# The anti-modernists have some points



## isorhythm

In the spirit of conciliation, here are some things about which I agree with the anti-modernists on this forum, and disagree with at least some of the pro-modernists. I believe the following:

1) The audiences who don't "get" most 20th century and contemporary music are not essentially the same as the 19th century audiences who didn't "get" Beethoven or Schumann or Mahler. Something important really did happen to classical music in the 20th century that was different from its evolution up to that point, and it is not surprising that much of its audience did not follow. The anti-modernists would say that composers betrayed the audience, whereas I would say that the social conditions that made the previous relationship between artist and audience possible ceased to exist. But the radical break with the past was real and needs to be acknowledged.

2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.

3) Serialism really was given far more prominence than it should have been in the early to mid 20th century because of German-Austrian supremacy in musical culture. Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.

4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.

Audiences, in reaction to all this, have become ultraconservative, more than at any other time in history. I'm not trying to excuse that. However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real.

I want to stress that this post is not meant as an attack on anyone and that I don't doubt anyone's sincerity or goodwill here.


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## Guest

isorhythm said:


> 2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.







Fast-forward to 14:35 and cite your evidence.


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## Fagotterdammerung

I don't find audiences particularly anti-_Minimalist_, which is probably in large part why that segment of new works has been programmed a lot. I don't even find audiences particularly attached to common practice period tonality ( the average Joe does not care about proper voice-leading ). Audiences are, however, extremely attached to tertian harmony. Give them thirds, the audiences want more thirds! :lol:


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## brotagonist

isorhythm said:


> 1) The audiences who don't "get" most 20th century and contemporary music are not essentially the same as the 19th century audiences who didn't "get" Beethoven or Schumann or Mahler. Something important really did happen to classical music in the 20th century that was different from its evolution up to that point, and it is not surprising that much of its audience did not follow. The anti-modernists would say that composers betrayed the audience, whereas I would say that the social conditions that made the previous relationship between artist and audience possible ceased to exist. But the radical break with the past was real and needs to be acknowledged.


You are correct: they are not the same audiences. All of those people are long dead. It does appear that something important did happen in the 20th Century, but that is not why their audiences did not follow. They died. Social conditions also changed. A notable one was the emergence of recordings... and these recordings permitted listeners to maintain a connection to the past.



isorhythm said:


> 2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.


I don't know about that. When I was very little, I had a xylophone and, a few years later, a tiny toy piano. I used to hit the keys in any order and I loved the sounds I could make. I was fascinated by the sounds and they didn't have to be ordered in any way (I wouldn't have known how to order them, anyway), although I did sometimes try to play melodies I knew.



isorhythm said:


> 3) Serialism really was given far more prominence than it should have been in the early to mid 20th century because of German-Austrian supremacy in musical culture. Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.


I am not a musician or academician, but I do not accept this. All music follows a set of rules and serialism was just a new or alternate set of rules. I don't know whether it was mathematical, embarrassing or pseudoscience, but it makes nice music. What more do you want of music?



isorhythm said:


> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.
> 
> Audiences, in reaction to all this, have become ultraconservative, more than at any other time in history. I'm not trying to excuse that. However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real.


Just listening was my experience. I discovered classical music in my late teens and it was serial music that attracted me first. It took me much longer to find fogey music appealing


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## isorhythm

Hm...no anti-modernists have responded. I've only torpedoed my own avant-garde cred! Oh well.

To respond briefly:

-I've seen that Pintscher video. The African guy was a young adult, already exposed to music his whole life (we don't know what kind of music, but we can be sure there was some). So he's not some model naif experimental subject. Besides, he's only one person. I'm talking about trends across large groups of people.

-Re: "pseudoscience" - I wasn't referring to serial techniques but to a certain language that was used. Basically trying to claim the authority of science or math where it's not warranted. Of course in a way it's natural that in the 20th century music would look to science for authority where in the past it had looked to God or to heroic humanism - that's the spirit of the age. But we enjoy pre-1900 composers without fully buying into the ideologies that motivated them. Anyway I wasn't criticizing serial music itself. I like a lot of it too.


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## violadude

Thanks for posting, Isorhythm. This is the kind of opposition I like to see on the thread, the kind that promotes discussion.

As opposed to the kind that looks near identical to trolling

Unfortunately, I will admit, that my personal experience may make me a little bias. When you say...

"However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real."

...it goes against my experience with the music. Being open-minded and just listening is exactly what it took for me to accept 20th century music as having value within it.

So then perhaps the question becomes, why is it that that's all it took for me but it is apparently not all it takes for other people? What other factors could be at play here?


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## Sid James

If you want labels, I'm non-Modernist rather than an anti-Modernist. I am okay with being called traditionalist, and compared to the most radical listeners I can imagine being called a conservative. I see the heart of the issues you raise as being about opinions on music and interpretations of history, and they will vary from person to person, even given the same music or the same sorts of historical facts.

Certain things like serialism and electronics happened, and some people see them as important, others see them as not important or just amongst the many changes that happened in music during the 20th century. Differences of opinion exists across the board, and the repertoire is so vast that nobody's knowledge is exhaustive. There will be consensus in some areas of debate, and less or none in others.

I think that one big problem is that in the 20th century ideology, or the 'what' of music, became more important than the music itself. In other words you had composers focussing too much on forming cliques around a certain set of techniques or trends of the day rather than accepting the great diversity of music being produced, in what can be argued to be the century with the widest diversity of musical styles and approaches (within classical and in other types of music - eg. jazz, rock, world, and so on).

The need to form cliques was accompanied by an anarchic-authoritarian dogma, which had this obsession with wiping the slate clean. I see that as misguided because all musicians will not only be situated within their own time, but also be informed by the past to some extent. As in music as in politics, anarchism and authoritarianism are basically elitist preoccuptions, speaking to a need to exert control over a group of followers rather than opening things up as wide as possible for all to access. In effect, Modernism was obsessed with marshalling forces for some war, and such militant approaches could only result in alienating those not willing to go along with them.

Its as if the democratising changes in music and society hadn't happened, and they where still fighting battles that where long over. The old adage that _those who aren't with us are against us is _apt here. In other words if a person wasn't on their side, they where automatically against them. This led to ideological splits in music, and it had practical consequences.

Nevertheless, the sheer diversity of music doesn't mean that listeners can't have a focus, or a set of them. People can listen to more music now than ever. The big problem is that Modernist ideology has passed and with the emergence of what is now referred to as Post-Modernist approaches there is more acceptance of diversity, both with regards to new music and older music as well as music outside the Western classical tradition.

I am less concerned however with theories that preoccupy academics or hard core fans of this or that type of music and more focussed on what this means in reality. To me, it means that all can listen to music and participate in forums like this in a way that welcomes diversity of approaches, preferences, experiences and opinions. (I withhold any further comment now on whether I think this is happening on this forum with regards to Modern or contemorary music).


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## mmsbls

I tend to agree in some important ways about #1 and to some extent with #4. I don't agree with #2 and 3



isorhythm said:


> 1) Something important really did happen to classical music in the 20th century that was different from its evolution up to that point, and it is not surprising that much of its audience did not follow.


While many prior periods required that audiences get used to the new music, I do believe there were some changes in 20th century music that may have caused some people more difficulty in enjoying the new music. A modern composition student friend of mine believes that the 20th century saw many new musical "languages" develop rather than a few. So in the past people had to acquire the new "language" (become familiar with the music) or maybe a couple of new languages, but the 20th century composers incorporated change more readily. My friend almost feels as though one must listen to each composer to understand her language separately. In a sense it's the same "work" but more of it.



isorhythm said:


> 2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned.


I have seen some papers that discussed this, but I believe we're far too early in our understanding of the brain to conclude anything about whether shared preferences are innate. We know there are certain innate features of the neural response to music such as frequency response and sound amplitude, but we would need to understand vastly more of the brain's response to do meaningful experiments.



isorhythm said:


> 3) Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.


I've read papers including music theoretical discussions of serial music. I did not feel that the math was embarrassing, pretentious, or pseudoscience. Of course some discussions could very well be, but the general explanations seemed fine to me.



isorhythm said:


> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.


This is true, but I suspect that composers from all eras could have down a better job of explaining or promoting new music.



isorhythm said:


> However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real.


I agree here strongly. I do feel that listening does allow one to become more accustomed to the new musical languages, but the process is not necessarily quick or simple. And often people who struggle with enjoying modern music are not narrow-minded. Those who show an interest but are frustrated could well benefit from an explanation of how to listen and what to listen for rather than be told - "Just listen."


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## PetrB

*No points for either camp.*



isorhythm said:


> 2) The widely shared preference for music *with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate,* not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.


*You've just 'argued well' for both atonal, tonal, western and non-western musics there* -- ironic, innit?

Audible pulse might well discount a lot of late romantic repertoire where both pulse and bar-lines were deliberately obscured for that extra pliant, more sculptural-like contouring of both line or an entire movement or piece. _Blame Wagner, out with that nasty late romantic music, it ain't natural, my innate musical senses are deeply offended._

Fact is, other than most minds that listen are certainly more comfortable with a pitch center, a seven tone diatonic scale, dodecophonic scale, a scale with 36 tones per octave, Modality / Tonality / Atonality etc. ARE ALL CONCEITS. Leading tones are conceits. Harmony, and its 'laws' of progression and resolution are conceits. It is all one big conceit, which once agreed upon, _some_ people ran with.

That it has been running, more or less with a pitch center _not at the bottom of the scale but near its center -- (medieval)_ then the tone center at the bottom of the scale, etc. through the rest of its permutations and developments for centuries, that people have gotten used to it and have expectations is indeed _not innate but learned, or conditioned_. It is deeply a part of that information / recognition we call semiotic, which is also 'learned.' (Granted, anyone who creates works outside of that general semiotic of the times stands a lesser chance of connecting with the majority of the listeners of their own time.) None of the point of music having a pitch center speaks only to modality or tonality, but to the gamut from modal to atonal.

Maths, as you said, prove _nothing_ about music or its aesthetic quality, or what makes one musical style 'more accessible' than another. The acoustics and numbers drawn from them, or considering 'how the human ear is constructed and how it receives sound,' or rattling off any number of various lists of maths backing up this or that acoustic 'truth,' no matter how good looking and reasonable it might seem, is rationale, not proof that music scale or style X, Y, or Z are 'organic, natural, or any of that other poppycock -- because they are 'intellectual' 'scientific' _rationales,_ and nothing more.

Just intonation, equal temperament, other tunings are also conceits, and any of them can be made to seem 'legitimate,' correct, etc. with a little whipped up statistical chart of numbers based on the acoustics of each of those tunings. Hey, it is maths, where when it applies to sound instead of engineering a bridge, you can find 'perfect' and 'lovely,' and 'Justified' ratios to prove your point this tuning, scale, is of course the most natural, and maybe the most beautiful.

Fans of any period who find that more to their taste than any other period, those who think this tuning or that ruined or enhanced music, this style, that scale, or that any or every musical element or style has something truly 'innate,' 'organic,' 'true,' etc. about it are clutching to straws of rationale, whether they be a modernist, an anti-modernist, or a middle of the road conservative, well, there is nothing innate about much of it except that people do well with one pitch reference as a point of reference.

Consider, myself in the mid 1950's, age six, having no 'trouble' when listening to Bartok, Prokofiev, and enjoying the hell out of it along with Bach and Rimsky-Korsakov, yet sixty years later, my reading on a forum that some listener thinks Prokofiev is 'atonal,' or that Ravel "is very dissonant and strange." Conditioning just may have to do with that, not only in what I was exposed to early on, but as well, the conditioning of my general outlook via the influence of my family, and then teachers. Or was I "innately a modernist" at age six? Hmmmm.


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## SeptimalTritone

violadude said:


> Thanks for posting, Isorhythm. This is the kind of opposition I like to see on the thread, the kind that promotes discussion.
> 
> As opposed to the kind that looks near identical to trolling
> 
> Unfortunately, I will admit, that my personal experience may make me a little bias. When you say...
> 
> "However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real."
> 
> ...it goes against my experience with the music. Being open-minded and just listening is exactly what it took for me to accept 20th century music as having value within it.
> 
> So then perhaps the question becomes, why is it that that's all it took for me but it is apparently not all it takes for other people? What other factors could be at play here?


Violadude, perhaps it's the nonlinear narrative contour of modern music. I just had a discussion with some guy about this. Something like Xenakis's Bohor is a very different experience from say Stravinsky. Rather than a "direct" narrative like the Rite of Spring or Symphony of Psalms, the narrative is more kaleidoscopic and atmospheric, and therefore takes more time to get used to.

There really is a difference between older and more modern music. Older music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. But modern music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you. This is most effectively down with a more nonlinear narrative, and therefore it is harder to get into, but very much worthwhile.


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## mmsbls

violadude said:


> "However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real."
> 
> ...it goes against my experience with the music. Being open-minded and just listening is exactly what it took for me to accept 20th century music as having value within it.
> 
> So then perhaps the question becomes, why is it that that's all it took for me but it is apparently not all it takes for other people? What other factors could be at play here?


I think you're correct that listening does allow one to accept/enjoy/appreciate 20th century music. But the term listening can mean many things. When you say "that's all it tool for" you, you may be correct. In some sense I would also say "that's all it took for me." But it took a lot of listening for certain works or composers to open up for me, and some I still do not appreciate.

So while listening is _what it takes_, there's a question of how much and perhaps what kind. For me, I felt very frustrated for a reasonably long time that "just listening" did not seem to do the trick. I think telling people to "just listen" can be problematic if they think they are listening and still do not appreciate the music. I believe a more nuanced suggestion is better for many people.


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## mmsbls

Sid James said:


> I think that one big problem is that in the 20th century ideology, or the 'what' of music, became more important than the music itself. In other words you had composers focussing too much on forming cliques around a certain set of techniques or trends of the day rather than accepting the great diversity of music being produced, in what can be argued to be the century with the widest diversity of musical styles and approaches (within classical and in other types of music - eg. jazz, rock, world, and so on).


I agree with much of what you say here, but I just want to make sure I understand. Do you feel that the problem you mention above makes modern music more difficult for people to appreciate?


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## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> 1) The audiences who don't "get" most 20th century and contemporary music are not essentially the same as the 19th century audiences who didn't "get" Beethoven or Schumann or Mahler. Something important really did happen to classical music in the 20th century that was different from its evolution up to that point, and it is not surprising that much of its audience did not follow. The anti-modernists would say that composers betrayed the audience, whereas I would say that the social conditions that made the previous relationship between artist and audience possible ceased to exist. But the radical break with the past was real and needs to be acknowledged.


I disagree. There is far less difference between Mahler and Berg than there is between Mahler and Beethoven or Bach, just as there is less difference between Debussy and Mussorgsky than there is between Mussorgsky and Mozart.

It is true that a language based on the chromatic scale, or on non-tonally oriented diatonic/modal collections, is something different from the common practice system of functional tonality. It is not true that this represents a radical break with some kind of linear evolution.



> 2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.


I hear pitch centers in all of the music I listen to, including expressionist and serial music. I really don't believe that "true" atonality does or can exist. If you're simply referring to chromatically-based non-tonal music, the obvious reason for why it doesn't exist outside of the classical tradition is because, like Baroque counterpoint, it was a development out of what came before. You can't have expressionism without late romanticism.



> 3) Serialism really was given far more prominence than it should have been in the early to mid 20th century because of German-Austrian supremacy in musical culture. Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.


In the early 20th century, serialism was limited to a small handful of composers, either students of Schoenberg or students of students, and Schoenberg didn't want his method to be publicized for the very reason that it would distract people from listening to the music. For a short time after WWII, serialism was perhaps used to somewhat unproductive ends, but since then, it has been the inspiration for a variety of languages that are only somewhat related to the original idea.

Even now, the 12-tone compositions of masters like Stravinsky and Copland are underplayed partially out of an unfounded fear of the word "serial". Audiences can't hear any difference, as far as I can tell, between 12-tone/serial music and freely non-tonal music. The problem with much writing on 12-tone and serial music is that the technique is emphasized at the expense of the music.



> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.


But that's just not true. Like older music, understanding can come easily or with difficulty, depending on the individual piece and on the individual listener's experiences. Those who are used to pre-20th century norms may very likely have some difficulties coming to grips with the languages of the 20th century, especially because they are so diverse. Experience here and elsewhere shows me that all it takes for understanding, and (potentially) increased enjoyment is the willingness to listen and absorb the idioms.

Saying to someone "it's difficult" can appear to carry a connotation of superiority, as if there is some code that those "in the know" get and everyone else is just not on the same level. But it doesn't work like that at all. Art doesn't work like that at all. What one finds difficult another finds ingratiating, and vice versa.


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## DiesIraeCX

SeptimalTritone said:


> There really is a difference between older and more modern music.


Of course, I agree. They are different and thank goodness for that. I know I don't wanna hear Beethoven's style when I listen to Schoenberg. And vice-versa.



SeptimalTritone said:


> Older music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. But modern music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you. This is most effectively down with a more nonlinear narrative, and therefore it is harder to get into, but very much worthwhile.


I heartily disagree with the distinction made. Let's say the inverse, how does it sound to you?

"But older music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you."

I'd say this still holds up. Both old and modern and contemporary music can do all of the above. It depends on the quality, not the age or date of composition. What speaks to you, what moves you, what resonates with you, etc. is what matters.

Imagine if I were to say the inverse of what you said about older music:

"More modern music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. Whereas older music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you."

I can guarantee you that quite a few people would have a problem with that statement! You're denying the ability of older music to take you places you didn't even know existed. Why can't all musics, old and new, take you to emotional places you didn't know existed? Because I know for a fact that older music has done just that, just as newer music also has! 

Just because Debussy rebelled against Austro-Germanic music and all that it represented, doesn't make Debussy's music any more valid an idiom than Mahler or Wagner's.


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## dgee

SeptimalTritone said:


> Violadude, perhaps it's the nonlinear narrative contour of modern music. I just had a discussion with some guy about this. Something like Xenakis's Bohor is a very different experience from say Stravinsky. Rather than a "direct" narrative like the Rite of Spring or Symphony of Psalms, the narrative is more kaleidoscopic and atmospheric, and therefore takes more time to get used to.
> 
> There really is a difference between older and more modern music. Older music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. But modern music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you. This is most effectively down with a more nonlinear narrative, and therefore it is harder to get into, but very much worthwhile.


Y'know, analytically I may not entirely agree with this, but something about it is just so right and consistent with my experience that I had to like it

Unsurprising to hear the usual complaints about "modernist ideology", but once again the $60k question is - what does all this modern ideology mean for the listener?

As for points 1-4, I have some sympathy for 1 but see the change being a gradual one that didn't start in C20 and has a lot of other contributing factors, 2 I just don't know enough about, 3 the general panic about serialism puzzles me, and as for 4 - I think music is music - partitioning off bits and pieces and setting expectations about them is uncool.


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## mmsbls

SeptimalTritone said:


> Violadude, perhaps it's the nonlinear narrative contour of modern music. I just had a discussion with some guy about this. Something like Xenakis's Bohor is a very different experience from say Stravinsky. Rather than a "direct" narrative like the Rite of Spring or Symphony of Psalms, the narrative is more kaleidoscopic and atmospheric, and therefore takes more time to get used to.


I've generally used the metaphor of different musical languages in an attempt to describe why modern music is more difficult for some (many?) people. You use the term "nonlinear narrative" that seems much more detailed, but I'm not sure I really understand what you mean. Could you maybe expand a bit on what you mean?


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## SeptimalTritone

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Imagine if I were to say the inverse of what you said about older music:
> 
> "More modern music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. Whereas older music takes you to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you."
> 
> I can guarantee you that quite a few people would have a problem with that statement! You're denying the ability of older music to take you places you didn't even know existed. Why can't all musics, old and new, take you to emotional places you didn't know existed? Please help me out. Because I know for a fact that older music has done just that, just as newer music also has!
> 
> Please remember, Septimal, that just because Debussy rebelled against Austro-Germanic music and all that it represented, doesn't make Debussy's music any more valid an idiom than Mahler or Wagner's.


You're right of course 

Let me revise my statement: I think it's just a matter of degree. I should have been more continuous in my language, rather than binary/discrete, if you know what I mean.

In fact, recently I've been listening to some of Liszt's later piano works... I think it was the Funeral Prelude that was extremely absorbing and did take me to a new place, one I hadn't felt before. I was shaken and unsettled, and blown away. And I would also say this for Mozart's 20th, 24th, and 27th piano concertos as well.

But to a matter of degree, I would say people like Cage have done this more powerfully. Cage's Roaratorio flashes the cosmic landspace before your eyes. I mean, so does Beethoven in the 13th string quartet, but...

Modern music connects simplistic beauty with boiling harshness, and connects everyday mental movement with alien universes, and unifies it all together. It broadens the definition of what it means to be human. If we were to meet an alien race (OK simple mathematical estimates involving basic physics, astronomy, and biology say this almost certainly won't happen but whatever) their anatomy will give them vastly qualitatively different feelings and emotions... but the universal spirit of God is in them for sure. And we can make that spiritual connection with modern music. It tells us that there is something beyond ourselves. Older music couldn't do that to the same degree. It's more human-centric rather than universal (yeah, I couldn't rigorously back up a really strong statement like that, but I think there's some correctness in it).

Yeah, I know that my answer is kind of overly personal and learned music students don't like this kind of explanation. But sometimes I like it when people give personal or poetic descriptions of music: it helps newcomers like myself understand better what these artists are trying to communicate.


