# What is the point of Atonal music?



## Sofronitsky

(Okay, I'm pretty sure alot of people are scoffing at the title of this thread.  )

Since almost the very beginning of my introduction to classical music (A few years ago, though it practically consumes my life now), I have been aware of atonal composers and few of their works. Studying composition myself, I have always been told by teachers and professors that Atonal music or near atonal music (sorry I don't have a better term for this genre) is the only way to push forward with music.

I have made an effort on a few occasions to _really_ listen to atonal music and witness the superior range of expression contemporary composers claim it has. In general, I find most of what I listened to is just kind of terrifying and sometimes annoying. For instance, in Nono's piano concerto, I was either finding humor in how random some moments were, or being terrified by the sounds I was hearing. There is such a focus on this genre of music with musicians and composers now that I just don't understand.

Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.

I understand that composers are always supposed to push the limits and find their own voice in their writing, but if that Sciarrino piece represents the new voice of music, who will want to listen to it? It's true that good music should stimulate and challenge it's audience, but how challenging should it be to enjoy an artist's expression? In all of the different phases and evolutions of classical music, ours is certainly the age of challenged listeners.

I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay. I guess my questions to those that enjoy (and perhaps also compose!) atonal muisc would be: Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to? Do you feel strongly enough about the music to suggest that a friend should listen to it? What is the point of writing without tonality?


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## emiellucifuge

I think youre looking at it from the wrong paradigm. It isnt romantic music. Atonal music is not often written with the purpose of expressing emotions. When you hear terror and fear it is because you are listening to it as is you are listening to tonal music.

Go and see a modern masterpiece in concert, for example - Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre. Just go and experience it. Tonality is just a way of organising pitches, composers have developed new ways of organising sounds and no longer is tone the dominant parameter. I think if you go to and hear the music in person you may feel that these new methods do work and you may be moved.


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## Aramis




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## HarpsichordConcerto

Sofronitsky said:


> ... that Sciarrino piece represents the new voice of music, who will want to listen to it? It's true that good music should stimulate and challenge it's audience, but how challenging should it be to enjoy an artist's expression? In all of the different phases and evolutions of classical music, ours is certainly the age of challenged listeners.


Challenged in a different way, not the same type of challenge you find from tonal masterpieces. The piece you posted sounded very energetic judging by the sound produced. The first few seconds I thought the pianist was performing that by banging his head on the keyboard, not by using his hands/fingers. :lol:

But at the end of the day, even if the pianist was performing it by banging his head on the keyboard, so what? What did it achieve?


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## Ravellian

emiellucifuge said:


> I think youre looking at it from the wrong paradigm. It isnt romantic music. Atonal music is not often written with the purpose of expressing emotions. When you hear terror and fear it is because you are listening to it as is you are listening to tonal music.


That's probably true. However, I think atonal music can be especially hard to fathom because if you look at the entire history of music, never before has music been written _without_ the intent of drawing out some emotion in the listener. Medieval chant was composed to elevate the listeners to a higher spiritual state. Classical composers aimed to make their listeners happy with pleasant and sweet-sounding melodies. Romantic composers were probably the most successful at conveying tragic emotions. And of course, pop music is all about instilling some sort of definite emotional state.

But now, modern composers are creating something completely different, not even related to emotion. And frankly, many of us aren't certain if this type of music can be successful or not. If you're not supposed to feel anything, then what is the listener supposed to do?


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## emiellucifuge

Music can be used politically.
Music can be paint a picture.
Music can speak to the fundamentals of your subconscious.
Music can reveal principles of nature and philosophical ideas.
Etc...

Tonality seems capable only of appealing to the emotional part of your brain (you could say 'the heart'). If you want to reach other goals with the music such as those I listed above then tonality might not be the best method.
If you listen to music in order to e filled with emotions then stick to tonality.
I sometimes want to stand in awe at the power of the forces of nature, to be frightened by what is revealed in my mind, realise the futility of life, realise that life is full of meaning etc... Some of these things are done better without tonality.


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## Aramis

It's matter of what kind of people are making music today and for who they are making it, that's the fundament of music history. In romantic era music was written by romantics for other romantics (in original meaning of this word) so it was all great. Now the music is made by uninteresting people who could as well work as some boring officials in tax office for other boring people who, at the other hand, have some intellectual potential and can enjoy intellectually challenging music like produced today. They're still all boring geezers though, so is the music they produce. 

Individuals that would rise to greatness in XIXth century because of their romantic spirit remain unknown today since they can't find a place for themselves in era of tax office workers writing music without any greater inspiration, just like romantic era buried a lot of intellectual yet little inspired composers who are now forgotten.

So the question you have to ask yourself is 'where do I belong'? Could you stand working in tax office? No? Then don't force yourself to listen to clerk's music.


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## Vazgen

Ravellian said:


> But now, modern composers are creating something completely different, not even related to emotion. And frankly, many of us aren't certain if this type of music can be successful or not. If you're not supposed to feel anything, then what is the listener supposed to do?


I don't know where you got the idea that you're not supposed to feel anything. Certainly you're not supposed to feel the same thing you feel when you listen to your old familiar favorites, but that's not to say it's supposed to be emotionally null.

I'd say the range of emotions in an accomplished atonal work may just be too complex for passive listening. If you're going to dismiss it as pointless and sterile just because it doesn't evoke the same exact emotions, in the same exact way, that your favorite old composers did, then maybe you're not meeting atonal composers on their own terms. And that's your prerogative, but it's not their fault.

-Vaz


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## Weston

I think losing tonality is often just that - a loss. I believe whatever it is that composers are trying to do by dismissing tonality might be better done with a format other than music. Indeed that is what many think it is: non-music. I do occasionally love dissonance (which I admit is not quite the same thing as atonality), but without some tonality there can be no dissonance, only annoyance. That Sciarrino piece is annoying to me. For those who do like it, do you also cover your partner in sandpaper to make love?


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## Polednice

I'm with all the musical conservatives on this one.

The most important distinction for me is that tonal music was never _consciously_ tonal (at least not until the late Romantic period onwards) - it was like that because of tradition; because hundreds of years of musical practice had led to a set of rules (malleable ones, but rules nonetheless) that arguably came about (and there are convincing arguments for this) because a sense of tonality is exactly what the human brain most readily comprehends (and therefore enjoys).

Atonality, on the other hand, has always been a deliberate artifice - an intellectual exercise in challenging the idea that there are, or should be, any rules in music. There's the implicit suggestion that the brain has _no_ artistic predispositions and that anything goes so long as the audience is willing to try to understand it. Personally, I think this is a challenge that has failed, and the continuing hold of atonality is a form of academic prejudice.

[Of course, I'm all for anyone composing in any style they choose, but this persistent notion that you can't be taken seriously if you compose in a pre-atonal manner is just ridiculous.]


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## Argus

Err, most tonal music is rubbish, so why should atonal music be any different?

Like any kind of music there is stuff I like and stuff I don't. I can say I don't like most Rihm or Lachenmann but similarly I don't like most Wagner or Haydn. I'm not a fan of the kind of music most serialists produce, I can safely say that, but I also dislike opera and the majority of opera is tonal. _There's more to music than just the vertical organisation of the sounds._

Another gripe I have is lots of peoples conception that 'tonality' is a singular system. It is not only the old diatonic method but any system where pitch is organised and related around a single tone. There are composers who are still making a tonal kind of music, it's just that it isn't the readily recognisable major/minor type that people are used to.

So basically the point of atonal music is the same as the point of tonal music; the composer creates what he likes.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> because hundreds of years of musical practice had led to a set of rules (malleable ones, but rules nonetheless) that arguably came about (and there are convincing arguments for this) because a sense of tonality is exactly what the human brain most readily comprehends (and therefore enjoys).


I think we enjoy it because we've had hundreds of years to listen to, get used to, and respond to music composed in familiar forms. We're bombarded with tonal music in pop songs and movie soundtracks, and familiar with enough Beethoven and Mozart to use their music as background noise for whatever else we happen to be doing.

-Vaz


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## Ukko

Argus said:


> So basically the point of atonal music is the same as the point of tonal music; the composer creates what he likes.


May I assume that there is an emphasis here on the 'he'? In that case the composer is not attempting to communicate _anything_. The composition is for his own enjoyment/edification. So... why bother to get the music published, or even heard?


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## Polednice

Vazgen said:


> I think we enjoys it because we've had hundreds of years to listen to, get used to, and respond to music composed in familiar forms. We're bombarded with tonal music in pop songs and movie soundtracks, and familiar with enough Beethoven and Mozart to use their music as background noise for whatever else we happen to be doing.
> 
> -Vaz


I certainly don't deny that. I should probably elaborate that when I say 'tonality', I don't mean Western classical tonality alone. Recent research into evolutionary musicology has helped show that, while music all over the globe sounds to be based on different fundamentals in each different place, there _are_ certain universals - and these come about through _thousands_ of years of evolution and natural selection; not cultural exposure - one of which is a preference (or an ease of understanding) for sounds that are arranged to have a tonal centre. As Argus said above, this doesn't have to be diatonic tonality, but tonality it is nonetheless.


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## Ravellian

Vazgen said:


> I don't know where you got the idea that you're not supposed to feel anything. Certainly you're not supposed to feel the same thing you feel when you listen to your old familiar favorites, but that's not to say it's supposed to be emotionally null.
> 
> I'd say the range of emotions in an accomplished atonal work may just be too complex for passive listening. If you're going to dismiss it as pointless and sterile just because it doesn't evoke the same exact emotions, in the same exact way, that your favorite old composers did, then maybe you're not meeting atonal composers on their own terms. And that's your prerogative, but it's not their fault.


I'm not dismissing it as pointless and sterile. I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for. It sounds completely alien to my ears because it is so far removed from how people have felt music should sound like over the last thousand years, and therefore, I can't feel anything.

Now, is this a good thing, that it's so 'different' and 'alien'? Does this equal 'progress'? I have yet to decide.


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> [Of course, I'm all for anyone composing in any style they choose, but this persistent notion that you can't be taken seriously if you compose in a pre-atonal manner is just ridiculous.]


I think you can be taken seriously and be tonal, you just can't be a straight (unironic) revivalist of past fashions. Many minimalists managed to use tonality (even ultra-tonality in some cases) and still sound fresh simply by focussing on other aspects of the music. Similarly, many electronic artists still use tonality (or at least samples of tonal pieces) as a basis and create something modern.

Like I've said, I'm not a fan of the extreme sides of serialism and the excessively mathematical approaches to music that often treasure theory over all else, but I like how other musicians can like this kind of thing and then filter it into their work, possibly creating something I do like. God knows it'd be boring if no one tried new things.

Simply put, tonality can do somethings very well and there are somethings it can't do at all. Use it when applicable.


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## Argus

Hilltroll72 said:


> May I assume that there is an emphasis here on the 'he'? In that case the composer is not attempting to communicate _anything_. The composition is for his own enjoyment/edification. So... why bother to get the music published, or even heard?


1) That'd be selfish. Surely if he likes it, out of the 6+ billion people on the planet, at least a few of them will also.

2) He might like some money for his time spent creating the music, meaning he has more time to create more music. Allowing other people to listen to it will be crucial for this.

Personally, I don't try to communicate anything in my music. I just try to make music I'd listen to and enjoy. Even if I create something I don't enjoy, I still see it has having value as someone else may get enjoyment from listening to it.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> Recent research into evolutionary musicology has helped show that, while music all over the globe sounds to be based on different fundamentals in each different place, there _are_ certain universals - and these come about through _thousands_ of years of evolution and natural selection; not cultural exposure - one of which is a preference (or an ease of understanding) for sounds that are arranged to have a tonal centre.


Okay. But we're talking about two different things here.

Biologists are pretty sure that our ancestors on the savannah developed a taste for the sugar that provided energy to keep them alive. I have no problem with this hypothesis. But that doesn't mean we should only eat candy. We may not be "hard-wired" to like spinach, gulyas, or haggis, but we get used to eating the food of our culture.

In the same way, we may very well be "hard-wired" to more easily appreciate music that has a tonal center of some kind. But that doesn't mean that the appreciation of atonal music is something freakish and unnatural. Audiences have gotten used to every age's musical innovations (Josquin, Monteverdi, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky) as long as the works were performed and listened to.

I'm not saying Schoenberg and Stockhausen would ever have the mass appeal of Tchaikovsky. But if people at least heard atonal music performed and broadcast more, they wouldn't automatically think of it as bizarre and scary.

-Vaz


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## Polednice

Vazgen said:


> Okay. But we're talking about two different things here.
> 
> Biologists are pretty sure that our ancestors on the savannah developed a taste for the sugar that provided energy to keep them alive. I have no problem with this hypothesis. But that doesn't mean we should only eat candy. We may not be "hard-wired" to like spinach, gulyas, or haggis, but we get used to eating the food of our culture.
> 
> In the same way, we may very well be "hard-wired" to more easily appreciate music that has a tonal center of some kind. But that doesn't mean that the appreciation of atonal music is something freakish and unnatural. Audiences have gotten used to every age's musical innovations (Josquin, Monteverdi, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky) as long as the works were performed and listened to.
> 
> I'm not saying Schoenberg and Stockhausen would ever have the mass appeal of Tchaikovsky. But if people at least heard atonal music performed and broadcast more, they wouldn't automatically think of it as bizarre and scary.
> 
> -Vaz


I don't entirely accept your analogy because evolutionary predispositions aren't _all_ about survival - some are by-products of survival adaptations.

So, we became hard-wired to like sugary and fatty foods because, in times where food was hard to come by, these long-term stores of energy would help keep us alive.

But music doesn't have any adaptive purpose. Music is just a stimulus that tickles a number of brain faculties simultaneously - tone recognition; motor control; emotions conveyed in speech - so there's no room in this development of music preference to suggest that we can have too much of it. It's not good, and it's not bad. It just is.

By this, I don't mean to suggest (necessarily) that atonal music is freaky and unnatural - or, indeed, even that it's worthless - what I'm saying is that, contrary to the beliefs of many 20th century and contemporary artists, the brain is _not_ a blank slate and so, if you want to appeal to the largest audience possible (which, for me at least, is a very important attribute of 'good' art), then you simply have to acknowledge what the brain is constructed to be receptive to.


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## haydnfan

Ravellian said:


> I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for.


As for not knowing how to react-- who cares? Don't approach the music to use it for some artificial emotional reaction (this applies to tonal music as well). Simply listen, just listen. That's all you need to do.

As for what to listen for: well like Copland said and still applies for all music: listen for melody, harmony, rhythm and color. If you don't like what you hear try another composer, they all have different styles. One composer might sound like meaningless noise, another like meaningful drama. But the bottom line is that you won't know if you don't listen.

All of your questions can't sort themselves out until after you listen. And nobody can answer them for you, only you can.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> I don't mean to suggest (necessarily) that atonal music freaky and unnatural - or, indeed, even that it's worthless - what I'm saying is that, contrary to the beliefs of many 20th century and contemporary artists, the brain is _not_ a blank slate and so, if you want to appeal to the largest audience possible (which, for me at least, is a very important attribute of 'good' art), then you simply have to acknowledge what the brain is constructed to be receptive to.


With the sugar analogy, I only meant to point out that we can appreciate food or music even if it's not what we're "hard-wired" to like.

My point about listeners getting used to innovations in music is more relevant. Pieces have always become part of the standard repertoire through the efforts of the musicians and musical directors who championed new work. But orchestras, record companies, and broadcasters now operate under the business plan of limiting the repertoire to the old favorites.

The OP mentioned that classical music is dying, but it's not because of noisemakers like Sciarrino. It's because people only think of the concert hall as where you go to hear old, familiar pieces.

-Vaz


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## Polednice

Vazgen said:


> The OP mentioned that classical music is dying, but it's not because of noisemakers like Sciarrino. It's because people only think of the concert hall as where you go to hear old, familiar pieces.
> 
> -Vaz


Familiar to people who have never heard more than the first four bars of Beethoven's 5th? I thought the reason why classical music is dying is because it's not familiar enough.

I think the point being made by the OP is not that classical music is dying, but that modern audiences aren't engaging with the work of modern composers. In fairness, I don't think this is _because_ of what's on most concert programmes; I think what's on concert programmes is actually the reflection of our tastes - not the origin of them. Orchestras, record companies, and broadcasters appear to be limiting the repertoire because it knows what sells; and what sells is _what the audience likes_. If a majority audience - background-listeners; hard-core listeners; academics; laymen - overwhelmingly prefer anything _but_ atonal music, I think there's something important in that to be recognised.


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## Webernite

The problem is that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, etc. are massively unpopular as well. Only a tiny number of people listen to them.


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## violadude

Well, people on this forum have said this before but I'll say it again. Most atonal music has everything that tonal music has. They have themes, timbre, harmony, form, rhythm. Sure, some of the pieces abandon nearly everything except timbre and perhaps form, then so what? Just listen to the sounds, aren't they interesting? Aren't they cool? Everything is expressive of something if you are listening. A lot of Schoenberg's atonal music actually sounds pretty humorous and fun, like the serenade, and some of it can be very dark, like Peirrot Lunaire. So yes, I think atonal music can be just as widely expressive as tonal music. 

Besides, it's not like every composer is composing in this style anyway. The ultra-serialist movement is pretty much over now and composers are turning back to composing using a more tonal gamut.


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## Guest

It's 2011. Where are your ears?

A historical observation. To people living in the 18th century, Baroque music did not sound like it sounds to us. Nor did Classical music. Nor did Romantic music _in_ the 19th. Nor did Impressionism. The puzzlements the OP reports as hearing in what he calls "atonal" music (why has no one questioned the use of this term?) are very much like the puzzlements people have reported about many other kinds of music, including pieces that every "tonalist" here thinks is pretty, pieces that elicit happiness or joy in their hearts.

A personal observation. Don't take your personal difficulties as being in any way universal, even if it seems like they are shared by others. This comment was very revealing in this regard: "I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for. It sounds completely alien to my ears because it is so far removed from how *people* have felt music should sound like over the last thousand years, and therefore, I can't feel anything." I've put the switch in bold.

An observation about audience. Audience is not a single monolithic thing. Audiences are composed of individuals. Even a fairly conservative audience in a fairly conservative symphony hall is composed of individuals, some of whom can't stand Brahms, some of whom adore him. And that audience, however large (we worship size, don't we?), is not the only audience.

Composers did not suddenly stop writing for an audience a hundred years ago. Composers today are not ignoring their audience. I attend new music concerts almost exclusively. They consist, most of them, entirely of pieces that do not use a tonal system. I personally do not feel ignored at all by that, because that's exactly what I want to hear. (I also like hearing music written with tonal systems, just by the way, but I don't have to make a special effort to hear that, because it's everywhere. This is the most puzzling thing to me about anti-atonality screeds--tonal music is ubiquitous. No one anywhere has to listen to more than a token five or six minutes of anything else on the odd symphony concert or two when something mildly adventurous gets programmed.)

You can only make the "audience" claim if you have privileged one particular audience. The concerts I attend all have audiences. Those audiences apparently enjoy all the stuff they hear.

That, in a nutshell, is the point of "Atonal" music, to provide enjoyment. Why, that's the same point of every other kind of music!!

Edit: I don't often disagree with anything violadude says, but I think this is wrong: "composers are turning back to composing using a more tonal gamut."

Some composers are. Some composers have always done this. Some, not all. It's not the only thing going on. This plays right into the illusion that the one big conflict in music is between tonal and atonal. It's maybe the conflict that's most visible in magazines and in symphony halls and in online forums. But there's more. So much more.

IT'S 2011. WHERE ARE YOUR EARS?


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## tdc

The fact that the Berg Violin Concerto was voted in as the 9th most popular violin concerto _of all time_ by the members of this forum who participated in the top VC thread, shows that there are listeners that very much appreciate this music. I think the reasons for it being unpopular in the general population are many and complex, and as pointed out - classical music in general is not popular right now, so its not really that surprising that the newer more challenging works are suffering.

I agree with the poster that suggested like anything else, there are good and bad atonal works. Its just a different form of artistic expression and I don't think it should be a contest. I've never believed tonal systems to be outdated. There is plenty of room for both types of music to exist, and many people will enjoy both. I think if all new composers went atonal things would get really boring and there would be a big hole created in the repertoire. We need all kinds of artists. Let them get crazy with their expression and push boundaries - thats great. For those who don't like atonal, I think that is fine too. Nobody has to like everything, and its not a sign of inferior artistic tastes imo either. When it comes to music people just like what they like and what suites them at this moment - these things are always changing, so as long as people keep an open mind its all good.


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## violadude

some guy said:


> It's 2011. Where are your ears?
> 
> A historical observation. To people living in the 18th century, Baroque music did not sound like it sounds to us. Nor did Classical music. Nor did Romantic music _in_ the 19th. Nor did Impressionism. The puzzlements the OP reports as hearing in what he calls "atonal" music (why has no one questioned the use of this term?) are very much like the puzzlements people have reported about many other kinds of music, including pieces that every "tonalist" here thinks is pretty, pieces that elicit happiness or joy in their hearts.
> 
> A personal observation. Don't take your personal difficulties as being in any way universal, even if it seems like they are shared by others. This comment was very revealing in this regard: "I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for. It sounds completely alien to my ears because it is so far removed from how *people* have felt music should sound like over the last thousand years, and therefore, I can't feel anything." I've put the switch in bold.
> 
> An observation about audience. Audience is not a single monolithic thing. Audiences are composed of individuals. Even a fairly conservative audience in a fairly conservative symphony hall is composed of individuals, some of whom can't stand Brahms, some of whom adore him. And that audience, however large (we worship size, don't we?), is not the only audience.
> 
> Composers did not suddenly stop writing for an audience a hundred years ago. Composers today are not ignoring their audience. I attend new music concerts almost exclusively. They consist, most of them, entirely of pieces that do not use a tonal system. I personally do not feel ignored at all by that, because that's exactly what I want to hear. (I also like hearing music written with tonal systems, just by the way, but I don't have to make a special effort to hear that, because it's everywhere. This is the most puzzling thing to me about anti-atonality screeds--tonal music is ubiquitous. No one anywhere has to listen to more than a token five or six minutes of anything else on the odd symphony concert or two when something mildly adventurous gets programmed.)
> 
> You can only make the "audience" claim if you have privileged one particular audience. The concerts I attend all have audiences. Those audiences apparently enjoy all the stuff they hear.
> 
> That, in a nutshell, is the point of "Atonal" music, to provide enjoyment. Why, that's the same point of every other kind of music!!
> 
> Edit: I don't often disagree with anything violadude says, but I think this is wrong: "composers are turning back to composing using a more tonal gamut."
> 
> Some composers are. Some composers have always done this. Some, not all. It's not the only thing going on. This plays right into the illusion that the one big conflict in music is between tonal and atonal. It's maybe the conflict that's most visible in magazines and in symphony halls and in online forums. But there's more. So much more.
> 
> IT'S 2011. WHERE ARE YOUR EARS?


True, I guess what I meant to express was, like you said, it's not the only thing going on. It's not as if every piece written after 1960 sounds like the piece by Scarrino that the OP posted.


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## jaimsilva

I would say, in brief, that atonal music is like abstract painting for the visual arts.










Richard Mortensen, "Evisa", 1960 - at Museum for Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art), København / Louisiana


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## Guest

Whew! You did have me worried there for a while.

I think I might start a thread about how our discourse is always framed around questions of tonality, as if that were the only thing going on. 

If I do, just know that I'm not directing it at you. This tonality/atonality debate is truly the only debate that has any traction online, anywhere. Listeners nowadays seem to me to be even more out of touch than at any other time. Ironic, given the ubiquity of radio, TV, and the internet. The more communication devises we have, the less we know, it seems!!

Anyway, good listening to you.


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## Argus

jaimsilva said:


> I would say, in brief, that atonal music is like abstract painting for the visual arts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Richard Mortensen, "Evisa", 1960 - at Museum for Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art), København / Louisiana


Hmmm. Most of my favourite visual art is abstract. Paintings of people and plants that actually look like people and plants get a bit boring. I'd rather see something I couldn't see in nature.



Webernite said:


> The problem is that Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, etc. are massively unpopular as well. Only a tiny number of people listen to them.


Considering their modern day competition, I'd say those guys do pretty well after 200+ years.

A bigger problem is that even on a site dedicated to classical music few people listen tothe likes of Lubomyr Melynk, Christopher Fox, Halim el-Dabh, Alvin Curran or any number of none mainstream living composers. (None of those make music like the OP is tirading against by the way).



some_guy said:


> IT'S 2011. WHERE ARE YOUR EARS?


Same place they were in 2010, the side ov me head, guvnor.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> I think the point being made by the OP is not that classical music is dying, but that modern audiences aren't engaging with the work of modern composers. In fairness, I don't think this is _because_ of what's on most concert programmes; I think what's on concert programmes is actually the reflection of our tastes - not the origin of them. Orchestras, record companies, and broadcasters appear to be limiting the repertoire because it knows what sells; and what sells is _what the audience likes_. If a majority audience - background-listeners; hard-core listeners; academics; laymen - overwhelmingly prefer anything _but_ atonal music, I think there's something important in that to be recognised.


That's where I couldn't disagree more. I don't think that the classical music industry is some sort of artistic meritocracy where the best works magically get more performances, airplay, and recordings because there's something inherent in the sound of the music itself that people respond to. More than in any other artistic industry, I think we need to acknowledge massive economic disadvantages to any new composer there.

Since WWII, the market for pop music has been so staggeringly lucrative that the classical music world has held to a business plan designed to destroy it. The cost of sheet music for a performance of a new work can be prohibitive, but orchestras don't have to worry about paying Bach or Beethoven royalties. So old works are overwhelmingly programmed for performance, even by orchestras who go out of their way to commission and play new works. Orchestras don't want to challenge their musicians to have to learn unfamiliar works, or their listeners to have to abide them, because the perception is that there's more money in sticking to the old warhorses. At least in the USA, commercial classical broadcasting amounts to little more than ads for Oriental rug shops and Lexus dealerships, with a few brief works by Vivaldi and Mozart interspersed among them. And the recording industry eagerly announces the umpteenth recording of a cycle of Beethoven or Mahler symphonies, while even a celebrity musician like Hilary Hahn garners criticism for recording a "new" work as canonical as the Schoenberg Violin Concerto. If they're not trying to make the classical music world look like a petrified forest of nostalgia and conservatism, that's how it looks from here.

This audience you invoke is no different than the audience that complained about Beethoven's unnecessarily cerebral work, or the audience that cheered for the latest piano show-off while Schubert labored away in obscurity. They like what they like, and there's no shortage of people willing to supply them with what they demand. Particularly in the classical music industry of the twenty-first century, assuming that what sells is the best we can expect is pretty naïve.

-Vaz


----------



## Webernite

Argus said:


> Considering their modern day competition, I'd say those guys do pretty well after 200+ years.


The point is that people here are saying there must be something wrong with atonality for it to be so unpopular, while ignoring the fact that _all _classical music is unpopular.


----------



## Argus

Webernite said:


> The point is that people here are saying there must be something wrong with atonality for it to be so unpopular, while ignoring the fact that _all _classical music is unpopular.


I was saying not _all_ classical music is unpopular, especially considering the vast array of various kinds of music that are available to everyone with an internet connection. Beethoven still manages to garner an audience even though he has to contend with Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Michael Buble, Josh Groban and The Script.

I'd say it's fair to say that no atonal composer can compete in the the popularity stakes with any of those composers you mentioned. Therefore, your point is nullified as it still shows a difference in popularity, even if it's on a smaller scale (classical aficionados as opposed to all music fans), between tonal and atonal composers. Although I do think it's more to do with familiarity with these composers than their style.

P.S. Can someone tell me whether this is tonal or atonal. Either it's awesome.






Sounds tonal to me.


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## Polednice

I don't know if I've got the energy to participate further!

So far, there's been the usual back and forth with no progress, but I'm still left pondering what secret knowledge proponents of atonality have. I've tried to put forward the suggestion that there is something _intrinsic_ about atonal music that _predestines_ it to be unpopular (I'll dig up a number of musicological papers over the next couple of days if you like). Could the people who oppose this please try to address this particular point and tell me exactly why you are convinced that the unpopularity is _not_ something intrinsic to the music, but rather to do with the prejudice of the audience?

How do you know that, if this music was given a proper chance, it could be just as popular? Just as moving? Just as successful? Mightn't it be better for you to concede that you're in a cognitive minority of people who can appreciate this largely brain-bending stuff?


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## Huilunsoittaja

@Argus it does sound tonal to me. It's simply using modern technique (block chords, electrical instruments). Sounds like a gnat swarm, which isn't the most unpleasant thing on Earth.

I'm so glad this topic was started! I've always been asking the same question. Many of these posts were very interesting to read, to hear people's opinions.

The thing is, atonality is intriguing to me in some aspects.

A favorite quote by Prokofiev:
"Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper."

Because of what I have discovered on my own, dissonance is not an evil thing, but far from it. Dissonance is indeed a "seasoning," and it's only a matter of the degree of the dissonance were it may be borderline on incomprehensible. The way I see it is this: dissonance of any kind is there to bring out and emphasize what is _consonant_. That's its chief end.

That's my one solid argument against atonal music. Where is the contrast between the consonant and dissonant? For my personal needs, there needs to be this contrast to be a good piece of music. To put it simply, I find atonal music lacking in contrast.

If you want to get to know atonal music, I guess you can always think about how sad, hopeless and fallen this world is, and then you'll discover the inspiration of this world. If life is meaningless, why not make atonal, chaotic music? Why not make music that suppresses the emotions, when there are no emotions worthy to express?


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## Webernite

Argus said:


> I was saying not _all_ classical music is unpopular, especially considering the vast array of various kinds of music that are available to everyone with an internet connection. Beethoven still manages to garner an audience even though he has to contend with Lady Gaga, Justin Beiber, Michael Buble, Josh Groban and The Script.
> 
> I'd say it's fair to say that no atonal composer can compete in the the popularity stakes with any of those composers you mentioned. Therefore, your point is nullified as it still shows a difference in popularity, even if it's on a smaller scale (classical aficionados as opposed to all music fans), between tonal and atonal composers.


Obviously, no atonal composer is as popular as Beethoven. But since Beethoven himself is unpopular compared with Lady Gaga, it only goes to show that "unpopularity" is relative. If people here are going to argue that atonal music must have something wrong with it because it's much less popular than Beethoven, someone who likes Lady Gaga can argue that Beethoven must be rubbish because he's much less popular than Lady Gaga.


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## Polednice

Webernite said:


> Obviously, no atonal composer is as popular as Beethoven. But since Beethoven himself is unpopular compared with Lady Gaga, it only goes to show that "unpopularity" is relative. If people here are going to argue that atonal music must have something wrong with it because it's much less popular than Beethoven, someone who likes Lady Gaga can argue that Beethoven must be rubbish because he's much less popular than Lady Gaga.


On the contrary, I think the popularity of certain things _is_ relevant if you're considering the proper set of people. Obviously, if we take the set "everyone in existence", then we get skewed results about the quality of Beethoven's music, and so shouldn't use that as a judge. But if we take the set "people with a genuine interest in classical music" (defined by whatever parameters necessary), then we can more readily accept the resultant notion that Beethoven is one of the greatest composers.

Otherwise, we just have chaos. To take an unnecessarily extreme example, your proposal would be like saying: "we can't argue that **** doesn't make great food just because it's so unpopular." Some things are unpopular _for a reason_, so popularity shouldn't be dismissed entirely. Ignoring people who couldn't care less about art music, and instead just considering the sub-set of people who _do_ like art music, then if atonal music is _still_ unpopular in this sub-set, then that _does_ suggest there is something wrong with it.


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## Ravellian

haydnfan said:


> As for not knowing how to react-- who cares? Don't approach the music to use it for some artificial emotional reaction (this applies to tonal music as well). Simply listen, just listen. That's all you need to do.


So you're basically admitting that there is no special meaning inherent in the music - it's just the notes on paper and nothing else. Otherwise there would be something to relate to, something to trigger some sort of reaction from a listener. Simply put, if there's absolutely nothing to relate to in the music, I feel like I'm wasting my time listening to it.


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## violadude

Does every piece of music have to act as an emotion intoxicant for people to enjoy it?


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Does every piece of music have to act as an emotion intoxicant for people to enjoy it?


I think that depends on how broadly we define 'emotions'.


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## Argus

Webernite said:


> Obviously, no atonal composer is as popular as Beethoven. But since Beethoven himself is unpopular compared with Lady Gaga, it only goes to show that "unpopularity" is relative. If people here are going to argue that atonal music must have something wrong with it because it's much less popular than Beethoven, someone who likes Lady Gaga can argue that Beethoven must be rubbish because he's much less popular than Lady Gaga.


I agree entirely.

There is obviously more to people preferring Beethoven over Boulez than just the tonal/atonal aspect. Just like Elton John is more popular than Napalm Death even though both use tonality.

Familiarity, entering the public consciousness and, most importantly, getting airplay on the radio/TV would quickly see atonality becoming much more popular.

Another thing is the 'coolness' factor. Classical music is a pretty uncool thing for people (especially kids) to like. You can't dance to most of it, it's played by guys in black tie, it's mostly acoustic and it's created by nerdy looking white dudes. That's classical in general, but if you focus on the atonal/serial side it's like squareness to the nth degree for the casual music listener.

So apart from the music, atonality as a musical style doesn't have a lot going for it, at least the classical part of it. I suppose free jazz/free improv are cooler but they enter a zone where it's like too cool for normal people. The audience at these gigs will mainly be ultra hip cats into the obscurest, most out there stuff imaginable.

In summary: if Boulez spoke street slang and wore baggy clothes, atonal/serial music would be more popular.


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## norman bates

Sofronitsky said:


> Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy,


i don't think it's possible.



Sofronitsky said:


> or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to?


this one is Midnight among the hills by Barbara Pentland, a piece that i absolutely love. Very lyrical and mysterious, i'd be curious to know what you think about it (it's very brief)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Vazgen said:


> ... noisemakers like Sciarrino.


Many good responses above. But let's get back to the music.

This piece by Sciarrino, again, sounded like pure crap to me. Parts of it reminded me of running water for some strange reason. And I do know I am in 2011, and I do know where my ears are ...


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## Sofronitsky

violadude said:


> Does every piece of music have to act as an emotion intoxicant for people to enjoy it?


I feel like people misunderstood the original meaning I had in posting this thread. I didn't set out to 'tirade' against atonal music  It seems like there's been quite a back and forth in this thread, most people asking questions like this and creating an agressive line between the two genres (I say two, but there are many). I didn't say anything like 'This is unpopular, why should we care', 'Tonal music is better because I can hear emotion', etc.

I was just saying that, all though I do not personally understand it, atonal music is a large part of the classical music world right now and I think because of that I can't ignore it. With that in view, I asked if some people could help me understand the music, or understand how THEY understand the music :lol:

Maybe the hostility and presumption of attack on atonal music is part of it's nature? :devil:

I think that after WWII the music world reacted in two different ways. The mainstream led towards pop, easy music to numb your mind of the troubles of the world, which is now very simple tonal music with basic rhythm. Classical music however seemed to delve darker and darker and use dissonance to describe the state of the world. I understand this does not evoke the opinion of all atonal composers, but I remember a quote of one saying '_The world makes no sense, so why should my music?_'.

The only reason I might set out against atonal music in my life is this: I think the goal of every classical musician, or person that loves classical music, should be to try and share their love and attract others to the genre. The popular thought of people that enjoy classical music by those that prefer pop seems to be 'I'm an intellectual, that is why I enjoy this music'. Then the prospect of classical music seems very boring to someone that would listen to music just to forget about the troubles of the world. I think that Atonal music and composers inflates this notion or prejudice, and is counter productive to achieving more popularity for classical music. And this is what I meant when I said 'Classical Music is dying and composers are writing this?'.

Someone here said that 'We do worship size, don't we?' in a way I percieved as saying size shouldn't matter, but if you think that this music is the best stuff out there and even think it might change the world for the better, why wouldn't you want it to be more popular? So I guess my main struggle with atonal music, other than the difficulty of listening to it, is that you shouldn't _have_ to think so much to enjoy music and understand what the artist is saying about the world. But the only reason I'm saying this is that this thread turned more into a debate rather than a place to explain what you find interesting in atonal music to those struggling with finding something interesting themselves.

To better illustrate my point, I'll close with a quote from my favorite composer. The posts I read were all really interesting, and I didn't even think people would reply to this thread. Thanks for sharing your opinions!

"The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt." - Sergei Rachmaninoff

edit: Sorry for posting a book  there were alot of ideas to respond to


----------



## Guest

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Where is the contrast between the consonant and dissonant? For my personal needs, there needs to be this contrast to be a good piece of music. To put it simply, I find atonal music lacking in contrast.


This is key. This is your response. Not everyone responds this way. (And, again assuming that I know what you mean by "atonal," and I don't, I respond to atonal music perfectly well. It is not at all lacking in contrast. (Besides, are pitches the only things going on in music? Is there not also timbre and dynamics and space? Is there not tempo and volume (as in mass--one flute or 100 flutes, say)?



Huilunsoittaja said:


> If you want to get to know atonal music, I guess you can always think about how sad, hopeless and fallen this world is, and then you'll discover the inspiration of this world. If life is meaningless, why not make atonal, chaotic music? Why not make music that suppresses the emotions, when there are no emotions worthy to express?


Really? I mean, aside from the fact that sadness and hopelessness are also emotions (how many emotions are there, really?), nontonal musics are not any more uniformly sad or hopeless than any number of hundreds of lieder from hundreds of years ago.

In any case, music is something for our ears. Any particular piece may seem joyful or chaotic depending on whose ears are listening to it, and which brain those ears are hooked up to. This is what the anti-atonalists just refuse to countenance, that there are any other ears in the room but theirs. That anyone who claims to enjoy any musics that don't use tonality somehow is either lying or showing off or just being contrary. Come on, really? Is it really that hard to believe that any given piece of music, whatever its physical properties (dynamics, instrumentation, tempi, whatever), can be pleasing to someone, even if that someone is not you? Are we really and truly so locked into our own, individual experiences of the world that we cannot even understand how anyone else could have different experiences from ours?


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## Air

All I have to say is my own opinion of the purpose of atonal music. I don't expect everyone to respond to it the same way, because the beautiful thing is, we're all different. And we have the ability to enjoy and identify with different things. So vive la différence!

First off though, I must say I disagree with the notion that tonal composers don't consciously write in a tonal idiom compared to atonal composers who do try to write in an atonal idiom. Either way they're just writing music, and that can take both a conscious and unconscious effort. Anyone who has tried a hand at composition knows that when any composer puts their pen to paper, there is stuff that works for them and stuff that doesn't. And the tonal paradigm is this - everything that doesn't fit into the idiom of accepted Western tonality just _doesn't work_. One has to search for a correct tone, harmony, rhythm... and only then is the work allowed to remain within this idiom. Perhaps it's the idiom _most_ brains most easily accept, but that could just be a result of years of imprinting and the fact that humans have only explored but a few parts of their own mind that they are most comfortable with.

With atonal music, I can actually sense a freeing from this traditional mindset - in other words, the composer is actually allowing more of his unconscious to take over his work because he no longer cares about the centuries-old rules and regulations that tonal music works with. So basically, what I'm suggesting is not serialism - which is based more on a set of rules, but rules to prevent a reliance on tonality - but rather the idea of atonality as a whole, and what's so enjoyable about it. It's essentially the freeing of sound, and consequently, of the dogmas of one's mind too. The fact that it forces me to venture beyond what I am generally accustomed to is what makes it stimulating and interesting for me. And I do find much atonal music beautiful just as I find tonal music beautiful, but perhaps it's just a different part of my mind that's being set off. And this is fine, to enjoy both.


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> Any particular piece may seem joyful or chaotic depending on whose ears are listening to it, and which brain those ears are hooked up to.


though i like a lot of avantgarde, i've never listened any atonal piece that could express joy. I don't think it's a good defence to say that atonal music is capable to express any emotion. And otherwise tonal music is not capable to express certain feelings in the same way that atonal music (or very dissonant music) express very well, anguish, desperation, fear, etc.


----------



## Webernite

Polednice said:


> On the contrary, I think the popularity of certain things _is_ relevant if you're considering the proper set of people. Obviously, if we take the set "everyone in existence", then we get skewed results about the quality of Beethoven's music, and so shouldn't use that as a judge. But if we take the set "people with a genuine interest in classical music" (defined by whatever parameters necessary), then we can more readily accept the resultant notion that Beethoven is one of the greatest composers.
> 
> Otherwise, we just have chaos. To take an unnecessarily extreme example, your proposal would be like saying: "we can't argue that **** doesn't make great food just because it's so unpopular." Some things are unpopular _for a reason_, so popularity shouldn't be dismissed entirely. Ignoring people who couldn't care less about art music, and instead just considering the sub-set of people who _do_ like art music, then if atonal music is _still_ unpopular in this sub-set, then that _does_ suggest there is something wrong with it.


That's a completely arbitrary way of doing things, a way which just so happens to favor the result you want to hear. And any way, most of the composers who are now popular were unpopular at one time, even among people who liked art music.

A lot of today's avant-garde music is dissonant, difficult to follow, emotionally ambiguous, and even frightening. Most people who like it admit that. The problem is that you want to take things further; you want them to admit that the music has something fundamentally, _scientifically_ wrong with it, as if it were a provable scientific fact that avant-garde music is bad. But that's a ridiculous idea. Scientists can prove that most humans prefer consonance to dissonance, but that doesn't mean that the less dissonant a composition, the better it is. What counts as good music is a personal matter, and maybe a cultural matter, but certainly not something that scientists can prove.


----------



## Webernite

Sofronitsky said:


> I feel like people misunderstood the original meaning I had in posting this thread. I didn't set out to 'tirade' against atonal music  It seems like there's been quite a back and forth in this thread, most people asking questions like this and creating an agressive line between the two genres (I say two, but there are many). I didn't say anything like 'This is unpopular, why should we care', 'Tonal music is better because I can hear emotion', etc.
> 
> I was just saying that, all though I do not personally understand it, atonal music is a large part of the classical music world right now and I think because of that I can't ignore it. With that in view, I asked if some people could help me understand the music, or understand how THEY understand the music :lol:
> 
> Maybe the hostility and presumption of attack on atonal music is part of it's nature? :devil:
> 
> I think that after WWII the music world reacted in two different ways. The mainstream led towards pop, easy music to numb your mind of the troubles of the world, which is now very simple tonal music with basic rhythm. Classical music however seemed to delve darker and darker and use dissonance to describe the state of the world. I understand this does not evoke the opinion of all atonal composers, but I remember a quote of one saying '_The world makes no sense, so why should my music?_'.
> 
> The only reason I might set out against atonal music in my life is this: I think the goal of every classical musician, or person that loves classical music, should be to try and share their love and attract others to the genre. The popular thought of people that enjoy classical music by those that prefer pop seems to be 'I'm an intellectual, that is why I enjoy this music'. Then the prospect of classical music seems very boring to someone that would listen to music just to forget about the troubles of the world. I think that Atonal music and composers inflates this notion or prejudice, and is counter productive to achieving more popularity for classical music. And this is what I meant when I said 'Classical Music is dying and composers are writing this?'.
> 
> Someone here said that 'We do worship size, don't we?' in a way I percieved as saying size shouldn't matter, but if you think that this music is the best stuff out there and even think it might change the world for the better, why wouldn't you want it to be more popular? So I guess my main struggle with atonal music, other than the difficulty of listening to it, is that you shouldn't _have_ to think so much to enjoy music and understand what the artist is saying about the world. But the only reason I'm saying this is that this thread turned more into a debate rather than a place to explain what you find interesting in atonal music to those struggling with finding something interesting themselves.
> 
> To better illustrate my point, I'll close with a quote from my favorite composer. The posts I read were all really interesting, and I didn't even think people would reply to this thread. Thanks for sharing your opinions!
> 
> "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt." - Sergei Rachmaninoff
> 
> edit: Sorry for posting a book  there were alot of ideas to respond to


If you like Sofronitsky, I take it you also like Scriabin. In that case, you already like some atonal music, or music that's practically atonal.


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## crmoorhead

haydnfan said:


> As for not knowing how to react-- who cares? Don't approach the music to use it for some artificial emotional reaction (this applies to tonal music as well). Simply listen, just listen. That's all you need to do.
> 
> As for what to listen for: well like Copland said and still applies for all music: listen for melody, harmony, rhythm and color. If you don't like what you hear try another composer, they all have different styles. One composer might sound like meaningless noise, another like meaningful drama. But the bottom line is that you won't know if you don't listen.
> 
> All of your questions can't sort themselves out until after you listen. And nobody can answer them for you, only you can.


I happen to like some of the serialist music I have heard. Not sure why, but you put it very well when you say 'just listen'. When I listen to music, I don't usually do so with the preconcieved purpose of tring to elicit any kind of specific emotion. Some pieces do move me a great deal, but that is because it is a property of the music. It isn't something I go looking for. Serialist music (at one extreme) makes me feel strange, but that isn't an altogether unpleasant experience. I identify with its alien sound. Other atonal work, like Bartok or Stravinsky, makes me feel something else entirely and both composers are fully capable of eliciting all kinds of emotions. And, depending on what you mean by atonal, what about Debussy?

Sometimes, however, it suits me to just listen to something. Beauty can be found in anything that stimulates the senses. Sometimes all it takes is to relax and absorb the sounds at a quiet moment. The fact that it has been placed in musical notation means that it isn't just random. Soon you can grow to know and love what were once random sounds. That is a small miracle in itself.

Nonetheless, I will agree that there is probably more atonal and experimental music in existence than there is a need for. A key question, however, is this: when did supply and demand apply to the creation of art? If it is unpopular, no one will pay for it and it is unlikely to be heard out of a small circle of people, but the joy of creating music should still be encouraged.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Air said:


> The fact that it forces me to venture beyond what I am generally accustomed to is what makes it stimulating and interesting for me.


Good response, Air. I can agree with this key comment you wrote. And I think that's probably the strongest point about the more "extreme" types of the avant-garde. Although it might sound horrible, like the two Sciarrino pieces posted in this thread so far, it is stimulating and interesting in its own way, though it is very unlikely I will return to it again with much frequency if ever.


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## Polednice

Webernite said:


> That's a completely arbitrary way of doing things, a way which just so happens to favor the result you want to hear. And any way, most of the composers who are now popular were unpopular at one time, even among people who liked art music.


I'm not saying that popularity ought to be the _sole_ parameter we use in determining the 'goodness' of a piece of music, but I think it's equally ridiculous to dismiss popularity altogether.



Webernite said:


> A lot of today's avant-garde music is dissonant, difficult to follow, emotionally ambiguous, and even frightening. Most people who like it admit that. The problem is that you want to take things further; you want them to admit that the music has something fundamentally, _scientifically_ wrong with it, as if it were a provable scientific fact that avant-garde music is bad. But that's a completely ridiculous idea.


No, that's not what I'm trying to do - I'm trying to do something slightly, _subtly_ different.  I'm suggesting that avant-garde music has something fundamentally, _scientifically_ inaccessible and incomprehensible about it. I'm not saying that this applies to everyone - as evidenced by this forum, some people magically 'get it'  - but it _is_ a provable scientific fact that the brain is wired in a certain way, and the way in which it is wired makes it _far easier_ for people to understand and unconsciously deconstruct music with a sense of tonality than it is for other types of music. Let me emphasise, I am *not* saying that this fact therefore means that non-tonal music is *bad*; just that it is not brain-friendly (although, in my _personal_ opinion, I do believe that good art ought to be as brain-friendly as possible  ).


----------



## Argus

norman bates said:


> though i like a lot of avantgarde, i've never listened any atonal piece that could express joy. I don't think it's a good defence to say that atonal music is capable to express any emotion. And otherwise tonal music is not capable to express certain feelings in the same way that atonal music (or very dissonant music) express very well, anguish, desperation, fear, etc.


Maybe some people think this expresses joy:






Maybe Penderecki's sliding atonal cacophonies are interpretted as anything other than dread by some people:






I doubt it though.

However, technically speaking musique concrete, unpitched instruments and field recordings of ambient sounds are atonal. They aren't based around a tonal centre and often don't include tones at all. I could see people experiencing joy listening to some of them.

This John Cage piece seems to give people in the audience some joy:






A Chris Watson recording may remind someone of a joyous moment in their life:






It is interesting how such a vague term as 'atonal' has come to be readily identified with one particular type of music when actually it describes a lot more than that.


----------



## Webernite

Polednice said:


> No, that's not what I'm trying to do - I'm trying to do something slightly, _subtly_ different.  I'm suggesting that avant-garde music has something fundamentally, _scientifically_ inaccessible and incomprehensible about it. I'm not saying that this applies to everyone - as evidenced by this forum, some people magically 'get it'  - but it _is_ a provable scientific fact that the brain is wired in a certain way, and the way in which it is wired makes it _far easier_ for people to understand and unconsciously deconstruct music with a sense of tonality than it is for other types of music. Let me emphasise, I am *not* saying that this fact therefore means that non-tonal music is *bad*; just that it is not brain-friendly (although, in my _personal_ opinion, I do believe that good art ought to be as brain-friendly as possible  ).


I'm convinced Brahms's development sections are a little bit brain-unfriendly too, but I still like them.

:tiphat:


----------



## Polednice

Webernite said:


> I'm convinced Brahms's development sections are a little bit brain-unfriendly too, but I still like them.
> 
> :tiphat:


Touché!


----------



## TresPicos

jaimsilva said:


> I would say, in brief, that atonal music is like abstract painting for the visual arts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Richard Mortensen, "Evisa", 1960 - at Museum for Moderne Kunst (Museum of Modern Art), København / Louisiana


I agree.

In a way, atonal music - and abstract painting - is an acquired taste. Once I learned to appreciate some atonal music, it became easier to enjoy other atonal pieces as well. But I'm not sure that it's all about "getting used" to it.

You don't have to watch hundreds of abstract paintings before it's possible to start enjoying them. It's possible to enjoy the very first abstract painting you see, if you're open for it. So, maybe it's more about "unacquiring" something.

I don't love all atonal music, but I love exploring it, finding new types of beauty that I didn't know existed. It's not my experience that atonal music must lack emotion, or that the emotion has to be as disharmonic as the music.

On this Youtube page, you can read the following comment regarding Schoenberg's "Drei Klavierstücke":



> this is atonal music and worth studying﻿ from an﻿ academic point of view. but it generates no emotion in the listener and is harsh in its sound. It's good music, but not pleasurable and melodic


In me, this music generates the emotion of bliss, and I find it extremely "pleasurable" because it feels free and "balanced", whereas all tonal music suddenly feels regulated and "unbalanced".


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## Ravellian

some guy said:


> It's 2011. Where are your ears?
> 
> A historical observation. To people living in the 18th century, Baroque music did not sound like it sounds to us. Nor did Classical music. Nor did Romantic music _in_ the 19th. Nor did Impressionism. The puzzlements the OP reports as hearing in what he calls "atonal" music (why has no one questioned the use of this term?) are very much like the puzzlements people have reported about many other kinds of music, including pieces that every "tonalist" here thinks is pretty, pieces that elicit happiness or joy in their hearts.
> 
> A personal observation. Don't take your personal difficulties as being in any way universal, even if it seems like they are shared by others. This comment was very revealing in this regard: "I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for. It sounds completely alien to my ears because it is so far removed from how *people* have felt music should sound like over the last thousand years, and therefore, I can't feel anything." I've put the switch in bold.
> 
> An observation about audience. Audience is not a single monolithic thing. Audiences are composed of individuals. Even a fairly conservative audience in a fairly conservative symphony hall is composed of individuals, some of whom can't stand Brahms, some of whom adore him. And that audience, however large (we worship size, don't we?), is not the only audience.
> 
> Composers did not suddenly stop writing for an audience a hundred years ago. Composers today are not ignoring their audience. I attend new music concerts almost exclusively. They consist, most of them, entirely of pieces that do not use a tonal system. I personally do not feel ignored at all by that, because that's exactly what I want to hear. (I also like hearing music written with tonal systems, just by the way, but I don't have to make a special effort to hear that, because it's everywhere. This is the most puzzling thing to me about anti-atonality screeds--tonal music is ubiquitous. No one anywhere has to listen to more than a token five or six minutes of anything else on the odd symphony concert or two when something mildly adventurous gets programmed.)
> 
> You can only make the "audience" claim if you have privileged one particular audience. The concerts I attend all have audiences. Those audiences apparently enjoy all the stuff they hear.
> 
> That, in a nutshell, is the point of "Atonal" music, to provide enjoyment. Why, that's the same point of every other kind of music!!
> 
> Edit: I don't often disagree with anything violadude says, but I think this is wrong: "composers are turning back to composing using a more tonal gamut."
> 
> Some composers are. Some composers have always done this. Some, not all. It's not the only thing going on. This plays right into the illusion that the one big conflict in music is between tonal and atonal. It's maybe the conflict that's most visible in magazines and in symphony halls and in online forums. But there's more. So much more.
> 
> IT'S 2011. WHERE ARE YOUR EARS?


(Rationalist) Perhaps I feel that there is weight to the vast majority of music-listeners' opinions over the past thousand years? Perhaps I agree with them? This goes beyond mere popularity. This deals with people's preferences over a vast stretch of time. Over that time, there have been subgenres of music that have been forgotten because they were simply too inaccessible (See: Ars Subtilior, 14th century, Alkan, 19th century, Sorabji, 20th century). The same will be with atonality. It may have a cult following, but really, who cares?

(Individualist) Ah, but why does one need to follow the majority opinion all the time? Since when are majorities always right? You're just being a sheep, following the crowd like that. Think with your ears, not with what anyone else says!

Gah...


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> I'm not saying that popularity ought to be the _sole_ parameter we use in determining the 'goodness' of a piece of music, but I think it's equally ridiculous to dismiss popularity altogether.


Evidently you have no such qualms about dismissing altogether the economic disadvantages that face new and innovative composers in the classical music industry. Your assumption seems to be that there's a level playing field in the industry, and that the only reason more people like Beethoven's music than atonal music is that there's a cognitive preference for tonality hard-wired by evolution into our brains. I think this is hopelessly simplistic.

Once again, I don't expect listeners to like Babbitt to the same extent they like Bach. But audiences have had to get used to the innovations of living composers for hundreds of years. The fact that they don't anymore is something that's better explained through the economics of the classical music industry than by appealing to the science of cognition and evolutionary biology.

-Vaz


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## Polednice

Vazgen said:


> Evidently you have no such qualms about dismissing altogether the economic disadvantages that face new and innovative composers in the classical music industry. Your assumption seems to be that there's a level playing field in the industry, and that the only reason more people like Beethoven's music than atonal music is that there's a cognitive preference for tonality hard-wired by evolution into our brains. I think this is hopelessly simplistic.
> 
> Once again, I don't expect listeners to like Babbitt to the same extent they like Bach. But audiences have had to get used to the innovations of living composers for hundreds of years. The fact that they don't anymore is something that's better explained through the economics of the classical music industry than by appealing to the science of cognition and evolutionary biology.
> 
> -Vaz


Well, unlike you it seems, I'm just not cynical enough to believe that most people will only ever like what commercial giants decide the masses should be fed. Especially in an age of globalisation and increased access to all kinds of artistic resources, I'm willing to put my faith in people to search, and discover, and learn, and share. I think I at least give people credit by saying: "you've given it a chance, but, like most people, you just don't like avant-garde music" rather than making the assumption: "you've been conditioned by powers beyond your recognition. Oh what a shame for you..."


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## crmoorhead

Argus said:


> Maybe some people think this expresses joy:


I listened to the first minute of that and it definitely got more intense. I guess a feeling of intenseness is one of the key features of music in any form. Then it reminded me balloons rubbing together and being twisted (my girlfriend makes balloon models) and it made me laugh!!  So, for one listener at least, it expresses joy! Whether or not by association (and whatever the composer's intent) other bits reminded me of garbled circus music and racing cars and puppies. Experimental listening can be fun.

Being serious, however, how does one go about composing something like this? And how hard could it be compared to a symphony? Maybe people feel duped by something that doesnt require the same kind or same level of skill in the same way many people don't like abstract art. I don't think that a lot of abstract art has much merit, though I do like surrealist stuff by Max Ernst, Rene Magritte, Dali and Joan Miro a great deal. I am fascinated by the uncanny.


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## Sofronitsky

Webernite said:


> If you like Sofronitsky, I take it you also like Scriabin. In that case, you already like some atonal music, or music that's practically atonal.


Not really no! I'm an odd one that likes Sofronitsky for his recordings of Beethoven, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff.


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## Webernite

That... is interesting. :lol:

Edit: Well, you know, early Scriabin isn't far from Chopin, and late Scriabin isn't that far from early Scriabin. So perhaps you should try that as your route into atonality, if you're genuinely interested in it.


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## Webernite

Polednice: I do sympathize with your argument to some extent. Most avant-garde music probably is more difficult for the brain to "process" or "decode" than Mozart and Beethoven. But I don't see that as a reason just to dismiss it. Besides, we're talking in generalizations. There are lots of different kinds of avant-garde music, and probably a few pieces you'd even like on first hearing.


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## norman bates

crmoorhead said:


> I listened to the first minute of that and it definitely got more intense. I guess a feeling of intenseness is one of the key features of music in any form. Then it reminded me balloons rubbing together and being twisted (my girlfriend makes balloon models) and it made me laugh!!  So, for one listener at least, it expresses joy! Whether or not by association (and whatever the composer's intent) other bits reminded me of garbled circus music and racing cars and puppies. Experimental listening can be fun.


i don't think that the piece posted by Argus is an atonal piece, because "atonal" refers to the use of twelve notes, this is something else i think. 
I find incredibly funny the sounds of the daxophone 





but again is not exactly atonal music


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## Polednice

Webernite said:


> Polednice: I do sympathize with your argument to some extent. Most avant-garde music probably is more difficult for the brain to "process" or "decode" than Mozart and Beethoven. But I don't see that as a reason just to dismiss it. Besides, we're talking in generalizations. There are lots of different kinds of avant-garde music, and probably a few pieces you'd even like on first hearing.


I don't mean for it to be entirely dismissed. As an intellectual, artistic exercise, I think atonal music has great merits, and its impact on musical traditions cannot be downplayed. It's just that, on a personal level, I find it at worst pretentious, and at best disappointing, for people to create art in a medium that most people can't (or indeed simply won't) appreciate.

I'm a big sucker for the old Romantic ideal espoused by Wordsworth and Coleridge in the preface to their 1798 collection _Lyrical Ballads_, where they described that their poetry was an experiment in using the everyday, vulgar vernacular as a vehicle for the high-brow endeavour of Art - not _just_ as a novel excursion into unchartered territory, but particularly so that _anyone_ could read and understand. Poetry prior to the 19th century was often steeped in references to classical civilisation, and no one except for aristocrats with expensive educations would understand it (or even be able to afford a book in the first place). Wordsworth and Coleridge made steps to bringing art to the masses.

So, whether it's because of evolution, cultural conditioning, or - most likely - a complex interaction of both, tonality is so heavily imprinted on the minds of most people that it is the musical vulgar vernacular. If an artist wants to be able to engage as large an audience as possible - which, for me, is one of _the_ most important artistic ideals - then I feel they simply have to recognise and utilise the power tonality has over us, desirable or otherwise.

Once again, I'd reiterate that I don't mean this to the detriment of all atonal music, but if an artist feels they have something profound and moving to say about the human condition, why wouldn't they want to communicate it with as many people as possible via a means that strikes a fine balance between technical quality and ultimate accessibility? Why hide it in the recesses of the confusing avant-garde? There is beauty in the vulgar, you know 

And, with that, I'm off to bed!


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## Guest

Webernite said:


> A lot of today's avant-garde music is dissonant, difficult to follow, emotionally ambiguous, and even frightening. Most people who like it admit that.


_Perhaps_ most is true. That would make me one of the few, then, which I would be fine with. But I would say that it's probably not true. I would think that most people who can genuinely engage with today's avant garde would find it to be none of those things.

I certainly do not. And the other people who attend the same concerts around the world that I attend do not, either. We are certainly aware that a lot of people do find it dissonant, difficult, ambiguous, and frightening. But that doesn't really affect _our_ listening in any way. I know that some people used to find it that way and then changed their minds somehow along the way. I don't know the secret key for getting this to happen. I wish I did, but I don't. And I'm particularly handicapped in this regard, because I never found contemporary music, with a very few exceptions, to be anything but fascinating, exhilarating, and emotionally satisfying. You know, like Schubert!

In short, I'd like to understand why so many people find it so difficult or just plain ugly, but I don't. I'd like to understand why that response has to turn into variously absurd attempts to prove that the music is this or that unmusical thing, unlistenable, unemotional, unappealing, but I don't. I find the things, generally, that are so described to be eminently listenable and appealing, and listening to them fills me with joy.

And always has.


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## Webernite

You wouldn't even concede that a lot of it is very dissonant? Dissonance is a fairly objective thing.


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## Webernite

Polednice said:


> I don't mean for it to be entirely dismissed. As an intellectual, artistic exercise, I think atonal music has great merits, and its impact on musical traditions cannot be downplayed. It's just that, on a personal level, I find it at worst pretentious, and at best disappointing, for people to create art in a medium that most people can't (or indeed simply won't) appreciate.
> 
> I'm a big sucker for the old Romantic ideal espoused by Wordsworth and Coleridge in the preface to their 1798 collection _Lyrical Ballads_, where they described that their poetry was an experiment in using the everyday, vulgar vernacular as a vehicle for the high-brow endeavour of Art - not _just_ as a novel excursion into unchartered territory, but particularly so that _anyone_ could read and understand. Poetry prior to the 19th century was often steeped in references to classical civilisation, and no one except for aristocrats with expensive educations would understand it (or even be able to afford a book in the first place). Wordsworth and Coleridge made steps to bringing art to the masses.
> 
> So, whether it's because of evolution, cultural conditioning, or - most likely - a complex interaction of both, tonality is so heavily imprinted on the minds of most people that it is the musical vulgar vernacular. If an artist wants to be able to engage as large an audience as possible - which, for me, is one of _the_ most important artistic ideals - then I feel they simply have to recognise and utilise the power tonality has over us, desirable or otherwise.
> 
> Once again, I'd reiterate that I don't mean this to the detriment of all atonal music, but if an artist feels they have something profound and moving to say about the human condition, why wouldn't they want to communicate it with as many people as possible via a means that strikes a fine balance between technical quality and ultimate accessibility? Why hide it in the recesses of the confusing avant-garde? There is beauty in the vulgar, you know
> 
> And, with that, I'm off to bed!


I know what you mean, but you seem to underestimate how difficult the music of many great composers before 1900 was for the public at the time. True, part of that was due to bad performance, but modern music is also frequently badly performed.


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## Air

Webernite said:


> You wouldn't even concede that a lot of it is very dissonant? Dissonance is a fairly objective thing.


Maybe *some guy* is an alien and simply used to Ligeti-like noises. But I'm curious about his response to this question too. For aliens, I feel that dissonance may not necessarily be an objective thing.


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## crmoorhead

norman bates said:


> i don't think that the piece posted by Argus is an atonal piece, because "atonal" refers to the use of twelve notes, this is something else i think.
> I find incredibly funny the sounds of the daxophone
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> but again is not exactly atonal music


I wonder if someone can clarify that. I thought atonal was, as a general term, anything written outside of the system of standard keys and that some pieces could be a lot more dissonant than others. Why does atonal refer to only twelve notes? I know that the Dodecaphonists (as the name implies) used a chromatic scale, but does the term atonal itself presuppose the use of the chromatic scale? What would be the proper name for the use of a scale that had, for example, steps of a quarter tone?

I am still learning about music, I am not a musician. Thanks!

EDIT: The link is certainly... interesting.  The instrument even more so! It does sound like the composer is trying (and failing) to play a tune there.


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## regressivetransphobe

To scare children. Contrast to genres meant to scare one's parents, like industrial rock and nu-metal.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

regressivetransphobe said:


> To scare children.


:lol: Funny.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> _f an artist feels they have something profound and moving to say about the human condition, why wouldn't they want to communicate it with as many people as possible via a means that strikes a fine balance between technical quality and ultimate accessibility?_


_Barry Truax has said that he writes music to please himself, because he's the only person he really knows. But, given that humans do have some similarities (otherwise marketing wouldn't work as well as it does), he thinks that if he writes something he enjoys, then there will probably be other people who will enjoy it as well. Trying to please others is a guessing game. Do we want to base an aesthetic of music on a guessing game?

As you may have already gathered from my previous post, we are different from each other. The musics being pummeled in this thread, for instance, are all quite accessible to me. Does that make the music itself accessible? No. But your inability to access it, to engage with it, does not make the music itself inaccessible, either.

Th "fine line balance between technical quality and ultimate accessibility" is, I think, an illusion, a null set, an impossibility.

And finally, is art about "saying something profound and moving about the human condition"? I'm sure you could find some artists who would agree. I'm sure you would find some artists who would disagree, too. But one thing is for sure, the first thing an artist must deal with is the materials, a poet with words, a sculptor with stone or wood or metal, a composer with sounds, a painter with pigments. That's the first and fundamental reality. Can something like "profound and moving about the human condition" be said with sounds? I'm guessing no. With words, maybe. Possibly even pigments if what you do with them is make a simulacrum of an object or a scene. Would you want to say something "profound and moving" with glass and metal and concrete? A building would be more appropriate.

Now, after it's done, there may be something to the angles and shapes of that building that some people may find profound and moving, but I'm guessing that that will be a by-product not the purpose. (Because we are human, and emotional, we will find emotional content in just about anything. Or, apparently, we will be distressed (an emotion) if we don't find it!)_


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## norman bates

crmoorhead said:


> I wonder if someone can clarify that. I thought atonal was, as a general term, anything written outside of the system of standard keys and that some pieces could be a lot more dissonant than others.


Well i'm not sure about that and maybe you're right, but i think that at least in this discussion the sense of "atonal" was intended as Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez-Babbitt etc, maybe including also free atonality with Scriabin, Decaux, Pentland, Rudhyar and similar composers. Or we were referring also to the music of Sun ra, Albert Ayler, the gamelan, Harry Partch, Ligeti, industrial music and even the blues?



crmoorhead said:


> EDIT: The link is certainly... interesting.  The instrument even more so! It does sound like the composer is trying (and failing) to play a tune there.


this one is more successful i think 
http://www.divshare.com/download/13072163-4e4


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Can something like "profound and moving about the human condition" be said with sounds? I'm guessing no.


Sad. Maybe that's why avant-garde stuff ticks well with you.


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## Guest

About dissonance. If by that word you mean "pitches within a certain distance from each other played simultaneously,
then I suppose that has a fairly objective quality to it. Problem is, what is that certain distance? Is it a fourth? A third? A minor second? A tritone? Different cultures and different times within the same culture will return different answers to that question.

If you mean "a tone or chord that we expect to resolve in a certain way," B to C in a C major scale, for instance, then the conditioning implied by "we expect" means that we will get different answers, too. (I no longer feel, for instance, that the sequence C, D, E, F, G, A, B is headed strongly towards one particular pitch, though I can remember a time when I did. (I may be an alien, but I became one, then. I was born right here!))

If you mean, an unpleasant sound or (perhaps) a sound that is only pleasant if it moves quickly to another sound--a sound that if prolonged would be unpleasant, which is what Prokofiev seems to have been saying with his spice analogy (which I reject, you may imagine), then that has nothing objective to it at all.

It all comes down, again, to individual experience. If it could somehow be agreed that it should stay there (and not be turned into some quasi-scientific conclusion about the inherently inaccessible qualities of atonal music), I think we might then lay this contentious quarrel to rest.

R.I.P. dear quarrel.


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## mmsbls

I'm a bit late to this thread so I have several ideas to discuss and hopefully this post won't be too disjointed. Many here have argued that for hundreds of years CM has evolved with new music being less popular and needing time for listeners to adjust and "learn" to appreciate it. On this thread there seem to be two basic views expressed relating to atonal music.

a) Atonal music is _inherently_ unpleasant (or less pleasant) for _most_ CM listeners.
b) Atonal music, like other music in the past, simply needs more exposure for CM listeners to appreciate as they do Baroque, Classical, or Romantic music. If listeners would be more open and listen, they would come to enjoy and appreciate atonal music.
Some believe this "listening" might require more focus or work than listening to earlier CM because it makes more demands on the listener.

I strongly suspect that Polednice is correct that the human brain "has a preference (or an ease of understanding) for sounds that are arranged to have a tonal centre." I also believe Vazgen may be correct when saying:



Vazgen said:


> But audiences have had to get used to the innovations of living composers for hundreds of years. The fact that they don't anymore is something that's better explained through the economics of the classical music industry than by appealing to the science of cognition and evolutionary biology.
> -Vaz


some guy has pointed out that the are reasons to believe that the orchestra "preference" for older music did not begin in this century but rather the 1800's when the percentage of music by dead composers played in concerts in Paris rose to 94% by 1870.

So, it is a question of more (and maybe proper) exposure, or is atonal music destined to appeal to vastly fewer people than other CM?

I find this a fascinating question and personally lean toward (a) above and atonal music destined to relatively low appeal...BUT I am not at all convinced.

There are two new points I would like to make leading to 2 questions:

1) I have listened to an enormous amount of atonal music over the past 6 months or so. That listening has not made a significant change in my view of the music (still do not like it). I know others who have listened to atonal music and have the same response. To those who believe additional exposure is all that is needed, how much exposure do you think is necessary for the average CM listener?

2) My daughter is a performance major in collage. She told me that in general the performance majors at her school, including her, do not appreciate atonal music. On the other hand composition majors in general find much of it beautiful. I have long felt that a good knowledge of music theory significantly increases the probability of appreciating atonal music. Is it likely that the general difficulty (complexity) of atonal music is too serious a barrier for the _average_ listener?


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## Webernite

some guy said:


> About dissonance. If by that word you mean "pitches within a certain distance from each other played simultaneously,
> then I suppose that has a fairly objective quality to it. Problem is, what is that certain distance? Is it a fourth? A third? A minor second? A tritone? Different cultures and different times within the same culture will return different answers to that question.
> 
> If you mean "a tone or chord that we expect to resolve in a certain way," B to C in a C major scale, for instance, then the conditioning implied by "we expect" means that we will get different answers, too. (I no longer feel, for instance, that the sequence C, D, E, F, G, A, B is headed strongly towards one particular pitch, though I can remember a time when I did. (I may be an alien, but I became one, then. I was born right here!))
> 
> If you mean, an unpleasant sound or (perhaps) a sound that is only pleasant if it moves quickly to another sound--a sound that if prolonged would be unpleasant, which is what Prokofiev seems to have been saying with his spice analogy (which I reject, you may imagine), then that has nothing objective to it at all.
> 
> It all comes down, again, to individual experience. If it could somehow be agreed that it should stay there (and not be turned into some quasi-scientific conclusion about the inherently inaccessible qualities of atonal music), I think we might then lay this contentious quarrel to rest.
> 
> R.I.P. dear quarrel.


I suppose I meant that it makes heavier use of intervals that seem dissonant to the majority of classical and pop listeners, i.e. the dissonances of the common practice period.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> To those who believe additional exposure is all that is needed, how much exposure do you think is necessary for the average CM listener?


The conclusion I have come to after reading several threads on this topic on several boards, is that exposure is not going to work very well. Not on its own.

The only thing that will work is a change of attitude--and how that will happen is anyone's guess!!

But if you go into it with the idea that something is wrong with it, then "Hey presto!!" you will find something wrong with it.

Otherwise, if you can just let the sounds and combinations of sounds be themselves, then probably you will find something of value in it. Not everything, of course. No one here, whichever stance they've taken on "atonality," likes every tonal piece ever written, either.


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## Webernite

It's probably better to focus on one specific avant-garde composer, rather than listening at random to avant-garde music by all sorts of unrelated composers, which is what most people seem to do.


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## crmoorhead

norman bates said:


> Well i'm not sure about that and maybe you're right, but i think that at least in this discussion the sense of "atonal" was intended as Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez-Babbitt etc, maybe including also free atonality with Scriabin, Decaux, Pentland, Rudhyar and similar composers. Or we were referring also to the music of Sun ra, Albert Ayler, the gamelan, Harry Partch, Ligeti, industrial music and even the blues?


Yeah, I really don't know. I think that, strictly, atonal is anything that isn't in a key extending to all the groups and composers you mention above, but I am relatively new to musical theory. I think that the intention was restricted to highly dissonant/disjunct music rather than simply 'atonal'. If we aren't making that assumption, correctly or incorrectly, there is a much wealth of atonal music that is, IMO, much more accessible.

I would class Ligeti and others who used finer intervals than half-tones as being atonal, but it is whether they use those scales to produce conjunct or disjunct music that matters when classifying it as 'easy to listen to'. The blues is very easy to listen to but, then again, we are used to those sounds because they have filtered through to popular culture. The blues can also be represented on the standard keyboard.

I mentioned Debussy earlier - where does he fit? With Scriabin? I have not listened to Scriabin yet, but he sounds ideal. 



> this one is more successful i think
> http://www.divshare.com/download/13072163-4e4


This sounds great!!  Really funky and full of character! I would be tempted to classify it as sounding like a muppet choir, but that seems a bit of an inadequate description.


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## violadude

norman bates said:


> this one is more successful i think
> http://www.divshare.com/download/13072163-4e4


O.O Is there a way I can get a recording of this??


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## crmoorhead

violadude said:


> O.O Is there a way I can get a recording of this??


I looked up the album it is from on Amazon:

UK
US (Considerably cheaper)

It seems to be a collection of excepts from larger pieces though.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I always get the feeling that someguy is like that geeky kid back in high-school who tried to impress everyone with the obscure slasher punk bands that he was listening to that no one else knew: "You're still listening to Pink Floyd/The Police/Depeche Mode/ fill in the blank??!! That crap is so outdated??!! I'm listening to the Electronic Fart Scribblers. The latest thing."

There is no big mystery here... and to pretend otherwise is simply ingenuous. Atonal music is simple less popular than the alternative just as abstract paintings are less popular than figurative painting. To the average ear atonal music is less pleasing than traditional tonality... just as to the average eye abstract paintings are less pleasing than figurative art or realism. To berate someone because they dislike atonal music is as absurd as berating them because they dislike Gregorian chants or Indian ragas.

Again, to compare the small (minute?) audience who take great pleasure in atonal music with the fact that the audience for classical music itself is small in comparison to that of popular music is another ingenuous/ingenious? argument that seems to suggest that just as only a select few "get" classical music atonalism is reserved for even a more select few. The audience who struggles with atonal music is made up of those who quite often have invested a good deal of effort into the appreciation of classical music. The fact that many simply find certain aspects of Modern/Contemporary music unpleasant is in no way surprising to me. Many of them might also be less than fond of Renaissance madrigals, Byzantine chants, Indian ragas, Japanese Shakuhachi flute, Hip-Hop, or Bluegrass.

The fact that it is 2011 is irrelevant. Most of the listeners here haven't been around for 100 years and even if they had been, atonal music doesn't seem to have made such inroads into music that it seems in any way as "natural" as traditional tonality. Byzantine chant has been around for nearly a millennium longer than atonal music, yet I doubt it has a larger audience than Schoenberg and Webern... let alone Schubert and Mozart. Why isn't atonal music more popular? The champions of atonal music can certainly make any number of arguments about the record companies and pandering to the masses... but these always sound as if the obvious is being avoided... the fact that a great majority find atonal music unpleasant.

Some would berate the listener who struggles with atonal music: "Where are your ears?! This stuff's been around 100 years. I loved it from the moment I first heard it". And...? Who cares??! We like what we like. And some music seems to resonate with a far larger audience than other music. If I recall correctly, Someguy himself has expressed a certain dislike for Bax, Bluegrass... and was it Jazz? Personally I think some things by Miles Davis, Duke Ellington and Thelonius Monk may just outlast Cage, Ligeti, Xenakis, and Stockhausen... in spite of the fact that I actually like some things by Cage, Ligeti, and Stockhausen (I honestly haven't heard enough by Xenakis to put forth any opinion).

I won't suggest that atonal music sucks (I quite like some of it... I even have a disc of Schoenberg and one of Webern on order!!!). But I can't see any point in expressing a phony sense of shock than some people would still find such music "difficult"... or simply dislike it. I love dark beer, but it seems that many find it to be an "acquired taste". Some don't wish to acquire this taste... and some don't wish to acquire a taste for atonal music.

In defense of atonal music... or any music outside of the core mainstream of than which one commonly listens to... I do agree that one should avoid dismissing a body of music as a whole... or even the work of a single composer or a single work without having first listened to it and given it a fair chance. But again... some music demands a greater effort... is more of an acquired taste... and to some the effort simply isn't worth it. The pay-off in terms of pleasure simply isn't great enough.


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## StlukesguildOhio

The conclusion I have come to after reading several threads on this topic on several boards, is that exposure is not going to work very well. Not on its own.

The only thing that will work is a change of attitude--

Well... you could always employ a sort of Pavlovian Behavioral Modification:


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## Air

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But again... some music demands a greater effort... is more of an acquired taste... and to some the effort simply isn't worth it. The pay-off in terms of pleasure simply isn't great enough.


But in my opinion this can also be a two-way street. What if one enjoys the struggle to understand atonal music and finds significant meaning through that? Pleasure is not the only philosophy of musical enjoyment - there can be other values too. And to seek to understand what one does not yet understand rather than what one already understands, in my opinion, can lead to great spiritual and intellectual reward too. Some may call it pretentious, but really it's just a difference of values that should be respected.

If we want to gauge the benefits of atonal music through the pleasure principle there's arguments to be made too. A little variety in the diet is one way to look at it. And variety in turn can lead to greater overarching understanding and appreciation.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> Well, unlike you it seems, I'm just not cynical enough to believe that most people will only ever like what commercial giants decide the masses should be fed. Especially in an age of globalisation and increased access to all kinds of artistic resources, I'm willing to put my faith in people to search, and discover, and learn, and share. I think I at least give people credit by saying: "you've given it a chance, but, like most people, you just don't like avant-garde music" rather than making the assumption: "you've been conditioned by powers beyond your recognition. Oh what a shame for you..."


Come now. I never said anything about conditioning. I simply questioned the simplistic assumption you seem to make that classical music is a meritocracy where whatever's good magically gets programmed, performed, broadcast, and recorded for sale to the public. It's never been the case that audiences were automatically ready to welcome new works into the canon. Ask Schubert or Bruckner. You may choose to ignore the economic factors that have kept new and innovative music from being programmed for the better part of a century, but that hardly makes these factors go away.

-Vaz


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Can something like "profound and moving about the human condition" be said with sounds? I'm guessing no.





HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Sad. Maybe that's why avant-garde stuff ticks well with you.


OK, Mr. Concerto, maybe you'd be up for some examples, then.

Take Handel's _Royal Fireworks Music._ What profound and moving thing does that say about the human condition? Bach's _Ouverture_ BWV 1066. Mozart's symphony no. 40. Notice I'm staying away from works with words in them.

How about Beethoven's piano concerto no. 4? Berlioz' _Harold in Italy._ Schumann's _Rhenish Symphony._ Saint-Saens' piano concerto no. 5. Tchaikovsky's symphony no. 6. Dvorak's _Noonday Witch_. Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Schoenberg's _Variations for orchestra._

Pick your own examples if you want. (Anyone can play, by the way.) Take any piece without words and tell us what profound and moving thing it says about the human condition. Tone poems and ballets quite welcome, only no recourse to the programs, which are also things made out of words. Stick to the sounds only. How do the sounds these pieces make say something profound and moving about the human condition?

Notice that what you're doing, if you actually give this a try, is using words to explain things. But if words can express something profound and moving about et cetera, then why wouldn't a composer just say something with words? Imagine yourself as a composer. You think "I have something profound and moving to say about the human condition." Now, which instruments will you use? Which key? (Perhaps a tone row will do?) Which notes will express this? Which things will be soft and which loud? How do you decide? Indeed, how will you make any musical decisions in this situation?

Your sadness, Mr. C, is, I fear, sadly misplaced.


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## Argus

norman bates said:


> Well i'm not sure about that and maybe you're right, but i think that at least in this discussion the sense of "atonal" was intended as Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez-Babbitt etc, maybe including also free atonality with Scriabin, Decaux, Pentland, Rudhyar and similar composers. Or we were referring also to the music of Sun ra, Albert Ayler, the gamelan, Harry Partch, Ligeti, industrial music and even the blues?


A lot of Sun Ra is tonal. Indonesian gamelan uses pathet (modes) of the slendro and pelog scales which have tones that act as tonic and dominant, so it is a kind of non-diatonic tonality. Harry Partch was always tonal, basing his otonality(major) and utonality(minor) off of the harmonics of a single tone (the 1/1) and their inversions. Industrial music is often tonal if it features actual instruments rather than just samples and percussion. The blues is always tonal.

I know when people think of Atonalism they think of the SVS, Darmstadt and those kind of guys, but technically any music where the pitched tones (if there are any) are not related to one single point for a period of time (see:modulation) is classed as atonal.

Also, dissonance is an objective measurement to some extent, but the interpretation of the dissonance is always subjective. You could just as easily say most tonal music contains much dissonance because it deviates from pure intervals by temperament. Even discounting that, the main difference is the resolution of the dissonance is often lacking in atonal music. Like a movie that leaves you hanging at the end, most people like a closed ended story that seems to reward viewing.


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## norman bates

Argus said:


> A lot of Sun Ra is tonal.


also Schoemberg's Gurrelieder is tonal, i was clearly talking about his free stuff, things like that 







Argus said:


> Indonesian gamelan uses pathet (modes) of the slendro and pelog scales which have tones that act as tonic and dominant, so it is a kind of non-diatonic tonality.
> Harry Partch was always tonal, basing his otonality(major) and utonality(minor) off of the harmonics of a single tone (the 1/1) and their inversions. Industrial music is often tonal if it features actual instruments rather than just samples and percussion. The blues is always tonal.


i don't know, in this sense also the Curran piece you've posted to me seems that plays around just one note. But then were's the difference between tonality and modality for example?


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## crmoorhead

some guy said:


> How about Beethoven's piano concerto no. 4? Berlioz' _Harold in Italy._ Schumann's _Rhenish Symphony._ Saint-Saens' piano concerto no. 5. Tchaikovsky's symphony no. 6. Dvorak's _Noonday Witch_. Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Schoenberg's _Variations for orchestra._
> 
> Pick your own examples if you want. (Anyone can play, by the way.) Take any piece without words and tell us what profound and moving thing it says about the human condition. Tone poems and ballets quite welcome, only no recourse to the programs, which are also things made out of words. Stick to the sounds only. How do the sounds these pieces make say something profound and moving about the human condition?


This seems like a completely nonsensical approach to me. Several points to make:

1. Saying something 'profound and moving about the human condition' is a bit of a tall order that a small percentage of art using any medium (including sound) can aspire to. What I will say, however, is that I find it both profound and moving that a composer who has been dead for decades or centuries can touch me so deeply with the beauty of the music they made. A variety of emotions and moods can be communicated intensely through sound and that far reaching connection between one human being (the composer) and another (the listener) is almost mystical. This communication of feeling says a lot about the human condition. That is even ignoring aspects of interpretation by the musician or conductor.

2. A note by note analysis or which key to pick is analogous to asking what colours a painter uses when thinking what he might communicate (or which words a writer might use). It can only be done when there is a frame of reference for the viewer/listener. It requires conditioning to be effective. The composers we are talking about certainly did know how to piece together something to achieve their goal and it can be something as simple as setting the key as a major or minor one or instrumenting their piece to suit. Like any artists, they must use what is familiar to people to perhaps say something that is not.

3. Tone poems and program music can communicate an idea pretty effectively even if you don't know what the program is. Of course sound can be used to communicate ideas this way - people hear sound all the time. It is the case of using familiar sounds and manipulating them or putting them in the correct setting. But also, why are the programs irrelevant? It might be using words to communicate a little of the composer's intent but, so what? Most program music has a program summary of a few lines and the piece might last 20 mins or more. The bulk of the work is done by sound alone. What are the program notes for Holst's Planets? The fact is that he just needs to title the work and we draw upon all the cultural connotations for that planet. He interprets it very well using sound alone. Is this cheating?

4. Can you give some examples of something you think says something profound and moving about the human condition in art? Images alone are as effective as sound alone, IMO. If you then retreat to the position that something profound and moving cannot be said by either audio or visual elements alone then I think you are setting your standards way too high or just missing the point.

5. Music is a very private experience. It forces us to use just one sense and our brain for an extended period of time. This kind of concentration is very similar to meditation. Anything introspective and interpretive like this has the full potential to say something profound about the human condition.


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## norman bates

crmoorhead said:


> I mentioned Debussy earlier - where does he fit? With Scriabin? I have not listened to Scriabin yet, but he sounds ideal.


they have a lot of similarities, but i've never listened a piece by Debussy as harsh as the preludes no.74 by Scriabin. Another interesting point: and bitonality?


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## Argus

norman bates said:


> also Schoemberg's Gurrelieder is tonal, i was clearly talking about his free stuff, things like that
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> i don't know, in this sense also the Curran piece you've posted to me seems that plays around just one note. But then were's the difference between tonality and modality for example?


Well yeah, Sun Ra's more free music is atonal.

I would say that modality and tonality can overlap, and most often do. A mode is just a collection of tones, if one of these tones is heard as a stronger resolution point than the others it then becomes a tonic, and the mode is now also tonal. So an Indian raga is tonal because it has a shadjam (tonic), just like most other non-harmonic music systems from around the world has one note as a tonic. The reason it's not called tonal by most is because the West has come to think of tonality as a harmonic structure, not just a melodic arrangement.

If however no tone acts as a resolution point but all are equally magnetic, then I would say it's modal but not tonal. In a way twelve tone music is modal in that the mode is the same equally spaced twelve tones; the chromatic mode.

I will say that it often very difficult to actually tell if something is atonal or not. If a piece of music is not diatonic then it's quite easy to hear straight away, but more complex tonalities built on further harmonies (or further dissonances to some) are harder to instantly recognise.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> OK, Mr. Concerto, maybe you'd be up for some examples, then.
> 
> Take Handel's _Royal Fireworks Music._ What profound and moving thing does that say about the human condition? Bach's _Ouverture_ BWV 1066. Mozart's symphony no. 40. Notice I'm staying away from works with words in them.
> 
> How about Beethoven's piano concerto no. 4? Berlioz' _Harold in Italy._ Schumann's _Rhenish Symphony._ Saint-Saens' piano concerto no. 5. Tchaikovsky's symphony no. 6. Dvorak's _Noonday Witch_. Stravinsky's _Le Sacre._ Schoenberg's _Variations for orchestra._
> 
> Pick your own examples if you want. (Anyone can play, by the way.) Take any piece without words and tell us what profound and moving thing it says about the human condition. Tone poems and ballets quite welcome, only no recourse to the programs, which are also things made out of words. Stick to the sounds only. How do the sounds these pieces make say something profound and moving about the human condition?
> 
> Notice that what you're doing, if you actually give this a try, is using words to explain things. But if words can express something profound and moving about et cetera, then why wouldn't a composer just say something with words? Imagine yourself as a composer. You think "I have something profound and moving to say about the human condition." Now, which instruments will you use? Which key? (Perhaps a tone row will do?) Which notes will express this? Which things will be soft and which loud? How do you decide? Indeed, how will you make any musical decisions in this situation?
> 
> Your sadness, Mr. C, is, I fear, sadly misplaced.


I am quite incredulous by the questions raised in your post. Unless it was a joke done in poor taste, it seems to me you have plainly and demonstratably shown a complete lack of understanding of the essence of numerous pieces that this entire discussion forum (and western classical music for that matter) have been discussing (except of course, your favourite avant-garde genres). What?! Member _some guy_ didn't realise that Beethoven's symphony #3 was composed during a period of the composer's personal difficulties associated with deafness and that of social unrest on the verge of Napoleonic warfare? So I guess the symphony's second movement with the misery of the main funeral march theme was a mere coincidence, a mere whimsical fluke of Beethoven's mind and quill? Or the pomp and fortitude of Mr. Handel's _Fireworks Music_ was just another happy coincidence again from mind and quill that came about to mark the end of England's War of the Austrian Succession? Yes, it's charmingly obvious that nothing much written was about the human condition from Handel to Beethoven for example, of each episode when notes were committed to sheets; it's all void of it, just like the avant-garde stuff, maybe even more so than the avant-garde stuff. 

P.S.
By the way, it's Mr. HC, where H stands for Harpsichord. But I'm no longer surprised by what you do miss anyway given your post above.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

crmoorhead said:


> 4. Can you give some examples of something you think says something profound and moving about the human condition in art? Images alone are as effective as sound alone, IMO. If you then retreat to the position that something profound and moving cannot be said by either audio or visual elements alone then I think you are setting your standards way too high or *just missing the point*.


As I wrote above, I think it's the latter (highlighted in blue font). I'm glad I was not the only one who sensed that.

Sad, indeed.


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## petrarch

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ... didn't realise that Beethoven's symphony #3 was composed during a period of the composer's personal difficulties associated with deafness and that of social unrest on the verge of Napoleonic warfare? So I guess the symphony's second movement with the misery of the main funeral march theme was a mere coincidence, a mere whimsical fluke of Beethoven's mind and quill?


The question is whether one would get _all_ of that just by listening to the music, not knowing anything about the composer, the period or the circumstances in which the work was composed. Isn't this after all what you are asking of the avant-garde pieces?


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## Kieran

That Sciarrino piece in the OP was just a series of effects. Maybe guys compose like this because they think "melody" is a dirty word? And "music" should be about the tricks they can play, and not actually about music?


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## petrarch

Kieran said:


> That Sciarrino piece in the OP was just a series of effects. Maybe guys compose like this because they think "melody" is a dirty word? And "music" should be about the tricks they can play, and not actually about music?


No, it's simply a wider palette. FWIW, Sciarrino is one of my favourite avant-garde composers, but--to comment on the posted videos--I don't like the Sonata at all; and I love _Un'immagine d'Arpocrate_, which is the more substantial work paired with the _Caprices_ for violin on the second video.


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## haydnfan

Regarding dissonance:

Mentioned several times is the idea that 20th century music is simply more dissonant than what came before. Yes... but... music has been becoming more dissonant for longer than that, it's been a trend for hundreds of years.

Also as to paraphrase Swafford, the absolute amount of dissonance has increased but not the relative amount of dissonance. There are different degrees of dissonance in a modern work, the least of which may and do serve as consonance. This means that twentieth century works still can resolve dissonance despite being more dissonant overall from say a Brahms symphony. The classic example would be Bartok's string quartets, quite tonal, very dissonant.

That's okay... romantic works are also more dissonant than classical era works, I have no problem with that, do you?


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## Kieran

petrarch said:


> No, it's simply a wider palette. FWIW, Sciarrino is one of my favourite avant-garde composers, but--to comment on the posted videos--I don't like the Sonata at all; and I love _Un'immagine d'Arpocrate_, which is the more substantial work paired with the _Caprices_ for violin on the second video.


Hiya Petrarch,

I don't know what a "wider palette" signifies, because music can never be broader than it is. But I think i know what you mean: he's taken a different turn, in order to express things differently. To me, it sounds like effects: noises suggesting a feeling or mood. But it does so too explicitly for my taste.

I'm not overly pushed on avant-garde art, or stuff like jazz (which is different again). I can see the appeal of it for people in that it's variable and intriguing and takes the listener onto a subjective course of graphic sounds, but whatever way great music operates and works in the soul, this doesn't do it for me.

It sounds like a cop-out, or an evasion of the actual art of making music...


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## Vazgen

petrarch said:


> The question is whether one would get _all_ of that just by listening to the music, not knowing anything about the composer, the period or the circumstances in which the work was composed. Isn't this after all what you are asking of the avant-garde pieces?


Now that you mention it, there does seem to be a curious double standard in various matters concerning contemporary or atonal music.

Listeners complain that modern composers are obsessed with "the tricks they can play," but it never occurs to them that no one's craft was more jammed with tricks and devices than Bach's or Beethoven's. Modern composers are criticized for not giving audiences pleasant, accessible music, but I doubt Beethoven's aim in composing much of his music (particularly the Grosse Fuge) was to slake the thirst of an audience for pretty, familiar music. And listeners always say they can't comprehend new music. However, I dispute the extent to which they (or any of us) truly comprehend the complex creations of Bach, Beethoven, or Wagner; this would require intensive technical study of their works, not just amateur familiarity.

-Vaz


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## Kieran

Vazgen said:


> Now that you mention it, there does seem to be a curious double standard in various matters concerning contemporary or atonal music.
> 
> Listeners complain that modern composers are obsessed with "the tricks they can play," but it never occurs to them that no one's craft was more jammed with tricks and devices than Bach's or Beethoven's. Modern composers are criticized for not giving audiences pleasant, accessible music, but I doubt Beethoven's aim in composing much of his music (particularly the Grosse Fuge) was to slake the thirst of an audience for pretty, familiar music. And listeners always say they can't comprehend new music. However, I dispute the extent to which they (or any of us) truly comprehend the complex creations of Bach, Beethoven, or Wagner; this would require intensive technical study of their works, not just amateur familiarity.
> 
> -Vaz


That's a good point, Vazgen, but it makes this music seem like the musical version of gnosticism, or something. You make it sound elitist. Do I have to make an "intensive technical study of their works" in order to gain from them? Doesn't this reduce music to cold academic study?

I don't mind if a composer writes exclusively for the connoiseur, and not the lay-person, or even if his rational explorations make sense only to him, as in some free-association lyrics, prose and poetry, but at the end of the day, he still only making music and the quality of this will be subjectively appreciated to varying degrees by anyone. I don't need music to merely entertain me, but if music resorts to what I think of as being explicit noises and mood-chords, is made of psychological complexity and technical mastery, but it doesn't move me, I can only give my version of what I hear.

