# Atonal music and consonance/dissonance



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nobody here is denying that Schoenberg was a great master, but his piece, Op. 33a, was composed using the 12-tone method, so the only "harmonic" effects are the ones Schoenberg intended to put there, as a result of controlling intersecting contrapuntal lines. 


There are no inherently harmonic structures here, as this was composed using a non-tonal, non-harmonic system. 


The 12-tone method has no inherent principles which create harmonic results; harmonic entities must be put there by intent, or occur arbitrarily as a result of intersecting contrapuntal lines (the tone-rows and their permutations).


The 12-tone method is "melodic" and horizontal by nature, since it uses ordered rows of notes. The only harmonic (vertical) control is gained by intervals between the notes, if the row is "stacked." This "stacking," however, is not based on any reference to a tonic; any harmonic effects it produces are the result of the structure of the tone row itself. Therefore, its "harmony" is not derived from the result of any harmonic principle, but only the series itself. 


These intervals between the notes of the series do have a consonance/dissonance factor within themselves, most obvious when the series is stacked vertically rather than projected melodically as a series of horizontal events; but they are related only to each adjacent note, and there the reference ends. There is no reference to a "1" or tonic note, so the consonance/dissonance is not gauged, or in an hierarchy which refers to consonance/dissonance; this "hierarchy of the ear" is irrelevant, as far as the structural principles of serial structures go. 


"Consonance/dissonance" become equivalent, and therefore meaningless in this system. 


I'm not saying that's good or bad; that's just the way the system works. But like our C major/F minor example, our ear will still hear major-minor quality differences, as well as degrees of consonance/dissonance, because the ear always hears a 1:1 as an octave, a 2:3 as next, and 3:4, 4:5, etc, sensually. This is a physical sensation, a result of simple/complex ripples on the eardrum.


In tonality, the "functions" of chords are gauged according to their degree of consonance/dissonance to one interval, the interval created by the note an the tonic. 


In atonal music, the degree of consonance/dissonance at any time is determined by the interval created by the note an its adjacent note.


Music will be heard "harmonically" by the ear, no matter how it is derived or constructed; but in the end result, this is a matter of degree. 


Debussy is easier, inherently, to hear as being harmonic, because it uses harmonic principles, i.e., it is tonal (in the broadest sense). 


Schoenberg's 12-tone music is harder, inherently, to hear as being harmonic, because it uses non-harmonic principles, i.e., it is atonal, in the sense that it makes no reference to vertical structures related to a tonic, but only to each other note.


There is no way for serial music to attain the degree of consonance which tonal music achieves, because the tone-row idea itself "equalizes" all that, and insures against any naturally-occuring formation of consonance/dissonance that is inherent to the ear, and the way it hears. 


Wasn't this Schoenberg's intent, to treat consonance/dissonance as equals?


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