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## KenOC

I wonder if there's not more to the story than simply style, method, and musical vocabulary. There's been plenty of good tonal music written over the past years, minimalist, neo-romantic, whatever. And yet almost nothing has entered the mainstream orchestral performing repertoire. How many works from the past half century are _really _in the repertoire? Have we ever had such a drought as this? Why?

Maybe in the final analysis this isn't a question of "modernism" at all.


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## Guest

isorhythm said:


> 3) Serialism really was given far more prominence than it should have been in the early to mid 20th century because of German-Austrian supremacy in musical culture. Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.
> 
> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.


Re #3, I basically agree. Modernism in twentieth century music was similar to modernism in architecture and art, with similar polarizing results and backlashes. I personally don't think it's all bad, though maybe a bit of an acquired taste. And meanwhile a lot of great and immediately likable things were happening in music elsewhere, some of which are only now getting the attention they deserve. I may be neglecting the big names in modernism a bit, but I don't mind. Life is short.

Re #4, maybe one of the reasons the modernists lost their audiences was because they were producing music that needed to be explained. Audiences want music not lectures.

Having said all that, I don't consider myself anti-modernist, I consider myself pro-music-I-like. Whether a piece of music appeals to me is not determined by labels.


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## Fagotterdammerung

KenOC said:


> I wonder if there's not more to the story than simply style, method, and musical vocabulary. There's been plenty of good tonal music written over the past years, minimalist, neo-romantic, whatever. And yet almost nothing has entered the mainstream orchestral performing repertoire. How many works from the past half century are _really _in the repertoire? Have we ever had such a drought as this? Why?
> 
> Maybe in the final analysis this isn't a question of "modernism" at all.


This is something that's often head-scratching for me, as well. Like Baroque? there are people writing that now! Like Romantic? So many people writing in that style it's not even funny. Yet... they still struggle to reach repertoire status.


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## dgee

I think the lack of new "rep" is down to institutional inertia, extreme risk aversion and the importance of brand recognition.


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## ArtMusic

isorhythm said:


> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.
> 
> ...


A very well written post, which I enjoyed reading. In particular, I liked the 4th point quoted above. There is no such thing as a "take it or leave it" attitude with all art, in particular with modern music. It is precisely this "take it or leave it" attitude that alienates potential listeners and cultivates an apparent "conservatism" in listening attitudes. As another thread mentioned, it is never really about "old" or "new" per se, it is about what communicates, and all we want is for music to communicate, new or old.


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## KenOC

dgee said:


> I think the lack of new "rep" is down to institutional inertia, extreme risk aversion and the importance of brand recognition.


I'm not sure that's the story either.The LA Phil has premiered plenty of new music...mostly performed precisely once. Hear much Bright Sheng lately? Chapela's "Magnetar" for electric cello and orchestra was premiered in 2011, a big beefy and fun piece. Great applause and glowing reviews. Where is it now? Not even a single recording.

Mostly you'll hear "safe"pieces, shorter works by Adams or Torke, in between the works the audience really paid to hear. Chairman Dances, anyone? Short Ride? Javelin? All fine works,but... Oh well.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> I agree with much of what you say here, but I just want to make sure I understand. Do you feel that the problem you mention above makes modern music more difficult for people to appreciate?


Yes, and I think it is related to the issue of promotion, which you mentioned in your initial post.

There was an era when no self-respecting elite musician at the cutting edge would profess to liking say Rachmaninov, Elgar and Sibelius, and yet these where cherished by audiences. In more recent decades, musicians have been fairly open about their own tastes, and not seeking to impose their taste as superior to that of others. One of these I always remember is the conductor Serge Baudo, who in an interview during the 1980's said that he didn't like much avant-garde or contemporary classical music, yet Lutoslawski and Dutilleux where exceptions, and he made an award winning recording of their cello concertos with Mstislav Rostropovich that many of the members of this forum would own (I have it in my collection).

There are listeners who don't favour certain types of new/newer classical but are okay with others. Musicians are the same. There is often a feeling that if a person expresses negative opinions about music which is challenging to them - and many other listeners - then these opinions may leave them open to charges of ignorance, conservatism, not trying hard enough and so on. Its probably more pronounced in relation to visual art, where people get the same charges levelled at them for expressing opinions on conceptual and abstract art.

In terms of promoting music, in recent decades a more open and inclusive style has developed from the top so to musicians like Baudo do talk of the limitations of their taste. They aren't oracles of a single truth or like some model to be followed by the masses under them. They aren't aiming to be some Messiah or Zen monk, preaching something close to religious dogma which it is heretical to disobey. There is a more open and down to earth quality that has developed since the 1960's, and I think this has had effect on not only existing classical listeners but also the wider culture in general.

So I think something approaching _classical music with a human face _has emerged, and that's good. It challenges the hierarchies of Modernism, which where just about enforcing elitism as I said. We've had enough of that in classical music, even just in terms of image its a no-no.

I don't know whether or not it will mean something for the long term of classical music. But there is now a diversity of opinions coming from musicians, which at least gives the impression that there is some sort of dialogue developing. People don't have to feel like idiots if they prefer Berg's Violin Concerto to the typical glass smashing, wailing, bashing pianos post-Cagean (or simply rehashing Cage?) type stuff. Chances are, musicians have made similar observations about their taste on the public record. Its no big deal, and even though I think there is a risk of getting too analytical and applying rationalisation to everything, I think freedom of thought is still the most important thing in the arts.


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## arpeggio

There have been many threads that have addressed the issue.

The following is a post I submitted to one them that addresses some of you points: http://www.talkclassical.com/25155-accessibility-contemporary-works.html#post450320


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## Piwikiwi

KenOC said:


> I wonder if there's not more to the story than simply style, method, and musical vocabulary. There's been plenty of good tonal music written over the past years, minimalist, neo-romantic, whatever. And yet almost nothing has entered the mainstream orchestral performing repertoire. How many works from the past half century are _really _in the repertoire? Have we ever had such a drought as this? Why?
> 
> Maybe in the final analysis this isn't a question of "modernism" at all.


I think that this because most modern music is not accessible enough and most newly composed baroque/romantic music will always sound derivative and simply can not compete with actual music composed during those times. We also need to realize that a lot of music, like Bach's, only entered the repertoire years after they passed away.


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## Woodduck

SeptimalTritone said:


> *There really is a difference *between older and more modern music. Older music takes the emotions we already know, and describes and argues with the utmost intensity and clarity. But modern music takes* you* to emotional places you didn't even know you could exist within you.


When you use words of emphasis and certainty like "there really is," you need to show that there really, in fact, is.

I find your statement completely meaningless, but to the extent I can even imagine a meaning for it I perceive no such intrinsic difference between "older" and "modern" music. Every piece of music takes "you" wherever it takes "you," and takes "me" wherever it takes "me." If music takes anyone to some unfamiliar place, its because they happen to be unfamiliar with that place. A Byrd motet or a Wagner prelude may take them to some place just as unimaginable as a Carter quartet, and move them more deeply. And of course it's possible for a particular piece, old or new, to take them nowhere at all.

I see that since I posted the above, you've already responded to some objections. Sorry if I've been redundant! (But I still mean every word. )


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## echo

its about archetypes baby --- the difference between merging and projecting on the past

--- the ones i can't stand is the post modernists (even the name is generically pretentious)


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## Guest

*Recycling canards*

The points with which isorhythm expresses agreement are not very strong points, and they have each been handled quite well here and there in this thread already. However, I have been invited to plug in a couple of things that I have stated before in other threads. Whew! Talk about recycling. Oops. But, ya know, as long as the same old canards keep being played over and over again, I suppose there's some justification for hauling out the same old rebuttals from time to time.



isorhythm said:


> 1) The audiences who don't "get" most 20th century and contemporary music are not essentially the same as the 19th century audiences who didn't "get" Beethoven or Schumann or Mahler. Something important really did happen to classical music in the 20th century that was different from its evolution up to that point, and it is not surprising that much of its audience did not follow. The anti-modernists would say that composers betrayed the audience, whereas I would say that the social conditions that made the previous relationship between artist and audience possible ceased to exist. But the radical break with the past was real and needs to be acknowledged.


The past is a big area, full of all sorts of variety and conflict and contradiction and radical change. What we really need to do is stop talking about "the past" as if that were a thing.

If the audiences are not essentially the same, then it is remarkable that the criticisms of new music from the beginning of the nineteenth century on are essentially the same, in spite of any of the remarkable changes in the music.

Something important really did happen to music in the 19th century. It started being called "classical." And coterminous with that was the rise of a new attitude about music different from anything else up to that point. The ratio of old to new in concerts with printed programs changed from 1 to 9 in Haydn's time to 9 to 1 and even 10 to 0 by 1866.

There were three peaks in this process, where the anti-modernist sentiment was particularly strong: 1843, 1866, and 1900. These were years where the ratios were particularly skewed towards the old and where patrons were particularly vehement in their rejections.

All of this is more than a decade before the ground-breaking pieces by Schoenberg and Stravinsky that get all the credit for turning away audiences. And that's another thing. Another change that started in the truly radical 19th century was the splintering of the audience into audiences.



isorhythm said:


> 2) The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned. This doesn't mean great music has to satisfy those preferences, and much music I love doesn't. But there's no use pretending that they're socially constructed, or that they can, or must, be escaped.


The stickiest of sticky wickets this. No one who believes this will ever be convinced that this is not true. The lack of any empirical evidence for this canard, notwithstanding.



isorhythm said:


> 3) Serialism really was given far more prominence than it should have been in the early to mid 20th century because of German-Austrian supremacy in musical culture. Much of the language that grew up around that tradition, in which composers took language they didn't really understand from mathematics ("set theory," etc.) was embarrassing, pretentious pseudoscience.


Again, no historical evidence for this. Historical evidence that this was not true, as Mahlerian has pointed out. The embarrassing conclusion about embarrassing pseudoscience is embarrassing.



isorhythm said:


> 4) Advocates of modern music from the early 20th century on could have done a much better job of promoting and explaining their music to audiences, which would have meant acknowledging that it really was more "difficult," and less immediately accessible, than much older music.


Faced with powerful, irrational prejudices that predate the avant-garde and that are not based on much, if any, direct experience with the music itself--if it's not being played in the concerts you attend (and largely, it is not), then how did you get this violent hatred for it? (If you have never eaten broccoli, how do you know it's terrible?--faced with that kind of attitude, you really think there could have been a rational response that would have had everyone setting aside their prejudices and embracing the music of Schoenberg and Stravinsky?

Besides, as has been pointed out before, the music is only "more difficult," "less accessible," insofar as unfamiliar things are different from familiar things. And insofar as people have prejudices against things they don't know.



isorhythm said:


> Audiences, in reaction to all this, have become ultraconservative, more than at any other time in history. I'm not trying to excuse that. However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real.


History does not bear this out. Meaning that it doesn't need any excuse because it's not even a thing. And the difficulties are mostly chimerical. Again, you cannot in good conscience claim that something you've never heard, would have never had an opportunity to hear, is too difficult or too easy or too anything else. Anti-modernism is and has always been an irrational, self-perpetuating ideology fueled by prejudice.


----------



## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> I wonder if there's not more to the story than simply style, method, and musical vocabulary. There's been plenty of good tonal music written over the past years, minimalist, neo-romantic, whatever. And yet almost nothing has entered the mainstream orchestral performing repertoire. How many works from the past half century are _really _in the repertoire? Have we ever had such a drought as this? Why?
> 
> Maybe in the final analysis this isn't a question of "modernism" at all.


Vast quantities of fine music from earlier periods as well are completely ignored in favor of established classics, mostly acknowledged masterpieces by master composers. Its just hard to get programmed if you aren't one of these composers, no matter when you lived and wrote.


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## Piwikiwi

Woodduck said:


> Vast quantities of fine music from earlier periods as well are completely ignored in favor of established classics, mostly acknowledged masterpieces by master composers. Its just hard to get programmed if you aren't one of these composers, no matter when you lived and wrote.


There is so much music I would really like to see live and it never gets programmed.


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## Triplets

Nice post, iso. I particularly like your points about how Modernist Music represents a fundamental break with all that preceded it. I agree with everything that you said.
My only contribution would be to argue that the traumas of the 20th Century, Totalitarianism and the horrible wars they produced, also limited Modernism. The Dictatorships only wanted Music that fit their Political Agenda and made life difficult for Composers that didn't toe the line and in the process did a lot to destroy the vibrant Compositional activity of Germany, Russia, and other Countries. The mass technology that brought Music (especially popular music) into the home and eliminated the need to be able to play music to enjoy it also decreased musical literacy and made Classical Music in general, and especially modernistic music, more of an elitist fare. Otherwise, I thought your post was excellent and comprehensive.


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## Nereffid

Perhaps the best way of getting conciliation between anti-modernists and pro-modernists is for everyone to address the world as it _is_ rather than as it _should be_.

Exaggeration for comic effect:

Anti-modernist: Waaaaaaaah! I hate this modern music!
_But it exists. Get over it._

Pro-modernist: Waaaaaaaah! These anti-modernists are so annoying!
_But they exist. Get over it._


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## Guest

Triplets said:


> Nice post, iso. I particularly like your points about how Modernist Music represents a fundamental break with all that preceded it. I agree with everything that you said.


It's always fascinating to see responses that essentially ignore all the posts that preceded them.

Just by the way, here's something else for you to ignore, something that I did not bring up in one of those ignored posts: from at least the early 19th century, modern music was often seen as being a fundamental break with all that preceded it. That is, it's more a trope than an observation. That is, it's been "observed" so often about so many things, that it has lost any evidentiary force that it may have once had.

The Renaissance was widely seen as a fundamental break with all that preceded it. But from our perpective, now, it is easy to see that the Renaissance was a continuation of Medieval ideas and ideals. Not so much a break as a natural development. "Fundamental break" is a common idea. It happens all the time. It seems to be more a matter of perspective than anything else.



Triplets said:


> My only contribution would be to argue that the traumas of the 20th Century, Totalitarianism and the horrible wars they produced, also limited Modernism. The Dictatorships only wanted Music that fit their Political Agenda and made life difficult for Composers that didn't toe the line and in the process did a lot to destroy the vibrant Compositional activity of Germany, Russia, and other Countries.


The vibrant compositional activity that took place in other times that were also traumatic, also full of wars and rebellions, and also quite full of totalitarianism.... Somehow, it's become a matter of pride that the 20th century has had the edge on trauma. The edge on historical amnesia, may be.



Triplets said:


> The mass technology that brought Music (especially popular music) into the home and eliminated the need to be able to play music to enjoy it also decreased musical literacy and made Classical Music in general, and especially modernistic music, more of an elitist fare. Otherwise, I thought your post was excellent and comprehensive.


If I weren't so put out by your snubbing of the thirty posts that preceded yours, I'd agree with the comment about recording technology. But as it is....:lol:


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> Perhaps the best way of getting conciliation between anti-modernists and pro-modernists is for everyone to address the world as it _is_ rather than as it _should be_.
> 
> Exaggeration for comic effect:
> 
> Anti-modernist: Waaaaaaaah! I hate this modern music!
> _But it exists. Get over it._
> 
> Pro-modernist: Waaaaaaaah! These anti-modernists are so annoying!
> _But they exist. Get over it._


Funny, but I'm not sure you've quite got the ists down accurately.

Anyone can hate anything and say it. That's neither here nor there. What this particular pro-modernist finds annoying about anti-modernists is not the hate so much as the alchemy that turns a personal response into an accurate description. A "description" that cannot be argued with.

Equally, of course anti-modernists exist. That's also neither here nor there. It's the annoying part that's the issue. You can hate anything you want, any time. But no one has to be annoying about it.

In any event, if the world as it is is not to your tastes, then trying to change it is certainly a legitimate response, eh? Be fair. Vaccinations.


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## Nereffid

some guy said:


> Anyone can hate anything and say it. That's neither here nor there. What this particular pro-modernist finds annoying about anti-modernists is not the hate so much as the alchemy that turns a personal response into an accurate description. A "description" that cannot be argued with.


But what does this irritating personality trait have to do with anti-modernism?


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## Guest

What I mean by the alchemy is not a personality trait but a technique, a technique used by every anti-modernist I've ever run across.


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## isorhythm

Many good points here! Unfortunately I have a busy day at work for once so I'm not going to be able to respond for a while. I'll just throw in, in case it wasn't clear, that I'm a big fan of a lot of 20th and 21st century music myself. Schoenberg, Ligeti, Xenakis, Messiaen, Reich and others easily make my top 20. Some of this music I found "difficult" at first listen, other music I took to right away, and it's not necessarily predictable which is which (in fact my own experience does undermine my OP somewhat).

I should also stress that by "pitch centers" I do _not_ mean just common practice tonality! I mean it understood extremely broadly.

Anyway, more later.


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## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> I should also stress that by "pitch centers" I do _not_ mean just common practice tonality! I mean it understood extremely broadly.


I understood you.

I still disagree. Pitch centers exist in _*all*_ music, except that which does not have any pitches.


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## Guest

violadude said:


> Thanks for posting, Isorhythm. This is the kind of opposition I like to see on the thread, the kind that promotes discussion.
> 
> As opposed to the kind that looks near identical to trolling
> 
> Unfortunately, I will admit, that my personal experience may make me a little bias. When you say...
> 
> "However, I don't think the way to overcome it is by continuing to insist that all they have to do is stop being narrow-minded and listen and they'll suddenly get it. The difficulties are real."
> 
> ...it goes against my experience with the music. Being open-minded and just listening is exactly what it took for me to accept 20th century music as having value within it.
> 
> So then perhaps the question becomes, why is it that that's all it took for me but it is apparently not all it takes for other people? What other factors could be at play here?


Odd...all it took was effort (and a side of self-education) for me too...

But surely there isn't a trend.


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## Fagotterdammerung

Mahlerian said:


> I still disagree. Pitch centers exist in _*all*_ music, except that which does not have any pitches.


Yes, if atonal music has one peculiar "failing" it's that the gravity between notes and implied tonal centers are still often felt, albeit with the sense of center shifting almost every new chord. I often wind up hearing atonal chords as dominant harmony when they're truthfully not, heading for a resolution that never happens.

A single note on a cymbal is much more effectively "atonal" than an entire mid- or late-period Schoenberg work. :lol:


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## EdwardBast

arcaneholocaust said:


> Fast-forward to 14:35 and cite your evidence.


I'm confused. I mean, Beethoven's Fifth _is_ terrifying! Always has been. This was noted in the earliest intelligent reviews, particularly E.T.A. Hoffmann's. Because of long familiarity, it is possible to lose sight of this, as Pintscher seems to have done. I don't see how one wholly naive listener getting Beethoven immediately and at a visceral level supports the point Pintscher thinks he is making.


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> I'm confused. I mean, Beethoven's Fifth _is_ terrifying! Always has been. This was noted in the earliest intelligent reviews, particularly E.T.A. Hoffmann's. Because of long familiarity, it is possible to lose sight of this, as Pintscher seems to have done. I don't see how one wholly naive listener getting Beethoven immediately and at a visceral level supports the point Pintscher thinks he is making.


He was immediately able to appreciate Pintscher. And he heard Beethoven with new ears as well.


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## EdwardBast

arcaneholocaust said:


> He was immediately able to appreciate Pintscher. And he heard Beethoven with new ears as well.


Pintscher's point was that naive listeners can miscomprehend the easiest favorites of orchestra music but find his work easily comprehensible, proving that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation. The example fails because the naive listener's reaction, finding the Fifth terrifying, is not out of sync with its reception among western listeners, only with Pintscher's.


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## Blancrocher

isorhythm said:


> Many good points here! Unfortunately I have a busy day at work for once so I'm not going to be able to respond for a while. I'll just throw in, in case it wasn't clear, that I'm a big fan of a lot of 20th and 21st century music myself. Schoenberg, Ligeti, Xenakis, Messiaen, Reich and others easily make my top 20. Some of this music I found "difficult" at first listen, other music I took to right away, and it's not necessarily predictable which is which (in fact my own experience does undermine my OP somewhat).


I admire what you're trying to do with this thread, isorhythm--unless you're here under duress, that is. I've heard of some New York law firms that won't let someone make partner until they've gotten a post liked by both some guy and KenOC. I've heard it's the toughest hurdle.

In any event, though, good luck!


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## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> I admire what you're trying to do with this thread, isorhythm--unless you're here under duress, that is. *I've heard of some New York law firms that won't let someone make partner until they've gotten a post liked by both some guy and KenOC*. I've heard it's the toughest hurdle.
> 
> In any event, though, good luck!


I think I know one of those firms, Blanc (naturally, one of the more disreputable) : _Messrs_. Sue, Grabbit & Runne [company motto : Broke the law? We'll fix it!].


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> Pintscher's point was that naive listeners can miscomprehend the easiest favorites of orchestra music but find his work easily comprehensible, proving that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation. The example fails because the naive listener's reaction, finding the Fifth terrifying, is not out of sync with its reception among western listeners, only with Pintscher's.


Listen to the clip again, Edward. Pintscher doesn't say or even suggest that the kid's reaction to Beethoven's fifth is in any way a miscomprehension, nor is Pintscher trying to prove that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation.

He was intrigued by the boy's responses is all.

We can use his point as support for the notion that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation, but practically anything anyone thinks about anything, or how anyone reacts to anything, is a result of acculturation.

Anyway, the kid's reaction being in sync or not with "western listeners"--one of whom is Pintscher, another of whom is myself, who also does not find the symphony terrifying, many more of whom are the listeners Pintscher refers to, who also do not find it terrifying--is neither here nor there. That one inexperienced boy from a huge continent with dozens of vastly different cultures was able to enjoy Pintscher's music is not much proof, really, of anything. It's kinda cool. It's quite cool, actually. And it does suggest that a prejudice against contemporary music is not the universally natural thing it's often given out to be.

