# Composing without "Breaking New Ground"



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I went to a concert yesterday celebrating composers from the San Francisco, CA (USA) area. Three of the 5 composers were in attendance (apparently Vivaldi didn't get the invite and John Adams couldn't make it). The first work was called "Four Traditional Pieces" by Gordon Getty. He wrote program notes, and I was struck by his last comment.

Getty wrote, "I hanker back to the previous three centuries, when all composers spoke much the same musical language, at a given time, and each stood apart mainly in what he had to say in it. _There is still plenty to be said in C major, even without the black keys_" (emphasis mine).

At least two of these pieces were strictly limited to the 7 notes of C major, and the other two were essentially diatonic. One changed keys every 6 measures but remained strictly diatonic between modulations. The music sounded modern in that it did not clearly fit in Baroque, Classical, or Romantic styles (although parts sounded Romantic).

Obviously there are potentially enormous numbers of works written strictly in C that would differ from any other work, but Getty feels that one could write in C (or diatonically in general) and produce much new to say musically.

Thoughts?


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Like with so many other things, I go back and forth on this one. Sometimes I find myself thinking that its all laid out there and you can't really make something new. Then, of course, other times I'll be amazed at how someone clever can use the same, old key or scale and do something completely fresh and amazing with it. At times that clever musician is even me although this is usually by mistake because most of the music I play is jazz-like in the sense that nothing is played the same way from one gig to the next. 

I guess in the end that is what truly separates a great composer from a not-so-great one. Especially in this time where there is so much outside stimulus and pretty much 'everything' has been heard or done; it is extremely difficult to produce something completely 'new'. Difficult but not impossible. I have hope.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> Getty wrote, "I hanker back to the previous three centuries, when all composers spoke much the same musical language, at a given time, and each stood apart mainly in what he had to say in it. _There is still plenty to be said in C major, even without the black keys_" (emphasis mine).


There's a lot of that going around. I go back and forth, too, but I go between "loss of nerve" and "simple nostalgia."

In any event, saying something original, in any "language" is hard work and always has been. (I don't care how far back you go, you can always find someone who says that "everything's already been said." And then someone else comes along and says something new.)

Otherwise, is this even true: "when all composers spoke much the same musical language." I suppose you could define "musical language" in such a way as to make it seem to be true. Doesn't correspond with anything I've ever read about music, though. (Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books....)

(N.B., "Tonality," practically speaking, is not "the same" for any time. Everyone's always tinkering with this or that aspect of it, pulling it (or pushing it) this way or that. Sorta like people have done with serialism, too, including Schoenberg. People who want systems to be strict--and to stay the same--are generally not the creative artists who are constantly involved in creating art, which means, in short, making thousands of compromises between various elements all the time.)


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> _There is still plenty to be said in C major, even without the black keys_" (emphasis mine).


I'm quite sure that's a Schoenberg quote. I agree with it except change the 'to be said' part with 'good music yet to be made'. There is plenty good music yet to be made in C pentatonic major too, or even just using the note C on it's own, or using no notes at all.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

My take is that if one cannot make new music within 'conventional forms', one's muse may be an imposter.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Nevermind, clearly I didn't read the OP closely enough lol.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Well, who's to say you can't be groundbreaking in C?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Ligeti has a "white key only" piano etude (composed in 1995), I think it's rather interesting, and sounds "modern" (the second part especially):






My personal lemma: do whatever you want. you want tonal, write tonal, you want atonal, write atonal, it's really not a big deal. If you want a "modern sound", then if you are a good composer, you will find the way (tonal-atonal-serial, etc, those are tools for composing and not ends by itself).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I basically agree with the gist of what Gordon Getty said. I like a wide variety of composers, esp. of after about 1800, and there is such a plurality of styles there, but in some way connected to tradition, often blending it with innovation, or the composer's environment/context, or history, all this stuff. That's what fascinates me, apart from the music, of course.

I like composers who move with the times and don't stagnate, but keep their individual voice. It can be argued that all the "greats" did this successfully in some ways. I admire composers like Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Steve Reich, Zemlinsky, Steve Reich, Schoenberg, and our own Richard Meale who really developed their art in many directions and avoided what I hate: rehash. Doesn't matter what techniques they're using, it's the breadth of vision I'm interested in.