Unfortunately! :lol::tiphat:


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## StlukesguildOhio

Take Handel's Royal Fireworks Music. What profound and moving thing does that say about the human condition? Bach's Ouverture BWV 1066. Mozart's symphony no. 40. Notice I'm staying away from works with words in them.

So are you suggesting that the written word is able to convey something deep and profound about the human condition, while music simply fails on this account? Mind you, I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. I'm not convinced that any work of art of any real worth can be reduced to a single clear "meaning". That seems rather like confusing the menu with the meal. On the other hand, while you or I may not agree upon the "meaning" of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet, I don't think this should be taken as proof that the work is "meaningless," anymore than life is meaningless because we cannot agree upon a meaning. Obviously the audience brings their own interpretation... their own sense of meaning to a work of art. Returning to atonal music, it would seem that a great many bring a meaning of ugliness and chaos to this music where others see beauty. Who's right?


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## Vazgen

Kieran said:


> That's a good point, Vazgen, but it makes this music seem like the musical version of gnosticism, or something. You make it sound elitist. Do I have to make an "intensive technical study of their works" in order to gain from them? Doesn't this reduce music to cold academic study?


"Gnosticism"?

I never said intensive study was necessary to gain from them, or to enjoy them. The same goes for any type of music. However, you wouldn't actually claim to _understand _Bach or Beethoven's music without at least some such study, would you?

-Vaz


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## StlukesguildOhio

Listeners complain that modern composers are obsessed with "the tricks they can play," but it never occurs to them that no one's craft was more jammed with tricks and devices than Bach's or Beethoven's.

I'm not certain there are many complaints about the "tricks" of music... unless we are referring to works that come off as little more than mental ************: Cage's _4:33_, Ligeti's _100 Metronomes_, Stockhausen's _Helicopter Quartet_. These works themselves are not exactly representative of the composers as a whole. I do think that many find a lot of Modern and Contemporary "classical" music to be so incomprehensible that they often feel it is but a great farce... akin to the Emperor's New Clothes.

Modern composers are criticized for not giving audiences pleasant, accessible music, but I doubt Beethoven's aim in composing much of his music (particularly the Grosse Fuge) was to slake the thirst of an audience for pretty, familiar music.

I do think that artists in any field do need to consider the wants of the audience. I doubt that Bach, Mozart, or Handel would have gotten far by wholly ignoring the wants of the audience. Beethoven's late quartets may have proven to be quite knotty to the original audience (hell they still are so today)... but one also recognizes that he does meet the audience half way. The vast majority of his work builds upon recognizable traditions... even if he pushes these.

And listeners always say they can't comprehend new music. However, I dispute the extent to which they (or any of us) truly comprehend the complex creations of Bach, Beethoven, or Wagner; this would require intensive technical study of their works, not just amateur familiarity.

I agree that the majority of listeners who express a feeling of being baffled or unable to comprehend new music, cannot truly "comprehend" most music to the extent of a musician or a musicologist... but is that the intent? Is art solely created for other artists? That it what many suspect when they feel they cannot get anything out of a work. Was James Joyce really writing _Finnegan's Wake_ for the average educated reader? Is Duchamp's _Fountain_ or Manzoni's can of artist's sh** really intended for the audience of average educated art lovers? If a work of art is created without the least concern for the audience, one cannot honestly be surprised if the audience doesn't come along for the ride.


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## Kieran

Vazgen said:


> "Gnosticism"?
> 
> I never said intensive study was necessary to gain from them, or to enjoy them. The same goes for any type of music. However, you wouldn't actually claim to _understand _Bach or Beethoven's music without at least some such study, would you?
> 
> -Vaz


Hi Vaz,

What do you mean by "understand" when it relates to music? I never studied music, yet it moves me. It can move me forwards or sideways, or backwards, and it can move me internally, or have an effect on my thoughts. Granted, I would love to have a deeper knowledge of music, but a knowledge of music doesn't produce consensus, therefore knowledge alone isn't a guarantor of "understanding."

Technically, of course, without study, nobody can understand what occurs. But music is heard in the ear, it's an expression of _something _relating to our humanity: the music in the OP didn't move me other than to think what I thought.

By the way, I'm not saying that it's all a matter of opinion and that everyones opinion id equally valid, or that consensus is always a good thing. It isn't: great composers have been out of work because their brilliant works weren't properly appreciated. The philistines (of which I maybe one) don't necessarily _get _new things. But I'm trying to understand this music, it being the opposite of what I would normally listen to.

I accept that I only listened once and that the composer in question might have other work that appeals to me, just as this work appeals to others... :tiphat:


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## Huilunsoittaja

So, from what I read, no one really seemed to advocate for the possibility of joyful atonal music.

Here, I'll describe my own experience of atonal music. Alban Berg's Operas, namely _Lulu _and _Wozzeck_. They are tragedies in the greatest sense. The main characters end in horrible demises even after suffering (rape, torture, murder, etc.) much throughout the story. I concede that the atonal music there WORKED to describe the characters' fears and pains, because the plots were painful and real. Thus atonal music's purpose is to stretch what it means to feel _real_ negative emotions. It's all sincere when it comes to that, right? Sincere emotion? I think so.

So, atonal music is there to depict the fallen human (should I say _inhuman_?) condition. Not that tonal music can't do that too, atonal music is just really excellent at that.

But my life isn't a tragedy.

Oh, and on the side, I think contemporary composers are becoming too concerned nowadays that they aren't criticized or bullied for being "old-fashioned," so they keep stretching the boundaries hoping they'll be recognized above the rest. Time will tell.


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## Vazgen

Kieran said:


> What do you mean by "understand" when it relates to music? I never studied music, yet it moves me. It can move me forwards or sideways, or backwards, and it can move me internally, or have an effect on my thoughts. Granted, I would love to have a deeper knowledge of music, but a knowledge of music doesn't produce consensus, therefore knowledge alone isn't a guarantor of "understanding."


You know, it wasn't my intention to insult anyone by saying that it requires effort and education to fully understand J.S. Bach's music. Quite the contrary, I meant to express my admiration for Bach's dizzyingly complex music and the extraordinary talent that produced it.

The paradox I was pointing out is that some people assume they understand the music of the old masters just because they've spent a lot of time listening to it, but they don't want to waste time listening to new or atonal music because they claim they don't understand it.

-Vaz


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## Polednice

Here are my catch-up replies since yesterday! If I've missed out on someone responding to me, it's only because I think someone else has already done a good job replying already. 



some guy said:


> In short, I'd like to understand why so many people find it so difficult or just plain ugly, but I don't. I'd like to understand why that response has to turn into variously absurd attempts to prove that the music is this or that unmusical thing, unlistenable, unemotional, unappealing, but I don't. I find the things, generally, that are so described to be eminently listenable and appealing, and listening to them fills me with joy.


I think that's actually a very interesting question too, and I wish it wouldn't descend into equally absurd (and frankly offensive) suggestions that people who dislike atonal music dislike it because they are prejudiced and need an attitude change. (You, for reference: "The only thing that will work is a change of attitude ... if you go into it with the idea that something is wrong with it, then "Hey presto!!" you will find something wrong with it" - equally, if you go into listening to utter crap with the prejudice that it is sublime, you will find something sublime in it. So what?)



Webernite said:


> I know what you mean, but you seem to underestimate how difficult the music of many great composers before 1900 was for the public at the time. True, part of that was due to bad performance, but modern music is also frequently badly performed.


That's a perfectly reasonable objection to have, but it must surely be the case that not all music that is met with initial difficulty will eventually become part of the core repertoire. As such, I don't think it's wholly reasonable to say that avant-garde composers may just have to wait it out before they become popular, just like Schubert did. Some music will _never_ be popular. Of course, I may be totally wrong, and in fifty years I could be seen as just another one of those whiny initial audience members. But, for the other reasons I've mentioned, I doubt that. 



some guy said:


> Barry Truax has said that he writes music to please himself, because he's the only person he really knows. But, given that humans do have some similarities (otherwise marketing wouldn't work as well as it does), he thinks that if he writes something he enjoys, then there will probably be other people who will enjoy it as well. Trying to please others is a guessing game. Do we want to base an aesthetic of music on a guessing game?


I think Truax's approach is entirely reasonable. In fact, even though I am not a professional with an opinion worth listening to, I think the same when I write my own music - I write things _for me_. And, given the human similarities you mention, it's reasonable to also say that what Truax writes will please some people, and what I or anyone else writes will please others. But how many? I'm not suggesting for a moment that composers ought to attempt to quantify how many people they are reaching, but it's not so opaque a guessing game that a composer cannot think to themselves: "if I write in an obscure, avant-garde style, I will reach approximately 17 people; but if I write in the style of Lady Ga Ga, I will reach far more." And - as I suggested earlier - as art ought to have as one of its fundamental principles the ability to speak to as many people as possible, artists _should_ try to find a balance, such that they can still say what they want to say, but not have to make too many concessions in personal style.



some guy said:


> Can something like "profound and moving about the human condition" be said with sounds? I'm guessing no.


This is very disappointing, and certainly a major part of the problem. This notion that nothing can be communicated with mere sounds is what leaves us with the dull and annoying idea that the only way music can progress is for people to constantly be doing things that are technically new. To be quite honest, if it were the case that Bach says as much as Beethoven, who says as much as Brahms - _i.e._ all of them saying nothing - then I don't think any music could qualify as art, because _that's what art is_. Art isn't a simple sense of intrigue and maybe pleasure because you witness or hear someone do something that no one has thought of before; it's about seeing in others and in yourself things that you've perhaps always known were there, but have seen in a fresh light; or something entirely new about the human experience. If I were to write out a string of letters and numbers reducing a Brahms melody to text (3rd Symphony: F5, Ab5, F6, C6, Ab5, G5, F5, C5!), of course it says nothing to us - but when it is played as a symphony, and the sounds affect someone in a personal way, then it _does_ communicate something. I think music's ability to do this has been well explained by others in this thread too.



Air said:


> But in my opinion this can also be a two-way street. What if one enjoys the struggle to understand atonal music and finds significant meaning through that? Pleasure is not the only philosophy of musical enjoyment - there can be other values too.


But surely coming through a struggle to understand will yield a certain kind of pleasure, even if not immediately.  Pleasure is everything!



Vazgen said:


> Come now. I never said anything about conditioning. I simply questioned the simplistic assumption you seem to make that classical music is a meritocracy where whatever's good magically gets programmed, performed, broadcast, and recorded for sale to the public. It's never been the case that audiences were automatically ready to welcome new works into the canon. Ask Schubert or Bruckner. You may choose to ignore the economic factors that have kept new and innovative music from being programmed for the better part of a century, but that hardly makes these factors go away.


I never made that simplistic assumption, and I re-read everything I'd said to you to make sure that I hadn't voiced the assumption either. Nope. I didn't. In fact, I specifically said that it _doesn't matter_ that it's not a meritocracy, because people have the resources now to explore unfamiliar music of their own accord. And I think blaming the lack of appeal of the kind of music being discussed here on commercial prejudice is a blatant assumption that people are not thinking for themselves, which would be a kind of conditioning.



petrarch said:


> The question is whether one would get all of that just by listening to the music, not knowing anything about the composer, the period or the circumstances in which the work was composed. Isn't this after all what you are asking of the avant-garde pieces?


Some of it you would get without the background, some of it you wouldn't. I don't think anyone is asking for avant-garde pieces to achieve the same emotional grandeur without the help of artistic context; I think the problem is that, even _with_ the context, the music can still be ten times harder to penetrate.



Vazgen said:


> I doubt Beethoven's aim in composing much of his music (particularly the Grosse Fuge) was to slake the thirst of an audience for pretty, familiar music.


Again with the condescension. We're not idiots asking for predictable melodies. We're expressing a difficulty with comprehending certain kinds of music, _after_ having actually tried to comprehend it _without_ prejudice. Apparently, we can't be believed when we say that, because we're just stuck-up and filled with prejudice.


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## Vazgen

Polednice said:


> I never made that simplistic assumption, and I re-read everything I'd said to you to make sure that I hadn't voiced the assumption either. Nope. I didn't. In fact, I specifically said that it _doesn't matter_ that it's not a meritocracy, because people have the resources now to explore unfamiliar music of their own accord. And I think blaming the lack of appeal of the kind of music being discussed here on commercial prejudice is a blatant assumption that people are not thinking for themselves, which would be a kind of conditioning.


You did make this statement:



> I think the point being made by the OP is not that classical music is dying, but that modern audiences aren't engaging with the work of modern composers. In fairness, I don't think this is because of what's on most concert programmes; I think what's on concert programmes is actually the reflection of our tastes - not the origin of them. Orchestras, record companies, and broadcasters appear to be limiting the repertoire because it knows what sells; and what sells is what the audience likes. If a majority audience - background-listeners; hard-core listeners; academics; laymen - overwhelmingly prefer anything but atonal music, I think there's something important in that to be recognised.


It certainly sounds to me like you're saying _If new music were better, people would like it more, and then orchestras would play it more often_, but you claim you're not.

Like I said, I disagree with you entirely. I think people's expectations are framed by what's available in concert halls, on radio stations, and in the CD catalog. Orchestras and broadcasters are trying to please as many people as possible, and most people (me included) like the familiar favorites. So we hear the old warhorses over and over until there's no room left for interesting new music. It's easy for people to get used to ignoring anything new or atonal when it's so rare they literally have to go looking for it.

-Vaz


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## Air

I'm a bit shocked at some guy's outlandish suggestion that two of the most famous works from the avant-garde era, Penderecki's _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima_ and Górecki's _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_, have absolutely _nothing_ "profound and moving" to say about the human condition, when indeed the titles of these works and their very nature blatantly suggests otherwise.


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## GoneBaroque

I once heard Sir Thomas Beecham being interviewed on television. One of the questions he was asked was to the effect that so much new music was being written and was never performed. Sir Thomas explained, "Because it's no damn good".

Rob


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## Argus

Huilunsoittaja said:


> So, from what I read, no one really seemed to advocate for the possibility of joyful atonal music.


I think norman bates, some guy, crmoorhead and myself all said it was possible to hear joy in atonal music of some kind. I'll try and remember some more specific pieces. What about this:








Air said:


> I'm a bit shocked at some guy's outlandish suggestion that two of the most famous works from the avant-garde era, Penderecki's _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima_ and Górecki's _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_, have absolutely _nothing_ "profound and moving" to say about the human condition, when indeed the titles of these works and their very nature blatantly suggests otherwise.


I don't agree with everything some guy has said in this thread, but I do agree with him that music cannot convey a specific emotion or idea. Everything we feel when listening to the music is just a reflection of ourselves and bears no relation to the sounds being heard.

So those two pieces only have profound things to say if the listener is searching for profundity.


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## Polednice

Vazgen said:


> It certainly sounds to me like you're saying _If new music were better, people would like it more, and then orchestras would play it more often_, but you claim you're not.


Not quite. What I was trying to say was that I do not believe - as you went on to say - that tastes are shaped by programmes. Obviously, the converse of this would be that programmes are shaped by tastes, but I did not go so far as to suggest that there is a perfect meritocracy. Rather, just that people aren't stupid, and they aren't spoon-fed whatever corporations want them to like.


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## Guest

Air said:


> I'm a bit shocked at some guy's outlandish suggestion that two of the most famous works from the avant-garde era, Penderecki's _Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima_ and Górecki's _Symphony of Sorrowful Songs_, have absolutely _nothing_ "profound and moving" to say about the human condition, when indeed the titles of these works and their very nature blatantly suggests otherwise.


Where did I suggest that? (Nice choice of works, too. The original title of Penderecki's piece was originally _8' 37"_ (or _8' 26"_), a nod to Cage's famous piece. The colorful title came after the work had been written, i.e., the actuals sounds that we hear predate the title.)

I was making a point about difference. There is a difference between sounds and words. With words, things like "say" and "communicate" and "express" describe more or less literally two of the things (by no means all) that language does. For any other kind of endeavor, these words become entirely figurative.

That does not mean that music is meaningless. And I was not trying to demonstrate that music is meaningless, simply that its meanings are sonic meanings, not linguistic ones. (If, to use the figure, one has something architectural "to say," one does not choreograph a ballet, one designs a building.)

Of course humans are profoundly moved by music. Happens all the time. But many posters here are trying to demonstrate that some kinds of music _cannot_ move anyone, or can only move a mere few, as if numbers were important. (There is a sort of glamour about numbers, it's true. An audience of ten thousand people seems much more impressive than an audience of a hundred. But each of those people is just one. And the pleasure that each person feels is only as much as one person can feel.) And when posters who are able to be moved by "atonal" music report their experience, the discussion immediately turns away from music to Gnosticism or accusations of condescension or critiques of argumentative style or whatever. It is apparently very difficult to accept (for some, impossible) that the music I don't like, even after I've tried (without prejudice!), is possible to like, even possible to like without effort.

The underlying (and unspoken) claim that runs throughout this thread (and other threads like it) is that for avant garde music, negative experiences are more valid (and more valuable) than positive experiences. Even, sometimes, that positive experiences are suspect, attributed variously to delusion, dishonesty, attempts to be cool. Never to be taken simply for what they are, genuine.

Which brings me to an observation about audience. "Audience" is not a single thing. Audiences are many and varied. Perhaps "the audience" for avant garde music is smaller than the one for more traditional classical, is that any excuse for treating it pretty much as if it didn't exist? How many times have you read (or perhaps even written!) that many modern composers ignored their audience? Of course, they did not. At the very most, all one can say is that certain composers ignored people who were not members of _their_ audience.

All composers write for their audience, starting with number one, themselves. And I'd just like to say that, as a member of "the audience" for avant garde music, my needs are being met very well indeed. Sciarrino meets them. Xenakis meets them. Otomo meets them. Merzbow meets them. (A glance at my CD collection reveals that Bach meets them, too, apparently, as do Schubert and Berlioz and Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev and a host of others. Why, I'm apparently also a member of "the audience" that most people refer to as if it were the _only_ audience. Go figure.)


----------



## norman bates

Argus said:


> I think norman bates, some guy, crmoorhead and myself all said it was possible to hear joy in atonal music of some kind.


sorry Argus but i've said exactly the contrary, at least if the sense of atonal is (as said) "Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez". I like it and some compositions give me joy in the sense that i really like it, but i've never listened anything atonal that could express joy. I think that atonality is a great way for express horror, depression, anguish and "negative" feelings. And probably is not by chance that atonal and very dissonant music si used in a lot of horror and thriller movies. And it's difficult to say that Psycho is a movie that express "joy"


----------



## Argus

norman bates said:


> sorry Argus but i've said exactly the contrary, at least if the sense of atonal is (as said) "Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez". I like it and some compositions give me joy in the sense that i really like it, but i've never listened anything atonal that could express joy. I think that atonality is a great way for express horror, depression, anguish and "negative" feelings. And probably is not by chance that atonal and very dissonant music si used in a lot of horror and thriller movies. And it's difficult to say that Psycho is a movie that express "joy"


Okay. How about outside of the "Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez" style of atonalism? Do you think no atonal (as in non-tonal) music can rouse joy in you?


----------



## mmsbls

Vazgen said:


> Like I said, I disagree with you entirely. I think people's expectations are framed by what's available in concert halls, on radio stations, and in the CD catalog. Orchestras and broadcasters are trying to please as many people as possible, and most people (me included) like the familiar favorites. So we hear the old warhorses over and over until there's no room left for interesting new music. It's easy for people to get used to ignoring anything new or atonal when it's so rare they literally have to go looking for it.
> 
> -Vaz


I generally agree with this point. I personally would love to see more modern music played in concerts (although I could certainly get turned off if there were too much atonal music in concert). I would especially love to hear more modern music on the radio.

I think most (if not all) the posters here have listened, if not extensively at least significantly, to atonal music. There are still many who do not feel they appreciate it or feel they appreciate is considerably less than tonal music. I think most present concert goers (who have not been exposed) would be turned off by atonal music in concert. But to me a potentially greater problem and a serious question is why many who have clearly sought out atonal music and honestly listened still do not appreciate (enjoy, feel moved by, etc.) it. Obviously any type of CM will have those CM listeners who do not appreciate it, but atonal music seems to have a significantly higher percentage.


----------



## norman bates

Argus said:


> Okay. How about outside of the "Schoenberg-Berg-Webern-Boulez" style of atonalism? Do you think no atonal (as in non-tonal) music can rouse joy in you?


to rouse joy is one thing, to "express joy" is another and i don't think is a pedantic distinction for the reasons i've said (some of my favorite music is very depressive for example). The only pieces that i can think of are pieces that are a mix of avantgarde or unusual techniques (like the daxophone, or some free jazz, or music that employs noises) but with a root in tonality.
So at least to my actual knowledge i find the Prokofiev quote correct (and it must be remembered that Prokofiev was certainly no alien to harsh dissonances). But i'm very curious about examples of "joyful" atonal music.


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## mmsbls

haydnfan said:


> Mentioned several times is the idea that 20th century music is simply more dissonant than what came before. Yes... but... music has been becoming more dissonant for longer than that, it's been a trend for hundreds of years.
> 
> This means that twentieth century works still can resolve dissonance despite being more dissonant overall from say a Brahms symphony.


Could there be a point past which music is too dissonant for most humans to assimilate and find resolution? The piece would then feel open, unsettled, less satisfying.


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## StlukesguildOhio

How many times have you read (or perhaps even written!) that many modern composers ignored their audience? Of course, they did not. At the very most, all one can say is that certain composers ignored people who were not members of their audience.

Exactly. And so can we blame those who are not of the elect audience of the composer if they ignore said composer... or approach his or her work with a degree of hostility?


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## Vazgen

mmsbls said:


> I think most (if not all) the posters here have listened, if not extensively at least significantly, to atonal music.


I'm still not sure about the extent to which people are familiar with, let's say, post-tonal music. Considering the way the term _avant-garde_ is thrown around, I'm not convinced that people realize that composing in a non-tonal style doesn't make something avant-garde. And I get very suspicious when the works people cite are either infamous performance-art pranks involving silence, helicopters, and metronomes, or works so obscure (like the Scarrino piece in the OP) that even a fan of post-tonal music like myself has never heard them. Very few of the listeners have cited canonical works like Berg's _Lyric Suite _or Schoenberg's _Variations for Orchestra_. And people like Webern or Boulez are named, but without regard to any particular phase of their career or specific piece of music.

It just doesn't testify to the most informed experience with post-tonal music, that's all.

-Vaz


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Could there be a point past which music is too dissonant for most humans to assimilate and find resolution? The piece would then feel open, unsettled, less satisfying.


Speaking for myself, open and unsettled = _more_ satisfying.

I hasten to add that for the new music I listen to, "resolution" is simply an alien concept. Assimilate, however, happens to other listeners of it all the time.


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## mmsbls

Vazgen said:


> I'm still not sure about the extent to which people are familiar with, let's say, post-tonal music. Considering the way the term _avant-garde_ is thrown around, I'm not convinced that people realize that composing in a non-tonal style doesn't make something avant-garde. And I get very suspicious when the works people cite are either infamous performance-art pranks involving silence, helicopters, and metronomes, or works so obscure (like the Scarrino piece in the OP) that even a fan of post-tonal music like myself has never heard them. Very few of the listeners have cited canonical works like Berg's _Lyric Suite _or Schoenberg's _Variations for Orchestra_. And people like Webern or Boulez are named, but without regard to any particular phase of their career or specific piece of music.
> 
> It just doesn't testify to the most informed experience with post-tonal music, that's all.
> 
> -Vaz


You may very well be correct here. I feel uncomfortable using the atonal term because I am not certain to which music it properly applies. I think it is not fair to focus on the most avant-garde music as you suggest. I personally cannot really listen to those; whereas, I can easily listen to but have yet to enjoy Berg's Lyric Suite or Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra.

In other threads several people here have described how they listened and listened to atonal music and all of a sudden they "got it" (enjoyed, understood, etc.). I'm not sure how truly "all of a sudden" this experience was, and I'm not sure how long the listening period was for everyone. I, unfortunately, have not "gotten it". Maybe with more time.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Speaking for myself, open and unsettled = _more_ satisfying.
> 
> I hasten to add that for the new music I listen to, "resolution" is simply an alien concept. Assimilate, however, happens to other listeners of it all the time.


That's an interesting comment and perhaps helps to explain why you never went through a period of "learning" to like atonal music. What you enjoy was there immediately. For just about everyone else I know, that unsettled feeling is definitely not more satisfying.


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## Webernite

some guy, are you a musician yourself?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> ... but I do agree with him that *music cannot convey a specific emotion *or idea.


Specifically about the "emotion" part of your sentence I quoted, I disagree. The best example to refute that of course are superb arias of operas composed by great opera composers who clearly identify the character's emotional stance at that particular time in the opera's plot, and the very need to express the character's emotions so that the opera would work.

But then, I don't expect you to understand nor appreciate that because you are a professed non-opera fan. In fact, you hate opera, and so the ignorance is obvious.


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## Polednice

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Specifically about the "emotion" part of your sentence I quoted, I disagree. The best example to refute that of course are superb arias of operas composed by great opera composers who clearly identify the character's emotional stance at that particular time in the opera's plot, and the very need to express the character's emotions so that the opera would work.
> 
> But then, I don't expect you to understand nor appreciate that because you are a professed non-opera fan. In fact, you hate opera, and so the ignorance is obvious.


I would just add quickly as well that people can't resort to the argument that the emotion is all in the words - the music is clearly written to be just as emotional. After all, a tender opera aria wouldn't have the same effect if it were sung to the tune of _Rule Britannia_, so there's obviously a _huge_ emotional content in the music itself


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## Guest

Webernite said:


> some guy, are you a musician yourself?


Not sure how to answer this, or even _if_ to answer it.

So easy to supply ammunition for the multitude of those who favor ad hominem over arguing about the ideas.

But then, those who favor ad hominem aren't going to argue about ideas, anyway. And straw men are so easy to make, and so satisfying to destroy. Haha, brutal and vicious and terribly dangerous straw man! I have conquered you with my superior might!!

I'm terribly sorry! What were you saying? Oh, whether I was a musician.

I played trumpet in high school and college and pretty far into graduate school. I was only a few units away from having a double major in English and music. My most recent stints as a performer were with the Redlands New Music Ensemble when they wanted a trumpet sound in some graphic score piece. And I performed Fluxus pieces in between more "traditional" new music pieces for real performers! Good times.

I dabbled in composition in the early years, too. One post-graduate year I spent teaching English and organizing and directing and writing music for a percussion ensemble. And putting on an entire concert of experimental music. My living room conducting mania culminated in a summer course with Herbert Blomstedt. (I.e., that cured the mania. One either has talent or one doesn't.)

I dated a composer for five years, too. She said I was the best listener she'd ever had. Other composers, male and female, have said the same, so it wasn't just because we were dating! (One accepts crumbs, no matter whose plate they fall from.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> I dabbled in composition in the early years, too. One post-graduate year I spent teaching English and organizing and directing and writing music for a percussion ensemble. And putting on an entire concert of experimental music. My living room conducting mania culminated in a summer course with Herbert Blomstedt. (I.e., that cured the mania. One either has talent or one doesn't.)
> 
> I dated a composer for five years, too. She said I was the best listener she'd ever had. Other composers, male and female, have said the same, so it wasn't just because we were dating! (One accepts crumbs, no matter whose plate they fall from.)


Fascinating. Any chance of listening to the music you composed? I'm sure many of us would like to listen. (I promise, I'll be receptive and polite).


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## petrarch

Kieran said:


> I don't know what a "wider palette" signifies, because music can never be broader than it is.


It means a wider range of possibilities were used. Music has seen its palette constantly broadened; there was a time when the only consonances were the octave and the fifth.



Kieran said:


> To me, it sounds like effects: noises suggesting a feeling or mood. But it does so too explicitly for my taste.
> 
> ...
> 
> I can see the appeal of it for people in that it's variable and intriguing and takes the listener onto a subjective course of graphic sounds, but whatever way great music operates and works in the soul, this doesn't do it for me.


Fair enough and well put. _Intriguing_ is a good way to describe it. I would also use the word _delightful_.



Kieran said:


> It sounds like a cop-out, or an evasion of the actual art of making music...


Ah if only _actual_ and _art_ (of making music) were such well-defined and universally accepted concepts...


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> I don't agree with everything some guy has said in this thread, but I do agree with him that music cannot convey a specific emotion or idea. Everything we feel when listening to the music is just a reflection of ourselves and bears no relation to the sounds being heard.


I certainly agree that music alone cannot express ideas. Whether tone poems or other works, music by itself is much too dull an instrument to communicate ideas (i.e. it's stormy, hatred, idyllic nature, etc.) . Whether music can convey a specific emotion is a VERY interesting question. My first thought was certainly - yes.

I listened to several pieces that had always elicited certain emotions in me - the Andante from Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante (sadness), the third movement of Paganini's 1st violin concerto (joy or happiness). While they do seem to produce those feelings, I'm less sure that they necessarily would in an average listener. They probably would elicit some feeling, but it may be a broader sense (e.g. subdued or sad or despair) rather than a specific emotion (i.e. definitely sad).

While research has clearly shown music directly affects the limbic brain system (specifically the amygdala which is strongly correlated with emotions), there seem to be some studies that show stronger responses when other sensory inputs are present (e.g. very generic visual stimulus). Perhaps music primes and excites the emotional brain but in a somewhat general way so that other sensory inputs or internal brain states can mold a more specific response.


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## Serge

The point of atonal music is to provide us with a temporary relief and to remind us of what a great gift of music we have… in all that "other" music.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Fascinating. Any chance of listening to the music you composed? I'm sure many of us would like to listen. (I promise, I'll be receptive and polite).


No. There are some mss from the high school and college years. No recordings. There's a reel to reel tape somewhere of an electroacoustic piece from a class I took in grad school (when I was studying for a PhD in Elizabethan drama).

A short piece of mine from the nineties was performed in the early 2000s that you can do on your own if you like.

Get a bunch of people together, each with a small raisin box. They eat the raisins and then blow through the boxes, making that squeeky sound, you know. The boxes will eventually not make any squeeks, so when the last one cannot be played, the piece is over. (The one time this was performed, one person's box kept squeeking long after everyone else's were kaput, which added to the general hilarity. Hilarity is an emotion, right?)

As I said, I dabbled. More serious than the conducting mania, but still not very important.


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## tdc

some guy said:


> Get a bunch of people together, each with a small raisin box. They eat the raisins and then blow through the boxes, making that squeeky sound, you know. The boxes will eventually not make any squeeks, so when the last one cannot be played, the piece is over. (The one time this was performed, one person's box kept squeeking long after everyone else's were kaput, which added to the general hilarity. Hilarity is an emotion, right?)


Seriously? If your goal was to be a comedian and not a composer, maybe, but even then...

This sounds like an experiment a bunch of stoned high school kids might try. This kind of thing is what I think gives modern art music a dubious reputation. Random acts of nonsense that require little intelligence, creativity, or talent.

What should someone say to the composer of such a piece? How brilliant? Or is it just something a fool might think of to make themselves _feel_ brilliant and misunderstood? Or was it more of an effort to be a comedian?

I don't get it, and I don't even find it amusing.

In my opinion such things - when presented as actual art music, are actually just really insulting to real composers, who put their heart and soul into their sounds.

Shame on you for even trying to pass that off as classical or art music.


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## violadude

tdc said:


> Seriously? If your goal was to be a comedian and not a composer, maybe, but even then...
> 
> This sounds like an experiment a bunch of stoned high school kids might try. This kind of thing is what I think gives modern art music a dubious reputation. Random acts of nonsense that require little intelligence, creativity, or talent.
> 
> What should someone say to the composer of such a piece? How brilliant? Or is it just something a fool might think of to make themselves _feel_ brilliant and misunderstood? Or was it more of an effort to be a comedian?
> 
> I don't get it, and I don't even find it amusing.
> 
> In my opinion such things - when presented as actual art music, are actually just really insulting to real composers, who put their heart and soul into their sounds.
> 
> Shame on you for even trying to pass that off as classical or art music.


Why get so mad about it though? I'm sure no one, not even some guy honestly thinks that people blowing into a raisin box takes more thought and effort to compose than a beethoven symphony, or a Bartok string quartet, or a Schoenberg piano piece. He even said himself that what he wrote wasn't that important. But if someone wants to write a piece about people blowing into raisin boxes, or likewise, if someone wants to listen to a piece about people blowing into raisin boxes, who cares?? Whatever floats your boat.  Some guy writing that kind of piece doesn't magically make Tchaikovsky's music disappear or less relevant.


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## Guest

My dear tdc, who's done any passing off? HarpsichordConcerto was curious to hear something I'd written. The raisin box piece was the only thing it would be easy for him to hear. Most of the juvenile things were never performed, as is only right, and most of the more mature, written out on manuscript paper things that were performed were never recorded.

The reel to reel piece is buried in a box in storage somewhere.

Give a brother a break! (It did sound pretty cool in that one performance, I must say.)


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## Couchie

Sofronitsky said:


> What is the point of Atonal music?


Atonality was originally developed on the belief that such music would cause _good_ composers to turn over in their graves so violently they'd reawaken and again be able to supply the world with music that isn't crap.


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## Sofronitsky

Couchie said:


> Atonality was originally developed on the belief that such music would cause _good_ composers to turn over in their graves so violently they'd reawaken and again be able to supply the world with music that isn't crap.


You're my favorite.


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> But then, I don't expect you to understand nor appreciate that because you are a professed non-opera fan. In fact, you hate opera, and so the ignorance is obvious.


I hate opera like you hate atonal music. No ignorance, just taste. We've both give them a chance and came away dissappointed. Remember, I've said I don't like most atonal music either, and prefer ordered pitches over disordered (see that minimalism vs serialism thread).

The difference between you and me is that I know it's just that I don't like opera. You actually think atonal music is 'bad' art.

Like I said the music doesn't contain emotion, music can, however, trigger emotion in the listener. I know many people here don't understand this, or don't want to understand it as they think it takes away something from the music, but all music is is sounds. I don't think that takes away from music in any way by saying that.

Do you not think it presumptuous that because _you_ get a certain emotion from an aria, that the aria must contain emotion for everyone?

***Question for Polednice***

You have said before you only (or mostly) listen to classical music, and you've said here you don't like atonal music. I was just wondering do you listen to any modern (recent) music?


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## haydnfan

mmsbls said:


> Could there be a point past which music is too dissonant for most humans to assimilate and find resolution? The piece would then feel open, unsettled, less satisfying.


That is an interesting question. Even though we are used to resolving to consonance to find closure, atonal works are not meant to be about that. They are meant to be about enjoying the harmony and color along the way. By analogy, if you don't expect a plot in a poem, but enjoy the rhythm and language you might find satisfaction.


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## Serge

Argus said:


> I know many people here don't understand this, or don't want to understand it as they think it takes away something from the music, but *all music is is sounds*. I don't think that takes away from music in any way by saying that.


I, for one, don't think that music is just sounds because I can still "hear" music long after the sounds are gone. (Call me a freak, but I have no such luck with "just sounds".) There are times when I enjoy such recollection of music to just as great, if not even greater, of an extent than when I actually hear it. That's how I know that what I heard is both great and ideal. (To me, at least.) Sounds are not perfect, but the musical idea can be and often is. Yes, I know, many people here don't understand this.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Like I said the music doesn't contain emotion, music can, however, trigger emotion in the listener. I know many people here don't understand this, or don't want to understand it as they think it takes away something from the music, but all music is is sounds. I don't think that takes away from music in any way by saying that.
> Do you not think it presumptuous that because _you_ get a certain emotion from an aria, that the aria must contain emotion for everyone?


Music is just sounds (or really pressure waves in air) and doesn't _contain_ emotion, but the question is whether those sounds tend to produce emotions in people who have a certain general background - in this case exposure to Western classical music. Research has shown that music clearly stimulates emotional centers in the brain, but it is not at all clear whether certain pieces will inherently stimulate a _particular_ emotion in _most_ people.

A related question is whether music can be inherently beautiful. Humans appear to have evolved to objectively determine facial beauty. Computers can determine beauty by measuring facial symmetry, and facial beauty has evolutionary benefits (correlated with fewer mutations). Although some biologists believe music production and enjoyment is adaptive (selected by evolution rather than just a spin-off of good brains), this view is certainly not fully accepted.

If music were adaptive, there would have to be something objective about music appreciation, and presumably computers (in the future when we understand things much better) could select music that is, _in general_, aesthetically (rather than intellectually) attractive to people with similar music background (e.g. Western classical music exposure). _Perhaps_ Mozart's music could be shown to be more inherently attractive than Boulez's music. I have always marveled at how powerfully music affects people and wondered just why that is the case. I do suspect that there is something inherent in music appreciation, but of course, we are far from knowing whether that is true.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Like I said the music doesn't contain emotion, music can, however, trigger emotion in the listener. I know many people here don't understand this, or don't want to understand it as they think it takes away something from the music, but all music is is sounds. I don't think that takes away from music in any way by saying that.


In fairness - going back to a point made on the last couple of pages about music being one of the less capable mediums for communicating emotion - there is no emotional content in words either. Words are just noises. Just sounds that we have developed over centuries, and which continue to change. There is nothing intrinsically sad about the word 'sad', but language works through _connotation_. A minor third in music can be just as emotional as the word 'despair', despite the fact that _neither_ of them have any actual emotional content.

Onto your question for me: indeed I _only_ listen to classical music, in the broad sense of the word. My listening habits have been fairly conservative (bearing in mind that I'm still young ), but, thanks in great part to this forum, I've recently been expanding my horizons to include more modern composers - favourites so far being Rzewski, Saeverud, and del Tredici. That's as recent as I've got so far


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> In fairness - going back to a point made on the last couple of pages about music being one of the less capable mediums for communicating emotion - there is no emotional content in words either. Words are just noises. Just sounds that we have developed over centuries, and which continue to change. There is nothing intrinsically sad about the word 'sad', but language works through _connotation_. A minor third in music can be just as emotional as the word 'despair', despite the fact that _neither_ of them have any actual emotional content.


I'm not saying language is an absolutely perfect method for communicating how one person feels to another either. Still it's better than music. Words like 'despair' and 'sad' are far less vague (to English speakers anyway) than a minor third interval. Plus, the universality of language. Everyone who speaks a language understands each word to have _quite_ specific meanings, this just isn't the case for music, where there is no set of rules governing its use.



> Onto your question for me: indeed I only listen to classical music, in the broad sense of the word. My listening habits have been fairly conservative (bearing in mind that I'm still young ), but, thanks in great part to this forum, I've recently been expanding my horizons to include more modern composers - favourites so far being Rzewski, Saeverud, and del Tredici. That's as recent as I've got so far


I like Rzewski. Great piano composer. Some of his music could be described as atonal.

I'd like to thank norman bates for reminding me of Albert Ayler. I haven't listened to his stuff in ages.


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## Guest

Argus beat me to the punch. Oh well. Here's what I was writing while he was posting, for whatever it's worth:

Words are not just noises. Words are units in an elaborate system called language. Language is different from music in that it has grammar. One might think that a system like common practice tonality is like grammar, but there is this one huge difference. Grammar is an inherent quality of language. Tonality is a way (only one) of ordering pitches (pitches not being equivalent to words, either*) that was designed by humans and developed and eventually even replaced, by some humans, in favor of other systems (or even of no system at all).

*Words have meaning all on their own. Sometimes many meanings. Not that a pitch has none, exactly, but an A flat has nothing like the meaning(s) of "dog" or "spring" or "garbage," and no "phrase" in which an A flat makes an appearance is anything like "Take the garbage out, dog."


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## mmsbls

Serge said:


> I, for one, don't think that music is just sounds because I can still "hear" music long after the sounds are gone. (Call me a freak, but I have no such luck with "just sounds".) There are times when I enjoy such recollection of music to just as great, if not even greater, of an extent than when I actually hear it. That's how I know that what I heard is both great and ideal. (To me, at least.) Sounds are not perfect, but the musical idea can be and often is. Yes, I know, many people here don't understand this.


I stand corrected for agreeing that music is just sounds (and going further by saying just pressure waves). Music can exist inside the brain where it is neither.


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## Kieran

Language is made of representative symbols called letters. Unless we know what a word means, these representations are meaningless, regardless of the tone that's used to speak them. We might glean something from tone, but not enough really to be on sure footing. Music is even more subjective, but is a language, none the less. Even animals communicate through music. But rarely (I imagine) do animals intellectualise what they do, in order to discover what odd-shaped or original music they can make. Music is to be beautiful to them, in order to attract.

Often their music sounds very complex, none the less...


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> I'm not saying language is an absolutely perfect method for communicating how one person feels to another either. Still it's better than music. Words like 'despair' and 'sad' are far less vague (to English speakers anyway) than a minor third interval. Plus, the universality of language. Everyone who speaks a language understands each word to have _quite_ specific meanings, this just isn't the case for music, where there is no set of rules governing its use.


Hmm, I've confused myself now 

I feel we're crossing wires over two slightly different things: the emotional content of music, and the ability of music to rouse emotion. What I was trying to say (but did so very poorly!) is that _both_ language and music have _zero_ emotional content in the physical sounds, but they can _both_ rouse emotion via connotation. Admittedly, language achieves this far better, but, am I right in thinking that where we differ is that I say music can accomplish it somewhat, but you think it can't at all?


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## Kieran

Of course, a question might be, _whose emotion does music evoke?_ If it's simply the composers, then I may admire their honesty, but find it difficult to participate. If music is highly intellectual, this has its place too. But is a goal of any art to create beauty? Or this inaccurate? Or old-fashioned?

Or is it simply rebutted by the time-honoured response that _Beauty is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder?_


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## TresPicos

tdc said:


> Seriously? If your goal was to be a comedian and not a composer, maybe, but even then...
> 
> This sounds like an experiment a bunch of stoned high school kids might try. This kind of thing is what I think gives modern art music a dubious reputation.


However, this dubious "dubious reputation" that you refer to does not make modern art music any more dubious than the dubious reputation of classical music as a whole in the mind of the general public makes classical music as a whole dubious.



> Random acts of nonsense that require little intelligence, creativity, or talent.


Blowing through a raisin box does not require talent, but getting the idea to pass it off as music requires some creativity. And a little intelligence.



> What should someone say to the composer of such a piece? How brilliant? Or is it just something a fool might think of to make themselves _feel_ brilliant and misunderstood? Or was it more of an effort to be a comedian?
> 
> I don't get it, and I don't even find it amusing.


The unamusement is almost always in the eye of the beholder.



> In my opinion such things - when presented as actual art music, are actually just really insulting to real composers, who put their heart and soul into their sounds.


A valid opinion, in the 1800s. But the "art" in "art music" is not only a matter of talent and following the rules, but also a matter of imagination and breaking the rules.










Clearly, this painting by Malevich is not at all impressive as paintings go, but still it's famous, important and valuable. But I'm sure that many of his colleagues felt really insulted.



> Shame on you for even trying to pass that off as classical or art music.


Yes, because the world of classical music really needs more haughtiness...


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## Polednice

TresPicos said:


> Blowing through a raisin box does not require talent, but getting the idea to pass it off as music requires some creativity. And a little intelligence.


Maybe sixty years ago, but not any more. Anyone can say anything is art if they want to now, and that's part of the problem. If I dream up something equally inane, I can either call it a parody, and people will get it; or I can pretend I'm being serious, and people will take it seriously. There is no value in that kind of art; only the prejudices and preconceptions people bring to it.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> There is no value in that kind of art; only the prejudices and preconceptions people bring to it.


It's tempting to read this comment without the words "that kind of" in it, isn't it?

In any case, since Polednice doesn't know how old the raisin box piece is, the "sixty years ago/...not any more" comment isn't as pertinent as it might seem.


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> It's tempting to read this comment without the words "that kind of" in it, isn't it?


No. It isn't.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> The difference between you and me is that I know it's just that I don't like opera. You actually think atonal music is 'bad' art.


There are many pieces of atonal music that I enjoy (and own on recordings). I don't dismiss atonal music per se. I don't think atonal music is "bad" art, but I personally think there are many examples of it that are utter crap, and pretentiously insane.

For example, Alban Berg's _Wozzeck_ is a masterpiece in every way, which I enjoy. The characters' emotions and thoughts were expressed beautifully and capably in the dramatic pace of this opera.


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> Maybe sixty years ago, but not any more. Anyone can say anything is art if they want to now, and that's part of the problem. If I dream up something equally inane, I can either call it a parody, and people will get it; or I can pretend I'm being serious, and people will take it seriously. There is no value in that kind of art; only the prejudices and preconceptions people bring to it.


Why do people have this idea that music composition should be only for a select few geniuses? You say this music makes it so anyone can compose anything and call it music, or art? Ok if anyone can compose anything now, let everyone compose everything! If everyone really was a composer we would have even more music to choose from. Does it matter if every piece of music is a well thought out masterpiece? If everyone composed anything, then the pieces that even just one person enjoyed will have done its job, and the pieces that absolutely no one enjoyed will have absolutely no effect on music at all. So who cares if someone composed it or not. Anyway, I think you're being melodramatic. A piece of music that requires little to no talent to compose does not suddenly bastardize all music. It's either a piece that people will remember, in which case the piece will have been effective no matter how much thought it took to write, or it will be forgotten, in which case you don't have to worry about it.


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## Ravellian

violadude said:


> Why do people have this idea that music composition should be only for a select few geniuses? You say this music makes it so anyone can compose anything and call it music, or art? Ok if anyone can compose anything now, let everyone compose everything! If everyone really was a composer we would have even more music to choose from. Does it matter if every piece of music is a well thought out masterpiece? If everyone composed anything, then the pieces that even just one person enjoyed will have done its job, and the pieces that absolutely no one enjoyed will have absolutely no effect on music at all. So who cares if someone composed it or not. Anyway, I think you're being melodramatic. A piece of music that requires little to no talent to compose does not suddenly bastardize all music. It's either a piece that people will remember, in which case the piece will have been effective no matter how much thought it took to write, or it will be forgotten, in which case you don't have to worry about it.


My knee-jerk reaction to this is to say "That's the problem with classical these days. Anyone is allowed to write anything and call it art; there are no standards anymore. And that's probably why modern art music has such a small audience; people have no idea what to expect. Generally people like to go to a concert at least partially knowing that they will enjoy themselves; new music doesn't offer that luxury."

But another part of me feels that if music is judged to be good or bad by certain standards, than who has the right to that authority? Who can say what music should pass for "excellent" and which is only "mediocre"? Will these standards only foster elitism and overabundance of _rules_ in what is supposed to be a creative medium? And is there such a problem in giving composers complete freedom to create what they wish, just as artists and architects do?


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Why do people have this idea that music composition should be only for a select few geniuses? You say this music makes it so anyone can compose anything and call it music, or art? Ok if anyone can compose anything now, let everyone compose everything! If everyone really was a composer we would have even more music to choose from. Does it matter if every piece of music is a well thought out masterpiece? If everyone composed anything, then the pieces that even just one person enjoyed will have done its job, and the pieces that absolutely no one enjoyed will have absolutely no effect on music at all. So who cares if someone composed it or not. Anyway, I think you're being melodramatic. A piece of music that requires little to no talent to compose does not suddenly bastardize all music. It's either a piece that people will remember, in which case the piece will have been effective no matter how much thought it took to write, or it will be forgotten, in which case you don't have to worry about it.


You've confused me, so I don't know if this will address what you've said.

Do I think composition should be for geniuses? No. But people obviously need to be talented. Why do people have this idea that anyone can do anything so long as they put their minds to it? That's just what mothers tell little children. It ain't true, guys.

Yes, this _does_ mean anyone can compose anything, _if they want to_ (the act of composition is a joyous thing everyone should try! My 'beef' is in the next paragraph). And no, it doesn't matter if every piece of music is a well thought out masterpiece, but it would be nice if a composer was well thought out in everything they did (masterpiece or not).

I didn't suggest that a piece of music requiring little or no effort bastardises music; I was suggesting that _accepting such music into the canon_ is what bastardises music. Everyone can fanny about composing whatever the hell they like - but to actually embrace it as serious art is nonsensical fartistry.

In short: _my problem is that works aren't being forgotten which should be forgotten._


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> _[M]y problem is that works aren't being forgotten which *should* be forgotten._


Who gets to decide?


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> You've confused me, so I don't know if this will address what you've said.
> 
> Do I think composition should be for geniuses? No. But people obviously need to be talented. Why do people have this idea that anyone can do anything so long as they put their minds to it? That's just what mothers tell little children. It ain't true, guys.
> 
> Yes, this _does_ mean anyone can compose anything, _if they want to_ (the act of composition is a joyous thing everyone should try! My 'beef' is in the next paragraph). And no, it doesn't matter if every piece of music is a well thought out masterpiece, but it would be nice if a composer was well thought out in everything they did (masterpiece or not).
> 
> I didn't suggest that a piece of music requiring little or no effort bastardises music; I was suggesting that _accepting such music into the canon_ is what bastardises music. Everyone can fanny about composing whatever the hell they like - but to actually have it established as Art is nonsensical fartistry.
> 
> In short: _my problem is that works aren't being forgotten which should be forgotten._


Well, I guess that's where we differ. I don't think that any piece that has been "accepted into canon" doesn't deserve its place there. I'm curious as to which pieces you think should be forgotten. Care to explain?


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## Polednice

It's late for me now, so I need to go to bed. So, for at least for the next 12 hours, until I wake up, I'm having a complete attitude change such that I now believe that anyone can and should compose anything and everything, and that it should all be published in its complete crappy entirety, and every ounce of its worthlessness should be openly embraced as a marvellous expression of the confused human condition, because everything and anything and something and nothing can all be art so long as you're willing to finding beauty where none exists.

Night guys.


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> It's late for me now, so I need to go to bed. So, for at least for the next 12 hours, until I wake up, I'm having a complete attitude change such that I now believe that anyone can and should compose anything and everything, and that it should all be published in its complete crappy entirety, and every ounce of its worthlessness should be openly embraced as a marvellous expression of the confused human condition, because everything and anything and something and nothing can all be art so long as you're willing to finding beauty where none exists.
> 
> Night guys.


lol that's not what I said at all. I said if people who are supposedly talentless want to compose things let them, and if they are truly as talentless as you think they are then you have nothing to worry about. If they are so "talentless" that their music has entered "canon" then I suppose their music touched enough people that talent wasn't necessary to make it great.

Let me ask you something, actually anyone can answer this. I'm going to go back to your raisin box piece again if you don't mind some guy. You might find that piece nonsense, but everyone's brain is different, what if someone in the audience to which it was performed found the piece thought-provoking? Wouldn't the mere fact that at least one person found the piece thought-provoking make it art in its own right?


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Let me ask you something, actually anyone can answer this. I'm going to go back to your raisin box piece again if you don't mind some guy. You might find that piece nonsense, but everyone's brain is different, what if someone in the audience to which it was performed found the piece thought-provoking? Wouldn't the mere fact that at least one person found the piece thought-provoking make it art in its own right?


No, I think that the person should go to a doctor to make sure they don't have an aggressive brain cancer.

Right, that irresistible tongue-in-cheek response over with, I'M OFF!


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> No, I think that the person should go to a doctor to make sure they don't have an aggressive brain cancer.
> 
> Right, that irresistible tongue-in-cheek response over with, I'M OFF!


Well, I guess we have different definitions of art then.


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## Noak

Atonal music for me was a fresh breeze when I first heard it. I was so glad that music like that existed. It just makes me happy to listen to it. I don't know why and I don't care why. I find more joy in Penderecki, Ruders or Scelsi than I do in Mozart, Brahms or Schubert. And I don't mean joy in how it sounds, I don't think Penderecki sounds joyful. But how I feel when I listen to it.


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## Sofronitsky

Noak said:


> Atonal music for me was a fresh breeze when I first heard it. I was so glad that music like that existed. It just makes me happy to listen to it. I don't know why and I don't care why. I find more joy in Penderecki, Ruders or Scelsi than I do in Mozart, Brahms or Schubert. And I don't mean joy in how it sounds, I don't think Penderecki sounds joyful. But how I feel when I listen to it.


You should sign one of those releases to have your brain examined for science after you die


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## Noak

Sofronitsky said:


> You should sign one of those releases to have your brain examined for science after you die


I would gladly do that. At my funeral I want a professor to have a lecture about astronomy and then I want either Canticum Canticorum Salomonis by Penderecki or Manhattan Abstraction by Ruders to play.


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## Guest

Yes.

The negative reactions to "atonal" music are normal, the positive reactions abnormal.

How did that come to be?

I would take it, generally, that negative reactions, to anything, are less valid than positive reactions, if only because positive reactions imply sympathy and understanding. Of course, there may be negative reactions that are well-informed and insightful and positive reactions that are no more than superficial pleasure, but I don't see either of those two extremes applying to the present discussion. 

If the only way to respond to a positive reaction to contemporary music is to marginalize the people who are reacting positively, then I'm thinking the negative view is not a very secure one.

To get back, if I may, to the original question, the purpose of atonal music is the same as the purpose of tonal music, to create something that would give pleasure.

It doesn't give you any pleasure? OK. Neither does Brahms to every listener. Neither does Bach, for that matter. No one has to like everything. But not liking something is no very strong basis for claiming that the thing disliked is somehow bad or destructive or worthless.

Just take the people on this thread who have reported as liking "atonal" music. Can any of those people really be marginalized successfully? I'll wager that most of them, heck, I'll wager that all of them listen very intelligently and happily to musics of the 19th, 18th, and 17th centuries as well, and know every bit as much about them as any of the people here who have called "atonal" music crap. Liking contemporary music is not some strange aberration. It's just a natural part of liking music generally.

Sorry to trample all over Sofronisky and Polednice's little jokes, but to be truly funny, they should probably be just a little bit closer to the truth.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Sofronitsky said:


> You should sign one of those releases to have your brain examined for science after you die


:lol: Like they do sliced up into thin slices and sealed in glass, displayed in a natural history museum.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> If the only way to respond to a positive reaction to contemporary music is to marginalize the people who are reacting positively, then I'm thinking the negative view is not a very secure one.


I'm almost sure many of the internet people who might make you feel that way here at discussion forums would *not do so *in real life, so don't worry.


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## Sid James

Just listening to Charles Ives' Emerson Concerto for piano & orchestra last night, which could be described as "atonal," I was reading in the liner notes that Ives deliberately didn't finish this work, he left it open-ended. Ives thought that music, like life, was a journey of discovery. The "end point" or "final destination" is perhaps less important than the things and insights you may (or may not?) pick up along that journey, continuum or spectrum. I haven't got the time to read this whole thread, but I can kind of predict the discourse or tangents that this kind of topic veers off to (I certainly get a sense of this reading some of the posts on this page above). I personally enjoy all types of music, from classical to contemporary and everything in between (I've been recently getting into the lighter realms). I don't really care if people do or don't enjoy "atonal" music, it's their business. I'm over this thing on these forums of convincing other people that my way is "right," which would be ridiculous, everyone has their own unique way of getting into the musics they like. There's nothing wrong with enjoying Schoenberg or Varese, same as with nothing wrong with liking say Monteverdi or J. S. Bach. All have something to offer, music is about translating the richness of human experience, the human condition, to paraphrase Mahler it contains everything, "the whole world". If people want to shut out a part or parts of this world, good luck to them, I personally despise being stuck in ruts or niches, I like to explore everything...


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## Aramis

Hello. 

What are you talking about?


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## Almaviva

Good discussion.
My two cents is that there is space for everything. I like works of different eras, including modernist and contemporary music. Like in all eras, some of the music composed today is great, some is not. We're just not far removed enough from it to completely grasp its placement in music history. Like someone above said, paintings have also evolved from easy expression of what is in nature to more abstraction, and there are good and bad paintings in all schools of painting.


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## norman bates

Argus said:


> I'd like to thank norman bates for reminding me of Albert Ayler. I haven't listened to his stuff in ages.


one of my favorite musicians


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## haydnfan

Almaviva said:


> Good discussion.
> We're just not far removed enough from it to completely grasp its placement in music history.


What seriously!? Schoenberg wrote his first atonal composition (a song) in 1908, more than 100 years ago. He formalized 12 tone music composition in the 1920s. Atonality is not new. The musical community have come to terms with it and more. Musical schools/groups have embraced it, evolved it, rejected it, transformed it... atonality is old hat now.


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## Argus

Noak said:


> I find more joy in Penderecki, Ruders or Scelsi than I do in Mozart, Brahms or Schubert. And I don't mean joy in how it sounds, I don't think Penderecki sounds joyful. But how I feel when I listen to it.


So you feel joy when listening to Penderecki, yet you say his music isn't joyful. What is the difference between the music and the emotion you feel when listening to it? If you feel joy then surely it contains joy_* for you*_.


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## Noak

Argus said:


> So you feel joy when listening to Penderecki, yet you say his music isn't joyful. What is the difference the music and the emotion you feel when listening to it? If you feel joy then surely it contains joy_* for you*_.


I suppose maybe I'm using ''joy'' wrong. I feel happy when I listen to atonal music. I also feel happy when I look at a Francis Bacon painting, but I wouldn't describe them as happy. Same with really sad, bleak or scary films.


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## Argus

I'd just like to point out that as visual art moved away from nature towards abstraction, music did the opposite. _Noise is natural_. Music from before the 20thC was an abstraction and at best an imitation of nature. Listening to sound in nature (leaves rustling, streams bubbling, footsteps, rainfall etc), they are all mostly noise. Mozart and Beethoven or whoever were working with instruments designed to produce nice, stable pitched tones with just enough noise to determine timbre. So if anything our hearing is conditioned to respond to these unnatural configurations of tones to feel emotion.

To say tonality is an innate aspect of our sense of hearing. That we instinctively try to relate tones around a centre doesn't relate to reality. It is a situation we find ourselves in after being brought up hearing these sounds for the majority of our life.

This is also where I feel a lot of atonality misses the point. Many of the instrument still used by the serialists were developed with tonality in mind, and they work very well for that purpose. If you abandon tonality entirely why keep it's remnants. The 12 tone temperament, even the idea of using tones over noises is unnecessary. Then this leads to harsh noise music and field recordings, things like that.

So for people trying to claim tonality is more natural for people than atonality, think about it some more. It's a purely nurtured way of hearing and the people who don't hear 'in' tonality have just eluded being contained into one way of hearing.

I know I may come across as an atonal apologist but I do listen to an easy 95% tonal music. I have been firmly rooted in tonality and have 'come to love my chains'.


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## Argus

Noak said:


> I suppose maybe I'm using ''joy'' wrong. I feel happy when I listen to atonal music. I also feel happy when I look at a Francis Bacon painting, but I wouldn't describe them as happy. Same with really sad, bleak or scary films.


Okay, but what's the difference the emotion you imagine the art containing and the emotion you feel when experiencing the art?

Or are you just saying you can like sad, unhappy things?


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> I would take it, generally, that negative reactions, to anything, are less valid than positive reactions, if only because positive reactions imply sympathy and understanding. Of course, there may be negative reactions that are well-informed and insightful and positive reactions that are no more than superficial pleasure, but I don't see either of those two extremes applying to the present discussion.


All those folks with positive reactions to genocide are such kind-hearted, sympathetic people, aren't they?



some guy said:


> It doesn't give you any pleasure? OK. Neither does Brahms to every listener. Neither does Bach, for that matter. No one has to like everything. But not liking something is no very strong basis for claiming that the thing disliked is somehow bad or destructive or worthless.


It's a good job I didn't do that then.



Argus said:


> I'd just like to point out that as visual art moved away from nature towards abstraction, music did the opposite. Noise is natural. Music from before the 20thC was an abstraction and at best an imitation of nature. Listening to sound in nature (leaves rustling, streams bubbling, footsteps, rainfall etc), they are all mostly noise. Mozart and Beethoven or whoever were working with instruments designed to produce nice, stable pitched tones with just enough noise to determine timbre. So if anything our hearing is conditioned to respond to these unnatural configurations of tones to feel emotion.
> 
> To say tonality is an innate aspect of our sense of hearing. That we instinctively try to relate tones around a centre doesn't relate to reality. It is a situation we find ourselves in after being brought up hearing these sounds for the majority of our life.


I'm not sure if someone else has contended that tonality is 'natural' and therefore better, but I specifically commented that there is some intrinsic comprehensibility in tonality because it is _un_natural in that it is a _super_normal stimulus for the tone recognition centres in the brain.


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> I'm not sure if someone else has contended that tonality is 'natural' and therefore better, but I specifically commented that there is some intrinsic comprehensibility in tonality because it is _un_natural in that it is a _super_normal stimulus for the tone recognition centres in the brain.


It wasn't in response to anything you said, just refuting a common claim.

My point is if preferring tonality stems from learning to like it through upbringing and familiarity, then why is this also not possible for atonality?

Also, you mention tone recognition centres in the brain. Surely, they only exist for people who have absolute pitch or who have trained their ears to recognise certain musical interval spacings.

That leads nicely onto the idea of extended tonalities which feature more dissonant intervals. e.g. Harry Partch, Ben Johnston and various other 'microtonal' systems. Do you think these tonalities are as comprehensible as the familiar 5-limit based diatonic tonality? Studies have shown the ear has enough capability to recognise and distinguish very minute intervals (less than, say, 25 cents, depending upon the range), yet I bet most people would find these kind of tonalities almost as disagreeable as atonality.

Take it far enough and you'll end up with an infinite amount of intervals, resulting in a continuum glissando like sound with resting points. Will the ear still want to relate this sound around a centre?


----------



## Polednice

Argus said:


> My point is if preferring tonality stems from learning to like it through upbringing and familiarity, then why is this also not possible for atonality?


If I believed that a preference for tonality was entirely through upbringing and familiarity, then I would agree with you. While I think culture is certainly a big part, I don't think it's the whole deal.



Argus said:


> Also, you mention tone recognition centres in the brain. Surely, they only exist for people who have absolute pitch or who have trained their ears to recognise certain musical interval spacings.


Why? When I mentioned tone recognition, I was talking more about the quality of a sound (say, the subtle difference between a 'v' and a 'b'), which - along with other areas of the brain - are stimulated when listening to music to create the overall effect.



Argus said:


> That leads nicely onto the idea of extended tonalities which feature more dissonant intervals. e.g. Harry Partch, Ben Johnston and various other 'microtonal' systems. Do you think these tonalities are as comprehensible as the familiar 5-limit based diatonic tonality? Studies have shown the ear has enough capability to recognise and distinguish very minute intervals (less than, say, 25 cents, depending upon the range), yet I bet most people would find these kind of tonalities almost as disagreeable as atonality.


That's an interesting point, and one I don't feel fully informed on. To my knowledge, people can distinguish up to 30 separate tones (as opposed to the usual 12 on a piano used in most music). I'm not sure whether or not these tones are different enough for people to maintain a sense of predictability and tension, or whether this just means that people can sense when something is out of tune.



Argus said:


> Take it far enough and you'll end up with an infinite amount of intervals, resulting in a continuum glissando like sound with resting points. Will the ear still want to relate this sound around a centre?


I don't think that the ear will necessarily want to associate an individual glissando with a central tone, but the studies I've read have shown that - whether it's in a traditional tonal system, or a modern alternative such as the Bohlen-Pierce scale - people are much more capable of understanding (and enjoying!) music if there's a central point of reference which gives rise to _some_ sense of tonality. It appeals to our statistical learning capacity and our incessant search for patterns in everything.


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## Noak

Argus said:


> Okay, but what's the difference the emotion you imagine the art containing and the emotion you feel when experiencing the art?
> 
> Or are you just saying you can like sad, unhappy things?


I'm not sure what to answer to the first question. I like it for no other reason than that I feel good when I hear it. I'm not basing my liking of the music on any criteria whatsoever. I suppose I am saying that you can like sad, unhappy things. I don't think Penderecki had any joy in mind when he composed Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. But that doesn't mean I can't get some joy out of it. Even if it is a sad piece of music.

I feel that perhaps I'm trying too hard to explain what I feel. I'm fumbling in the dark a little I feel. ''I like it for no other reason than that I feel good when I hear it.''. That sentence sums it up pretty good.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> _Noise is natural_. Music from before the 20thC was an abstraction and at best an imitation of nature. Listening to sound in nature (leaves rustling, streams bubbling, footsteps, rainfall etc), they are all mostly noise.
> 
> So if anything our hearing is conditioned to respond to these unnatural configurations of tones to feel emotion.
> 
> To say tonality is an innate aspect of our sense of hearing. That we instinctively try to relate tones around a centre doesn't relate to reality. It is a situation we find ourselves in after being brought up hearing these sounds for the majority of our life.
> 
> So for people trying to claim tonality is more natural for people than atonality, think about it some more. It's a purely nurtured way of hearing and the people who don't hear 'in' tonality have just eluded being contained into one way of hearing.


Noise is natural, but the main point is that it is not interesting. Humans tend to hear all the noise around them, but the brain processes this noise out of consciousness. The brain tries to focus on interesting sensory inputs. I know much more about visual processing so I'll use that as an example. The retina responds to all light (in the visual spectrum) and sends signals toward the brain. There are neural processing clusters that input retinal signals and look for interesting things such as straight lines and especially moving lines. These interesting things tend to be part of real objects of special interest such as tigers wanting to eat humans or food. Noise is not considered interesting so there are no processors designed to find noise and send signals indicating the presence of noise. Of course anyone can focus their attention on noise, but this takes effort. Noise is natural in nature, but very unnatural in consciousness.

I'm not sure what neural processing units in the aural pathways exist other than processors that respond to specific frequencies, but presumably they try to select interesting sounds from the natural environment and present them to consciousness. Just as with visual pathways, excessive complexity would presumably not be considered interesting and would require special conscious effort. I imagine that human voices are of special interest, and aural centers would respond highly to these.



Argus said:


> My point is if preferring tonality stems from learning to like it through upbringing and familiarity, then why is this also not possible for atonality?


There is one aspect of "learning" that may be especially relevant to this thought. Studies have shown that the kinds of neural processors I mentioned above (straight line for example) must be created during development. For example, cats have been raised in special research environments without vertical straight lines. After several weeks they permanently cannot "see" vertical lines and will walk into poles placed in front of them.

Probably the vast majority of humans have been raised with tonal sounds when young (e.g. individuals singing simple tonal songs). Atonal music would not normally be part of this. People may therefore tend to "learn" tonality. If everyone were raised with atonal music playing, perhaps atonality would be easier to process. This is clearly speculation.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> I don't think that the ear will necessarily want to associate an individual glissando with a central tone, but the studies I've read have shown that - whether it's in a traditional tonal system, or a modern alternative such as the Bohlen-Pierce scale - people are much more capable of understanding (and enjoying!) music if there's a central point of reference which gives rise to _some_ sense of tonality. It appeals to our statistical learning capacity and our incessant search for patterns in everything.


You say "the ear" as if all ears were alike. Well, maybe physically they're pretty similar, but ears have to be hooked up to brains to be useful anywhere outside a dissecting class, and brains are quite different from each other. Same with "people."

In order to make the above points, you have first had to privilege a certain group of people. What about other groups? You have seen, if you've been following this thread at all carefully, that there are several groups of people participating, one of them clearly at home and happy with contemporary* music. This group has the most knowledgable, the most sympathetic, the most understanding experience with the music, yet it is consistently treated in these arguments as either the least important group or is simply ignored completely.

This is not, pace HC's comment, about how people are making me feel (since I'm a member of the marginalized group), but about what tactics like marginalizing and privileging accomplish. Privileging one group over another to make a position seem universal when it's just a characteristic of one group isn't cricket. And everytime it happens, someone should say, "But what about...?" Because only when we have input from the what abouts can we be sure we're close to the truth.

What we've got here is just some more examples of people whose negative feelings are so strong, they cannot accept that positive feelings about these things are even possible, even to the extent of making absurd comparisons to genocide. Contemporary music is not at all the same kind of thing as genocide, in fact "liking" is probably not even a valid concept for such a thing as genocide.

But the rage to demonize contemporary music (and the people who enjoy it) rolls happily on....

By the way, about feeling good while experiencing art works about dark and dismal things (which accounts for a minute percentage of all contemporary music, just by the way), the joy one feels is not, or at least not entirely, for the darkness and dismalness, but for the handling, the presentation. A well-made work gives pleasure, no matter what its subject matter. (And "subject matter" is often a whole weird area when we're talking about such an abstract thing as music.)

*I got tired of putting quotes around atonal, since I don't like that term. Remember another thread about that a couple of years ago in which I identified six (as I recall) different meanings for that word? Since there's never any agreement about which one of those meanings to use at any given time (and since only one of them is purely descriptive), best to just stop using the word, eh?


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Noise is natural, but the main point is that it is not interesting.


Speak for yourself. (See my post right about this one.)


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Speak for yourself. (See my post right about this one.)


I meant the comment concerning noise being uninteresting as a technical comment about all human sensory processing (unconscious processing) and not about intellectual interest (conscious processing). If noise were presented to consciousness in the same way as highly processed sensory inputs, you would struggle to identify faces, to recognize water and food, and to recognize words. Humans and most other animals would have died out long ago.


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> You say "the ear" as if all ears were alike. Well, maybe physically they're pretty similar, but ears have to be hooked up to brains to be useful anywhere outside a dissecting class, and brains are quite different from each other. Same with "people."
> 
> ETC...


If you think that in my following posts on this thread that I am ignoring you, then you are right. I don't mean to be confrontational, but you repeatedly refuse to engage me on the terms I actually set out in my posts, and instead interpret them as the same wishy-washy tripe that you're used to hearing from 'tonalists', which is actually not what I'm saying at all. It's very obtuse and frustrating to deal with.


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> If I believed that a preference for tonality was entirely through upbringing and familiarity, then I would agree with you. While I think culture is certainly a big part, I don't think it's the whole deal.


What's the rest of the deal then?



> That's an interesting point, and one I don't feel fully informed on. To my knowledge, people can distinguish up to 30 separate tones (as opposed to the usual 12 on a piano used in most music). I'm not sure whether or not these tones are different enough for people to maintain a sense of predictability and tension, or whether this just means that people can sense when something is out of tune.


I'd say an eigth of a semitone (25 cents) is a reasonable expectation for an average listener. Poeple who really train their ears could get it fine tuned to more precise than this but 25 cents seems good for now. That's 48 intervals per octave. So Partch's 43-tone system is within this limit, meaning given enough time and familiarity with that tonality they could distinguish all the various intervals and relate this around a tonal centre. But as I think most people have been socially conditioned by the diatonic scale and 12 TET, they would hear these unusual intervals as out-of-tune versions of the familiar intervals that have been used for centuries.

I could accept that the ear wants to organise tones around a centre due to the mathematical purity of the overtone series, but seeing as the current uses of tonality are so far removed from the harmonic series, then it's surely a case of familiarity.

This is all pretty objective stuff we're talking about hear but the subjectivity of musical appreciation means that there will be some people who love the most nastily dissonant atonal music possible. For example:






Saying that some noise even I quite like:










(Does this remind anyone else of an ice cream van jingle?)

I actually prefer that kind of atonality to the cerebral pussyfooting of the serialists. At least it has some raw energy about it.



some_guy said:


> *I got tired of putting quotes around atonal, since I don't like that term. Remember another thread about that a couple of years ago in which I identified six (as I recall) different meanings for that word? Since there's never any agreement about which one of those meanings to use at any given time (and since only one of them is purely descriptive), best to just stop using the word, eh?


Yeah, but contemporary is incredibly vague. It can mean anything from Nico Muhly to Tinie Tempah, both of which we aren't really including in this discussion. At least using the word atonal narrows it down a bit.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I actually prefer that kind of atonality to the cerebral pussyfooting of the serialists. At least it has some raw energy about it.

"Its got a nice beat you can dance to it" That about sums up Argus ability to judge music from what one can glean from his posts. It explains his preference for Stravinsky over Schoenberg and Debussy (on another thread) made on the basis of the _Rite of Spring_. The Rite is certainly the type of classical music a headbanger who actually thinks Black Sabbath should be taken seriously would like over that Mozart/Haydn/Bach stuff.

I wonder how many opera fanatics and string quartet obsessives troll about on heavy metal sites with the though of being taken seriously??


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## violadude

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I actually prefer that kind of atonality to the cerebral pussyfooting of the serialists. At least it has some raw energy about it.
> 
> "Its got a nice beat you can dance to it" That about sums up Argus ability to judge music from what one can glean from his posts. It explains his preference for Stravinsky over Schoenberg and Debussy (on another thread) made on the basis of the _Rite of Spring_. The Rite is certainly the type of classical music a headbanger who actually thinks Black Sabbath should be taken seriously would like over that Mozart/Haydn/Bach stuff.
> 
> I wonder how many opera fanatics and string quartet obsessives troll about on heavy metal sites with the though of being taken seriously??


I think that's an incredibly snobbish thing to say and it's one of the attitudes that drives people away from CM. You're saying Argus shouldn't be taken seriously? He's introduced me to quite a lot of composers I really like. Headbanger? Actually most of the music he posts I feel tend more on the side of meditative. This is a board for all kinds of classical music, not just classical music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Somei Satoh really doesn't have much of a beat you can dance to at all


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> What's the rest of the deal then?


The underlying evolutionary brain structures that all humans share, which I have unconvincingly tried to discuss.



Argus said:


> I'd say an eigth of a semitone (25 cents) is a reasonable expectation for an average listener. Poeple who really train their ears could get it fine tuned to more precise than this but 25 cents seems good for now. That's 48 intervals per octave. So Partch's 43-tone system is within this limit, meaning given enough time and familiarity with that tonality they could distinguish all the various intervals and relate this around a tonal centre. But as I think most people have been socially conditioned by the diatonic scale and 12 TET, they would hear these unusual intervals as out-of-tune versions of the familiar intervals that have been used for centuries.


An initial listen would certainly be difficult, but, for the determined listener, it has been shown that a surprisingly small amount of repeated exposure to unfamiliar scales and patterns can allow us to begin to hear the underlying tonality. Of course - though I'm not referencing any particular composers or works with this - it would still depend on how micro-tones are arranged. If you can be atonal with 12 semitones, you can certainly be atonal with 30 or more; it would take a little mathematical thought to develop a tonal system within that (which I'm sure has been done!).


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## Argus

violadude said:


> He's introduced me to quite a lot of composers I really like. Headbanger? Actually most of the music he posts I feel tend more on the side of meditative. This is a board for all kinds of classical music, not just classical music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
> 
> Somei Satoh really doesn't have much of a beat you can dance to at all


Yeah, La Monte Young is all about the four-to-the-floor.



Polednice said:


> The underlying evolutionary brain structures that all humans share, which I have unconvincingly tried to discuss.


That sounds like the 'nature' argument that I tackled a few posts back.



> An initial listen would certainly be difficult, but, for the determined listener, it has been shown that a surprisingly small amount of repeated exposure to unfamiliar scales and patterns can allow us to begin to hear the underlying tonality. Of course - though I'm not referencing any particular composers or works with this - it would still depend on how micro-tones are arranged. If you can be atonal with 12 semitones, you can certainly be atonal with 30 or more; it would take a little mathematical thought to develop a tonal system within that (which I'm sure has been done!).


Here's a couple of tonal pieces I like using many non-diatonic (or more accurately non-5 limit intervals).











Both of these composers have produced some music I'm quite cool to though.

Thinking about it, the best use of atonality I find is when it is used in conjunction with tonality to provide a contrast at times. A lot of the early atonalists were very staunch, over-zealous types (a la Adorno) who were so enamoured by a new way forward they abandoned everything else. Now the dust has settled and composers are freer to use whatever method they like, I find it more interesting when tonality and atonality clash and trade blows in the same piece of music. This allows both systems to play to their strengths and just gives the composer a wider palette. I'm thinking of some of my favourite free jazz and when it has glimpses of tonality the result is more satisfying than an all out noisefest (I find Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Sharrock and Don Cherry, among others, were able to use both fluidly).


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> That sounds like the 'nature' argument that I tackled a few posts back.


Which I replied to stating that, in fact, it _isn't_ the nature argument you referred to. 



Argus said:


> Thinking about it, the best use of atonality I find is when it is used in conjunction with tonality to provide a contrast at times. A lot of the early atonalists were very staunch, over-zealous types (a la Adorno) who were so enamoured by a new way forward they abandoned everything else. Now the dust has settled and composers are freer to use whatever method they like, I find it more interesting when tonality and atonality clash and trade blows in the same piece of music. This allows both systems to play to their strengths and just gives the composer a wider palette. I'm thinking of some of my favourite free jazz and when it has glimpses of tonality the result is more satisfying than an all out noisefest (I find Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Sharrock and Don Cherry, among others, were able to use both fluidly).


That sounds perfectly lovely!


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> Which I replied to stating that, in fact, it _isn't_ the nature argument you referred to.


It's either nature or nurture. Your talk of evolutionary brain structures and tone recognition centres sounds like the nature argument to me.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> It's either nature or nurture. Your talk of evolutionary brain structures and tone recognition centres sounds like the nature argument to me.


Well then all I can say is that perhaps you go back and read what I actually said, and see that what you just offered is a false dichotomy...

EDIT: For clarification, I should say that my point is _a_ nature argument, but not _the_ nature argument which you argued against.


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## Serge

> *What is the point of Atonal music?*


I am not sure, but it could be to provide a backing to the argument that music is just noises and sounds.


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## jurianbai

****commercial break******
197 replies with 135 likes = 68%
****back to the show******


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mmsbls said:


> I meant the comment concerning noise being uninteresting as a technical comment about all human sensory processing (unconscious processing) and not about intellectual interest (conscious processing). If noise were presented to consciousness in the same way as highly processed sensory inputs, you would struggle to identify faces, to recognize water and food, and to recognize words. Humans and most other animals would have died out long ago.


What happens when noise (say the sound of a refridgerator's air compressor), while technically composed as music (such a piece has been by an electronic composer), enters the ear consciously as highly processed sensory inputs (using the right words, I hope), *blindfolded* too, how does the mind differentiate it between music (as intended) versus air compressor without prior knowledge?

In this case, it seems to me the mind (from the listener who was blindfolded) will believe it was from an air compressor machine. Unless told it was music, the mind would not even *remotely* likely be conditioned into liking this piece in a modern society where refridegerators are common place, unless one has a sound perversion of some sort.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I think that's an incredibly snobbish thing to say and it's one of the attitudes that drives people away from CM. You're saying Argus shouldn't be taken seriously? He's introduced me to quite a lot of composers I really like. Headbanger? Actually most of the music he posts I feel tend more on the side of meditative. This is a board for all kinds of classical music, not just classical music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Maybe my comments are based upon the fact that I have been here quite a bit longer than you and I have read Argus continued "snobbish" comments about Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Wagner... the whole of opera... and pretty much any music before 1950. I have also read through his repeated claims as to the superiority of the music of today over that of the past. This site, and it seems every classical music site, seem to be the target of heavy-metal headbangers who seem hell-bent on convincing the folks at classical music sites of the artistic depth of heavy metal. I've yet to come across the bluegrass fan or the jazz aficionado making similar attempts... at least not while denigrating most of the greatest composers of classical music. The individual who dismisses the whole or the majority of modern or contemporary "classical music" would probably not be taken seriously by anyone who values that music. Conversely, as one who values Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, opera (as well as a hell of a lot of music after 1950) I don't see why Argus opinion should count for much.


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Maybe my comments are based upon the fact that I have been here quite a bit longer than you and I have read Argus continued "snobbish" comments about Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Bach, Wagner... the whole of opera... and pretty much any music before 1950.


You've also been here long enough to know my views on aesthetics and critical judgements of art. Remember, those threads on Mozart and 4'33''. I'm not going into detail here because it's boring and not relevant here but it can be summed up simply:

This music is good = I like this music

This music is bad = I don't like this music

That's kind of at odds with any kind of snobbery, surely. Also, when have I said these alleged snobbish remarks about Beethoven, Bach and Schubert. You, StLukes, know that I know anything discouraging I say about Haydn, Mozart and opera is purely my opinion. You, on the other hand hold, aesthetic/artistic views in which snobbery is inherent.

I don't know what you're problem is with someone liking Black Sabbath and some classical music, but it doesn't have anything to do with this subject and it's making you look a bit petty. I don't even think I mentioned any heavy metal in this thread. You know why? Because most of it is tonal and it wouldn't make sense to bring it up.

So leave out these kind of personal attacks, especially when they are based on unfounded allegations.



Polednice said:


> Well then all I can say is that perhaps you go back and read what I actually said, and see that what you just offered is a false dichotomy...
> 
> EDIT: For clarification, I should say that my point is a nature argument, but not the nature argument which you argued against.


They seem pretty similar to me. Explain the difference?

In the meantime here's a piece of music that starts and ends in tonality with an excursion into atonality in the middle. I think it works well.


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## Krummhorn

*Yo! These personal attacks will cease right here and now, or this thread will be closed, permanently.*

Members ARE entitled to THEIR opinions and ARE entitled to comment on what they like and don't like when it comes to atonal music. Members ARE NOT entitled to BELITTLE others on the open boards. If members want to go head-to-head on some matter, then do that within the Private Messaging feature. It will not be tolerated on the open boards as it is of no interest to the others that want to participate in this, and other, discussions of this forum. 
*

*


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## samurai

Argus said:


> It's either nature or nurture. Your talk of evolutionary brain structures and tone recognition centres sounds like the nature argument to me.


@ Argus and Polednice: Guys, why does it have to be one or the other? Can't it conceivably be some combination of the two? Do they have to be mutually exclusive, as in some kind of zero sum game? Just some musing and wondering from a basically musically ignorant person.


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## Almaviva

haydnfan said:


> What seriously!? Schoenberg wrote his first atonal composition (a song) in 1908, more than 100 years ago. He formalized 12 tone music composition in the 1920s. Atonality is not new. The musical community have come to terms with it and more. Musical schools/groups have embraced it, evolved it, rejected it, transformed it... atonality is old hat now.


 Far removed, maybe. Far removed enough, no. Better proof, this thread.
100 years is not a lot in terms of history.


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## StlukesguildOhio

This music is good = I like this music

This music is bad = I don't like this music

That's kind of at odds with any kind of snobbery, surely.

You, StLukes, know that I know anything discouraging I say about Haydn, Mozart and opera is purely my opinion. You, on the other hand hold, aesthetic/artistic views in which snobbery is inherent.

OK... let me get this straight. When you make statements such as:

"Mozart's rubbish..."

"Haydn is top class background music when you are concentrating on something other than the music. It never becomes intriguing enough to divert your attention from the task at hand..."

"AC/DC are much better than Mozart, Wagner and Debussy. Those guys are too inconsistent with loads of spotty music with the occasional poo-stained gem. AC/DC were consistently awesome for nearly 20 years, even with the death of Bon Scott in there."

"... people who aren't fans of Black Sabbath, aren't fans of music."

"Bieber > Biber"

"I do think what you look for in classical music doesn't make sense and is illogical, and I do think John Coltrane and Black Sabbath are better than Bach, along with Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Funkadelic, CCR, Sleep, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk and Muddy Waters among others. I just thought listing two prominent examples was quicker. The list could be extended to the thousands if I was comparing to Mozart."

"(Wagner) mainly composed opera, and as everyone knows opera is rubbish."

The clarinet quintet, the clarinet concerto, the piano concertos, the Great Mass in C-minor, the quintet for piano and winds, the Gran Partita, the Requiem, the late symphonies... especially nos. 40 and the stupendous 41... 

All of those are rubbish...

...you are simply voicing an opinion... and there is no "snobbism" involved? If on the other hand I were to state that atonal music sucks (which I have in no way suggested) then I am being an "elitist" or a "snob"?

Or perhaps I'm a "snob" because I don't think AC/DC or Black Sabbath are better than Mozart? In actuality, I listen to a broad array of music including Jazz, R&B, Blues, Folk, Bluegrass, some Pop and Rock, Indian and Middle-Eastern music, Gamelan, and some Japanese music... including "classical music" from Byzantine chant to Osvaldo Golijov. Even so, I don't seriously think AC?DC or Black Sabbath are in any way better than squawks of a cat caught in a tree-shredder... let alone Mozart. :tiphat:

I agree with Samurai that music need not be a sum-zero game. The individual can enjoy a broad array of music. But even if he or she does not... even if they specialize on a single era (the Baroque, Romanticism...) or a single genre/form (opera, string quartets...) that is fine. Until the individual starts to make comments deriding that which he or she has little of no experience with or appreciation for. It is no less valid to challenge the assertions of those who are enamored primarily of Romanticism or the Baroque have never seriously explored and listened to John Cage, Elliott Carter, or Philip Glass when it comes to commenting upon these composers than it is for the individual enamored of Black Sabbath and post-1950s music to dismiss Mozart, Bach, or Gesualdo.

Returning to the OP... I again state that I have never suggested that I think atonal music is rubbish. Personally, I have never gotten into Schoenberg. I have always found him dense and lumpen. Yet I like much of what I have heard by Berg and Webern. No, I don't like Boulez. But I do like Scelsi, Penderecki, Elliott Carter, and George Crumb. Personally, I think that the innovation of atonality (or the abandonment of traditional tonality) can be seen as akin to the innovation of abstraction (or the abandonment of figuration) in painting. As with painting and abstraction, "atonality" was proclaimed by many as this earth-shattering innovation that forever buried the past. Traditional tonality and figurative painting were thought to be gone forever... at least according to some. With time, it became obvious that abstraction in painting was just one more possibility just as atonality... or non-traditional tonalities did not replace traditional tonality but merely offered other options. Some of the greatest achievements in contemporary painting make use of abstract and figurative elements just as some of the best music employs various approaches to tonality.

AC/DC and Black Sabbath are garbage by all standards, however.

But that's just my opinion. No snobbism involved.

What I don't like = rubbish

:tiphat:


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## regressivetransphobe

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The Rite is certainly the type of classical music a headbanger who actually thinks Black Sabbath should be taken seriously would like over that Mozart/Haydn/Bach stuff.


I'm a little offput at your implication that Black Sabbath shouldn't be taken seriously. Are you seriously dismissing a complete attitude shift in rock music from stagnant hippie optimism toward the socially conscious? AC/DC have nothing to do with Black Sabbath, by the way.

Oh, but they're _headbangers_. I guess we always need an "other" whose authenticity we can lazily call into question in a socially acceptable way. 

To stay on topic, I'm more on the "nurture" side of the fence. 




Apparently this baby's brain isn't just wired for gentle tonal music! How about that.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> They seem pretty similar to me. Explain the difference?


You're asking about the nature-nurture issue and Polednice's comments. I'm not sure I will properly explain Polednice's comments, but I think I agree that you and Polednice are talking about two separate "nature" related concepts.

I think you are trying to explain _differences_ between individual humans by saying some of the difference is due to differing upbringings (nurture) and some of the difference is due to different genes (nature). I'll ignore the fact that it's hard to draw a very sharp line between the two. I think your point is that some of the difference between person A and person B could be different genes that code for the physical ear and neural connections to auditory centers and some of the difference could be differing environmental development.

I think Polednice is _not_ talking about differences between people but rather features of the human auditory system that are _similar for all_ people. I think he believes that there are auditory features of *all* humans that constrain how people can hear and react to music. As an extreme example, no humans can hear sound frequencies above roughly 20,000 Hz. "Music" played with tones above this frequency would have no effect on all humans. In this sense humans are "hardwired" not to hear these frequencies. No environment (nurture) can change that.

The question is what are the _shared_ features of human auditory systems that relate to music appreciation. If there are hardwired features that make atonal music less accessible than tonal music, than people would have to work harder to appreciate atonal music.

As an example in a different area, counting is very simple for all normal people, but differential topology is extremely hard for everyone. Some humans can learn (and enjoy) differential topology, but they have to work hard at it. Presumably there are brain structures that make counting easy, but there is nothing in the brain that allows people to do differential topology easily. Obviously tonal and atonal music are not as different as counting and differential topology.

I personally do not think we know enough about the brain to understand the constraints on music appreciation as it applies to tonal and atonal music. I suspect there are constraints, but I think it's possible there are environments (nurture) that "overrule" these constraints.


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## Sid James

Krummhorn said:


> *...Members ARE entitled to THEIR opinions and ARE entitled to comment on what they like and don't like when it comes to atonal music...*


*

As I said above, I'm somewhat bemused in the way that we tend to try to convince eachother that we are "right" and others are "wrong" in these kinds of debates. Life is not only "black" and "white," it is many shades of grey. We can share our passions or even talk about things we don't like, but there is no need to try and convince someone else that our "way" is the only correct way (particularly when on an online forum communicating across time zones to people on the other side of the world!). This reminds me how I was talking of my enjoyment of Andre Rieu's music recently to a colleague who firstly replied that he thought the guy was a "******." I didn't balk at this, which is (though I think it's misinformed) a commonly held view. But I told him that I had read Mr Rieu's biography and have been listening to some of his albums, and it has been very enjoyable. I was positive in stating my position, and once the conversation finished, the colleague actually said something like Rieu "is probably good at what he does, but I still don't like him." In saying that, this colleague acknowledged (in a way) what I had said, so we kind of reached "middle ground" on the matter. If I would have attacked or ridiculed this colleague it definitely wouldn't have turned out in this more positive way. So I think we should try & do on TC here exactly what we do in "real life" with our colleagues and friends - reach "middle ground." Truth is, we all love classical music of one type or another. Why argue about trivial details when you are all "batting for the same team?"...*


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## StlukesguildOhio

haydnfan: 
What seriously!? Schoenberg wrote his first atonal composition (a song) in 1908, more than 100 years ago. He formalized 12 tone music composition in the 1920s. Atonality is not new. The musical community have come to terms with it and more. Musical schools/groups have embraced it, evolved it, rejected it, transformed it... atonality is old hat now.

almaviva:
Far removed, maybe. Far removed enough, no. Better proof, this thread.
100 years is not a lot in terms of history.

I see truths to both side of this argument. I agree that "atonality" (like abstraction in painting) was assimilated by artists, transformed, eventually turned into the new academia, rejected... until it is just one more historical possibility. Yet just as abstraction has never been greatly embraced by the larger public (and we're not speaking of the "unwashed masses" here... those who know little or nothing of classical music... we are speaking of the classical music audience/public) atonality does not seem to have ever caught on with the larger classical music public.

This seems to be where much of the debate lies. Why is this music not more popular? Why haven't the innovations of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Boulez, etc... caught on after a few decades as the equally earth-shattering innovations of Beethoven, Wagner, and Debussy all have?

One can bring up arguments about about the lack of support by the record companies, orchestras, and media... but I don't buy this. Just a quick browse through Amazon and I find there are more recordings of Ligeti and Stockhausen and Xenakis than surely existed of Beethoven or Wagner shortly after their deaths.

Then there is the continual suggestion that everyone would love this music if they only opened their ears... listened... if only they weren't so close-minded. Personally, I find this argument insulting. I assume that a great many here, like myself, pride themselves on being open to new music... indeed, take great pleasure in discovering something new.

Perhaps its not that someone isn't listening... isn't open-minded... or just doesn't get it. Perhaps, rather, it is something of an acquired taste. Some people like Haggis. I don't think I'll ever get to that point. I like strong, dark beer and Byzantine chants. Not many people seem to embrace these. Should I suggest that anyone who doesn't like dark beer and Byzantine chants is just close-minded? Should I blame Budweiser and Brahms? Or should I just accept that I have an acquired taste... that I find pleasure in something that sends others running?


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## rojo

Must atonal music have a point? If it must, I would think it would have the same point(s) as tonal music.

In the Western world, most people's ears are inundated with tonal music. If I were to guess, I would say that perhaps 99.9 of the music we are exposed to in our daily lives is tonal. The vast majority of us live in a tonal music based world. But I wonder, what would happen if a person was brought up in a non-tonal music based environment? Where 99.9 of the music they would hear was non-tonal.

Perhaps there have been studies of some sort done on this topic. Anyone know of any sources of info?

Another question: Is there such a thing as non-tonal music written specifically for children? I'm thinking of something like songs with lyrics that children could sing along with. Not things like Bartok's _Mikrokosmos,_ which probably isn't a good example, as that's at least somewhat tonal, I guess.


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## mmsbls

regressivetransphobe said:


> I'm a little offput at your implication that Black Sabbath shouldn't be taken seriously. Are you seriously dismissing a complete attitude shift in rock music from stagnant hippie optimism toward the socially conscious? AC/DC have nothing to do with Black Sabbath, by the way.
> 
> Oh, but they're _headbangers_. I guess we always need an "other" whose authenticity we can lazily call into question in a socially acceptable way.


StlukesguildOhio said, "AC/DC and Black Sabbath are garbage by all standards, however. But that's just my opinion." I don't like Black Sabbath either (at least when I listened to them many years ago).

I also don't like olives. In fact, olives make me want to throw up. BUT... that does not mean I don't think anyone should eat olives or that they should not be taken seriously as a nutritious food source. I am not calling olives authenticity into question. I just don't like them.

StlukesguildOhio and I don't like Black Sabbath. Maybe StlukesguildOhio thinks their music is unimaginably awful (kind of like what I think of olives). That does not mean that others can't enjoy them and discuss their importance to popular music.

When I first came to TC, I could not understand how people could enjoy much modern music (atonal, avant-garde, etc.). Since then, I have discussed many aspects of atonal and avant-garde music and listened to vastly more music than I ever imagined I would (the main reason I joined was to "learn", if possible, how to enjoy modern/atonal music). I still do not enjoy most of this music, but my musical sensibilities have definitely changed. I actually enjoyed much of Lutoslawski's Piano Concerto and LOVED his Paganini Variations. I found a Ligeti Etude fascinating and actually wanted to listen to it repeatedly. Incredible!

