# Varieties of tonality



## millionrainbows

A sense of tonality can be created in many ways. The sense of tonality will always be harmonic, as its end effect, since our ears hear that way. But how we get to that harmonic result can be accomplished in many ways.
There are other components which can contribute to a perception of tonality as well: repetition, the statistical preponderance of a certain note (which can be seen as a form of repetition or occurrence), harmonic context on a micro-level, such as if a note is heard in a triad as 1,3, or 5, and others. 
A good example of what could be called "structural tonality" is in Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, where the successive entries of the chromatic fugue subject are tied to cycles of ascending and descending intervals of the fifth; the theme is first heard on A, then E (a fifth above A), then D (a fifth below A), then B (a fifth above E), and so on, until Eb is reached, a tritone away from A.

So while we are at each 'station' of the theme, we hear that tonal center; then it moves to the next station, and we hear it that way. This is an example of how a sense of tonality is a localized sensation which can change rapidly, and is not necessarily dependent on a larger hierarchy, or scale, as in the traditional tonal system.

It would be interesting to hear other thoughts on this subject.


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## Woodduck

I like the title of this thread. I've been struck by the way in which, when people talk about tonality, they rarely say exactly what they mean by it. I tend to think that they usually don't know exactly what they mean, and that they are often in fact talking about different things. I'd like some more insight into what those different things are, as well as what, if anything, they have in common.

I can see a discussion of this becoming highly technical and abstruse. It would be nice to see some basic concepts stated without getting overloaded with technical detail. Knowing that our host, millionrainbows, is a treasure trove of such detail, I may be hoping for the impossible! But let me start with a question that seems to me very basic: _is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?_ What, fundamentally, tells us that music is tonal? And my first question in pursuit of that basic definition of tonality would be: _is it enough that a certain tone or tones, among all the tones used in a piece of music, is/are made more conspicuous than other tones, or do the other tones have to be heard to relate to that prominent tone or tones in some particular, identifiable way which helps to determine the form of the music?_

I don't know whether this is the best place to begin with this subject - maybe it would help to look at or listen to some musical examples first - but I always tend to think that making a stab at defining one's terms might at least save time.


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## Lukecash12

Woodduck said:


> But let me start with a question that seems to me very basic: is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?


I've been scratching my head at this question for a bit, and if I'm allowed to toot my own horn a bit I think I've come up with a simple and elegant solution to the question: tonality is present in music which has any discernible melodic pattern.

Btw, I've been meaning to get back to you in the other involved discussion that we struck up earlier on 4'33". Have been feeling foggyheaded but I should be able to put something up soon. I do hope you've found it as stimulating as I have so far.


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## Woodduck

My question: is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?



Lukecash12 said:


> I've been scratching my head at this question for a bit, and if I'm allowed to toot my own horn a bit I think I've come up with a simple and elegant solution to the question: tonality is present in music which has any discernible melodic pattern.


I have to say I don't understand this at all. What constitutes a melody? Is there any melody without a discernible pattern? What constitutes a melodic pattern? What makes a melodic pattern discernible or not? Why is a discernible melodic pattern necessary for tonality? And why can there not be a discernibly patterned melody without tonality?

Would answering these questions give us a definition of tonality, one fundamental enough to cover all instances designated by that term?


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## Chordalrock

My understanding of tonality is that it depends mostly on which note you decide to keep in your memory as the tonic. I can start from C on my piano and play all sorts of chromaticism for a while, and when I end with a C major chord, the feeling of final resolution is there. 

In so called modal music, tonal tension is I believe similarly memory based: there are of course cadences, but you don't really need to do a cadence to create a sense of resolution, just ending with the tonic on a strong beat or something is enough. 

Naturally, after listening to a lot of certain type of music, people have developed expectations and habits of thought, and may keep the tonal center in their memory without much awareness that they're doing it, habitually.

This becomes more effortful in common practice period music, especially in the classical sonata form, where you're apparently supposed to keep the original tonic in mind even during all of the rather longterm modulations. In a lot of Renaissance music, the tonal center feels more natural, though as I said I suspect it's still a matter of expectations, habit, and keeping it in your memory.


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## Woodduck

Chordalrock said:


> My understanding of tonality is that it depends mostly on which note you decide to keep in your memory as the tonic. I can start from C on my piano and play all sorts of chromaticism for a while, and when I end with a C major chord, the feeling of final resolution is there.
> 
> In so called modal music, tonal tension is I believe similarly memory based: there are of course cadences, but you don't really need to do a cadence to create a sense of resolution, just ending with the tonic on a strong beat or something is enough.
> 
> Naturally, after listening to a lot of certain type of music, people have developed expectations and habits of thought, and may keep the tonal center in their memory without much awareness that they're doing it, habitually.
> 
> This becomes more effortful in common practice period music, especially in the classical sonata form, where you're apparently supposed to keep the original tonic in mind even during all of the rather longterm modulations. In a lot of Renaissance music, the tonal center feels more natural, though as I said I suspect it's still a matter of expectations, habit, and keeping it in your memory.


I can't agree that tonality can be defined by a specific tone being kept in one's memory. You allude to the difficulty, in complex harmonic music, of doing any such thing, and in fact it's impossible to do it through the wide-ranging modulations of the average sonata-form movement of even the Classical period, much less the Romantic. Yet there is no doubt that such works are tonal.

I can also conceive of a piece consisting of sequences of notes that seem unrelated to the point of randomness, in which a particular note is returned to often enough to be remembered, yet seems, because of the piece's apparent randomness, like a periodic interruption rather than a resolution. Simply returning to a note would not seem sufficient to make a tonic out of it, without some sense that it was related to the notes around it.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I like the title of this thread. I've been struck by the way in which, when people talk about tonality, they rarely say exactly what they mean by it. I tend to think that they usually don't know exactly what they mean, and that they are often in fact talking about different things. I'd like some more insight into what those different things are, as well as what, if anything, they have in common.
> 
> I can see a discussion of this becoming highly technical and abstruse. It would be nice to see some basic concepts stated without getting overloaded with technical detail. Knowing that our host, millionrainbows, is a treasure trove of such detail, I may be hoping for the impossible! But let me start with a question that seems to me very basic: _is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?_ What, fundamentally, tells us that music is tonal? And my first question in pursuit of that basic definition of tonality would be: _is it enough that a certain tone or tones, among all the tones used in a piece of music, is/are made more conspicuous than other tones, or do the other tones have to be heard to relate to that prominent tone or tones in some particular, identifiable way which helps to determine the form of the music?_
> 
> I don't know whether this is the best place to begin with this subject - maybe it would help to look at or listen to some musical examples first - but I always tend to think that making a stab at defining one's terms might at least save time.


_



is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?

Click to expand...

_Tonality is reference to a single note, which becomes the center of the tonality, however fleeting. To ask if a perception of tonality is "irrespective of the form in which it is manifested" is asking us to divorce the idea (ear/brain perception) from its form, which is rather like asking if a wheel can roll, irrespective of the form it takes. Now who is complicating things? 


> What, fundamentally, tells us that music is tonal?


Our ears, which are connected to our brains. It's more of a perception than an idea, and thus is subjective. Some may hear it where others do not.



> And my first question in pursuit of that basic definition of tonality would be: _is it enough that a certain tone or tones, among all the tones used in a piece of music, is/are made more conspicuous than other tones, or do the other tones have to be heard to relate to that prominent tone or tones in some particular, identifiable way which helps to determine the form of the music?_


_

They can do both, IMO. A really chromatic melody (as in the Bartok mentioned) gives us this sense by the note it starts on. This is probably similar to the way Schoenberg thought of themes he made from tone rows which start on different notes, I'd guess.

A sustained bass note is an effective way reinforce this sense, even without repetition, if it is heard 'under' everything else. Again, this goes back to the harmonic way we hear: fundamental tones are lower and louder, from which overtones are derived, and they are weaker and higher components of that main note._


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## EDaddy

To my understanding, "tonality" or "tonicity" is a hierarchy of pitch class where at least one pitch predominates. Pretty simple concept. This, as we all on this thread here clearly understand, is also known as the tonic. Some refer to this classification or organization of music as "pitch-centric". To my understanding, some ways in which one pitch class can predominate over others might include:

Duration
Placement
Repetition
Accent
Cadences

By contrast, atonicity (or atonic music) is that which simply has no tonic or pitch-centric dominance and is, therefore, free of having any pitch hierarchy. Atonicity is built upon a premise of negation - that is, the negation of any pitch-centric hierarchy, rendering all notes of "equal importance". Schoenberg stressed this concept of tonal equality.

Melody, by its very nature, requires tonality to exist. Period. Its very essence is born from tonality and from a musical language that is organized in a pitch-centric, patterned fashion. To say that there are discernible (patterned) melodies in atonal music is to completely contradict the very essence and concept of the atonal approach in the first place; that is to say that all notes are equal and no one note clearly dominates. Melody _requires_ note dominance. This is a fundamental requirement because melody, at its core, is comprised of a _patterned_ sequence of notes in relationship to tonic, mode, scale, the like. This is one of the areas where Mahlerian and I vastly disagree and will likely continue to until the end of time. This extends to the concept of themes as well which are, in a sense, melodic paragraphs; where as melodies are more like musical sentences. Boiled down to their essence, themes are basically extended melodies (often with harmonic content as well) and, like melodies, require note dominance and a patterned hierarchy of notation to be what they are. Atonal music is anti-melodic at its core and, therefore, but perhaps to a lesser degree, anti-thematic as well. It is because atonal music is free of such rules and hierarchical governance that makes this so. To say anything else is flat out incorrect.

This is my basic understanding of the fundamental differences of the "tonal" and "atonal" schools of thought and approach in music. It was how they were taught to me and it is how they _sound_ to me. I don't think it's that complicated of a concept really and, to make it more complicated than it really is, is akin to thinking you can just start changing the meaning of, say... words in the English dictionary to be what you want.


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## Dim7

EDaddy said:


> To my understanding, "tonality" or "tonicity" is a hierarchy of pitch class where at least one pitch predominates. Pretty simple concept. This, as we all clearly know here, is also known as the tonic. Some refer to this classification or organization of music as "pitch-centric". To my understanding, some ways in which one pitch class can predominate over others might include:
> 
> Duration
> Placement
> Repetition
> Accent
> Cadences
> 
> By contrast, atonicity (or atonic music) is that which simply has no tonic or pitch-centric dominance and is, therefore, free of having any pitch hierarchy. Atonicity is built upon a premise of negation - that is, the negation of any pitch-centric hierarchy, rendering all notes of "equal" importance. Schoenberg stressed this concept of tonal equality.
> 
> Melody, by its very nature, requires tonality to exist. Period. Its very essence is born from tonality and music that is organized in a pitch-centric, patterned fashion. To say that there are discernible, (patterned) melodies in atonal music is to completely contradict of very essence and concept of the atonal approach in and of itself; that is to say that all notes are equal and no one note dominates. Melody _requires_ note dominance. This is a fundamental requirement because melody, at its core, is comprised of a _patterned_ sequence of notes. This is one of the areas where Mahlerian and I vastly disagree. This extends to the concept of themes as well, which are basically melodic paragraphs, where melodies are more like a musical or patterned sentence. Themes also require note dominance and a patterned hierarchy of notation. Atonal music is anti-melody at its core and, therefor, anti-thematic because of the very fact that it is free of such rules and hierarchical governance. To say anything else is flat out incorrect.


Do I need to visit a psychiatrist for hearing melodies/themes in Schoenberg's music then? Or is Schoenberg's music actually tonal?


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## Richannes Wrahms

Dim7 said:


> Do I need to visit a psychiatrist for hearing melodies/themes in Schoenberg's music then? Or is Schoenberg's music actually tonal?









. .


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Tonality is reference to a single note, which becomes the center of the tonality, however fleeting. *To ask if a perception of tonality is "irrespective of the form in which it is manifested" is asking us to divorce the idea (ear/brain perception) from its form, which is rather like asking if a wheel can roll, irrespective of the form it takes. Now who is complicating things?*
> 
> *Our ears, which are connected to our brains.* It's more of a perception than an idea, and thus is subjective. Some may hear it where others do not.


You begin by misquoting and thus misinterpreting me. I asked: _"is there something that defines tonality as such, irrespective of the different forms in which it's manifested?"_ That is not at all the same thing as asking whether "a perception of tonality is irrespective of the form in which it is manifested." Obviously, nothing in the universe can be understood "irrespective of the form in which it is manifested." Do you see the difference? And when I ask, _"What, fundamentally, tells us that music is tonal?"_, your answer, "our ears, which are connected to our brains," suggests that tonality is entirely a matter of perception, and that there are no actual features of music which define it as tonal. But that could hardly be the case, since that would make tonality "a perception irrespective of the form in which it is manifested"! What, then, are the features of music our ears perceive as determining tonality, and is there a common denominator among such features?

You do go so far as to say that _"Tonality is reference to a single note, which becomes the center of the tonality, however fleeting."_ What do you mean by "reference"? What is it that is referring to, or being referred to, this "single note"? How is the reference made, and how perceived? And how can you speak of "the center of the tonality," using the very term "tonality" within an attempt to define it?

Clearly this matter of definition must be addressed in order for the idea of "varieties of tonality" to make sense. Otherwise we can't know just what it is we have varieties of. And I don't think we should assume that the meaning of tonality is just common knowledge or common sense. The endless debate over the matter of "atonality" is evidence of that.


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## Woodduck

EDaddy said:


> To my understanding, "tonality" or "tonicity" is a hierarchy of pitch class where at least one pitch predominates. Pretty simple concept. This, as we all clearly know here, is also known as the tonic. Some refer to this classification or organization of music as "pitch-centric". To my understanding, some ways in which one pitch class can predominate over others might include:
> 
> Duration
> Placement
> Repetition
> Accent
> Cadences
> 
> By contrast, atonicity (or atonic music) is that which simply has no tonic or pitch-centric dominance and is, therefore, free of having any pitch hierarchy. Atonicity is built upon a premise of negation - that is, the negation of any pitch-centric hierarchy, rendering all notes of "equal" importance. Schoenberg stressed this concept of tonal equality.
> 
> Melody, by its very nature, requires tonality to exist. Period. Its very essence is born from tonality and music that is organized in a pitch-centric, patterned fashion. To say that there are discernible, (patterned) melodies in atonal music is to completely contradict of very essence and concept of the atonal approach in and of itself; that is to say that all notes are equal and no one note clearly dominates. Melody _requires_ note dominance. This is a fundamental requirement because melody, at its core, is comprised of a _patterned_ sequence of notes. This is one of the areas where Mahlerian and I vastly disagree and will likely continue to until the end of time. This extends to the concept of themes as well, which are basically melodic paragraphs, where melodies are more like a musical or patterned sentence. Boiled down to their essence, themes are basically extended melodies and, like melodies, require note dominance and a patterned hierarchy of notation to be what they are. Atonal music is anti-melodic at its core and, therefore, anti-thematic as well. It is because atonal music is free of such rules and hierarchical governance that makes this so. To say anything else is flat out incorrect.
> 
> This is my basic understanding of the fundamental differences of the "tonal" and "atonal" schools of thought and approach in music. It was how they were taught to me and it is how they _sound_ to me. I don't think it's that complicated of a concept really and, to make it more complicated than it really is, is akin to thinking you can just start changing the meaning of, say... words in the English dictionary.


