# The desire for tonality



## Guest

Subtitle: Be careful what you ask for

This is not about wanting to listen to only tonal music. People can and will listen to whatever they please, and no amount of whinging by anyone will ever change that. Nor should it.

This is about the oft-stated desire that composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music. 

The system of tonality was used for several hundred years, and was pretty persistently stretched from era to era, from year to year, from piece to piece. Part of that is inherent in the system. It encourages development, both within a piece and from piece to piece (and era to era). Dissonance is the primary principle. And when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant, it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être.

By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling, that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord. So composers who felt this way began trying out other ways to decide, as composers, how to get from one thing to the next. Schoenberg's ways are well known (though still imperfectly understood). There were many other ways, including increasingly ways that had nothing to do with managing pitches at all (which is what tonality and serialism both do). And eventually, there were composers that even gave up the whole idea that you had to decide how to get from one thing to the next, that you had to manage anything.

But a large number of listeners still like tonal pieces, still like the sense of movement that dissonance creates. Still feel the movement, still think the movement is pleasurable if not important. And there is certainly a lot of it, tonality that is. Quite a lot. But when it could no longer develop along its natural lines, what was left for it to do? Redo what others had already done. And while many composers in the twentieth century still managed to write some pretty decent music using tonality--the "end" was not a sudden sudden thing (except for individuals)--I think that the efforts to make something new and vital with that system become increasingly desperate sounding as the century moved along.

We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same. But the same is already done. I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done. People who like tonal music have more than plenty to listen to without having to have living composers continue to endlessly regurgitate the past. People who want to keep writing tonal music should consider this: that the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.

That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.

If you think you can write music that matches up to the music of the past but is produced contrary to any principle that produced that past music, that made it living and vital in its time (and hence living and vital for all time), then the best of British luck to you. But I have my doubts.


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## ArtMusic

some guy said:


> This is about the oft-stated desire that composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music.
> 
> ....
> 
> If you think you can write music that matches up to the music of the past but is produced contrary to any principle that produced that past music, that made it living and vital in its time (and hence living and vital for all time), then the best of British luck to you. But I have my doubts.


So what do you think 21st century composers should write?


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## Chrythes

But it seems that you are not satisfied with the tools (i.e tonality) used to create music, but not with the music itself. Isn't the latter more important?


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## PetrB

ArtMusic said:


> So what do you think 21st century composers should write?


Well, I think what they can, and as best they can, and that all of that which they write would come ideally after truly digesting a lot of the older music from 'then' to 'now.' Then they should, well, make what they can.

I've heard the music of some on TC which sound like younger student essays (understandably mainly 'tonal' almost like school theory or student comp assignments -- to be fair, a lot of what we do hear from the composers on TC is just that, they are in, it is to be hoped, very early phases of their musical and compositional development.)

But, a number of others' works sound as if they entered the fray without, it seems, much of any extensive listening background, and that little bit they do have has been even less thought about than is desirable. Those are the 'old-style' music pieces, often enough sounding rather academic, or say if slightly more unbuttoned, "late romantic with a slight pop contemporary accent." (I am more than a little limited in what I can do myself, but try not to write 'too directly like,' nor do I have a mission to return to the romantic or classical era 

The OP's point is that music like that has been done before, and done Much Better, so in full agreement with him I strongly question the need for any more of it, and also question if there is anything other than 'style imitation' that can come out of it as an interesting communication. 'Just another piece,' even 'original' in some older style, is just not very interesting.

It is the near-reproductive works which not only I or the OP find not only irrelevant, but boring because they are irrelevant. They would not be irrelevant or boring if the compers had enough confidence and fluidity where those pieces began to have a distinct personality and seemed to express something.

Did the OP suggest abandoning tonality for atonal, or say it is time for all to go microtonal or electronic non-specific pitch oriented? Nowhere was that said.

I would mention the 'minimalists,' who after a sea of chromaticism and a 'lost' -- no longer meaningful -- 'chord function,' nonetheless were attracted to the sonoric power of basic traids (kaa-pow!) but then went about music in yet another very new way, including the harmony -- where the old I - V - I, for the most part -- was still not the center of focus. What it was -- and like the older works the OP points out 'still work for us today' -- was 'fresh.' The better works stay fresh, period.

I think one can write relatively 'fresh sounding' tonal pieces, but as the OP points out, one has to have a real sense of dissonance and consonance, be more than superficially conversant, and not 'just' sort of write in the old style, whichever old style that is. _The fact any of us are alive now means we have all that past to deal with: *whether our fantasy conceits would have us preferably in any earlier century or period, that just ain't going to happen.*_ We have to deal with where we are now, pick it up from there.

I'll add my two cents to one of the OP's points -- something I've said often enough: 
Guillaume de Machaut / Bach / Rameau (take this list through all the centuries up to this present date), 
wrote all the best
Guillaume de Machaut / Bach / Rameau (take this list through all the centuries up to this present date)
there was to write.

The longer the history, the greater the riches, the more one has to learn to get a handle on all of a craft now that highly developed. (_the listeners, too!_) Era after era, the bar has been raised. That is not 'easy' but for each generation all the way through that history, those composers -- and their audiences -- were faced with exactly the same 'dilemma.' The clarion call is 'deal with it.' Because if you aren't, you're composing possibly pleasant little academic exercises, or smorgasbord near-referential polystylist quilts or snacks (which is almost all film scores); neither have much of anything to say, 'new' or other.


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## norman bates

We can see it in another way: why write atonal music, atonality is a century old, to consider it something new is simply absurd. But maybe it's not a matter of tonality or atonality, but what you do with tonality or atonality. Thelonious Monk sounds even remotely like Haydn? I don't think so, and they are both tonal composers.


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## neoshredder

Tonal music has many options of sounds. Consider all the different genres that are made basically by tonal music. Saying that tonality reached its max is far from the truth imo. Maybe a less ridged tonal system where the theory isn't so heavy. Maybe a change in rhythm. Borrow ideas from other genres. Yes I still think more original tonal music can be made.


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## science

If I were a composer, I'd compose however I wanted, regardless of how anyone might think I ought to compose - unless I needed money and someone were paying me to compose, and then I'd compose however they wanted, regardless of how anyone not paying me might think I ought to compose. 

And either way, I certainly wouldn't worry about whether it's "healthy" or not! 

I don't compose, because I haven't even a smidgeon of talent. But I write fiction, or try to, and I might even have a smidgeon of talent for that. If my goals as a writer were subjected to periodization, I suppose they'd be classified as basically mid-20th century. If someone tells me that's not "healthy" because I ought to be attempting to do something that no one else has ever tried to do, I will ignore that person, probably forever, unless he or she intends to pay me to write according to his or her rules.


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## science

some guy said:


> the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.
> 
> That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.


This looks to me like not only a claim that musical conservatives are unhealthy (psychologically, I suppose) but a denial musical conservatives even existed in the past. Am I misunderstanding that?


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## neoshredder

Great posts. Yes exactly how I feel. Though my preference is more towards older music, I do like some 20th Century music. Especially the early part. But yeah I'm for Composing whatever style you want and not criticizing them when they go a style you don't like or felt it was already done. So what if it was done already.


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## Wandering

Not only is it the tonality but repetition and development of tonal ideas that went along with them, much early mod music is so popular still in the concert halls because of its similarities mixed with blatant and often sensationalistic new ideas, this was a main, if not the main feature. The less composers remembered the past or had some unbelievable dense and convoluted personal approach, the more perhaps its initial visceral appeal died away. I'm not adverse to such things, simply open to and honestly desiring other things, the devaluing of contemporary music that isn't all 'originalitally' warped into some modernistic conundrum only strengthens my opinion. In other words, I much agree with neoshredder.


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## GGluek

Good composers write the best pieces of music they can -- what their inner ears dictate and what their compositional skills and technique allow -- and whether it comes out "tonal," "atonal," "microtonal," "dodecaphonic," minimalist, rhythmically based, or something else, is almost beside the point. Yes, schooling and predilection have a lot to do with the end product, but ultimately it's the quality of the finished product and how that matches the inspiration that counts.

When I write, about the only conscious choice I make at the start is the voice; after that, it goes the way it seems to go best, sometimes developing idiosyncracies of its own that stay because they work.


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## Wandering

GGluek said:


> Good composers write the best pieces of music they can -- what their inner ears dictate and what their compositional skills and technique allow -- and whether it comes out "tonal," "atonal," "microtonal," "dodecaphonic," minimalist, rhythmically based, or something else, is almost beside the point. Yes, schooling and predilection have a lot to do with the end product, but ultimately it's the quality of the finished product and how that matches the inspiration that counts.
> 
> When I write, about the only conscious choice I make at the start is the voice; after that, it goes the way it seems to go best, sometimes developing idiosyncracies of its own that stay because they work.


'The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit'. - Gospel of John


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## science

As Dr. Agathon Carver (I believe it was) once said, "List, oh, list!"


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## Aramis

some guy said:


> We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same. But the same is already done. I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done.


Not every composer has a unique musical language. Your argument that "but the same is already done" seems to suggest that you either write tonal music or something totally new. And that is obviously untrue. You fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done - then you should codemn the composer who writes four-movement, tonal string quartets together with somebody that calculates his music like mathematician, as do the likes of Boulez, and calls his pieces "Structures 500" and "Psychospheres 2000". Codemn almost every single composer on the planet who didn't invent anything as unprecedented as serialism or sonorism. Works of both these composers are generally new, but also both are written in a way that was used before. And the only difference is that in first case "the same is already done" 150-200 years ago and in case of latter, 30-50. Regarding those rare geniuses that appear from time to time and indeed create something perfectly new, I don't think any of these will come here and get inspired to discover new musial languages because of your post. So your appeal is essentially aimless.


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## Praeludium

Nice post. It gives food for thoughts (even though I'm not sure I understand everything as intended)


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## aleazk

My current interest is to compose for "conventional" orchestral instruments, so I'm condemned to use the system which divides the octave in 12 notes, the maximum I can do is to add some microtones in that case. My approach to the tonality-atonality thing is that, simply, I don't care, I don't have any general directive. I can insert a tonal sounding part, then an atonal one, and later a free chromatic part. I don't have any kind of (pseudo)philosophy about "being modern" or to "revive the glorious past". I think those things are a waste of intellectual energy in a meaningless way. 
I absolutely agree about support and understand all the contemporary trends, and I think every person who calls himself a composer should be aware of these trends, simply because of intellectual curiosity. I think that the negation of current trends is a very "petit bourgeois" thing. So, I agree with your post if that was your intention.
I also think that variety of techniques is a valuable thing. This is a very important thing for me.
Also, as I said on another thread, music is not _equal_ to harmony. Harmony is only an aspect of music, nothing more, nothing less. I think that an excessive preoccupation about harmony is symptom of unidimensional thinking. Music is complex, and also the mind and the way of thinking of serious composers.


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## Guest

Some people have a strong fetish for novelty. They interpret musical history as a continual stream of innovation which both composers and listeners ought to support.

Not everyone is so quickly bored with the tried and true. And novelty for the sake of novelty can easily lead to grotesque results, as has been too often proven. Bear in mind also that the ultimate judge of attractiveness, human physiology, does not change as quickly as proponents of the new might like.

We don't need any more aural sound maps for sentient earthworms. My advice would be to stop being bored so easily and just savor what is beautiful. If new music is also beautiful, it will find an audience. No need to try to manufacture an audience by hectoring those with simple tastes.


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## Mahlerian

Aramis said:


> Not every composer has a unique musical language. Your argument that "but the same is already done" seems to suggest that you either write tonal music or something totally new. And that is obviously untrue. You fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done - then you should codemn the composer who writes four-movement, tonal string quartets together with somebody that calculates his music like mathematician, as do the likes of Boulez, and calls his pieces "Structures 500" and "Psychospheres 2000". Codemn almost every single composer on the planet who didn't invent anything as unprecedented as serialism or sonorism. Works of both these composers are generally new, but also both are written in a way that was used before. And the only difference is that in first case "the same is already done" 150-200 years ago and in case of latter, 30-50. Regarding those rare geniuses that appear from time to time and indeed create something perfectly new, I don't think any of these will come here and get inspired to discover new musial languages because of your post. So your appeal is essentially aimless.


This post suggests a lack of familiarity with anything Boulez has ever written. The "integral serialism" phase burned itself out within a decade, and he has since moved on from "Structures" and "Polyphonie X" to "Le marteau" and "Sur Incises", pieces where the mathematical basis is tertiary to the wonderful parade of beautiful sonorities, that appeal to all kinds of people who simply enjoy listening, apart from all of the polemics and ideological battles of the last century.

People here and elsewhere seem to think that Boulez is still the young polemicist he once was. Worse yet, people seem to be convinced that Schoenberg was Adorno, and thought the same way. This is entirely wrong. Schoenberg hated Adorno's polemics and wanted nothing to do with the man. He was furious with Thomas Mann for using Adorno as his musical consultant on Doctor Faustus, and understandably less than thrilled with the book.



BPS said:


> Some people have a strong fetish for novelty. They interpret musical history as a continual stream of innovation which both composers and listeners ought to support.
> 
> Not everyone is so quickly bored with the tried and true. And novelty for the sake of novelty can easily lead to grotesque results, as has been too often proven. Bear in mind also that the ultimate judge of attractiveness, human physiology, does not change as quickly as proponents of the new might like.
> 
> We don't need any more aural sound maps for sentient earthworms. My advice would be to stop being bored so easily and just savor what is beautiful. If new music is also beautiful, it will find an audience. No need to try to manufacture an audience by hectoring those with simple tastes.


Who here thinks this way?

I value tradition and beauty. I love music that I can love. I have no love for the superficially novel.

You should not assume other people's motives.


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## Praeludium

I think the point aleazk raise about composing for conventional instrument is interesting. 
Isn't this the biggest problem of music that use inconventional instrument (sound icons for instance... Radulescu's Clepsydra is scored for 16 sound icons !!) or complex electronic/computer stuff ? It is expansive, not practical, and since technology is changing a lot you don't know how this will evolve.
For me it's the biggest drawback about this kind of stuff - it is of little importance to me as a listener, but as a future performer and composer I'm bothered by it. I'm under the impression (probably exagerated) that it is what could in the long term kill this music - in the same way the baroque lute died in the end of the XVIIIth century because of how much it costed, how complex it was, and how limited was its dynamic range (in other words, it wasn't practical).

On the other hand, maybe composing for conventional instruments leads you more easily to being conservative and writing an other version of something already done.


It's a little ut of subject, but this problem interests me. I realise some guy isn't necessarily talking about instrumentation here (even though it's probably related to some extent)


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## neoshredder

I would be interested in a Baroque Era influenced Electric Guitar Concerto. I think there is plenty of experimental opportunities with instruments. It's all on the delivery though if it can be done right. The main thing is writing interesting music regardless of the Era it was influenced by. But to me, it would be much easier to the public to get into if it was tonal music.


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## Guest

I was pondering the interminable (meaning "can't be terminated") debate about tonal/atonal and wondered whether there are any useful parallels to be made between music and literature?

For example, few writers played with the traditionally accepted structures of the novel, or of poetry, until the beginning of the 20thC. Like artists who wanted to challenge the orthodoxies of how we represent what we see (and in doing so, to challenge what we see) writers and poets wanted to challenge the way writing is organised (and in doing so...etc).

Since those periods of disruption to orthodoxy in art and literature, the orthodox has resumed in both fields. There are still award winning and well-regarded artists and writers whose output largely conforms to accepted representation/formats - alongside those who still want to 'push the boundaries.'

To some extent then, the same might reasonably be expected of music. And indeed, that's what happens, though perhaps less so in the narrow field of 'classical': I'm very happy to listen to 'new' pop/rock that is not really that new at all (Alt J, for example). Whilst some composers continue to work to challenge the structures and vocabularies of music, others continue to write what might be seen as variations on traditional themes.

I'd say there is room for a multiplicity of approaches, old and new. As with all forms of art, I'm sure we all wonder how much more 'originality' there is left in our creative output.


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## aleazk

Praeludium said:


> On the other hand, maybe composing for conventional instruments leads you more easily to being conservative and writing an other version of something already done.


Actually, I would prefer to be more careful. My point was that, certainly, you can't compose very avant-garde electronic-noise music using an orchestra of "conventional" instruments, but that doesn't means that you will be, then, a "conservative, writing an other version of something already done".
On the other hand, there's a very interesting point, and that is, I think, why I prefer the orchestra, at least right now: do you know why Ligeti left electronic music in the 60's?, because he didn't like the sound produced by the speakers as compared to that of a full, live, orchestra, with 50 musicians playing instruments where the sound is physicaly produced by the performer through purely mechanical means.
(disclaimer: this is NOT an attack towards electronic music and related things, since I plan to go to that field at some moment; this should be understood as, only, my current and ephemeral interests, i.e., I think there's, still, something to be said with the kind of instrumentation I was talking; some guy seems to say that this kind of electronic music is "the next step in music evolution": wrong, music does not "evolves", it changes, which is a different thing http://www.talkclassical.com/23043-tradition-20th-century-3.html#post397574; the electronic revolution certainly is a very interesting development, but from there to claim that instrumental music is dead, that's another history)


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## Praeludium

I agree. I just meant that if you decide to compose a string quartet, giving the huge already existing litterature, and how important SQ was to great composers of the past, how much SQ you must have listened to, etc. there are more chances you'll end up writing something conservative than if you only use percussions on metallic objects of the everyday life, electronics and broken televisions (I'd like to hear something like that, btw).


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## ArtMusic

It must be very hard near impossible to be a "great composer" living and writing music today judging by the posts suggesting what new composers "should" write given the past and given the issues.


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## neoshredder

ArtMusic said:


> It must be very hard near impossible to be a "great composer" living and writing music today judging by the posts suggesting what new composers "should" write given the past and given the issues.


Too bad Composers can't start with a clean slate with whatever happened in the past. But I fear Atonal music will be the death of Contemporary Classical. It was interesting at first but ultimately a dead end. No one has surpassed Ligeti imo. You basically gotta be a genius to create great atonal music.


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## BurningDesire

neoshredder said:


> Too bad Composers can't start with a clean slate with whatever happened in the past. But I fear Atonal music will be the death of Contemporary Classical. It was interesting at first but ultimately a dead end. No one has surpassed Ligeti imo. You basically gotta be a genius to create great atonal music.


Silly silly claims. There is no such thing as a dead end in art. Music isn't about surpassing others.


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## Huilunsoittaja

some guy said:


> But a large number of listeners still like tonal pieces, still like the sense of movement that dissonance creates. Still feel the movement, still think the movement is pleasurable if not important. And there is certainly a lot of it, tonality that is. Quite a lot. But when it could no longer develop along its natural lines, what was left for it to do? Redo what others had already done. And while many composers in the twentieth century still managed to write some pretty decent music using tonality--the "end" was not a sudden sudden thing (except for individuals)--I think that the efforts to make something new and vital with that system become increasingly desperate sounding as the century moved along.
> 
> We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same. But the same is already done. I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done. People who like tonal music have more than plenty to listen to without having to have living composers continue to endlessly regurgitate the past. *People who want to keep writing tonal music should consider this: that the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.
> *
> That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.


This post goes to show what your real desires are when listening to music music. You want originality and newness _over _beauty and skill. If you really _did _want beauty and skill as top priority, you wouldn't find it a problem when a new composer makes something traditional/tonal and yet very skillful. You're a _neophiliac _to put it simply and honestly. I don't want to be that kind of listener, musician or composer. Neophilia has infected the Music world for way too long. _Neophilia _is what has to end, not tonality! The era of Neophilia must end, or music will continue to stagnate in a desperate attempt to make new kinds of music, tonal or atonal. "Change too must Change."

I find the statement I put in bold as particularly strange. I'm pretty sure that when composers said they were "Influenced by" such and such, they were meaning they wanted to _continue _the tradition that was already set down. Not all composers are meant to be the _first _at what they do, but some are meant to be followers, cherishers, polishers. I believe that the moment a composer begins to write notes, they are doing something that's never _ever _been done before. No matter what it is, it can never be a true replica of the past (something could be pure plagiarism, except for one note, and that's what makes it new). The music is thus by nature original, even unique (Of course then, skill, quality, inspiration, etc. are secondary factors to judging it). Thus, even when a composer says they are influenced by maybe 10 other older composers, they are doing something unique when they combine all these different elements into their music, because you wouldn't find that particular kind of music out of any single of those other 10 composers.

As for myself, I would love to compose, if I could get more skill. I would love to learn the secret skill that Prokofiev had, that he would never share with anyone, and research into the core of his inspiration. Of course I can't be Prokofiev, or Glazunov, and all the rest, but I would love to create something in their style that was truly authentic. Why? Because it would still be wonderful music! (imo) And then, because they didn't actually create the melodies, it would have a little bit of my own heart in there, hopefully in harmony with their own hearts (no pun intended). I would LOVE to write a flute concerto purely in Russian Romantic style, it wouldn't necessarily be based off a _single _Russian, but a very good compilation of qualities, and I could perform it myself. Now that's not an easy task, it would take me years and years of researching and training, and then I might be able to pull it off. I'm not sure how gifted I am at composition yet either, I might hit a Block.


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## PetrB

Aramis said:


> Not every composer has a unique musical language. Your argument that "but the same is already done" seems to suggest that you either write tonal music or something totally new. And that is obviously untrue. You fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done - then you should codemn the composer who writes four-movement, tonal string quartets together with somebody that calculates his music like mathematician, as do the likes of Boulez, and calls his pieces "Structures 500" and "Psychospheres 2000". Codemn almost every single composer on the planet who didn't invent anything as unprecedented as serialism or sonorism. Works of both these composers are generally new, but also both are written in a way that was used before. And the only difference is that in first case "the same is already done" 150-200 years ago and in case of latter, 30-50. Regarding those rare geniuses that appear from time to time and indeed create something perfectly new, I don't think any of these will come here and get inspired to discover new musial languages because of your post. So your appeal is essentially aimless.


"Not every composer has a unique musical language."

Quite true, but right back to the OP's point:
Every past or present composer who is most highly esteemed was 'not rewriting the old stuff' but making something 'fresh' which we still value. They may have been as 'conservative' as Bach or Brahms, as 'picked it up where it was and took it forward' as did both Mozart and Beethoven, or similarly, later, pick it up again... I hope you catch the drift.
Even those who were 'radical' in some 'new' approach were only 'original' and moving forward no more or less than many of their predecessors. None of them reinvented the wheel before we, the listener, could ride.

I don't see anything more or less 'clinical' or 'formal' about both sound, construct, 'content' and title of a common practice period piece called "Symphony No. __." than there is to a "Structures 500." Nor do I find anything more or less 'unnatural - i.e. synthetic' about the earlier formalism than later such occasions of musical formality. Even in that 'emo' period, the romantic, could anything be more 'synthetically' formal or as constructed than all of Brahms?

What it is about that 'not interesting to write like it was _____" (name a date from some time ago) is that if you write something even rather nice in a vocabulary similar to Franck / Debussy / Henri DuParc, well, I would be the first to say 'how nice for you,' rather than 'how nice,' because I feel very strongly that it is 'good for you' to play an instrument and write even if there is no aim to becoming a successful (i.e. worthy in a competitive field) musician. But no matter how well done or original your piece is in that vein, others 'who know' are bound to compare it to Franck / Debussy / Henri DuParc, and rather wonder if the world needs another when those composers wrote the best of their own sort of music there was.

When all those past composers we value were making their pieces those musical investigations were new and untrodden paths, which is why some of the better and best of it is still exciting and 'relevant' to us in the present. A contemporary using the older vocabularies or means has a much greater challenge in making anything at all 'fresh' sounding of it.

Those handful of pieces which are a backward look sort of tribute, and succesful, are usually from the more than extremely well-versed and exerienced of composers, not novices and in-training students. Pieces written more directly in a harmonic vein which is already known and established cannot have the same energy or individual 'psyche' guiding the pen, because the later composer who tries to write 'that way' is from another time, with a completely different psychology, ethos....

The OP is more than correct in his limned outline of the history of musical 'language.' If you are old enough, try to recall a time when a particular piece or passage, new to your listening experience, gave you a visceral frisson because of its particular play of ratio of stasis / ecstasis, i.e. consonance / dissonance: years later, that piece may 'hold up' in satisfying you still, but that frisson is no longer present -- because by context, not just familiarity, what was strong or piquant enough to give you that visceral shudder is now a dissonance to which you have become accustomed: it is a former dissonance tamed by your having listened to the piece more than one time. The OP distinguishes that effect at the very outset, and that may disturbingly remind us that no matter how 'conservative' we may be, the phenomenon of what is or isn't dissonant, and how that quickly alters, is true of every listener. That history is more readily understood if you do recall one or two of your more personal experiences as I mentioned just above, and by projection, whether it is a comfortable notion or not, what that post said about dissonance being relative to our own time is more than true.

I think the post then, taken to heart, is not a call to abandon tonality, or compose atonally, or all the other seemingly strongly reactive suppositions against which some so vehemently object. I think those reacting so strongly are also disturbed by the post because it is fundamentally true.

Tonal, atonal, form, etc. The contemporary composer has to have a very highly developed ear to make whatever kind of music they compose have a sense of consonance - dissonance, or there will be neither excitement, tension, release, stasis, or any innate interest. Even if something more akin to Arvo Part's music of stasis is your more primary goal, that 'minimalist spiritualist' area of primary triads -- even there an expert composer has come up with a working principle so we do not feel he is simply or entirely 're-writing the past.'

I believe all that can truly be extracted from the OP is that one has to be hyper aware of what no longer works on even the most conservative of contemporary listeners, take that history of relative consonance / dissonance into account, and try one's damndest not to write dull music under either the cloaks of 'traditionalism' or 'modernism.'


----------



## PetrB

ArtMusic said:


> It must be very hard near impossible to be a "great composer" living and writing music today judging by the posts suggesting what new composers "should" write given the past and given the issues.


It always has been so, because each composer from the past we still think of now as 'great' faced exactly the same dilemma.


----------



## PetrB

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This post goes to show what your real desires are when listening to music music. You want originality and newness _over _beauty and skill. If you really _did _want beauty and skill as top priority, you wouldn't find it a problem when a new composer makes something traditional/tonal and yet very skillful. You're a _neophiliac _to put it simply and honestly. I don't want to be that kind of listener, musician or composer. Neophilia has infected the Music world for way too long. _Neophilia _is what has to end, not tonality! The era of Neophilia must end, or music will continue to stagnate in a desperate attempt to make new kinds of music, tonal or atonal. "Change too must Change."
> 
> I find the statement I put in bold as particularly strange. I'm pretty sure that when composers said they were "Influenced by" such and such, they were meaning they wanted to _continue _the tradition that was already set down. Not all composers are meant to be the _first _at what they do, but some are meant to be followers, cherishers, polishers. I believe that the moment a composer begins to write notes, they are doing something that's never _ever _been done before. No matter what it is, it can never be a true replica of the past (something could be pure plagiarism, except for one note, and that's what makes it new). The music is thus by nature original, even unique (Of course then, skill, quality, inspiration, etc. are secondary factors to judging it). Thus, even when a composer says they are influenced by maybe 10 other older composers, they are doing something unique when they combine all these different elements into their music, because you wouldn't find that particular kind of music out of any single of those other 10 composers.
> 
> As for myself, I would love to compose, if I could get more skill. I would love to learn the secret skill that Prokofiev had, that he would never share with anyone, and research into the core of his inspiration. Of course I can't be Prokofiev, or Glazunov, and all the rest, but I would love to create something in their style that was truly authentic. Why? Because it would still be wonderful music! (imo) And then, because they didn't actually create the melodies, it would have a little bit of my own heart in there, hopefully in harmony with their own hearts (no pun intended). I would LOVE to write a flute concerto purely in Russian Romantic style, it wouldn't necessarily be based off a _single _Russian, but a very good compilation of qualities, and I could perform it myself. Now that's not an easy task, it would take me years and years of researching and training, and then I might be able to pull it off. I'm not sure how gifted I am at composition yet either, I might hit a Block.


"Be yourself. Everyone else is taken." ~ Oscar Wilde

That goes for music composition as well....


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## Vaneyes

Tonality, atonality, here we *go* again.

View attachment 11651


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## PetrB

Huilunsoittaja said:


> You want originality and newness _over _beauty and skill.


I vehemently disagree and challenge that. Where is it stated that 'original' and 'new' cannot be both beautiful and skillful, or that those qualities are no longer desired? Again, here is a personal and highly subjective notion of 'beauty and skill' projected on another, without thought that your perception of 'beauty and skill' might be limited to only that which you like, and finding it there, attached to only that which you like, you will not find it elsewhere -- because you are predetermined not to do so.

Who, then, may be the one really 'missing out' on some rare and great beauty and skill?


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## neoshredder

BurningDesire said:


> Silly silly claims. There is no such thing as a dead end in art. Music isn't about surpassing others.


Music is either growing or dying. Right now, it is on the decline. Basically there are hardly any known Composers after Ligeti. Even the galante period might be more popular in comparison. This rapid decline is not good for the longevity of Classical music. I guess we'll have to just look into the past for what was once a great genre. But now is an archive.


----------



## PetrB

Vaneyes said:


> Tonality, atonality, here we *go* again.
> 
> View attachment 11651


Its for the most part a no-go again. People trapped in their repetitive and therefore extremely habituated listening patterns, and upon that basis thinking theirs is the only standard of quality while hoping and praying the rest of the world agrees with them.

I'm always impressed by people who have extremely limited listening habits attached to literature from over 100 years or more ago, especially when they speak of the current times and what it has produced -- aren't you?

Can you think of any other area or discipline where it is acceptable to be considered both an authority while also being a century or more out of touch?


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Basically there are hardly any known Composers after Ligeti.


Cardio Resuscitation, TC, unit NS, _and Stat! _
200cc injection of adrenaline straight into the heart, post procedure IV drip of highly caffeinated 'wake up and smell the coffee.' 
Provide patient with computer, Wikipedia, access to youtube, and a real book or two so they can get over the dementia caused by their condition.


----------



## neoshredder

PetrB said:


> Its for the most part a no-go again. People trapped in their repetitive and therefore extremely habituated listening patterns, and upon that basis thinking theirs is the only standard of quality while hoping and praying the rest of the world agrees with them.
> 
> I'm always impressed by people who have extremely limited listening habits attached to literature from over 100 years or more ago, especially when they speak of the current times and what it has produced -- aren't you?
> 
> Can you think of any other area or discipline where it is acceptable to be considered both an authority while also being a century or more out of touch?


Yes since it is all about trends. But I do like some modern music. I use it for a change of pace. I'm mainly talking about the music of the last 10 years very few people know much about. If this trend continues... RIP Contemporary Classical Music. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see I guess.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> Yes since it is all about trends. But I do like some modern music. I use it for a change of pace. I'm mainly talking about the music of the last 10 years very few people know much about. If this trend continues... RIP Contemporary Classical Music. But maybe I'm wrong. We'll see I guess.


I think I can safely wager that while he is marginally more prominent than his peers in certain circles, Ligeti is not popular by any stretch of the imagination. I think that the contemporary classical music of the last 4-5 decades barely registers at all on most people's radars, let alone that written since the turn of the century.


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## Vaneyes

PetrB said:


> Its for the most part a no-go again. People trapped in their repetitive and therefore extremely habituated listening patterns, and upon that basis thinking theirs is the only standard of quality while hoping and praying the rest of the world agrees with them.
> 
> I'm always impressed by people who have extremely limited listening habits attached to literature from over 100 years or more ago, especially when they speak of the current times and what it has produced -- aren't you?
> 
> Can you think of any other area or discipline where it is acceptable to be considered both an authority while also being a century or more out of touch?


Some can't seem to understand the process that connects all. I bring to mind a TC thread some time ago that essentially asked for the names of composers who were influential for Contemporary composers.

Musical education is no different from any other education. To get full benefit you must understand and appreciate the connectives.

An oil painting analogy, if I may. Does anyone who witnesses Picasso's Cubism, seriously think he can't draw?


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## neoshredder

I know Bartok is a big influence to Ligeti. And Ligeti is a big influence to others since.


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## millionrainbows

"The Desire for Tonality" is a flawed dichotomy based on outmoded and imprecise notions; it seems to beg for the term "atonal" as its apposite; this confuses "common practice tonality" with "harmonically-based music."

I refer to "common practice tonality" first:

Common practice tonality is just a system, and all systems have their limits. I think CP-tonality "had its run" and history has provided us with a great body of works which chronicle this. Of course, this was all played-out in the one big historical "arena" which existed before mass-media took over. Now, there are multiple arenas; history has exploded and fragmented into our present post-modern condition.

I reject as irrelevant the previous discussion of "consonance/dissonance" as somehow being abandoned or as being a valid dialectic; they still remain alive and well. Only "traditional harmonic function" has been exhausted. Harmonic music is still viable, as long as we have ears and a desire for this interplay. Debussy, Stravinsky, and others showed us what could happen if "tonal function" was abandoned, and only "harmonic" factors remain. It became a game of almost endless possibilities. Even serialists are creating more harmonic, ear-friendly music.

I see orchestral music as alive and well, especially in soundtracks. This new era of (non-CP-tonal) harmonic music is perfectly suited for cinema; instant transitions to new keys can be made, with no need for extensive time-consuming modulations.

Most importantly, this new "harmonic" sense of music puts ALL harmonically-based music on equal footing; North Indian raga can be combined with orchestration in movies, folk music has gained a new prestige, as in historical Civil War songs in Ken Burns' docs, old forgotten fiddle-tune revived in bluegrass, new "roots" sub-genres emerging (like "old-timey" music), foreign folk and "world" musics becoming powerful and fertile storehouses to draw from.

This eclecticism and view that "all harmonic music is created equal" has resulted in the Western classical genre of "Minimalism" which is influenced by these other harmonic (read: tonal) world musics.

Corigliano, Schwantner, Froom, Crumb, Persichetti, and others are keeping 'classical' music alive, while still writing ear-friendly music (Sorry if it's more complicated than Corelli).

So I see "harmonic music" as having always lived, and as still being quite alive and thriving.

Serialism, with Babbitt and George Perle, just sees this all as a new challenge; through the use of "all-triad sets" and the like, they are creating a new serialism which sits much easier on the ear. As Mahlerian mentioned, Boulez' latest efforts are beautiful to the ear.

The only real dichotomy I see is a resistance to "art" vs. "entertainment." There is still plenty of both to go around.


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## Petwhac

I do believe you have talked much sense there millionrainbows, well done!


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## Wandering

Vaneyes said:


> Some can't seem to understand the process that connects all. I bring to mind a TC thread some time ago that essentially asked for the names of composers who were influential for Contemporary composers.
> 
> Musical education is no different from any other education. To get full benefit you must understand and appreciate the connectives.
> 
> An oil painting analogy, if I may. Does anyone who witnesses Picasso's Cubism, seriously think he can't draw?


But how else would people orchestrate and design their agenda? (pause) Dude, (even longer pause) not helpful...