I love participating in TC threads and have learned enormously from the various posts. For me the single most influential TC post I have read was a reply by _some guy_ to one of my early posts on how to approach modern music. (@some guy: Thank you greatly for that response).

My main point in all this is that although I generally do not appreciate atonal music (yet ), I greatly appreciate reading posts from those who do enjoy it. I hope they will continue to discuss atonal (and other modern) music, point specifically to works of interest, and generally help enlighten those like me.


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## violadude

One can bring up arguments about about the lack of support by the record companies said:


> huh? They didn't have recordings shortly after Beethoven and Wagner's deaths.....


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I love participating in TC threads and have learned enormously from the various posts. For me the single most influential TC post I have read was a reply by _some guy_ to one of my early posts on how to approach modern music. (@some guy: Thank you greatly for that response).


You are very welcome! Glad to have helped!!


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> AC/DC and Black Sabbath are garbage by all standards, however.
> 
> But that's just my opinion. No snobbism involved.
> 
> What I don't like = rubbish
> 
> :tiphat:


Firstly, I didn't imagine you were enough of a sad act to go rooting through all my posts to prove some petty quibble you have with me.

Secondly, I seem to remember you openly mocking my views on aesthetics and that there is no such thing as good or bad music, that it was all entirely subjective etc. This means you do think that Black Sabbath are genuinely garbage, whereas as when I say something is rubbish it means I don't like it. Like I said, your belief in objectively better art leads naturally to snobbery, and at the core mine is totally incompatible with snobbery. Anytime I write posts that appear snobby is because I can't be ***** getting into this discussion about good/bad music for the hundredth time.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to waste my time looking for your posts in those threads to prove any of this because a) I'm not enough of a sad act and b) I don't want Krummhorn to close this thread.

This discussion has turned to the reasons _why_ most people prefer tonal music over atonal. Have you got any suggestions?



samurai said:


> Argus and Polednice: Guys, why does it have to be one or the other? Can't it conceivably be some combination of the two? Do they have to be mutually exclusive, as in some kind of zero sum game? Just some musing and wondering from a basically musically ignorant person.


I don't know what you're saying here. That a preference for tonality is innate in some people and learned in others or that both factors have effects on the same person?



mmsbls said:


> I think Polednice is not talking about differences between people but rather features of the human auditory system that are similar for all people. I think he believes that there are auditory features of all humans that constrain how people can hear and react to music. As an extreme example, no humans can hear sound frequencies above roughly 20,000 Hz. "Music" played with tones above this frequency would have no effect on all humans. In this sense humans are "hardwired" not to hear these frequencies. No environment (nurture) can change that.


Yeah, I was talking about _all_ people too.

The two arguments are that tonality is either a way of organising pitvhed tones that the brain naturally adheres to without outside influence or that a sense of tonality is developed in a person through years of experience listening to tonal music.

I don't see how Polednice's idea is outside of the regular 'nature' camps school of thought. I said the modern tonality that has evolved is so removed from the mathematical principles and acoustical phenomena (the overtone series, simple number ratios etc)underlying that it might be more a case of people who prefer tonality being socially conditioned through exposure to it.

Like you said, this is all guesswork as no one here knows enough about how the brain processes sounds.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This music is good = I like this music
> 
> This music is bad = I don't like this music
> 
> That's kind of at odds with any kind of snobbery, surely.
> 
> You, StLukes, know that I know anything discouraging I say about Haydn, Mozart and opera is purely my opinion. You, on the other hand hold, aesthetic/artistic views in which snobbery is inherent.
> 
> OK... let me get this straight. When you make statements such as:
> 
> "Mozart's rubbish..."
> 
> "Haydn is top class background music when you are concentrating on something other than the music. It never becomes intriguing enough to divert your attention from the task at hand..."
> 
> "AC/DC are much better than Mozart, Wagner and Debussy. Those guys are too inconsistent with loads of spotty music with the occasional poo-stained gem. AC/DC were consistently awesome for nearly 20 years, even with the death of Bon Scott in there."
> 
> "... people who aren't fans of Black Sabbath, aren't fans of music."
> 
> "Bieber > Biber"
> 
> "I do think what you look for in classical music doesn't make sense and is illogical, and I do think John Coltrane and Black Sabbath are better than Bach, along with Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Funkadelic, CCR, Sleep, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk and Muddy Waters among others. I just thought listing two prominent examples was quicker. The list could be extended to the thousands if I was comparing to Mozart."
> 
> "(Wagner) mainly composed opera, and as everyone knows opera is rubbish."
> 
> The clarinet quintet, the clarinet concerto, the piano concertos, the Great Mass in C-minor, the quintet for piano and winds, the Gran Partita, the Requiem, the late symphonies... especially nos. 40 and the stupendous 41...
> 
> All of those are rubbish...


:lol: Yes, a big chunk of western classical music is rubbish, yet they still like to hang around a classical music discussion forum.


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## Polednice

samurai said:


> @ Argus and Polednice: Guys, why does it have to be one or the other? Can't it conceivably be some combination of the two? Do they have to be mutually exclusive, as in some kind of zero sum game? Just some musing and wondering from a basically musically ignorant person.


I have actually said _multiple times_ that I think it's a combination of both, but no one likes to listen to me in this thread!


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Perhaps its not that someone isn't listening... isn't open-minded... or just doesn't get it. Perhaps, rather, it is something of an acquired taste. Some people like Haggis. I don't think I'll ever get to that point.


Making the point that it's an acquired taste, though, puts the responsibility on the listener, where it belongs.

If the epicure doesn't think it's worth it to eat haggis, he'll avoid it and never acquire the taste for it. That's his prerogative, but it doesn't tell us anything about haggis.

The same is true in the music world. If someone doesn't like composer X, that's up to them. But it's different if the non-fan starts making sweeping statements about composer X's lack of musical worth, despite his lack of familiarity with the music.

-Vaz


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## Guest

Something just occurred to me this morning about this whole business of hard-wiring.

If there are things about listening to music that are hard-wired, preferences for tonality or for consonance, say, then a couple of things that _have_ happened would _not_ have happened.

One of these is the changing notions over time about what constitutes a dissonance. If humans are hard-wired to respond in a certain way to music, then there would never have been a time when thirds and fourths, say, would have been considered dissonances. But there was. Only octaves and perfect fifths were considered consonances in the middle ages.

The other thing is something reported by Berlioz about a rural response to a visiting metropolitan choir. The choir sang four part harmony, but the locals, used as they were to singing being done in unison, only, complained that the choir didn't sing in tune. This is in the 19th century, too, note. If responses to various intervals were really a matter of how the brain works, any brain in any human, then this event would never have happened. No one would ever have taken the presence of an interval (or a chord) as equivalent to being out of tune.

I don't think it goes any farther than this, humans seem to be generally able to respond to vibrations. That is, music, in some form or other, is one of those things that humans appear to have always enjoyed. That any particular set of likes and dislikes can be so hotly contested is perhaps unfortunate, but no more strange than the fierce antagonisms of religion or sports or nationalism. Now _there's_ some hardwiring with bells on! Humans, we can say with some confidence, are naturally partisan. And only an Irish Catholic fan of the Celtics would argue with that.*

*Joke.


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## norman bates

rojo said:


> *Another question: Is there such a thing as non-tonal music written specifically for children? *I'm thinking of something like songs with lyrics that children could sing along with. Not things like Bartok's _Mikrokosmos,_ which probably isn't a good example, as that's at least somewhat tonal, I guess.


Now this is a very good question.


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## Guest

norman bates said:


> Now this is a very good question.


I have a question, too, is there any type of whiskey brewed specifically for children?


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## Bluebeard

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Then there is the continual suggestion that everyone would love this music if they only opened their ears... listened... if only they weren't so close-minded. Personally, I find this argument insulting. I assume that a great many here, like myself, pride themselves on being open to new music... indeed, take great pleasure in discovering something new.


Your attitude in this thread, and in general throughout this and other forums, Stlukes, is something I've found to be very common but somewhat problematic in all discourse on the arts. It cannot be said, so it goes, that artistic merit is a purely subjective measure - it really _is_ absurd to value Isaac Asimov and Dante Alighieri as ultimately equal in artistic worth, in the same way that it really _is_ absurd to value AC/DC on the level of Bach. This is pretty much certain to anybody who has had a truly profound and appreciative experience with Dante or Bach.

However, people interject, it is just as absurd to argue that the arts can be measured with pure objectivity. You find it insulting that anyone would call you closed-minded, even though you accept that others legitimately appreciate things that you do not (and vice versa). Subjectivity, then, is absolutely a part of the artistic experience. This perspective, too, seems to be entirely certain and correct.

From what I've read in this thread, it seems that everyone is debating about the worth of a certain type of music while tacitly accepting this contradiction that art is both subjective and objective at the same time. And, as we can see, this way of going about a debate can only hope to attain to the level of insults and, finally, mutual indifference between all of the parties involved.

The problem is that we are approaching an issue of aesthetics without any philosophical rigor whatsoever. To say that art is objectively measurable in the same breath that we say it is ultimately subjective _is_ a contradiction. But I also believe, and I think most of us would agree, that it is true. I think it would help to organize the arguments in this discussion, therefore, if we had some sort of philosophical basis for holding this contradiction to be the case.

My perspective on the issue is this: Though every experience that a subject engages within in art is necessarily subjective, the degree of intensity and productivity of that experience _for_ the subject is something that can be objectively measured. So, for example, we can say that it is perfectly legitimate for a person to enjoy AC/DC and not enjoy Bach, but that _given an appreciation_ for Bach, this person would have more intense and continually productive experiences with the latter than the former.

To apply this philosophy to the present discussion, I think that it's perfectly legitimate for you to say that you don't enjoy atonal music. And I'm not about to say that you have a closed-minded personality. But people like me and some guy, who also partake extensively in the experiences that other eras have to offer, find that atonal contemporary music is just as or more powerful than other music. Furthermore, I do believe that it is possible for anybody to achieve this level of appreciation of the music, in the same way that I think it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation of Bach. I even believe that it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation and acceptance of suffering and pain - or, really, _anything_ that can be found in life. I don't think that you need to by any means, in the same way that you don't think I need to appreciate dark beer. But, from a philosophical standpoint, we are both endlessly closed-minded due to our condition as finite beings.


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## StlukesguildOhio

StlukesguildOhio- Perhaps its not that someone isn't listening... isn't open-minded... or just doesn't get it. Perhaps, rather, it is something of an acquired taste. Some people like Haggis. I don't think I'll ever get to that point.

Vazgen- Making the point that it's an acquired taste, though, puts the responsibility on the listener, where it belongs.

Does it? I'm not sure I accept the notion that the responsibility lies solely with the audience. I cannot complain, if I open a restaurant serving only variations upon haggis that my business remains slim in comparison with both McDonald's and that Italian Restaurant down the block. Are you really suggesting that James Joyce bears none of the responsibility for the lack of popularity of _Finnegan's Wake_? Surely, he must have known that his audience would not rival Dickens. Could Webern have seriously imagined that mailmen on their rounds would one day whistle his atonal non-melodies?

It seems to me that art is a two-way dialog... a two-way relationship. If as an artist, I take the position that the wants or needs of the audience are irrelevant, I shouldn't be shocked that ultimately they find that I am irrelevant.

Obviously, If I create music with the intention of reaching the audience that likes AC/DC, I shouldn't be surprised if the audience who prefers Mozart or Celine Dion doesn't love my work.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Your attitude in this thread, and in general throughout this and other forums, Stlukes, is something I've found to be very common but somewhat problematic in all discourse on the arts. It cannot be said, so it goes, that artistic merit is a purely subjective measure - it really is absurd to value Isaac Asimov and Dante Alighieri as ultimately equal in artistic worth, in the same way that it really is absurd to value AC/DC on the level of Bach. This is pretty much certain to anybody who has had a truly profound and appreciative experience with Dante or Bach.

However, people interject, it is just as absurd to argue that the arts can be measured with pure objectivity. You find it insulting that anyone would call you closed-minded, even though you accept that others legitimately appreciate things that you do not (and vice versa). Subjectivity, then, is absolutely a part of the artistic experience. This perspective, too, seems to be entirely certain and correct.

The arguments against objectivity in the arts are based upon several things. First, we have no clear objective criteria upon which to make such judgments. Comparing Bach and Wagner involves comparing art with different goals, standards, measures, etc... How then to compare Bach and Ligeti, or Bach and Miles Davis, or Bach and AC/DC?

Secondly, we are confronted with the reality that even those who are "experts" in the field, can be found to disagree. One might place Bach as the greatest composer ever, another Mozart, and yet another Wagner.

Thirdly, we have the fact that to suggest an objective hierarchy is to be insulting (if not actually racist and sexist) to those who disagree. If I think AC/DC is garbage and Bach is the greatest composer ever, then the individual who loves AC/DC feels that I have insulted his or her taste.

In all honesty, I feel that which we like and that which is "great" are not necessarily one and the same. I, personally love listening to the Louvin Brothers, Johnny Cash, Elmore James, and the Rolling Stones cranked up loud. I'd probably rather listen to them than a good many classical composers... but I recognize that such may be but my personal taste... that Johnny Cash probably isn't equal to Biber or Telemann.

The closest we get to an objective measure of art, from all I can tell (and this may in no way affect our own opinions or taste) is in the form of a sort of collective opinion. Mozart is acknowledged as a brilliant composer by an array of those who have invested the greatest effort in the appreciation of music (musicologists, musicians, music teachers, music writers and historians, subsequent generations of composers, and ultimately subsequent generations of educated music lovers).

Clearly, none of us is bound to base his or her own opinions... likes or dislikes... upon such a consensus. Nor is such even possible when considering Modern and Contemporary music. Thus we are repeatedly confronted with the notion of cultural relativity: the notion that opinions in art are purely subjective and that there is no good nor bad only personal opinion.

The problem with this argument is that even it's champions don't really believe it. Argus might argue that the notion that Mozart and Bach are greater that AC/DC and Black/Sabbath is snobbism based solely upon personal opinions... that there is no clear good nor bad... but one would guess that he recognizes certain heavy metal bands to be clearly better than others or certain works better than others. As a painter, speaking for myself, I have no problem in recognizing that certain of my works are far worse than others. The notion of absolute subjectivity... that me banging on a tin can is no better or worse than Bach's _Mass in B-Minor_... thus seems no more defensible than the notion of absolute objectivity.

So where does that leave us? Perhaps all opinions in art are indeed subjective... but some opinions are better than others.:lol:


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'm not sure I accept the notion that the responsibility lies solely with the audience. I cannot complain, if I open a restaurant serving only variations upon haggis that my business remains slim in comparison with both McDonald's and that Italian Restaurant down the block. Are you really suggesting that James Joyce bears none of the responsibility for the lack of popularity of _Finnegan's Wake_? Surely, he must have known that his audience would not rival Dickens. Could Webern have seriously imagined that mailmen on their rounds would one day whistle his atonal non-melodies?


Well, you yourself made the distinction in a previous post between the popular masses and the classical-music listening audience. I certainly think this valid point bears repeating:

_we're not speaking of the "unwashed masses" here... those who know little or nothing of classical music... we are speaking of the classical music audience/public_

Yet in your analogies in the post I quoted above, you seem to be contradicting your earlier statement. You can't conceivably think Joyce was writing for the same popular audience as Dickens. Webern wasn't writing for the hit parade. These artists have in mind a more intellectual audience. As "elitist" as this may sound, it's true.

The thing I think is odd is the notion that listeners who already realize they have to put effort into appreciating classical music resent atonal music on the basis that it requires effort.

-Vaz


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## Guest

Vazgen said:


> The thing I think is odd is the notion that listeners who already realize they have to put effort into appreciating classical music resent atonal music on the basis that it requires effort.


Probably just all tired out from the effort of appreciating Beethoven and then the further effort of appreciating Mahler. Maybe all the aunties need is a nice long rest.


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> I have a question, too, is there any type of whiskey brewed specifically for children?


why it must be whiskey, if you are the first to talk against the prejudices about the atonal music. The children have not cultural prejudices and they understand music only with their ears, so where's the problem?


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## rojo

norman bates said:


> Now this is a very good question.


Thanks. I thought so too. 



some guy said:


> I have a question, too, is there any type of whiskey brewed specifically for children?


Some, are you being facetious? Am I to conclude from this comment that non-tonal music is something that only adults can appreciate? Or that it can only be grasped once tonal music has been understood? Please explain, or at least elaborate, because I'm not following.

The first time I heard a non-tonal piece of music was in college. I can't recall learning a single non-tonal work in all my pre-college years of piano studies. I would like to use non-tonal music in my teaching repertoire. I have taught music by 20th century composers, but I would need to do some sorting and theoretical analysis to see which of those, if any, are non-tonal. I'll be looking into that this summer.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Bluebeard said:


> Your attitude in this thread, and in general throughout this and other forums, Stlukes, is something I've found to be very common but somewhat problematic in all discourse on the arts. It cannot be said, so it goes, that artistic merit is a purely subjective measure - it really _is_ absurd to value Isaac Asimov and Dante Alighieri as ultimately equal in artistic worth, in the same way that it really _is_ absurd to value AC/DC on the level of Bach. This is pretty much certain to anybody who has had a truly profound and appreciative experience with Dante or Bach.
> 
> However, people interject, it is just as absurd to argue that the arts can be measured with pure objectivity. You find it insulting that anyone would call you closed-minded, even though you accept that others legitimately appreciate things that you do not (and vice versa). Subjectivity, then, is absolutely a part of the artistic experience. This perspective, too, seems to be entirely certain and correct.
> 
> From what I've read in this thread, it seems that everyone is debating about the worth of a certain type of music while tacitly accepting this contradiction that art is both subjective and objective at the same time. And, as we can see, this way of going about a debate can only hope to attain to the level of insults and, finally, mutual indifference between all of the parties involved.
> 
> The problem is that we are approaching an issue of aesthetics without any philosophical rigor whatsoever. To say that art is objectively measurable in the same breath that we say it is ultimately subjective _is_ a contradiction. But I also believe, and I think most of us would agree, that it is true. I think it would help to organize the arguments in this discussion, therefore, if we had some sort of philosophical basis for holding this contradiction to be the case.
> 
> My perspective on the issue is this: Though every experience that a subject engages within in art is necessarily subjective, the degree of intensity and productivity of that experience _for_ the subject is something that can be objectively measured. So, for example, we can say that it is perfectly legitimate for a person to enjoy AC/DC and not enjoy Bach, but that _given an appreciation_ for Bach, this person would have more intense and continually productive experiences with the latter than the former.
> 
> To apply this philosophy to the present discussion, I think that it's perfectly legitimate for you to say that you don't enjoy atonal music. And I'm not about to say that you have a closed-minded personality. But people like me and some guy, who also partake extensively in the experiences that other eras have to offer, find that atonal contemporary music is just as or more powerful than other music. Furthermore, I do believe that it is possible for anybody to achieve this level of appreciation of the music, in the same way that I think it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation of Bach. I even believe that it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation and acceptance of suffering and pain - or, really, _anything_ that can be found in life. I don't think that you need to by any means, in the same way that you don't think I need to appreciate dark beer. But, from a philosophical standpoint, we are both endlessly closed-minded due to our condition as finite beings.


Welcome to TC, member Bluebeard; your first post above. (I must admit your writing style and overall tone bears striking resemblance to fellow member _some guy_).


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## HarpsichordConcerto

StlukesguildOhio said:


> So where does that leave us? Perhaps all opinions in art are indeed subjective... but some opinions are better than others.:lol:


:lol: :lol: I like that! Somehow, that reminded me of George Orwell's _Animal Farm_, _"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others"_.


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## mmsbls

It seems as though we all agree that neural hard-wiring has something to do with music appreciation and that environment (musical exposure) can certainly modify the expression of this music appreciation in individuals (and collectively society). As far as I can tell, our main difference in belief involves the degree of this environmental effect.

I'm certainly willing to believe that music exposure can have a significant effect on the enjoyment of atonal/dissonant/avant-garde/contemporary (let me call this "new") music. If I didn't believe this, I would not be trying to "learn" to like "new" music. Perhaps the "correct" exposure (whatever that might exactly be) could allow the vast majority of people to appreciate "new" music.



Vazgen said:


> Webern wasn't writing for the hit parade. These artists have in mind a more intellectual audience. As "elitist" as this may sound, it's true.
> 
> The thing I think is odd is the notion that listeners who already realize they have to put effort into appreciating classical music resent atonal music on the basis that it requires effort.
> -Vaz


Modern composers are clearly writing for a more intellectual audience. I think people here accept that modern music is more complex and for _most_ people more difficult to appreciate (enjoy). I certainly don't resent atonal music because it appears to be harder to enjoy (or any other reason), and I don't think I've seen much evidence of people here who do. I admit that you and others who advocate strongly for modern music may be more sensitive, and perhaps more perceptive, to such a resentment.

I worry that there is a disconnect between modern composer and general CM audience and the disconnect could grow larger (i.e. if music continues to get more difficult, perhaps fewer and fewer people will take the time or be able to enjoy it). I assume you do not worry about that. I hope you are correct.


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## Guest

Hey rojo. I was responding to the general anti-modernist tendency in norman bates' posts. That is, I took his possibly innocent remark as being somewhat less than innocent. His response to my whiskey remark confirmed my suspicion.

Your question was a practical one. You're a teacher, and you want to know where materials may be found that you can use. I know that there have been pieces written for children that do not use common practice tonality, but how to find those, I don't know. Since I'm not looking for teaching materials, I just notice things and then go on. (I remember only the things that will be useful for what I do--and precious little of that, I might add!)

I have a DVD about the Cybersongosse, a teaching tool of the former electroacoustic studio at Bourges, but that's not about notated music, which is what I'm guessing you would like to have. Barney Childs wrote some band pieces that I've heard performed by elementary and high school students. You can maybe get those from the library at the University of Redlands. But I'm also guessing you want piano music. I dunno. There's got to be something!

I don't know about that whole "elaborating" thing you wanted. I took norman's remark to be a concealed claim that since children's listening is somehow pure (and I don't think it is at all), if there is no nontonal music for children, that's an admission that it's inferior somehow, not natural, not engaging, not readily understandable. Of course, quite a lot of tonal music is likely to be difficult for children to understand. So what?

But that's a beef I have with norman (or, more accurately, with what I understand norman's position to be), not with you!


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## rojo

Mkay some, I get you now. I should have realized. 

I've already started compiling a list of non-tonal piano music for teaching. I'll be posting it shortly in another thread.

And thanks for that.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Well, you yourself made the distinction in a previous post between the popular masses and the classical-music listening audience. I certainly think this valid point bears repeating:

_we're not speaking of the "unwashed masses" here... those who know little or nothing of classical music... we are speaking of the classical music audience/public_

Yet in your analogies in the post I quoted above, you seem to be contradicting your earlier statement. You can't conceivably think Joyce was writing for the same popular audience as Dickens. Webern wasn't writing for the hit parade. These artists have in mind a more intellectual audience. As "elitist" as this may sound, it's true.

But is Dickens really just for a mass popular audience? It seems that most literary critics take him quite seriously. Joyce, however, leaves many who have willingly struggled with Milton, Shakespeare, and Dante baffled. There's no half-way point where the writer offers a degree of pleasure that seems equal to the effort involved.


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## Bluebeard

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Welcome to TC, member Bluebeard; your first post above. (I must admit your writing style and overall tone bears striking resemblance to fellow member _some guy_).


Thanks for the warm welcome of suspicion, but from what I've observed there are many differences between me and some guy. Namely, I don't listen to very much atonal music at the present at all, though I do appreciate it very much.

It is good to see that there is a high level of discourse here: I post a relatively long and hopefully clear argument about a specific point of aesthetics, and you respond with suspicion as to my being a real individual. Good stuff.


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> Hey rojo. I was responding to the general anti-modernist tendency in norman bates' posts. That is, I took his possibly innocent remark as being somewhat less than innocent. His response to my whiskey remark confirmed my suspicion.


Anti-modernist? You have not understood my tastes at all, because in fact i'm definetely more on the modernist side, though i'm critic of a lot of modern music.



some guy said:


> I don't know about that whole "elaborating" thing you wanted. I took norman's remark to be a concealed claim that since children's listening is somehow pure (and I don't think it is at all), if there is no nontonal music for children, that's an admission that it's inferior somehow, not natural, not engaging, not readily understandable. Of course, quite a lot of tonal music is likely to be difficult for children to understand. So what?
> 
> But that's a beef I have with norman (or, more accurately, with what I understand norman's position to be), not with you!


My comment was innocent, in the sense that i know that my opinions are not facts and what i believe obviously could not be the truth. So i'm genuinely curious to know if there are composers that have made some atonal music for children.
But i'm a bit surprised from your comparison with wiskey, after all it seems that you are the first to believe that atonal music is something appreciable only by experienced listeners.


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> But is Dickens really just for a mass popular audience?


The point wasn't about Dickens, it was about defining the audience for classical music. I was pointing out that you initially made a perfectly valid distinction between the mass of consumers on the one hand, and the small subset of classical music aficionados on the other. Then that distinction suddenly disappeared, and you mocked Webern for his lack of mass appeal.

No one said the music of Webern and Boulez would ever enjoy widespread popularity among pop music fans who expect instant gratification with no effort. But among people who already acknowledge that effort is necessary to appreciate composed music, that it's an acquired taste, it's odd to hear people dismiss atonal and contemporary music as not being worth the effort. I don't know how much more plainly I can say it: if a listener doesn't feel up to putting in the modicum of effort necessary to appreciate Schoenberg or Webern, that's not the music's fault.

-Vaz


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## norman bates

Vazgen said:


> if a listener doesn't feel up to putting in the modicum of effort necessary to appreciate Schoenberg or Webern, that's not the music's fault.
> 
> -Vaz


what does it means "effort"? To me Scelsi or Skalkottas are a lot more easier to listen than Mozart. I think that Barbara Pentland (a canadian atonal composer inspired by Webern) is a lot easier than Webern. The difference is that i like her music more than the music of Webern (at this moment at least). This idea that if you don't like a composer is because you don't put an effort to understand a lot of times sounds like an excuse.


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The problem with this argument is that even it's champions don't really believe it. Argus might argue that the notion that Mozart and Bach are greater that AC/DC and Black/Sabbath is snobbism based solely upon personal opinions... that there is no clear good nor bad... but one would guess that he recognizes certain heavy metal bands to be clearly better than others or certain works better than others.


Why can't you grasp such a simple point? There are no better bands or better artists. If someone prefers a local punk rock band over the Ramones or Fugazi then that local punk band are better _to them_. The _to them_ part is the key. All appreciation of art has to be related _to someone_. There is no outside body that governs tste or greatness or anything like that other than oneself and one's opinions. To think other than this is to accept a false construct in your mind of something that doesn't exist, for any number of reasons. Maybe, these people crave order and heirarchy or they need justification for their taste. I don't.

I assume this to be not only the case when I make artistic judgements but when other people do as well. That's why I value everyone's opinion on art equally, and that's why I don't care about other people's negative opinions on music I like. _It is, and can only be their opinion._


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## Argus

norman bates said:


> This idea that if you don't like a composer is because you don't put an effort to understand a lot of times sounds like an excuse.


It sounds like ingrained elitism to me, but I think this issue was talked about in another thread recently. The idea of forcing one's tastes and which artists deserved this extra effort to appreciate was not really fully answered. I just was told to listen to _everything_ seven times before I could decide whether I liked it or not.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Why can't you grasp such a simple point? There are no better bands or better artists. If someone prefers a local punk rock band over the Ramones or Fugazi then that local punk band are better _to them_. The _to them_ part is the key. All appreciation of art has to be related _to someone_. There is no outside body that governs tste or greatness or anything like that other than oneself and one's opinions. To think other than this is to accept a false construct in your mind of something that doesn't exist, for any number of reasons. Maybe, these people crave order and heirarchy or they need justification for their taste. I don't.
> [/I]


I have two comments about this view. Taken literally it suggests that Shakespeare's Macbeth is not better than the average attempt at a short story written by student in high school or that Mozart's 41st symphony is not better than his first symphony. You may believe this, but I think a very small percentage of people (with interests in CM or literature) would agree.

More importantly, having "experts" work to assess art and make lists, decide on a canon for study, and generally call attention to the "great" works of art immensely benefits those interested in art. Most of us have limited time. Once we have experienced the wonder of Mozart's 41st symphony, we would prefer not to listen to 1000's of symphony's to find those _relatively few_ that make us feel that way.

There is simply much too much art to wade through. We would prefer not to randomly select what we spend time on. Luckily, the majority seem to have similar enough tastes that this process works very well. Most CM listeners really do prefer Mozart to Salieri or Brahms symphony 4 to Borodin's first symphony. If I had started my serious CM listening by randomly selecting pieces on youtube, I'm pretty certain I would have given up and pursued other interests. I'm so thankful I was able to make use of others' collective preferences.

You could say this argument does not show that some art is objectively better than other art. Fine. I would argue that there appears to be enough similarity in subjective taste such that _most_ of us benefit greatly from collective attempts to select "better" music.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> More importantly, having "experts" work to assess art and make lists, decide on a canon for study, and generally call attention to the "great" works of art immensely benefits those interested in art. Most of us have limited time. Once we have experienced the wonder of Mozart's 41st symphony, we would prefer not to listen to 1000's of symphony's to find those _relatively few_ that make us feel that way.


Only Mozart's 41st symphony makes us feel the way it makes us feel. Even Mozart's 40th does not do that. It does the Mozart's 40th stuff to us. I would prefer, like Argus, to listen to 1,000s of symphonies. Not to find one that makes me feel like Mozart's 41st does, but to experience what each one of those has to offer. None of us has unlimited time, that's why I would prefer to use mine wisely, exploring the world for myself, actively engaged for myself, not relying on others' experiences. Of course, exploring the world can _include_ paying attention to others' experiences, but there's no panel of experts assessing art and making lists and deciding on a canon; that kind of activity just sort of happens.

Besides, which expert(s) are you going to trust? The experts don't agree quite as uniformly as you present.* Are you going to trust the experts who think serialism is the only way? Or maybe the ones who think only experimental (as in indeterminacy and concept music and the like, not just noisy or quirky) is the valid path? Or maybe the experts who see the neo-tonalists as the best game in town? You've still got to make choices, only now it's not choices about art but choices about art _critics._ I sure wouldn't want to waste my time deciding which experts to trust!!



mmsbls said:


> There is simply much too much art to wade through.


Yeah. Engaging with art is such a wearisome chore. Such a bore.



mmsbls said:


> We would prefer not to randomly select what we spend time on.


Wait a tick! You've suddenly become a plural? Who's this "we" you've suddenly turned into? This "I" would certainly prefer to do his own selecting, I know that.



mmsbls said:


> Luckily, the majority seem to have similar enough tastes that this process works very well.


How could you possibly know this? That is, short of listening to everything yourself to check every choice of the process. (A blind, or should I say deaf, process. I'd rather have those mythical experts than a process! At least I can picture experts.) And listening to everything is something you wanted to avoid.



mmsbls said:


> If I had started my serious CM listening by randomly selecting pieces on youtube, I'm pretty certain I would have given up and pursued other interests. I'm so thankful I was able to make use of others' collective preferences.


OK. It works this way for you. But you're not the only one in the room. I started my serious CM listening by listening to everything I could find, doing all my own winnowing. I'm pretty sure that if I had paid attention to others' collective preferences (whew! at least we're back to humans again--that whole process thing was creepin' me out.), I would have given up and pursued other interests.



mmsbls said:


> I would argue that there appears to be enough similarity in subjective taste such that _most_ of us benefit greatly from collective attempts to select "better" music.


I would argue that key words in this statement are "appears to be."

*Only the passage of time evens things out, making things look more uniform now than they ever were in the past. So this uniformity will only work for things that are fairly old. If all you want to listen to are things that are fairly old, then this method is for you. But what if you don't? Consensus takes time, and I don't have time to wait for it. I want to listen to music now, to music written now.


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## Polednice

Bluebeard said:


> Your attitude in this thread, and in general throughout this and other forums, Stlukes, is something I've found to be very common but somewhat problematic in all discourse on the arts. It cannot be said, so it goes, that artistic merit is a purely subjective measure - it really _is_ absurd to value Isaac Asimov and Dante Alighieri as ultimately equal in artistic worth, in the same way that it really _is_ absurd to value AC/DC on the level of Bach. This is pretty much certain to anybody who has had a truly profound and appreciative experience with Dante or Bach.
> 
> However, people interject, it is just as absurd to argue that the arts can be measured with pure objectivity. You find it insulting that anyone would call you closed-minded, even though you accept that others legitimately appreciate things that you do not (and vice versa). Subjectivity, then, is absolutely a part of the artistic experience. This perspective, too, seems to be entirely certain and correct.
> 
> From what I've read in this thread, it seems that everyone is debating about the worth of a certain type of music while tacitly accepting this contradiction that art is both subjective and objective at the same time. And, as we can see, this way of going about a debate can only hope to attain to the level of insults and, finally, mutual indifference between all of the parties involved.
> 
> The problem is that we are approaching an issue of aesthetics without any philosophical rigor whatsoever. To say that art is objectively measurable in the same breath that we say it is ultimately subjective _is_ a contradiction. But I also believe, and I think most of us would agree, that it is true. I think it would help to organize the arguments in this discussion, therefore, if we had some sort of philosophical basis for holding this contradiction to be the case.
> 
> My perspective on the issue is this: Though every experience that a subject engages within in art is necessarily subjective, the degree of intensity and productivity of that experience _for_ the subject is something that can be objectively measured. So, for example, we can say that it is perfectly legitimate for a person to enjoy AC/DC and not enjoy Bach, but that _given an appreciation_ for Bach, this person would have more intense and continually productive experiences with the latter than the former.
> 
> To apply this philosophy to the present discussion, I think that it's perfectly legitimate for you to say that you don't enjoy atonal music. And I'm not about to say that you have a closed-minded personality. But people like me and some guy, who also partake extensively in the experiences that other eras have to offer, find that atonal contemporary music is just as or more powerful than other music. Furthermore, I do believe that it is possible for anybody to achieve this level of appreciation of the music, in the same way that I think it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation of Bach. I even believe that it is possible for anybody to come to an appreciation and acceptance of suffering and pain - or, really, _anything_ that can be found in life. I don't think that you need to by any means, in the same way that you don't think I need to appreciate dark beer. But, from a philosophical standpoint, we are both endlessly closed-minded due to our condition as finite beings.


I was rather enjoying that until the jargony hyperbole at the end.  Although I commend you for the idea that we can accept and appreciate suffering and pain - it's very big-r Romantic of you!


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## mmsbls

I guess one huge problem with discussion boards is that interesting topics lead to somewhat complex ideas. Properly defining everything one says is difficult and too time consuming so people generally don't bother. That often leads to people feeling others have not understood them (just look at many of the posts on this topic). I guess there's no getting around this.

@some guy:

Rather than reply to all your comments, I'll just discuss the first two and try to show that perhaps you were interpreting my ideas a bit too strictly. After that I'll generally agree with you.



some guy said:


> Only Mozart's 41st symphony makes us feel the way it makes us feel. Even Mozart's 40th does not do that. It does the Mozart's 40th stuff to us. I would prefer, like Argus, to listen to 1,000s of symphonies. Not to find one that makes me feel like Mozart's 41st does, but to experience what each one of those has to offer.


Actually Mozart's 41st symphony and Mozart's 40th make me feel the same - joy in beautiful music. They do not make me feel _exactly_ the same, but that doesn't bother me since that's not why I listen to music. I want to hear beautiful music. Many works make me feel that way. The majority do not. I was referring to a _much_ broader feeling. Actually if anyone did want to feel exactly the same, they'd be out of luck since even listening to the 41st again would, of course, not produce the exact same feeling.

You stated, "Yeah. Engaging with art is such a wearisome chore. Such a bore." as a response to my comment that, "There is simply much too much art to wade through."

I estimate that there is roughly 3,750,000 minutes of music on the Naxos Classical Library website. If you listened (without repeating tracks) for 8 hours a day, that would take roughly 21 years. There is clearly much more music available in the world (modestly more classical and much, much more in other genres). I would guess that 50 years of listening 8 hours a day would not exhaust the available music. And that's just music. Add in other art and that number increases significantly. I will state again - There's simply much to much art to wade through (whether you enjoy it or not).

Also engaging with art can be such a bore even to those of us who clearly love at least some art (why else would we be on TC?). Here's an extreme example. There are roughly 8,000,000 second and third graders in the US who probably draw roughly 10 pictures a year. At 10 seconds a pictures that would take 75 years of 8 hour days. I'm willing to suggest that most people would consider that a bore far before exhausting that particular art.

Having said the above, I _do_ understand your general point and in fact agree to a considerable extent. I personally think having "expert" or other input to select music is valuable, but at some point even I would tell people to explore. In fact, I spent quite awhile almost randomly selecting works from Naxos to listen to. I went through their extensive list of composers, and for a high percentage selected a piece to listen to _without having any input on that work_.

So overall I would suggest starting with "canonical works" for the newcomer, and then I would strongly suggest they vastly broaden their listening. Exactly how "random" their choices should be at that point probably depends on the person.


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## Argus

mmsbls said:


> I have two comments about this view. Taken literally it suggests that Shakespeare's Macbeth is not better than the average attempt at a short story written by student in high school or that Mozart's 41st symphony is not better than his first symphony. You may believe this, but I think a very small percentage of people (with interests in CM or literature) would agree.


Total Recall is a better film than Citizen Kane.


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## Argus

some guy said:


> I would prefer, like Argus, to listen to 1,000s of symphonies. Not to find one that makes me feel like Mozart's 41st does, but to experience what each one of those has to offer. None of us has unlimited time, that's why I would prefer to use mine wisely, exploring the world for myself, actively engaged for myself, not relying on others' experiences. Of course, exploring the world can _include_ paying attention to others' experiences, but there's no panel of experts assessing art and making lists and deciding on a canon; that kind of activity just sort of happens.


Exactly. I've found some music I really love just by clicking on random related videos on Youtube and seeing where it leads me. Actually, I bought a Boards of Canada album a few years ago in a record shop based solely on the album cover, without ever even hearing _of_ the band. Yeah, some times you get duffers, but critics and 'experts' lead to as many duffers like Boulez and ELP for me.

Mmsbls: you're talking about someone just listening to _everything_ which isn't feasible or to be expected. Everyone has a taste built up from past listening experience and will explore within reasonable boundaries of these tastes. e.g. if someone knows they like Joni Mitchell, they won't explore Suicide or Toumani Diabate before exploring Neil Young and Bob Dylan. At the same time limiting your intake of art is fine for some people but others will want new things. That's when random listening is as good as any method.

Finally, I have seen plenty of paintings and other kinds of visual art made by complete unknowns, or even kids, that I greatly prefer over some of the famous masters.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Total Recall is a better film than Citizen Kane.


Hell yeah! Does Citizen Kane have a woman endowed with three mammary glands? I don't think so.


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## Sofronitsky

Take _that_, Citizen Kane!


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## StlukesguildOhio

Why can't you grasp such a simple point? There are no better bands or better artists.

There's no difficulty in understanding your assertion. It's simply false. Some artists and some works of art are better than others. Is that elitist? I'm OK with that.

There is no outside body that governs tste or greatness or anything like that other than oneself and one's opinions. 

A lovely, Egalitarian sentiment... that has nothing to do with reality. Of course I agree that no one else can dictate what I should or shouldn't like... but I also recognize that what I personally "like" or "dislike" is not necessarily the same as what is "good" or "bad".

The notion that there is no good nor bad is pure nonsense. Artists continually struggle to surpass their own earlier efforts and to surpass the achievements of others... to achieve a degree of recognition... and ideally a lasting reputation. I assure you that I have any number of paintings from early in my career as a painter that are quite, quite bad. I would imagine (although I could be wrong) that not even someguy imagines his raisin box "concerto" to be as good as Bach's _Mass in B-Minor_.

To think other than this is to accept a false construct in your mind of something that doesn't exist, for any number of reasons. Maybe, these people crave order and heirarchy or they need justification for their taste. I don't

I would presume that the opposite were true. To believe that there is no good nor bad seems to justify one's personal taste as the only measure of merit. Thus the individual who believes that AC/DC and Black Sabbath are greater than Mozart need not face the possibility that he or she has some rather taste.

I value everyone's opinion on art equally, and that's why I don't care about other people's negative opinions on music I like.

When I am ill, I tend to go to the clinic and consult my doctor rather than talking to my plummer or holding an online poll on TC. My doctor's diagnosis is but an opinion... but an educated one based upon experience. Sometimes, it may turn out, he will be wrong. I didn't have a virus, I had a bacterial infection. Still, I take his opinion over that of my plumber. The exception to the rule does not completely nullify the rule. Even the experts disagree.

Art is not inherently different. It involves a language and a vocabulary which must be learned. My opinion on French poetry, for example, is rather limited by the fact that I don't speak French. I'm stuck relying upon a translation. My opinion of Chinese opera is even less valuable as I haven't ever really taken the time to listen and appreciate it. The opinion of the teen who listens mostly to AC/DC, Tupac, and Lady Gaga is rather worthless when he intones, "Mozart's rubbish". The doctor who observes a reddened throat, a cough, a stuffy nose, and body aches and recommends a leg amputation is also to be suspect. His opinion bears little resemblance to the accepted opinions of the majority of experts in his discipline.

Again, we all enjoy what we enjoy... but I have no problem accepting that some works of art that I enjoy are not exactly the greatest. I recognize that while I'd rather read Arthur Conan Doyle than James Joyce, Joyce is undoubtedly the greater writer. He just doen't "click" with me... but I don't need a defense mechanism... I don't need to suggest that since I don't get Joyce, he sucks... or... there really isn't any "good" nor "bad".


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## Sid James

I actually go a few times a year to performances of new music, whether by living composers, or by those of the past like Schoenberg & Xenakis. The venues at these concerts are well-filled, maybe at two-thirds of capacity, which suggests that there are is at least a strong cohort of people out there (at least here in Australia) who (to some degree) like this type of music. Of course, I go to an equal number of gigs of older classical music as well, I like those equally. It boils down to what some have said above, we all have our "tastes" & these can be mainstream or left of field (or in my case, and some of those I know, both). I mean I have a friend who goes to concerts on a fairly regular basis, and he likes things like Milhaud, Mahler, Monteverdi, Saint-Saens but not much Mozart or opera (although he does like vocal/choral things, or just opera highlights, not complete operas). Our range of tastes is often not systematic or logically explainable. Either we like things, are fair to middling about them, or we don't like them. It's as simple as that, there is no need to search for a so-called "point" to any music, or do bullsh*t intellectualising like that. In any case, what each individual listener hears and experiences on a personal level will be different, so why attempt to reduce or "boil down" such complex things? I'd just leave these things open, flexible & fluid, to tell you the truth...


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## StlukesguildOhio

I agree that the original question seems quite misleading. I'm not certain I could define the point of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet any more than I could define the point of the most atonal work. I agree that Modern and Contemporary music has its audience. Lat November I attended a concert of David Lang's music featuring the Little Match Girl Passion ( a marvelous and moving work). In spite of the fact that it was a spectacularly sunny and warm Sunday afternoon for so late in the year, the audience was still quite sizable. The composers, who gave a brief talk on his work, even thanked the audience for having chosen to stay inside with his music, rather than take advantage of what was quite likely the last gorgeous day of the year.:lol:


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## Bluebeard

mmsbls said:


> Actually Mozart's 41st symphony and Mozart's 40th make me feel the same - joy in beautiful music. They do not make me feel _exactly_ the same, but that doesn't bother me since that's not why I listen to music. I want to hear beautiful music.


Artworks are not simply machines that use different methodologies to produce the same or similar effect. The piece of art is not just the middleman between the creator and your pleasure. Beauty is something _inherent_ in the experience of art; the beauty of a sad piece of music is not in the feeling of sadness but the musical experience itself in its entirety - which encompasses a ton of things, not the least of which is the material of the music itself. This is why no Mozart symphony is the same or reducible to one particular soundscape: they are entirely different works of art.


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## mmsbls

Bluebeard said:


> Artworks are not simply machines that use different methodologies to produce the same or similar effect. ... This is why no Mozart symphony is the same or reducible to one particular soundscape: they are entirely different works of art.


I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. We both seem to agree that different Mozart symphonies are not the same and do not have precisely the same effect. Are you suggesting that no two Mozart symphonies will have roughly similar effects such as producing a wonderfully positive feeling in a person? His symphony 40 and 41 both do for me.

My point has been that for me (and I thought for many others, but perhaps I'm wrong), finding similar works (ones that produce that wonderfully positive feeling) has been much, much easier to do by consulting "expert" lists (or using other form of collective information) than by exploring. Eventually I started to explore because I had mostly finished the lists. So in that sense I agree with _some guy_ that somewhat random exploration is very useful.


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## Bluebeard

My point is that the effect of music is not just a feeling or emotion that we passively receive. It is in the creation of an experience that we have not had before and actively engage with, which is an endpoint or reward all unto itself.

I certainly have no problem with the idea of consulting expert lists - I do it all the time. But it's important to keep an open mind and critical ear, as always.


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Again, we all enjoy what we enjoy... but I have no problem accepting that some works of art that I enjoy are not exactly the greatest. I recognize that while I'd rather read Arthur Conan Doyle than James Joyce, Joyce is undoubtedly the greater writer. He just doen't "click" with me... but I don't need a defense mechanism... I don't need to suggest that since I don't get Joyce, he sucks... or... there really isn't any "good" nor "bad".


If I asked you why Joyce was a better writer than Doyle, no possible answer you could give me would make any logical sense.

It all depends upon what the person who experiences the art wants from the art. I think this principle extends beyond art too. If a pianist wants to get the sound of a true honky-tonk piano then a knackered old upright will be _better_ than a Steinway grand. If a listener wants a warmer sound when listening to music then analogue is _better_ than digital. If a decorator wants some clothes to where when painting then a cheap t shirt is _better_ than a nice well made dress shirt.

Good/bad or better/worse are transient terms that can only be related to certain situations.

You're elitist belief in some art being greater than others is as irrational as the belief in a divine creator. The critics and 'experts' you refer to are nothing more than the clerics and high priests of your particular brand of aesthetic religion.


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## PhillipPark

*What is the point of Atonal music?*

The theoretical objective? Aesthetic? Political?

I can only answer the foremost: to destroy common tonality, or anything that resembles it. The calculated contradiction of it's structure. As for the other two...


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## Guest

Around the end of the 19th century, many composers were feeling that increased chromaticism had already stretched tonality as far as it could go and so were looking for other ways to continue writing music without falling into pastiche.

Schoenberg's pantonalism and then dodecaphony were ways to deal with that situation, with that perception of the situation. There were other solutions. Debussy's use of modes. Explorations of scales from other cultures. Polytonality. Microtonality.

And there were solutions that explored other elements of music besides pitch. (Tonality and dodecaphony are both very much pitch-oriented systems. Just one of many fundamental similarities.) Explorations of time and of space and of timbre. Increased interest in and usage of noise, in exploring non-pitched sound sources and in making non-pitched sounds on traditional instruments.

Later, there were explorations of theatre and of conceptual things, like the many ideas explored by the Fluxus and the indeterminant composers.

In none of this was there any idea of destroying tonality or of calculated contradiction. That might be what some of these things looked like from a listener's perspective. We tend to think of the listener's perspective as the only angle from which to view the situation. But there's at least the composer's perspective, too. That many composers have increasingly responded to and even adopted the listener's perspective complicates things but without undermining the basic idea that there are more perspectives than one. And certain composers, it's true, responding to some listeners' hostility, made inflammatory remarks about destroying the past. Not sure how typical those kinds of remarks are. I don't think they are typical, but you can find young composers (for a couple of centuries at least) who talk about making a break with the past. And audiences of course almost always feel like that's what they're seeing/hearing.

Almost no one with any extensive experience with twelve-tone or serial music perceives Schoenberg any more as anything but a continuation of late Romanticism. A lot of people do keep repeating the standard canards, but there's very little musical evidence for continuing to maintain that position.


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## Timotheus

I think the comparison to abstract art is the most enlightening. Much of modern art is very idea driven, e.g. Duchamp's urinal:

"Whether Mr Mutt made the fountain with his own hands or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view - created a new thought for that object."

"Duchamp described his intent with the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation."

This reflects certain ideas and attitudes towards art, which we have in this debate as well:

"Speaking for myself, open and unsettled = more satisfying."--some guy
"Can something like "profound and moving about the human condition" be said with sounds? I'm guessing no."--some guy
"Sad. Maybe that's why avant-garde stuff ticks well with you."--HarpsichordConcerto

What I think got lost in some of the arguments about bias and "why can't people like what they like" is that it's perfectly acceptable and important to debate attitudes and philosophical ideas.

I look for music and art that is generally uplifting for lack of a better word. That's not to say it can't be sad, but it should be tragic not squalid, because life can be great if we experience emotion on the right scale. La Traviata, not emo music or "the artists rumpled bed with condoms and stained knickers". A work of art (be it painting, music, or literature) touches on something _important_ that can't be summarized or expressed in the placard or blurb. "The death of Ivan Ilyich" is supposed to say something about life and death that you have to read the entire book to get from it.

So, once you have something that can be easily stated in a summary, or can't be but is every day, squalid, or pointlessly ugly, etc, you don't have art at all. So, the piece in the OP really is just "banging on the piano". The fact that it creates an unsettled feeling in people doesn't make it music, regardless of whether people find it satisfying.

btw, when looking up the quotes from the start I found this and just had to share:



> Two performance artists, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, jumped on the bed with bare torsos in order to improve the work, which they thought had not gone far enough. They called their performance Two Naked Men Jump Into Tracey's Bed. The men also had a pillow fight[1] on the bed for around fifteen minutes, to applause from the crowd, before being removed by security guards.
> ...
> In spring 2000, Yuan Chai and Jian Jun Xi, two performance artists, who in 1999 had jumped on Tracey Emin's installation-sculpture My Bed in the Turner Prize exhibition at Tate Britain, went to the newly opened Tate Modern and urinated on the Fountain which was on display. When asked why they felt they had to add to Duchamp's work, Chai said, "The urinal is there - it's an invitation. As Duchamp said himself, it's the artist's choice. He chooses what is art. We just added to it."[13]


:lol:


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## Vazgen

Timotheus said:


> So, once you have something that can be easily stated in a summary, or can't be but is every day, squalid, or pointlessly ugly, etc, you don't have art at all. So, the piece in the OP really is just "banging on the piano". The fact that it creates an unsettled feeling in people doesn't make it music, regardless of whether people find it satisfying.


It would appear Duchamp and Cage put that sort of distinction to rest long ago. You can argue about whether this sort of art or music does anything for you, but to deny that it's art or music at all is futile.

Welcome to the forum!

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

Sofronitsky said:


> Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.


Truly an awful piece... The uploader of this video blocked me and removed my message simply because I left a post saying "absolutely beautiful!" on this video. You woulda thought a guy who could listen to Sciarrino for ten minutes straight wouldn't be so hyper-sensitive, jeez...


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## TresPicos

PhillipPark said:


> *What is the point of Atonal music?*
> 
> The theoretical objective? Aesthetic? Political?
> 
> I can only answer the foremost: *to destroy common tonality*, or anything that resembles it. The calculated contradiction of it's structure. As for the other two...


Well, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter...


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## violadude

Curiosity said:


> Truly an awful piece... The uploader of this video blocked me and removed my message simply because I left a post saying "absolutely beautiful!" on this video. You woulda thought a guy who could listen to Sciarrino for ten minutes straight wouldn't be so hyper-sensitive, jeez...


Awful to you maybe....after watching this video I went and bought a CD of his other sonatas.


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## Curiosity

Yes awful to me, and I like quite a bit of atonal music! All I ask is that the music that conveys some kind of emotion or atmosphere. That just sounds like aimless thrashing and crashing about. I wouldn't dismiss the artistic value outright but let's just say that to my ears it sounds like pretentious ********.


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## TresPicos

Timotheus said:


> So, once you have something that can be easily stated in a summary, or can't be but is every day, squalid, or pointlessly ugly, etc, you don't have art at all. So, the piece in the OP really is just "banging on the piano". The fact that it creates an unsettled feeling in people doesn't make it music, regardless of whether people find it satisfying.


Art does not cease to be art just because it appears outside your comfort zone.

Likewise, art does not cease to be art just because it is bad.


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## violadude

Curiosity said:


> Yes awful to me, and I like quite a bit of atonal music! All I ask is that the music that conveys some kind of emotion or atmosphere. That just sounds like aimless thrashing and crashing about. I wouldn't dismiss the artistic value outright but let's just say that to my ears it sounds like pretentious ********.


It does create an atmosphere. It creates a chaotic atmosphere.


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## Vazgen

Everyone listening to the Große Fuge in 1826 said:


> That just sounds like aimless thrashing and crashing about.


You're entitled to your opinion. Really.

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

Vazgen said:


> You're entitled to your opinion. Really.
> 
> -Vaz


In what way is Sciarrino's sonata comparable to the Grosse Fuge? Beethoven's Fuge is dissonant but he's didn't just toss all concept of aesthetics or expression out of the window in exchange for mindless chaos. Again, I'm not saying the music is bad, I'm just saying it sounds like ****. It sounds like somebody jumping up and down on a piano keyboard. I'm one of those people from the camp who would be hesitant to call the sound produced by said activity art.


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## Curiosity

violadude said:


> It does create an atmosphere. It creates a chaotic atmosphere.


Problem is that seems to be all this kind of music can convey...


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## Klavierspieler

Curiosity said:


> Problem is that seems to be all this kind of music can convey...


You're wrong here, it can also create an extremely dark and mysterious atmosphere (which can never be resolved) or a totally meaningless atmosphere; otherwise, I second the statement.


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## Guest

Henry Miller observed that "Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood."

How true that is. And how sad that such an innocuous and fairly simple piece should be perceived as chaotic. Chaotic? This piece is about as orderly as you can possibly imagine.

I'm not really comfortable with the dark and mysterious idea, either. This is maybe forceful. Energetic. Blunt.

But listening to it carefully over time reveals all sorts of subtleties that don't fit any of those facile first impressions.

I would say "exuberant with all sorts of very deftly handled other things going on, expecially with dynamics." In fact, I would say that the simplicity of the chords and their movement makes it easy to follow the intricacies of the dynamics, which seems to be what this piece is really all about.

It's maybe not to everyone's taste; what is? But to call it chaotic--that seems to be a visceral and immediate response to the fairly simple and straightforward chords being played loudly and "crudely." (And not all of them are, as you'll hear if you listen to it all the way through.)

The trick to understanding music like this is really is no trick at all. You have to let the music say whatever it has to say, not what you want it to say, not what you think it should be saying, but what it is actually indeed saying. ("Saying" being perhaps not the happiest metaphor to use here, but "Oh, well.") 

From there, one is free to like or dislike what's being said, but at least the conversation can then be on what's actually there and on what happens when what's actually there impinges on this or that person's ears.


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## Vazgen

Curiosity said:


> In what way is Sciarrino's sonata comparable to the Grosse Fuge?


I never said it was, did I? All I was pointing out was that Sciarrino's sonata wasn't the only piece that a listener took issue with. For centuries, audiences have complained about the overly cerebral, dissonant, and/or incomprehensible music that new composers have been foisting on the public.

You're continuing a rich tradition.

-Vaz


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## regressivetransphobe

Atmosphere is all about experience. Maybe to you "chaotic" atonal music is nothing but a load of tryhard pretentious ********, maybe to others it's a cornucopia of nightmarish expressionism. Maybe to you Mozart conveys supreme clarity and genius, maybe to others it's dry parlor music. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but people bring their own experiences to art, and that's part of what shapes the things that resonate with them.


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## Philip

chaos is simply a non-predictable non-random process


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## Sofronitsky

regressivetransphobe said:


> Atmosphere is all about experience. Maybe to you "chaotic" atonal music is nothing but a load of tryhard pretentious ********, maybe to others it's a cornucopia of nightmarish expressionism. Maybe to you Mozart conveys supreme clarity and genius, maybe to others it's dry parlor music. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but people bring their own experiences to art, and that's part of what shapes the things that resonate with them.


It's always refreshing to see someone make a statement 100% out of assumption.


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## Guest

And it's always puzzling* when someone makes an assertion that seems to have no relation to the passage quoted.

There are no assumptions in the passage of regressivetransphobe's cited by Sofronitsky.

There are some assertions, one pretty straightforward, one a bit questionable (that everyone's entitled to their opinion:lol. There's a moiety of speculation (four "maybes") but assumptions? Nah.

*aggravating


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## Curiosity

Vazgen said:


> I never said it was, did I? All I was pointing out was that Sciarrino's sonata wasn't the only piece that a listener took issue with. For centuries, audiences have complained about the overly cerebral, dissonant, and/or incomprehensible music that new composers have been foisting on the public.
> 
> You're continuing a rich tradition.
> 
> -Vaz


Well, it's easy to dismiss any negative assessments of a piece by simply arguing that those who don't like it don't understand it. Perhaps the piece in question - like the Grosse Fuge - has untold depth that future listeners will be more capable of understanding. Or perhaps it's just, y'know, _bad_.

I find it amusing that atonal and avant-garde music gets a free-pass in situations where more "traditional" tonal music wouldn't. It seems you can't call an atonal piece "bad" without somebody implying that you're ignorant or closed-minded. For the record I'm just as likely to dislike something "traditional" sounding as I am to dislike this modern atonal material. Hell, long before I really became interested in classical I was practically obsessed with the Bartok and Penderecki pieces from the soundtrack of "The Shining".


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## Timotheus

TresPicos said:


> Art does not cease to be art just because it appears outside your comfort zone.
> 
> Likewise, art does not cease to be art just because it is bad.


How would "art cease to be art" anyway? We're talking about things that aren't artistic to begin with.



Curiosity said:


> I find it amusing that atonal and avant-garde music gets a free-pass in situations where more "traditional" tonal music wouldn't. It seems you can't call an atonal piece "bad" without somebody implying that you're ignorant or closed-minded.


Clearly you're out of your "comfort zone"!!!



vaz said:


> It would appear Duchamp and Cage put that sort of distinction to rest long ago. You can argue about whether this sort of art or music does anything for you, but to deny that it's art or music at all is futile.
> 
> Welcome to the forum!
> 
> -Vaz


It's been argued ever since and it is still a minority opinion that it's art. You should talk to a wider circle of people  In any case definitions don't become overturned like that. You could make the analogy of a rope with different threads. Duchamp etc tried to add a new thread--it never could be the whole rope in any case. But they didn't succeed in adding the thread, just in associating the thread with the rope by calling it the same name.



some guy said:


> But to call it chaotic--that seems to be a visceral and immediate response to the fairly simple and straightforward chords being played loudly and "crudely."


Yes...yes it is a visceral response....!...!...!



some guy said:


> The trick to understanding music like this is really is no trick at all. You have to let the music say whatever it has to say, not what you want it to say, not what you think it should be saying, but what it is actually indeed saying. ("Saying" being perhaps not the happiest metaphor to use here, but "Oh, well.")


Listening to music is not an intellectual exercise. It takes place at a different level. That's one of the real divides here (in music and in art). You know how sometimes you hear a joke and you laugh, and other times you don't but you say "I get it"? It's like that.

some guy: A man walked into a bar. Ouch! It was an iron bar!
timotheus: ...
some guy: I see you don't get it. The trick to understanding that joke is to see that it's an inversion of the typical joke where "bar" is a saloon or "pub". But in this case it isn't, that's the beauty of it!
timotheus: ...

Now, I truly don't object to people liking stuff like the song in the OP anymore than I object to people liking bad jokes. In that sense I agree with the "you're entitled to like what you like" sentiment (aka leave people alone). But I will always argue against it being promoted as what "real intellectuals" like.

Anyway, Bill Waterson is the best when it comes to talking about this stuff:


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## violadude

There are all kinds of different ways of listening to music, personally, I don't see what's wrong with listening to music intellectually and often times I do listen to music intellectually before I listen to it emotionally. Listening to music with a certain amount of distance and detachment can help in understanding the piece better.


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## Vazgen

Curiosity said:


> Well, it's easy to dismiss any negative assessments of a piece by simply arguing that those who don't like it don't understand it.


I wouldn't dismiss an opinion that showed intellectual rigor and objectivity. But yes, it's easy to dismiss cheap shots and hatchet jobs. I must have missed where you demonstrated any engagement with Sciarrino's work in general, or the aims of this kind of music. As far as I could tell, your entire critique amounted to the word "awful."



Timotheus said:


> It's been argued ever since and it is still a minority opinion that it's art. You should talk to a wider circle of people


And you should talk to people educated in art history and art criticism. Whether or not the piece does anything for you is a matter of your personal taste, and has no bearing on whether or not you can consider it "art."

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

Vazgen said:


> I wouldn't dismiss an opinion that showed intellectual rigor and objectivity. But yes, it's easy to dismiss cheap shots and hatchet jobs. I must have missed where you demonstrated any engagement with Sciarrino's work in general, or the aims of this kind of music. As far as I could tell, your entire critique amounted to the word "awful."
> 
> -Vaz


I'm not interested in trying to overly intellectualise about music. My opinion is that if you need to get OVERLY analytical about a piece of music to "enjoy" it or even find it tolerable on any level, that piece of music must be lacking something. I've actually listened to that particular composition a few times in order to find _something_ redeeming about it. You say I don't understand the aims of this kind of music. Perhaps that is true. So educate me, what am I supposed to be hearing here? What do _you_ "get" from listening to this? I'd like to be able to think of this as something more than an insolent noise, I really would.


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## Argus

Timotheus said:


> Anyway, Bill Waterson is the best when it comes to talking about this stuff:


I disagree with everything you're saying but those comics are pretty funny.


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## TresPicos

Timotheus said:


> How would "art cease to be art" anyway? We're talking about things that aren't artistic to begin with.


Artworks don't have to be artistic! Not if you mean "involving skill". If I take a dead frog and place it on top of an old milk carton and say that it's art, then it's art. It's most likely pointless art (from the art world's perspective) and it's definitely not within the core concept of art, but art nonetheless. It clearly didn't take any skill, just imagination.

It's all about the definition. My frog-carton work would be art according to Wikipedia's definition ("Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.") and according to Encyclopedia Britannica's ("a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination"). However, according to other, narrower definitions, the frog-carton might not qualify as art, but neither might Duchamp's fountain.



> It's been argued ever since and it is still a minority opinion that it's art. You should talk to a wider circle of people  In any case definitions don't become overturned like that.


It will always be a minority opinion. Most people are about a century behind their times in these matters. Confronted with Duchamp's fountain, most people would probably say that it's _not _art. Even today. Still, it has been voted "the most influential artwork of the 20th century". And it _did _overturn the definition of art at the time.

Of course, artworks like the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Beethoven's fifth symphony will always appear at the very core of most people's view of what art, literature and music is. Most people define art by what's at the core of the concept, not by what's at the boundaries, but it's at the boundaries that the question "What is art?" can be fully answered. At least in an academic, non-gut-feeling manner.



> You could make the analogy of a rope with different threads. Duchamp etc tried to add a new thread--it never could be the whole rope in any case. But they didn't succeed in adding the thread, just in associating the thread with the rope by calling it the same name.


Or you can argue that Duchamp's thread was always there, in the rope, except no one before him had bothered to look.

Oh darn, someone beat me to it...


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## lazyMusicLover

*just don't force it to us in concert programs*

I don't mind if a composer of atonal music creates something that just bores me, or to have festivals fully dedicated to atonal music.
But I hate concert programs that include atonal compositions in an evening mostly dedicated to old "conventional" music, that most of us love and appreciate. It's particular unfair to place an atonal composition in the middle of a program. At least when placed at the beginning/end of the program, we naive music lovers have a chance of avoiding it. But then there would be too many empty seats at the beginning/end of the program.


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## Timotheus

TresPicos said:


> Artworks don't have to be artistic! Not if you mean "involving skill". If I take a dead frog and place it on top of an old milk carton and say that it's art, then it's art. It's most likely pointless art (from the art world's perspective) and it's definitely not within the core concept of art, but art nonetheless. It clearly didn't take any skill, just imagination.
> 
> It's all about the definition. My frog-carton work would be art according to Wikipedia's definition ("Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.") and according to Encyclopedia Britannica's ("a visual object or experience consciously created through an expression of skill or imagination"). However, according to other, narrower definitions, the frog-carton might not qualify as art, but neither might Duchamp's fountain.


I think this is the best (or at least the funniest) summary of the debate on the definition of art:



> The definition of art is controversial in contemporary philosophy. Whether art can be defined has also been a matter of controversy. The philosophical usefulness of a definition of art has also been debated.


http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/

:lol:

But I think it's worthwhile to make some attempt. We can at least reject the "it's art if I say it's art" nonsense.



> It will always be a minority opinion. Most people are about a century behind their times in these matters. Confronted with Duchamp's fountain, most people would probably say that it's not art. Even today. Still, it has been voted "the most influential artwork of the 20th century". And it did overturn the definition of art at the time.
> 
> Of course, artworks like the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's David, Tolstoy's War and Peace, and Beethoven's fifth symphony will always appear at the very core of most people's view of what art, literature and music is. Most people define art by what's at the core of the concept, not by what's at the boundaries, but it's at the boundaries that the question "What is art?" can be fully answered. At least in an academic, non-gut-feeling manner.


I agree with most of this. There's some set of primary things that people add up to make their sense of what art is. A core. Duchamp's stuff is nowhere near that (deliberately). There is, surely, an academic debate to be had about whether it's art (I still say no) but what ISN'T up for debate is that it's a distinct thread that doesn't fit in with the rest. It belongs to it's own category, the blob of what we refer to as "modern art". I'm interested in the debate about whether it's art, but it's kind of a technical point, because if it was art it would still be crappy art (and I think that part of our sense of art is that it is valuable, worthwhile...saying something is art is in a sense praising it). And since it doesn't tie in, it's unfortunate that we refer to it by the same name. "Visual puns" would be better (note, of course that there is tons of art that is made in our time that we wouldn't call modern art...that's how bizarre things are). I mean, the word "comedy" used to refer to plays with a happy ending, but we've dropped that...now it means funny. And it would be silly to refer to a movie that wasn't funny but had a happy ending as a comedy.

Presumably there was a transition period with the definition of comedy. Some point when the new definition won out. So the question with the definition of art is "should this (Duchamp style) definition win out? I've been trying to argue that it shouldn't. It's important that art is more than bad puns with a prop. It's important that art is something great, not just "art can be just whatever".



> Or you can argue that Duchamp's thread was always there, in the rope, except no one before him had bothered to look.


No, if the rope is people's sense of what art is then it can't have always been there. Because they would have had a sense of it, but they didn't.


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## Guest

Curiosity said:


> You say [referring toVazgen] I don't understand the aims of this kind of music. Perhaps that is true. *So educate me, what am I supposed to be hearing here?* What do _you_ "get" from listening to this? I'd like to be able to think of this as something more than an insolent noise, I really would.


So you didn't read my post on this at all?

Maybe it would be better to drop the pretense of wanting to learn and just quietly hate the stuff. (Quietly.)

As for lazyMusicLover's attitude, do you really not see how that privileges one group of people over all the others? Maybe that one group is bigger--tyranny of the majority, then. Some of us enjoy that music and want to hear it in concerts. So you're saying that our needs don't count? Wow. Nice guy you are! Really, are your needs really the only legitimate needs? Maybe we should band together and ban all Mozart, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky from the concert halls, hahahaha!

Speaking of whom, as an additional point, do you really seriously not realize that much of the music you love had to be forced down listeners' throats until they "got it" and "Hey, presto!!" it became familiar and beautiful and beloved? So what if your 18th or 19th century equivalent had really had their way? Hah. No Beethoven's 9th for you, bucko. No Tchaikovsky's piano concerto #1, either. Nope. This stuff is unmusical noise and not worth listening to, therefore no one gets to listen to it, ever, because the dislikers must always win!!

Good luck with that.


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## Timotheus

The topic of songs that were critically panned and became recognized as great is an interesting one if treated properly. It's not a simple case of the critics disliking great songs. Most songs that were disliked were in fact bad. Many that were liked got dropped later. Some were instantly recognized as great. The interesting thing here is not how examples can be picked to argue for a point of view, but to consider why this is the case.

There are a ton of factors that there's just not much to do with...critics who don't want to support something because someone influential panned it, a poor performance, the weather being too hot, etc. 

Another one is that people often have had a restrictive view of what's art, and criticize what goes beyond this theory. However, this is not really enlightening as far as any specific piece goes. It could be that they have a too restrictive view or it could just not be art. After all people don't consider bubble gum on the city sidewalks to be "communal art" and they are right. 

Music can be many things. It can be upbeat, sad, martial, tender, harsh, scary sounding, beautiful, enchanting, sappy, stern, depressing, joyful, and on and on. 

One word I picked out is sappy. Being sappy isn't a good thing. Sappy music is still music, but it's not good taste. It's entirely possible for an an age or a period of a few decades to generally sappy though...in which case that kind of music will be popular and then die out. Same for modern music that is rebellious or narcissistic or macho...thinking of popular music here not classical style. 

The point is, it isn't anything goes. We are "tuned" for certain expressions of feeling and emotion to resonate with us. When we talk about good taste and bad taste we are talking (well, some of us) about that tuning. The humor analogy still works. It's possible for someone to not like a joke because they are too stuffy, and for them to only like it because they are nerdy, etc.

And one of the things that makes art and music AMAZING is that it has the capability to shape us in this way. To me it's endlessly fascinating. Think of the different spirit of all the national anthems and patriotic style music out there. Which of them strikes the right tone for patriotism? Fanfare for the common man? Courtesy of the red white and blue by Toby Kieth? Surely the former more than the latter.

So, "past crowds disliked such and such atonal music, but we now recognize it as great. People nowadays dislike this more modern atonal music, but it will one day rightly be recognized as great" is a fallacy. Imagine a very stern kind of culture that hated any tender music (bad taste to hate it all). Eventually they came to appreciate it. Does this mean that if composers write more and more tender music, ending up in sappy-land, that the people who like the tender but dislike the sappy music are just as ignorant as their predecessors? No, they just have good taste.


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## Argus

Timotheus said:


> No, they just have good taste.


All the rest of your post is unnecessary. That snippet reveals you to be a snob. That said, the remainder of your post does a good job of reinforcing this position.


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## Curiosity

some guy said:


> Maybe it would be better to drop the pretense of wanting to learn and just quietly hate the stuff. (Quietly.)


But I don't want to hate it. I want to understand what makes it appealing to (a minority of) people. Look, I try to like everything I listen to. My favourite piece of music, Beethoven's Eroica symphony, did nothing for me on first listen. I literally had to read through a phrase by phrase analysis of the piece before I "got" it. After that everything clicked and now I listen to that symphony in full at least once a week.

If somebody could explain what this Sciarrino piece (and other's of it's kind) is supposed to represent or convey, or demonstrate it's structural logic etc it would go a ways towards helping my understanding of it.


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## Comistra

> But I hate concert programs that include atonal compositions in an evening mostly dedicated to old "conventional" music, that most of us love and appreciate. It's particular unfair to place an atonal composition in the middle of a program. At least when placed at the beginning/end of the program, we naive music lovers have a chance of avoiding it. But then there would be too many empty seats at the beginning/end of the program.


I hate concert programs that include only the same old pieces that I've heard numerous times. It's particularly unfair to include compositions only by Beethoven, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky when there is so much other music out there.

The point is, of course, that my position is as valid as yours; if no modern pieces were played, I'd feel as cheated as you do by the fact that modern pieces _are_ played. Ultimately it tends to come down to economics and the fact that most people are of the same opinion that you are (or so it seems). More Mozart and Beethoven means more butts in seats.

For me, though, I've found that the programming of less popular pieces has been an excellent way to learn about new music. My concentration is focused solely on the music (not always the case at home) and I cannot shut the music off if I don't immediately take to it (which, I reluctantly admit, I've done with the radio, Spotify, etc).

I'm not even much of a fan of modern music, but I enjoy the opportunity to become exposed to it. There is a lot of music that's taken me time to warm up to, but when I do, I'm glad I took the time. I can stand 30 minutes of a piece that I find offensive if it means that I might also find another 30 minutes of a piece that I never knew existed, but turns out to have been great.

On that note, I'd be happy, too, with more playing of _any_ lesser-known composer. I can imagine, for example, that the average concert goer would really enjoy Kurt Atterberg's music, more so than, say, David Stock's, yet he never gets played (at least around here). Oh well.


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## Guest

Curiosity said:


> If somebody could explain what this Sciarrino piece (and other's of it's kind) is supposed to represent or convey, or demonstrate it's structural logic etc it would go a ways towards helping my understanding of it.


Like I said, read my post about it.


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## Guest

Timotheus said:


> So, "past crowds disliked such and such atonal music, but we now recognize it as great. People nowadays dislike this more modern atonal music, but it will one day rightly be recognized as great" is a fallacy.


Which would be an appropriate remark if that's the conclusion I had drawn from my example. It was not. It was simply to point something out about an attitude. If that attitude had been allowed to prevail in the past, then many things we now consider masterpieces would not even be being performed much less considered.

The only conclusion is that that attitude that lazyMusicLover was exhibiting is a perilous one, not reliable. I was not drawing any conclusions about any music at all, only about the attitudes.

(By the way, Beethoven's 9th and Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto are not examples of atonal works.)


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## TresPicos

Timotheus said:


> ...
> 
> No, they just have good taste.





Argus said:


> All the rest of your post is unnecessary. That snippet reveals you to be a snob. That said, the remainder of your post does a good job of reinforcing this position.


Yup, that's my cue as well.


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## TresPicos

Curiosity said:


> But I don't want to hate it. I want to understand what makes it appealing to (a minority of) people. Look, I try to like everything I listen to. My favourite piece of music, Beethoven's Eroica symphony, did nothing for me on first listen. I literally had to read through a phrase by phrase analysis of the piece before I "got" it. After that everything clicked and now I listen to that symphony in full at least once a week.
> 
> If somebody could explain what this Sciarrino piece (and other's of it's kind) is supposed to represent or convey, or demonstrate it's structural logic etc it would go a ways towards helping my understanding of it.


What mainly makes it appealing to me is that I've never heard anything like that before. It's cool and refreshing. To me, that's reason enough to appreciate at least the existence of the piece.

The first time I listened to it, however, I thought that the piece should only have been two minutes long instead of ten, since "the point" was made pretty early and the rest just made it tedious. But the second time I listened to it, I realized that a ten-minute long piece had more to offer. The monotony of the music created some sort of background against which I started to hear and listen for other things. There was also some meditative dimension in there.

One YouTube comment reads: "For all those who do not understand this piece, the music is in the dynamics, not so much in the notes."

Funny that you mention the Eroica, by the way, because it makes me want to ask "What is the point of tonal music?". To me, it's an equivalent of "just banging on the piano".


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## Ravellian

As a result of living with classical music for a long time and reading many posts on this forum, I have come to the conclusion that purely atonal music, as laid out in Schoenberg's 12-tone method and subsequently revised and altered by different composers, is simply a _different_ set of rules for the composition of music. Tonality is one language, serialism is another, modality is yet another. They are just like different spoken languages - any of them can be effective at communication, but they do so in fundamentally different ways. None is inherently better than the other.

I guess part of what has made atonality so controversial is the fact that it is still so new relative to the other, more common means of musical expression... There are also far fewer widely recognized atonal masterpieces for listeners to latch onto.


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## Sid James

Extending Ravellian's thoughts, I'd add that often there is an overlap or grey area between what is "tonal" & "atonal." I think most things are in the "in-between" category. Even the c20th Viennese School, in many of their works, did not strictly apply the "rules" (or more accurately, conventions) of serialism, the 12 note technique. It's a similar thing how there have been endless debates on this forum about whether Beethoven can best be categorised as a "Classical Era" composer or a "Early Romantic" or "Romantic" one. I think that, in the end, these things are just labels of limited use to a person who wants to just appreciate, enjoy & understand these guy's music to any level or degree.

There was an obsession in places like the Darmstadt School, the "hotbed" of serialism in the post-WW2 period, to do things like "row hunting" when looking at scores of "serial" works. The point became more a matter of "spot the row" in say a score by Schoenberg or Webern rather than looking at wider aspects of their music. Such reductionist and "hard" technical focuses basically say little or nothing about the music, it all becomes a matter of an unbalanced obsession with technique. I think it's after that kind of post-war serialist craze died down that there have been more balanced and wholistic appreciation of this type of music & though it will probably never dominate the concert stage like some other types of music, it still has a strong role to play in our appreciation of music overall, esp. the many trends that have developed since 1945. That said, there are a number of works employing these techniques that have made significant inroads into the repertoire, the main one being Berg's _Violin Concerto "To the Memory of an Angel."(composed 1935) _Listen to that music with the story behind it in mind (even the sub-title says a lot), and you will realise the "point" of this type of music, at least with regards to this wonderful piece. Things like this work can be a "gateway" to this type of repertoire, not only that of Berg's time (the period between the two world wars) but that of later times right up until now. I think it's a good idea to build things up bit by bit & enjoy the journey as you go along.

It's the same with things like Renaissance music, which doesn't get much of a "guernsey" on this forum either, which makes me think that it's not necessarily the "oldness" or "newness" of these things, but the fact that most people don't know about them, haven't heard them, don't know about the composer's histories, or the historical contexts in which they lived, these types of non strictly musical/technical issues. Of course, being a person myself earlier with a big focus on mainly post 1800 musics, I can understand this to a high degree. I'm now "going back" into musics before 1800 - but not in a systematic way, although this forum has been useful as well as my "gut" instincts, general reading, etc. - & it's just been pure joy, not related to what I get from the first listen, but from getting into these things in a deeper way when "the dust has settled" & I've sorted out my thoughts on what I hear & read, etc...


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Speaking of whom, as an additional point, do you really seriously not realize that much of the music you love had to be forced down listeners' throats until they "got it" and "Hey, presto!!" it became familiar and beautiful and beloved? So what if your 18th or 19th century equivalent had really had their way? Hah. No Beethoven's 9th for you, bucko. No Tchaikovsky's piano concerto #1, either. Nope. This stuff is unmusical noise and not worth listening to, therefore no one gets to listen to it, ever, because the dislikers must always win!!


There is something I don't understand about this view of musical appreciation. The argument asserts that much new music is not appreciated when written and only later do people come to find it enjoyable. Beethoven, Mahler, and Wagner all pushed music past conventional tastes, and listeners had to "catch up". This century's modern music is no different. So far I don't disagree.

The problem comes in trying to understand why the music of Beethoven, Mahler,and Wagner came to be enjoyed relatively soon after it was written (say several decades - correct me if I'm wrong) but the music of many modern composers remain under-appreciated after 50-100 years. What is different between the two cases?

One interesting difference is that in the 1800's listening to music was much harder than today. How many concerts did the average CM listener attend in 30 years? And how many of those concerts had "modern" music? Today I can listen to more music in probably several months, and I can listen to specific music. How did the _average_ CM listener in the 1800's come to appreciate such "modern" music when many of us struggle today even though we have listened to probably the equivalent of several lifetimes worth of modern music by 1800's standards? How did they (1800's listeners) succeed when many of us today still fail? Did many CM listeners still not enjoy the music of Beethoven or Wagner 50 years or more after 
it was written?

Clearly these questions have nothing to say about the relative merits of modern versus 1800s music. some guy has stated that "just listening" is probably not enough to appreciate modern music today, and I agree. I suspect that "just listening" may have worked in the 1800s (and maybe not that much listening), but perhaps modern music now may require more work. I did mention in another thread that my daughter said that none of the performance majors at her school wanted to play modern music, but all the composition majors she knew loved modern music. Why would that be?

So, is there a difference between today's modern music and that of the past? If not, how can we explain what _seem to me_ to be differences in the level of appreciation?


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## Sid James

Speaking to mmsbls post above (great post, BTW) I would like to add that I disagree with someguy's inference that a lot of the classical music from the past that is now popular (i.e. part of the standard repertoire) didn't recieve great acclaim in it's day, even at it's first performance (sometimes by music critics, sometimes by the public, sometimes both). Here are the two works, which someguy gave as examples of being poorly received (that's what I read him to say & if he said that, he's on the totally wrong wavelenghth, imo, with regards to the history of these works) with quotes from sources re their initial reception -

*Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 "Choral"*

From wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._9_(Beethoven)#Premiere



> ...According to one witness, "the public received the musical hero with the utmost respect and sympathy, listened to his wonderful, gigantic creations with the most absorbed attention and broke out in jubilant applause, often during sections, and repeatedly at the end of them."


*Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 *(quote below talks about the premiere of the original version of this work - it was later revised, but not to a large extent, it was mainly bits of the piano part in terms of technique/playability that were the issue)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchaikovsky_piano_concerto_no._1



> ...Although *the premiere was a resounding success*, George Whitefield Chadwick, who was in the audience, recalled in a memoir years later: "They had not rehearsed much and the trombones got in wrong in the 'tutti' in the middle of the first movement, whereupon Bülow sang out in a perfectly audible voice, The brass may go to hell".


Of course, there were works that did baffle audiences, critics, musicians alike, but the two examples which someguy cited were received well at their premieres, as far as these documents can tell us. & I think the same goes for many works that are part of the standard repertoire today.

Even things like the initial poor reception of *Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring* is somewhat of a grey area as to the exact reason. Not long after it's rather disasterous premiere as a ballet, it was presented as purely a concert work & the reception was almost as ecstatic as the music itself. Stravinsky was carried out of the concert hall by audience members on their shoulders in a mock triumphal march -



> ... the Paris concert premiere at the Casino de Paris on 5 April 1914, conducted by Monteux,[14] (whose direction was praised by Pierre Lalo and Florent Schmitt),[15] Stravinsky was carried out into the Place de la Trinité on the shoulders of a cheering crowd.[13]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring


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## Sid James

& speaking of "atonal" music & it's supposed lack of popularity in it's own day, *Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire *(1912) became quite successful at the time. Schoenberg, playing piano, took it on tour with his ensemble right after & played it to audiences who were very interested in hearing & seeing (as it's partly theatrical, I was lucky enough to see such a production here earlier in the year, a great work indeed & the hall here was more than adequately filled & both two major works on the program were post-1900, the other one being a new work by Australian composer Barry Conyngham, as well as a short "opener" - a chamber arrangement of a J. Strauss Jnr. waltz attributed to Schoenberg). The reason for it's popularity is that it tapped into many current issues, like psychology, & though atonal, it was heavily clothed in the cabaret style, adopting that genre's "speech song." I think Stravinsky, Ravel & Debussy to name three saw performances on this tour & Stravinsky said he thought it was "the solar plexus of c20th music." He was highly influenced by it in many ways when he came to compose _A Soldier's Tale _before the decade was out. Here an article about it below & a short quote from it -

http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm5-7/schoenberg-en.htm



> ..Following the premiere, it soon became popular, the success due partly to the subject matter's current vogue...


So in these last two posts I'm arguing for the "middle ground" between both extremes, as member mmsbls was doing above. I see myself as in neither the "radical" or "conservative" camp, I am just as happy to listen to something like Schoenberg as Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky (& indeed, heaps more, from Andre Rieu, to stage musicals, operetta, classical music of all eras, & non-classical of many types, but I'm a generalist or all-rounder, not a specialist, not in a stylistic or ideological "niche")...


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## Guest

Coupla things, Sid. The Darmstadt School is a school. It's a place for students, specifically composition students. These are people who are learning about things, learning what they are, learning how to use them. Of course in a context like that, there will be more emphasis on technique. So maybe "obsession" is maybe not the most apt description of the interest in serial techniques. (Any more than chord names and modulation and voice leading are the _obsessions_ of ordinary Theory I classes in other schools.)

And no, I was not talking merely about premieres, but about a general sense after these pieces* had been around awhile that they weren't very good or were difficult or not worth the effort--all the anti-modern cliches we nowadays hear about very different pieces. A piece that is thusly criticized is not, however, by that token a good piece. (It's very tiresome to be saddled with this faux conclusion--that's not what any modern fan is concluding when talking about early responses to what we now consider masterpieces.)

Crappy modern pieces can be reacted to badly just as wonderful modern pieces can be. Thing is, are the people who report as not liking or understanding or having much experience with newer music to be trusted to make the more accurate assessments of quality, or could it possibly be the people who report as enjoying and understanding and having a broad experience with newer musics who can make the more accurate (or at least useful) assessments?

It seems in discussions of this sort that the first group is full of people who insist that their point of view is not only equally valid (it's not) but even more valid (really?) than that of people who have had more experience with the music. That just doesn't make sense. As if a person who is rarely sick has a better idea of what medicines people should take than a pharmacist or a physician. Or a soccer fan who's watched maybe a couple of games of basketball (and not really liked them much) is better qualified to critique styles of play and of coaching than someone who watches every basketball game (at least of a favorite team) all season long, season after season.

*Some of these had very good _premieres,_ too. And that's because if a premiere is attended, as they often are, by hardcore fans, well, of course that concert's going to be reported as having been a great success


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> Coupla things, Sid. The Darmstadt School is a school. It's a place for students, specifically composition students. These are people who are learning about things, learning what they are, learning how to use them. Of course in a context like that, there will be more emphasis on technique. So maybe "obsession" is maybe not the most apt description of the interest in serial techniques. (Any more than chord names and modulation and voice leading are the _obsessions_ of ordinary Theory I classes in other schools.)


I think you are being very condescending & borderline rude "schooling" me in these matters. I know what musicians do when they go to conservatoriums - I personally know a number of them. I know about people who have studied things as complex as Xenakis' & Harry Partch's scores (indeed, that's how I moved towards listening to some of their works). You are accusing people of prejudging things, yet this is exactly what you are doing to me here.

& also, my impression of the Darmstadt School is that a lot of the ideology & dogma surrouning it may well have acted to hinder the cause of modern/contemporary music. A number of composers not fitting into it's "ways" criticised it at the time as something like "neo-fascist." I remember reading about this, as well as talking to musicians about it, but sorry I don't remember which composers of the time said this, but this was a common sentiment by those left "out in the cold" by the rigidities and dogmas perpetuated at that time (& not exclusively in Germany, either). I understand that Boulez & Stockhausen actually fell out due to arguments about these ideological issues. It seems that, at the time, ideology and dogma (these having little to to with music) became an unhealthy focus, causing many rifts in the contemporary classical music world. Composers who went their own ways with serialism - eg. in the UK Walton, Malcolm Arnold & probably even Britten - were poo-pooed as "old hat" by the establishment, particularly in the BBC, which had become a kind of "club" divided along sectarian lines. Of course, there were many people doing positive things at that time, eg. Friederich Cerha, who established the Die Reihe modern music ensemble in Vienna (& Berlin as well, I think?). He was okay with performing all types of contemporary classical, he didn't get into the fracas over these limiting dogmas. Unlike those dogmatists, Cerha also did things like finish (orchestrate) the third act of Berg's _Lulu_, which basically lead to it's revival (what do we know of the others, in terms of the wider classical music listening public, what good things did they ACTUALLY do???)

& basically, one can compare the earlier preoccupation with "row hunting" that I was describing, with doing similar things with structures like sonata form of past musics. I'm not saying that it's not useful to do, but is it the be all & end all. After all, Schoenberg had comparatively little formal musical education (neither did guys like Elgar) & yet they were able to transcend this by doing things "off their own bat" & not caring too much about rigid technical rules (which nevertheless they knew very well, to a high level) or political dogmas but PRODUCING GOOD MUSIC! That was their aim, not the politics, not shutting other composers or musicians out, but including them as much as possible. Even Elgar was a huge supporter of new music by younger composers in Britain, taking part in commissioning works from them. Despite not being that enamoured of the latest trends towards the end of his career, he still played that supportive "impartial" role. Can we say the same about the younger Boulez, for example? (& I'm not criticising the man's music, which I enjoy to a high level, I've been listening to his piano sonatas for the past week). Same thing with the c19th critic Eduard Hanslick with his many biased views - did he really to anything to promote his darling Brahms' music, or did he just create a useless turf war that included some composers as "good" and others as "bad?" Think about these things, please, I have solid wide knowledge of these things, I am not ignorant of these issues (though not an expert on any of these matters, just a keen amateur).



> Thing is, are the people who report as not liking or understanding or having much experience with newer music to be trusted to make the more accurate assessments of quality, or could it possibly be the people who report as enjoying and understanding and having a broad experience with newer musics who can make the more accurate (or at least useful) assessments?


Most of this I disagree with. It is true that if people have a bias against a certain kind of music (eg. the ideologues I discussed above) then naturally their opinions on it will most likely be similarly biased & unreliable. But as for the experience aspect, you are not making sense to me. Prior to about 3 year ago, I had little experience with post-1945 classical music. Apart from those of the older generation who reached their prime in the inter-war years - eg. Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Britten, Walton, Vaughan Williams - & died sometime after the war. Anyway, since the last 3 years I have gotten into many eras of music, incl. post 1945, in recorded as well as concert/live formats. I just started doing it bit by bit & what I'm doing is a work in progress. I am not an expert but have been exposed to a fair amount of approaches since 1945, probably not all, but a fair few. I don't balk at things like Cage, Varese, Carter to name a few "biggies." I think that I, with my limited experience but positive & open attitude to these things am probably more "even keeled" & less biased than those dogmatists of yore that I was mentioning, with all their PHD's and stuff. Indeed, there was another classical online forum that I left a few months ago, never returned. A lot of professionally qualified musicians, even composers there, who just talked **** on a daily basis. Things like certain composer's works made them vomit, garbage like that, totally negative, skewed **** opinions, of absolutely zero value. Even less value than my own far less qualified "ape level" views or perceptions of quite complex - but also "simple" - musics. So basically, in the end, it really boils down to ATTIDUTE & what dear Aretha Franklin said RESPECT. I respect the creations of all composers, even if I don't like them, even if others think they know better & they are "**** that makes me vomit every time I listen to it." I'm being emotional here but you have riled me up. Ideology PLUS music EQUALS Stalinism & Facsism. It doesn't equal appreciation of anything, let alone the arts like music, no matter if you're "professional" or an "ignorant pleb."



> *Some of these had very good _premieres,_ too. And that's because if a premiere is attended, as they often are, by hardcore fans, well, of course that concert's going to be reported as having been a great success


Well, a year or two back, I was listening to a regular broadcast here of the top 100 symphonies countdown. & the announcer, a qualified musician like all of them are, was talking about how the majority of work now in the standard repertoire were well recieved either immediately or not long after their composition &/or first performance. That's exactly what the man said, he said he wanted to dispel the myths that you seem to be keen to be sprouting to promote your cause, whatever it is. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, but as a general guide, correlated with my reading on these things, is sounds right to me...


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## Vazgen

Sid James said:


> & also, my impression of the Darmstadt School is that a lot of the ideology & dogma surrouning it may well have acted to hinder the cause of modern/contemporary music. A number of composers not fitting into it's "ways" criticised it at the time as something like "neo-fascist." I remember reading about this, as well as talking to musicians about it, but sorry I don't remember which composers of the time said this, but this was a common sentiment by those left "out in the cold" by the rigidities and dogmas perpetuated at that time (& not exclusively in Germany, either).


I keep forgetting we're supposed to pretend that infighting among composers is extremely important to the way we appreciate music. If I didn't know better, I'd think people will use any excuse to avoid music they don't want to listen to.

-Vaz


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> So basically, in the end, it really boils down to ATTIDUTE & what dear Aretha Franklin said RESPECT.


I agree that attitude is fundamental.

I would also describe you as someone who "enjoy and understand and [who is developing] a broad experience with newer musics."


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre... I think quite often that it is the arrogance, the ideology, and the pretension that puts many people off Contemporary music... or the Contemporary arts in general... perhaps even more than the actual music/art. I think many people come to a thread such as this with legitimate questions only to be repeatedly told (in so many words) that they are simply too ignorant or close minded. Personally, I think there is a degree of validity to questions concerning why shockingly new music of the past could be embraced within a generation (or less) in spite of far less access to music in general... while Schoenberg and others trouble and challenge a large portion of the audience that actively enjoys classical music. All too often, however, it seems that the discussion of such questions becomes polarized and dominated by the extremes (the lunatic fringe?) on either side of the issue (not unlike our current political landscape?) and those in the middle... who are open to exploring both sides of the issue... are thrown out with the bathwater (to mix metaphors).

Obviously, one of the greatest challenges of contemporary music is that history and subsequent generations of musicians, composers, critics, informed music lovers, etc... have not separated the wheat from the chaff, as it were. We are forced to come to our own conclusions... and the closer a work of art is to us in time, the more challenging this becomes for the very reason that many truly "new" works of art employ a vocabulary that is unfamiliar... challenging... and not yet absorbed by the larger culture. For many, judging (or simply enjoying) contemporary music is a political act. It involves and ideology... taking a position, as it were, as to which direction music SHOULD be headed in. Those taking such an ideological stance find it difficult to listen to music that seems opposed to that ideology. In other words, we have those hardened Modernists/Avant-Gardists who assume that Schoenberg didn't merely bring other possibilities to composition, but rather atonalism/serialism spelled the end of traditional tonality, romanticism, and any other older approaches to music.

Personally, I have no interest in such ideology. I'm only interested in seeking out music that is "new" (if only to me) and engaging. For this reason I think a thread such as this:

http://www.talkclassical.com/11807-exploring-modern-contemporary-music.html

... in which individuals post information and links to Modern and Contemporary music which they have found intriguing or engaging, and talk a bit about what they like about it is ultimately far more useful than these polarized discussions of "Electronic farts and scribbles -vs- a Contemporary work of profound depth and genius that is simply over all the rest of you peon's heads."