I don't see why melody is impossible without tonality. It's true that "pattern" implies hierarchy in a basic sense - some notes must have greater emphasis or prominence than others by virtue of position, duration, or repetition (any one or all of these) - but it isn't clear to me that inequality of emphasis is in itself enough to create a sense of tonality. In fact, I can walk over to my piano and create a sequence of tones of varying durations which give me no sense of a tonal center operating in their midst. According to you, it would be incorrect to call such a sequence a melody. We might debate whether it's a good or interesting melody, but I don't see why the definition of melody should be so restricted.


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## EDaddy

Dim7 said:


> Do I need to visit a psychiatrist for hearing melodies/themes in Schoenberg's music then? Or is Schoenberg's music actually tonal?


Lol. I don't know. Maybe whatever they are require a new atonally-based classification. Like "ano-clusters" or something. But they're definitely_ not _melodies.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> Lol. I don't know. Maybe whatever they are require a new atonally-based classification. Like "ano-clusters" or something. But they're definitely_ not _melodies.


Almost all of Schoenberg's music is based entirely on melodies and themes. I can't imagine any non-ad-hoc definition of melody that excludes those melodies in the music that's thrown under the nonsense term atonal.


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## EDaddy

*You can't have your cake and eat it too*

Melody, by its very nature, requires a relationship to a tonal-center. That's what makes it melodic. Atonal music, by definition, has no hierarchical tonal center. It operates from a more "democratic", all-notes-equal 12 tone architecture. The argument falls on pure logic alone. To say that atonal music can contain a melody would, by the very nature and requirement of any melodic line, require that atonal music's architecture_ be tonally-centric_.

If N=Notes in a sequence
TC=Tonal center
NTC=No tonal center

and if

N+TC = melody

and TC does not equal NTC

Then is the following a true statement?:

N+TC = N+NTC

Now I'm no mathematician so there's probably a better way to lay this argument out in a formula form, but it still illustrates the point. On pure logic alone.

It's one or the other. Call it something else. It's not melody.


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## Woodduck

EDaddy said:


> *Melody, by its very nature, requires a relationship to a tonal-center. *That's what makes it melodic. Atonal music, by definition, has no hierarchical tonal center. It operates from a more "democratic", all-notes-equal 12 tone architecture. The argument falls on pure logic alone. 2 + 2 does not = 5. To say that atonal music can contain a melody would, by the very nature and requirement of any melodic line, require that atonal music's architecture_ be tonal-centric_.
> 
> So which is it? Because you can't have it both ways. Call it something else. But it's not melody.


Seems we need some examples here. Is what the violin is playing at the beginning of Schoenberg's _Violin Concerto_ melody or not? And can you identify a tonal center?






How about the String Quartet #3?






How about these little piano pieces?


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## Chordalrock

Woodduck said:


> I can't agree that tonality can be defined by a specific tone being kept in one's memory.


Then how do you explain the different church modes? Let's say you pick E as your tonic. Its relationship to the other notes is completely different than the tonics of the diatonic system. So, it seems that it is possible to arbitrarily pick any note of the diatonic system, and make it the tonic instead. This is how you get a different church mode.



Woodduck said:


> You allude to the difficulty, in complex harmonic music, of doing any such thing, and in fact it's impossible to do it through the wide-ranging modulations of the average sonata-form movement of even the Classical period


Well, Charles Rosen thinks that you're supposed to do it.

But anyway, what I think is that perhaps tonality isn't a good way of describing how we engage with complex harmonic progressions. I find points of resting in tonal music that aren't tonics, though this can be difficult to judge, because you may often expect the next note due to having heard the piece before, so that you don't feel at rest before the tonic because you've learned to expect the melody to continue.

In "modal" music the composers sometimes cadence on notes other than the tonic. And....I also find resting points in atonal music, and my experience of listening to it is much the same as with tonal music, including the serialism of Schoenberg and Sessions (though not that of Boulez and other more chaotic composers).



Woodduck said:


> I can also conceive of a piece consisting of sequences of notes that seem unrelated to the point of randomness, in which a particular note is returned to often enough to be remembered, yet seems, because of the piece's apparent randomness, like a periodic interruption rather than a resolution. Simply returning to a note would not seem sufficient to make a tonic out of it, without some sense that it was related to the notes around it.


You should test that before reaching a conclusion. Don't be so sure your hypothesis is the correct one beforehand.


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## Dim7

That no single note dominantes doesn't mean there's no pattern.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> *Melody, by its very nature, requires a relationship to a tonal-center. That's what makes it melodic. *Atonal music, by definition, has no hierarchical tonal center. It operates from a more "democratic", all-notes-equal 12 tone architecture. The argument falls on pure logic alone. 2 + 2 does not = 5. To say that atonal music can contain a melody would, by the very nature and requirement of any melodic line, require that atonal music's architecture_ be tonal-centric_.
> 
> So which is it? Because you can't have it both ways. Call it something else. But it's not melody.


That's question-begging. You're just restating your conclusion as your premise.

Furthermore, so-called atonal music, including and especially Schoenberg's, is organized around tonal centers, which is why the term atonal is so stupid.


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## Woodduck

Woodduck: I can't agree that tonality can be defined by a specific tone being kept in one's memory.

Chordalrock: _Then how do you explain the different church modes?...it seems that it is possible to arbitrarily pick any note of the diatonic system, and make it the tonic instead. This is how you get a different church mode._

Woodduck: *This is not an answer to my point. We're not talking about how to constitute modes, but how to establish a sense of tonality. Choosing a note of the diatonic scale as a "tonic" begs the question of what a "tonic" is (and for that matter what a "scale" is, and what makes a scale "diatonic"). You're presupposing a sense of tonality rather than explaining how and why it happens. You're going around the barn rather than into it.*

Woodduck: You allude to the difficulty, in complex harmonic music, of doing any such thing [keeping a tonic in the memory], and in fact it's impossible to do it through the wide-ranging modulations of the average sonata-form movement of even the Classical period, much less the Romantic. Yet there is no doubt that such works are tonal.

Chordalrock: _Well, Charles Rosen thinks that you're supposed to do it._

Woodduck: *If Charles Rosen can actually keep the tonic note of a Mozart or Beethoven first movement in mind while journeying through a sequence of keys and an abundance of harmonic turns and melodic material, good for him. 99.9% of us most certainly can't, and why should we care to? We can still find the music tonal and coherent.*

Chordalrock: _But anyway, what I think is that perhaps tonality isn't a good way of describing how we engage with complex harmonic progressions. I find points of resting in tonal music that aren't tonics._

Wooduck: *Sure, there are many such points - "rest" and "unrest" are relative - but how does this negate music's tonality? If you don't want to use that word, OK, but it describes my experience well enough. Common practice harmony consists of hierarchies of keys, and there's tonal movement, including effects of resolution and partial resolution, at all levels of it. Modulation is tonal, deceptive cadences are tonal, tonal ambiguities are tonal...Music doesn't have to stay close to the basic key, or even have one, to be experienced as tonal.*

Chordalrock: _I also find resting points in atonal music, and my experience of listening to it is much the same as with tonal music, including the serialism of Schoenberg and Sessions (though not that of Boulez and other more chaotic composers)._

Wooduck:* Can we call all "resting points" in music functions of tonality? Some people seem to believe so. I think this needs examining.*

Woodduck: I can also conceive of a piece consisting of sequences of notes that seem unrelated to the point of randomness, in which a particular note is returned to often enough to be remembered, yet seems, because of the piece's apparent randomness, like a periodic interruption rather than a resolution. Simply returning to a note would not seem sufficient to make a tonic out of it, without some sense that it was related to the notes around it.

Chordalrock: _You should test that before reaching a conclusion. Don't be so sure your hypothesis is the correct one beforehand. _

Woodduck: *Don't be so sure I haven't tested it!* :lol: *In fact, I performed the exercise for myself at the piano, playing "atonal" sequences of notes and periodically returning to middle C, doing this often enough to keep middle C in my memory through a number of episodes. Sure enough: middle C did not function as a tonic merely by being stuck in my memory, and the music did not emerge as tonal merely because of one note's repeated presence. I'd say the music wouldn't be any more tonal if I'd used a C-major chord, even though the chord itself would suggest a tonal resolution, because the rest of the music would have no functional relationship to that chord. My conclusion is that it takes more than just repeating a note or chord, or ending on it, or being able to remember it, to make music tonal in a meaningful sense.*


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## EDaddy

Woodduck said:


> Seems we need some examples here. Is what the violin is playing at the beginning of Schoenberg's _Violin Concerto_ melody or not? And can you identify a tonal center?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How about the String Quartet #3?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How about these little piano pieces?


Ok. I'll give you a universal example. Take any relatively simple piano piece, say... Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No.1. Famous piece. Simple but strong melody. This melody sounds the way it does in large part because of its very definite and essential relationship to the tonal center of the piece, and how the root scale, along with its overlayed harmonic content, moves vertically and horizontally... also referred to as harmony.

Now what happens if we take the left hand part and transpose it up a half step, while still keeping the right hand playing the same part, in the same original key it's in? The melody turns to complete @#$%^&*! _Why_ does it turn to [email protected]#$%^&*! you may ask? Well, because we have completely _murdered_ the beautiful relationship between the melody (right hand) and the left hand part by detaching it from the very simple but essential tone-centric content found in the left hand (in simplistic terms: the bass line). This is a simple and crystal clear example of how utterly and inexorably dependent a melody line is to the tonicity of the harmonic content and mode (scale), in order for it to retain its melodic essence and identity... to _sound_ the way it does.

A 12-tone row in essence throws this relationship out the window, because it is simply no longer a requirement. Since there is no discernible tonal center to be found (or heard) and, by it's own declaration none is needed, it is no longer about melody, because melody requires this relationship to a tonic to even exist in the first place. What ensues as a result is a very free and less rigid way to arrange notes together. And as a result, since no one note is the "task master" so to speak, the musical options are pretty much wide open. But my argument, which I will continue to argue until I'm blue in the face, is there is no melody in 12-tone music because of its inherent_ atonalty_, or lack of a tonal center. Melody, by its very essence, _requires_ an "alfa-note" to ply or define its very musical shape sequence and _quality_. Sure, there are lots of patterns in 12-tone music, some more ambiguous than others. But by their own design they are just that: patterns, shapes, clusters, motifs. They are _not_ melodies.


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## EDaddy

Woodduck said:


> Seems we need some examples here. Is what the violin is playing at the beginning of Schoenberg's _Violin Concerto_ melody or not? And can you identify a tonal center?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How about the String Quartet #3?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How about these little piano pieces?


I will listen to these and give you my answers in the morrow, Mr. Woodduck. Not in a place where I can give them a good listen without distractions this evening. It's a great idea and an exercise I look forward to taking a stab at.

Let us compare notes and ideas... see if we can find a nexus! :cheers:


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## EDaddy

Dim7 said:


> That no single note dominantes doesn't mean there's no pattern.


There can indeed be a pattern. Just not a melody.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> That's question-begging. You're just restating your conclusion as your premise.
> 
> Furthermore, so-called atonal music, including and especially Schoenberg's, is organized around tonal centers, which is why the term atonal is so stupid.


If you think that Schoenberg's later music is organized around tonal centers then you are not only contradicting his own declarations and terms, but you are a negating the very concept of the 12-tone "all notes equal" approach as a whole (and are simply incorrect), because that's exactly what is going on musically: there is no hierarchy - all 12 notes clearly have equal "say", are given equal opportunity and are used most democratically as such. The term atonal strikes me as a very good descriptive with regard to this. It is a simple delineation of the fact that there is no one note that determines a specific mode. Would a name like "a-modal" be less offensive? I mean seriously. At some point you've got to call it _something_. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...

S's Chamber Symphony 1 most certainly _does_ lack any one tonal center. Why claim it has one when it so obviously and provably does not?? I would think that, as a clear fan or connoisseur of 12-tone music, you would embrace this basic truth rather than become defensive or in denial of it. Until someone comes along with a more "politically correct" or less offensive descriptive than "atonal" (which seems anything but offensive or annoying to me but rather a simple, accurate descriptive), then let's just call it what it really, truly is: _atonal_.

There's nothing "question-begging" about that.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> S's Chamber Symphony 1 most certain _does_ lack any one tonal center.


It's in E major. The score says so, the music says so, and the composer says so. If those three things aren't reliable enough sources for you, then nothing will convince you.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> It's in E major. The score says so, the music says so, and the composer says so. If those three things aren't reliable enough sources for you, then nothing will convince you.


The history books also claimed Charles Lindbergh was the First Man to Cross the Atlantic Ocean by Air, which is irrefutably false. I would love to actually see a copy of the score. You don't by chance have one, do you?... or know where one can be easily and cheaply acquired? Preferably for free. That would be a very interesting score to peruse. My guess is E Maj is an entirely arbitrary key Schoenberg scribbled on there because he had to put _something._

I'd love to hear a strong argument (in music theory terms) of what makes his Chamber Symphony 1 in the key of _anything_, much less Emaj. I honestly don't think it would hold water.


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## Lukecash12

Woodduck said:


> I have to say I don't understand this at all. What constitutes a melody? Is there any melody without a discernible pattern? What constitutes a melodic pattern? What makes a melodic pattern discernible or not? Why is a discernible melodic pattern necessary for tonality? And why can there not be a discernibly patterned melody without tonality?
> 
> Would answering these questions give us a definition of tonality, one fundamental enough to cover all instances designated by that term?


I have to remark at the start that your skeptical line of thought and incisive questions are as pleasant as ever to mull over. It really lends these discussions the feel of a Socratic dialogue. Let's look at these questions one by one:

1. A melody is a series of notes that constitutes a pattern, consisting of multiple notes in a sequence. Melodies are given repetition in order to establish continuity. More complex developments in melodies across a span of time is often part of what gives us "form" in music.
2. One would tend to think of that idea as a contradiction in terms.
3. Sequence is what makes melodies discernible.
4. In terms of it's most simple essence, a tonic is a focal point kept in the back of the mind even when it is not being heard. Intelligible patterns are intelligible because they possess such a focus, allowing one to follow the melody.
5. A tonic is necessary in order to orient a sequence of notes towards a discernible end.
6. Probably the best litmus would be surveying all of the music considered tonal and seeing these basic grounds attain satisfactorily.



Woodduck said:


> I can't agree that tonality can be defined by a specific tone being kept in one's memory. You allude to the difficulty, in complex harmonic music, of doing any such thing, and in fact it's impossible to do it through the wide-ranging modulations of the average sonata-form movement of even the Classical period, much less the Romantic. Yet there is no doubt that such works are tonal.


