# Once again, Serialism is not intrinsically harmonic



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The fact that serial methods can be used to create harmonically-perceived structures does not mean that these effects are "irrelevant;" I never said that. But neither does it mean that they are "tonal."

Our ears can perceive harmonic constructs, such as triads and centers of tonality, but this implies a reference; harmony is based on a fundamental and its lesser constituent partials/harmonics. This is an hierarchy of reference, with the central, fundamental note as the main reference.

Serialism is *not* a music based on harmonic principles; it is based on melodic and intervallic principles. Any "harmonic" structures which result, or are perceived as 'tonal' _(bad use of the term) _are heard by our ears as such, because* hearing is based on harmonic principles.
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Thus, the 'tonal-sounding" structures we might hear in serial music are not "irrelevant,'_ but neither are they *"tonal"* in any real sense._

A composer such as *Berg* used serial methods in this way, to _"simulate"_ tonal structures such as I-Vs and such, but he also tended to mix his tonal ideas in with serial ideas, so his example only obscures the issue.

Berg used many of the same "quasi-tonal" principles that Bartok used, such as the whole-tone scale, in his transitional *Four Songs Op. 2, No. 2,* and the way it can be used to generate two "dominant" areas, accessible by half-steps. In this song, there is only one Bb chord with a stable fifth above the bass, which indicates the unstable harmonic nature of most of the chords, and this b5 is in keeping with the b5 of the whole tone scale, C-Gb or F-B. The song has no key signature, and almost all notes have accidentals.

But this kind of quasi-tonal or "freely atonal" transitional style is still "tonal" or tone-centric in nature, and thus, is inherently *harmonic,* because it still uses a harmonic hierarchy/reference to a center note, even if that centric "seed" is localized and fleeting, to generate its structures. 
A whole-tone scale is still a _*scale*_, which is an index of notes with _no ordering,_ *not* a tone row. It still can reference a local tone center, however shifting or ambiguous that center may be.

The true significance of serialism, by ordering the notes of the row, precludes any real, permanent, lasting "hierarchy of reference" to any note except the one preceding or succeeding; so any reference to a specific pitch is automatically absent. a tone row is not about "pitch identities," but distances and intervals._That's why the row can be transposed and inverted and reversed: it is meant to be seen and used as a template of interval relations not referring to any specific pitch, but only relations._

You can't hang on to "pitch identities" in listening to serial music, because "pitch identities" (specific pitch names like A, B, C, etc) do not exist; only relations and intervals exist structurally. All else is illusion.


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