----------



## ArtMusic

PetrB said:


> It always has been so, because each composer from the past we still think of now as 'great' faced exactly the same dilemma.


True, they faced the same dilemma but I think the extent of the challenge is different and that is the key. What I meant was a living composer today has maybe ten thousand symphonies to be "challenged" with, if the living composer wants to write music that is totally new/"not tonal". Haydn's symphonies were a new form (more at less when he started writing them) but the symphony was already alround when Mahler wrote his but Mahler still continued to write beautiful tonal or largely tonal symphonic masterpieces.

Maybe we are just out of talented/genuis composers today. Genius is genius. They don't need to be told necessarily what they should not write.


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## Huilunsoittaja

PetrB said:


> I vehemently disagree and challenge that. Where is it stated that 'original' and 'new' cannot be both beautiful and skillful, or that those qualities are no longer desired? Again, here is a personal and highly subjective notion of 'beauty and skill' projected on another, without thought that your perception of 'beauty and skill' might be limited to only that which you like, and finding it there, attached to only that which you like, you will not find it elsewhere -- because you are predetermined not to do so.
> 
> Who, then, may be the one really 'missing out' on some rare and great beauty and skill?


I didn't state that they were _mutually exclusive_, but that there is a _major _difference between approving of a piece only because it's innovative and critically acclaimed for being so as opposed to simply great in your mind's eye. Innovation and beauty are simply very different musical qualities that don't _assume _the existence of the other if one is present. Of course a piece can have all the qualities it needs, innovation _and _skill, originality _and _beauty, and it would be foolish to discredit it as anything other than a real masterpiece! But you may like a work because it sounds amazing to you, and have no idea it was innovative for its time. And vice versa, you may love a work, but not knowing it happens to be the most run-of-the-mill piece of its time. Thus, whatever made you happy about it, _that _affected your opinion of it, and nothing else, regardless of what you discover later. Furthermore, you may hear a work written 5 years ago that sounds 90 years older, and feel free to like it despite our modern context.

Does anyone think I fell in love with Prokofiev because he was innovative and original and _that _somehow inspired awe in me? Prokofiev happened to be one of the most original voices in all of 20th century music, his signature sound is recognizable in an instant. But that's not at _all _what drew me to him. I honestly wouldn't care if 5 other composers before him sounded exactly like him, he's still him. Innovation and originality are the last things I think about with a composer that I stumble upon. And an even funnier idea... does anyone think I fell in love with Glazunov because he was the most run-of-the-mill, "safe" and conservative of the Russian composers? I actually found his music really bizarre and with unusual emotions the first times I was listening to his music, and then months later discovering, oh, the critics say he's ordinary and derivative. Well, too late to turn back now! :lol:


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Music is either growing or dying. Right now, it is on the decline. Basically there are hardly any known Composers after Ligeti. Even the galante period might be more popular in comparison. This rapid decline is not good for the longevity of Classical music. I guess we'll have to just look into the past for what was once a great genre. But now is an archive.


Sort of like the current state of affairs in pop and rock?


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## Vaneyes

Clovis said:


> But how else would people orchestrate and design their agenda? (pause) Dude, (even longer pause) not helpful...


Dude? Oh, dear.


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## Wandering

Vaneyes said:


> Dude? Oh, dear.


Take a chill pill _man_, honestly...


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I do believe you have talked much sense there millionrainbows, well done!


I've "theorized myself" into submission.


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> Too bad Composers can't start with a clean slate with whatever happened in the past. But I fear Atonal music will be the death of Contemporary Classical. It was interesting at first but ultimately a dead end. No one has surpassed Ligeti imo. You basically gotta be a genius to create great atonal music.


•I think the minimalsts are continuing the Western classical tradition, and that's post-Ligeti, and happening right now. They believe in the primacy of the overtone series, which makes their music "harmonic," and also "tone-centric" if not CP tonal. Also, the repetition is rhythmic, and rhythm is something humanity will never discard.

•Serialism, as I always reiterate, is a "way of thinking, not just a movement or ideology." This serial-type of advanced musical thinking is still being explored in fractal composition.

•Computers are making electronic music sound more varied and exciting, plus new inroads are being developed to synchonize "live" performance with computer transformations of sound in "real time;"

•The Spectralists are exploring the sensual, harmonic aspects of sound, heading in the "opposite direction" from serial thinkers.

•As the whole world becomes more integrated and modernized, new influences and cross-breeding of music is occurring.

•As consumer electronics and music/video reproduction grows ever more sophisticated and accurate, a whole new history of performance, opera, and cinema has opened up to us; plus, electronic works are being presented in their original multi-channel manifestations, plus brand-new multi-channel performances and works are being recorded.

It's our job now to keep abreast of all the new and wonderful music that is available to us.

Everything is just fine! All I need is an HD TV!


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## Rapide

some guy said:


> Subtitle: Be careful what you ask for
> 
> This is not about wanting to listen to only tonal music. People can and will listen to whatever they please, and no amount of whinging by anyone will ever change that. Nor should it.
> 
> This is about the oft-stated desire that composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music.
> 
> The system of tonality was used for several hundred years, and was pretty persistently stretched from era to era, from year to year, from piece to piece. Part of that is inherent in the system. It encourages development, both within a piece and from piece to piece (and era to era). Dissonance is the primary principle. And when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant, it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être.
> 
> By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling, that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord. So composers who felt this way began trying out other ways to decide, as composers, how to get from one thing to the next. Schoenberg's ways are well known (though still imperfectly understood). There were many other ways, including increasingly ways that had nothing to do with managing pitches at all (which is what tonality and serialism both do). And eventually, there were composers that even gave up the whole idea that you had to decide how to get from one thing to the next, that you had to manage anything.
> 
> But a large number of listeners still like tonal pieces, still like the sense of movement that dissonance creates. Still feel the movement, still think the movement is pleasurable if not important. And there is certainly a lot of it, tonality that is. Quite a lot. But when it could no longer develop along its natural lines, what was left for it to do? Redo what others had already done. And while many composers in the twentieth century still managed to write some pretty decent music using tonality--the "end" was not a sudden sudden thing (except for individuals)--I think that the efforts to make something new and vital with that system become increasingly desperate sounding as the century moved along.
> 
> We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same. But the same is already done. I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done. People who like tonal music have more than plenty to listen to without having to have living composers continue to endlessly regurgitate the past. People who want to keep writing tonal music should consider this: that the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.
> 
> That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.
> 
> If you think you can write music that matches up to the music of the past but is produced contrary to any principle that produced that past music, that made it living and vital in its time (and hence living and vital for all time), then the best of British luck to you. But I have my doubts.


As far I am aware you are not a composer.

As far as I do know, there are pieces of new classical music that are engaging to its listeners that are largely tonal and largely not tonal. This as far as I am concerned, is sufficient encouragement and proof that new classical music can be engagaing for composers and listeners.

I do not need to wish luck (with utter condescension) to new composers who might like to compose tonal music - the evidence is all around that it can work. And it does, as challenging as it can be.


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## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> I would be interested in a Baroque Era influenced Electric Guitar Concerto. I think there is plenty of experimental opportunities with instruments. It's all on the delivery though if it can be done right. The main thing is writing interesting music regardless of the Era it was influenced by. But to me, it would be much easier to the public to get into if it was tonal music.


You will need a time travel machine, including bringing forward the baroque composer and players, or conversely, the guitar, guitarist and electric generators.

I know what you mean, unfortunately imagine a barely disguised rock-style guitar genre with a backdrop of chugga chugga motor baroque acting as rhythm guitar.... sorry if I think the idea suggests something more like a parody or cartoon... and, there has been plenty of opportunity for quite a while... which suggests to me that so far, no one with the right capacity has thought it of enough interest, not that it could not happen. I do think it is more a fantasy that something Vivaldi-like would feature an electric guitar, but if you check Vivaldi, even the mandolin or guitar pieces, well, he just wasn't thinking 'rocker ax.'

Who knows, maybe you'll be the first; who ever it is who gets around to it will have to somewhat 'atone' for that God-awful 'concerto' with Yngwie Malmsteen, though.


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## Trout

neoshredder said:


> Music is either growing or dying. Right now, it is on the decline. Basically there are hardly any known Composers after Ligeti. Even the galante period might be more popular in comparison. This rapid decline is not good for the longevity of Classical music. I guess we'll have to just look into the past for what was once a great genre. But now is an archive.


I do not know where you get your facts from. Ligeti died just 7 years ago so I do not think we can properly judge the direction of classical music in just that short amount of time. And besides there are plenty of current composers that are as well-known, if not more, than Ligeti. There is no need to be so cynical and dramatic unless you can substantiate your dubious claims.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> ...but if you check Vivaldi, even the mandolin or guitar pieces, well, he just wasn't thinking 'rocker ax.'


Electric guitar? Needs to start with something that makes people pay attention, like a quartet arrangement of the Grosse Fuge, plenty of distortion and volume. Real horrorshow stuff -- sadly, unlikely in my lifetime. But the electric guitar wasn't made for polite music.


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## neoshredder

Trout said:


> I do not know where you get your facts from. Ligeti died just 7 years ago so I do not think we can properly judge the direction of classical music in just that short amount of time. And besides there are plenty of current composers that are as well-known, if not more, than Ligeti. There is no need to be so cynical and dramatic unless you can substantiate your dubious claims.


You got a point. Movie and miinimalist Composers still are going. But the atonal Composers are dying out though. Ligeti being the last great atonal Composer. So I guess tonal is the direction to Classical Music. Though not my favorite kind of tonal sounding. A little too pop sounding.


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## Crudblud

The argument that contemporary classical music is unpopular simply because of the way it sounds or because of the ideologies of its key figures is quite poorly considered, I feel. Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology. Throughout history we have developed technology to make things easier for ourselves, and the old ways of baking, smithing, carpentry etc. gradually become more "fringe" as we progress from ancient times to present day. It is usually the case that when in the hands of a skilled artisan these old crafting methods often produce the best result possible, but are much slower and more difficult and ultimately produce a lesser yield than than automated mass production. On these bases and many more the assembly line wins out, producing metric tonnes of cutlery, bottles, metal plating, glass sheets etc. every day. Now we can arrive at the advent of the phonograph record; all of a sudden you didn't have to own a piano and learn to read sheet music to enjoy the latest tunes in your own home, and thus the expectation of *actually having to do something when confronted with a piece of music* was significantly lessened. Fast forward to the 1980s and the advent of MTV; all of a sudden you didn't even have to buy a record to hear music in your home, and, in a truly pivotal moment, it now came with pre-packaged visuals to sweeten the deal, and the music starts to take a back seat to those visuals. So with MTV not only was there significantly lessened expectation of effort, but music had become a visual, more concrete medium. We are now living in a time when MTV itself has been rendered obsolete by the internet, where the content arrives faster and in flashier presentation and our culture is basically force-fed to us through tubes, and the audio part is of even further reduced importance to the point where an average video consists of a woman shaking her stuff at the camera while a 4/4 beat drones on relentlessly for four minutes, and then it's on to the next one. Consume, consume, consume and ignore what you're consuming so that you can consume it again in four minutes' time.

Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music, it is a far reaching repercussion of advancements in technology since the industrial revolution that has so subtly crept in to our lives that many of us do not seem to realise what it is and what it has done.

P.S.: I apologise for the dense wall of text, I'm not in a very literary frame of mind right now.


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## arpeggio

Crudblud said:


> The argument that contemporary classical music is unpopular simply because of the way it sounds or because of the ideologies of its key figures is quite poorly considered, I feel. Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology. Throughout history we have developed technology to make things easier for ourselves, and the old ways of baking, smithing, carpentry etc. gradually become more "fringe" as we progress from ancient times to present day. It is usually the case that when in the hands of a skilled artisan these old crafting methods often produce the best result possible, but are much slower and more difficult and ultimately produce a lesser yield than than automated mass production. On these bases and many more the assembly line wins out, producing metric tonnes of cutlery, bottles, metal plating, glass sheets etc. every day. Now we can arrive at the advent of the phonograph record; all of a sudden you didn't have to own a piano and learn to read sheet music to enjoy the latest tunes in your own home, and thus the expectation of *actually having to do something when confronted with a piece of music* was significantly lessened. Fast forward to the 1980s and the advent of MTV; all of a sudden you didn't even have to buy a record to hear music in your home, and, in a truly pivotal moment, it now came with pre-packaged visuals to sweeten the deal, and the music starts to take a back seat to those visuals. So with MTV not only was there significantly lessened expectation of effort, but music had become a visual, more concrete medium. We are now living in a time when MTV itself has been rendered obsolete by the internet, where the content arrives faster and in flashier presentation and our culture is basically force-fed to us through tubes, and the audio part is of even further reduced importance to the point where an average video consists of a woman shaking her stuff at the camera while a 4/4 beat drones on relentlessly for four minutes, and then it's on to the next one. Consume, consume, consume and ignore what you're consuming so that you can consume it again in four minutes' time.
> 
> Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music, it is a far reaching repercussion of advancements in technology since the industrial revolution that has so subtly crept in to our lives that many of us do not seem to realise what it is and what it has done.
> 
> P.S.: I apologise for the dense wall of text, I'm not in a very literary frame of mind right now.


:tiphat::trp::guitar::clap:​
OUTSTANDING!!!! One of the best posts I have ever seen. I have been trying to write a post that addressed these issues but you did it much better than I could have.


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## science

PetrB said:


> Can you think of any other area or discipline where it is acceptable to be considered both an authority while also being a century or more out of touch?


Religion.

(Religion.)


----------



## KenOC

Crudblud said:


> We are now living in a time when MTV itself has been rendered obsolete by the internet, where the content arrives faster and in flashier presentation and our culture is basically force-fed to us through tubes, and the audio part is of even further reduced importance to the point where an average video consists of a woman shaking her stuff at the camera while a 4/4 beat drones on relentlessly for four minutes, and then it's on to the next one. Consume, consume, consume and ignore what you're consuming so that you can consume it again in four minutes' time.


This is an argument for -- what? I suspect many of us (myself certainly) never watch MTV. I believe that our musical preferences arise from other sources. Many of course long for "new" music but (as always) don't accept everything served up. For some fans of new music in various currents, though, it seems that any excuse to denigrate others is justified.


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## Sid James

I don't really mind whether composers today use the old/er technqiues, as long as they create something that speaks with some sort of unique musical voice.

You can bet that composers are way better trained than in the past, esp. before the Modern era. So they know the latest techniques, as well as the old techniques, as well as trends outside Western classical music (so many composers for ages now have been influenced by things like jazz, rock, world music and so on). They can indeed create unique sounds on traditional instruments - listen to for example music of postwar composers like Penderecki, Ligeti and Xenakis and you get these sonorities that sound very much like electronic music (eg. those high string glissandi). By the same token some amazing stuff has been done using non-traditional instruments. Eg. I have recently been listening to post-minimalist type musics and I like how some of these composers use things synthesisers and electric guitars.

Things like amplified acoustic instruments have been used for ages, and now with digital technology, all a composer needs is his iphone and he can manipulate the sounds coming out of speakers in a concert hall (I've seen that sort of thing at concerts). So that electronic console with hundreds of wires coming out of it in every direction may well be a thing of the past given time.

But the atonal/tonal/avant garde/electronic debate, eg. conservatives versus radicals is less of a big deal now than before. Not only for listeners who like a wide variety of music but also for composers who draw from the 'toolbox' of a multitude techniques they have available. Even in the post 1945 decades there where innovative composers who did not "commit" to the view that Modernism is inextricably and more kind of rigidly linked to serialism, esp. Webern. & these have endured. They knew serialism but they did things with it that where unique, they took whatever tool from the toolbox they wanted or needed. There where many innovations other than with atonality/serialism - of course, electronic music today is not related to that today. Nor is classical music as a whole. No major composer emerged who can be called serial or atonal. As has been pointed out, even guys like Boulez did not practice what he preached in that regard.

& for many, it continues to be a no big deal where they get their inspiration from or what musical/technical tools they use to realise their musical visions. Thomas Ades has talked of this often. Its easy to find such talk in virtually any interview you find by him online. Here is one where he put it kind of jokingly:

"I can use anything I want in my music - the sound of a tram, Mahler, I don't care. It all comes through me. That's what babies are like, using DNA from a long time ago."

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3663485/Dont-call-me-a-messiah.html


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## Crudblud

KenOC said:


> This is an argument for -- what? I suspect many of us (myself certainly) never watch MTV. I believe that our musical preferences arise from other sources. Many of course long for "new" music but (as always) don't accept everything served up by the big-domed intellectuals of various musical "movements." For some fans of such music, though, it seems that any excuse to denigrate others is justified.


Taking little bits of arguments out of context and addressing them as though they were the whole argument is not a good strategy, nor is it one I will fall for. Please try again.


----------



## mmsbls

Crudblud said:


> Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology.


I think this is an excellent point.



Crudblud said:


> Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music...


Technology can have several impacts. Certainly it appears that today's fast paced internet and cell phone based reality can reduce attention spans. It can also open up new vistas. Forty years ago I would have been able to hear almost no contemporary classical music. There would be essentially none on the radio and very little at concerts I would attend. Today I can (and have) heard an enormous amount of music composed in the past 50 years. This music includes compositions by people who previously would _never_ have had anyone hear their works. Of course one still needs to _want_ to hear these works.

In one sense technology has allowed works that are very unpopular to have _some_ success in that they reach a small, but real, audience.


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## Sid James

Mahlerian said:


> I think I can safely wager that while he is marginally more prominent than his peers in certain circles, Ligeti is not popular by any stretch of the imagination. I think that the contemporary classical music of the last 4-5 decades barely registers at all on most people's radars, let alone that written since the turn of the century.


It actually does, but not in the way people on a forum like this (or on more 'highbrow' forums) may expect. Ligeti is known by people, in terms of his music used in Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyessy. Its being played here live, the whole score, while the film is playing, in orchestras around Australia. These events (such as even with recent films like Lord of the Rings) tend to attract many more younger people than conventional classical concerts. Which is basically people under 40 or even under 50. I keep saying this but I was at a Xenakis percussion gig in recent years, and there was a big mix of people there, from about aged 20 to seniors.

So contemporary (or at least more recent than the late romantics) classical music does make some impact, but not in the sense of those of us on this forum who have recordings of it or go to concerts of it that are in not so large venues. Eg. the more esoteric types of new music will not have much impact, but other types will and do.

But as a postscript to this, on this forum many people listen to newer music, eg. that after 1945. Its just a wide variety of music, and some of it will inevitably be more or less experimental/innovative than others. This diversity is what makes this era so interesting.


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## Guest

Logic.

If something is genuinely new--whether "new to you" or just "new" either one--then it will be difficult to know how to respond to it. It will be, by its nature, disorienting.

As soon as it is not, as soon as it is familiar, then it becomes like all the other things you know and love.

That brief, evanescent moment of bewilderment is utterly precious and valuable, if only because of its briefness and evanescence. 

And while that moment lasts, "judgment" is not only impertinent but impossible. And the calls for "beauty" (as if beauty were a thing, the same for everyone) miss the point of new music. Beautiful may indeed be something it becomes for you as soon as you are able to enjoy it. I certainly find quite a lot of the music of the past 50 or 60 years to be extremely beautiful. Almost all of Xenakis, for instance. Almost all of Lachenmann and Karkowski and Theriault, for three other instances.

This is not a love of novelty for novelty's sake, either, as these four are utterly and completely familiar and comfortable to me.

Novelty--true, genuine, disconcerting novelty--is extremely rare (for me, anyway). And I value it as much for its rareness as for any of its other qualities.

*******

I'm surprised that no one has taken up neoshredder for the false dichotomy "music is either growing or dying." Music is always changing. Some changes might seem like growing to some listeners. Some like dying.

I suspect that the things neo takes to be evidence of growing I would take as evidence of dying. And so forth. That's because neo and I do not agree. neo's conclusion that music right now is on the decline reveals nothing more than that neo does not see anything that he really likes going on right now. Too bad. I see plenty of things going on right now that I like quite a lot. I cannot do anything but disagree with his conclusion. Decline? It's never been healthier. But then, the music I think exemplifies health would probably seem to neo to be rotting putrescence. That is, if he were even to know it. I don't get much sense that neo knows very much about what he ostensibly dislikes so much. He says himself he doesn't spend much time listening to current music. Well, one should probably reserve judgment for things one knows pretty well, not for things one admits to not knowing at all.

Seems kinda silly to build up a whole post-apocalypic vision of decay and decline from almost total ignorance of what the actual world is actually like. When I was little, I was sure--before ever even tasting one--that I hated brussels sprouts. But I got over that.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Seems kinda silly to build up a whole post-apocalypic vision of decay and decline from almost total ignorance of what the actual world is actually like. When I was little, I was sure--before ever even tasting one--that I hated brussels sprouts. But I got over that.


The secret to brussel sprouts: Don't boil, slice in half and steam for six minutes, no more, no less. Serve with lemon. Delicious.


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## Guest

That does sound delightful.

(It's true, boiling them does nothing for their flavor.)


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## neoshredder

some guy said:


> Logic.
> 
> If something is genuinely new--whether "new to you" or just "new" either one--then it will be difficult to know how to respond to it. It will be, by its nature, disorienting.
> 
> As soon as it is not, as soon as it is familiar, then it becomes like all the other things you know and love.
> 
> That brief, evanescent moment of bewilderment is utterly precious and valuable, if only because of its briefness and evanescence.
> 
> And while that moment lasts, "judgment" is not only impertinent but impossible. And the calls for "beauty" (as if beauty were a thing, the same for everyone) miss the point of new music. Beautiful may indeed be something it becomes for you as soon as you are able to enjoy it. I certainly find quite a lot of the music of the past 50 or 60 years to be extremely beautiful. Almost all of Xenakis, for instance. Almost all of Lachenmann and Karkowski and Theriault, for three other instances.
> 
> This is not a love of novelty for novelty's sake, either, as these four are utterly and completely familiar and comfortable to me.
> 
> Novelty--true, genuine, disconcerting novelty--is extremely rare (for me, anyway). And I value it as much for its rareness as for any of its other qualities.
> 
> *******
> 
> I'm surprised that no one has taken up neoshredder for the false dichotomy "music is either growing or dying." Music is always changing. Some changes might seem like growing to some listeners. Some like dying.
> 
> I suspect that the things neo takes to be evidence of growing I would take as evidence of dying. And so forth. That's because neo and I do not agree. neo's conclusion that music right now is on the decline reveals nothing more than that neo does not see anything that he really likes going on right now. Too bad. I see plenty of things going on right now that I like quite a lot. I cannot do anything but disagree with his conclusion. Decline? It's never been healthier. But then, the music I think exemplifies health would probably seem to neo to be rotting putrescence. That is, if he were even to know it. I don't get much sense that neo knows very much about what he ostensibly dislikes so much. He says himself he doesn't spend much time listening to current music. Well, one should probably reserve judgment for things one knows pretty well, not for things one admits to not knowing at all.
> 
> Seems kinda silly to build up a whole post-apocalypic vision of decay and decline from almost total ignorance of what the actual world is actually like. When I was little, I was sure--before ever even tasting one--that I hated brussels sprouts. But I got over that.


It's not my personal taste I'm talking about. It's statistics of what people are listening to. And very few people are listening to the atonal of the last 10 years. Is there a reason for that? I'm not sure. I just know that facts are facts. Composers nowadays trying atonal are not being heard. Or heard very little. Is it possible to play that style and be recognized? Maybe by you but the big majority of Classical listeners aren't noticing it. And comparing to atonal Composers nowadays, Ligeti is way more popular.


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## KenOC

I'm told that boiling them brings out an unpleasant flavor. Steaming works for me -- love 'em!


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## PetrB

*Quote* Originally Posted by some guy 
Seems kinda silly to build up a whole post-apocalypic vision of decay and decline from almost total ignorance of what the actual world is actually like. When I was little, I was sure--before ever even tasting one--that I hated brussels sprouts. But I got over that. *End Quote*

*Quote* Originally Posted by KenOC
The secret to brussel sprouts: Don't boil, slice in half and steam for six minutes, no more, no less. Serve with lemon. Delicious. *End Quote*

_Were that "Music is always changing. Some changes might seem like growing to some listeners. Some like dying." had near as much interest as a root vegetable, or as much interest in directions how to cook same._


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## KenOC

"_Were that "Music is always changing. Some changes might seem like growing to some listeners. Some like dying." had near as much interest as a root vegetable, or as much interest in directions how to cook same._"

As far as I can tell, the Brussel sprouts is not a root vegetable. "The Brussels sprout is a cultivar in the Gemmifera group of cabbages (_Brassica oleracea_), grown for its edible buds."


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## Guest

Did someone already observe that for any individual encountering classical music for the first time, the whole of that musical tradition may be new, unfamiliar, challenging?

I've clearly had the misfortune to be born into a time where the classical tradition - that inevitable linear development of sounds and structures typified by the march of progress from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms to Wagner to Debussy - has been disrupted by composers who wanted to do something different. Now, apparently, I'm not allowed to continue to appreciate what is regarded as "the same", "what's already done", because composers and some listeners are fed up with it.

Except for me, it hasn't "already been done". No one should be condemned to listen only to the music of their own generation, or expected only to look for the future. If I'm lucky enough to get my 3 score years and ten, I hope to be able to enjoy all kinds of music from all periods and all genres, in just the same way that I can go to a gallery and enjoy a Rembrandt, a Turner, a Picasso, a Sutherland without feeling that I must reject what has already been done.


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## science

MacLeod said:


> Did someone already observe that for any individual encountering classical music for the first time, the whole of that musical tradition may be new, unfamiliar, challenging?
> 
> I've clearly had the misfortune to be born into a time where the classical tradition - that inevitable linear development of sounds and structures typified by the march of progress from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms to Wagner to Debussy - has been disrupted by composers who wanted to do something different. Now, apparently, I'm not allowed to continue to appreciate what is regarded as "the same", "what's already done", because composers and some listeners are fed up with it.
> 
> Except for me, it hasn't "already been done". No one should be condemned to listen only to the music of their own generation, or expected only to look for the future. If I'm lucky enough to get my 3 score years and ten, I hope to be able to enjoy all kinds of music from all periods and all genres, in just the same way that I can go to a gallery and enjoy a Rembrandt, a Turner, a Picasso, a Sutherland without feeling that I must reject what has already been done.


This is a good point. There is an attitude that supposes that everyone must be _already_ familiar with everything in the canons of music, art, literature, and so on. This attitude is usually adopted in order to broadcast one's own familiarity with the canons, as a strategy to increase social status. But in fact, we are almost all of us unaware of large parts of the canons. (Let's except Jaroslav Pelikan, Jacques Barzun, and the like. They're probably not posting here anyway.)

One of my passions is to learn enough about the canons so that fewer people can look down on me for what I don't know. But if I succeed at some part of this project, some of the people who are driven to put us in my place can simply shift the terms of the discussion. Let's say one of us become relatively knowledgeable about the common practice period of of Western classical music, then people can look down on us for not knowing enough about Medieval or Renaissance music, or Indian classical music, or the art music of the 21st century. Similar strategies can apply within literature, architecture, philosophy, film, whatever, as well as across them (i.e. you can learn all you want about music and someone will look down on you for not knowing Hegel or Calvin or Tadao Ando or Italo Calvino or Ramanuja or Kurosawa or whatever.

The only strategy we have to defend ourselves is to emphasize our right to be wherever we are in our finite voyages of cultural discovery, and _a fortiori_ that anyone who attempts to deny that right to us is relying on baseless classist prejudice. This applies to cultural creators as well as consumers.

Knowledge is good, but if we really have to have already learned everything in order to be respected, it's time to let the nukes fly.


----------



## Rapide

some guy said:


> Logic.
> 
> If something is genuinely new--whether "new to you" or just "new" either one--then it will be difficult to know how to respond to it. It will be, by its nature, disorienting.
> 
> As soon as it is not, as soon as it is familiar, then it becomes like all the other things you know and love.
> 
> That brief, evanescent moment of bewilderment is utterly precious and valuable, if only because of its briefness and evanescence.
> 
> And while that moment lasts, "judgment" is not only impertinent but impossible. And the calls for "beauty" (as if beauty were a thing, the same for everyone) miss the point of new music. Beautiful may indeed be something it becomes for you as soon as you are able to enjoy it. I certainly find quite a lot of the music of the past 50 or 60 years to be extremely beautiful. Almost all of Xenakis, for instance. Almost all of Lachenmann and Karkowski and Theriault, for three other instances.
> 
> This is not a love of novelty for novelty's sake, either, as these four are utterly and completely familiar and comfortable to me.
> 
> Novelty--true, genuine, disconcerting novelty--is extremely rare (for me, anyway). And I value it as much for its rareness as for any of its other qualities.
> 
> *******
> 
> I'm surprised that no one has taken up neoshredder for the false dichotomy "music is either growing or dying." Music is always changing. Some changes might seem like growing to some listeners. Some like dying.
> 
> I suspect that the things neo takes to be evidence of growing I would take as evidence of dying. And so forth. That's because neo and I do not agree. neo's conclusion that music right now is on the decline reveals nothing more than that neo does not see anything that he really likes going on right now. Too bad. I see plenty of things going on right now that I like quite a lot. I cannot do anything but disagree with his conclusion. Decline? It's never been healthier. But then, the music I think exemplifies health would probably seem to neo to be rotting putrescence. That is, if he were even to know it. I don't get much sense that neo knows very much about what he ostensibly dislikes so much. He says himself he doesn't spend much time listening to current music. Well, one should probably reserve judgment for things one knows pretty well, not for things one admits to not knowing at all.
> 
> Seems kinda silly to build up a whole post-apocalypic vision of decay and decline from almost total ignorance of what the actual world is actually like. When I was little, I was sure--before ever even tasting one--that I hated brussels sprouts. But I got over that.


You are probably referring to noise music. In that case, I don't blame member neoshredder.


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## clavichorder

This post is entirely personal and not factually and argumentatively specific. If that causes it to be of limited value to you or anyone, then don't bother responding. 

If you are indeed of a level of wisdom that I have yet to arrive at in life concerning the nature of music and also do in fact posess knowledge of historical truths that fairly prove these ideas, then I hope I one day get there and accept what you are talking about. Right now, I'm thinking some of your ideas are sensible and intelligent, others provoke fairly negative feelings, some do both. 

I admit to rooting for those who seem to be able to argue against you and not lose the focus of their ideas after 5 back and forths or so. But also, I often find their arguments against you never wholly satisfying. 

From a more mental perspective, I can find a number of things to agree with in your posts. From a purely feeling perspective, I wish I could convincingly show a way in which you are overstepping your bounds on this and invading my personal opinion space(though it is indeed my choice to read these posts and respond to them, although its kind of annoying to keep quiet about things and censor myself), so I'll say that I just don't like your overall outlook on tonality and the nature of music. 

Well, I worked hard on this post, it would be a crime not to post something I spent so much time on.


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## clavichorder

KenOC said:


> The secret to brussel sprouts: Don't boil, slice in half and steam for six minutes, no more, no less. Serve with lemon. Delicious.


You gotta steam those suckers. Or you can sautee them, even better. Add spices and butter/oil according to personal preference.


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## clavichorder

PetrB said:


> Its for the most part a no-go again. People trapped in their repetitive and therefore extremely habituated listening patterns, and upon that basis thinking theirs is the only standard of quality while hoping and praying the rest of the world agrees with them.


We are trapped because we attack each other. In truth, we aren't all that trapped, but we sure look like it in these threads.


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## clavichorder

Huilunsoittaja said:


> And an even funnier idea... does anyone think I fell in love with Glazunov because he was the most run-of-the-mill, "safe" and conservative of the Russian composers? I actually found his music really bizarre and with unusual emotions the first times I was listening to his music, and then months later discovering, oh, the critics say he's ordinary and derivative. Well, too late to turn back now! :lol:


I feel similarly strong about Saint Saens. Very similar scenario. Saint Saens music was some of the most powerful and unusual classical music I heard in my childhood.


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## Arsakes

I desire for tonality. Who is my hero of tonality in 2013 beside the legendary "John Williams"?!


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## Wandering

Crudblud said:


> The argument that contemporary classical music is unpopular simply because of the way it sounds or because of the ideologies of its key figures is quite poorly considered, I feel. Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology. Throughout history we have developed technology to make things easier for ourselves, and the old ways of baking, smithing, carpentry etc. gradually become more "fringe" as we progress from ancient times to present day. It is usually the case that when in the hands of a skilled artisan these old crafting methods often produce the best result possible, but are much slower and more difficult and ultimately produce a lesser yield than than automated mass production. On these bases and many more the assembly line wins out, producing metric tonnes of cutlery, bottles, metal plating, glass sheets etc. every day. Now we can arrive at the advent of the phonograph record; all of a sudden you didn't have to own a piano and learn to read sheet music to enjoy the latest tunes in your own home, and thus the expectation of *actually having to do something when confronted with a piece of music* was significantly lessened. Fast forward to the 1980s and the advent of MTV; all of a sudden you didn't even have to buy a record to hear music in your home, and, in a truly pivotal moment, it now came with pre-packaged visuals to sweeten the deal, and the music starts to take a back seat to those visuals. So with MTV not only was there significantly lessened expectation of effort, but music had become a visual, more concrete medium. We are now living in a time when MTV itself has been rendered obsolete by the internet, where the content arrives faster and in flashier presentation and our culture is basically force-fed to us through tubes, and the audio part is of even further reduced importance to the point where an average video consists of a woman shaking her stuff at the camera while a 4/4 beat drones on relentlessly for four minutes, and then it's on to the next one. Consume, consume, consume and ignore what you're consuming so that you can consume it again in four minutes' time.
> 
> Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music, it is a far reaching repercussion of advancements in technology since the industrial revolution that has so subtly crept in to our lives that many of us do not seem to realise what it is and what it has done.
> 
> P.S.: I apologise for the dense wall of text, I'm not in a very literary frame of mind right now.


This is somewhat true, yes, not that it is ever going to change, look at smartphones and social media. You might wish to go off and start a Utopia or Commune society somewhere, could do your own spin on it perhaps, then people might think it a somewhat original 'crystal palace'? Nothings going to change, as Nixon's revelation in Stone's film, 'it is a Beast.' Yes, life has become easier with all these tinker toys, this is true. I guess the musician should be our only consideration, never the listener, or the lazy commoner, but only the educated listener, wait, except the classically educated listener, wait, except the classically educated listener who plays and instrument despite all modern conveniences and is thoroughly rehearsed in all the avant garde trends, having become familiar with all such contemporary composer who have been deemed recognizable by most academic circles, and qua qua qua!!!???

Nothing is going to change, only boil over, thinking otherwise, 'that's vanity, you can't stop what's coming.'


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## millionrainbows

Crudblud said:


> The argument that contemporary classical music is unpopular simply because of the way it sounds or because of the ideologies of its key figures is quite poorly considered, I feel. Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology.