It doesn't have to do any more than suggest, though, as there is plenty of other evidence that that is so as well. My own experience, par example.

In any event, if you read it as the kid getting Beethoven right that doesn't address whether or not he's getting Pintscher right, too. And Pintscher doesn't really put things in terms of right or wrong, anyway, but of pleasure (that the kid enjoyed his piece) and surprise (that the kid found the most familiar of all warhorses to be terrifying). I don't get the sense that Pintscher thinks the kid's shock was wrong. It was just surprising. To concert-goers this piece is familiar to the extreme. It's cool to see someone react to it as something new and unfamiliar.


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## arpeggio

*The Final Arbiter Will Be Our Ears*

The older I get the more meaningless these discussions become.

If all of the OP's assertions are correct, does this mean that no one can perform, listen to or talk about Elliott Carter?

If all of the OP's assertions are incorrect, does that mean that one has to like Elliott Carter?

Each of us is going to react to music differently. The final arbiter will be our ears. So if you like Carter, listen to him. If you do not like Carter, do not listen to him.


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## Guest

Hahaha, good one arpeggio.:tiphat: 

Probably too easy, though.

Besides, you know how difficult it is to give up the notion that the way one hears something is the way it sounds, especially, it seems, if it's something you hate.


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## EdwardBast

some guy said:


> In any event, if you read it as the kid getting Beethoven right that doesn't address whether or not he's getting Pintscher right, too. And Pintscher doesn't really put things in terms of right or wrong, anyway, but of pleasure (that the kid enjoyed his piece) and surprise (that the kid found the most familiar of all warhorses to be terrifying). I don't get the sense that Pintscher thinks the kid's shock was wrong. It was just surprising. To concert-goers this piece is familiar to the extreme. It's cool to see someone react to it as something new and unfamiliar.


This is all true. And I think it is cool to hear of the kid's responses to both Beethoven and Pintscher's music as well. I was addressing only the viability of Pintscher's commentary's as support for the argument I believe he was trying to make - and the argument arcaneholocaust was making by quoting it. I think it falls flat, surely because I am interpreting his intention differently than you are.


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## Woodduck

arcaneholocaust said:


> Fast-forward to 14:35 and cite your evidence.


This particular clip was discussed in the following thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/35577-contemporary-avant-garde-can.html?highlight=pintscher

I asserted and elaborated there (and caught a lot of flak for it!) the point that EdwardBast makes here very succinctly: _"Pintscher's point was that naive listeners can miscomprehend the easiest favorites of orchestra music but find his work easily comprehensible, proving that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation. The example fails because the naive listener's reaction, finding the Fifth terrifying, is not out of sync with its reception among western listeners, only with Pintscher's."_

I'm sure Pintscher was genuinely surprised, and very flattered, when the African fellow seemed more at ease with his music than with Beethoven's. But his apparent inability to imagine why this might be so shows that it isn't only "anti-modernists" who have prejudices. The idea here suggested, that all musical preferences are culturally determined and that no musical response reflects any universal, basic functions or predispositions of the human mind more than any other - an idea frequently voiced by "modernists" in pro/anti-modernist debates - is a prejudice. But there's no need to resort to that idea in order to "defend" any music; doing so only concedes validity to the prejudice that music which would appeal less readily or commonly to such biological predispositions would be less artistically valid. Acceptance of that idea might lead us to a place that few of us, pro or anti, would care to go: I might even have to conclude that the most "valid" music I've heard this week was the stuff I was forced to listen to while picking out broccoli the other day.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I understood you.
> 
> I still disagree. Pitch centers exist in _*all*_ music, except that which does not have any pitches.


I don't think pitch centers structurally exist in *all* music, except as a matter of selective perception. A lot of composers do not intend for their music to be heard with pitch centers, nor do pitch centers exist structurally in such "atonal" music.

"Atonal" simply means "music with no tonal center."

"Atonal" music can then be subdivided into two other categories:

1. The general, more vague meaning, which means highly chromatic music which is ambiguous, and in which harmonic tonal functions are no longer meaningful or useful in perceiving or analyzing said music;

2. ...and "atonal" music which is based on some sort of systematic method, such as 12-tone, total serialism, fractals, geometric/mathematical methods, and others.

I can concede that the _ear_ will (sensually) tend to try to hear "pitch centers" or, in conjunction with the cognitive facility, seek reductive patterns/pitch relations in longer progressions of pitches; but this is due to physics and the ear's harmonic method of hearing even _one_ note in terms of a fundamental tone (read: pitch center), with lesser subservient overtones which are higher-pitched.

This harmonic model is what suggests a reduction to a "pitch center," first to the ear, on a sensual level, then to the brain, on a cognitive level, as more pitches are perceived in a span of time.

Therefore, the sound of somebody beating on a drum will more likely be perceived as rhythmic, not in terms of pitch, pitch centers, or pitch relations, except in the vaguest sense. If the drum, as most drums do, has no prominent fundamental tone, then the "pitch" of the drum is perceived of as being ambiguous at best.

I do this all the time with non-pitched noises; I will hear a noise in the environment which has no specific or prominent pitch, and I can "tune my ear in" to several possible harmonics, using my brain as a 'selective filter.'

Even "white noise" can be listened to this way, since it consists of supposedly equivalent amplitudes of all frequencies. "Pitch centers" then become a matter of selective perception.


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## Sid James

Sid James said:


> ... In more recent decades, musicians have been fairly open about their own tastes, and not seeking to impose their taste as superior to that of others. One of these I always remember is the conductor Serge Baudo, who in an interview during the 1980's said that he didn't like much avant-garde or contemporary classical music, yet Lutoslawski and Dutilleux where exceptions, and he made an award winning recording of their cello concertos with Mstislav Rostropovich that many of the members of this forum would own (I have it in my collection). ....


Just ironing out and adding to the record here. Maestro Baudo only conducted the Dutilleux on that recording. "I am traditional. I like very much some 20th century music - Britten, Stravinsky, Dutilleux - but not any of the avant-garde music," is what he said in that 1988 interview which I dug up subsequent to posting yesterday.

The article also mentions how early in his career, Baudo was in touch with many living French composers both of film and concert hall music, including Dutilleux. Baudo made the first ever recording of a piece by Dutilleux. The conductor also said that it was good if musicians took part in encouraging audiences "to be more curious about our century's music." He said that it wasn't easy for orchestras to play new music but still has its rewards.

Finally I liked his analogy comparing music to sport, "it is like ping pong or tennis. The ball is the music. The music goes from the orchestra to the audience and back."


----------



## Giordano

I am inclined to imagine that the universe is large enough to allow different types of human minds, seemingly fundamentally different, but actually aspects of incomplete humanness, all striving toward greater being and seeing, and not necessarily all moving in the same direction. 

Something like that...


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> I don't think pitch centers structurally exist in *all* music, except as a matter of selective perception. A lot of composers do not intend for their music to be heard with pitch centers, nor do pitch centers exist structurally in such "atonal" music.
> 
> "Atonal" simply means "music with no tonal center."
> 
> "Atonal" music can then be subdivided into two other categories:
> 
> 1. The general, more vague meaning, which means highly chromatic music which is ambiguous, and in which harmonic tonal functions are no longer meaningful or useful in perceiving or analyzing said music;
> 
> 2. ...and "atonal" music which is based on some sort of systematic method, such as 12-tone, total serialism, fractals, geometric/mathematical methods, and others.


I believe you are conceptualizing on the basis of how something is constructed rather than the actual sound as performed music. You are making a one-to-one correspondence between properties of traditional tonality (triads, scales) and the harmonic result as necessarily generating a center, but this is not obvious at all. Furthermore, it is also not obvious that methods of shaping music that do not necessarily deal with centers (as the 12-tone method by itself does not) necessarily result in music without any tonal properties. In fact, I believe both of these are not only debatable, but false.

Furthermore, by focusing on one aspect of the method by which the music was created (rows and their manipulation), you ignore everything else that is heard: register, repetition, dynamics, rhythm, and every other kind of emphasis that can be used to articulate and generate points of stability in the absence of functional tonality. Are these things truly irrelevant to whether or not one perceives a given pitch as dominant? Also, if the composer makes use of such emphases, why should we assume that the force thus generated is not intended to be felt?


----------



## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> This is all true. And I think it is cool to hear of the kid's responses to both Beethoven and Pintscher's music as well. I was addressing only the viability of Pintscher's commentary's as support for the argument I believe he was trying to make - and the argument arcaneholocaust was making by quoting it. I think it falls flat, surely because I am interpreting his intention differently than you are.


I fully understand the argument he is making (or no "argument" at all, as someguy says, but mere intrigue). Just as someguy said, my point was that, like anything, we get musical prejudices from culture. To say otherwise is nonsense. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. We get all sorts of prejudices from culture and its essentially unavoidable. And therein lies the requirement for effort.

All I'm saying is that that point in the OP is really no argument against modernism. The reaction to Beethoven and Pintscher's commentary on it have zero relevance to this thread. The fact that a boy without various cultural prejudices was able to immediately react favorably to musical modernism, on the other hand, has everything to do with the thread.

And of course, Woodduck's attack is not relevant to the point either.


----------



## EdwardBast

Woodduck said:


> This particular clip was discussed in the following thread:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/35577-contemporary-avant-garde-can.html?highlight=pintscher
> 
> I asserted and elaborated there (and caught a lot of flak for it!) the point that EdwardBast makes here very succinctly: _"Pintscher's point was that naive listeners can miscomprehend the easiest favorites of orchestra music but find his work easily comprehensible, proving that prejudice against modern music is a result of acculturation. The example fails because the naive listener's reaction, finding the Fifth terrifying, is not out of sync with its reception among western listeners, only with Pintscher's."_


Not sure why I didn't get involved with that earlier thread. Maybe I read your post and thought that it covered the point I would have made


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> "Atonal" simply means "music with no tonal center."


Context of the time in which the term was coined is vital to get this right.

A (without) Tonal -- that meant TONIC, and _referred to the harmony of the common practice period._ It did not throw out 'pitch center' at all, just no Tonic as in Tonic Triad and chords based upon a diatonic scale.

*Without a Tonic Triad, (ergo then, most critically, also without the implicating of a tonic also via the presence of IV or V chords) is more really like it.*


----------



## Sid James

Giordano said:


> I am inclined to imagine that the universe is large enough to allow different types of human minds, seemingly fundamentally different, but actually aspects of incomplete humanness, all striving toward greater being and seeing, and not necessarily all moving in the same direction.
> 
> Something like that...


I have said it similarly, albeit less eloquently, in the past on this forum. Modern and contemporary music is a broad church so to speak. In terms of diversity of the influences and inspirations which composers draw upon to create their own unique music, there is a whole array of approaches. These days, composers tend not to fit into schools as some did in the past, there has been a breaking down of barriers between genres and traditions outside classical too.

The bottom line for me is that Modernism as an ideology - which is about that elitist tabula rasa view, the negation of history and context, the pushing of various notions of progress to breaking point and so on - is now either seen as seriously flawed or dead. Perhaps it isn't on this forum, but it is in terms of what is going on out there amongst musicians but more importantly beyond the confines of music, including in the other arts.

This tendency towards plurality and away from control of ideas has been going on for decades, as I tried to demonstrate with the Baudo quote, and if there is a consensus it is that valuing and celebration of the diversity found in music. Whether or not TC forum reflects this in debates like this thread is another matter entirely.


----------



## Guest

It somehow just dawned on me that I don't know what this thread is about. I'm not a modernist. I caught someguy dishing out some Tchaikovsky love several times last year. PetrB won't shut up about the greatness of Rameau. Etc.

Can someone point out an example of a modernist on this forum?


----------



## dgee

Sid, I think musicians tend to look to the music way ahead of any "ideology". I'm vastly more interested in the music than the ideology, and I'd wager most members with an interest in Boulez, Cage, Nono, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Lachenmann, Wuorinen or whatever other bad modernist you can muster is too. Heaps of music of composers involved in 50s Darmstadt is revered, enjoyed, taught, played and influential - because of how it sounds! Whenever I see mention of this "modernist ideology", I know where it's heading - a discussion of composers and music completely divorced from the actual music, listening to music and the practice of making music


----------



## quack

arcaneholocaust said:


> Can someone point out an example of a modernist on this forum?


We're all postmodern, whether we like it or not.


----------



## arpeggio

arcaneholocaust said:


> It somehow just dawned on me that I don't know what this thread is about. I'm not a modernist. I caught someguy dishing out some Tchaikovsky love several times last year. PetrB won't shut up about the greatness of Rameau. Etc.
> 
> Can someone point out an example of a modernist on this forum?


Thanks. I thought I was the only one confused. There have several new discussions that have completely lost me.


----------



## PetrB

quack said:


> We're all postmodern, whether we like it or not.


Are we men? We are (all) _contemporary and "Post Modern"_ *

* what a completely dull and unimaginative appellation... as literal as it gets. Half-dressed up with a Latin prefix, it is like someone wearing the suit jacket who has forgotten to put on the pants.


----------



## PetrB

arcaneholocaust said:


> It somehow just dawned on me that I don't know what this thread is about. I'm not a modernist. I caught someguy dishing out some Tchaikovsky love several times last year. *PetrB won't shut up about the greatness of Rameau*. Etc.
> 
> Can someone point out an example of a modernist on this forum?


*Hey, Arcane Holocaust, let's not get too personal here, I have a reputation to uphold!*

Anyone temporarily labeled as that because they like and are advocating music written, say, post-shostakovich, usually with an implicit judgement that the name caller knows what good music is (and real beauty, and a host of other vague terms) and the modernist doesn't 

It's a floater label, tacked on conveniently when there isn't really an argument, by those who wish to make an argument (against the newer music), as a non-acceptible argument. Depending on which music from which date you are talking up, you're good as gold, or you're a stinking modernist.

Oh, and you probably rigidly follow to the letter some ideology, and that ideology must have 'an agenda.'

I think that about covers it.


----------



## science

Such a glorious concentration of straw men and scorn in one thread. Are you guys really proud of yourselves right now?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

> Mahlerian [supra at Post #13]: I really don't believe that "true" atonality does or can exist.


If that premise is true, then a logical inference from that premise is that no conceivable combination of tones can ever sound cacophonous.

Is this true?

- Not in my experiential realm.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

dgee said:


> I think the lack of new "rep" is down to institutional inertia, extreme risk aversion and the importance of brand recognition.


Or perhaps just the fact that the buying public will go elsewhere to hear music that they do like.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> Can someone point out an example of a modernist on this forum?


Can you actually not find a single example for yourself of someone who would express scorn toward someone who didn't have the right taste in music?

But keep it up. The homogeneity is near.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> If that premise is true, then a logical inference from that premise is that no conceivable combination of tones can ever sound cacophonous.
> 
> Is this true?
> 
> - Not in my experiential realm.


No, because atonality and cacophony are independent concepts. One cannot draw any conclusions about one from the other.

Atonality - Music without tonal center

Cacophony - A collection of sounds that is perceived as noise

The word cacophony has certainly been applied by many to other things, like Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Puccini, etc., which are not considered atonal. It is also a subjective reaction rather than an objective description (as "atonal" purports to be).

It is true that there is music that is musically ungrammatical and nonsensical, but this is not the same thing as "atonal". I have heard plenty of amateur tonal works that lack any of the harmonic direction or sense displayed by something like Webern's Cantatas or Ligeti's concertos.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Can you actually not find a single example for yourself of someone who would express scorn toward someone who didn't have the right taste in music?
> 
> But keep it up, friendo. The homogeneity is near.


Oh, I certainly can. But as far as tastes actually go, I can only think of (A) people that listen to only "conservative" music and (B) people that listen to "conservative" music and "modern" music. I can't really think of a single poster who has actually expressed disdain for all music before the modern era. Whereas blanket critiques of all that came after are easily commonplace here.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> Oh, I certainly can.


Well, then, you've answered your own question.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Well, then, you've answered your own question.


But, like I said, if the disdain came from a "modernist" - it was never based solely on the era of composition but rather on content. Only from the "anti-modernist" group have I seen blanket disdain that disregards content.

And btw, science, I have personally been trying to think about the places you've gone in the last few months, and I am very close to understanding. But I think you might be missing a couple of crucial points.

Edit: At least I didn't personally drive you away, as you tried to convince me.


----------



## arpeggio

arcaneholocaust said:


> Oh, I certainly can. But as far as tastes actually go, I can only think of (A) people that listen to only "conservative" music and (B) people that listen to "conservative" music and "modern" music. I can't really think of a single poster who has actually expressed disdain for all music before the modern era. Whereas blanket critiques of all that came after are easily commonplace here.


There are a few (C) everything in the 20th century better. But the (A)'s vastly outnumber them.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> But, like I said, if the disdain came from a "modernist" - it was never based solely on the era of composition but rather on content. Only from the "anti-modernist" group have I seen blanket disdain that disregards content.
> 
> And btw, science, I have personally been trying to think about the places you've gone in the last few months, and I am very close to understanding. But I think you might be missing a couple of crucial points.


I haven't gone anywhere.

Regardless of what motivates the disdain, it's foul.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> Edit: At least I didn't personally drive you away, as you tried to convince me.


Oh, no, I didn't mean to suggest, let alone convince you of that. Ever since you joined the "let's hate people who don't like our music (Edit: Or who have the wrong attitudes about music)" team, you've been part of a team. Not alone at all.

A team that currently dominates the board, so that no one who didn't like your music would feel welcome here. That's the point, you know it, and you know you're winning.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

some guy said:


> What I mean by the alchemy is not a personality trait but a technique, a technique used by every anti-modernist I've ever run across.


Anti-modernist: (noun) Someone who exercises independent judgement and taste at the expense of doctrinaire nonsense and (feckless) bullying.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Oh, no, I didn't mean to suggest, let alone convince you of that. Ever since you joined the "let's hate people who don't like our music (Edit: Or who have the wrong attitudes about music)" team, you've been part of a team. Not alone at all.
> 
> A team that currently dominates the board, so that no one who didn't like your music would feel welcome here. That's the point, you know it, and you know you're winning.


I'm sorry you see it that way.

And yes, I'm referring both to (1) me joining a "team" and (2) the nature of that "team".

It's been a long time since I won at anything. With time, you may have the misfortune of seeing that.


----------



## Sid James

dgee said:


> Sid, I think musicians tend to look to the music way ahead of any "ideology". I'm vastly more interested in the music than the ideology, and I'd wager most members with an interest in Boulez, Cage, Nono, Stockhausen, Babbitt, Lachenmann, Wuorinen or whatever other bad modernist you can muster is too. Heaps of music of composers involved in 50s Darmstadt is revered, enjoyed, taught, played and influential - because of how it sounds! Whenever I see mention of this "modernist ideology", I know where it's heading - a discussion of composers and music completely divorced from the actual music, listening to music and the practice of making music


I'm sorry that I have to disagree, however on this and other threads I am merely stating my own opinion and backing it up with examples. It is not meant to convert others to my opinion, only to expose my thinking on these issues. I have done this time and time again on such threads and you know the rest.

If we are to talk about an issue of controversy such as this, then we have to put things on the table first. That's what I have done. The fact that you disagree with my conclusions and have your own views on this issue doesn't cancel out the validity of my take on this topic (or of anyone else's). But that's okay, its okay to contrast our different opinions.

I stand by what I said previously on this thread and numerous other threads in recent months. I still think Giordano was spot on, his post was putting it down as I would have myself, albeit with different words.


----------



## science

Marschallin Blair said:


> Anti-modernist: (noun) Someone who exercises independent judgement and taste at the expense of doctrinaire nonsense and (feckless) bullying.


A lot of the "modernists" have done this too. The only thing is, they've turned the tables here. The kid that got bullied has grown up, and now all his childhood tormentors will pay for it.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> I'm sorry you see it that way.
> 
> And yes, I'm referring both to (1) me joining a "team" and (2) the nature of that "team".
> 
> It's been a long time since I won at anything. With time, you may have the misfortune of seeing that.


Well, like I said, you're winning now. If you need a "win," take it!


----------



## violadude

Marschallin Blair said:


> If that premise is true, then a logical inference from that premise is that no conceivable combination of tones can ever sound cacophonous.
> 
> Is this true?
> 
> - Not in my experiential realm.


Atonality =/= cacophonous

Edit: Dangit, I just realized that Mahlerian beat me to the response, with much more detail and eloquence than my response had, I might add.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Well, like I said, you're winning now. If you need a "win," take it!


I try to be genuine with you, as you've been genuine with us (forum members), but: no.

In fact, between you and I, if there has to be a winner, it's currently you.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> No, because atonality and cacophony are independent concepts. One cannot draw any conclusions about one from the other.
> 
> Atonality - Music without tonal center
> 
> Cacophony - A collection of sounds that is perceived as noise
> 
> The word cacophony has certainly been applied by many to other things, like Wagner, Strauss, Beethoven, Puccini, etc., which are not considered atonal. It is also a subjective reaction rather than an objective description (as "atonal" purports to be).
> 
> It is true that there is music that is musically ungrammatical and nonsensical, but this is not the same thing as "atonal". I have heard plenty of amateur tonal works that lack any of the harmonic direction or sense displayed by something like Webern's Cantatas or Ligeti's concertos.


I'm in complete agreement with that: 'Atonality' and 'cacophony' are disparate concepts and one can't _necessarily_ infer one from the other.

Sure.