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## MariaB

Polednice said:


> I
> 
> 
> 
> Atonality, on the other hand, has always been a deliberate artifice - an intellectual exercise in challenging the idea that there are, or should be, any rules in music. There's the implicit suggestion that the brain has _no_ artistic predispositions and that anything goes so long as the audience is willing to try to understand it. Personally, I think this is a challenge that has failed, and the continuing hold of atonality is a form of academic prejudice.
> 
> 
> 
> Very well expressed, if I may say so. The line of debate in this thread is interesting and well argued. I admit that I haven't listened to much atonal music, but this is because on the few occasions that I have, I didn't enjoy it on any level and therefore completely fail to see the point of pursuing it myself. Personally, I instinctively feel that atonal music is an experiment that was almost bound to happen at some stage, but that the results (and yes, I completely admit that I am generalising horribly here, due to my narrow experience of listening to atonal music) are mostly sterile, confusing and lacking in aesthetic appeal. It seems to be largely an academic exercise, as Polednice aptly labels it, in my opinion. I think there's a parallel here, perhaps, with conceptual art - another genre that I struggle with - if I fail to benefit in any way from the experience of viewing an art work, what is the point? (Artists such as Tracy Emin spring to mind, here...) Is it a case of the Emperor's Clothes? I completely agree that listening to classical music should include many instances of being challenged, but the sort of challenge that I welcome can be found in many aspects of tonal music. I personally find listening to atonal music an ugly, deeply unpleasant and disturbing experience - such music fails to sustain or fulfil me, defeating the entire object of listening to music in my own case. Why should the enjoyment of beauty, of listening to something aesthetically pleasing, be judged as superficial or merely decorative? Great music should not be incompatible with the basic enjoyment of sound.
Click to expand...


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> In other words, we have those hardened Modernists/Avant-Gardists who assume that Schoenberg didn't merely bring other possibilities to composition, but rather atonalism/serialism spelled the end of traditional tonality, romanticism, and any other older approaches to music.


Except we haven't had those for sixty years now. When's the last time you heard someone say "traditional tonality is dead"?

Now when's the last time someone said "I personally find listening to atonal music an ugly, deeply unpleasant and disturbing experience - such music fails to sustain or fulfil me, defeating the entire object of listening to music"?

Hmm.

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

What I don't get is this: It's OK to say you don't like the sound of the tuba, it's OK to say you don't like the sound of the piccolo, hell, it's even OK to say you don't like the sound of the violin. But if you ever say you don't like the sound of rotating helicopter blades, that's it, you're just a closed-minded listener.


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## Vazgen

Curiosity said:


> What I don't get is this: It's OK to say you don't like the sound of the tuba, it's OK to say you don't like the sound of the piccolo, hell, it's even OK to say you don't like the sound of the violin. But if you ever say you don't like the sound of rotating helicopter blades, that's it, you're just a closed-minded listener.


If you called Stockhausen's helicopter quartet "torture" and said that modern music was a relentless attack on good taste, someone could call you closed-minded.

But you didn't do that, did you?

-Vaz


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## Argus

Curiosity said:


> What I don't get is this: It's OK to say you don't like the sound of the tuba, it's OK to say you don't like the sound of the piccolo, hell, it's even OK to say you don't like the sound of the violin. But if you ever say you don't like the sound of rotating helicopter blades, that's it, you're just a closed-minded listener.


That sounds fine. The problem is people are going a step further and saying the sound of rotating helicopter blades either can't be music or art, or if it is music/art it is empirically proven to be 'bad'.

One is an opinion presented as an opinion, the other is an opinion presented as fact.


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## Curiosity

Yeesh, I've already said that I've enjoyed many a piece of modern music. Look, I'm sure there is some more good stuff out there, but let's not kid ourselves, alot of if this atonal meandering does sound pretty freaking bad. I think this is a result of too many composers trying to do something different merely for the sake of being different. 

And I consider the sound of rotating helicopter blades akin to torture, personally. Is that so wrong? If I wanted to listen to the sounds of machinery I'd turn the music OFF and open my bedroom window. Plenty of engines going and screeching tires etc out there.


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## Ravellian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I think many people come to a thread such as this with legitimate questions only to be repeatedly told (in so many words) that they are simply too ignorant or close minded.


Well said. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this arrogance and egocentrism from contemporary music lovers on this forum. These people are not helping people grasp the music better, they're just calling everyone else 'ignorant' and simultaneously expecting them to 'respect' their points of view, which kinda makes me sick.

Perhaps it would help to remind everyone that music is _entertainment_. Having little experience in a genre of music is not the same as having little experience in a field of science or math, where such things really WOULD make that person completely ignorant. Each person's opinion is as valid as another's when it comes to listening to music.


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## Argus

Curiosity said:


> Yeesh, I've already said that I've enjoyed many a piece of modern music. Look, I'm sure there is some more good stuff out there, but let's not kid ourselves, alot of if this atonal meandering does sound pretty freaking bad. I think this is a result of too many composers trying to do something different merely for the sake of being different.


I dislike a lot of it for the entirely opposite reason. It's too conventional. A lot of it's still string quartets or some guy playing a piano like in that Sciarrino same as music from centuries ago. Sure the tonality is gone but the sense of tradition is still overwhelmingly strong in it.

I'd prefer it if the composers tried new, exciting, different things as opposed to the well mined areas of atonality i.e. serialism. But that is purely dependent on what the composer wants from his music.


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## Vazgen

Ravellian said:


> Having little experience in a genre of music is not the same as having little experience in a field of science or math, where such things really WOULD make that person completely ignorant. Each person's opinion is as valid as another's when it comes to listening to music.


I wish I could say people who complain about contemporary music seem like they've engaged with the music at all. They all say they've spent ages listening diligently to contemporary music. But by the way they paint all modern composers with the same broad brush, and characterize contemporary music as _avant-garde, torture_, and _ugly, deeply unpleasant and disturbing_, it's much more likely that their experience is limited.

And I'll never comprehend why people have the need to announce to the world what an ordeal they went through listening to Composer So-and-so anyway. You know what composer I can't stand? No, you don't. You know why? Because I don't waste time discussing composers I don't like.

-Vaz


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## Elgarian

In one sense I've nothing of significance to contribute (heck, I still have trouble getting anywhere with a composer like Bax, who I suppose doesn't really count in this discussion), but in another, more general sense, perhaps I do. These problems, while they're being talked about here specifically with regard to atonal music, permeate all the arts; even - dare I suggest - all areas where communication of any kind between human beings is involved. And the question that always strikes me in these situations is - why should I suppose that it's incumbent upon me to 'enjoy' (if that's the right word) any particular work of art? Or to be able to understand it? Or even to see the 'point' of it?

We wouldn't find this a problem if we were talking about conversations in a room, would we? That conversation over there, for instance, between those guys who are fascinated by recent developments in the despangulation of wobble-scoopers, really doesn't interest me very much. It may be a very fine thing for the world that _someone_ is interested - perhaps even passionately - in the despangulation of wobble-scoopers; but that particular body of appreciators really doesn't have to include me. Fact is, there are hundreds - thousands - of possible conversations that would repel or alienate me, and it really doesn't matter much.

I'm not persuaded that the situation is very different when it comes to art. Art, after all, is a means of communication; and what's being communicated isn't necessarily of interest to us, however brilliantly it might be done. I know just about enough to recognise that Rubens is a supremely gifted painter; but most of the time I'm not terribly interested by the subjects he chose to paint, so he comes across a bit dull most of the time. One day that might change (I've been around long enough to know that it might), but till then I don't see why this should be regarded in terms of failure or success. It's more just a matter of horses for courses.

Similarly, there are many composers whose work doesn't (at present) interest me much. Not unnaturally, I tend to spend most of my time listening to those that do (or that seem to offer the most _promise_ of being interesting) - and why not? A general interest in, or a passion for, musical ideas doesn't imply an equal interest or passion in _all_ musical ideas, any more than a passion for Turner would translate into a comparable passion for Monet. And life is short, and art, famously, is long; we all follow our noses as best we can, and take the routes we find most promising at any given moment.

And sometimes we surprise ourselves. Sometimes we try something - some poem, some music, some painting - 'just one more time', because for some reason on a previous excursion it got under our skin a bit; and occasionally the breakthrough comes. That means it's worth never saying never again. But equally, I can't see why any of us would want to be continually engaged in a struggle with art of any kind that stubbornly remains impenetrable. (I keep having a go with my set of Bax symphonies; but I don't think the CDs are likely to get worn out anytime soon.)

So what it comes down to is that all the stuff that sounds to my ears like random plinks and plonks and bangs on the drum simply hasn't, so far, attracted my interest enough for me to warrant spending serious time getting to grips with it. I used to think the same about abstract painting, until one day I had a Damascene conversion, and the mists cleared, and suddenly what used to look like random splotches became an intricately organised and exciting visual feast. After that I couldn't get enough of the stuff. But until that happened, I'd have been daft to keep banging my head against the wall. I don't see the musical situation as any different. To understand _and see the point of _what's in the Art Box, we have to find _some_ way of getting inside it ourselves. Until we do - as long as we stay _outside_ the box - the contents will seem random, or pointless, and even indefensible.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I dislike a lot of (music) for the entirely opposite reason. It's too conventional...
I'd prefer it if the composers tried new, exciting, different things...

Like Black Sabbath and AC/DC!!! Two guitars, bass and drums. Startlingly original!!!


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## StlukesguildOhio

I can't tell you how many times I've seen this arrogance and egocentrism from contemporary music lovers on this forum.

I wish I could say people who complain about contemporary music seem like they've engaged with the music at all. They all say they've spent ages listening diligently to contemporary music. But by the way they paint all modern composers with the same broad brush, and characterize contemporary music as avant-garde, torture, and ugly, deeply unpleasant and disturbing, it's much more likely that their experience is limited.

Chalk up one more.

And I'll never comprehend why people have the need to announce to the world what an ordeal they went through listening to Composer So-and-so anyway. You know what composer I can't stand? No, you don't. You know why? Because I don't waste time discussing composers I don't like.

Good for you... yet you waste your time arguing with and insulting those who don't like the music you like.


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Chalk up one more.
> 
> Good for you... yet you waste your time arguing with and insulting those who don't like the music you like.


Certainly no arrogance or egocentrism on your part. 

-Vaz


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I dislike a lot of (music) for the entirely opposite reason. It's too conventional...
> I'd prefer it if the composers tried new, exciting, different things...
> 
> Like Black Sabbath and AC/DC!!! Two guitars, bass and drums. Startlingly original!!!


Err, what's your point?

I can manage to like both conventional stuff and the avant garde. I was just saying a lot of the music people describe as unlistenable noise I actually dislike more that it's boringly plain than overly out-there.

Also, Black Sabbath only had one guitarist, and at the time it was pretty original to do things like downtune to C# standard and be that heavy sounding. Just like Boulez and Webern were original in their time, whereas the composers copying their styles now, not so much.

Derek Bailey was still just a guy playing a guitar like Joe Pass or Tal Farlow, yet he managed to do something highly original within that conventional form.


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## Guest

Elgarian said:


> [W]hy should I suppose that it's incumbent upon me to 'enjoy' (if that's the right word) any particular work of art? Or to be able to understand it? Or even to see the 'point' of it?


Indeed. And for the gazillionth time, no one has ever claimed that it IS.

The point keeps being repeated by certain anti-moderns, that the pro moderns are arrogant or closeminded or full of scorn for people who don't like the sound of spinning helicopter blades. None of which is true. All of which looks very much to me like classic bait and switch.

The point is (should I be doing this in all caps or something, the typographical equivalent of a megaphone?), no one is being criticized for disliking modern music. Some people are being taken to task for turning their dislike into a description of the music or into a critique of the validity of all the stuff they dislike. That does happen. And why not? Those activities _are_ illegitimate.

"[L]et's not kid ourselves, alot of if this atonal meandering does sound pretty freaking bad"? ********.

Maybe it sounds freaking bad to Curiosity. Fine, although I don't see the point of telling everyone over and over again (not just Curiosity, of course, but many people) that they don't like "atonal" music. OK. I don't like.... But, like Vazgen, I don't spend much time talking about music I don't like.

"I think this is a result of too many composers trying to do something different merely for the sake of being different." Not so much ******** as just idle speculation. This may be an impression you have formed, but unless you knew "many composers" personally, or had read "many composers" saying that this is what they were doing, then this has to be firmly placed into the "I don't like it, so I'm gonna question the composers' motivations" category.

None of the composers I know (most of whom do not use tonality to create their works) try to do things different merely for the sake of being different.

As for the arrogance and egocentrism that Ravellian has seen, many times, neither arrogance nor egocentrism are seeable. They are not things. They are judgments. The question there is always the same, what are the facts that have led you to these conclusions? Can other interpretations be derived from the same set of facts? That would be an interesting exercise: take something someone has said that's been interpreted as being arrogant and egocentric and give it a different interpretation, a positive one, to make it challenging.

In the meantime, here's my judgment: the only people so far who have been arrogant or egocentric are the ones who have accused the supporters of avant garde musics as being arrogant and egocentric. I haven't seen that! That's just my interpretation.


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## Vesteralen

Elgarian said:


> To understand _and see the point of _what's in the Art Box, we have to find _some_ way of getting inside it ourselves. Until we do - as long as we stay _outside_ the box - the contents will seem random, or pointless, and even indefensible.


I wanted to isolate this one part of your post, Elgarian, since I think it gets to the heart of the issue. I was afraid people might not see it, coming as it did at the end of a long post. Hope you don't mind


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## Elgarian

some guy said:


> Indeed. And for the gazillionth time, no one has ever claimed that it IS.


Exactly so. Sometimes though I can be my own worst enemy, and fall into the trap of seeing myself as failing when the splotches on the canvas, or the plonks from the orchestra fail to make sense to me. I should have made it clearer that I was chiefly speaking to my own unreasonable expectations of myself, rather than to any externally imposed ones.


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## Elgarian

Vesteralen said:


> I wanted to isolate this one part of your post, Elgarian, since I think it gets to the heart of the issue. I was afraid people might not see it, coming as it did at the end of a long post. Hope you don't mind


Delighted. Makes me realise (as so often happens) that I could have said so much more by saying less!


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## TresPicos

I guess both camps could use more restraint, to prevent at least two typical paths of escalation:



> Tonalist: No offense, but I just don't like that music.
> Atonalist: You would have, if you had only listened with an open mind.
> Tonalist: Hey!





> Atonalist: Listen guys, isn't this music cool?
> Tonalist: That's not even music, that's just pretentious crap.
> Atonalist: Your mama!


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## Sid James

To talk to some of the issues here more intelligibly than I usually end up doing (I'll try, doing it on the fly here!) -

*@ stlukes* - Some good points in your posts above, I agree about your view of those in the "middle ground" are easily squeezed out by those on the opposite ends of the spectrum - there has been a tendency during various points in musical history to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

But from my experience speaking to concerts I go to here, often it doesn't matter whether music played is old or new, if it's generally less familiar it has the likelihood of garnering a smaller audience. That performance I went to earlier in the year of Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire _was quite well attended, the hall was near being filled (but not quite), & it was a program fully made up of modern/contemporary music. But other concerts I've attended, with a mix of old & new, have filled venues to less capacity. Two years ago I went to a concert of string orch. music by Vaughan Williams, Sculthorpe, Xenakis, Bartok, R. Strauss. Now RVW & the last two were "big" repertoire pieces, but compared to other concerts of the Australian Chamber Orch., the hall had markedly less people, & quite a few left during interval, missing half the program. Only the Sculthorpe was new (but it was very lyrical, a very gentle opener), the Xenakis & Strauss were from the decade or so after 1945, the rest was music from before 1945. It's hard to explain how this concert had less people coming & some walking out, whereas the one with the Schoenberg didn't. The explanation is that basically audience receptivity depends on a variety of factors, maybe having something to do with the "novelty effect" but at other times it's more complex & rubbery. I don't envy the work of concert programmers, who have to strike a good balance between things that put "bums on seats" & sell tickets & presenting a good number of receptive people in the audience with some experience of less-travelled things, whether they be old or new.

BTW - Schoenberg's _Pierrot_ is as firmly in the modern chamber repertoire as say Messiaen's _Quartet for the End of Time_. I've experienced these things live in recent years, they are gaining some traction here now. I don't consider them much more "challenging" or "oddball" than say Stravinsky's_ Rite of Spring_. & it helped a lot that the _Pierrot_ performance I saw was done in a theatrical way, with a choreographed dancer, lighting & surtitles. It had the ability to engage even those who hadn't heard it before, imo. & that's "the point" of "atonal" music, isn't it?

*@ argus & elgarian* - I think what you both say speaks to the fact that everyone is different. We all have our individual preferences. Some move towards certain things naturally. That's what I've been doing & many others I know are the same. I think we have to take these things into consideration before making blanket judgements or "black & white" statements.

*@ some guy* - I probably could have put it better that my earlier post, I went on a bit of a diatribe or rant, it was rambling, but I generally stand by what I said. What you say here I disagree with rather strongly -



> ...In the meantime, here's my judgment: the only people so far who have been arrogant or egocentric are the ones who have accused the supporters of avant garde musics as being arrogant and egocentric.


Yes, that is a judgement & a blanket statement. Again, ideology rears it's ugly head, about promoting causes. Eg. Stravinsky being accused of "selling out" & "cashing in" to a fad when he went from his earlier more experimental phase into Neo-Classicism; Penderecki similarly when he went from his earlier "texture music" experimentations into what some label "Neo-Romanticism." Then there's certain cliques being bitter at guys like Philip Glass for becoming too rich & successful, of course they label him as a "cop out," a "sell out" producing music that "panders" to the "great unwashed." On that other classical online forum I left, there was one member who was a composer in particular, you'd expect better from him, labelling the music of Morten Lauridsen & Eric Whitacre as making him "vomit." Of course, this speaks mainly to his taste, which would be fine if he'd put up a more constructive criticism or reasoned argument instead of that venom which speaks to dogma/politics rather than commonsense. Maybe, like some of these naysayers, he is somewhat bitter about his own lack of traction or success as a composer? I know people, musicians, who say things like the "three tenors" Rome concert of 1990 (with Pavorotti, Carerras, Domingo) was a "cheapening" of good music, they were doing it for the money, glory, fame, whatever. On the reverse of that, the three guys didn't know it'd be such a huge success, they accepted a one-off payment for the night only & didn't opt for royalties (they were kicking themselves long afterwards). That concert was not contemporary music - though they did do things like bits of _West Side Story_, _Cats_, etc. - but what do these "highbrows" want them to sing to promote opera & other vocal things? Would arias from Wozzeck or Moses und Aron (which I love, btw) would have been appropriate in this context, just because they are percieved as more "highbrow" or "arty" or whatever? But then again, I have come across a variety of other more "grounded" people who saw that concert & whether they were into classical music or not, it made them enjoy an art-from (opera) in a relaxed way, far from the stuffy pretentiousness that it is wrongly characterised as. In other words, things like this help "break the ice" concerning some people's reservations about many types of classical music. The naysayers just echo the same old same old ideological rubbish used to oppress composers - having little to do with their actual music, rubbery "logic" if any - as Hitler or Stalin did. It's BAD NEWS for all music, let alone "modern" or "contemporary." ("atonal" or anything else). "Formalism" in the Soviet era, or "Degeneracy" in the Nazi era were just catch all cliches used to describe anything that these dicatorship didn't like or approve of, for whatever reasons. They were in power & they could do what they wanted.

Of course, there are many moderates out there as well. Friedrich Cerha, who I mentioned above. Elliott Carter in interviews comes across as positive & engaged with many current trends as well, not only those of his "niche." At 102, he's probably more "flexible" than some younger ideologues out there, some highly qualified, that I've come across on that other forum, etc. & Philip Glass actually said that he didn't go into the "minimalist" realm to negate what the earlier serialists or other composers of the older generation did. He basically said that guys like Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez did what they did well, to a very high level, but guys like Glass, Reich, Riley & others later wanted to branch out into other territories, the older guys (he said) had basically said what was worth saying (to a degree) in their earlier directions. Penderecki gave similar reasons for his "about face" - that he felt that he had exhausted the directions he had taken when he was younger. Do composers need to justify everything they do on irrelevant ideological grounds?

& just the lesser known but no less significant (in my eyes) musicians I see live on the ground here, often put together very good programs, not speaking to "ideology" or stifling domatic aridity of a desert, but things that are stimulating & interesting. Eg. I went to a solo piano recital here a few months back (I reviewed it in detail on the "latest concerts" thread) & pianist Daniel Herscovitch (one of our finest) played a variety of things, from Chopin, Webern, Carter, Graham Hare (contemporary Australian), Stravinsky. Many bases were basically covered & he talked about these works in some depth, even sharing anecdotes with his meetings with Mr Carter in the USA & Mr Hare here in Australia (who was in the audience). So there you go. These people tend to be positive & doing a huge service to new (& other) musics. Unfortunately, some others are just stuck in an ideological "rut" and don't understand the "basics" of music appreciation, whether or not they have PHDs in music or own thousands of recordings.


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## Ravellian

_As for the arrogance and egocentrism that Ravellian has seen, many times, neither arrogance nor egocentrism are seeable. They are not things. They are judgments. The question there is always the same, what are the facts that have led you to these conclusions? Can other interpretations be derived from the same set of facts? That would be an interesting exercise: take something someone has said that's been interpreted as being arrogant and egocentric and give it a different interpretation, a positive one, to make it challenging._

I admire your ability to maneuver out of any accusation through philosophical re-analysis. I also admire your fervent enthusiasm for music. But you're still arrogant as hell, which makes it hard for people to want to agree with you.

_I wish I could say people who complain about contemporary music seem like they've engaged with the music at all. They all say they've spent ages listening diligently to contemporary music. But by the way they paint all modern composers with the same broad brush, and characterize contemporary music as avant-garde, torture, and ugly, deeply unpleasant and disturbing, it's much more likely that their experience is limited._

Maybe they do. It's within their every right to do so, just like they have every right to dismiss hockey or country music or Ritz crackers or whatever they don't like. Generally, the way to help people get interested in something new is not by calling them ignorant if they don't immediately 'get it', but by sharing what you like about it. Let's face it: atonal music is still very new and different for people; they need some coaxing into it.

If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off.


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## Polednice

Ravellian said:


> Generally, the way to help people get interested in something new is not by calling them ignorant if they don't immediately 'get it', but by sharing what you like about it. Let's face it: atonal music is still very new and different for people; they need some coaxing into it.
> 
> If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off.


It's interesting that you put it like that. It made me think that, if I were trying to convince someone of the supremeness of Brahms, I wouldn't accuse them of unwilling ignorance if they didn't like it, or choose to believe that they're lying about their amount of listening if they still don't like his music. Instead, I get into a passionate rambling about the sublimity I feel in his music for reasons x, y, and z! 

I know that nerves have been tested quite a bit on this thread, so it doesn't always seem easy and natural to be cheery and positive, but I certainly haven't seen many enthused attempts at persuasion, just unnecessary defensiveness. Unfortunately as well, this has been the case whether someone is making generalisations about atonal music or not.

For clarity, I don't think any particular people (or either side of the debate) are in the wrong, just that we're probably approaching the issue at a really unhelpful angle. Talking from experience and example is likely to be far more successful - though no less engagingly contentious! - than from abstract theory.


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## Sid James

Ravellian said:


> ...If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music,* I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... *then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off.


*As stlukes said above, the thread which I think he created "Exploring Modern & Contemporary Music" is exactly that place on this forum.* I think I'll concentrate my time/energies adding things & discussing others youtube clips there, it is more fruitful (as you suggest above), more positive. I put some Ginastera on there a couple of days ago & one member at least read my "review" & listened to the clips I posted. Ditto me with some things stlukes posted/wrote. I agree with the gist of your arguments, there is no use in being negative about certain people's tastes or some composers music, even if you don't agree with them or don't like them as much as you do other composers (I know I have veered towards that in the past, but now I'm totally changing tack, trying to get away from all that kind of rubbery fuddled thinking).


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## mmsbls

Ravellian said:


> _
> 
> If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off._


_



Sid James said:



*As stlukes said above, the thread which I think he created "Exploring Modern & Contemporary Music" is exactly that place on this forum.* I think I'll concentrate my time/energies adding things & discussing others youtube clips there, it is more fruitful (as you suggest above), more positive.

Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly support these views. I would personally love to have more people participate in stlukes thread. I have bemoaned the fact that it's not more popular, but maybe posts will increase now.

Those of us who are still new to modern music and struggle with it could learn enormously from those who are much more familiar and knowledgeable both with the music and perhaps how to listen (or what to listen for)._


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## Vazgen

Ravellian said:


> If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off.


In my very first post in this thread I did just that, in a response to you no less.






Though you seem convinced I've done nothing but insult and intimidate in this thread, as usual the perception and the reality are vastly different matters.

-Vaz


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## Curiosity

some guy said:


> "[L]et's not kid ourselves, alot of if this atonal meandering does sound pretty freaking bad"? ********.


Well, alot of tonal meandering sounds pretty freaking bad, too. But amusingly it seems that, in the eyes of some, atonal music should be immune to criticism. If it sounds bad, no problem, because either "you're just closed-minded" or "it's supposed to sound bad". If it has no structure or flow, well, like, _duh_, it's not _supposed_ to have any structure or flow. If an atonal piece is just plain bad, it's just because you don't "get it"... This is my main issue with the whole atonal music thing. You can't criticise anything without being told you're just not listening hard enough.

Atonal in itself is not by nature a bad thing. The Schoenberg wind quintet posted above is an example of an atonal piece that is listenable to my ears. However, introduce helicopters into the mix and suddenly... O ****, it would start sounding terrible.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Sid James-...from my experience speaking to concerts I go to here, often it doesn't matter whether music played is old or new, if it's generally less familiar it has the likelihood of garnering a smaller audience...

True. I doubt that a concert featuring Carlo Gesualdo or Guillaume Dufay would be a big seller. This is one of the reasons I have a problem with continued complaints that the big orchestras don't schedule Xenakis or Stockhausen or Schoenberg more. The audience for that music is limited... just as the audience is limited for Dufay and Gesualdo... or even Biber and Rameau, and yet you don't hear fans of so-called "early music" insisting that the major institutions should feature more early music... and that the audience would come around if only they were exposed to more of it.

Last fall I attended a free concert of music by David lang, featuring his marvelous, Pulitzer Prize winning composition, The Little Match Girl Passion. The auditorium was far from full... although the glorious weather that late into November may have played a part. I found myself thinking, "This music is great. More people should hear this." And I've made an effort to introduce Lang's work here. But not once did I think, "If only those idiot program directors weren't so focused upon money... This should be played in the big concert hall and all those conservative blue wigs should be listening to this instead of Mozart again."

I think the idea of introducing Modern and Contemporary music in a concert featuring works from the standard repertoire is an idea with good intentions... but ultimately I'm not certain it works out. While individuals with more eclectic tastes such as myself may appreciate a work by Berio or Carter in a concert focused upon Beethoven and Dvorak, I don't think this works for the majority. Not long ago I attended a concert featuring a number of shorter pieces by Bach which concluded with another brief piece by Berio: a variation on a work by Bach. I personally loved it and loved how it offered a new look at Bach... but I could tell that it virtually fell flat with the audience. But is that not to be expected? If one goes out for an evening of jazz and suddenly the band strikes up a Johnny Cash song or shifts into Hip-Hop it may leave many less-than-thrilled. It is as if we have this captive audience, let's force them to listen to the music that we think is good for them, and I find that highly pretentious.

Again, ideology rears it's ugly head, about promoting causes. Eg. Stravinsky being accused of "selling out" & "cashing in" to a fad when he went from his earlier more experimental phase into Neo-Classicism; Penderecki similarly when he went from his earlier "texture music" experimentations into what some label "Neo-Romanticism." Then there's certain cliques being bitter at guys like Philip Glass for becoming too rich & successful, of course they label him as a "cop out," a "sell out" producing music that "panders" to the "great unwashed." On that other classical online forum I left, there was one member who was a composer in particular, you'd expect better from him, labelling the music of Morten Lauridsen & Eric Whitacre as making him "vomit." 

And this is what drives out a great many who may be open-minded. Individuals who may be honestly curious about Modern and Contemporary classical music discover a few composers they truly admire. Perhaps Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Henryck Gorecki, Arvo Part, and Peter Lieberman... and then they are confronted with snide comments that insinuate that these aren't true Modern or Contemporary composers; they're just reactionaries that haven't recognized that traditional tonality is dead. Or they will be patronized... told that these composers are a good start toward making a more in-depth exploration of Modern and Contemporary music.

I have gotten into a pissing match over at another site concerning the very same comments about Penderecki and Gorecki which you bring up. Another member suggested that Penderecki and Gorecki had "sold out" when they turned from their early more thorny and dissonant works, to the later Neo-Romanticism. I brought up the fact that in all reality Gorecki and Penderecki turning toward writing liturgical music in the atheistic East Block was far from selling out. Penderecki, for example, has expressly stated that he felt as trapped by the ideology of Western Modernism as he did by that of Soviet Social Realism. Unfortunately, some assume that the very idea of making music/art accessible to a larger audience is akin with "selling out" or lowering one's standards.

Ravellian- If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... 

I have suggested this on more than one occasion... and yet intriguingly, in spite of claims to the contrary, the biggest champions of Modern and Contemporary music in these debates seem little inclined to share. It makes me think that Andre may have hit the target in suggesting that some are more concerned with ideology than with the music..

Vazgen- In my very first post in this thread I did just that...

I've never yet been able to really come around to Schoenberg, but I quite like that piece.


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## Sid James

> True. I doubt that a concert featuring Carlo Gesualdo or Guillaume Dufay would be a big seller. This is one of the reasons I have a problem with continued complaints that the big orchestras don't schedule Xenakis or Stockhausen or Schoenberg more. The audience for that music is limited... just as the audience is limited for Dufay and Gesualdo... or even Biber and Rameau, and yet you don't hear fans of so-called "early music" insisting that the major institutions should feature more early music... and that the audience would come around if only they were exposed to more of it.


Good points, but I think one has to bear in mind that a lot of post-1945 large scale music is not for a conventional orchestra or line-up. Some of it being very hard to integrate well into a traditional concert. Eg. Varese's works usually have a huge battery of percussion & big wind sections. Xenakis probably the same, as well as some/many others. They are trying to be innovative with what combinations they write for. Varese's works cannot be programmed as part of a standard concert, recent Varese festivals around the world have focussed just on his music. Similar with Xenakis, I recently attended a concert of his Pleiades & another work for percussion instruments only. It was a rare event, the ensemble Synergy Percussion had been hoping to do this for a long time (decades actually) but just got funding to build special mictrotonal instruments & sort out the usual logistical issues & difficult rehearsal of this complex music. They are made up of percussionists from various larger ensembles & orchestras around Australia who come together once a year to do a gig like this, usually devoted to just 1 or 2 composers. Last year it was Steve Reich & Australian Nigel Butterley. These concerts of theirs are very popular, the Xenakis one I went to had very good attendance, and a third of the audience (incl. myself) stood to clap at the end, we enjoyed it to the max! (although it was bloody loud!!!)



> I think the idea of introducing Modern and Contemporary music in a concert featuring works from the standard repertoire is an idea with good intentions... but ultimately I'm not certain it works out. While individuals with more eclectic tastes such as myself may appreciate a work by Berio or Carter in a concert focused upon Beethoven and Dvorak, I don't think this works for the majority. Not long ago I attended a concert featuring a number of shorter pieces by Bach which concluded with another brief piece by Berio: a variation on a work by Bach. I personally loved it and loved how it offered a new look at Bach... but I could tell that it virtually fell flat with the audience. But is that not to be expected?...It is as if we have this captive audience, let's force them to listen to the music that we think is good for them, and I find that highly pretentious.


Well, if it connected with you, it may have done so with others, it may be kind of hard to gauge. I was at a concert last year, with works by Peter Sculthorpe (contemporary Australian composer, aged about 80, he was present, his music is now kind of modern tonal, but earlier it was more experimental like Penderecki, but more about the Australian landscape, which is what his style is about) & also Bartok. A woman sitting next to me looked like she enjoyed these works, I talked to her in interval & she said she had little experience of classical music, but liked it a lot. After Mr Sculthorpe's piece, she went up to him & told him how she loved it, hugged him & he even kissed her on the cheek. I thought this was great to see. This composer has won big accolades here & abroad, but I think he must have liked to think that his music - which I don't see as "lowbrow" or "conservative" or "easy" by any means, but neither is it exactly the opposite of these stereotypes - moved this woman emotionally, in many different ways. It's probably as good as it gets for composers, even established ones like him, to just connect with people in a natural way.

But speaking to both your quotes above, it's good if orchestras try to make connections between older & newer works in a more simple/predictable way. Eg. I have seen an older program of, but couldn't attend, a local chamber orch. here play Haydn's Clock Symphony on the same bill with Prokofiev's Classical Symphony. This kind of more imaginative programming is a step in the right direction imo, bringing together two seemingly different composers/works, one influenced by the other.



> And this is what drives out a great many who may be open-minded. Individuals who may be honestly curious about Modern and Contemporary classical music discover a few composers they truly admire. Perhaps Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Henryck Gorecki, Arvo Part, and Peter Lieberman... and then they are confronted with snide comments that insinuate that these aren't true Modern or Contemporary composers; they're just reactionaries that haven't recognized that traditional tonality is dead. Or they will be patronized... told that these composers are a good start toward making a more in-depth exploration of Modern and Contemporary music.


I agree with the gist of this. It can "work" on many levels. Some people will only "connect" with a relatively limited number of composers in the modern/contemporary area. That is okay, there is no need to "go further" if you don't want to. Others may well use these "foundations" to build upon in different ways, exploring these composers or others in more depth. There is room for everyone here, whether you only like the more popular things, or have more kind of esoteric tastes. Inclusivity is the word, not exclusivity.



> ...Penderecki, for example, has expressly stated that he felt as trapped by the ideology of Western Modernism as he did by that of Soviet Social Realism. Unfortunately, some assume that the very idea of making music/art accessible to a larger audience is akin with "selling out" or lowering one's standards.


Well I think that the dodgy ideology & dogma of the Facsist & Stalinist periods was in a way continued (perhaps with good intentions) in the immediate decades following WW2. Many of the composers who came prominent then lived through the horrors of that war in their youth. Due to Hitler & Stalin's distortions of music & what they thought it should be, the younger generation after the war were a bit suspicious of expressing emotions directly in music, they were wanting to avoid manipulating the masses like the dictators did. But some of them went to another extreme & "threw the baby out with the bathwater" as I said above. I think that works like Terry Riley's seminal minimalist piece of the late 1960's began to say it's okay to be a bit more emotional, tonal, simple, all this stuff, without being manipulative or bad. Here in Australia, one of the first minimalist pieces by Ann Boyd was virtually laughed at by some in the audience, as (compared to things using eg. serial techniques) it was very simple & seen as almost childish, naive. Then again, many major composers like Xenakis, Carter, Birtwhistle, Cage, Penderecki, Tippett, etc. etc. didn't fit into the serialist camp either, they just did their own seperate things. Even Boulez & Stockhausen didn't rigidly adhere to serialism even at the height of that craze, it was a case of do what I say, not do what I do. I think since the 1970's, with the Holocaust & the Russian pogroms/purges and it's horrors far behind us (but we still need to keep these things in mind, but not in an extreme obsessive way, we don't always have to relate these things to musical matters). Indeed, composers like Boyd are now teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium, they are no longer laughed at, but taken as seriously as anybody else. Pluralism, not a rigid arid desertified orthodoxy is now "the name of the game." But indeed, with the damage done to classical music in general in the immediate post-war decades, it is sometimes difficult to be positive about the future. But I think we just need to "get over it" & focus on the positive rather than the negative...


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## violadude

Ravellian said:


> _If you really want to get people to understand contemporary music, I would suggest sharing some of your favorite works with us, telling us why you like it, etc... then after that, if people still insult the music, dismissing it without thinking, then they're just being jerks and you have a right to be pissed off._


_

I think one of the tricks to getting atonal music is to see what it has in common with music in the past rather than what makes it different. 





Here is the first movement of string quartet no. 3 by Arnold Schoenberg. The beginning is set up as two duets, between the second violin and viola and between the first violin and cello. The duet of the middle voices could be thought of as an "accompaniment duet" and the duet between the outer voices could be thought of as the "theme duet." A kind of "atonal operatic duet" between the two if you want to think of it like that. But later in the piece you hear fragments of the accompaniment duet transform into another main theme. Anyway, I'm not going to explain the whole piece, but my point was to illustrate that Schoenberg is using techniques (grouping instruments into groups, dialogue or "conversation" between the instruments, thematic transformation, making the accompaniment the main theme) that other composers have been using for years. The only thing that makes it different is lack of a tonal center.

I picked this piece also, because many people describe atonal music as only able to describe negative emotions but I think this quartet has just as much wit and humor and "lightheartedness" as a Haydn quartet, especially the 3rd movement.





_


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## Elgarian

Sid James said:


> The naysayers just echo the same old same old ideological rubbish used to oppress composers - having little to do with their actual music, rubbery "logic" if any - as Hitler or Stalin did. It's BAD NEWS for all music, let alone "modern" or "contemporary." ("atonal" or anything else).


I don't want to respond to the ideological aspect of this, but to the broader (and important) criticism that underlies what you're saying - the negative impact of having a predisposition about what art _ought_ to be, and judging all art according to that. Bad news indeed, for music, and for all art. It makes for repression, conflict, and indeed arrogance, because such an approach focuses not on 'what the music is presenting to me', but on 'what I think and/or like'. So instead of looking outwards, we turn inwards; instead of widening our perceptions, we narrow them. And then, when we think we're talking about the art, we're really talking about ourselves (as your example illustrates). Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with talking about ourselves (we're endlessly fascinating), but it's as well to recognise it, if we are.


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## Ravellian

Vazgen said:


> In my very first post in this thread I did just that, in a response to you no less.


I missed it the first time, it is a very interesting piece. Thank you for sharing. 

(see how easy it is to be polite?)


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## Vazgen

Curiosity said:


> But amusingly it seems that, in the eyes of some, atonal music should be immune to criticism. If it sounds bad, no problem, because either "you're just closed-minded" or "it's supposed to sound bad". If it has no structure or flow, well, like, _duh_, it's not _supposed_ to have any structure or flow. If an atonal piece is just plain bad, it's just because you don't "get it"... This is my main issue with the whole atonal music thing. You can't criticise anything without being told you're just not listening hard enough.


For the millionth time, nobody takes offense to informed criticism. But is that what we're seeing in threads like this? All I see is hyperbole about "torture" and "pure crap," and people venting scorn on music they even admit they don't know how to appreciate.

One of your cohorts here inserts a cheap shot about Cage whenever the mood strikes him, regardless of whether it's appropriate to the discussion at hand. Another complains constantly about how "pretentious," "snide," and "arrogant" he finds champions of modern music. Yet another goes so far as to aver that "avant-garde music has something fundamentally, scientifically inaccessible and incomprehensible about it." What's missing is any evidence that these listeners are familiar with the actual music they're so desperate to denigrate. In fact, even suggesting such is considered unforgivably arrogant.

But the fact remains that very few people in these discussions have talked about the Second Viennese School in any informed way. "Darmstadt" is used as a catch-all term for the bogeyman of post-war serialism, but no one seems to have actually listened to Boulez, Maderna, Berio, or Nono. People's familiarity with Cage and Stockhausen's oeuvres is limited to one eccentric stunt apiece. Significant composers like Babbitt, Ligeti, Xenakis, and Carter are dismissed with the epithet "avant-garde" if they're even mentioned at all. How many people in this discussion have mentioned composers and pieces by name, and how many have only used vague terms like "the whole atonal music thing" or "Modern and Contemporary music"?

Of course you can criticize anything. You're entitled to your opinion. But if it's obviously not a particularly informed opinion, why should anyone pretend it is?

-Vaz


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Well, well, well. This thread is still going. I guess I better chip in. I quite like the Schoenberg quintet op.24 (1924) posted above by member Vazgen. It's quite a serene atonal piece. I approve of it.  Schoenberg's music is not that bad, even though we're not the best of friends. I have a few CDs of his music.

But wait. What I have in mind are the extreme, hardcore atonal types, just like that pretentious helicopter piece. Hardcore music for hardcore atonal listeners. 

*Zeena Parkins* (born 1956).






Or a bigger name than Parkins, *Helmut Lachenmann* (born 1935).


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## Curiosity

Vazgen said:


> Of course you can criticize anything. You're entitled to your opinion. But if it's obviously not a particularly informed opinion, why should anyone pretend it is?
> 
> -Vaz


This is the issue. You've just gone in a circle. Again, the implication is that, in your eyes, not liking = being uninformed. This is where the accusations of arrogance and elitism come from.


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## Sid James

You may or may not be referring to what I said (& I realise I may well have gone overboard quite a bit), but to clarify things, referring to what you've said -


Vazgen said:


> ...
> But the fact remains that very few people in these discussions have talked about the Second Viennese School in any informed way.


I think the c20th Viennese School have indeed received a "bad rap" from a number of "quarters" both here & elsewhere. I think that Schoenberg is unfairly labelled as "the bogeyman of classical music" & as a "destroyer of tradition." If one listens to at least some of his music, esp. in terms of doing it the same way as you would with other composers (eg. things like reading the liner notes of the CD, listening to the CD a fair few times, maybe even going to a performance of the man's music), then one quickly realises that these "stereotypes" are nothing but exactly that (a fallacy, an untruth). In criticising the "dogmas" & attitudes that developed in some sections of the classical music world, I was not talking about the c20th Viennese School (who all died before this kind of things happened).



> "Darmstadt" is used as a catch-all term for the bogeyman of post-war serialism...


I was probably being somewhat cliched when referring to the Darmstadt School in my ramblings above. But I was referring to the over-focussing on certain techniques that happened in the decades that immediately followed the war (not only in Germany, but also in other Western European countries, to more or less extent, as well as the UK). I can't easily judge what happened in the USA, I don't know about that. As for Australia, because we were somewhat "behind the times" in these things, I think we missed the "total serialism" craze altogether, or almost altogether. A prominent composer, Peter Sculthorpe, said that when he was attending Sydney Conservatorium in the late 1940's and early 1950's, the focus (or obsession?) was still on things like the more traditional things. We were at the other extreme then, too conservative, too status quo (as if Modernism hadn't even happened, _The Rite of Spring _was only premiered here in the 1950's, _Pierrot Lunaire _in about the 1960's, the _Turangalila Symphony _as late as 1985!). Sculthorpe said that he was forced to produce replicas of string quartets in Beethoven's style. Consequently, him & much of his generation here, came to kind of loathe Beethoven, he was just forced down their throats. But he & others did come to get over it later, Sculthorpe has produced 18 string quartets of his own to date (& they're nothing like Beethoven). Another thing is that many Australian composers had more of an Asian focus. Guys like Barry Conyngham (still active) went to Japan (our former enemy in the war) to study under Takemitsu. This was controversial in the 1970's, but on the whole we moved on from our own brand of "war angst." Sculthorpe ran a course for many years at the Sydney Con, teaching things about the music of the Asia-Pacific region. A lot of his music from that period (1970's & 80's) uses techniques mirroring the Balinese Gamelan. So, in a way, Australia was less touched by the musical "politics" in Europe & we kind of quickly got out of this kind of retrogressive "rut" by focussing on our own region, which is rich in musical cultures.



> ...but no one seems to have actually listened to Boulez, Maderna, Berio, or Nono. People's familiarity with Cage and Stockhausen's oeuvres is limited to one eccentric stunt apiece. Significant composers like Babbitt, Ligeti, Xenakis, and Carter are dismissed with the epithet "avant-garde" if they're even mentioned at all. How many people in this discussion have mentioned composers and pieces by name, and how many have only used vague terms like "the whole atonal music thing" or "Modern and Contemporary music"?


I have heard a good amount - but not tonnes of stuff - by a number of those guys, both on record and live in concert. Babbitt, Maderna & Nono are my "blind spots" of the ones you mention, I haven't heard anything much of theirs, but I have read about them (thus I haven't talked about them). As for the others, I have enjoyed & learnt from what I've heard by them, on a number of levels (just as I have from eg. Beethoven, Haydn, Monteverdi to name three greats from the past). I also consider these guys - some dead, some old or ancient - as more or less voices from past generations. That's why I make a fairly regular effort, as much as I can, to go to live performances of the newest musics/composers in esp. chamber & electro-acoustic areas. That's how I access the latest classical things. I don't have strong opinions about those as often listening to their stuff is just a "one off" experience, never to be followed up (until I maybe hear something from them live again). Nevertheless, I always get something out of these performances.



> Of course you can criticize anything. You're entitled to your opinion. But if it's obviously not a particularly informed opinion, why should anyone pretend it is?


I agree with this. I think what some guy said is along the same lines, but the way he said it just got me "riled up." But by the same token, it is interesting to come on this forum & see the various views, even if they are not as well informed by far compared to scholarly sources in books or things like that. Sadly, much of the so-called "professional" criticism in CD reviews online - & I will name names, a lot of what is said on the site classicstoday strikes me as equally "not a particularly informed opinion" as some of the "naysayers" here, but worse because these people should try to maintain a degree of impartiality & professionalism. Who knows, maybe they are sponsored by certain record companies & their opinions are thus biased along commercial lines/interests?


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## Curiosity

I think the issue really is that too much modern avant-garde music strikes people as the audial equivalent of Tracy Emin's bed.


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## Sid James

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Well, well, well. This thread is still going. I guess I better chip in. I quite like the Schoenberg quintet op.24 (1924) posted above by member Vazgen. It's quite a serene atonal piece. I approve of it.  Schoenberg's music is not that bad, even though we're not the best of friends. I have a few CDs of his music.
> 
> But wait. What I have in mind are the extreme, hardcore atonal types, just like that pretentious helicopter piece. Hardcore music for hardcore atonal listeners.
> 
> *Zeena Parkins* (born 1956).
> 
> Or a bigger name than Parkins, *Helmut Lachenmann* (born 1935).


I don't have the opportunity now to listen to the works you posted (sorry, in a rush as usual, story of my life, that's why my posts are often jumbled). But I'd like to make the general point that, don't you think that since you own a few Schoenberg discs as you say, don't you think that some of the more concentrated or repeated listening you've done with his music has kind of made you appreciate his music more than just hearing things on youtube? I know I tend to give more time to things on CD (or in live concerts) than just youtube. Don't you feel that you have been able to "understand" - consciously or unconsciously, or in-between - Schoenberg to a deeper level over a longer stretch of time? What I'm saying is that you have seemed to have given a "fair chance" to guys like Schoenberg, so the same can potentially happen with others (not necessarily the composers/works you posted, but just with any other composers who are alive today, working using techniques that are reasonably "up to date" (I know, a cliche, but basically any music that is (say) within the "middle" of the spectrum, "not too heavy, not too light, just right," anything that is not too "conservative" but not too "radical" - the "centre" is a good place to start, imo, nothing wrong with that - Schoenberg & others in his own time were very much at the centre, they were not "extremists" by any means, as some people like to label them as)...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Sid James said:


> I don't have the opportunity now to listen to the works you posted (sorry, in a rush as usual, story of my life, that's why my posts are often jumbled). But I'd like to make the general point that, don't you think that since you own a few Schoenberg discs as you say, don't you think that some of the more concentrated or repeated listening you've done with his music has kind of made you appreciate his music more than just hearing things on youtube? I know I tend to give more time to things on CD (or in live concerts) than just youtube. Don't you feel that you have been able to "understand" - consciously or unconsciously, or in-between - Schoenberg to a deeper level over a longer stretch of time? What I'm saying is that you have seemed to have given a "fair chance" to guys like Schoenberg, so the same can potentially happen with others (not necessarily the composers/works you posted, but just with any other composers who are alive today, working using techniques that are reasonably "up to date" (I know, a cliche, but basically any music that is (say) within the "middle" of the spectrum, "not too heavy, not too light, just right," anything that is not too "conservative" but not too "radical" - the "centre" is a good place to start, imo, nothing wrong with that - Schoenberg & others in his own time were very much at the centre, they were not "extremists" by any means, as some people like to label them as)...


Yes, spending time listening repeatedly to pieces often can pays off but not always.

Astrophysicists have a term called the "event horizon" (not the Sam Neil movie), which refers to the special point where light/information gets communicated back to an observer (say us), but beyond that, nothing comes back as everything/information gets sucked into the point of no-return (the black hole). So you see, some things in the musical universe are just so utterly bizzare, that going beyond a certain point (the Schoenberg-event horizon) really doesn't give you anything back at all. You can only conjecture what happens inside the black hole, and anyone's opinion is as good as any other - "crap" says HC or "gold" says you - all equally valid.


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## Sid James

*@ HC *- If Schoenberg as far as you personally "get" into the c20th, that's not too bad, imo. But there is loads of music composed after his death (1951) that may well appeal to you, working on your love of earlier "traditional" composers. You'd be surprised how many traditional techniques - or adapted/modified versions of them - pop up all over the place, right up until today. One example I was listening to this week, which even came out of the blue for me (have owned the disc for about 2 years, but hadn't noticed it as much) is that there is a strong toccata theme in Boulez's _Piano Sonata #1_. This work is only about 10 minutes long, in two parts, each part has two linked movts. (4 movts in all). A jagged toccata comes up at the start of the second part (3rd movt.) stays around for a while, vanishes, then comes back again before the end of the movt. (& whole work) is out. Same with another I've been getting into recently, Ginastera's _Piano Concerto #1_, it begins with a fragmented theme that has a bit of the feel of Liszt. Various things happen along the way (I have talked about this on the "Modern & Contemporary Music" thread started by stlukes) but Ginastera ends the work in a - you guessed it - toccata! Despite a lot of violent rhythms the traditional form, quite melodic and "organised" shines through like a bell. So there you go, the "spirit" of J.S. Bach is never far away, even in these strongly "atonal" (but only partially, by no means "rigidly," serial) works...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Thanks for the suggestion. I should clarify that when I mention Schoenberg, I don't refer to a chronological sense, not as a cutoff point in time, but referring to the form and genre. Peter Maxwell Davies wrote quite a lot of SQ's. A few that I have listened to, are not as bizzare as the two I posted above (in post #335), again within the limits of approval.


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## Vazgen

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I should clarify that when I mention Schoenberg, I don't refer to a chronological sense, not as a cutoff point in time, but referring to the form and genre.


And Schoenberg wasn't a form or a genre, but a composer of musical works. None of which you mentioned.

Incidentally, that Lachenmann piece you posted was really fascinating. I wish the sound were better, because the work is obviously all about texture and dynamics. The Arditti is the ideal quartet to present such a delicate, intricately wrought piece of music. Thanks!

-Vaz


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## TresPicos

Curiosity said:


> I think the issue really is that too much modern avant-garde music strikes people as the audial equivalent of Tracy Emin's bed.


You say that like it's a bad thing... 

I think "My bed" is a great piece of art. I can't deny that it is, on the surface, a "pretentious" work consisting primarily of "crap", but that doesn't mean that it's "just pretentious crap". There are other dimensions to it, otherwise it would not have become famous. Sure, it didn't take much skill to create it (apart from the skill of knowing the art world well enough to know which boundaries were still left to push). Anybody could have done it. But nobody thought of it. Until Tracey Emin got the idea. Well, kudos to her.

It's all fun and games with the creative arts, until the artists start getting creative...


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## Argus

Pascal Dusapin is pretty accessible. I'd recommend the atonal bashers to give him a listen. I don't find him that impressive but it's all pretty listenable.











Here's a piece by Takemitsu I like (he's a bit hit and miss for me):


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## StlukesguildOhio

I agree with the gist of this. It can "work" on many levels. Some people will only "connect" with a relatively limited number of composers in the modern/contemporary area. That is okay, there is no need to "go further" if you don't want to. Others may well use these "foundations" to build upon in different ways, exploring these composers or others in more depth.

And we might as well admit that contemporary music/art is fluid and open to very different opinions. There are those who have the most advanced education and training in art, for example, who dismiss Duchamp, Warhol, and any number of other Modern/Post-Modern icons while embracing others. Certainly the same is true in the realm of classical music. Glenn Gould was a great supporter of Schoenberg. Murray Perahia, who I would presume is no less educated and knowledgeable concerning music has admitted that he has little liking for atonal music as it lacks a "home". The concept put forward on more than one occasion that "it is all good" is nonsense. But when musicians as educated as Gould and Perahia can't agree upon what Modern/Contemporary music is the best... is truly worthy of our time... then it is pretentious in the extreme for some to suggest that it is some sort of failing when an individual doesn't appreciate the same contemporary music they like.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I think "My bed" is a great piece of art. I can't deny that it is, on the surface, a "pretentious" work consisting primarily of "crap", but that doesn't mean that it's "just pretentious crap". There are other dimensions to it, otherwise it would not have become famous. Sure, it didn't take much skill to create it (apart from the skill of knowing the art world well enough to know which boundaries were still left to push). Anybody could have done it. But nobody thought of it. Until Tracey Emin got the idea. Well, kudos to her. 

I'm sorry, but its a piece of crap. There's nothing really new about it (see Rauschenberg's Bed 30 years earlier as well as any number of other installations/environments). It was merely intended to shock an audience that has become increasingly difficult to shock in an era in which "shock" is the easiest way to garner attention and it is assumed that attention = merit.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> _t is pretentious in the extreme for some to suggest that it is some sort of failing when an individual doesn't appreciate the same contemporary music they like._


_It would be if anyone had ever suggested this. BUT NO ONE EVER HAS. So it's very peculiar that this point keeps popping up over and over again. But that is the allure of the straw man, to be sure: a straw man can always be defeated. So if you want to "win," then make a straw man to attack. You will win. (Or "win.")

While Gould was interested in some twentieth century music, neither he and certainly not Perahia were particularly associated with more recent manifestations of contemporary music. That would be David Tudor or Margaret Leng Tan. So educated and knowledgable in music generally doesn't apply. Be fair, we don't go to Helmut Rilling for any recommendations of the best turntablists working today. Nor would we ask Jon Abbey which recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion is a must have. (Though, come to think of it, Jon might have something quite sensible to say along that line!)_


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## Argus

Some more Sciarrino. Slightly more sedate this time.






And here's a driving rhythmic piece by Mazulis that still maintains a soothing effect as contrast. Some distinct microtones in there as well.


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## Elgarian

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'm sorry, but its a piece of crap.


It can give a certain sort of satisfaction to make this kind of statement about art that displeases us, or that we don't understand, or that seems pointless, or offensive ... etc etc. And there's a kind of reassurance in it, because it permits us to transfer the 'blame' (though the issue of blame is self-generated here, and inappropriate) away from ourselves and onto the work in question. I've done it myself, especially in the heat of the moment. I used to do it a lot more than I do now. But it seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of the nature and ends of art.

As I've said many times on this forum, in a variety of contexts, we can be much more secure in our positive experiences of art than we can in our negative ones - a truth that the history of art criticism demonstrates time and again, endlessly, as if it were a lesson we don't know how to learn. On this particular issue, I haven't seen Emin's bed (except in photos), so can't comment; though I have, despite my own initial reluctance, been curiously and uniquely affected by some of her work, enjoying experiences that have proved surprisingly valuable, even haunting, over years; and this is the point, really. We rush to declare that _this_ work is crap, and that _that_ work isn't; but what actually counts is whether the work is capable of providing a life-enriching encounter, and what insights we might gain through that experience. I'm inclined to refer again to my previous post comparing art experiences with conversations. The proper response to the conversation that bores or offends us is not to declare it 'crap', but just to walk away.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Elgarian said:


> ... but what actually counts is whether the work is capable of providing a life-enriching encounter, and what insights we might gain through that experience.


Agree. But that arranged bed/whatever the hell it's called, sitting in an art gallery doesn't provide any, so it's utter crap. (And I would even go as far as suggesting folks who might think that it is great art, ought to go see a doctor and get their minds examined).



Elgarian said:


> The proper response to the conversation that bores or offends us is not to declare it 'crap', but just to walk away.


Why should we silently walk away thereby propagating bad art?


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## Ravellian

Elgarian said:


> It can give a certain sort of satisfaction to make this kind of statement about art that displeases us, or that we don't understand, or that seems pointless, or offensive ... etc etc. And there's a kind of reassurance in it, because it permits us to transfer the 'blame' (though the issue of blame is self-generated here, and inappropriate) away from ourselves and onto the work in question. I've done it myself, especially in the heat of the moment. I used to do it a lot more than I do now. But it seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding of the nature and ends of art.


I really think we have to draw the line somewhere. If I take a crap and take a photo of it, I don't think I could convince anyone it's art. Nor do I think a messy bed or a urinal should count as art either. If "art" can be literally anything, then it has no meaning whatsoever. Which is also why I don't care for "4'33"."


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## Sid James

Funny how this thread, started on a (probable) premise of "dissing" so-called "atonal" music (yes, agree with some guy above, it is a "straw man" fallacy argument) has now gotten into the territory of "contemporary art." I also like to make links between different artforms, but I fail to see what Tracy Emin's "bed" piece has to do with all this? I may as well post something by Jeff Koons or something, to prove what "point" I don't know. Neither Ms Emin's or Mr Koons are considered "cutting edge" today, I think. They were "one hit wonders" of the 1990's (that's the decade before last, guys!!!). Same as guys like Serrano, the "**** Christ" guy. What do these people, whether they made "lasting" contributions during the 1990's or not, have to do with current trends in the visual arts today? Apart from things like the general "conceptual art" or "art as language" movements, stuff like that had been around for yonks, independent of them (& also their precursors were back in the dinosaur age - anybody heard of Kurt Schwitters & his "merzebau" out there, or the Dadaist Movement around WW1???). Should I post a pic of one of their "oddball" pieces to prove a point. Seriously guys, get real, discussion of stuff likes this just says CLICHE, CLICHE, CLICHE to me...



> And we might as well admit that contemporary music/art is fluid and open to very different opinions. There are those who have the most advanced education and training in art, for example, who dismiss Duchamp, Warhol, and any number of other Modern/Post-Modern icons while embracing others.


Yes, there are debates about many artists (incl. Duchamp, Warhol or a whole host of others). But no serious scholar or art historian worth their salt would question the fact that they played some role in the history of the visual arts (& beyond) in the c20th. The question is not whether they had a place in the general scheme of things, but more what was the exact nature of that role or place, how important/significant was their contribution, contexts/influences/trends/impacts, things like this.



> Certainly the same is true in the realm of classical music. Glenn Gould was a great supporter of Schoenberg. Murray Perahia, who I would presume is no less educated and knowledgeable concerning music has admitted that he has little liking for atonal music as it lacks a "home". The concept put forward on more than one occasion that "it is all good" is nonsense.


Well, as some guy has said, pianists have their specialist areas of interpretation/performance. I think both those pianists were more generalists than anything else. Gould probably more of an all-rounder, Periah more interested in the older "classic" repertoire. Then there were guys like Bruno Walter, Arturo Toscanini, Ernest Ansermet who started premiering new music in their youth - esp. with focus on composers from their home countries - but in middle/older age hardly or never conducted anything new. Correct me if I'm wrong. The only "new" music I think Toscanini & Walter took on that made any impact was that of Samuel Barber. I think that Bartok was as far as Ansermet went, after that it was nothing (he died in the late 1960's, way after Bartok). Alluding to your earlier analogy, if you were around say in the mid-1950's when all these guys were alive, & you were a fan of new music, which conductor would you follow? I don't think it'd be them, it'd be the then promoters of new music like Bernstein, Mitropoulos, Boulez, Cerha, Gielen, to name a few around that time, even the more "conservative" Brits like Sargent, Boult, Sir Colin Davis & of course Britten did do their fair share to promote newer music, at least by the "established" older composers around the time. So I don't know if Gould who died in the 1980's "holds" regarding the music coming after that at least & as I said, he was more of an all-rounder, J.S. Bach is what he's most known for, I think (his recordings of the c2oth Veinnese guys did, & others from the inter-war period, did admittedly, make an impact, but they all died decades before). As for Perahia, he's not exactly young now & even if he was, guys like Maurizio Pollini have done more recent things than him (but I agree that David Tudor mentioned above was the pianist of more relevance here, he premiered many post-1945 works, eg. of Cage, Stockhausen, & I'd also add Michel Beroff & Yvonne Loriod, esp. regarding Messiaen's & Boulez's things).

Basically, I prefer someone in the current generation to perform or theorise, educate us in an inclusive way about the Classical music they are passionate about (yes, liking it too, being positive about it). I remember watching a tv documentary series about "modern" music hosted by Simon Rattle & I loved his enthusiasm & talent for explaining these things in an open, caring way. Older generations who saw Bernstein do similar things have good memories of that as well. Even people who aren't musicians have made good docos about classical music (covering many eras) such as Simon Callow (the Classical Destinations series) & even the late Dudley Moore, who I remember doing a series, esp. an episode on Bartok, interviewing Sir Georg Solti, who personally knew the composer. I have read about how Periah - who you posted about regarding this ages ago - & "off my own bat" guys like Ansermet & the other two (whose work I admire nonetheless) talked of their distaste for the "atonalists." I'd rather hear these guys do what they do best, perform the musics they love, & I'm more interested in their opinions of those kinds of things, rather than them talking to things that they are antagonistic about. Wouldn't you?



> But when musicians as educated as Gould and Perahia can't agree upon what Modern/Contemporary music is the best... is truly worthy of our time... then it is pretentious in the extreme for some to suggest that it is some sort of failing when an individual doesn't appreciate the same contemporary music they like.


I get your point that musicians have preferences, and are allowed to have them, just like anybody. But it's the same with any other music. There have many debates on this forum about things like whether Beethoven was a "Classical Era" or "Romantic Era" composer. Who was the "greatest" composer of whatever era. Who is the "best" performer of whatever repertoire/piece. What's the "best" CD to get of a certain composer's music for a "newbie." I doubt that we could agree fully on these things, so I doubt we'll get much traction in that way regarding "atonal" music or whatever other type of music. Life is full of grey areas, most of it isn't black & white. "Nothing is written" as Peter O'Toole said in_ Lawrence of Arabia_. Everything's up for grabs. That life, imo, we just "roll with the punches"...


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## TresPicos

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I think "My bed" is a great piece of art. I can't deny that it is, on the surface, a "pretentious" work consisting primarily of "crap", but that doesn't mean that it's "just pretentious crap". There are other dimensions to it, otherwise it would not have become famous. Sure, it didn't take much skill to create it (apart from the skill of knowing the art world well enough to know which boundaries were still left to push). Anybody could have done it. But nobody thought of it. Until Tracey Emin got the idea. Well, kudos to her.
> 
> I'm sorry, but its a piece of crap. There's nothing really new about it (see Rauschenberg's Bed 30 years earlier as well as any number of other installations/environments). It was merely intended to shock an audience that has become increasingly difficult to shock in an era in which "shock" is the easiest way to garner attention and it is assumed that attention = merit.


Yeah... well... you might have liked it if you had been open-minded.


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## Vazgen

Sid James said:


> Funny how this thread, started on a (probable) premise of "dissing" so-called "atonal" music (yes, agree with some guy above, it is a "straw man" fallacy argument) has now gotten into the territory of "contemporary art." I also like to make links between different artforms, but I fail to see what Tracy Emin's "bed" piece has to do with all this?


It's just another way people can avoid talking about music they know little about. If they were to talk about Schoenberg's early twelve-tone works or the influence of Karl Goeyvaerts, you'd realize they were on top of the subject. But if the only way they can analyze 20th century music is through analogies to modern painting and sculpture, you have to assume the exact opposite.

So let's enjoy a colorful chamber work from a masterful composer. Here's Stefan Wolpe's Chamber Piece No.1 (1964) for flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, 2 violins, viola, cello, double bass, and piano.






-Vaz


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## Sofronitsky

I'm sorry everyone thinks this thread was started to bash atonal music. I was just trying to understand


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## StlukesguildOhio

Yeah... well... you might have liked it if you had been open-minded.

After 5 years of art school, honors research in Modern art history, and employment as an art history research assistant (to say nothing of 15+ years as a working artist) I am not easily swayed by the sort of cliche crap that artists like Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, and Damian Hirst churn out. As Andre/Sid pointed out in the post above, there is nothing profoundly new in what Emin, Koons, and Hirst have done. It's all been done... done long before and far better by artists like Duchamp, Schwitters, Cornell, Rauschenberg, etc... If you reduce visual art to nothing but an idea then the idea needs to be truly new and original. Monet can paint 100s of landscapes because his work is based upon the idea that art is aesthetically beautiful. When we get into conceptual art, the notion is that aesthetics are irrelevant... it is the idea that matters.

If we accept this concept of art... then the idea conveyed needs to be new. 
Personally, I don't buy the entire notion of this art (and if you actually knew the real story behind Duchamp's Fountain you might be surprised to find that Duchamp didn't buy into the concept that anything could be art... that the 911 attacks, as Stockhausen so famously argued, were a brilliant example of performance art.)

I agree with the critics such as Robert Hughes and Donald Kuspit, among others, who refer to such art as "anti-art" or post-art," and suggest that it is not "visual art"... but rather, if anything, a poor and pathetic variation on criticism and philosophy. Unfortunately, for such artists, the field of literature doesn't seem to suffer fools as lightly as music and visual art. We don't get anyone taking books with no text ala Cage's _4:33_ or found objects as literature seriously at all. In many ways I suspect that this has much to do with the fact that literature is largely read by a comparatively large audience for entertainment and pleasure whereas the works of visual arts are marketing to a super-rich who see art as a means of conveying social status. What better way to stand out from the peons than to be able to grasp the imagined depth in Tracey Emin and Jeff Koons. The Emperor's New Clothes is a tired cliche... but cliche's can be true, and one suspects this is just such an instance.

There are instances in which I suspect a similar motive with regard to certain works of contemporary music. I suspect that some of the audience who appreciate works such as Cage's _4:33_ or Stockhausen's _Helicopter Quartet_ imagine that an ability to appreciate such work denotes a certain superiority... not unlike the high-school kid who imagines that he is so much more hip that the other students because he listens to the most obscure bands. Now you might note I denoted specific works. I'm not suggesting the whole of Cage's or Stockhausen's oeuvre. I quite admire Cage's works for prepared piano (and several other pieces) and Stockhausen's Stimmung.


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## StlukesguildOhio

It's just another way people can avoid talking about music they know little about. If they were to talk about Schoenberg's early twelve-tone works or the influence of Karl Goeyvaerts, you'd realize they were on top of the subject. But if the only way they can analyze 20th century music is through analogies to modern painting and sculpture, you have to assume the exact opposite.

Once again we have the champion of Modernism who decries snobbishness and elitism in his/her opponents, turning around to make it clear that only those with a true profound grasp of the development of Modern music are at all qualified to offer an opinion upon the matter. I guess I must desist in my comments upon the beauty of Monteverdi's work until I have completed my PhD. studies in the field.

Time for us all to pack it up and go home and leave the arts to the "experts" who know so much more than ourselves.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Well, as some guy has said, pianists have their specialist areas of interpretation/performance. I think both those pianists were more generalists than anything else.

But are we willing to resign all judgment of art to the experts... and the specialist within each realm? That would pretty much eliminate all of us... some guy included. My point in bringing up Gould and Perahia was that even those acknowledged as quite knowledgeable within the realm of music have major differences of opinion concerning the merits of various Modern and Contemporary artists. As with your comment concerning the reputation of Warhol or Duchamp I agree that few knowledgeable in music will deny the importance of Schoenberg, Ligeti, Cage, or Xenakis in the historical development of Modern/Contemporary music... but they may not necessarily agree upon the actual merits of their work. Not every innovation is for the better.


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## Sid James

StlukesguildOhio said:


> There are instances in which I suspect a similar motive with regard to certain works of contemporary music. I suspect that some of the audience who appreciate works such as Cage's _*4:33*_ or Stockhausen's _*Helicopter Quartet*_ imagine that an ability to appreciate such work denotes a certain superiority... not unlike the high-school kid who imagines that he is so much more hip that the other students because he listens to the most obscure bands...


Why are these two works constantly trundled out as evidence of the weaknesses or flaws or whatever of post-1945 music? I'm not targeting you, I'm just talking to this issue generally, because these works seem to be the obsession of some around here? You say that there are other musics that you and many like you appreciate without worrying about whether their "trendy" or not. If you or others think like this, in a more moderate/middle of the road way, why mention two works that are like 0.1 per cent or less than all the other works produced since 1945?



> Now you might note I denoted specific works. I'm not suggesting the whole of Cage's or Stockhausen's oeuvre. I quite admire Cage's works for prepared piano (and several other pieces) and Stockhausen's Stimmung.


It's the same with other composers, of any time, living or long dead. We don't judge Beethoven on his works that are considered to be below his usual high standard (eg. _Wellington's Victory_ - from an objective viewpoint, this work is not today considered on the same level as his symphonies). Same with for example Rossini's lesser operas, which people like member Almaviva have referred to on TC, as being regurgitations of earlier operas, just fitting old tunes to different storylines. Then there are quite a number of top Russian or Soviet era composers (whatever their ethnicity) eg. Khatchaturian, Shostakovich, Prokofiev who composed agitprop works that have very little regard today, in many circles (they may still be worth listening to for various reasons, but no-one would say these are their finest achievements).

Another issue is that both Stockhausen & Cage wrote heaps of actual music that is rarely heard today. & even the relatively small amount I've heard can be "accessible" & quite fun - eg. the former's _Tierkreis_ - based on the 12 signs of the Zodiac, which is a combination chamber-performance piece, great to experience live - & things like the latter's _Credo in Us_ (a kind of cheeky collage/deconstructionist piece, using acoustic instruments, turntables, radios, very innovative & fun at the same time!). I agree the gist of what Vazgen is saying above to a general point - it would be better if people relayed actual experiences with the music rather than just generalisations. It's good that you have been able to hear things from these guys that you've "clicked" with. That's what makes informed debate & it's mainly based on a positive attitude to get out there & just experience the music, not necessarily (as I said to some guy above) on education or owning thousands of discs or things like that...


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I suspect that some of the audience who appreciate works such as Cage's _4:33_ or Stockhausen's _Helicopter Quartet_ imagine that an ability to appreciate such work denotes a certain superiority...


You spend way too much time constructing these suppositious scenarios. Way too much time.

You simply cannot let people enjoy things that you don't enjoy, can you? Their enjoyment has to be defined as wrong somehow. They cannot enjoy this stuff for itself. Impossible. Has to be evidence of some pathology.

Nuts to that.:lol:


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## Sid James

Guys, if you want to discuss some of these issues in more depth, with less of a focus on one type of music - eg. "atonal," "contemporary," or "modern," etc. then come to this thread I've just created -

http://www.talkclassical.com/14363-rubbery-logics-can-prevent.html

I think it would be worthwhile to have a more broad-based discussion about some of the assumptions underlying what has been said on this "what is the point of atonal music?" thread. I think this thread has kind of veered way off it's course, whether intended or not, the discussion here is now basically unrelated to whatever this thread was meant to be about...


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## TresPicos

Sofronitsky said:


> I'm sorry everyone thinks this thread was started to bash atonal music. I was just trying to understand


I guess the answer to your original question is "to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy it".


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## Elgarian

Sid James said:


> I think this thread has kind of veered way off it's course, whether intended or not, the discussion here is now basically unrelated to whatever this thread was meant to be about...


Yes you're right Sid - but they always have a tendency to do that, don't they? The difficulty is that the question 'What is the point of Atonal Music?' can't be addressed without dealing with the broader issue of the nature of art. My chief point is that when we start talking about this or that being 'crap' (whether it's a bed or a weird set of sounds), we're not discussing art in any meaningful way. We're discussing ourselves.* Until that's recognised, the problem can't be addressed properly.

*See for example, HC's comment:



> And I would even go as far as suggesting folks who might think that it is great art, ought to go see a doctor and get their minds examined


Nothing could highlight more clearly the fact that we're no longer talking about _the art_, when we start talking about someone else being wrong in the head for having a different view.


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## Art Rock

TresPicos said:


> I guess the answer to your original question is "to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy it".


This should have been the first and only reply.....


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## Vazgen

StlukesguildOhio said:


> It's just another way people can avoid talking about music they know little about. If they were to talk about Schoenberg's early twelve-tone works or the influence of Karl Goeyvaerts, you'd realize they were on top of the subject. But if the only way they can analyze 20th century music is through analogies to modern painting and sculpture, you have to assume the exact opposite.
> 
> Once again we have the champion of Modernism who decries snobbishness and elitism in his/her opponents, turning around to make it clear that only those with a true profound grasp of the development of Modern music are at all qualified to offer an opinion upon the matter. I guess I must desist in my comments upon the beauty of Monteverdi's work until I have completed my PhD. studies in the field.
> 
> Time for us all to pack it up and go home and leave the arts to the "experts" who know so much more than ourselves.


It would have gone a long way toward refuting my point if you'd bothered to demonstrate some working knowledge of contemporary composed music, such as the point about Schoenberg's music that I mentioned above. But since you decided to take the low road and contribute nothing but insults and sarcasm, you've basically validated my opinion of the naysayers here.

Thanks.

-Vaz


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Russian, Soviet composer *Alfred Schnittke* (1935-1998)'s piano quintet is likeable. I have a recording of it (coupled with the Shostakovich piano quintet on Naxos).


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## Argus

Some less academic atonal pieces for the atonal bashers so they can do some atonal bashing.

John Cage meets Sun Ra:






Derek Bailey:






The Gerogerigegege


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## Sofronitsky

Art Rock said:


> This should have been the first and only reply.....


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## Vesteralen

Sofronitsky said:


>


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## Sofronitsky




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## Vesteralen

Sofronitsky said:


>


Just thought you might relate to this mythological character when thinking about how this thread developed.

But, then again, maybe not...


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## Art Rock

Sofronitsky said:


>


And the same to you.


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## Sofronitsky

Art Rock said:


> And the same to you.


I think you are very pretentious. The title of this thread doesn't represent my full question, only my confusion when it comes to this music. The full question explains my difficulty with the music, and nicely asks others to help explain their positive views on this music to me. If you would like to make an alternate thread on the subject you are welcome to do so!


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## Art Rock

You are confused. You ask what is the point of this music which you do not understand. The best answer is still "to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy it". There is nothing pretentious about that statement or my supporting it. You cannot discuss taste (de gustibus non est disputandum). There is no good taste or bad taste in these matters, just your personal taste and anyone else's personal taste, in my opinion. There is no point in trying to appreciate every type of music - some you will like, some you will not. There is no logic behind it. In general I do not like baroque, yet Bach is my favourite composer. Where is the logic in that?


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## violadude

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Agree. But that arranged bed/whatever the hell it's called, sitting in an art gallery doesn't provide any, so it's utter crap. (And I would even go as far as suggesting folks who might think that it is great art, ought to go see a doctor and get their minds examined).
> 
> Why should we silently walk away thereby propagating bad art?


Oh please, please stop speaking for everyone. Every person has different experiences. You can't say that this piece of music or this piece of art doesn't inspire anything in anybody and act like it's a fact. Just speak for your own experiences please.


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## Polednice

Art Rock said:


> You are confused. You ask what is the point of this music which you do not understand. The best answer is still "to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy it". There is nothing pretentious about that statement or my supporting it. You cannot discuss taste (de gustibus non est disputandum). There is no good taste or bad taste in these matters, just your personal taste and anyone else's personal taste, in my opinion. There is no point in trying to appreciate every type of music - some you will like, some you will not. There is no logic behind it. In general I do not like baroque, yet Bach is my favourite composer. Where is the logic in that?


All the same, I think it's a little less flippant to approach Sofronitsky's thread with the basic question: _how_ does this music provide enjoyment, or _what_ enjoyment do people get from it.


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## Ravellian

Polednice said:


> All the same, I think it's a little less flippant to approach Sofronitsky's thread with the basic question: _how_ does this music provide enjoyment, or _what_ enjoyment do people get from it.


Perhaps, although such a question may come across as a bit accusatory or challenging. People should not have to defend their musical taste.


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## Polednice

Ravellian said:


> Perhaps, although such a question may come across as a bit accusatory or challenging. People should not have to defend their musical taste.


Are you referring to my 'how' and 'what' questions? I don't see how they are at all accusatory or challenging. A lot of this must be to do with the tone people perceive in others' writing. I bet at least half the things said on this thread have been taken more offensively than necessary.


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## StlukesguildOhio

You spend way too much time constructing these suppositious scenarios. Way too much time.

Perhaps... but unlike yourself I've also spent time posting biographies and personal responses to the music of Modern and Contemporary composers, as well as links to their music. What have you contributed of any worth beside sniffing the ground for the proverbial strawmen.

:tiphat:


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## Guest

And WAY too much time attacking me personally while ignoring what I've actually said (or distorting it past all recognition).

Oh well.


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## Sofronitsky

Art Rock said:


> You are confused. You ask what is the point of this music which you do not understand. The best answer is still "to provide enjoyment for those who enjoy it". There is nothing pretentious about that statement or my supporting it. You cannot discuss taste (de gustibus non est disputandum). There is no good taste or bad taste in these matters, just your personal taste and anyone else's personal taste, in my opinion. There is no point in trying to appreciate every type of music - some you will like, some you will not. There is no logic behind it. In general I do not like baroque, yet Bach is my favourite composer. Where is the logic in that?


 What if someone that fervently loved rock music asked you to explain why you loved classical music? *Because I enjoy it!* How would that be a pertinent answer? The same applies to this thread! I'm not asking for a 100% logical reason for why your brain delights in Schoenberg... Just to illustrate your love of atonal music like Tom Hanks voices his love of Opera in _ Philadelphia_, or explaining how a certain piece makes you feel and why you enjoy that feeling. Others in this thread have posted along those lines and some of those posts have helped me warm up to this music.

But I think in around 30 pages this topic is pretty much covered. Now there is alot more personal bashing and the negative things you would see in a religious debate... Could someone lock my thread? I don't think there's much to expand upon!


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## Guest

I was considering making a reply in this thread then I saw someguy was involved (suprise suprise) so not wanting to be on the receiving end of his anticipated wrath I will not say what I think of that terrible noise.


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## tdc

Sofronitsky said:


> What if someone that fervently loved rock music asked you to explain why you loved classical music?


Yes, but the title of your thread doesn't ask the question in that way. It asks the question in a rather insulting way before one even opens the topic. Its to be expected that the thread will then lead to such debates.

If you ask a stupid question don't be surprised if you get a stupid answer.


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## rahmalec

Haven't read the entire thread but some people talked about joy in atonal (or almost atonal) music.

Have a listen to Turangalila Symphonie by Messaien. Now this piece is not atonal, but mixes elements of both tonality and non-tonality.


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## Polednice

tdc said:


> Yes, but the title of your thread doesn't ask the question in that way. It asks the question in a rather insulting way before one even opens the topic. Its to be expected that the thread will then lead to such debates.
> 
> If you ask a stupid question don't be surprised if you get a stupid answer.


Alternatively, the thread's title _can_ be taken as completely neutral and genuine, but most respondents were immediately on the offended defensive when unnecessary.


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## Elgarian

I'd decided this was a conversation I'd walk away from (and indeed, it still is, and I'll walk away from it after this). But yesterday I was skimming through the new issue of _Gramophone_ and read these words, below, by Richard Eyres. Seems to me, this would have made a good start to answering the original poster, and it's worth drawing attention to:

"Music, like sex, doesn't have to have a point: that is its point. Music is. With good music, you have only to listen to it and be grateful."

But that's not quite enough in itself, and to complete it I'm reminded of the preface to one of John Ruskin's finest books (though a difficult one, often misunderstood), in which he likens his work to a tree, "on which, if any fruit grow such as you can like, you are welcome to gather it without thanks; and so far as it is poor or bitter, it will be your justice to refuse it without reviling". That last bit is what counts, for me. It's an invitation to be gracious about the things we may not understand in art, even if, in dismissing them, we think we do. Even (perhaps especially) when we think we're _sure_ we do.

Between them, those two have got the problem of how to approach the issue of atonality pretty well covered I think.

Over and out.


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## Polednice

Elgarian said:


> "Music, like sex, doesn't have to have a point: that is its point. Music is. With good music, you have only to listen to it and be grateful."


That just seems like a prettily worded way of avoiding the actual issue. Sex is never pointless - even if it's a one-night stand, it is always at least about pleasure. People don't do it mindlessly, not caring about the act or its rewards. Only then would it not have a point.


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## mmsbls

tdc said:


> Yes, but the title of your thread doesn't ask the question in that way. It asks the question in a rather insulting way before one even opens the topic. Its to be expected that the thread will then lead to such debates.
> 
> If you ask a stupid question don't be surprised if you get a stupid answer.


The title of the thread is "What is the point of atonal music?" That could be reworded as "Why do composers compose using atonal music?" I imagine that early atonal composers could have spent many hours discussing this question, and I would hope that later composers still would. I would find those discussions fascinating. Unfortunately, people choose to view the OP as an attack on atonal music rather than as request for information.

Composers don't randomly choose to compose atonaly. Although part of the reason may involve doing something that hasn't been done before, there clearly are other specific reasons.

I think there's a tendency among people who understand something well to assume that others must understand it to some extent. I think there's also a tendency to view questions on a simplistic level rather than realizing there could be deeper implications.
I think the thread could have been rather interesting, and some of us could have learned from it. But maybe forums are not really the right place to really explore certain issues.


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## Curiosity

Y'know, something that annoys me...

Every so often somebody recommends me a "great" modern "classical music composer" to listen to. In my naive excitement I have high hopes of hearing something that, if not at least emotionally stimulating, is at least not offensive to the mind and soul. And yet... Every. *******. Time it's the same atonal crashing or electronic cat-in-a-blender sounds. That or some minimalist tosser playing the same note for 20 minutes straight. I think my faith in modern music dies a little every time. I don't want stuff that sounds like the music being made 200 years ago, I just want music that sounds good or says something.

"Modern classical" seems to be practically synonymous with "pretentious noise".


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## robert

Curiosity said:


> Y'know, something that annoys me...
> 
> Every so often somebody recommends me a "great" modern "classical music composer" to listen to. In my naive excitement I have high hopes of hearing something that, if not at least emotionally stimulating, is at least not offensive to the mind and soul. And yet... Every. *******. Time it's the same atonal crashing or electronic cat-in-a-blender sounds. That or some minimalist tosser playing the same note for 20 minutes straight. I think my faith in modern music dies a little every time. I don't want stuff that sounds like the music being made 200 years ago, I just want music that sounds good or says something.
> 
> "Modern classical" seems to be practically synonymous with "pretentious noise".


Nobody is trying to lessen your faith in modern music. Everyone has different ideas... perhaps you need to be more focused. why not mention some modern composers you like.


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## Curiosity

Bartok and Penderecki, to name two. That's as far as I've been able to go. Every time I attempt to brave the John Cage's, George Crumb's, Sciarrino's or Xenakis' of the world, my hands start to mysteriously gravitate towards the "off" button.


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## Guest

Curiosity said:


> In my naive excitement I have high hopes of hearing something that, if not at least emotionally stimulating, is at least not offensive to the mind and soul.


You will understand, I hope, that "naive excitement" stretches my credulity.

Otherwise, I would very much suggest that you forget about emotionally stimulating (which is, I very strongly suspect, code for "stuff that sounds like the music being made 200 years ago") and let the music just do whatever it is doing. You are a human, hence an emotional being. You will respond emotionally regardless. The music doesn't have to cater to your particular need for stimulation. If you let it do whatever it's doing, without any hopes or expectations, your receptivity will mean that you have at least aligned yourself to having an emotionally satisfying experience. Maybe you won't. Hard to predict. But if you do, you may also find that all sorts of things that don't particularly move you today start to move you just fine tomorrow.



Curiosity said:


> I just want music that sounds good or says something.


Since I don't know what you've listened to specifically, I can only guess, but I suspect that at least some of the things that you've thought sounded bad or had nothing to say have sounded good and have said something to some other listener. That's maybe not very much, but it is something. And, as you've seen on these threads, there are a number of people even on TalkClassical who enjoy contemporary music. Perhaps give over trying to convince them that the music they enjoy is empty, horrible, pretentious noise and listen to their enthusiasm for the music they love.

There's a lot of genuine enjoyment out there, just waiting for you. But it won't please you if you continue to expect it to do other things than the things it actually does. And it won't please you if you continue to require the music to fill your current needs before you can enjoy something. (You need to have different needs is all!!)

And finally, even if all you are ever able to enjoy are pieces written before 1890, that's still a huge amount of really fine music. Why not just enjoy it without having to bash pieces written after 1890? Truly, nothing needs to be bashed, not even the things that Beavis and Butthead enjoy making fart jokes about. The world will not go down in flames if artists put four string players into helicopters or display rumpled beds in museums, truly it will not.


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## robert

Curiosity said:


> Bartok and Penderecki, to name two. That's as far as I've been able to go. Every time I attempt to brave the John Cage's, George Crumb's, Sciarrino's or Xenakis' of the world, my hands start to mysteriously gravitate towards the "off" button.


great. your doing well with Bartok and Penderecki. no banging I promise...try this... 
Britten, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams, Ives, Dutilleux, Gorecki, Kancheli, Messiaen, Norgard, Part, Sallinen, Rangstrom. Silvestrov...Sumera.....If you would like specific works, let me know


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## samurai

@ Curiosity, You could do far worse than listening to Benjamin Britten's* 4 Sea Interludes *and Vaughan Williams' *Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, IMHO.*


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## Guest

Curiosity said:


> Y'know, something that annoys me...
> 
> Every so often somebody recommends me a "great" modern "classical music composer" to listen to. In my naive excitement I have high hopes of hearing something that, if not at least emotionally stimulating, is at least not offensive to the mind and soul. And yet... Every. *******. Time it's the same atonal crashing or electronic cat-in-a-blender sounds. That or some minimalist tosser playing the same note for 20 minutes straight. I think my faith in modern music dies a little every time. I don't want stuff that sounds like the music being made 200 years ago, I just want music that sounds good or says something.
> 
> "Modern classical" seems to be practically synonymous with "pretentious noise".


I quite agree with you regarding some of to days music but there is IMO nothing wrong with music 200 or 300 years old.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I quite agree with you regarding some of to days music but there is IMO nothing wrong with music 200 or 300 years old.

Check out the threat on modern and contemporary music:

http://www.talkclassical.com/11807-exploring-modern-contemporary-music.html

There are a lot of good suggestions... and a good many with links to videos where you can get a feel for a work. A good many works featured are quite accessible... even beautiful, and you don't need to be lectured at by pretentious tied-in-the-wool Modernists about how your manner of listening is defective and if you only listened the right way it would all be beautiful... and if not there's always Jack Daniels.

:tiphat:


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Check out the threat on modern and contemporary music:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/11807-exploring-modern-contemporary-music.html




I have followed a lot of threads on modern, to days and avantgarde music from the easily accessible to the kind that is purely sound effects and my opinion has not changed one little bit while some has merit an awful lot does not.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> A good many works featured are quite accessible... even beautiful


A good many works by serialist and experimentalists and electroacoustic composers are quite accessible and beautiful, too, to those who are fond of those kinds of music. Xenakis is accessible. Merzbow is accessible. Lachenmann is beautiful. Parkins is beautiful.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> [Y]ou don't need to be lectured at by pretentious tied-in-the-wool Modernists about how your manner of listening is defective and if you only listened the right way it would all be beautiful.


But you seem compelled to argue ad hominem all the time. Easy. You don't have to actually pay attention to the arguments or suggestions of people who actually love the music; all you have to do is discredit the people themselves. Just as an intellectual exercise, you might want to try arguing without using ad hominem some time. You know, just to change things up for yourself. But, of course, since that's coming from a pretentious, _*dyed*_-in-the-wool Modernist, you can safely ignore that remark, eh? Once the person is discredited, no one needs to deal with any of the things that person has to say.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andante said:


> I have followed a lot of threads on modern, to days and avantgarde music from the easily accessible to the kind that is purely sound effects and my opinion has not changed one little bit while some has merit an awful lot does not.


Agree. The sound effect types seem to dominate a lot of avant-garde. Sound effect, not music, at the end of the day.


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## StlukesguildOhio

A good many works by serialist and experimentalists and electroacoustic composers are quite accessible and beautiful, too, to those who are fond of those kinds of music. Xenakis is accessible. Merzbow is accessible. Lachenmann is beautiful. Parkins is beautiful. 

That is continually the problem. You could give a rat's a** about what the audience wants. If an individual comes here asking for some examples of calm soothing music, you presume it is your duty to challenge him or her to be more open-minded and then recommend Xenakis, The Rite of Spring, and the 1812 Overture.

The persons who asked for examples of some Modern and Contemporary classical music made it clear what they were and were not looking for. Again you presume it is your place to lecture them about how they should listen to music and then suggest that in spite of their stated wants that they might find Lachenmann, Xenakis, etc... to be accessible. Did it ever once dawn on you that such an approach is what turns so many people off of even making an attempt at exploring Modern or Contemporary music. Of course this all goes back to the same issue of relativism we've been debating. Obviously since there is no "good" or "bad" excepting in the mind, then logically there is no "accessible" or "challenging"... no "soothing" or "raucous", no "sad" nor "joyous", no "soft" nor "loud" (Must have made it a challenge as a musician dealing with markings like _forte_ and _pianissimo_).

I have any number of artist friends and only one has a similar disregard for the audience. His favorite line is "F*** the audience!" It should be little surprise that he has been rejected from hundreds of galleries and can't even show his work, let alone sell it. I would never suggest that the artist should pander to the audience. I believe that the relationship is a two-way street involving effort from both ends. But I'm not about to blame a particular individual individual or a particular audience if my art is not exactly what they had in mind. To my way of thinking, my goal as an artist is to make the art that I like and believe in... and then find the audience that shares this admiration and belief. I'm going to end up only frustrated and bitter, like my studio friend, if I insist on trying to pawn my work off on an audience that is disinterested or looking for something else altogether.

I understand that you open to just about anything musically. More power to you. In spite of how you attempt to portray me, I am quite open to an eclectic array of music myself... but I recognize that not everyone is like that... and I don't feel that it is my duty to suggest that there is something wrong with them as a result. If they ask for something similar to Chopin's Nocturnes I'll do my best to oblige... and avoid suggesting Xenakis. It's quite possible that someone may eventually come around to liking Xenakis... but not when you hoist him on them when they were expecting something completely different.

But you seem compelled to argue ad hominem all the time. Easy. You don't have to actually pay attention to the arguments or suggestions of people who actually love the music; all you have to do is discredit the people themselves. Just as an intellectual exercise, you might want to try arguing without using ad hominem some time. You know, just to change things up for yourself. But, of course, since that's coming from a pretentious, dyed-in-the-wool Modernist, you can safely ignore that remark, eh? Once the person is discredited, no one needs to deal with any of the things that person has to say.

Back to the analysis of the formal structures of the argument... and avoiding what is being said altogether. So correct if I am wrong... you weren't lecturing others as to how they SHOULD listen to music... essentially insinuating that their way of listening to music... indeed, their desire for a certain kind of music and not for another is somehow defective. Excuse me if I'm wrong, but we all have our likes and dislikes. I would guess that you would be less than thrilled if you were recommended to a performance based upon some of your favorite composers only to discover it was an evening of Bax, Bluegrass, Polka-bands, and Weird Al Yankovic... although that might actually be interesting.:lol:


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Agree. The sound effect types seem to dominate a lot of avant-garde. Sound effect, not music, at the end of the day.


Excellent. You do know Berlioz and Wagner were both accused of creating 'sound effects' in their day.

Maybe you should stick to less adventurous musics seeing as all you seem to do is whine about the avant garde when you listen to it. Or at least quit whining.


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## Webernite

Here's some atonal music that (in my opinion) isn't that hard to "get", if you like lieder:


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## lazyMusicLover

*I am lazy, I just want to enjoy a good concert*

_Maybe you should stick to less adventurous musics seeing as all you seem to do is whine about the avant garde when you listen to it. Or at least quit whining._[/QUOTE]

I don't whine about people liking "adventurous music", it's great if they enjoy it. More power to them. But it bothers me when I go to a concert of mostly "old foggy" music and smack in the middle there is a piece of "avant garde" music. The analogous would be to go to a Modigliani exhibition and smack in the middle find "My Bed" be Tracey Emin. I did not pay to see it. I am lazy, I don't want to be educated, I just want to have an evening of musical pleasure. I am sure you are more musically educated than me, but see how large an audience you get if a concert program is mostly "adventurous music" with a lonely Bach in the middle.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Maybe you should stick to less adventurous musics seeing as all you seem to do is whine about the avant garde when you listen to it. Or at least quit whining.

He's absolutely right, HC. You need to leave that cutting edge, adventurous music like Black Sabbath and AC/DC to those who appreciate that avant garde stuff.:lol:


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## StlukesguildOhio

I don't whine about people liking "adventurous music", it's great if they enjoy it. More power to them. But it bothers me when I go to a concert of mostly "old foggy" music and smack in the middle there is a piece of "avant garde" music. The analogous would be to go to a Modigliani exhibition and smack in the middle find "My Bed" be Tracey Emin. I did not pay to see it. I am lazy, I don't want to be educated, I just want to have an evening of musical pleasure. I am sure you are more musically educated than me, but see how large an audience you get if a concert program is mostly "adventurous music" with a lonely Bach in the middle.