_Crudblud's post above (#55) is exactly in line with what I have said about *"the one arena of history"* (which was neatly linear over long stretches) which established our Western tradition, but which has now been fragmented, *which confuses many. *McLeod is a good example of this frustration and confusion:_



MacLeod said:


> Did someone already observe that for any individual encountering classical music for the first time, the whole of that musical tradition may be new, unfamiliar, challenging?...I've clearly had the misfortune to be born into a time where the classical tradition - that i_*nevitable linear development of sounds and structures typified by the march of progress from Bach to Beethoven to Brahms to Wagner to Debussy *_- *has been disrupted by composers who wanted to do something different.* Now, apparently, I'm not allowed to continue to appreciate what is regarded as "the same", "what's already done", because composers and some listeners are fed up with it....Except for me, it hasn't "already been done". No one should be condemned to listen only to the music of their own generation, or expected only to look for the future. If I'm lucky enough to get my 3 score years and ten, I hope to be able to enjoy all kinds of music from all periods and all genres, in just the same way that I can go to a gallery and enjoy a Rembrandt, a Turner, a Picasso, a Sutherland without feeling that I must reject what has already been done.


_It's obvious from this that MacLeod clearly "misses" the "old" history and its neat linear progression...but this "old history" was the product of the "one arena" era before mass media fragmented everything. Don't blame the modernist composers...blame our new perception of "history" and the speed-up of information.

I think classical listeners (of the more traditional type) are people who seem to want to "escape" from the 21st century and "hide within the old history." MacLeod and clavichorder are prime examples. But *"history will never be the same."* It's been super-shortened into a brief series of moments. It's all still happening right now, just faster.

*If you are musically an old-school historian, then be happy with the huge legacy of art music you have, and take solace in that beauty. If you've "given up" on the modern era, then stop criticizing it, leave it to those who like it, and immerse yourself in what you feel to be the best music.*_



Clovis said:


> This is somewhat true, yes, not that it is ever going to change, look at smartphones and social media. You might wish to go off and start a Utopia or Commune society somewhere, could do your own spin on it perhaps, then people might think it a somewhat original 'crystal palace'? Nothings going to change, as Nixon's revelation in Stone's film, 'it is a Beast.' Yes, life has become easier with all these tinker toys, this is true. *I guess the musician should be our only consideration, never the listener, or the lazy commoner, but only the educated listener, wait, except the classically educated listener, wait, except the classically educated listener who plays and instrument despite all modern conveniences and is thoroughly rehearsed in all the avant garde trends, having become familiar with all such contemporary composer who have been deemed recognizable by most academic circles, and qua qua qua!!!??? *


_*Again, we can't blame academics or contemporary composers. If you are musically an old-school historian and music-lover, then be happy with the huge legacy of older 'art' music you have, and take solace in that beauty. If you've "given up" on the modern era, then stop criticizing it, leave it to those who like it, and immerse yourself in what you feel to be the best music.* _



Crudblud said:


> Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music, it is a far reaching repercussion of advancements in technology since the industrial revolution that has so subtly crept in to our lives that many of us do not seem to realise what it is and what it has done.


_That's so true. Still, the hunting is good for the new & challenging. The problem is, where do you start? It can be overwhelming at times._



KenOC said:


> This is an argument for -- what? I suspect many of us (myself certainly) never watch MTV. I believe that our musical preferences arise from other sources. Many of course long for "new" music but (as always) don't accept everything served up. For some fans of new music in various currents, though, it seems that any excuse to denigrate others is justified.


_This is a very short-sighted view, especially the way "MTV" was microscopically extracted for derision. KenOC seems to be taking this new view of history personally, as MacLeod did. I think the agenda here is to make this forum into a "shelter" for those homeless refugees from the present.

I totally agree with crudblud's response:_



Crudblud said:


> Taking little bits of arguments out of context and addressing them as though they were the whole argument is not a good strategy, nor is it one I will fall for. Please try again.


_KenOC has decided he doesn't like the thrust that this thread has taken, so he will distract us by throwing rotten vegetables:_



KenOC said:


> The secret to brussel sprouts: Don't boil, slice in half and steam for six minutes, no more, no less. Serve with lemon. Delicious.


----------



## Wandering

'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' - Lincoln


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## neoshredder

Who doesn't desire tonality? Especially Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and many more kind of tonality.


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## arpeggio

*Good Old Days*

Millions above post made me think of the joke about what is the difference between a liberal and a conservative.

A liberal is a person who wants to sit around a campfire in an Utopian world singing "Kumbaya".

A conservative wants to return to those good old days that never existed.


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> Who doesn't desire tonality? Especially Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, and many more kind of tonality.


_Ha ha! Neoshredder is still talking about "tonality" as if we knew what he meant!_


----------



## neoshredder

millionrainbows said:


> _Ha ha! Neoshredder is still talking about "tonality" as if we knew what he meant!_


I was just adding on to Arsakes comments which I agree with.


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> A liberal is a person who wants to sit around a campfire in an Utopian world singing "Kumbaya".
> 
> A conservative wants to return to those good old days that never existed.


_A liberal is a person who wants to sit around a campfire in an Utopian world singing "Kumbaya".

A conservative is a person who wants to sit around a campfire in an Utopian world singing "Kumbaya" while they clean their gun.
_


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## millionrainbows

neoshredder said:


> I was just adding on to Arsakes comments which I agree with.


_There's plenty of "harmonic music" out there. I desire it, too, as well as CP tonality of the past. Of present-day CP tonality, Karl Jenkins' "Diamond Music" is a good example._


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## Guest

I know we're on page six of this already, far far away from page one. Dear page one, lost in the mists of time....

But really, one click on "First" and you're there!

And when you're there, you can read this at the very beginning of the OP:

*This is not about wanting to listen to only tonal music. People can and will listen to whatever they please, and no amount of whinging by anyone will ever change that. Nor should it.

This is about the oft-stated desire that composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music.*

Here's what I think. There are hundreds of years of tonal music. I'll bet that no one has listened to all of it.

As for liking it, I like it very much. I listen to Monteverdi and Vivaldi and Bach and Haydn and Mozart and Gluck and Cherubini and Weber and Schubert and Berlioz and and and with enormous pleasure. I still buy CDs of their music, too. My two most recent purchases were Saint-Saens' Requiem (delightful) and a two CD set of music by Luc and Brunhild Ferrari (also delightful). That's how I roll.

This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad.

Whether you know about the canon in its entirety or whether you think people who do know it are smug and self-satisfied, whether you despise tonal music and only listen to noise bands, are all just so many red herrings.

On the other hand, red herrings seem to be the most desirable creatures to feast upon in online discussion suppers. Even tastier than brussels sprouts....


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad.


_That sounds like Nazi Germany, the Soviets, or China, take your pick. This raises an interesting question: since CP tonality is a historical way of composing which is rooted in the past, is it now merely a tool of reactionary fascist governments?_


----------



## Ramako

Clovis said:


> 'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' - Lincoln


I think someone said that before Lincoln...


----------



## Guest

science said:


> The only strategy we have to defend ourselves is to emphasize our right to be wherever we are in our finite voyages of cultural discovery, and _a fortiori_ that anyone who attempts to deny that right to us is relying on baseless classist prejudice.


I'll definitely agree with our right to be where we are in our voyages, but given the quantity of music and the time limited nature of existence, such voyages seem somehow simultaneously finite and infinite.



millionrainbows said:


> _McLeod is a good example of this frustration and confusion:_
> 
> _It's obvious from this that MacLeod *clearly *"misses" the "old" history and its neat linear progression...but this "old history" was the product of the "one arena" era before mass media fragmented everything. Don't blame the modernist composers...blame our new perception of "history" and the speed-up of information.
> 
> I think classical listeners (of the more traditional type) are people who seem to want to "escape" from the 21st century and "hide within the old history." MacLeod and clavichorder are prime examples._


"Clearly" (my bold) my sarcasm button was not pressed down far enough. Neat linear progression is not what I miss, nor do I believe in it. It's those who claim that 'tonality has declined/run its course' or somesuch who give the impression that there is such a linearity who I object to. Now, someguy (whose OP I was responding to) and I agree on some things, not least the idea that subjective response is important, and that it can't (shouldn't?) be used to make an objective judgement. I don't agree with him that current listeners can't ask for a continuation of tonal music (just using everyone else's shorthand here) or that to do so has only negative consequences. But I do agree that with so much old tonal to find out about, as I am doing, there is much to keep people satisfied. Me, I'm not asking for new composers to do anything. As I said in another thread, composers have no obligations to their audience (and vice versa). I only ask that we should not pretend, just because, with hindsight, we can trace lines of development, trends, connections, disruptions, breaks and so on, that those trends actually exist for any one individual at any one point in their cultural voyage of discovery. As I've said before, I listened to Schoenberg and Ligeti, Ives and Stravinsky long before I listened to Chopin.



some guy said:


> Here's what I think. There are hundreds of years of tonal music. I'll bet that no one has listened to all of it. [...]
> 
> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad.
> 
> Whether you know about the canon in its entirety or whether you think people who do know it are smug and self-satisfied, whether you despise tonal music and only listen to noise bands, are all just so many red herrings.


See my points above, and lastly, I agree that some comments that over-interpret are red herrings.


----------



## tdc

some guy said:


> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad..


No one should demand composers use the common practice system of managing pitches. Likewise no one should demand composers NOT use the common practice system of managing pitches. The consequences of either mindset are equally bad. Composers should compose what they want, people will enjoy what they want. There should be no whining over whether or not people are enjoying this or that kind of music either, especially since composers that use newer systems of composition seem to be taught only to compose for themselves.


----------



## Ramako

tdc said:


> No one should demand composers use the common practice system of managing pitches. Likewise no one should demand composers NOT use the common practice system of managing pitches. The consequences of either mindset are equally bad. Composers should compose what they want, people will enjoy what they want. There should be no whining over whether or not people are enjoying this or that kind of music either, especially since composers that use newer systems of composition seem to be taught only to compose for themselves.


Hear, hear!


----------



## Rapide

some guy said:


> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad.


Consequences - you meant the new music composed - are all bad? You are judging new music composed, something I thought you despise and never do?


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## Sid James

tdc said:


> No one should demand composers use the common practice system of managing pitches. Likewise no one should demand composers NOT use the common practice system of managing pitches. The consequences of either mindset are equally bad. Composers should compose what they want, people will enjoy what they want. There should be no whining over whether or not people are enjoying this or that kind of music either, especially since composers that use newer systems of composition seem to be taught only to compose for themselves.


I agree with that and that's what I was basically saying in my earlier post here.

In that post I did a link to a interview with UK composer Thomas Ades. Two other quotes also speak to this issue of accepting diversity and moving away from the dogmas of the past:



> ...
> More than once in our interview Adès talks of "retaining your innocence" as essential to a composer. When I say he has managed not to be put in a box, he replies: "Yes, but I've had to work hard for that. When people start talking about atonal or tonal or postmodern, or whatever - I'm not being weird, but I really don t know what they are talking about."...


& as for composers like Ades being like easy or rehashes of the past, as some guy has implied, read this:



> ...I went to Berlin last month to hear the première of Tevót conducted by Simon Rattle and it was clear, listening with Adès to the rehearsal, that even the Berlin Philharmonic - arguably the world's best orchestra - was challenged by the piece. But they rose to the challenge, and after the concert Adès's friend the novelist Alan Hollinghurst described Tevót as "astounding, the best thing he's ever done"...


There are many composers like Ades who are eclectic and draw on many things, yet still write challenging and original music. Dutilleux was one of those of the older generation. Composers use whatever techniques they want. But technique is technique, while dogma is another thing entirely.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3663485/Dont-call-me-a-messiah.html


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## BurningDesire

Crudblud said:


> The argument that contemporary classical music is unpopular simply because of the way it sounds or because of the ideologies of its key figures is quite poorly considered, I feel. Of key importance to this discussion, and something which seems to be totally ignored by everyone here, is technology. Throughout history we have developed technology to make things easier for ourselves, and the old ways of baking, smithing, carpentry etc. gradually become more "fringe" as we progress from ancient times to present day. It is usually the case that when in the hands of a skilled artisan these old crafting methods often produce the best result possible, but are much slower and more difficult and ultimately produce a lesser yield than than automated mass production. On these bases and many more the assembly line wins out, producing metric tonnes of cutlery, bottles, metal plating, glass sheets etc. every day. Now we can arrive at the advent of the phonograph record; all of a sudden you didn't have to own a piano and learn to read sheet music to enjoy the latest tunes in your own home, and thus the expectation of *actually having to do something when confronted with a piece of music* was significantly lessened. Fast forward to the 1980s and the advent of MTV; all of a sudden you didn't even have to buy a record to hear music in your home, and, in a truly pivotal moment, it now came with pre-packaged visuals to sweeten the deal, and the music starts to take a back seat to those visuals. So with MTV not only was there significantly lessened expectation of effort, but music had become a visual, more concrete medium. We are now living in a time when MTV itself has been rendered obsolete by the internet, where the content arrives faster and in flashier presentation and our culture is basically force-fed to us through tubes, and the audio part is of even further reduced importance to the point where an average video consists of a woman shaking her stuff at the camera while a 4/4 beat drones on relentlessly for four minutes, and then it's on to the next one. Consume, consume, consume and ignore what you're consuming so that you can consume it again in four minutes' time.
> 
> Considering all the above, is it any surprise that new and unfamiliar music that asks the listener to pay attention and think about what they're hearing has been marginalised? We live in a society that breeds laziness and praises ignorance, and that is not Schoenberg's, not Boulez's, not Stockhausen's fault, nor is it the fault of their music, it is a far reaching repercussion of advancements in technology since the industrial revolution that has so subtly crept in to our lives that many of us do not seem to realise what it is and what it has done.
> 
> P.S.: I apologise for the dense wall of text, I'm not in a very literary frame of mind right now.


But at the same time, this advancement of technology has opened up doors to music that a person may never have had the chance to ever hear. It opens up doors for musicians to share their work with others, all around the world.


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> Consequences - you meant the new music composed - are all bad?


In ten characters or more, "no."


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## Rapide

What are these consequences then?


----------



## Wandering

Option *A*










Option *B*


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## Wandering

PetrB said:


> ... People trapped in their repetitive and therefore extremely habituated listening patterns, and upon that basis thinking theirs is the only standard of quality while hoping and praying the rest of the world agrees with them.
> ....


You seemingly have us all summed up already anyway, including yourself.


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## peeyaj

Honest question:


Is there a wide audience for music written on 21st century compared to the tonal music written earlier? (aside from the classical music enthiasuasts)


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## Guest

The clue is right there in your question. "[C]ompared to...music written earlier."

While there are obvious limitations to this generality, to a certain extent earlier means more familiar and more familiar means wider audience. Comparing something that's had time to become popular with something that has not, and that has a century's old feeling of antagonism towards "new music" to deal with is not at all an honest endeavor.

Here's another question. It's embarrassing to feel like I need to ask it again. Is there a wide audience for classical music generally?


----------



## science

some guy said:


> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches? I think there are consequences and that those consequences are all bad.


Your first post was essentially a demand that composers no longer use tonality. Well, you can say it wasn't a demand, but it was certainly an insult to composers who would want to do that. It was not a defense of anyone's right not to use tonality, but a condemnation of composers who do. But now you portray your post as if it was just a defense of composers who don't use tonality. Which are you doing? Defending the right not to use tonality? Or condemning people who do?


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## Rapide

More time to whom? An individual listener active right now has as much time she wishes to dedicate to listening to Renaissance music as she does to 20th century. She might well have studied and or be introduced to a Beethoven sonata because the sonata "is great" but that does not negate the chances that contemproary music are somehow not accessible/discoverable for her own, especially if the composers are active today. The relevance of making new arts alive and engaging here and now, just as critical as it was when Beethoven was writing his, is paramount. Tonality or not, should never be restricted nor imposed, given whatever challenges there might be. Outreach of new classical music would become a null purpose if there was some "approval board" encouraging or rather diverting creativity to some perverted artistic means.


----------



## Rapide

mmsbls said:


> In one sense technology has allowed works that are very unpopular to have _some_ success in that they reach a small, but real, audience.


 I can now listen to a Boulez sonata via my iPhone while on the run or anything else I have not listened to before, a luxury that up until a few years ago, I did not have. The chances of any listener having access to any piece of music, new or old, has increased many folds. This I think is an important means that activie composers today also need to make use of.


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## Guest

science said:


> Your first post was essentially a demand that composers no longer use tonality.


No, it wasn't.


----------



## neoshredder

some guy said:


> The clue is right there in your question. "[C]ompared to...music written earlier."
> 
> While there are obvious limitations to this generality, to a certain extent earlier means more familiar and more familiar means wider audience. Comparing something that's had time to become popular with something that has not, and that has a century's old feeling of antagonism towards "new music" to deal with is not at all an honest endeavor.
> 
> Here's another question. It's embarrassing to feel like I need to ask it again. Is there a wide audience for classical music generally?


Better to have some audience than no audience. Just saying...


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> This thread I intended to be a discussion of consequences--what are the consequences of demanding that living composers continue to use the common practice system of managing pitches?


Did somebody "demand" this? Must have missed that!


----------



## science

some guy said:


> No, it wasn't.


I anticipated this, which is why you had to snip the rest of the post.


----------



## mmsbls

peeyaj said:


> Is there a wide audience for music written on 21st century compared to the tonal music written earlier? (aside from the classical music enthiasuasts)


Peeyaj, do you mean _for people living today_, is there a wide audience for music written in the 21st century compared to the tonal music written earlier? or do you mean _for people living during the composers lifetime_ is there a wide audience for music written in the 21st century compared to the tonal music written earlier?

Certainly the answer to the first question is that earlier music has a larger audience (much larger?). I do not know the answer to the second question.

Since there are so many more people living today _and those people have such greater access to music_, even very small audiences from a percentage standpoint can be sizable. That's very important to the current development of many varied musical styles/genres.



some guy said:


> Here's another question. It's embarrassing to feel like I need to ask it again. Is there a wide audience for classical music generally?


The answer to your question is "yes" and "no". Compared to pop music or sports, absolutely not. Compared to logic papers, particle physics research, or almost anything else that people devote their lives to at universities, the audience is huge.


----------



## science

mmsbls said:


> Since there are so many more people living today _and those people have such greater access to music_, even very small audiences from a percentage standpoint can be sizable. That's very important to the current development of many varied musical styles/genres.


That's a good point. I'd add that we have so much more disposable income than we had in the past, and probably more time for entertainment.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Your first post was essentially a demand that composers no longer use tonality. Well, you can say it wasn't a demand, but it was certainly an insult to composers who would want to do that. It was not a defense of anyone's right not to use tonality, but a condemnation of composers who do. But now you portray your post as if it was just a defense of composers who don't use tonality. Which are you doing? Defending the right not to use tonality? Or condemning people who do?


Sentence one: No, it was not.

Sentence two: I have no control over what anyone choses to be insulted by (nor over whether anyone claims that I was demanding anything). The OP was explicitly directed at listeners and was attempting to start a discussion of the consequences, to listeners and composers alike, if listeners want composers to keep writing tonal music.

Sentence three: I don't recall condemning any composers. I recall questioning the idea that writing tonal music (music with keys and key relations) is a worthwhile activity. Is that a condemnation? OK, then. If you insist. Still, condemning an idea is different from condemning a person.

Sentence four: I was not defending anything in the OP.

Sentences five, six, and seven: Neither. The intent of the OP was to start a discussion about consequences. Actions: consequences. Period.

That this thread, as has been true for so many threads, has also featured many other topics, also something I have no control over. If you look over the whole thread, you'll see that I made a few attempts here and there to get back to the original topic. If people won't talk about that, oh well. Sucks to be me.


----------



## clavichorder

some guy said:


> Sentences five, six, and seven: Neither. The intent of the OP was to start a discussion about consequences. Actions: consequences. Period.


Some guy, even a similarly subtle and confusing/confused "over thinker" like me has a painfully obvious retort to this: if you wanted to discuss actions and consequences, you wouldn't use this tired old topic.


----------



## science

some guy said:


> Sentence one: No, it was not.
> 
> Sentence two: I have no control over what anyone choses to be insulted by (nor over whether anyone claims that I was demanding anything). The OP was explicitly directed at listeners and was attempting to start a discussion of the consequences, to listeners and composers alike, if listeners want composers to keep writing tonal music.
> 
> Sentence three: I don't recall condemning any composers. I recall questioning the idea that writing tonal music (music with keys and key relations) is a worthwhile activity. Is that a condemnation? OK, then. If you insist. Still, condemning an idea is different from condemning a person.
> 
> Sentence four: I was not defending anything in the OP.
> 
> Sentences five, six, and seven: Neither. The intent of the OP was to start a discussion about consequences. Actions: consequences. Period.
> 
> That this thread, as has been true for so many threads, has also featured many other topics, also something I have no control over. If you look over the whole thread, you'll see that I made a few attempts here and there to get back to the original topic. If people won't talk about that, oh well. Sucks to be me.


I cannot easily persuade myself that you, entirely ingenuous, expect people not to see an insult when they're told that their approach to music isn't "healthy."

You didn't "question whether" writing tonal music is a worthwhile activity, you explicitly condemned it.

Let's review:



some guy said:


> This is about the oft-stated desire that composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music....
> 
> We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music.... I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done. ... the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.
> 
> That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.


"Not particularly healthy" is not hard to parse. You in fact meant it to be understood, and you knew it would: contemporary composers who compose tonal music, and you mentioned composers here, are sick. I don't know whether you meant spiritually sick or psychologically sick or what. But it doesn't matter.

Your message is clear: a composer must either either abandon tonality entirely, or she's somehow not "particularly healthy."

Further, you claim (or at least imply) that no composers in earlier times had such a conservative approach. Even if that were true, the reason for pointing it out is to create alienation. "Hey," you're saying, "you contemporary tonalists are freaks! No composer has ever been like you!" You might've thought you were being so much more subtle than that, but really it was obvious. It's not a matter of whether you can control how someone interprets what you wrote, it's a matter of whether they can understand it.

So your intention was not, as you later claimed, to defend a composer's right to abandon tonality. If that's all you want, fine. There won't be many who'll disagree. But your message was an insistence that our composers abandon tonality: you intended to deny them legitimacy if they choose not to do so.

The _consequence_ of this was supposed to be to bully people into your ideology's line: tonality equals sickness. Abandon it, o ye invalids! Come to the healthy side!

But it's a nearly free message board. We're gonna have people here who hate contemporary tonal music, and hopefully some of those people will compose according to their own lights. We're gonna have people here who love it, and hopefully some of those people will also compose according to their own lights. We'll have to make room for everybody without name-calling, however subtly. Not that "not particularly healthy" was "particularly" subtle, but it was an attempt and I guess you'd try a little harder next time.

You've got to just let people be. It's a big, big world. Plenty of room for more tonality, plenty of room for more atonality. It's not even a zero sum game.

Anyway, your strategy is all wrong. So you love certain music, and you want to promote it. Great! Really, I genuinely appreciate your introducing me to Luc Ferrari, eRikm, and Merzbow. Through me, you indirectly introduced one of my students to them too, and he's a young man passionate about music and sure to have some influence in the world in a decade or two or three. That's good stuff. That's where your glory is to be found - not in putting down people who do not like that music, or want to produce "old fashioned" music. That won't promote your cause anyway. The backlash is too rapid. People, whether consuming or producing, love freedom too much. You'll have to sell you preferences in those terms, rather than as taking something away from someone.

You're a great, great asset to the site, one of the people that I and many others can really learn a lot from, as long as you focus on promoting your music rather than insulting other music (or its composers).


----------



## clavichorder

We need a mediator. Or some humor. I am not qualified for either of those. Brussel sprouts was a good start.


----------



## Rapide

some guy said:


> Sentence one: No, it was not.
> 
> Sentence two: I have no control over what anyone choses to be insulted by (nor over whether anyone claims that I was demanding anything). The OP was explicitly directed at listeners and was attempting to start a discussion of the consequences, to listeners and composers alike, if listeners want composers to keep writing tonal music.
> 
> Sentence three: I don't recall condemning any composers. I recall questioning the idea that writing tonal music (music with keys and key relations) is a worthwhile activity. Is that a condemnation? OK, then. If you insist. Still, condemning an idea is different from condemning a person.
> 
> Sentence four: I was not defending anything in the OP.
> 
> Sentences five, six, and seven: Neither. The intent of the OP was to start a discussion about consequences. Actions: consequences. Period.
> 
> That this thread, as has been true for so many threads, has also featured many other topics, also something I have no control over. If you look over the whole thread, you'll see that I made a few attempts here and there to get back to the original topic. If people won't talk about that, oh well. Sucks to be me.


You keep using the word "consequences" and yet when I directly asked you what these are, you totally avoided answering me. Let me ask you again:-



Rapide said:


> What are these consequences then?


----------



## Guest

science said:


> I cannot easily persuade myself that you, entirely ingenuous, expect people not to see an insult when they're told that their approach to music isn't "healthy."
> 
> [...]
> 
> "Not particularly healthy" is not hard to parse. You in fact meant it to be understood, and you knew it would: contemporary composers who compose tonal music, and you mentioned composers here, are sick. I don't know whether you meant spiritually sick or psychologically sick or what. But it doesn't matter.


I too am interested to hear what someguy means by consequences, though I have already drawn a conclusion from his OP. However, I think you overstate things here, science. At least, my interpretation of 'unhealthy', in the context someguy uses it, is not as plain as 'sick', which carries different overtones.

But perhaps someguy will elaborate?


----------



## Rapide

some guy said:


> We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same. But the same is already done. I fail to see the virtue in producing what's already been done.


Your self-declared "failure" to "see the virtue in producing what's already been done" on the part of active composers today and their like listeners is an attack on composers and listeners who "want" tonal music. It is as clear to any reasonable reader. Then you now attempt to re-address the topic by using "consequences" instead, although in your original post, you never used the word "consequences" to begin with.



some guy said:


> People who like tonal music have more than plenty to listen to without having to have living composers continue to endlessly regurgitate the past. People who want to keep writing tonal music should consider this: that the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.


Again, "regurgitating" the past because people today want living composers to do so, sounds like an attack on listeners.

I think it really is time to come clean with what you are trying to sell.


----------



## Guest

By and large, people writing in the 18th and 19th centuries were writing new music. The point of being a composer then was to say something that had not been said before. Even fairly traditional composers like Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens were not turning out pastiches of earlier music, were aware of, and conversant in contemporary practices. It was assumed, by everyone, that being a composer meant knowing what had already been done, learning how to do that by imitation, and then pushing off from that to write something new. New could mean either "new like Berlioz" or "new like Mendelssohn." That is, while Mendelssohn never wrote anything as ground-breaking as _Symphonie fantastique_ or _Benvenuto Cellini_, he also did not write anything that was anything but Romantic. He was of his time.

"Of one's time" has become almost a dirty word, now. In many online discussions, there is not only an ahistorical trend but a clearly antihistorical trend. The times one is living in now, the things that composers have done in the past century, in the past fifty years, in the past decade, are not important or even interesting on their own. They are simply non-historical chunks of raw material to be used indiscriminately. Or not used. For in practice, composers who rely on tonality are simply turning away from the present to attempt to reproduce a more palatable past. For most "neo" composers, that past is the late nineteenth century. If twentieth century practices are referred to, they are from the neo-tonalists of the early decades, not from any of the avant garde. Indeed, the twentieth century was the first century to see a distinct split between avant garde and conservative. Unprecedented. In the twenty-first century, the trends and practices of the last decades of the twentieth century are largely ignored. Unknown and unlamented.

Some posters here at TC would have us believe that the choices for composers in 2013 are limitless. In actual fact, they are severely restricted to a few safe patterns familiar to any composer in 1930. (I recently heard Ades' _Asyla._ It's a fairly vigorous piece, full of bright colors and pulsating rhythms, but nothing much if at all from any later than 1926. There is nothing in it that Stravinsky or Ravel or Varese would have found at all unfamiliar. (Berlioz' _Symphonie fantastique,_ on the other hand, contained quite a lot that Beethoven would have found unfamiliar, I dare say.)

It is unprecedented in music history that composers are as out of touch with current practices as listeners are. Usually composers are right on time and listeners lag behind a bit. Or several bits. The lag was pretty short in the 18th century, got longer and longer in the nineteenth, got ridicuously long in the twentieth century except for the new phenomenon of a counter current. That counter current attempted to continue to say new things, twentieth century things, but with the vocabulary and sound world of the past. By now, at least among posters to internet forums, the desire to say something new has much diminished. Say something old, something familiar, something that can be understood, like the music of the past. It's not only listeners saying this any more, it's composers as well. Some. Many. Not, Gott sei dank, all.

Never mind that when the music of the past was the music of the present it was new, it was unfamiliar, and it was misunderstood. Never mind that there were people, even large groups of people, who embraced the new and the unfamiliar in 1820 or 1870 or 1952. There are people in 2013 who embrace the new and the unfamiliar. I hate to think that my love of Karkowski will someday be used as evidence that Karkowski was popular and accepted even in his own time, not like this hideous modern crap that's shoved down our throats in the dark and decadent 80s. (2080s, that is.)


----------



## stanchinsky

I don't think we ought to abandon tonality altogether because we are worried that everything tonal has been done to death. Music as with all art, is always in a state evolution driven by small changes (although sometimes large changes) that gradually become more normative. Don't forget that a great deal of atonal music has been made over the last 70 years or so, and becuase of this atonality alone won't be enough to create music thats entirley original. I'm not even sure I would enjoy music that is competely original.


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## science

MacLeod said:


> I too am interested to hear what someguy means by consequences, though I have already drawn a conclusion from his OP. However, I think you overstate things here, science. At least, my interpretation of 'unhealthy', in the context someguy uses it, is not as plain as 'sick', which carries different overtones.
> 
> But perhaps someguy will elaborate?


Good point.


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## Sid James

Well some guy, Ades' Asyla has the rhythms of techno in one of the movements. Ravel, Stravinsky or Varese would not have known that. Ades' is referencing popular music of his time just as that early 20th century group referenced eg. jazz, ragtime, blues. & if we say Ades' is a 'polyglot' type composer - one who eclectically combines things to make his own voice/vision - there where many like that in the past whose music has endured. They may not have been high octane innovators like Beethoven, Wagner, Schoenberg or Berlioz, indeed, but they did move music beyond certain confines in their own ways and did contribute a lot to music. Some of these 'polyglots' are Nielsen, Tippett, Barber, Copland, Britten, and maybe even Shostakovich and Prokofiev. I don't see a need for high octane innovation all the time. Didn't Schumann say that if the world was full of Beethovens, it would simply burst. There's room in music for both Beethovens and Adeses, for innovators and refiners of innovations.


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## Rapide

some guy said:


> ...
> 
> It is unprecedented in music history that composers are as out of touch with current practices as listeners are. Usually composers are right on time and listeners lag behind a bit. Or several bits. The lag was pretty short in the 18th century, got longer and longer in the nineteenth, got ridicuously long in the twentieth century except for the new phenomenon of a counter current. That counter current attempted to continue to say new things, twentieth century things, but with the vocabulary and sound world of the past. By now, at least among posters to internet forums, the desire to say something new has much diminished. Say something old, something familiar, something that can be understood, like the music of the past. It's not only listeners saying this any more, it's composers as well. Some. Many. Not, Gott sei dank, all.


Well then, it's tough business that we are in, aren't we? ("We" meaning composers active today, and listeners). The reality is classical music's relevance has been outcompeted by popular music and other musical entertainments with the general population (who generally listens to tonal music). It might well be classical music's course of history from Monteverdi to Boulez today that composers are out of touch with mainstream folks. I don't however, and unfortunately, see that reversing in my lifetime. In fact, what is actually very striking (and unlike you, it does not really bother me even though I generally prefer to listen to 20th century music), is that classical music listeners are actually increasingly re-discovering much older music - Renaissance, Baroque and Classical (one only needs to look at the volume of such repertoire record lables are preparing/have recorded compared with even say only a few decades ago). It's not just the nine Beethoven symphonies and thirty odd piano sonatas, but it's every two hundred plus Bach cantatas, every forty Verdi operas, every five hundred plus Scarlatti sonatas, every one hundred plus Haydn symphonies that folks want and are re-discovering for the first time in our current times that have begun only two/three decades ago with the boom of performance and recording industry, with technology working complimentarily. I don't deny the enormous challenges active composers have, with one hundred of Haydn's symphonies or even with John Adams' operas today. Tonal music is alive today - the old and the new, where the new largely is of popular music / musical entertainments but to deny it is not being alive to music that is relevant here and now.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> For in practice, composers who rely on tonality are simply turning away from the present to attempt to reproduce a more palatable past. For most "neo" composers, that past is the late nineteenth century. If twentieth century practices are referred to, they are from the neo-tonalists of the early decades, not from any of the avant garde.... In the twenty-first century, the trends and practices of the last decades of the twentieth century are largely ignored. Unknown and unlamented.
> 
> It is unprecedented in music history that composers are as out of touch with current practices as listeners are. ...Say something old, something familiar, something that can be understood, like the music of the past. It's not only listeners saying this any more, it's composers as well. Some. Many. Not, Gott sei dank, all.


Composers of the past were always "of their time" in that they wrote new music. You are suggesting that some contemporary composers, for essentially the first time, now are reaching back to earlier periods in composing their "new" music. They are "out of touch with current practices".

What has caused this change? I'm not just asking _some guy_, I'm asking this question for anyone. Obviously conditions during the past 10, or even 30, years are enormously different than before given the computer and internet. I do think technology starting in the 20th century (but certainly other causes as well) allowed for an accelerated rate of change in musical composition. There does appear to be an explosion of new avenues for classical musical expression.

Do some composers feel more comfortable re-exploring some ideas started back in the early 20th century? Do some feel the rate of change was too fast so they need to slow it down? Do they feel that the lag between listeners and composers is simply too large now?


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## Sid James

I would add that I can understand some guy's frustration at the current not so rosy outlook for contemporary classical music of the more challenging, esoteric or 'highbrow' kinds. I'm not trolling or being rude here I'm just putting it straight. I also like these types of music on ocassion (but not the noise music genre, that's probably my limit) and I have some cd's of it and do go to performances of it on an ad hoc basis. 

But my point is this - the best thing people can do to listen to this music, connect with others who like it and support it financially is to go along to a gig of this type of music. If you live in a major city, its not hard to do. Music schools especially have stuff on like this, sometimes involving the students/faculty, sometimes involving outside professional musicians in their own right or guests of the uni. If you're in a larger town these things might be more sporadic but you still might have some stuff like this happening if you look hard enough. In small towns its hard without travelling.

But the saying think global act local applies here. Support new music in your area. 

& it can be also going to concerts where they play the more 'straight' new music as part of mainstream concerts. That's mostly what I do nowadays & even there you get a good spread of new stuff, as long as you don't go to groups that just do straight warhorses. Shop around guys, put your money where your mouth is, all that stuff.


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> Support new music in your area.
> 
> Shop around guys, put your money where your mouth is, all that stuff.


What the flip makes you think we're not already doing just this?