But my objection still stands: I can bang on piano keys at random and make cacophonous sounds all the same. There's no tonal center _and_ the din is cacophonous.

Both necessary and sufficient conditions are there.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> But my objection still stands: I can bang on piano keys at random and make cacophonous sounds all the same. There's no tonal center _and_ the din is cacophonous.
> 
> Both necessary and sufficient conditions are there.


I improvise at random all the time (and badly!), and inevitably I end up hearing the harmonic implications of whatever I started out playing, even if some of the notes or harmonies were there completely by accident.

Are you suggesting either that A) a tonal center only exists if it is consciously worked towards by the composer of a work or B) there is some definite collection or collections of notes that nullify any chance of a tonal center's existence?

Either way I disagree.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> I improvise at random all the time (and badly!), and inevitably I end up hearing the harmonic implications of whatever I started out playing, even if some of the notes or harmonies were there completely by accident.
> 
> Are you suggesting either that A) a tonal center only exists if it is consciously worked towards by the composer of a work or B) there is some definite collection or collections of notes that nullify any chance of a tonal center's existence?
> 
> Either way I disagree.


Neither.

I'm saying that there are combinations of tones that can be completely cacophonous sounding.

Am I missing something?- or are you talking completely over my head?


----------



## violadude

Marschallin Blair said:


> Neither.
> 
> I'm saying that there are *combinations of tones that can be completely cacophonous sounding. *
> 
> Am I missing something?- or are you talking completely over my head?


Which still doesn't make it atonal.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Neither.
> 
> I'm saying that there are combinations of tones that can be completely cacophonous sounding.
> 
> Am I missing something?- or are you talking completely over my head?


Because you're saying that there is a connection between atonality and cacophony.

Do you know what work this chord is from (or what kind of chord it is)?

View attachment Chord.mp3


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> Because you're saying that there is a connection between atonality and cacophony.
> 
> Do you know what work this chord is from (or what kind of chord it is)?
> 
> View attachment 63076


No. . . it sounds awesome though.

Bernard Herrmann?

- and no, I have no idea what chord it is.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> No. . . it sounds awesome though.
> 
> Bernard Herrmann?
> 
> - and no, I have no idea what chord it is.


It's a chord consisting of _every note in the chromatic scale_.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bSejBOgsqI#t=1215


----------



## Marschallin Blair

violadude said:


> Which still doesn't make it atonal.


Okay. Okay. _*OKAY!!!!!*_

I'm blonde. I was born this way. I was ignorantly mixing categories: 'Atonality' is clearly not _synonymous _with 'cacophony.' They are disparate concepts where one doesn't _necessarily _imply the other.

- Though of course there are the exceptions where atonal things sound cacophonous.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Mahlerian said:


> It's a chord consisting of _every note in the chromatic scale_.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bSejBOgsqI#t=1215


I'm trying. . . but fumbling.

What is it you want me to infer?


----------



## violadude

Marschallin Blair said:


> Okay. Okay. _*OKAY!!!!!*_
> 
> I'm blonde. I was born this way. I was ignorantly mixing categories: 'Atonality' is clearly not _synonymous _with 'cacophony.' They are disparate concepts where one doesn't _necessarily _imply the other.
> 
> - Though of course there are the exceptions where atonal things sound cacophonous.


If you accept the traditional definition of atonal, then yes, your last sentence is true. But there are also atonal things that don't sound cacophonous and tonal pieces that do.


----------



## science

arcaneholocaust said:


> I try to be genuine with you, as you've been genuine with us (forum members), but: no.
> 
> In fact, between you and I, if there has to be a winner, it's currently you.


How do you figure? You might PM me this if it doesn't involve anyone else.


----------



## violadude

Marschallin Blair said:


> I'm trying. . . but fumbling.
> 
> What is it you want me to infer?


I believe Mahlerian's point is that that chord is, by definition, the most discordant chord you can come up with disregarding micro-tones, and it's in a tonal piece.


----------



## Mahlerian

Marschallin Blair said:


> Okay. Okay. _*OKAY!!!!!*_
> 
> I'm blonde. I was born this way. I was ignorantly mixing categories: 'Atonality' is clearly not _synonymous _with 'cacophony.' They are disparate concepts where one doesn't _necessarily _imply the other.
> 
> - Though of course there are the exceptions where atonal things sound cacophonous.


But once again, there's no such thing as atonality. You started this discussion off by countering that your experience of cacophony implies the existence of atonality.



Marschallin Blair said:


> I'm trying. . . but fumbling.
> 
> What is it you want me to infer?


Well, if a chord consisting of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale is not cacophonous in itself, then clearly, in your view, no vertical combination of tones is necessarily in itself cacophonous (excluding microtones of course, as Violadude says).


----------



## KenOC

Marschallin Blair said:


> ... 'Atonality' is clearly not _synonymous _with 'cacophony.' They are disparate concepts where one doesn't _necessarily _imply the other.


Ah, but let us assume (for the sake of argument) that all atonal compositions are cacophonous. Not that I would ever claim that, heaven forbid. But just if...what then?

A. All atonal compositions are cacophonous.
B. Not all cacophonous compositions are atonal, at least as demonstrated so far.


----------



## SimonNZ

science said:


> A team that currently dominates the board, so that no one who didn't like your music would feel welcome here. That's the point, you know it, and you know you're winning.


What sort of numbers are we talking about here?

I mean...I've said before that I don't think there's anyone here in the contemp.-loving camp who doesn't also like most older forms of classical.

But just how many people do you think there are pushing this Modern Is Best agenda?

It just now occurs to me that this is all starting to sound a little Joe McCarthy


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> But once again, there's no such thing as atonality.


I fear you're as if caught in the great molasses flood of 1919. Most everybody else believes in atonality, resolutely refusing to assign it to the same class of things as the tooth fairy and Santa Claus.


----------



## science

SimonNZ said:


> What sort of numbers are we talking about here?
> 
> I mean...I've said before that I don't think there's anyone here in the contemp.-loving camp who doesn't also like most older forms of classical.
> 
> But just how many people do you think there are pushing this Modern Is Best agenda?
> 
> It just now occurs to me that this is all starting to sound a little Joe McCarthy


Again, are you really unaware of anyone who has expressed scorn toward people who don't like the right music, who have the wrong attitudes about music?


----------



## dgee

SimonNZ said:


> What sort of numbers are we talking about here?
> 
> I mean...I've said before that I don't think there's anyone here in the contemp.-loving camp who doesn't also like most older forms of classical.
> 
> But just how many people do you think there are pushing this Modern Is Best agenda?
> 
> It just now occurs to me that this is all starting to sound a little Joe McCarthy


It's about ethics in videogame journalism


----------



## science

dgee said:


> It's about ethics in videogame journalism


Oh that was a good one!


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> Such a glorious concentration of straw men and scorn in one thread. Are you guys really proud of yourselves right now?


It seems that ideology has to have straw men (and like politics, scapegoats!). It also has to have situations of near chameleonic colour changes and about faces that would make a leopard changing its spots blush. Then there's pseudo detachments of Zen monks or gurus, claiming to be oracles of eternal truth.

There's many things but there's one thing that is almost never present in these debates (and this is where I get angry) a willingness to expose thinking without fear nor favour, a sense of writing for the purposes of discussion rather than conversion, an acceptance and validation of the different conclusions others make about given facts or experiences. Rather, you've got situations of invalidation followed by unwanted advice (which by definition isn't logical) and dealing with others in a heavy handed way without accepting even the mildest criticism.

I don't see anything moving forward other than if we have some sort of levelling out of all this tendency towards one-upmanship and elitism in topics dealing with new and newer music. I am baffled that the greatest musicians of our time can try and do it, yet members of a forum like this can't even begin to grasp it (or admit to doing so). Everyone has their faults, again even the greatest musicians do, yet we keep harping on about those pro this and anti this.

Its more nuanced than that, I'd like to think we are all above this, but the way I see it is that the reality is different. Maybe classical discussion at TC will never fully grow out of the shadows and conflicts of the past? Maybe there always has to be a dominant ideology of one type or another?

I'll leave you and others here with these thoughts.


----------



## Piwikiwi

dgee said:


> It's about ethics in videogame journalism


----------



## SimonNZ

science said:


> Again, are you really unaware of anyone who has expressed scorn toward people who don't like the right music, who have the wrong attitudes about music?


Not for the fact of just preferring baroque or whatever, no. They only get attitude when they give attitude. I'm thinking of two TCers right now who have stated they're happy with their Baroque listening, and they're two of the most beloved and respected members here. The ever so subtle difference is they haven't started up badmouthing the stuff they happen to care less for.

But you've ducked my question:

What sort of numbers are we talking about here?


----------



## SimonNZ

dgee said:


> It's about ethics in videogame journalism


I don't know what you mean there, sorry.


----------



## science

SimonNZ said:


> Not for the fact of just preferring baroque or whatever, no. They only get attitude when they give attitude. I'm thinking of two TCers right now who have stated they're happy with their Baroque listening, and they're two of the most beloved and respected members here. The ever so subtle difference is they haven't started up badmouthing the stuff they happen to care less for.
> 
> But you've ducked my question:
> 
> What sort of numbers are we talking about here?


What numbers? I didn't understand the question. Numbers of posters? Numbers of posts? Either way, am I supposed to have counted?

We don't see eye-to-eye here. I can honestly not imagine those two posters never getting any guff here for their tastes. Perhaps they don't notice it because they don't go into the wrong threads.

You want to see people getting guff for liking the wrong stuff, check out what happened to the guy who started the Whitacre thread. Granted, some posts may have been removed, but you won't be surprised by his decision not to come back.

And hey, I guess that's the community talkclassical has chosen to be.


----------



## SimonNZ

science said:


> What numbers? I didn't understand the question. Numbers of posters? Numbers of posts? Either way, am I supposed to have counted?


The number of supposed card-carrying "Modernist Agenda" types. The dictators. The enforcers. How many?


----------



## PetrB

SimonNZ said:


> The number of supposed card-carrying "Modernist Agenda" types. The dictators. The enforcers. How many?


Oh, hell, Simon, go all the way down to the minions, the tiny jack-booted storm troopers included. _Count'em and Name'em all!_ It's almost as much fun as finding out how many friends you have on Facebook.


----------



## science

Sid James said:


> Maybe classical discussion at TC will never fully grow out of the shadows and conflicts of the past? Maybe there always has to be a dominant ideology of one type or another?


You're probably right. There will always be someone who has to put some smart-butted tone into his posts to show how he feels about people who like or dislike the wrong music. He'll think he's just having fun. It'll be just enough that everyone knows exactly who has been scorned and why, but not enough for the mods to flag anything.

And someone will always speak up on the other side, with equally skillful rhetoric.

One side or the other will have more supporters, or fewer people willing to step in.

So we will always have this kind of situation.

It really is amazing that most musicians manage to stay out of it. But... perhaps they see that modernism is dead, that there is no point setting up ever newer orthodoxies and battling over them. Perhaps they see that, after all, no matter which orthodoxy you choose, there is a lot of good unorthodox music, and you might as well enjoy it, regardless not only of whether the masses (or the wrong kind of people) don't like it but even of whether they like it.

I'd be much happier if I could resign myself to the world of ceaseless reciprocal scorn. Maybe even take a side and fight it out. I think I'd be good at it. But I can't identify with the side that would be mine, so I'm stuck. But at least I could resign myself to it.


----------



## KenOC

SimonNZ said:


> The number of supposed card-carrying "Modernist Agenda" types. The dictators. The enforcers. How many?


To paraphrase a famous man: "I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card-carrying modernists or certainly loyal to the modernist cause, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our Talk Classical policy." Taggart, we're depending on you!


----------



## violadude

science said:


> You want to see people getting guff for liking the wrong stuff, check out what happened to the guy who started the Whitacre thread. Granted, some posts may have been removed, but you won't be surprised by his decision not to come back.
> 
> And hey, I guess that's the community talkclassical has chosen to be.


So, I just went back and re-read part of the Whiticare thread and here's what I found:

1. Yes, perhaps the so called "modernists" were too strident with their argumentation in a way that probably turned off the OP

2. However, I didn't see anyone disparaging people for liking Whiticare's music. What I found mostly was people contesting to the assertion by the OP that Whiticare was a "significant" composer. Those things can be contested no?

3. After that, I saw the "modernists" attacking the idea that popularity = musical significance. Perhaps it's because we're coming from different points of view. From a layman's point of view, perhaps popularity = significance. But when I, as a musician, see the word significance applied to a composer, I automatically assume that they mean significance in a sense that the composer's music has influential merit that will rise above and beyond the popularity of the day or the business aspect of music. In that sense, I think you could definitely contest Whiticare's "significance" with regards to his compositions.

And btw, I've noticed that almost no classical music fan automatically equates popularity with good or significant, unless it fits their narrative, in the case of some so called "anti-modernists".

P.S. If you're wondering why I keep saying "so called, Modernists and anti-modernists", it's because I think those labels are absolute bunk on the basis that almost all Classical listeners who generally support modernist music also support older classical music and almost all classical listeners who hate serialist or avant-garde music have been able to find other "modernist" music that is more to their taste. I don't get the point in those labels at all.


----------



## arpeggio

*Berstein on Schoenberg*

One of the points that some are trying to make is there is still innate tonality even in atonal music.

This the same point Bernstein makes in his famous lecture on Schoenberg:


----------



## science

violadude said:


> So, I just went back and re-read part of the Whiticare thread and here's what I found:
> 
> 1. Yes, perhaps the so called "modernists" were too strident with their argumentation in a way that probably turned off the OP
> 
> 2. However, I didn't see anyone disparaging people for liking Whiticare's music, what I found mostly was people contesting to the assertion by the OP that Whiticare was a "significant" composer. Those things can be contested no?
> 
> 3. After that, I saw the "modernists" attacking the idea that popularity = musical significance. Perhaps it's because we're coming from different points of view. From a layman's point of view, perhaps popularity = significance. But when I, as a musician, see the word significance applied to a composer, I automatically assume that they mean significance in a sense that the composer's music has influential merit that will rise above and beyond the popularity of the day or the business aspect of music. In that sense, I think you could definitely contest Whiticare's "significance" with regards to his compositions.
> 
> And btw, I've noticed that almost no classical music fan automatically equates popularity with good or significant, unless it fits their narrative, in the case of some so called "anti-modernists".
> 
> P.S. If you're wondering why I keep saying "so called, Modernists and anti-modernists", it's because I think those labels are absolute bunk on the basis that almost all Classical listeners who generally support modernist music also support older classical music and almost all classical listeners who hate serialist or avant-garde music have been able to find other "modernist" music that is more to their taste. I don't get the point in those labels at all.


Well, I'm sure the labels have come unmoored a little here. But here's what they usually mean: what's wrong with Whitacre's music - a summary of all the criticism of it - is that it isn't modernist. He's not trying hard enough to be new and innovative, cutting-edge.

Same thing that's wrong with a lot of other composers we dig on here - Higdon, Lloyd Webber, the Italian guy that wrote that violin concerto that someone showed up excited about once upon a time, and so on.

I would've thought that this is such common knowledge that pretending not to know about it might even be a form of trolling. It's not like it's some obscure term from French literary theory.


----------



## violadude

science said:


> Well, I'm sure the labels have come unmoored a little here. But here's what they usually mean: what's wrong with Whitacre's music - a summary of all the criticism of it - is that it isn't modernist. He's not trying hard enough to be new and innovative, cutting-edge.
> 
> Same thing that's wrong with a lot of other composers we dig on here - Higdon, Lloyd Webber, the Italian guy that wrote that violin concerto that someone showed up excited about once upon a time, and so on.
> 
> I wouldn't thought that this is such common knowledge that pretending not to know about it might even be a form of trolling. It's not like it's some obscure term from French literary theory.


I disagree. What would be considered by modernists to be "not modernist enough" exactly? If you asked most modernists on the forum, I'm sure most of them would say that Arvo Part or Gorecki are more significant to the development of music than Eric Whiticare, even though their music is not very "cutting edge" or whatever. Composers like Rihm, as well, sound somewhat old fashioned depending on the piece you listen to (he's certainly not among the most innovative of composers), but I doubt many "modernists" have a problem with his music. From what I've seen, it's all about the quality, or at least perceived quality of a composer's work, that has us concluding what we conclude, not anything about not being super cutting edge enough.

And before you bring up Alma Deutcher (I know at least someone will), there is a distinct difference in that case. Arvo Part, Jennifer Higdon, Maxwell Davies and yes, even Eric Whiticare, all write music that is of their time, that couldn't have been written in any other period of music. As uninteresting as I find Whiticare's music, it's certainly not just a dot-for-dot rehash of what came before, which is something that a talented detector of patterns could write without having a single bone of creativity in their body.

Also, I think you are lumping in very disparate composers together under one umbrella. As much as any modernist might not care for Higdon, for example, I doubt they perceive her music as being in the same category with Lloyd Weber.


----------



## dgee

SimonNZ said:


> I don't know what you mean there, sorry.


A reference to "gamergate" which seemed on the spur of the moment to somehow fit - I don't know how my brain works either


----------



## Piwikiwi

dgee said:


> A reference to "gamergate" which seemed on the spur of the moment to somehow fit - I don't know how my brain works either


Nobody has received death threats yet.


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> You're probably right. There will always be someone who has to put some smart-butted tone into his posts to show how he feels about people who like or dislike the wrong music. He'll think he's just having fun. It'll be just enough that everyone knows exactly who has been scorned and why, but not enough for the mods to flag anything.
> 
> And someone will always speak up on the other side, with equally skillful rhetoric.
> 
> One side or the other will have more supporters, or fewer people willing to step in.
> *
> So we will always have this kind of situation.*


Perhaps we will, and you know I think its like trench warfare, both sides dug in with a lot of casualties and no end to the so-called "war to end all wars" in sight. I'm thinking of World War I as an analogy here, one that was raging a hundred years back. Each thread or counter thread is yet another attempt to end the war, but it continues without abatement.



> It really is amazing that most musicians manage to stay out of it. But... perhaps they see that modernism is dead, that there is no point setting up ever newer orthodoxies and battling over them. Perhaps they see that, after all, no matter which orthodoxy you choose, there is a lot of good unorthodox music, and you might as well enjoy it, regardless not only of whether the masses (or the wrong kind of people) don't like it but even of whether they like it.


Exactly, that's why I agreed with Giordano's post earlier. If I try think of my favourite composers and musicians of the 20th century and give a list off the top of my head, they will include the likes of Alban Berg, Peter Sculthorpe, Leos Janacek, Leonard Bernstein, William Walton, Zoltan Kodaly, Astor Piazzolla, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ray Charles, Edith Piaf, Louis Armstrong, Burt Bacharach, Elton John, (and I can go on and give plenty more).

I think all of these where informed by the century they lived in, being creative, influential and innovative in their own ways. None of these people are cookie cutter or carbon copies of others, whether or not they use a certain technique or belong to a school is not the big issue for me, it is simply the enjoyment of their music.

The diversity of music given by these names reflect only a fraction on offer in the 20th century. So, if we've got diversity of music, let's have diversity of ideas as well. That's the big point that I have been making many times over on this forum.



> I'd be much happier if I could resign myself to the world of ceaseless reciprocal scorn. Maybe even take a side and fight it out. I think I'd be good at it. But I can't identify with the side that would be mine, so I'm stuck. But at least I could resign myself to it.


I don't think its necessary to scorn, but the aim of good communication as I've said here before is to go hard on the issue in question but go easy on the person you are talking to.


----------



## Blancrocher

Piwikiwi said:


> Nobody has received death threats yet.


Well, not quite, perhaps. But one anti-modernist told me not to eat or sleep till I'd heard the Halberstadt performance of "As Slow as Possible." And here I'd thought he'd finally come around to John Cage.


----------



## science

Piwikiwi said:


> Just see how much scorn even mentioning 4'33 gets. This nonsense is getting out of hand.


Out in the world, sure. Of course the kind of people who actually scorn 4'33" are for the most part "the masses," the kind of people who like pop music, not the kind of people a modernist artist would want to please anyway. If they'd embraced it, he would've had a problem.

Here on talkclassical, the situation is reversed. If you're talking about recent events on talkclassical, you're probably mistaking some lighthearted teasing with serious scorn. Cage is a respected composer; not many of the sort of people who really think 4'33" sums him up are significant presences here.


----------



## science

violadude said:


> I disagree. What would be considered by modernists to be "not modernist enough" exactly? If you asked most modernists on the forum, I'm sure most of them would say that Arvo Part or Gorecki are more significant to the development of music than Eric Whiticare, even though their music is not very "cutting edge" or whatever. Composers like Rihm, as well, sound somewhat old fashioned depending on the piece you listen to (he's certainly not among the most innovative of composers), but I doubt many "modernists" have a problem with his music. From what I've seen, it's all about the quality, or at least perceived quality of a composer's work, that has us concluding what we conclude, not anything about not being super cutting edge enough.
> 
> And before you bring up Alma Deutcher (I know at least someone will), there is a distinct difference in that case. Arvo Part, Jennifer Higdon, Maxwell Davies and yes, even Eric Whiticare, all write music that is of their time, that couldn't have been written in any other period of music. As uninteresting as I find Whiticare's music, it's certainly not just a dot-for-dot rehash of what came before, which is something that a talented detector of patterns could write without having a single bone of creativity in their body.
> 
> Also, I think you are lumping in very disparate composers together under one umbrella. As much as any modernist might not care for Higdon, for example, I doubt they perceive her music as being in the same category with Lloyd Weber.


In terms of "not modernist enough," it's a matter of debating where to draw the line. Most people here would probably praise Gorecki's earlier stuff much more than his populist-ish later stuff.