That is the problem that I have repeatedly spoken on. Personally, I have a most eclectic taste when it comes to music. I might follow up Wagner with Byzantine chant followed by Elmore James followed by Indian raga. But I know that not everyone likes such jumping about. I imagine that the early music fan going to a concert featuring Purcell, Biber, Rameau, and Corelli would be just as disoriented by the insertion of Wagner or Stravinsky in the midst of the concert as an audience showing up for an evening of Mozart and Brahms would be by the inclusion of Xenakis. Such is worse than the inclusion of Tracey Emin in the midst of a Modigliani show or Warhol in a Rembrandt exhibition. At least with art, you have the option to just walk away. At the concert, you are somewhat a hostage audience and it seems presumptuous to impose something undesired upon the audience. I happen to like jazz, bluegrass, the blues, and Indian ragas (among other music). I suspect that the audience attending a concert of Modern/Contemporary music would be just as unhappy if in the middle of Xenakis, Ligeti, and Scelsi we threw in a little Louvin Brothers, Son House, and Benny Goodman.


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## Aramis

> What is the point of Atonal music?


s

*ONLY THIS:*


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> A good many works by serialist and experimentalists and electroacoustic composers are quite accessible and beautiful, too, to those who are fond of those kinds of music. Xenakis is accessible. Merzbow is accessible. Lachenmann is beautiful. Parkins is beautiful.


The word "accessible" is probably used in varying ways here. As far as I can tell, "accessible" is not well defined in general. The definition I'm familiar with seems to suggest that a work, A, is accessible to a general CM listener if that listener could likely appreciate at least parts of A without having any special knowledge of works like A and without having listened to many works like A. Of course, not being accessible in this sense says nothing about how good work A is. It's also possible some people use "accessible" to mean "not overly atonal" or something like that.

When you use "accessible" in the quote above, you added "to those who are fond of those kinds of music". I'm not sure I understand the meaning of "accessible" in that context. Is there anything that is not accessible in that context?

I have read several detailed discussions of Xenakis' stochastic works (I was quite fascinated) and have listened to several of those works. Would you consider any of those works "accessible"? If so, could you suggest one? Thanks.


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## Argus

lazyMusicLover said:


> _Maybe you should stick to less adventurous musics seeing as all you seem to do is whine about the avant garde when you listen to it. Or at least quit whining._


I don't whine about people liking "adventurous music", it's great if they enjoy it. More power to them. But it bothers me when I go to a concert of mostly "old foggy" music and smack in the middle there is a piece of "avant garde" music. The analogous would be to go to a Modigliani exhibition and smack in the middle find "My Bed" be Tracey Emin. I did not pay to see it. I am lazy, I don't want to be educated, I just want to have an evening of musical pleasure. I am sure you are more musically educated than me, but see how large an audience you get if a concert program is mostly "adventurous music" with a lonely Bach in the middle.[/QUOTE]

I wasn't talking to you. The poster I was talking to likes to whine about avant garde music.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> He's absolutely right, HC. You need to leave that cutting edge, adventurous music like Black Sabbath and AC/DC to those who appreciate that avant garde stuff.:lol:


Have you ever listened to AC/DC? They are in no way cutting edge. They just rock. Rock hard.

Maybe instead of avant garde music HC can listen to them.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> When you use "accessible" in the quote above, you added "to those who are fond of those kinds of music". I'm not sure I understand the meaning of "accessible" in that context. Is there anything that is not accessible in that context?


No, there is not. That's my point. The uses of "accessible" I see in discussions of contemporary music invariably privilege one particular audience. If you don't privilege that audience, then what you find is that everything is accessible to someone. (I.e., "accessible" is not really the point. The point is to privilege an audience and then insist on only things that will be accessible to that audience.)



mmsbls said:


> I have read several detailed discussions of Xenakis' stochastic works (I was quite fascinated) and have listened to several of those works. Would you consider any of those works "accessible"? If so, could you suggest one? Thanks


I would consider everything by Xenakis to be accessible. I don't know that I would suggest any one piece. I enjoy some of them more than others. Back in the day, _Pithoprakta_ was quite a favorite for a lot of us. Nowadays, I probably listen to _Persepolis_ more often than anything else, and since I have the 2CD set with the remixes (by Yoshihide and Lopez and the like), I listen to those pieces all the time, too.

Xenakis was a pretty consistent composer. Almost everything is pretty good.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> ... _Pithoprakta ..._
> ... _Persepolis_ ...
> 
> Xenakis was a pretty consistent composer. Almost everything is pretty good.


Music by Xenakis, recommended by member _some guy_. Here's what I thought of the pieces.

The first piece sounded like dramatic sound effects to me. I think I heard similar sounding pieces of sections of _Pithoprakta_ in horror movies when the characters of the movie were about to die - listen to the strings, which is what I'm referring to. Apart from reminding me of horrific death scenes in horror movies, it didn't do much else to me. So, I'll give it a 2/10.

_Pithoprakta_





As for the other one, very hardcore stuff. Not accessible. Did next to nothing to me. And I wasn't expecting anything before that but listened to it with complete open ears and mind like I do with all music. It short, I thought this piece was utter crap. 0/10. Don't turn up the volume too loud, it might do damage to your ears, as it gets louder (and worse).

_Persepolis_


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## StlukesguildOhio

This is my favorite accessible piece my Xenakis:






It's a lovely piece to accompany your morning coffee and cinnamon rolls, or to sit back and contemplate while relaxing after a long day's work.


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## StlukesguildOhio

This illustrates the absolute absurdity of actually employing a relativist philosophy. Not only do we find individuals proclaiming that Black Sabbath is every bit equal to Beethoven and the 4 year old just beginning to learn piano is as good as Murray Perahia... but language itself is rendered virtually meaningless. Any word which implies some measure: big, small, soft, loud, accessible, sad, joyous, _forte, panissimo_, _langsam_, red, blue, thick, thin, etc... is rendered "meaningless" because each can interpreted relative to the individual. You gotta love Post-Modern philosophy and semantics.

Now you'll excuse me while I run off to post the _Dance of the Sugar-Plumb Fairies_ to the thread on "Terrifying Music".


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## tdc

As far as Xenakis goes, I find the following two pieces the most accessible of his works I've come across...probably because of the use of traditional instruments. (Keep in mind for the second video I'm claiming 'accessible' compared to other Xenakis works - probably NOT accessible for the typical fan of traditional classical music.)

Rebonds






Kottos


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This is my favorite accessible piece my Xenakis:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's a lovely piece to accompany your morning coffee and cinnamon rolls, or to sit back and contemplate while relaxing after a long day's work.


It sounds to me as if it was recorded in a Sawmill


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## Sid James

If music of all ages is put together well & imaginatively in a concert the notion of "hostage audience" etc. doesn't become an issue. Here's some I attended this year - there are many more on the latest concerts thread -

American songs from Negro Spirituals, to cabaret, "serious" song-cycles, opera, stage shows/musicals

Sydney Mandolin orch. - from Neopolitan songs, contemporary classical, movie themes, folk, etc.

Solo piano - Chopin - Stravinsky - Webern - Carter - Hair

Chamber music by Liszt - Meale - Beethoven

So there you go, that's just the tip of "my" iceberg. Of course, I've also went & like to go to concerts concentrating on just one repertoire/composer - recent ones were a full Mozart bill, to a performance of Xenakis' percussion works. In any case, I like something from "left field" - not just the old warhorses, which I like as well, but things like say a Gounod symphony or something other from Rimsky Korsakov than _Scheherazade_ or the _Capriccio Espagnole_ are just as welcome for me to add a bit of "spice" to the usual things, as something by a contemporary composer...


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## violadude

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This illustrates the absolute absurdity of actually employing a relativist philosophy. Not only do we find individuals proclaiming that Black Sabbath is every bit equal to Beethoven and the 4 year old just beginning to learn piano is as good as Murray Perahia... but language itself is rendered virtually meaningless. Any word which implies some measure: big, small, soft, loud, accessible, sad, joyous, _forte, panissimo_, _langsam_, red, blue, thick, thin, etc... is rendered "meaningless" because each can interpreted relative to the individual. You gotta love Post-Modern philosophy and semantics.
> 
> Now you'll excuse me while I run off to post the _Dance of the Sugar-Plumb Fairies_ to the thread on "Terrifying Music".


That makes absolutely no sense to me. Properties of music such as what the tempo is, what emotion is portrays or what the dynamic is are completely separate from the issue of wether it is better than another piece or not.


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## mmsbls

I listened to all the Xenakis works. _Rebounds_ was enjoyable. I didn't finish _Persepolis_ because some of the sounds are rather unpleasant to me (similar to the sensation of fingernails on a chalkboard). The other pieces were not enjoyable, but that's my taste.

I did want to comment on _Pithoprakta_. I have read several discussions of Xenakis' methods for creating various so called stochastic works. In general he utilizes a significant amount of formal math/science and converts these concepts into the music. I read a specific analysis which focused on an 18.5 second portion (8 measures) of _Pithoprakta_ and described how the music was created. While I found it rather fascinating, I'm not sure how many other people would share my view. I'd like to briefly describe his method and ask a question.

The kinetic theory of gases asserts that for a given temperature there is a specific distribution of velocities for the molecules in the gas. The mean velocity determines the measured temperature. Xenakis calculated this distribution and then mapped each velocity onto a glissando (faster changes in pitch equal higher velocities). He used 46 string instruments to play these glissandi (plucked) over 8 measures. The intent is that the listener will hear these glissandi (or maybe the glissandi in a given measure) as though they are essentially happening simultaneously. The idea is that the listener will respond to the glissandi in some aggregate musical sense in the same way that one's skin responds to the distribution of gas molecules (i.e. skin - a single temperature, hearing - a single auditory sense). Sorry for the technical details.

My question is: Does knowing any of this change how any of you respond to the music?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Originally Posted by StlukesguildOhio 
This illustrates the absolute absurdity of actually employing a relativist philosophy. Not only do we find individuals proclaiming that Black Sabbath is every bit equal to Beethoven and the 4 year old just beginning to learn piano is as good as Murray Perahia... but language itself is rendered virtually meaningless. Any word which implies some measure: big, small, soft, loud, accessible, sad, joyous, forte, panissimo, langsam, red, blue, thick, thin, etc... is rendered "meaningless" because each can interpreted relative to the individual. You gotta love Post-Modern philosophy and semantics.

Now you'll excuse me while I run off to post the Dance of the Sugar-Plumb Fairies to the thread on "Terrifying Music".

That makes absolutely no sense to me. Properties of music such as what the tempo is, what emotion is portrays or what the dynamic is are completely separate from the issue of wether it is better than another piece or not.

My esteemed opponent in this debate has suggested that just as "good" and "bad" or wholly relative... completely in the mind of the beholder (or listener), so too is a term like "accessible" wholly relative. By this logic, any term suggesting a value judgment or comparison is wholly relative: slow, fast, loud, soft, sad, joyous, etc... are all relative. If such terms are wholly "relative" and their meaning can change greatly from one person to the next... then they are completely meaningless.

Of course, to me, this is pure semantic BS. I can argue that in comparison to a lawn mower or a 747 landing, the 1812 Overture is quite "soft"... but to use the term in such a manner is pure nonsense. By the same token one might argue that Xenakis music is quite accessible... in comparison to something far further out and weird... but anyone who suggests that Xenakis is accessible to someone who admits they are struggling with Modern and Contemporary music is just playing games.


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## violadude

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Originally Posted by StlukesguildOhio
> This illustrates the absolute absurdity of actually employing a relativist philosophy. Not only do we find individuals proclaiming that Black Sabbath is every bit equal to Beethoven and the 4 year old just beginning to learn piano is as good as Murray Perahia... but language itself is rendered virtually meaningless. Any word which implies some measure: big, small, soft, loud, accessible, sad, joyous, forte, panissimo, langsam, red, blue, thick, thin, etc... is rendered "meaningless" because each can interpreted relative to the individual. You gotta love Post-Modern philosophy and semantics.
> 
> Now you'll excuse me while I run off to post the Dance of the Sugar-Plumb Fairies to the thread on "Terrifying Music".
> 
> That makes absolutely no sense to me. Properties of music such as what the tempo is, what emotion is portrays or what the dynamic is are completely separate from the issue of wether it is better than another piece or not.
> 
> My esteemed opponent in this debate has suggested that just as "good" and "bad" or wholly relative... completely in the mind of the beholder (or listener), so too is a term like "accessible" wholly relative. By this logic, any term suggesting a value judgment or comparison is wholly relative: slow, fast, loud, soft, sad, joyous, etc... are all relative. If such terms are wholly "relative" and their meaning can change greatly from one person to the next... then they are completely meaningless.
> 
> Of course, to me, this is pure semantic BS. I can argue that in comparison to a lawn mower or a 747 landing, the 1812 Overture is quite "soft"... but to use the term in such a manner is pure nonsense. By the same token one might argue that Xenakis music is quite accessible... in comparison to something far further out and weird... but anyone who suggests that Xenakis is accessible to someone who admits they are struggling with Modern and Contemporary music is just playing games.


But you're talking about two different things. Slow, fast, or loud or whatever are not "value judgements" they are qualities inherent in the music itself. Good, bad or accessible are things that are not inherent in the music and are based on the judgement of the listener.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mmsbls said:


> I listened to all the Xenakis works. _Rebounds_ was enjoyable. I didn't finish _Persepolis_ because some of the sounds are rather unpleasant to me (similar to the sensation of fingernails on a chalkboard). The other pieces were not enjoyable, but that's my taste.
> 
> I did want to comment on _Pithoprakta_. I have read several discussions of Xenakis' methods for creating various so called stochastic works. In general he utilizes a significant amount of formal math/science and converts these concepts into the music. I read a specific analysis which focused on an 18.5 second portion (8 measures) of _Pithoprakta_ and described how the music was created. While I found it rather fascinating, I'm not sure how many other people would share my view. I'd like to briefly describe his method and ask a question.
> 
> The kinetic theory of gases asserts that for a given temperature there is a specific distribution of velocities for the molecules in the gas. The mean velocity determines the measured temperature. Xenakis calculated this distribution and then mapped each velocity onto a glissando (faster changes in pitch equal higher velocities). He used 46 string instruments to play these glissandi (plucked) over 8 measures. The intent is that the listener will hear these glissandi (or maybe the glissandi in a given measure) as though they are essentially happening simultaneously. The idea is that the listener will respond to the glissandi in some aggregate musical sense in the same way that one's skin responds to the distribution of gas molecules (i.e. skin - a single temperature, hearing - a single auditory sense). Sorry for the technical details.
> 
> My question is: Does knowing any of this change how any of you respond to the music?


I studied stochastic processes at university (a branch of mathematical statistics) and it has nothing to do with musical compositional activities. Xenakis, with his explanations above, if that was his intent, showed that he was likely investigating the sound effects of gasses after applying statistical methods in a "musical setting", as utterly bizzare as that sounds; perhaps fun for him, but in no way inspirational as far as music is concerned. He was a civil engineer by training. He seemed to be interested in gases in this case, and sure as hell, he came up with fart music well enough.

And to answer your question, no it doesn't change how I respond to the music. This is the fundamental pretentiousness that Xenakis' "stochastic music" seem to manage to lure those into admiring this piece. I admit, it's fascinating as an application of stochastic methods, but as far as music is concerned, it's crap.


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## kanonathena

Atonal music is created mainly with mind, tonal music is created mainly through heart. 

Why people enjoy tonal music more than atonal? Because people enjoy looking at the ocean more than looking at a human's creation. The nature is tonal in nature, humans are born enjoying tonal. But humans have free will and were given a analytical mind, however, no matter how hard they try to defy nature, they can not escape nature, they are part of the nature. 

Atonal music is more intellectual than tonal music but infinitely less intelligent. The nature is simple and beautiful but it's also incredibly complex. I would say a simple folk tune contains much more information than a Beethoven's symphony. A

Note that tonal music was created way before atonal music, suggesting it's closeness to nature. 

As to where music should go next. Music should be more perfect. It doesn't mean more complex (at least in an intellectual way) or in certain form, it means the music should come from a perfect individual in a perfect mood.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> I listened to all the Xenakis works. _Rebounds_ was enjoyable. I didn't finish _Persepolis_ because some of *the sounds are rather unpleasant to me *(similar to the sensation of *fingernails on a chalkboard*)...


Not making a comment on the quality of Xenakis' music (which I am a fan of, went to a concert of his stuff earlier which was just awesome), but I would strongly advise listeners not to listen to his music with headphones, as (if the volume is too high) there is potential for temporary hearing damage/loss. I personally only listen to recordings of his music through loudspeakers. This esp. concerns his electronic musics, but also other things like his percussion based works, the microtonal sounds which are higher than the traditional octave are not to be "messed with." Same goes for some other post-1945 composers, eg. Harry Partch...


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## Argus

kanonathena said:


> Note that tonal music which reflects our closeness to nature was created since the dawn of mankind, way before atonal music created when human began to try making a statement about their identity.


The earliest human music would undoubtedly have been percussion music made by banging things together. These would most likely be unpitched making the music they made atonal.

The nature argument dosn't work because tonal music is as unnatural as most atonal music. How many harmonic musical intervals are to be found in nature? Nowhere near as much as there is noise. Take the sound of the ocean, it consists of a very complex waveform built up from millions of simple tones from the bubbles in the surf. The sound of the wind rustling leaves is also a noise.

Once noise is removed from the equation, then it is fair to say certain musical interval are more consonant than others but very difficult to find a universal preferance for them in music. Even then that only applies to harmonic music, I've played around with loads of weirdely arranged scales and melodically (as in monophonically) none of them sound too bad to my ears.


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## violadude

kanonathena said:


> Atonal music is created mainly with mind, tonal music is created mainly through heart.
> 
> Why people enjoy tonal music more than atonal? Because people enjoy looking at the ocean more than looking at a human's creation. The nature is tonal in nature, humans are born enjoying tonal. But humans have free will and were given a analytical mind, however, no matter how hard they try to defy nature, they can not escape nature, they are part of the nature.
> 
> People often think atonal music is more intellectual than tonal music. I don't think so, the complexity of nature is baffling but so is its simplicity and beauty. I would say a simple folk tune contains much more information than a Beethoven's symphony. People don't realize that. Note that tonal music which reflects our closeness to nature was created since the dawn of mankind, way before atonal music created when human began to try making a statement about their identity.
> 
> As to where music should go next. Music should be more perfect. To create perfect music, a composer must make himself perfect and make sure he/she is in a perfect mood when creating. Form and complexity don't matter, although the resulting creation usually can be incredibly complex.


Ehh...not really. The tonal system as we know it wasn't formed until the late Renaissance/early Baroque periods. I don't believe tonal music is very "natural". When was the last time you heard a bird sing anything that resembled a perfect cadence?


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## kanonathena

The music of ocean and birds are tonal to or in harmony with them I would say. The early barbarians also play drums in a fashion that's harmonious to their ears. 

From baroque to classical to romance to today's pop, as humans evolve you find the music become more and more tonal, more and more able to express our complex emotions. By tonal I mean harmonic to human psyche of the time. Tonal is a academic term but still can be used generally replace harmony or resonance. 

Atonal music can be divided into two groups, one that reflect the disturbance created by war and that people not live in harmony with the environment at around 1990, academically this is atonal but it still sound "right" to our ears given the context like bartok's use of atonal. Another one is totally intellectual, people going out of their way to be different for the sake of seeking new development, their mind tell their there is no where to go. To change for the sake of change is doomed to fall, you are not listening to your heart, you are not creating something that is in harmony with you, or at least with most other people.

Actually some experimental music like John Cage's Water Walk and 4:33 is the way to go. New age music in general is also right. Some atonal music are very inspiring too. But most are purely intellectual exercise, the whim of human's mind. 

Bartok was right about the importance of folk music, that's what music is about, human nature. Thanks to the arise of pop music, too bad it captured too much negative aspect. Still, atonal music will stay as minority and it will disappear quickly, unless human become computers with no consciousness.

The perfect music can be created by people who understands who we human really are and experiences the ecstasy brought about by that understanding.


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## mmsbls

Sid James said:


> Not making a comment on the quality of Xenakis' music (which I am a fan of, went to a concert of his stuff earlier which was just awesome), but I would strongly advise listeners not to listen to his music with headphones, as (if the volume is too high) there is potential for temporary hearing damage/loss. I personally only listen to recordings of his music through loudspeakers. This esp. concerns his electronic musics, but also other things like his percussion based works, the microtonal sounds which are higher than the traditional octave are not to be "messed with." Same goes for some other post-1945 composers, eg. Harry Partch...


I don't think my displeasure was due to the volume (I didn't use headphones) but rather the "unpleasant" quality of what I would call a high-pitched squeak. I had a similar response to Ligeti's Atmospheres. I may be more sensitive to certain sounds than most.


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## mmsbls

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I studied stochastic processes at university (a branch of mathematical statistics) and it has nothing to do with musical compositional activities. Xenakis, with his explanations above, if that was his intent, showed that he was likely investigating the sound effects of gasses after applying statistical methods in a "musical setting", as utterly bizzare as that sounds; perhaps fun for him, but in no way inspirational as far as music is concerned.


You're correct that stochastic processes were not used to create the portion of _Pithoprakta_ that I described. Xenakis apparently does use them in other works. He has used computers to generate random numbers which then select pitch changes from a weighted table of pitches. Given a current note, say middle C, he produced a set of following notes with various weights (I think based on previous music, but I'm not sure). For example, the potential note after C might be G (50% weight), E (20% weight), C octave higher (5% weight), etc. Using the random number, he effectively selects the next note (in a partially random, partially weighted manner).

Using stochastic processes or mappings from physical laws/data is an interesting idea. The question is whether it produces desirable music and under what conditions that would be so. I see no reason why such mappings or processes would do so in general. I would be interested to know if Xenakis felt that over time he understood these mappings and processes better and better, and therefore, used them in ways to create more interesting/enjoyable/better/etc. music.


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## Argus

kanonathena said:


> The music of ocean and birds are tonal to or in harmony with them I would say. The early barbarians also play drums in a fashion that's harmonious to their ears.
> 
> From baroque to classical to romance to today's pop, as humans evolve you find the music become more and more tonal, more and more able to express our complex emotions. By tonal I mean harmonic to human psyche of the time.


I don't think you know what tonality is. It's a system for music that organises all pitches around a tonic. For the last 200 years music (as a whole) has got less and less tonal, first with chromaticism and more distant modulations within the tonal system, through Schoenbergs break, until we reach today where there is a whole genre of music called 'noise' and even some of the more adventurous pop musicians utilise atonality in pieces.



> The perfect music can be created by people who understands who we human really are and experiences the ecstasy brought about by that understanding.


Yeah, this is your opinion. I can't disprove what you are saying but I definitely don't agree with it.


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## Noak

kanonathena said:


> ''To change for the sake of change is doomed to fall, you are not listening to your heart, you are not creating something that is in harmony with you, or at least with most other people.''
> 
> ''But most are purely intellectual exercise, the whim of human's mind.''
> 
> ''Still, atonal music will stay as minority and it will disappear quickly, unless human become computers with no consciousness.''
> 
> ''The perfect music can be created by people who understands who we human really are and experiences the ecstasy brought about by that understanding.''


You make me sad.


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## tdc

Just a random thought while perusing this thread (on a side note I quite enjoyed kanonathena's posts, I don't agree with everything they are saying, but some very interesting thoughts I do agree with as well).

Anyway, its become clear to me why I tend to side with the St. Lukes/ Polednice etc on this one...its because their ideas allow for both subjective _and_ objective factors to be present in musical appreciation. Whether one refers to these factors as objective/subjective or physical/non-physical, one must agree that both elements effect virtually _everything_ in this existence. That is the primary reason I disagree with Argus/ Someguy etc propositions. They believe musical appreciation can be _only_ subjective and not objective, (one and not the other) when really nothing that is the least bit complex in this world can ever be viewed in such simplistic terms.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> [A]nyone who suggests that Xenakis is accessible to someone who admits they are struggling with Modern and Contemporary music is just playing games.


Who has suggested this? Right. No one. This is St making stuff up again, and for why? I don't know.

Xenakis would be extremely inaccessible to someone who is struggling with new music, I would expect.

My only point was that the someones who are struggling with new music are not the only someones in the room. That Xenakis might be and indeed is perfectly accessible to some of the other ones. The word "accessible" has been co-opted by the struggling someones. That's what I object to. Whenever I hear the word "accessible" I think "accessible to whom?"

As for the rest of this discussion, I would say that relative things are relative, yes. And the attempt to make relative things into eternal verities (or at least into absolutes) is intellectually dishonest and morally questionable. The difference between the StLukes/Polednice line of reasoning and the Argus/some guy one is not between including both subjective and objective and including only subjective but between distinguishing subjective and objective or not. To isolate certain subjective factors and apply some kind of intellectual alchemy to them that seems to turn them into objective factors is not the same thing as including both objective and subjective. It is just to privilege certain subjective factors that you happen to fancy.

Far as I can see, St wants to say that certain relative things are not indeed relative. What I want to say is that relative things are relative. Pretending that they're not might allow you to score debating points. Pretending that they're not might bolster a shaky sense of security. Pretending that they're not might mean you feel virtuous when you dislike new music (or at least when you attack it). And all these things might seem to you to be very good things all of them. But to what end?

I say that the things which lead to increased enjoyment are good things. The things that attempt to limit enjoyment are the bad things.


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## Vesteralen

`What sort of people live about here?' 

`In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, `lives some guy: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, `lives an avatar with a pig's head. Visit either you like: they're both mad.' 

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Vesteralice remarked. 

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.' 

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Vesteralice. 

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.' 

Vesteralice didn't think that proved it at all; however, he went on `And how do you know that you're mad?' 

`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?' 

`I suppose so,' said Vesteralice. 

`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog's atonal when it's angry, and tonal when it's pleased. Now I'm atonal when I'm pleased, and tonal when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.' 

`Some call it noise, not atonality,' said Vesteralice. 

`Call it what you like,' said the Cat.


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## Sid James

mmsbls said:


> I don't think my displeasure was due to the volume (I didn't use headphones) but rather the "unpleasant" quality of what I would call a high-pitched squeak. I had a similar response to Ligeti's Atmospheres. I may be more sensitive to certain sounds than most.


Well, although I was quoting you, I was trying to make that a kind of "general health warning." Some of post-1945 music is microtonal (far beyond the regular octave) & has a lot of high pitch/frequency. That's why I wouldn't advise people to listen on headphones, unless it's turned down/quiet, otherwise they can temporarily damage their hearing.



tdc said:


> Just a random thought while perusing this thread (on a side note I quite enjoyed kanonathena's posts, I don't agree with everything they are saying, but some very interesting thoughts I do agree with as well)...


I also liked kanonathena's reasoning, though I didn't agree with it. Let's face it, a lot of people out there - & I'm not judging them - think of this type of "newer" music like that. I don't have a problem with that, I'm not going to label it. They can think the way they like "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me" as the kid's saying goes. Which leads to this -

Loved *Vesteralen's* "comedy" - a hoot! The thing is, people are claiming impartiality around here, but they are dissing music other people value/like. I disagree with someguy in pushing the "innovation" agenda, which I think went out in the 1960's. I respect his understanding/knowledge of music, but I don't see why we should force someone to say go to an Italian restaurant if they don't like Italian food. Some guy isn't the only one around here, I'm just using him as an example (sorry, some guy!). I disagree with his "take" on composers like Arnold Bax, who I also initially thought was derivative, but now I've listened to some of his stuff & I can hear that he was nothing if not individual. As for others, branding people you've only "read" online & never met as "elitist" or "snob" doesn't wash with me either, it's hard to make these conclusions in "real" life or converstation face to face, & impossible online. In any case, I think descriptions like this are cliches & tend to be extreme. Thank god the ideologues around here have vanished - eg. JTech, Saul, Herzeleide. Although they did contribute positive things, it was their attitude that was shonky...


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## kanonathena

I was extending tonal to harmonic, harmonic to body and heart, the academic term is too restricted.

What people don't like about atonal music is the disturbance it carries because it is written largely devoid of emotion, some atonal music is also tonal therefore like how Bartok use it.

I wonder if there is scientific study why people prefer tonal than atonal (note again that I refer to tonal as music that can be appropriated at an emotional level), how it impacts our body and emotion (emotion effects body). If atonal can generate large enough emotional impact, then atonal can survive. Otherwise it would for the few who appropriate music purely on a intellectual level.

My assumption here is music is intended to evoke emotion and emotion is an honest expression of human spirit.


I retract my opinion that to make perfect music you have to have intellectual understanding of human spirit. But you do need to understand it on an emotional level. And what emotion people want the most? Love. Acceptance of self or other self, friendship, marriage, compassion, gratitude, recognition, everything human ever desire is love. Intellect is nothing more than a survival tool for human to function, the essence of human is grounded in our daily experiences gathered by our senses and perception. Emotion is the indicator of the distilled form of our experience (which is understanding of ourselves).

Music have natural assess to our emotion, then to the essence of ourselves. Some people overlook this function and try to THINK and let music connect to their intellectual mind, that's just how music is created for. The result is that the music won't resonate with us and fails.

My opinion is that perfect music give what people want, the sensation of love, helping them realize their essence. The composer then must understand love and be loving.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Interestingly, a link to this article just popped up on the other musical site I frequent:

http://blog.mises.org/15667/why-do-we-hate-modern-classical-music/

:tiphat:


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## mmsbls

That article starts with the statement, "Modern classical music is primarily a project of the classical music industry’s managerial elites..." Who is considered a classical music industry managerial elite? Are these the people at major symphonies who schedule the music season? How much influence do they actually have on composers? 

Many composition students seem to say that their professors strongly encourage atonal/avant-garde composition. That would suggest that young composers already are pushed toward atonal/avant-garde music before the "elites" have influence.


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## Sid James

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Interestingly, a link to this article just popped up on the other musical site I frequent:
> 
> http://blog.mises.org/15667/why-do-we-hate-modern-classical-music/
> 
> :tiphat:


Thanks for posting, I read the whole article. Unfortunately, all I got from it is like a rehash of the old "progressive" vs. "conservative" cliches. What I've been talking about here all along, setting up an artificial "three-tier" contest where the listener has to choose between only one of two options between so-called "dissonant" and "melodic" musics. This is a false dichotomy, imo, because a number of people I personally know (as well as myself) do not fall into either of these extreme stereotypes. I'm not going to make conclusions about where people on this forum possibly fall along the spectrum, without knowing them personally, I don't know whether that would be of any use. But let's just say that most people on TC, it being a reasonably "moderate" place, are in the middle of the spectrum. So, this kind of black vs. white thinking (even the title of the article is just extemely polemic & unbalanced) doesn't wash with me at all, in terms of my personal experience.

The other big flaw here (as well as other things I won't go into) is the use of the term "elites." This is a bit like Hitler's "degenerate art" or Stalin's "formalism" - basically catch-all terms that mean nothing, except "people who we don't like." This reminds me, there was a book written by Prof. David Flint called "The Twilight of the Elites" (here on Google Books). This guy is an "elite" himself (academic, former barrister) yet his criticism was of OTHER "elites," the "left wing" ones (Flint is "hard right" - he was, for example, chairman of the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy). In his book, he is criticising how things in this country have gone wrong in terms of questioning left wing ideologies. Well it would be fair enough, if he'd also question the harms done here by right wing ideologies. So, to cut a long story short, when one elite calls another elite "elite" it just sounds like pure hogwash to me...


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## violadude

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Interestingly, a link to this article just popped up on the other musical site I frequent:
> 
> http://blog.mises.org/15667/why-do-we-hate-modern-classical-music/
> 
> :tiphat:


Since when is writing and promoting new music an "agenda?"


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## tahnak

Curiosity said:


> Truly an awful piece... The uploader of this video blocked me and removed my message simply because I left a post saying "absolutely beautiful!" on this video. You woulda thought a guy who could listen to Sciarrino for ten minutes straight wouldn't be so hyper-sensitive, jeez...


Yes. I have always asked that question since childhood and still seeking the answer. What is the point of atonal music? It is like talking gibberish as the modern texters do and write mail like gr8 for great. Everything is bloody plastic and mechanical. I guess it represents the age of the cesspool.


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## violadude

tahnak said:


> Yes. I have always asked that question since childhood and still seeking the answer. What is the point of atonal music? It is like talking gibberish as the modern texters do and write mail like gr8 for great. Everything is bloody plastic and mechanical. I guess it represents the age of the cesspool.


yes...god forbid anyone actually likes atonal music.


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## Sid James

tahnak said:


> ... Everything is bloody plastic and mechanical.


Same thing is said, around here & elsewhere, about many other composers who were nowhere near being "atonal." & not only the obscure ones - the "mechanical" & "unemotional" aspect has been applied to guys like J.S. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, etc. etc.



> I guess it represents the age of the cesspool.


Reminds me of what the notorious critic Eduard Hanslick said of Tchaikovsky's _Violin Concerto _- to paraphrase him, "this is music that truly stinks on the ear." Looking back, we now see Hanslick as an extremist & a biased critic at best. They've always been around, stretching back centuries. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but unfortunately some people have a tendency to confuse their own ideology or taste in music with the actual music itself...


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## regressivetransphobe

tahnak said:


> Yes. I have always asked that question since childhood and still seeking the answer. What is the point of atonal music? It is like talking gibberish as the modern texters do and write mail like gr8 for great. Everything is bloody plastic and mechanical. I guess it represents the age of the cesspool.


How convenient that something you don't like epitomizes everything wrong with humanity.


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## Sid James

regressivetransphobe said:


> How convenient that something you don't like epitomizes everything wrong with humanity.


Yes, everyone loves a good ol' scapegoat. In THIS song, guess which "scapegoat" which the Nazis didn't like is represented by the gorilla! No prizes for guessing that!!!*

*The last line gives it away entirely, anyway...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Thanks for posting, I read the whole article. Unfortunately, all I got from it is like a rehash of the old "progressive" vs. "conservative" cliches. What I've been talking about here all along, setting up an artificial "three-tier" contest where the listener has to choose between only one of two options between so-called "dissonant" and "melodic" musics. This is a false dichotomy, imo, because a number of people I personally know (as well as myself) do not fall into either of these extreme stereotypes.

Sid/Andre... Of course I was playing a bit of the devil's advocate in posting that link. It raises some interesting thoughts coming from a commercial/economic point of view... but ultimately isn't anywhere near the final word on the subject. As some on the other side of the imagined divide have noted, such complaints as to the painfully noisy modern music rarely ever site specific examples and considering the wealth of Modern and Contemporary music that is readily accessible... even "beautiful" by traditional standards... as well as the wealth of that which balances the challenging with the accessible (listening for example to Ernst Krenek's orchestral works right now which certainly could be appreciated by nearly anyone with the lest bit of effort) it leaves you wondering how much Modern/Contemporary music the writer has actually listened to.

On the other hand, I feel the article does raise or once again address some valid questions. I agree that there's something problematic about inserting avant garde works of music in a concert of Beethoven and Mozart. In one sense it seems dishonest. If the music is worthy of survival, it shouldn't need to ride upon the coat-tails of something else. I find something unseemly about imposing a work upon a captive audience that they didn't expect or want to hear. I would feel the same in other contexts. I'm not certain that an audience attending a concert of avant garde works would be thrilled with the sudden inclusion of Johnny Cash, Bax, or Mozart.

I also agree that it is a legitimate concern to question the continued funding through public money of music that is not just unpopular... but in many ways openly hostile toward the paying audience. I must agree that the attitude conveyed by Edo de Waart effectively telling the member of the audience who called up with a question, "Just shut up, we professionals know what is good for you". It is this sort of attitude that puts many off wishing to even make an attempt at exploring Modern and Contemporary music. When those who set themselves up as "experts" and champions of Modern and Contemporary music take an attitude of superiority and attack any question concerning Modern or Contemporary music making the individual feel as if he or she is ignorant or an outsider, it becomes highly unlikely that the result is going to be an increased audience... which in some cases, may actually be the intention. If everybody liked it, I could put on airs of superiority now, could I.

Again... I am not suggesting that there is this clear dichotomy... in the audience... or in the music. I am suggesting that it might be just as valid to blame the audience for an unwillingness to put forth a greater effort into attempting to grasp something challenging as it is to blame the composer for failing to meet the audience part way. And if I think further on this, it might not actually be the composer's fault, but those who "champion" the work of composers toward an audience not interested (why not put our tax dollars to work promoting bluegrass and opera in the inner-cities?) or in such a manner as to turn off many of those who might be actually interested in exploring what is out there.

As I first started to really delve into contemporary composers I would post comments as to my excitement of this or that composer I had "discovered": Arvo Part, Osvaldo Golijov, Daniel Catan, Ned Rorem, William Bolcom, Alan Hovhaness... even Einojuhani Rautavaara and Krzysztof Penderecki only to be told that these weren't really "modern" composers... but they might be a decent start toward discovering the real stuff. I can't say that such comments made me feel motivated into wanting to dig deeper. When I had first started to listen to classical music seriously, no one told me that Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach were a good place to start but they weren't "real classical music".

The reality is that when we are dealing with contemporary music there is little that is clearly agreed upon. If I wish to explore Baroque music, generations of musicians, composers, critics, academics, and informed listeners provide something of a guide. Except for those of the relativist persuasion, there is something of an understanding that Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Scarlatti might be the best place to start. Later... if I am really interested... I can delve deeper and unearth Biber, Corelli, Scarlatti senior, Byrd, Purcell, Rameau, Couperin, etc... The opinions of the music of recent is far more in flux. There is no reason that one should be made to feel like an ignorant philistine for disliking Xenakis or Stockhausen because the jury is not yet out on that. Ironically, a number of those who embrace the notion of cultural relativism... when it applies to Beethoven or Bach are quick to act as if there were some clear agreed upon absolutes when it comes to the music of today.

Again... I think the best way to open a dialog with regard to Modern and Contemporary music is to continue to post thoughts and other responses to those works of Modern and Contemporary music that speak to the individual along with links to samples of the music. The debate as it has unfolded seems as absurd and pointless as suggested in Vesteralen's _Alice in Wonderland_ parody.


----------



## Sid James

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Sid/Andre... Of course I was playing a bit of the devil's advocate in posting that link.


Well it was good of you to post it. I know you don't "own" it, it's not "your" opinion. Yes, it does raise some interesting issues, but compared to some of the more balanced opinions/critiques I have read, it has a sense of arguing an "agenda" of "pushing" certain views, etc.



> It raises some interesting thoughts coming from a commercial/economic point of view...


I can't comment on the commercial/economic aspect that well, as I'm not in Europe, UK, USA. You may know more about funding issues, etc. around there. I have read from members here on TC that a number of USA orchestras (fairly prominent ones) have had financial problems, re the recent sub-prime collapse thing. It does make resources scarce, & I hope it doesn't lead to more bland "bums on seats" programming, but yes, these orchestras are also businesses which have to survive somehow. Here, a funny thing is, that I go to a lot of amateur, semi-prof & professional groups (that combine all three types of musicians). They are doing far more interesting repertoire than our "established" orchestras, which really makes me ask the question that who are these supposed elites? They can as easily be those on the boards of the major orchestras trundling out the usual warhorses, they are unlikely to be the committed movers and shakers behind the smaller/less funded groups not as much in the spotlight, who are bringing people like me a variety of interesting music (live) from all eras. Yes, they play "big" names and works, but their programming leaves much to be desired from the major groups. It would be absurd to call things like our own New Music Network, for example, "elites" - they are working on a shoestring budget, they are not "pushing" any agendas, they are doing what they can with integrity and balance.



> ...but ultimately isn't anywhere near the final word on the subject. As some on the other side of the imagined divide have noted, such complaints as to the painfully noisy modern music rarely ever site specific examples and considering the wealth of Modern and Contemporary music that is readily accessible... even "beautiful" by traditional standards... as well as the wealth of that which balances the challenging with the accessible...


Well, talking to the situtation here with the major orchestras, they're unlikely to play anything the conservatives would call "inaccessible." The "latest" token "contemporary" things they put in their concerts were put down decades ago - eg. Arvo Part's stuff from the 1970's, things by dead composers like Lutoslawski from around that time as well. "Friendly" stuff like that. So talking to what's going on here with our "flagship" orchestras, I don't know what that guy in the article was talking about "horrible atonal" music? Of course, things can be different in the USA, I don't know?


> On the other hand, I feel the article does raise or once again address some valid questions. I agree that there's something problematic about inserting avant garde works of music in a concert of Beethoven and Mozart. In one sense it seems dishonest. If the music is worthy of survival, it shouldn't need to ride upon the coat-tails of something else. I find something unseemly about imposing a work upon a captive audience that they didn't expect or want to hear. I would feel the same in other contexts. I'm not certain that an audience attending a concert of avant garde works would be thrilled with the sudden inclusion of Johnny Cash, Bax, or Mozart.


As I said in earlier post on this thread, which you may or may not have come across (I know it has been heavy going here, but maybe for the wrong reasons?), the concerts mixing new & old musics that I have attended (& heard on air) have basically worked because of good programming. Most of them have been quite well attended. I don't think it's a matter of a "captive audience" but an engaged one, who are guided through these different works esp. If there is a common theme running through the program. I cannot comment on other places than here, but I think that here generally programmers are doing a good job. I've gone to packed concerts of obscure things like Cherubini, which I hadn't even heard, but the response was phenomenal. Not everyone out there wants to hear only the "warhorses" - & this applies to any era.


> I also agree that it is a legitimate concern to question the continued funding through public money of music that is not just unpopular... but in many ways openly hostile toward the paying audience. I must agree that the attitude conveyed by Edo de Waart effectively telling the member of the audience who called up with a question, "Just shut up, we professionals know what is good for you".


Well Edo was the chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony here for most of the 1990's. That's when I pulled out of going to that groups concerts. He started a swing towards conservatism with the SSO. It's still going on now. If you want to hear that group play something modern - well, something that's not just a token - you'll get Mahler. Edo was heavily into Mahler. Whatever he said in your quote, he was quite the opposite. The last conductor we had here who got things going big time, introducing rarely played things old & new, was the late Stuart Challender (one of our own, the finest there was). By rarely played, I mean not only Aussie composers, but also Bruckner, Mahler (before he became overplayed here), R. Strauss, Berg, Carter, etc. Even this level of diversity is gone now, with the SSO. I can virtually predict 75 per cent of what they'll play each year. They've totally lost me, that's for sure.


> And if I think further on this, it might not actually be the composer's fault, but those who "champion" the work of composers toward an audience not interested ...or in such a manner as to turn off many of those who might be actually interested in exploring what is out there.


I don't believe in championing anything, it has to stand on it's own two feet. This speaks to ideology, not commonsense. But what I see around here, there are far more "bigger fish" championing the old warhorses than people championing anything much else. A lot of good ensembles, orchestras, groups who aren't so much in the spotlight get off their ar*e & make an effort to reach "middle ground" & those are whom I support with my patronage.


> As I first started to really delve into contemporary composers I would post comments as to my excitement of this or that composer I had "discovered":... only to be told that these weren't really "modern" composers... but they might be a decent start toward discovering the real stuff. I can't say that such comments made me feel motivated into wanting to dig deeper.


As my mother says, look not at what people are saying, but who is saying it.


> The reality is that when we are dealing with contemporary music there is little that is clearly agreed upon. If I wish to explore Baroque music, generations of musicians, composers, critics, academics, and informed listeners provide something of a guide.


I think there is some consensus about contemporary figures of significance. I have talked about our own music scholar (& a composer in his own right) Andrew Ford. He has written a number of books on music, in general as well as contemporary (c20th) music. He goes into depth about a number of significant figures in music since the post-1945 period. He doesn't say it's the "be all & end all" & actually questions the ideologies that have developed over that time. In other words, he engages with these issues deeply, but with the layman in mind. I went to a lecture of his last year as well as remember hearing a series on c20th music he produced for radio. So even with my medium range experience with these things, I have been "in the know" about what things to listen to that are the "landmarks" of the past 60+ years. Of course, I also attend concerts of the latest musics, which incl. "big names" & also emerging talents. This is how it's always kind of been , how it always is. In Beethoven's time, his music was often played alongside other contemporary composers. Same goes today.


> Again... I think the best way to open a dialog with regard to Modern and Contemporary music is to continue to post thoughts and other responses to those works of Modern and Contemporary music that speak to the individual along with links to samples of the music. The debate as it has unfolded seems as absurd and pointless as suggested in Vesteralen's _Alice in Wonderland_ parody.


This is wise & what is really great about being here. We can share what we like. We can of course comment on things we don't like or are middling about. That's life. I just agree that a focus on the positive is the most worthwhile thing to go towards.


----------



## violadude

Ya know, I honestly don't really understand the point of this anymore. I think people are making things way more complicated than they need to be. 

There's no need to feel suspicious about people who's top 10 composers aren't the usual top 10, there's no need to say that composers should compose like this or that, there's no reason to demonize composers because their standard of what art should be is different than your own. 

Every composer will write what THEY like, what they think expresses them. Some people will like it, some people wont. If you like it listen to it, if you don't like it, don't. It is as simple as that.

Same with a conductor who is championing new works, or pieces that the audience isn't interested in. So what? He's just a guy doing what he believes in, no reason to say he shouldn't do it because people aren't interested. That would be like telling Beethoven not to write the Grosse Fugue because no one was interested. I'm sure he would have a couple choice words for that person. They're just guys doing what they like to do. Live and let live, man. 

And so what if John Cage said that breadcrumbs on a table can be art. It's one mans opinion, you either agree or disagree with it, but it shouldn't disturb your sense of what art should be. No matter what John Cage says or composes, the music of Mozart and Beethoven are still going to be in your CD collection when you wake up in the morning.


----------



## regressivetransphobe

violadude said:


> And so what if John Cage said that breadcrumbs on a table can be art. It's one mans opinion, you either agree or disagree with it, but it shouldn't disturb your sense of what art should be. No matter what John Cage says or composes, the music of Mozart and Beethoven are still going to be in your CD collection when you wake up in the morning.


Maybe with Cage, but he's old hat. But I'm going to literally steal people's albums, record it, and call it music. Avant-garde, huh?


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## Argus

violadude said:


> Every composer will write what THEY like, what they think expresses them. Some people will like it, some people wont. If you like it listen to it, if you don't like it, don't. It is as simple as that.





Argus said:


> So basically the point of atonal music is the same as the point of tonal music; the composer creates what he likes.


That's from my first post in this thread.

The point of this thread now is mainly to show who are the close minded elitists.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> The point of this thread now is mainly to show who are the close minded elitists.


I admit I rather be a "close minded elitist" than an open minded Black Sabbath-ist. But wait a minute, I'm a bit confused now. I'm not even sure if I have a mind in the physical world or was it a metaphysical one. I guess only open minded folks can be sure of that.



Argus said:


> I think the mind does not exist in the physical world but in a metaphysical one.





HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I see. You are saying that you don't believe you physically have a mind ...





Argus said:


> Well, no one does. They have non-physical minds.


Keep it up, Argus. You're doing good.


----------



## violadude

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I admit I rather be a "close minded elitist" than an open minded Black Sabbath-ist. But wait a minute, I'm a bit confused now. I'm not even sure if I have a mind in the physical world or was it a metaphysical one. I guess only open minded folks can be sure of that.
> 
> Keep it up, Argus. You're doing good.


It's not such a ridiculous concept if you consider the mind and the brain to be two different things.


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## Aristotle

Umm , well i think if there wasn't any atonal music , tonality wouldn't be so special


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## Polednice

Aristotle said:


> Umm , well i think if there wasn't any atonal music , tonality wouldn't be so special


Why? And what do you mean by 'special'? Special as in 'good', or special as in special needs?


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I admit I rather be a "close minded elitist" than an open minded Black Sabbath-ist. But wait a minute, I'm a bit confused now. I'm not even sure if I have a mind in the physical world or was it a metaphysical one. I guess only open minded folks can be sure of that.


No judgement here, mate. The first step to getting help is realising you have a problem. When you're ready to make that next step I'll be there, waiting, with some Black Sabbath records under my arm.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Argus... it's always possible that HC has actually listened to Black Sabbath... back when he was 14 and thought guys in black leather with names like Ozzie and album covers with "scary" pictures were cool.








Or may be not.:lol:


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## Artemis

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Argus... it's always possible that HC has actually listened to Black Sabbath... back when he was 14 and thought guys in black leather with names like Ozzie and album covers with "scary" pictures were cool.


I thought all that Black Sabbath stuff went out with the Ark.

I quite like Deep Purple, but I don't go on and on about it.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I think there is some consensus about contemporary figures of significance. I have talked about our own music scholar (& a composer in his own right) Andrew Ford. He has written a number of books on music, in general as well as contemporary (c20th) music. He goes into depth about a number of significant figures in music since the post-1945 period. He doesn't say it's the "be all & end all" & actually questions the ideologies that have developed over that time.

Of course we have all seen how such consensuses in the past have played out in the long run. Some among that consensus will survive over the long haul... and some currently rejected or little-known will do so as well.

Of course... for the time being we can only listen to what we like.


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## Argus

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Argus... it's always possible that HC has actually listened to Black Sabbath... back when he was 14 and thought guys in black leather with names like Ozzie and album covers with "scary" pictures were cool.


Funny that you or HC never responded to this post:

http://www.talkclassical.com/14363-rubbery-logics-can-prevent-13.html



> Here's a list from a widely used website that lists the top albums of all time:
> 
> http://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/all-time
> 
> It includes albums of all genres. As you can see Black Sabbath's Paranoid album is ranked 22nd currently, Master of Reality is 58th and their eponymous debut 64th. Yet Mozart is nowhere to be seen near the top of the list. How can this be when I'm constantly told Mozart is objectively better than Black Sabbath.
> 
> This is where the elitist really gets elitist. He'll say not every one's opinion is equal or that there are too many albums of Mozart or that you can't compare 'apples and oranges'. Defences for a flawed belief.


I wonder why you or HC never responded to that post.

Do the objectivists object to my use of objectivity?


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## Argus

Artemis said:


> I thought all that Black Sabbath stuff went out with the Ark.
> 
> I quite like Deep Purple, but I don't go on and on about it.


I think you'll find StLukes and HC mention Black Sabbath more than any other members.

Possible closet metallers?


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## Polednice

Call us objectivists, call us idiots, but stop equating our arguments with the idea that popularity and consensus reveal the value of a piece of music - we've repeatedly said the opposite.


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## Artemis

Polednice said:


> Call us objectivists, call us idiots, but stop equating our arguments with the idea that popularity and consensus reveal the value of a piece of music - we've repeatedly said the opposite.


I wouldn't call "objectivists" idiots, but I have yet to find out how their opinions enable them to rank artistic achievements in a way that's of any use to other people. Taking classical music as an example, what does the objectivist viewpoint say about the ranking of composers. Or, if you take a stack of piano concertos from a selection of composers, how can these works be compared in overall quality? Can the approach, whatever it is, produce any general indications of quality that other people might be able to find useful?


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> Call us objectivists, call us idiots, but stop equating our arguments with the idea that popularity and consensus reveal the value of a piece of music - we've repeatedly said the opposite.


Popularity and consensus too egalitarian for you?


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## Artemis

Argus said:


> I think you'll find StLukes and HC mention Black Sabbath more than any other members.
> 
> Possible closet metallers?


You mean that they could be covert head-bangers, and merely come here to do penance for their shameful musical propensities? I hardly think so, but on the other hand ...


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## Argus

Artemis said:


> I wouldn't call "objectivists" idiots


I don't think anyone has. Delusional, fantasists, elitists, snobs, yeah, sure they're part of my lexicon for objectivists. Calling people idiots would just be rude.


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## Argus

Artemis said:


> You mean that they could be covert head-bangers, and merely come here to do penance for their shameful musical propensities? I hardly think so, but on the other hand ...


I wouldn't say 'covert', more 'suppressed'.


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## Artemis

Argus said:


> I don't think anyone has. Delusional, fantasists, elitists, snobs, yeah, sure they're part of my lexicon for objectivists. Calling people idiots would just be rude.


 I quite agree with you that it would be rude to call objectivists idiots. In fact, I was stressing the same point myself by rejecting the invitation from Polednice to call people who hold these beliefs to be idiots.


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## Vesteralen

Little known fact:

*Billboarde Magazine 1785 Year-End Edition:*
*Top Albums of the Year*

Piano Concerto in D minor - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (WienerRecords 49916)
Symphony in B flat "La Reine" - Franz Josef Haydn (18thcenturyNaiveRecords IZ6784R)
"La Grotta di Trofonio" - Antonio Salieri (RomaDisc FGH7890)
Ten Voluntaries - William Boyce (London C45989)
Symphony in G minor "La poule" - Franz Josef Haydn (!8thcenturyNaiveRecords IZ6767R)
Piano Concerto in C major - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (WienerRecords 49926)
"Artemisia" - Johann Friedrich Reichardt (DGG18th - DGH7657798)
String Quartet - Ignace Pleyel (CPOE 45899734)
String Quartet in C "Dissonance" - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (WienerRecords 49910)
"Giasone e Medea" - Gaetano Andreozzi (RomaDisc FDJ6444)
"Le Fauz serment" - Prosper-Didier Deshayes (18thCenturyNaiveRecords IZ55430)

*Take that, Black Sabbath!*


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## Artemis

Argus said:


> I wouldn't say 'covert', more 'suppressed'.


You mean that secretly they might be hankering after a bit of "metal" but to avoid the temptation they come here to slag it off and hope that the temptation goes away? That's interesting.


----------



## Polednice

Artemis said:


> I quite agree with you that it would be rude to call objectivists idiots. In fact, I was stressing the same point myself by rejecting the invitation from Polednice to call people who hold these beliefs to be idiots.


Invitation? Invitation?! Of course, because it wasn't at all a very, very simple clause stating "label us as you will but...". No, I was obviously inviting more divisiveness. What motivation do I have to answer your and others' questions when boggling casuistry blights every page? Forget it. Call me what you want for it, too.


----------



## Artemis

Polednice said:


> Invitation? Invitation?! Of course, because it wasn't at all a very, very simple clause stating "label us as you will but...". No, I was obviously inviting more divisiveness. What motivation do I have to answer your and others' questions when boggling casuistry blights every page? Forget it. Call me what you want for it, too.


Ay?

I have only just joined this discussion and my simple question is to ask how the objectivist viewpoint can be useful to educating people generally in ranking the quality of, say, a stack of piano concertos from a selection of composers.

If you can't do it, just say so. I'm sure we'll all have a good snigger, and then we can wrap up this loony discussion.


----------



## Aramis

TalkClassical doesn't serve your health well, stop writing all those terrible things. You write many terrible things. Don't write them. How many things you could do instead of it. You could get married. Please, get married every time when you feel like writing another terrible post, like those about physical minds. Magical, mystical.


----------



## Argus

Aramis said:


> TalkClassical doesn't serve your health well, stop writing all those terrible things. You write many terrible things. Don't write them. How many things you could do instead of it. You could get married. Please, get married every time when you feel like writing another terrible post, like those about physical minds. Magical, mystical.


'Sorry, I'll try to stick to non sequiturs', said the Goose cheekily. For this Goose knew of the beauty of the Grail and all it's majesty. 'Forsooth', mused the Goose,' I am but a metaphysical abstract object existing in neither time nor place but in the imagination of an impish Pole'. Upon remarking this the Goose vanished to continue his neverending quest for the most beatiful and mesmerising of all tableclothes, The Iannis Xenakis Memorial Tablecloth with Rhinestone Inlays.


----------



## Artemis

Argus said:


> 'Sorry, I'll try to stick to non sequiturs', said the Goose cheekily. For this Goose knew of the beauty of the Grail and all it's majesty. 'Forsooth', mused the Goose,' I am but a metaphysical abstract object existing in neither time nor place but in the imagination of an impish Pole'. Upon remarking this the Goose vanished to continue his neverending quest for the most beatiful and mesmerising of all tableclothes, The Iannis Xenakis Memorial Tablecloth with Rhinestone Inlays.


I think you're being a tiny bit unfair to Aramis. I took his latest post to be yet another poem. As a poem, it's not bad actually, but it still doesn't answer my question about how their views about objectivity helps anyone decide how to rank art in any meaningful way.


----------



## Guest

I think I have found the ultimate answer to the original question, "What is the point of atonal music."

The answer is . . . 42.

Or if that isn't right, then I think it is to generate 32 pages of comments on a classical music forum.


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## Aramis

DrMike had to drink something today, he's actually... joking


----------



## Guest

Aramis said:


> DrMike had to drink something today, he's actually... joking


Well, you know, I can't always go around in my superhero alter ego, Super-Opinionated-Conservative-Dude.


----------



## Guest

Aramis said:


> DrMike had to drink something today, he's actually... joking


By the way - don't go telling Almaviva that I am capable of posting comments on this forum that don't endanger my membership!


----------



## regressivetransphobe

Nothing wrong with a little elitism. Can I like some atonal music, as well as a particular metal band people here love to reference, and still be elitist against the gibbering morons both of those offend?



someone said:


> Ozzy


I like the Dio albums more  Rainbows and wishing wells aren't quite what I'd call "scary" or "cool". Hmm.


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## Ravellian

How is this topic still alive @[email protected]

BURN IT WITH FIRE


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## Sid James

See post below, pls...


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## Sid James

[EDIT - moved reply to stlukes to "rubbery logics" thread, to expand discussion on that thread - for a wider discussion of "elites," concert programming, "consensus" pls. go HERE - would be interested to have people's views]...


----------



## kanonathena

"It is no good asking why I wrote a passage as I did. I can only reply that I wrote down what I felt. Let the music speak for itself."

-Bartok speaking against the Schoenberg theory


----------



## violadude

kanonathena said:


> "It is no good asking why I wrote a passage as I did. I can only reply that I wrote down what I felt. Let the music speak for itself."
> 
> -Bartok speaking against the Schoenberg theory


Are you (and Bartok I suppose) implying that Schoenberg didn't write what he felt because he used the 12 tone theory as guidelines for his compositions?

Ok then, I suppose that means Bach didn't write down what he felt because he used 17th century counterpoint theory as a guideline for his music, or that Beethoven or Mozart didn't write down what they felt because they applied theories about 18th century voice leading in their music. I'm sure when Bartok applied his own version of the 12 tone system to his pieces, he was _actually_ writing down what he felt, but Schoenberg wasn't.


----------



## Argus

regressivetransphobe said:


> I like the Dio albums more


People who prefer Dio era Sabbath to the Ozzy era have objectively bad taste in music and should be regarded with suspicion. If you meant Dio solo over Ozzy solo, then your opinion is valid.



Ravellian said:


> How is this topic still alive @[email protected]
> 
> BURN IT WITH FIRE


These threads are infinitely more fun than uber dry list threads. You've got to use some brainpower to try and get your point across effectively whilst also belittling your debating opponents position with just the right mix of humour and/or casualness.


----------



## regressivetransphobe

Argus said:


> People who prefer Dio era Sabbath to the Ozzy era have objectively bad taste in music and should be regarded with suspicion. If you meant Dio solo over Ozzy solo, then your opinion is valid.


Your opinion is cliche, sir. The Dio era merged the band's booming bottom-end with hookier songs, while keeping the organic, non-formulaic songwriting that made the Ozzy albums great. And they did the doom metal thing just as well, as proven by bits of Dehumanizer and the last album.


----------



## Aramis

Dio albums are not that bad per se, but with their slighty kitschy power metal tendentions they became ancestors of this kind of stuff:






So shame on them.


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## regressivetransphobe

I like to pretend power metal doesn't exist

LALALALA


----------



## kanonathena

violadude said:


> Are you (and Bartok I suppose) implying that Schoenberg didn't write what he felt because he used the 12 tone theory as guidelines for his compositions?
> 
> Ok then, I suppose that means Bach didn't write down what he felt because he used 17th century counterpoint theory as a guideline for his music, or that Beethoven or Mozart didn't write down what they felt because they applied theories about 18th century voice leading in their music. I'm sure when Bartok applied his own version of the 12 tone system to his pieces, he was _actually_ writing down what he felt, but Schoenberg wasn't.


Bartok's view is that techniques should always serve the music, not the other way around. There is a limit on how much technique you can apply while still making sense. To me atonal music is tail wagging the dog.

The point is atonal music is more intellectual than musical, but music like all art is not intellectual in nature but a media to express oneself. No folk songs are atonal.

As such, atonal technique better stay what it is, a technique. It is possible for serealist to create something just as musical as tonal music, but that would be very difficult. Human are born with an ear for tonal music, you can't change that.

By musical I mean music that can be appropriated on a non-intellectual level.


----------



## Guest

Argus said:


> People who prefer Dio era Sabbath to the Ozzy era have objectively bad taste in music and should be regarded with suspicion. If you meant Dio solo over Ozzy solo, then your opinion is valid.


Whaaat?!? You dare speak against the Ozman and his solo career? I recommend you go take a prescription of "Crazy Train" - listen 2X daily at breakfast and dinner for 10 days. Be sure and take your full prescription. If at the end of the 10 days, you are not endlessly humming Randi Rhodes' guitar solo, please schedule a follow up appointment.


----------



## violadude

kanonathena said:


> Bartok's view is that techniques should always serve the music, not the other way around. To me atonal music is tail wagging the dog.
> 
> The debate on the point of atonal music boils down to this: Do you think most people not preferring atonal music is because they are less musical or less intellectual?


You should listen to Ode to Neapolean or Survivor from Warsaw. I think Schoenberg uses atonal techniques to serve the music very well there. My point was that every compositional style has a technical aspect to it. Just because Schoenberg's music uses a different set of "rules" or theories doesn't mean that his aim was to have the technical aspect overrun the expressive aspect. He was doing essentially the exact same thing any other composer did.


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## kanonathena

violadude said:


> You should listen to Ode to Neapolean or Survivor from Warsaw. I think Schoenberg uses atonal techniques to serve the music very well there. My point was that every compositional style has a technical aspect to it. Just because Schoenberg's music uses a different set of "rules" or theories doesn't mean that his aim was to have the technical aspect overrun the expressive aspect. He was doing essentially the exact same thing any other composer did.


I'm just against change for the sake of change sentiment in the music development. There are plenty of things that haven't achieved by composers, people think they have tonal music all figured out? more like an excuse to hide their incompetence.


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## violadude

kanonathena said:


> I'm just against change for the sake of change sentiment in the music development. There are plenty of things that haven't achieved by composers, people think they have tonal music all figured out? more like an excuse to hide their incompetence.


Well, as many people have pointed out before, no one here thinks tonality is "dead" and there are plenty of composers still composing tonal works. Against change for the sake of change huh? Why does music change then?

and I'm curious, what makes you think this piece by Bartok:




is any more "expressive" or "musical" than this piece by Schoenberg:


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## violadude

kanonathena said:


> Bartok's view is that techniques should always serve the music, not the other way around. There is a limit on how much technique you can apply while still making sense. To me atonal music is tail wagging the dog.
> 
> The point is atonal music is more intellectual than musical, but music like all art is not intellectual in nature but a media to express oneself. No folk songs are atonal.
> 
> As such, atonal technique better stay what it is, a technique. It is possible for serealist to create something just as musical as tonal music, but that would be very difficult. Human are born with an ear for tonal music, you can't change that.
> 
> By musical I mean music that can be appropriated on a non-intellectual level.


Well, I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. I sense plenty of emotion in atonal music. You're right, it is technique. Schoenberg used certain techniques just like every other composers have. Like I said, nearly all music has a technical side. If you only hear intellectuality in Schoenberg, fine, but I hear a lot more than that, so don't act like atonal music is somehow inherently less musical than the music you like.


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## regressivetransphobe

> Human are born with an ear for tonal music, you can't change that.




[citation needed]


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## TresPicos

kanonathena said:


> Bartok's view is that techniques should always serve the music, not the other way around. There is a limit on how much technique you can apply while still making sense.


In a way, I agree. A lot of baroque music, for example, is almost impossible to appreciate because it is just technique, technique, technique.



> By musical I mean music that can be appropriated on a non-intellectual level.


What level is that? And why is the intellectual dimension so scary?



> The point is atonal music is more intellectual than musical, but music like all art is not intellectual in nature but a media to express oneself.


I agree that art is about expressing oneself, but I really don't see why some music would be more "musical" than other. More "traditional", yes. "Easier to understand", yes. But "musical"? And I strongly oppose the view that music/art is not intellectual in nature. Would art, then, cease to be art once it becomes too smart? Is it only art if it expresses feelings, and not ideas? Is music only music if it's dumb enough?

And why couldn't tonal music suffer a greater technique overload, when you have to follow all the tonal rules, and when you have to squeeze what you want to express into a therefore relatively limited space? Compared to the freedom of atonal music, where you could just jot down what you feel without being so bounded by technical rules.



> As such, atonal technique better stay what it is, a technique. It is possible for serealist to create something just as musical as tonal music, but that would be very difficult.


What is, really, the difference between if you listen to music by Beethoven and feel bliss, and if I listen to music by Schoenberg and feel bliss? Why would the atonal kind be worth less?

And just because atonal music is poorly understood, that doesn't mean that atonal composers wanted to express feelings or ideas that are also poorly understood. Maybe they wanted to express joy and sadness, just like Beethoven and Bach. They just chose another language. And even if they wanted to express new feelings and new ideas, wouldn't that be something to laud, since it widens the human experience?



> Human are born with an ear for tonal music, you can't change that.


If that is the case, then atonal music is even more important, because it represents something new, instead of just more of the same.


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## StlukesguildOhio

as many people have pointed out before, no one here thinks tonality is "dead"

There actually are some... And one should remember that the notion of the triumph of atonality was for a period of time just as much of a mantra in musical academia as the triumph of abstraction was in art. personally, I find many of the contemporary composers I most admire utilize tonality in a manner quite removed from Romanticism or in tandem with atonality/dissonance. Ultimately, atonality, dissonance, microtonalism, etc... have all become just further possibilities... tools within the whole palette of what the composer has available to work with.


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## robert

StlukesguildOhio said:


> as many people have pointed out before, no one here thinks tonality is "dead"
> 
> There actually are some... And one should remember that the notion of the triumph of atonality was for a period of time just as much of a mantra in musical academia as the triumph of abstraction was in art. personally, I find many of the contemporary composers I most admire utilize tonality in a manner quite removed from Romanticism or in tandem with atonality/dissonance. Ultimately, atonality, dissonance, microtonalism, etc... have all become just further possibilities... tools within the whole palette of what the composer has available to work with.


Nice response. Could you mention a few of your most admired composers..


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## Aristotle

i meant if a painting is painted with white color , no one can understand anything but a white board 
but if colors are used to draw same painting it would be a beautiful painting 
but now that atonal and tonal music exists , together they make the beautiful painting . i mean music 
or an other example : if we consider tonal music the white color , then atonal music is an other color , so that people watching that painting would understand it 
sorry for my bad English


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## Argus

DrMike said:


> Whaaat?!? You dare speak against the Ozman and his solo career? I recommend you go take a prescription of "Crazy Train" - listen 2X daily at breakfast and dinner for 10 days. Be sure and take your full prescription. If at the end of the 10 days, you are not endlessly humming Randi Rhodes' guitar solo, please schedule a follow up appointment.


I didn't say I agreed with him, just that his opinion is acceptable. What if I prefer Jake E. Lee to Randy Rhodes?



regressivetransphobe said:


> [citation needed]


Yeah. I do a lot of experimentation with with just intoned systems as well as using regular 12 TET diatonic system and can safely say I prefer the sound of the equal temperament no matter how hard I want to like the other intonations. This can't be because I was born to hear like that because mathematically/acoustically the justly tuned scales should be more consonant to my ears. It must be that I am so used to hearing all music in ET for all my life that anything other than it sounds odd. Not to say I don't like the JI tunings, just that they have a very odd sound that takes a while to adjust to to fully, even then some intervals still sound harsh.

Here's a real world example against the naturalness of tonality. Tune your instrument to a septimal tuning like. 1/1-8/7-9/7-14/9-7/4 would be one example. Now play around in it and try and determine where the tonal centre is. My ear is confused between the 1/1 and the 14/9, there is no strong pull to any point, (making it pretty good for purely modal music). This is almost certainly because my ear is not used to this rather dissonant scale. Similarly, it takes a while for my ears to adjust to the slendro (almost 5 TET) and pelog (subset of 9 TET), but I do settle on a preferred pathet, normally nem or selisir, respectively.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Nice response. Could you mention a few of your most admired composers..

Among the late Modern and Contemporaries?

Toru Takemitsu
Alan Hovhaness
Tristan Murail
Osvaldo Golijov
Herbert Howells
Roger Sessions
Samuel Barber
Ned Rorem
Ernst Krenek
Aaron Copland
Maurice Duruflé
Olivier Messiaen
Henri Dutilleux
Philip Glass
Steve Reich
Henryck Gorecki
Hans Werner Henze
Morton Feldman
Lee Hoiby
Einojuhani Rautavaara
George Crumb
Sofia Gubaidulina
Per Nørgård
Krzysztof Penderecki
Arvo Pärt
Terry Riley
John Harbison
John Corigliano
John Adams
Kalevi Aho
Daniel Catán
Kaija Saariaho
David Lang
Paul Moravec
Peter Lieberson
Erkki-Sven Tüür
James MacMillan
Donnacha Dennehy
Pascal Dusapin
Dominique Vellard
Elliott Carter
Joseph Schwantner
Lowell Liebermann
Julian Anderson
Jonathan Harvey
John Tavener
John Rutter
Morten Lauridsen
Eric Whitacre
Jake Heggie
David Briggs
Tarik O'Regan
Veljo Tormis
Pēteris Vasks
Vagn Holmboe.................


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## regressivetransphobe

I admire your classical chops, sorta makes me wish you had that much learnin' in music outside of composers.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I admire your classical chops, sorta makes me wish you had that much learnin' in music outside of composers.

My classical "chops" are rather nothing compared to my "chops" with regard to art (my professional field of study) and literature. Now if we move into mathematics or the question as to how to use my "chops" to make money... then I become a blithering idiot.:lol:


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## robert

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Nice response. Could you mention a few of your most admired composers..
> 
> Among the late Modern and Contemporaries?
> 
> Toru Takemitsu
> Alan Hovhaness
> Tristan Murail
> Osvaldo Golijov
> Herbert Howells
> Roger Sessions
> Samuel Barber
> Ned Rorem
> Ernst Krenek
> Aaron Copland
> Maurice Duruflé
> Olivier Messiaen
> Henri Dutilleux
> Philip Glass
> Steve Reich
> Henryck Gorecki
> Hans Werner Henze
> Morton Feldman
> Lee Hoiby
> Einojuhani Rautavaara
> George Crumb
> Sofia Gubaidulina
> Per Nørgård
> Krzysztof Penderecki
> Arvo Pärt
> Terry Riley
> John Harbison
> John Corigliano
> John Adams
> Kalevi Aho
> Daniel Catán
> Kaija Saariaho
> David Lang
> Paul Moravec
> Peter Lieberson
> Erkki-Sven Tüür
> James MacMillan
> Donnacha Dennehy
> Pascal Dusapin
> Dominique Vellard
> Elliott Carter
> Joseph Schwantner
> Lowell Liebermann
> Julian Anderson
> Jonathan Harvey
> John Tavener
> John Rutter
> Morten Lauridsen
> Eric Whitacre
> Jake Heggie
> David Briggs
> Tarik O'Regan
> Veljo Tormis
> Pēteris Vasks
> Vagn Holmboe.................


I am glad I said some.......you certainly could not have much time for anyone else......


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## robert

I have spent a little time going over this enormous list....Many of these composers I know very well. Some I like, but I cannot say I admire them all. Some I have never heard of...Can you tell me a little about Donnacha Dennehy. An Italian composer?


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## Sid James

I agree with the gist of *violadude's & stluke's *statements - the modern/contemporary techniques are just that - techniques. Funny how we reduce a lot of music down to "technique" & don't see beyond it. This can apply to music of any era, style. We have had people diss everything here from "Baroque" to "contemporary" things. The usual questionable argument is that technique rides roughshod over "emotion." I personally don't buy into that at all, but people are free to think what they like, they can choose (or not choose) listen to whatever they like (just like a composer chooses between various techniques available).

As for the Bartok quote, he actually used Schoenberg's serial (12-note) technique in modified form. The most well-known example was in the middle movt. of his 2nd violin concerto. Bartok told Yehudi Menuhin that he wanted to use the 12-note technique in a more "tonal" way/context. Actually, Schoenberg did this quite a few times himself. People stereotype him as a "hard line" serialist when he didn't always apply the technique rigorously.

Often with composers, as with people in general, they say things that goes against what they actually do. That's okay, we're human. People like Hovhaness & Bernstein used a lot of the latest techniques of their time, but they both said things like atonality is like a universe without a centre. Well, from what I can gather, this goes against what they actually did, from just hearing their music & reading about it. Like Lutoslawski, Hovhaness played around with many of the latest techniques - eg. Cage's ideas of "chance" and "controlled chance." Atonality too, & there is plenty of that going on in Bernstein's symphonies as well. Not to mention the 12-note "Cool Fugue" in _West Side Story_. Even the percussive innovations wrought by guys like Xenakis & Varese didn't pass Bernstein by either. So I'd personally rather listen to what a composer does in their music than bandy about quotes from various points in their lives. It's good to read what they thought, but often this changed over time (just like we do, no?)...


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

Can you tell me a little about Donnacha Dennehy. An Italian composer?

I posted this earlier on another thread but should have placed it on the Modern/Contemporary listening as well:










First listen...

And undoubtedly it will take a number of hearings to really delve into this disc. Donnacha Dennehy is an Irish composer, born in Dublin in 1970. This disc contains two works: _Grá agus Bás_ and a song cycle entitled _That the Night Come_ which consists of settings of the poems of William Butler Yeats.

_Grá agus Bás_ is a 25-minute piece rooted in a form of unaccompanied Irish vocal music known as _sean-nós_ which are traditionally highly ornamented. The vocals in this recording are taken by the Irish folk singer Iarla Ó Lionáird. The piece begins slowly... with clear elements suggestive of Irish/Celtic folk music, minimalism, medieval music, and even the "spectralism" of composers such as Tristan Murail, Kaija Saariaho, Jonathan Harvey, and Julian Anderson... especially in terms of the orchestration. This piece builds and surges... punctuated with percussion and dissonance... until it comes to a climactic wall of sound with the soaring sound of the electric guitar and other electronics.

The song cycle, _That the Night Come_, is by comparison, far more subdued, composed primarily for voice and piano. The cycle was written for the performer, Dawn Upshaw, who is known for her willingness... even preference... for exploring new music (She has performed Osvaldo Golijov, Henryck Gorecki, Olivier Messiaen, Vernon Duke, and Earl Kim, among others). The music is simple... perfectly accompanying both the voice of the singer and the marvelous lyrics of Yeats poetry. In the song, The Old Men Admiring Themselves in the Water, for example, the piano creates a rippling effect suggestive of the rippling water... not unlike that manner in which Schubert frequently reveals some aspect of the text through the music.

This is not one of those discs of new music that immediately grabbed me (I think of David Lang's _Little Match Girl Passion_ or Peter Lieberman's _Neruda Poems_, for example), but it is a disc that I am certain will be worthy of and reward repeated listening.


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## kanonathena

double post


----------



## kanonathena

TresPicos said:


> In a way, I agree. A lot of baroque music, for example, is almost impossible to appreciate because it is just technique, technique, technique.
> 
> What level is that? And why is the intellectual dimension so scary?
> 
> I agree that art is about expressing oneself, but I really don't see why some music would be more "musical" than other. More "traditional", yes. "Easier to understand", yes. But "musical"? And I strongly oppose the view that music/art is not intellectual in nature. Would art, then, cease to be art once it becomes too smart? Is it only art if it expresses feelings, and not ideas? Is music only music if it's dumb enough?
> 
> And why couldn't tonal music suffer a greater technique overload, when you have to follow all the tonal rules, and when you have to squeeze what you want to express into a therefore relatively limited space? Compared to the freedom of atonal music, where you could just jot down what you feel without being so bounded by technical rules.
> 
> What is, really, the difference between if you listen to music by Beethoven and feel bliss, and if I listen to music by Schoenberg and feel bliss? Why would the atonal kind be worth less?
> 
> And just because atonal music is poorly understood, that doesn't mean that atonal composers wanted to express feelings or ideas that are also poorly understood. Maybe they wanted to express joy and sadness, just like Beethoven and Bach. They just chose another language. And even if they wanted to express new feelings and new ideas, wouldn't that be something to laud, since it widens the human experience?
> 
> If that is the case, then atonal music is even more important, because it represents something new, instead of just more of the same.


Let me stress again that atonal and tonal music has fundamentally different impact on listeners. I am not saying atonal is wrong, it can definitely convey emotion and that is why it has been used by many composers. But the range of emotion it can convey is limited compared to tonal music, usually negative emotions like argue, loneliness, sadness because its disturbing effect on people. The music of future certainly can't be all about negative emotions. You said there is also joy and bliss, is this something we could play in church and restaurant?

There is a reason why atonal music is "poorly understood". How can it be poorly understood? Music is just an arrangement of sound, only the deaf can't hear atonal music. Why people still prefer tonal music? If atonal is just as able to convey emotion and connect to people as tonal, I would expect a good portion of pop music is written in atonal. Now atonal music have existed for a century, and you blame people too close-minded? Why not find problem in the atonal music itself?

Regarding the relationship of music and art in general vs. the use of intellect. I'd say keep your use of intellect to a minimum, simply because music is too mysterious a force for us a understand it, we don't know how music come about, otherwise we would a machine that can generate music a long time ago. Such as music is vastly more intelligent than our intellect, we must not let intellect take hold.

Until we fully understood the source of music, to me "music" created by intellect is just a novelty.

That's why I am against atonal music. First, it is largely an intellectual invention, music is beyond our intellect. Second, the emotion it can convey is either very limited, otherwise it should just as popular as tonal music.

I don't understand why people still believe atonal music is the future, don't you know how unpopular it is? People should take a hint from that.


----------



## tdc

Argus said:


> Here's a real world example against the naturalness of tonality. Tune your instrument to a septimal tuning like. 1/1-8/7-9/7-14/9-7/4 would be one example. Now play around in it and try and determine where the tonal centre is. My ear is confused between the 1/1 and the 14/9, *there is no strong pull to any point, (making it pretty good for purely modal music*). This is almost certainly because my ear is not used to this rather dissonant scale.


I find references to 'modal' music quite confusing, in fact here are a couple quotes I pulled up about 'modal music':

"Modes have no specific tones, notes, or pcs; they are simply a series of intervals or distances."

*However when referred to as 'modal music' this same website goes on to explain:*

"Modal music is "keyed", because it has a tonic and a mode, hence A-Lydian is a key."

http://solomonsmusic.net/tonality.htm



This doesn't seem to jive with what you are saying?


----------



## Argus

tdc said:


> I find references to 'modal' music quite confusing, in fact here are a couple quotes I pulled up about 'modal music':
> 
> "Modes have no specific tones, notes, or pcs; they are simply a series of intervals or distances."
> 
> *However when referred to as 'modal music' this same website goes on to explain:*
> 
> "Modal music is "keyed", because it has a tonic and a mode, hence A-Lydian is a key."
> 
> http://solomonsmusic.net/tonality.htm
> 
> 
> 
> This doesn't seem to jive with what you are saying?


Modal does not have to be tonal. It just happens much modal music is tonal, and people use the word tonal to only refer to a specific kind of tonality, the Western Diatonic system.

Tonal = a series of pitches arranged around a centre or tonic

Modal = a series of set pitches

From that website you quoted:



> Modes and scales may or may not have a tonic


Try out that scale and you'll hear no tension or resolution in the melodic movement because your ear is not attuned to the intervals.


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## violadude

kanonathena said:


> Let me stress again that atonal and tonal music has fundamentally different impact on listeners. I am not saying atonal is wrong, it can definitely convey emotion and that is why it has been used by many composers. But the range of emotion it can convey is limited compared to tonal music, usually negative emotions like argue, loneliness, sadness because its disturbing effect on people. The music of future certainly can't be all about negative emotions. You said there is also joy and bliss, is this something we could play in church and restaurant?
> 
> There is a reason why atonal music is "poorly understood". How can it be poorly understood? Music is just an arrangement of sound, only the deaf can't hear atonal music. Why people still prefer tonal music? If atonal is just as able to convey emotion and connect to people as tonal, I would expect a good portion of pop music is written in atonal. Now atonal music have existed for a century, and you blame people too close-minded? Why not find problem in the atonal music itself?
> 
> Regarding the relationship of music and art in general vs. the use of intellect. I'd say keep your use of intellect to a minimum, simply because music is too mysterious a force for us a understand it, we don't know how music come about, otherwise we would a machine that can generate music a long time ago. Such as music is vastly more intelligent than our intellect, we must not let intellect take hold.
> 
> Until we fully understood the source of music, to me "music" created by intellect is just a novelty.
> 
> That's why I am against atonal music. First, it is largely an intellectual invention, music is beyond our intellect. Second, the emotion it can convey is either very limited, otherwise it should just as popular as tonal music.
> 
> I don't understand why people still believe atonal music is the future, don't you know how unpopular it is? People should take a hint from that.


I still don't understand why atonal music is supposed to be more "intellectual" than tonal music when there is plenty of intellect involved in tonal music as well. That doesn't make sense to me, that atonal music was an intellectual invention. Composers composed in an atonal style to find new ways of *expression* regardless of the intellectual aspect involved. And be careful how you generalize music. Many people could find positive emotions in atonal music, even if you don't. Every person interprets differently.


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## TresPicos

kanonathena said:


> Let me stress again that atonal and tonal music has fundamentally different impact on listeners.


Yes, the tonal music that I like calms me or makes me happy, or provides good background music at work. The atonal music that I like tends to be better at soothing pain, and it has a more spiritual effect, like it sets my soul free or something. So you're right, the impact is different.



> I am not saying atonal is wrong, it can definitely convey emotion and that is why it has been used by many composers. But the range of emotion it can convey is limited compared to tonal music, usually negative emotions like argue, loneliness, sadness because its disturbing effect on people.


What disturbing effect? Do you actually mean that atonal music should be seen as having, objectively, a disturbing effect, only because the majority of music listeners might agree? If so, then I would like to know more about the disturbing effect classical music as a whole has, objectively, considering the fact that pop music is so much more popular. Or would you say that the non-classical listening majority is missing something? That they just don't understand what's so great about classical music? If so...



> There is a reason why atonal music is "poorly understood". How can it be poorly understood? Music is just an arrangement of sound, only the deaf can't hear atonal music. Why people still prefer tonal music? If atonal is just as able to convey emotion and connect to people as tonal, I would expect a good portion of pop music is written in atonal. Now atonal music have existed for a century, and you blame people too close-minded? Why not find problem in the atonal music itself?


Because there is no problem to find. Atonal music is there for those few who enjoy it, just like classical music as a whole is there for those (relatively) few who enjoy it. And those who don't enjoy it are free to listen to something else. Are pop music people close-minded just because they don't like classical at all? Or should we try to find the problem in classical music itself? In my opinion, if there was some composer whose music nobody on Earth liked, there would still be no problem with that music, not even if people would _have _problems with it.



> Regarding the relationship of music and art in general vs. the use of intellect. I'd say keep your use of intellect to a minimum, simply because music is too mysterious a force for us a understand it, we don't know how music come about, otherwise we would a machine that can generate music a long time ago. Such as music is vastly more intelligent than our intellect, we must not let intellect take hold.


Or else, what? Progress?



> Until we fully understood the source of music, to me "music" created by intellect is just a novelty.


And novelties can be interesting and mind-blowing and cool!



> That's why I am against atonal music. First, it is largely an intellectual invention, music is beyond our intellect. Second, the emotion it can convey is either very limited, otherwise it should just as popular as tonal music.


And, if classical music hadn't had all its limitations, but had had the possibility to convey as many emotions as pop music, then it might have become just as popular as pop music.



> I don't understand why people still believe atonal music is the future, don't you know how unpopular it is? People should take a hint from that.


Indeed. And I think that the contemporary classical music world has the right to be informed about this century-old cul-de-sac into which it has got itself stuck. Should I? Or will you?


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## Argus

Intellectual levels necessary for the creation of musics by a person:

Triple fugue a la Bach - lots of study and practice required, familiarity with counterpoint and the stylistic norms of the form

Rhthmic piano tone clusters a la the Sciarrino sonata - has arms (fingers would be a bonus) and can hit piano keys

Louie Louie by the Kingsmen - knows 3 chords

Stochastic music a la Xenakis - firm understanding of difficult mathematics and ways of translating them into music

Is this intellectual?


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## Sid James

kanonathena said:


> That's why I am against atonal music.


Great. It's your life, you think what you want. I'll think what I want. I don't divide music into "stereotypes" & "cliches." Black versus white. False dichotomies. If I like, dislike or am in the middle about something, it has little to do with whether it's "tonal" or "atonal." If you want to live by these "divisions," which to me personally mean nothing, it's fine by me. You're free to do what you want. I just don't know why you (& some other people) claim that their "truth" is or should be everyone's "truth." If we were all the same like that, the world would be a boring place, no? If Schoenberg were the same as Bartok, or J.S. Bach the same as Handel, we would be much the poorer for it.



> I don't understand why people still believe atonal music is the future, don't you know how unpopular it is? People should take a hint from that.


If you apply that "logic" then what do you say to this (& I've pointed this out several times in the past week or so, no one has bothered to reply, at least from what I remember). For about 100 years after his death, J.S. Bach was virtually unknown by the general public, except for by composers/musicians. Mendelssohn in the mid c19th "resurrected" Bach's choral works. Bach's _Well Tempered Clavier _only got traction as far as being played in recitals (eg. for general public's consumption/listening) with people like Wanda Landowska in the 1920's-30's. A lot of his music has come to light since then, esp. in the last 30 or so years with the period instruments (HIP) movement. Similar things can be said about many other composers, J.S.Bach only being the most prominent example.

So if you apply your thinking to composers before 1945 (well before!), then your theory about what's valued & what's not in a particular point in time simply doesn't hold water (sorry!).

BTW - I have never said any music was "the future." That type of dogmatic thinking really went out in the 1960's. People are much more flexible & most would accept diversity/plurality. I would recommend that you, or anyone else thinking in this way, maybe read a bit about what happened in the history of music (& I'm not a PHD in music or anything of the sort, just a guy who's been into classical on & off for about 20 years, my knowledge isn't comprehensive, but I think I basically know how to separate facts from opinions, and spurious ones at that)...


----------



## Timotheus

Sid James said:


> Great. It's your life, you think what you want. I'll think what I want.


But you aren't doing that, your stating what you think same as he is.

And he isn't thinking what he wants, that's insulting. He is after what's true. You can ignore that and think whatever you want.



> I don't divide music into "stereotypes" & "cliches." Black versus white. False dichotomies. If I like, dislike or am in the middle about something, it has little to do with whether it's "tonal" or "atonal." If you want to live by these "divisions," which to me personally mean nothing, it's fine by me. You're free to do what you want.


They are just convenient generalities. No one is pretending all music is clearly divided into these two.



> I just don't know why you (& some other people) claim that their "truth" is or should be everyone's "truth."


When we argue, we say what we think is true. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't. It's never our "truth" or any such weasely phrase.

kanonathena's posts are a breath of fresh air in this thread.

****************

This debate is important because Modernism is a bad ideology supported by temporal provincials.


----------



## violadude

Timotheus said:


> But you aren't doing that, your stating what you think same as he is.
> 
> And he isn't thinking what he wants, that's insulting. He is after what's true. You can ignore that and think whatever you want.
> 
> They are just convenient generalities. No one is pretending all music is clearly divided into these two.
> 
> When we argue, we say what we think is true. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't. It's never our "truth" or any such weasely phrase.
> 
> kanonathena's posts are a breath of fresh air in this thread.
> 
> ****************
> 
> This debate is important because Modernism is a bad ideology supported by temporal provincials.


To say what Kanonathena's posts are absolute truth is pretty arrogant in my book. What on EARTH are you guys trying to prove by sh*tting on music that other people like.


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## SuperTonic

I have a question for those who find a specific style of music objectionable. Exactly how far are you willing to take your beliefs?
Let's say you have become the dictator of the world, and you have the authority to declare any law you wish and you have the power to enforce it with an iron fist. Would you outlaw the music that you found objectionable? And would you punish those artists who defy you; or for that matter, any consumers of the outlawed art? 
I only ask because you all clearly have some grand plan regarding what music should and should not be, and it seems like a logical question.


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## Polednice

SuperTonic said:


> I have a question for those who find a specific style of music objectionable. Exactly how far are you willing to take your beliefs?
> Let's say you have become the dictator of the world, and you have the authority to declare any law you wish and you have the power to enforce it with an iron fist. Would you outlaw the music that you found objectionable? And would you punish those artists who defy you; or for that matter, any consumers of the outlawed art?
> I only ask because you all clearly have some grand plan regarding what music should and should not be, and it seems like a logical question.


Is your characterisation supposed to be serious?

Of course I wouldn't outlaw any kind of music, no matter how objectionable I found it, and I doubt anybody else would either. Just as we cherish free speech, we ought to cherish free expression in art. It's a good thing for new ideas to bounce around and for a community of artists to explore new avenues, but if I think it creates ugliness, then I'll criticise it just like anyone else would.


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## JimH

For an example of an atonal piece that is actually beautiful try the frst movement of the Webern symphony Op21. 

I listened to the link Sciarrino and found it playful, although I'll admit a lot of atonal music is limited to the dark and dreadful side of the emotional spectrum. And I wouldn't want to learn this piece, hearing it once was enough.


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> Is your characterisation supposed to be serious?
> 
> Of course I wouldn't outlaw any kind of music, no matter how objectionable I found it, and I doubt anybody else would either. Just as we cherish free speech, we ought to cherish free expression in art. It's a good thing for new ideas to bounce around and for a community of artists to explore new avenues, but if I think it creates ugliness, then I'll criticise it just like anyone else would.


Do you have an objection to ugly music?


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## SuperTonic

Polednice said:


> Is your characterisation supposed to be serious?
> 
> Of course I wouldn't outlaw any kind of music, no matter how objectionable I found it, and I doubt anybody else would either. Just as we cherish free speech, we ought to cherish free expression in art. It's a good thing for new ideas to bounce around and for a community of artists to explore new avenues, but if I think it creates ugliness, then I'll criticise it just like anyone else would.


Yes, it is serious. 
For some reason some of you are not content to just say people have different tastes and leave it at that. You feel the need to justify your personal tastes by making broad generalizations about an entire style of music or the people who do enjoy it. I'm just taking that idea to its logical extreme. Once you are able to successfully label something as bad or ugly in enough peoples' minds inevitably someone is going to want to do something about it.


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Do you have an objection to ugly music?


I have an objection to listening to it, but not to its existence. No matter how much I might rail against certain kinds of music, I would _never_ suggest that people should stop writing if that's what they want to write.



SuperTonic said:


> Yes, it is serious.
> For some reason some of you are not content to just say people have different tastes and leave it at that. You feel the need to justify your personal tastes by making broad generalizations about an entire style of music or the people who do enjoy it. I'm just taking that idea to its logical extreme. Once you are able to successfully label something as bad or ugly in enough peoples' minds inevitably someone is going to want to do something about it.


What is virtuous about saying that people have different tastes and leaving it at that? Of course we acknowledge that people have different tastes, and everyone is entitled to listen to and prefer different musics, but some of us actually like to forge our own perceptions of what art is and should be. That's how different artistic movements and schools of thought come about - through contention, divisiveness, arguments about differences of opinion - not through a shrug of the shoulders and a 'meh'.

That doesn't mean we expect the whole world to adopt our thinking, but it does mean that we therefore talk critically about other artistic forms and intentions because we have a passion for our own artistic ideal. I haven't made any baseless generalisations about certain types of music, nor about the people who enjoy it. Even if I did, I don't see any logic at all in the path between objection and censorship.


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## regressivetransphobe

Certainly people lived and let live even during the peak of historical artistic movements. It's just the nastiness and competition we remember in history books, because it's more fun.


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## TresPicos

SuperTonic said:


> I have a question for those who find a specific style of music objectionable. Exactly how far are you willing to take your beliefs?
> Let's say you have become the dictator of the world, and you have the authority to declare any law you wish and you have the power to enforce it with an iron fist. Would you outlaw the music that you found objectionable? And would you punish those artists who defy you; or for that matter, any consumers of the outlawed art?
> I only ask because you all clearly have some grand plan regarding what music should and should not be, and it seems like a logical question.


Logical? I don't know. It's seems pretty far-fetched, and it probably is for everyone in this thread.

That said, I _am _somewhat enticed by the combination "iron fist" + "country music".


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## Sid James

Timotheus said:


> This debate is important because Modernism is a bad ideology supported by temporal provincials.


That basically sounds like something coming from the people causing riots at the premieres of Stravinsky's, Schoenberg's & Varese's works back in the days (we're talking 100 years ago, more or less!). It also speaks to what SuperTonic is saying/asking - good old Hitler & Stalin said/did the same thing about music (or people) they didn't like, labelling them as "bad" & everything else under the sun. I don't know what "temporal provincials" means - those three composer's I mentioned works is known around the world, by listeners as well as composers, musicians, etc. (certainly on this forum, you'd be hard pressed to find that most members here at least have one disc, or know one/a few works, from these guys - esp. the first two).

A lot of what's said about much post 1900 "classical" music is just pure fallacy. Same goes with most things before 1800, people saying Mozart was "superficial" & stuff like that. The "hard" conservatives' "solar plexus" for what is "good" music basically centres on music from c.1800-c.1900. Even within that, they have a tendency to prefer the "war horses," which is fine, but what I'm not happy about is them ramming this limited ideology down the throats of the majority, most classical listeners being in the middle of the spectrum (at least judging from most members on this forum & those listeners/musicians etc. that I know in "real life."). As I said, people confuse their own ideologies with the merits or actual substance of the music. It has nothing to do with how many cd's you own or whether you're a PHD in music or not, even what you listen to, it's basically a matter of ATTITUDE.

