# The Boy Who Heard Things Tonally Meets the Magic Frog of Tonal Allusion



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Regarding Allen Shawn's assertion that "Schoenberg heard his 12-tone music tonally:"

•Consonance/dissonance is not a structural consideration of tone-rows, but only of the ears. You seem to be hearing things that, structurally, are not there. 


So where does "resolution" in hearing Schoenberg this way come from? Not from the structural elements of the system itself, but only as "references" or illusory metaphors, in your imagination.


•There is no "function" at all in 12-tone music. The intervals between the notes of tone-rows are not "qualities" or degrees of consonance/dissonance, but are simply "quantities" of distance between notes. Triads created from tone rows have no "function." 


So where does "function" in hearing Schoenberg this way come from? Not from the structural elements of the system itself, but only as "references" or illusory metaphors, in your imagination.


•There are no "floating sonorities" or "suspended tonality" or "augmented sonorities" in serial music. There are no "fifths" to be "augmented." Consonance/dissonance are not recognized as being different things, and are not structural considerations of tone-rows. 


So where does "harmonic quality" of "chords" come from? Not from the structural elements of the system itself, but only as "references" or illusory metaphors, in your imagination.


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•This must be the reason that Boulez moved on past Schoenberg into total serial procedures. He saw no future in making allusions and metaphors to tonal music which were questionable, at best, and were not really designed to be "tonal." 


Hearing 12-tone music tonally is like "trying to stuff a horse into a suitcase."


Sooner or later, the consequences of 12-tone and serial procedures must be accepted for what they are, as a new language of music which is fundamentally different than tonality.


Many 'tonally' oriented listeners will agree with this, but I do not see this as any as invalidating serial music; I simply accept it for what it is, and what it was supposed to do and to be. This is a truly "modern" vision of music, one which does not grasp at straws of the past.


This is not to denigrate Schoenberg, either; I accept him for what he was, a traditional tonal thinker who created a system which he used as he saw fit, but ultimately, a system which left him behind. Even Webern saw this, and accepted the new system, and used it, I daresay, more honestly, if not more artistically.


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