The categorization doesn't matter very much; the basic "pushes the envelope" issue is the essential one. Excepting technical discussions, very little of what anyone has to say about any composer or any composition of the past 120+ years amounts to more than a post-hoc rationalization of that basic issue.


----------



## science

SimonNZ said:


> I'm "getting rough" because this simplistic two-camp view of the TC membership is having a worse effect on the site, imo, than any passing flame war. I'm asking for numbers because you say the site is going all-modernist and you're supporting the underdog - but I see no evidence that it is, and you've only named two names, both of whom like older classical just fine.
> 
> I saw plenty of occasions where HarpsichordConcerto jumped into a Messiaen etc disscussion just to say "noise! rubbish!", which makes him no better to me than someone who would rudely dump all over a civil discussion of Whitacre, so I have zero sympathy there.
> 
> The other names you mention are getting exactly the provoked response they're looking for - no sympathy here, again.


I didn't meant to say he was better. He was the same. Exactly the same.

BTW, I don't know why this keeps coming up - it is a complete straw man, probably an intentional diversion, to pretend like I care whether someone likes older music or not. I don't care at all. What matters is how we treat people who don't like the right music, any era, any style.


----------



## dgee

science said:


> I didn't meant to say he was better. He was the same. Exactly the same.


Can you please tell off the poster who said my feelings about Schumann symphonies made no sense. Or the one who said they'd weep for me because I was too uptight to enjoy Verdi. Or the esteemed member who said that if I didn't love Don Giovanni I should do everyone a favour by stopping listening to opera all together. Or maybe the member who claimed that the only reason I didn't like Beethoven 6 was to prove I was better than everyone else. Or the poster who claimed my enjoyment of HIP was based on an incorrect obsession with dry scholarship and missed the point of music altogether. Or maybe that time that I posted some Eotvos on a countertenor thread and the OP said thanks but no thanks we don;t want any of that on here because that's horrible. Or maybe you should check in with the existing member who just chacked in to the Milton Babbitt composer guestbook to say something along the lines of "I don't know how you can like this horrid composer - awful music. K thx by". Or the people who would just enter specific purpose threads to discuss modern music to say it was sh*te - but keep your sense of humour because it is and you know it and we;re all having a laugh

All those horrible "modernists" - they must be modernists right? Telling people what to listen to and invalidating their taste?


----------



## science

dgee said:


> Can you please tell off the poster who said my feelings about Schumann symphonies made no sense. Or the one who said they'd weep for me because I was too uptight to enjoy Verdi. Or the esteemed member who said that if I didn't love Don Giovanni I should do everyone a favour by stopping listening to opera all together. Or maybe the member who claimed that the only reason I didn't like Beethoven 6 was to prove I was better than everyone else. Or the poster who claimed my enjoyment of HIP was based on an incorrect obsession with dry scholarship and missed the point of music altogether. Or maybe that time that I posted some Eotvos on a countertenor thread and the OP said thanks but no thanks we don;t want any of that on here because that's horrible. Or maybe you should check in with the existing member who just chacked in to the Milton Babbitt composer guestbook to say something along the lines of "I don't know how you can like this horrid composer - awful music. K thx by". Or the people who would just enter specific purpose threads to discuss modern music to say it was sh*te - but keep your sense of humour because it is and you know it and we;re all having a laugh
> 
> All those horrible "modernists" - they must be modernists right? Telling people what to listen to and invalidating their taste?


It is very telling that you chose to snip this part of my post: "What matters is how we treat people who don't like the right music, any era, any style."

I wonder how many of these things happened on this forum within the past year, and if so whether the offenders were highly respected posters, whether they were punished, and whether the examples you cite were the first ugly things said in those discussions.


----------



## PetrB

dgee said:


> Can you please tell off the poster who said my feelings about Schumann symphonies made no sense. Or the one who said they'd weep for me because I was too uptight to enjoy Verdi. Or the esteemed member who said that if I didn't love Don Giovanni I should do everyone a favour by stopping listening to opera all together. Or maybe the member who claimed that the only reason I didn't like Beethoven 6 was to prove I was better than everyone else. Or the poster who claimed my enjoyment of HIP was based on an incorrect obsession with dry scholarship and missed the point of music altogether. Or maybe that time that I posted some Eotvos on a countertenor thread and the OP said thanks but no thanks we don;t want any of that on here because that's horrible. Or maybe you should check in with the existing member who just chacked in to the Milton Babbitt composer guestbook to say something along the lines of "I don't know how you can like this horrid composer - awful music. K thx by". Or the people who would just enter specific purpose threads to discuss modern music to say it was sh*te - but keep your sense of humour because it is and you know it and we;re all having a laugh
> 
> All those horrible "modernists" - they must be modernists right? Telling people what to listen to and invalidating their taste?


That ^^^ is a truckload and a half of dumping enough to fertilize several acres! Charming, all of it. Maybe they were infected by the modernists? And where, when you needed them, were those self-appointed martinets who are so ever-ready to charge into those threads and chide all those people and tell them to hang their heads in shame? Abandoned you, that's what they did, abandoned you.


----------



## dgee

science said:


> It is very telling that you chose to snip this part of my post: "What matters is how we treat people who don't like the right music, any era, any style."
> 
> I wonder how many of these things happened on this forum within the past year, and if so whether the offenders were highly respected posters, whether they were punished, and whether the examples you cite were the first ugly things said in those discussions.


Well respected? Certainly prolific posters. And some of this stuff happened last year, some today. And many of these were the first ugly things in threads. The Babbitt one was a shocker, and you started the Babbitt thread!

Are things better now? Let's face it, some of the chaff has dropped off but it remains a tense standoff at best with far too many ready to light up an argument, mainly centred on the value of modern/contemporary music. I'd rather talk about music, but then again I'm a cheeky customer so I'm probably on your s&*t list - I react, it's an internet thing. At the same time I know enough to comment and am disinclined to let rubbish talk about music people don't like to go through unchallenged. Many of you will be horrified to learn that I periodically get paid to write and talk about music  (I'm much more temperate and better researched when there's money and reputation involved)

If I started a "Bellini is outdated popera trash" thread - would you defend my rights to say so, Science? Would ya, buddy?


----------



## mtmailey

Well you have haters in both eras you know.Most current music to me is not high quality like music long ago.Most of it is just lame & negative therefore i rather not hear it.Also much of it is loud.


----------



## science

dgee said:


> Well respected? Certainly prolific posters. And some of this stuff happened last year, some today. And many of these were the first ugly things in threads. The Babbitt one was a shocker, and you started the Babbitt thread!
> 
> Are things better now? Let's face it, some of the chaff has dropped off but it remains a tense standoff at best with far too many ready to light up an argument, mainly centred on the value of modern/contemporary music. I'd rather talk about music, but then again I'm a cheeky customer so I'm probably on your s&*t list - I react, it's an internet thing. At the same time I know enough to comment and am disinclined to let rubbish talk about music people don't like to go through unchallenged. Many of you will be horrified to learn that I periodically get paid to write and talk about music  (I'm much more temperate and better researched when there's money and reputation involved)
> 
> If I started a "Bellini is outdated popera trash" thread - would you defend my rights to say so, Science? Would ya, buddy?


No. Using the word "trash" like that has no place in polite conversation.

I haven't seen the Babbitt one, but as Babbitt himself was unconcerned with most people liking his music, I too can accept that they might not like it. If what that poster said was as rude as "trash," I would hope there would be punishment.

However, what it comes down to is what kind of a place we want to have here. I'm on my way out, so it doesn't matter so much to me, but I'd rather people in general be treated with more respect than they are here. It used to be just a few posters; now it's the forum almost as a whole.


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> Or perhaps just the fact that the buying public will go elsewhere to hear music that they do like.


I am a member of the buying public myself.

I have spent the last ten years travelling all over the U.S., Canada, and Europe to hear music that I like.

That music has included experimental, indeterminate, electronic, electroacoustic, noise and Berlioz.

And I have continued to buy CDs as well, of all of the above.

I was never the only one at any of those concerts. I am not the only one who buys those CDs, either.

The group of people you amusingly refer to as "the buying public" is really only a portion of THE BUYING PUBLIC, isn't it?

And it not only excludes me and everyone I've associated with over the past decade, but it also excludes every Justin Bieber fan, too, doesn't it?

It's quite an exclusive little club, there, your "buying public," isn't it?


----------



## Mahlerian

This topic is about modernism as a musical and cultural phenomenon. It is not about posters on this forum and their own personal proclivities. Please return to the original topic of discussion.


----------



## PetrB

dgee said:


> If I started a "Bellini is outdated popera trash" thread - would you defend my rights to say so?


I would probably get hot on your case and go pit-bull lockjaw on haranguing you that you were only dissing Bellini because his was insufficiently old music. Watch out! Forewarned.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> ...by focusing on one aspect of the method by which the music was created (rows and their manipulation), you ignore everything else that is heard: register, repetition, dynamics, rhythm, and every other kind of emphasis that can be used to articulate and generate _*points of stability in the absence of functional tonality.*_ Are these things truly irrelevant to whether or not one perceives a given pitch as dominant?


Repetition would suggest a tonal center to our ears and brain, but that repetition is not necessarily part of a structure which suggests tonality, and I doubt that any serial composer would use a tone row in such a way as to defeat its intent, which is chromaticism and non-repetition. That's like stuffing a horse into a suitcase.

The repetition of a very high piano note will not necessarily suggest a tone center, as our ears are less sensitive to highly pitched sounds at the limits of pitch perception; even on a piano. Boulez does this.

Also, *"points of stability in the absence of functional tonality" *is a very different thing than tonality or tonal centers. Tonal centers are based on harmonic ratios, such as 3:2, which is the basis of tonality. When we divide an octave into 12 notes, and use minor thirds as divisions of that to create "localized pitch centers," as Bartok did, this is a geometric division based on the 12-division, not on harmonics. If you wish to make statements like _*"Pitch centers exist in all music, except that which does not have any pitches. ",*_ then you need to clarify in more detail what you mean by "pitch centers." True tonality is harmonically based, not geometric or mathematical, as structural methods are. Just because the ear may hear "localized tonal cells" in Bartok does not mean his music is "tonal." To say Bartok is "tonal" would therefore be misleading.

Also, if the composer makes use of such emphases, why should we assume that the force thus generated is not intended to be felt?



Mahlerian said:


> I believe you are conceptualizing on the basis of how something is constructed rather than the actual sound as performed music.


Yes, that's correct. If music is not structurally tonal, then any sense of "tonality" that is perceived is, at best, illusory, and it is misleading to say that it is "tonal" or has a "tonal center."



Mahlerian said:


> ...You are making a one-to-one correspondence between properties of traditional tonality (triads, scales) and the harmonic result as necessarily generating a center, but this is not obvious at all.


It is obvious to the ear. A triad by itself is heard as having a "root." This is how inversion is possible: A C major triad is heard as a C major triad, regardless of how it's stacked: C-E-G, E-G-C, or G-C-E. This is not true in serial music, where the inversion of C-E-G becomes C-A-F.

I believe this is what was meant in the OP, "The widely shared preference for music with audible pitch centers and rhythmic pulse is innate, not learned."

I agree; tonality is based on the innate way we hear, which is harmonic (sensually based, not structurally based).



Mahlerian said:


> It is true that a language based on the chromatic scale, or on non-tonally oriented diatonic/modal collections, is something different from the common practice system of functional tonality. It is not true that this represents a radical break with some kind of linear evolution.


Atonal music (music without a pitch center) _*is *_a _*structural*_ break with CP tonality, not necessarily a linear evolution, although it is hard to ignore the chronology.



Mahlerian said:


> I hear pitch centers in all of the music I listen to, including expressionist and serial music.


I don't, and I don't think Milton Babbitt intended me to. I hear sonority, and I hear intervals, even in Webern.

The only instances I hear what you're talking about is in Berg, and even then, I would not call it "pitch centered" music. It's easy to confuse "sonority" and intervals with true, structural atonality, because our ears will always hear a fourth as having the "root" on top, and a fifth as having the "root" on bottom. That's just a harmonic phenomena of the way the ear hears, based on harmonics. Even Rameau knew this.



Mahlerian said:


> ...I really don't believe that "true" atonality does or can exist.


I do; "atonal" simply means "music without a tonal center," whether chromatic or by system.


----------



## Guest

Uh oh...the "harmonic ratio" has entered the thread. 

I'd call that a nail in the coffin, boys.

<3


----------



## EdwardBast

Mahlerian said:


> Well, if a chord consisting of all twelve notes of the chromatic scale is not cacophonous in itself, then clearly, in your view, no vertical combination of tones is necessarily in itself cacophonous (excluding microtones of course, as Violadude says).


Because of the combative nature of threads like I need a disclaimer: I am not taking part (let alone sides) in this debate, just making a limited factual point:

Your conclusion does not follow from the premise at all, let alone clearly. Certain chords consisting of all 12 notes are going to be vastly more cacophonous than others, based on voicing, timbre, volume, etc. For example, all twelve notes are sustained at the end of Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and the effect is not at all cacophonous - to my ears, at least. Other 12 note chords are going to sound ultra-nasty.


----------



## Mahlerian

EdwardBast said:


> Because of the combative nature of threads like I need a disclaimer: I am not taking part (let alone sides) in this debate, just making a limited factual point:
> 
> Your conclusion does not follow from the premise at all, let alone clearly. Certain chords consisting of all 12 notes are going to be vastly more cacophonous than others, based on voicing, timbre, volume, etc. For example, all twelve notes are sustained at the end of Schnittke's Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra and the effect is not at all cacophonous - to my ears, at least. Other 12 note chords are going to sound ultra-nasty.


You are correct, of course. The chord at the beginning of the third of Berg's Altenberg Lieder is far less harsh than the chord at Lulu's death scream (not that this is perceived as noise either), even though both contain every note in the chromatic scale.

I should have specified that I am talking about combinations of pitch classes rather than notes, independent of voicing or instrumentation.


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## Mahlerian

Millions, I am unable to respond to your post in detail, which is simply a lengthier version of what you said before, and does nothing, beyond assertion, to argue anything further. I can address this, though:



millionrainbows said:


> I don't, and I don't think Milton Babbitt intended me to. I hear sonority, and I hear intervals, even in Webern.


About the word "atonality": "I don't know who invented it, and I don't want to know, for in no sense does the word make sense." - Milton Babbitt


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## isorhythm

Wow, this got long. And, with the exception of a couple people who chose to respond stridently to things I did not say and do not believe, all very interesting.

What inspired me to make this thread was precisely that I love a lot of music that is considered "difficult" or "avant-garde," and I wish more other people loved it too. I believe that some of the arguments made in its favor are both wrong and counterproductive.

Let's come at this another way. Let's say you are a Westerner who has only ever listened to Western classical music, and you are trying to approach the music of another culture - Ghanaian drumming, Beijing opera, Japanese gagaku, whatever. Do you think it is enough to say, "This is just music - listen to it just like the music you already know"? I don't. In fact, I think that would be disrespectful of the culture whose music you are trying to understand.

You may well _like_ the unfamiliar music immediately, of course. But you will appreciate it much more deeply if you take the time to understand the musical tradition that produced it and the cultural context that surrounds it. In fact, I would argue that if you don't take that time, you are a mere tourist.

Furthermore, you are _less likely_ than someone who has grown up with that music to like it immediately. And, the more time you take to learn about the music and the culture, the more likely it is that you will _come_ to like it.

It is also, I hope, not too much of a stretch to say that some music in any given tradition is more accessible to outsiders than other music within that tradition. A pentatonic folk melody is easier to grasp than the classical Indian system of raga and tala. This is not controversial, right? Different cultures develop their own languages of "art music" that build on themselves. The more sophisticated and complex they become, the more knowledge of the tradition they require in order to understand and appreciate fully.

Western classical music, despite centuries of imperialist pretensions, is no different. It is not "universal" or anything like that. It is a tradition that comes from one part of the world - Western Europe - and grew within very particular cultural contexts - first the church, then the aristocracy, and, lately, the academy. (Which could be seen as a coming full circle, given the close historical relationship between the church and the academy - but that's a subject for another day.)

It does the classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries no favors to pretend that it, alone, is universal, requires no context, no understanding. This is either to overvalue it, by claiming for it a universality that no sophisticated music can possibly have, or to undervalue it, by denying that sophistication.

Some specifics.

I like the music of the Second Viennese School. I came to it from the 19th century - from Brahms and Mahler. It's not much of a jump. Could someone with no familiarity with that tradition enjoy Schoenberg? Sure, and I bet many have. But is such a person _as likely_ to enjoy Schoenberg, without knowing the tradition he's coming from? No. Why pretend otherwise? And it gets more difficult as you move further along that tradition. Someone who hasn't made the jump to Schoenberg is going to have a lot more trouble with Babbitt and Wuorinen than someone who has.

Of course there were other traditions in 20th century music. There was a bunch of music that remained, if not tonal in the common practice sense, pitch-centered, but with a hugely expanded range of harmony, rhythm and color, starting with Stravinsky and Debussy. I agree that most of this music can be immediately accessible if the listener is not prejudiced. I have no argument with the many people who've said as much.

There is also a category of music that started in the 20th century that is about sound, with little or no regard for traditional concepts of pitch or rhythm. Varese, early Ligeti and Penderecki, some Xenakis orchestral stuff, etc. This was the first "modern" music I liked, and I liked it immediately. Others have said the same. I think it, too, can be immediately accessible, but it is much _more likely_ to be accessible to listeners who have listened to, and enjoyed, a fairly wide range of music already. Unfortunately there aren't so many such listeners in the present-day classical music audience.

To address some hanging points briefly:

-About pitch centers and pulse being natural. These things are present to some degree in every folk music tradition in the world that I've ever heard of (if someone knows a counterexample, please tell me!). It seems obvious to me, also, that the octave consonance is an artifact of human perception - that we'll always hear middle C and high C as the "same note." Go anywhere in the world and tell a man and a woman or child to sing a tune together, and see if they _ever_ do so at any interval but the octave. There is no amount of cultural conditioning that can overcome this. I also wonder what proponents of the pure cultural conditioning view make of the overtone series - is its correspondence with the traditionally consonant intervals pure coincidence? In any case, some people seemed to be reading something into this that I wasn't saying. Music is interesting _precisely because_ it deviates from pitch centers, consonant intervals, and steady pulse, whether a little or a lot. There was no prescription at all in what I said.

-If you read the works of, say, Alan Forte, and then read up on some of the math from which these people were stealing vocabulary, it will become clear what I meant about pseudoscience. Math is about expressing very deep, non-trivial relationships between objects, numbers, sets, spaces, etc. Mid-century serialism was about taking musical elements and putting them in order. It produced some good music - _which I have never denied_ - but the grasping for scientific legitimacy was real, and was silly.

-I never claimed that the 20th century was the only time at which music changed radically or the relationship between composer and listener changed radically. It obviously was not.

-Some people have sort of hinted at the idea that the change I'm talking about really began with Romanticism. I agree with this.

From now on, I will probably stick to just talking about music I like.


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## arpeggio

*Sound Paintings*

^^^^^
isorhythm

The following post I submitted in the "Listening to the unfamiliar" Thread I think addresses some of the issues raised in your post: http://www.talkclassical.com/31204-listening-unfamiliar.html?highlight=painting#post628922

There are other posts in that thread that you may find interesting.


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## Nereffid

isorhythm said:


> Let's come at this another way. Let's say you are a Westerner who has only ever listened to Western classical music, and you are trying to approach the music of another culture


Out of this entire post, one word in particular jumped out at me: _trying_.

I'm reminded of the dialogue from _Pulp Fiction_:



> Vincent: Want some bacon?
> Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
> Vincent: Are you Jewish?
> Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
> Vincent: Why not?
> Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
> Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
> Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfu*ker.


Some people simply aren't trying to like modern music. They've heard a little or a lot and decided it's not for them.
Unfortunately a subset of these people take time out of their days to post glib comments on TC about how ugly or stupid modern music is, and they give all the others a bad name.
And those others? Maybe they avoid the topic, or maybe they post _thoughtful_ comments about why (some) modern music is not for them. I feel that too often the attitude towards them from certain posters on TC is "you need to try harder", "you haven't heard enough of this music to dismiss it", "you're using words that have no meaning", and so on. In other words, it's not simply that they don't like modern music, it's that they have _failed to like it_, that there's something even dishonest about their dislike.

I'm one of the ones who want to try, because the effort pays off for me. Actually it's not effort; it's usually osmosis. Yesterday on random play I heard Berg's Three Pieces for Orchestra for the first time in ages; the very first time I heard it it was meaningless noise, but yesterday it was magnificent. I hadn't studied the piece, or anything like that: all I'd done in the intervening years was simply hear lots of different music.

I assume there are many people who claim not to like modern music who would actually like lots of it if they "made the effort". But I accept that they don't want to make that effort, because for them the (perceived) effort trumps the (perceived small) rewards. As the OP said, simply telling them the effort is small and the rewards vast just won't cut it, because that's not how they see the world. They're happy where they are, and as long as they're not obnoxious in voicing their dislikes, who are we to fault them for it? To be crude, those who keep pushing this "try harder" line remind me not so much of parents telling their kids to eat their broccoli, but some skeevy guy trying to persuade his girlfriend to let him - well, I'll leave the rest unsaid.


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## Guest

Who told you I was skeevy?

I'm not skeevy! You don't know me. You can't judge me.

But seriously, I'm not skeevy I mean one thing in your post jumped out at me:



Nereffid said:


> all I'd done in the intervening years was simply hear lots of different music.