Shostakovich said something to the effect that with every new work, he was working to solve a different "problem," a new challenge presented by the needs of an individual piece. I love this quote by Prokofiev: "I detest imitation, I detest hackneyed devices." I also like how Stravinsky said he was mining tonality and it was an endless resource, even when he adopted elements of serialism, he was often surprised after analysing his own scores how innately "tonal" they were, although at the same time, they were serial (or partially that). Listening to Stravinsky, it's the same Stravinsky I hear in his _Symphony in C_ as that in the _Septet_, the former in his neo-classical phase, the latter in his serial phase.

In short, doesn't matter what technique a composer uses or adopts, what does matter is the development of his own artistic voice and vision, or style or however else we want to label it. There has to be something there, and of course this "it" factor is often subjective and hard to define (but I think it's there, nonetheless)...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I think the question of breaking new ground in this case is slightly deceptive. At one extreme, you have people inventing their own instruments, turning to electronic music, or using original extended techniques on acoustic instruments in order to create unprecedented sounds. But then there's a whole spectrum of using old forms, styles and sounds to new purposes before you get anywhere near rehash. It doesn't sound to me as though Getty is saying that he wants to imitate the past in C major, he just wants to use a common scale for new and interesting purposes. I don't think that's any less of an attempt to break new ground than it was to pursue any of the various kinds of 20th century musics new to the era that were dependent on the twelve tones of equal temperament instead of inventing new note-frequencies.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Polednice said:


> ...But then there's a whole spectrum of using old forms, styles and sounds to new purposes before you get anywhere near rehash...


I agree with that, even in recently exploring our own Australian composers more, there's heaps of variety here, and a lot of these guys do respect and value tradition. But it doesn't mean it's hundreds of years old tradition. Eg. Brett Dean's music mines the riches of the inter-war period, he is esp. fascinated & inspired by the Modern Viennese School, and actually spends half the year now in Berlin (half in his native Queensland). He is friends with another composer working on similar lines, Wolfgang Rihm, traditional in the modern, 20th century, sense of the word. There's Barry Conyngham who studied under Takemitsu and has been influenced by him and others.

Of course, many composers return to tradition, or aspects of it, after being more experimental earlier. Of Australians, Peter Sculthorpe is one, and also the late Richard Meale. Conyngham to, to a degree.

Then there's those who have worked in a kind of "modern tonal" style, like Richard Mills, he studied with Edmund Rubbra in the UK (as did Sculthorpe), who was another guy who's hard to put in a box (eg. fusing elements of Renaissance madrigals with the techniques of the 20th century).

Going back to tradition need not be regression or a kind of retrenchment. It depends how it's done. If it's done as rehash, than it's not any better than that. Some composers have been rehashing themselves for the last 20-30 years, and I have little time for them. Even before hearing a new piece by them, I know exactly how it's going to be. I see no point in that at all, whether the music is using one technique or another.

The composers I often connect with offer some kind of fusion between themselves and the wider world. Another Aussie I didn't mention above was Nigel Westlake, who incorporates things like rock, jazz, world music into his own unique and varied style. & I think Schoenberg did no differently, eg. his song-cycle _Pierrot Lunaire _ of 1912 incorporates everything from Baroque forms like canons to clear three part structures and things taken from the cabarets of the time, as well as the Surrealist poetry of Giraud which is the text & of course his own innovations with free atonality. Stravinsky called this work "the solar plexus of 20th century music," and it influenced so many composers, from Ravel to Britten to Maxwell DAvies, you name it. So tradition blended with fusion can be innovative, no?...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> Otherwise, is this even true: "when all composers spoke much the same musical language." I suppose you could define "musical language" in such a way as to make it seem to be true. Doesn't correspond with anything I've ever read about music, though. (Maybe I'm just reading the wrong books....)


I think all Getty meant was that at a period in time (say the 1690's or the 1780's) composers were generally using the same forms, similar harmonies, similar timbres, etc. so their music was for the most part constructed from the same elements (i.e. language). Many, but certainly not all, were able to say something interesting using those same elements.



Argus said:


> I'm quite sure that's a Schoenberg quote. I agree with it except change the 'to be said' part with 'good music yet to be made'. There is plenty good music yet to be made in C pentatonic major too, or even just using the note C on it's own, or using no notes at all.


Do you mean Getty was directly quoting Schoenberg unknowingly, or do you think Schoenberg said something similar?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...Do you mean Getty was directly quoting Schoenberg unknowingly, or do you think Schoenberg said something similar?


That quote is attributed to Schoenberg, Alex Ross mentions it in _The REst is Noise_. I can't find it online now, but I definitely remember it being there. It's in the context of a student of Schoenberg's in a class at the University of California saying something negative about Shostakovich's then recent Sym.#5, in the key of C. Schoenberg defended Shostakovich as "a composer born" and said that there is plenty of good music still to be written in the key of C.

