# Form and tonality! DISCUSSION



## Xenakiboy

This thread is about the use of form and tonality in composing, I think this fits better in this area than the young composers section but here I go: (also, I'm not a beginner so this isn't relating to starting composing)

Here are the questions for discussion:

*1* What use of form and tonality (Or atonal 12 tone rows etc.) is required to make a piece sound good to your ears?

*2* How do *you* develop your themes and motifs?

*3* For those who compose atonal music: Do you use systems or do you compose by feeling or a mental picture?

*4* What forms to use and how strict are you to them?

_this is just a start but I'll have more questions soon_


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## Mahlerian

1: No requirements there. I only require that something be well-composed and well-thought out.

2: Changes in rhythm, contour, harmony, accent, and so forth. I don't find it interesting to simply transpose constantly.

3: I don't agree with the term atonal*, but some who do have said some of the music I've written fits that term. I don't ever compose on the basis of stories or programmatic elements; I focus on musical expression and musical development.

4: I've tried out a number of things, but I only write in strict forms for the sake of exercises rather than for more serious compositions.

*Basically for the reason that this term really doesn't say anything about how the music is constructed, and as such is unhelpful as a descriptive term. If taken literally, with tonal used as people often use it, it's false. So-called atonal music is just music with a chromatic, non-triadic basis. It doesn't say anything, beyond that, about which harmonies are used or about how they are used, and to call Xenakis and Sessions both atonal as if they had as much in common as the tonal music of Bach and Brahms did is misleading at best and utter nonsense at worst.


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## Xenakiboy

Thanks for the response so far. My opinion on 'atonal music' is the same, but like the term "classical music", it give a general idea.

I have a question relating to composing now:

*5* How do get yourself out of a 'ostinato loop'. _Sometimes when I'm at a creative low, I find ideas only coming in the form of ostinato's (melodies over repeating patterns of chords). No doubt others have come accross this at time, _* how would you deal with this?*


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## Mahlerian

5: I wouldn't say that happens to me, because I always try to think in terms of contrapuntally separate voices, which would be my suggestion: if you're thinking too much in terms of repeated chords + harmony, break the chords apart and start thinking in separate voices. If I have a vice, it's to keep the texture too thin when I might want something fuller or (if I'm writing at the computer) be stuck in thinking with the barlines rather than in terms of overarching rhythmic phrases.

For the latter, I need to get away from the computer and go back to sketching on paper without barlines.


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## Xenakiboy

I think that when I get stuck, I'll write a fugue to get my polyphonic brain working!


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## Samuel Kristopher

I find fugue writing to be a good break to take when I start wearing the wick of my other compositions too thin  I'm not very good at fugues but they are challenging and fun.


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## Chordalrock

Samuel Kristopher said:


> I find fugue writing to be a good break to take when I start wearing the wick of my other compositions too thin  I'm not very good at fugues but they are challenging and fun.


I like composing fugues, not just as an exercise. I recommend a basically Baroque style but with a freer use of dissonance, like say in Gombert and some other Renaissance composers, and I recommend not considering fourths as dissonances at all since they're acoustically among the most consonant intervals.

This opens up more possibilities in using thematic material and how you use it, effectively allowing you to compose things others can't; it also just makes composing interesting fugues less of a head-ache, and also makes you sound (very) different from a generic Baroque fugue.


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## Samuel Kristopher

You phrased it better than I could have Chordal  Actually I think I take more inspiration in fugue-writing from Shostakovich than Bach, since some of his fugues are fantastically dissonant and I was very interested in how he managed to write dissonant fugues without sounding completely atonal, or rather breaking the harmonies. 

As another challenge, I've tried writing fugues with fixed phrases, such as themes from soundtracks (especially John Williams). His themes often use interesting or unusual shifts in key or scales, so that forces the answer and counter-subjects to be unusual as well and that makes things a bit more difficult!


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## millionrainbows

Xenakiboy said:


> *1* What use of form and tonality (Or atonal 12 tone rows etc.) is required to make a piece sound good to your ears?


