# Defining Tonality and Atonality



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

As you can see, it's well-nigh impossible to get anyone to agree on what "tonality" is; and to realize what "atonality" is, this is a necessary prerequisite. 


Academics will give their stiff, inflexible definitions of common practice tonality, which include certain prescribed functions and church-based definitions of "modality." 


Innocent, non-technical listeners will issue their same old worn-out plea of "what does it matter?," and in their next breath will throw these terms like "atonal" around, as if they had actually paused to consider the meaning beyond the bounds of their ear-canal entryways.


Then, perhaps most tragically and ironically, there are the defenders of modernism, who are compelled to make tenuous comparisons with 12-tone music and CP tonality, as if the descent of late-Romantic tonality into near-total chromaticism somehow lends a respectable traditional connection to the ordered sets of 12-tone and its derivative serial methods. They never acknowledge that their precious bridge to respectable tonality was structurally (if not metaphorically) destroyed as soon as ordered sets were used, thus systematically and structurally avoiding any real structural reference to a tonic except as a metaphorical reference to its memory, in a moment-by-moment denial of harmony. As if this needed defending.


Conversely, the defenders of modernism are quick to deny the obvious tonality in the music of Debussy, Ravel, some Bartók, and other non-CP tonal musics, on the grounds that this somehow "robs them" of the modernity they deserve. The truth is, this is simply a converse justification of the preceding argument, using Debussy and others to "lend credibility" to modernism. 


Subsequently, this will probably lead to even more disputes. We must not let our academic posturing or our fears and insecurities concerning modernism prevent us from 1.) accepting a broad-based definition of tonality, and 2.) accepting a precise definition of what constitutes "atonality" and its systematic avoidance of reference to a tonic, however fleeting, ambiguous, or constantly-shifting this reference may be, and honestly accepting serial music on its own terms.


In my next blog, I will provide a concise, simplified outline of these definitions.


----------

