the emancipation of dissonance, and as he aged, to have* become increasingly bitter and ill-tempered as he saw that would not be the case*, famous and influential as he did become. That makes him an easy target for some critics.
> And yes, Schoenberg was aware that the equal tempered scale is a product of art, not nature. But some posters HERE seem not to be so aware of this.


Yes, true. He saw his own work as a logical extension of what came before, and probably found himself baffled and frustrated that nobody else saw the logic behind it. His scathing comments about Hindemith, Stravinsky, and Krenek (mostly private) are laced with glimmers of doubt and wondering if it was he who was in the wrong. After all, he did respect these men as artists, even if their art left him confused and irritated at times.

In a book I've been reading on bebop, the author puts forth the view that revolutionaries are usually either young or new to their field, and shows how the movement grew out of frustrations trying to achieve anything in the milieu of the swing industry either artistically or financially. Schoenberg, when he started out, was both, being self-taught and in his 20s. He met with the frustrations granted any radical artist (particularly a Jewish one) living and working in Vienna, and because of his particular brand of self-assurance, these pushed him forward rather than discouraging him.


----------



## Xinver

_atonal music which results from the 12-tone method was "not harmonic" _

Of course, it is totally unrelated to the harmony used until then.
Simply, atonal music uses a different "model" of harmony.
Why compare? They're different concepts.


----------



## millionrainbows

millions said:


> I've never said that the _atonal music which results from the 12-tone method_ was "not harmonic" (whatever is meant by that); I say that _the 12-tone method as a method of structuring music_ is not based on a harmonic model; i.e., it is 'non-harmonic' by nature.





Xinver said:


> ...Of course, it is totally unrelated to the harmony used until then.
> Simply, *atonal music* uses a different "model" of harmony.
> Why compare? They're different concepts.


I agree, as long as "atonal" refers specifically to "free atonality" immediately preceding 12-tone, 12-tone, serial, and any music composed using and manifesting the results of an atonal method or system using set theory. It excludes diatonic non-functional modernism, etc.

The reason we are comparing is because Mahlerian objects to this use of the term.

A problem also arises in his definition of tonality:




> Tonality (general): Any kind of perceptible relationship among harmonies or notes





> Tonality (specific): A particular way of relating harmonies and notes through functional triadic relationships with a diatonic basis, also called Common Practice Tonality




Note that his definition of CP tonality (the second one) would exclude Stravinsky and Debussy from being tonal, and places them in the category of "atonal." This is not logical, because tonality can be non-functional as well, as Woodduck said:




> "The idea that "function" can apply only to common practice harmony is of a piece with the idea that only that sort of music can be tonal. What gives common practice a monopoly on these terms? Tonality, of any sort, is all about how tones function in relation to each other within a hierarchical system of functions centered on a specific pitch. Those functions may be few or many, simple or complex. But their specific nature identifies what tonal system we're working with, and they are determined by conventional usage and recognized and expected by listeners."



I would also argue with his general definition of tonality as being "Any kind of perceptible relationship among harmonies or notes." For it to be tonal in a general sense, it must create a sense of tone-centricity around a primary note. See Harvard Dictionary of Music for the correct definition.


----------



## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> I agree, as long as "atonal" refers specifically to "free atonality" immediately preceding 12-tone, 12-tone, serial, and any music composed using and manifesting the results of an atonal method or system using set theory. It excludes diatonic non-functional modernism, etc.
> 
> The reason we are comparing is because Mahlerian objects to this use of the term.
> 
> A problem also arises in his definition of tonality:
> 
> 
> 
> Note that his definition of CP tonality (the second one) would exclude Stravinsky and Debussy from being tonal, and places them in the category of "atonal." This is not logical, because tonality can be non-functional as well, as Woodduck said:
> 
> 
> 
> I would also argue with his general definition of tonality as being "Any kind of perceptible relationship among harmonies or notes." For it to be tonal in a general sense, it must create a sense of tone-centricity around a primary note. See Harvard Dictionary of Music for the correct definition.


I'm with you and the Harvard Dictionary of Music there. I say, think up another word for those other definitions of tonality. It would prevent a lot of confusion.


----------



## Mahlerian

fluteman said:


> I'm with you and the Harvard Dictionary of Music there. I say, think up another word for those other definitions of tonality. It would prevent a lot of confusion.


My preferred distinction for 20th century music would be between non-functional diatonic music and non-functional chromatic music, or perhaps triadic and non-triadic music. There are real differences between the music called atonal and that not called atonal, I just think that people should use terms more closely related to the way it actually works.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> My preferred distinction for 20th century music would be between non-functional diatonic music and non-functional chromatic music, or perhaps triadic and non-triadic music. There are real differences between the music called atonal and that not called atonal, I just think that people should use terms more closely related to the way it actually works.