This has happened to me, too. The most dramatic was probably M. Behrens _Final Ballet,_ which I bought shortly after it came out. Because of how I buy, I often get things that I don't like. Sometimes, very carefully, I cull. Even though I didn't like _Final Ballet,_ and didn't think I'd ever like it, I kept it. I took it out every once and awhile, but nothing.

After a few years of Yoshihide, Rowe, and Sachiko M, I took out _Final Ballet_ again, about ten years after I had purchased it. Wildly gorgeous. Grabbed me and would not let go. I couldn't get enough of it.

Listening to music, yeah. There's really no substitute!:trp:


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## Mahlerian

Nereffid said:


> Unfortunately a subset of these people take time out of their days to post glib comments on TC about how ugly or stupid modern music is, and they give all the others a bad name.
> And those others? Maybe they avoid the topic, or maybe they post _thoughtful_ comments about why (some) modern music is not for them. I feel that too often the attitude towards them from certain posters on TC is "you need to try harder", "you haven't heard enough of this music to dismiss it", *"you're using words that have no meaning"*, and so on. In other words, it's not simply that they don't like modern music, it's that they have _failed to like it_, that there's something even dishonest about their dislike.


Nefferid, I hate to be negative about any part of your post, because I agree with most of it.

I agree that if someone does not feel positively about modern music, then no one has any right to force them to attempt to feel otherwise. This is quite clearly likely to be counterproductive and simply reinforce negativity, at any rate.

But as I think the part in bold is directed at me, I feel I should respond with the way I see it.

When I say "atonality doesn't exist", I know that for many people this is uncomfortable or comes off as an attempt to invalidate their negative reactions to music that is called atonal. I don't like coming off this way, and I don't want to be perceived as invalidating anyone's perspective.

The reason, of course, that for many people this is tantamount to denying their experience is that their perception of the music is bound up with the concept of atonality and their own personal impression of what that implies.

But their perceptions are not bound by the existence or not of atonality any more than mine. The music is the same either way. Their reactions are the same either way. I believe that many people dislike Schoenberg's music, not because it is atonal, but because it sounds like Schoenberg. And that's fine. They have a right to dislike whatever they please.

And this is important for me, because I want to discuss music. Discussions about atonality rarely discuss any music at all. If this concept is suddenly removed, we are confronted with a whole host of different harmonic/melodic practices which have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means.


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## arpeggio

*The Ear Is the Final Judge*

I was going to submit a post similar to Mahlerian.

I will second what he was saying.

If a person dislikes something that I like, I seriously doubt that I can say anything that will change his mind. If a person dislikes Cage it is probably inadvisable to try to convince them to change their minds. Just like it would be an exercise in futility to convince a person who thinks Cage is great composer that he is not.


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## Nereffid

Mahlerian said:


> Nefferid, I hate to be negative about any part of your post, because I agree with most of it.
> 
> I agree that if someone does not feel positively about modern music, then no one has any right to force them to attempt to feel otherwise. This is quite clearly likely to be counterproductive and simply reinforce negativity, at any rate.
> 
> But as I think the part in bold is directed at me, I feel I should respond with the way I see it.
> 
> When I say "atonality doesn't exist", I know that for many people this is uncomfortable or comes off as an attempt to invalidate their negative reactions to music that is called atonal. I don't like coming off this way, and I don't want to be perceived as invalidating anyone's perspective.
> 
> The reason, of course, that for many people this is tantamount to denying their experience is that their perception of the music is bound up with the concept of atonality and their own personal impression of what that implies.
> 
> But their perceptions are not bound by the existence or not of atonality any more than mine. The music is the same either way. Their reactions are the same either way. I believe that many people dislike Schoenberg's music, not because it is atonal, but because it sounds like Schoenberg. And that's fine. They have a right to dislike whatever they please.
> 
> And this is important for me, because I want to discuss music. Discussions about atonality rarely discuss any music at all. If this concept is suddenly removed, we are confronted with a whole host of different harmonic/melodic practices which have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means.


The comment wasn't specifically directed at you, though I certainly had you partly in mind. In hindsight it was somewhat unfair of me to put that one in with the others, because it's not quite the same.
To elaborate on my point, I agree that people _do_ use the wrong words and any honest effort to enlighten (which your posts are) is in of itself no bad thing. But I think that to someone who's just not prepared to go any further into this music they've branded as atonal, no amount of telling them it isn't actually atonal will be of value to them. It's not going to change their mind, because they're not seeking to have their mind changed. So in the end, despite the educational value of trying to explain atonality, I'm inclined to believe that under many circumstances it's not worth the trouble.


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## Guest

Well, arpeggio, I know that the only thing I try to do is get people who dislike Cage to back off of or at least to move past the same three or four tired, old canards that every other Cage-basher uses. To give more than just name-calling or put-downs. Nobody has to like Cage, or anything else. Has to like is not even a thing. 

There would at least be a point in encouraging someone who doesn't like Cage to listen to a few pieces, different one from whatever they had heard and disliked. (Though my experience has been that people dislike Cage's ideas more than any actual sounds they may have heard.) There would be no point in trying to convince someone who thinks Cage is great that he's not.

I like the distinction you made. The one might be inadvisable. The other would be futile.

Otherwise, it's been attempts to point out the ways in which 4'33" is a piece of music. As I said recently, it's not that being published by a big music company proves that 4'33" is a piece of music. It's more that because it is a piece of music, by an important composer, that big music company decided to publish it.

And, finally, it's because I refuse to believe that "haters gonna hate" is a universal truth. There've been too many things that I hated that I no longer hate for me to believe that. Why, I just listened to Bax's symphony #5 on youtube. And while I'm not to the point of rushing out to buy Bax CDs, I no longer cringe when I see his name. And I found the 5th to be quite well-made and not at all gagsome. I even had moments of genuine pleasure listening to it. Enough to want to hear it again, soon. (I'm giving you the full strength of the hedging because I think you'll appreciate what's happening to me more if I do.)

I certainly no longer lump Bax in with the myriad early twentieth century symphonists that proliferate on youtube. And when I am fully enlightened, I will no longer need to do any lumping at all.:lol:


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## arpeggio

^^^
Don't you dare start liking Bax. Then we will have to find something else to fight about! :scold:


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## Guest

It's OK. We'll find something. Pugnacious as we both are.:angel:


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Nefferid, I hate to be negative about any part of your post, because I agree with most of it.
> 
> I agree that if someone does not feel positively about modern music, then no one has any right to force them to attempt to feel otherwise. This is quite clearly likely to be counterproductive and simply reinforce negativity, at any rate.
> 
> But as I think the part in bold is directed at me, I feel I should respond with the way I see it.
> 
> When I say "*atonality* doesn't exist", I know that for many people this is uncomfortable or comes off as an attempt to invalidate their negative reactions to *music that is called* *atonal*. I don't like coming off this way, and I don't want to be perceived as invalidating anyone's perspective.
> 
> The reason, of course, that for many people this is tantamount to denying their experience is that their perception of the music is bound up with *the concept of atonality* and their own personal impression of what that implies.
> 
> But their perceptions are not bound by the existence or not of *atonality* any more than mine. The music is the same either way. Their reactions are the same either way. I believe that many people dislike Schoenberg's music, not because it is *atonal,* but because it sounds like Schoenberg. And that's fine. They have a right to dislike whatever they please.
> 
> And this is important for me, because I want to discuss music. * Discussions about atonality* rarely discuss any music at all. If *this concept* is suddenly removed, we are confronted with a whole host of different harmonic/melodic practices which have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means.


Mahlerian, your use of the term *"atonality" *seems at odds with what you quoted earlier:



Mahlerian said:


> About the word *"atonality"*: "I don't know who invented it, and I don't want to know, for in no sense does the word make sense." - Milton Babbitt


The term is a convenient one, as is apparent by your use of it above. And the definition is simple: Atonal music is simply music which has no tonal center, either as a result of chromatic ambiguity or by systematic means.

The term has academic cred as well, as it is used in the textbook _*Tonality and Design in Music Theory Volume II*_ by Earl Henry and Michael Rogers_ (Atonality, Ch. 10, p. 144)_.

You seem to be confusing "tonal centers" with the ability and tendency of the ear to hear harmonically, such as hearing fifths with "root" on bottom, or fourths with "root" on top.

Hearing localized intervals in such a way, as having "roots" or dominant notes which emerge as prominent or "target" pitches, is a totally different thing, simply based on sonorities which the ears tend to hear harmonically "stacked."

Webern used intervals in this way, to create "areas of sonorities." But it would be misleading, and too general, to say he was creating "tone-centers" or "tone-centered music."

Likewise, in highly chromatic music, we tend to lose the sense of tonality, simply because of the addition of notes. The more notes a pitch collection has the less we are able to distinguish it as suggesting a "tonality," especially when the number of notes exceeds 6, and approaches 12. I have said this many times before, and have posted a blog about this, which includes Howard Hanson's chart:

_p=perfect fifth (or fourth) _
_m=major third (minor sixth)_
_n=minor third (major sixth)_
_s=major second (minor seventh)_
_d=minor second (major seventh)_
_t=augmented fourth, diminished fifth_

_doad (2 notes): p_
_triad: p2 s_
_tetrad: p3 n s2_
_pentad: p4 m n2 s3_
_hexad: p5 m2 n3 s4 d_
_heptad: p6 m3 n4 s5 d2 t _
_octad: p7 m4 n5 s6 d4 t2_
_nonad: p8 m6 n6 s7 d6 t3_
_decad: p9 m8 n8 s8 d8 t4_
_undecad: p10 m10 n10 s10 d10 t5_
_duodecad (12 notes): p12 m12 n12 s12 d12 t6_

_Each new progression adds one new interval, plus adding one more to those already present; but beyond seven tones, no new intervals can be added. In addition to this loss of new material, there is also a gradual decrease in the difference of the quantitative formation. _

_So the sound of a sonority, whether it be harmony or melody, depends on what is present, but also on what is not present. The pentatonic sounds as it does because it contains mainly perfect fifths, and also maj seconds, minor thirds, and one major third, but also because it does not contain the minor second or tritone._

_As sonorities get projected beyond the six-range, they tend to lose their individuality. _


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## Guest

The simple definition you allude to, "music which has no tonal center, either as a result of chromatic ambiguity or by systematic means," is certainly one of the possible meanings of the term. And it is certainly the most neutral of the five or six that I have compiled before. (In an old TC thread somewhere.)

The other meanings are all more negative, unsurprisingly, since the grad student who coined the term was very much opposed to the avant-garde that was moving away from 18th and 19th century tonality as a way to organize one's pitches.

And he stayed opposed to that throughout his compositional and teaching life.

Curiously enough, the term's coinage pre-dates what we usually think of as the earliest "atonal" pieces by Schoenberg. It's only by about a year, but still. Pre- is pre-. Which means that whatever Marx was thinking of in his pre-doctoral study of tonality, it could not have been Schoenberg. It would have to have been something along the lines of Liszt or Wagner or Scriabin or Strauss or some such. Early Schoenberg, maybe. Pre-atonal Schoenberg!

Which is only to say that "it" is not so simple.

And I haven't even detailed the other uses of the word, one of which is indeed roughly equivalent to "cacophony." I won't reiterate all the meanings I have found, but the range is from "lacking a tonal center" to "whatever I don't like." I have yet to find a person who uses the term in a negative, non-technical sense to be at all familiar with any of many and various kinds of music that could be called "atonal" according to the first meaning (for which a much more descriptive word would be pantonal, the word Schoenberg used). Mostly, what the word means in practice (and "in practice" is how all words in any language have meaning) is "whatever I don't like."

Which brings us to exactly the place Mahlerian identifies in this remark: "Discussions about atonality rarely discuss any music at all." The consequence of which is exactly what Mahlerian goes on to say, which is that "If this concept is suddenly removed, we are confronted with a whole host of different harmonic/melodic practices which have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means."

Indeed. Just consider two composers who could be considered "atonal," Varese and Wellesz. Not even close. Not to mention. Oh, OK, I will mention: Elliott Carter. Vastly different. 

Aside from that, there's the whole question of whether music that simply ignores pitch relations or even pitch, like a concrète piece using the sounds of train brakes, thunder, rain, and barking dogs, could be referred to as "atonal." Etymologically, it makes more sense, but the term was specifically coined to identify music that uses tones but does not organize them according to tonality. But quite a lot of music doesn't use "tones." Or, if a tone appears, it is in a context that has nothing to do with an structure that exists to organize pitches. 

Tonality and serialism are both systems for organizing pitches, first and foremost, though total serialism does at least put on a show of organizing other elements equally. I don't know if I'm being fair with this characterization. Perhaps total serialism really and truly does attend to everything equally but that listeners are going to notice the pitches more because they're used to attending to pitch over any other element.

Finally, I'd like to add that "tonality" is equally inutile as a way of talking about music, that the pieces composed that are "tonal" are also quite different from each other, even pieces from the same era. "Tonality" tells you exactly nothing about what any particular piece is going to sound like.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> ...Which brings us to exactly the place Mahlerian identifies in this remark: "Discussions about atonality rarely discuss any music at all." The consequence of which is exactly what Mahlerian goes on to say, which is that "If this concept is suddenly removed, we are confronted with a whole host of different harmonic/melodic practices which have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means."


My definitions and more importantly, my use of the terms "tonality" and "atonality" are based on theoretical concepts, yet at the same time I give consideration to the ear as a "perceiver of harmonic phenomena."

The terms "atonal" and "tonal" have a specific utility: to define whether music has a perceived tonal center.



some guy said:


> ...Just consider two composers who could be considered "atonal," Varese...


The use of "atonal" in Varese's case, is accurate, but does little to clarify the concepts.

*Varese* is a misleading example. His musical works are "atonal" in the sense that they do not establish tonality; but they contain a lot of non-pitched percussion, and "events" of sound which are to be considered more as "masses of sound" _rather than pitch-oriented dialectic.

_This must be what Mahlerian means when he says "If this concept is suddenly removed," which translates as "if the concept of tonality is irrelevant."

So, although these "different harmonic/melodic practices have very little to do" with the dialectic of tonal/atonal, and "have very little to do with each other either in their aims or their means," this does not negate the terms "atonal" or "tonal."

The terms "atonal" and "tonal" are *best* used in regard to _*music which is concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a "primary structural dialectic,"*_ but
to attempt to negate the meaning of these terms by applying them to cases in which tonality is irrelevant, or not a primary concern, is misleading. Either music establishes a tonal center, or it does not.

Varese's music contains no functional tonality, and has no horizontal function_ per se,_ but is a series of "sound events." To call it "atonal" is accurate, but this does not really clarify the meaning of the terms.

Messiaen would also be a poor example.

Once again, I caution listeners not to confuse harmonic "sonority" or the use of harmonic devices, which are sonorous in nature, with establishing tonality or negating it chromatically or systematically. Music which merely contains the use of "pitched sound" or sonorous pitch constructs, is atonal, because it does not establish a tonal center, but it can still be sensual and sonorous, like tonality. Music which sounds sonorous and sensual, but which uses pitch-sets, is not tonal.

Varese, and Messiaen are poor examples of engaging in a dialectic which attempts to demonstrate music which is "tonal or atonal," because their music uses harmonic devices (triads, scales, parallel movement of harmonic "entities") which are more "sonorous" in nature, and, although their music is "non-CP tonal" or "atonal," they are unconcerned with the dialectic of establishing, or negating, a tonal centers.

Debussy was interested in sensual, sonorous effects, and Varese and Messiaen were also, as well as using "vertical constructs" which had harmonic, sonorous effects, but did little to establish a sense of tonality, or horizontal function as we know it. These were "sonorous sound events" which appear as singularities.

Debussy's music may have temporary, localized tone-centers, but we must decide at what point tonality is established, by what means, and limit the definition of tonality at some point; and also distinguish "tonality" or music with a pitch center, from sonorous, harmonic, sensual devices which sound harmonically , but do not have function or horizontal relations which establish an area of tonality.In this sense their use of pitch is structural, like serialism.


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## arpeggio

I agree with Bernstein that it is impossible to compose atonal music. My definition is fallible and should be universally excepted by all . Atonal music is less tonal than tonal music.


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## Marschallin Blair

What is an 'anti-Modernist,' anyway?

What if one likes _some_ Boulez and _some_ Henze and _some_ Ligeti and _some_ Webern and _some_ Berg and _some_ Schoenberg and _some_ late-Stravinsky?

Or is such sassy, insufferable insolence allowed?

<Opening the salon doors>: I will now entertain any question or comment, no matter how hostile.

_;D_


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## KenOC

Marschallin Blair said:


> What is an 'anti-Modernist,' anyway?
> 
> What if one likes _some_ Boulez and _some_ Henze and _some_ Ligeti and _some_ Webern and _some_ Berg and _some_ Schoenberg and _some_ late-Stravinsky?


Would you choose which of the commandments to obey? I find your lack of faith disturbing.


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## Marschallin Blair

KenOC said:


> Would you choose which of the commandments to obey? I find your lack of faith disturbing.


You're only a Master of Evil, Darth.


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## KenOC

Marschallin Blair said:


> You're only a Master of Evil, Darth.


That's _Lord Vader _to you, dearie.


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## Marschallin Blair

KenOC said:


> That's _Lord Vader _to you, dearie.


Aren't you a little 'short' for a Stormtrooper?


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## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> What is an 'anti-Modernist,' anyway?
> 
> What if one likes _some_ Boulez and _some_ Henze and _some_ Ligeti and _some_ Webern and _some_ Berg and _some_ Schoenberg and _some_ late-Stravinsky?
> 
> Or is such sassy, insufferable insolence allowed?
> 
> <Opening the salon doors>: I will now entertain any question or comment, no matter how hostile.
> 
> _;D_


I have a vague idea of what both "modernist" and "anti-modernist" entail, but I can't say I can think of any modernists on here. And I can't say you fit the "anti-modernist" bill either - really you're just a girl, a strong denouncer of musique concrete and indeterminacy, and a Callasite, that happens to have made some really inflammatory comments this year. Anti-modernist? Nah.


----------



## dkrisner

Marschallin Blair said:


> What is an 'anti-Modernist,' anyway?
> 
> What if one likes _some_ Boulez and _some_ Henze and _some_ Ligeti and _some_ Webern and _some_ Berg and _some_ Schoenberg and _some_ late-Stravinsky?
> 
> Or is such sassy, insufferable insolence allowed?
> 
> <Opening the salon doors>: I will now entertain any question or comment, no matter how hostile.
> 
> _;D_


I wold consider an anti modernist some one who strictly does not listen to modern music.


----------



## isorhythm

Marschallin Blair said:


> What is an 'anti-Modernist,' anyway?
> 
> What if one likes _some_ Boulez and _some_ Henze and _some_ Ligeti and _some_ Webern and _some_ Berg and _some_ Schoenberg and _some_ late-Stravinsky?
> 
> Or is such sassy, insufferable insolence allowed?
> 
> <Opening the salon doors>: I will now entertain any question or comment, no matter how hostile.
> 
> _;D_


You seem like a smart person. You know how silly this post is.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

nathanb said:


> I have a vague idea of what both "modernist" and "anti-modernist" entail, but I can't say I can think of any modernists on here. And I can't say you fit the "anti-modernist" bill either - really you're just a girl, a strong denouncer of musique concrete and indeterminacy, and a Callasite, that happens to have made some really inflammatory comments this year. Anti-modernist? Nah.


Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-llllllllllllllllll.

'Yes' and 'no.'

I don't recall _denouncing_ any music though of course I may have had some _pointed questions _about what was in fact_ considered _music- which is something altogether different from 'denouncing' it.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> You seem like a smart person. You know how silly this post is.


But I don't though, Ricky. Will you 'splain it to Lucy? I'll try my blonde-best to understand. Promise. _;D_


----------



## Marschallin Blair

dkrisner said:


> I wold consider an anti modernist some one who strictly does not listen to modern music.


Thanks for the response, by the by.

But if someone merely doesn't_ listen _to modern music, why would that make them 'against' it? The prefix 'anti' means "against." I'm not 'against' Stockhausen any more than I'm 'against' Lil' Kim.

There's no emotional involvement, merely indifference.

Everyone is entitled to like what they like and go about on their merry way and indulge music that resonates with them in some capacity.

- at least that's how I see it.


----------



## isorhythm

Marschallin Blair said:


> But I don't though, Ricky. Will you 'splain it to Lucy? I'll try my blonde-best to understand. Promise. _;D_


OK. Your post suggests there are some people out there who think it's "sassy, insufferable insolence" to like some modern classical music, but not other modern classical music.

In fact, there are no such people.

But you knew that.


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-llllllllllllllllll.
> 
> 'Yes' and 'no.'
> 
> I don't recall _denouncing_ any music though of course I may have had some _pointed questions _about what was in fact_ considered _music- which is something altogether different from 'denouncing' it.


"This isn't even music" is a denouncement, when the subject in question is music (musique concrete, indeterminacy, rock music, whatever). One of the most base denouncements devoid of any substantial argument and riddled with implied logical fallacies, but a denouncement nonetheless.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

isorhythm said:


> OK. Your post suggests there are some people out there who think it's "sassy, insufferable insolence" to like some modern classical music, but not other modern classical music.
> 
> In fact, there are no such people.
> 
> But you knew that.


Respectfully, I don't think so.

Why?

Because when I see people asking some very straightforward and sincere questions about, say, 'John Cage' for instance (and I'm not referring to my posts on him), I see some people starting to foam at the mouth Linda-Blair-style and come on with the heavy-leather and personal attacks.