Anyway, I think I'll sign off from this thread, it's becoming round about & seems to attract people who have a gripe about certain types of music they don't like & expanding that into an all-encompassing judgement on anything that doesn't correspond with their ideologies...


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## regressivetransphobe

Stop being completely logical and well-rounded. Every composer who didn't die of tuberculosis in the 17-1800s is bad because


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## kanonathena

Hmm... I am not saying creating or appropriating music using intellect is wrong, to me PURE art is honest direct human expression, it is like our emotion which will never betray us. I think of two of three reasons why we fail to produce pure art:

1. we are not "talented" enough or we are all very talented but it still require tremendous intellect to record the illusive inspiration
2. we can't help but allow our intellect to intrude in the process of us creating art, which is almost inevitable (actually, there is a medical case where a girl lost the left hemisphere of her brain, and develop more artistic talent)

It is only opinion that all art created tainted with even slightest intellect is unpure, of course that is just my opinion. And it is my opinion that perfect music/art is a special case of pure music created with the heart to fulfill what all human desire.

This is what my stance on atonal music is based on, I think it is an intellectual than a natural language to deliver honest direct human expression, my reasoning are in my previous posts. And that atonal music is totally different from other music development like counterpoint, it is a completely new language with a different emotional impact. And I believe this emotional impact has a very limited range. 

Can someone please post a piece of atonal music that can be played in a joyful occasion?

I am not against music development. I do believe that atonal music is harmonic to the society at the time when it is developed, in a society where science was under spotlight, urban life became chaotic and busy, war took away people's lives. Atonal music was developed as a natural expression to reflect the importance of intellect and people's confusion at that time. 

However, the time has changed but the academics still hold on to it because after all, atonal music is the latest and a revolutionary discovery, there is infinite amount of possibilities lying ahead. But the time has changed, music as an expression goes hand to hand with the status of human's collective consciousness. I believe this why atonal music has failed so far, it is out of time, and we need to pay attention to who we are at the moment.


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## violadude

kanonathena said:


> Hmm... I am not saying creating or appropriating music using intellect is wrong, to me PURE art is honest direct human expression, it is like our emotion which will never betray us. I think of two of three reasons why we fail to produce pure art:
> 
> 1. we are not "talented" enough or we are all very talented but it still require tremendous intellect to record the illusive inspiration
> 2. we can't help but allow our intellect to intrude in the process of us creating art, which is almost inevitable (actually, there is a medical case where a girl lost the left hemisphere of her brain, and develop more artistic talent)
> 
> It is only opinion that all art created tainted with even slightest intellect is unpure, of course that is just my opinion. And it is my opinion that perfect music/art is a special case of pure music created with the heart to fulfill what all human desire.
> 
> This is what my stance on atonal music is based on, I think it is an intellectual than a natural language to deliver honest direct human expression, my reasoning are in my previous posts. And that atonal music is totally different from other music development like counterpoint, it is a completely new language with a different emotional impact. And I believe this emotional impact has a very limited range.
> 
> Can someone please post a piece of atonal music that can be played in a joyful occasion?
> 
> I am not against music development. I do believe that atonal music is harmonic to the society at the time when it is developed, in a society where science was under spotlight, urban life became chaotic and busy, war took away people's lives. Atonal music was developed as a natural expression to reflect the importance of intellect and people's confusion at that time.
> 
> However, the time has changed but the academics still hold on to it because after all, atonal music is the latest and a revolutionary discovery, there is infinite amount of possibilities lying ahead. But the time has changed, music as an expression goes hand to hand with the status of human's collective consciousness. I believe this why atonal music has failed so far, it is out of time, and we need to pay attention to who we are at the moment.


Well if that is your opinion that's fine. I guess there's not much more I can say. My opinion is that there is no such thing as perfect music. My opinion is that there is just music and some people like it or they don't

I would like to address your last sentence though. You said atonal music has failed so far but what does that mean? Atonal music has failed to who? What is your definition of "failed" when it comes to music? A know a lot of people who like atonal music so it certainly hasn't "failed" in terms of enjoyment.


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## regressivetransphobe

> Can someone please post a piece of atonal music that can be played in a joyful occasion?


Thank god some music isn't fillerish enough to be appropriate anywhere.


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## Webernite

kanonathena said:


> Hmm... I am not saying creating or appropriating music using intellect is wrong, to me PURE art is honest direct human expression, it is like our emotion which will never betray us.


_All_ music is created using the intellect, whether it's tonal or atonal. It's a Romantic fantasy that the great composers just sat down and wrote "what was in their hearts." Practically all of the great composers could have been counterpoint or harmony professors had they wanted to. In fact, Tchaikovsky was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and he's sometimes regarded as the most emotional of all composers.


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## Polednice

Webernite said:


> _All_ music is created using the intellect, whether it's tonal or atonal. It's a Romantic fantasy that the great composers just sat down and wrote "what was in their hearts." Practically all of the great composers could have been counterpoint or harmony professors had they wanted to. In fact, Tchaikovsky was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and he's sometimes regarded as the most emotional of all composers.


+1 to that.

The idea that the emotions and the intellect are at odds is just fanciful and naive. Also, kanonathena, it's incredibly difficult to engage with your posts because you use a lot of emotive language like "pure art" (whatever that is) and "honest expression" (which, apparently, atonal music can't be. I'm no fan of the technique, but I think it is no barrier to honesty), but there's little supportive reasoning to actually discuss. You just seem to be listing a lot of baseless assumptions. :/


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> +1 to that.
> 
> The idea that the emotions and the intellect are at odds is just fanciful and naive. Also, kanonathena, it's incredibly difficult to engage with your posts because you use a lot of emotive language like "pure art" (whatever that is) and "honest expression" (which, apparently, atonal music can't be. I'm no fan of the technique, but I think it is no barrier to honesty), but there's little supportive reasoning to actually discuss. You just seem to be listing a lot of baseless assumptions. :/


Omg! I think Polednice and I just agreed in a thread about atonality!


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Omg! I think Polednice and I just agreed in a thread about atonality!


 Now we can be best buddies!


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## Timotheus

Webernite said:


> _All_ music is created using the intellect, whether it's tonal or atonal. It's a Romantic fantasy that the great composers just sat down and wrote "what was in their hearts." Practically all of the great composers could have been counterpoint or harmony professors had they wanted to. In fact, Tchaikovsky was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, and he's sometimes regarded as the most emotional of all composers.


But obviously enough, you can create something by seeing what resonates with you emotionally and you can do it in a cerebral way. A painting of a young woman picking the first flowers of spring might be an example of the first, a glass of water on a shelf with the title "this is an oak tree" the 2nd. kanonathena's point is pretty clear.



> Yes, it is serious.
> For some reason some of you are not content to just say people have different tastes and leave it at that. You feel the need to justify your personal tastes by making broad generalizations about an entire style of music or the people who do enjoy it. I'm just taking that idea to its logical extreme. Once you are able to successfully label something as bad or ugly in enough peoples' minds inevitably someone is going to want to do something about it.


I suppose Harrison Bergeron is the opposite logical extreme, but it doesn't mean I'd act like that's what you want.



Timotheus said:


> kanonathena's posts are a breath of fresh air





violadude said:


> To say what Kanonathena's posts are absolute truth is pretty arrogant in my book.


:tiphat:



Sid James said:


> That basically sounds like something coming from the people causing riots at the premieres of Stravinsky's, Schoenberg's & Varese's works back in the days (we're talking 100 years ago, more or less!).


I've been arguing the basic point that some music is better than others. Your point here is that there were foolish people who walked out of premiere's of Stravinsky, etc. You are claiming the music is good and that the rioters had bad taste. Ok? Because that has been the main argument in this thread, that there is such a thing as good and bad taste. Why then did you go off an kanonathena, saying stuff like "It's your life, think what you want. I'll think what I want" and complaining about how he said his "'truth' was true"? Putting quotes around the word truth instead of just saying "belief" is practically a sin by the way. When talking about what you think, you say that stuff is good and bad, but when he said something was bad you complained about it.



> It also speaks to what SuperTonic is saying/asking - good old Hitler & Stalin said/did the same thing about music (or people) they didn't like, labelling them as "bad" & everything else under the sun.


:tiphat:



> A lot of what's said about much post 1900 "classical" music is just pure fallacy. Same goes with most things before 1800, people saying Mozart was "superficial" & stuff like that. The "hard" conservatives' "solar plexus" for what is "good" music basically centres on music from c.1800-c.1900. Even within that, they have a tendency to prefer the "war horses," which is fine, but what I'm not happy about is them ramming this limited ideology down the throats of the majority, most classical listeners being in the middle of the spectrum (at least judging from most members on this forum & those listeners/musicians etc. that I know in "real life."). As I said, people confuse their own ideologies with the merits or actual substance of the music. It has nothing to do with how many cd's you own or whether you're a PHD in music or not, even what you listen to, it's basically a matter of ATTITUDE.
> 
> Anyway, I think I'll sign off from this thread, it's becoming round about & seems to attract people who have a gripe about certain types of music they don't like & expanding that into an all-encompassing judgement on anything that doesn't correspond with their ideologies...


My god man, you're clearly as opinionated about music as anyone. You made a number of claims about music in this very post, and you even say that music can have merits and substance and such. I was talking about the idea of modernism "newer is better" which is an ideology, and you yourself say that ideology is bad when it comes to music.

*************

Understand that there's two arguments here. We started off talking about atonal music, but very quickly the people who like it turned to all kinds of non musical arguments. Very bad ones. And that is what people are reacting too.

"I like this piece of atonal music" gets an "ok".

"You can't criticize the music I like, because [you don't know anything about it, you're just the same as those ignorant critics who hated the premier of such and such, you are just prejudiced, there's no such thing as music that's better or worse, etc etc]" gets disagreement.

Simple as that. You know, I like plenty of things that people criticize or look down on. When they do I don't scramble for some pseudo-philosophical reason why they aren't allowed to criticize, because I know from experience that I've been wrong about a lot of stuff and that my taste has changed over time. I've had the experience of liking something, having it criticized, not getting the criticism, and then understanding it later and saying "oh yeah! I see now".

But maybe I've been doing it wrong. Next time I think someone might be criticizing my taste I'll just say "Oh yeah? You knew who else thought some music was "bad"? HITLER AND STALIN".


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## Argus

Timotheus said:


> But obviously enough, you can create something by seeing what resonates with you emotionally and you can do it in a cerebral way. A painting of a young woman picking the first flowers of spring might be an example of the first, a glass of water on a shelf with the title "this is an oak tree" the 2nd. kanonathena's point is pretty clear.
> 
> I suppose Harrison Bergeron is the opposite logical extreme, but it doesn't mean I'd act like that's what you want.
> 
> :tiphat:
> 
> I've been arguing the basic point that some music is better than others. Your point here is that there were foolish people who walked out of premiere's of Stravinsky, etc. You are claiming the music is good and that the rioters had bad taste. Ok? Because that has been the main argument in this thread, that there is such a thing as good and bad taste. Why then did you go off an kanonathena, saying stuff like "It's your life, think what you want. I'll think what I want" and complaining about how he said his "'truth' was true"? Putting quotes around the word truth instead of just saying "belief" is practically a sin by the way. When talking about what you think, you say that stuff is good and bad, but when he said something was bad you complained about it.
> 
> :tiphat:
> 
> My god man, you're clearly as opinionated about music as anyone. You made a number of claims about music in this very post, and you even say that music can have merits and substance and such. I was talking about the idea of modernism "newer is better" which is an ideology, and you yourself say that ideology is bad when it comes to music.
> 
> *************
> 
> Understand that there's two arguments here. We started off talking about atonal music, but very quickly the people who like it turned to all kinds of non musical arguments. Very bad ones. And that is what people are reacting too.
> 
> "I like this piece of atonal music" gets an "ok".
> 
> "You can't criticize the music I like, because [you don't know anything about it, you're just the same as those ignorant critics who hated the premier of such and such, you are just prejudiced, there's no such thing as music that's better or worse, etc etc]" gets disagreement.
> 
> Simple as that. You know, I like plenty of things that people criticize or look down on. When they do I don't scramble for some pseudo-philosophical reason why they aren't allowed to criticize, because I know from experience that I've been wrong about a lot of stuff and that my taste has changed over time. I've had the experience of liking something, having it criticized, not getting the criticism, and then understanding it later and saying "oh yeah! I see now".
> 
> But maybe I've been doing it wrong. Next time I think someone might be criticizing my taste I'll just say "Oh yeah? You knew who else thought some music was "bad"? HITLER AND STALIN".


I take it you don't like chillwave then?


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## Almaviva

DrMike said:


> By the way - don't go telling Almaviva that I am capable of posting comments on this forum that don't endanger my membership!


 Hey, I found this post anyway.:devil:


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## kanonathena

Scarp everything I have said, I just realized this morning that perfect music is silence. Music is a expression by flawed human, impossible to be perfect in practice. In silence lies the breath of the nature, the universe, the idea behind 4'33". 

Finally!


----------



## Guest

kanonathena said:


> Scarp everything I have said, I just realized this morning that perfect music is silence. Music is a expression by flawed human, impossible to be perfect in practice. In silence lies the breath of the nature, the universe, the idea behind 4'33".
> 
> Finally!


The UV is not silent! you just can't hear it. Poor mortal


----------



## Andy Loochazee

Curiosity said:


> 4'33 is a steaming pile of turds.


I listen to it every day. Best piece of atonal music ever. I hadn't noticed any such problems with it, but thanks for the tip, I'll watch my step in future.


----------



## regressivetransphobe

I love that a composer can "compose" 4 minutes of silence to make a point about ambient sound and it gets called a piece of crap. Looks like after all these years, the joke is still on everybody.


----------



## Curiosity

regressivetransphobe said:


> I love that a composer can "compose" 4 minutes of silence to make a point about ambient sound and it gets called a piece of crap. Looks like after all these years, the joke is still on everybody.


I didn't need Cage to tell me that sounds are important.


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## HarpsichordConcerto




----------



## fourthfougere

I'm new here, I saw this thread on google as i was flipping through atonal stuff. This might turn into a long post, hopefully that's cool.

I've been getting into classical music pretty heavily for the past month or so, researching it pretty hard core and listening to at least a couple pieces every day because its so damn good. I like how crazy deep and intricate it all is, and the scenes it creates in my mind. I've always struggled trying to like the atonal scene though. It's almost like the whole classical music world changed from this effortlessly beautiful (sometimes almost too beautiful for me (tea-time la la (no offense(sorry about quadruple bracket)))) sound world into a grey mess of spikes and invisible walls.

I'd say for the past few weeks, my favorite composers were: Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. I like how they make beauty music but don't really take any musical cheap shots on your ears. It seems really colorful and exciting to me, and at the same time, the harmonies and melodies are pretty far away from what my ears initially expect.

It's wierd. Ever since I started listening, based on biographies and descriptions, I felt like I would really like Bartok's music. Every time I went to listen to it, it just felt weird though. I ended up considering his music equally unappealing as atonal music. It's like he was onto a really cool, folky, crazy sound, but it just never came together like my brain wanted it to; he'd hit those invisible walls or play some notes I didn't want to hear. In the last few days however, I think I've acquired the taste. Bartok's been blowing my mind now piece by piece. He's definitely become my new favorite composer.

I think the trick for me was: 
when I listened to classical music before, I would listen to the big picture - not worrying so much about what any individual instrument was playing, but trying to comprehend the whole thing like a big blanket of sound almost.

For some reason though, the other night i was listening to the Bartok piano concerto, and for some reason (seems obvious now that I understand what "concerto" means) I decided to really try hard and listen to JUST the piano. Almost as if I grabbed on to the piano with my minds arms and held on as tight as I could. Instantly everything came together for me and it was honestly one of the most exhilarating non-sexual things I've done in a while (I tour in an alternative rockband and this topped even those spoils). The piano seared through Bartok's ridiculous labyrinths of music while all the other sounds both helped me stay on the train and tried desperately to pull me off.

Anyways this is getting long. There's a reason I'm posting this into the atonal section. Long story short:

Bartok blew my mind. I learned this grab-onto-something-with-my-minds-arms-for-dear-life technique by accident. I applied it to a Schoenberg violin concerto last night. Unbelievable. Strange, skinny, silver woman slinking around in my brain. Strange parts of me I never knew existed becoming activated. I think maybe I'm starting to "get it".

That is all. Feels cool to say stuff about this haha, nobody I know really understands why I like classical so much.

Peace


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## kanonathena

To expand on my previous post. Silence is a stable state of sound, it is peaceful, there is no conflict. Silence is a state of pure harmony, it is a state of unification. 

It is a very imitate experience like when a couple in love lying next to each other looking at sky, the stillness opens the gateway to eternity and there is awe and joy.

I have a second thought about the intellectual aspect of music, like music that caters to emotion, which connects us to the harmony of the universe, music appreciated by intellect can evoke a sense of regularity of the universe. They are just different ways to appreciate beauty, although I believe silence unites these two, and that human are much less able and natural to evoke and appreciate the universe with intellect.

I guess that's why new age music mimics silence.


----------



## violadude

fourthfougere said:


> I'm new here, I saw this thread on google as i was flipping through atonal stuff. This might turn into a long post, hopefully that's cool.
> 
> I've been getting into classical music pretty heavily for the past month or so, researching it pretty hard core and listening to at least a couple pieces every day because its so damn good. I like how crazy deep and intricate it all is, and the scenes it creates in my mind. I've always struggled trying to like the atonal scene though. It's almost like the whole classical music world changed from this effortlessly beautiful (sometimes almost too beautiful for me (tea-time la la (no offense(sorry about quadruple bracket)))) sound world into a grey mess of spikes and invisible walls.
> 
> I'd say for the past few weeks, my favorite composers were: Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Stravinsky. I like how they make beauty music but don't really take any musical cheap shots on your ears. It seems really colorful and exciting to me, and at the same time, the harmonies and melodies are pretty far away from what my ears initially expect.
> 
> It's wierd. Ever since I started listening, based on biographies and descriptions, I felt like I would really like Bartok's music. Every time I went to listen to it, it just felt weird though. I ended up considering his music equally unappealing as atonal music. It's like he was onto a really cool, folky, crazy sound, but it just never came together like my brain wanted it to; he'd hit those invisible walls or play some notes I didn't want to hear. In the last few days however, I think I've acquired the taste. Bartok's been blowing my mind now piece by piece. He's definitely become my new favorite composer.
> 
> I think the trick for me was:
> when I listened to classical music before, I would listen to the big picture - not worrying so much about what any individual instrument was playing, but trying to comprehend the whole thing like a big blanket of sound almost.
> 
> For some reason though, the other night i was listening to the Bartok piano concerto, and for some reason (seems obvious now that I understand what "concerto" means) I decided to really try hard and listen to JUST the piano. Almost as if I grabbed on to the piano with my minds arms and held on as tight as I could. Instantly everything came together for me and it was honestly one of the most exhilarating non-sexual things I've done in a while (I tour in an alternative rockband and this topped even those spoils). The piano seared through Bartok's ridiculous labyrinths of music while all the other sounds both helped me stay on the train and tried desperately to pull me off.
> 
> Anyways this is getting long. There's a reason I'm posting this into the atonal section. Long story short:
> 
> Bartok blew my mind. I learned this grab-onto-something-with-my-minds-arms-for-dear-life technique by accident. I applied it to a Schoenberg violin concerto last night. Unbelievable. Strange, skinny, silver woman slinking around in my brain. Strange parts of me I never knew existed becoming activated. I think maybe I'm starting to "get it".
> 
> That is all. Feels cool to say stuff about this haha, nobody I know really understands why I like classical so much.
> 
> Peace


That's a cool story fourthfougere. Welcome to the forum!


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

fourthfougere said:


> I'm new here, I saw this thread on google as i was flipping through atonal stuff. This might turn into a long post, hopefully that's cool.
> ...
> Peace


Welcome. Nice summary. Bartok is relatively "easy" to appreciate when it comes to his atonal pieces. I enjoy his works too.

Much of the discussion on this thread were more of the extreme fringe type pieces that would make Bartok look like a baby.


----------



## Curiosity

Your shtick is already old.


----------



## Guest

Before I went offline for a few days, I was thinking that the anti-modernists are like a bunch of crybabies. "Why do people keep writing music that I don't like? Don't composers know they have a responsibility to please me?!!"

But it may be that babies don't use words like "responsibility," so here's a big thumbs up to ******* for dramatizing the whining of Curiosity and Ravellian and HC and some others. (Jan, one of the others, even opted out* of a thread because the truth hurts. <-- My own personal opinion; it is mine, and what it is, too.)

DO PEOPLE REALLY LIKE THE STUFF I DON'T LIKE??**

*opted back in almost immediately, it's true.

**strange as it may seem, yes, yes they do. You aren't the arbiter of taste for anyone but yourself. Only people who think they are need their brains examined. That is, it's HC who needs the examination, not sid james or violadude or vazgen (has anyone noticed that vazgen has opted out of this forum? and really opted out, not just pretending) or myself.


----------



## Yoshi

some guy said:


> Before I went offline for a few days, I was thinking that the anti-modernists are like a bunch of crybabies. "Why do people keep writing music that I don't like? Don't composers know they have a responsibility to please me?!!"
> 
> But it may be that babies don't use words like "responsibility," so here's a big thumbs up to ******* for dramatizing the whining of Curiosity and Ravellian and HC and some others. (Jan, one of the others, even opted out* of a thread because the truth hurts. <-- My own personal opinion; it is mine, and what it is, too.)
> 
> DO PEOPLE REALLY LIKE THE STUFF I DON'T LIKE??**
> 
> *opted back in almost immediately, it's true.
> 
> **strange as it may seem, yes, yes they do. You aren't the arbiter of taste for anyone but yourself. Only people who think they are need their brains examined. That is, it's HC who needs the examination, not sid james or violadude or vazgen (has anyone noticed that vazgen has opted out of this forum? and really opted out, not just pretending) or myself.


Seriously? I don't understand you people today. All I did was saying that my eardrums hurt after the high frequencies from one of those videos. How come I'm already mentioned in this thread where I never even posted, accused of being anti-modernist. I never even said such things! I'm sorry but that post made no sense and it's quite unfair.


----------



## sabrina

I love music with all my being, but I am not a musician. Neither English is my first language. So words are too scarce to express the way music influences me. The music I am talking about is definitely tonal. I am sure it is culture/taste influenced, but so it goes.
I might enjoy atonal spiced music that is otherwise tonal in structure.
There was a time and place, when a live concert always started with a modern, atonal piece. The second part was classical. So, almost by force I listened to a lot of atonal, dodecaphonic music.
To describe it, I would say it sounded as doors being shut, screechy windows, heavy object dropped, string instruments out of tune played by children, you name other noises.
No offense, but I think you need no talent to write this kind of music. You only need some money/chance to have it played/recorded. The same theory applies to some type of plastic art. Since when a picture with a black circle on white background is art?
It is true that tonal music also needs to struck a chord in people taste in order to be very popular, like this God inspired music:






I don't blame composers for trying their hand with chaotic notes. Not everybody is Mozart...
I guess, in 2-300 years, provided people don't go back to caves, Mozart, Beethoven & comp, will still be there. I wouldn't bet for others...


----------



## violadude

Jan said:


> Seriously? I don't understand you people today. All I did was saying that my eardrums hurt after the high frequencies from one of those videos. How come I'm already mentioned in this thread where I never even posted, accused of being anti-modernist. I never even said such things! I'm sorry but that post made no sense and it's quite unfair.


Sorry Someguy, I do agree with the gist of your post, but Jan really was just commenting on how the pieces high frequencies made his ears hurt. I think that's a valid reason not to listen to it. It might have been hard to tell because a lot of people on here can get pretty sarcastic sometimes.

Anyway, that's too bad about Vazgen. I always liked his/her support.


----------



## violadude

sabrina said:


> I love music with all my being, but I am not a musician. Neither English is my first language. So words are too scarce to express the way music influences me. The music I am talking about is definitely tonal. I am sure it is culture/taste influenced, but so it goes.
> I might enjoy atonal spiced music that is otherwise tonal in structure.
> There was a time and place, when a live concert always started with a modern, atonal piece. The second part was classical. So, almost by force I listened to a lot of atonal, dodecaphonic music.
> To describe it, I would say it sounded as doors being shut, screechy windows, heavy object dropped, string instruments out of tune played by children, you name other noises.
> No offense, but I think you need no talent to write this kind of music. You only need some money/chance to have it played/recorded. The same theory applies to some type of plastic art. Since when a picture with a black circle on white background is art?
> It is true that tonal music also needs to struck a chord in people taste in order to be very popular, like this God inspired music:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't blame composers for trying their hand with chaotic notes. Not everybody is Mozart...
> I guess, in 2-300 years, provided people don't go back to caves, Mozart, Beethoven & comp, will still be there. I wouldn't bet for others...


Well if everyone's music sounded like Mozart, Mozart wouldn't seem too special now would he?


----------



## regressivetransphobe

> I guess, in 2-300 years, provided people don't go back to caves, Mozart, Beethoven & comp, will still be there. I wouldn't bet for others...


Depends on how deep the pockets are behind those names in 2-300 years.


----------



## Yoshi

violadude said:


> Sorry Someguy, I do agree with the gist of your post, but Jan really was just commenting on how the pieces high frequencies made his ears hurt. I think that's a valid reason not to listen to it. It might have been hard to tell because a lot of people on here can get pretty sarcastic sometimes.
> 
> Anyway, that's too bad about Vazgen. I always liked his/her support.


Thank you.

Excuuuuuse me, for not wanting to listen to something that gives me physical pain . And not for once I mentioned that the music was bad. How could I say that if I couldn't even listen to it in the first place? Saying I don't enjoy a piece of music doesn't equal saying it's BAD. Sorry to say this some guy, but you seem to be the one having trouble accepting that people might not like to listen to a certain piece of music. You're the one complaining about the post I made about the experience I had after listening to it. I didn't complain about anyone who liked it, but you complained that I didn't. I'm not the one whining here.

"The truth hurts" That comment was pretty laughable.

As for the other sarcastic remark "opted back almost immediatly". It happened that I had to respond to a conversation that was going on before I said I was going to stay out, I thought I wouldn't leave the other member without a reply. Happy now?


----------



## regressivetransphobe

So which member is ******* secretly, anyway?


----------



## Yoshi

regressivetransphobe said:


> So which member is ******* secretly, anyway?


Exactly what I was thinking.


----------



## violadude

regressivetransphobe said:


> So which member is ******* secretly, anyway?


I suspected he was a member with an alternate account as well. He seems to know who's who already...


----------



## mmsbls

violadude said:


> Well if everyone's music sounded like Mozart, Mozart wouldn't seem too special now would he?


But if all composers were the equivalent of Mozart (what the quote implied), think of all the spectacular music we'd be listening to!


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Before I went offline for a few days, I was thinking that the anti-modernists are like a bunch of crybabies. "Why do people keep writing music that I don't like? Don't composers know they have a responsibility to please me?!!"
> 
> But it may be that babies don't use words like "responsibility," so here's a big thumbs up to ******* for dramatizing the whining of Curiosity and Ravellian and HC and some others. (Jan, one of the others, even opted out* of a thread because the truth hurts. <-- My own personal opinion; it is mine, and what it is, too.)
> 
> DO PEOPLE REALLY LIKE THE STUFF I DON'T LIKE??**
> 
> *opted back in almost immediately, it's true.
> 
> **strange as it may seem, yes, yes they do. You aren't the arbiter of taste for anyone but yourself. Only people who think they are need their brains examined. That is, it's HC who needs the examination, not sid james or violadude or vazgen (has anyone noticed that vazgen has opted out of this forum? and really opted out, not just pretending) or myself.


I almost got lost reading this post; asterisk, double asterisks, arrows etc. But the interesting part seems that member _some guy_ and member ******* have struck an alliance. How very interesting. Both share a common way of expressing their opinions here at TC, no wonder. What happened to member Bluebeard?


----------



## violadude

mmsbls said:


> But if all composers were the equivalent of Mozart (what the quote implied), think of all the spectacular music we'd be listening to!


Ya, but think of all the spectacular music we wouldn't be listening to as well.


----------



## mmsbls

violadude said:


> Ya, but think of all the spectacular music we wouldn't be listening to as well.


A talent like Mozart explored the classical period like no one else. A similar talent would presumably explore more modern periods in an equally spectacular manner. Personally, I'd put my money on the Mozart-like talents. But we'll never know what we'd miss and what we'd get.


----------



## violadude

mmsbls said:


> A talent like Mozart explored the classical period like no one else. A similar talent would presumably explore more modern periods in an equally spectacular manner. Personally, I'd put my money on the Mozart-like talents. But we'll never know what we'd miss and what we'd get.


Oh sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant if everyone's music sounded the same as Mozart, as in, same style and everything. That would be quite a boring world...
But yea, if every composer had the talent of Mozart, but still retained their own compositional voice, that would be quite spectacular indeed.

Edit: As a side note, I think we've been using the word "spectacular" just a little too much...


----------



## mmsbls

violadude said:


> Oh sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant if everyone's music sounded the same as Mozart, as in, same style and everything. That would be quite a boring world...
> But yea, if every composer had the talent of Mozart, but still retained their own compositional voice, that would be quite spectacular indeed.
> 
> Edit: As a side note, I think we've been using the word "spectacular" just a little too much...


Yes, even I, who adore Mozart, would get a bit bored and yearn for other possibilities. And yes, a little excessive on "spectacular".


----------



## Krummhorn

regressivetransphobe said:


> So which member is ******* secretly, anyway?





Jan said:


> Exactly what I was thinking.





violadude said:


> I suspected he was a member with an alternate account as well. He seems to know who's who already...


******* has left the building ... 

:lol:


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## violadude

Krummhorn said:


> ******* has left the building ...
> 
> :lol:


Was it you, Krummhorn?


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## Guest

Mirror Image ????


----------



## nosmelc

while it is true that most atonal music generates rather strange or unpleasant emotions due to our preparedness to hear tonality and the ease which a composer may utilize atonal technique to evoke the macabre, there is atonal music which "feels good."
listen to Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon or the first of his Five Pieces for Orchestra, they are fast moving an thrillingly explosive.
but it takes time and much work to get past much of the unrelieved tension of atonality. Pierrot Lunaire, the "solar plexus" of 20th century music according to Stravinsky, suffers from everything you describe, being about insanity above all else. but it does substantially reward those who take the time to hear it for itself. it took me decades to be able to listen to it without being put off by the vocal technique which is used to heighten the dramatic effect of the poems (although i was instantly drawn to the music behind it). but now when i listen to it i hear pure beauty though still in service to lunacy.


----------



## nosmelc

an expanded definition of tonality, which during the common practice period of the 3 B's centered on a tonic chord, was described by stravinsky as polarity, a less certain or forceful pull towards a tone or tones. though the term never caught on i think it is a good alternative to diluting the generally accepted definition of tonality. 
i wholly agree that the basic point of all music is the same. Schoenberg describe using his 12 tone method as "following certain rules and composing as you always have" (something like that)


----------



## nosmelc

who said tonal composers are not taken seriously? when milton babbit retired from julliard a couple of years ago, the school could not find a composer of stature to teach serial technique, which had but a few students interested in learning it. 
to say that tonality developed out of tradition and atonality is artifice is to deny history. the same forces that moved music from the church modes and the natural scale to :tonality" and even temperment led to the expanding of tonality during the romantic period and the break with it that followed.


----------



## Polednice

My musicologist/student partner told me that he is undertaking an essay on the BBCs marginalisation of tonal composers during the post-WWII period. Should be interesting!


----------



## regressivetransphobe

nosmelc said:


> to say that tonality developed out of tradition and atonality is artifice is to deny history. the same forces that moved music from the church modes and the natural scale to :tonality" and even temperment led to the expanding of tonality during the romantic period and the break with it that followed.


This is true. People just naturally tend to imagine a breaking point wherever they lose interest.

I remember reading a very old comment by Cesar Cui regarding the music of Tchaikovsky and Strauss (or just Strauss?), stating "[that] absurd cacophony will not be music even in the 30th century." HMM.


----------



## Head_case

> I'm not dismissing it as pointless and sterile. I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for.


I don't disagree with you - having experienced this many times with variants of atonal music.

One challenge I've found, is trying to make sense of atonal music across different genres.

Take for example - Gorecki's Symphony No.3 - this has a strongly atonal character - and is rooted in the deconstruction of society, before World War II. Would you know how to react, to the poem of an incarcerated girl, scrawling words...whatever can be communicated, as a song of sorrowful songs, in the face of an uncertain future?










I think many of us grasp Gorecki's Symphony No.3 - it is not 'unpleasant atonal music' - such as that created by the originator of duodeca-dodo techniques 

Now take a different take:

Karol Rathaus' string quartets, also coined in the breakdown of values; of Jewish life - faced with the alien experience, of extermination; I find that composers, particularly of the Jewish or persecuted minorities, such as the Soviet aesthetic of the composer of the inner form (the Myaskovsky School, which saw 42 composers graduate under his helm) - turn away from tonality ... in parallel to the world, turning away from order, into disorder










Rauthaus' work is challenging: beautiful - it s not. Sorrowful - at times, and mostly, ambiguous and uncertain, leading me to feel a palpable anxiety about the direction of the music, hesitating, yet searching in desperation through the medium.

You'll notice that the string quartet choose to use an image of the Twin Towers to coincide the release of the album on the 11th September: the same shock of the breakdown of order; of the attack on human and moral values, perceived and - felt through its numbness and alienation - are all in there. The artistic sentiment ... is no different in conveying this profundity of human emotion.

Now whether it is tangible or not ... or is simply too difficult for happy-go-lucky listeners of tonal music to get ... this is the challenge which the atonal composers have been faced with. In the post-modern critique of aesthetics, one commonly bandied view, asserts that everything that has been expressed, has been done so, and that there is nothing new under the sun. A post-modern reading, of the classical era; or the romantic era - assumes, a different form - a more critical form of transforming ... old influences...into .. the post modern.

Atonality brings something different: apart from a load of sucky music, there is some profound atonal music waiting for us - perhaps, I think of Gorecki, rather than the theoretical originators, who were still fumbling around with the mechanics of atonal music. Now - many composers have past beyond this stage of theoretical workings out of the mechanics of atonality...and moved towards the aesthetics of its experience. Or at least I hope so. If so, then, progress in terms of atonal music, moves, not in terms of 'equal progress', but in a different (neglected) dimension, of the human existential value of uncertainty; of alienation - and bringing these irreducible existentialia into aural concreteness for the listener.

Well that's just my own reading of atonal music which is more likely wrong, than right, not that there is a difference in a post-modern relativism. Right? Wrong! Lol


----------



## Guest

Head_case said:


> rooted in the deconstruction of society
> 
> the breakdown of values
> 
> turn away from tonality ... in parallel to the world, turning away from order, into disorder
> 
> the breakdown of order
> 
> the attack on human and moral values


This is all well and good, except that the twentieth century really had no exclusive rights to death and destruction and the breakdown of order and of human and moral values. That's been going on ever since humans have had a sense of order, have had moral values.

Just a quick glance at the nineteenth century shows incredible social and moral uncertainty. To take two examples, the disastrous revolutions of 1848 and the publication of Darwin's _On the Origin of Species._

The eighteenth century had its problems, too, as did the seventeen and the sixteenth and and and....

We tend to think that because WWI and II were so disastrous (and all the other wars and terrors), the twentieth century had some monopoly on disaster. And that of course the music sounds so grim because the times were grim.

But times were always grim. We forget that just because the 19th century had no Hitler and no al Queda that there were not horrors of war and terror in that time. There were. There was death and misery that were certainly real enough to the people of the time. But do we ever hear of Schumann's music reflecting the horrors of revolution? Do we ever hear of Mozart's or Cherubini's music reflecting the horrors of war?

No, we reserve that for our wars, for our horrors, for our revolutions.

It's too simplistic and too easy--and it's too wrong, too. Every composer has lived in a time and a society and has had to deal with the breakdown of earlier values, moral and political. So why is it that the composers of the twentieth century are the only ones burdened with writing music that reflects breakdowns? Well, I have my own answers to that question, but perhaps (hopefully) it's just enough to note the disparity in the stories we tell of composers from different times.

Well, one more little note: tonal musics are full of violence and despair and so forth, too. We're so used to them, though, because they're older (or if recent still sound old, i.e., familiar) that we don't notice those things any more, I guess. (I once tried, and failed, to convince a fellow classical listener that the music of Beethoven was terribly violent. Nope, she just couldn't hear it. It had become too familiar, too pretty, for there to be any roughness left.)



Head_case said:


> the theoretical originators, who were still fumbling around with the mechanics of atonal music.


These were all practiced and competent musicians, you know. They weren't fumblers. And in each time (see above!!), composers have had to deal with change, too. Changes of ideas about what music should be able to do. So Beethoven and Berlioz and Liszt and Wagner and Stravinsky and and and... were all fumblers, too!


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> But times were always grim. We forget that just because the 19th century had no Hitler and no al Queda that there were not horrors of war and terror in that time. There were. There was death and misery that were certainly real enough to the people of the time. But do we ever hear of Schumann's music reflecting the horrors of revolution? Do we ever hear of Mozart's or Cherubini's music reflecting the horrors of war?
> No, we reserve that for our wars, for our horrors, for our revolutions.
> 
> It's too simplistic and too easy--and it's too wrong, too. Every composer has lived in a time and a society and has had to deal with the breakdown of earlier values, moral and political. So why is it that the composers of the twentieth century are the only ones burdened with writing music that reflects breakdowns?


Your suggestions I highlighted above in blue coloured font are not simply not true; misleading, in fact. So, the 20th century folks are not that burdened. And I very much doubt listeners would question the "prettiness" of the following piece.

Haydn, _Missa in Angustiis_ ("Mass for troubled times") or "Nelson Mass" (Hob. XXII:11), 1798.


----------



## graaf




----------



## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I very much doubt listeners would question the "prettiness" of the following piece.


My point. No matter what it was intended to convey in Haydn's time, no listener now would hear anything but "pretty" when listening to this piece. Just so.

My post was about perception, by the way, our perceptions of "atonal" music as reflecting/conveying/expressing the horrors of modern times in a unique way. But no one, today, talks about Haydn's _Nelson Mass_ as reflecting/conveying/expressing the horrors of modern times. I'm sure they did in Haydn's time, but we don't really hear that in Papa's music anymore, do we? Even the "chaos" of the pre-creation universe in his _Creation_ doesn't seem terribly chaotic to us. So we don't talk about it that way. We know what he intended, but only Schoenberg seems chaotic to us now. And even that seems a bit off, doesn't it? Maybe for Cage or Stockhausen to sound chaotic, to us, but Schoenberg?

No, we think that the music of our times reflects our times, forgetting that the music of any time reflected that time in some way. All times have been chaotic and full of wars and disease and struggles. But we no longer perceive those musics that way. And we certainly do not trot out canards about "expressing the horrors of the time" for Schumann or Weber or Cherubini, do we?


----------



## 4'33"

You get out of "atonal" music what you get out of looking at "abstract" art. It's is music without a subject - music that expresses nothing but itself. Webern's music is beautiful in it's delicate shades and miniature form. The French composers (Boulez, Grisey, Messian) have a soft touch about their music, as if they are sculpting the very elements of the universe. Feldman's music is like laying motionless while gentle waves wash over you under a night sky. A lot of this music is simply breathtaking. When I introduce this to friends of mine who are familiar with alt rock or indie music, they inevitably love it and are amazed they've never heard it. Ligeti is a big favorite. 

When I hear pounding clusters or extreme dissonance (Penderecki's Threnody, for example), I feel catharsis. I feel the pain and the beauty of raw nature being unleashed. Beethoven knew of this - that is why the Grosse Fuge and some of the late music can feel so modern. 

If you really want to expand your mind with this music you need to remove expectations that you would have from listening to Tchaikovsky. Where the 19th century sought to express nature, the 20th century IS nature. Raw, barbaric, cold, yet beautiful.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> My point. No matter what it was intended to convey in Haydn's time, no listener now would hear anything but "pretty" when listening to this piece. Just so.


You are being too presumptive. Perhaps those you associate with in real life might think the Haydn piece I posted was "pretty". I don't listen to it that way, and I know of other listeners who don't either. But unless you are comparing it with a cacophonic measure of prettiness from say, Xenakis, then I might agree with you.



some guy said:


> No, we think that the music of our times reflects our times, forgetting that the music of any time reflected that time in some way. All times have been chaotic and full of wars and disease and struggles. But we no longer perceive those musics that way. And we certainly do not trot out canards about "expressing the horrors of the time" for Schumann or Weber or Cherubini, do we?


Not convinced. Maybe you might like to show some evidence about this automatic facility to assume prettiness in Schumann etc. that you suggested. The post above this (#577) mentioned the _Grosse Fugue_ as an example.


----------



## Head_case

some guy said:


> This is all well and good, except that the twentieth century really had no exclusive rights to death and destruction and the breakdown of order and of human and moral values. That's been going on ever since humans have had a sense of order, have had moral values.


Some_guy,

You might need to re-read the post again in order to grasp it with more clarity:



> _Comment: I'm not dismissing it as pointless and sterile. I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for._
> 
> Response: I don't disagree with you - having experienced this many times with variants of atonal music.
> 
> One challenge I've found, is trying to make sense of atonal music across different genres.
> 
> Take for example - Gorecki's Symphony No.3 - this has a strongly atonal character - and is rooted in the deconstruction of society, before World War II. Would you know how to react, to the poem of an incarcerated girl, scrawling words...whatever can be communicated, as a song of sorrowful songs, in the face of an uncertain future?


No one is claiming that only the 20th century has the rights to death and destruction: the commentator of the post, who stated honestly and simply, that he did not know how to 'react' to atonal music, does not really require ...a moot point.



> Some_guy:
> Just a quick glance at the nineteenth century shows incredible social and moral uncertainty. To take two examples, the disastrous revolutions of 1848 and the publication of Darwin's _On the Origin of Species._


Again - the very nature, of the existential crisis - is one of concrete and visceral human experience: such as the poem, carved on the wall of a German cell by a girl for the Symphony of Sorrowful songs..... or the palpable life and death situation of Rathaus, whose Judaism led to his own existential challenge ...

NOT to some abstract theoretical musing about The Origin of the Species. No matter what regard you might hold such intellectualism, it has no room in the existential crisis of man, nor any inspiration in the works cited above. Theory is irrelevant in this respect - not that I wish to detract from the influence of conceptual theories, on the dethronement of mankind. Nonetheless, the Origin of the Species, takes a second rung, beneath the Copernican Revolution in this respect, for its world-turning revolution.



> The eighteenth century had its problems, too, as did the seventeen and the sixteenth and and and....


... and do you you hear such examples in music, such as those given to us, through the use of atonal mechanisms and explorations?



> We tend to think that because WWI and II were so disastrous (and all the other wars and terrors), the twentieth century had some monopoly on disaster. And that of course the music sounds so grim because the times were grim.


We do not, do we? Artists and composers, can only ever respond to the era in which they live, and from the cultural knowledge and insights gained from those generations before them. If you believe what you have written, then you really have missed the point, with respect to the writings of the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs and Rathaus' atonal string quartets: these were written ... in direct response to the human suffering experienced in this century - not some theoretical and detached professor's abstract musings from an armchair surveying pain and misery without experiencing any.

The examples of atonal music given here are very clear:

1. The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs
2. Karol Rathaus' String Quartets

The comments on the atonal character of the music - are linked inextricably to the composers' lives: not in the abstract and detached manner in which you've articulated a rather tangential side-track, which defocusses from the very image of the Twin Towers, which the composer and artist and record label of Karol Rathaus had carefully chosen for a specific reason. However, neither composer, becomes a slave to the mechanism of atonality: such attempts do indeed lead to theoretically disinteresting and detached music, which is properly fit for museums, and not for listeners. Yet there is no need for a neutralisation of the composer's chosen mechanism of atonality into historical relativity, to convey the existential crisis of life; a thread of existence and awareness of which, is also unified in the modern CD cover. Here it is again:


----------



## Guest

You guys really need to stop making my points for me and then presenting them as rebuttals... and then mixing them in with things that really are rebuttals. It's annoying at best and confusing at worst.

Let me make this as simple as possible. There is a common feeling about twentieth century avant garde music: it's ugly.

Why is it ugly? Well, there are many answers to that, one of which pretends, at least, to be descriptive. That's the one alluded to in head_case's post, that times were distressing and confusing and violent, and there was a breakdown in moral values. Composers reacted to the ugliness of the world around them by writing ugly music.

First of all, the world has always been ugly. And always full of incredible beauty. The twentieth century is no exception to that.

Two, the avant garde musics of the twentieth century are not ugly. (False premises lead to false conclusions, you know.) Any music of any time that is genuinely new is going to seem ugly to a lot of its auditors. That's because it's new. Not because composers are reacting to an ugly world. Not because composers are turning their backs on their audiences. Not because the great composers of the past have used up all the beauty and ugly is all that's left. Not because composers of the present are just experimenting for experiment's sake. But because it's new, that is, _unfamiliar._

Up to the twentieth century, concert audiences had no recourse for listening to music but concerts and performing music themselves at home. So new music, if it had passionate supporters, was played (and often over audience protests, too, we conveniently forget) and played until it became familiar. Once familiar, its beauties were apparent to most auditors.

By the twentieth century, audience rejection of new music had had a hundred years of success. (The ratio of dead composers to living in concerts in the 1870s in Paris was 94 to 6.) And in the twentieth century, we had recording technology, which allowed audiences to listen to only Vivaldi, if that's what they wanted. In the twentieth century, even as old (and as Romantic) a composer as Schoenberg is still unfamiliar enough to seem ugly to a lot of listeners. (Yes, there are other causes of ugliness. But we're not even close to being ready to talk about those things.)

Add to all that the incredible level of hostility towards avant garde musics of all types that has been only intensified by the internet, and you've got a situation where most listeners don't stand a chance. Even if their ears could come to enjoy the various musics of the past century, their brains are so full of prejudices that their ears won't ever hear anything but hideosity.

But you try to tell the young people of today things like that, and they just DON'T believe you!!:lol:


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Add to all that the incredible level of hostility towards avant garde musics of all types that has been only intensified by the internet, and you've got a situation where most listeners don't stand a chance. Even if their ears could come to enjoy the various musics of the past century, their brains are so full of prejudices that their ears won't ever hear anything but hideosity.
> 
> But you try to tell the young people of today things like that, and they just DON'T believe you!!:lol:


Many of us are just letting the pieces speak for themselves. I say that again: let those pieces speak for themselves. Beauty and ...

cacophony. (I try not to use the "f" word that rhymes with tart). Many such pieces have already been posted in this thread. There are no prejudices. When the ears physically hurt when listening to some of these, I mean, we're not masochists either.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Many of us are just letting the pieces speak for themselves.


This is just exactly what you're not doing. Cannot do, I'd venture to say. Since you used the language metaphor, let me use an analogy. I'm in Czech Republic right now. I say, just let these Czech hoteliers and restauranteers and shopkeepers speak for themselves. Oh, oops. I don't have the correct receiving apparatus for understanding what they're saying.

No one, not even HarpsichordConcerto, hears music without any filters. Everyone has a brain. Everyone has had experiences. Everyone has particular tastes. To say otherwise is to say that all the value of a listening experience is on the side of the music. The listener brings nothing to it. If that were right, then everyone would like the same pieces and like them in the same way. I know from some of your posts that you would like to think that were true. That what you hear is what everyone should hear, and that those who don't hear it that way need to have their heads examined.

Give your own head a wee glance, first, I say.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> There are no prejudices.


Bzzzzzt.

There are incredible prejudices. And bringing prejudices to a listening experience is going to affect the outcome. No one is pure. But at least the more intelligent and curious listeners are going to try to let the music say what it has to say. You don't want music to speak for itself, really. What you want is for music to give you what you already know you want. If it gives you something else (and why shouldn't it?), you reject it out of hand. But until you recognize your own filters, until you recognize your own limitations, discussion of these things with you is futile.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> No one, not even HarpsichordConcerto, hears music without any filters. Everyone has a brain. Everyone has had experiences. Everyone has particular tastes. To say otherwise is to say that all the value of a listening experience is on the side of the music. The listener brings nothing to it.
> 
> There are incredible prejudices. And bringing prejudices to a listening experience is going to affect the outcome. No one is pure. But at least the more intelligent and curious listeners are going to try to let the music say what it has to say.


I agree that everyone has "filters" because the brain is a complex feature analysis system (among other things), and people will hear different things in the same piece. I agree that we all have prejudices as well (perhaps saying the same thing as filters). I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by "let the music say what it has to say", but I assume you mean something like hear what the composer intended rather than hear what one has liked in the past.

I would like to ask a question of anyone who likes both atonal and avant-garde music. I consider myself still quite new to both genres even though I have heard many works. My working hypothesis about atonal music is that I can "learn" to appreciate it significantly better by working my way from composers such as Hindemith, Copeland, Bartok, some Scriabin and then into Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, etc. Essentially I will be getting accustomed to varying harmonies and slowly hear a beauty that I currently do not. My daughter (music student who struggles with atonal music as I do) suggested that once the harmonies become more familiar then the melodic lines will stand out better (and we will appreciate them more).

On the other hand, avant-garde music seems different to me. It does not seem to be an extension of earlier music (as Classical was to Baroque, Romantic was to Classical, and atonal is to Romantic) but rather a more distinct change from the past. It is less obvious that listening will pave the way. It seems more a type of music that one might like and another won't. I have a sense that if one loves Classical and Romantic music, atonal just takes work to appreciate. Perhaps much more work is required than in the transitions from Classical to Romantic or early Romantic to later Romantic. But loving 18th and 19th century classical music seems like less of an indicator that one will also come to appreciate avant-garde music.

So my question to those who know the genres well, does some of this make sense?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> There are incredible prejudices. And bringing prejudices to a listening experience is going to affect the outcome. No one is pure. But at least the more intelligent and curious listeners are going to try to let the music say what it has to say. You don't want music to speak for itself, really. What you want is for music to give you what you already know you want. If it gives you something else (and why shouldn't it?), you reject it out of hand. But until you recognize your own filters, until you recognize your own limitations, discussion of these things with you is futile.


I don't know what you do in real life, _some guy_. But you sure have some naive views on people's perceptions. Your generalisations, or at least your approach to generalisations very often tend to show that.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Harpsichord Concerto- Many of us are just letting the pieces speak for themselves.

This is just exactly what you're not doing. Cannot do, I'd venture to say...

There are incredible prejudices. And bringing prejudices to a listening experience is going to affect the outcome. No one is pure. But *at least the more intelligent and curious listeners are going to try to let the music say what it has to say.* You don't want music to speak for itself, really. What you want is for music to give you what you already know you want. If it gives you something else (and why shouldn't it?), you reject it out of hand. 

Is it possible for someone to be more pretentious? "Intelligent and curious listeners (such as myself) are open to listening to what the music has to say. The rest of you closed-minded twits only want the same ol' sh..." This is really what this post boils down to... and it is an example of the sort of arrogance and pretentiousness that leads to the very prejudices of which the poster bemoans.


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## regressivetransphobe

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Is it possible for someone to be more pretentious?


You'd be surprised, StlukesguildOhio.


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## Sid James

I basically think, as I've said before here, that appreciating a wide variety of music is more about *attitude* than "hard" knowledge, the amount of cd's you own, etc. I've stayed away from this thread as it kind of goes around in circles. In terms of answering mmsbls, I think that there are some connections with musics of today & earlier times. I hear it all the time. Eg. was listening to Mark-Anthony Turnage's music composed in the 1990's and some of it has jazzy and bluesy harmonies, so guys like Gershwin or Bernstein come to mind (although Turnage is English), as do Milhaud, Ravel, etc. Also, was listening to Steve Reich's _Different Trains_ yesterday, and his use of speech patterns as a basis for the music reminds me strongly of guys like Janacek. So there are correspondences between now & the past in some ways. Maybe it takes lateral thinking, thinking outside the box, not some of the reductionist & cliched thinking that some people perpetuate, putting composers firmly in a "box" or "niche."

& BTW, as I've said, some people react just as badly to more "traditional" things of today as they do to the more "radical" things. On the other forum which thank god I've left, people criticised me for listening to Andre Rieu, and a number of them put down contemporary tonal composers who I like a lot, eg. Morten Lauridsen & Eric Whitacre. One of the members there - a PHD in music - said these two composers make him puke. How perceptive & insightful - NOT! It was these attitudes that almost made me puke, so I was gone from there after some protracted arguments justifying whatever I was listening to that didn't stack up as "legitimate" to various people on that forum, for whatever reason (these people are never consistent, it's just a matter of them bashing whatever they dislike for whatever reason, go figure?).

So it goes both ways. There are ideologues in both camps. Reality is, the way I see it in terms of classical music listeners I "know" here on TC & on the ground in my life, most of them are in the middle of the spectrum and quite flexible. It's only the rabid ideologues at either end/extreme who tend to "push their barrows," and their attitude speaks to me more of dogma and ideology than commonsense...


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## Guest

There is definitely some more melodic music being written today--that awful Sciarrino is an extreme example. Try some Lera Auerbach--perhaps a bit more dissonant than Shostakovich, but it's still recognizable as _music_, not someone knocking a piano down a flight of stairs!


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## violadude

Kontrapunctus said:


> There is definitely some more melodic music being written today--that awful Sciarrino is an extreme example. Try some Lera Auerbach--perhaps a bit more dissonant than Shostakovich, but it's still recognizable as _music_, not someone knocking a piano down a flight of stairs!


I disagree, the sound of someone knocking a piano down a flight of stairs is _distinctly_ different from the sound of the Sciarrino sonata.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The rest of you closed-minded twits only want the same ol' sh..." This is really what this post boils down to... and it is an example of the sort of arrogance and pretentiousness that leads to the very prejudices of which the poster bemoans.


Hark who is f#*k%*g talking


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## Head_case

some guy said:


> You guys really need to stop making my points for me and then presenting them as rebuttals... and then mixing them in with things that really are rebuttals. It's annoying at best and confusing at worst.
> 
> Let me make this as simple as possible. There is a common feeling about twentieth century avant garde music: it's ugly.


Perhaps you need to actually read, what people write, instead of imputing your own distortions of thought, onto other people? 

Insofar as you are responding to this thread and to those on this forum - the people here, have not said what you judge to be said.

The_guy who posted this seems to have had the comment removed:



> I'm not dismissing it as pointless and sterile. I'm simply saying that, when I try to listen, I don't know how to react. I don't know what to listen for.


His point is valid: in the ambiguity of atonal music ... he did not know what to listen to...nor react.

This is what I have responded to: the experience of ambiguity in atonal music:



> One challenge I've found, is trying to make sense of atonal music across different genres.
> 
> Take for example - Gorecki's Symphony No.3 - this has a strongly atonal character - and is rooted in the deconstruction of society, before World War II. Would you know how to react, to the poem of an incarcerated girl, scrawling words...whatever can be communicated, as a song of sorrowful songs, in the face of an uncertain future?


I can re-post as many times, however it is clear that your mindset is closed off; others say 'prejudiced' - however I have no need for such judgements. Here is how you cast things in your mind:



> Why is it ugly? Well, there are many answers to that, one of which pretends, at least, to be descriptive. That's the one alluded to in head_case's post, that times were distressing and confusing and violent, and there was a breakdown in moral values. Composers reacted to the ugliness of the world around them by writing ugly music.


....yet no one ... has implied, or even connoted, that Gorecki's Symphony No.3 .... even approaches the domain of 'ugliness'. In fact, it was a best seller in the UK charts! Gorecki's atonal Symphony No.3 - does not fit your distortion, that atonal music is ugly: this distortion is very valuable to you, since you can then proceed to attack the strawman which you have constructed, and then attribute it to others, which others find evident in your line of reasoning.



> First of all, the world has always been ugly. And always full of incredible beauty. The twentieth century is no exception to that.


If that is how you see things, then you have our condolences. However the point made by the poster, was not about ugliness - ugliness in atonal music s a precept ... which you hold dear: not others. The least you can do, is take responsibility for your own thoughts, instead of attributing these to others.



> Two, the avant garde musics of the twentieth century are not ugly. (False premises lead to false conclusions, you know.)


And I have already exemplified thus:










I never claimed atonal music was ugly: this is your doing.

The false premise is: 'atonal music is ugly'.

The premise which the poster made to which I responded is: 'atonal music leaves me unsure of how to react'.

My premise is: 'atonal music, is a medium which can explore the contemporary ambiguity of the 21st century'.
My argument: 'Gorecki's Symphony No.3 and Rathaus' String quartets are modern atonal examples of such music. 
My argument goes: these pieces are rooted in the existential crisis of man's suffering and the ambiguity of being alive in the face of suffering. 
My inference follows: these examples of modern atonal music, connect the listener with the ambiguity of the 21st century in an existential manner, which has no correlate in the music of centuries before.

Your argument goes: 'you are saying atonal music is ugly' Strawman strawman......dum de dum....

Again - if you demonstrate that you cannot follow a thread, or even a thread of thought, then it does indeed become harder to take any comment which you have made, as anything other than a distortion of thought.

Perhaps the concept of 'ambiguity' in atonal music has been lost on you, due to an incredible defensiveness of the genre?

Does it reflect on one's integrity, to defend a genre of music, rather than express the existential character of music, drawn from a well of human suffering? Defence of a musical genre, only ever leads to curmudgeonly ivory tower academic fantastists, unable to sustain any relation with the outside world.

In any case, what you have posted on this thread, leads me to think, that you have not grasped the function of atonal music. You might indeed grasp its theory, and defend its theory, however there is a difference between hearing and listening. Defending what you hear, rather than listening to the experience of the music seems to be a priority, which on surveying this thread, appears rather bewildering.


----------



## Head_case




----------



## violadude

Head_case said:


> Perhaps you need to actually read, what people write, instead of imputing your own distortions of thought, onto other people?
> 
> Insofar as you are responding to this thread and to those on this forum - the people here, have not said what you judge to be said.
> 
> The_guy who posted this seems to have had the comment removed:
> 
> His point is valid: in the ambiguity of atonal music ... he did not know what to listen to...nor react.
> 
> This is what I have responded to: the experience of ambiguity in atonal music:
> 
> I can re-post as many times, however it is clear that your mindset is closed off; others say 'prejudiced' - however I have no need for such judgements. Here is how you cast things in your mind:
> 
> ....yet no one ... has implied, or even connoted, that Gorecki's Symphony No.3 .... even approaches the domain of 'ugliness'. In fact, it was a best seller in the UK charts! Gorecki's atonal Symphony No.3 - does not fit your distortion, that atonal music is ugly: this distortion is very valuable to you, since you can then proceed to attack the strawman which you have constructed, and then attribute it to others, which others find evident in your line of reasoning.
> 
> If that is how you see things, then you have our condolences. However the point made by the poster, was not about ugliness - ugliness in atonal music s a precept ... which you hold dear: not others. The least you can do, is take responsibility for your own thoughts, instead of attributing these to others.
> 
> And I have already exemplified thus:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I never claimed atonal music was ugly: this is your doing.
> 
> The false premise is: 'atonal music is ugly'.
> 
> The premise which the poster made to which I responded is: 'atonal music leaves me unsure of how to react'.
> 
> My premise is: 'atonal music, is a medium which can explore the contemporary ambiguity of the 21st century'.
> My argument: 'Gorecki's Symphony No.3 and Rathaus' String quartets are modern atonal examples of such music.
> My argument goes: these pieces are rooted in the existential crisis of man's suffering and the ambiguity of being alive in the face of suffering.
> My inference follows: these examples of modern atonal music, connect the listener with the ambiguity of the 21st century in an existential manner, which has no correlate in the music of centuries before.
> 
> Your argument goes: 'you are saying atonal music is ugly' Strawman strawman......dum de dum....
> 
> Again - if you demonstrate that you cannot follow a thread, or even a thread of thought, then it does indeed become harder to take any comment which you have made, as anything other than a distortion of thought.
> 
> Perhaps the concept of 'ambiguity' in atonal music has been lost on you, due to an incredible defensiveness of the genre?
> 
> Does it reflect on one's integrity, to defend a genre of music, rather than express the existential character of music, drawn from a well of human suffering? Defence of a musical genre, only ever leads to curmudgeonly ivory tower academic fantastists, unable to sustain any relation with the outside world.
> 
> In any case, what you have posted on this thread, leads me to think, that you have not grasped the function of atonal music. You might indeed grasp its theory, and defend its theory, however there is a difference between hearing and listening. Defending what you hear, rather than listening to the experience of the music seems to be a priority, which on surveying this thread, appears rather bewildering.


Hmm well except...I don't think Gorecki's 3rd symphony IS actually atonal is it? It always struck me as a very tonal piece...


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## Guest

violadude said:


> I disagree, the sound of someone knocking a piano down a flight of stairs is _distinctly_ different from the sound of the Sciarrino sonata.


Which one would make a more pleasant sound? I vote for the trip down the stairs!


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## Guest

Calling anything atonal is probably just wrong.

Calling Gorecki's third symphony atonal is certainly wrong. Neo-modal if you've got to be finicky. But tonal pretty much covers it.

I'd say the ambiguity thing is probably wrong, too, but that's an interpretive wrongness not a factual one, so may be more difficult to convince anyone about. Gorecki never said anything about ambiguity, anyway, so far as I know. He thought its roots were in his thoughts about motherhood and loss, particularly loss of children during war.

Not particularly twentieth century themes. There were mothers who lost children in wars in the 19th and 18th and 17th and..., well, you get the point.

If your premise is, as you've stated, "atonal music, is a medium which can explore the contemporary ambiguity of the 21st century" then why are your two examples from the century prior? And what was the "atonal" music of _that_ century exploring?

Otherwise, is the 21st century any more ambiguous than any other century?

As for what I have or have not grasped, well, I certainly do not agree with your characterization of whatever musics you call "atonal." That is true. Not sure how grasping fits into that situation, but "oh well."


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## Guest

violadude said:


> Hmm well except...I don't think Gorecki's 3rd symphony IS actually atonal is it? It always struck me as a very tonal piece...


And boring at least to me


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## violadude

Andante said:


> And boring at least to me


It can be boring if you aren't in the right frame of mind, but if you are it can be very beautiful and touching as well.


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> It can be boring if you aren't in the right frame of mind, but if you are it can be very beautiful and touching as well.


Indeed, and, of course, if you're finding it boring, then you're just doing it all wrong.


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> Indeed, and, of course, if you're finding it boring, then you're just doing it all wrong.


Well, I said it *can* be beautiful and touching, which suggests a possibility, not a necessary outcome.


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## Jobe

To give you a headache.


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## violadude

Jobe said:


> To give you a headache.


Wowzaa! What a clever, witty,insightful, and thoughtful contribution to this thread! The moderators can close this thread now, we have finally found the reason for the existence of atonal music!


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> Well, I said it *can* be beautiful and touching, which suggests a possibility, not a necessary outcome.


Don't worry - I wasn't picking on your particular opinions (which, though contrary to mine, I find the most interesting and well thought-out); just making a joke.


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## BubbleBobble

most atonal music is honestly only able to be appreciated by other musicians/composers/artists in my opinion

I enjoy it every now and again (e.g. check out Boulez's piano sonatas, they are wild and fun to listen to)

but... just overall I'm gonna have to agree that there doesn't seem to be much point

I don't personally think art/music needs to be challenging, but that's just me


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## Sid James

Yes, Boulez is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians of recent times, those piano sonatas you mentioned are constantly in my player. Although he did a fair amount of damage with his polarising ideologies in the immediate post-war years, I think he has mellowed somewhat now, and willing to accept that classical music has taken a variety of directions, and the old "tonal" versus "atonal" "turf wars" are now a thing of the past, they're in the dustbin of history. I enjoy a wide variety of newer and older stuff. In some ways, as I said, the "point" of this thread, therefore, is entirely academic, has little connection to reality as I experience it, which is inclusive and not a "black" versus "white" reductionist discourse...


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## Art Rock

BubbleBobble said:


> most atonal music is honestly only able to be appreciated by other musicians/composers/artists in my opinion
> 
> I enjoy it every now and again (e.g. check out Boulez's piano sonatas, they are wild and fun to listen to)
> 
> but... just overall I'm gonna have to agree that there doesn't seem to be much point
> 
> I don't personally think art/music needs to be challenging, but that's just me


I am none of the above, just someone who loves music. I listened to two Boulez CD's just now, and thoroughly enjoyed the soundscapes he created.


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## mmsbls

Sid James said:


> Yes, Boulez is undoubtedly one of the greatest musicians of recent times, those piano sonatas you mentioned are constantly in my player. Although he did a fair amount of damage with his polarising ideologies in the immediate post-war years, I think he has mellowed somewhat now, and willing to accept that classical music has taken a variety of directions, and the old "tonal" versus "atonal" "turf wars" are now a thing of the past, they're in the dustbin of history. I enjoy a wide variety of newer and older stuff. In some ways, as I said, the "point" of this thread, therefore, is entirely academic, has little connection to reality as I experience it, which is inclusive and not a "black" versus "white" reductionist discourse...


Based on the contemporary music I know, it certainly seems as though there is plenty of tonal music being composed. On the other hand, several composition students on TC have mentioned a very strong atonal bias on the part of their university teachers. I don't know how prevalent that is, but perhaps there still exists something of a battle out there.


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## Sid James

*@ mmsbls* - There are probably disagreements today as there were in the past amongst experts of music, however these biases aside, students in music academies/conservatoriums today do get taught a wide variety of techniques, histories, theories, etc. from ancient to modern. The clock doesn't stop at Beethoven any more, nor does it stop at serialism. I think that there are still debates but the way I see/experience it, dogmatic rigidities are now less marked, eg. a number of composers like Henri Dutilleux said ages ago that he didn't care if something was "tonal" or "atonal" or anything else, he was just doing what he did, composing the music he did in a unique way. & younger composers like Thomas Ades have said words to the same effect. There seems to be less of a tendency nowadays to jump onto certain bandwagons & make certain alliances as was done (by some) in the past, shutting other people out. Now plurality is basically the name of the game, whether some people like it or not...


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## regressivetransphobe

Ariasexta said:


> *Atonal music is garbage, simply pretension of some retards. *Where is the puking smilie??


Whelp, that settles it, forum user Ariasexta put the debate to rest with his red text. Time to stop enjoying atonal music.


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## Curiosity

What happened to Ariasexta's posts here?


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## mmsbls

It never takes very long. The moderators remove posts that blatantly violate the Terms and Conditions of TC. I knew that would happen. Those posts were way over the line.


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## regressivetransphobe

Darn, I like having village idiots around once in a while.


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## Guest

Lesson, Don't rock the Boat baby


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## Head_case

> Hmm well except...I don't think Gorecki's 3rd symphony IS actually atonal is it? It always struck me as a very tonal piece...


Listen again to it.

In Gorecki's biography, he describes his influence in serialism and atonality ... and abandonment of serial techniques as early as the 70's.

The Symphony No.3 is crafted like a ABA form: a mother-child; child-parent; mother-child piece unfold over the hour long piece. The atonal slow rising (which some people refer to as monotonous) - is very much as part of the unfolding tonal beauty of the piece. The emptiness ... of a world stripped of tonality ... is a device which Gorecki uses, to convey musical intensity ... of emotions.

Indeed he does not worship atonality: nor does he become besotted by technique over the inspirational function of music (and neither should we). In that respect - when the 3rd symphony bursts into tonal flowering - that is very much the passage of atonality ...intuited by Gorecki, as a passing of the despair and suffering, into hopefulness.

That hopefulness, is very much an expression of his catholic faith - and hope.

If you listen to Rathaus' string quartets, the same atonal characteristics are strongly present: the his biographers detail his works 'flirting with tonality'. Again - there is no servitude of musicality to technique: when technique is worshipped, we end up with sterile pieces of non-music, masquerading as music. Or the Paganini caprices


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## Sid James

I think the argument/discussion above between Head_case and some guy about whether or not the Gorecki piece is "atonal" or not simply rams home the point to me is that at the end of the day I don't really care about these distinctions, because -

a) Often the distinction between whether a piece of music is "atonal" or "tonal" or something else is vague

b) I do like many types of classical music, I don't care much whether it's using one technique or another, as long as it engages me to some degree. Basically it's more about whether I dig it or not, or whether I'm in between the two, not about what technique/s the composer is using.

c) "Atonality" or "atonalism" is just one technique of many, it's not a thing in itself, witness how many composers composed using these techniques in different ways (eg. Schoenberg used it in many different ways, I don't get much of a sense of linear progression from one technique to another in his output, it is quite varied & he did what he did each time according to the requirements of the work at hand)...


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## Couchie

I disagree Sid, and for the next 10 pages we should have a lengthy argument on whether 4'33" is atonal or tonal.


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> Often the distinction between whether a piece of music is "atonal" or "tonal" or something else is vague.


That's because "atonal" is such a useless term. You remember a few years back when I posted a thread about the word's having at least six fairly distinct meanings, so problem one is "which meaning are we using?" Problem two, since many words (spring, back, plain) have many meanings, is that no one ever seems willing or even aware of the different meanings and so uses "atonal" to mean "whatever it is I am talking about now." (That would be meaning number seven, I guess!!)

Better anyway to talk about specific pieces as much as possible, better but not so useful for bashers. Bashers absolutely rely on vagueness and on categories to do their work. Think of other contexts where this is evident: racism, sexism, xenophobia. So this problem we will have with us alway.

The best descriptive term for Cage's 4'33", just by the way, is "indeterminate." (There are plenty of descriptive terms for music. "Tonal" is not one of them. It identifies a technique which has been so stretched for so long (ever since tonality emerged from modality) by so many people that to call something tonal is to say very little. Bach's violin concerto in A is tonal. So is Mahler's symphony number six. Besides, there is no one in the world, on TC or otherwhere, who likes or esteems all tonal pieces equally.)


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## Vesteralen

Couchie said:


> I disagree Sid, and for the next 10 pages we should have a lengthy argument on whether 4'33" is atonal or tonal.


Maybe it's circumtonal.


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## mmsbls

Couchie said:


> I disagree Sid, and for the next 10 pages we should have a lengthy argument on whether 4'33" is atonal or tonal.


Clearly atonal - although the original manuscript was apparently lost, presumably there was no key signature. On the other hand there are no accidentals either. I also suspect most background noises are microtonal.


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## Sid James

I agree with the gist of what *some guy *says above, but would add that I think it's okay to use the word "atonal" if one is using it for example to describe the unique harmonies in say the c20th (Second) Viennese School's music which is like that. Eg. not using it to rubbish their music, but saying that for example "some of the harmonies of this work sound quite 'atonal.'" "Atonal" is not a dirty word, but unfortunately some of those who use it do so in a negative context, eg. as a weapon against the credibility of these types of composers. This says more about the listener than the composer or music. It says more about the predominance of certain types of ideology (esp. the "hard" conservative agenda), and probably also a lack of flexibility ("atonality" started really getting off the ground 100 or more years ago, it's part of musical history whether you like it or not, but I won't go there, it's too controversial for some people who just can't accept these types of facts, for whatever reasons they make up)...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> The best descriptive term for Cage's 4'33", just by the way, is "indeterminate."


Indeterminate crap.


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## regressivetransphobe

^^^^ (I think this guy may not care for John Cage, you guys!!!)


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Indeterminate crap.


lol how can nothing be crap? you can fool some of the people some of the time ....................................


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## Sid James

regressivetransphobe said:


> ^^^^ (I think this guy may not care for John Cage, you guys!!!)


Yes, and ramming it home on a daily basis with a ten tonne crayon. C'mon guys the "John Cage is my favourite whipping boy" line is old, boring and stale now. It's been going here on TC for the last 6 months at least, maybe a year? & as member some guy suggests, what has anything John Cage did have to do with "atonal" music, anyway? Cage was taught by Schoenberg for a while, but I doubt the latter's ideas rubbed off to any great extent on his student.

Ok, who's the next whipping boy? A couple of years back when I joined TC, it was Philip Glass, Arvo Part, & most other "minimalists," also Schoenberg & the other "atonalists" and "serialists" under fire. This had little to do with their music itself, more with ideology (eg. Glass & Part are cop-outs and sell-outs, they're too rich and popular, etc.). More recently the punching bags have been Cage, Xenakis, Stockhausen.

Who's next? Maybe it should be Mahler, becasue it's his anniversary year. A few people I know went to a now quite notorious performance of his 9th symphony here, were quite a few people in the audience walked out in a break between two of it's movements. Seems these people can't comprehend anything much more recent than say Brahms (or Mozart, one of his piano concerto was played in the first half of that concert). My opinion of these kinds of people is not high, I have little time for them, if you pay for a concert at least have the courtesy to stay the whole course, this respect is owed to the musicians who have slogged their guts out to play this very complex music. Or at least leave during interval, not during the piece, to not "make a scene." The conductor Maestro Ashkenazy noticed these people leaving during the Mahler, he was clearly not impressed, my acquaintances said he rather ironically waved them goodbye (very apt for Mahler, I think, but I can't understand how this can happen with music that's 100 YEARS OLD!!!). ****ing hell, what planet are these people on?...


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> The conductor Maestro Ashkenazy noticed these people leaving during the Mahler, he was clearly not impressed, my acquaintances said he rather ironically waved them goodbye (very apt for Mahler, I think, but I can't understand how this can happen with music that's 100 YEARS OLD!!!). ****ing hell, what planet are these people on?...


Perhaps they thought it was the 2nd Sym where a long silent pause (5 min) was inserted between the 1st and 2nd mov?? not done today of course


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## Sid James

Andante said:


> Perhaps they thought it was the 2nd Sym where a long silent pause (5 min) was inserted between the 1st and 2nd mov?? not done today of course


Don't go there, *Andante*, "silent pause" are the very stuff of the shenanigans on this forum which I was just ranting against!!! :lol: ...


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## Guest

Sorry Guv .............


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## Guest

Composer Anders Hillborg coined a great phrase in his liner notes on a new BIS SACD devoted to his music: "sado-modernism"! He's referring to music that is extremely abrasive and audience unfriendly (and claims not to belong to that group. I beg to differ, but oh well.)


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## Guest

What kind of person would "sado-modernism" appeal to ?


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## violadude

Andante said:


> What kind of person would "sado-modernism" appeal to ?


Masochists?....


----------



## Curiosity

Andante said:


> What kind of person would "sado-modernism" appeal to ?


People who think listening to music that sounds horrible makes them cool and sophisticated?


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## Guest

There is really no such thing as "audience unfriendly" music.

There may be music that you don't like, but you're not the only member of the audience.

The only way you get such a phrase as "audience unfriendly" music is by taking part of the whole audience (the part that's the least friendly towards new music, naturally) and privileging it over all other audiences. In fact, by treating it as the ONLY audience.

Only then can you say "audience unfriendly" music. But where does that leave the people who genuinely like the musics deemed unfriendly? 

Right. Masochists or "thinking they're cool and sophisticated by listening to horrible music." 

Really? Is that the best you can do? What about the simplest thing--people listen to music that they like. You think it's horrible? Don't listen to it, then. Why take the extra step to denigrate not only the music but the people who listen to it? Are you people really that insecure that you have to bolster your opinions with such shenanigans? 

Incroyable.


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## violadude

some guy said:


> There is really no such thing as "audience unfriendly" music.
> 
> There may be music that you don't like, but you're not the only member of the audience.
> 
> The only way you get such a phrase as "audience unfriendly" music is by taking part of the whole audience (the part that's the least friendly towards new music, naturally) and privileging it over all other audiences. In fact, by treating it as the ONLY audience.
> 
> Only then can you say "audience unfriendly" music. But where does that leave the people who genuinely like the musics deemed unfriendly?
> 
> *Right. Masochists or "thinking they're cool and sophisticated by listening to horrible music." *
> 
> Really? Is that the best you can do? What about the simplest thing--people listen to music that they like. You think it's horrible? Don't listen to it, then. Why take the extra step to denigrate not only the music but the people who listen to it? Are you people really that insecure that you have to bolster your opinions with such shenanigans?
> 
> Incroyable.


To be fair, I said that jokingly and tongue in cheek. You know I mostly agree with you when it comes to contemporary music.


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## Sid James

Curiosity said:


> People who think listening to music that sounds horrible makes them cool and sophisticated?


Well, as I said in THIS post earlier, some people living and breathing NOW in 2011 think Mahler "sounds horrible."

I think what is actually "horrible" or rather sad is some people's lack of flexibility. If virtually any music falls out of the 1800-1900 "warhorse" axis, then it simply isn't acceptable for these "hard" conservative types of listeners (who are in the minority, imo, but tend to dominate the discourse). Hence what some guy says above about priveleging some audiences, which I'd extend are a minority. They always get what they want, except say in this year when they can't miss going to a Mahler concert (his anniversary year). So what do these "tough cookies" do when the strains of Mahler's 9th begin to fill the hall - they walk out! Avoidance is the easiest thing, it seems. Close off your ears. Everything you're not accustomed to is beyond the pale, "horrible," "degenerate," "formalist," for "snobs" or "highbrows," all these bullsh*t labels are used to describe simply what they won't admit - "it's music that I don't like." I wished they'd be more simple, but they're not, otherwise they'd admit their limitations (which most others are happy to do, but these "hardened" listeners just won't budge an inch)...


----------



## Curiosity

some guy said:


> There is really no such thing as "audience unfriendly" music.
> 
> There may be music that you don't like, but you're not the only member of the audience.
> 
> The only way you get such a phrase as "audience unfriendly" music is by taking part of the whole audience (the part that's the least friendly towards new music, naturally) and privileging it over all other audiences. In fact, by treating it as the ONLY audience.
> 
> Only then can you say "audience unfriendly" music. But where does that leave the people who genuinely like the musics deemed unfriendly?
> 
> Right. Masochists or "thinking they're cool and sophisticated by listening to horrible music."
> 
> Really? Is that the best you can do? What about the simplest thing--people listen to music that they like. You think it's horrible? Don't listen to it, then. Why take the extra step to denigrate not only the music but the people who listen to it? Are you people really that insecure that you have to bolster your opinions with such shenanigans?
> 
> Incroyable.


Of course there is such a thing as "audience unfriendly music". If you toss tradition out the window and refuse to compromise for the sake of the listener in any way, your music is highly likely to be incomprehensible to that listener. Hence why Beethoven said, of the highly "audience unfriendly" Serioso quartet, "The Quartet [op. 95] is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public." You have to think in general terms to some degree. You can't make music that completely disregards all tradition and then whine when a good percentage of the audience doesn't take to it. It doesn't work that way.


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## Guest

Curiosity said:


> for the sake of the listener


The listener?

A listener. This listener you refer to is not the only one. That's my point.



Curiosity said:


> You can't make music that completely disregards all tradition and then whine when a good percentage of the audience doesn't take to it. It doesn't work that way.


Um, I wasn't doing any whining. I was talking about the whining of "a good percentage of the audience." This percentage should recognize that it's not a hundred percent is all.

Time to rename this thread: What is the point of bashing contemporary music? (I mean besides giving HC opportunities to fixate on the derriere and its functions.)

Really. I wonder. Are we even able to think seriously about this? About our motivations? I know why I defend contemporary music. Because I like it, and I think it is worthwhile. But why bash it? Does anyone have to listen to it? (And if you bring up being held hostage in a concert, let me remind you that a) the contemporary music you're likely to hear in a symphony concert is very likely to be some pretty tame stuff and b) no one's forcing you to go to symphony concerts.)

Two things would be nice, I think: it would be nice to be able to mention enjoying a contemporary work without the chorus of jackals yipping about how horrible that music is and how people who listen to it need their heads examined, and it would be nice to be able to talk about the contemporary music that doesn't work so well and do so calmly and intelligently.

Hey, we all have our little dreams....


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> ...the contemporary music you're likely to hear in a symphony concert is very likely to be some pretty tame stuff....


Exactly. I don't access contemporary music live in symphony concerts, esp. not our flagship groups. The "latest" things they are likely to play, basically as "tokens" mind you, are from the 1970's (eg. Arvo Part is often trundled out, esp. his short pieces which fit comfortably in between two warhorses). Come to think of it, I haven't been to see a "flagship" symphony concert here for like 20 years. They're basically about bland "bums on seats" programming. I'm a big fan, however, of esp. smaller chamber groups that offer more interesting things, both old and new. & there are also groups specifically devoted to certain aspects of the repertoire. They're doing a better job, imo, than some of the "big names" that are just focussed on the bottom line. & funnily enough, a lot of the smaller groups live gigs are quite well attended, giving the lie to people who say you have to cater for these "hard line" listeners who want nothing much else other than what they've - & what most of us - have heard like a zillion times...


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> I mean besides giving HC opportunities to fixate on the derriere and its functions.


According to the _HarpsichordConcerto Concise Dictionary of Music_ (2011), the word atonal was indeed derived from derriere; from **** and tone, ****-tone; thus giving atonal. It is a simplified compound word.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> The listener?
> A listener. This listener you refer to is not the only one. That's my point.


Curiosity may have been referring to the collective listening audience, of which there is just one. He later says, "a good percentage of the audience" which probably does not refer to a good percentage of one listener. This question, "How does performing modern music in concerts hurt/help attendance?", has been asked on TC many times, and unfortunately, not much has been posted that allows us to give a reasonablely accurate answer.



some guy said:


> Time to rename this thread: What is the point of bashing contemporary music? (I mean besides giving HC opportunities to fixate on the derriere and its functions.)


I think the thread has a good name, and in the first page or two there were attempts to seriously answer the question. After that, the posts tended to deviate from the original intent.



some guy said:


> Two things would be nice, I think: it would be nice to be able to mention enjoying a contemporary work without the chorus of jackals yipping about how horrible that music is and how people who listen to it need their heads examined, and it would be nice to be able to talk about the contemporary music that doesn't work so well and do so calmly and intelligently.


Many of us have been able both to mention enjoying contemporary work without the chorus of jackals yipping about how horrible that music is and to talk about the contemporary music that doesn't work so well and do so calmly and intelligently. We've been doing it for months in this thread. You posted one short reply there.


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## graaf

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> According to the _HarpsichordConcerto Concise Dictionary of Music_ (2011), the word atonal was indeed derived from derriere; from **** and tone, ****-tone; thus giving atonal. It is a simplified compound word.


It's nice to see how you don't dislike contemporary music after all, just like you said you don't...


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## Sid James

^^I think HC likes playing around with words. Before, I remember him talking about something like music + noise = munoise. Now we have **** + tone = ****-tone or atonal. There's a publication of made-up words like this here in Australia called _The Dag's Dictionary_. Maybe HC should apply to be one of the writers of that publication, given his natural talents for compounding words? But it would mainly be limited to modern/contemporary music, ha ha...


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## blackless

It seems that some of people that have posted on this forum have some degrees in music but still are full of some misconceptions and dogmas about what music is about. Unfortunately I haven't been able to read the whole discussion due to time restrictions so I do not know how the whole discussion progressed, thus I am only able to answer to the first post.I do not have any degrees in music but I prefer atonal to tonal.


> Since almost the very beginning of my introduction to classical music (A few years ago, though it practically consumes my life now), I have been aware of atonal composers and few of their works. Studying composition myself, I have always been told by teachers and professors that Atonal music or near atonal music (sorry I don't have a better term for this genre) is the only way to push forward with music.


That's the only part of the post I can agree with. Atonality is not the only way to create new music. New musics (tonal, atonal and other(maybe total)) are created both by academic composers and by some underground artists. Actually atonal music wasn't the only new, literally unheard-of academic music of the 20th century.



> Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.


This example is totally wrong. You probably know that music is a multidimentional space that cosists of at least three parameters such as timbre, pitch, rhythm,duration etc on a timeline. Your example is qute clearly not representing atonality, which is about successions of sound ,but instead it represents nasty timbre which may or may not be used by any composer, be it tonal or atonal composition.
This is what I think of as a good example of atonal music 






> I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay. I guess my questions to those that enjoy (and perhaps also compose!) atonal muisc would be: Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to? Do you feel strongly enough about the music to suggest that a friend should listen to it? What is the point of writing without tonality?


Yes. There are few atonal pieces such as Milton Babbit's Phonemena or some Carter's pieces, that express joy, though not in the way that pop music does. Moreover, I think atonal music can push the feeling of grandeur and pathos to a new level if wisely directed. Moreover, from my personal experience atonal music CAN be accessible to the masses. I recommended to a friend of mine who had an awful taste in music Ligeti's Requiem and he enjoyed it a lot (more that Mozart which he cannot tolerate) though he stated that it was weird. He also enjoyed some of Webern's choral pieces.To another friend of mine who also had awful taste in music I gave to listen this and he found this relaxing.







> I have made an effort on a few occasions to really listen to atonal music and witness the superior range of expression contemporary composers claim it has. In general, I find most of what I listened to is just kind of terrifying and sometimes annoying. For instance, in Nono's piano concerto, I was either finding humor in how random some moments were, or being terrified by the sounds I was hearing. There is such a focus on this genre of music with musicians and composers now that I just don't understand.


Even though there are some accessible atonal pieces, the majority of CONTEMPORARY atonal music and modern music is challeging. To appreciate Babbit or Boulez's Le Matreau Sans Matire I trained my ears like hell and only after a year or two I was able to understand their music .Now I think that this music is of the highest order and just as good as Brahms. It means that in terms of appreciation of music my ears 
are more trained than yours and unlike you I do not study music professionally. BUT before I trained just as hard to appreciate "normal" classical music, thus I believe that to appreciate classical music one must train his ears anyway.It's a challenge.The majority of people cannot listen to classical because of that . Classical music has never been appreciated by the masses. Atonality is a new level of challenge. You have to appreciate new successions and proportions of sounds otherwise do not argue. Challenges in music exist because different people enjoy different levels of determinism of the acoustic probability distribution. 
ALSO
Tonal music seems natural only because it is heavily connected with the tone of our speech . Moreover, formally speaking, pre-classical medieval European music was atonal. The most vivid example is Carlo Jesualdo that remidns me of Shoenberg. Not only he was atonal but sometimes strikingly dissonant like Luigi Nono.
FURTHERMORE, as John Cage showed us , he thinks that every sound and every combination of sounds can be defined as beautiful. Thus, there an be no rules in music. There can be only some vague SUBJECTIVE CONTEXTUAL aesthetic rules that depend on the artist and can be very different.


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## bigshot

If one can say that Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker is audience friendly, one can certainly say that atonal music is audience unfriendly.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> If one can say that Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker is audience friendly, one can certainly say that atonal music is audience unfriendly.


It depends on which audience you are talking about, sir. :tiphat:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Sofronitsky said:


> (Okay, I'm pretty sure alot of people are scoffing at the title of this thread.  )


I scoff at the title of this thread.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

What I can't stand is "accessible" music. I wrote music for a guitar quartet at school and the teacher asked me if I could compose anything more _accessible._ So I set about arranging Webern's bagatelles for string quartet for guitars.


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## mmsbls

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What I can't stand is "accessible" music. I wrote music for a guitar quartet at school and the teacher asked me if I could compose anything more _accessible._ So I set about arranging Webern's bagatelles for string quartet for guitars.


That reminds me of a scene in the movie _Tootsie_. Bill Murray is a playwright who says, "I like it when people come up to me the next day or a week later and say 'I saw your play. What happened?' " While it was a hilarious line, I imagine most artists do not want their art misunderstood. It sounds as though you don't want people to "get" your music. Maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you said.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

What I hate is when composers write music to "please the audience" rather than display their own inner feelings and thoughts in music to present to an audience (who may not understand at all.)


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## StlukesguildOhio

What I can't stand is "accessible" music. I wrote music for a guitar quartet at school and the teacher asked me if I could compose anything more accessible. So I set about arranging Webern's bagatelles for string quartet for guitars.

Why? Is art only for a chosen few?


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## StlukesguildOhio

What I hate is when composers write music to "please the audience" rather than display their own inner feelings and thoughts in music to present to an audience (who may not understand at all.)

How do you think that would have worked out for Mozart, Haydn, Raphael, Rubens, Shakespeare, etc...? Isn't there a certain degree of presumption... of assumed superiority... when you look down at the audience? Isn't the dialog in art a two-way street? The audience must surely be willing to invest a degree of effort, but are we to assume the artist owes nothing to the audience?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Calvin (from "Clavin and Hobbes" cartoon) is an avant-garde artist who believes that he does not have to please his audience. His snowmen are often reflections on today's society and how a lot of people do not understand the artist because the artist is merely showing their own thoughts.










But then he goes commercial


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## Guest

It must be soul destroying to write music that very few enjoy


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Andante said:


> It must be soul destroying to write music that very few enjoy


Well... I get by!


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## violadude

Andante said:


> It must be soul destroying to write music that very few enjoy


Who cares? Write what you want to write.


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## Guest

What we see here is a clash between two very different, though related, situations, the situation of the artist and the situation of the consumer.

The consumer wants material to consume. The consumer wants the artist to produce material for consuming.

The artist, on the other hand, wants to do good work.

Eventually, the consumers will come round, but often only after the artist has died. Oh, too bad, buddy. Consumers rule, you know.

The artist wants to be free; the consumer wants to be lord.

Different people, different motivations. Now if only the consumers could understand what motivates artists....


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

some guy said:


> What we see here is a clash between two very different, though related, situations, the situation of the artist and the situation of the consumer.
> 
> The consumer wants material to consume. The consumer wants the artist to produce material for consuming.
> 
> The artist, on the other hand, wants to do good work.
> 
> Eventually, the consumers will come round, but often only after the artist has died. Oh, too bad, buddy. Consumers rule, you know.
> 
> The artist wants to be free; the consumer wants to be lord.
> 
> Different people, different motivations. Now if only the consumers could understand what motivates artists....


So how do we achieve happiness for both the artist _and_ the consumer?


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## Rapide

I think composers who want to be free can write whatver they please and consumers are also free to decide if they enjoy the piece or not. Because it is art, as long as the artist declare it is "art", it is therefore art. But whether it is good art in the long run, only time and generations will tell.


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## Polednice

I think it's important to draw the distinction between artists and 'consumers', but in doing so on this thread there is a _lot_ of loaded language, mostly painting 'consumers' as uninformed, even mindless. So let's start out by returning to the word 'audience' (meaning: people who exist and listen to music) and actually giving the audience some credit by _not_ assuming from the first instance that they are idiots. Let's dare to assume that the audience actually has genuine artistic feelings - *the only thing separating an audience member from an artist is talent*.

Compared to the audience, we are led to believe that the artist is so precious and that they must write their own thoughts as if for themselves alone and wait for the bigoted audience to come round.

Not once have I heard a convincing point as to why the artist is more important in this way.

What I hate is the exact opposite of you, ComposerOfAvantGarde. I dislike it intensely when a composer sets their own inner thoughts and feelings on a pedestal, presenting them to the audience as if we should even care. The artist's internal experience means _nothing_. It is certainly no more important than my own subjective experience of the world, so why shouldn't the artist write for me and my tastes?

Artists shouldn't be writing for themselves, but they also shouldn't be writing for the audience (by pandering to taste). They should be writing for our times - bringing artist and audience together in a presentation of thoughts, feelings, and commentaries on our modern cultural and social circumstances through the medium of music.


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## Ukko

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What I hate is when composers write music to "please the audience" rather than display their own inner feelings and thoughts in music to present to an audience (who may not understand at all.)


If _no_ audience understands your music, the only "inner feelings and thoughts" you are displaying is contempt; you don't need music for that.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Calvin (from "Clavin and Hobbes" cartoon) is an avant-garde artist who believes that he does not have to please his audience. His snowmen are often reflections on today's society and how a lot of people do not understand the artist because the artist is merely showing their own thoughts.

Ummm... yeah. But wasn't the intention of the artist (Bill Watterson) a bit of an ironic dig at the pretensions of the artist?


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## StlukesguildOhio

What we see here is a clash between two very different, though related, situations, the situation of the artist and the situation of the consumer.

The consumer wants material to consume. The consumer wants the artist to produce material for consuming.

That would include yourself, who bragged recently of your collection of some 4000+ CDs. But you're different, right. You don't have any preconceived notions about what you like or dislike.

The artist, on the other hand, wants to do good work.

And you know what the artist wants based upon what? Your experience as an artist?

Eventually, the consumers will come round, but often only after the artist has died. Oh, too bad, buddy. Consumers rule, you know.

Again that includes yourself. I wonder when you will "come around."

Different people, different motivations. Now if only the consumers could understand what motivates artists....

We're so fortunate to have someguy here who can inform as as to what motivates artists.


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## kv466

StlukesguildOhio said:


> What I hate is when composers write music to "please the audience" rather than display their own inner feelings and thoughts in music to present to an audience (who may not understand at all.)
> 
> How do you think that would have worked out for Mozart, Haydn, Raphael, Rubens, Shakespeare, etc...? Isn't there a certain degree of presumption... of assumed superiority... when you look down at the audience? Isn't the dialog in art a two-way street? The audience must surely be willing to invest a degree of effort, but are we to assume the artist owes nothing to the audience?


As a musician who plays consistently in front of an audience I can see where CotAvGarde is kinda coming from; although he may not exactly be expressing that. I don't write much but what I do write I don't sit there wondering if someone is going to like it or not. Not because I don't care but simply because I'm too busy trying to please perhaps the worst critic of all, myself. Same goes for playing live. When I'm playing gigs or shows I'm not thinking at all about wondering if the audience will like it; I know, from experience, that if I give it my all and am honest about what I am playing then it comes through and in turn the audience gets a good vibe from it and likes it. Granted, it's gotta sound good...this don't work if the musicianship is sloppy. Still, I can't say that I'm gonna play four songs in a row in C or that I'm gonna keep playing songs in the same tempo over and over and maybe five slow ones in a row. That's when my interest in the crowd comes into play and it makes for better playing overall. Switching it up and spacing and pacing yourself throughout a performance is probably something that you wouldn't do when playing for yourself in a room by yourself and is really one of the great things about playing with and in front of people; something that is very communal.