I could live with that, I think. Still, we are left with the term 'atonal' being used in composition texts to describe set theory. It describes a method, and not the music, if that is possible.

I feel that "function" should always specified as "CP function" as it is understood, because I also have a general, more abstract-principle definition of "function" which goes with the idea that tonality of any sort is about how tones function to our ears in relation to each other within an hierarchical system of functions referring to a single pitch. This is probably because I had to figure out what tonality was for myself, outside of any classroom. It was a relief to see that Woodduck agreed.

That's how jazz players think of scale-modes.

For example, if they encounter a min7b5 chord, they can find the scale to use over it by inferring that it is a ii in a minor key, and play the minor scale a step below that.


----------



## fluteman

Mahlerian said:


> My preferred distinction for 20th century music would be between non-functional diatonic music and non-functional chromatic music, or perhaps triadic and non-triadic music. There are real differences between the music called atonal and that not called atonal, I just think that people should use terms more closely related to the way it actually works.


OK, but using the broad definition of atonal, all triadic music is tonal, but not all non-triadic music must be atonal. Right? Or, put another way, all atonal music is non-triadic, but not all tonal music is triadic. Same is true if one substitutes diatonic for triadic, and chromatic for non-triadic. So your concepts are perfectly valid, but they are narrower, and (I think) presuppose one only is considering the western 12-tone scale.


----------



## millionrainbows

fluteman said:


> OK, but using the broad definition of atonal, all triadic music is tonal, but not all non-triadic music must be atonal. Right? Or, put another way, all atonal music is non-triadic, but not all tonal music is triadic. Same is true if one substitutes diatonic for triadic, and chromatic for non-triadic. So your concepts are perfectly valid, but they are narrower, and (I think) presuppose one only is considering the western 12-tone scale.


Western? The dialectic of "atonal/tonal'" should be applied to Western music, or be forgotten.

But with "tonality," you can apply that term world-wide, if it's general.

I think the important distinction in Mahlerian's statement is "chromatic/diatonic." Forget atonal.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> My preferred distinction for 20th century music would be between non-functional diatonic music and non-functional chromatic music, or perhaps triadic and non-triadic music. There are real differences between the music called atonal and that not called atonal, I just think that people should use terms more closely related to the way it actually works.


Diatonic would, I assume, mean a 7-note scale. This makes sense, because tonality weakens as you increase notes.

I think of triads as being derived from scales. I don't think "triadic" can cover all exceptions, because they might be components of a larger scale which serves to weaken tonality, such as diminished triads and augmented triads, which are derived from 6-note whole-tone and 8-note diminished scales. Fourths could be triads too, unless you mean tertial.


----------



## Mahlerian

fluteman said:


> OK, but using the broad definition of atonal, all triadic music is tonal, but not all non-triadic music must be atonal. Right? Or, put another way, all atonal music is non-triadic, but not all tonal music is triadic. Same is true if one substitutes diatonic for triadic, and chromatic for non-triadic. So your concepts are perfectly valid, but they are narrower, and (I think) presuppose *one only is considering the western 12-tone scale*.


Yes. Other traditions are founded on very different principles from western ones and it's not helpful to try to force our ideas onto gamelan or koto music (having played the latter a bit gave me some interesting first-hand experience). Some parts of the western tradition, too, such as musique concrete, are really outside of this discussion for the most part.

What I've said irks me is the idea that what Schoenberg was doing is not simply different from, but completely contrary to all of music in history ever. The simplistic reduction of Atonal=without any of the harmonic relationships of older music=completely alien. It's that kind of nonsense that prevents people from actually engaging with his legacy, difficult though it certainly can be. The most invigorating thing about Schoenberg's music on a harmonic level is how it engages with the past even at its most radical and forces us to listen intently with all of our implicit knowledge of common practice harmony. To just give up and say it's atonal as if it is unrelated to received harmonic tradition is not only a cop-out, it's fundamentally misguided.

The changes he makes to common practice harmony, from the focus on dissonant sonorities to the playing with traditional functions in alienating contexts, are the exact same ones applied by the impressionists and neoclassicists, but it is the fully chromatic idiom and the constant development, both of which he considered necessary for the coherence of his work, which put up the difficult barrier of "atonality" for listeners.