The "best use" of creating music using serial or set materials would be to seek out and emphasize the harmonic aspects, or results, of those materials. This would make it "sound good" to the average ear. Harmonic qualities are based on consonance/dissonance, and since there are only 12 notes in the octave, there are a limited number of these degrees of sonance.
Of course, the harmonic effects I speak of might not be the artist's goal. I don't think it was always Boulez' or Webern's goal, since they were Expressionists in search of the extremes.
I think rhythmic identity is important in making music sound comprehensible and meaningful, but again, this might not be the goal. Some artists use sound to create 'labyrinths' in which the listener is lost, and this is the intent. As in Barraque, "meaning" is a meta-structural aspect, and "meaninglessness" is the localized effect, in keeping with an existentialist or nihilistic approach.


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## millionrainbows

One way of getting more harmonic quality from 12-tone is to do what Schoenberg did in his Fourth String Quartet and use the concept of "combinatoriality." It's simple once you get it.

The row is divided into two hexachords (six notes in each). Then you find out which other hexachords will combine with it. If your hexachord is A-B-C-D-E, then B-C-E-D-A will combine with it, and so on. Notice that this means the CONTENT is the same, not the order. So in essence we are using "unordered sets" which, like scales, can be used to create more harmonic results. This is because 1.) there are fewer notes (6 instead of 12) and 2.) they are based on content, not order.


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## Xenakiboy

Interesting seeing this old thread from when I joined, I was going through a bit of musical depression and wanted to get an idea of how other composers' (Talkclassical composers) minds work. Luckily I'm far out of that ostinato rut, (though I love ostinatos). I don't see myself as a struggling composer, I see myself getting stronger the more questions I ask and help I seek, but I've learned to take my time rather than rush. 
I've started my official piano Sonata cycle (though they will only be Sonatas superficially eg. like Boulez), but I don't feel the need for strict traditional forms. My 'form', comes from the barrel containing Bartok, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Xenakis, Schnittke, Webern. 
I don't know where I'm going with this now, it's not coherent enough....


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## Xenakiboy

*Advice*

Also, creative exercises are very beneficial, writing fugues (but not for a serious outcome) and 12 tone row pieces can help a lot. Use the 12 tone row system as not a set of rules but rather a puzzle to get yourself musical active and problem solving! :tiphat:


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## EdwardBast

HI Xenakiboy:

I have written fugues and other pieces as exercises. For fun I wrote this little fugue on a theme by Xenakiboy:


__
https://soundcloud.com/gwyon%2Ffugue

And after a TC discussion on church modes, and Phrygian mode in particular, I wrote a little motet on a psalm text in Phrygian mode in early 16thc style. The performance, however, is with textless choral samples, which is just as well since the Council of Trent would have condemned my text-setting as unintelligible in any case.


__
https://soundcloud.com/gwyon%2Fsicut-cervus

In general, when I compose for real, I prefer to not understand or be able to explain exactly what I am doing or why, on the theory that if it were clear to me, I would not be trying hard enough. Got that idea from Prokofiev.


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## Xenakiboy

EdwardBast said:


> HI Xenakiboy:
> 
> I have written fugues and other pieces as exercises. For fun I wrote this little fugue on a theme by Xenakiboy:
> 
> 
> __
> https://soundcloud.com/gwyon%2Ffugue
> 
> And after a TC discussion on church modes, and Phrygian mode in particular, I wrote a little motet on a psalm text in Phrygian mode in early 16thc style. The performance, however, is with textless choral samples, which is just as well since the Council of Trent would have condemned my text-setting as unintelligible in any case.
> 
> 
> __
> https://soundcloud.com/gwyon%2Fsicut-cervus
> 
> In general, when I compose for real, I prefer to not understand or be able to explain exactly what I am doing or why, on the theory that if it were clear to me, I would not be trying hard enough. Got that idea from Prokofiev.


Just found your comment now, gotta say I'm very impressed by those pieces man!! 
I also composed a short Fugue on my theme (it was for string quartet though and featured the second theme 2)

I do agree about composing from instinct (so to speak), theory is the thing that makes it possible for you to be able to blindly let a piece blossom, I think there is a real honesty in works conceived in such a way.