Kind of prophetic too, as a groundbreaking minimalist work to come in the late 1960's was Terry Riley's _In C_...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Sid James said:


> That quote is attributed to Schoenberg, Alex Ross mentions it in _The REst is Noise_.


Thanks. I found it. As you said, Ross reports that Schoenberg said "there is still plenty of good music to be written in C major." I'm not sure if Getty knew that quote, but perhaps he did and went further by adding "even without the black keys" for emphasis.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

One can easily find masterpieces or at least works that you personally enjoy in C from all, if not nearly all of the historical periods. I know I can - from Baroque to the 20th century. So I don't quite dismiss that it might be a case that no new "great" music can be composed now in that key.

(An exception is of course, the cacophonic mumbo-jumbo random industrial chainsaw variety, where any particular key don't matter ... ).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Its a rather sad comment that a composer feels a need or want to almost excuse themselves for being a tonalist composer working in the diatonic modes. It comes as reaction from some academic circles, which become little ingrown communities who, knowingly or not, can tend to pronounce to the students, each other, and sometimes the world beyond campus, "This is the way we write."

[I think there is invaluable abstract thought going on in academe - often without needing to justify any practical application - and that freedom is something I will always argue for. Sometimes, maybe often, that community becomes more than ingrown and self-serving, like any exclusive group can become if they don't 'get out and about' once in a while.]

The only way to write, it is to be hoped, is well, and to make it of enough interest to hold the listeners attention throughout.

As for your direction re: diatonic and tonal music, Terry Riley's seminal 'In C' is a good case in point.

Nikolai Korndorff's "Hymn III, an homage to Gustav Mahler' is a rigorously diatonic piece, a half an hour long, at glacially slow temp, using long sustained notes, a full orchestra, and a soprano with an obbligatto / vocalise part -- and Not One Accidental. This symphony-length orchestral piece then has for its duration, a pitch count of seven: it holds my attention throughout, is not a dry exercise, and I find it very 'moving.' That takes more than a little skill -- and bravery -- I think.

Whomever here said "... if one cannot make new music within 'conventional forms', one's muse may be an imposter." ... well, apart from my finding that gratuitous and more than superficially glib, some people just aren't comfortable with the varied 'decor' possibilities unless the house decorated has always got the same ole same ole floor plan. That is a matter of the limitations of that individual's comfort zones more than any valid comment on what music should or should not be.

I think that quote is by Schoenberg, and it is often quoted, if not exactly then always with pith intact, to many a college freshman theory student.

The quote pairs nicely with one from Herodotus, "Everything is in flux."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> Its a rather sad comment that a composer feels a need or want to almost excuse themselves for being a tonalist composer working in the diatonic modes. It comes as reaction from some academic circles, which become little ingrown communities who, knowingly or not, can tend to pronounce to the students, each other, and sometimes the world beyond campus, "This is the way we write."
> 
> ...


There was a lot of that going on in the immediate couple of decades after 1945. The "total serialist" hegemony. Funny again, but Riley's _In C _was one of the pieces that flew in the face of all that ideology and kind of broke down that hegemony and dogma.

As far as it appears to me, there's less of that going on now in academic circles and as for outside academia, I don't think many people think like that (eg. that music that's respectful of tradition or less - outwardly? - experimental is rubbish). Most people I know just go with what they like and work on what's potentially positive for them, that they're middling with (the comfort zone thing you mention). I do like some of Stockhausen's works which I've heard for example, but not all things by him. Some are too out-there for me and I'd guess for most classical listeners who are open to these things.

Funny, we had some members here a couple of years back who had kind of taken on those not so helpful academic dogmas. A couple of composition students, around age 20. Some of the things said by a member then called Bach, funnily enough, sounded totally contradictory. Eg. Stravinsky's neo-classical period was "reprehensible" but he "redeemed" himself with his segue into serialism. This coming from a fan of J.S. Bach!!! What utter rubbish and rubbery thinking. That was the kind of thinking current on some campuses say in the 1950's or early to mid 1960's. Some of the theorists then, eg. ARnold Whittall, reflected these views in their writings. I can go on.

But now it's all over, I think we are entering an age of plurality. Listeners need not feel guilty of enjoying a tune or some more traditional counterpoint. Same as with enjoying the experimental or newer sounds. It's open slather now and I just like to jump in and enjoy as much of it as I can, put the dogma in the trash can where it belongs...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

to find an original voice as a composer is actually "breaking new ground", no matter if the composer uses tonality or not.


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