Slow the music down enough, and even during modulations the tonic can be seen nevertheless.



Woodduck said:


> Woodduck: *Don't be so sure I haven't tested it!* :lol: *In fact, I performed the exercise for myself at the piano, playing "atonal" sequences of notes and periodically returning to middle C, doing this often enough to keep middle C in my memory through a number of episodes. Sure enough: middle C did not function as a tonic merely by being stuck in my memory, and the music did not emerge as tonal merely because of one note's repeated presence. I'd say the music wouldn't be any more tonal if I'd used a C-major chord, even though the chord itself would suggest a tonal resolution, because the rest of the music would have no functional relationship to that chord. My conclusion is that it takes more than just repeating a note or chord, or ending on it, or being able to remember it, to make music tonal in a meaningful sense.*


Whether or not we can mentally handle so many abstractions (btw, the human mind can typically handle 7-8 simultaneous abstractions, and those with an IQ of 130+ can regularly handle 8-10 abstractions), what you'll find is that the further you seem from that tonic, the larger the interval that is needed to resolve the relationship.

This is because the partials within each note are in actuality what one might think of as other less audible notes. Because of the phenomenon of sound vibration, there is a primary frequency and other variant frequencies of lesser and lesser occurrence the further they are from that frequency. At some point, however distant an interval it is, each two different notes will share one of the same partials, which can be thought of like the least common denominator.

What we tend to think of as a 410 hertz note is not nearly as consistent as we might at first imagine. These variations are responsible for the phenomenon that has been called timbre.


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## Dim7

EDaddy said:


> There can indeed be a pattern. Just not a melody.


Well then your argument is nothing but circular logic. Melody is tonal because you define it so.


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> Furthermore, so-called atonal music, including and especially Schoenberg's, is organized around tonal centers, which is why the term atonal is so stupid.


I suppose when you say that you are not simply talking about the trivial fact that in practice some notes will at least momentarily be more emphasized due to duration, accent, placement. In common practice the V-I cadence is arguably the most important way of establishing the tone center. In a lot of heavy metal there are riffs that are very chromatic, or perhaps Phrygian, Phrygian dominant or even Locrian - but there's often a single open string low note that is repeated very emphatically. How does it work in Schoenberg? The 12-tone method would seem to on paper, all else being equal, make the music less tone centric, although not automatically completely so.


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## dgee

EDaddy said:


> I would love to actually see a copy of the score. You don't by chance have one, do you?... or know where one can be easily and cheaply acquired? Preferably for free. That would be a very interesting score to peruse. My guess is E Maj is an entirely arbitrary key Schoenberg scribbled on there because he had to put _something._
> 
> I'd love to hear a strong argument (in music theory terms) of what makes his Chamber Symphony 1 in the key of _anything_, much less Emaj. I honestly don't think it would hold water.


http://imslp.org/wiki/Kammersymphonie,_Op.9_(Schoenberg,_Arnold)

Here you go mate - fill yr boots. A phenomenally exciting score made all the more cool by the complexity/clarity of the textures

It ends in E major, sure. Might want to compare it to contemporaneous works in keys to see how it all works. Of course, you can find the find the pattern of fourths and take it that it's not in E in the same way as say Bruckner 7 was. Although that might still be an interesting comparison for you to make


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> I suppose when you say that you are not simply talking about the trivial fact that in practice some notes will at least momentarily be more emphasized due to duration, accent, placement. In common practice the V-I cadence is arguably the most important way of establishing the tone center. In a lot of heavy metal there are riffs that are very chromatic, or perhaps Phrygian, Phrygian dominant or even Locrian - but there's often a single open string low note that is repeated very emphatically. How does it work in Schoenberg? The 12-tone method would seem to on paper, all else being equal, make the music less tone centric, although not automatically completely so.


But the 12-tone method is not comparable to those other things, because it doesn't determine how the composer handles the notes, just their basic arrangement.

Writing a 12-tone piece entails creating a basic set (Schoenberg started from a melodic/motivic standpoint, Webern from a small cell) and then using that to create a piece of music. How it is made coherent is entirely up to the composer, just as with any other music. The fact that it uses all of the notes of the chromatic scale makes it less likely to sound as if it is in a diatonic key, of course. But it does not change the facts of natural gravity or the way notes function, and points of attraction are formed in much the same way as in other 20th century music: emphasis, repetition, phrasing, rhythm, and so forth.


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## Chordalrock

Woodduck said:


> This is not an answer to my point. We're not talking about how to constitute modes, but how to establish a sense of tonality. Choosing a note of the diatonic scale as a "tonic" begs the question of what a "tonic" is (and for that matter what a "scale" is, and what makes a scale "diatonic").


I'll just comment on this, because I think it's the key to understanding the whole issue.

Have you played around with different modes? Playing around with the Phrygian mode is very enlightening.

I find your comment puzzling, because if you don't establish the theoretical "tonic" of a mode as the actual, perceptible tonic, then your music can't be said to be in that mode and can't be heard to be in that mode. It is the sense that its establishment creates that produces the different mood of the mode.

Can you imagine any other way to create music in the Phrygian mode than to keep the E in your mind as the tonic?

I would side with Wikipedia in defining 'tonic' in the following manner: In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of a diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. (Except that I would remove the "diatonic" from the equation. I see no point in having it there other than convention.)


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> Ok. I'll give you a universal example. Take any relatively simple piano piece, say... Erik Satie's Gymnopédie No.1. Famous piece. Simple but strong melody. This melody sounds the way it does in large part because of its very definite and essential relationship to the tonal center of the piece, and how the root scale, along with its overlayed harmonic content, moves vertically and horizontally... also referred to as harmony.


What key is it in? How is that established?

It's not as easy to answer as you might think, because you chose an example with a harmonic background that is actually extremely ambiguous (famously so) as to its tonal orientation.

And it deliberately avoids traditional markers of key and the stronger cadential patterns.

It's a piece I've played myself, so I know it well.

To put it simply, the tonal orientation of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony in E is far stronger and much more easily heard than the tonal orientation of Satie's Gymnopedie, in my ears, certainly.


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## Woodduck

Dim7 said:


> I suppose when you say that you are not simply talking about the trivial fact that in practice some notes will at least momentarily be more emphasized due to duration, accent, placement. In common practice the V-I cadence is arguably the most important way of establishing the tone center. In a lot of heavy metal there are riffs that are very chromatic, or perhaps Phrygian, Phrygian dominant or even Locrian - but there's often a single open string low note that is repeated very emphatically. How does it work in Schoenberg? *The 12-tone method would seem to on paper, all else being equal, make the music less tone centric, although not automatically completely so.*


The whole point of "the method" is to do just that. Otherwise why would it exist? You don't need to create such a method if all you're doing is "extending tonality," as some claim. That was perfectly possible, and being done, before 12-tone composition existed. Nor do you need it to ensure form; there are plenty of options for doing that. Using a tone row as an organizing device is a neat idea, but not one to justify an entire artistic movement. The fundamental principle remains the avoidance of tonality as a basis for formal organization, with the row employed, or rationalized, as a safety net to avoid falling into chaos.


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## EDaddy

Dim7 said:


> Well then your argument is nothing but circular logic. Melody is tonal because you define it so.


No. melody _requires_ tonal to _be_ melody. Otherwise, it's something else.

A must_ include_ B to = A. If A does not include B, then A = X (X = something else)
Nothing circular about. That's a pretty straight-forward, definitive statement.


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## Dim7

EDaddy said:


> No. melody _requires_ tonal to _be_ melody.


Why ?


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## Woodduck

EDaddy said:


> No. melody _requires_ tonal to _be_ melody. Otherwise, it's something else.
> 
> A must_ include_ B to = A. If A does not include B, then A = X (X = something else)
> Nothing circular about. That's a pretty straight-forward, definitive statement.


Various definitions of melody exist. Here are some:

1. the succession of single tones in musical compositions, as distinguished from harmony and rhythm.
2. the principal part in a harmonic composition; the air.
3. a rhythmical succession of single tones producing a distinct musical phrase or idea.

Here is the Wiki article on melody:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melody

There is no reference in any of this to a requirement that melody be tonal. Where did you derive that idea?


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## millionrainbows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4FCKw5mNclI&list=PLdhGk7gKuZxYlN4A3chGE8tGq0gHEMu_I

These compositions are a good example of chromatic tonality, but it must be listened to carefully, and for a sufficient period of time.

This demonstrates that any melodic line can be referenced to a tonal center.

I do think that Schoenberg, at times, created a sense of tonality in his usage of the 12-tone system. The system was so loosely conceived that it could be manipulated for those results if desired. Admittedly, it is chromatic, and a sense of tonality is probably not its main concern or strength; I see it best manifest as contrapuntal and linear. I think the Chamber Symphonies are both poor examples of non-tonal music, since they are decidedly tonal to my ear. I've always heard them as late Romantic, and the Second as theme & variations.

The String Trio is a much better point of contention. For me, a sense of tonality was not the goal, and I don't hear it, either. However, a "structural" aspect may exist, in the way lines are derived and articulated rhythmically, which could be said to contradict this...motives and phrases which exist as consistent structures, which some may be able to hear as instances of tonality. but I don't; I hear them as lines, which exist independently, without reference. But that's me.


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## Chordalrock

I think I kind of see where EDaddy is coming from. Often, the character of a succession of notes changes based on what you keep in your mind as the tonic. So it could be argued that a properly perceived melody has to be tonal.

However, I would argue that the reference note doesn't have to be the tonic, it can be a moment of relative release, it can be a non-chord tone reaching a chord-tone (as in jazz), or it can be the last several notes in the series that you still remember. Without thinking about it too deeply, my guess is that in atonal music, a sense of release can be created with a half step upwards combined with the proper rhythmic and harmonic environment. We've learned to associate certain patterns with cadences, and these expectations can be used to create relative moments of release in dodecaphonic music I believe.

At any rate, what you keep in your mind does affect how you hear what comes after, but I suspect we don't truly hear sophisticated music tonally anyway, but more in the way jazz is said to work, so I wouldn't agree with EDaddy's proposition.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> It's in E major. The score says so, the music says so, and the composer says so. If those three things aren't reliable enough sources for you, then nothing will convince you.


After studying this dauntingly complex score (Thanks for the link, dgee): The Chamber Symphony 1 - as far as I can tell, the only time this score ever, even once, finds itself in the key of EMaj is on the final chord. Additionally, there are only a couple of other points in the entire score where a simple (non-extended) triadic chord seems to appear, and only in quick passing when it does. And even when these triads do occasionally appear, they do not functionally create any sense of resolve so, for all intents and purposes, they are merely passing triads swimming in a sea of chromaticism, stacked fourths, whole tone scales and other non-tonal-centric mechanisms.

While Schoenberg claiming EMaj as the score's key (tonicity) - simply because that's where it winds up resolving to - may be viewed as a clever touch, as I suspected, it is nothing more than just that, an artistic touch. This composition is no more in the key of EMaj than a cow lays eggs. Simply resolving to a key once - and in this case only as the very final chord of the score - by no means, music theory or otherwise, justifies this entire score being cast in that key, much less any key.

News flash: There is _no defining key here, folks!_ If this work is in the key of Emaj, much less_ any_ key, then squares = triangles = apples = pineapples... and anything = _anything_


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## Mahlerian

The work is centered in the key of E major, because, regardless of what your investigation may have turned up, the work does resolve to a number of tonal centers throughout the work, with E as the primary center at the beginning and end, as in any other work in such a key. There is nothing non-tonal about the score. To claim that a tonal work is non-tonal just because you don't hear it is absurd. You may not hear the resolutions, but I do. Schoenberg did. That's why he said it was in E major, and your bad faith towards him cannot change the musical fact that it's as much in E major as any other work could possibly be.


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## millionrainbows

Even highly chromatic music which constantly undulates and modulates, such as Berg's Op. 1, is still tonal, even though it does not create a sense of stable tonality. Passing triads swimming in a sea of chromaticism can still be related, albeit with ambiguous meanings, to possible "tonics." This is a grey area, so it does nothing to clarify or simplify the issue, but still, I see the Chamber Symp No. 1 as "tonal," even though its sense of tonality is weak or ambiguous.

So these "possible" relations create an abstracted definition of tonality: notes or chords which may, or may not be related to several possible tonics, if they were resolved. And this all makes sense to my ear.

So we see the sense of tonality becoming more of a possibility, rather than a concrete phenomena of unambiguous resolution; thus, the ear/brain experience of tonality is pushed further to the "brain" side of things, and is abstracted into a more abstract sense of tonality, rather than a simple sensual experience where there is no question of resolution. (still, it needs those undulating chords, which are structures, not abstractions, to accomplish this.)

So this brings up the question: is music more "brain" or more "ear?" the wonderful thing, IMHO, is that it can be both, and cover both areas to varying degrees.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> No. melody _requires_ tonal to _be_ melody. Otherwise, it's something else.
> 
> A must_ include_ B to = A. If A does not include B, then A = X (X = something else)
> Nothing circular about. That's a pretty straight-forward, definitive statement.


The circular part is that you're defining melody as being tonal, and then using this as the sole proof of your conclusion that atonal music doesn't have melody. That's why the argument begs the question, in the most obvious way possible: your conclusion is the same as your premise.

Your argument:

If and only if A, then B.
____________
Therefore if not A then not B.

This is an acceptable argument, formally, but that's because the conclusion and premise are identical on a logical level, so it does nothing to prove your point. I disagree with every part of your premise, and so the argument has no force for me: I do not think there is such a thing as atonality, defined as separate from tonality, and I am not convinced that even if one could codify a difference between tonality and atonality such that these things were separate, that the melodies in atonality would not be melodies.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> The work is centered in the key of E major, because, regardless of what your investigation may have turned up, the work does resolve to a number of tonal centers throughout the work, with E as the primary center at the beginning and end, as in any other work in such a key. There is nothing non-tonal about the score. To claim that a tonal work is non-tonal just because you don't hear it is absurd. You may not hear the resolutions, but I do. Schoenberg did. That's why he said it was in E major, and your bad faith towards him cannot change the musical fact that it's as much in E major as any other work could possibly be.


There is nothing non-tonal about the score?? Mahlerian, you are simply incorrect here, sir. I recommend you review common music theory and practice. You say this score begins in E (arguable, as this piece begins with stacked fourths, which is not typically identifiable to one tone or tonic) and ends in E (no argument there). But that does not in itself justify a key, good man. It's not even debatable so this will certainly be my last attempt to correct your decidedly misinformed thoughts on the matter.

And there is certainly no bad faith on anyone here, Schoenberg or otherwise. I am merely pointing out that his declaration of this piece being in the key of E is hardly more than an artistic choice or perhaps an eccentric indulgence. Whatever his reason, it was certainly not a theoretically-based decision. I am merely stating a fact, not an opinion. To say otherwise is simply not justifiable in music theory terms and is therefore a fallacy. This is no more up for debate than 2 + 2 = 4 is up for debate, although I wonder if perhaps you may be inclined to argue against that as well?