So what I pretty much meant with my rant was that it is okay to create and perform for yourself but I feel it is disrespectful to everyone if you take a 'i don't give a darn' attitude about it and don't care at all about anyone listening. For that matter I would truly suggest staying at home and recording. You'll always have an audience somewhere for recorded music but playing live and composing for publication is definitely a balance of worlds.


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## starthrower

Hilltroll72 said:


> If _no_ audience understands your music, the only "inner feelings and thoughts" you are displaying is contempt; you don't need music for that.


Hmm? You're jumping to conclusions here. First of all, the listener does not need to understand any piece of music to enjoy it. Does the average non-musically educated listener understand music composed in any system tonal, serial, atonal? No! Am I to believe Schoenberg had contempt for the audience when he composed his Three Piano Pieces, op.11? I was listening to these pieces last night, and I think they are beautiful. And no, I don't have an advanced musical education, I just love music and listen closely in order to have a meaningful listening experience.


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## Ukko

starthrower said:


> Hmm? You're jumping to conclusions here. First of all, the listener does not need to understand any piece of music to enjoy it. Does the average non-musically educated listener understand music composed in any system tonal, serial, atonal? No! Am I to believe Schoenberg had contempt for the audience when he composed his Three Piano Pieces, op.11? I was listening to these pieces last night, and I think they are beautiful. And no, I don't have an advanced musical education, I just love music and listen closely in order to have a meaningful listening experience.


We seem to have different understandings of 'understand'. Mine is that I 'get' the music. I have managed to accomplish that with such unconventional music as late Schnabel, middle Carter, Ligeti and Lutoslawski. Had no notion what the music was specifically about 'constructionwise'; it worked.

And I am happy for you, that you have worked out how to have 'a meaningful listening experience'.

:tiphat:


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## starthrower

I would have to ask exactly what you mean by "get" the music? I'm assuming that you mean enjoy, since you have just stated you don't understand how the music is constructed? If that's the case, then we are in agreement.

I am aware of the different systems in which a composition can be constructed, but honestly I'm a bit fuzzy about truly understanding how they work. For example I understand that a serial composition is based on a tone row, but I'm not sure how the composer arrives at a specific row, or how he/she goes about constructing the composition from those basic ingredients.


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## Polednice

kv466 said:


> As a musician who plays consistently in front of an audience I can see where CotAvGarde is kinda coming from; although he may not exactly be expressing that. I don't write much but what I do write I don't sit there wondering if someone is going to like it or not. Not because I don't care but simply because I'm too busy trying to please perhaps the worst critic of all, myself. Same goes for playing live. When I'm playing gigs or shows I'm not thinking at all about wondering if the audience will like it; I know, from experience, that if I give it my all and am honest about what I am playing then it comes through and in turn the audience gets a good vibe from it and likes it. Granted, it's gotta sound good...this don't work if the musicianship is sloppy. Still, I can't say that I'm gonna play four songs in a row in C or that I'm gonna keep playing songs in the same tempo over and over and maybe five slow ones in a row. That's when my interest in the crowd comes into play and it makes for better playing overall. Switching it up and spacing and pacing yourself throughout a performance is probably something that you wouldn't do when playing for yourself in a room by yourself and is really one of the great things about playing with and in front of people; something that is very communal.
> 
> So what I pretty much meant with my rant was that it is okay to create and perform for yourself but I feel it is disrespectful to everyone if you take a 'i don't give a darn' attitude about it and don't care at all about anyone listening. For that matter I would truly suggest staying at home and recording. You'll always have an audience somewhere for recorded music but playing live and composing for publication is definitely a balance of worlds.


I think there are a couple of things to distinguish here as well:

1) The process of writing music.
2) Your motivation to write any music in the first place.

For 1, even though I think the audience is tremendously important, I think a composer _should_ just think about their own desires. They shouldn't be taking into account popular taste when putting their thoughts to paper. With 2, however, I have no respect for any composer whose motivation to write music is to demonstrate to the world their subjective experiences, as though being an artist makes them special - no matter how talented they are! For 2, I think a composer's motivation really needs to be about engaging with an audience and the world we find ourselves in (even if that motivation just means "having fun"), and that will affect 1 to an extent.


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## mmsbls

I am in no way artist. I would be quite interested in knowing to what extent the audience effects the work of today's artists. Obviously, I would exclude any art explicitly constructed for commercial purposes such as film music, art in advertisements, or art that the artists needs to sell.

I imagine it would actually be difficult to produce a work of art that the artist _knows_ will not speak to anyone besides herself. An author would have to write in a completely new language. A painter might have to paint with UV paint and enclose the work in filters that do not transmit UV. That would be a bit silly, although I suppose a painter could say her work was the artistic equivalent to the philosophical question, "When a tree falls and no one hears it, does it make a sound?" (The answer, by the way, is a very definitive "yes").

I guess what I'd really like to ask of TC artists is, "To what extent do you find yourself consciously changing or creating portions of your art because of what you perceive the audience reaction will be?" I realize that there may be a constant or at least significant unconscious audience influence, but I am interested in how the audience plays into your conscious act of creation.


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## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> I guess what I'd really like to ask of TC artists is, "To what extent do you find yourself consciously changing or creating portions of your art because of what you perceive the audience reaction will be?" I realize that there may be a constant or at least significant unconscious audience influence, but I am interested in how the audience plays into your conscious act of creation.


I'm not a professional composer, but as a wannabe I can answer your question in saying that audience _reaction_ doesn't concern me at all - what I care about is the audience's 'aural capabilities'. As esoteric (and stupid?) as it may sound, I'm fascinated by the neuroscience of music, and, as much as I can (given the little we know), I like to compose music structured in a way that makes it easy for the brain to 'digest'. As an example, there have been various studies that show a sense of tonality is important for comprehension (this doesn't mean Western traditional tonality; it means having any tonal centre, whether it's diatonic or based on a completely different system). As such, I don't see atonal music as having much value, except historically.

The reason I value such things is because making music 'digestible' opens it up to a wide audience (the most important people!) without requiring repeated exposure and a really concerted listening effort. The great thing is that 'digestible' music can still be new-sounding, fascinating and complex - it doesn't have to be conservative pastiche - but it's comprehensible at the same time.


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## Ukko

starthrower said:


> I would have to ask exactly what you mean by "get" the music? I'm assuming that you mean enjoy, since you have just stated you don't understand how the music is constructed? If that's the case, then we are in agreement.
> 
> I am aware of the different systems in which a composition can be constructed, but honestly I'm a bit fuzzy about truly understanding how they work. For example I understand that a serial composition is based on a tone row, but I'm not sure how the composer arrives at a specific row, or how he/she goes about constructing the composition from those basic ingredients.


We are in sync, except possibly for the 'enjoy' quibble. Some of the music that I get an emotional handle on isn't enjoyable. Benjamin Lees composed a symphony 'commemorating' the holocaust; it isn't enjoyable, but it is gripping. Actually, if enjoyable can be taken to mean pleasing, Mussorgsky's 'Pictures' doesn't please me; the right performance can be a helluva experience though.


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## starthrower

How much can a composer/artist really expect from a general audience? For example, last night I watched a YouTube clip of a pops concert featuring a jazz trio and orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. The trio was playing a simple 4/4 swinging rhythm, but the audience was so clueless as to not only clap on the wrong beats, but couldn't even keep time with the music regardless. 

After 90 years, people still don't understand that you accent the 2 & 4 on a swing tune. This goes for the so called better educated European audiences as well.


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## starthrower

Hilltroll72 said:


> We are in sync, except possibly for the 'enjoy' quibble. Some of the music that I get an emotional handle on isn't enjoyable. Benjamin Lees composed a symphony 'commemorating' the holocaust; it isn't enjoyable, but it is gripping. Actually, if enjoyable can be taken to mean pleasing, Mussorgsky's 'Pictures' doesn't please me; the right performance can be a helluva experience though.


Understood!


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## Polednice

starthrower said:


> How much can a composer/artist really expect from a general audience? For example, last night I watched a YouTube clip of a pops concert featuring a jazz trio and orchestra conducted by Seiji Ozawa. The trio was playing a simple 4/4 swinging rhythm, but the audience was so clueless as to not only clap on the wrong beats, but couldn't even keep time with the music regardless.
> 
> After 90 years, people still don't understand that you accent the 2 & 4 on a swing tune. This goes for the so called better educated European audiences as well.


I wonder (and by that I mean I genuinely wonder; this isn't a proposition I necessarily believe in) if there's any parallel with what we can expect from an audience in how people write in academics? For example, if I were presenting a paper on an Anglo-Saxon manuscript to a conference of professors, I would use all kinds of language and information that I wouldn't even consider in a book intended for a lay audience. It's an acknowledgement of using different registers. I'm not entirely convinced that this separation is applicable in art (any kind of art), but it does seem that some artists write/create more for people with a considerable amount of experience and understanding in the field. Whatever the case, it's a shame that some people think using an appropriate register for a lay audience amounts to patronisation.


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## clavichorder

How the hell is this thread still going?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

kv466 said:


> ...
> So what I pretty much meant with my rant was that it is okay to create and perform for yourself but I feel it is disrespectful to everyone if you take a 'i don't give a darn' attitude about it and don't care at all about anyone listening. For that matter I would truly suggest staying at home and recording. You'll always have an audience somewhere for recorded music but playing live and composing for publication is definitely a balance of worlds.


... and if HarpsichordConcerto was amongst your audience member, a crap piece would deserve a large pizza thrown onto the stage at the composer and or performer. Plus a refund of the money spent on the concert ticket.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> I would be quite interested in knowing to what extent the audience effects the work of today's artists.


I guess "the audience" is just not going to go away, is it? It certainly is convenient, just like any other generality. Lump all females into one group, for instance, and generalize about all those individuals. Much easier than dealing with each person as she is.

Philosophically, there is no such thing as "the audience." Any audience, whether the group of individuals gathered together at the same time in an auditorium or the mass of people who order music online (and can be grouped into various audiences for marketing purposes), is made up of individuals. Here's an observation about "audience" made in the nineteenth century (long before all the kerfluffle about "atonality" but not before the kerfluffle about "modern" music had already gotten going): "Take four listeners occupying the same box at the same performance; the first is bored, the second entertained, the third is indignant, and the fourth enthusiastic." Any generalization about "the audience" that doesn't take this palpable reality into account will be about as useful as a generality about women. Or Muslims. Or bluehairs.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> I guess "the audience" is just not going to go away, is it? It certainly is convenient, just like any other generality. Lump all females into one group, for instance, and generalize about all those individuals. Much easier than dealing with each person as she is.
> 
> Philosophically, there is no such thing as "the audience." Any audience, whether the group of individuals gathered together at the same time in an auditorium or the mass of people who order music online (and can be grouped into various audiences for marketing purposes), is made up of individuals. Here's an observation about "audience" made in the nineteenth century (long before all the kerfluffle about "atonality" but not before the kerfluffle about "modern" music had already gotten going): "Take four listeners occupying the same box at the same performance; the first is bored, the second entertained, the third is indignant, and the fourth enthusiastic." Any generalization about "the audience" that doesn't take this palpable reality into account will be about as useful as a generality about women. Or Muslims. Or bluehairs.


But I don't believe in the majority bending their backs for the minority. And when it comes to cacophony music, a small, small minority indeed.


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> [T]here have been various studies that show a sense of tonality is important for comprehension....


Studies with very questionable methodology. Be fair, take a listener who only knows fairly rudimentary music and any complexity will be incomprehensible. (Berlioz took a Parisian choir to a village near his birth town for a concert. The villagers were very polite but pointed out that the singers couldn't sing in tune. What were they hearing? Four part harmony. The villagers were only used to unison singing. Do a "scientific" study with these people, and you'll conclude that harmony is incomprehensible. Perhaps there's no value to harmony, except historically!



mmsbls said:


> The reason I value such things is because making music 'digestible' opens it up to a wide audience....


See the quote from the nineteenth century in my previous post.


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> I guess "the audience" is just not going to go away, is it? It certainly is convenient, just like any other generality. Lump all females into one group, for instance, and generalize about all those individuals. Much easier than dealing with each person as she is.


And yet on the previous page you were talking about "consumers" as a generalised group. I guess it's all right for you when you want to insult all listeners who you see as being less enlightened than yourself.


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## Guest

HarpsichordConcerto,

I hate to have to be the one to break this to you, but begging the question is not the same as proving a point.

And your favorite question to beg shows very clearly that you do believe in the superiority of the minority, at least if it's a minority of one, yourself.

Your logical friend,

some guy


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> Studies with very questionable methodology.


The most recent study I read took participants with no experience outside of Western tonality and exposed them to music composed with the Bohlen-Pierce scale for a period of 25-30 minutes. After this time, it was found the participants began to 'understand' the music more readily in terms of inherent patterns, allowing them to make predictions about future harmonies and phrases. This was presumably achieved by some innate statistical learning process which takes advantage of the patterns in a system with a tonal centre - something atonal music doesn't have.

Here's the reference so that, if you feel like it, you can explain to me exactly why the methodology of _all_ these studies is questionable: Loui, Wessel, and Kam: 'Humans rapidly learn grammatical structure in a new musical scale' in Music Perception 27 (June 2010), 377-88.

For someone who rages against generalisations, you're particularly adept at using them yourself.


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## Guest

Polednice,

Ad hominem attacks are not the same as rebuttals of arguments. In your eagerness to invalidate my person, you have, perhaps inadvertantly, left my arguments untouched. 

(You cannot have understood the import of my consumer/artist simplification; or perhaps you were just too eager, again, to find a contradiction.)

--some guy


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> Polednice,
> 
> Ad hominem attacks are not the same as rebuttals of arguments. In your eagerness to invalidate my person, you have, perhaps inadvertantly, left my arguments untouched.
> 
> (You cannot have understood the import of my consumer/artist simplification; or perhaps you were just too eager, again, to find a contradiction.)
> 
> --some guy


Oh sorry, I didn't spot any arguments to touch. I'll have to get out my microscope. 

(Way to avoid a challenge, by the way! I'm learning lots from you  )


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## violadude

When I compose, I do it mostly for myself, composition for me is a process of self-exploration. However, people usually end up liking my pieces anyway, so that's cool


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## Dodecaplex

Oh, if only you guys listen to one of my 2-hour-long fugues. Well, let's just say this is the kind of music that I'm trying to build up on.


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## CameraEye

kv466 said:


> ... For that matter I would truly suggest staying at home and recording. You'll always have an audience somewhere for recorded music but playing live and composing for publication is definitely a balance of worlds.


And I would say this is the way it actually works most of the times for most artists, speciallly in the first stages of their careers. Of course, composing for oneself without taking into account the opinion of the audience is the ideal thing if you can afford it .


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> I guess "the audience" is just not going to go away, is it? It certainly is convenient, just like any other generality. Lump all females into one group, for instance, and generalize about all those individuals. Much easier than dealing with each person as she is.


I think perhaps you misunderstood my question. I was explicitly not referring to individuals but rather to the group of all potential listeners to composer's works. It's not that it was convenient to lump the individuals together, it's that it would have been a different, and much less interesting, question had I not done that. The term, "the audience" is too useful for it to go away.



some guy said:


> Philosophically, there is no such thing as "the audience." Any audience, whether the group of individuals gathered together at the same time in an auditorium or the mass of people who order music online (and can be grouped into various audiences for marketing purposes), is made up of individuals.


The term "humans" refers to all individuals, yet philosophically there certainly is such a thing as "humans". The same is true for any group noun.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> See the quote from the nineteenth century in my previous post.


This reply was to a quote from Polednice and not, as posted, to a quote from me.


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## starthrower

Just remember, the majority who show up at classical concert halls are there because they can afford the tickets. And composers should have these folks in mind when writing music? I surely hope not!


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## CameraEye

starthrower said:


> Just remember, the majority who show up at classical concert halls are there because they can afford the tickets. And composers should have these folks in mind when writing music? I surely hope not!


But I´m afraid impresarios and producers do!


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## kv466

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> But I don't believe in the majority bending their backs for the minority. And when it comes to cacophony music, a small, small minority indeed.


I don't know,...those 80's metal fans are pretty hardcore.


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## NightHawk

I've been largely out of touch with TC for more than a week and have just now had some time to catch up, a bit. I was surprised that what I think are very appealing pieces by Salvatore Sciarrino pushed this to 46 pages, but I did enjoy the read, or most of it. I don't think anyone convinced anyone of anything, really... but the exercise was probably good for all. I love tonal and atonal musics as many, if not most of the participants seemed to indicate, and would fall into despair if there were no artistic _Avant Garde_; no poking in the eyes, no stabbing in the ears. I would, however, fall into a greater pit if I could never hear The _Four_ B's again (also, Schnittke and Henze


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## regressivetransphobe

NightHawk said:


> I've been largely out of touch with TC for more than a week and have just now had some time to catch up, a bit. I was surprised that what I think are very appealing pieces by Salvatore Sciarrino pushed this to 46 pages, but I did enjoy the read, or most of it. I don't think anyone convinced anyone of anything, really... but the exercise was probably good for all. I love tonal and atonal musics as many, if not most of the participants seemed to indicate, and would fall into despair if there were no artistic _Avant Garde_; no poking in the eyes, no stabbing in the ears. I would, however, fall into a greater pit if I could never hear The _Four_ B's again (also, Schnittke and Henze


I am absolutely amazed your impression of this thread is positive. I hate every word in it


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## NightHawk

I think discussing music in any interesting way is a struggle b/c all of it is so abstract and yet so hard-wired into our lives. Conservative tastes versus the avant garde is a perennial mud-wrestle, and maybe it wasn't always so positive, but I can't imagine everyone agreeing. I just thought there were some well-articulated points on both sides of the argument. I know the back and forth between some participants, Polednice and Vazgen, for instance, got a little spikey <sic> but in the main I enjoyed reading both their views very much, and others, as well. *wave*



regressivetransphobe said:


> I am absolutely amazed your impression of this thread is positive. I hate every word in it


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## Polednice

As much as these discussions can be thorny, as much as they may be confusing, and as much as they may pointlessly lead us down dead-ends, the worst contributions of all are those which say: "I dislike your entire discussion and want no part in it." In that case, kindly take yourself back a few moments in time, and remove your part in the discussion where you felt compelled to tell everyone that your thoughts are above our attempts at discussion.


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## mmsbls

regressivetransphobe said:


> I am absolutely amazed your impression of this thread is positive. I hate every word in it


Actually I agree with NightHawk. I just re-read much of the thread, and I have a very positive impression. There are clearly many posts which I'd prefer were never posted, but there were also _many_ fascinating discussions concerning music in general, how we listen to music, what music is, details of atonal music, etc. I find these discussions extremely useful because whether I have strong beliefs or mild impressions on a particular topic, I am forced to think more clearly and sometimes realize I'm wrong (in particular, thanks Serge and someguy). Other times I come away with a better, perhaps somewhat modified, understanding.

I actually would hope this thread continues and touches on other topics that are just as interesting.

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed in taking a potentially unpleasant (yes it was that at times), thread-closing topic and instead produced many constructive, intelligent, and thought-provoking discussions.


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## NightHawk

In Response to POLEDNICE.

I haven't received any hostile responses, but if I did I would probably just not reply. I am overly cautious, I suppose - real argument requires f/t/f trust and tolerance. This can be acquired, I believe, at least to some extent, on sites such as TC which has an amazingly faithful membership, but it takes longer. It's hard for newbies (such as myself) to get up to speed when the fur flies b/c one doesn't understand, as many of the 'Senior-Seniors' do, where you (Polednice and many other longtime members) are coming from - they have a context, they understand the passion. I'm not chiding or suggesting any changes to anyone, just observing. This is a great site.

Listening to Myaskovsky Piano Sonata No. 5 in B major.


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## NightHawk

mmsbls said:


> I actually would hope this thread continues and touches on other topics that are just as interesting.
> 
> I'd like to thank everyone who contributed in taking a potentially unpleasant (yes it was that at times), thread-closing topic and instead produced many constructive, intelligent, and thought-provoking discussions.


I love the threads that stretch my thoughts on music - unfortunately, I'm not good at composing good OP's! ha!


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## blackless

I think the term atonality is a fraud because the majority of "atonal" pieces are in fact *multitonal* as they do not stick to one tonality, instead they consist of sequences of tonalities. That's how Shoenberg thought about this term.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

blackless said:


> I think the term atonality is a fraud because the majority of "atonal" pieces are in fact *multitonal* as they do not stick to one tonality, instead they consist of sequences of tonalities. That's how Shoenberg thought about this term.


I thought Schoenberg used the term "pantonal," ie. the synthesis of all tonalities?


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## violadude

blackless said:


> I think the term atonality is a fraud because *the majority of "atonal" pieces are in fact multitonal as they do not stick to one tonality, instead they consist of sequences of tonalities.* That's how Shoenberg thought about this term.


Isn't that what all music is like?


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## Crudblud

The point of atonal music is to have a good time. You can get funky with Webern and Varèse, you know.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Crudblud said:


> The point of atonal music is to have a good time. You can get funky with Webern and Varèse, you know.


And Ligeti.


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## Crudblud

That's right!


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## NightHawk

The way I hear it, Expressionistic, atonal, dissonant, 'anxious and neurotic' music is an escape 'into' reality. Very often I want music that reflects the struggle and shadows of modern life. Eine Kleine Nacht Musik never cuts it for me, though the 'Gran Partita' can. S,B & W don't depress me, in fact quite the opposite. Music for music's sake is the old saw...still works for me. Now on to some lovely Henze.

Disclaimer: I listen to worlds of tonal music and Beethoven is my desert island composer, so I'm not being critical of those who don't find anything useful in 'atonal et al' musics <sic>.


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## blackless

violadude said:


> Isn't that what all music is like?


 Absolutely.Though atonal composers like Webern employed more tonalities per composotoion .


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## blackless

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I thought Schoenberg used the term "pantonal," ie. the synthesis of all tonalities?


Yes. Not sure that the term multitonal is much different though.


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## mmsbls

For better or worse the term "atonal" has stuck as the definition of music that in general does not have a tonal center. The definition (or really any possible definition) is somewhat vague and does not easily split all music into two distinct groups - atonal and tonal. What's important to the general listening audience is not whether the music can be classified as using many tonalities but how the use of those tonalities sounds to them. 

The vast majority of pre-20th century music spends enough time in one tonality that listeners "hear" the tonal center. As classical music moved away from clearly tonal, more and more listeners have trouble "making sense" of what they hear. At some point the music spends too little time in a given tonality so that the majority (or maybe overwhelming majority) cannot process it as tonal. Where that change occurs psychologically will vary from person to person so the definition becomes vague. At this point the question becomes "Do people enjoy that lack of tonal center?" Some people do and others do not. 

It also appears that spending time listening to music that has much less of this tonal center can change people's appreciation/enjoyment/understanding of atonal music. Unfortunately, based on reading the many threads on TC and discussions with those who both like and dislike atonal music, this process of coming to "understand" atonal music appears rather poorly understood.


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## Polednice

^^^^^ Good common sense points. Invalidating the use of a label does not invalidate the feelings people have in response to the thing they're labelling incorrectly.


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## Manok

I dunno but some of it is fun to play. .


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## Vaneyes

To shake things up.


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## blackless

mmsbls said:


> For better or worse the term "atonal" has stuck as the definition of music that in general does not have a tonal center. The definition (or really any possible definition) is somewhat vague and does not easily split all music into two distinct groups - atonal and tonal. What's important to the general listening audience is not whether the music can be classified as using many tonalities but how the use of those tonalities sounds to them.
> 
> The vast majority of pre-20th century music spends enough time in one tonality that listeners "hear" the tonal center. As classical music moved away from clearly tonal, more and more listeners have trouble "making sense" of what they hear. At some point the music spends too little time in a given tonality so that the majority (or maybe overwhelming majority) cannot process it as tonal. Where that change occurs psychologically will vary from person to person so the definition becomes vague. At this point the question becomes "Do people enjoy that lack of tonal center?" Some people do and others do not.
> 
> It also appears that spending time listening to music that has much less of this tonal center can change people's appreciation/enjoyment/understanding of atonal music. Unfortunately, based on reading the many threads on TC and discussions with those who both like and dislike atonal music, this process of coming to "understand" atonal music appears rather poorly understood.


Totally agree. Though I think some music such as harsh noise or Xenakis' Persepolis can be defined as purely atonal, because tonality and succession on pitches means nothing in such music. The key parameter is timbre.


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## PetrB

First, to the 'write music without emotional content' comment, the response: Berg ~ Violin Concerto and 'rest my case.'

Dodecaphonic music, at least the 'Vienna School' genre, is merely another scale from which one builds lines (it is essentially polyphonic by nature) which make up consequential harmony. Other than its assumed pitch content (12 or a few less if it is serial but not dodecaphonic), it is no more or less the same game as diatonic music, with one large-ish exception. Originally, and to be called atonal (a horrible misnomer which stuck) the game was to assiduously avoid any I-V or I-IV relationship.

Just another scale in which to compose, then. Within that style, some composers were lyric, expressive, and others desired a more disjunct style, which came directly from tonal (German) Expressionism.

The diatonic scale has greater and lesser composers, the scale not making those composers more or less interesting or expressive, but it is that the composers themselves are more or less adept.

There is no other point, really, except the very natural progression of western classical music history of first singing only in unison, then the addition of the fifth, fourth, sixth, third, second, seventh etc. had finally taken its next step in a progression some might call 'natural' or, God forgive them even more than for 'natural' - 'organic.'

About 'what is natural:' All "tonality," our scale system(s), the tuning system(s) thereof, the notion of any kind of 'leading tone' and all the rest are mere Conceits everyone has agreed upon. (This is akin to everyone agreeing that paper currency has value.)

The 'rules' were broken first by the man credited with first organizing the system. His pupil, Berg, made his own use of the 'method' often combining several different rows in a polyphony that make some harmonies based on very recognizable "old fashioned" chords. That violin concerto has a tone row (scale) so set up as to yield some very common practice triads.

When Stravinsky got around to using it, he doubled pitches and used octaves here and there, completely 'against' the first-wave set of premises.

This thumbnail sketch of music's progression through the ages is analogous to any precedent change of regime, invention, expansion of music any where along the line from prior common practice harmony, say, from Guillaume de Machaut, through to the late romantic composers.

A delicious irony has it that if Wagner had not penned the opening bars of Tristan as he had, the later ultimate chromaticism of late romantic music 'might not have been' and then Schoenberg would not have thought of a way of ordering what had become a rather slurpy if not sloppy use of all twelve chromatic scale members into a systematic style of composing.

The Berg violin concerto, apart from being considered by many as one of THE top three pieces in that genre of the literature, is also a pinnacle of late Germanic (o.k. Austrian) romanticism.

Lyricism and 'emotional expression' abounds in the serial music of some composers:
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luciano Berio ~ Concertino, a charming early work from the maestro, serial and neoclassical




Henri Dutilleux
Takashi Yoshimatsu when he was using the scale - Threnody to Toki





There are plenty more.
This small representative sampler should be enough to demonstrate through the works themselves that 'atonal' music is not mechanical or less expressive, nor does it make all composers write the same or better, or worse, than does / did diatonic music.

The point, then: It is just another way to write, accommodate a desired chromaticism which has been desired and constantly in use since before Wagner -- though Wagner is definitely a flagrant milestone in the departure from tonality - and in an ongoing continuum of later composers. Past its first systemization it was immediately manipulated and its use altered to suit the particular wants and desires of each composer who chose to use it, just as diatonic music has been used and altered by legions of composer past to present.

So much of anyone's reaction to any of the arts from any era is determined (almost predetermined) by our semiotic boundaries, or in the matter of music the bound conventions of our individual listening habits. I emphasize 'Habit' because almost all people know a habit, even if we desire to undo it and leave it behind us, is a very difficult ingrained pattern to break.

I would think that if any member of this forum were alive in 1605, and were accustomed to only the prior several hundred years of classical music literature up to that date, to then be sat down in a concert hall and be presented with Beethoven's Triple Concerto of 1805, the listener would be at sea from the moment they heard that modern oboe tuning to a noticeably different A, heard the modern orchestra, its instruments, the intonation, and the piece itself: they would find it a senseless cacophony, shapeless, devoid of meaning, expression, and yes... 'atonal.'

Many an ardent listener of classical music, and none few musicians, have a listening habit which essentially stops in the time line of the continuum of music and its inevitable change from composer to composer over the generations, somewhere in the arena of both harmony and general musical procedures of the common practice era. Charles Ives' "Unanswered Question" was first drafted 103 years ago; Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps -- which still elicits ripples of uneasy laughter in numbers of freshman college music majors when they are first exposed to it -- will turn 100 years old next year, Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire will turn 101. In 2013, those three works, two of which already are, will all be certifiable antiques.

Listening habits.

Best regards.


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## PetrB

Polednice said:


> I'm with all the musical conservatives on this one.
> 
> The most important distinction for me is that tonal music was never consciously tonal....


Bzzzz. Wrong! 
Modality, over hundreds of years, 'turned on a dime' from modal polyphony to tonal homophony by Claudio Monteverdi, o.a. Thus, an old convention, hundreds of years of it, was turned its ear for 'tonality.'

There is nothing 'natural' about any of this.


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## PetrB

Argus said:


> Err, most tonal music is rubbish, so why should atonal music be any different?
> 
> Like any kind of music there is stuff I like and stuff I don't. I can say I don't like most Rihm or Lachenmann but similarly I don't like most Wagner or Haydn. I'm not a fan of the kind of music most serialists produce, I can safely say that, but I also dislike opera and the majority of opera is tonal. _There's more to music than just the vertical organisation of the sounds._
> 
> Another gripe I have is lots of peoples conception that 'tonality' is a singular system. It is not only the old diatonic method but any system where pitch is organised and related around a single tone. There are composers who are still making a tonal kind of music, it's just that it isn't the readily recognisable major/minor type that people are used to.
> 
> So basically the point of atonal music is the same as the point of tonal music; the composer creates what he likes.


Brief and brilliant. Thank You.


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## Polednice

I briefly mentioned somewhere in this thread that it is wrong to equivocate tonal and atonal systems as merely alternative approaches, as neuroscience studies have shown reliably (contrary to some guy's intuitive denial without reading the studies) that human brains use a statistical learning mechanism, as with language, to recognise and appreciate music. In relation to pitch, this requires a tonal system. This does NOT mean 12-tone common practice tonality - "tonality" is a very broad term which covers much of the world's music - but it does exclude pure serialism.


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## Guest

I feel like I should let PetrB handle this one, especially after that brilliant historical survey. Wow!!

But maybe I can contribute my mite, here, especially since Poled has targetted me in his post.

I have read several neuroscience studies. By no means all. The ones I have read have all had the same methodological problems, that they use only people with very little exposure to or experience with sophisticated music, that the researchers themselves have very little exposure to or experience with sophisticated music, that only the simplest patterns are used in these studies (not even music, just some simple building blocks), and nowhere does anyone ever define "music." It is clear as one reads through the studies, what the researchers are assuming "music" to be--and a very rudimentary thing that is, to be sure--but no actual, explicit definitions.

I have corresponded with a neuroscientic who has done some of these studies, and who agrees that all of the above points are true, and who candidly admits that neuroscientists are at the very beginning of their studies with how the brain processes music, and that the results so far are very limited and very tentative.

In any case, all you have to do is find a human who enjoys and understands and maybe even craves serial music. Well, there are thousands of people like that. So we just ignore _that_ evidence? In favor of what? Some other evidence derived from examining responses by people who _don't_ like serialism? Now there's some scientific impartiality for ya!:lol:


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## Polednice

I won't bother responding on a point by point basis, as evidence rarely trumps ideology. I will point out, however, that I made no value judgements. I put forward a biological claim which I, at least, feel has substantial evidence backing it (with studies done in such a manner as to avoid the above complaints). It says nothing of what is good or bad, only what is.


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## PetrB

Polednice said:


> I briefly mentioned somewhere in this thread that it is wrong to equivocate tonal and atonal systems as merely alternative approaches, as neuroscience studies have shown reliably (contrary to some guy's intuitive denial without reading the studies) that human brains use a statistical learning mechanism, as with language, to recognise and appreciate music. In relation to pitch, this requires a tonal system. This does NOT mean 12-tone common practice tonality - "tonality" is a very broad term which covers much of the world's music - but it does exclude pure serialism.


Did the neuroscientists take into account the 'innateness' of that tonality hard-wired into the brain? That brain having became hard-wired through repeated exposure passed down through generations, or consider they were talking merely of a conventionally accepted limited vocabulary which had not been expanded where it could have been?

I think the neuroscientists need to consult with some one like Dr. Sachs, psychiatrist and neurologist and discuss a bit more as to what becomes 'normal' or natural seeming after three to five generations of learning and practice. It is known that learning actually hard-wires your brain into new configuration, that repetition makes it permanent, and that enough of that over generations changes what is possible or considered status quo in how and what we think. It may be good to look into that. Of course this little argument could be as biased by personal desire to color pro-atonal as yours might be to favor tonal, even try to claim it 'is organic.'

Besides, we're talking art here, not science.


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## Polednice

PetrB said:


> Did the neuroscientists take into account the 'innateness' of that tonality hard-wired into the brain, which became hard-wired through repeated exposure passed down through generations, or consider they were talking merely of conventionally accepted limitation of vocabulary which had not yet been learned. I think the neuroscientists need to consult with some one like Dr. Sachs, pschiatrist and neurologist and discuss a bit more as to what becomes 'normal' or natural seeming after three to five generations of practice and learning before you trot out this little bit of evidence in favor of your side.


You haven't quite dealt the ace you think you had, because the neuroscientists controlled for cultural exposure by using tonal systems that the participants had never heard before in their lives. The statistical learning mechanism was demonstrated by familiarity with very unfamiliar music developing over a short period of time - something not possible with atonal music. So maybe you might want to refrain from making snide remarks and drawing naive conclusions without having even consulted the evidence just because you want your precious ideology to remain intact.



PetrB said:


> Besides, we're talking art here, not science.


What a silly statement. Art is a product of the brain.


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## mmsbls

@Polednice, some guy: Could you post links (or references) to the papers that discuss the neuroscience of music appreciation? I think there might have been a link in another thread, but I'm not sure where that was.


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## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> @Polednice, some guy: Could you post links (or references) to the papers that discuss the neuroscience of music appreciation? I think there might have been a link in another thread, but I'm not sure where that was.


Are there any particular questions or areas you're most interested in? I have a few bibliographies that I can dig around in for the best articles. I'll suggest a number of journals for those with institutional subscriptions to browse as well (will do that when I'm back on my computer).


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## Argus

PetrB said:


> Besides, we're talking art here, not science.





Polednice said:


> What a silly statement. Art is a product of the brain.


Exactly. The brain (therefore art) is ultimately intangible and inexplicable, hence why fields like metaphysics exist as well as 'regular' physics. Science has it's uses in the creation of art, but using it to analyse or explain the reasons behind a persons perception of art seems pretty futile. Add to that the problem that art itself is a strange notion to define and the chances of comprehending what's going on reduce to nil.

As has been said, people like all kinds of music from near pure noise to near total silence and everything inbetween. Is it necessary to ask 'why'?


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## mmsbls

I guess specifically the papers that dealt with atonal/tonal music. Ones that would be related to the one you posted:

Loui, Wessel, and Kam: ‘Humans rapidly learn grammatical structure in a new musical scale’ in Music Perception 27 (June 2010), 377-88.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Exactly. The brain (therefore art) is ultimately intangible and inexplicable, hence why fields like metaphysics exist as well as 'regular' physics. Science has it's uses in the creation of art, but using it to analyse or explain the reasons behind a persons perception of art seems pretty futile. Add to that the problem that art itself is a strange notion to define and the chances of comprehending what's going on reduce to nil.
> 
> As has been said, people like all kinds of music from near pure noise to near total silence and everything inbetween. Is it necessary to ask 'why'?


Yeah, because the brain is made of fairy dust. Way to kill humankind's curiosity with that last sentence, too.

I'll get back to you soon mmsbls!


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> evidence rarely trumps ideology.


You have said a true word, here, for sure.


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## violadude

Did this thread realllyyyy get revived??


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## Sid James

violadude said:


> Did this thread realllyyyy get revived??


Well as Ray Charles sang in one of his songs, "you can't keep a good man down." Or a good topic (even if it's really BAD)...


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## MrCello

Instead of searching through 49 pages of posts, can anyone give me a list of some good "atonal" composers to check out?


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## violadude

MrCello said:


> Instead of searching through 49 pages of posts, can anyone give me a list of some good "atonal" composers to check out?


It depends on what you consider good. What have you tried? And what did you dislike? or like?


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## PetrB

Polednice said:


> ...if you want to appeal to the largest audience possible (which, for me at least, is a very important attribute of 'good' art)...


Squawk! Sputter! zOMG!

If, for one moment, any maker of anything in the fine arts makes something not first for their own satisfaction, what they want to hear and find interesting, then the audience is in trouble - they have been second-guessed as to what pleases, or one way or another 'reductive-assessed' and then, further, condescended toward.

I can virtually guarantee you though the older common practice composers, especially up through Beethoven, were under obligation to a patron or employer such as the church, those patrons and employers were cultivated to a degree far more than the general populace.

Within that context, the composers whose work is now popular with the public at large (which is still a minority compared to the public consuming current 'popular' entertainment - something else entirely) were still hired to write 'as they did' and pretty much as the wanted.

You may have been thinking of that antique music which now appeals to a large audience. That is another context, wherein those composers were not thinking of us as their public. Beethoven began to lose fans in droves as he became increasingly deaf, and I am convinced that is the same time he became more 'interior' and was only writing for himself. That those works are now popular monuments for a wide public is a demonstration that it took quite some time for that abstract material to become commonly popular. Though it was well received by many at the premiere, there were also enough people, including learned composers and critics, who thought Beethoven's 7th symphony was sheer 'cacophony,' and said that Beethoven had finally parted with the last shreds of sanity. Now, it is a popular work: it should never be thought that Beethoven sat down to write it with the intention of being a populist composer.

As you put it, it could be understood as the 20th century commercially motivated tenet in order to sell a product, which could be a tennis shoe. This public relations machinery, and its lack of discernment, is now responsible for a lowered standard in concert performance, and those performers so promoted, and has also made the general public think their opinion has the same weight in affairs of art as do the opinions of artists and professional critics, who have had a dedicated lifetime studying and practicing the craft.

What you said is more appropriate to the marketing of a running shoe than art.

Composers write what they want to hear - commission or not, why else write it? There are limitations on commissions, the length of the piece, the number of performers and their technical capacity - but nowhere, other than a superficial glance at hoping something might be popular - is the desire to so broadly appeal at the fore in the minds of those who make fine art. That would mean writing to the lowest common denominator, a formula for disaster when it comes to quality of fine art.

A "lesser" German composer whose name and whose dates I've forgotten -- somewhere in the 1940's I think -- wrote to his nephew (and this is what I do remember accurately...)

"I have finished my symphony. I hope to God they like it because it is how I can write."

There have been some genuinely populist composers where intent and sincerity are one and the same: two who come to mind are Aaron Copland and John Adams. Adams, of late, has also gone 'ahead' in his vocabulary, and in so doing has left behind some of his fans of the earlier work.

One of the most appalling examples of condescending populism and a lowered standard is composer Lodovico Einaudi: he was a pupil of Luciano Berio. One does not get accepted as a pupil with the likes of a Berio on the strengths of a portfolio containing what Einaudi now composes, a deft and facile instrumental pop music. That means he was formerly pursuant of a much more rarefied 'art music' and somewhere along the way, post studies with a 20th century master composer, completely sold out and determined to write the most insignificant non-art popular drivel, kaa-ching, kaa-ching $$$.

What you stated is most apt for the cynical team of professional song writers who collectively carefully calculate a range where all the public can sing along, a catchy melodic line, a lyric written only after a careful demographic study shows what moves or titillates tween females and males, and then proceed to pen another hit for Britney Spears. Or it is perfect for Mr. Einaudi.

I'm hoping that is not what you meant


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> ...people like all kinds of music from near pure noise ...Is it necessary to ask 'why'?


Only to question their sanity.

Do we question why paedophiles have a sexual interest in children?


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## violadude

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Only to question their sanity.
> 
> Do we question why paedophiles have a sexual interest in children?


Are you really comparing people who like noise based music to paedophiles?....


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## HarpsichordConcerto

violadude said:


> Are you really comparing people who like noise based music to paedophiles?....


Don't be silly. Of course not.


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## PetrB

mmsbls said:


> ...the 1800's when the percentage of music by dead composers played in concerts in Paris rose to 94% by 1870. /// Is it likely that the general difficulty (complexity) of atonal music is too serious a barrier for the _average_ listener?


1.) The 1800's was the era of a burgeoning bourgeois audience, working and middle class, who had the NEW opportunity to experience in NEW and never before available public venues, live classical music. Of course there would be an interest in 'catching up' on all those predeceased composers. There were no radios, CD's etc. where that generation were already (over) saturated with so many performances of a composer's work that they were familiar with it. I'm certain many here have already listened to the Beethoven Symphonies more times than they were collectively performed in his lifetime.

Management, especially in an era pre copyright law, quickly realized if they programmed the dead composers that they could pocket the funds that were otherwise paid a living composer. Handy, that.

2.) Since when have any, or most, composers ever had an eye to the ears of the average listener?


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## PetrB

Polednice said:


> .... What a silly statement. Art is a product of the brain.


Yes, of course the brain does run just everything. But it seems to me you are hammering away in this discussion in clinging to this one particular science to legitimize your marked preference and listening habits in preference for tonal music, which needs no 'legitimizing' nor apologetic explanation.

If I wanted to jape a bit, and I do, I would retort that art is a product of the right hemisphere, science the left. (You know, the right hemisphere, the intuitive side with its much more vague and less 'precise' function, exactly the sort of thing science likes to avoid because it cannot so readily be quantified ;-)

I often wonder in the midst of such a flurry over a few additional pitches tossed into a piece why the discussion should be so polarized between supposed 'Tonalists and Atonalists.'

That science, though, was applied to a group of laymen as subjects of the study, not musicians, but laymen -- who never were, past or present, at the helm of classical music (vs. those trained in and composing and playing it) and laymen, to add to the error, who were not even fundamentally into classical music to begin with. Their semiotic reference banks probably filled with pop music, a melody with text and a few chords underneath -- it would be interesting and important to know the listening habits of that group of subjects, certainly. Where was the control group of classical musicians and composers amid all this study?

To not think to examine the neurological responses of both classical musicians and classical composers when doing such a study is sillier an oversight than any dismissal of the science I may have made.

Those kinds of studies are often cited in arguments that 'tonality is organic to man's hearing' and similarly could also be used to justify, for example, just intonation over equal temperament, or even 'prove' that the pentatonic scale is more organic and superior to the western diatonic scale and its chromatic colorings, our composite twelve pitch scale. It is all just too fallible to consider allowing it into the discussion of why some people see nothing in atonal music.

There are many classical music fans who each have various 'cut-off' lines' of one or another development of historic musical vocabulary past which they will not and do not care to consume the later music.

Since 'we' have long ago accepted the use of a twelve pitch scale, and since we started out with unisons, with fifths when introduced considered 'wildly dissonant,' there should be no flap about the scale, over historic time, coming to have all twelve of its pitches used. Some people are horribly uncomfortable with the tonal but highly chromatic (ultra chromatic) use of it ala Richard Strauss or Schoenberg's 'Verklärte Nacht.'

Now why is there not some neurological study made on people regarding that ultra-chromatic late romantic vocabulary vs. those used to listening to pop music. I wonder if the scientists even knew the fundamental definition of atonal = avoidance of !-V and I-IV, and that there is plenty of atonal music which is neither serial or dodecaphonic? This is the kind of arena where scientists, vs many a musician's considerations of 'the problem,' seem to be in epic oversight / fail mode, and makes the studies more than easy for musicians to dismiss as wholly off the mark and completely inconclusive of what the scientists had set out to discover or define.

My wonderment is why anyone needs to pull neurological studies into a discussion of any music, just to shore up what racks up, really, to a mere personal preference, and when there is no real need to rationalize or apologetically 'excuse' that preference. (Why should any have to apologize for their tastes?)

So what if you don't care to listen to, or 'do not get' atonal music - unless you are anxious that you may be missing out on something, and since you were good enough to give it a chance and it didn't take, that only confirms your tastes or personal limit, and only up to this moment. As we speak and ongoing from 1890 with Debussy, the first modern but never 'atonal' composer, tonality has remained in use, composers generating fresh music in fresh forms using that vocabulary. I do not prefer one over the other.

I already had that outlook which could fully appreciated this definition of tonality when I heard my composition teacher say, "A piece is tonal if it works."


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## PetrB

Originally Posted by Argus
...people like all kinds of music from near pure noise ...Is it necessary to ask 'why'?



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Only to question their sanity.


The fundamental definition of music is organized sound, that is all, no mention of tonality, definite or indefinite pitch or all the rest. Do we check you in for an assessment of your sanity or for a dipstick check-up for failing memory? ;-)


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## Polednice

PetrB, I don't want to get too deep into it because I have at other times, but there is a fundamental difference between writing with the audience in mind, and being populist (I, too, berate Einaudi, by the way!). I am always suspicious of people who compose for themselves, and those who say the artist must put their own tastes first. To me, that is pretentious. It is suggestive of the artist as of greater intellect, which is simply not true. All arts are _social_. The function of art is one of engagement, exchange, and education. To consider only one's own inner world without regard to potential recipients is selfish. I am _not_ saying that artists must therefore find the lowest common denominator in order to make a few quid - of course they should still try to be original if that's what they want, and push the audience with difficult new ideas, but it is the audience that sustains art, so the audience must not be disdained for their tastes as we see so often.



PetrB said:


> Yes, of course the brain does run just everything. But it seems to me you are hammering away in this discussion in clinging to this one particular science to legitimize your marked preference and listening habits in preference for tonal music, which needs no 'legitimizing' nor apologetic explanation.


Please note my above comments in response to some guy on this. Let me state it once again, emphatically: _I am not using science to claim what music *ought* to be; only how the brain perceives it._ I, personally, do not like atonal music, but I am not using science to legitimise that preference. I don't care if other people like atonal music. I am NOT saying atonal music is bad, only _different_ for neurological reasons. _To me and my aesthetic_, those neurological reasons push me away from atonal music as a successful medium, but if it fits with someone else's aesthetic, then so what?! I honestly do not care one bit. I care only about the facts and evidence, and would never use it to support an ideology, which is why I avoided value judgements in my earlier post. Do me the service, please, of not thinking that I am trying to support my personal tastes in such a dubious manner.

I'm not going to take my time to explain the research studies because they have been continually misrepresented here _before anyone has even bothered to read them_ (I'll post a bibliography in a little while). What disappointing bias. Read them first and then criticise; to do the reverse is to display nothing but ideological prejudice, and gives me little reason to think that my explanations would be worthwhile. I have also tried to expound just how broad the word "tonality" is as a term, but no one is willing to hear me because they are intent on painting me as someone who thinks composers ought to sound like Brahms for the rest of time. In fact, "tonality" allows all kinds of scales and systems never before heard, with totally new sounds to be created, that I for one would love to see explored. Similarly, the word "atonal" is extremely narrow, with people thinking that it refers to much more 20th and 21st century music than it really does. I am only criticising the very narrow definition, not non-tonality, poly-tonality, or other kinds. But if anyone dares to question the validity of atonal music, they're immediately considered a philistine.


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## PetrB

Right now, as the embers are fanned, flames burst forth, and the ensuing ashes and sparks from this virtual discussion on tonality, atonality and chromaticism eddy in the virtual ether, in actual schools and in actual private lessons throughout Europe and in a few isolated instances in America, children, high school students, and conservatory students in instrumental lessons and in solfege classes are being taught to identify and readily and accurately sing quarter -tones.

It seems they are catching on quite readily, for the most part.

Uh, oh....


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> Yeah, because the brain is made of fairy dust. Way to kill humankind's curiosity with that last sentence, too.


Why do you need 'science' to justify your musical preferences?



> But if anyone dares to question the validity of atonal music, they're immediately considered a philistine


If anyone questions the validity of any kind of music I consider them, at best, misguided.


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## Cnote11

I'm not sure if this has been posted yet, but I read this article the other month, titled "Audiences flock to 'difficult' contemporary classical music"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jan/30/contemporary-classical-music-finds-audience


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## Philip

I haven't really been following this thread, i guess i'm gonna have to read all 50 pages to get up to date......................................... NOT


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Exactly. The brain (therefore art) is ultimately intangible and inexplicable, hence why fields like metaphysics exist as well as 'regular' physics.


The brain is certainly not intangible. Neuroscientists have been working with the brain for many decades measuring connectivity of neurons, response to stimuli, and mapping neural functions. There is, remarkably, a beginning understanding of how the visual cortex receives and processes information. Recently neuroscientists discovered the mirror network of neurons, and work is now proceeding to understand it's effect on empathy and other aspects of social cognition. It's a start, and much more will follow.



Argus said:


> Science has it's uses in the creation of art, but using it to analyse or explain the reasons behind a persons perception of art seems pretty futile. Add to that the problem that art itself is a strange notion to define and the chances of comprehending what's going on reduce to nil.


You are infinitely less optimistic about our ability to understand the brain than I. I see no clear impediment to eventually understanding how the brain works as well as we understand how a car works. It may take hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years, but in the past humans have come to understand parts of physical reality that were previously considered hopeless.



Argus said:


> As has been said, people like all kinds of music from near pure noise to near total silence and everything inbetween. Is it necessary to ask 'why'?


The simple answer is "yes". Scientists have a profound curiosity that essentially demands that they ask "Why?". You are not so interested in understanding phenomena such as brain response to music, but I am constantly asking questions related to how the brain appreciates music. I find it fascinating, and I'm sure I will never stop questioning this and other aspects of reality.


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## mmsbls

In response to: Is it likely that the general difficulty (complexity) of atonal music is too serious a barrier for the average listener?



PetrB said:


> 2.) Since when have any, or most, composers ever had an eye to the ears of the average listener?


First, thanks for bumping this thread. For me, the thread has been one of the most informative and interesting threads on TC.

My understanding is that the Classical Era was an attempt to produce music for the common listener, but my question (above) has nothing to do with whether composers do, in fact, compose for the average listener. I assume the overwhelming majority in CM do not.

Physics used be discussed by the average educated person (back when relatively few people were educated). Over time the complexity of physics has increased such that few educated people today can understand even modest details of modern physics. Along these lines, my question relates more to whether music has changed, or could in the future change, such that the average listener _cannot_ appreciate it as listeners did hundreds of years ago. I hope the answer turns out to be that listeners might not _understand_ it in a music theory sense, but that they can learn to appreciate it.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Why do you need 'science' to justify your musical preferences?


I don't. Nobody does. Nobody has suggested this. Nobody has tried to do this.


Argus said:


> If anyone questions the validity of any kind of music I consider them, at best, misguided.


Well then I suppose every composer who has ever had an aesthetic ideal is misguided.


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## Argus

To mmsbls: Sorry, there's been a misunderstanding, when I said the brain I meant the mind.

I disagree with you. There are some things we will never be able to understand and there many things I am glad we will never be able to understand.

Philosophy still exists for a reason; science cannot explain everything.



Polednice said:


> I don't. Nobody does. Nobody has suggested this. Nobody has tried to do this.
> 
> Well then I suppose every composer who has ever had an aesthetic ideal is misguided.


1. Why did you mention the scientific/physiological basis for tonality then?

2. No. Every composer who thinks there exists music that isn't valid is misguided.


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## PetrB

I will admit to very little interest in the science in general, and you are right that I am wholly predisposed to not care what it finds one bit.

I do readily agree with you on a great deal of what you say, and am happy to find that you are not needing to 'support your taste' with any backup. You used, to me, the most necessary word of all, too often avoided in these various threads because it is so empirical and personal, "Aesthetic." Yeah, a very slurpy, slippery and not easily slotted quality.

I agree with you about the idea, at least of a 'selfish' artist, but have to qualify how you framed that, since I think there are barely any really 'selfish' artists. I do not think for a New York second that any person is not part of their time, place or culture: in fact, other than being a complete disassociative and antisocial in the extreme, it is near impossible to be other than part of your time. Since I assume anyone is part of their society and time, I also assume a composer writing for himself is not an alien, so without needing to think at all 'who am I writing for' they are, de facto, writing for others, period. How many of those others will like what the composer has made is another matter. Franky, I think it would be detrimental to what the composer can produce for the composer to think of that at all. Second guesses, ironing out the creases and wrinkles thinking this might not be liked, that might not be popular - not the way for anyone making any art to go.

The first-tier audience for a new piece of music is the performers who play it. If I were to think of anything at all, it would be to hope the performers would find the music and their part in it engaging enough they feel the part played was a necessary contribution to the whole. (That is an ideal, and is said by performer musicians of both Mozart and Debussy, no matter how much or how little they are required to play, they feel the work would miss something essential without their part.) 

If a composer cannot engage the musicians so they feel enthusiastic about what they play, what the hell chance is that work going to have with the second tier audience, the public? 

There is a phenomenon, especially post 1950's, of some academic communities having become such an insular and highly ingrown group-think set, and that has at times not well-served all of those who passed through academe or those who remain in it. (This is much different from the perhaps claques of cognoscenti in the time of Mozart or Beethoven.) I do believe those so stuck in that esoteric group-think atmosphere need to at least open a window of the building once in a while, if not flat-out "just get our more." It becomes a ghetto, and any kind of ghetto is innately dangerous. (Twenty experts working together twenty days make twenty mistakes they all manage to overlook - that an actual stat from somewhere.) They have some, but not great influence, on what gets played outside academe.

Much academic music schooling (in the United States anyway): 
with all there is to cover - another 120 years since Debussy first become 'noteworthy' - and all the other required studies and prep -- since the 1980's also including general education courses (ca. 60% of undergrad credits - prior that era conservatories were where you exclusively studied music, still the case in Europe) -- music schools do not have the time or allow for any course where aesthetics are either defined or discussed. If one is lucky, a private instrumental or composition teacher may make mention of them. Perhaps - but again only perhaps, it comes up in grad school, where a teacher holds a seminar type class for their comp students.

Aesthetics, never concrete, always context variable, also as prone to fashion as superficially as is fashion itself, are nonetheless an essential for both maker and audience to be aware of. Without, there is not enough music theory on Earth for a composer to fully determine the fundamental nature of the work, or 'what kind of piece is this,' or anyone to really assess the worth of a piece when completed. 

Tonality does include the myriad of possibility you stated and allows a wide range of even alarmingly different ways of going about music: No more less and no more limited, so does atonality.

I have been fortunate, even within academia, to not find those who preferred atonality were not the sort to instantly call out those who did not as philistine. It is now getting tedious to keep pulling this drawer open, but, outside of a few narrow-minded and zealous academics and professionals, that philistine insult you mention is primarily the kind of thing the dilettante consumer not doer of music -- bandies about. Of course it is to elevates the "legitimacy of their musical superiority" -- it is a form of both real bullying and complete snobbery. You think it is bad within the classical community, try observing the behavior between some of the pop fans and their nit-picking discussions on precisely which sub genre is the definition of one type of music, or how completely brutal those in one fan club of one specific genre are to those outside of the club. They generally win that prize hands down.

An art teacher friend of mine tells her freshman students there are hundreds --and more still - ways to draw, and that ALL of them are correct. She then points out the student may want to know as many as they can, and eventually without adhering to any one of them, have the wherewithal to draw as suits their personal needs, even if it is not in any one of those ways they learned in academe. 

It is a shame both student and amateur listener does not have tonality and atonality presented to them in a similar manner. I believe the lesser presentations, perhaps 'with agenda attached,' are responsible not only for mass misunderstanding but are also responsible for the building of a rigid wall between adherents of either manner, and that also makes for a polarized divisiveness, difficult to penetrate or undo.

Look through this thread. One person casually includes Bartok and Stravinsky as being 'atonal' (and I doubt they were thinking of Stravinsky's last phase of serialism, but more likely have in mind Le Sacre du Printemps -- which I have many times elsewhere heard called 'atonal.') I read in another place, an earnest amateur fan who has studied both piano and music more than a bit call Prokofiev 'atonal.' It makes me wonder how many, outside of the fully trained, even know what tonality is, or if they could define it, with or without too many theoretic terms :-(


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> 1. Why did you mention the scientific/physiological basis for tonality then?


For two reasons: 1) because I find it interesting; 2) because PetrB claimed that atonality is an equivalent alternative to tonality, which is incorrect for neurological reasons. As I have stressed multiple times, this does not mean that it is better or worse, only that it is different, and recognising this difference may well lead to a greater understanding of why audiences find it so off-putting without recourse to calling the audience dumb or unadventurous.



Argus said:


> 2. No. Every composer who thinks there exists music that isn't valid is misguided.


That's still a lot of composers. Perhaps you're just unaware of the vast discourse there is on aesthetics with various artists promoting their own aesthetics as the best possible art while criticising others. Of course no one claims _objective_ validity, but that doesn't mean validity is closed for discussion, and I think many artists throughout history would have been creatively stunted if they did not entertain the idea that some forms of art are better than others.


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## Polednice

Except for our divergent enthusiasm for science, I think I agree with you on the bulk of your last post, PetrB! :tiphat:


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> That's still a lot of composers. Perhaps you're just unaware of the vast discourse there is on aesthetics with various artists promoting their own aesthetics as the best possible art while criticising others. Of course no one claims _objective_ validity, but that doesn't mean validity is closed for discussion, and I think many artists throughout history would have been creatively stunted if they did not entertain the idea that some forms of art are better than others.


Is there any kind of music that you don't believe to be valid?


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## Guest

Music is enjoyable. All music.

Not every single person enjoys every single type of music, of course. But every single type of music is enjoyed by someone, somewhere.

So if there are people who enjoy noise music, then noise music is accessible by human neural networks. If there are people who enjoy Boulez or Babbitt, then the music of Boulez or Babbitt is accessible by human neural networks.

To say that PetrB is incorrect, for neurological reasons, in describing tonality and atonality as alternate systems is to ignore the evidence (which Polednice acknowledges) that some people do indeed like "atonal" music. Sounds like a bit of having one's cake and eating it, too, to me.

In any event, what is still bedevilling this discussion is the ready acceptance that "atonal" actually means something, actually points to a particular type of music. It does not. In most of its usages in these discussions, atonal is just a handy generality for identifying whatever music the person using it doesn't like. That's how Stravinsky and Bartok and Prokofiev get tarred with the "atonal" brush. Because that's exactly what it is. A tar brush. A thing for denigration and disapprobation and calumny. 

If fifty pages ago, we had all been able to agree that there simply is no such thing as "atonal music," as Schoenberg pointed out a hundred years ago, and had been successful in talking about specific pieces, this would have been a very different discussion!!

And if there really is no such thing as "atonal music," then neither neuroscience nor musicology can have anything sensible to say about it.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Is there any kind of music that you don't believe to be valid?


On a personal aesthetic level, yes. Absolutely, no.


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## Polednice

some guy said:


> Music is enjoyable. All music.
> 
> Yadda yadda.


Sweet Jesus! Save me from the tirades against thoughts and positions that no one has or defends.


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> On a personal aesthetic level, yes. Absolutely, no.


Can you explain the difference between your personal aesthetic level and an absolute level?

Also, can you list some music you don't consider valid on your own personal aesthetic level?


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> Can you explain the difference between your personal aesthetic level and an absolute level?
> 
> Also, can you list some music you don't consider valid on your own personal aesthetic level?


Argus, you are using a philosophical argument to suggest that the study of the human brain cannot possibly be achieved in order to understand how it registers and appreciates music. Oh, sorry, you meant the human mind - nice tack. But instead of getting into philosophical arguments, we're not dumb enough to follow your real agenda which is to valid your idea that there is no need ask "why we enjoy certain types of music" as you already wrote above. Go ahead and believe in what you think, along with your musical compatriot, _some guy_.


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## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Argus, you are using a philosophical argument to suggest that the study of the human brain cannot possibly be achieved in order to understand how it registers and appreciates music. Oh, sorry, you meant the human mind - nice tack. But instead of getting into philosophical arguments, we're not dumb enough to follow your real agenda which is to valid your idea that there is no need ask "why we enjoy certain types of music" as you already wrote above. Go ahead and believe in what you think, along with your musical compatriot, _some guy_.


In what respect is some guy my musical compatriot? We both have quite different tastes in music. We just happen to agree a lot about the nature of music and useful attitudes in listening to it.

The agenda behind my last few posts is to find out why Polednice thinks about music the way he does.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> Can you explain the difference between your personal aesthetic level and an absolute level?


The difference is that a personal aesthetic is about what _I_ think good art is, what I would create it to be, and what I appreciate when I come across it. My aesthetic is founded on a number of reasons, but not in such a manner that it can be "proven" to be superior to others (to take some extreme examples, one person might hold that the best music is the most commercially successful, therefore Lady Gaga is good and Scarlatti is bad, while another person might hold that the best music is the most challenging, therefore Ferneyhough is good and Rihanna is bad. Neither position is right or wrong, but _within_ each aesthetic, certain things _do_ become right and wrong. I think this is why these topics breed so much confusion, because it is unclear whether people are talking in the context of personal ideals, or claiming absolute knowledge).

An absolute level would be to say that a certain type of art could be empirically proven as inferior, which is just nonsensical as I'm sure you'd agree.



Argus said:


> Also, can you list some music you don't consider valid on your own personal aesthetic level?


I can but I'm not going to, as it's irrelevant to this discussion and will only draw unnecessary fire. Suffice to say that I have elaborated on my aesthetic before, and, as I mentioned, it is quite clear that artists throughout history have also had their aesthetics. _Within_ George Eliot's framework, her dabbling in Gothic literature was a mis-step compared to her realism, but that doesn't make one style better than the other, _except_ in the context of her aesthetic.

Once again, I think a large "IMHO" needs to be assumed. If I ever say "atonal music is bad" - which I might well do - I never mean to say that it is absolutely bad; only bad in the context of my aesthetic. And, in brief, my aesthetic is partly derived from what music neuroscience demonstrates to be more readily appreciated by the brain. It does _not_ logically follow that such music is _unequivocally_ better - hence why my mentions of science are mentions of fact only, not supports for value judgements - I only think that it is better in the context of my ideas about what good art is.

Does that make sense?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Is there any kind of music that you don't believe to be valid?

Black Sabbath.


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## Argus

Polednice said:


> Does that make sense?


Yes. I agree with that. I've said many times in these kinds of debates that is how I feel, but I seem to draw more flak when I say it.

All you needed to say was that when you said 'personal aesthetic level' you meant 'personal taste', and the use of the word 'valid' appeared to imply absoluteness on your part.


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## Polednice

I think people on both sides of this argument are prone to latching onto slightly ambiguous language and interpreting it as the opposition, then engaging in a rampage against a position that, quite possibly, no one is proposing. Such is the difficulty of a touchy subject.


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## mensch

The abandonment of tonality in the 20th century has certainly opened the possibility of writing very different music. But that doesn't mean that atonal music is the only way forward as some critics have stated in the past. Music would be a dreadfully dull affair if dodecaphony, or any other atonal method, had become the only way to write new music.

I think time will tell what the point of a lot of atonal music really is. The problem is that the common opinion of much modern music is based on pieces like Sciarrino's Piano Sonata posted by the OP. Now I'm sure the composition is incredibly complex, both to write and to perform, but the end result sounds quite a lot like someone getting his fists acquainted with the keyboard of a piano. This ties in quaintly with the notion that a lot of modernist music (and visual art, for that matter) is overwrought and too much concerned with being as novel or complex as possible, yet at the same time the product is often dismissed as "something my four year old can achieve in just five minutes". The current hostile stance against the arts in the Netherlands is partly based on this concept of art being an activity only enjoyed by an elite and above all arrogant minority.

There are many cases where atonality perfectly serves the intention the composer. Consider Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima", while it's a rather uncomfortable experience on account of the listener it gets the horror of the subject matter across extremely effectively. The mysterious "Vox Balaenae" by George Crumb is another example of very evocative atonal music. Other examples include Ligeti's brooding sound clusters and micropolyphony, Scelsi's obsession for single pitches are equally impressive.

Music in the same vein as Sciarrino's piece doesn't help to dismiss the image of art as a form of disinterested child's play only enjoyed by a pompous elite and I'm not sure if such endeavours will be remembered as important touchtones in the musical repertoire in the long run.


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## Cnote11

Great pieces! It is all about exploring the possibilities of music and, at least for me, enjoyment. I don't find Penderecki uncomfortable to listen to, not for a single second! Atonal music does not come across to me as foreign, but merely just a different sound than tonal music, just like Baroque sounds different than Romantic.


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## mensch

Cnote11 said:


> Great pieces! It is all about exploring the possibilities of music and, at least for me, enjoyment. I don't find Penderecki uncomfortable to listen to, not for a single second!


Thanks! Don't get me wrong though, I find the Threnody an absolutely fascinating and poignant piece of music and I think a overpowering sense of disquiet is something Penderecki wanted to get across.



> Atonal music does not come across to me as foreign, but merely just a different sound than tonal music, just like Baroque sounds different than Romantic.


This reminds of a situation I encountered a while back. A friend of mine told me she loved early mono- and polyphony, so I went into recommendation mode and suggested she'd listen to "Proverb" by Steve Reich, among other things. Because I think it's a beautiful modern piece, inspired by the works of Pérotin and other members of the Ars antiqua period. Sadly after a minute or so into the piece she dismissed it as being too dissonant.

So, as for a moral or conclusion to my epic parable above, it's indeed largely about accepting atonality as just a different sound, instead of expecting fluid harmonics. It's the reason why Aaron Copland states that understanding new music requires a lot of listening sessions to train the ear in his "What to listen for in music" (the only problem is that he does it repeatedly in his otherwise fine essay, so it gets a tad tiresome after a while).


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## violadude

mensch said:


> Thanks! Don't get me wrong though, I find the Threnody an absolutely fascinating and poignant piece of music and I think a overpowering sense of disquiet is something Penderecki wanted to get across.
> 
> This reminds of a situation I encountered a while back. A friend of mine told me she loved early mono- and polyphony, so I went into recommendation mode and suggested she'd listen, among other things, to "Proverb" by Steve Reich, among other things. Because I think it's a beautiful modern piece, inspired by the works of Pérotin and other members of the Ars antiqua period. Sadly after a minute or so into the piece she dismissed it as being too dissonant.
> 
> So, as for a moral or conclusion to my epic parable above, it's indeed largely about accepting atonality as just a different sound, instead of expecting fluid harmonics. It's the reason why Aaron Copland states that understanding new music requires a lot of listening sessions to train the ear in his "What to listen for in music" (the only problem is that he does it repeatedly in his otherwise fine essay, so it gets a tad tiresome after a while).


Wow :O If that piece is too dissonant I must be a masochist or something


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## Cnote11

I quite love Reich and have many of his pieces but have yet to hear this. This is fantastic! I'm running out to acquire this immediately. Ignoring anything Paul Hillier and the Theatre of Voices recorded is something I need to stop doing. On the note of Penderecki, the piece indeed lends itself well to creating the intended atmosphere. The thought of seeing the piece performed live seems like it would be one of the finest musical experiences imaginable! When I was a little boy I enjoyed the likes of Beethoven and Mozart but upon encountering Threnody for the first time I found it to be disorienting and overwhelming. I simply couldn't listen to it! Now it is easily one of my favorite pieces after growing through musical progressions throughout my life. By the time I listened to it again it seemed quite normal, as if I were a boy listening to Mozart again.


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## Igneous01

mensch said:


> Thanks! Don't get me wrong though, I find the Threnody an absolutely fascinating and poignant piece of music and I think a overpowering sense of disquiet is something Penderecki wanted to get across.
> 
> This reminds of a situation I encountered a while back. A friend of mine told me she loved early mono- and polyphony, so I went into recommendation mode and suggested she'd listen to "Proverb" by Steve Reich, among other things. Because I think it's a beautiful modern piece, inspired by the works of Pérotin and other members of the Ars antiqua period. Sadly after a minute or so into the piece she dismissed it as being too dissonant.
> 
> So, as for a moral or conclusion to my epic parable above, it's indeed largely about accepting atonality as just a different sound, instead of expecting fluid harmonics. It's the reason why Aaron Copland states that understanding new music requires a lot of listening sessions to train the ear in his "What to listen for in music" (the only problem is that he does it repeatedly in his otherwise fine essay, so it gets a tad tiresome after a while).


this is amazing, thanks for sharing this.


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## Polednice

Just a note on the Penderecki, he experimented with sounds without a specific intention and only applied the title in hind-sight. In that sense, he deserves a little less credit because he didn't achieve any intentions he set out to meet. It would be interesting to see how people react to it if they listened on a fairer basis without knowledge of the title. What does the piece achieve then? Even so, it does have an impact now that we've all been fooled.


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## Cnote11

Polednice said:


> Just a note on the Penderecki, he experimented with sounds without a specific intention and only applied the title in hind-sight. In that sense, he deserves a little less credit because he didn't achieve any intentions he set out to meet. It would be interesting to see how people react to it if they listened on a fairer basis without knowledge of the title. What does the piece achieve then? Even so, it does have an impact now that we've all been fooled.


What makes you think I meant that the piece met the intent of the title? I'm highly aware of the title was added later and was originally titled as an homage to John Cage. I never said it had to represent an actual event either, more that the intent was an abstract atmosphere and that he achieved creating a piece that gives off a distinct, powerful, and emotionally charged atmosphere.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> What makes you think I meant that the piece met the intent of the title? I'm highly aware of the title was added later and was originally titled as an homage to John Cage. I never said it had to represent an actual event either, more that the intent was an abstract atmosphere and that he achieved creating a piece that gives off a distinct, powerful, and emotionally charged atmosphere.


I wasn't speaking directly at you.


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## Cnote11

Alright then, then what you said is valid because many people are not aware of that fact. You have to admit, the music does lend itself perfectly for conjuring up images of such events. It is an interesting thought of how we can take music and apply it to such things and the many interpretations of a piece. Music is wonderful for sparking the imagination, especially instrumental music where - unless there was some sort of preface or awareness of an apparent theme - there isn't something explicitly guiding you. It is also interesting to see what sounds trigger certain emotions in different people, as they really can be highly variable. Polednice, I've always been interested in neuroscience, in fact I almost decided to study it in university as my career choice, and I appreciate you bringing that to the forum. I believe it was you who said they love poetry and are interested in how the brain reacts to the musicality of the words or something of that nature, and that is something I have given a lot of thought about myself. If you have anything covering that sort of topic would you please PM the resources?


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## mmsbls

@mensch: Thanks for posting those works. The first time I heard _Uaxuctum_ I was not much moved by the piece. I listened again because someone nominated it in one of our TC list projects. I had a very different reaction, and although I wouldn't say I necessarily want to get the piece, I found it fascinating, haunting, and mysterious. It seems to fit quite nicely the fate of the Mayan civilization.

I can understand many, not so much here on TC but in general, finding Reich's _Proverb_ too dissonant for their tastes. I'm not sure I had heard a Reich work quite like that before. Parts are quite lovely, and I certainly enjoyed it.



Cnote11 said:


> Great pieces! It is all about exploring the possibilities of music and, at least for me, enjoyment. I don't find Penderecki uncomfortable to listen to, not for a single second!


The threnody was an experimental work, and I assume Penderecki did not intend the work to make people feel uncomfortable. However, when Penderecki heard the work performed, he associated it with the victims of the holocaust. One analysis says, "the quality of the horror matches perfectly the extreme tension presented in the music." It certainly makes me feel VERY uncomfortable. I think much of the music matches the anguish we, including Penderecki, imagine when thinking of the holocaust.


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## Polednice

Cnote11 said:


> Alright then, then what you said is valid because many people are not aware of that fact. You have to admit, the music does lend itself perfectly for conjuring up images of such events. It is an interesting thought of how we can take music and apply it to such things and the many interpretations of a piece. Music is wonderful for sparking the imagination, especially instrumental music where - unless there was some sort of preface or awareness of an apparent theme - there isn't something explicitly guiding you. It is also interesting to see what sounds trigger certain emotions in different people, as they really can be highly variable. Polednice, I've always been interested in neuroscience, in fact I almost decided to study it in university as my career choice, and I appreciate you bringing that to the forum. I believe it was you who said they love poetry and are interested in how the brain reacts to the musicality of the words or something of that nature, and that is something I have given a lot of thought about myself. If you have anything covering that sort of topic would you please PM the resources?


I think you're absolutely right - my point about Penderecki was just nit-picking. Personally, I've often denied the Stravinskian notion that music can never refer to anything external to itself; with a programmatic guide, I think music can quite clearly conjure surprisingly complex and moving images, and I'd even go so far as to say that - today, at least - programme music is more interesting than absolute music.

I'm not sure if I have any articles on that particular subject, by the way, but I'll have a dig through my references some time this week and let you know if I find anything of interest.


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## xuantu

I was amazed to see how much you are interested in neuroscience and the connections between music and human mind, Polednice. (I saw your blog entry of the neuroscience reference list.) You really are inexhaustibly curious, aren't you? 

----------
My first brush with live atonal music was at a chamber music concert at my university celebrating Elliott Carter's centenary. One could perhaps sense a certain vitality and lightheartedness in much of his music, but during that horribly wearisome concert there were just too few aural "landmarks" for my untrained ears to grasp and I was quickly getting bored. Being also physically tired, I slip into unconsciousness--probably even snored a bit in my sleep, for when I woke up by the applause, I detected a few pairs of angry eyes in the audience.

I am then not among the big fans of atonal music, but am with PetrB in his defense of artistic freedom and integrity. It is heart-warming to learn from his posts that in today's composing world and music schools, all sorts of styles are tolerated and encouraged. I was under the impression that things were much uglier in a not so distant past, when atonalism/modernism was at its height. Composers who wrote enjoyable tonal music were deemed too conservative and unjustly criticized or slighted: just the opposite sort of situation to what we've perceived here in the listeners. It suffices to say that progressiveness has probably played an unparallelled role in the development of western classical music, as compared to the music in many other cultures. (Most great composers have been progressive in one or more aspects of their music.) But I fear that some damages might have also been done by the ideologies in favor of progressiveness. 

About that neuroscience debate, I agree that the experimental design and the choice of subjects are crucial to the validity of any scientific findings. Of course you can't use the “musically illiterate” people as subjects to prove tonal music is superior to atonal music. But if you only aim to find out how our brains process the “alien” sounds of atonal music, why not? However, to answer how our preference for tonal music has formed is entirely a different matter, and perhaps requires subjects unexposed to any musical sound at all. Likewise, to include professional musicians in a study would mean that a different specific research aim is being probed. It all depends on the scientific question that you mean to address.


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## Guest

xuantu said:


> ..if you only aim to find out how our brains process the "alien" sounds of atonal music, why not?


Maybe because we are different from each other.

My brain does not process the sounds of "atonal" music as alien. Or even as "alien," for that matter.

Surely that is an important consideration.

You went into that concert with a certain preconceptions, with a certain level of training, and with certain nonmusical things like fatigue. All of that went into your entire experience of that concert. How your brain processed the sounds you heard is not only just a part of the whole experience but utterly depends on all the other parts for how it did the processing. And so is it true, always true, for every person who takes part in a study of how "the brain" processes music.

I'm sure there are similarities between how all human brains do things. Those are the things that distinguish us from other creatures with other kinds of brains. Birds, for instance.

But surely the differences are more important and more interesting. And surely the other factors besides "a brain of this type of creature" that go into the totality of any experience, aesthetic or otherwise, have to be considered.


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## Polednice

Some guy is absolutely right, of course, he just tends not to offer scientists the respect of thinking that some actually do take all of these things into account. Human variation is particularly important, no question - just as we see psychopaths as outliers on the normal range of empathy, there may well be music listeners whose mental capacity allows for an altogether strange relationship with certain kinds of music.


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## Guest

I was not aware that xuantu was speaking as a scientist or even that s/he is a scientist.

My remarks were directed specifically at particular things that xuantu had said. The end.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> My remarks were directed specifically at particular things that xuantu had said. The end.


Oh for heavens sake some guy when will you learn this is a music forum  so it is never "The end"  at the minimum it should be Coda eh, I don't know some people just ...............................................


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> just as we see psychopaths as outliers on the normal range of empathy, there may well be music listeners whose mental capacity allows for an altogether strange relationship with certain kinds of music.


Now steady on here you Swine if you are taking the water out of those that enjoy music as opposed to those that see it as some sort of punishment you will be Chops by lunch time eh ha ha get out of that.


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## KatiT

Since it is so hard to understand what point they are trying to make since atonal music is not something you can get lost in maybe it should come with a manual. 
I think that a lot of that kind of music is just atonal for the sake of being atonal and maybe those composer were told that atonal music is the only way forward by their teachers and professors. 
This atonal age has been going on for such a long time that it is not progressive anymore to make that kind of music. 
I'd love to see more incorporations of rhythm maybe african tribal music or latin, just something refreshing with a twist.


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## Guest

KatiT said:


> I think that a lot of that kind of music is just atonal for the sake of being atonal and maybe those composer were told that atonal music is the only way forward by their teachers and professors.


Agreed, it just shows they have run out of musical ideas  and the followers set themselves up as the elite


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## Guest

KatiT and Andante,

Any names to put to these generalizations? Any pieces to illustrate "atonal for the sake of being atonal" or "run out of musical ideas"?

Who? Who does this? What are their pieces that show these things?

Best,

some guy


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## Polednice

KatiT said:


> Since it is so hard to understand what point they are trying to make since atonal music is not something you can get lost in maybe it should come with a manual.
> I think that a lot of that kind of music is just atonal for the sake of being atonal and maybe those composer were told that atonal music is the only way forward by their teachers and professors.
> This atonal age has been going on for such a long time that it is not progressive anymore to make that kind of music.
> I'd love to see more incorporations of rhythm maybe african tribal music or latin, just something refreshing with a twist.


Although you will not find me often coming to the defence of various styles of music, atonal included, I at least give the majority of such composers the respect and benefit of the doubt that they are serious people with as laudable intentions as any composer in any other genre - it just so happens that they decided to write music that I find off-putting for whatever variety of reasons. If you are going to claim that they write their music for such dubious reasons as academic pressure or uninspired novelty, rather than for aesthetic reasons that you simply don't share, you really ought (as some guy has requested) to point to at least a handful of clear examples, or it's quite evident that you're wrongfully projecting your dislike of the music onto a dislike of the person behind it.


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## Cnote11

If loving atonal music makes me the music equivelent of a psychopath then I certainly embrace and cherish my disorder.


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## xuantu

Polednice said:


> If you are going to claim that they write their music for such dubious reasons as academic pressure or uninspired novelty, rather than for aesthetic reasons that you simply don't share, you really ought (as some guy has requested) to point to at least a handful of clear examples, or it's quite evident that you're wrongfully projecting your dislike of the music onto a dislike of the person behind it.


I congratulate myself for not having put out comments like KatiT's, for at one point I did come very close. :lol:

In case you could not find a way out of this, KatiT, just name some random composers writing atonal music. I promise I won't pick on you.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> KatiT and Andante,
> 
> Any names to put to these generalizations? Any pieces to illustrate "atonal for the sake of being atonal" or "run out of musical ideas"?
> 
> Who? Who does this? What are their pieces that show these things?
> 
> Best,
> 
> some guy


*@ some guy*
I am not falling for that one, it would be just as meaningful for you to give what you consider to be the 2 or 3 best works of your selected composer/s [supply a link to the music or web site where this stuff is available] then we can listen and give our views.


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## Guest

Andante, what's with the "falling for" metaphor? (Why so coy?) You made a blanket condemnation of a broad spectrum of music without identifying any particular pieces. Which pieces illustrate your assertion that "they" have run out of musical ideas? Without support, an assertion is merely mere.


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## Guest

What good would it do to quote a particular work there are so many I would not know where to start, it would be much more beneficial for some one that is an authority on the subject (such as yourself) to put forward a work as I suggested, then you can prove me (and 90% of concert goers) wrong. So lets have it


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## HarpsichordConcerto

53 pages later, and this thread is still going. :lol:

I have a few general questions regarding 12-tone music, and these questions might help provide some direction for discussion following recent posts above. I am asking because I am curious. Pieces of 12-tone music that I do listen to more often seemed to be composed during the earlier decades of its development, which led me to ask:-

(1) Is 12-tone music still as rigorously explored today and composed as during its first decades of development? Composer Charles Wuorinen (born 1938) claimed in a 1962 interview that "most of the Europeans say that they have 'gone beyond' and 'exhausted' the twelve-tone system ...". What did Wuorinen mean by that? Do you agree to what extent or disagree? Cite examples, and please avoid generalisations.

(2) If it appears that 12-tone compositions have lost its heyday after the first half of the 20th century (broadly speaking with regard to dates), _why_ is this so? What has taken its place? For many of us here, the evolution from Baroque to Classical and to Romantic seem "natural"; what is the equivalent for 12-tone, assuming if there is one? Cite examples.

Thank you for your thoughts.


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## Polednice

Andante said:


> What good would it do to quote a particular work there are so many I would not know where to start, it would be much more beneficial for some one that is an authority on the subject (such as yourself) to put forward a work as I suggested, then you can prove me (and 90% of concert goers) wrong. So lets have it


I think you're missing the point. The above would only make sense if your claim was that you don't get the music, or, for matters of personal taste, find it off-putting. In such a case, it would indeed be better for some guy and others to provide examples. But you and KatiT agreed not just that the music is bad, _but that the composers are bad_. That they're writing the music only because they don't have better ideas, or because they feel pressured into it. That kind of assertion needs evidence. So while you may well be drowning in musical examples that you dislike, that is _not_ evidence that the music was written for dubious reasons.


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## mensch

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> (1) Is 12-tone music still as rigorously explored today and composed as during its first decades of development? Composer Charles Wuorinen (born 1938) claimed in a 1962 interview that "most of the Europeans say that they have 'gone beyond' and 'exhausted' the twelve-tone system ...". What did Wuorinen mean by that? Do you agree to what extent or disagree? Cite examples, and please avoid generalisations.


I agree, dodecaphony isn't utilised in its purest form any longer. It's important to note that the original twelve-tone technique developed by Schoenberg is now seen as part of a larger movement called "serialism". In his early years, Stockhausen wrote serial music which doesn't adhere to the standards set forth by dodecaphony.

Dodecaphony is rather rigid and I think that's the reason why a lot of later composers have ultimately given up on strict adherence to the twelve-tone technique. But parts of it are still in use in modern compositional practice. Tone rows, for example, appear in works of other composers (Berio, Stravinsky) but have less pitches or do not otherwise adhere to the ruleset devised by Schoenberg. Also, Schoenberg's system primarily dealt with pitches, whereas the theory was later expanded to the duration of pitches, method of attack, etc.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> (2) If it appears that 12-tone compositions have lost its heyday after the first half of the 20th century (broadly speaking with regard to dates), _why_ is this so? What has taken its place? For many of us here, the evolution from Baroque to Classical and to Romantic seem "natural"; what is the equivalent for 12-tone, assuming if there is one? Cite examples.


I don't think there is one dominant theory in contemporary music, at the moment. Electronic music (by Varèse, Babbitt and others) rose to prominence from the '50s and onwards, but is by no means the de facto standard for writing new music. Composers are able to freely choose from the musical idiom developed over the centuries and that makes it hard to label it like one would label the Classical or Romantic era. Maybe after a few decennia have passed, music historians will have more perspective on the subject matter.

I think György Ligeti is a good example of a composer who has covered a great range of 20th century musical ideas. From microtonality ("Violin Concerto", "Ramifications"), micropolyphony (his own invention, "Atmosphères"), rhythmic development ("Continuum") to eclecticism ("Le Grand Macabre").


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## Guest

I posted a response to Andante before reading Polednice's most recent response.

His was much better than mine; and mine didn't add anything to what he had already said.

So mine is gone.

Truly, you haven't missed a thing!


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## mmsbls

Could someone give me a sense of why the constraints of serialism were chosen and used? I understand that things such as string quartets and sonata form involve constraints as well, but those seem much less restrictive. Does it allow musical expression in a way that is not easy otherwise? Is the strict form a challenge as sonnet form is? Are there other reasons? While I've read a bit about serialism's use by various composers and how it has changed, I have not seen anything compelling about why so many works were written using the technique.

I do have Ross' _The Rest is Noice_ and Griffiths' Modern Music and After to read, and possibly there will be answers in those works.


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## emiellucifuge

Serialism isnt a form like the sonata or sonnet (neither is a string quartet btw), but rather a different manner of treating and producing musical material.

Firstly, talking about Schoenberg's twelve tone technique. He developed it as a way to "replace those structural differentiations provided formerly by tonal harmonies".

It is essentially that; a way to structure music in the absence of tonality. Schoenberg wrote:
"_Form in Music_ serves to bring about comprehensibility through memorability. Evenness, regularity, symmetry, subdivision, repetition, unity, relationship in rhythm and harmony and even logic -- none of these elements produces or even contributes to beauty. But all of them contribute to an organization which makes the presentation of the musical idea intelligible. The language in which musical ideas are expressed in tones parallels the language which expresses feelings or thoughts in words, in that its vocabulary must be proportionate to the intellect which it addresses, and in that the aforementioned elements of its organization function like the rhyme, the rhythm, the metre, and the subdivision into strophes, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, etc. in poetry or prose."

Definitely, there are new things to be expressed that could not be done with tonal organisations.

Sorry for the unstructured response..


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## Webernite

mmsbls said:


> Could someone give me a sense of why the constraints of serialism were chosen and used? I understand that things such as string quartets and sonata form involve constraints as well, but those seem much less restrictive. Does it allow musical expression in a way that is not easy otherwise? Is the strict form a challenge as sonnet form is? Are there other reasons? While I've read a bit about serialism's use by various composers and how it has changed, I have not seen anything compelling about why so many works were written using the technique.
> 
> I do have Ross' _The Rest is Noice_ and Griffiths' Modern Music and After to read, and possibly there will be answers in those works.


Keep in mind that before Schoenberg and his pupils started using serialism, they had already been composing in a freely atonal style for years (as in the Five Pieces for Orchestra, for example). Schoenberg started to feel that this free atonal style was too choatic and decided he needed an "organizing principle" to help him compose. He and his students didn't want to go back to tonality, so eventually they came up with serialism as an alternative.


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## mmsbls

@emiellucifuge, Webernite: Thanks. I do remember reading vaguely about "organizing principles" helping to structure the music. I suppose when so much new potential is exposed, exploring could be a daunting task. Some initial constraint could focus the exploration.

I didn't mean to call serialism a form but rather a technique. Thanks, my mistake.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mensch said:


> I agree, dodecaphony isn't utilised in its purest form any longer. It's important to note that the original twelve-tone technique developed by Schoenberg is now seen as part of a larger movement called "serialism". In his early years, Stockhausen wrote serial music which doesn't adhere to the standards set forth by dodecaphony.
> 
> Dodecaphony is rather rigid and I think that's the reason why a lot of later composers have ultimately given up on strict adherence to the twelve-tone technique. But parts of it are still in use in modern compositional practice. Tone rows, for example, appear in works of other composers (Berio, Stravinsky) but have less pitches or do not otherwise adhere to the ruleset devised by Schoenberg. Also, Schoenberg's system primarily dealt with pitches, whereas the theory was later expanded to the duration of pitches, method of attack, etc.
> 
> I don't think there is one dominant theory in contemporary music, at the moment. Electronic music (by Varèse, Babbitt and others) rose to prominence from the '50s and onwards, but is by no means the de facto standard for writing new music. Composers are able to freely choose from the musical idiom developed over the centuries and that makes it hard to label it like one would label the Classical or Romantic era. Maybe after a few decennia have passed, music historians will have more perspective on the subject matter.
> 
> I think György Ligeti is a good example of a composer who has covered a great range of 20th century musical ideas. From microtonality ("Violin Concerto", "Ramifications"), micropolyphony (his own invention, "Atmosphères"), rhythmic development ("Continuum") to eclecticism ("Le Grand Macabre").


Thanks. I agree. We know this plurality of musical idiom now is exactly what makes contemporary (or post 1950) art music what it is as a collective whole. There is no point in labelling them neatly as one or two particular musical idiom; it's about the freedom as you call it, to allow the artist to choose whatever the artist wants/wanted to do. Do you think however, that this "diversification benefit" can lead to questions as poised by the original poster of this thread? I do actually think that sometimes when new folks attempt to appreciate contemporary/post 1950 art music that this large range can be difficult to appreciate, and it's not unreasonable why they might question the point of it.


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## Guest

It's funny that diversity and plurality are almost always associated nowadays with post-1950 music, or even with post-1970 or 80 music.

But the most noticable characteristic of twentieth century music has always been diversity and plurality. I went to a fascinating lecture once by a famous composer (Ned Rorem, maybe?) who played us a portion of a medieval plainchant which he then segued into an extract from a Verdi opera to show the continuity of music before the twentieth century.

Of course, that's an oversimplification. But its purpose was to lead to his contention that Bartok and Stravinsky, say, were as much different from each other--or more so--as Gesualdo and Wagner. That each major composer of the century, from the beginning, was pursuing his or her own path more than pursuing a tradition or being part of a school. Collapsing an entire half century or more into "tonal/atonal" or "tonal/serial" is to neglect, to miss, all the other things going on in that incredibly fecund and various time.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> But the most noticable characteristic of twentieth century music has always been diversity and plurality.
> 
> But its purpose was to lead to his contention that Bartok and Stravinsky, say, were as much different from each other--or more so--as Gesualdo and Wagner. That each major composer of the century, from the beginning, was pursuing his or her own path more than pursuing a tradition or being part of a school. Collapsing an entire half century or more into "tonal/atonal" or "tonal/serial" is to neglect, to miss, all the other things going on in that incredibly fecund and various time.


I have long felt that the diversity of classical modern music is rather unusual compared to earlier eras. I started a thread asking why there is so much variation in modern music, but it didn't get much play. I still wonder why diversity seemed to explode in the early 20th century in a way unparalleled before. Of course popular music also exploded (especially after 1950?). I don't know if popular music had anywhere near as much diversity in past centuries.

Something caused composers to branch out and explore creating such varied genres at roughly the same time. What? Were there similar efforts in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, but they just didn't catch on at all?


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## Guest

*@ some guy.* The following is my take on atonal. Atonal is in itself a term that covers many sins hence my reluctance to name a specific work so I will continue to generalise as I have long since given up purchasing this type of music but if you take up my suggestion of making a selected piece available for listening then we can comment. I doubt that you will as I have asked a few times in the past.
If I have it right atonal has no form, keys, melody, harmony or set chord sequences does it have a meter?? It is a bit like a language with no grammar and so confusing.
Schoenberg once said of his own music "in the near future paper boys will be whistling my music" well that was how many years ago??? how many paper boys have even heard of him let alone whistle his music?
I have read that for music to express horror, desolation, intense sadness etc you have to make the music atonal? now come on, all music can do this very well without resorting to atonal.
The physiology of music indicates that the human brain needs to recognise a pattern it also suggests that we like to be able to anticipate this is not possible with atonal so what is the answer* [You have to work at it]* well, really. If I am served a tough steak I do not work at it, if I am to read a book by an author that has no respect for the language or its grammar I don't work at it, if I am expected to drive a 3 wheel car because it is a fad and cool but rolls over at the first corner I do not work at it, so the general music public have said no to atonal music and I do not see this changing in my life time. Ask a promoter to run a series of concerts for atonal music and unless he/she is a devotee with plenty of money then the response would not be well received it is after all very much 'bums on seats' so while there is a small number of people that sincerely like and support this type of music such as your self you are a minority group and have been for years in my opinion tonality wins all hands down, now I can just imagine the few followers on this forum throwing up their collective hands and wailing "not so" "unfair" well so be it. I will post one reference which has to come from Youtube it is an atonal song……… I will say no more it is a bit tongue in cheek. :tiphat:


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## violadude

Andante said:


> If I have it right atonal has no form, keys, melody, harmony or set chord sequences does it have a meter?? It is a bit like a language with no grammar and so confusing.




Wow...that's very wrong. Most "atonal" music has a form (sometimes it's even sonata form), they have melodies sometimes and if not usually there are themes or motivic cells involved. There is definitely harmony in atonal music unless the texture is monophonic, as all harmony is is the sound of two pitches sounding at the same time. There is definitely a certain grammar in atonal music if you want to call it that. The only thing you list that it indeed doesn't have is a key (no tonal center) and set chord sequences. There aren't set chord sequences in atonal music as there are in tonal music. Much serial music focuses more on individual lines than the harmonic progression of the piece because of that.

and yes, most atonal music is definitely in a meter...but some isn't, and some tonal music has no meter either. :tiphat:


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## Guest

Andante, I would recommend some Fartein Valen symphonies, one, because they are for full orchestra, so have a very familiar smooth, rich, full sound; two, because they are, I think, pretty easy to listen to; and three, because they're very good. Maybe start with the earlier ones and work your way through chronologically.

This will work as well with Egon Wellesz, also good, and with Goffredo Petrassi. The latter wrote eight concerti for orchestra, which fit onto two CDs, and which get progressively less "tonal" (and progressively more interesting) as they go along. Work through these eight pieces slowly and you'll probably be ready for Skalkottas and Gerhard right away, with the Vienna three (Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern) not far behind. 

And then all the many delights of Elliott Carter and Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen and, well, who knows where it could lead.... Mumma? Lachenmann? Karkowski? Wiese??


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## Guest

*@Violadude* OK give a couple of links so that I can hear what you state.