I do believe you have outdone yourself in the insult department there. Great job.

(I personally have spent over a quarter million USD in the past six years in promoting, supporting, and encouraging new music, in my "area" as well as in some other areas. May you personally choke on your great advice.)


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> What the flip makes you think we're not already doing just this?
> 
> I do believe you have outdone yourself in the insult department there. Great job.
> 
> (I personally have spent over a quarter million USD in the past six years in promoting, supporting, and encouraging new music, in my "area" as well as in some other areas. May you personally choke on your great advice.)


Its not advice to you some guy, but others on this forum, especially those relatively newcomers to classical music, esp. modern/contemporary musics.

I was not meaning to insult you, I was just saying what I think. People don't have to take my advice, in any case, people might not have the luxury to go to new music events. So to some, the whole issue is purely 'academic,' just about arguing online about these abstract concepts. Well I'm saying it isn't to me, or not entirely.

As I said, I can understand how you, me or anyone else gets emotional about the music we love. But we are spread out across the globe. What can we do to make a difference other than to do things, actually do them, not just say things?

I go out of my way to validate a person's POV and I get this. Great, just great.


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## PetrB

Ladies, Gentlemen and Tenors (and making it I hope beyond plain this is not in addressing just one or two persons):

Perhaps there should be another 'requirement' as qualification to join such a forum as 'TC' -- that somewhere in the delineated set of expectations of 'how one behaves' is that one tries to avoid an 'All about me.' POV.

Good idea, anyone?????


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> I go out of my way to validate a person's POV and I get this. Great, just great.


Apology accepted.


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## Sid James

..................

Deleted reply to PetrB. Let's just have peace now.


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## clavichorder

some guy said:


> Some posters here at TC would have us believe that the choices for composers in 2013 are limitless. In actual fact, they are severely restricted to a few safe patterns familiar to any composer in 1930. (I recently heard Ades' _Asyla._ It's a fairly vigorous piece, full of bright colors and pulsating rhythms, but nothing much if at all from any later than 1926. There is nothing in it that Stravinsky or Ravel or Varese would have found at all unfamiliar. (Berlioz' _Symphonie fantastique,_ on the other hand, contained quite a lot that Beethoven would have found unfamiliar, I dare say.)


The times we are in are more dramatically different than any in history, it is unprecedented. So many people. So much media and such easy information. The past is so accessible.

I have yet to read your whole post, and will read it but not respond likely(there are posters who will have more useful things to say). But the thought occurred to me based on MillionRainbows' finely thought out post, that the distinction between fine are and entertainment might be worth re exploring. 2 parts to discussing that in this post:
I understand from listening and being somewhat familiar with genres and styles, that Ades fits a certain style that can be easily categorized and sold as classical and be promoted(thanks to its relative quality and acceptable style) "to the top" of the less meaningful genre of today that is modern classical(in its stricter sense). Being somewhat polystylistic helps a lot(which Ades seems to be), and having some sort of new spin on post minimalism(which Ades can do), to gain credence these days. Or taking it further, to make sound experiments/collages that do not deal in pitches as you would have it, or to not deal in strict notation and take an improvisational route.
Second part: back to MillionRainbow's point that I hopefully got right. Art and entertainment, many people will say that the boundaries are very fluid these days, and really, always have been to an extent. So, the whole film score thing is worth thinking about, but also popular music(very occasionally these days), and more specific branches of it(Rock, Jazz, R&B, and just good songs). Also, I kind of think that the romantic artist has less opportunity these days, which is kind of sad, but maybe somewhat true. Modern classical composers often seem to be an extension of that, with their focus on traditional performance, instruments, or just a body of works they like to call opus's or something similar and can all be easily linked to unique composer fingerprint. In a way, consciously clinging on to an aspiration like that, is unhealthy, at least for me I've found that. I agree that composers should write what they will write. If they are bent on being a 100% bonafide "true artist," then they'll have to rely on their luck and pursue their vision at potentially great costs to other areas of their life, or else they won't make much money or be much appreciated now or ever. On the other hand, they don't have to be bent on that, and they might still achieve it in the end or something just as good or better, and that's probably healthier.


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## clavichorder

Perhaps Rapide's post is a good way to move with this thread. It is really hard to be a composer, or even just a promoter of current classical music. It can be both a brave thing and a self indulgent thing to be so committed. Its hard even if you take on a more flexible and less style or genre boundary based approach, and sometimes more difficult. 

I doubt whether being so entrenched in it is worth it to my sanity and many other younger composers do too, so that's maybe a part of the reason an attitude of greater freedom has developed, apart from the fact that emotional music loving people really just get easily hooked on Beethoven, Mozart, Prokofiev, ect. Those who can be deeply into the most up to date modernist music and even write it, power to them, but it doesn't necessarily make them superior in discernment or give them the right to discredit tonal music and people who want to write it(CP, dated, or otherwise). What you have helped me with some guy, is convincing me and some others that I should not berate modernism and like I said in an earlier post, you even indirectly reminded me that I used to even be very open about it.


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> Apology accepted.


Got no clue what you mean.

But for what its worth, this will be the last time I foray into a thread of yours.


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## neoshredder

Sid James said:


> Got no clue what you mean.
> 
> But for what its worth, this will be the last time I foray into a thread of yours.


Yeah I understand what you mean. Very easy to take the bait though.


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## stanchinsky

Isn't it true that whether or not a composer chooses to compose tonally/atonally he will still be composing in a manner which has already been done?


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## Guest

Good question. You gotta answer yourself? (Ima wee bit tired of covering the same ground over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....)

((For the record, I typed each word. No cut and paste. I do have some integrity.)


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## Rapide

stanchinsky said:


> Isn't it true that whether or not a composer chooses to compose tonally/atonally he will still be composing in a manner which has already been done?


Whether composers do or don't is one thing. But it seems some listeners can be be extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely bothered by it.

((For the record, I typed each word. No cut and paste. I do have some integrity. :lol:  ))


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## Wandering

^ How awesome, sometimes this forum and threads like this here have the magical ability to teleport us all even deeper into Magister Ludi la la land.


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## millionrainbows

stanchinsky said:


> Isn't it true that whether or not a composer chooses to compose tonally/atonally he will still be composing in a manner which has already been done?


There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, and exciting new books are still being written.


----------



## Guest

Letters are not equivalent to notes, howsomever. Nor are words. (I'm taking what you said as saying that exciting new music can still be written with the twelve notes we have. And that may be true. I'm just addressing the equivalence idea behind the book comment.)

Exciting new books are being written with those 26 letters, true. But there are no exciting new Elizabethan plays being written. (For one, it's not the Elizabethan era.) There are no exciting new 18th century novels being written. (It's no longer the 18th century.)

I think that might be the most fallacious thing about the desire for composers to produce neo- musics (if not about the pieces themselves)--it assumes that eras do not have identities. That Elizabethan plays, for instance, did not come out of a rich, complex milieu of social, political, religious, philosophical assumptions that we no longer share, so that anything we did today to produce an Elizabethan play would be no more than empty pastiche.

Same with Romanticism. The kinds of things that went into Romantic compositions, the milieu in which each individual composer took a significant chunk of his (usually his back then) identity, are not the kinds of things that make up the milieu of the 21st century. Any attempt to recreate the sounds of the Romantic era in a 21st century piece wouldn't even be able to do that. There are certain characteristic sounds and patterns of the 19th century that of course can be mimicked. Just as there are of any prior age. Once something is recognizable, it can be imitated. But the "great masterworks" of the Romantic era were not produced by people wanting to capture, nostalgically, the familiar sounds of a previous era. They were produced by people wanting to push beyond the boundaries set in previous eras. To boldly go, et cetera. 

If there's any 20th century equivalent to the Romantic spirit (i.e., whatever transcends, ideologically, the characteristic shapes and sounds), it would be experimental music: Cage, Fluxus, Tudor, Ferrari, and so forth.

Neo-romantic, in short, is neither neo nor Romantic. It just recycles familiar sounds.


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## ArtMusic

I don't really agree with your analogy. That's because new books are still written in a way that readers can understand even though it might be set in contemporary times or not, like Harry Potter books which is a fantasy theme. But readers can still identify themselves with and in the story lines about say love, frienship, good vs. bad, power struggle and so forth. But with music that cannot be true. I haven't listened to too much experimental music that I would not expect people to identify what most are looking for in music - whatever that is - they do not find it in experimental music but they do find what they are looking for in other types of music (I'm talking about the population in general) and many classical music listeners do too. So I would not "blame" people to want tonality if it communicates with them in ways that they want. I talking about the population in general not the minority of listeners who might like the experimental stuff. 

Who are your favourite experimental composers anyway?


----------



## stanchinsky

some guy said:


> I think that might be the most fallacious thing about the desire for composers to produce neo- musics (if not about the pieces themselves)--it assumes that eras do not have identities. That Elizabethan plays, for instance, did not come out of a rich, complex milieu of social, political, religious, philosophical assumptions that we no longer share, so that anything we did today to produce an Elizabethan play would be no more than empty pastiche.


I couldn't agree with this more, but I often wonder what are the characteristics of the musical era we live in now? I don't really see anything really unifying about it but then again I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject.


----------



## Mahlerian

stanchinsky said:


> I couldn't agree with this more, but I often wonder what are the characteristics of the musical era we live in now? I don't really see anything really unifying about it but then again I'm not very knowledgeable on the subject.


Eclecticism. That seems to be the overall postmodern theme. Using things taken from varying disparate sources seems to be the unifying factor between contemporary composers, whether they write using a neotonal language or an atonal one.


----------



## arpeggio

*Object of OP*

It appears to me that some are misinterpreting 'some guys' objective in the original post.

I have had some experience in working with commissions. As I have stated in another post our community band commissioned two works over the past few years: http://www.talkclassical.com/23100-do-composers-have-any-3.html#post399371

The two works were:

Mark Camphouse: _Foundation_
Travis J. Cross: _And the grass sings in the meadows_ (Note: Travis stated he came up with the title after he finished the piece. It is a line from a poem by Robert Lewis Stevenson.)(Note: Travis is the band director at Virginia Tech. I found a recording of Travis conducting the work with the VT Wind Ensemble:

__
https://soundcloud.com/travisjcross%2Fand-the-grass-sings-in-the

Based on my limited experiences, it seems that composers rarely have the freedom to compose whatever they want to do. There are many conditions spelled out in a commission. For Example John Williams was commissioned to compose a piece in the style of Copeland for Yo Yo Ma on cello, Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet for the 2009 inauguration. It turns out the President is a big fan of Copeland.

I discussed this with Mark. He stated that if a composer is unhappy with the requirments of commission, he can always turn it down.

We were familiar with musical styles of Camphouse and Cross and we received what we expected.

How many composers are commissioned to compose tonal works? I really do not know. Should I go to the Music Division of the Library of Congress and spend a few weeks researching the answer to that question? Nah. Life is to short.

It seems that 'some guy' is asking that if most composers are required to compose tonal music, would it have a negative effect on the future of classical music? I do not think so but again I really do not know.


----------



## Mahlerian

arpeggio said:


> It appears to me that some are misinterpreting 'some guys' objective in the original post.
> 
> I have had some experience in working with commissions. As I have stated in another post our community band commissioned two works over the past few years: http://www.talkclassical.com/23100-do-composers-have-any-3.html#post399371
> 
> The two works were:
> 
> Mark Camphouse: _Foundation_
> Travis J. Cross: _And the grass sings in the meadows_ (Note: Travis stated he came up with the title after he finished the piece. It is a line from a poem by Robert Lewis Stevenson.)(Note: Travis is the band director at Virginia Tech. I found a recording of Travis conducting the work with the VT Wind Ensemble:
> 
> __
> https://soundcloud.com/travisjcross%2Fand-the-grass-sings-in-the
> 
> Based on my limited experiences, it seems that composers rarely have the freedom to compose whatever they want to do. There are many conditions spelled out in a commission. For Example John Williams was commissioned to compose a piece in the style of Copeland for Yo Yo Ma on cello, Itzhak Perlman on violin, Gabriela Montero on piano and Anthony McGill on clarinet for the 2009 inauguration. It turns out the President is a big fan of Copeland.
> 
> I discussed this with Mark. He stated that if a composer is unhappy with the requirments of commission, he can always turn it down.
> 
> We were familiar with musical styles of Camphouse and Cross and we received what we expected.
> 
> How many composers are commissioned to compose tonal works? I really do not know. Should I go to the Music Division of the Library of Congress and spend of few weeks researching the answer to that question? Nah. Life is to short.
> 
> It seems that 'some guy' is asking that if most composers are required to compose tonal music, would it have a negative effect on the future of classical music? I do not think so but again I really do not know.


Given that John Williams is accustomed to writing in the style of Copland whenever he does a movie score relating to America, I'm sure that he didn't see that part of the commission as a problem.

When given a commission to write a piece that would be "popular", Stravinsky went out of his way to reinterpret this to fit something he wanted to do anyway, and wrote the Symphony of Psalms. The piece was successful on his own terms.

When given a commission for the opening of the Lincoln Center, Copland composed Connotations, a relatively thorny (for Copland) 12-tone work that shocked the gala audience. The piece continues to be obscure.

My guess is that composers are usually expected to write in the style people know them for, and it is expected, unless the composer in question has a lot of pull, like a Stravinsky or a Copland, that they will follow whatever guidelines are given. I don't think that an orchestra would commission Boulez or Wuorinen without knowing what kind of music they wanted, and the same goes for Adams or Ades.


----------



## Wandering

Even avant-garde composer do from time to time wish writing things which are more immediately accessible to audiences. Stockhausen's Michael's Reise has a simple number counting with a primal rhythm accompaniment, he was particularly obsessed with that part of the composition.

I'd always thought it'd be something that'd interest scholars, particularly scholars of certain periods or composers, that they'd enjoy composing music written with past composers styles of composition, no cliché originality required. This is along the lines of what arpeggio and Mahlerian were saying.

We've been beating a dead horse, and I've made a vicious fool of myself on more than one occasion. I cannot argue against a great deal of music in which I'm unawares or haven't near full understanding. 

Yes, a fair point on writers, not everything became Finnegan's Wake thereafter, matter of fact the majority of literature did not. All good points.


----------



## millionrainbows

millionrainbows said:


> There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, and exciting new books are still being written.





some guy said:


> Letters are not equivalent to notes, howsomever. Nor are words.


What is the underlying principle in my metaphor?


----------



## millionrainbows

millionrainbows said:


> There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, and exciting new books are still being written.





ArtMusic said:


> I don't really agree with your analogy.


What is the underlying principle in my analogy?



ArtMusic said:


> Who are your favourite experimental composers anyway?


Michael Nyman wrote a book of the same name.

If by "experimental" you mean music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable, then John Cage would top the list.

The term "experimental" has also been applied to electronic music, and to musique concréte. My favourites in this area are Stockhausen, Maderna, Henri Pousseur, Berio, Nono, Varése, and others.

My definition of "experimental" includes improvisation, so this would include Terry Riley.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> There's only 26 letters in the alphabet, and exciting new books are still being written.


I'm not sure I understand your analogy. Would you mind elaborating?


----------



## Guest

science said:


> As Dr. Agathon Carver (I believe it was) once said, "List, oh, list!"


Weren't those words in the first scene of "Hamlet", when the ghost arrives?


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> Letters are not equivalent to notes, howsomever. Nor are words. (I'm taking what you said as saying that exciting new music can still be written with the twelve notes we have. And that may be true. I'm just addressing the equivalence idea behind the book comment.)
> 
> Exciting new books are being written with those 26 letters, true. But there are no exciting new Elizabethan plays being written. (For one, it's not the Elizabethan era.) There are no exciting new 18th century novels being written. (It's no longer the 18th century.)
> 
> I think that might be the most fallacious thing about the desire for composers to produce neo- musics (if not about the pieces themselves)--it assumes that eras do not have identities. That Elizabethan plays, for instance, did not come out of a rich, complex milieu of social, political, religious, philosophical assumptions that we no longer share, so that anything we did today to produce an Elizabethan play would be no more than empty pastiche.
> 
> Same with Romanticism. The kinds of things that went into Romantic compositions, the milieu in which each individual composer took a significant chunk of his (usually his back then) identity, are not the kinds of things that make up the milieu of the 21st century. Any attempt to recreate the sounds of the Romantic era in a 21st century piece wouldn't even be able to do that. There are certain characteristic sounds and patterns of the 19th century that of course can be mimicked. Just as there are of any prior age. Once something is recognizable, it can be imitated. But the "great masterworks" of the Romantic era were not produced by people wanting to capture, nostalgically, the familiar sounds of a previous era. They were produced by people wanting to push beyond the boundaries set in previous eras. To boldly go, et cetera.
> 
> If there's any 20th century equivalent to the Romantic spirit (i.e., whatever transcends, ideologically, the characteristic shapes and sounds), it would be experimental music: Cage, Fluxus, Tudor, Ferrari, and so forth.
> 
> Neo-romantic, in short, is neither neo nor Romantic. It just recycles familiar sounds.


You show a disturbing tendency to rubbish the past, simply because you have an agenda. We do produce Elizabethan plays and often. I think the word you meant was "Reproduce". And those values which you ascribe to the "Elizabethans" - many of them we still have: love, honour, corruption, jealousy, revenge, ambition, betrayal. Because we do not think in terms of an "Elizabethan World Order" - god/the king/the peasant - doesn't mean that those timeless values are not relevant. And this is precisely WHY Shakespeare is still relevant, as is Euripides and Aristophanes.

And the points made about the 26 letters of the alphabet as the continued building blocks of an ever-changing and remarkable language system is an extremely perceptive and pertinent analogy. The trouble for a lot of music lovers is that contemporary 'composers' want to 'trash' what is valued about the past: 'Oh, I'm going to throw out this old bathwater and I expect you to LIKE it'. Don't treat people like fools: they know you can fool some, some of the time - but not all, all of the time!!

Also, there was more to pre-serial music than simply tonality. There was, inter alia, the sequence, motivic development and thematic transformation. Your simplistic ideas about musical structure are curious. Sure the 'drama' inherent in the search for 'resolution' of dissonance was a feature of 'classical' music - but music existed during the modal period too and was strikingly wonderful.

Tonality contained within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Liszt and Wagner did a good enough job to show us its entropic qualities. There was no need for anybody to come along and say "Oh, it's noon on the 19th October, 1900 - time to throw out that tired old tonality". Schoenberg pushed the envelope too far and that's why it's taken so long to play 'catch up'.

"Empty pastiche"??!! Entirely subjective and full of condescension.

Excellent composition and music will endure and thrive - as long as it is 'excellent' and musical.


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## BurningDesire

Yeah some guy, I don't appreciate the empty pastiche comment. Especially when one could use it to describe anything for which we can see a precedent. I could call anything in the vein of Cage and the Fluxus movement, any of that experimental music/performance art, that is produced now empty pastiche. If newer composers were really imaginative they wouldn't need to copy artists from over 50 years ago, right? Same with modern composers using sets and series. That stuff is almost a hundred years old. Hey, music's been composed using intentional and unintentional sounds... its all been done before. Therefore all new music is pastiche, right?


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## Rapide

When I was teaching music to a class of about ten students once (most were about thirteen to fifteen years old), there was one kid who always thought how cool he was because he listened to the loudest and most extreme forms of metal music and it pretty much annoyed most other students in the class who did not enjoy the metal music he loved. When one other student asked him why he was always raving on about the metal music (and only that ype of metal music, by the way), he simply said (or thereof) "this music rocks and it's NEW, and everything else sucks because it's so old".


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## BurningDesire

Rapide said:


> When I was teaching music to a class of about ten students once (most were about thirteen to fifteen years old), there was one kid who always thought how cool he was because he listened to the loudest and most extreme forms of metal music and it pretty much annoyed most other students in the class who did not enjoy the metal music he loved. When one other student asked him why he was always raving on about the metal music (and only that ype of metal music, by the way), he simply said (or thereof) "this music rocks and it's NEW, and everything else sucks because it's so old".


And typecasting people who like or try to promote or make new things in music is just as foolish Rapide.


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## mmsbls

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> The trouble for a lot of music lovers is that contemporary 'composers' want to 'trash' what is valued about the past: 'Oh, I'm going to throw out this old bathwater and I expect you to LIKE it'. Don't treat people like fools: they know you can fool some, some of the time - but not all, all of the time!!


I do greatly value music of the past, and I assume I will continue to love and listen to much Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music. That music will forever remain beautiful for me.

But I have a question about the passage above. When you say contemporary composers want to "trash what is valued about the past" and expect classical listeners to like their new music, I assume you are referring to today's contemporary composers. Baroque composers enormously changed music of the Renaissance and Classical composers made large changes to the music of the Baroque. Do you think those composers wanted to "trash" what was valued before them? Obviously they wanted to change music, but did they want to "trash" it? And if they did _not_ want to "trash" it, why do you feel that today's composers _do_ want to "trash" older music?

I believe that modern music has seen more continued change than ever before. I also think there may be a larger disconnect (some have used the term "lag") between modern composers and their audience than ever before. But do you truly believe that modern era composers really had a different view about music of the past than earlier composers? Aren't they just writing what they feel is new and interesting just as composers of the past did?


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## Guest

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> You show a disturbing tendency to rubbish the past,


How is someguy rubbishing the past by acknowledging that what was produced in the past was a product of a context that is not the same context as the present?


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I do greatly value music of the past, and I assume I will continue to love and listen to much Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music. That music will forever remain beautiful for me.
> 
> But I have a question about the passage above. When you say contemporary composers want to "trash what is valued about the past" and expect classical listeners to like their new music, I assume you are referring to today's contemporary composers. Baroque composers enormously changed music of the Renaissance and Classical composers made large changes to the music of the Baroque. Do you think those composers wanted to "trash" what was valued before them? Obviously they wanted to change music, but did they want to "trash" it? And if they did _not_ want to "trash" it, why do you feel that today's composers _do_ want to "trash" older music?
> 
> I believe that modern music has seen more continued change than ever before. I also think there may be a larger disconnect (some have used the term "lag") between modern composers and their audience than ever before. But do you truly believe that modern era composers really had a different view about music of the past than earlier composers? Aren't they just writing what they feel is new and interesting just as composers of the past did?


These are very fair comments and I'd like to address them. Firstly, people like Cage and Boulez ("we should burn down the opera houses") have deliberately steered a provocative course - these are designed to garner (cheap IMO) attention but what do they offer in return? Cage was essentially a Philosopher who wrote some early music using tones and scales. He wanted to provoke people into thinking about music and the experience of listening to it. All well and good so far. But if we want a lecture or new experience we can go to a university or read a textbook or 'invent' new sounds ourselves (and I use that word "invention" purposely). There are many FINE modern composers and I have CDs of their music - Ligeti principally. But I eschew noise where it is intended to be a new musical experience as I believe noise is a cinematic concept, not a 'concert venue' one.

The antagonists, like someguy, who constantly beat the drum - yet never discuss anything else apart from contemporary sound - only alienate people by setting up an "us" and "them" dichotomy. In the past music changed with each new composer and period - but these still wrote notes on a page which can be played with acoustic instruments and in a 'language' we can all understand. And music is still essentially a communal experience involving the intellect and emotion. (I have little time for the naval gazing, computer-addicted academic, bearded and solipsistic, who wants to re-invest the wheel with noise!! Yes, it's a stereotype, but I think you know what I'm driving at.)

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply. My intention in making these comments is entirely serious.


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## Guest

MacLeod, take another look at what someguy has written.


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## Guest

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Have another look at what he's written.


Was this addressed to me, and my question of you?

If so, I have had several looks at what he's written. I can't see what you see. Can you point to the part where he 'rubbishes', rather than just quoting the whole post?

Thanks.


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## Guest

I see you are online now. Let's start with "pastiche". Who says so? 

Are you seriously questioning my post or are you a 'someguy' acolyte, proselytizing for the same position? In other words, can you be OBJECTIVE?

(It is dinner time here so I'll come back to this later.)


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## Guest

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Let's start with "pastiche". Who says so?


How is it 'rubbishing the past' to say that any attempt NOW to write an Elizabethan play would be empty pastiche?



CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Are you seriously questioning my post or are you a 'someguy' acolyte, proselytizing for the same position? In other words, can you be OBJECTIVE?


I'm no-one's acolyte. I'm asking you questions about the words you wrote, not about who you are and whether I should presume that you're already closed-minded. Perhaps you'd do the courtesy of treating my posts and me with the same respect.


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## Rapide

I wonder what has or will this thread really achieve. Will the majority of TC members suddenly switch on to force themselves to sit throught hours of avant-garde music? Lobby the local arts group to get composers to stop writing tonal music? Go and attend only avant-garde concerts? Most folks are probably quite open listeners and are quite willing to explore but I don't think threads like this really adds anything positive for the cause of modernism. If anything, it annoys most as is evident by the responces; the majority of responces, in this thread. Such ashame.


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## neoshredder

Yeah this thread makes me desire tonality more. Time for some Mozart.


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## KenOC

For what it's worth: A couple of hours ago I was playing with the computer while my wife was in the living room listening to our local classical station. She is a conservative CM fan with a special taste for Beethoven and Shostakovich. Then they played, a real rarity, a 12-tone work -- Copland's Piano Quartet. After about a minute, she turned off the FM and switched on the TV without comment.

For an FM station, causing somebody to change the station is, along with dead air, theworst of sins.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> For what it's worth: A couple of hours ago I was playing with the computer while my wife was in the living room listening to our local classical station. She is a conservative CM fan with a special taste for Beethoven and Shostakovich. Then they played, a real rarity, a 12-tone work -- Copland's Piano Quartet. After about a minute, she turned off the FM and switched on the TV without comment.
> 
> For an FM station, causing somebody to change the station is, along with dead air, theworst of sins.


Yeah, how dare they play a gorgeous, captivating piece of music.


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> Yeah, how dare they play a gorgeous, captivating piece of music.


Be snarky if you like. I'm just describing something that I observed, a fact. You can draw whatever conclusions you want.


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> I wonder what has or will this thread really achieve.


No more, no less than many other threads in this forum. If people want to take 11 pages to discuss this theme with someguy and each other, presumably, it maintains a debate that people are willing to have. To the extent that this is the prime purpose of Talk Classical, it achieves what it sets out to achieve.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> For what it's worth: A couple of hours ago I was playing with the computer while my wife was in the living room listening to our local classical station. She is a conservative CM fan with a special taste for Beethoven and Shostakovich. Then they played, a real rarity, a 12-tone work -- Copland's Piano Quartet. After about a minute, she turned off the FM and switched on the TV without comment.
> 
> For an FM station, causing somebody to change the station is, along with dead air, theworst of sins.


FWIW, my wife came into the room while I was listening to the piece posted by BD in another thread...



BurningDesire said:


> Charles Ives Piano Sonata No. 2
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> one of the best things in the entire literature.


"That's horrible. I thought you might need help with that."

What is goes to show, if anything, is that some of us have partners who have different musical tastes, or at least, an unwillingness to consider listening to the unfamiliar.


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## Guest

Someguy has written a couple of pages ago that he's sick of going over the same thing - over and over and over. Boy, so are we!!

MacLeod, this is what someguy wrote which really annoyed me: patronizing as usual.

_We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same_.

He thinks people who compose tonal music today are actually writing 18th century music - back to the future - all of which has been done before. Try telling Vaughan-Williams that!! His "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is one of the most exquisite pieces of music in 900 years of the Western Classical Tradition. As is Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances" - both of these works existing side-by-side with Webern and others. I love Bartok's approach: tonal/atonal and percussive. (Of course, the 3rd piano concerto is a bit of a 'pastiche' IMO). Though these composers wrote over a half century ago I'm sure there were critics like someguy who called it 'regurgitating the past'.

There's that word 'pastiche' again. I'll bet there IS a writer around today who could write an Elizabethan play and have it modern and relevant and not be pastiche. But that would require a special kind of ingenuity and thinking outside the square.


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## Guest

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Someguy has written a couple of pages ago that he's sick of going over the same thing - over and over and over. Boy, so are we!!
> 
> MacLeod, this is what someguy wrote which really annoyed me: patronizing as usual.
> 
> _We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same_.
> 
> He thinks people who compose tonal music today are actually writing 18th century music - back to the future - all of which has been done before. Try telling Vaughan-Williams that!! His "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is one of the most exquisite pieces of music in 900 years of the Western Classical Tradition. As is Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances" - both of these works existing side-by-side with Webern and others. I love Bartok's approach: tonal/atonal and percussive. (Of course, the 3rd piano concerto is a bit of a 'pastiche' IMO). Though these composers wrote over a half century ago I'm sure there were critics like someguy who called it 'regurgitating the past'.
> 
> There's that word 'pastiche' again. I'll bet there IS a writer around today who could write an Elizabethan play and have it modern and relevant and not be pastiche. But that would require a special kind of ingenuity and thinking outside the square.


So, you still prefer to make your own unfounded assertions than actually cite, from someguy's OP, any evidence that he objects to music from the past.

Where's that word 'pastiche' _again_? Even if you can find it more than once, so what? What's wrong with 'pastiche'?


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> No more, no less than many other threads in this forum. If people want to take 11 pages to discuss this theme with someguy and each other, presumably, it maintains a debate that people are willing to have. To the extent that this is the prime purpose of Talk Classical, it achieves what it sets out to achieve.


Which is the "prime purpose"? The debates that achieve "no more, no less"? That's kinda sad, isn't it then? Have debates that don't achieve much? Is that your perception? Interesting.

The best threads are actually the likes of Current Listening / Latest Purchase types because they actually show what listeners have allocated listening efforts to (including perhaps money required to acquire the dowloads, music). These have promoted the music and the artists.


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> Which is the "prime purpose"? The debates that achieve "no more, no less"? That's kinda sad, isn't it then? Have debates that don't achieve much? Is that your perception? Interesting.


You misread and misinterpret me. Go back to the post you quote.



MacLeod said:


> No more, no less than many other threads in this forum. If people want to take 11 pages to discuss this theme with someguy and each other, presumably, it maintains a debate that people are willing to have. To the extent that this is the prime purpose of Talk Classical, it achieves what it sets out to achieve.


In other words, the prime purpose of Talk Classical (IMO) is to offer a forum for the things that people are willing to debate (eg, the thread launched by someguy that has now lasted for more than 12 pages; note that only a handful of posts are by the OP himself).



Rapide said:


> The best threads are actually the likes of Current Listening / Latest Purchase types because they actually show what listeners have allocated listening efforts to (including perhaps money required to acquire the dowloads, music). These have promoted the music and the artists.


I disagree. Few of those posts provoke discussion, and promoting the purchase of music is not, SFAIAC, one of the prime purposes of TC. But of course, that's only my opinion!


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> You misread and misinterpret me. Go back to the post you quote.


No thanks. I was very clear.



MacLeod said:


> In other words, the prime purpose of Talk Classical (IMO) is to offer a forum for the things that people are willing to debate (eg, the thread launched by someguy that has now lasted for more than 12 pages; note that only a handful of posts are by the OP himself).


Debate by all means, but I still don't think it really achieves anything in the long run beyond the time when the thread dies off, despite having a dozen pages. Current Listening still goes on - people have the urge to share with fellow members what music they have listened to. No waffling.


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## Rapide

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Someguy has written a couple of pages ago that he's sick of going over the same thing - over and over and over. Boy, so are we!!
> 
> MacLeod, this is what someguy wrote which really annoyed me: patronizing as usual.
> 
> _We see a lot of TC composers who want to continue writing tonal music. They are themselves like the listeners who just want more of the same_.
> 
> He thinks people who compose tonal music today are actually writing 18th century music - back to the future - all of which has been done before. Try telling Vaughan-Williams that!! His "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis" is one of the most exquisite pieces of music in 900 years of the Western Classical Tradition. As is Rachmaninov's "Symphonic Dances" - both of these works existing side-by-side with Webern and others. I love Bartok's approach: tonal/atonal and percussive. (Of course, the 3rd piano concerto is a bit of a 'pastiche' IMO). Though these composers wrote over a half century ago I'm sure there were critics like someguy who called it 'regurgitating the past'.
> 
> There's that word 'pastiche' again. I'll bet there IS a writer around today who could write an Elizabethan play and have it modern and relevant and not be pastiche. But that would require a special kind of ingenuity and thinking outside the square.


Agree, and the last part about ingenuity and thinking outside of the square - I bet it doesn't alienate the majority of his/her readership to the extent that experimentalism in modern music does.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> For what it's worth: A couple of hours ago I was playing with the computer while my wife was in the living room listening to our local classical station. She is a conservative CM fan with a special taste for Beethoven and Shostakovich. Then they played, a real rarity, a 12-tone work -- Copland's Piano Quartet. After about a minute, she turned off the FM and switched on the TV without comment. For an FM station, causing somebody to change the station is, along with dead air, the worst of sins.


Oh, so you were doing two different things? How convenient! I'll bet your wife wouldn't walk out on the latest movies that use suspenseful music to create dramatic tension. She's doesn't _really_ like music, does she?


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> No thanks. I was very clear.


I beg to differ. You seem to infer that I said that debates achieve little. That is not what I said. I said that this thread achieves what all such threads achieve than to offer a debate - no more, no less. The fact that you don't want to waffle in a debate seems not to have prevented you from joining in and doing so!


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> I disagree. Few of those posts provoke discussion, and promoting the purchase of music is not, SFAIAC, one of the prime purposes of TC. But of course, that's only my opinion!


My point about music is part of the broader persepctive of acquiring music _to listen_ - whether buying, downloading, borrowing, reading, whatever the means - that those threads encourage folks to acquire/access music to listen.


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## Rapide

MacLeod said:


> I beg to differ. You seem to infer that I said that debates achieve little. That is not what I said. I said that this thread achieves what all such threads achieve than to offer a debate - no more, no less. The fact that you don't want to waffle in a debate seems not to have prevented you from joining in and doing so!


The point I was saying is this thread might well encourage debate, but the debate achieves little to nothing in the long run especially when it dies off, and if anything it fails to promote the cause for modernism. Debate for the sake of debate is futile if it doesn't really achieve anything, does it?

Edit: nevermind what you wrote, or that I may have misread your poorly worded post; my opinion is just summarised above here in this post about this thread as a whole anyway.


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## Guest

Rapide said:


> your poorly worded post


My writing...or your reading?

:tiphat:


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## Rapide

millionrainbows said:


> Oh, so you were doing two different things? How convenient! I'll bet your wife wouldn't walk out on the latest movies that use suspenseful music to create dramatic tension. She's doesn't _really_ like music, does she?


Haha...count yourselves very lucky to have a musical wife/partner!


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## mmsbls

Rapide said:


> The point I was saying is this thread might well encourage debate, but the debate achieves little to nothing in the long run especially when it dies off, and if anything it fails to promote the cause for modernism. Debate for the sake of debate is futile if it doesn't really achieve anything, does it?


Many debates may not achieve much in the long run. Many (probably most) people come with their minds made up and an unwillingness to change. But some people are actually interested in the nature of music, the process of making music, why music sounds the way it does, etc., and some of those people _are_ open to new ideas and the possibility that they are wrong about things.