I found the following to be a very thoughtful, intelligent and _informed _analysis of Schoenberg's Chamber Orchestra 1 by a one Steven Lewis... an accomplished pianist/composer in his own right and, more importantly, an admirer and performer of Schoenberg's music and approach. I think you, and others, might find this very informative:

http://www.stephenlewiscomposer.com/schoenbergs-1st-chamber-symphony/

Side note: Something Steven Lewis said in this analysis made me stop and consider that perhaps I have been both correct _and_ incorrect in my argument of melody - or lack thereof - in Schoenberg's later music. Perhaps the issue, and what I have been missing, is that there are _many _melodies occurring simultaneously in his music, so that, for me at least, the net result sounds... anti-melodic and chaotic (which it does). I still don't believe that several melodies played simultaneous automatically makes music melodious, mind you... quite the contrary, but let's set that aside for a moment. To most ears, I would argue, multiple melodies occurring simultaneously - with one instrument playing a whole note scale, another instrument playing fourths, another using chromatic scales, etc.. - and_ simultaneously_ mind you - sounds anything but melodic. Then especially when you consider that each instrument switches from playing whole tone scales to the chromatic part and then to the fourths, etc.. it makes it all the more complex to understand.

I consider myself to have a pretty "advanced" ear and I can scantly, if at all, detect anything melodious in this chamber work at all so, either you are a genius beyond geniuses, Mahlerian, or perhaps you just have grown accustomed to - and love the sound of - absolute chromatism, atonality, suspended notation, what have you, that you merely_ think_ you are perceiving melody. Food for thought.

Either way, I stand firm in my argument of key for the simple fact that it is... well... _fact_

Good day!
:tiphat:


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## Mahlerian

Misinformed? I told you, I know this piece better than you. I've known it for years, and it's a beautiful, passionate, powerful work which I dearly love.

Of course Schoenberg's music, like that of Bach, Mahler, and Brahms, uses many simultaneous melodies, all moving in their own way at their own pace. That's part of the German tradition and it's part of the beauty of his music, that so much order can be achieved all at once in such a magnificent fashion. To have so many melodies all interacting at once is a wonderful thing, if it is fashioned by a master such as Schoenberg.

The bad faith is in your saying that Schoenberg really didn't mean it when he said that the work is in E major. That he was "scribbling" it on the score, or that it was merely some convenience or something he did because of convention. You're saying that he can't have meant it, because you don't think it's true. Let me tell you, he meant it, and I mean it. It's as tonal as anything else tonal is.

As I said, the work does establish this key from the beginning, right after the brief intro, as this example from Wikipedia demonstrates, headed with cadence 2 (that is, following the intro's cadence on F) in E major:










As for my saying there is nothing non-tonal about the score, it is true that the devices you mentioned, whole tone scales, quartal harmonies, and so forth, are not a part of what is considered common practice, and are alien to diatonicism.

But you have been trying to argue, not that this work is not common practice, but that it is _atonal_, which is supposedly something in contradistinction to all music ever before Schoenberg came along. But these same devices can be found in the work of Debussy, Mahler, Bartok, Mussorgsky, and other composers, whose music you wish to call tonal. Either their usage makes a work non-tonal or it does not. What is your defense for saying that this is tonal, and the Chamber Symphony isn't?






Here there are no triads, no cadences, no semblance of traditional melodic rhetoric. In short, all of the things which Schoenberg's work does have and which are considered the definitive elements of common practice tonality, Debussy's lacks.


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## Dim7

Though it has nothing to do with atonality itself, EDaddy is probably right that the extreme contrapuntal density _combined_ with the equal use of all notes of the chromatic scale does make it difficult for a lot of people hear the patterns in Schoenberg's music. And add to that the avoidance of literal repetition and the complex rhythms.

However the original claim "atonal music by definition cannot have melody" is simply wrong.


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> Though it has nothing to do with atonality itself, EDaddy is probably right that the extreme contrapuntal density _combined_ with the equal use of all notes of the chromatic scale does make it difficult for a lot of people hear the patterns in Schoenberg's music. And add to that the avoidance of literal repetition and the complex rhythms.
> 
> However the original claim "atonal music by definition cannot have melody" is simply wrong.


We're not talking about the equal use of notes in the chromatic scale, though, as not only is that a misrepresentation of how the 12-tone method works, not only is Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony not an "atonal" work, but it is in fact a *tonal* work in the same sense that other common practice works are tonal.


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## Chordalrock

Dim7 said:


> Though it has nothing to do with atonality itself, EDaddy is probably right that the extreme contrapuntal density _combined_ with the equal use of all notes of the chromatic scale does make it difficult for a lot of people hear the patterns in Schoenberg's music. And add to that the avoidance of literal repetition and the complex rhythms.
> 
> However the original claim "atonal music by definition cannot have melody" is simply wrong.


"Equal use" doesn't mean all that much when (1) the durations of notes aren't serialised, but are decided by the composer based on intuition and good taste, and (2) because the tone row can be divided between the different parts polyphonically (used as harmony, counterpoint, etc), as pretty much every Schoenbergian composer did I believe. These composers also occasionally broke their own rules when it served the music.

Honestly, I don't even understand the theory behind dodecaphonic music, but according to a Schoenberg biography I read (by Malcolm MacDonald) you're not supposed to be able to identify the tone rows when listening to Schoenberg, the focus is on traditional motivic development and other traditional elements of music.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> Misinformed? I told you, I know this piece better than you. I've known it for years, and it's a beautiful, passionate, powerful work which I dearly love.


Realizing I said I was done with this "argument"... I don't doubt you love this work, Mahlerian. It is both apparent and admirable and I'm certainly not trying to take that away from you. And I _guarantee_ you know it far more intimately than me. But I can read the score just fine without you providing snippets of only one or two of the parts of the score in an misleading effort to illustrate a point that has no basis in reality. The beginning of the score is multiple instruments collectively creating fourths upon fourths upon fourths. A fourth is a musically ambiguous interval. It neither depicts major nor minor. And sixteen voices, more or less sounding simultaneously, creating multiple stacked fourths is certainly no less tonally ambiguous. There is nothing delineating an Emaj in the first bar of this score or anywhere in the middle of the score for that matter. Is it not until the last chord is struck that an Emaj is ever established, which is simply not enough from a theoretical argument to justify the other 99% of the score as being in the key of E! Even if it was an E in the first bar and then no E again until the final bar, it's still not enough to call the entire score one that's tonal center is E. What part of this does not make sense to you?



Mahlerian said:


> Of course Schoenberg's music, like that of Bach, Mahler, and Brahms, uses many simultaneous melodies, all moving in their own way at their own pace. That's part of the German tradition and it's part of the beauty of his music, that so much order can be achieved all at once in such a magnificent fashion. To have so many melodies all interacting at once is a wonderful thing, if it is fashioned by a master such as Schoenberg.


To compare Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony 1 to Bach or Brahms or even Mahler is to compare pop tarts and pizza. Sure there are multiple melodies going on sometimes in Bach; and sometimes all the counterpoint, together, creates one big harmonic/ melodic tapestry. But the fundamental and completely material difference between Bach and Schoenberg, is Bach's melodies are still all tied to a fundamental key or tonic, whereas Schoenberg's are not and, as such, S's are independent melodies at best... complete melodic islands unto themselves. And that's assuming they are even melodies to begin with, which is in itself completely up for argument. I opine they are not.



Mahlerian said:


> The bad faith is in your saying that Schoenberg really didn't mean it when he said that the work is in E major. That he was "scribbling" it on the score, or that it was merely some convenience or something he did because of convention.


I didn't ever say he "didn't really mean it" and to say I did is to misquote me. I merely establish that it didn't/doesn't serve any theoretical function; it doesn't have any grounds in musical theory. One can only guess then why he did it. My guess was simply that perhaps it was either an artistic reason, a show of eccentricity or perhaps because he felt he had to put something on the score because it is common practice to do so. For all I know Mother Mary whispered in his ear and told him to do so. No matter to me. My point is simply that it has no footing in music theory.



Mahlerian said:


> As I said, the work does establish this key from the beginning, right after the brief intro, as this example from Wikipedia demonstrates, headed with cadence 2 (that is, following the intro's cadence on F) in E major:


This is only two lines (and bars) of a 16-part score that takes anywhere between 20 to 25 minutes to perform, Mahlerian. This shows nothing of its actual key which again, by it's own design, it is forfeit of having.



Mahlerian said:


> As for my saying there is nothing non-tonal about the score, it is true that the devices you mentioned, whole tone scales, quartal harmonies, and so forth, are not a part of what is considered common practice, and are alien to diatonicism.


Actually, whole tone scales, fourths, and such are very common practice in so-called (by you) "diatonicism", just not all at the same time.



Mahlerian said:


> But you have been trying to argue, not that this work is not common practice, but that it is _atonal_, which is supposedly something in contradistinction to all music ever before Schoenberg came along. But these same devices can be found in the work of Debussy, Mahler, Bartok, Mussorgsky, and other composers, whose music you wish to call tonal. Either their usage makes a work non-tonal or it does not. What is your defense for saying that this is tonal, and the Chamber Symphony isn't?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here there are no triads, no cadences, no semblance of traditional melodic rhetoric. In short, all of the things which Schoenberg's work does have and which are considered the definitive elements of common practice tonality, Debussy's lacks.


Again, you misquote me. Where did I ever say it's in contradistinction to all music ever before Schoenberg came along? I will respond and conclude by simply saying, if you consider Shoenberg's later work, and this more middle period work of which we speak, not to be atonal by its very architecture, that is to say, lacking both a theory-based and perceivable_ tonicity_, then you are very much in the minority, not to mention misinformed. Why not just call it what it is based on what it does, is, and does not contain? If it has feathers and goes "quack, quack, quack" then it is, by all deductive logic, a duck.


----------



## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> We're not talking about the equal use of notes in the chromatic scale, though, as not only is that a misrepresentation of how the 12-tone method works, not only is Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony not an "atonal" work, but it is in fact a *tonal* work in the same sense that other common practice works are tonal.





Chordalrock said:


> "Equal use" doesn't mean all that much when (1) the durations of notes aren't serialised, but are decided by the composer based on intuition and good taste, and (2) because the tone row can be divided between the different parts polyphonically (used as harmony, counterpoint, etc), as pretty much every Schoenbergian composer did I believe. These composers also occasionally broke their own rules when it served the music.
> 
> Honestly, I don't even understand the theory behind dodecaphonic music, but according to a Schoenberg biography I read (by Malcolm MacDonald) you're not supposed to be able to identify the tone rows when listening to Schoenberg, the focus is on traditional motivic development and other traditional elements of music.


I know all that. I was speaking about Schoenberg generally. "Equal use of chromatic scale" is not 100% correct nor does apply to the Chamber Symphony but the point was that the harmonic/melodic language is in many ways unfamiliar to many, which applies to a large extent also to the Chamber Symphony (whole tone scales, high degree of chromaticism etc.).


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Chordalrock said:


> "Equal use" doesn't mean all that much when (1) the durations of notes aren't serialised, but are decided by the composer based on intuition and good taste, and (2) because the tone row can be divided between the different parts polyphonically (used as harmony, counterpoint, etc), as pretty much every Schoenbergian composer did I believe. These composers also occasionally broke their own rules when it served the music.
> 
> Honestly, I don't even understand the theory behind dodecaphonic music, but according to a Schoenberg biography I read (by Malcolm MacDonald) you're not supposed to be able to identify the tone rows when listening to Schoenberg, the focus is on traditional motivic development and other traditional elements of music.


Yeah, from what I understand certain chordal combinations are also emphasized and used as stable points, as derived from certain notes of the row. With harmonic emphasis and linear emphasis based off or intuition and artistry certain notes in the tone row are established as prominent. Or at least, this is how I vaguely understand it.


----------



## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> Realizing I said I was done with this "argument"... I don't doubt you love this work, Mahlerian. It is both apparent and admirable and I'm certainly not trying to take that away from you. And I _guarantee_ you know it far more intimately than me. But I can read the score just fine without you providing snippets of only one or two of the parts of the score in an misleading effort to illustrate a point that has no basis in reality.


I am not attempting to mislead you or anyone else. I hear the work as being in E major, and I am attempting to show you, in the face of baseless insults about my capacity for logical reasoning, why I and Schoenberg and many others hear it that way.

Why do you assume that you hear it correctly and I do not, despite the fact that I know it better and you do not even deny this? I can follow all of the themes in the score; I can tell you how they develop and forward the musical argument of the work.



EDaddy said:


> The beginning of the score is multiple instruments collectively creating fourths upon fourths upon fourths. A fourth is a musically ambiguous interval. It neither depicts major nor minor. And sixteen voices, more or less sounding simultaneously, creating multiple stacked fourths is certainly no less tonally ambiguous. There is nothing delineating an Emaj in the first bar of this score or anywhere in the middle of the score for that matter. Is it not until the last chord is struck that an Emaj is ever established, which is simply not enough from a theoretical argument, to justify the other 99% of the score as being in the key of E! What part of this does not make sense to you?


I didn't say the first bar was in E major. Nor is the first bar of the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde in A minor. The respective works are in those keys, though. E major is established as the key right afterwards, at the appearance of the first theme a few bars after rehearsal number 1.



EDaddy said:


> To compare Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony 1 to Bach or Brahms or even Mahler is to compare pop tarts and pizza. Sure there are multiple melodies going on sometimes in Bach; and sometimes all the counterpoint, together, come together to create one big harmonic/ melodic tapestry. But the fundamental and completely material difference between Bach and Schoenberg, is Bach's melodies are still all tied to a fundamental key or tonic, whereas Schoenberg's music is not and, as such, his are independent melodies, at best; and complete melodic islands unto themselves. And that's assuming they are even melodies to begin with, which is in itself completely up for argument. I opine they are not.


Schoenberg's melodies are also tied to keys and tonal centers.



EDaddy said:


> I didn't ever say he "didn't really mean it" and to say I did is to misquote me. I merely establish that it didn't/doesn't serve any theoretical function; it doesn't have any grounds in musical theory. One can only guess then why he did it. My guess was simply that, a guess... that it was either an artistic reason, a show of eccentricity or perhaps because he felt he had to put something on the score because it is common practice to do so. For all I know Mother Mary whispered in his ear and told him to do so. No matter to me. My point is simply that it has no footing in music theory.


Schoenberg wrote a very respected text on tonal music theory, in case you didn't know. He still said this work was in E major, and used it as an example of how he would design a work in which every element is related to a tonal center.



EDaddy said:


> This is only two lines of a 16-part score, Mahlerian. This shows nothing of its actual key which again, by it's own design, it is forfeit of having.


Actually, it's a reduction of the entire texture of the bars following rehearsal number 1. The other parts simply back up the harmonic texture written here.

What "design" causes it to forfeit tonality? It's a tonal work. This whole excerpt is a V-I cadence.