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## Pugg

Xenakiboy said:


> Just found your comment now, gotta say I'm very impressed by those pieces man!!
> I also composed a short Fugue on my theme (it was for string quartet though and featured the second theme 2)
> 
> I do agree about composing from instinct (so to speak), theory is the thing that makes it possible for you to be able to blindly let a piece blossom, I think there is a real honesty in works conceived in such a way.


You sure know how to keep us in suspense .


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## Xenakiboy

Pugg said:


> You sure know how to keep us in suspense .


I'm not advertising Pugg...


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## Pugg

Xenakiboy said:


> I'm not advertising Pugg...


Subconscious you do


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## Xinver

Hi.

1 What use of form and tonality (Or atonal 12 tone rows etc.) is required to make a piece sound good to your ears? Forms are essential to me. They allow a good and coherent developing of any kind of music.

2 How do you develop your themes and motifs? Contrasting them. I prefer no exact repetitions.

3 For those who compose atonal music: Do you use systems or do you compose by feeling or a mental picture? I design a kind of "curve" representing the tension-relax parts, and apply several techniques along the piece.

4 What forms to use and how strict are you to them? For pieces in one movement, usually the sonata form, but also different types of rondeau, and the song (with or without trio). Also the Sonata in full form. When I want to know how a new learnt issue will result, I write sonatinas. I'm not strict at all.


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## zachybinx

1. What use of form and tonality (Or atonal 12 tone rows etc.) is required to make a piece sound good to your ears? 

Usually a piece makes sense/sounds best to me if there are at most 2-4 very unique/inspired "ideas" or themes that are interchanged/combined developed over time... I love music that hinges on tonality and also atonality but my own music is pretty strictly tonal. but this is just for me. Music can sound good for totally mysterious reasons. basically I like listening to music with countless parameters. 

2 How do you develop your themes and motifs? 

My themes/motifs are usually semi undeveloped and static. The material is usually dependent on the dramatic logic of a piece- with a very literal direction that I discover intuitively. I compose moments that lead into other moments, which are all very thematic, but they usually fall into the category of subtly contrasted/interchanging antecedent consequent phrases. 

3 For those who compose atonal music: Do you use systems or do you compose by feeling or a mental picture? 

I don't compose that kind of music any more, but when I did, I would compose a little phrase at first totally by feeling. then I would expand on that material use tons of crazy theoretic extrapolations and variations- usually to create the most crazy looking score I possibly could, with the most intersections of logic and meaning. I basically would not even know what the majority of what it would actually sound like until after I had finished the piece and had the midi play it back to me. haha. fun times.

4 What forms to use and how strict are you to them?

I use basically variations of verse chorus bridge for my forms, that or ABA but it's all so intuitive, I let the piece work itself out and usually it ends up being one of these things. I am not very concerned about macro form while I'm writing. I'm more concerned about the immediate feeling of the phrasing and material and if it's creating the right kind of effect- and the form just kind of works itself out. I have guidelines for myself- but all of those rules have to be broken at one time or another depending on what the piece calls for. I tend to have 1 to 2 themes and maybe some extra material for a bridge of sorts. but this is only a trend and in some of my pieces I have no idea how to distinguish exactly what the different elements are. I prefer to go mainly by feeling/emotional logic.


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## millionrainbows

Schoenberg divided the 12-tone row into two hexads (six-note groups). 

He knew that the tritone (6 semitones wide) (C-F#) was the only interval which, when inverted, retained its identity; it was still a tritone (F#-C), still 6 semitones. The other intervals don't do this: Maj 3 becomes min 6, min 2 becomes Maj 7, etc.

So he made sure that each hexad contained its tritone counterpart, such as (C-F#-D-G#-E-A#), and (F-B-G-C#-A-D#).

That way, when he inverted them, the hexads remained the same in content (but not order), like this:

(C-F#-D-G#-E-A#) inverted, becomes 
(F#-C-G#-D-A#-E). See how the notes are all the same in each set?

What did this do? It gave him more harmonic flexibility. The row was being used like an unordered scale.


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