- And no I'm not going to name names. The posting record is there for a candid world to see.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

nathanb said:


> "This isn't even music" is a denouncement, when the subject in question is music (musique concrete, indeterminacy, rock music, whatever). One of the most base denouncements devoid of any substantial argument and riddled with implied logical fallacies, but a denouncement nonetheless.


I certainly never said that.


----------



## arpeggio

OK. What should we call the people who like or dislike the three A's of 20th century music: atonal, avant-garde, aleatoric?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

arpeggio said:


> OK. What should we call the people who like or dislike the three A's of 20th century music: atonal, avant-garde, aleatoric?


If one doesn't incline to rap, or to country, or to whiskey-drenched honky tonk tunes- does that make one 'anti-rap,' 'anti-country,' or 'anti-Hank Williams'?

No, certainly not.

So why the special pleading for the "Three A's?'"

- And I thought _I_ was high-maintenance, high-drama.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> The terms "atonal" and "tonal" have a specific utility: to define whether music has a perceived tonal center.
> 
> The terms "atonal" and "tonal" are best used in regard to _*music which is concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a "primary structural dialectic."*_
> 
> To negate the meaning of these terms by improperly applying them to cases in which tonality is irrelevant, or not a primary concern, is misleading.
> 
> Once again, I caution listeners not to confuse harmonic "sonority" or the use of harmonic devices, which are sonorous in nature, with establishing tonality or negating it chromatically or systematically. Music which contains the use of "pitched sound" or sonorous pitch constructs is not the proper dialectic to discuss the idea of tonality.
> 
> Varese, Messiaen, and even Debussy are all poor examples of engaging in a dialectic which attempts to demonstrate music which is "tonal or atonal," because their music uses harmonic devices (triads, scales, parallel movement of harmonic "entities") which are more "sonorous" in nature, and, although their music is "non-CP tonal" or "atonal," they are unconcerned with the dialectic of establishing, or negating, a tonal centers.
> 
> Debussy's music may have temporary, localized tone-centers, but we must decide at what point tonality is established, by what means, and limit the definition of tonality at some point; and also distinguish "tonality" or music with a pitch center, from sonorous, harmonic, sensual devices which sound harmonically , but do not have function or horizontal relations which establish an area of tonality.


This is exactly the sense in which I have always understood the terms "tonality" and "atonality."

The debate on this subject between millionrainbows and Mahlerian has been for me the most interesting one on TC since I arrived here. I don't want to try to add anything technical to it - both of those gentlemen are more competent in that area than I am - but I do want to say that, as with many other debates, this disagreement seems to be more about whether a word should be used, and how it should be used, than about the phenomena it's being attached to.

I can understand the dislike for a term which is often used loosely and pejoratively. In this sense, "atonality" seems rather similar to "atheism, " a word which has all sorts of horrid connotations for many people but which, strictly speaking, means only the absence of a particular belief.

For what it's worth, I've always thought of "tonality" in a general, rather than specific, sense: as any system of relationships among the pitches in a musical scale or mode (or, in harmonic music, harmonies rooted in these pitches) in which a particular pitch is heard and felt as a center to which the other pitches relate either directly or indirectly through a hierarchy of relationships. The centrality of this pitch, its primary importance in this hierarchy, allows it to function as a "base," a point of stability and a place of departure and arrival for musical events; and like other stable states - whether physical, mental, or emotional - it exerts a "gravitational" pull upon these events and imparts to them a sense of direction and purpose.

I can say that this was my sense of what "tonality" is long before I had any vocabulary with which to talk about it, and before I was aware of our Western harmonic "system" as a subspecies of tonality - a specific, highly elaborated case of tonality as a more general phenomenon found in non-Western or non-European musics as well.

In accord with that understanding of what tonality is, I understood "atonality" to be nothing more than the absence of such a system of pitch (or harmonic) hierarchy in music which - to quote millionrainbows - _"is concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a 'primary structural dialectic.'"_ And this is the way I still understand - and, in everyday conversation about music - use the term. I'm aware that the term arose in the context of Western music; I have no idea whether any similar concept exists in non-European musical traditions (I suspect not). And in practice, in the everyday experience of listening to music, I have applied the term on an "I know it when I hear it" basis, as do other people I know; and there seems to be a general agreement, if one largely unverbalized, as to what "atonal" music sounds like.

It does not, as millionrainbows points out, sound like Debussy or Messiaen or Varese, precisely because their musical styles are not "concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a primary structural dialectic" (and I won't try to add to his explanation of this). But it does not sound like late Wagner or early Schoenberg either, who are concerned with intensifying the tensions inherent in the listener's tonal expectations, largely by delaying resolution and exploring remote and ambiguous tonal areas, but not with negating them. Nor does it sound like Stravinsky, who uses a lot of pungent and colorful "wrong notes" in his harmony, but generally in an identifiably tonal context.

I think that because tonality and atonality are principles and not things, music can be "atonal" to varying degrees: its feeling of tonal organization and "gravitational pull" may exist on different levels, as the basis of a whole work or as an effect or idea within it. It isn't necessary to be able to say "this piece is atonal" or "this style of music is atonal" to hear the principle at work. And in this sense we might even reasonably speak of Liszt or Debussy or Messiaen as "playing with atonality." But I think it's usual, and generally best, to reserve the term for music in which tonal relationships and expectations are proscribed at the level of basic musical organization. That there might be "hints" of tonal relationships in the course of such music - that the deployment of nonharmonic factors such as dynamic emphasis, pitch level, and duration of tones might create momentary or transient feelings of "pitch centers" or hierarchies because of our mind's (natural, I believe) tendency to hierarchical ordering - seems to me to be, given the absence of tonal organization on a more basic level, no reason to dispense with the concept of atonality. We just need to be clear about what we mean by it.


----------



## KenOC

arpeggio said:


> OK. What should we call the people who like or dislike the three A's of 20th century music: atonal, avant-garde, aleatoric?


I might suggest "discerning," but it would likely be taken all wrong! :tiphat:


----------



## Woodduck

arpeggio said:


> OK. What should we call the people who like or dislike the three A's of 20th century music: atonal, avant-garde, aleatoric?


I don't know. I just want to know where I can buy busts of the three A's to set on my piano beside the three B's.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Woodduck said:


> I don't know. I just want to know where I can buy busts of the three A's to set on my piano beside the three B's.


Brains, Beauty, and Breeding?

But you flatter me.

I was never that smart.


----------



## PetrB

arpeggio said:


> OK. What should we call the people who like or dislike the three A's of 20th century music: atonal, avant-garde, aleatoric?


Triple A holes?


----------



## Guest

Oh no you di'n't!


----------



## dgee

Woodduck said:


> I don't know. I just want to know where I can buy busts of the three A's to set on my piano beside the three B's.


Schoenberg and Cage for the outers and your choice for the inner. You might choose the striking young Varese or even the dramatically disfigured Xenakis. Not sure if they're readily available (and I know you weren't serious) - but it would make a supercool project for someone via a craft/art site


----------



## PetrB

Woodduck said:


> I don't know. I just want to know where I can buy busts of the three A's to set on my piano beside the three B's.


But sir, those plaster (and later, resin) busts -- are so passé.

We should be _demanding_ Action Figures.


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit

In my view, great composers seem to take advantage of their audience's archetype of beauty, which is partially innate and partially socialized and therefore subject to change (as it most certainly does over time).....even very forward-looking composers are riding the wave of a change in the collective archetype of beauty......

However, the sense I get is that some of the 'modernist' ideology is that one can deliberately engineer perception of beauty......I don't think that's really possible - that's why audiences haven't 'caught on'. 

Aesthetic power is a mysterious and elusive thing, it's more powerful than the efforts of an individual who might try in vain to manipulate its essence.


----------



## KenOC

PetrB said:


> We should be _demanding_ Action Figures.


Perhaps stuffed dolls will have to do. But be careful. The JS Bach from this series, when wound up, plays Minuet in G.


----------



## SimonNZ




----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> And I thought _I_ was high-maintenance, high-drama.


Oh you needn't worry about losing any titles here


----------



## PetrB

SimonNZ said:


>


"Well," (he said snippily, to prove he is educated as well as up to date,) "I already knew that." ('But,' he wondered, 'since the above three were all composers and legendary keyboard players, do those particular action dolls have completely articulated finger and wrist motion?')

But where are the action figures for the 20th/21st century Triple A Holes? And which of those composers did the marketers and manufacturer think were high-profile and popular enough to sell in significant numbers. These are very important questions which some demand to know!


----------



## PetrB

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> In my view, great composers seem to take advantage of their audience's archetype of beauty, which is partially innate and partially socialized and therefore subject to change...even very forward-looking composers are riding the wave of a change in the collective archetype of beauty.


My take is different, i.e. any composer is of their own time, yes with the general semiotic archetype of beauty within them, like any other person from the same time who has become conscious of it. However, composers are inventors and not just the consumers. Just about any composer, successful or not, tries -- imo -- to forge their own archetype of beauty for themselves. Some of those composers have more 'advanced' or 'personal' ideas of what that beauty is.

I think any composer who is writing outside of those already generally held concepts of beauty from their own time is highly aware that their works will not gain the widest popular reception.

This is far beyond the late adolescent / very young adult notion of being different just for the sake of it, or as somehow thought to be cool, but that composer going further beyond the general contemporary 'standard of beauty' is simply someone who believes in what they believe, the beauty of it, all stemming from their self (which necessarily includes their general semiotic conditioned / learned notions of beauty), and they are willing to take both risk and chance in writing that more adventurous kind of music which they know will not be as popular.

I'm convinced they think the music they are writing is as 'beautiful' as (assuming your Avatar has something to do with your admiration of the music and 'aesthetic of'...) you find the music of Ravel.


----------



## violadude

SimonNZ said:


>


I have the Beethoven one.


----------



## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> I think that because tonality and atonality are principles and not things, music can be "atonal" to varying degrees: its feeling of tonal organization and "gravitational pull" may exist on different levels, as the basis of a whole work or as an effect or idea within it. It isn't necessary to be able to say "this piece is atonal" or "this style of music is atonal" to hear the principle at work. And in this sense we might even reasonably speak of Liszt or Debussy or Messiaen as "playing with atonality." But I think it's usual, and generally best, to reserve the term for music in which tonal relationships and expectations are proscribed at the level of basic musical organization. That there might be "hints" of tonal relationships in the course of such music - that the deployment of nonharmonic factors such as dynamic emphasis, pitch level, and duration of tones might create momentary or transient feelings of "pitch centers" or hierarchies because of our mind's (natural, I believe) tendency to hierarchical ordering - seems to me to be, given the absence of tonal organization on a more basic level, no reason to dispense with the concept of atonality. We just need to be clear about what we mean by it.


Liszt, Debussy, Messiaen, Stravinsky, and Varese all wrote pieces which are not defined by hierarchies of pitch relationships, and in which such pitch relationships are perceived entirely because of what you call nonharmonic factors. _This is part and parcel of every modernist style._ (See here, for example)

Woodduck, I don't think you and Millionrainbows agree with each other much at all. You are talking about the music as heard, and extrapolating terminology from there. Millionrainbows discusses the music as he knows, from external sources, the methods behind its creation, and extrapolates from there.

Let me make this very clear:
In the loose sense you describe, _*I hear Schoenberg, Boulez, Babbitt, and Carter as tonal*_. This is not some vague perception, not something that depends on my studying a score, not something that is in doubt in any way.

Finally, and this is a point that I don't think you've addressed, what do you say about the fact that the word atonality was apparently coined as meaning music without tonal organization (although it didn't come into common usage until the 1920s) before any of the music you consider "atonal" was written?


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Liszt, Debussy, Messiaen, Stravinsky, and Varese all wrote pieces which are not defined by hierarchies of pitch relationships, and in which such pitch relationships are perceived entirely because of what you call nonharmonic factors. _This is part and parcel of every modernist style._
> 
> Woodduck, I don't think you and Millionrainbows agree with each other much at all. You are talking about the music as heard, and extrapolating terminology from there. Millionrainbows discusses the music as he knows, from external sources, the methods behind its creation, and extrapolates from there.
> 
> Let me make this very clear:
> In the loose sense you describe, _*I hear Schoenberg, Boulez, Babbitt, and Carter as tonal*_. This is not some vague perception, not something that depends on my studying a score, not something that is in doubt in any way.
> 
> Finally, and this is a point that I don't think you've addressed, what do you say about the fact that the word atonality was apparently coined as meaning music without tonal organization (although it didn't come into common usage until the 1920s) before any of the music you consider "atonal" was written?


Well, you're right, I am talking about music _as I hear it._ I can analyze music harmonically with some effort, but I'm many years from formal study of theory; I can't be too specific technically about certain composers and works. However, my hearing of music is pretty extensive - and when I hear music in which harmony functions tonally and music in which it doesn't, I hear a difference. Can you be saying that there _is_ no difference - that, in other words, Schoenberg's abandonment of tonality was no such thing? I would be inrterested in an explanation of just what you think Schoenberg is doing _tonally,_ and I would like to know what tonal relationships and structures you find in, say, a quartet by Webern or in _Le Marteau sans maitre_. I listened to _Le__ Marteau_ recently, heard nothing tonal about it, and would like to know what you're hearing that suggests tonality to you.

When I listen to what I'm calling atonal music - say, music from Schoenberg's 12-tone period such as the _Piano Concerto_ - I often hear confluences of pitches that suggest and could _potentially_ engender tonal relationships and progressions; but I hear an essential feature of such music to be the non-elaboration and non-fulfillment of those suggestions in time - in fact, the continuous avoidance of such elaboration and fulfillment. It's a kind of enforced ambiguity, a constantly fluctuating tension which could be released in any number of ways but allows no long-term sense of harmonic destination and no implicit base of stability or rest, even though some moments feel more stable or unstable than others. I hear gestures which _could_ frame tonal harmonies or result in tonal outcomes in an idiom which allowed for those possibilities, but are prevented from doing so. I don't hear Debussy constructing situations of this kind; he is sometimes quite clearly tonal, is often at least suggestive of a tonal base, and rarely excludes it as a possibility, but is often dwelling on harmonic effects for their own sake, coloristically or atmospherically, creating sensations more than progressions, unmooring harmony from any perceived _need_ for a resolution or destination.

It's such differences in their basic aesthetics that make me feel that atonality is a suitable term for music coming out of the Schoenberg-Webern axis but not, in general, the Debussy-Messiaen axis. It doesn't make sense (as I think millionrainbows is saying too) to use the term "atonal" for music whose fundamental structure does not derive from procedures or consist of effects in which tonal functions are even at issue. Schoenberg and Webern _prevent_ the tones which make up harmony from moving into configurations which would imply tonal progression; that is what they set out to do. Debussy, in his non-tonal effects - parallel triads, augmented chords, oscillating ostinatos, long-suspended soft dissonances which become sensuous effects no longer implying resolution - does not need to prevent his harmonies from doing something they have lost the urge to do. He wants us, at such times, to luxuriate and dream and not worry much about where we've been and where we're going. We don't luxuriate in Webern.

As far as other pre-Schoenberg non-tonal music is concerned - passages in Liszt, for example - it hardly makes sense to speak of it as "atonal" in any serious sense. Sure, Liszt experimented with extreme harmonic ambiguity, as in the opening of the _Faust Symphony_, with its parallel augmented triads. But such effects hardly add up to a style or idiom. Most of Liszt's - and Wagner's, and Faure's - music, even at its most chromatic, persistently implies tonal centers, however frequently these shift through modulation and however frequently, or for how long, resolutions are denied.

The impetus to move into atonality, as I understand it - and correct me if I'm wrong - was the problem of "where to go next," or "going beyond Wagner," posed by the extreme chromatic saturation of tonal harmony and tonal schemes which already in Wagner seemed to leave little left to be done, in terms of harmonic complexity and expressive intensity, within a tonal framework. Wagner himself only achieved his amplification of the richness of harmony by distending the time scale of music - slowing the exposition of musical material, moving the destination points farther apart, as a natural correlative of dramatic time ontage; he was actually dubious about attempts by other composers to use such drama-inspired musical effects within the forms of absolute music. But obviously they were going to attempt it; and Schoenberg felt, after his attempts to out-Wagner Wagner, that he was forced in the direction of abandoning the "constraint" of overarching tonal schemes altogether. And his 12-tone system was his solution to the problem his "free atonality" created, the problem of imposing order on a harmonic language which had abandoned a principle which had previously given coherence to musical structures.

I don't hear late Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, et al. as tonal, regardless of my ear's (brain's) desire to read tonal implications into isolated harmonic moments. What I hear is the intentional avoidance of exploiting such implications. I might even venture to say that this is an internal contradiction in such music: using the twelve tones belonging to the tradition Western harmonic system, moving them into configurations which suggest their traditional progressive, hierarchical functions, but undermining those suggestions and preventing those functions.

It appears to me that the story of tonality - its existence and development as a principle of musical structure, its abandonment, and the ways in which that loss was attempted to be compensated - is a real story. And if tonality is real, I can't understand why you say atonality is not.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> This is exactly the sense in which I have always understood the terms "tonality" and "atonality."


Yes, generally, in terms of music in which tonal centers, or the lack of them, is the primary concern. So contrary to what Mahlerian says, we agree almost totally.



Woodduck said:


> The debate on this subject between millionrainbows and Mahlerian has been for me the most interesting one on TC since I arrived here. I don't want to try to add anything technical to it - both of those gentlemen are more competent in that area than I am - but I do want to say that, as with many other debates, this disagreement seems to be more about whether a word should be used, and how it should be used, than about the phenomena it's being attached to.


Exactly. The usage and context of the two terms is all-important. We can't expect these terms to define any music we apply them to, such as Bartok, Varese, or Messiaen, which lie in a gray area and exhibit varying degrees of tonality to our ears, or in the way the composer's system approaches matters of pitch and sensual harmonic sounds.



Woodduck said:


> I can understand the dislike for a term which is often used loosely and pejoratively. In this sense, "atonality" seems rather similar to "atheism, " a word which has all sorts of horrid connotations for many people but which, strictly speaking, means only the absence of a particular belief.


I must agree with this as well; similarly, Satanism could not exist without Christianity. Evil must be the "object" of the righteous man. Tonality and atonality are part of a dialectic, in which one is the negation of the other. There's more to it, though.



Woodduck said:


> For what it's worth, I've always thought of "tonality" in a general, rather than specific, sense: as any system of relationships among the pitches* in a musical scale or mode *(or, in harmonic music, harmonies rooted in these pitches) in which* a particular pitch is heard and felt as a center to which the other pitches relate either directly or indirectly through a hierarchy of relationships.* The centrality of this pitch, its primary importance in this hierarchy, allows it to function as a "base," a point of stability and a place of departure and arrival for musical events; and like other stable states - whether physical, mental, or emotional - it exerts a "gravitational" pull upon these events and imparts to them a sense of direction and purpose.


This is exactly correct, Woodduck, *especially* as seen in terms of scales and modes, which exist within an entire octave. The octave allows pitches of a scale or mode to have a relational identity and function within the octave. This is the hierarchy of all ratios in relation to unity (1), or the octave. The ratios are seen as subservient or as smaller quantities in relation to "1." This is the hierarchy of all "tonalities" or pitch-centered scales and modes which deal with the entire octave.



Woodduck said:


> I can say that this was my sense of what "tonality" is long before I had any vocabulary with which to talk about it, and before I was aware of our Western harmonic "system" as a subspecies of tonality - a specific, highly elaborated case of tonality as a more general phenomenon found in non-Western or non-European musics as well.


This is also exactly in line with my thinking, Woodduck. I went through a difficult time in convincing others here that "tonality" has a general meaning, and that the Western diatonic system is merely a sub-species of that. Your acceptance of this obvious fact makes my job much easier.



Woodduck said:


> In accord with that understanding of what tonality is, I understood "atonality" to be nothing more than the absence of such a system of pitch (or harmonic) hierarchy in music which - to quote millionrainbows - _"is concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a 'primary structural dialectic.'"_ And this is the way I still understand - and, in everyday conversation about music - use the term. I'm aware that the term arose in the context of Western music; I have no idea whether any similar concept exists in non-European musical traditions (I suspect not). And in practice, in the everyday experience of listening to music, I have applied the term on an "I know it when I hear it" basis, as do other people I know; and there seems to be a general agreement, if one largely unverbalized, as to what "atonal" music sounds like.


Yes, I agree. Remember also that atonality can come about not only by systems which purposely negate it, or become unconcerned with tonality in favor of structural considerations or pitch sets, *but also as a natural consequence of increasing chromaticism, *which is borne of tonality. This confuses many people, since this type of chromaticism was the result of increasing root movement.



Woodduck said:


> It does not, as millionrainbows points out, sound like Debussy or Messiaen or Varese, precisely because their musical styles are not "concerned with tonality, or its negation or disregard, as a primary structural dialectic" (and I won't try to add to his explanation of this).* But it does not sound like late Wagner or early Schoenberg either, who are concerned with intensifying the tensions inherent in the listener's tonal expectations, largely by delaying resolution and exploring remote and ambiguous tonal areas, but not with negating them.* Nor does it sound like Stravinsky, who uses a lot of pungent and colorful "wrong notes" in his harmony, but generally in an identifiably tonal context.


Excellent observation, Woodduck. Remember also that Schoenberg saw his 12-tone system as the natural consequence of chromaticism taken to the extreme. We get hints of this in Strauss' Metamorphosen, Berg's Op. 1, and especially in Schoenberg's early piano pieces which are pre-12 tone, and described as being "freely atonal."