EDaddy said:


> Actually, whole tone scales, fourths, and such are very common practice in so-called (by you) "diatonicism", just not all at the same time.


So we're agreed that they're not non-tonal elements, then. Diatonicism is a normal term, there's no need for scare quotes.



EDaddy said:


> I will respond and conclude by simply saying, if you do not consider Shoenberg's later work, and this more middle period work, to be atonal, that is to say, lacking both a theory-based and perceivable tonicity, then you are very much in the minority. Why not just call it what it is based on what it does, is, and does not contain? If it has feathers and goes "quack, quack, quack" then it is, by all deductive reasoning, a duck.


But I do perceive tonics. I've told you so many times. So I base my view on what I perceive. I do not and have never perceived atonality.

If something has no characteristics of a duck, but rather all of the characteristics of a bluebird, and you insist on calling that animal a duck, so be it, but it's a bluebird to me.

Also, what you are talking about is _inductive_ reasoning, not deductive.


----------



## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> I am not attempting to mislead you or anyone else.


Then you can start by not misquoting me.



Mahlerian said:


> I hear the work as being in E major, and I am attempting to show you, in the face of baseless insults about my capacity for logical reasoning, why I and Schoenberg and many others hear it that way.


If my arguments have lead to your feeling that I am slinging baseless insults, then I truly do apologize. Perhaps my frustrations at what I consider baseless _logic_ gets the better of me. I do not intend insult. I intend to offer logic for sheer logic's sake. I find great fallacy in your argument so I am prone to call it as I see it. You say you "hear the work as being in E major". How may I ask? If we were to play the piece at several different points within the score and you were to hum a note, are you telling me it would undeniably be an E? And I would very much like to see (or read) where others - musicians, conductors, scholars, theoreticians and the like - have argued that this piece has a true, consistent if not perceivable tonal center of Emaj. Can you provide any links or quotes to this effect?



Mahlerian said:


> Why do you assume that you hear it correctly and I do not, despite the fact that I know it better and you do not even deny this? I can follow all of the themes in the score; I can tell you how they develop and forward the musical argument of the work.


I don't. This argument about tonicity/key has nothing to do with hearing, taste in music, or like or dislike of atonal music. It has do do with math. With theory. It doesn't matter how familiar your are with the piece as an artistic statement. Is has to do with one simple, empirical fact: This work is no more in the key of E from a purely theoretical/mathematical standpoint than pi defines a square.



Mahlerian said:


> I didn't say the first bar was in E major. Nor is the first bar of the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde in A minor. The respective works are in those keys, though. E major is established as the key right afterwards, at the appearance of the first theme a few bars after rehearsal number 1.


Again, this work is no more in the key of E than pi defines a square.



Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg's melodies are also tied to keys and tonal centers.


Yes. But the operative word is plural: _keys._ It employs 12 to be exact. Music that can be considered tonal, by definition, can only have one. One key and one key only. Otherwise it is something else. Here you have completely contradicted yourself. This is where your argument falls flat. Schoenberg's melodies are indeed tied to keys and tonal centers. Just not exclusively one, which is the one basic, implacable requirement for something to be considered tonal.



Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg wrote a very respected text on tonal music theory, in case you didn't know. He still said this work was in E major, and used it as an example of how he would design a work in which every element is related to a tonal center.


That's great and I am very happy for him. Still doesn't change the fact that this work has nothing substantial enough contained within its bars to legitimately justify itself as having a tonal center of E.



Mahlerian said:


> Actually, it's a reduction of the entire texture of the bars following rehearsal number 1. The other parts simply back up the harmonic texture written here. What "design" causes it to forfeit tonality? It's a tonal work. This whole excerpt is a V-I cadence.


Just because it uses all the tones form the 12-tone scale in an indulgently democratic fashion, doesn't make it "tonal". All music uses tones. Tonal = one note defines the key. This work has no definable key. It's "pan-tonal". There is no One Ring to rule them all. In this case there are twelve. Tonacity, by it's very definition, implies one, and _only _one. Not two. Not a seven... and certainly not twelve.



Mahlerian said:


> So we're agreed that they're not non-tonal elements, then. Diatonicism is a normal term, there's no need for scare quotes.


No. I don't agree. Hence what you call my "scare quotes". Whole tone scales, while hexatonic in nature (meaning there are only six notes played per octave), can still be played in different keys. There is a whole tone scale for every key, it just depends on which key is being treated as the root key or tonic. In this sense, it is very much a tonal-centric scale. What makes it different is its characteristics or musical quality. I don't know how else to describe it other than its sounds more ambiguous than say a major or minor scale. To quote Wikipedia: _The whole tone scale has no leading tone and because all tones are the same distance apart, "no single tone stands out, [and] the scale creates a blurred, indistinct effect"._ This is the perfect foil for a Schoenberg composition for obvious reasons and yet it is still tonally based, just more ambiguously so. I tend to think of it as a departure point or middle ground of sorts between the tonal and atonal worlds. In a sense, it straddles both. Interestingly, Schoenberg's 12-tone approach allows for a whole tone scale to begin on virtually any note. Because there is no one defining autocratic key, he could theoretically have run all twelve variations of them more or less to his heart's content (and probably did!). So long as he can keep some sort of distant 12-tone relationship between it and the other parts, then technically it can work.



Mahlerian said:


> But I do perceive tonics. I've told you so many times. So I base my view on what I perceive. I do not and have never perceived atonality.


This argument is not about perception. It is beyond perception. Lots of people perceive - or_ believe_ they perceive - lots of things. Doesn't always make it so. This is about notes, math and basic music theory. There is no one tonic implied throughout this score. It's really just that simple.



Mahlerian said:


> If something has no characteristics of a duck, but rather all of the characteristics of a bluebird, and you insist on calling that animal a duck, so be it, but it's a bluebird to me.


Well then there is truly no reason to proceed with this argument because, clearly it boils down to one simple fact: We are unable to define our terms because we are speaking to entirely different languages.

It's been fun! Again, sorry if I caused any upset. 
Peace! :angel:


----------



## Lukecash12

Mahlerian said:


> Also, what you are talking about is _inductive_ reasoning, not deductive.


God, it's as refreshing as spring to read from someone who regularly recognizes, uses, and properly defines the devices of logic. Deductive vs inductive is a key and not very well appreciated distinction.


----------



## Woodduck

This controversy over one piece of music has been excruciating, but fun. I just had to perform an experiment to put my mind at ease. I put on a recording of the Schoenberg _Chamber Symphony #1,_ nominally in E-Major. While listening to it I stood at my piano and played, repeatedly and often, the triad of E-Major. I did this throughout the entire piece, listening for any possible relationships between the harmonies being sounded in the Symphony and that triad. I wanted to ascertain whether there were enough such relationships, and whether they were organized in such a way, that I felt the piece could justifiably be said to be in the key of E-Major.

My conclusion is that there are not, and that it cannot. The Symphony is certainly tonal, in that implications of harmonic hierarchy and suggestions (at least) of key relationships can be heard in its constantly modulating textures. But, alas for E-Major, that triad and its near-relatives - its dominant, its subdominant, its relative minor - as well as substitutes for these or chords which might exhibit any tendency to resolve in the direction of a tonic E, are mostly absent: for virtually the whole of its length between its beginning and its end, this work shows barely a passing interest in its supposed key, and such major keys as do make themselves noticeable are not that of E-Major. There is a passage about a quarter of the way through which is clearly in A-Major, but no subdominant relationship to E, which we might expect to find, is created: A-Major here neither emerges from, nor resolves to, E-Major, or any of its near relatives. Flirtations with other key areas unrelated to E-Major occur throughout the piece, with hints of E-Major only toward the final peroration that lands us, at long last, in that nominal home key.

Schoenberg must have had a reason for choosing the key signature of four sharps - or any key signature - for this piece. I can't believe he did it merely because he wanted to end on an E-Major chord. Maybe an examination of the score would make the reason clear, but a hearing of the work certainly does not. Composers might sometimes choose key signatures for practical purposes of execution (to save on the use of accidentals, for example), or to indicate that we are going to be merely beginning in, or hovering about, if not really in, a given key area. We can find this in Wagner: for example, the prelude to act 3 of _Parsifal_ begins clearly enough in B-flat minor, but after a few bars proceeds to modulate with an abandon which makes nonsense of the idea that the piece is "in" the key indicated by the five flats at the head of it. Of course Wagner doesn't call it "Prelude in Bb-minor," and he does change his key signature twice in the course of it, probably to avoid too many accidentals.

In this connection, Mahlerian's choice to compare Schoenberg's Symphony with the prelude to _Tristan und Isolde_ actually works against his defense of Schoenberg's claim of key. He says: "I didn't say the first bar was in E major. Nor is the first bar of the Prelude to _Tristan und Isolde_ in A minor. The respective works are in those keys, though." The fact is that the first bar of _Tristan_ (an incomplete measure) outlines the subdominant of A-minor by means of the notes A and F, and in the second bar we pass through the famous "Tristan chord," which is an augmented sixth with an apoggiatura resolving to the dominant of A-minor, an E7 chord. Wagner doesn't resolve this to its A-minor tonic triad, but all the harmonies in subsequent bars are easily analyzed in that key until we land on a strong deceptive cadence in F-Major, which we realize is a pivotal chord, a new subdominant, as the piece moves into the broad melody, firmly in C-Major, which gets the main body of the piece under way. The key signature, of course, remains the same in the relative major.

The beginning of Wagner's prelude is in no way a parallel to that of the Schoenberg from the standpoint of tonality, in that every chord in it takes a clear position in a tonal progression within its given key, despite the absence of an actual tonic triad. Nothing like this is true of the Schoenberg, which begins with harmony unrelated to E, actually comes to rest on an F-Major triad which leads us to suppose that that will be the key of the piece, and finally after some leaping melodic fourths teases us briefly with a theme which makes a rather half-hearted attempt at E-Major before taking off for parts unknown and never thereafter making a decisive statement in E-Major until the very end of the work.

I might also note that the E-Major theme of this work, so briefly heard and quickly bypassed, is considerably less striking than the introductory material which precedes it. That introductory material, with its succession of fourths landing on the chord of F, is in fact the most distinctive single feature of the piece, and returns more than once in its course. It's a rather odd conception of form - unbalanced, I would call it - which gives us an introduction more interesting and memorable than the opening theme, particularly when the key of that theme is not given a prominence that would direct our attention to it.

Music is meant primarily for the ear, not the eye. I have never looked at the score of this complex, busy, and densely modulatory work, but my ear tells me that it should not be designated as being in E-Major, or any particular key at all. I'm firmly in EDaddy's camp on this question.


----------



## EDaddy

Lukecash12 said:


> God, it's as refreshing as spring to read from someone who regularly recognizes, uses, and properly defines the devices of logic. Deductive vs inductive is a key and not very well appreciated distinction.


You are correct. It is indeed inductive. But my argument still stands.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy said:


> You are correct. It is indeed inductive. But my argument still stands.


Yes, and your argument is worthless because it's just a statement of the conclusion.

You haven't given any evidence for your position. You continue to dismiss any evidence presented against it.

http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/chamber-symphony-no-1-arnold-schoenberg

"A slow, ripe introduction takes us to F major, then a quick march up a stack of fourths eventually leads to *E major, the home key of the work*, in which tonality is an attenuated but still very real factor."

"This is very much a tune-driven piece"


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## millionrainbows

I think the sense of tonality is largely a matter of perception. Of course, it would be silly to listen to Tristan Murail's piano works as "tonal," because he is not concerned with tonality, but timbre, so we must acknowledge the obvious when it confronts us.

Schoenberg, on the other hand, came from the tonal tradition, so it is reasonable to assume that he was concerned with how music sounded to his ear. Still, we cannot say if his later music evokes tonality or not with any absolute certainty. 

If we hear his later music as creating tonal areas, then that is totally subjective. It may have been intentional, but cannot be proven; it is a subjective perception. 

The fact remains that the 12-tone method is not based on a tonal hierarchy, but this proves nothing about Schoenberg's, or anyone's, use of it. Dallapiccolla's music is a good example; I hear it as creating tonal effects and associations, but this does not mean it is tonal music; and the fact that it was made using the 12-tone method does not prove anything either.

I do think we should use informed common sense in these matters; generally speaking, I do not wish to listen to Milton Babbitt as being "tonal," because I do not think that establishing a sense of tonality was his concern. Nor do I think this about Boulez or Stockhausen, generally.

Likewise, I listen to much of Schoenberg's later music as being unconcerned with establishing any sort of tonality, either long-term or fleeting. I was listening to the piano concerto this morning, and there were passages of higher-range violin melody, while the piano played other things, and there was no bass note underlying any of it, so I did not hear it as establishing tonality; I heard it as melodic lines, like counterpoint, not harmonic. The only bass notes I heard were intermittent plucked bass notes, not distinct enough to establish a "root" or perceived root.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> I think the sense of tonality is largely a matter of perception. Of course, it would be silly to listen to Tristan Murail's piano works as "tonal," because he is not concerned with tonality, but timbre, so we must acknowledge the obvious when it confronts us.
> 
> Schoenberg, on the other hand, came from the tonal tradition, so it is reasonable to assume that he was concerned with how music sounded to his ear. Still, we cannot say if his later music evokes tonality or not with any absolute certainty.
> 
> If we hear his later music as creating tonal areas, then that is totally subjective. It may have been intentional, but cannot be proven; it is a subjective perception.
> 
> The fact remains that the 12-tone method is not based on a tonal hierarchy, but this proves nothing about Schoenberg's, or anyone's, use of it. Dallapiccolla's music is a good example; I hear it as creating tonal effects and associations, but this does not mean it is tonal music; and the fact that it was made using the 12-tone method does not prove anything either.
> 
> I do think we should use informed common sense in these matters; generally speaking, I do not wish to listen to Milton Babbitt as being "tonal," because I do not think that establishing a sense of tonality was his concern. Nor do I think this about Boulez or Stockhausen, generally.
> 
> Likewise, I listen to much of Schoenberg's later music as being unconcerned with establishing any sort of tonality, either long-term or fleeting. I was listening to the piano concerto this morning, and there were passages of higher-range violin melody, while the piano played other things, and there was no bass note underlying any of it, so I did not hear it as establishing tonality; I heard it as melodic lines, like counterpoint, not harmonic. The only bass notes I heard were intermittent plucked bass notes, not distinct enough to establish a "root" or perceived root.


I agree with this, and I think it points up the difference between the _perception_ of tonality, which differs in different listeners, and the objective existence of tonal systems and tonal procedures in composition. 12-tone music may resolutely avoid the use of such systems and procedures, and yet we may still perceive in it relationships between pitches which suggest tonality as we've experienced it. Such suggestion shouldn't be mistaken for an objective reality, and shouldn't be assumed to be the composer's intention. It's hard to imagine music which has only the twelve notes of the chromatic scale to work with, and which arranges them to produce gestures and textures similar to those of the tonal tradition from which it arose, as not seeming to make allusions to tonality. This, I think millionrainbows is saying, does not mean that the music is properly described as tonal (and I hope he'll correct me if I misunderstand him).