I personally have changed my thinking about a number of issues since joining the forum. I was exposed to people who had listened much longer than I have and who have thought more or maybe better about certain subjects than I did. I still wonder about a number of questions especially related to modern/contemporary music, but I am _much_ more open to modern music than before. I feel I understand much better why many truly love modern music that I find unpleasant. I understand much better what that music "is about". Those changes in my understanding are primarily a result of reading, responding in, and thinking about threads such as this one.

Obviously not everyone who is interested and open to new ideas will necessarily change when reading these threads, but some may, and therefore, these threads _do not_ necessarily achieve nothing.


----------



## PetrB

Discussion on a forum like this is 'debate' often enough: what enough seem to not realize is that it is a kind of mental sport, where there is no 'winner.' Those out to win end up being the most annoying of posters, imho, because they are more interested in winning, 'having the last word' than actually 'discussing' anything.

There is no referee here to decide the 'winning side' of any discussion, nor is there any set of rules as to what qualifies as 'point for or against.'

What can happen, but rarely shows or is acknowledged, is that someone in the discussion or just reading the thread may, just may, rethink something they thought until a moment ago that they were 'settled upon.' Not a bad result, but no visible points, no visible 'winner.'

Likening it to mental volleyball -- or Ping Pong, then: it is not spiking the ball down to make 'the point' -- 'The Point' is more about keeping the volley going as long as possible.

All the above is moot in questions such as "Is Beethoven a Romantic composer," because there are just too many more than learned and reliable sources which say he is a classical composer, and parse out, non-debate style, 'why.' Posts put up as if that is 'subjective' to 'what people feel about it.' are to me either naive or fatuous: I'm learning -- slowly, granted -- to just stay away from those.


----------



## mmsbls

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> These are very fair comments and I'd like to address them. Firstly, people like Cage and Boulez ("we should burn down the opera houses") have deliberately steered a provocative course - these are designed to garner (cheap IMO) attention but what do they offer in return? Cage was essentially a Philosopher who wrote some early music using tones and scales. He wanted to provoke people into thinking about music and the experience of listening to it. All well and good so far. But if we want a lecture or new experience we can go to a university or read a textbook or 'invent' new sounds ourselves (and I use that word "invention" purposely). There are many FINE modern composers and I have CDs of their music - Ligeti principally. But I eschew noise where it is intended to be a new musical experience as I believe noise is a cinematic concept, not a 'concert venue' one.


I certainly understand your view. I think many people here feel that Boulez was over the top in his criticisms of other composers. I am led to believe that even he felt his early words were perhaps not appropriate. Cage is, without question, an important philosopher when it comes to sound and music. I am not a great fan of his music although some works I do much like.

I think it's interesting that you mention Ligeti as a fine composer. Many people I know would place him in the same category that I feel you place other modern composers. Much of his music breaks sharply with the past. Could you give me a sense of why you feel Ligeti is a fine composer but other modern composers are not? Does it have more to do with their attitude about music, other composers, or listeners, or is it mostly the music they compose?



CountenanceAnglaise said:


> In the past music changed with each new composer and period - but these still wrote notes on a page which can be played with acoustic instruments and in a 'language' we can all understand. And music is still essentially a communal experience involving the intellect and emotion. (I have little time for the naval gazing, computer-addicted academic, bearded and solipsistic, who wants to re-invest the wheel with noise!! Yes, it's a stereotype, but I think you know what I'm driving at.)


Are you primarily opposed (if that's the right word) to composers who do not compose with notes on a staff that can be played with conventional classical instruments? Boulez, for example, did compose this way. Or are there other qualities of modern composition that you feel composers should not pursue?


----------



## Rapide

mmsbls said:


> Many debates may not achieve much in the long run. Many (probably most) people come with their minds made up and an unwillingness to change. But some people are actually interested in the nature of music, the process of making music, why music sounds the way it does, etc., and some of those people _are_ open to new ideas and the possibility that they are wrong about things.
> 
> I personally have changed my thinking about a number of issues since joining the forum. I was exposed to people who had listened much longer than I have and who have thought more or maybe better about certain subjects than I did. I still wonder about a number of questions especially related to modern/contemporary music, but I am _much_ more open to modern music than before. I feel I understand much better why many truly love modern music that I find unpleasant. I understand much better what that music "is about". Those changes in my understanding are primarily a result of reading, responding in, and thinking about threads such as this one.
> 
> Obviously not everyone who is interested and open to new ideas will necessarily change when reading these threads, but some may, and therefore, these threads _do not_ necessarily achieve nothing.


Good for you, and congratulations. I still have doubts about this particular thread, especially given how poorly it has been received by most members (whom you moderate). As one who listens to post 1950 music most of my time, as well as studying it and teaching others, I have always encouraged my students to approach serialism constructively based on objective musical teachings, not based on idealism founded on personal preference. The latter inevitably leads no where, as often is the case whith the OP's threads, and enev a significant number of them get locked down completely. Empirical evidence says it all.


----------



## Rapide

PetrB said:


> Discussion on a forum like this is 'debate' often enough: what enough seem to not realize is that it is a kind of mental sport, where there is no 'winner.' Those out to win end up being the most annoying of posters, imho, because they are more interested in winning, 'having the last word' than actually 'discussing' anything.
> 
> There is no referee here to decide the 'winning side' of any discussion, nor is there any set of rules as to what qualifies as 'point for or against.'
> 
> What can happen, but rarely shows or is acknowledged, is that someone in the discussion or just reading the thread may, just may, rethink something they thought until a moment ago that they were 'settled upon.' Not a bad result, but no visible points, no visible 'winner.'
> 
> Likening it to mental volleyball -- or Ping Pong, then: it is not spiking the ball down to make 'the point' -- 'The Point' is more about keeping the volley going as long as possible.
> 
> All the above is moot in questions such as "Is Beethoven a Romantic composer," because there are just too many more than learned and reliable sources which say he is a classical composer, and parse out, non-debate style, 'why.' Posts put up as if that is 'subjective' to 'what people feel about it.' are to me either naive or fatuous: I'm learning -- slowly, granted -- to just stay away from those.


At least with a competitive sports setting, we have objective referees.....


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I certainly understand your view. I think many people here feel that Boulez was over the top in his criticisms of other composers. I am led to believe that even he felt his early words were perhaps not appropriate. Cage is, without question, an important philosopher when it comes to sound and music. I am not a great fan of his music although some works I do much like.
> 
> I think it's interesting that you mention Ligeti as a fine composer. Many people I know would place him in the same category that I feel you place other modern composers. Much of his music breaks sharply with the past. Could you give me a sense of why you feel Ligeti is a fine composer but other modern composers are not? Does it have more to do with their attitude about music, other composers, or listeners, or is it mostly the music they compose?
> 
> Are you primarily opposed (if that's the right word) to composers who do not compose with notes on a staff that can be played with conventional classical instruments? Boulez, for example, did compose this way. Or are there other qualities of modern composition that you feel composers should not pursue?


Thank you so much for your considered reply. Firstly, I'm only "opposed" to dogma - an attitude and approach which 'chastises' audiences for not keeping up with 'new music'. There has always been 'new music', but the second word in that phrase is key. Sure, audiences didn't consider Beethoven's final string quartets or sonatas as even playable, except for prescient musicians. But all would agree that the music was tonal and was embedded in a familiar language system involving notes, staves and time signatures - primarily tonal (incorporating 'oppositions' and drama in the dissonance/consonance axis, as pointed out in the first post by someguy). People may have said it was 'noise', but we must use this term comparatively and in its context. 19th century audiences had no exposure to cinema and noise, or to the gramophone. So their use of the word 'noise' must be carefully regulated.

I have no problem with composers creating whatever they like, whenever they like. What I find uncomfortable is the notion that these 'compositions' have equal weight and value with what has gone before. Simply on the basis that 90% of what is created by a composer is consigned to the dustbin of history, this idea of equal weight and value sounds like the equivalent position of postmodernism - and I suspect this is the wellspring of that mindset. That and political correctness.

I don't have very much new music; let me make that clear. Ligeti's piano Etudes, Hungarian Rock Chaconne, String Quartet No. 1 and Xenakis "Rebonds". I've heard new music in the concert hall - for example, Brett Deans - and I liked it. I'm not fond of Ligeti's "Atmospheres" but, having listened principally to his keyboard music, there are certain qualities or originality and ingenuity which stood out for me. Same with the Xenakis. I also have the second Piano Sonata of Boulez, which I do not like at all.

I was introduced to Berg, Webern and Ligeti when I was at university 25 years ago and I agree with someguy that 'familiarity' plays a large part in our appreciation and understanding of music. The more we hear it the less alien it becomes, but I must stress that the music must have an obvious sense of being a significant achievement from its composer, and have a high level of ingenuity and originality, for me to take more than a passing interest in it. And musicality, of course.

I don't know what more I can say, except a plea for tolerance from zealots who want to force-fed us 'new music' with a long-handled shovel!


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## Guest

You ask for tolerance, yet you offer your own intolerances...



CountenanceAnglaise said:


> this idea of equal weight and value sounds like the equivalent position of postmodernism - and I suspect this is the wellspring of that mindset. That and political correctness.
> 
> [...] I must stress that the music must have an obvious sense of being a significant achievement from its composer, and have a high level of ingenuity and originality, for me to take more than a passing interest in it. And musicality, of course.


So, whether an idea stands up to its own scrutiny is not as relevant as whether it can be lumped under some meaningless umbrella term and dismissed ("post modernism" and "political correctness" - those twin evils of our modern world). And the only music that will match up to your standards is that which is a 'significant achievement' and is highly 'ingenious' and 'original'.

By whose criteria do you judge what is ingenious, original and a significant achievement?


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## ArtMusic

My grandpa was quite cantankerous. He's dead now.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> You ask for tolerance, yet you offer your own intolerances...
> 
> So, whether an idea stands up to its own scrutiny is not as relevant as whether it can be lumped under some meaningless umbrella term and dismissed ("post modernism" and "political correctness" - those twin evils of our modern world). And the only music that will match up to your standards is that which is a 'significant achievement' and is highly 'ingenious' and 'original'.
> 
> By whose criteria do you judge what is ingenious, original and a significant achievement?


See if you can guess!!

Take the rest of the week off - it's clearly getting you down.


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## juergen

some guy said:


> People who like tonal music have more than plenty to listen to without having to have living composers continue to endlessly regurgitate the past. People who want to keep writing tonal music should consider this: that the tonal musics of the past were not created by people who wanted to keep writing music like their fathers and grandfathers, like their mothers and grandmothers, had done.
> 
> That's a relatively new thing. I don't think it's a particularly healthy new thing, either.


Not healthy? Puuhh. That would of course not be nice if tonal music threatens the health of people.


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## clavichorder

juergen said:


> Not healthy? Puuhh. That would of course not be nice if tonal music threatens the health of people.


You get tumors in the limbic system and temporal lobes of your brain. The time space continuum just can't deal with the existence of freshly conceived yet in any way antiquated music, occurring and being emotionally experienced and how it doesn't match up to the pulse inherent to our era. When you write it down and infect others with it, it only amplifies the carcinogens inherent to this process.


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## Guest

clavichorder said:


> You get tumors in the limbic system and temporal lobes of your brain. The time space continuum just can't deal with the existence of freshly conceived yet in any way antiquated music, occurring and being emotionally experienced and how it doesn't match up to the pulse inherent to our era. When you write it down and infect others with it, it only amplifies the carcinogens inherent to this process.


Well, LOL - I nearly choked on my Corn Flakes: I would have, but it isn't breakfast time yet!!


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## juergen

clavichorder said:


> You get tumors in the limbic system and temporal lobes of your brain. The time space continuum just can't deal with the existence of freshly conceived yet in any way antiquated music, occurring and being emotionally experienced and how it doesn't match up to the pulse inherent to our era. When you write it down and infect others with it, it only amplifies the carcinogens inherent to this process.


Really? I didn't know. Now I realize why Mozart died so young and why Beethoven became deaf.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> The system of tonality was used for several hundred years, and was pretty persistently stretched from era to era, from year to year, from piece to piece. Part of that is inherent in the system. It encourages development, both within a piece and from piece to piece (and era to era). Dissonance is the primary principle. And when, as inevitably happens, a dissonance becomes perceived as consonant, it no longer functions to produce the sense of movement that is tonality's raison d'être.


I think this view does a disservice to both tonalists and non-tonalists, by advocating a very narrow view of what might otherwise pass as "tonality" for many listeners, including the music of Debussy, Stravinsky, Bartók, and Shostakovich. "Dissonance which requires resolution" is the strict realm of CP tonality (similar to "PC" tonality), as well as "movement to and from a "root" or key station.

Lots of Debussy, especially the Preludes, Etudes, and Images, have unresolved chords, and "float freely" with no discernable harmonic goal. How refreshing and un-academic!

What, do you want everybody to go back listening to Haydn only? My ears hunger for more spice!



some guy said:


> By the early 1900s, many prominent composers felt that there were no longer any dissonances that were compelling, that absolutely called out to be resolved, i.e. that needed to move to something else. Any chord could move to any other chord. _*(Like Debussy? -ed.)*_ So composers who felt this way began trying out other ways to decide, as composers, how to get from one thing to the next. Schoenberg's ways are well known (though still imperfectly understood). There were many other ways, including increasingly ways that had nothing to do with managing pitches at all (which is what tonality and serialism both do). And eventually, there were composers that even gave up the whole idea that you had to decide how to get from one thing to the next, that you had to manage anything.


Charles Ives is "ear" music, but it is highly peppered with jarring dissonance. This approach in itself, "dissonance for its own sake," brings into question the theories and excuses made by pro-tonalists that dissonance is somehow the exclusive realm of "non-tonal" and serial music.

Ives wrote dissonant music simply because it sounded good to his ears. As soon as you "get over" this fact, you can really start to enjoy Ives on his own terms.



some guy said:


> But a large number of listeners still like tonal pieces, still like the sense of movement that dissonance creates. Still feel the movement, still think the movement is pleasurable if not important. And there is certainly a lot of it, tonality that is. Quite a lot. But when it could no longer develop along its natural lines, what was left for it to do?


Newsflash: tonality, and the 12-note scale contained the elements which enabled the movement towards greater chromaticism.

Hey, I like tonality! I like Haydn, Corelli, Vivaldi, Purcell, and Mozart! Why does CP tonality have to be "opposed" to unresolved dissonance, as if it "destroyed" tonality? This reminds me of religious-right conservatives who think that religion is their exclusive realm!

You're just a whiner! Go hide in history if you don't like today's weather!


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> What can happen, but rarely shows or is acknowledged, is that someone in the discussion or just reading the thread may, just may, rethink something they thought until a moment ago that they were 'settled upon.' Not a bad result, but no visible points, no visible 'winner.'


But just occasionally, it oils the wheels of courtesy and communication if such things _are _acknowledged. Such as

"Oh, yes, I see what you're saying." Or...
"Ah, my mistake, I misunderstood." Or...
"I get t now...so, you're not a cantankerous old git after all who has nothing better to do than grump all over t'internet trying to make people feel small!"


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## clavichorder

juergen said:


> Really? I didn't know. Now I realize why Mozart died so young and why Beethoven became deaf.


Yeah, being an awesome composer is bad for your health.

Btw, this is not a backhanded insult of our dear departed Elliot Carter. That guy was amazing and he wrote good music, way over intellectual often, but he was a strong musical mind. No my friends, it is a joke. I had my opportunity and I took it.


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## lorelei

Something that could be cool is utilizing both tonality and atonality in music... Something like tonal microtonality could be awesome. I like a bit of both myself, and don't always understand why people so vehemently champion one and really dislike the other. To each their own, I suppose... But I feel it's good to keep an open mind about these things.


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## aleazk

lorelei said:


> Something that could be cool is utilizing both tonality and atonality in music... Something like tonal microtonality could be awesome. I like a bit of both myself, and don't always understand why people so vehemently champion one and really dislike the other. To each their own, I suppose... But I feel it's good to keep an open mind about these things.


Check out then the first section of the first movement of Ligeti's violin concerto. Not exactly tonal, but the use of open strings gives to that part a slight diatonic-modal flavour. The microtonal part comes from the use of scordatura in the string instruments (for example, the E-string of the violin is tuned to the 7th harmonic partial of the contrabass's G-string, which is a "lowered" F or "sharp" E, in microtonal terms I mean, and the rest of the strings of the violin are tuned in perfect fifths with respect to this "sharp" E):


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## millionrainbows

lorelei said:


> Something like tonal microtonality could be awesome.


That could be done. There are other equal temperaments which divide the octave into 19, 21, and 31 notes per octave. In 19-tone, for instance, you would have 19-pitch tone-rows.

Here's what 19-tone ET sounds like, in a composition I created using an Ensoniq ESQ-1, with voltage modulation applied to the keyboard control voltage. This "stretches" the keyboard to make an octave which spans C to G1 (past the octave C1), with 19 notes in the newly created C-G1 octave.

This file will be available for a short time.
http://www.sendspace.com/file/d4jkvv


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## Bone

Interesting. But this begs the question: if tonality is unimportant, why bother using tones at all? Just bang, scrape, or blare any noise you want, combine with other noises, and call it a composition. Ignoring the naturalness of the overtone series which leads to cadence formulas doesn't make it go away.


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## Mahlerian

Bone said:


> Interesting. But this begs the question: if tonality is unimportant, why bother using tones at all? Just bang, scrape, or blare any noise you want, combine with other noises, and call it a composition. Ignoring the naturalness of the overtone series which leads to cadence formulas doesn't make it go away.


But those cadential formulas are not found in much modal music. Does that make folk music and medieval music unnatural? How about Impressionist music? Rock music? Other musics from around the world?

Schoenberg follows traditional cadential formulas far more than any of the above.

While they may be a consequence of the overtone series (which is not strictly followed in equal temperament), those formulas are certainly no more or less natural than any of the methods used by the above.


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## Bone

But I don't believe there is the same sense of push/pull in Impressionistic, 12 tone, medieval, or otherwise non-CP music. While we all search for "the next thing," I believe everything is passing fancy leading us inexorably back to tonality. JMHO, of course. Now if you want to discuss tuning systems, that's a whole different ball game to me - but it still leads back to the tertian harmony system that Western composers arrived at 400 or so years ago.


----------



## clavichorder

Bone said:


> But I don't believe there is the same sense of push/pull in Impressionistic, 12 tone, medieval, or otherwise non-CP music. While we all search for "the next thing," I believe everything is passing fancy leading us inexorably back to tonality. JMHO, of course. Now if you want to discuss tuning systems, that's a whole different ball game to me - but it still leads back to the tertian harmony system that Western composers arrived at 400 or so years ago.


I'm not sure I agree with this. I've read that every primitive culture in the world "discovered" the pentatonic scale. I think there is a basic naturalness to this preference, even though it seems cliche to our ears in its bluntest forms(lots of cheesey pop music made to it).

Impressionism has much in it that is unequal and very exciting. I feel push and pull in Debussy, but it is not always so linear. 12 tone music has sort of a vaguer approach to the same thing tonal music did in my mind. It sort of leaves things up to the imagination, and in that way, it can be very interesting.

There is something to be said for most all music, but I do agree that the music that makes me feel the most passion is tonal. Pentatonic music has greater potential for unhampered feel good vibes in my book, but is far less effective on its own(blue notes and jazz chords will help) in digging deep. Mozart, J Strauss, some other elegant and melodious CP composers do make one feel good, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky bombast can really invigorate, but there is a heavy mask of this tonal music that could be alleviated if it was simple, clean and pentatonic, I imagine. Depth will get lost, true.

Anyway, I'm not sure how accurate people think this is. I'm not trying to debate, just sharing 'where I'm at.'


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## millionrainbows

Bone said:


> Interesting. But this begs the question: if tonality is unimportant, why bother using tones at all? Just bang, scrape, or blare any noise you want, combine with other noises, and call it a composition. *Ignoring the naturalness of the overtone series which leads to cadence formulas doesn't make it go away.*


You're saying this under the mistaken assumption that the overtone series is the exclusive realm of chord function and CP tonality.

As far as dissonance/consonance, *this is firstly a purely acoustic phenomenon, not one which has to be tied to CP tonality by function.* Dissonance and consonance are determined by their relation (or ratio) to each other, or a "reference" note, but that note does not necessarily have to be a "root," it is simply a tonal reference or center, the way the ear naturally gauges dissonance/consonance.

Remember, ratios are relationships, not quantities. To assume a "root" is to assume that "root is 1," and all intervals are fractions in relation to that "1:" 3:4, 4:5, etc.


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## millionrainbows

clavichorder said:


> I'm not sure I agree with this. I've read that every primitive culture in the world "discovered" the pentatonic scale. I think there is a basic naturalness to this preference.


You are on to something here which I agree with. The pentatonics are the first scale one encounters when "stacking fifths," the most prominent overtone, and the one most naturally discovered. If you keep going, you get C-G-D-A-E, which when put back into one octave is C-D-E-G-A, the major pentatonic scale.

The Chinese developed their scale in this way; and so did the Arabs (they didn't stop at 12, but kept stacking until 17 notes were reached).

Also, I think it may have to do with primitive instrument-building. If you have a string, or a hollow pipe, the first logical division (acoustically) is 2:3, which is the fifth.

I still think that "tonal" as in CP tonal function is being confused with "tone center." Any "tone-centric" music, including folk & ethnic musics, has a natural tendency to "push and pull" in relation to its tone center; North Indian raga behaves this way melodically, although it has no chords or functions; it is using consonance/dissonance in relation to the "drone" or root note. This is *acoustic* in nature, not "functional."

Serial music, and Bartok, also create "tone centers," although they may be localized and fleeting. The ear hears these as tensions and releases.

Anyone trying to make the case that "tension/release" or "consonance/dissonance" is the exclusive realm of CP tonality is mistaken. This is the "harmonic music" realm, which includes CP tonality and all tone-centric musics.


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## Guest

millionrainbows (just when a thousand isn't enough!!), the consonance/dissonance and tension/relief discussion related purely to 'classical music' and composers' search for drama in their music as an organic step from the baroque period. As ever, this paradigm describes music looking backwards and was not a 'conscious', if I can put it that way, strategy in terms of 'theory' at the time. We can so easily glance back at the past and apply all sorts of labels and the dissonance/consonance sensibility is an integral part of that happened during the 'classical' period. (This is where I dislike the term 'classical music' as an umbrella, preferring instead the more specific 'kunstmusik'.)

You are absolutely right in your observations about ethnic musics, as I studied some of these for Ethnomusicology - many moons ago. Indian classical music, aka raga - joy!! And the drone: one of the oldest musical devices in ANY culture.

Clavichorder refers to Beethoven's "bombast". Now I really must take issue with that word. Don't put Beethoven in the same category as Tchaikovsky, who was primarily a theatrical composer (and a damn fine one). Beethoven's music isn't ever ever ever 'bombastic' ("inflated; pretentious"). Dramatic, stirring, eloquent, sublime, passionate....ineffable. Sure.


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## Mahlerian

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Clavichorder refers to Beethoven's "bombast". Now I really must take issue with that word. Don't put Beethoven in the same category as Tchaikovsky, who was primarily a theatrical composer (and a damn fine one). Beethoven's music isn't ever ever ever 'bombastic' ("inflated; pretentious"). Dramatic, stirring, eloquent, sublime, passionate....ineffable. Sure.


Well, there is Wellington's Victory...


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## clavichorder

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Clavichorder refers to Beethoven's "bombast". Now I really must take issue with that word. Don't put Beethoven in the same category as Tchaikovsky, who was primarily a theatrical composer (and a damn fine one). Beethoven's music isn't ever ever ever 'bombastic' ("inflated; pretentious"). Dramatic, stirring, eloquent, sublime, passionate....ineffable. Sure.


Dude, it was entirely unintended to be derogatory. I find it very fitting for Beethoven even though its earlier. Just listen to the finale of his 5th symphony. Sure, pure bombast without substance, that's not Beethoven, but what Beethoven, especially the middle period Beethoven that I love the most, and Tchaikovsky have in common amongst other things, are an unparalleled level of energy. The energy is not noisy energy, it is real alive energy.

Tchaikovsky and Beethoven can be spoken in the same sentence in my book, even though they are different in some key ways. Beethoven's elevation really is only the product of him having been earlier, his many piano sonatas which count for a lot(that's the substance behind it probably), and the overvalue of Germans.

I don't find Tchaikovsky theatrical, but like you didn't find Beethoven bombastic(even though it was not meant to be derogatory), I hope you don't mean it in a derogatory way that makes him out to be less significant than Beethoven. What he lacks for in thematic development subtlety he more than makes up for with graceful and angular lines.

Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony is the other great "fate" symphony after all. There is true power in those symphonic works. Some of them less so, like I'm not as fond of the Tchaik(5th) just because it doesn't make a deep case in my opinion. Beethoven ain't perfect either.

Basically, I'm not gonna like the stereotypical "sentimental Tchaikovsky" comments made, but I mean the best for Beethoven as well.


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## neoshredder

One thing both Tchaikovsky and Beethoven had in common is they were both influenced by Mozart. Thus, melody was a strong emphasis for both of them. And yeah I do hear some of Beethoven's middle period sound in Tchaikovsky. Plus some percussion.


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## Mahlerian

neoshredder said:


> One thing both Tchaikovsky and Beethoven had in common is they were both influenced by Mozart. Thus, melody was a strong emphasis for both of them. And yeah I do hear some of Beethoven's middle period sound in Tchaikovsky. Plus some percussion.


"I can really contend that I owe very very much to Mozart...If one studies for instance the way in which I write for string quartet, then one cannot deny that I have learned this directly from Mozart." - Arnold Schoenberg


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## clavichorder

I want to apologize if my tone was a little harsh or off putting in my last post. I've been too quick to form and post strong opinions lately.


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## millionrainbows

clavichorder said:


> I want to apologize if my tone was a little harsh or off putting in my last post. I've been too quick to form and post strong opinions lately.


That's quite all right, clavichorder; it's your use of the word "dude" that worries me.


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## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> Well, there is Wellington's Victory...


Yes, of course, and Beethoven himself dismissed it as a "worthless rag" (so I'm told). I can forgive Beethoven for being so candid about his less-than-impressive works!!


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## Guest

clavichorder said:


> I want to apologize if my tone was a little harsh or off putting in my last post. I've been too quick to form and post strong opinions lately.


All is forgiven - you are a Beethoven and Tchaikovsky lover. I must disagree about T because he produced much theatre music and this tended to spill over into his other genres. But he was never less than absolutely wonderful, always! xx


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> it's your use of the word "dude" that worries me.


"The Dude abides"...


----------



## KenOC

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> Yes, of course, and Beethoven himself dismissed it as a "worthless rag" (so I'm told). I can forgive Beethoven for being so candid about his less-than-impressive works!!


Don't believe that was the case. Beethoven remained attached to Wellington's Victory, maybe because it made him so much money. There was a very negative review in the 1820s. Beethoven scrawled on it, "O du elender Schuft! Was ich scheisse, ist besser als du je gedacht!"

Google Translate will handle that fine, I won't!


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## clavichorder

millionrainbows said:


> That's quite all right, clavichorder; it's your use of the word "dude" that worries me.


What if I said "bro" or "brah?" Or "maaan," or best of all, "dawg."


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## science

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> "The Dude abides"...


I don't know about you, but I take comfort in that.


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## clavichorder

nevermind........


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## neoshredder

clavichorder said:


> What if I said "bro" or "brah?" Or "maaan," or best of all, "dawg."


Dude totally.


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## science

clavichorder said:


> nevermind........


I use "dude" all the time, chief. Nothing wrong with it in my book. I used to play pick-up basketball, the dudes on my team would always be "big dude," "little dude," "chubby dude," "ugly dude," and me. Some people didn't like that, but it worked for me.

Also, your comments on Beethoven and Tchaikovsky looked ok to me!


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## Rapide

At least we are now back to discussing *tonal* composers, and that's probably a good thing anyway, rather than be a poor salesman for the the cause of modernism like this thread has been.


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## clavichorder

neoshredder said:


> Dude totally.


Yiahh, homebrowski.


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## Kieran

science said:


> I use "dude" all the time, chief. Nothing wrong with it in my book. I used to play pick-up basketball, the dudes on my team would always be "big dude," "little dude," "chubby dude," "ugly dude," and me.


Giving nicknames like that, were you 'rude dude?' :lol:


----------



## PetrB

Rapide said:


> At least we are now back to discussing *tonal* composers, and that's probably a good thing anyway, rather than be a poor salesman for the the cause of modernism like this thread has been.


You might want to take that up with Mitsuko Uchida, master musician, known for Mozart, Schubert, Debussy, etc. who speaks of Schoenberg's piano concerto, which she performs, as the very late romantic, highly lyric, and 'emotional' piece it is. (In this link, she also makes a striking comment on how utterly modern Debussy was / is.)






To anyone who listens to it all (medieval to present day), and cares for it all, that sort of huffily defensive attitude which so often crops up in 'defending tonality' is most revealing as pointing toward the proponent of said argument having, eh, 'less open ears.'

There is no law about 'less open ears,' but at the same time, if you want to venture into that defense, know that to those whose ears are more open, the 'defense of tonality' is mainly taken as point of view from someone who has a marked limitation.

No one has 'assailed' tonality, ever. Tonality needs no 'defense,' just as much as atonality is not an offense and needs no 'defense' or 'salesmen.'  That you may make large distinctions around any of that is yours to own and to bear.

I just went to the opera last night -- La Boheme -- Puccini being a composer whose work I would never seek out, but I was taken as a guest. Had it been Wagner, I might have actually politely declined the offer and said 'the seat would be wasted on me.' As it was, a great world-class performance, I enjoyed the hell out of it. Not at all my normal cuppa by choice, even second choice, but I 'let it do what it was supposed to do' and then it was wonderful.

I feel a bit sad there are others missing out in reverse, i.e. the minute it is not old-fashioned tonal, it seems / sounds like some really cannot open themselves up enough, leave the old expectations a bit behind and 'just listen' to see what there is to hear. Perhaps for some 'hard-core tonalists' there is a sort of balm of comfort by familiarity, a bit like a little scrap of their baby blanket still folded in the pocket of their clothing someplace. Carry something like that about with you (it can be abstract and 'just in your head.') and some part of you, I suppose, is forever very very young. I cannot help thinking though, that the more hard-core tonalists are really hanging onto some 'comfort of the past' vs. confronting the artworks full-on, face to face.


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## millionrainbows

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> "The Dude abides"...


"...in Blu-ray..."


----------



## science

Kieran said:


> Giving nicknames like that, were you 'rude dude?' :lol:


They called me "shut up dude." I never understood what they meant.


----------



## EricABQ




----------



## Vaneyes




----------



## moody

clavichorder said:


> What if I said "bro" or "brah?" Or "maaan," or best of all, "dawg."


Oh,call him Sir I'm sure that will do the trick !


----------



## moody

Bone said:


> Interesting. But this begs the question: if tonality is unimportant, why bother using tones at all? Just bang, scrape, or blare any noise you want, combine with other noises, and call it a composition. Ignoring the naturalness of the overtone series which leads to cadence formulas doesn't make it go away.


But they do !


----------



## moody

ArtMusic said:


> My grandpa was quite cantankerous. He's dead now.


I could fill in at a pinch !


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## millionrainbows

It's true: tonality is so evocative, and conjures up so many more thoughts, feelings, and emotions than cold modernism. 

When I think of tonality, I think of: slide rules, girdles, bow ties, VHS tapes, cassettes, Hostess Twinkies, Lance Armstrong, walking sticks, grandfather clocks, rotary-dial telephones, white belts and shoes, penny loafers, Brylcreem, Ipana toothpaste, Lucky Strike cigarettes, smoking in theatres, Studebakers, De Soto convertibles, Nash Ramblers, Hudson V-8s, GTOs, electric typewriters, stop-motion animation, afro hairdos, Pomac soda, Chocolate Soldier soda, suspenders, men's sock-garters, DDT, atomic testing, the Berlin wall, REO Speedwagon, Styx.....


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## Guest

millionrainbows (just when a thousand isn't enough), I loved your evocative response to tonality. Now, as my final essay by way of contribution on this subject. This existed, way back then:






Alongside this:






And I believe that tonality will continue to co-exist with music which is atonal.


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## millionrainbows

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> millionrainbows (just when a thousand isn't enough), I loved your evocative response to tonality. Now, as my final essay by way of contribution on this subject. This existed (Schoenberg), way back then...Alongside this (Ravel)... And I believe that tonality will continue to co-exist with music which is atonal.


That's nice. The more I think about it, and the more I truly comprehend in detail what it was that Schoenberg was trying to accomplish, the more I see this term "tonality" as a vague, elitist term, self-serving and simultaneously casting aspersion on all that might be "a" tonal...after all, Schoenberg and Berg were both trying to write thematic _music_ which had _harmonic dimension and depth_, which _sounded good._ I think it's Schoenberg's artistic intent which is so alienating to some, with its bizarre Expressionistic imagery and mood.

Music by this time had already begun to unravel from its functional restraints, and the die was already cast for music to go headlong into a chromatic world of new possibilities. "Harmonic" aspects of music never really went away.

From what I've seen, advocates of "tonality" seem ill-equipped to define, explain, or even truly comprehend what is meant by this term, yet they say they "know it when they hear it," mistakenly claiming the realm of "harmonic music" (which means any ear-friendly music) as exclusively their own, thus relegating Webern and those who followed to a ghetto of "atonality" which has somehow failed their test.

Thus, I see the problem and any conflict which arises from this "side-by-side" presentation as being an inability to deal with newer, more modern art aesthetics, not a difference in basic musical elements. All composers desire on some level to create art which expresses what they aim to express, and which will be listened to and appreciated in the same sincere spirit.


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## Bone

(Groan) when I want to entertain my brain and spend time delving into minutiae, I go for all things atonal and serial; when I want to listen to music, I definitely look elsewhere. But that's just me (and the vast majority of classical music fans, I imagine). I won't cast aspersions at those whose tastes have presumably evolved beyond the comfy constraints of tonality.


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## Petwhac

_"Thus, I see the problem and any conflict which arises from this "side-by-side" presentation as being an *inability to deal with newer, more modern art aesthetics,* not a difference in basic musical elements"_. millionrainbows.

Or perhaps newer, more modern art's inability to deal with me!