----------



## fluteman

Mahlerian said:


> Yes. Other traditions are founded on very different principles from western ones and it's not helpful to try to force our ideas onto gamelan or koto music (having played the latter a bit gave me some interesting first-hand experience). Some parts of the western tradition, too, such as musique concrete, are really outside of this discussion for the most part.
> 
> What I've said irks me is the idea that what Schoenberg was doing is not simply different from, but completely contrary to all of music in history ever. The simplistic reduction of Atonal=without any of the harmonic relationships of older music=completely alien. It's that kind of nonsense that prevents people from actually engaging with his legacy, difficult though it certainly can be. The most invigorating thing about Schoenberg's music on a harmonic level is how it engages with the past even at its most radical and forces us to listen intently with all of our implicit knowledge of common practice harmony. To just give up and say it's atonal as if it is unrelated to received harmonic tradition is not only a cop-out, it's fundamentally misguided.
> 
> The changes he makes to common practice harmony, from the focus on dissonant sonorities to the playing with traditional functions in alienating contexts, are the exact same ones applied by the impressionists and neoclassicists, but it is the fully chromatic idiom and the constant development, both of which he considered necessary for the coherence of his work, which put up the difficult barrier of "atonality" for listeners.


I agree with you completely. Schoenberg's music is an integral part of the western tradition, not something entirely apart from it and alien to it. And it's fascinating to think he was almost entirely self-taught. As with all true innovators, he broke some "rules" and made some people angry, and that might have been easier to do without unsympathetic professors who would have warned him away from his path. But also as with all true innovators, he opened up whole new vistas for later composers to this day, many of whom write music that sounds nothing like his, yet still owes him a considerable debt. What I take from him mainly is not that the traditional western diatonic scale, (or whatever term you want to use), must be completely abandoned forever, and certainly not that the tone row system he devised must always be used, but that it was not necessary to be enslaved by the traditional scale at all times. Departures are allowed, even lengthy ones. The world will not collapse if every tonal ambiguity isn't resolved in a matter of moments. That was a major innovation, and one that some posters here still haven't accepted, instead seeing it as a 50-year trek down the wrong path from which were are all now (thank goodness!) recovering.


----------



## Xinver

fluteman said:


> OK, but using the broad definition of atonal, all triadic music is tonal, but not all non-triadic music must be atonal. Right? Or, put another way, all atonal music is non-triadic, but not all tonal music is triadic. Same is true if one substitutes diatonic for triadic, and chromatic for non-triadic. So your concepts are perfectly valid, but they are narrower, and (I think) presuppose one only is considering the western 12-tone scale.


I'm a bit confused with that.
What does triadic means? ¿A set of three?
A triad can be C-Db-D...
Wouldn't it be harmony "by thirds"?

Sorry, I ask about it because English is not my first language and, sometimes, there are false-friends...


----------



## fluteman

Xinver said:


> I'm a bit confused with that.
> What does triadic means? ¿A set of three?
> A triad can be C-Db-D...
> Wouldn't it be harmony "by thirds"?
> 
> Sorry, I ask about it because English is not my first language and, sometimes, there are false-friends...


Well, thirds, fifths and sixths are the basic units of western harmony, forming the triad, which is two thirds and a fifth in its root position, a sixth when transposed. (A major triad is a minor third on top of a major third.) Then there are sevenths, ninths and even elevenths and thirteenths, with an increasingly tenuous relation to the root. Throughout the 19th century, harmony got increasingly complicated, and tonal music drifted further away from the root, though usually without abandoning it entirely. Schoenberg said, Why not abandon the root entirely? and devised a formal system for doing so, though he didn't always strictly adhere to it. To me, just about any western music since then that uses these intervals but has no recognizable root or tonal center owes a debt to Schoenberg.


----------



## Mahlerian

Xinver said:


> I'm a bit confused with that.
> What does triadic means? ¿A set of three?
> A triad can be C-Db-D...
> Wouldn't it be harmony "by thirds"?
> 
> Sorry, I ask about it because English is not my first language and, sometimes, there are false-friends...


Contemporary music theory prefers the word "trichord" for chords made of three notes that aren't made of thirds. So C-E-G and C-Eb-Gb are triads, C-D-F# is a trichord (as long as it isn't treated as an incomplete dominant seventh on D).


----------



## Xinver

Thanks a lot Mahlerian.
Sometimes in Spanish we use words that are similar in phonetics but different in meaning!


----------



## fluteman

Yes, Mahlerian's response was more succinct and straightforward than mine. Is the Spanish "tríada" not the same thing as the English "triad"? How confusing. In fact, that's exactly the kind of confusion caused, in my opinion, by not sticking to the primary HDM definitions of "tonal" and "atonal". Although, "Ton" in German can mean tone or note. Sigh.


----------



## millionrainbows

I agree that Schoenberg was part of the Western CP tradition in a big way, but what I'm after is a way of conceiving what happened with the 12-tone method, and why music composed that way (as well as serialism, set-theory music of Elliott Carter, later Roger Sessions) sounds immediately different from all other forms of modernism (which deal with sustained pitch; not percussion, scraping, electronic noise, etc.).