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> I agree with this, and I think it points up the difference between the _perception_ of tonality, which differs in different listeners, and the objective existence of tonal systems and tonal procedures in composition. 12-tone music may resolutely avoid the use of such systems and procedures, and yet we may still perceive in it relationships between pitches which suggest tonality as we've experienced it. Such suggestion shouldn't be mistaken for an objective reality, and shouldn't be assumed to be the composer's intention. It's hard to imagine music which has only the twelve notes of the chromatic scale to work with, and which arranges them to produce gestures and textures similar to those of the tonal tradition from which it arose, as not seeming to make allusions to tonality. This, I think millionrainbows is saying, does not mean that the music is properly described as tonal (and I hope he'll correct me if I misunderstand him).


Yes, that is a correct perception of what I am saying. When I say "Dallapiccola's music creates tonal effects and associations, but it is not tonal music," I am using the term very generally; I do not mean common-practice tonality, but rather, music which creates a perception of tonal-centeredness.

And perhaps this is flawed; it might be just as valid to call Dallapiccola's music tonal, since it does create tonal associations, but here we are again in a grey area.

It might be more accurate to describe music such as Dallapiccola's as "harmonic" or having harmonic effects which we usually associate with tonal-centered music. Berg's OP. 1 piano sonata is tonal, as it uses the language derived from, and developed from late Romanticism, but it is not "tonal" in the sense that it creates any kind of stable tone-centered perception.

Therefore, I must conclude that the term "tonal" begins to lose its meaning the further we progress out of the tonal realm.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Berg's OP. 1 piano sonata is tonal, as it uses the language derived from, and developed from late Romanticism, but it is not "tonal" in the sense that it creates any kind of stable tone-centered perception.


It does for me. Does that mean that it's tonal for me but not for others?


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> It does for me. Does that mean that it's tonal for me but not for others?


Yes. It means that the sense of tonality is subjective.

While you hear it as very stable in tonality, I hear it as constantly shifting and undulating, characteristic of late-Romantic chromatic harmony.

I would not characterize his artistic aim as "creating a stable sense of tonality," but as exploring the outer realms of tonality, as the harmonic functions begin to break down, and the center becomes more obscured.

But, you can hear it however you hear it.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> It means that we are both using the term "tonal" very fast-and-loosely. The term begins to lose its meaning when applied to this Berg Op. 1.


Why?

By it I mean a harmonic structure that supports and leads to an audible key center, which center controls the relationships heard throughout the piece. In this case, that center is B minor.

I thought you had always said my definition of "tonal" was too strict, not too loose.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Why?
> 
> By it I mean a harmonic structure that supports and leads to an audible key center, which center controls the relationships heard throughout the piece. In this case, that center is B minor.
> 
> I thought you had always said my definition of "tonal" was too strict, not too loose.


 Please use direct quotes when ascribing a statement to me.

All of those harmonic relationships are ambiguous until the very end, when it finally resolves to B minor. Even though the progressions are ultimately seen to be controlled by the B minor, this is not audible (to me) until the very end (this was Berg's obvious intent).
This makes the greater part of the piece ambiguous tonally, and not audibly resolved until the end, but inferred abstractly. This is characteristic of late-Romantic music, similar to Pelleas und Mellisande by Arnie S. It's called "ambiguous sense of tonality."

The sense of tonality is not created audibly and directly for the bulk of the piece, so this makes it more towards the "brain" area of the "ear/brain" perception of tonality.

Therefore, I would consider it to be misleading to loosely call it "tonal." Common practice tonality uses audible resolutions, not abstractions or inferences. So, using this criterion, it differs from CP tonality and is "not tonal" in a simplistic way.

Yet, you are correct in the sense that it is derived from the tonal language.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, but all of those harmonic relationships are ambiguous until the very end, when it finally resolves to B minor. Even though the progressions are ultimately seen to be controlled by the B minor, this is not audible (to me) until the very end (this was Berg's obvious intent).
> This makes the greater part of the piece ambiguous tonally, and not audibly resolved until the end, but inferred abstractly.


B minor is established within the first few bars as being the center. After a second theme group that moves into F#, the whole repeats. Development follows and B minor is reestablished at the reprise, albeit not as firmly as at the beginning. The ending, of course, is a B minor triad, resolving the harmonic tensions of the piece.



millionrainbows said:


> Therefore, I would consider it to be misleading to loosely call it "tonal." Common practice tonality uses audible resolutions, not abstractions or inferences. So, using this criterion, it differs from CP tonality and is "not tonal" in a simplistic way.
> 
> Yet, you are correct; it is derived from the tonal language.


So, are other late romantic chromatic works "not tonal" in the sense you mean? What resolutions are acceptable to you? Which are not?


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> B minor is established within the first few bars as being the center. After a second theme group that moves into F#, the whole repeats. Development follows and B minor is reestablished at the reprise, albeit not as firmly as at the beginning. The ending, of course, is a B minor triad, resolving the harmonic tensions of the piece.
> 
> So, are other late romantic chromatic works "not tonal" in the sense you mean? What resolutions are acceptable to you? Which are not?


If you think you can strictly define the perception of tonality, rave on; but this is art, not science, and the sense of tonality is ultimately a subjective experience.

For me, the Berg Op. 1 is ambiguity piled upon ambiguity, and this was his intent, and foreshadows the direction he later took, towards even more ambiguity.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, that is a correct perception of what I am saying. When I say "Dallapiccola's music creates tonal effects and associations, but it is not tonal music," I am using the term very generally; I do not mean common-practice tonality, but rather, music which creates a perception of tonal-centeredness.
> 
> And perhaps this is flawed; *it might be just as valid to call Dallapiccola's music tonal, since it does create tonal associations, but here we are again in a grey area.*
> 
> It might be more accurate to describe music such as Dallapiccola's as "harmonic" or having harmonic effects which we usually associate with tonal-centered music. *Berg's OP. 1 piano sonata is tonal, as it uses the language derived from, and developed from late Romanticism, but it is not "tonal" in the sense that it creates any kind of stable tone-centered perception. *
> 
> Therefore, I must conclude that *the term "tonal" begins to lose its meaning the further we progress out of the tonal realm.*


That's the sense in which I think we can say that there are "degrees of tonality," that music can be "vaguely tonal," and that tonal music can "border on atonality." I think that with practice we can hear to what degree music's structure exemplifies tonal thinking, or makes use of procedures and effects derived from such systems, or simply by the nature of its components suggests tonal relationships even where no tonality is intended by the composer.

A perfect early example of music illustrating the relativity, and loosening, of the concept of tonality is one I mention in post #55 above, the prelude to act 3 of Wagner's _Parsifal_. When he was composing this passage around 1880, Wagner commented that he felt he was re-inventing music (a bold statement from the composer of _Tristan und Isolde_), and its restlessly wandering and dissolving tonality, modulating at times with every beat, makes that statement strikingly prophetic of things to come: from _Parsifal_ to the Berg Piano Sonata and the Schoenberg Chamber Symphonies it's but a short step.

Are these works tonal? Yes, I believe so - but tonal in a relative sense. Just how attenuated the force of tonal orientation must be before the word "tonal" can no longer meaningfully describe a piece of music, is a question for every pair of ears and every brain to answer. For my ears and brain, the threshold into _atonality_ is crossed when I hear allusions to tonal relationships, if they occur at all, to be vague, fleeting, and incidental to the music's structural intent or actively proscribed by it. Wagner certainly never crossed that threshold, and, his tonal creds firmly established, would probably never have wanted to (he looked askance at some of Liszt's experiments). Schoenberg, amid backward glances and regressions (how he would have liked to be Wagner if that role hadn't already been taken!), needed to cross it and did so.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> If you think you can strictly define the perception of tonality, rave on; but this is art, not science, and the sense of tonality is ultimately a subjective experience.
> 
> For me, the Berg Op. 1 is ambiguity piled upon ambiguity, and this was his intent, and foreshadows the direction he later took, towards even more ambiguity.


I don't see how its use of ambiguous harmonies either negates the fact that it's centered in B minor or that the later work is itself not a negation of tonality, but rather an extension of it.

The work begins with a V-I cadence (in root position) on B minor. What clearer indication of Berg's aims could you ask for????


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> So, are other late romantic chromatic works "not tonal" in the sense you mean? What resolutions are acceptable to you? Which are not?


Yes, Pelleas und Mellisande, Transfigured Night, a lot of the early songs of Shoenberg & Berg; there are example peppered throughout the literature. Some Debussy, etc., some of Dallapiccola. This is called 'ambiguous sense of tonality,' so it is just as misleading and insufficient to call it "tonal" as it is "not tonal." You're using the term as loosely as I am, and I have already said that the term becomes more and more meaningless as we examine "grey area" music such as this.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I don't see how its use of ambiguous harmonies either negates the fact that it's centered in B minor or that the later work is itself not a negation of tonality, but rather an extension of it.


I never said ambiguous harmonies "negated" tonality; that is your exaggeration. I listen to Berg to hear a departure from tradition, and those are the elements I seek out and characterize.



> The work begins with a V-I cadence (in root position) on B minor. What clearer indication of Berg's aims could you ask for????


I must have heard it differently. When I listen to this Berg, I am focusing on how it is weakening and dissolving the perception and idea of tonality. If I want to revel in the glory of a V-I, I'll go to earlier music.

That's what I find so fascinating about this music; that it transforms the perception of tonality into as much of an intellectual inference for the highly acute ear/brain, rather than a purely sensual experience like Rameau or earlier music based more on harmonic and sensual factors, rather than structural factors.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> That's the sense in which I think we can say that there are "degrees of tonality," that music can be "vaguely tonal," and that tonal music can "border on atonality." I think that with practice we can hear to what degree music's structure exemplifies tonal thinking, or makes use of procedures and effects derived from such systems, or simply by the nature of its components suggests tonal relationships even where no tonality is intended by the composer.


Yes, I agree, and that is why the sense of tonality in all its varieties cannot be strictly defined, but only perceived.



> A perfect early example of music illustrating the relativity, and loosening, of the concept of tonality is one I mention in post #55 above, the prelude to act 3 of Wagner's _Parsifal_. When he was composing this passage around 1880, Wagner commented that he felt he was re-inventing music (a bold statement from the composer of _Tristan und Isolde_), and its restlessly wandering and dissolving tonality, modulating at times with every beat, makes that statement strikingly prophetic of things to come: from _Parsifal_ to the Berg Piano Sonata and the Schoenberg Chamber Symphonies it's but a short step.


Yes, and isn't the transition fascinating and beautiful? That's what's so fulfilling about the classical tradition, and its gradual morphing (I won't say "evolution" for fear of setting off a firestorm).



> Are these works tonal? Yes, I believe so - but tonal in a relative sense. Just how attenuated the force of tonal orientation must be before the word "tonal" can no longer meaningfully describe a piece of music, is a question for every pair of ears and every brain to answer.


That's the quote of the day for me.



> For my ears and brain, the threshold into _atonality_ is crossed when I hear allusions to tonal relationships, if they occur at all, to be vague, fleeting, and incidental to the music's structural intent or actively proscribed by it. Wagner certainly never crossed that threshold, and, his tonal creds firmly established, would probably never have wanted to (he looked askance at some of Liszt's experiments).


That goes without saying, but the situation gets considerably thornier when I consider later Schoenberg (String Trio esp) and Webern; even Berg (Lyric Suite...Wow, what dissonance!}



> Schoenberg, amid backward glances and regressions (how he would have liked to be Wagner if that role hadn't already been taken!), needed to cross it and did so.


Yes, I know he loved Wagner, and as a youngster stood outside the opera hall to hear it. Consider, though, that after he was forced ot of Europe by ther Nazis and came to the US, that he did his concertos, and the later string trio...I think he began using the system more for what it was best suited for, which was decidedly not traditional tonality, but more like Webern and Boulez, completely structurally. That's just my opinion, though.


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## Chordalrock

millionrainbows said:


> All of those harmonic relationships are ambiguous until the very end, when it finally resolves to B minor. Even though the progressions are ultimately seen to be controlled by the B minor, this is not audible (to me) until the very end (this was Berg's obvious intent).


If that's true for the first hearing, how can it be true when you already know that the "ambiguity is resolved to B minor". Shouldn't you, on repeated listening, already know where it resolves - and if you know where it resolves, how can it remain ambiguous in your mind?

I think the "subjectivity" of this matter comes from what I said earlier: listening to tonal music doesn't have to be a passive matter, the listener can actively keep the tonal center in mind. Perhaps this is what Mahlerian is doing to a lesser or greater extent, while others listen to it more passively and less expertly.


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> I don't see how its use of ambiguous harmonies either negates the fact that it's centered in B minor or that the later work is itself not a negation of tonality, but rather an extension of it.
> 
> The work begins with a V-I cadence (in root position) on B minor. What clearer indication of Berg's aims could you ask for????


Is tonality first and foremost about V-I cadences to you? Reminds of this discussion we had. Berg's piano sonata is just as tonal as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, tonality is a black-and-white thing. And apparently this is not tonal (rather it is "modal") because it doesn't have V-I cadences....?


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> Is tonality first and foremost about V-I cadences to you? Reminds of this discussion we had. Berg's piano sonata is just as tonal as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, tonality is a black-and-white thing. And apparently this is not tonal (rather it is "modal") because it doesn't have V-I cadences....?


The V-I cadence (together with other equivalents like vii-I) is the clearest indication of tonal closure. It is not the only one, certainly, but it is a way that can express a tonality, and the cadence that the majority of common practice music is built on. The Coldplay example doesn't sound tonal at all in the common practice sense. It certainly emphasizes a center, by sheer repetition of the same pattern, mostly, but this is different from emphasizing a key through use of the hierarchical relationships generated between harmonies.

Tonality in this sense is entirely a product of Western music and it arose in the 17th century. Berg's Sonata is tonal in this sense, Berg's later music less obviously so.

In another sense, Coldplay could be construed as tonal, and so could the earlier pre-tonal music and music world traditions of all kinds. In this sense, Berg's Sonata is also tonal, and so is just about everything else ever written musically by anybody in any tradition, including the music of Boulez, Babbitt, and Bartok.

Let me put it this way:

Saying that Berg's Sonata is less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for reasons of increased ambiguity in some of its harmonic patterns would require you to say that Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is also less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, if not nearly so much as the Berg. Beethoven would be less tonal than Haydn, Chopin less tonal than Beethoven, and so forth.

To me, this is a consequence that doesn't make any sense and also tells us nothing about the nature of tonality.