Woodduck said:


> I think that because tonality and atonality are principles and not things, music can be "atonal" to varying degrees: its feeling of tonal organization and "gravitational pull" may exist on different levels, as the basis of a whole work or as an effect or idea within it. It isn't necessary to be able to say "this piece is atonal" or "this style of music is atonal" to hear the principle at work. And in this sense we might even reasonably speak of Liszt or Debussy or Messiaen as "playing with atonality."* But I think it's usual, and generally best, to reserve the term for music in which tonal relationships and expectations are proscribed at the level of basic musical organization.*


Wow, I couldn't have said it better. Also, tonality can be "fragmented," as Bartok used it, when the 12-note collection is no longer the basis of an entire octave-spanning scale or division. Without the octave, all 12 notes are no longer included in a pervasive hierarchy, and this also confuses many listeners.

For example, the mathematical division of the 12-note octave into 3 parts, such as the minor third/diminished scale, is not only existent and applicable in normal tonality (Beethoven's use of the diminished seventh chords as flat-nine dominants), but can be used as "localized points" of smaller, in-octave pitch-centers, like Bartok used them. This structural use of octave divisions, which is also applicable in tonality and *derived from similar structural features of our 12-note octave, *also is a source of confusion and ambiguity.



Woodduck said:


> That there might be "hints" of tonal relationships in the course of such music - that the deployment of nonharmonic factors such as dynamic emphasis, pitch level, and duration of tones might create momentary or transient feelings of "pitch centers" or hierarchies because of our mind's (natural, I believe) tendency to hierarchical ordering - seems to me to be, given the absence of tonal organization on a more basic level, no reason to dispense with the concept of atonality. We just need to be clear about what we mean by it.


So true, so true. And as I just pointed out, not only do we hear these "hints" or commonalities of tonality in Bartok, but they also exist as structural entities, due to the 12-note octave. This is a point I've tried to explain for several years, and I'm glad to see that someone here finally "gets" it. Kudos go out to you, Woodduck.


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## Mahlerian

Woodduck said:


> It appears to me that the problem of tonality - its existence as a principle of musical structure, its abandonment, and the ways in which that loss was attempted to be compensated - was perfectly real. And if tonality is a real thing, I can't understand why you say atonality is not.


_If_ atonality meant "non-tonal", then it clearly would exist. But it doesn't. Because it seems to me that people want to use "tonal" in two different senses.

First, there is the hierarchical relationships based on central _triads_ characteristic of the functional tonality prevalent in music from the 17th through early 20th centuries. These are established primarily by cadences, particularly dominant-tonic cadences or some substitute.

Second, there are the non-hierarchical relationships based on central _pitches_ characteristic of modal music, impressionist music, and neotonal music of the 20th century. These are established primarily by emphasis, and more frequently depend on pedal points, ostinati, etc. to ensure that a listener hears a pitch as central.

So-called atonal music is certainly not tonal in the first sense. That much is obvious, and I would never claim otherwise. It is not clear that it is not tonal in the second sense; indeed, it is not clear that _anything_ cannot fall into the second definition of tonality. It prescribes no methods, no criteria for ensuring that a pitch is the true center. Unless you are claiming that centers need to be clearly stated, in which case there are any number of late romantic pieces which have long stretches which do not fall into this category, I don't see how any music can be disqualified, unless one goes on external knowledge of how the music was constructed, as Millionrainbows does. The primary differences between the second type of tonality and so-called atonality are the use of the chromatic scale as base rather than a diatonic or modal collection and the emphasis on non-triadic rather than triadic harmony. If you want to claim that atonality truly exists, you will need to prove that one or both of these things is, by its nature, _unable_ to generate tonality or _actively nullifies it_.

This is not obvious to me at all. Clearly nontriadic harmony based on the chromatic scale does not imply functional tonality, but it is not at all clear that it does not generate specific pitches that act as points of attraction and rest.



Woodduck said:


> Well, you're right, I am talking about music as I hear it. I can analyze music harmonically with some effort, but I'm many years from formal study of theory; I can't be too specific technically about certain composers and works. However, my hearing of music is pretty extensive - and when I hear music in which harmony functions tonally and music in which it doesn't, I hear a difference. Can you be saying that there is no difference - that, in other words, Schoenberg's abandonment of tonality was no such thing?


Schoenberg never abandoned tonality, correct.

His music was no longer common practice tonal, and it was no longer in a given key, but his music is built upon the same relationships as in tonal music. A building can hardly be said to abandon the very foundation it's constructed on.

You are once again conflating functional tonality with non-functional tonality.



Woodduck said:


> I would be interested in an explanation of just what you think Schoenberg is doing tonally, and I would like to know what tonal relationships and structures you find in, say, a quartet by Webern or in Le Marteau sans maitre.


These are three quite distinct things from three composers with very different personalities. As I told you, my sense of this is based primarily on what I hear, not on study of technique or scores. In general, the relationships I hear are of central pitches, as determined by melodic contour, rhythmic emphasis, and so forth, _as in other 20th century tonal music_.

In Le marteau, and Boulez's music in general, I hear the music primarily in terms of harmonic fields, certain pitch collections that are sustained over periods of time. There is also a good deal of fragmentation of previously-heard melodic lines, as in Webern.



Woodduck said:


> When I listen to what I'm calling atonal music - say, music from Schoenberg's 12-tone period such as the Piano Concerto - I often hear confluences of pitches that suggest and could potentially engender tonal relationships and progressions; but I hear an essential feature of such music to be the non-elaboration and non-fulfillment of those suggestions in time - in fact, the continuous avoidance of such elaboration and fulfillment.


The Piano Concerto is an interesting choice. It ends very clearly on a C major chord (with added major seventh). Is this approached in a functional harmonic sense? No. It feels distinctly like an ending because it's prepared with repeated motion from a C major chord to the pitch F#, and so at the end it moves from the pitch F# to C major.



Woodduck said:


> I don't hear Debussy constructing situations of this kind; he is sometimes quite clearly tonal, is often at least suggestive of a tonal base, and rarely excludes it as a possibility, but is often dwelling on harmonic effects for their own sake, coloristically or atmospherically, creating sensations more than progressions, *unmooring harmony from any perceived need for a resolution or destination.*


That's fine, but how does it constitute tonality in the sense that Schoenberg does not? You seem to be requiring two different standards. There are in fact plenty of Impressionistic passages in Schoenberg. To quote from the Piano Concerto alone:











Woodduck said:


> As far as other pre-Schoenberg non-tonal music is concerned - passages in Liszt, for example - it hardly makes sense to speak of it as "atonal" in any serious sense.


I know that it is not atonal in the sense that this term is normally applied today, but this is because of the fact that the word was reconfigured to indicate a certain collection of styles (that of Schoenberg and those who followed him, characterized by non-functional harmony based on the chromatic scale) rather than sustained harmonic/tonal ambiguity as such.



Woodduck said:


> The impetus to move into atonality, as I understand it - and correct me if I'm wrong - was the problem of "where to go next," or "going beyond Wagner," posed by the extreme chromatic saturation of tonal harmony and tonal schemes which already in Wagner seemed to leave little left to be done, in terms of harmonic complexity and expressive intensity, within a tonal framework.


For Schoenberg, it was not possibility, but necessity. He saw total chromaticism as the implication of the chromatic inflections of late romanticism, and non-triadic harmony as the implication of the piling-up of new dissonances and combinations thereof of the same period. Schoenberg's development has often been misconstrued as a statement that there was nothing new that could be done in the old ways, thus making finding new ones an imperative, but in fact it is quite the opposite. He wished to develop the old logic.



Woodduck said:


> Schoenberg felt, after his attempts to out-Wagner Wagner, that he was forced in the direction of abandoning the "constraint" of overarching tonal schemes altogether. And his 12-tone system was his solution to the problem his "free atonality" created, the problem of imposing order on a harmonic language which had abandoned a principle which had previously given coherence to musical structures.


What Schoenberg first sought was compression, to take the harmonic contrasts and expressive potential of late romanticism and remove the excess fat. In works such as his Chamber Symphony and the Second String Quartet, one can hear this, where a constantly developing motivic fabric unfolds all at once all the time. Tonal centers already no longer control the pitch collections in use, as the total chromatic is employed alongside whole-tone scales and quartal harmony.

In the final movement of the String Quartet, a key signature is not used, because the music works under its own motivic constraints, but the music does return to F-sharp major at every key juncture.

It is true that (functional) tonal structure was one of the things that provided coherence to music of the last few centuries, but it was certainly not the only one. One could retain the tonal structure of a Mozart work down to every single passing note and still manage to make nonsense out of it by re-writing its motivic structure, which was intended to complement and reinforce it. The 12-tone method (which is not and never was a system) helps to provide a kind of harmonic unity by ordering the total chromatic. True, it is not the same harmonic unity provided by functional tonality, nor does it in itself provide coherence to a composition. But used by a composer in order to create a work, it can help in providing a unifying element.



Woodduck said:


> We don't luxuriate in Webern.


Maybe you don't. I do.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> _If_ atonality meant "non-tonal", then it clearly would exist. But it doesn't. Because it seems to me that people want to use "tonal" in two different senses.
> 
> First, there is the hierarchical relationships based on central _triads_ characteristic of the functional tonality prevalent in music from the 17th through early 20th centuries. These are established primarily by cadences, particularly dominant-tonic cadences or some substitute.
> 
> Second, there are the non-hierarchical relationships based on central _pitches_ characteristic of modal music, impressionist music, and neotonal music of the 20th century. These are established primarily by emphasis, and more frequently depend on pedal points, ostinati, etc. to ensure that a listener hears a pitch as central.


I think therein lies the problem. All tonal hierarchies are based on pitches. Triads are secondary. All harmony is secondary. The single note, and its harmonics, is the basis of all music. Triads are based on this harmonic effect, but they came after the fact.



Mahlerian said:


> ...I don't see how any music can be disqualified, unless one goes on external knowledge of how the music was constructed, as Millionrainbows does.


No, I use my ears as my primary guide, and always have. Like Woodduck, I know atonality when I hear it.


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## DeepR

I just depend on my ears but am I instinctively right when I say that late Scriabin has these vague traces of and hints at tonality because he based his music on groups of notes/chords without caring about traditional tonality, while not deliberately eliminating tonality like Schoenberg did? (hope that made any sense)


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## Mahlerian

DeepR said:


> I just depend on my ears but am I instinctively right when I say that late Scriabin has these vague traces of and hints at tonality because he based his music on groups of notes/chords without caring about traditional tonality, while not deliberately eliminating tonality like Schoenberg did? (hope that made any sense)


Schoenberg did not deliberately eliminate tonality any more than Scriabin or Debussy. Like both of them, he used methods of organization that are different from those of traditional tonality.

The main difference I would point to between Scriabin and Schoenberg is that the latter's music is more contrapuntal and contains less literal repetition.


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## Dim7

I agree both with the modernists and the anti-modernists. Modernists are right that all tonal music worth composing has already been composed and new music in older style is totally redundant and ought to be banned. However, anti-modernists are right that modern music is garbage. All good ideas have been used, there's only bad ones left and the only thing left for us to do is to lament about decline of civillization.


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## violadude

Dim7 said:


> I agree both with the modernists and the anti-modernists. Modernists are right that all tonal music worth composing has already been composed and new music is older style is totally redundant and ought to be banned. However, anti-modernists are right that modern music is garbage. All good ideas have been used, there's only bad ones left and the only thing left for us to do is to lament about decline of civillization.


People equating composers no longer composing music they like with the decline of civilization has got to be some of the most whiny ******* hyperbole I've ever heard.

Edit: Are you kidding? Cry baby is censored on this website?

Ah, only when written as one word I see.  Good job TC auto-censor.


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## Dim7

violadude said:


> People equating composers no longer composing music they like with the decline of civilization has got to be some of the most whiny ******* hyperbole I've ever heard.
> 
> Edit: Are you kidding? Cry baby is censored on this website?
> 
> Ah, only when written as one word I see.  Good job TC auto-censor.


You know what, violadude, I know you have rather cynical attitude towards obscure neoromantic composers. However, a 21th century neoromantic female composer of the asian variety under the pseudonym "SexyOriental94" has composed an opera called "I'm a slave 4 violadude", starring herself as the heroine, and I've heard there's some INTENSE interaction with the audience included. Interested?


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## Woodduck

Dim7 said:


> I agree both with the modernists and the anti-modernists. Modernists are right that all tonal music worth composing has already been composed and new music in older style is totally redundant and ought to be banned. However, anti-modernists are right that modern music is garbage. All good ideas have been used, there's only bad ones left and the only thing left for us to do is to lament about decline of civillization.


Oh God! I wish I didn't have days when I think exactly the same thing!

Don't pity me. I'll be dead soon.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Dim7 said:


> You know what, violadude, I know you have rather cynical attitude towards obscure neoromantic composers. However, a 21th century neoromantic female composer of the asian variety under the pseudonym "SexyOriental94" has composed an opera called "I'm a slave 4 violadude", starring herself as the heroine, and I've heard there's some INTENSE interaction with the audience included. Interested?


Such thing must be commissioned and premiered for the sake of new music and the expansion and revival of opera. It's obviously what the people have been yearning for. Lulu shall be surpassed! Libretto by Tarantino. 
and there goes my 'what would you do if you had a million dollars'


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## Guest

Dim7 said:


> I agree both with the modernists and the anti-modernists. Modernists are right that all tonal music worth composing has already been composed and new music in older style is totally redundant and ought to be banned. However, anti-modernists are right that modern music is garbage. All good ideas have been used, there's only bad ones left and the only thing left for us to do is to lament about decline of civillization.


Hmmmm. This is really to be taken seriously, y'all?

I got the very distinct impression that someone's tongue was planted firmly in his cheek.

The assertion "ought to be banned" is pretty obvious exaggeration--a common feature of comedy--and the bit about the decline of civilization has been a joke for thousands of years. Ever since someone noticed that the world did not end with Hesiod's age of iron.

Here's what a critic said about Mozart's music: that since Boccherini had thoroughly worked the fertile ground of music, it was left to Mozart to till the rocky soil.

Here's what another critic said about Beethoven's music: that since Mozart and Haydn had thoroughly worked the fertile ground of msuic, it was left to Beethoven to till the rocky soil.

Here's what a third critic said about Berlioz' music: that since Beethoven had thoroughly worked the fertile ground of music, it was left to Berlioz to till the rocky soil.

A very persistent idea over the years that all the good ideas have been used, as if ideas were objects, and there's only a certain number of them. Which is absurd.

Hence my conclusion: tongue in cheek.


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## millionrainbows

DeepR said:


> I just depend on my ears but *am I instinctively right when I say that late Scriabin has these vague traces of and hints at tonality* because he based his music on groups of notes/chords without caring about traditional tonality, while not deliberately eliminating tonality like Schoenberg did? (hope that made any sense)


Yes, I think that's right. Atonality can be achieved two ways, by systematic means or as the result of extreme chromaticism. Scriabin falls into the latter category, of extreme chromaticism. While he was not _systematically_ trying to eliminate tonality, some of the music contains so many root movements and chromatic voice-leading relations that it _effectively_ eliminates any sense of tonality, or goes a long, long way towards that goal. The net result to the listener is a music which sounds vaguely related to tonality (and which_* is*_, in a structural sense), but not like atonal music which has "left the fold" of tonality more deliberately and structurally. And like it has been said before, it's all a matter of degree.
To add to the confusion, Scriabin's late music, in this regard, is derived from tonal practices and tonal mechanisms. In this sense, he is more related to the practices of late-Romanticism than he is to any sort of hard-core "atonality" or structural practices of composers like Bartok, Messiaen, or Ives.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> When I listen to what I'm calling atonal music - say, music from Schoenberg's 12-tone period such as the _Piano Concerto_ - I often hear confluences of pitches that suggest and could _potentially_ engender tonal relationships and progressions; but I hear an essential feature of such music to be the non-elaboration and non-fulfillment of those suggestions in time - in fact, the continuous avoidance of such elaboration and fulfillment. It's a kind of enforced ambiguity, a constantly fluctuating tension which could be released in any number of ways but allows no long-term sense of harmonic destination and no implicit base of stability or rest, even though some moments feel more stable or unstable than others. I hear gestures which _could_ frame tonal harmonies or result in tonal outcomes in an idiom which allowed for those possibilities, but are prevented from doing so...


Yes, that is an eloquent way of stating it. Tonality not only suggests a single-note pitch center, but it also reinforces a *larger, horizontal perception of tonality which moves through time *and it does this as a result of the overall hierarchy in the octave-spanning note collection, be it diatonic (7-note) or chromatic (12 note).

But always remember: This assignment of horizontal _*harmonic function in time*_ _to each step of the scale_ is based on the (timeless or static) *vertical, harmonic relation of these notes to the fundamental, or tonic pitch.*



Woodduck said:


> I don't hear Debussy constructing situations of this kind; he is sometimes quite clearly tonal, is often at least suggestive of a tonal base, and rarely excludes it as a possibility, but is often dwelling on harmonic effects for their own sake, coloristically or atmospherically, creating sensations more than progressions, unmooring harmony from any perceived _need_ for a resolution or destination.


Yes, exactly. What Debussy did was remove the horizontal function aspect of tonality. Thus, we have non-functional harmony which still sounds harmonic and sensual. It's like tonality with no rules.



Woodduck said:


> It's such differences in their basic aesthetics that make me feel that atonality is a suitable term for music coming out of the Schoenberg-Webern axis but not, in general, the Debussy-Messiaen axis.


I agree; Debussy just did whatever the hell he wanted to, but within an overall tonal, academically-derived framework. In a way, this makes him a more effective radical than Schoenberg, since Debussy's music is more immediately recognizable and palatable than Schoenberg's, to someone who is coming from a tonal background or mindset. Just generalizin'.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> As far as other pre-Schoenberg non-tonal music is concerned - passages in Liszt, for example - it hardly makes sense to speak of it as "atonal" in any serious sense. Sure, Liszt experimented with extreme harmonic ambiguity, as in the opening of the _Faust Symphony_, with its parallel augmented triads. *But such effects hardly add up to a style or idiom.* Most of Liszt's - and Wagner's, and Faure's - music, even at its most chromatic, persistently implies tonal centers, however frequently these shift through modulation and however frequently, or for how long, resolutions are denied.


I could not agree more. This is what I mean when I say that the "seeds of tonality's destruction" are contained within itself. This is because of the 12-note division of the octave. There are inherent structural properties of this 12-note collection which are self-contained symmetries which lie within the octave as 'recursive' interval structures. These intervals are the m2, M2, m3, M3, and the tritione. What's left? The perfect fifth, and its complement, the perfect fourth, which are the cornerstones of tonality.



Woodduck said:


> The impetus to move into atonality, as I understand it - and correct me if I'm wrong - was the problem of "where to go next," or "going beyond Wagner," posed by the extreme chromatic saturation of tonal harmony and tonal schemes which already in Wagner seemed to leave little left to be done, in terms of harmonic complexity and expressive intensity, within a tonal framework. Wagner himself only achieved his amplification of the richness of harmony by* distending the time scale of music - slowing the exposition of musical material, moving the destination points farther apart, as a natural correlative of dramatic time ontage;* he was actually dubious about attempts by other composers to use such drama-inspired musical effects within the forms of absolute music. But obviously they were going to attempt it; and Schoenberg felt, after his attempts to out-Wagner Wagner, that he was forced in the direction of abandoning the "constraint" of overarching tonal schemes altogether. And his 12-tone system was his solution to the problem his "free atonality" created, the problem of imposing order on a harmonic language which had abandoned a principle which had previously given coherence to musical structures.


That is a brilliant observation, and I get the feeling that Woodduck is either more familiar with music theory than we realize, or that he has a brilliant intuitive grasp of the aesthetics of music, on a nuts & bolts level, which is highly unusual.



Woodduck said:


> I don't hear late Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, et al. as tonal, regardless of my ear's (brain's) desire to read tonal implications into isolated harmonic moments. What I hear is the intentional avoidance of exploiting such implications. I might even venture to say that this is an internal contradiction in such music: using the twelve tones belonging to the tradition Western harmonic system, moving them into configurations which suggest their traditional progressive, hierarchical functions, but undermining those suggestions and preventing those functions.


Yes, the dramatic gestures are all there, but the "undermining" can really throw people for a loop.



Woodduck said:


> It appears to me that the story of tonality - its existence and development as a principle of musical structure, its abandonment, and the ways in which that loss was attempted to be compensated - is a real story. And if tonality is real, I can't understand why you say atonality is not.


Of course you are correct in this view. It seems as though there is a "denial" of the principle of atonality in some quarters, and that this term, and the recognition of what it implies, was somehow negative or unacceptable. It's as if "tonality" gives music "real cred,"even if it is illusory.

On the other hand, I accept atonal and serial music on its own terms.


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## science

some guy said:


> tongue in cheek.


So obviously so that I admire the guy for having tempted anyone to take it seriously. He accomplished a Salinger: he managed to create an unreliable narrator so persuasive that many readers even identified the narrator with the author. Modernist art at its finest!


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## millionrainbows

I want to add, before leaving this territory, that this is the most illuminating thread on "tonality vs. atonality" that I have yet seen, and I think it could be used as a reference the next time it comes up.


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## Dim7

science said:


> So obviously so that I admire the guy for having tempted anyone to take it seriously. He accomplished a Salinger: he managed to create an unreliable narrator so persuasive that many readers even identified the narrator with the author. Modernist art at its finest!


I guess the fact that like Woodduck, a part of me sometimes almost kinda believes that, helped to make the narrator more persuasive.

I'm disappointed that I failed to troll some guy though


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