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> That's nice. The more I think about it, and the more I truly comprehend in detail what it was that Schoenberg was trying to accomplish, the more I see this term "tonality" as a vague, elitist term, self-serving and simultaneously casting aspersion on all that might be "a" tonal...after all, Schoenberg and Berg were both trying to write thematic _music_ which had _harmonic dimension and depth_, which _sounded good._ I think it's Schoenberg's artistic intent which is so alienating to some, with its bizarre Expressionistic imagery and mood.
> 
> Music by this time had already begun to unravel from its functional restraints, and the die was already cast for music to go headlong into a chromatic world of new possibilities. "Harmonic" aspects of music never really went away.
> 
> From what I've seen, advocates of "tonality" seem ill-equipped to define, explain, or even truly comprehend what is meant by this term, yet they say they "know it when they hear it," mistakenly claiming the realm of "harmonic music" (which means any ear-friendly music) as exclusively their own, thus relegating Webern and those who followed to a ghetto of "atonality" which has somehow failed their test.
> 
> Thus, I see the problem and any conflict which arises from this "side-by-side" presentation as being an inability to deal with newer, more modern art aesthetics, not a difference in basic musical elements. All composers desire on some level to create art which expresses what they aim to express, and which will be listened to and appreciated in the same sincere spirit.


You've really nailed it. This is about as lucid and eloquent a response as I've read on this messageboard about the issues. Bernstein said, "atonality is always what it is not" (ie. there is really no 'escape' from tonality if one is writing music since these are all 'notes' on the scale). And, of course, Komponisten like Liszt and Wagner were busy derailing 'tonality' so that when Arnie came along it was more or less a fait accompli, except that it happened too quickly and arbitrarily IMO. "OK boys and girls, today tonality ends and I've found the perfect foil for you tonally-addicted music-lovers"!! But I love both forms of music, and have recently read and enjoyed "Alban Berg and his World" (a series of essays) and am presenting a program some time in the future to 'senior' music-lovers on Serialism. Of course, this is now a century old but we are still grappling with its consequences.


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## millionrainbows

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> You've really nailed it. This is about as lucid and eloquent a response as I've read on this messageboard about the issues. Bernstein said, "atonality is always what it is not" (ie. there is really no 'escape' from tonality if one is writing music since these are all 'notes' on the scale). And, of course, Komponisten like Liszt and Wagner were busy derailing 'tonality' so that when Arnie came along it was more or less a fait accompli, except that it happened too quickly and arbitrarily IMO. "OK boys and girls, today tonality ends and I've found the perfect foil for you tonally-addicted music-lovers"!! But I love both forms of music, and have recently read and enjoyed "Alban Berg and his World" (a series of essays) and am presenting a program some time in the future to 'senior' music-lovers on Serialism. Of course, this is now a century old but we are still grappling with its consequences.


Well, my sincere thanks to you; and this attitude of mine comes partly from gradually disengaging from the "tonal/atonal" conflict. Eventually, composers want to write "ear" music, and that can mean a lot of things, but if the music is worthy, it is done "as music" for the ear, and the realm of the ear is its final destination. I have more confidence in music, composers, and history than I do in other listener's opinions.

Consonance and dissonance are in the realm of the ear, not the property of one or another camp; and dissonance is simply vibration, and all vibration is taken in by the ear. What happens to it after that is a different, subjective realm.


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## Guest

You might eventually find that you want to disengage from the idea of "ear" music, too.

Music is something you listen to, true. And your ears (hooked up, hopefully to your brain) are what initially take in that music.

But ears aren't the only thing. Experience, taste, prejudice, knowledge, desire all play their parts as well.

And, most importantly, there is simply no such thing as "the ear." Each pair of ears belongs to a person. And each person, as should be blindingly (deafeningly) obvious from any old classical chat thread, is different. Different experiences, different tastes, different prejudices, different knowledge, different desires.

Someone writing for your ears might leave mine completely unfazed. Someone writing for my ears might leave you bored out of your skull. Best if composers write music and let all the different sets of ears sort things out as best they can.


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## Guest

TOTALLY axiomatic. What's your point?


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## Rapide

some guy said:


> You might eventually find that you want to disengage from the idea of "ear" music, too.
> 
> Music is something you listen to, true. And your ears (hooked up, hopefully to your brain) are what initially take in that music.
> 
> But ears aren't the only thing. Experience, taste, prejudice, knowledge, desire all play their parts as well.
> 
> And, most importantly, there is simply no such thing as "the ear." Each pair of ears belongs to a person. And each person, as should be blindingly (deafeningly) obvious from any old classical chat thread, is different. Different experiences, different tastes, different prejudices, different knowledge, different desires.
> 
> Someone writing for your ears might leave mine completely unfazed. Someone writing for my ears might leave you bored out of your skull. Best if composers write music and let all the different sets of ears sort things out as best they can.


You might like to publish a book or a collection of your writings at internet sites, on music listening in general to reach a broader readership. Hate to see your advice go to waste. Let the book sales volume decide on the merits.


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## Ramako

never mind...


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## sharik

some guy said:


> composers in the 21st century continue to write tonal music


the problem is, today's composers do not think of writing *just music* but first their preoccupied with whether it's tonal or atonal and whether its 'new' at all, which wasn't the case with composers in the 19th century who never bothered as to how new their music was while indeed creating some really groundbreaking works.


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## Mephistopheles

sharik said:


> the problem is, today's composers do not think of writing *just music* but first their preoccupied with whether it's tonal or atonal and whether its 'new' at all, which wasn't the case with composers in the 19th century who never bothered as to how new their music was while indeed creating some really groundbreaking works.


I don't think composers of the 19th century never bothered about how new their music was - of course they did, that's precisely why their music is ground-breaking, and why many of them were criticised for looking back to the 18th century. The key difference today, I presume, is that we are post-conceptual - the question, "what _is_ music _really_?" wasn't a big deal in the 19th century, but now it has been asked time and time again, composers today must not only think about music, they have to think about meta-music.

[No value judgements are embedded in the above observation]


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## Guest

Mephistopheles said:


> I don't think composers of the 19th century never bothered about how new their music was - of course they did, that's precisely why their music is ground-breaking, and why many of them were criticised for looking back to the 18th century. The key difference today, I presume, is that we are post-conceptual - the question, "what _is_ music _really_?" wasn't a big deal in the 19th century, but now it has been asked time and time again, composers today must not only think about music, they have to think about meta-music.
> 
> [No value judgements are embedded in the above observation]


Agree. The rise of cinema has seen Sound Design put front and centre as a creative art in itself and this has blurred the line between 'sound' and 'music' - for some.


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## sharik

Mephistopheles said:


> I don't think composers of the 19th century never bothered about how new their music was - of course they did, that's precisely why their music is ground-breaking


of course they *didn't* and *that is why their music is groundbreaking* for they thought themselves completely within Tradition, everyone - from Monteverdi to Tchaikovsky, from Wagner to Stravinsky... because an Artist is unable to create anything really new if he cares about novelty instead of being sincere to his inner voice that speaks on behalf of the Eternal.


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## Mephistopheles

sharik said:


> of course they *didn't* and *that is why their music is groundbreaking* for they thought themselves completely within Tradition, everyone - from Monteverdi to Tchaikovsky, from Wagner to Stravinsky... because an Artist is unable to create anything really new if he cares about novelty instead of being sincere to his inner voice that speaks on behalf of the Eternal.


So the progression of music through the 17th to early 20th centuries was just an accident was it? For all that time, no composers gave any thought to writing anything new and interesting, they just sought to emulate their forebears and, by sheer coincidence, the trajectory of music was one of constant change? Doesn't sound convincing to me.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> You might eventually find that you want to disengage from the idea of "ear" music, too...there is simply no such thing as "the ear." Each pair of ears belongs to a person.


If you want to do away with the idea of "ear music," then you must remove it from the realm of subjectivity (your ears, my ears) and put it in the realm of pure physics. Only then will sound be free to "be just sound."

You're not getting what I mean by "ear" music, and just as importantly, why it is one of my main-line defenses against modernist-bashers who claim "consonance" as the exclusive domain of "tonality."

I'm using "ear" music as a synonym for what I call "harmonic music," a larger umbrella term which includes all CP tonality, all tone-centric folk musics, and all chromatic music with elements of "local or momentary tone-centricity."

When I talk about "consonance/dissonance," I talk about them strictly literally, as vibrations: 1:1 and 2:1, 2:3, 3:4, and so on. When these waves hit the ear, they are modeled by the surface of the eardrum.

For example, a 2:1 interval (octave) is _inherently_ a simpler wave (therefore more consonant) than a 4:5.

_This simplicity is reflected by the corresponding waves on the eardrum before the waves are ever processed as 'sound' by the brain_.

We could use a pool of water in a similar way. It's a totally physical phenomenon, not subjective.

Therefore, _any music which creates differences using "tones" of a harmonic nature on the eardrum_ (i.e., which contains quantifiable contrasts of consonance/dissonance using reasonably sustained pitches) _is inherently "ear music" by nature, automatically,_ and such music is related (as described by the above ratios) to harmonics of a fundamental tone, and the way the ear responds to sustained tones which create these types of "quantifiable" waves or ripples.

This would include all music which uses 'pitch' identifiable as such; it could be argued that "non-pitched" sounds, such as noise or percussive sounds, are not "harmonic" or sustained enough to be classified as "pitch," and are (rightfully) considered as elements or carriers of "rhythmic events" or "temporal events" rather than "harmonic events."

Does this clear things up?


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## Mahlerian

sharik said:


> of course they *didn't* and *that is why their music is groundbreaking* for they thought themselves completely within Tradition, everyone - from Monteverdi to Tchaikovsky, from Wagner to Stravinsky... because an Artist is unable to create anything really new if he cares about novelty instead of being sincere to his inner voice that speaks on behalf of the Eternal.


Schoenberg was absolutely within tradition. His music progresses logically from Op. 1 (which, I hazard to guess, you have never heard, but you can correct this below) to Op. 50b (probably also never heard). He was against novelty for novelty's sake just as much as any other true artist.






There are great composers who have scorned tradition, though; Debussy, Messiaen, Ives, and so forth.


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## sharik

Mephistopheles said:


> So the progression of music through the 17th to early 20th centuries was just an accident was it? For all that time, no composers gave any thought to writing anything new and interesting, they just sought to emulate their forebears and, by sheer coincidence, the trajectory of music was one of constant change?


exactly, because novelty cannot be created on request, it can only come of its own, unexpectedly unintentionally accidentally, like a miracle.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Does this clear things up?


Not as such. Your postition is clear enough.

We simply disagree on this point is all.

There are objective elements to the situation--measurable waves and such. But so soon as you put an ear into the mix, you're in another realm.

The world is full of objects, it's true. But none of those objects means anything until you have a subject reacting to them, appreciating, evaluating, comparing, rejecting, whatever. And, as you see from that list, the reactions are quite different. They will not only differ from person to person, but from time to time in the same person. None of the measuring, none of the ratios (interesting as all that may be all on its own), not even on the simplest level (I would argue) have anything to do much with how any individual will respond.

Maybe every person will perceive a 1:2 as more simple than a 4:5. After that, all bets are off. Some people will prefer 1:2. Some will prefer 4:5. Some will want a mix. And some will prefer the harmonic reality of simultaneous noises: screeching brakes/thunder/sawtooth waves/children laughing/factory noises/sine waves/rain.

Measurements and meaning are two very different things is all I'm saying.


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## Mephistopheles

sharik said:


> exactly, because novelty cannot be created on request, it can only come of its own, unexpectedly unintentionally accidentally, like a miracle.


I'd be interested to hear if anyone else on this forum agrees with the above statement.


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## aleazk

Mephistopheles said:


> I'd be interested to hear if anyone else on this forum agrees with the above statement.


lol, no, I think it is preposterous.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Measurements and meaning are two very different things is all I'm saying.


...but, who'd have thought??!!!

Some people MIGHT prefer the 'harmonic elements' of screeching brakes (they're called 'hoons' or 'petrol heads'), but most just like good music; period.

someguy - acolyte for the bleedin' obvious! Or red herrings.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> ...Measurements and meaning are two very different things is all I'm saying.


Well, I see us as largely agreeing, except my agenda is different: I'm asserting that consonance/dissonance derive their (subsequent) meaning from their physical characteristics (1:2 or 4:5), just as the color "red" is red, regardless if a person insists that it's green (although he may be color blind). The reason I want to assert this is so that no specific "camp" can claim that consonance is the exclusive realm of CP tonality. Consonance is present in all musics using pitched sound.


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## sharik

Mephistopheles said:


> I'd be interested to hear if anyone else on this forum agrees with the above statement


learn to think for yourself because the majority is always wrong.


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## sharik

aleazk said:


> it is preposterous


preposterous would be to assume that man has control over such a thing as novelty, even though they do make progress in science, but this only proves that applying a scientific approach to Art is leading us where we end up with no creative ideas coming into Art these days - a creativity crisis they lamely attempt to cover up by the policy of 'new' being deliberately forced into our lives everyday.


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## science

sharik said:


> learn to think for yourself because the majority is always wrong


Thinking for myself, I doubt that the majority is always wrong.


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## sharik

science said:


> I doubt that the majority is always wrong.


then you are blind and do not see what the world has come to.


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## science

sharik said:


> then you are blind and do not see what the world has come to.


Oh. Well, thanks for letting me know.


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## millionrainbows

Yes, the ear desires consonance, just as the tongue desires sweets; the ear also desires dissonance, just as the tongue desires spice or a dry-finish wine.

The whole spectrum of these "colors and flavors" of sound can be found in ALL music.

I still assert that the real problem with the "tonal vs. atonal" argument is really an inability on anti-modernists' part to deal with modern forms of art.

The Europeans are really tuned-in to art music, so much more so than Americans. The more I look at America's sensibilities, as expressed here and in the forms it takes in the media, the more I see an unadventurous, elitist attitude which exemplifies a pragmatic, simplistic, conservative mindset that, in the final analysis, is really unconcerned with "art" as a vital or conceptual thing, and more concerned with materialistic 'objects of art,' like porcelain vase-collectors, hoarders of glassware, and gun-collectors.


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## Mephistopheles

millionrainbows said:


> I still assert that the real problem with the "tonal vs. atonal" argument is really an inability on anti-modernists' part to deal with modern forms of art.


Would you characterise that as a biological deficit or a character flaw?


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## millionrainbows

Mephistopheles said:


> Would you characterise that as a biological deficit or a character flaw?


I attribute it to our increasingly alienating environment and peer-pressure, the relentless American desire to conform, succeed, and be "successful" in this culture. I think a business mindset has taken over; and life has become far too complicated and distracting. 
Like I've said in the past, I see the "conservative tonalists" as wanting to escape from their epoch, into a safe, hermetically-sealed museum of classical music, where time has stopped.


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## neoshredder

millionrainbows said:


> I attribute it to our increasingly alienating environment and peer-pressure, the relentless American desire to conform, succeed, and be "successful" in this culture. I think a business mindset has taken over; and life has become far too complicated and distracting.
> Like I've said in the past, I see the "conservative tonalists" as wanting to escape from their epoch, into a safe, hermetically-sealed museum of classical music, where time has stopped.


Or maybe they just have good taste in Classical Music.


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## Vaneyes

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, the ear desires consonance, just as the tongue desires sweets; the ear also desires dissonance, just as the tongue desires spice or a dry-finish wine.
> 
> The whole spectrum of these "colors and flavors" of sound can be found in ALL music.
> 
> I still assert that the real problem with the "tonal vs. atonal" argument is really an inability on anti-modernists' part to deal with modern forms of art.
> 
> The Europeans are really tuned-in to art music, so much more so than Americans. The more I look at America's sensibilities, as expressed here and in the forms it takes in the media, the more I see an unadventurous, elitist attitude which exemplifies a pragmatic, simplistic, conservative mindset that, in the final analysis, is really unconcerned with "art" as a vital or conceptual thing, and more concerned with materialistic 'objects of art,' like porcelain vase-collectors, hoarders of glassware, and gun-collectors.


The really sad thing is that most don't know or care about any art form, unless it's something cute in a beer commercial, or on a billboard that catches there eye and ear.

If it were not for the strong-minded/bigoted/narrow-minded of tonal/atonal/traditional/abstract, art would've withered away long ago.

Better narrow, than none. :tiphat:


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## quack

Is it just me that imagines some kind of folk opera whenever they read the title? Based on an American allegorical character, someone like Br'er Rabbit or Paul Bunyan, "The Desire for Toe Natalie" would be about a simple, carefree flighty girl who is wooed by a variety of unusual characters, each of them thinking they can win her over with their varying music styles. Brah Mans plays his rich romantic music and she is entranced but she laughs and pulls his big beard and he is left on the shelf again. Shawn Berg turns up with cool things like tone rows but he starts to get all nerdy technical and bores her, especially as Vera Ase has just wowed her with weird and wonderful electronic sounds. Other suitors arrive aiming to make the fickle girl theirs but she seems determined to enjoy their flirting without settling on any of them.

Meanwhile, back to your regular scheduled thread...


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## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> I still assert that the real problem with the "tonal vs. atonal" argument is really an inability on anti-modernists' part to deal with modern forms of art.





millionrainbows said:


> Like I've said in the past, I see the "conservative tonalists" as wanting to escape from their epoch, into a safe, hermetically-sealed museum of classical music, where time has stopped.


It has taken me awhile to come to a better understanding of the words "tonal" and "atonal", and now I generally accept what you have painstakingly stated in many posts. The debate is not really about tonal and "atonal" music. The debate we see in many threads here at TC is more between people who enjoy modern/contemporary music (as well as earlier music) and those who do not enjoy much modern/contemporary music.

When you speak of anti-modernists and "conservative tonalists", are you referring to people who do not enjoy much modern/contemporary music or to a subset of that group? For example, are you specifically referring to people who actively complain about modern music and denigrate it?

I would also be interested in your view on music versus art. I think modern art is vastly more "accepted" by the art loving public than modern music is "accepted" by the classical music listening public. When you speak of anti-modernists and conservative, do you only use those terms in reference to music or to the people's personality in general?

I realize that many people do not much like modern art, but there is nothing remotely close to modern art museums in classical music. I have asked in other threads why there seems to be a significant difference between the appreciation of the two.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> The debate we see in many threads here at TC is more between people who enjoy modern/contemporary music (as well as earlier music) and those who do not enjoy much modern/contemporary music.


This dichotomy is in a sense false, since the conflict would never come to light if "those who do not enjoy much modern/contemporary music" would not make provocative statements which go beyond the bounds of opinion, and begin to denigrate the composers and music.

Also, there are concentrated pockets of hatred against modernism, for example, "The Perfect American Man by Philip Glass" thread. We never see "anti-Mozart" or "anti-Beethoven" threads like this, and I wonder if such threads would be allowed by moderators. I guess we'll never know, since "modernists" like us tend to like all forms of classical music, and have no motivation to post information specifically targeting large, inclusive genres which we dislike.



mmsbls said:


> When you speak of anti-modernists and "conservative tonalists", are you referring to people who do not enjoy much modern/contemporary music or to a subset of that group? For example, are you specifically referring to people who actively complain about modern music and denigrate it?


In the case of the Philip Glass thread I mentioned, you can infer that I am referring to the thread participants, but to avoid ad-hominem statements, I try not to *refer* to any specific person, nor do I engage in *direct* personal ad hominem exchanges. I did make *indirect reference* (in the sense that I was not directly addressing said person) to my "enemies list" and was incited for an infraction. *This was not a direct exchange,* but it _was_ a _direct reference to the person, _ for which I have been cited, and will not make such references in the future.

I feel it is necessary to point out that the person referred to was using distracting humor (non-music related) to derail the thread. I was also criticized by 2 members for being "off topic," but I was discussing Messiaen; the previous off-topic distracting "cheese sandwich" exchanges were not even mentioned, and a *moderator* even participated in this. How can this be fair?



mmsbls said:


> I would also be interested in your view on music versus art. I think modern art is vastly more "accepted" by the art loving public than modern music is "accepted" by the classical music listening public.


I don't see "modern art being vastly more accepted by the art loving public than modern music is accepted by the classical music listening public" for these reasons:

"Art" as we know it did not exist as such up until the late nineteenth century. Music was part of the overall "entertainment environment/Church/royalty/elite/power/class" system which existed before mass-media; and most of it had specific utilitarian functions. Most older classical music falls into this category. We now see it as "art," but it was developed before this concept of "art" took hold, and had other intents which drove it.

With the 20th century, entertainment and media began to expand, and a middle-class began to emerge. Thus, with all the options available, a category of "art" music began to emerge, which began to "separate itself" from the proliferation of other forms of music consumption.

Also, visual art changed. The previous function of art was mostly Church-related, as with icons and depictions; or it later served to provide "narratives" of important historical events and myths, or as portraiture. In many ways, visual art was still tied to institutional power, not so much as "personal expression." Of course, we now see this art for exactly those "personal" touches, not for the narratives or power-intents, which are largely irrelevant to us in the present. Also, perhaps more importantly, photography was developed. Art no longer needed to "record" events. Impressionism arose out of this; thus the "impression" of a scene became more important than a literal depiction; a camera could now do that.

In the past, both music and visual art were tied to older power institutions. Now, music and art are seen as more "personal" in nature, as expressions of individuals, not institutions, although "the art world" could be seen as the institution that it obviously is; but it ostensibly serves "art itself" in a "pure art" form, divorced from power-mongeriing institutions. The corporate institutions of record companies and movies can be seen as being "corrupted" as "pure art" since their intent is to make money, and usually the intent is to "entertain,' not to propagate "artistic aims."

Back to your statement, _"I think modern art is vastly more "accepted" by the art loving public than modern music is "accepted" by the classical music listening public,"_ bear in mind that modern visual art includes "conceptual art" as produced by Yoko Ono (who studied with John Cage); I don't need to point out the controversy over John Cage's *4'33".*

Modern visual art also includes Jackson Pollack's "drip" paintings, and all the abstract art which I have observed to be universally dismissed by conservative Mozartians and their ilk. In fact, there is a definite correlation between modern visual art and modern music: Morton Feldman/Mark Rothko, the Cage/conceptualist school, and other examples. (Paris, early 20th century)



mmsbls said:


> When you speak of anti-modernists and conservative, do you only use those terms in reference to music or to the people's personality in general?


I try to be objective, especially lately. You may have noticed I mention "contingents" less, and cite musical ideas and musical examples more often. I don't want to be cited for ad-hominems, which seems to be what your question is hinting at. Why am I being questioned? Are not the other members who indulge in ad-hominems equally culpable? No, because I am a minority, and they are the status quo.



mmsbls said:


> I realize that many people do not much like modern art, but there is nothing remotely close to modern art museums in classical music. I have asked in other threads why there seems to be a significant difference between the appreciation of the two.


The "museum" in classical is performance and recordings. The recordings are the artifact. Visual art is physical, and exists as actual objects (paintings, drawings, sculpture) in museums, although much of that is likewise experienced as "artifacts" by reproductions in books. Had you not considered this? How many people have actually seen the Mona Lisa?


----------



## Ramako

millionrainbows said:


> Also, there are concentrated pockets of hatred against modernism, for example, "The Perfect American Man by Philip Glass" thread. We never see "anti-Mozart" or "anti-Beethoven" threads like this, and I wonder if such threads would be allowed by moderators.


Yes, we have.

http://www.talkclassical.com/20761-thread-people-who-dont.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/8259-mozart-god-garbage.html

But do go on, I'm just being pedantic. (non-sarcasm disclaimer)


----------



## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> Yes, we have.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/20761-thread-people-who-dont.html
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/8259-mozart-god-garbage.html
> 
> But do go on, I'm just being pedantic. (non-sarcasm disclaimer)


Now I know, but remember: "modernists" like us tend to like all forms of classical music, and have no motivation to post information specifically targeting large, inclusive genres which we dislike.

In fact, I think "general hate" sentiments should be discouraged by moderators; but it seems "hate" is like "guns," and haters are afraid that if their venomous dislikes are in any way regulated, then their "right to bear free speech" will be encroached upon.

Also worth noting is that these "anti-Mozart" threads are not created by 'modernists' with the intent to disparage *all *previous "tonal" classical music. By contrast, much of the general ranting against 20th century music are blanket indictments.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> In the case of the Philip Glass thread I mentioned, you can infer that I am referring to the thread participants, but to avoid ad-hominem statements, I try not to *refer* to any specific person, nor do I engage in *direct* personal ad hominem exchanges. I did make *indirect reference* (in the sense that I was not directly addressing said person) to my "enemies list" and was incited for an infraction. *This was not a direct exchange,* but it _was_ a _direct reference to the person, _ for which I have been cited, and will not make such references in the future.
> 
> I try to be objective, especially lately. You may have noticed I mention "contingents" less, and cite musical ideas and musical examples more often. I don't want to be cited for ad-hominems, which seems to be what your question is hinting at. Why am I being questioned? Are not the other members who indulge in ad-hominems equally culpable? No, because I am a minority, and they are the status quo.


I did not have any TC members in mind and did not have my moderator hat on when asking these questions. I was simply rather interested in your ideas. Let me try again.

We know that there are those who don't appreciate modern/contemporary music. _Some_ of those people also are vociferous about their distaste. Let's ignore _how_ people show or don't show that dislike and concentrate on why those people do not appreciate modern/contemporary music. You use the terms anti-modernist and "conservative tonalists". If those terms simply refer to people who do not appreciate modern/contemporary music, then they add nothing to our understanding.

If on the other hand you believe that "conservative tonalists" are people who have conservative views _in general_, and therefore, will have conservative musical tastes, that would be very interesting. If anti-modernists were people who were anti-modern in several fields (e.g. music, art, science, fashion, etc.), then the fact that they had certain psychological traits would help us understand their views on classical music.

I was not sure exactly how you were using the terms, but I certainly assumed that you were referring to a general class of people (not explicitly certain people on TC). I'm much more interested in the general discussion because I'm fascinated with why people do not appreciate/enjoy modern music. Put simply, I have never fully understood why people who like good/great composers of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras do _not_ like the music of good/great modern composers.



millionrainbows said:


> The "museum" in classical is performance and recordings. The recordings are the artifact. Visual art is physical, and exists as actual objects (paintings, drawings, sculpture) in museums, although much of that is likewise experienced as "artifacts" by reproductions in books. Had you not considered this? How many people have actually seen the Mona Lisa?


This is a good point, and yes, I had not considered it. I had compared the museum to the orchestra and always felt there was a large difference relevant to modern works. Thanks.


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> We know that there are those who don't appreciate modern/contemporary music. _Some_ of those people also are vociferous about their distaste. Let's...concentrate on why those people do not appreciate modern/contemporary music....If...you believe that "conservative tonalists" are people who have conservative views _in general_, and therefore, will have conservative musical tastes, that would be very interesting. If anti-modernists were people who were anti-modern in several fields (e.g. music, art, science, fashion, etc.), then the fact that they had certain psychological traits would help us understand their views on classical music...I was not sure exactly how you were using the terms, but I certainly assumed that you were referring to a general class of people (not explicitly certain people on TC). I'm much more interested in the general discussion because I'm fascinated with why people do not appreciate/enjoy modern music. Put simply, I have never fully understood why people who like good/great composers of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras do _not_ like the music of good/great modern composers.


Your guess is as good as mine. We _do know_ that they have conservative taste in _music._ Sid James' thread on audiences who leave during intermission might be of interest:

http://www.talkclassical.com/15004-concertgoers-who-leave-during.html

The subject of "State-approved music hating" might be more interesting than my little personal crusade to defend "new music." Here again is an excellent Sid James thread:
http://www.talkclassical.com/17881-music-banned.html


----------



## Rapide

millionrainbows said:


> I attribute it to our increasingly alienating environment and peer-pressure, the relentless American desire to conform, succeed, and be "successful" in this culture. I think a business mindset has taken over; and life has become far too complicated and distracting.
> Like I've said in the past, I see the "conservative tonalists" as wanting to escape from their epoch, into a safe, hermetically-sealed museum of classical music, where time has stopped.


Are you from America? I am asking because you might like to ponder that question if you are from the US because Americans are perceived by the rest of the world as "generally conservative" for a developed nation. (I am not from America).


----------



## arpeggio

*Americans and Modern Music*

There are many Americans who appreciate modernistic music. I am an American and enjoy many atonal/avant-garde composers. My favorite is probably Eliott Carter.


----------



## moody

sharik said:


> learn to think for yourself because the majority is always wrong.


Oh,he thinks for himself--have no fear in that regard.


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> Are you from America? I am asking because you might like to ponder that question if you are from the US because Americans are perceived by the rest of the world as "generally conservative" for a developed nation. (I am not from America).


Yes, I'm a native Texan, born and bred, corn-fed.

I hear all the time here in Austin about musicians who go to Europe and are surprised at how quiet and attentive the audiences are. They actually listen, and applaud after each song. Is it any wonder that Frank Zappa was MUCH more loved in Europe than he is here?

Here in the US, our band had to actually ask the club-owner to either turn off the television while we played, or allow us to start after the sports game was over. Americans are more interested in sports than music.

Might I also remind you that this country was settled by Puritans, who were really nothing more than a religious cult.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> Might I also remind you that this country was settled by Puritans...


Hardly. The puritan migration to New England lasted about twenty years, from 1620 to 1640. Even during that time, more English non-puritans migrated to Virginia and elsewhere. The United States was ultimately settled by a huge number of immigrants from many different countries.


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## BurningDesire

Not all Americans are super conservative in taste, or prefer sports to art and music. o3o


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## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> Not all Americans are super conservative in taste, or prefer sports to art and music. o3o


Some of the most audacious and radical avant-garde in the visual arts came from the US, like Abstract Expressionism.


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> Are you from America? I am asking because you might like to ponder that question if you are from the US because Americans are perceived by the rest of the world as "generally conservative" for a developed nation. (I am not from America).


I completely agree, Rapide. Although America was the center of the art world in the 1950's, things have changed considerably since then. Note the universal and instant venom created whenever John Cage (a major figure in the 1950s New York art world) is invoked. Likewise, Frank Zappa's credentials are frequently questioned (see threads devoted to this), even though he was conducted by Boulez and was worshipped in Europe. Americans seem to have more respect for hacks like John Williams.

+-----------------------•••>


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## Petwhac

It's funny how some people object to blanket generalisations about music but are happy to make them or let them pass about populations!

Just sayin'...

And btw millions, Zappa has been admired in many quarters but 'worshipped in Europe'? Hahahaha that's a goodun', dang!

Also, John Williams may be a hack but he's a very talented one....you know, _real _musical ability.


----------



## Petwhac

mmsbls said:


> Put simply, I have never fully understood why people who like good/great composers of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras do _not_ like the music of good/great modern composers.


I think the answer is patently obvious and has been stated many times.

millionrainbows has correctly identified what he called music of the 'harmonic realm'. For me this includes all music in which the vertical (harmonic) dimension and the employment of triads however decorated, is a _fundamental_ expressive element. In other words all Western Music since organum and plainchant, all folk, pop, rock, most jazz and film music, all Broadway and Tin-Pan Alley. Music that includes Monteverdi and Mingus, Beethoven and the Black Eyed Peas but not Xenakis, Stockhausen and Kagel to name just three more recent 'art music' composers.

Many people, including highly gifted, accomplished musicians do not respond to music with no discernible chord structure.

Many highly literate people get more enjoyment from War and Peace than Finnegan's Wake. They prefer books with a recognisable narrative and find the obscure very hard going.

I'm not making a judgment but just stating something that is obvious to me.


----------



## mmsbls

Petwhac said:


> I think the answer is patently obvious and has been stated many times.
> 
> millionrainbows has correctly identified what he called music of the 'harmonic realm'. ...
> Many people, including highly gifted, accomplished musicians do not respond to music with no discernible chord structure.
> 
> Many highly literate people get more enjoyment from War and Peace than Finnegan's Wake. They prefer books with a recognisable narrative and find the obscure very hard going.
> 
> I'm not making a judgment but just stating something that is obvious to me.


It may be obvious to you _why_ some people do and others do not respond to music with no discernible chord structure, but it is not remotely obvious to me. I imagine that the route cause has to do with very complex psychological (neurological) processes well beyond our present ability to understand. While I doubt we'll really understand this phenomenon for a long time, we might be able to learn enough to suggest practical strategies.

For example, given that someone does not respond to music with no discernible chord structure but that same person _wants_ to "learn" to like that music, what strategies should that person follow to better appreciate that type of music? I've heard various, different answers to this question, but nothing seems clearly right to me. I assume everyone could grow up to appreciate that music, but is there a period of time after which strategies are vastly less effective (as with language learning)? As far as I can tell, there is _much_ to learn in this field.


----------



## Petwhac

Yes, perhaps it is a physiological and/or psychological thing. Perhaps it is just conditioning but I very much doubt that.
Really the only practical strategy I can imagine is to immerse oneself in the music and keep doing so. However, in the end one might have to conclude that certain kinds of music are not for one. Just as any activity in life may engross one person while at the same time bore the pants off another. So too with music.

The question is, why would someone want to learn to like something? Wine or cheese or watching basketball or knitting. 
Many years ago I was on a train and met a young boy who was engaged in trainspotting. I asked him, "Why do you do it? What do you get out of it" He replied, " I don't know, I just like it, it's good". "Fair enough" I said. I have never felt the need or desire to learn to like trainspotting but I'm happy that others find pleasure in it.


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## Mahlerian

What is the triadic structure in this music that sounds utterly right to my ears, every note in its correct place?






If there is none, then I cannot possibly say that triadic structure is necessary for music to sound harmonious.


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## KenOC

Triadic structure? "And as for that idiotic thing called the perfect triad, it's only a habit, like going to a cafe." --Claude Debussy


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> It's funny how some people object to blanket generalisations about music but are happy to make them or let them pass about populations!
> 
> Just sayin'...
> 
> ***And btw millions, Zappa has been admired in many quarters but 'worshipped in Europe'? Hahahaha that's a goodun', dang!
> 
> Also, John Williams may be a hack but he's a very talented one....you know, _real _musical ability.


Point by point, eh? All three? You should have left one rebuttal out, to make it look less contrived.

Yes, it's also funny how some people can dish it out, without expecting retribution! Am I held to a higher standard by you? I'm flattered!

***Zappa's "Hot Rats" went nowhere in the US, but was a hit on the British and Holland charts shortly after its release! See Barry Miles' _Zappa,_ p. 194. In Spring 1971, Zappa was in Britain and said "...every boutique you'd go into on King's Road was playing _Hot Rats_ in the background..." (_Zappa,_ Neil Slaven, p. 124)

I don't want to waste time on the merits of John Williams...

You were saying?


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> What is the triadic structure in this music that sounds utterly right to my ears, every note in its correct place?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If there is none, then I cannot possibly say that triadic structure is necessary for music to sound harmonious.


I don't intend to do a harmonic analysis of the piece but there are very many short phrases and chords that could have been lifted straight out of 'Gaspard De La Nuit' interspersed with other non harmonic flourishes. An uneasy marriage for me but one that tickles your fancy. 
As I have said, what sounds pleasant to one may not sound so to another. For me, I find the static 'atmospheric' approach to compositions soon bores me. But that you enjoy it and find it harmonious is great for both you and the composer


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> I don't intend to do a harmonic analysis of the piece but there very many short phrases and chords that could have been lifted straight out of 'Gaspard De La Nuit' interspersed with other non harmonic flourishes. An uneasy marriage for me but one that tickles your fancy.
> As I have said, what sounds pleasant to one may not sound so to another. For me, I find the static 'atmospheric' approach to compositions soon bores me.