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> The V-I cadence (together with other equivalents like vii-I) is the clearest indication of tonal closure. It is not the only one, certainly, but it is a way that can express a tonality. The Coldplay example doesn't sound tonal at all in the common practice sense. It certainly emphasizes a center, by sheer repetition of the same pattern, mostly, but this is different from emphasizing a key through use of the hierarchical relationships generated between harmonies.
> 
> Tonality in this sense is entirely a product of Western music and it arose in the 17th century. Berg's Sonata is tonal in this sense, Berg's later music less obviously so.
> 
> In another sense, Coldplay could be construed as tonal, and so could the earlier pre-tonal music and music world traditions of all kinds. In this sense, Berg's Sonata is also tonal, and so is just about everything else ever written musically by anybody in any tradition, including the music of Boulez, Babbitt, and Bartok.


There's also a very important and obvious sense in which Coldplay is tonal while Schoenberg, Bartok & various kinds non-European ethnic music are not: it is based on diatonic scales and triads, and very purely so for the most part without chromaticisms or unusual scales blurring things up. And also that the mode (the tonal centre) is usually either Ionian or Aeolian. Coldplay is a bit bad example perhaps since they sometimes have some ambiguity about the mode/centre, but that largely applies to popular music. This all makes it very similar to common practice tonality overall, despite that V-I cadences are not mandatory and are particularly often absent in minor key popular music. Triads, diatonic scales, Ionian and Aeolian modes. I think this is how a layman perceives "tonality" usually.


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> There's also a very important and obvious sense in which Coldplay is tonal while Schoenberg, Bartok & various kinds non-European ethnic music are not: it is based on diatonic scales and triads, and very purely so for the most part without chromaticisms or unusual scales blurring things up. And also that the mode (the tonal centre) is usually either Ionian or Aeolian. Coldplay is a bit bad example perhaps since they sometimes have some ambiguity about the mode/centre, but that largely applies to popular music. This all makes it very similar to common practice tonality overall, despite that V-I cadences are not mandatory and are particularly often absent in minor key popular music. Triads, diatonic scales, Ionian and Aeolian modes. I think this is how a layman perceives "tonality" usually.


It's not how I perceive tonality.

You're right that it is largely diatonic, but this is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for tonality as conceived in the common practice era, and neither the harmony or the melody of the example you provided would make sense in a common practice context.

The scale is not the definition of key in tonality. It is the use of harmonic relationships relating to and supporting a central triad that makes a tonal piece tonal rather than modal or otherwise.


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## SeptimalTritone

Hi Mahlerian I have a question!

In the chamber symphony 1 wikipedia article there's a musical example of the cadence 2 in E major played in a piano reduction. Did you write this wikipedia article by the way? Congratulations and kudos if you did: it looks like you did and I found it very helpful.

Anyway, I listened to it repeatedly, and the A natural - D natural triplet thing in the bass seems to make it difficult for me to perceive it as a tonic-dominant cadence in E major. Especially the tritone clash between the note D natural and the note G sharp (which is part of the E major triad), as well as the half step clash between D natural and the leading tone D sharp, makes it hard for me to hear it as a satisfying resolution. If there were no bass then it would be a clear dominant-tonic cadence, but the bass line, especially the D natural, make it very hard for me.


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## Mahlerian

SeptimalTritone said:


> Hi Mahlerian I have a question!
> 
> In the chamber symphony 1 wikipedia article there's a musical example of the cadence 2 in E major played in a piano reduction. Did you write this wikipedia article by the way? Congratulations and kudos if you did: it looks like you did and I found it very helpful.
> 
> Anyway, I listened to it repeatedly, and the A natural - D natural triplet thing in the bass seems to make it difficult for me to perceive it as a tonic-dominant cadence in E major. Especially the tritone clash between the note D natural and the note G sharp (which is part of the E major triad), as well as the half step clash between D natural and the leading tone D sharp, makes it hard for me to hear it as a satisfying resolution. If there were no bass then it would be a clear dominant-tonic cadence, but the bass line, especially the D natural, make it very hard for me.


I didn't write that article, but was certainly impressed that it's far better than the average Wiki article on music all the same, and can take it as a compliment that you thought I wrote it.

It is true that the D naturals "muddy" the dominant, but the leading tone is also present, in the upper voices, so the D natural can be perceived as a melodic note leading by tritone to the tonic's G#. (This is reversed at the end, with the upper winds jumping from B-flat to E natural.)

Note also that a root position E major triad is heard in bar 2 after rehearsal no. 2.

Similar cadences may be found in works by Mahler (Symphony No. 6, especially) or Strauss.


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## millionrainbows

Chordalrock said:


> If that's true for the first hearing, how can it be true when you already know that the "ambiguity is resolved to B minor". Shouldn't you, on repeated listening, already know where it resolves - and if you know where it resolves, how can it remain ambiguous in your mind?


Well, if it just resolves in your mind, it's abstract, unlike cut-and-dried CP tonality, which resolves audibly.



> I think the "subjectivity" of this matter comes from what I said earlier: listening to tonal music doesn't have to be a passive matter, the listener can actively keep the tonal center in mind. Perhaps this is what Mahlerian is doing to a lesser or greater extent, while others listen to it more passively and less expertly.


We have to make informed decisions, as well as use our ears. My subjective "impression" of the music will compel me to hear/experience it as tonal, or less so, or not, depending on my ear/brain ability.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Saying that Berg's Sonata is less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for reasons of increased ambiguity in some of its harmonic patterns would require you to say that Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is also less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, if not nearly so much as the Berg. Beethoven would be less tonal than Haydn, Chopin less tonal than Beethoven, and so forth.


Twinkle Twinkle Little Star has only 6 notes, so it is more tonal than any 7-note diatonic music, statistically.

Additionally, CP diatonic scales are not designed to reinforce tonality, but also to weaken it and create tension, with the F and B. This is less tonal, inherently, than a pentatonic scale of C-D-E-G-A.

So, almost any folk or ethnic musics based on pentatonics such as this are inherently more tonal than CP Western diatonic music like Mozart.


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## Dim7

Mahlerian said:


> The scale is not the definition of key in tonality. It is the use of harmonic relationships relating to and supporting a central triad that makes a tonal piece tonal rather than modal or otherwise.


It's just not the scales, it's also the triadic harmonies and the fact that the tonal centres happen to be same as in CP tonality (Ionian and Aeolian) 98% of the time. For me they are much more signficant aspects than V-I cadence or lack there of. If however the mode was for instance Phrygian and harmonies not triadic, we would get into more substantially un-CP terrority.

Berg on the other hand has those V-I cadences (in the beginning and end at least. And we are talking about a 10-12 minute piece), but is much much more chromatic than Mozart's music for example.


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> It's just not the scales, it's also the triadic harmonies and the fact that the tonal centres happen to be same as in CP tonality (Ionian and Aeolian) 98% of the time. For me they are much more signficant aspects than V-I cadence or lack there of. If however the mode was for instance Phrygian and harmonies not triadic, we would get into more substantially un-CP terrority.


If it doesn't have tonal function and hierarchy, you can't say it has a tonal center in the sense of CPT. You're conflating key and the notes of a scale as if they're the same thing. That's not the way tonality works.



Dim7 said:


> Berg on the other hand has those V-I cadences (in the beginning and end at least. And we are talking about a 10-12 minute piece), but is much much more chromatic than Mozart's music for example.


Yes, but it's defined by functional, hierarchical harmonic relationships. This is the definition of common practice tonality and what makes it tonal in the first place.

The reason I brought up the V-I cadences is because Millionrainbows had claimed that the whole piece was intended to be ambiguous until suddenly it became B minor at the end, and I was pointing out that this is clearly not so. If Berg had wanted total ambiguity, he would hardly have placed a prominent V-I cadence at the beginning...and then repeat it when the beginning repeats.


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Saying that Berg's Sonata is less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star for reasons of increased ambiguity in some of its harmonic patterns would require you to say that Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is also less tonal than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, if not nearly so much as the Berg. Beethoven would be less tonal than Haydn, Chopin less tonal than Beethoven, and so forth.
> 
> To me, *this is a consequence that doesn't make any sense and also tells us nothing about the nature of tonality.*


On the contrary, I think that this tells us something absolutely essential about the nature of tonality. It tells us that tonality is a perception, a perception based on particular elements present in music, and that the intensity of that perception - fundamentally, the perception of the presence, force, and influence of a tonal center - is dependent on the manner in which those elements are presented and structured in a musical work.

Tonality in music can be an absolute concept only in the sense that music can exist without it. Music in this sense is either tonal - its structure presupposing hierarchical relationships among the notes of a scale with a tonic at their base - or it is atonal, having no such hierarchical basis and no tonic. But this distinction is only a bare fact. It tells us nothing about how tonality works. What does tell us that is an understanding of tonality as a continuum - an understanding that tonal elements and their perception can be stronger or weaker, that music can thus be "more tonal" or "less tonal." And it tells us to look for the ways in which that continuum is manifested, the ways in which the elements of music can evoke in us a stronger or weaker perception of tonal force.

I think it's quite reasonable to say that although Berg's Sonata is tonal, it's less tonal than "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," because in the latter there is no ambiguity: at every moment, every note is perceived in its exact functional relationship to the tonic note, which remains constantly in the memory. The tune is diatonic, it traces with perfect clarity the tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords in its key, and we always know exactly where we are and where we're going. Berg's Sonata is far less obvious and less predictable, and it wanders through a wide spectrum of chromatic modulation in which it is not possible for the ear to relate a great deal of what occurs to the tonic key or to a related tonal level.

In Western music, harmonic ambiguity is one of the primary ways in which tonal force - essentially, the perception of harmonic direction - can be weakened. From "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to Berg's Sonata and beyond is an immense continuum, a long journey of increasing harmonic complexity, density, ambiguity, and intensification of local harmonic force and color at the expense of long-range teleology and coherence. At a certain point - a point, perhaps, to be placed differently by different ears and brains - tonal hierarchy is no longer a significant governor of musical structure, and at some still farther point it effectively vanishes altogether. Taking "tonal" to mean "being, and perceived as being, organized according to a hierarchy of forces felt as inhering in various notes of a scale in ultimate relation to a central tone which functions as the center of gravity and point of origin, conclusion, and repose," it is elegant and logical to speak of music that we perceive to exhibit different degrees of such organization and force as "more," or "less," tonal.


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## Chordalrock

millionrainbows said:


> Well, if it just resolves in your mind, it's abstract, unlike cut-and-dried CP tonality, which resolves audibly.


I meant that your knowledge would influence your perception, or hearing as you like to say, in the same manner that you will hear the C minor fugue from Book II of WTC as beginning in C minor merely because you expect it to.


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## millionrainbows

Chordalrock said:


> If that's true for the first hearing, how can it be true when you already know that the "ambiguity is resolved to B minor". Shouldn't you, on repeated listening, already know where it resolves - and if you know where it resolves, how can it remain ambiguous in your mind?
> 
> I think the "subjectivity" of this matter comes from what I said earlier: listening to tonal music doesn't have to be a passive matter, the listener can actively keep the tonal center in mind. Perhaps this is what Mahlerian is doing to a lesser or greater extent, while others listen to it more passively and less expertly.


I'm coming from a different place, and that's why I started this thread and called it "Varieties" of tonality. It seems that we are being pressured into choosing an "either-or" answer, and that's contrary to the spirit in which this thread was started.

I discussed what could be called "structural tonality" as used by Bartok in the OP...let's all go listen to it now. There are certainly other varieties of tonality out there as well. I mentioned the "ambiguous tonality" of the Second Viennese group.

I'll guess that the underlying motivation for wanting to call music "tonal" is to connect it to tradition. I'm a hard-core modernist, though, so I tend to see and describe music which is moving away from tradition with more precise and descriptive terms, as mentioned above.


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## millionrainbows

Chordalrock said:


> I meant that your knowledge would influence your perception, or hearing as you like to say, in the same manner that you will hear the C minor fugue from Book II of WTC as beginning in C minor merely because you expect it to.


Yes, see what you mean. Aside from tonality, as in "hearing things in a key,' sometimes that breaks down for me, and I find myself listening to melodic lines, just as melodies, with no overriding sense of harmony or tonality. I found myself in this mode while listening to Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. It seemed very contrapuntal and linear, without apparent regard for establishing a harmonic base. I think this was the way he was thinking as well, so to call this work "tonal" seems to be misleading and vague. But I digress...the subject is ostensibly "varieties of tonality."


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## millionrainbows

millions said:


> Berg's OP. 1 piano sonata is tonal, as it uses the language derived from, and developed from late Romanticism, but it is not "tonal" in the sense that it creates any kind of stable tone-centered perception.





Mahlerian said:


> It does for me. Does that mean that it's tonal for me but not for others?


That was an open-ended statement; the berg Op. 1 is not "tonal" in some senses, but is definitely tonal in other ways. I'm seeing this as open-ended, not as an either-or situation.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> If it doesn't have tonal function and hierarchy, you can't say it has a tonal center in the sense of CPT. You're conflating key and the notes of a scale as if they're the same thing. That's not the way tonality works.
> 
> Yes, but it's defined by functional, hierarchical harmonic relationships. This is the definition of common practice tonality and what makes it tonal in the first place.
> 
> The reason I brought up the V-I cadences is because Millionrainbows had claimed that the whole piece was intended to be ambiguous until suddenly it became B minor at the end, and I was pointing out that this is clearly not so. If Berg had wanted total ambiguity, he would hardly have placed a prominent V-I cadence at the beginning...and then repeat it when the beginning repeats.


I was speaking generally...and let's not forget that "key/functional/hierarchical harmonic relationships" are created by building triads on the steps of the scale; and that root movement and function are primarily based on scale degrees.


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## millionrainbows

Chordalrock said:


> I meant that your knowledge would influence your perception, or hearing as you like to say, in the same manner that you will hear the C minor fugue from Book II of WTC as beginning in C minor merely because you expect it to.


 Not exactly in the same manner as, say, Berg's Op.1. If knowledge trumps the ear, then it's an abstraction until it is actually audible. In this sense, though, all Western tonality is "abstract" in that it rides on expectation and tension until it finally gets resolved; thus the built-in tensions of F and B in the C major scale. The Bach is more direct in its mechanisms, the Berg is less so, and purposely draws out the expectation and tension to the point that the ear gets overwhelmed in an undulating sea of chromatic movement. So, tonality is a matter of degree.


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## millionrainbows

millions said:


> Berg's OP. 1 piano sonata is tonal, as it uses the language derived from, and developed from late Romanticism, but it is not "tonal" in the sense that it creates any kind of stable tone-centered perception.





Mahlerian said:


> It does for me. Does that mean that it's tonal for me but not for others?


No, it means that you apparently do not concede that Berg's Op.1 has areas which are ambiguous tonally to the ear, but instead wish to consider only those elements which are stable tonally, in a black-and-white, either-or mindset, without acknowledging that there is any grey area, or that tonality is a matter of degree, as Woodduck and I have already agreed upon and openly acknowledged.


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## Stirling

Berg Op.1 is tonal, you may have listened to a bad recording - or you may not have gotten the composer's intent. this happens even when great composers listen to each other's music; it took repeated listenings for Sibelius to get what Schoenberg was trying to say in Chamber Symphony number one, for example. Of course just because tonal does not mean you will like it, that is still a matter of personal taste.


