# Tonal experiments



## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

Have you experimented with tonality in these 4 ways?

1. Constantly shifting keys, such as _Tristan and Isolde_.

2. A mix of key signatures, such as 2 flats and 2 sharps.

3. A partial key signature, such as 4 flats, but the b is always natural, so the result is "almost" Ab Major/F Minor.

4. Simultaneous, but different key signatures. I think Prokofiev liked this.

Have you tried something else?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Past a certain point, I feel that using multiple key signatures is more confusing for the performer (unless there are multiple performers) and it's better to just not use them. I've written pieces without any key signature, and another one I wrote uses key signatures, but more as indications of where the center is rather for what notes are to be used.

I did once start an experiment where each hand on the piano drew from a separate collection of the scale, adding up to the total chromatic, so one had no sharps or flats and the other had five flats, but I found my restriction a little too restrictive and never got past some interesting fragments.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I usually don't write with key signatures at all. I feel as though once I write down a D major key signature it has the psychological effect of putting me in a "D Major mindset" and restricts my thinking from other harmonic possibilities.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

I take great care on intervals (as opposed to the implied chords of tonal thinking). I've had plenty of fun doing modal experiments, taking this collection of intervals from one mode and adding them to another, making tone rows and tone row matrices* out of them, structuring phrases to highlight certain relations, etc. The result can be a sort of constant modulation in either mode, tone centre or both (nothing unusual to Bartók or Messiaen). I usually don't use key signatures when writing, I add them later if it makes it easier to read. I also take great joy in completely free 'ear composition'.

*not the same thing as what's usually meant but rather a subdivision of the tone row into smaller vectors that allow certain operations, not very different from the procedures of Boulez or Stockhausen; patent pending .


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

My first pieces were in some kind of post-impressionist, pleasing sounding, harmonic style. There, yes, I tried a lot of harmonic twists in a more tonal & modal & diatonic context. Usually, a mix of 'theoretical' considerations and also just trial/error on the keyboard. The result was something with abrupt and quick changes of tonality, often to far away zones.

Now, my language is chromatic. I don't use key signatures. While I don't use strict 12-tone technique, most of my procedures are derived from it (i.e., the use of operations, derived rows, invariance, pivots, etc.) I like this because it gives a constructivist feeling to the harmony, but you have liberty to add whatever you want, and to direct the development of things in the direction you want. You can emphasize the intervals you want whenever you want, while remaining homogeneously chromatic at the big scale. Call it 'statistical 12-tone', in contrast to strict 12-tone. 

I don't tend to favor very harsh dissonace. I also like quartal/quintal harmony and use these type of chords a lot rather than triads (I'm speaking only about the sonorities per se of the chords, since I don't use any type of functionality). Though I also use both simultaneously to make contrasts, also clashes of different scales, etc. I have always been partial to this, that's why my favorites are Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Schoenberg. My way of thinking about harmony is still quite rooted to impressionism and Debussy then.

So, basically, the 12-tonish ideas to give a kind of structure and constructivity to the harmony, the development and the treatment of the motivic material (all this as some kind of replacement of tonal functionality structuring). And the impressionism ideas to make all this colorful at the same time. In this sense, Boulez ideas of making a synthesis of the German and the French ideas are relevant to me.

I also like the idea of sound by itself from spectralism (rooted in impressionistic ideas).


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I don't care much for forcing myself to think in "keys" or "tonality," the way I compose is often based on having a particular sound in my head and working with the notes of the chromatic scale and standard instruments to simply recreate that sound. My compositional processes are more often than not based around motific development in some way or another, with less importance given to harmony which in my view is more of an "effect."


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## Nope (Mar 15, 2015)

I have been trying something like this on the melodic aspect. Kinna like what Bartok did, I would write smooth melodies that constantly change keys...such as, these group of notes are in C minor, but the next group are in E major etc.
However, I soon realized it is fun to experiment as it is, but I think composers had experimented tonality enough throughout the history. I mean, they have literally done everything one possibly could, thats why they move on to something else in the 20th centuray


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