Static? It's full of life. Every phrase was lovingly crafted. A lot of Baroque and Classical era music (to say nothing of earlier) is more rightly called static, with its constant adherence to V-I cadences, on the macro and micro level, never moving very far away. And Impressionism was the beginning of the move away from non-triadic harmony in music.

Then there are the truly stunning funereal bells ringing throughout the following:





I simply cannot believe that triadic harmony is anything but a small part of what music can do.


----------



## aleazk

Mahlerian said:


> What is the triadic structure in this music that sounds utterly right to my ears, every note in its correct place?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If there is none, then I cannot possibly say that triadic structure is necessary for music to sound harmonious.


One of my favorite pieces by Takemitsu. We are two now.


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Point by point, eh? All three? You should have left one rebuttal out, to make it look less contrived.
> 
> Yes, it's also funny how some people can dish it out, without expecting retribution! Am I held to a higher standard by you? I'm flattered!
> 
> ***Zappa's "Hot Rats" went nowhere in the US, but was a hit on the British and Holland charts shortly after its release! See Barry Miles' _Zappa,_ p. 194. In Spring 1971, Zappa was in Britain and said "...every boutique you'd go into on King's Road was playing _Hot Rats_ in the background..." (_Zappa,_ Neil Slaven, p. 124)
> 
> I don't want to waste time on the merits of John Williams...
> 
> You were saying?


In reverse order:

So you at least admit he has merits even if you don't want to waste time on them.

I saw Zappa here in London in the 70s, his own brand of rock/prog/unclassifiable was popular with a certain long haired, knowing, puffing type, me included. We made our music teacher at school take home a copy of The Mothers Live At Fillmore but he said he wouldn't play it in front of his wife (too much swearing and talk of things like Willie The Pimp)
However it is a well known fact that in Europe you have to look good, have gone to art school, have a political agenda or be a poseur to get on in popular music. Whereas in the U.S. you can look like crap but as long as you can play......!

I look forward to retribution.


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I think the answer is patently obvious and has been stated many times.
> 
> millionrainbows has correctly identified what he called music of the 'harmonic realm'. For me this includes all music in which the vertical (harmonic) dimension and the employment of triads however decorated, is a _*fundamental*_ expressive element. In other words all Western Music since organum and plainchant, all folk, pop, rock, most jazz and film music, all Broadway and Tin-Pan Alley. Music that includes Monteverdi and Mingus, Beethoven and the Black Eyed Peas but not Xenakis, Stockhausen and Kagel to name just three more recent 'art music' composers...Many people, including highly gifted, accomplished musicians do not respond to music with no discernible chord structure.


I think that's a _cognitive_ reason, not fundamental to hearing or harmonics, because _all pitched music which uses tones or sustained pitches perceivable as tones is inherently "harmonic."_

The weak spot in your argument is the term "fundamental." Chord structure is "harmonic," and serial music _does_ have "chord structures" of stacked pitches. I think "discernable chord structure" is too vague, and should be replaced with "chord function."

By contrast, _Chord function_ must be perceived in time, which makes it cognitive, not primarliy sensual.

Much of Xenakis and Stockhausen is disqualified from being valid examples if it uses "non-pitched" sounds, like percussion.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian- There is no Baroque or Classical music which is harmonically static.

Full of life and full of notes are not the same thing.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Yes, perhaps it is a physiological and/or psychological thing. Perhaps it is just conditioning...The question is, why would someone want to learn to like something?


I think you have it backwards. Listening to tonal music with chord functions taking place in time is a learned process, which involves expectation/memory, which are cognitive by nature.

With much modern music, you are listening "in the moment" more, which in many cases turns out to be very sensual and intuitive rather than cognitive.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Mahlerian- There is no Baroque or Classical music which is harmonically static.


Far more static than the Takemitsu, that's for sure. If it sticks primarily to the poles of tonic and dominant without much variation, then it is far more static than the harmonic prism of Les Yeux Clos II, which is constantly shifting.



Petwhac said:


> Full of life and full of notes are not the same thing.


If I thought that were true, then would I have used Takemitsu of all composers as my example? Or the Schoenberg, for that matter (which I doubt you listened to).


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Mahlerian- There is no Baroque or Classical music which is harmonically static.
> 
> Full of life and full of notes are not the same thing.


Gregorian chant is harmonically static, as is Indian raga (the root doesn't move to other stations), but I think Hidegard von Bingen's "static" music is overwhelmingly beautiful.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Far more static than the Takemitsu, that's for sure. If it sticks primarily to the poles of tonic and dominant without much variation, then it is far more static than the harmonic prism of Les Yeux Clos II, which is constantly shifting.
> 
> If I thought that were true, then would I have used Takemitsu of all composers as my example? Or the Schoenberg, for that matter (which I doubt you listened to).


Why do you doubt I listened to the Schoenberg? I have the sheet music. I studied Schoenberg in some depth. I first heard the piece 35 years ago.

I don't have anything against the Takemitsu. It's very pleasant. His orchestral music is sonorous, delicate and well crafted. It owes an enormous debt to Ravel and Debussy. 
The fact that you find a piece stunningly beautiful means nothing to me.

The whole architectural basis of Baroque and Classical music is the working out of the consequences of _moving_ from one key to another. 
You must have a different definition of stasis from mine.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Why do you doubt I listened to the Schoenberg? I have the sheet music. I studied Schoenberg in some depth. I first heard the piece 35 years ago.


Because you failed to mention it, and you made that bizarre assertion regarding mistaking "full of notes" for "full of life".



Petwhac said:


> I don't have anything against the Takemitsu. It's very pleasant. His orchestral music is sonorous, delicate and well crafted. It owes an enormous debt to Ravel and Debussy.
> The fact that you find a piece stunningly beautiful means nothing to me.


Yes, but the fact that you referred to it as ambient suggests a lack of affinity with the music. It is not ambient in the sense that New Age or soundtrack music is ambient, where the hypnotic effect is obtained via rhythmic repetition, where inattentive listening can alternate with attention to slow changes in the texture. This music requires attentive listening throughout, as the harmony and rhythm are constantly changing. Takemitsu is indebted to Debussy and Ravel, yes, but also Webern and Messiaen. Would you call them ambient as well, in their sparser moments?



Petwhac said:



> The whole architectural basis of Baroque and Classical music is the working out of the consequences of _moving_ from one key to another.
> You must have a different definition of stasis from mine.


I understand this perfectly well. I can read sheet music and understand the structure of, say, binary form. It is a motion from tonic to dominant and back to tonic. In terms of tonal distance, it is not very far, and sometimes the motion back to tonic takes all of a few bars, and the remainder of the piece is spent in the tonic key area.

I am not saying that these pieces are static. I am saying that they are _more static_ than the Takemitsu, the harmonic perspective of which is constantly shifting.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Because you failed to mention it, and you made that bizarre assertion regarding mistaking "full of notes" for "full of life".
> 
> Yes, but the fact that you referred to it as ambient suggests a lack of affinity with the music. It is not ambient in the sense that New Age or soundtrack music is ambient, where the hypnotic effect is obtained via rhythmic repetition, where inattentive listening can alternate with attention to slow changes in the texture. This music requires attentive listening throughout, as the harmony and rhythm are constantly changing. Takemitsu is indebted to Debussy and Ravel, yes, but also Webern and Messiaen. Would you call them ambient as well, in their sparser moments?
> 
> I understand this perfectly well. I can read sheet music and understand the structure of, say, binary form. It is a motion from tonic to dominant and back to tonic. In terms of tonal distance, it is not very far, and sometimes the motion back to tonic takes all of a few bars, and the remainder of the piece is spent in the tonic key area.
> 
> I am not saying that these pieces are static. I am saying that they are _more static_ than the Takemitsu, the harmonic perspective of which is constantly shifting.


I never actually used the term ambient but I agree it is not of the same ilk as New Age or soundtrack music. 
However, as we all know our _response_ to any music is just that, _ours_. The Takemitsu piece engenders a feeling of stasis _in me_ in a way that Messiaen and Webern seldom if ever do. I find it rather soporific although as I have said, it is quite pleasant.

Anyway, I entered this debate in response to the statement by mmsbis that he didn't didn't know why some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music. I say again, it is because of the lack of harmonic function, progression, tonality, triadic chord structure- call it whatever you want. In simple terms, you know, that *thing* which underpins and is an indispensable foundation for 'a good tune'. I don't think that is a hard concept to grasp. One may label such people 'conservative' or any other negative term - as if they give a fig! One may also protest that Webern and Xenakis wrote what one considers 'good tunes. Then we are entering the realm of semantics.

millionrainbows finds the Hildegard stunningly beautiful and that is great but he must allow others to find it a crashing bore. Personally I find it interesting but underwhelming.


----------



## Truckload

I was completely bored by the Takemitsu thing posted. But it was a good example of why people desire tonality in music.


----------



## Mahlerian

Truckload said:


> I was completely bored by the Takemitsu thing posted. But it was a good example of why people desire tonality in music.


Given the positive comments under that Youtube video, I doubt it. Unless you happen to represent the people in some way...?



Petwhac said:


> I never actually used the term ambient but I agree it is not of the same ilk as New Age or soundtrack music.


Sorry, you said atmospheric. All the same, the approach is very different from the type of things that are often referred to by either of these terms. The goal is not the creation of an atmosphere, that is an effect. The goal is the forward motion and play of sonorities.



Petwhac said:


> However, as we all know our response to any music is just that, ours. The Takemitsu piece engenders a feeling of stasis in me in a way that Messiaen and Webern seldom if ever do. I find it rather soporific although as I have said, it is quite pleasant.


But I was not speaking simply of my own reactions. From an objective standpoint, the Takemitsu is less static than you suggest.


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> ...I entered this debate in response to the statement by mmsbis that he didn't didn't know why some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music. I say again, it is because of the lack of *harmonic function, progression, tonality, triadic chord structure...*


*Harmonic function:* Not necessary for effective, ear-pleasing music. Examples: Debussy, Messiaen, Cage's Sonatas & Interludes, Varése, Berg...

*Progression:* a "progression" is a series of chords with a definite goal. A *"succession"* of chords has no goal, yet can be very effective and pleasing. Examples: Debussy, Wagner operas, R. Strauss' Metamprphosen, Schoenberg's Pelleas und Mellisande, parts of Mahler symphonies, Messiaen...

*Tonality:* Not the _real_ reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...*things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.*

*Triadic chord structure:* Happens all the time in serial music.



Petwhac said:


> millionrainbows finds the Hildegard stunningly beautiful and that is great but he must allow others to find it a crashing bore. Personally I find it interesting but underwhelming.


I allow that; but those qualities such as (lack of) harmonic movement, which you find "interesting but underwhelming" are not a requirement for effective music. The majority opinion of history backs this up; the fact that it has survived through history, and is still being recorded, _far, far outweighs the credibility of mere opinion._


----------



## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality:* Not the _real_ reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...*things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.*


Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music. That explains much! Perhaps some sort of therapy might help or, if all else fails...surgery?

Anything to achieve the total objectivity and clarity of mind needed to appreciate the music you speak of. I say it's worth the price!


----------



## Guest

A: paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.

B: Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music.

Interesting. Statement B is presented as a restatement, perhaps a clarification of statement A. But it is nothing of the sort. There is nothing in statement A to suggest that things like paradigm, world view, mindset, and taste have nothing to do with music. Indeed, the whole purpose of statement A is to propose that those things have everything to do with how people react to music.

And is there anything really very contentious or difficult or muddlesome about that? Not really. Who we are and what we know and what experiences we've had all have a great deal to do with what we enjoy and what we prefer to listen to. Why, it's what one might call the bleeding obvious!

And there's nothing in statement A or in the post from which it comes that's anything like this: "the total objectivity and clarity of mind needed to appreciate the music you speak of." There's nothing in that post about what might be necessary to appreciate non tonal musics. The point is quite other, to identify something other than "tonality" as the reason people like Classical/Romantic music. I think that's a good thing to consider. Tonality just by itself is not a very useful term for identifying styles of music. It's a peculiar system, actually, which has been developed (pun) and developed and developed, not only from era to era or composer to composer but even from piece to piece in a single composer's ouevre. 

Not to mention.

(Just kidding. Of course I'll mention it: no one likes everything. You would think from some posts that tonality is pretty much a guarantee of quality. But people who report as liking tonal music don't like every single piece written using that system. Just another way of saying what million said, that tonality is not the real reason people like classical/romantic music.)


----------



## science

some guy said:


> A: paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.
> 
> B: Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music.
> 
> Interesting. Statement B is presented as a restatement, perhaps a clarification of statement A. But it is nothing of the sort. There is nothing in statement A to suggest that things like paradigm, world view, mindset, and taste have nothing to do with music. Indeed, the whole purpose of statement A is to propose that those things have everything to do with how people react to music.
> 
> And is there anything really very contentious or difficult or muddlesome about that? Not really. Who we are and what we know and what experiences we've had all have a great deal to do with what we enjoy and what we prefer to listen to. Why, it's what one might call the bleeding obvious!


Actually, I don't understand.

a) inherent in the music and therefore not only in one's mind
b) only in one's mind and therefore not inherent in the music

Those seem like mutually exclusive categories to me.

But anyway, I'm confused more generally than that. Other than objective descriptions of the sound (such as wavelengths measured in Hz, which is not how we perceive sound), what is in the music that is not in our minds? I can't think of anything.

In general the form of the conversation seems to be "Someone doesn't like certain music because of X" followed by "X is not a good reason to like or not like music." Am I wrong about this?


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> *Harmonic function:* Not necessary for effective, ear-pleasing music. Examples: Debussy, Messiaen, Cage's Sonatas & Interludes, Varése, Berg...


Never said it was.



millionrainbows said:


> *Progression:* a "progression" is a series of chords with a definite goal. A *"succession"* of chords has no goal, yet can be very effective and pleasing. Examples: Debussy, Wagner operas, R. Strauss' Metamprphosen, Schoenberg's Pelleas und Mellisande, parts of Mahler symphonies, Messiaen...


Wagner- *ne plus ultra* of harmonic progression! Mahler may occasionally 'hang' in a sort of suspended passage for dramatic effect and on very rare occasions. Ditto Pelleas and Strauss. Debussy is a better example.



millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality:* Not the _real_ reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...*things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.*


Nonsense



millionrainbows said:


> *Triadic chord structure:* Happens all the time in serial music.


As you must know, I am not referring to just any tritone chords. I am referring to those contained in diatonic scales. The very triads that Schoenberg stressed must be avoided at all cost lest the listener gets a sense of 'tonality'.



millionrainbows said:


> I allow that; but those qualities such as harmonic movement, which you find "interesting but underwhelming" are not a requirement for effective music., [The majority opinion of history backs this up; the fact that it has survived through history, and is still being recordedI]far, far outweighs the credibility of mere opinion.[/I]


I wouldn't play the _opinion of history_ card if I were you. 
The Beatles's 'Yesterday' has been covered 3,000 times by the same number of artists. You know that little ditty with it's common chord progressions yet which contains some inexplicable musical poetry that appeals to so many.:lol:


----------



## Guest

science said:


> Actually, I don't understand.
> 
> a) inherent in the music and therefore not only in one's mind
> b) only in one's mind and therefore not inherent in the music
> 
> Those seem like mutually exclusive categories to me.
> 
> But anyway, I'm confused more generally than that. Other than objective descriptions of the sound (such as wavelengths measured in Hz, which is not how we perceive sound), what is in the music that is not in our minds? I can't think of anything.
> 
> In general the form of the conversation seems to be "Someone doesn't like certain music because of X" followed by "X is not a good reason to like or not like music." Am I wrong about this?


No, you have correctly identified false syllogisms - the last refuge of the dogmatic. That and monumental obfuscation!!


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> *
> Tonality: Not the real reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.
> *


*



KenOC said:



Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music. That explains much! Perhaps some sort of therapy might help or, if all else fails...surgery?

Click to expand...

I suspect that all of us actually have a similar view on this issue. I agree with millionrainbows' statement above, but I think it could be slightly rewritten as:

Tonality: Not the only reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it also/mostly has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.

I think we all believe that the music and our minds effect our enjoyment. Basically it is the interaction between the music (what our ears sense or the external stimuli) and our brains (the totality of our psychological makeup that pertains to music) that determines whether we enjoy a work. I assumed that millionrainbows was simply emphasizing the latter.*


----------



## Arsakes

KenOC said:


> Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music. That explains much! Perhaps some sort of therapy might help or, if all else fails...surgery?
> 
> Anything to achieve the total objectivity and clarity of mind needed to appreciate the music you speak of. I say it's worth the price!


Didn't you know that the humans are a blight to the world as long as they think rationally? When everyone will be purged of thinking, subjects and ideals and become completely objective the goal is achieved!


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> As you must know, I am not referring to just any tritone chords. I am referring to those contained in diatonic scales. The very triads that Schoenberg stressed must be avoided at all cost lest the listener gets a sense of 'tonality'.


He may have said that, but he used triads from time to time in his atonal and serialist music. And that's to say nothing of Berg, who uses diatonic triads constantly. If you include triads which are "garnished" with a few dissonances like #11ths and flat-9ths, which you have to if you want to include Jazz and 20th century non-serial music as tonal, then you can find examples everywhere in just about everything he wrote.

The two most dissonant chords in the second of Schoenberg's Six Piano Pieces, for instance, can be broken into two diminished triads and two augmented triads respectively. There's an underlying awareness of tonal/triadic structure in all of Schoenberg's music.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Ah, "in their minds" and nothing to do with the music. That explains much! Perhaps some sort of therapy might help or, if all else fails...surgery?


_No, I'm not saying that everyone has to like modern music; but if they don't, that is their own opinion and subjective response, and has very little to do with qualities "in" the music._



KenOC said:


> Anything to achieve the total objectivity and clarity of mind needed to appreciate the music you speak of. I say it's worth the price!


_If one manages to extract and focus on "objective" qualities of music, in the sense that music is a two-way participation in a "language" which composers intend as communication with listeners, then this is where world-view, paradigm, and "taste" are relevant: perhaps the listener does not wish to engage in the exchange because the music does not represent his paradigm or mindset.

If the listener does not engage, then "game over" before it ever started. This is no reflection on the composers or their music, but is totally attributable to the listener's willingness and capacity to engage with it.

It's a free country, listen to what you want.
_


----------



## Petwhac

mmsbls said:


> I suspect that all of us actually have a similar view on this issue. I agree with millionrainbows' statement above, but I think it could be slightly rewritten as:
> 
> Tonality: Not the *only* reason some people who like Classical /Romantic music, didn't respond to more modern/20thC music...it *also/mostly* has to do with paradigm, world view, mindset, taste...things that are not "in" the music, but in their minds.
> 
> I think we all believe that the music _and_ our minds effect our enjoyment. Basically it is the _interaction_ between the music (what our ears sense or the external stimuli) and our brains (the totality of our psychological makeup that pertains to music) that determines whether we enjoy a work. I assumed that millionrainbows was simply emphasizing the latter.


Surely nobody thinks that all music is essentially the same and there is no discernible difference between a piano sonata by Mozart and one by Boulez? If we accept that they sound different we may examine the music to try and find where the difference lies. Ah, I notice that the Mozart is made up harmonically of major and minor triads, of major and minor scales and arpeggios. And here's a sonata by Brahms and a sonatina by Ravel and oh look, although none of the three pieces share the same character and they treat the triads and scales in their own fashion, they are using essentially the* exact same triads and scales.* As do these songs by Simon and Garfunkel, Dr Dre, Cole Porter, John Dowland, King Henry VIII and Burt Bacharach!
Someone pass me that Boulez sonata and one of Stockhausen's Klavierstuke. Oh dear, I can't seem to find a major or minor triad anywhere. Nor a major or minor scale! But surely they are there because I have been reliably informed that nothing in the _music itself_ could account for the fact that I enjoy the Mozart and Ravel more than the Stockhausen. It is is beyond belief that I prefer music with major and minor triads to music without. Even The Rite of Spring, Glass and Adams has lot's of them. Hot Rats and Ummagumma too. I can hear them in Monteverdi and Mantovani. 
I guess I could get to like music without the aforementioned ingredients in the same way that I could get to like most anything if I want to. I know that John Williams, Wayne Krantz and Guillaume Connesson feel so guilty that they are living in this day and age yet continue to use major and minor triads for their own and their legion of fans' wicked pleasure.

edit: this was not directed to mmsbis but was meant as a general comment.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> He may have said that, but he used triads from time to time in his atonal and serialist music. And that's to say nothing of Berg, who uses diatonic triads constantly. If you include triads which are "garnished" with a few dissonances like #11ths and flat-9ths, which you have to if you want to include Jazz and 20th century non-serial music as tonal, then you can find examples everywhere in just about everything he wrote.
> 
> The two most dissonant chords in the second of Schoenberg's Six Piano Pieces, for instance, can be broken into two diminished triads and two augmented triads respectively. There's an underlying awareness of tonal/triadic structure in all of Schoenberg's music.


How about Webern, Babbitt, Xenakis, Stockhausen etc etc. 
Of course the use of diatonic triads may be disguised so as to give no perception of diatonic progression. I have a score of Berg's Lyric Suite, an impassioned, highly developed and finely wrought piece. Please cite an example of his constant use of diatonic triads in a context in which they are recognisable as such.

In jazz, the basic triads are always there and in very common progressions. The flat 9ths, 11ths, the sharpened 9ths with a raised 5th are all without exception a mere coloration of the basic triads. The chords *function exactly *as they would in Bach or Borodin.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> How about Webern, Babbitt, Xenakis, Stockhausen etc etc.


Webern may be heard harmonically. Stravinsky said that's the way he heard Webern. I don't have any scores on hand to analyze, nor for the others, whom I don't listen to as often as Boulez, Takemitsu, or Ligeti.



Petwhac said:


> Of course the use of diatonic triads may be disguised so as to give no perception of diatonic progression.


Right. That's how Debussy works.



Petwhac said:


> I have a score of Berg's Lyric Suite, an impassioned, highly developed and finely wrought piece. Please cite an example of his constant use of diatonic triads in a context in which they are recognisable as such.


The Act I interlude of Lulu sounds completely tonal to me. It opens on a D-flat major 7th chord, moving to a dominant on A-flat, the E-flat of which turns into the root of a diminished triad...and there's a D major #11 (a chord found prominently in Mahler, Jazz, and pop music) a few bars later in first inversion. I could go on in some detail, but I think you get the point.

The real question is what key is this in?






By what stretch of the imagination does it use the "same scales and chords" found in Mozart?



Petwhac said:


> In jazz, the basic triads are always there and in very common progressions. The flat 9ths, 11ths, the sharpened 9ths with a raised 5th are all without exception a mere coloration of the basic triads. The chords function exactly as they would in Bach or Borodin.


Entirely false. Jazz breaks the rules of voice leading and thus of traditional function. The chord structure may have similarities, but the actual implementation is completely different. Flat 9ths, sharp 11ths, and so forth may be found in passing in common practice works, but they need resolution as dissonances. Jazz does not require this, and treats them as stable. This is utterly opposed to traditional practice.


----------



## LordBlackudder

it cant be already ''done'' because its a language.

its like saying english is already done. lets invent something else for the sake of it.

it's not a product for invention its a language for expression. changes of values and culture will influence the style but its still within the framework of tonality.


----------



## KRoad

some guy said:


> If you think you can write music that matches up to the music of the past but is produced contrary to any principle that produced that past music, that made it living and vital in its time (and hence living and vital for all time), then the best of British luck to you. But I have my doubts.


So... I finally read this verbage after procrastinating over whether or not to read another predictable tonal v. atonal debate and at the end of it I am predictably asking: "What's your point?" Music is music; take it or leave it in what ever form you find it - but please don't kid anybody that you've found the "New Aural Aesthetic" just because you choose to leave the tonal. Come on dude - deal with it, get over it and move on.


----------



## Vaneyes

TC Exchange, please mention *Nono*. Many of those CDs need a price correction.


----------



## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> In jazz, the basic triads are always there and in very common progressions. The flat 9ths, 11ths, the sharpened 9ths with a raised 5th are all without exception a mere coloration of the basic triads. The chords *function exactly *as they would in Bach or Borodin.


No they don't o3o. Bach would never have a dominant 7 chord go to a dominant 7 chord and to yet another dominant 7 chord (as in a 12-bar blues progression I7-IV7-V7). Bach would never have unresolved dissonances the way jazz generally does, the kinds of tone clusters that are prominent in much of jazz harmony, as adventurous as he was. Borodin's harmony also functions quite differently from Bach or jazz. To call something that fundamentally changes the sonority of a chord a "mere coloration" is absurd. Its like saying that a C Major triad is always exactly the same, no matter how it is voiced or orchestrated. Also, you like to point out that triads are so common in lots of great (and mediocre) music, but so are many other kinds of chords and harmonies besides triads. What about suspension chords? or open 5ths? or tone clusters? or how about quartal and quintal harmonies? You may argue that suspensions don't count as unique chords, but I do. They have a unique sonority that is different from major and minor triads, and they add considerable beauty and color to mostly triadic music.


----------



## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> No they don't o3o. Bach would never have a dominant 7 chord go to a dominant 7 chord and to yet another dominant 7 chord (as in a 12-bar blues progression I7-IV7-V7).


No, not like that blues sequence, but there are numerous examples of ii-V7 following ii-V7 repeatedly in sequences of fifths, which produces a very jazz-like sequence.



BurningDesire said:


> Bach would never have unresolved dissonances the way jazz generally does, the kinds of tone clusters that are prominent in much of jazz harmony, as adventurous as he was.


Bach used several diminished seventh chords in succession, unresolved, in his "Chromatic Fantasy." Plus, diminished seventh chords are inherently dissonant, containing a tritone.


----------



## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> No they don't o3o. Bach would never have a dominant 7 chord go to a dominant 7 chord and to yet another dominant 7 chord (as in a 12-bar blues progression I7-IV7-V7). Bach would never have unresolved dissonances the way jazz generally does, the kinds of tone clusters that are prominent in much of jazz harmony, as adventurous as he was. Borodin's harmony also functions quite differently from Bach or jazz. To call something that fundamentally changes the sonority of a chord a "mere coloration" is absurd. Its like saying that a C Major triad is always exactly the same, no matter how it is voiced or orchestrated. Also, you like to point out that triads are so common in lots of great (and mediocre) music, but so are many other kinds of chords and harmonies besides triads. What about suspension chords? or open 5ths? or tone clusters? or how about quartal and quintal harmonies? You may argue that suspensions don't count as unique chords, but I do. They have a unique sonority that is different from major and minor triads, and they add considerable beauty and color to mostly triadic music.


If I must spell it out then!

Go to the piano and play this progression.
First chord LH on D and in the RH the notes (leaving an 8ve gap) F-A-C E. ( this is a minor 9th chord)
Next chord LH on G, RH F-Ab-B-Db-E (this is a 13th chord with a flattened 9th and a flattened 5th)
Last chord LH on C, RH E-G-A-B-D (This is a major 9th chord with an added 6th)

Sounds nice and jazzy?

It is the progression II-V-I in root position as could be found in Bach, Beethoven and Borordin. This is it's *function*. The chords are merely decorated diatonic triads.
If you do not grasp this then you have not grasped harmony, Jazz or CP.:tiphat:


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Flat 9ths...and so forth may be found in passing in common practice works, but they need resolution as dissonances. Jazz does not require this, and treats them as stable. This is utterly opposed to traditional practice.


I tend to disagree. Beethoven uses diminished seventh chords in his late quartet in F Maj Op. 135. He transforms the dim7 into a b9 dominant by changing the root.

This basic principle is best shown by the vii (dim) chord in the key of C; an "imaginary" root of G is placed below, transforming the B vii dim into an "incomplete" G7 (V7) chord, resolved as a V-I.

Flat-nines are also regarded as "altered dominants" in jazz, and are treated as such.


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> It is the progression II-V-I in root position as could be found in Bach, Beethoven and Borordin. This is it's *function*. The chords are merely decorated diatonic triads.


On this point, Petwhac and I are in agreement.


----------



## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> If I must spell it out then!
> 
> Go to the piano and play this progression.
> First chord LH on D and in the RH the notes (leaving an 8ve gap) F-A-C E. ( this is a minor 9th chord)
> Next chord LH on G, RH F-Ab-B-Db-E (this is a 13th chord with a flattened 9th and a flattened 5th)
> Last chord LH on C, RH E-G-A-B-D (This is a major 9th chord with an added 6th)
> 
> Sounds nice and jazzy?
> 
> It is the progression II-V-I in root position as could be found in Bach, Beethoven and Borordin. This is it's *function*. The chords are merely decorated diatonic triads.
> If you do not grasp this then you have not grasped harmony, Jazz or CP.:tiphat:


No, I have grasped it, I just don't accept that narrow view of chord functionality as the best way of understanding how frequencies interact with eachother. Just referring to that progression as a II-V-I does not take into account the drastically different colors of these chords as opposed to just major and minor triads, and belittles their differences. Roman Numeral analysis helps in some respects, but it isn't perfect. It can't be used to analyze a considerable amount of music, at least not objectively.


----------



## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> I just don't accept that narrow view of chord functionality as the best way of understanding how frequencies interact with each other.


I really rather doubt that Petwhac does, either, except when he's arguing against twentieth century music of the non-common practice kinds. And I'll bet he can tell the difference between Bach and Berlioz instantly, in spite of their using chords the same way all the time.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> I tend to disagree. Beethoven uses diminished seventh chords in his late quartet in F Maj Op. 135. He transforms the dim7 into a b9 dominant by changing the root.
> 
> This basic principle is best shown by the vii (dim) chord in the key of C; an "imaginary" root of G is placed below, transforming the B vii dim into an "incomplete" G7 (V7) chord, resolved as a V-I.
> 
> Flat-nines are also regarded as "altered dominants" in jazz, and are treated as such.


The point remains that the resolution, both as expected and as implemented, is different in terms of voice leading, and that jazz uses harmony in ways that would be unacceptable in common practice music. I've seen some people argue that a plagal cadence isn't a real cadence at all, and that every tonal work rests on a V-I perfect cadence (Schenkerians tend to think this way). The plagal cadence is the basis of much rock and jazz, with some songs in the former comprised entirely of I-IV-I or some substitute (I-vi-I, I-flVII-I). To say that these chords are functioning _the way they would_ in common practice music is misleading at best.


----------



## Guest

KRoad said:


> So... I finally read this verbage after procrastinating over whether or not to read another predictable tonal v. atonal debate and at the end of it I am predictably asking: "What's your point?" Music is music; take it or leave it in what ever form you find it - but please don't kid anybody that you've found the "New Aural Aesthetic" just because you choose to leave the tonal. Come on dude - deal with it, get over it and move on.


Bravo!! Yes, "verbiage" - another great way to describe this gobbledy-****!!


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> I really rather doubt that Petwhac does, either, except when he's arguing against twentieth century music of the non-common practice kinds. And I'll bet he can tell the difference between Bach and Berlioz instantly, in spite of their using chords the same way all the time.


Both you and BurningDesire have lost me there!
What has frequency got to do with what I'm saying? I can tell the difference between Bach and Berlioz and I can even tell the difference between The B minor Mass and the Magnificat. I can tell the difference between Harold In Italy and Nuit d'ete. I can tell the difference between the first measure of the Goldberg Variations and the second measure.
What has that got to do with anything.

I am not arguing 'against' any kind of music. I am for the third time, explaining what it is that much 20th century 'art' music doesn't contain that makes it difficult for many people to get with it. If someone wants to insist that the earth is flat and the moon is made of cheese, let them. They are wrong.

To Mahlerian I say this: Louis Spohr used harmony in a way that Beethoven found unacceptable.

Harmonic function is not the _only_ aspect of music that has significance in defining it's character and effect.
Consider popular music. You can learn 6 major and 6 minor chords on the guitar and play every pop song ever written. They don't all sound the same even though they all use the same chords in limited number of progressions.

Oh and about Berg and his use of diatonic sounding harmony. Funny that he is considered by many to be the most accessible 12-toner followed by that other hanger on to harmony- Schoenberg himself. *Mmmm what a coincidence *


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Harmonic function is not the _only_ aspect of music that has significance in defining its character and effect.


That's what we've been saying all along.



Petwhac said:


> To Mahlerian I say this: Louis Spohr used harmony in a way that Beethoven found unacceptable.


Right, but both Spohr and Beethoven are justifiable in common practice tonal theory. Mahler and Wagner are justifiable in common practice tonal theory, once one allows enharmonic modulations. Debussy and Jazz are not, and any attempt to say that it does because the harmonic function bears some resemblance to common practice theory is wrong, and glosses over _everything_ interesting and unique about these kinds of music.



Petwhac said:


> I am not arguing 'against' any kind of music. I am for the third time, explaining what it is that much 20th century 'art' music doesn't contain that makes it difficult for many people to get with it.


I believe that the average listener can't tell any fundamental difference between tonal and atonal music. The fact that they are consistently confused (in both directions) indicates this very strongly, as does the difficulty musicologists have classifying certain works. I think average listeners hear music they like and music they don't like, and classify from there. The word atonal just gives them an easy target.

Edit:


Petwhac said:


> Oh and about Berg and his use of diatonic sounding harmony. Funny that he is considered by many to be the most accessible 12-toner followed by that other hanger on to harmony- Schoenberg himself. *Mmmm what a coincidence*


Wait...what? You're simultaneously admitting that I'm right (in Berg's use of diatonic material), making fun of my position, and calling Schoenberg "accessible"?

In my experience, among atonal composers, people find Takemitsu, Ligeti, and Varese far more accessible than Schoenberg, and as for 12-tone composition, what about Dallapiccola?


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Right, but both Spohr and Beethoven are justifiable in common practice tonal theory. Mahler and Wagner are justifiable in common practice tonal theory, once one allows enharmonic modulations. Debussy and Jazz are not, and any attempt to say that it does because the harmonic function bears some resemblance to common practice theory is wrong, and glosses over _everything_ interesting and unique about these kinds of music.


Plenty of Debussy is explicable (not sure your term justifiable is appropriate) within the realm of CP tonality. Some isn't. I dare say there are avenues of Jazz that are outside the use of functional harmony. Please post some examples. The popular side of Jazz, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Coltrane, Tatum, Art Blakey, Oscar Peterson Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock and many many more is mostly based on diatonic triads. In fact, a large part of Jazz is based on arrangements of popular songs. The fact that you can come in half way through an Erroll Garner rendition of Misty, in the middle of an improvised solo, and still recognise the song is testament to the fact that it is the chord progression of that particular song which is recognisably underpinning the solo.



Mahlerian said:


> I believe that the average listener can't tell any fundamental difference between tonal and atonal music. The fact that they are consistently confused (in both directions) indicates this very strongly, as does the difficulty musicologists have classifying certain works. I think average listeners hear music they like and music they don't like, and classify from there. The word atonal just gives them an easy target.