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## Stirling

The second Vienna school is quite frankly old. My mother played it when I was young.


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## EDaddy

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, and your argument is worthless because it's just a statement of the conclusion.
> 
> You haven't given any evidence for your position. You continue to dismiss any evidence presented against it.
> 
> http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/music/chamber-symphony-no-1-arnold-schoenberg
> 
> "A slow, ripe introduction takes us to F major, then a quick march up a stack of fourths eventually leads to *E major, the home key of the work*, in which tonality is an attenuated but still very real factor."
> 
> "This is very much a tune-driven piece"


I presented plenty of facts to support my argument. Not really sure what else you require, good sir. And honestly, I see nothing even remotely compelling that you have presented here, so perhaps this is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle.

I can find nothing tuneful at all about this work and I consider myself to have a pretty tunefully-discerning ear. How can you accurately call it tuneful when, for starters, you can't even play a basic E triad against the score and discern any real perceivable correlative relationship between the two?


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## Dim7

EDaddy said:


> I can find nothing tuneful at all about this work and I consider myself to have a pretty tunefully-discerning ear. How can you accurately call it tuneful when, for starters, you can't even play a basic E triad against the score and discern any real perceivable correlative relationship between the two?


You are again conflating totally different things here. Whether you can perceive any significant relationship between E triad and the Chamber Symphony has nothing to do with it whether it is tuneful or not.


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## EDaddy

Dim7 said:


> You are again conflating totally different things here. Whether you can perceive any significant relationship between E triad and the Chamber Symphony has nothing to do with it whether it is tuneful or not.


We must have very different criteria defining what we consider to be tuneful then. I find it way too complex to be tuneful. It's certainly nothing I can whistle unless perhaps I were to try and single out one of the 16 parts, isolate it, and then attempt to hum or whistle it. But that, in and of itself, would be a tedious challenge just based on how utterly complex each individual part is. And unless you successfully single one part out, it's like a raging sea of 16 fiercely independent lines that are sounding at the same time. That's an awfully tedious thing to have to do - to literally have to _dig out _one part - in order to _maybe_ hum it and call it tuneful.

If we were all in one room, I would challenge any of you to _show me_ that it's tuneful. To actually whistle or hum any one part of this score in a remotely convincing or "tuneful" way. I would bet my mortgage that no one could actually_ do it._ Tuneful implies that certain melodic lines (notes) stand out above the harmonic tapestry of a given piece. At any given moment in Schoenberg's CS1, you might well hear anywhere from 7 to 10 separate notes of the 12-tone scale sounding simultaneously for crying out loud. How can anything be tuneful in such a case? I offer that it is _impossible_, unless perhaps you're a Nanoo Nanoo from Ork.

Schoenberg's CS1 sounds like 16 loud, intoxicated people at a large dinner table all talking over each other at the same time. Th[/I]ere's nothing musical or _tuneful_ about that.


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## Dim7

I didn't say the Chamber Symphony no. 1 is tuneful. I don't personally hear it as very "tuneful" either, in that I don't find the melodies very memorable. I agree that contrapuntal density has a lot of do it with, but whether it is related to the E major triad is not really relevant.

I actually find the "atonal" and actually 12-tone/serial piano concerto more tuneful personally.


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## Lukecash12

EDaddy said:


> We must have very different criteria defining what we consider to be tuneful then. I find it way too complex to be tuneful. It's certainly nothing I can whistle unless perhaps I were to try and single out one of the 16 parts, isolate it, and then attempt to hum or whistle it. But that, in and of itself, would be a tedious challenge just based on how utterly complex each individual part is. And unless you successfully single one part out, it's like a raging sea of 16 fiercely independent lines that are sounding at the same time. That's an awfully tedious thing to have to do - to literally have to _dig out _one part - in order to _maybe_ hum it and call it tuneful.
> 
> If we were all in one room, I would challenge any of you to _show me_ that it's tuneful. To actually whistle or hum any one part of this score in a remotely convincing or "tuneful" way. I would bet my mortgage that no one could actually_ do it._ Tuneful implies that certain melodic lines (notes) stand out above the harmonic tapestry of a given piece. At any given moment in Schoenberg's CS1, you might well hear anywhere from 7 to 10 separate notes of the 12-tone scale sounding simultaneously for crying out loud. How can anything be tuneful in such a case? I offer that it is _impossible_, unless perhaps you're a Nanoo Nanoo from Ork.
> 
> Schoenberg's CS1 sounds like 16 loud, intoxicated people at a large dinner table all talking over each other at the same time. Th[/I]ere's nothing musical or _tuneful_ about that.


Apparently you aren't recognizing that there is ambiguity in between modulations (FWIW, my use of the word "apparent" is kind of idiosyncratic for these times, because I mean it in the original sense of "so far as I can tell"), then. Not being able to reconcile everything in the whole piece against an E major triad is no demonstration that there *isn't* a triad involved from one section to the next.


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## Guest

EDaddy said:


> We must have very different criteria defining what we consider to be tuneful then.


This is certainly true.



EDaddy said:


> I find it way too complex to be tuneful. It's certainly nothing I can whistle unless perhaps I were to try and single out one of the 16 parts, isolate it, and then attempt to hum or whistle it.


It's not particularly complex, though, no more than 100s of other pieces from both before and after 1906. And full of tunes perfectly easy to whistle or to hum. (Not everyone can whistle.) I have two very different recordings of this, one smooth, one angular. But in both one thing is perfectly clear, that the piece is certainly tune-driven, as Mahlerian has pointed out. It's practically all melody, sometimes several at once, it's true, but that's a thing that had been done before, too, many times. Try Wagner for some examples.

In any case, the 15 parts--you keep saying 16, in several posts, but where does that extra part come from?--are not all playing 15 independent lines all the time. I don't have a score handy, but I'd be very surprised to find that there is anywhere in the piece where there are 15 lines going on. 15 instruments, playing melodies, chords, individual notes, just like any other piece. And not all of the instruments are playing all the time, either. There are plenty of places where only a couple of people are playing. Some very quiet, simple passages. Just like any other piece.



EDaddy said:


> Schoenberg's CS1 sounds like 16 loud, intoxicated people at a large dinner table all talking over each other at the same time. There's nothing musical or _tuneful_ about that.


Indeed, that this tightly constructed and remarkably transparent piece made almost entirely of melodies, mostly quite easily hummable melodies, can be heard as non-musical cacophony does indeed support the idea that people hear things differently. What's been clear in this thread so far is that theory has been used over and over again to advance the idea that the Chamber Symphony no. 1 is anything other than a tightly constructed and remarkably transparent piece made almost entirely of melodies.

Well, it's not anything other than that. If it doesn't make any sense to you, how is any analysis you do of it going to be reliable?


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## dgee

Chamber Symphony 1 was my intro to Schoenberg in my teens and it was the memorable melodies and the excitement of the leaping figures that kept me coming back for more. I find it very earwormy - but the caveat probably is I don't always have it right in my head, more the gesture or bigger melodic shape than the precisely notated music because of the variation Schoenberg employs. I also find the some of the textures incredibly memorable - especially how he uses high bass and viola/bassoon/clarinet in the middle register.

I really find texture important - extremely important - and that may be one of the reasons I gravitate towards C20 and later music


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## dgee

Some guy - maybe the little known 16 part version truly is awful!


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## EdwardBast

Quote Originally Posted by millionrainbows:
"All of those harmonic relationships are ambiguous until the very end, when it finally resolves to B minor. Even though the progressions are ultimately seen to be controlled by the B minor, this is not audible (to me) until the very end (this was Berg's obvious intent)."



Chordalrock said:


> If that's true for the first hearing, how can it be true when you already know that the "ambiguity is resolved to B minor". Shouldn't you, on repeated listening, already know where it resolves - and if you know where it resolves, how can it remain ambiguous in your mind?
> 
> I think the "subjectivity" of this matter comes from what I said earlier: listening to tonal music doesn't have to be a passive matter, the listener can actively keep the tonal center in mind. Perhaps this is what Mahlerian is doing to a lesser or greater extent, while others listen to it more passively and less expertly.


This is an interesting issue and the subsequent discussion of it in this thread didn't leave me satisfied. Edward T. Cone, one of the most original voices in 20thc theory, wrote a wonderful essay on precisely this issue entitled "Three Ways of Reading a Detective Story" (In his collection _Music: A View from Delft_). If I remember correctly, his central examples are a late Brahms piano miniature whose early harmonic and tonal ambiguities are later clarified, and Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band," A Sherlock Holmes mystery story. His position was that the ambiguity in the Brahms, even though later clarified in reference to a specific tonality, should be heard as ambiguous on subsequent hearings (despite the listener's knowledge!), because the ambiguity is an essential aesthetic quality of the work. He likened the rehearings of the piano piece to the experience of rereading a mystery story. I don't know if Millions has read the Cone essay, but his position is quite like the one for which Cone argued.

The only point I want to make is to suggest that hearing a work with the knowledge of many hearings does not always equate to a better, more active and more expert way of responding to a work - at least according to Cone. In any case, if either of you is interested in a deep meditation on the issue raised in your discussion, Cone's essay is brilliant and engaging.


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## Mahlerian

EDaddy can be glad that we're not in the same room. I hum melodies from the Chamber Symphony not infrequently at all (alas, can't whistle). I'd hate to see him lose his mortgage over something so silly.

Incidentally, I wonder where he gets these "7-10 note chords" from. I don't know if there is any chord in the work more dense than the 6-note quartal harmonies that appear occasionally, which always immediately resolve to a triad.


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## Woodduck

Chordalrock:

_If that's true for the first hearing, how can it be true when you already know that the "ambiguity is resolved to B minor". Shouldn't you, on repeated listening, already know where it resolves - and if you know where it resolves, how can it remain ambiguous in your mind?

I think the "subjectivity" of this matter comes from what I said earlier: listening to tonal music doesn't have to be a passive matter, the listener can actively keep the tonal center in mind. Perhaps this is what Mahlerian is doing to a lesser or greater extent, while others listen to it more passively and less expertly._

EdwardBast:

_[Cone's] position was that the ambiguity in the Brahms, even though later clarified in reference to a specific tonality, should be heard as ambiguous on subsequent hearings (despite the listener's knowledge!), because the ambiguity is an essential aesthetic quality of the work. He likened the rehearings of the piano piece to the experience of rereading a mystery story.

The only point I want to make is to suggest that hearing a work with the knowledge of many hearings does not always equate to a better, more active and more expert way of responding to a work - at least according to Cone._


My intuitive response is to agree with Cone. This exact question arose for me while listening to some of the rhythmic syncopations and displacements of Brahms and late Beethoven, where it occurred to me to ask whether my resultant uncertainty about where the downbeat had gone was something to relish or something to fight by trying to keep track of the bar lines while listening. It was certainly an interesting test of my sense of rhythm to try to follow the beat beneath the displacements, but I quickly realized while doing it that I was no longer actually listening to the music as it was intended to be heard. I concluded that Brahms and Beethoven throw us out of our regular rhythm because they want us to be jolted and disoriented, they want us to take us on a tightrope walk without the reassurance of a net, and they want to bring us back by some magic trick whose unpredictability or suddenness makes us all the more gratified to have our feet back on the ground. And they want us to feel, with intense pleasure and sublime amusement, that the experience was inevitable and right.

Thinking of this now, I believe that harmonic ambiguity in tonal music is (or should be, if the composer knows his business) designed to be submitted to in the same way, not fought by the listener attempting consciously to hear its excursions in relation to some fixed tonal point of reference. In fact, I don't believe that effective listening consists, except for purposes of analysis, in _trying_ _consciously_ to hear rhythmic pulse, tonal organization, or anything at all. Music, if well-made, needs to make its effect and to sound coherent and satisfying on a mostly subconscious level. Of course the listener's subconscious may be more or less skilled at decoding the musical information it receives, but the aesthetic experience in both its perceptual and emotional dimensions is not primarily, and often not at all, consciously conceptual or analytical.

If rhythmic or harmonic ambiguity makes us feel disoriented and uncomfortable, the "solution" is not to try to fix consciously on what we think we should be listening for, but to listen with an open awareness to what strikes our ears until our unconscious becomes better able to process what we hear. We will eventually "get it" without knowing how we did it. That's the magic of music.


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## millionrainbows

You can't have your cake and eat it too. Experiencing tonality is a subjective matter, which is by nature a harmonic phenomena. It can be fleeting or sustained, but it is not an abstraction which we have to know or remember, or refer to.

Of course, Western Tonality, as in the CP variety, is a system, which uses long expanses of tension/resolution, but this is more of a practice/procedural thing, which is quite cerebral, although it is ultimately traceable to harmonic phenomena, as all music is, and all "generally" tonal music (ethnic, folk, pop, etc.)

This is why we must not use CP "Tonality" to refer to subjective experience of a "tonality" or tone-centered music; the former term "Tonality" or "Tonal" is best used to refer to a system, and the latter term "tonal" in the general sense is strictly harmonic, and subjective.

This is how Mahlerian can experience 12-tone music as sounding tonal. There is good reason for this: his ears, and the way he harmonically experiences the music.

However fleeting, I can hear the same tonal things in Schoenberg. I experience the music harmonically, with my ears. because Schoenberg was composing for the ear (where applicable).

The Bartok mentioned in the OP can be listened to tonally, because our ear is drawn to various stations upon which the melodies are stated.

Aside from subjective experience, there are the structural elements of music, which can be seen logically, and require cerebral understanding. These are the means and methods by which results are achieved. The results can be an experience of tonality, or the experience of a tonal area, perhaps very fleeting; or a meaningful relation between notes which is experienced harmonically by the ears primarily.

Thus, to try to define (rather than experience) a piece or passage of music as being tonal (in the general sense) or not, in black and white terms, is a fruitless pursuit, if the harmonic results tell our ears otherwise. 

This is because music is experienced harmonically, in degrees, as relations between notes, by our ears primarily, no matter what our brain tries to make it.

This clears up most of the issue. The experience of tonality is a matter of degree, and is subjective; and it is our ears thatb tell us to what degree the experience is tonal.


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## Dim7

Berg's Sonata sounds more and more tonal as I listen to it. I don't understand anymore how I found it totally incoherent on the first listen. I also thought that it was a 12-tone work. On the other hand the opening of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto sounds vaguely like it is in some key as well....


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## millionrainbows

Dim7 said:


> Berg's Sonata sounds *more and more tonal *as I listen to it. I don't understand anymore how I found it totally incoherent on the first listen. I also thought that it was a 12-tone work. On the other hand the opening of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto sounds *vaguely like it is in some key *as well....


Rameau sounds tonal. Berg's Sonata sounds *ambiguously* tonal. The key word here is "vague."

It sounds like your ear is getting better, since it now hears Berg as "more tonal," which reinforces the argument that a sense of tonality is experienced as a matter of degree.

With the Schoenberg, it sounds like you are picking up on some of the tonal allusions he creates by using harmonic devices.


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