I think the answer is to conceive of this difference in terms of chromaticism, not tonality. I think 'tonality' is too loaded a term to begin with, and can be general as well as CP functional, or modernist non-functional.

"Chromaticism" is an appropriate term to consider, because on a purely theoretical level, tonality weakens as the number of notes increases; and this is quantifiable in terms of number and subsequent cross-relations of harmonic potential (see my chart on interval vectors).


----------



## millionrainbows

…and I still plan on "revealing" the history behind this term, and it explains a lot.


----------



## millionrainbows

..and I will reveal it, as soon as Mahlerian comes back.


----------



## VishnuB

I don't think he's coming back! Will you reveal it?


----------



## millionrainbows

OK. The clue is "Hauer." He was a Viennese composer who COINED the term 'atonal' in reference to his own works.

So the irony in Mahler's objection to the term 'atonal' is that it was COINED by HAUER, a composer who used all 12 tones in his music.

I think Schoenberg's objection to the term was that Hauer was a threat to his position as the originator of a 12-tone theory of music. Schoenberg wanted to disassociate Hauer's music from himself & the legacy he was trying to build. It had nothing to do with any negative connotation of the term.

The fact is that the term was already in use by HAUER.


----------



## Autocrat

millionrainbows said:


> OK. The clue is "Hauer." He was a Viennese composer who COINED the term 'atonal' in reference to his own works.


Yeah, nah. You need to go back further to find the origin of the word; not that this disturbs your theory much but it would help you not to include obvious falsehoods.


----------



## Retrograde Inversion

I had wondered if the reason was indeed simply that it wasn't Schoenberg himself, who coined the disputed term.

But Hauer? According to that standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, Wikipedia, the word can be attributed to the composer Joseph Marx in a 1907 study. Is that incorrect?

Edit: I thought Hauer wrote the first 12-tone piece? Not that it matters: afaik he was a lousy composer.


----------



## millionrainbows

Autocrat said:


> Yeah, nah. You need to go back further to find the origin of the word; not that this disturbs your theory much but it would help you not to include obvious falsehoods.


It would help your case if you provided some kind of source. As it stands, I refute your false assertion.

According to the liner notes of this CD, Hauer coined the term 'atonality.' What should we believe, that or WIK? Not that I have anything against it. Still, I have a source in print which states clearly that Hauer coined the term.

From a review of the CD:

By Walter Meersman on November 5, 2009

Orchestral works by the REAL inventor of the 12-tone technique who never got any credit for it.

The few 12-tone pieces on the disc give an idea how this technique could have developed (easier on the ear and closer to the romantic tradition whence it came),had it not been for Schönberg "highjacking" the idea a few years after Hauer's 1920 publication on the musical theory of using the 12-tone scale. Schönberg must have had the better connections at the time in Vienna.


----------



## millionrainbows

Retrograde Inversion said:


> I had wondered if the reason was indeed simply that it wasn't Schoenberg himself, who coined the disputed term.


Not me; I simply wondered why he objected. Now I know. It was professional competition. Still, Hauer is remembered as one of the founders of 12-tone theory.



> But Hauer? According to that standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, Wikipedia, the word can be attributed to the composer Joseph Marx in a 1907 study. Is that incorrect?


That may be correct, but my point is to refute "autocrat"s implication that I am purposely spreading unsubstantiated falsehoods. That sounds suspiciously familiar. My source states clearly that Hauer coined the term.



> Edit: I thought Hauer wrote the first 12-tone piece? Not that it matters: afaik he was a lousy composer.


Have you listened to the music? There are more & more recordings of his music appearing all the time on European labels. Steffen Schleiermacher has put out a CD of his piano music.

And like the Amazon reviewer said, a case could just as easily be made that Schoenberg botched the application of 12-tone, making it an alienating experience for most listeners of that day, right up to the present. Maybe he should have stayed within the Romantic tradition more, as in Transfigured Night, Gurrelieder, and Pelleas.


----------



## millionrainbows

Retrograde Inversion said:


> According to that standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, Wikipedia, the word can be attributed to the composer Joseph Marx in a 1907 study.


It was Hauer who coined the term *"atonal music."*

I don't know what context Joseph Marx was using the term "atonal," whether it was to noise or to music. Marx may have been comparing noise and music.

Hauer made the term "atonal music" popular, because he used it as a title for a group of his published works. He also wrote a book on the subject.

Schoenberg was aware of this, and felt his "position in German music for the next 300 years" to be threatened.


----------