They may not understand the terminology but they sure as hell can tell the difference. At least all the average listeners I've come across. Obviously there are occasional blurred borders- some film music is one.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> The fact that you can come in half way through an Erroll Garner rendition of Misty, in the middle of an improvised solo, and still recognise the song is testament to the fact that it is the chord progression of that particular song which is recognisably underpinning the solo.


You can recognize atonal variations on tonal themes as well, without much difficulty. A structure can be carried from a mostly functional form into a less strictly functional one and still be recognizable.



Petwhac said:


> They may not understand the terminology but they sure as hell can tell the difference. At least all the average listeners I've come across. Obviously there are occasional blurred borders- some film music is one.


Then why do so many keep getting the two confused? I've seen every tonal piece Schoenberg wrote called atonal at one point or another, and I've seen several of his atonal works (not to mention Berg's) called tonal. I've seen late Debussy called tonal. I myself hear Takemitsu's November Steps as tonal, and there's some question over whether Messiaen's works of the 50s and 60s are tonal or not. Forget those, though, because even his Trois Petites Liturgies has been called atonal.

Edit: Stop the presses! I have just found somebody online who hears Shostakovich's 5th as atonal!


----------



## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> Harmonic function is not the _only_ aspect of music that has significance in defining it's character and effect.
> Consider popular music. You can learn 6 major and 6 minor chords on the guitar and play every pop song ever written. They don't all sound the same even though they all use the same chords in limited number of progressions.


so much wrong.


----------



## Guest

It's pretty simple, really.

When I write something positive about contemporary music, it's "verbiage."

When Petwhac writes something negative about contemporary music, it's pure gold.

The taking of sides is embarrassingly obvious.

And in the meantime, contemporary music continues to be described falsely, listened to (if at all) unsympathetically, and generally excoriated. 

Pity really. There's so much nice stuff out there to listen to. (All you have to lose is your pride. Probably should lose that anyway.)


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> You can recognize atonal variations on tonal themes as well, without much difficulty. A structure can be carried from a mostly functional form into a less strictly functional one and still be recognizable.
> 
> Then why do so many keep getting the two confused? I've seen every tonal piece Schoenberg wrote called atonal at one point or another, and I've seen several of his atonal works (not to mention Berg's) called tonal. I've seen late Debussy called tonal. I myself hear Takemitsu's November Steps as tonal, and there's some question over whether Messiaen's works of the 50s and 60s are tonal or not. Forget those, though, because even his Trois Petites Liturgies has been called atonal.


Who called Transfigured Night atonal? Give me their address!! Takemitsu, Ligeti, Messiaen whomever, they can all have passages which allude to recognisable tonal harmony. Just play an open 5th and hey presto!

We are now once again discussing definitions and terminolgy. Zzzzzzzzz!

Atonal variations on a tonal theme? Rzewski's The People United? Any other example?


----------



## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> so much wrong.


Show me an example!


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Who called Transfigured Night atonal? Give me their address!! Takemitsu, Ligeti, Messiaen whomever, they can all have passages which allude to recognisable tonal harmony. Just play an open 5th and hey presto!


Read 'em and weep for humanity:


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> Show me an example!


We all of us have been showing you examples for years. Many many months anyway.

After awhile, it just gets overwhelming when there's so much material to deal with.

I'm sure you will understand.


----------



## Petwhac

some guy said:


> We all of us have been showing you examples for years. Many many months anyway.
> 
> After awhile, it just gets overwhelming when there's so much material to deal with.
> 
> I'm sure you will understand.


I was asking BurningDesire for examples of pop songs actually. I don't believe I've asked for those before.

Sheeesh!


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Read 'em and weep for humanity:


The internet is a great place to source misinformation.:lol:


----------



## arpeggio

Petwhac said:


> Who called Transfigured Night atonal? Give me their address!!


Not here but in other forums I have had contact with those who believed that _Transfigured Night_ is atonal.

'some guy', 'millions', do you recall members of the 'other' place complaining that _Transfigured Night _ was atonal?


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I was asking BurningDesire for examples of pop songs actually. I don't believe I've asked for those before.
> 
> Sheeesh!


Sheesh right back atcha, Pet. You were doing nothing of the sort. You quoted BD as saying "so much wrong," a reference to the claims expressed in your previous post (some of which, it is true, were about pop songs), and then you said "Show me an example."

And now we're supposed to believe that you were simply asking for examples of pop songs? When you could easily have said "Some examples of pop songs that don't use those 12 chords?" (And, of course, since you failed to mention which 12 chords you had in mind, it would have been difficult if not impossible for BD to answer that request. And all you would have had to say to any example is, "Oh, that's one of the chords I meant." And so the squabbling would continue, world without end, amen.)


----------



## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> No, I have grasped it, I just don't accept that narrow view of chord functionality as the best way of understanding how frequencies interact with eachother. Just referring to that progression as a II-V-I does not take into account the drastically different colors of these chords as opposed to just major and minor triads, and belittles their differences. Roman Numeral analysis helps in some respects, but it isn't perfect. It can't be used to analyze a considerable amount of music, at least not objectively.


Thank God you're not a bass player!~


----------



## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Sheesh right back atcha, Pet. You were doing nothing of the sort. You quoted BD as saying "so much wrong," a reference to the claims expressed in your previous post (some of which, it is true, were about pop songs), and then you said "Show me an example."
> 
> And now we're supposed to believe that you were simply asking for examples of pop songs? When you could easily have said "Some examples of pop songs that don't use those 12 chords?" (And, of course, since you failed to mention which 12 chords you had in mind, it would have been difficult if not impossible for BD to answer that request. And all you would have had to say to any example is, "Oh, that's one of the chords I meant." And so the squabbling would continue, world without end, amen.)


Perhaps this will jog your memory. Hrrumph hrrumph!








There are 12 major triads and 12 minor triads that exist. Since very few pop songs have key changes I was perhaps making it too hard. Most pop songs could probably be played knowing 6 chords in total.

Of course in more recent trends in pop we find even fewer chords......


----------



## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> Thank God you're not a bass player!~


Actually I am a bass player :3 and I'm pretty good at it too~


----------



## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> No, I have grasped it, I just don't accept that narrow view of chord functionality as the best way of understanding how frequencies interact with eachother. Just referring to that progression as a II-V-I does not take into account the drastically different colors of these chords as opposed to just major and minor triads, and belittles their differences. Roman Numeral analysis helps in some respects, but it isn't perfect. It can't be used to analyze a considerable amount of music, at least not objectively.


Chords only have one root, no matter how you stack them.

"Function" using Roman numerals is an _abstract_ concept, used to identify root movement of chords. It's not based on "sounds, colors, or frequencies." What's in the bass of a chord it not necessarily its root.

Have you ever taken a music theory course?


----------



## arpeggio

But a chord of wood may have multiple roots.


----------



## PetrB

There is emerging in my mind a "differential in how we listen."

Chords, Chords, Chords... *I'm almost as sick of hearing about chords as I am when I hear talk of 'melody' *_-- the talk most often used in the most simplistic of ways._

That differential, whether the music is homophonic, polyphonic, or a brew of the two, is divided into two types of listener:
Listener group (Group "A") *predominately hear 'chords / melody - theme.'*
Listener group (Group "B") *predominantly hear confluent lines,* regardless of homophonic or polyphonic texture.

_*I think group "A" is more likely to have a strong preference for the common practice repertoire, and maybe some early 20th century music.

I think 'group "B"' is more likely to be open to music post common practice? *_

... boiling down to 'how you listen' determining a number of criteria which determines taste / preference.


----------



## Mahlerian

PetrB said:


> There is emerging in my mind a "differential in how we listen."
> 
> Chords, Chords, Chords... *I'm almost as sick of hearing about chords as I am when I hear talk of 'melody' *_-- the talk most often used in the most simplistic of ways._
> 
> That differential, whether the music is homophonic, polyphonic, or a brew of the two, is divided into two types of listener:
> Listener group (Group "A") *predominately hear 'chords / melody - theme.'*
> Listener group (Group "B") *predominantly hear confluent lines,* regardless of homophonic or polyphonic texture.
> 
> _*I think group "A" is more likely to have a strong preference for the common practice repertoire, and maybe some early 20th century music.
> 
> I think 'group "B"' is more likely to be open to music post common practice? *_
> 
> ... boiling down to 'how you listen' determining a number of criteria which determines taste / preference.


I used to be A, but now I'm definitely B. It's one of the reasons that a good deal of pop music bothers me and sounds very "empty".


----------



## Guest

Hey, I spent a summer working for a wood seller.

None of our c(h)ords had any roots!

(Good joke, though. And I can totally hear the response--not from arpeggio, of course!--already: "Are you saying that because cords of wood are rootless that that justifies forcing audiences to listen to atonal music?")


----------



## arpeggio

If we don't branch out I will leaf this discussion.


----------



## Petwhac

PetrB said:


> There is emerging in my mind a "differential in how we listen."
> 
> Chords, Chords, Chords... *I'm almost as sick of hearing about chords as I am when I hear talk of 'melody' *_-- the talk most often used in the most simplistic of ways._
> 
> That differential, whether the music is homophonic, polyphonic, or a brew of the two, is divided into two types of listener:
> Listener group (Group "A") *predominately hear 'chords / melody - theme.'*
> Listener group (Group "B") *predominantly hear confluent lines,* regardless of homophonic or polyphonic texture.
> 
> _*I think group "A" is more likely to have a strong preference for the common practice repertoire, and maybe some early 20th century music.
> 
> I think 'group "B"' is more likely to be open to music post common practice? *_
> 
> ... boiling down to 'how you listen' determining a number of criteria which determines taste / preference.


But would the group one belongs in be due to nature or nurture? And what of those who like both equally?

Don't you think that the most _popular_ music (not necessarily the best music) is that which the listener can recall in their mind in an accurate manner. In other words, hum along with or hum later or tap out it's rhythm? Isn't that why Mozart is more_ popular _than Maderna? It's hard to imagine it ever being any different.


----------



## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> If we don't branch out I will leaf this discussion.


Don't be a sap!


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Don't you think that the most _popular_ music (not necessarily the best music) is that which the listener can recall in their mind in an accurate manner. In other words, hum along with or hum later or tap out it's rhythm? Isn't that why Mozart is more_ popular _than Maderna? It's hard to imagine it ever being any different.


Agreed. But I think you're mistaken if you think that this is related specifically to atonality. Tonal music of the 20th century is barely more popular, with the exception of Shostakovich and (early) Stravinsky, and Debussy's late music is far more popular than the tonal early Schoenberg works.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Agreed. But I think you're mistaken if you think that this is related specifically to atonality. Tonal music of the 20th century is barely more popular, with the exception of Shostakovich and (early) Stravinsky, and Debussy's late music is far more popular than the tonal early Schoenberg works.


But the familiar harmonic movement which lies beneath all tonal music, yes those major and minor triads which we all know from nursery tunes and popular music is the main missing ingredient from non-tonal, serial, and other 20th trends. Isn't it?


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> But the familiar harmonic movement which lies beneath all tonal music, yes those major and minor triads which we all know from nursery tunes and popular music is the main missing ingredient from non-tonal, serial, and other 20th trends. Isn't it?


A lot of popular music isn't built on major and minor triads. Heavy metal and the like use power chords, distorted bare fifths which can sound either major or minor depending on context. Rap and Hip Hop often use samples divested of their original context, implying no triadic motion.

Most popular music today, rock, pop, rap, and the like, is either modal or mixed modal/tonal, not strictly tonal, and it has been this way ever since the flVI-flVII-I cadence became popular in the 60s. Modal music doesn't rely on triadic motion, but rather on a motion away from and back to one home note, rather than a home chord.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> A lot of popular music isn't built on major and minor triads. Heavy metal and the like use power chords, distorted bare fifths which can sound either major or minor depending on context. Rap and Hip Hop often use samples divested of their original context, implying no triadic motion.
> 
> Most popular music today, rock, pop, rap, and the like, is either modal or mixed modal/tonal, not strictly tonal, and it has been this way ever since the flVI-flVII-I cadence became popular in the 60s. Modal music doesn't rely on triadic motion, but rather on a motion away from and back to one home note, rather than a home chord.


I disagree with that. An open 5th on guitar in rock/metal is always the root and 5th of the chord. Whether it's heard as major or minor all depends on what else is going on- vocals/tune. The triads are implied. And the progressions in the song are most often the expected I-V-VI and VI and II and III.

Rap and hip hop is usually based around looped backings or at least short repeated accompaniments and the backings are always based on major/ minor triads. Because the vocal line may be blues based ie pentatonic doesn't mean the music as a whole isn't diatonic. 'Blue' notes are just altered scale notes.

If a pop tune is modal in nature it is still harmonised by diatonic major/minor triads.


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> I disagree with that. An open 5th on guitar in rock/metal is always the root and 5th of the chord. Whether it's heard as major or minor all depends on what else is going on- vocals/tune. The triads are implied. And the progressions in the song are most often the expected I-V-IV and VI and II and III.


If III (rather than V-of-vi) is an expected chord, something's weird about your tonality!



Petwhac said:


> Rap and hip hop is usually based around looped backings or at least short repeated accompaniments and the backings are always based on major/ minor triads. Because the vocal line may be blues based ie pentatonic doesn't mean the music as a whole isn't diatonic. 'Blue' notes are just altered scale notes.


I know for a fact that there is non-triadic backing in some Rap/Hip Hop, but I'm no expert.



Petwhac said:


> If a pop tune is modal in nature it is still harmonised by diatonic major/minor triads.


So fl-III, fl-VI (not used as a Neapolitan pre-dominant), and fl-VII are diatonic now?

http://www.academia.edu/1826046/Modal_Function_in_Rock_and_Heavy_Metal_Music

I take issue with the fact that this paper classifies #IV and fl-VII as dominants (they are used for subdominant function), but it cites concrete examples, at least.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> If III (rather than V-of-vi) is an expected chord, something's weird about your tonality!


That video I posted earlier with the 4 chords demonstrates the progression I-V-VI-IV or in the key of C the triads C-G-Am-F. The second chord of G (V) could easily be, and very often is, replaced with Em (III).

The classic 'Dock of the Bay' if played in C would have the chords C-E-F D for it's first two lines. Even though the second and fourth chords in that progression are major triads, containing a G sharp and an F sharp respectively, we are still in C. it would be nonsensical to view it any other way although neither of those two pitches can be found in the C major scale. They are _altered_, they are colouring and do not affect the function of the harmony or the perception of C. The flat 7th or flat 3rd are 'blue' notes when sung against a major triad. If you play the chord of C or C7 and sing the notes C-Bb-C-Eb you are still in C. And sometimes the distinction between major and minor is not clear but what is always present are those major and minor triads, either stated or implied.



Mahlerian said:


> I know for a fact that there is non-triadic backing in some Rap/Hip Hop, but I'm no expert.


As ever, you will have to provide an example because I cannot bring one to mind and I've heard a lot.

I'm not sure if we are talking at cross purposes.


----------



## Ramako

Mahlerian said:


> If III (rather than V-of-vi) is an expected chord, something's weird about your tonality!


This is something they really need to teach schoolchildren! The number of times I kept on telling my school-fellows that III was not a good chord in normal harmony...


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> A lot of popular music isn't built on major and minor triads. Heavy metal and the like use power chords, distorted bare fifths which can sound either major or minor depending on context. Rap and Hip Hop often use samples divested of their original context, implying no triadic motion...Modal music doesn't rely on triadic motion, but rather on a motion away from and back to one home note, rather than a home chord.





Petwhac said:


> I disagree with that. An open 5th on guitar in rock/metal is always the root and 5th of the chord. Whether it's heard as major or minor all depends on what else is going on- vocals/tune. The triads are implied. And the progressions in the song are most often the expected I-V-VI and VI and II and III.
> 
> Rap and hip hop is usually based around looped backings or at least short repeated accompaniments and the backings are always based on major/ minor triads. Because the vocal line may be blues based ie pentatonic doesn't mean the music as a whole isn't diatonic. 'Blue' notes are just altered scale notes.
> 
> If a pop tune is modal in nature it is still harmonised by diatonic major/minor triads.


I disagree with certain points here, but agree more with Petwhac. I chastise Mahlerian for not thinking "out of the box" more.

1.) "Hard rock" evolved out of blues, which is pentatonic-based. Blues, as a convention, used I-IV-V progressions, but they were all dominant/flat 7 chords. Hard rock combined blues/pentatonics with pop and folk forms, which are both modal and tonal/root-function based.

2.) An important point to be aware of is that pentatonics come in two varieties: minor and major. B.B.King's blues style combines both of these, often mixing them. The minor pent is C-Eb-F-G-Bb-C, while the major pent is C-D-E-G-A-C. Combine these, and you get C-D-Eb-E-F-G-A-Bb-C. Add the "blue note" of F# to complete a nine-note array. Also, Eb-E is also treated as a "blue" note, bending between the notes. So the Eb-E creates a minor/major sound simultaneously, while the Bb is where the use of all seventh chords started.

3.) Modality: triads can be built on any note of the mode, using the scale notes. Modal music is very significantly harmonic, perhaps even more so than being melodic. Consider this example: the difference in natural (aolean) minor and dorian minor is a b6 degree (aolean) and a raised 6 in dorian. This is not as significant melodically as it is when you build your I-IV-V triads on each scale. Aolean yields 3 minors: i-iv-v. Dorian yields a major IV chord: i-IV-v. This is used in songs like "Evil Ways" by Santana...Therefore, modal music can have scale-derived triads and harmony, and these can function similarly to regular major/minor scale tonality.

4.) I characterize the dissonant "thrash" metal as being basically "melodic" in that it uses fifths, but usually uses _melodic-based root movements derived from outlining pentatonic and diminished scales._ It's really in a grey area of harmony/melody, not unlike Gregorian chant. It is tone-centric, usually.

Anyway, that's how I have rationalized my analysis of it. There's not too many people who care to do "harmonic analysis" on death-metal.

Petwhac is British, so this modal stuff is in his blood. Plus, he has been around some real blues in Phillie, I would surmise. His knowledge of theory seems to be based on real situations...perhaps as a jazz player?


----------



## arpeggio

Actually I never cared for poplar music.


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> Actually I never cared for poplar music.


Come to think of it, I never heard much bassoon-playing in popular music...:lol:


----------



## Crudblud

arpeggio said:


> Actually I never cared for poplar music.


I agree, I was always more of a sycamore man myself.


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## millionrainbows

Crudblud said:


> I agree, I was always more of a sycamore man myself.


I like "oak" music, especially when it's "live.":lol:


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## arpeggio

millionrainbows said:


> Come to think of it, I never heard much bassoon-playing in popular music...:lol:


Why is a bassoon better than an oboe? It burns longer.


----------



## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> The point remains that the resolution, both as expected and as implemented, is different in terms of voice leading, and that jazz uses harmony in ways that would be unacceptable in common practice music. I've seen some people argue that a plagal cadence isn't a real cadence at all, and that every tonal work rests on a V-I perfect cadence (Schenkerians tend to think this way). The plagal cadence is the basis of much rock and jazz, with some songs in the former comprised entirely of I-IV-I or some substitute (I-vi-I, I-flVII-I). To say that these chords are functioning _the way they would_ in common practice music is misleading at best.


Shenkerian analysis [formulated by a conservative sixty year old German ~ Schenker 1868 - 1935] did have an 'agenda' -- to 'prove' the superiority of German music (lol) and to also confirm common practice tonality as supreme over more modernist or atonal writing.

_*Hey! It was Germany in the late 1920's....*_


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree with certain points here, but agree more with Petwhac. I chastise Mahlerian for not thinking "out of the box" more.
> 
> 1.) "Hard rock" evolved out of blues, which is pentatonic-based. Blues, as a convention, used I-IV-V progressions, but they were all dominant/flat 7 chords. Hard rock combined blues/pentatonics with pop and folk forms, which are both modal and tonal/root-function based.


I don't know where I really disagree with you (or Petwhac for that matter). We just seem to be arguing about definitions at this point.

Modal music (and this includes Metal) is extremely tone-centric. I feel that its harmonies are generally felt as extensions of the root note (which can shift during a piece or song), so it has a drone-like feel.

You're right that modal alterations of the diatonic scale are used for substitute tonal functions. The paper I linked to says as much. It is still not using tonality _in a way that would be recognizable to common practice composers_, which was my whole point.

On another note, I found the essay I had been looking for earlier, which I had stumbled across last year.
http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.04.10.4/mto.04.10.4.w_everett_frames.html



PetrB said:


> Shenkerian analysis [formulated by a conservative sixty year old German ~ Schenker 1868 - 1935] did have an 'agenda' -- to 'prove' the superiority of German music (lol) and to also confirm common practice tonality as supreme over more modernist or atonal writing.


I'm aware of the history, and I'm certainly no Schenkerian (I'd have a hard time accounting for a lot of the music I love if I were). The point remains that common practice music tends neither to focus on plagal cadences nor see them as conclusive. Of course there is plenty of non-common practice music that works differently.


----------



## Guest

The music theory has been fun. I've enjoyed the back and forth about chords and analysis and such. But I guess it's time, now that Mahlerian has had the last word (I hope) to address what probably should have been addressed right after Petwhac's first post on this matter.

In a nutshell, "so what?" So what if tonal music has all this triadic glory and Xenakis does not? So what if tonal music has a narrative sense or seesaws back and forth between consonance and dissonance and Lachenmann does not? I really doubt if people who hear either one, or any of dozens of others, and dislike it--at first--are doing so because the avant garde is missing a triad or an open fifth in every phrase. Phrase? Hmmm, there are pieces missing that, too.

This is all just so much special pleading for either the superiority of tonal music or the innocence of the listeners who reject the avant garde--naturally people (!) reject that stuff. It doesn't have what music has to have to be pleasant/understandable/enjoyable/great... whatever.

Here's what I know. I like Beethoven. A lot. I like Berlioz. A lot. And Bach and Mozart and Saint-Saens and Tchaikovsky and Dvorak and and and.

And I like Xenakis and Lachenmann and Oliveros and Karkowski and Merzbow and Sachiko M. A lot. AND I don't feel like I'm being cheated out of my precious triads when I listen to Francisco Lopez, either, any more than I feel cheated out of my precious power electronics when I listen to Schumann.

Each of these people, and hundreds, thousands, more have done work which I (and one or two others) have found to be engaging and satisfying. That should be enough, shouldn't it?

I don't particularly like Telemann or Chopin or Bax. I don't have to. And, what's more, I don't feel any compulsion to troll around on every thread that mentions them to bash them for not being someone or something that they're not. Nor do I repine that they didn't do this or that thing that Bach or Berlioz or Varese did. They're fine, just as they are. If I don't like them, then I lose. Oh well. I can't like everything. (I try. But I can't. The end.)

Now, about this here desire for 21st century composers to write tonal music....


----------



## clavichorder

some guy said:


> Now, about this here desire for 21st century composers to write tonal music....


Good post overall, but my question to this last quoted statement: what about it?


----------



## neoshredder

clavichorder said:


> Good post overall, but my question to this last quoted statement: what about it?


Tonal will always be here.


----------



## clavichorder

I personally have successfully completed a number of "polished piano miniatures,(in the words of my composition teacher(who I am unfortunately unable to take lessons from this quarter))" technically undemanding ones, but often musically enjoyable or interesting, especially when played with conviction. I do not have a clear sense of my "voice" but I have found making these to be extremely satisfying and entertaining, especially since I can play them all from memory. The role of my teacher was to work on loosening me up so I could be more "fluent" and write longer pieces. Not all these miniatures are CP tonal, but most are, some with a few quirks thrown in. They are studies of older music. I love the puzzle of putting together a piece like this when I have a fresh idea and enough elbow grease.

Its highly possible that you, some guy, would not like these pieces. Their brevity perhaps makes them unimpressive to some, but if paid attention to for their details, you see that they "work" and have twists that will undermine expectation to varying degrees. But I don't think there is anything unhealthy about having made these, as some people genuinely do like them before I've even told them who has written them. The only reason I would feel ashamed to pass them off as music is that I know I can make better pieces yet, and my compositional methods have changed.

Do you personally believe I am "cheating," that I didn't try hard to make these because I have all sorts of other sounds going through my head? None of those sounds had much influence in the creation of these because I took such a detailed approach, my soul has yet to spill out but my own mental machinations can likely be seen to an extent in these pieces. The earliest ones were created with proper voice leading before I knew any theory. The most inspired ones are the breakthroughs, but some follow up pieces have been more clever. Once I learned a little theory, I started taking some short cuts, but quickly got a sense that formulas were dull in and of themselves, so you kind of twist things around, take a few leaps, and either build from where you left off or start from scratch again.

Somehow in the relative scheme of things, this hobby of mine, its no more artificial than any kind of composing that's ever happened.


----------



## Guest

clavichorder said:


> Do you personally believe I am "cheating"?


No.

You are a student. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.


----------



## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> Shenkerian analysis [formulated by a conservative sixty year old German ~ Schenker 1868 - 1935] did have an 'agenda' -- to 'prove' the superiority of German music (lol) and to also confirm common practice tonality as supreme over more modernist or atonal writing....Hey! It was Germany in the late 1920's....


Schenker's biography is irrelevant to those of us who are interested in his method, which is highly respected. See "Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis" by Allen Forte and Steven E. Gilbert.


----------



## clavichorder

some guy said:


> No.
> 
> You are a student. You are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.


That actually is gratifying to hear. Thank you.


----------



## Guest

clavichorder said:


> That actually is gratifying to hear. Thank you.


Wow. Sweet!!:tiphat:


----------



## PetrB

millionrainbows said:


> Schenker's biography is irrelevant to those of us who are interested in his method, which is highly respected. See "Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis" by Allen Forte and Steven E. Gilbert.


I do get it is a very different approach to a more global overview of a piece, which, considering that traditional analysis 'does not go there at all,' and is so often badly presented and misunderstood and then gets millions of students bogged down in minutia, then on that front it is a very welcome tool.


----------



## PetrB

neoshredder said:


> Tonal will always be here.


outside of all the academic definitions, all music is tonal, so with that spin on it, I agree.

I like the music I listen to to be made up of tones


----------



## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> I personally have successfully completed a number of "polished piano miniatures," technically undemanding ones, but often musically enjoyable or interesting, especially when played with conviction. ....
> Not all these miniatures are CP tonal, but most are, some with a few quirks thrown in. They are studies of older music. I love the puzzle of putting together a piece like this when I have a fresh idea and enough elbow grease.


Do we get to hear them? If at all possible, and you are comfortable posting them, I look forward to hearing them.


----------



## neoshredder

PetrB said:


> outside of all the academic definitions, all music is tonal, so with that spin on it, I agree.
> 
> I like the music I listen to to be made up of tones


Especially of the Major Scale and Minor Scale.


----------



## clavichorder

PetrB said:


> Do we get to hear them? If at all possible, and you are comfortable posting them, I look forward to hearing them.


I have posted a few on youtube and made a thread a while back. Here is the thread: 
http://www.talkclassical.com/21024-4-little-compositions-played.html

edit, I think the first link was bad


----------



## Rapide

clavichorder said:


> I have posted a few on youtube and made a thread a while back. Here is the thread:
> http://www.talkclassical.com/21024-4-little-compositions-played.html
> 
> edit, I think the first link was bad


I liked the pieces.


----------



## KenOC

I liked them too! The last one really does sound like a mix of German baroque and Elizabethan, as you say. More?


----------



## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> I have posted a few on youtube and made a thread a while back. Here is the thread:
> http://www.talkclassical.com/21024-4-little-compositions-played.html
> 
> edit, I think the first link was bad


Well, all right! As you say, they are what they are, are too, 'polished.' 
I am relieved they are not banal facsimiles of music from another time, without a 'spark.'
I am happy for you there is some freshness in each.

Congratulations.


----------



## clavichorder

KenOC said:


> I liked them too! The last one really does sound like a mix of German baroque and Elizabethan, as you say. More?


Its been a long dry spell for completed projects(last Summer), though I have notated plenty of interesting ideas that go for more than a page. There are a few more older ones that are complete, and some interesting incomplete ones that I could upload at some time.

Also, I may have said in my post in the other thread that these pieces I have played, may not be compositions by the technical definition, in that to this day, they have not been written down. They are in my head, I worked them out on the piano, beat them into my muscle memory after I came up with them, generally created over a short but intense period of time. The more gradual and less instantly gratifying way of composing on paper and working out themes extensively, its been something that has been hard to motivate myself to do. Just think, Schumann may have composed like me but with 10 times the energy...frightening...


----------



## brianwalker

I nominate Burningdesire to return to this thread.

On a side note I'm getting a hang of Webern. The Five pieces are finally coming together, albeit with much reservation, after the 10th listen. I still don't know what I'm suppose to hear in Op. 21 apart from disorienting harmonies. The sense of inevitability that you get from a regular symphony just isn't there.



PetrB said:


> There is emerging in my mind a "differential in how we listen."
> 
> Chords, Chords, Chords... *I'm almost as sick of hearing about chords as I am when I hear talk of 'melody' *_-- the talk most often used in the most simplistic of ways._
> 
> That differential, whether the music is homophonic, polyphonic, or a brew of the two, is divided into two types of listener:
> Listener group (Group "A") *predominately hear 'chords / melody - theme.'*
> Listener group (Group "B") *predominantly hear confluent lines,* regardless of homophonic or polyphonic texture.
> 
> _*I think group "A" is more likely to have a strong preference for the common practice repertoire, and maybe some early 20th century music.
> 
> I think 'group "B"' is more likely to be open to music post common practice? *_
> 
> ... boiling down to 'how you listen' determining a number of criteria which determines taste / preference.


Under which yet unspecified category do Wagner and Brahms and Bruckner and Verdi (post-Schumann pre-Mahler) fall and what do you have against that category?


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## millionrainbows

PetrB makes some good observations. I'd like to put in my 2 cents' worth:

I'm heading in a "theory of everything" direction, which "unifies the field." 

While I agree with the thrust of PetrB's observations, instead of separating the tonalist/modernist camps into harmonic/melodic tendencies (thus perpetuating the dichotomy and resulting conflicts), consider this:

Schoenberg's prime obstacle in using his twelve-tone method in a musical way was in reconciling the tone-rows, which are basically melodic in nature, with their vertical consequences, when combined or "stacked" with other sets. A simple transposition of various forms of a set sometimes worked, depending on the nature of the row, but more possibilities and flexibilty was needed.

So, Schoenberg began investigating "special case" sets which met certain criteria, such as remaining invariant under transposition, or which combined to yield the needed harmonic results.

I agree that this early 12-tone music was basically polyphonic, thus Schoenberg's use of older Baroque forms in his "Serenade" and Wind Quintet. Later, Schoenberg remained "thematic," although his themes are more "jagged" and Expressionistic than traditional themes, but this was his aesthetic as an Expressionist, not any "inherent ugliness" of using tone-rows.

Thus, we now see a new serialism developing, as in George Perle and Elliot Carter. It's harmonic, and designed to be that way. I'm through with looking at this as a conflict, and have placed my faith in my ears.


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## BurningDesire

brianwalker said:


> I nominate Burningdesire to return to this thread.
> 
> On a side note I'm getting a hang of Webern. The Five pieces are finally coming together, albeit with much reservation, after the 10th listen. I still don't know what I'm suppose to hear in Op. 21 apart from disorienting harmonies. The sense of inevitability that you get from a regular symphony just isn't there.
> 
> Under which yet unspecified category do Wagner and Brahms and Bruckner and Verdi (post-Schumann pre-Mahler) fall and what do you have against that category?


Huh? Why? XD


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> So, Schoenberg began investigating "special case" sets which met certain criteria, such as remaining invariant under transposition, or which combined to yield the needed harmonic results.


I was interested to learn recently that this trait was arrived at earlier than I had thought. Even the row used in the Suite for Piano (one of the first 12-tone pieces he wrote) has some qualities of invariance. Every version of the row ends a tritone away from where it began. An early author on modern music opined that Schoenberg's early 12-tone works were dry and off-putting, and he included up to the Violin Concerto in that category. I doubt that most listeners (who enjoy Schoenberg) mind the Variations or 3rd quartet today, or find them overly academic.



Millionrainbows said:


> I agree that this early 12-tone music was basically polyphonic, thus Schoenberg's use of older Baroque forms in his "Serenade" and Wind Quintet.


This, though, is certainly true. Simply put, the verticals don't matter all that much if the voice leading applied to the individual lines makes sense. The tone row helps to put everything in a certain perspective, so the vertical element is still controlled to whatever degree the composer sees fit.


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## Ramako

On the subject of Schoenberg and serialism, it is interesting, and perhaps instructive, to note that he considered the technique of developing variation to supersede polyphony. After Bach, he says, music is fundamentally homophonic, and it is the treatment of the motives over time that provides the music with it's intellectual satisfaction, though there might be polyphonic elements to it. This was at the end of his life in his pedagogical books however, so I don't know exactly how it relates to his earlier music.

On a side note, I think I'll put this post in the pretentious statements thread :lol:


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## Mahlerian

Ramako said:


> On the subject of Schoenberg and serialism, it is interesting, and perhaps instructive, to note that he considered the technique of developing variation to supersede polyphony. After Bach, he says, music is fundamentally homophonic, and it is the treatment of the motives over time that provides the music with its intellectual satisfaction, though there might be polyphonic elements to it. This was at the end of his life in his pedagogical books however, so I don't know exactly how it relates to his earlier music.


This was something he said he found in Brahms as well, and it was part of his essay "Brahms the Progressive". Schoenberg's 1st String Quartet in D minor is actually a great example of what he's talking about. It's instensely polyphonic, but starts developing its theme immediately after it is stated. Furthermore, all of the accompaniment figures to that theme are themselves treated as motives to be developed, which is why he "inverts" the roles of the instruments a few bars later, with the theme now in the cello and the cello's line in the first violin.

On top of that, it's quite dense, uses some quartal harmony, and features almost invariably irregular bar groupings. It's not too surprising that it didn't go over well with critics (it's the one that Mahler famously said he "couldn't read").


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## millionrainbows

Ramako said:


> On the subject of Schoenberg and serialism, it is interesting, and perhaps instructive, to note that he considered the technique of developing variation to supersede polyphony. After Bach, he says, music is fundamentally homophonic, and it is the treatment of the motives over time that provides the music with it's intellectual satisfaction, though there might be polyphonic elements to it. This was at the end of his life in his pedagogical books however, so I don't know exactly how it relates to his earlier music.
> 
> On a side note, I think I'll put this post in the pretentious statements thread :lol:


No, not at all pretentious. Schoenberg was a thematic composer to begin with, and remained so throughout his life. Later, he started used hexads (six note sets) more frequently, which, in restricting the number of notes, made for more thematic unity. The tritone which Mahlerian mentioned, is the interval which, when inverted, remains the same. Webern used tritones in his Piano Variations.

Good post, Mahlerian.


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## clavichorder

BurningDesire said:


> Huh? Why? XD


Well, that does sound kind of random, but maybe because you have pieces to share? Btw, I have never heard your compositions yet, so if you send me a link, I will happily listen.


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