*@some guy* From memory you gave me some of those composers in the past and I failed to come up with anything but I may try again. I have just found a few on youtube so that will keep me busy for a while


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## mensch

mmsbls said:


> I have long felt that the diversity of classical modern music is rather unusual compared to earlier eras. I started a thread asking why there is so much variation in modern music, but it didn't get much play. I still wonder why diversity seemed to explode in the early 20th century in a way unparalleled before. Of course popular music also exploded (especially after 1950?). I don't know if popular music had anywhere near as much diversity in past centuries.


It's a gradual process of course. Atonal music has always been possible in a technical sense, but wasn't considered music for a long time.
In the Medieval/Renaissance period certain harmonies were deemed inappropriate, such as the tritone (regarded as _diabolus in musica_). A lot of Ludwig van Beethoven's output (especially later, but also middle and early period pieces) sometimes caused scandal because of the harmonies he used. The finale of Chopin's second piano sonata caused a stir as well, Schumann remarked that it was "more like an irony than a kind of music" and "from this musical line without melody and without joy, there breathes a strange horrible spirit which annihilates with its heavy fist anything that resists it, and we listen with fascination and without protesting until the end - but without, nevertheless, being able to praise: for this is not music."

Liszt was one of the first composers to experiment with tonality ("La lugubre gondola"), which shows that such experiments were not dismissed out of hand by his peers. Alexander Scriabin is another example of early atonal music (at least in certain parts of his works). 
I think the explosion of styles in contemporary music is due to social changes as well. As the century progressed Western society became less and less restrictive, not in the least due to the protests of various social movements. So, experiments in music which to that point were considered wholly inappropriate or just bad taste, became less and less so. That's not to say the road was without scandal, considering the reaction to Stravinsky's "Le Sacre du Printemps", Cage's "4′33″" or Ligeti's "Poème Symphonique" when they were first performed, for example.
In the 20th century the world got a lot bigger and composers were exposed to a myriad of influences. This was happening in the 19th century as well, but really developed fully in the 20th century. Technical advances ranged from the conception of the "Ondes Martenot" and "Theremin" to the experiments with computer music. Due to the World Exhibitions artists became fascinated by other cultures (in a rather paternalistic and colonialist way, at first) and later it became feasible for just about anybody to actually travel to the homelands of those cultures. Also, the influence of popular music and the rise of prominence of jazz have all had a considerable influence on the development of 20th century art music.

That's not to say earlier eras didn't have an equal number of innovations. For example, it must have been quite an experience to hear Berlioz orchestra for the first time in the 19th century, or hear the Mannheim crescendos and diminuendos in the 18th century.


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## violadude

Andante said:


> *@Violadude* OK give a couple of links so that I can hear what you state.







I think Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet is a very compelling example of what you are looking for. This is the first movement. It is in sonata form, 1st theme at the beginning, 2nd theme at 1:22, development at 2:18. It's kinda hard to tell where the development ends and the recap begins but I think the recap begins somewhere around 5:43 or so. There are very clear themes and motifs, in fact the very beginning theme on the 1st violin is quite a lyrical melody with "answers" from the cello. It is clearly in a meter, and it clearly has harmony, including many hints at tonal type harmonies, even though there are no clear tonal progressions (as it should be in atonal music). But I think it is quite easy to follow the themes and the development of those themes, it takes a bit of concentration in some parts though because like I said, a lot of this piece Schoenberg is focusing much more on the horizontal than the vertical.


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> I think Schoenberg's 3rd string quartet is a very compelling example of what you are looking for. This is the first movement. It is in sonata form, 1st theme at the beginning, 2nd theme at 1:22, development at 2:18. It's kinda hard to tell where the development ends and the recap begins but I think the recap begins somewhere around 5:43 or so. There are very clear themes and motifs, in fact the very beginning theme on the 1st violin is quite a lyrical melody with "answers" from the cello. It is clearly in a meter, and it clearly has harmony, including many hints at tonal type harmonies, even though there are no clear tonal progressions (as it should be in atonal music). But I think it is quite easy to follow the themes and the development of those themes, it takes a bit of concentration in some parts though because like I said, a lot of this piece Schoenberg is focusing much more on the horizontal than the vertical.


I'm not sure what kind of atonal music Andante has a problem with, but that's not atonal in the sense of proper serialism, is it? There's repetition of notes both in the accompaniment and melody, so doesn't that mean it can't be considered a tone row? What would the piece be regarded as instead?


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> I'm not sure what kind of atonal music Andante has a problem with, but that's not atonal in the sense of proper serialism, is it? There's repetition of notes both in the accompaniment and melody, so doesn't that mean it can't be considered a tone row? What would the piece be regarded as instead?


It is a 12 tone piece. Schoenberg just didn't treat his tone rows strictly. Tone rows can be treated strictly of course, but Schoenberg basically just saw them as something to base a piece on rather than the major/minor scale.


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## Webernite

Yeah, that string quartet is definitely a tweleve-tone piece. It's just that most of the music of the Second Viennese School still has a kind of tonal aura. It's not until after WWII that some composers started following the rules really strictly (and serializing rhythm).


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## Argus

mmsbls said:


> Something caused composers to branch out and explore creating such varied genres at roughly the same time. What? Were there similar efforts in the 17th, 18th, and 19th century, but they just didn't catch on at all?


Information & communication technology took a big leap in the 20thC.

When Debussy heard a group of Indonesian musicians playing gamelan at the Paris Universal Expo it was his only feasible chance to hear that kind of music without physically travelling abroad.

Then when recordings became widespread and guys like Alan Lomax could help bring foreign music styles to the comfort of peoples living rooms, there was bound to be an increase in the diversity of musical output.

Now we are at a point when anybody from the First World or affluent Third Worlders can hear whatever kind of music they want with the touch of a few keys.

A good example from the pre-electronic age of musical exoticism was the trend for Turkish (really faux-Turkish) melodies in the 18th century.

I'd say most current musicians worth their salt are open to a massive range of influences.


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## mmsbls

Argus said:


> Information & communication technology took a big leap in the 20thC.
> 
> When Debussy heard a group of Indonesian musicians playing gamelan at the Paris Universal Expo it was his only feasible chance to hear that kind of music without physically travelling abroad.
> 
> Then when recordings became widespread and guys like Alan Lomax could help bring foreign music styles to the comfort of peoples living rooms, there was bound to be an increase in the diversity of musical output.
> 
> Now we are at a point when anybody from the First World or affluent Third Worlders can hear whatever kind of music they want with the touch of a few keys.
> 
> A good example from the pre-electronic age of musical exoticism was the trend for Turkish (really faux-Turkish) melodies in the 18th century.
> 
> I'd say most current musicians worth their salt are open to a massive range of influences.


The idea that musicians could be exposed to much more and varied music than in previous centuries certainly makes sense. In the past when a new musical style came along (Classical music, Romantic music), it seems that everyone essentially followed that one style until the new one replaced it. In the early to mid 20th century it seems that several styles started replacing Romanticism. Of course as the century progressed even more styles made an appearance. I can understand the increased variation of what composers might have heard, but I still wonder why other composers didn't "follow along" as they appeared to before. Somehow many styles were popular (in the sense that many composers used them) at the same time.

Could it be the case that several new styles appeared in earlier centuries, but composers were not as easily exposed as they are now? One style quickly came to dominate music so the other attempts just fell by the wayside of history? Now new styles can be quickly and easily heard so a relatively small number of composers and listeners can keep the style alive; whereas, in earlier centuries such music would simply not be heard by more than a small number of people. A group can record a work and people can hear it all over the world even if no one lese ever records it. Technology then would be the basis for the "explosion" of musical genres.

There's probably somewhat more to this idea, but I think the basic premise makes a lot of sense. Thanks.


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## Guest

*@violadude* 
I notice you use the safety net words "sometimes and most" and that is fair enough but you would have noticed that I stated that I was generalising, this is because I am not into atonal music and hence not familiar with all the works that are around. I will listen to the Schoenberg later and report back.
*@poled nice * 
As you know and as I stated 'atonal' covers a lot of ground, the pieces that I have problems with, well most of the stuff that I have _*listened*_ to. 
I will endeavour to find a couple of link to make my dilemma a bit clearer,


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## Guest

Polednice said:


> I'm not sure what kind of atonal music Andante has a problem with, but that's not atonal in the sense of proper serialism, is it? There's repetition of notes both in the accompaniment and melody, so doesn't that mean it can't be considered a tone row? What would the piece be regarded as instead?


*@ Poled nice and Violadude*
I can see both of you points and agree with both but what a ghastly noise I did attempt to get Shoenberg but finally gave up
Here are a few works that I had problems with and my comments

Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge"
Premiered 30/5/56 what do you call this?





This is what finally turned me even trying with modern music
Arsis4 playing 'Black Angels' of George Crumb





Steve Reich - Different Trains this I can understand but it is really not my kind of thing 





Steve Reich Piano Concerto this leaves me absolutely bewildered 





And finally Glenn Gould playing Webern's Variations for piano Op27
Would you pay to go to hear this in a concert? 





*The list could go on for ever but you will no doubt get my point* :tiphat:


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## emiellucifuge

Andante; Ive seen a few of those pieces in concert, including Stockhausen's Gesang der Junglinge and many performances were just fantastic. Particularly 'Gesang' was an incredible audible experience, which cant be captured on recording unless youre using surround sound.


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## violadude

Andante said:


> *@ Poled nice and Violadude*
> I can see both of you points and agree with both but what a ghastly noise I did attempt to get Shoenberg but finally gave up
> Here are a few works that I had problems with and my comments
> 
> Karlheinz Stockhausen: "Gesang der Junglinge"
> Premiered 30/5/56 what do you call this?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is what finally turned me even trying with modern music
> Arsis4 playing 'Black Angels' of George Crumb
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Steve Reich - Different Trains this I can understand but it is really not my kind of thing
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Steve Reich Piano Concerto this leaves me absolutely bewildered
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And finally Glenn Gould playing Webern's Variations for piano Op27
> Would you pay to go to hear this in a concert?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *The list could go on for ever but you will no doubt get my point* :tiphat:


Well, wait, what *is* your point? Are you just posting pieces that you don't like?? Ok that's fine. But the initial argument was if these composers were writing atonal music because they had run out of ideas and posting a bunch of pieces that you don't like doesn't address that at all.


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## vamos

if those are all pieces he doesn't like then something is wrong. those are all great to listen to, and that's the whole point.

I had no idea Reich wrote stuff like that. Still I feel uncomfortable with that Reich piece, I feel like he's trying too hard to hypnotize me.


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## vamos

my main problem with strictly atonal music like much of Webern [Webern is one of my favorite strictly atonal composers]

is that it isn't postmodern enought... it isn't free enough.

it isn't willing to USE whatever tonalities necessary. that might be a shallow reading but that's what I'll say. I like Webern and friends enough, I just find difficulty due to their time period that they don't revert back to tonality more often in service of MUSIC instead of THEORY.

Babbitt seems to have no excuse. If anything we should debate something like Babbitt specifically.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> Andante; Ive seen a few of those pieces in concert, including Stockhausen's Gesang der Junglinge and many performances were just fantastic. Particularly 'Gesang' was an incredible audible experience, which cant be captured on recording unless youre using surround sound.


You are then sir obviously a supporter of this type of music but it is not an audio experience is is a a visual audio experience which adds another dimension to it, I agree that these things are easier to assimilate in a live concert for the reason that I have given I find the same thing BUT I have also tried this kind of music and in particular Crumbs Black Angels at home on my Hi Fi and it is intolerable to this pair of ears


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## emiellucifuge

I wouldnt necessarily draw the conclusion that it becomes an audio-visual experience in concert. I may just as well close my eyes (and I do), and the experience will be greater than that of a recording. Theres something about the immediacy of the music, and a few other things that are lost in conversion to 101001010101....

Anyway, the main reason I brought up the 'concert' thing, is that a key element of Gesang der Junglinge is the spatial distribution of the sounds, which move around the room.


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## mensch

Andante said:


> This is what finally turned me even trying with modern music
> Arsis4 playing 'Black Angels' of George Crumb


That piece by Crumb is certainly not the most easy one to listen to. If Crumb had written only this type of music I would agree with your statement that he had run out ideas and fled into atonality because of this.



> Steve Reich - Different Trains this I can understand but it is really not my kind of thing


Speech melody forms the basis of this piece, not atonality just for the sake of it. A lot of Reich's (older) music ("Music for 18 Musicians", "Piano Phase", "Music for a Large Ensemble", etc.) consists of short shifting tonal patterns, producing dissonances and psycho-acoustic side-effects and isn't atonal in the sense that much of Schoenberg's music is atonal. I can understand why someone wouldn't like "Different Trains", but that's not to say it's the product of something who has run out of ideas.

I'm certain a lot of tripe has been produced over the years and some pieces now considered important will be nothing more than a footnote in musical history after a few decades, but hasn't this always been the case?

The problem with all the pieces you've posted is that they are rather invasive and demand the undivided attention of the listener. In the case of Stockhausen the piece doesn't really work as a stereo track and requires a live performances (or specialist playback equipment) as emiellucifuge points out. I listen to quite a lot of 20th century art music while working, but neither of the aforementioned pieces allow for this. I've no problem working or reading a book while listening to works for prepared piano by Cage, instrumental pieces by Reich or one of Schnittke's string quartets.


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## violadude

Ok, I just want to say something that I hope everyone who has an extreme hate for atonal music will read and understand. I'm not asking anyone to love atonal music. All I ask is for people to try and be understanding and sympathetic towards the composer. As a composer who is still in the studying phase myself, I can speak from this point of view. What I can definitely tell you about most composers is that we strive for originality, it's true. That's not to say we are all looking for a place in the music history books, but that if we feel we are writing something that's already been said before, something just doesn't feel right within us. Sure, many of us might feel alright copying our favorite composers for a while, but eventually, a creative itch inside of us wants something more. That's part of the life journey of being a composer, searching for your inner voice, searching for that compositional style that doesn't sound like anyone else. As a composer I don't want to present you with Mozart's sounds, or Beethoven's sounds or Wagner's sounds or Schoenberg's sounds because you have heard those sounds before, I want to present to you new sounds, I want to present you with my sounds.

So you guys can rip on atonality and talk about how stupid it is and how stupid the composer was for writing it and how he/she is subjecting the audience to horribleness, but the 12 tone system is just an idea. Schoenberg was looking for a new idea, something new to say, something that no one else had heard before and taking into consideration the history of music and the recent trends in music, he came up with the 12 tone system and said "here, this is a new idea that no one has done before, let's see if it works." That's all. Can you really blame a guy just for trying something new? After that, other composers saw this system and said, "hey, here is a new way to write music, I think I can take this system and try and do something new with it" and so the 12 tone system developed over a few decades until it sort of hit a stale point (as all styles of music do eventually) and now it's just something composers can look back on use if they so wish.

How about another example? This piece hasn't been mentioned in a while, but I remember quite a few months ago when everyone was harping on Stockhausen's "Helikopter Quartet." Some people act as though Stockhausen was the spawn of Satan for writing this, calling it everything from pretentious to a piece of ****. Did anyone ever get Stockhausen's view on the piece though? What I mean is, I don't think Stockhausen ever claimed his helicopter quartet to be the best thing since the Art of Fugue. He just had an idea like "hey, wouldn't it be kind of cool if there were string quartet players playing a piece while descending in helicopters?" So he had that idea and was ballsy enough to try it out and now it's here for us to either enjoy or not enjoy, but that's all it was, an idea. An idea that might as well be put into action just to see if it sounds cool or not. Same goes for the often despised so called "sound artist." All they do is say "hey, here are some pretty cool sounds, let me show them to the people and see if they think they are cool too" and some think they are cool and some think they aren't but again, and I can't stress this enough, this is just an *idea for something new*.

And I know many people in these kind of debates mention the fact that Boulez and others talked about how atonality was the end all be all and were ******** about it. Ok fine, that was kind of a d*ck move. But do try and understand that when you are a young, passionate individual trying to find your place in the world it is very easy to get caught up in something that you truly believe in and become aggressive about that idea. I'm sure many of us have been guilty of that too. It's all part of growing up, forming your beliefs, maturing as a person and finding your place in the world and I don't think there is anything wrong with that (unless of course your beliefs get people killed or something...then there is a problem).

So I guess I'm just trying to say that as a composer, all we are trying to do is trying to find something new to say, something individual so we can present it to people as something new and original and atonality and the 12 tone method (at least at one point) was a way of doing that. It was just one idea in a sea of possibilities that is music and sound and whether someone likes it or not, no one needs to blame anyone or talk crap about anyone just for having a new idea and putting it into action. That is my belief.


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## Polednice

I largely agree with your post violadude, but not entirely. In brief, I think composers have to challenge the notion that it is imperative to say something new, or, if it is, that they must say it using methods never before used. Although it is a minority of pieces and composers who have succumbed to it (I stress _minority_ here), I think some people have tended to foreground the conceptual ideas over the music itself, and people are unsurprisingly tired of that kind of stuff (though the same people are wrong to tar all composers with that brush). There seems to be a little less "saying things" and more staunch devotion to the creation of the "new".


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> I largely agree with your post violadude, but not entirely. In brief, I think composers have to challenge the notion that it is imperative to say something new, or, if it is, that they must say it using methods never before used. Although it is a minority of pieces and composers who have succumbed to it (I stress _minority_ here), I think some people have tended to foreground the conceptual ideas over the music itself, and people are unsurprisingly tired of that kind of stuff (though the same people are wrong to tar all composers with that brush). There seems to be a little less "saying things" and more staunch devotion to the creation of the "new".


Fair enough. I understand what you are talking about. For example, while John Cage did write some beautiful pieces of "actual music" on the other hand he did write things like his Imaginary Landscapes (one of which involves radios being tuned and random frequency and volumes) which are more about the "idea" than the actual musical substance. I agree that not many people would want to listen to that more than once or twice. But on the other hand I think those kind of pieces do have a place in musical history. The idea set forth in an "novel piece" such as imaginary landscapes could and have inspired pieces of "actual music." So in my opinion they aren't totally useless. But yes, I agree. I know most people (myself included) probably wouldn't sit down and listen to a piece about radios tuning in and out of different frequencies very often, just to use my previous example.


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## mmsbls

@violadude: I basically agree with your points made recently. In general composers do want to create something new, and without that desire music does not change. I think no one on this forum would want unchanging music.

One of the issues debated with modern music is that there could be _too_ much emphasis on pushing the envelope. Originality could be given _too_ much consideration while leaving other musical concepts behind. What I would love to learn is how various composers evaluate their work. Do they produce music that they later feel failed? And if so, why did it fail? There may be people who believe that music _cannot_ fail. Fine. I'm more interested in knowing if composers believe that. In a sense new music is an experiment. The composer is trying something new. Did it work? Did it work well? Did it not achieve the goal? If the goal is simply to create something new, that seems to be setting the bar rather low.

I was very surprised to learn that Penderecki associated his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima with those victims only after hearing a performance. The impression I got was that he didn't really have a good sense of his piece before hearing it. Have composers created works that, when later heard, disappointed them? Did they go back to the drawing board (or piano) and work harder?

I remember learning about Xenakis' Pithoprakta. Part of it is based on mapping a physical process (distribution of molecular speeds in gases) onto music. Earlier in this thread I commented on my experience. I found his idea fascinating, his method quite interesting, and the result rather disappointing. I do not know what Xenakis felt about the work. Specifically, did it achieve his goal well? Did he try several approaches with the earlier ones not quite achieving what he wanted? Was the process more important to him than the result?


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## clavichorder

The point of Atonal music is so that you can make boogie woogie music that sounds really demented, like a rapping R2D2 or any other miscellaneous Astromech droid.


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## mensch

mmsbls said:


> I was very surprised to learn that Penderecki associated his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima with those victims only after hearing a performance. The impression I got was that he didn't really have a good sense of his piece before hearing it. Have composers created works that, when later heard, disappointed them? Did they go back to the drawing board (or piano) and work harder?


"Black Angels" by George Crumb, already mentioned in this thread, is a piece associated with the horrors of the Vietnam war. Crumb didn't associate the atrocities of the war until late in the composition process.

As for composers going back to the drawing board. I'm not sure if one can speak of disappointment in this case, but Henri Dutilleux is famous for reworking and refining pieces he alreay composed.

Also, Steve Reich has expressed dissatisfaction with the instrumentation of his "Octet" (1979), allegedly because parts of it were too difficult for the performers. He presented a new version called "Eight Lines" in 1983 for a slightly larger ensemble.


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## Guest

Delightful post, violadude. A perfectly articulated position, one that had I not seen it immediately assailed I would have said was unassailable.

We all have our different points of view, it's true, and we're all free to express those.

Mine is a very practical, experiential point of view. It is a view derived from largely positive experiences with various pieces of music. Obviously those positive experiences are not the only possible experiences. *It is less obvious, though, apparently, that the negative experiences are also not the only possible experiences.*

Yeah. I see lip service all the time. But who believes lip service?

Here is what I have found, as a listener, listening to music, finding some of it enjoyable, some of it not--Crumb's _Black Angels_ is a delightful piece. I have heard it dozens of times, a couple of them in concert. I had heard it many times with pleasure before ever hearing about its associations with the Vietnam war, and I try to ignore those associations when I listen to it. It's a piece of music. It's a piece of music that satisfies me musically every time I hear it. I don't really have many "favorites," each piece being itself for me, incomparable, but _Black Angels_ is the Crumb piece I listen to most often, with most pleasure--sheer, sensual pleasure.

It's that simple, logical, ordinary fact that most people find almost impossible to believe.

I find it impossible to believe that anyone could enjoy Chopin or Wagner. I am obviously wrong about that, so I just deal with it, silently. (Except for illustrative purposes, like now.)

Cage's Imaginary Landscape pieces are also delightful. I listen to them all the time, especially now that there's that splendid recording of them by the Percussion Group Cincinnati. But even before that....

I have attended dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of concerts of electroacoustic music, and I have hundreds of CDs of same, so I can certainly agree that hearing that music live (as it were) is preferable to hearing it on a home stereo. But that is equally true for opera and chamber music and symphonic music. I have hundreds of CDs of those things as well. (Thousands, actually.) And enjoy them all very much.

I have only heard _Gesang der Jünglinge_ on home stereos, and I think it's a spectacularly enjoyable piece. Of course it will be better live. But one can hear it with pleasure at home, too. I know. I do it all the time.

Almost every piece that's been mentioned recently, _Pithoprakta, Threnody, Gesang, Black Angels, Imaginary Landscapes, Variations,_ even Cage's _Concert for piano and orchestra_* (which was labelled in a post as Steve Reich's piano concert*o*), has been a piece I've loved for many years, has been a piece that I loved from the first hearing of it, a piece that's become more lovable as the years go by, too!

You don't like that music? Fine. I don't like Chopin or Wagner, either. But I also don't troll around on every freakin' thread that mentions Chopin and Wagner talking about how hideous their music is and what jerks they were and how they had run out of ideas musically and how anyone who enjoys them must either be lying (to seem cool) or deranged.

Anyway, violadude, thanks for the nice perspective from a composer. Would that listeners could understand that perspective themselves, too. And maybe even apply it to their listening....

Dream on, some guy.


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## Polednice

violadude said:


> I agree that not many people would want to listen to that more than once or twice. But on the other hand I think those kind of pieces do have a place in musical history.


I agree with both of those statements. Personally, I think a "good" piece of music ought to be something that a person would enjoy listening to multiple times, getting something from it each time. While conceptual pieces certainly do have a valuable place in music history, I think the whole conceptual thing has been done to death, so if someone has a concept to offer - a one-time only idea that's intended to shock and/or make you think - I think a better medium for it would be an essay, rather than a score.


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## Guest

violadude said:


> ...not many people would want to listen to that more than once or twice.


Not many means that some people would want to listen to that more than once or twice.

Myself, for instance, I have listened to Cage's _Imaginary Landscape_ pieces dozens of times, and will doubtless listen to them dozens more. Why? Because they're cool pieces that are fun to listen to.

And the "idea" of these pieces and of others like them is that "musical substance" can be found in more places than we had looked heretofore; that "musical substance" is a concept requiring collaboration, even for more traditional pieces. That is, a sympathetic and knowledgable listener has to be present for there to be a musically substantial experience, and that is true for any piece from any era.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Andante said:


> The list could go on for ever but you will no doubt get my point


I do get your point. The examples you posted are not _that_ extreme. Noise music - pure random loud noise - is even worse.


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## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> I wouldnt necessarily draw the conclusion that it becomes an audio-visual experience in concert. I may just as well close my eyes (and I do), and the experience will be greater than that of a recording. Theres something about the immediacy of the music, and a few other things that are lost in conversion to 101001010101....
> 
> Anyway, the main reason I brought up the 'concert' thing, is that a key element of Gesang der Junglinge is the spatial distribution of the sounds, which move around the room.


Well I find that a lot of music that I don't really care for is a lot more accessible at a concert because I am not focusing only on the sound, also when for example the same piece is played on my home system it actually sounds worse (to me) as more detail can be heard, you can't judge a piece when all you have heard is www low quality audio say 256 kbps or YouTube video clips.
I must add this:What I was trying to say was that for one that likes this music your observations are valid but for someone that dislikes this music (me) then my point is correct


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## Argus

I'd be interested to know if many of the people (I'm looking at some_guy here) who are really into the atonal/avant-garde/experimental music scenes, are also into a lot of the modern tonal/popular/mainstream music out there.

Saying that there are most likely people here who dislike both atonal and popular music.


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## Guest

Argus said:


> I'd be interested to know if many of the people (I'm looking at some_guy here) who are really into the atonal/avant-garde/experimental music scenes, are also into a lot of the modern tonal/popular/mainstream music out there.
> 
> Saying that there are most likely people here who dislike both atonal and popular music.


I have always been a Jazz Man but I dislike some of the modern trends such as 'Free form jazz' it is just a closed book to me and I am not interested in re-opening it.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Argus said:


> I'd be interested to know if many of the people (I'm looking at some_guy here) who are really into the atonal/avant-garde/experimental music scenes, are also into a lot of the modern tonal/popular/mainstream music out there.
> 
> Saying that there are most likely people here who dislike both atonal and popular music.


The preferred term used by member _some guy_ is non-pop (i.e. non popular) music. This rules out popular/mainstream music.


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## Sid James




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## Guest

Sid James said:


>


Sid your link is not working???


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## moody

Vazgen said:


> I don't know where you got the idea that you're not supposed to feel anything. Certainly you're not supposed to feel the same thing you feel when you listen to your old familiar favorites, but that's not to say it's supposed to be emotionally null.
> 
> I'd say the range of emotions in an accomplished atonal work may just be too complex for passive listening. If you're going to dismiss it as pointless and sterile just because it doesn't evoke the same exact emotions, in the same exact way, that your favorite old composers did, then maybe you're not meeting atonal composers on their own terms. And that's your prerogative, but it's not their fault.
> 
> -Vaz


Why on earth should I have to meet them on their terms---they should be coming to me.


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## science

moody said:


> Why on earth should I have to meet them on their terms---they should be coming to me.


Why?

characters


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## kv466

Ok, so I love these guys:









But I also love these guys:









My mind can handle and appreciate extreme dissonance but is always searching for harmony.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

kv466 said:


> Ok, so I love these guys:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But I also love these guys:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My mind can handle and appreciate extreme dissonance but is always searching for harmony.


Wagner is better than Brahms.


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Wagner is better than Brahms.


You sure do like saying that...


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## Guest

kv466 said:


> Ok, so I love these guys:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But I also love these guys:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My mind can handle and appreciate extreme dissonance but is always searching for harmony.


Sir how dare you put that puff mozart in the company of Bach Brahms and my beloved Beethoven


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## violadude

Andante said:


> Sir how dare you put that puff mozart in the company of Bach Brahms and *my beloved Beethoven*


That explains a lot...


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## moody

science said:


> Why?
> 
> characters


What a silly comment--if they want people to show an interest they have to persuade them. Is that beyond your imagination to understand?


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## Polednice

moody said:


> Why on earth should I have to meet them on their terms---they should be coming to me.


I think there ought to be a meeting in the middle.


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## Truckload

moody said:


> Why on earth should I have to meet them on their terms---they should be coming to me.


BRAVO!

Composers need training - Audiences need appreciation! It is far more difficult for a composer to find an audience than it is for an audience to find music.

Newness has no intrinsic value. Something bad and ugly is no less bad and ugly because it is new.


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## Truckload

Have you read any good novels lately written in the invented language of Esperanto? What, you say you do not know the language of Esperanto? You must look it up in Wikipedia, it is far superior to English, don't you know.

Well, you simply must learn Esperanto so you can appreciate the latest great novel of Mr. Atonal. Plot? Oh no, Mr. Atonal has progressed beyond plot. Characters? Mr. Atonal does not feel that characters are relevant to the modern novel. But rest assured that the government is fully funding Mr. Atonal's work and that anyone who pretends to be conversant with contemporary literature will be purchasing ALL of his works.


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## mensch

You have clearly never read a Thomas Pynchon novel. "Gravity's Rainbow" isn't written in Esperanto, but it comes close to atonality. Or "Ulysses" by James Joyce. 

Both very obscure and non-acclaimed works of course, but hey, beggars can't be choosers.


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## emiellucifuge

This thread is repeating itself.


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## clavichorder

And I'll repeat myself, rapping astromech droids are cool. This is how I fancy atonal music with hip hop rhythm could sound, like R2D2 with flow. Takes skill to avoid unnecessary minor seconds and other ugly intervals except in passing.


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## mmsbls

Truckload said:


> Have you read any good novels lately written in the invented language of Esperanto? What, you say you do not know the language of Esperanto? You must look it up in Wikipedia, it is far superior to English, don't you know.
> 
> Well, you simply must learn Esperanto so you can appreciate the latest great novel of Mr. Atonal. Plot? Oh no, Mr. Atonal has progressed beyond plot. Characters? Mr. Atonal does not feel that characters are relevant to the modern novel. But rest assured that the government is fully funding Mr. Atonal's work and that anyone who pretends to be conversant with contemporary literature will be purchasing ALL of his works.


This raises a question that I have not seen on TC. We know that there were movements early in the 20th century in both music and art that shook up the established order. Those movements led to "modern art" and "modern music" both of which have had sustained impact on their respective fields.

Has anything similar happened in literature? I seem to recall an outgrowth of dada in the early 20th century called something like "immediate writing". I may have the name wrong. It had very little effect. Are there any other literary movements that could be considered similar to what happened in music and art? If not, why not?


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## Truckload

mmsbls said:


> This raises a question that I have not seen on TC. We know that there were movements early in the 20th century in both music and art that shook up the established order. Those movements led to "modern art" and "modern music" both of which have had sustained impact on their respective fields.
> 
> Has anything similar happened in literature? I seem to recall an outgrowth of dada in the early 20th century called something like "immediate writing". I may have the name wrong. It had very little effect. Are there any other literary movements that could be considered similar to what happened in music and art? If not, why not?


Oh yes. Poetry was a money making form of art before modern poetry. It is almost identical to what happened to music. The "modern" poet lives off of government pay while the poor suffering public attempts to avoid him like a disease. Just like modern art music.


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## violadude

Truckload said:


> Have you read any good novels lately written in the invented language of Esperanto? What, you say you do not know the language of Esperanto? You must look it up in Wikipedia, it is far superior to English, don't you know.
> 
> Well, you simply must learn Esperanto so you can appreciate the latest great novel of Mr. Atonal. Plot? Oh no, Mr. Atonal has progressed beyond plot. Characters? Mr. Atonal does not feel that characters are relevant to the modern novel. But rest assured that the government is fully funding Mr. Atonal's work and that anyone who pretends to be conversant with contemporary literature will be purchasing ALL of his works.


I can tell we're going to get along really well


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## mensch

I'm waiting for the "argument" stating that great art sells itself and that the production of it should be left to the demands and needs of the marketplace.

Neo Liberal Free Market Thinking is the solution to everything!


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## violadude

Truckload said:


> Newness has no intrinsic value. Something bad and ugly is no less bad and ugly because it is new.


Oh! I know who you are! You're the guy that decides what is allowed to have musical expression and what isn't? I suppose bad and ugly things don't exist in the world. That's right, everything is beautiful and happy and carefree and it should be reflected in the music the everyone rights and _damn you if you think differently._


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## Truckload

violadude said:


> I can tell we're going to get along really well


Thanks, I already like you based on your posts I have read. And I am not kidding, although I realize you were being sarcastic. You are passionate about music! That is simply marvelous and to be commended. I took a degree in music composition in 1977, so I know a little something about some of what you are feeling and experiencing.

I earned a living as a studio musician for a time after graduation playing cello and singing. Doing commercials, backups for rock, blues and country songs, that sort of thing. My favorite activity was doing arrangements of strings for recording sessions. Anyway, my views about music have changed a TON over the years. I feel much more negative today about atonal music than every before. But God bless you for standing up for what you think and being willing to pursue the greatest of all arts, music.


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## Argus

kv466 said:


> My mind can handle and appreciate extreme dissonance but is always searching for harmony.


But you are not someone who is 'well into' the atonal/experimental scene. You mostly like tonal music.

Are there many people who like both this:






And this?:


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## violadude

Truckload said:


> Thanks, I already like you based on your posts I have read. And I am not kidding, although I realize you were being sarcastic. You are passionate about music! That is simply marvelous and to be commended. I took a degree in music composition in 1977, so I know a little something about some of what you are feeling and experiencing.
> 
> I earned a living as a studio musician for a time after graduation playing cello and singing. Doing commercials, backups for rock, blues and country songs, that sort of thing. My favorite activity was doing arrangements of strings for recording sessions. Anyway, my views about music have changed a TON over the years. I feel much more negative today about atonal music than every before. But God bless you for standing up for what you think and being willing to pursue the greatest of all arts, music.


hmm lol that was an interesting reaction. Well HI! You seem much more friendly in this post than you did in the previous ones.


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## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> This raises a question that I have not seen on TC. We know that there were movements early in the 20th century in both music and art that shook up the established order. Those movements led to "modern art" and "modern music" both of which have had sustained impact on their respective fields.
> 
> Has anything similar happened in literature? I seem to recall an outgrowth of dada in the early 20th century called something like "immediate writing". I may have the name wrong. It had very little effect. Are there any other literary movements that could be considered similar to what happened in music and art? If not, why not?


Absolutely, but it's difficult to speak generally, after all the term "modern music" in any decade doesn't refer to only one style, so you can't make analogies with individual styles of literature. Literary fiction, however, has the same legacy of innovation, novelty, and public antagonism.


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## violadude

Polednice said:


> Absolutely, but it's difficult to speak generally, after all the term "modern music" in any decade doesn't refer to only one style, so you can't make analogies with individual styles of literature. Literary fiction, however, has the same legacy of innovation, novelty, and public antagonism.


Hm interesting, what is literary fiction?


----------



## Truckload

You know that I have no more power to determine what people listen to than anyone else, nor do I want that. Never said I did. I also did not say bad and ugly does not exist. Obviously there is more bad and ugly in the world than good and true and beautiful. Nor did I damn anyone or anything.

If I WOULD damn anything, it would be newness for the sake of newness, and the idea that no composer is worth listening to unless he has "his own unique voice" or he has "crafted an entirely new form of musical expression", etc. Very few of us can hope to be earth shattering ground breaking innovators of anything. BUT there is a spark of beauty in every human soul if we can just find a way to let it out. 

I love to listen to Mozat and Dvorak and (God help me) Henry Mancini (I love the Peter Gun stuff) even though none of them was an innovator, and there have been lots of people writing similar stuff.


----------



## violadude

Truckload said:


> You know that I have no more power to determine what people listen to than anyone else, nor do I want that. Never said I did. I also did not say bad and ugly does not exist. Obviously there is more bad and ugly in the world than good and true and beautiful. Nor did I damn anyone or anything.
> 
> If I WOULD damn anything, it would be newness for the sake of newness, and the idea that no composer is worth listening to unless he has "his own unique voice" or he has "crafted an entirely new form of musical expression", etc. Very few of us can hope to be earth shattering ground breaking innovators of anything. BUT there is a spark of beauty in every human soul if we can just find a way to let it out.
> 
> I love to listen to Mozat and Dvorak and (God help me) Henry Mancini (I love the Peter Gun stuff) even though none of them was an innovator, and there have been lots of people writing similar stuff.


To me it sounds like you are having a bad reaction to an idea rather than any actual music.


----------



## Truckload

Argus said:


> But you are not someone who is 'well into' the atonal/experimental scene. You mostly like tonal music.
> 
> Are there many people who like both this:
> 
> {deleted}
> 
> And this?:
> 
> {deleted}


Wow, what a comparison - combination! Do you like both of those?


----------



## Polednice

violadude said:


> Hm interesting, what is literary fiction?


Well it's difficult to draw exact lines and give precise definitions, but there are various cultures within modern literature just as there are with music. Just as in music you have pop, cross-over, and contemporary classical (or your preferred label), you have a spectrum ranging from popular fiction (Lady Gaga is to music as Dan Brown is to books) to more high-brow literary fiction with names such as Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Martin Amis etc. - just a few off the top of my head. The difference, of course, just as in music, is that the latter aims to be more challenging (and interesting) in various ways.


----------



## violadude

Polednice said:


> Well it's difficult to draw exact lines and give precise definitions, but there are various cultures within modern literature just as there are with music. Just as in music you have pop, cross-over, and contemporary classical (or your preferred label), you have a spectrum ranging from popular fiction (Lady Gaga is to music as Dan Brown is to books) to more high-brow literary fiction with names such as Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Martin Amis etc. - just a few off the top of my head. The difference, of course, just as in music, is that the latter aims to be more challenging (and interesting) in various ways.


Wow, I find that truly fascinating actually. I've never really thought of literature like that, though it probably crossed my mind somewhere in my subconscious. So now I'm wondering, Polednice, do you go to the book sections at grocery stores and things like that and just think everything looks like crap, like a more high-browish music connoisseur would do the same at the CD section of a store that only sells pop and things like that?


----------



## Polednice

violadude said:


> Wow, I find that truly fascinating actually. I've never really thought of literature like that, though it probably crossed my mind somewhere in my subconscious. So now I'm wondering, Polednice, do you go to the book sections at grocery stores and things like that and just think everything looks like crap, like a more high-browish music connoisseur would do the same at the CD section of a store that only sells pop and things like that?


Hahaha, I suppose so, but I try not to be snobby about it.  But yes, if I'm shopping for books, I won't find anything I want in the book section of my local supermarket or news agent's. I either buy online or to go a 'proper' book shop.


----------



## emiellucifuge

Your posts have surprised me violadude, but its never too late - start reading now!


----------



## violadude

emiellucifuge said:


> Your posts have surprised me violadude, but its never too late - start reading now!


I suppose so. I actually don't read that much. I know it's surprising since I sound so intelligent online compared to the rest of the kids that don't read.  Maybe I was just born to be smart(ish).


----------



## Guest

moody said:


> What a silly comment--if they want people to show an interest they have to persuade them. Is that beyond your imagination to understand?


There are several things wrong with this. With a little imagination, we can discover those.

"They" and "people" are both very broad generalizations. Every individual making up "people" is at least a little bit different from every other individual. Same for the composers making up "they."

Really, it's "if 'they' want moody to show an interest, 'they' have to persuade moody," right? But, since moody is only one person, that seems kinda selfish and unconvincing. So let's turn "moody" into "people." Yeah.* Now it sounds sensible and convincing....

Anyway, none of the composers I ever liked when I was a little kid ever did any persuading of me. How could they? One, they were all long dead. Two, even if they had been alive, they wouldn't have known me. My interest in music came from inside me. And when I first heard music from the twentieth century, I was very pleased. And I stayed that way as I discovered more, even though Zbigniew Karkowski is very different from Bartok and Kodaly.

And now, even though many new music composers do know me, they still don't write for me. They write as they've always written, for themselves. Sometimes what they do pleases me; sometime it doesn't. So what? They have to do what they do. My job is to try to understand. And the more I understand, the more I enjoy.

I guess there are at least two different kinds of listeners, the consumers and the aesthetes. (I hope I may be permitted a wee generality of my own after my early crack about generalities.) I know that both those words are problematic, but this whole discussion is full of problems, so "oh, well." The consumers want everything to please them; the aesthetes want to be pleased by everything. The consumers get pissed off if something doesn't please them right away; the aesthetes feel challenged and energized if something doesn't please them right away. The consumers think it's the producers' obligation to please them ("meeting halfway" is just an attempt to make an unreasonable position seem reasonable); the aesthetes think it's their own responsibility to understand and enjoy.

No composer has to persuade me of anything. What? Are we having an argument? No, the composer is doing a job of work. It's my responsibility to figure out how to respond to that. If I fail, "oh well." I go on to something else. Other listeners may not fail where I have failed. Only if a composer has no listeners at all has a composer failed.

*I know. There are other people like moody. Boy do I know. But those people are not "people." However many of them moody can point to, they are not all of the people, they are only some of the people.


----------



## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> Well it's difficult to draw exact lines and give precise definitions, but there are various cultures within modern literature just as there are with music. Just as in music you have pop, cross-over, and contemporary classical (or your preferred label), you have a spectrum ranging from popular fiction (Lady Gaga is to music as Dan Brown is to books) to more high-brow literary fiction with names such as Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Martin Amis etc. - just a few off the top of my head. The difference, of course, just as in music, is that the latter aims to be more challenging (and interesting) in various ways.


Looking back at my question, I realize that I was not specific enough. I know there are modern literature styles. This thread has suggested that some modern music (specifically atonal) simply does not resonate with many classical music listeners who adore earlier music. Are there literature styles that are similar to atonal or avant-garde in that they are not enjoyed by those who have adored literature from Shakespeare and Milton through Austen, Tolstoy, and Kafka (and not because they're too simple)? Rushdie and Eco may not be very popular, but I suspect they are perfectly well enjoyed, in general, by those who enjoyed Tolstoy and Kafka.

Is there a parallel between the issues discussed here pertaining to modern music and similar issues pertaining to modern literature? Is there a Stockhausen or Xenakis of modern literature?


----------



## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> Looking back at my question, I realize that I was not specific enough. I know there are modern literature styles. This thread has suggested that some modern music (specifically atonal) simply does not resonate with many classical music listeners who adore earlier music. Are there literature styles that are similar to atonal or avant-garde in that they are not enjoyed by those who have adored literature from Shakespeare and Milton through Austen, Tolstoy, and Kafka (and not because they're too simple)? Rushdie and Eco may not be very popular, but I suspect they are perfectly well enjoyed, in general, by those who enjoyed Tolstoy and Kafka.
> 
> Is there a parallel between the issues discussed here pertaining to modern music and similar issues pertaining to modern literature? Is there a Stockhausen or Xenakis of modern literature?


Oh yes, definitely. Certainly, Rushdie is not Rowling, but his books are perfectly "comprehensible" for want of a better word. The best (and most famous) equivalent for the avant-garde would probably be someone like James Joyce with _Ulysses_ and _Finnegan's Wake_, which many avid readers of the classics and some 20th century despise. In fact, I imagine that if you looked at an online literature forum, the conversation would be much the same as here, with Joyce and similar writers taking on the role of Schoenberg and other atonal serialists. Of course, these are now old books, and the way that some people decry literary fiction for its difficulty is comparable to people disliking music written today because of "difficult" pieces that were actually written in the 50s.


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> That explains a lot...


So does your comment ...


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> So does your comment ...


Oh really? I'd be interested to know what my comment explains about me. Do explain


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> Oh really? I'd be interested to know what my comment explains about me. Do explain


Don't be childish I am too old to take part in school boy point making.


----------



## emiellucifuge

Certainly in poetry there are works that dont make sense to varying degrees, through playing with syntax etc..

Heres a very interesting one:







by Louis Zukofsky


----------



## Lenfer

Wow 58 pages...

I'll read them at some point but I thought the answer would have been obvious. The whole point of atonal music was to allow the composer to fully express themselves and hopefully bring joy to the people who like atonal music. To simplistic answer perhaps we shall see.


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> Don't be childish I am too old to take part in school boy point making.


Well, I don't know what the point of saying that my comment explains something about me unless you are going to tell me what it explains about me.

I'll tell you what my point was. Just based on my own personal experience, while Beethoven was a very great composer, those who worship his bust at the alter in the church of Beethovenism tend to be quite dismissive of other styles of music. The dismissing is usually done in a melodramatic and hyperbolic way too. The same seems to be true of you from what I've read.


----------



## violadude

Lenfer said:


> Wow 58 pages...
> 
> I'll read them at some point but I thought the answer would have been obvious. The whole point of atonal music was to allow the composer to fully express themselves and hopefully bring joy to the people who like atonal music. To simplistic answer perhaps we shall see.


Bravo Lenfer, that's the only answer that makes much sense.


----------



## Lenfer

violadude said:


> Bravo Lenfer, that's the only answer that makes much sense.


Thank you *Violadude* that means a lot coming from one such as yourself.


----------



## Argus

Lenfer said:


> Wow 58 pages...
> 
> I'll read them at some point but I thought the answer would have been obvious. The whole point of atonal music was to allow the composer to fully express themselves and hopefully bring joy to the people who like atonal music. To simplistic answer perhaps we shall see.


False. Atonal music exists so that people who listen to it can feel better about their musical tastes and sneer down upon those plebeians who don't listen to it.

In that sense atonal music is to tonal music, as classical music is to pop music.

If you'd read all 58 pages you might have learnt that.


----------



## violadude

Argus said:


> False. Atonal music exists so that people who listen to it can feel better about their musical tastes and sneer down upon those plebeians who don't listen to it.
> 
> In that sense atonal music is to tonal music, as classical music is to pop music.
> 
> If you'd read all 58 pages you might have learnt that.


False. Atonal music can be used as a tool for people who listen to it to feel better about their musical tastes and sneer down upon those plebeians who don't listen to it, much like a shovel can be used as a tool to kill someone. But that's not its original purpose.


----------



## Argus

violadude said:


> False. Atonal music can be used as a tool for people who listen to it to feel better about their musical tastes and sneer down upon those plebeians who don't listen to it, much like a shovel can be used as a tool to kill someone. But that's not its original purpose.


Sally Serious.

I'm still looking for Lachenmann fans who like Cyndi Lauper.


----------



## violadude

Argus said:


> Sally Serious.


:lol:

I'm in an a**hole kind of mood today lol


----------



## Guest

Argus said:


> False. Atonal music exists so that people who listen to it can feel better about their musical tastes and sneer down upon those plebeians who don't listen to it.


Argus and I rarely disagree. But rarely is not always.

I listen to music, whatever it is, because I enjoy it. I'm not thinking about my tastes or about the tastes of others. I'm too busy listening.

So many people in so many discussions do seem to feel it is all about them and their tastes, that is true.

It's all about enjoying music, I say.


----------



## moody

clavichorder said:


> And I'll repeat myself, rapping astromech droids are cool. This is how I fancy atonal music with hip hop rhythm could sound, like R2D2 with flow. Takes skill to avoid unnecessary minor seconds and other ugly intervals except in passing.


I wish I could understand any of that!


----------



## clavichorder

moody said:


> I wish I could understand any of that!


Didn't you watch Star Wars?


----------



## moody

some guy said:


> There are several things wrong with this. With a little imagination, we can discover those.
> 
> "They" and "people" are both very broad generalizations. Every individual making up "people" is at least a little bit different from every other individual. Same for the composers making up "they."
> 
> Really, it's "if 'they' want moody to show an interest, 'they' have to persuade moody," right? But, since moody is only one person, that seems kinda selfish and unconvincing. So let's turn "moody" into "people." Yeah.* Now it sounds sensible and convincing....
> 
> Anyway, none of the composers I ever liked when I was a little kid ever did any persuading of me. How could they? One, they were all long dead. Two, even if they had been alive, they wouldn't have known me. My interest in music came from inside me. And when I first heard music from the twentieth century, I was very pleased. And I stayed that way as I discovered more, even though Zbigniew Karkowski is very different from Bartok and Kodaly.
> 
> And now, even though many new music composers do know me, they still don't write for me. They write as they've always written, for themselves. Sometimes what they do pleases me; sometime it doesn't. So what? They have to do what they do. My job is to try to understand. And the more I understand, the more I enjoy.
> 
> I guess there are at least two different kinds of listeners, the consumers and the aesthetes. (I hope I may be permitted a wee generality of my own after my early crack about generalities.) I know that both those words are problematic, but this whole discussion is full of problems, so "oh, well." The consumers want everything to please them; the aesthetes want to be pleased by everything. The consumers get pissed off if something doesn't please them right away; the aesthetes feel challenged and energized if something doesn't please them right away. The consumers think it's the producers' obligation to please them ("meeting halfway" is just an attempt to make an unreasonable position seem reasonable); the aesthetes think it's their own responsibility to understand and enjoy.
> 
> No composer has to persuade me of anything. What? Are we having an argument? No, the composer is doing a job of work. It's my responsibility to figure out how to respond to that. If I fail, "oh well." I go on to something else. Other listeners may not fail where I have failed. Only if a composer has no listeners at all has a composer failed.
> 
> *I know. There are other people like moody. Boy do I know. But those people are not "people." However many of them moody can point to, they are not all of the people, they are only some of the people.


I'm sorry to hear that I am not "people".
I think that Polednice put it succinctly: " The function of art is one of engagement, exchange and education....it is the audience that sustains art".
Why do you think that so many supporters of atonal music post it up on to this and other threads, the reason is that they wish to support their claims for it and to persuade others. I mean, they already know it don't they?
Why do you think an artist puts a show on in a gallery, it is to sell his work and he does not say :"Well if any body might be interested in my art let them discover me".
Lenfer says that "The whole point of atonal music was....to bring joy to people (people???) who like atonal music." i think that about sums it up.
Incidentally, no composers write for themselves---they have to live don't they?
I do not know your motives for joining this thread, if it was to defend your music you're
wasting your time on me. I don't know enough about it to attack it!
The more I read your post above the more it seems psychobabble, I may have been a potential fan--but not now I think. You would be better leaving it to Violadude who has a more persuasive approach.


----------



## moody

clavichorder said:


> Didn't you watch Star Wars?


It all seems long ago.


----------



## clavichorder

moody, I used to hate atonal music because of people like some guy. Now I like it on my own terms, and try not to think about how far some guy takes it or his coercive approach.

I still can only take Webern in small doses, but dissonant music is really cool, especially if you can see classical patterns in it. For some reason I kind of like Elliot Carter.


----------



## clavichorder

moody said:


> It all seems long ago.


In a galaxy far far away?


----------



## Guest

moody said:


> I'm sorry to hear that I am not "people".


No. You are a person. One. Only. Sorry if that doesn't suit you, but there it is.



moody said:


> Why do you think that so many supporters of atonal music post it up on to this and other threads, the reason is that they wish to support their claims for it and to persuade others. I mean, they already know it don't they?


People write about what they like. Some people like Bach. Some people like Brahms. Some people like live electronic turntable laptop mayhem.

All of us, with all sorts of different likes and dislikes, with one thing for sure in common, that we like to talk about the musics we like. Is that really so difficult to understand?



moody said:


> I do not know your motives for joining this thread, if it was to defend your music you're
> wasting your time on me. I don't know enough about it to attack it!
> The more I read your post above the more it seems psychobabble, I may have been a potential fan--but not now I think. You would be better leaving it to Violadude who has a more persuasive approach.


Ah, nice touch. Blame me for you liking or not liking something. Nope. It's all you, moody. You're responsible for your own likes and dislikes. You alone. No sharing. Sorry if that's inconvenient, but there it is.


----------



## Argus

some guy said:


> Argus and I rarely disagree. But rarely is not always.
> 
> I listen to music, whatever it is, because I enjoy it. I'm not thinking about my tastes or about the tastes of others. I'm too busy listening.
> 
> So many people in so many discussions do seem to feel it is all about them and their tastes, that is true.
> 
> It's all about enjoying music, I say.


Don't tell me we've got a Suzy Sensitive as well as a Sally Serious.

Since I can maybe sometimes be too subtle, I'll be clear: the original point of this thread became tedious about 57 pages ago, so I try to eek any amusement out of it in different ways. I think I'm being quite obviously contradictory or facetious but quite often my posts are taken seriously.

But I seriously do want to know if you like any Cyndi Lauper, or any chart hits from the past 40 or so years.


----------



## quack

But Cyndi Lauper was the Pietro Mascagni of the 80s, why would anyone like her.


----------



## Guest

Sorry I haven't gotten to this sooner.

I guess I don't like any chart hits, no. (Nor any recent Pulizer Prize winners in classical music, either.)

I do like Lachenmann. Lauper not so much. 

More like Nurse With Wound or Peter Broetzmann.

Love,

Suzie 

(Yeah. Get my name right, buster. I'm sensitive about that!!)


----------



## Argus

quack said:


> But Cyndi Lauper was the Pietro Mascagni of the 80s, why would anyone like her.


Who doesn't like the Raging Bull music?

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and Time After Time are classics. Who doesn't like them? (apart from some guy)

Just ask Miles:








some guy said:


> Sorry I haven't gotten to this sooner.
> 
> I guess I don't like any chart hits, no. (Nor any recent Pulizer Prize winners in classical music, either.)
> 
> I do like Lachenmann. Lauper not so much.
> 
> More like Nurse With Wound or Peter Broetzmann.
> 
> Love,
> 
> Suzie
> 
> (Yeah. Get my name right, buster. I'm sensitive about that!!)


Sorry, Suzanne sounded too formal, so I guessed.

Now we are getting somewhere.

On this highly scientific chart, which levels do you mostly listen to?


----------



## Guest

Argus said:


> Sorry, Suzanne sounded too formal, so I guessed.


Made me grin.:lol:

On this highly scientific chart, which levels do you mostly listen to?








[/QUOTE]

Finally, a scientific chart that's really reliable.

I'd say I hover between levels five and six. Mostly six.

But with some three and four, too. Be fair.

Mostly six, though. Yeah.


----------



## violadude

some guy said:


> I guess I don't like any chart hits, no. (Nor any recent Pulizer Prize winners in classical music, either.)
> 
> .


Aww, does that mean you don't like Elliot Carter's string quartets?


----------



## Polednice

There's no "normal" classical music on that chart!


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> Aww, does that mean you don't like Elliot Carter's string quartets?


Oops. Shoulda said "most" instead of "any." I had totally forgotten about the Carter quartets.


----------



## violadude

Polednice said:


> There's no "normal" classical music on that chart!


The classical music is on the 7th level. So far below the 6th that the maker of the chart didn't even know about it.


----------



## Cnote11

Since when do normal plebs listen to Jazz? Everybody and their mother are crazy about this new horrible brostep garbage but that is in level two? Along with the horrible derviatives of the other genres in that level. That is what I really call pleb music. I seriously am doubting the methodology behind this. I fall between 3-6 for the most part. I think they mean Krautrock and not "Kreatrock". Seriously, creationists might see this and take it as yet another reason to disregard science!


----------



## moody

clavichorder said:


> In a galaxy far far away?


It would be nice to be in such a place away from the empty racket being blasted out by our friend.


----------



## Argus

some guy said:


> Finally, a scientific chart that's really reliable.
> 
> I'd say I hover between levels five and six. Mostly six.
> 
> But with some three and four, too. Be fair.
> 
> Mostly six, though. Yeah.


See, some of our tastes overlap. I like Nurse with Wound (I've been listening to the Sunn O collab recently) and even some Brotzmann now and again but I gots to have some stuff with groove and melody, earworms and floor fillers. You mustn't need that aspect in your music.



violadude said:


> Aww, does that mean you don't like Elliot Carter's string quartets?


To be fair, he did say recent and Carter won awards in '60 and '73. It does however mean he doesn't like Reich's Double Sextet.



Polednice said:


> There's no "normal" classical music on that chart!


'Normal' classical music does not even register in the minds of the kind of people who create charts like that. I'd put it at level 3 or 4 for young people, level 1 for middle aged and over.


----------



## Argus

Cnote11 said:


> Since when do normal plebs listen to Jazz? Everybody and their mother are crazy about this new horrible brostep garbage but that is in level two? Along with the horrible derviatives of the other genres in that level. That is what I really call pleb music. I seriously am doubting the methodology behind this. I fall between 3-6 for the most part. I think they mean Krautrock and not "Kreatrock". Seriously, creationists might see this and take it as yet another reason to disregard science!


Definitely Krautrock.

I like music in all levels, although level 3 is not a good one for me.

Jazz is level 1 because everybody and their mother likes some jazz, be it Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett or Kenny G, George Benson and Pat Metheny. Then you get those guys in restaurants and hotel lobbies improvising some jazz on a piano, which is inobtrusive and provides nice ambiance. Free jazz is in level 5 because most people think it's tuneless wanking.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

What level is Black Sabbath? 

I think level 6 could be better described as the freak's level. :lol:


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> What level is Black Sabbath?
> 
> I think level 6 could be better described as the freak's level. :lol:


Level six is where Schoenberg comes in. Guess where Stockhausen is?


----------



## Cnote11

Argus said:


> Definitely Krautrock.
> 
> I like music in all levels, although level 3 is not a good one for me.
> 
> Jazz is level 1 because everybody and their mother likes some jazz, be it Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett or Kenny G, George Benson and Pat Metheny. Then you get those guys in restaurants and hotel lobbies improvising some jazz on a piano, which is inobtrusive and provides nice ambiance. Free jazz is in level 5 because most people think it's tuneless wanking.


Well, my post wasn't serious in any way, but the Jazz thing still puzzles me. I don't know anybody who likes Jazz, not even smooth jazz, and this isn't just me overrating my experiences because I've put in research on this topic and it has nearly zero presence here. Majority struggle to name a single Jazz artist. Also, a lot of jazz fans would argue that smooth jazz, along with those guys improvising on a piano, isn't even jazz. I don't think many people would like it if I labeled someone like Yiruma a classical pianist.


----------



## Argus

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> What level is Black Sabbath?
> 
> I think level 6 could be better described as the freak's level. :lol:


Polly Predictable.



Cnote11 said:


> Well, my post wasn't serious in any way, but the Jazz thing still puzzles me. I don't know anybody who likes Jazz, not even smooth jazz, and this isn't just me overrating my experiences because I've put in research on this topic and it has nearly zero presence here. Majority struggle to name a single Jazz artist. Also, a lot of jazz fans would argue that smooth jazz, along with those guys improvising on a piano, isn't even jazz. I don't think many people would like it if I labeled someone like Yiruma a classical pianist.


You're telling me you don't know anybody who likes Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman?

I think many people can fall into the trap of thinking a lot of jazz is either bebop shredding or freestyle jams. Play some ECM or Blue Note stuff and most fans of pop and rock will dig some of it,or at least not be violently opposed to it.

Jazz fans who don't think smooth jazz is real jazz are just displaying their snobbery.


----------



## Cnote11

You really think they'd dig Blue Note or ECM? That seems like a strange thing to say to me. I don't think someone who loves Ke$ha and The All-American Rejects are going to latch onto that kind of Jazz especially. Maybe a song or two from pre-bebop days. Also, no, 99% of people I've encountered could not tell you who Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman are, let alone Miles Davis or John Coltrane, or even Duke Ellington. Argus, a lot of people I run into can't even tell you what instrument is playing in a rock band, or listen to all of the instruments at the same time. We must come from completely different worlds.


----------



## mmsbls

I'm moderately curious about the chart on the previous page. Do those music categories actually mean something? In other words would people who listen to those categories generally agree on where most songs should be placed? I'm not asking if a few people would agree but rather would most people agree.

Also does that chart have something specific to say about atonal music?


----------



## Cnote11

People who listen to atonal music are weird people who don't "fit in" to society as well apparently.


----------



## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> I'm moderately curious about the chart on the previous page. Do those music categories actually mean something? In other words would people who listen to those categories generally agree on where most songs should be placed? I'm not asking if a few people would agree but rather would most people agree.
> 
> Also does that chart have something specific to say about atonal music?


Avant-garde seems like the most slippery term, as it ought really refer to the whackiest stuff being written today, but because people are so used to only one kind of music, many would call music at least half a century old avant-garde.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Polednice said:


> Avant-garde seems like the most slippery term, as it ought really refer to the whackiest stuff being written today, but because people are so used to only one kind of music, many would call music at least half a century old avant-garde.


Actually, avant-garde is probably one of the more recognisable forms. We tend to use it to describe a form - the whacky **** - that while apparently sounding very broad in its content, tends to be recognisable nonetheless compared with more artistically define contemporary styles.


----------



## moody

emiellucifuge said:


> This thread is repeating itself.


I think you mean Someguy is repeating himself.


----------



## moody

Polednice said:


> Avant-garde seems like the most slippery term, as it ought really refer to the whackiest stuff being written today, but because people are so used to only one kind of music, many would call music at least half a century old avant-garde.


You are not allowed to say people--he doesn't like that.


----------



## moody

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Level six is where Schoenberg comes in. Guess where Stockhausen is?


It is interestng to note that composerOfAvantGarde, who of course is our friendly local composer, does exactly what I was suggesting. He includes examples of his compositions on most of his posts, this is more likely to attract interest than all the rantings of Some Guy. It also means that he WANTS people to listen to his music.


----------



## Argus

Cnote11 said:


> You really think they'd dig Blue Note or ECM? That seems like a strange thing to say to me. I don't think someone who loves Ke$ha and The All-American Rejects are going to latch onto that kind of Jazz especially. Maybe a song or two from pre-bebop days. Also, no, 99% of people I've encountered could not tell you who Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman are, let alone Miles Davis or John Coltrane, or even Duke Ellington. Argus, a lot of people I run into can't even tell you what instrument is playing in a rock band, or listen to all of the instruments at the same time. We must come from completely different worlds.


I'm not saying that lots of people listen to jazz, I'm saying if they actually heard something like In The Mood, or Watermelon Man, or Moanin' they'd probably enjoy it. Actually I'd say most people are quite accepting of any big band swing, cool jazz, soul/funky jazz or trad standards. It's when the long, noodly solos come into play that people get turned off.

You know people who can't listen to multiple instruments at the same time? I don't even know how that's possible.

I think we are from different worlds because I'd venture a guess that you're American.



mmsbls said:


> Also does that chart have something specific to say about atonal music?


The lower on the chart you go, the less chance of that style of music being tonal. It's a good representation of the public perception of atonal music. Krautrock shouldn't really be where it is but since the guy who created it can't spell it, it's misplacement makes sense.



moody said:


> It is interestng to note that composerOfAvantGarde, who of course is our friendly local composer, does exactly what I was suggesting. He includes examples of his compositions on most of his posts, this is more likely to attract interest than all the rantings of Some Guy. It also means that he WANTS people to listen to his music.


I don't get the some guy hate. As a musician I am reassured that there are people like some guy out there. People like some guy remind me that there is an audience for every conceivable kind of music, and that the real challenge when making music is locating and understanding your audience.

Okay, so maybe he is a weirdo who doesn't like popular music () but I prefer his overzealous promotion of his beliefs in keeping an open mind and giving all music a chance to the many people here who extol the virtues of snobbery and the exaltation of a critically objective method of music appreciation.


----------



## Cnote11

Yes, I'm from American. Michigan to be exact. It does seem bizarre to me as well but majority of people I speak to about music have a hard time following along with multiple instruments at one time. In fact, the main emphasis is typically on the vocals. That is why a lot of people are into really simple r&b/rap beats or simple pop melody lines, or into the solo acoustic guitar singer/songwriter stuff. This isn't EVERYBODY, as I'd venture to say that isn't true of people I've met at concerts I've been to else they wouldn't have been there I'd imagine. Also, I do think that people are friendlier towards swing than bop idioms. You'll have no argument from me there, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm hard pressed to find someone who has heard of Duke Ellington. Would they necessarily like the music? I'm not certain, but I could see people picking out an individual song and enjoying it, as they do with many other genres, including classical, but nothing major beyond that. Instrumental music is a huge difficulty for a lot of the public. In America there used to be instrumental music on the charts 40 years ago, the last time being Miami Vice Theme in 1985, but it really is a rarity for the listening public to care about instrumental music whatsoever. 

Art seems to be more of a focus in England compared to over here, with programs put in place to promote and sustain it. Not to mention, Jazz has an interesting stigma in America, as an American art form. It is seen as an old, outdated, "uncool", dead form of music that is no longer relevant. It is viewed as music for the old, the "snobby intellectuals", and sometimes even written off as "negro music". There is still a lot of racial tension in the area. I won't generalize Detroit and its metropolitan area to the whole country, however. Most people I come across that express any interest in Jazz state that they enjoy turning on the Smooth Jazz station a couple of times a year. Jazz clubs everywhere in the country are bringing in non-jazz acts and a lot of them are going under, which makes me begin to wonder about the state of the music in the minds of the country.


----------



## Argus

I'm not saying I know a lot of people who like and listen to jazz, because I don't, but whenever I tune someone onto, say Miles Davis modal period albums or Nina Simone, or something equally 'accessible', they'll generally react favourably toward it. It's more a case of finding the right type of jazz for the listener. The same can be said of pretty much any genre, with the exception being atonal music, which is almost universally a turn off, unless at a push, it's a kind of ambient/droney 'soundscape' kind of thing like Eno's Ambient 4: On Land. It just depends some people are more open minded than others.

Anyway, Jan Hammer's Miami Vice music is great.


----------



## emiellucifuge

Argus said:


> with the exception being atonal music, which is almost universally a turn off


Were not still stuck on this are we...

there are people who enjoy it.


----------



## moody

Argus said:


> I'm not saying that lots of people listen to jazz, I'm saying if they actually heard something like In The Mood, or Watermelon Man, or Moanin' they'd probably enjoy it. Actually I'd say most people are quite accepting of any big band swing, cool jazz, soul/funky jazz or trad standards. It's when the long, noodly solos come into play that people get turned off.
> 
> You know people who can't listen to multiple instruments at the same time? I don't even know how that's possible.
> 
> I think we are from different worlds because I'd venture a guess that you're American.
> 
> The lower on the chart you go, the less chance of that style of music being tonal. It's a good representation of the public perception of atonal music. Krautrock shouldn't really be where it is but since the guy who created it can't spell it, it's misplacement makes sense.
> 
> I don't get the some guy hate. As a musician I am reassured that there are people like some guy out there. People like some guy remind me that there is an audience for every conceivable kind of music, and that the real challenge when making music is locating and understanding your audience.
> 
> Okay, so maybe he is a weirdo who doesn't like popular music () but I prefer his overzealous promotion of his beliefs in keeping an open mind and giving all music a chance to the many people here who extol the virtues of snobbery and the exaltation of a critically objective method of music appreciation.


What Some Guy hate? I don't think you should post that under my name, I don't hate him I just think he seems rather desperate. Neither do I extol the virtues of snobbery-------please look carefully at what you say, but of course you tend not to.


----------



## Guest

emiellucifuge said:


> there are people who enjoy it.


Yes but there are a heck of a lot more that don't enjoy it  but never mind it really is not all that important


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> Yes but there are a heck of a lot more that don't enjoy it  but never mind it really is not all that important


There are also heck of a lot more people that don't enjoy Beethoven than there are that do.


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> There are also heck of a lot more people that don't enjoy Beethoven than there are that do.


But not in the classical music world and that is 'I think' what we are referring to


----------



## Cnote11

It wasn't!


----------



## Guest

Cnote11 said:


> It wasn't!


I was referring to the OP and his intent, but as I said it is not important btw do you enjoy atonal jazz?


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> But not in the classical music world and that is 'I think' what we are referring to


That is irrelevant. If you are going to use popularity or likeability by the masses as an argument against atonal music, then inevitably you have to accept that the same argument works against nearly all classical music.


----------



## Cnote11

Andante said:


> I was referring to the OP and his intent, but as I said it is not important btw do you enjoy atonal jazz?


Well, the argument stemming from what Argus said was just about in general. I don't want the strains to get muddled. For the record, I love Free Jazz.


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> That is irrelevant. If you are going to use popularity or likeability by the masses as an argument against atonal music, then inevitably you have to accept that the same argument works against nearly all classical music.


Here we go again.. sigh…. It is the mass of classical lovers that do not like atonal or will you argue against that? Are they wrong to hold that point of view? Is atonal only appreciated by the elite of the classical world ? don't get your knickers in a twist



Cnote11 said:


> Well, the argument stemming from what Argus said was just about in general. I don't want the strains to get muddled. For the record, I love Free Jazz.


Fair enough, from what I have heard of it I don't understand or like free form jazz.


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> Here we go again.. sigh…. It is the mass of classical lovers that do not like atonal or will you argue against that? Are they wrong to hold that point of view? Is atonal only appreciated by the elite of the classical world ? don't get your knickers in a twist


Bigger sigh, I didn't say anyone is wrong in holding a point of view, what I am saying is merely that if you will use likeability by the masses as a judgement on the quality of music you run into some logical fallacies regarding you favorite composers.


----------



## Cnote11

I can perfectly understand why you wouldn't enjoy it. I didn't get a lot of things at first. That doesn't mean if you continually try you will either. It is a genre I have come to adore and I feel enriched by it. In the end though, when we talk about "getting it", it isn't in the same matter as "getting" mathematics.


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> Bigger sigh, I didn't say anyone is wrong in holding a point of view, what I am saying is merely that if you will use likeability by the masses as a judgement on the quality of music you run into some logical fallacies regarding you favorite composers.


The mother of all sighs:
So what system is used to judge the quality of music and what part of the system is the most important? My preferred composers or period is subjective and *entirely* up to me so that does not create any logical fallacies for me.


----------



## violadude

Andante said:


> The mother of all sighs:
> So what system is used to judge the quality of music and what part of the system is the most important? My preferred composers or period is subjective and *entirely* up to me so that does not create any logical fallacies for me.


hahaha the sigh thing cracks me up.

Anyway, I am a bit confused here. You all of a sudden turned the argument to focus on your subject tastes. We were talking about the idea that popularity corresponds to greatness and how that argument used against atonal music must also be used against all classical music if that is the case. But none of that has anything to do with your subjective tastes.


----------



## opus55

The point is that there is no point - is how I interpret it. I think of it as musical expression that portrays the modern society - chaotic..


----------



## Guest

Read some history.

All societies have been chaotic. In many ways we are a lot less chaotic right now than society was in the mid 19th century.

Anyway, the bottom line is that the point of atonal music is to **** you off. You, personally. Because all those composers, even the ones who had died long before you were born, all of them had one thing in mind, to **** you off. None of them really liked music; they just liked pissing people off, especially the ones they'd never met or never would meet.

And the ones who are still alive, who also do not know you and will never meet you? They also have only one thing in mind, to **** you off. You, personally. They do not know you and never will, but they hate you so much.

:lol:


----------



## Guest

I am not arguing I am replying to your posts and asking for an explanation.


violadude said:


> Bigger sigh, what I am saying is merely that if you will use likeability by the masses as a judgement on the quality of music you run into some logical fallacies regarding you favorite composers.


So I am asking which set of criteria we should use to '" judge the quality of music"' I ask again what these criteria are and which is the most important? 
Now I am off for a nightcap.


----------



## Argus

emiellucifuge said:


> Were not still stuck on this are we...
> 
> there are people who enjoy it.


Yeah, I know, I'm one of em. I was talking about my experiences with other people.



some guy said:


> Anyway, the bottom line is that the point of atonal music is to **** you off. You, personally. Because all those composers, even the ones who had died long before you were born, all of them had one thing in mind, to **** you off. None of them really liked music; they just liked pissing people off, especially the ones they'd never met or never would meet.
> 
> And the ones who are still alive, who also do not know you and will never meet you? They also have only one thing in mind, to **** you off. You, personally. They do not know you and never will, but they hate you so much.
> 
> :lol:


Goodye Suzie Sensitive, hello Sadie Sarcastic.

Can I interest Sadie in some popular music?:


----------



## Argus

Sorry to post so many videos but I want to make sure you really don't like popular music. If you don't like any of that lot, then you must be telling the truth. I know it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things if you don't like popular music , but I wouldn't want you to look after my dog while I'm on holiday, and I don't even have a dog.


----------



## TresPicos

violadude said:


> That is irrelevant. If you are going to use popularity or likeability by the masses as an argument against atonal music, then inevitably you have to accept that the same argument works against nearly all classical music.


Exactly!

If the masses are always correct and the masses consider classical music to be boring, then all we are discussing here is if one type of boring music has more merit than another type of boring music. When, instead, we should clearly start listening to music that has a point to it. Like Beyoncé and stuff.


----------



## Polednice

I don't understand why people think it is logical to restrict assessments of popularity to "people who listen to classical music", rather than just everyone. After all, there are many sub-groups in those listeners - I could equally say that atonal music is unpopular amongst Beethoven fans, or atonal music is unanimously popular amongst Schoenberg fans. How do you rationalise where to draw the line? Which listeners are valid? Do we count the opinions of people who listen to film scores? To relaxation stations like classic FM? The more you probe these assumptions, the more room there is for snobbery and bias - we should either talk about popularity on a universal level or not at all.


----------



## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> I don't understand why people think it is logical to restrict assessments of popularity to "people who listen to classical music", rather than just everyone. After all, there are many sub-groups in those listeners - I could equally say that atonal music is unpopular amongst Beethoven fans, or atonal music is unanimously popular amongst Schoenberg fans. How do you rationalise where to draw the line? Which listeners are valid? Do we count the opinions of people who listen to film scores? To relaxation stations like classic FM? The more you probe these assumptions, the more room there is for snobbery and bias - we should either talk about popularity on a universal level or not at all.


I think popularity is not very useful when everyone is included, but popularity can be a useful indicator of musical value in certain cases. People who like Baroque music will not be interested in the assessments of someone who only likes Rap music and vice versa. But those who like Baroque music may be very good indicators of "good" music for others who like Baroque music. While not everyone agrees on which works are good, there is considerable consensus on many composers and works. _For those whose tastes tend to agree with the consensus_ (I, for example, agree very strongly with consensus selections for both works and composers), lists of the most popular works can be a wonderful gift.

Of course it's hard to argue from popularity that a work or composer is good, better, best. All one can say is a high percentage of that particular group enjoys the work or composer.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Of course it's hard to argue from popularity that a work or composer is good, better, best. All one can say is a high percentage of that particular group enjoys the work or composer.


Exactly the point I try to make, "The wisdom of crowd's"
In the classical world if 90% say they do not enjoy a certain type of music then that is an indication of the music's worth this is not to say the remaining 10% are wrong but they are in a minority at that time.


----------



## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> I think popularity is not very useful when everyone is included, but popularity can be a useful indicator of musical value in certain cases. People who like Baroque music will not be interested in the assessments of someone who only likes Rap music and vice versa. But those who like Baroque music may be very good indicators of "good" music for others who like Baroque music. While not everyone agrees on which works are good, there is considerable consensus on many composers and works. _For those whose tastes tend to agree with the consensus_ (I, for example, agree very strongly with consensus selections for both works and composers), lists of the most popular works can be a wonderful gift.
> 
> Of course it's hard to argue from popularity that a work or composer is good, better, best. All one can say is a high percentage of that particular group enjoys the work or composer.


Surely it follows from this that the popularity of atonal music amongst Baroque, Classical and Romantic listeners is as irrelevant as the consensus of rap listeners on Baroque music? The way you've framed it would mean - and I agree - that the consensus amongst atonal fans can direct others to the best atonal music, but the opinions of any number of people who dislike it are unimportant.


----------



## Polednice

Andante said:


> Exactly the point I try to make, "The wisdom of crowd's"
> In the classical world if 90% say they do not enjoy a certain type of music then that is an indication of the music's worth this is not to say the remaining 10% are wrong but they are in a minority at that time.


To talk of wisdom is to make exactly the point mmsbls _wasn't_ making.


----------



## Guest

Argus said:


> Sorry to post so many videos but I want to make sure you really don't like popular music. If you don't like any of that lot, then you must be telling the truth.


Well, I must have been lying, then, because I only disliked one of those. And since that one had cute girls playing table tennis, it was fine.

(One of them I couldn't play in "my" country.)

It's just that I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to any of them. Tie me up and force me to listen to them, though, and I'll get along just fine. Especially the black ones. I know, racist. But I've always preferred black popular music over white.


----------



## scarbo

I listen to a wide range of music, including 'atonal' (whatever that is supposed to mean). When listening with an open mind, I almost always succeed in finding value in what I listen to, providing there is some structure, organized sound or interesting palette to capture my attention. It would bother me greatly having to limit myself to music that others find easy to listen to. Most contemporary music is not exclusively dissonant while 'atonal' - there is a wealth of depth and meaning out there - what would be the point not to indulge?


----------



## mmsbls

Polednice said:


> Surely it follows from this that the popularity of atonal music amongst Baroque, Classical and Romantic listeners is as irrelevant as the consensus of rap listeners on Baroque music? The way you've framed it would mean - and I agree - that the consensus amongst atonal fans can direct others to the best atonal music, but the opinions of any number of people who dislike it are unimportant.


I agree except that I would probably use "irrelevant" rather than "unimportant".


----------



## TresPicos

Andante said:


> In the classical world if 90% say they do not enjoy a certain type of music then that is an indication of the music's worth this is not to say the remaining 10% are wrong but they are in a minority at that time.


In the music world if 90% say they do not enjoy a certain type of music then that is an indication of the music's worth this is not to say the remaining 10% are wrong but they are in a minority at that time.

You still don't see it?


----------



## Argus

some guy said:


> Well, I must have been lying, then, because I only disliked one of those. And since that one had cute girls playing table tennis, it was fine.
> 
> (One of them I couldn't play in "my" country.)
> 
> It's just that I wouldn't go out of my way to listen to any of them. Tie me up and force me to listen to them, though, and I'll get along just fine. Especially the black ones. I know, racist. But I've always preferred black popular music over white.


You are back in the good books.:kiss:

You can look after any of my theoretical pets whilst I'm on holiday (or vacation in ''your'' country), and you can even listen to your Randy Yau, CM von Hausswolff and Marina Rosenfeld limited edition white vinyls on my decks.


----------



## Guest

I've had enough I'm out of here.


----------



## Guest

Argus said:


> ...and you can even listen to your Randy Yau, CM von Hausswolff and Marina Rosenfeld limited edition white vinyls on my decks.


Oh, I will!!

(Not sure about that kissing thing. I mean, be fair, I enjoy kissing now and again. It's just theoretical kissing, right?)

By the way, I don't recall ever seeing the names CM von Hausswolff or Marina Rosenfeld before, though as has happened many times before, I've probably got half a dozen CDs with them. Such an ignoramus. But I'm looking forward to listening to their stuff. If you can put them in the same sentence with Randy Yau, my expectations are very high.

Thanks, Argus!!:kiss:


----------



## tdc

The problem I am faced with in listening to many post WW II composers, is the music often feels like its pinned down by its own rules. I'll find a piece or two I like by a composer, and then find most of their pieces seem to be stuck in that same 'mode'. I mean I guess I could say the same thing about many tonal composers as well, but I like variety in my sounds. When I listen to Bartok's 3rd PC and then his 1st PC I can feel great variety and diversity of moods between these two pieces by the same composer. When I listen to Bach's Brandenburgs I'm struck with a different feel all together than in his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor. Faure's chamber music has a different feel than his Requiem. I don't get this diversity in many newer composers (I am open to the fact that I have not fully integrated the new artistic language) But here is a question for anyone. Ligeti seems to be a composer that is widely accepted as one of the better post WW II composers. I do enjoy many of his works. However, when I listen to his Lux Aeterna, his Requiem, and Clocks and Clouds, I feel like I am experiencing virtually the same musical expressions in each piece. Does Ligeti have great works that feel distinctly different than these? I can't help but feel that this great composer may have been partially stifled by his own restrictions in composing at times (I am open to the possibilty I am wrong on this). I am not trying to single out Ligeti here, just using a popular composer most are familiar with.

In the 21st century composers thread a link was posted to a composition I enjoyed by a composer named Kaija Saariaho. I subsequently checked out her wiki page and found this quote:

_Saariaho was influenced by post-serialism, but she grew to find it too restrictive: "You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don't want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it's done in good taste."_

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaija_Saariaho

I have to say, I very much agree with the above quote.


----------



## Polednice

tdc said:


> _Saariaho was influenced by post-serialism, but she grew to find it too restrictive: "You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don't want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it's done in good taste."_
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaija_Saariaho
> 
> I have to say, I very much agree with the above quote.


I agree with the general gist of the quote, but _any_ system of music has negations, including the common practice period. If you want to write in that style, you're charged with avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, certain harmonies, certain dissonances - it all loosened with time, of course, but the point is that it was no freer a system than serialism, just a different one. I think it's great that we have reached a time now when people can truly feel that rules are arbitrary and just write whatever sounds nice!


----------



## Truckload

Good grief, this is the same thread as the other thread except this is a different thread but the same. I think I'm feeling dizzy. Maybe I should go lie down.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Andante said:


> I've had enough I'm out of here.


I did that a long time ago.


----------



## Guest

I've never even been here. What's it like?


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

some guy said:


> I've never even been here. What's it like?


I don't know. I've never been bothered to read all the posts.


----------



## Guest

Who _are_ you?

Where _am_ I?


----------



## Cnote11

Way to belittle and ruin the great discussion that was going on, guys.


----------



## Guest

Hmmmm. This thread started out on the wrong foot and has stayed there for the duration.

After many valiant efforts to get the right foot going, Composer and I deserve a break from our heroic efforts. Way to harsh our buzz, dude!


----------



## Cnote11

I, of course, wasn't being serious for the record! Posts like these are all this thread deserves anymore.


----------



## Guest

Sorry squire, I wasn't following your banter.

(Perfectly ordinary banter, squire.)

Anyway, I don't think I've ever posted on this thread even once, including this time.


----------



## mmsbls

This thread has gone through phases of fascinating discussions and perhaps less interesting or attack posts. Overall, I feel it's one of the most thought-provoking threads on TC. So I'll try to bring the discussion back to the intent of the OP - understanding what atonal composers intended for their listeners to hear and why.

Early in the thread a quote from Sergei Rachmaninoff was posted, but no one responded to it. The quote is: "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt."

I certainly don't think this quote describes all atonal/avant-garde music, but is there a sense where this statement does point out a real shift in compositional intent? I assume Rachmaninoff regarded the "new kind of music" in a negative way, but focusing on the intellect rather than the emotions is not necessarily negative.

Does atonal/avant-garde _tend_ to focus _more_ on the intellect and _less_ on emotional response than earlier music? And, _if so_, is that necessarily a bad thing?


----------



## violadude

mmsbls said:


> This thread has gone through phases of fascinating discussions and perhaps less interesting or attack posts. Overall, I feel it's one of the most thought-provoking threads on TC. So I'll try to bring the discussion back to the intent of the OP - understanding what atonal composers intended for their listeners to hear and why.
> 
> Early in the thread a quote from Sergei Rachmaninoff was posted, but no one responded to it. The quote is: "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt."
> 
> I certainly don't think this quote describes all atonal/avant-garde music, but is there a sense where this statement does point out a real shift in compositional intent? I assume Rachmaninoff regarded the "new kind of music" in a negative way, but focusing on the intellect rather than the emotions is not necessarily negative.
> 
> *Does atonal/avant-garde tend to focus more on the intellect and less on emotional response than earlier music? And, if so, is that necessarily a bad thing?*


If there are people (such as myself) that enjoy more "intellectual" music I don't see how it can be a bad thing. I don't think of any atonal music as being more intellectual though. I find expression in all forms of music.


----------



## Cnote11

One can only judge a man's character, in a positive correlation, based upon the number of Ligeti recordings he owns.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> ...understanding what atonal composers intended for their listeners to hear and why.


Well, OK.



mmsbls said:


> a quote from Sergei Rachmaninoff


Wait a tick. Understanding what atonal composers (God, I wish people would stop using that word) intended by quoting Rachmaninoff? Better to quote Schoenberg or Valen or Skalkottas or Gerhard, don't you think?



Rachmaninoff said:


> The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt.


Well Sergei, be nice if you could have named some names and not hidden behind a generality. But OK. You're dead and cannot respond so on to the claim. All composers create from the head. All composers have hearts, of course, and can respond to what they've done with their hearts, but creating is a head kinda thing. Or, better, each human is an integrated system. The whole system is working, all the time, especially in creators. It's possible that what Sergei was really responding to (no, no way to check this, I know) was his own reaction to that new music. (Really. It would be nice if he'd named names. Anyone know where this quote came from? There's every possibility that some of those people Sergei is having trouble with are people that we now esteem for their feeling, for their ability to exalt. If he never named any names, we'll never know.)



mmsbls said:


> is there a sense where this statement does point out a real shift in compositional intent?... Does atonal/avant-garde tend to focus more on the intellect and less on emotional response than earlier music?


No.

If there was any shift, it was in how people talked about what they were doing. There was maybe a shift from being comfortable talking about emotional responses to being less comfortable. But humans are emotional creatures. And they respond, emotionally, to everything. Composers as well as everyone else. Those of us* who listen primarily to the avant garde do not find it to be any colder or more intellectual than Bach or Brahms (who was, you'll recall, also roundly and frequently criticized for being cold and intellectual, for being able to analyze, reason, and calculate but not to exalt).

I think for a composer to focus on the intellect is a bad thing. I think for a composer to focus on the emotions is a bad thing. Composers are supposed to focus on sounds.

*We'll be able to test this claim right away, I trust.


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## emiellucifuge

I do think there has been a shift. Definitely, and I posted about this waaaay back in the beginning of the thread.

Romanticism is over, and only existed for a certain time. Even before romanticism, we have classicism, baroque, roccoco, these arent all concerned with emotion. The focus is placed on form in the classical era and that weird mystical aura of polyphony in the baroque. 

Todays listeners are almost stuck in the romantic mindset, while readers, and visual art fans have accepted new progressions to a larger degree.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

emiellucifuge said:


> I do think there has been a shift. Definitely, and I posted about this waaaay back in the beginning of the thread.
> 
> Romanticism is over, and only existed for a certain time. Even before romanticism, we have classicism, baroque, roccoco, these arent all concerned with emotion. The focus is placed on form in the classical era and that weird mystical aura of polyphony in the baroque.
> 
> Todays listeners are almost stuck in the romantic mindset, while readers, and visual art fans have accepted new progressions to a larger degree.


Don't forget that there is neo-romanticism too.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Wait a tick. Understanding what atonal composers (God, I wish people would stop using that word) intended by quoting Rachmaninoff? Better to quote Schoenberg or Valen or Skalkottas or Gerhard, don't you think?


Not better and not worse. Just different. I reposted that quote to stimulate people's thoughts on atonal music. I didn't post it because I felt it was the best description of new music creation.

Obviously all music creation has an "intellectual" component. But in the past few months I was rather struck by learning about two particular works - Penderecki's Threnody on the Victims of the Holocaust and Xenakis' _Pithoprakta_.

Wikipedia quotes Penderecki as saying the work "existed only in my imagination, in a somewhat abstract way." When he heard an actual performance, "I was struck by the emotional charge of the work...I searched for associations and, in the end, I decided to dedicate it to the Hiroshima victims". It seems as though he had an intellectual view of his work but not an emotional one.

In _Pithoprakta_, Xenakis used a very technical process to map the distribution of velocities of the molecules in a gas onto music. I personally found the process fascinating, but the resulting music didn't give me any sense of the original physical states of the gas. Of course, I highly doubt Xenakis expected people to hear that piece and think of gas molecules. He hoped they would have a specific sensory perception of something similar to the perception of gas molecules on one's skin. It still strikes me as focusing more on the intellectual aspect of music.

Cage's 4'33" might be another example. I have always viewed that work more a philosophical work and certainly focusing on intellectual aspects of music/sound than anything emotional.

I don't think atonal or avant-garde music is all about the intellectual side, but I wonder if there is _some_ truth to Rachmaninoff's assertion in the emphasis on intellectual and emotional components. Again, _if_ there is some truth, I see nothing wrong with that shift.


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## mmsbls

emiellucifuge said:


> Todays listeners are almost stuck in the romantic mindset, while readers, and visual art fans have accepted new progressions to a larger degree.


Is this really true? Perhaps modern art is accepted more although many art patrons have similar responses to modern art as classical music listeners have to atonal/avant-garde music. Also Polednice suggested in a response to an earlier post of mine:



Polednice said:


> The best (and most famous) equivalent for the avant-garde would probably be someone like James Joyce with _Ulysses_ and _Finnegan's Wake_, which many avid readers of the classics and some 20th century despise. In fact, I imagine that if you looked at an online literature forum, the conversation would be much the same as here, with Joyce and similar writers taking on the role of Schoenberg and other atonal serialists. Of course, these are now old books, and the way that some people decry literary fiction for its difficulty is comparable to people disliking music written today because of "difficult" pieces that were actually written in the 50s.


I think you may be correct that the degree of acceptance may be less for modern music. Anyone have thoughts on that?


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Not better and not worse. Just different.


No, worse. To find out what Lyn Goeringer thinks she's communicating, you don't ask for the opinion of Jennifer Higdon.

You set this up yourself: to find out what atonal composers think they're doing.
Then you undercut it, yourself, with what a non-atonal composer thought they were doing.

Clearly worse.


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## Polednice

mmsbls said:


> I think you may be correct that the degree of acceptance may be less for modern music. Anyone have thoughts on that?


I think that's an interesting question, and - unusually for me - I would draw the "cultural conditioning" card. Although I always stress that conditioning is _not_ the only thing behind our preferences, I believe it is a barrier to acceptance of "difficult" contemporary art. The key difference with music and literature is that, from birth, we are all absolutely drowned with muzak - every day, often through no choice of our own, we hear music of a certain kind that is drummed into our psyche. Literature, on the other hand, does not get as much exposure. For starters, we are a little older when we master reading; older still when we come to privately enjoy fiction. Although it's a sad thing that many people don't read that much (I actually only became interested in literature when I was about 16, save exceptions like Harry Potter), I think it leaves our literary sense a little blanker, meaning that we can be more accepting and more adventurous with unconventional pieces.


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## violadude

mmsbls said:


> I think you may be correct that the degree of acceptance may be less for modern music. Anyone have thoughts on that?


I think part of the problem is how it atonal/contemporary is often described to people who have never heard of it. Contemporary music and older more tonal music both are written with an intellectual process with an expressive result. The problem is people often hear about the intellectual process of contemporary music first, instead of the expressive result which is different from how tonal music is usually described to them (the other way around).


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Clearly worse.


OK, that is strictly correct. I should have used different wording to introduce the quote.


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## Guest

I think you're on to something, there, violadude. Makes sense. (Can I use this?)



Polednice said:


> ...from birth, we are all absolutely drowned with muzak - every day, often through no choice of our own, we hear music of a certain kind that is drummed into our psyche.


I grew up in the fifties, drowned in Hollywood music. I had what was on TV and what my parents had on the hi-fi: Ray Conniff, Percy Faith, Lawrence Welk.

In 1961, I inherited some 78s from an uncle. Some classical among other things. It was magical. I spent the next eleven years devouring everything from Gregorian chant to Brahms. Then I heard Bartok. More magic. And have spent the next forty years (almost to the day, come to think of it) exploring more and more new music.

So with the same drowned in muzak background, something seems to have gone wrong with my indoctrination. My psyche is free and healthy. And I never found contemporary music to be "difficult" or off-putting or inaccessible. Quite the contrary. That's my chief handicap in these kinds of discussions. I never had to go through any struggles to like this music, so I have to work hard, imaginatively, to understand them.

mmsbls, good to know! (You know with me it's all about the strictness.)


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## violadude

some guy said:


> I think you're on to something, there, violadude. Makes sense. (Can I use this?)


Yup! You can use it however you want.

Maybe I can elaborate. I used to be "anti-atonal" as well. The first time I ever read about Schoenbergs music it went something like this "Well Schoenberg used a method of composition where instead of using traditional harmonies he organized his pitches into a certain order and then he used that order throughout the rest of the piece. So if he wrote a C down, he wasn't allowed to write another C until all the other notes were done." Just like that, nothing about the results, nothing about the kind of expression Schoenberg's music had with this new technique, nothing.

Well that is just silly. That would be like me trying to get someone into Mozart and only saying "Ya well his music is about him using a generally preset order of harmonies that divide themselves into Pre-dominant, dominant and tonic functions and then he uses a strict set of rules to move each voice to get from harmony to harmony to avoid parallel 5ths and ocataves among other things." Not too appealing to someone who has never heard Mozart's music...

I only got into Schoenbergs (and others) music once I started hearing it described in expressive terms as it should be.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

mmsbls said:


> Early in the thread a quote from Sergei Rachmaninoff was posted, but no one responded to it. The quote is: "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt."


Interesting quote by Rachmaninoff. It sounds to me he was probably coming to understand 12-tone's scope as a compositional means in totality, not just working out the "technical details" (..._its composers think rather than feel_). I don't necessarily agree with the assertion consistently because 12-tone can work well with opera, as Berg did with his great works. In opera, it can "exalt" the dramatic impact of certain situations of the unfolding plot.

I agree with the rest of your thoughts. And I'm not bent on anally-painful-strictness.


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## Cnote11

Schonbergs Moses und Aron is masterful. All I ever hear is how horrible operas of that kind are, so I'm happy to hear some opinions to the contrary.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

Cnote11 said:


> Schonbergs Moses und Aron is masterful. All I ever hear is how horrible operas of that kind are, so I'm happy to hear some opinions to the contrary.


And of course, many operas by Benjamin Britten. Moreover, these were composed as continuous large scale pieces capable of sustaining the necesary moods, which is a critical requisite for a strong opera.


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## mmsbls

violadude said:


> Maybe I can elaborate. I used to be "anti-atonal" as well. The first time I ever read about Schoenbergs music it went something like this "Well Schoenberg used a method of composition where instead of using traditional harmonies he organized his pitches into a certain order and then he used that order throughout the rest of the piece. So if he wrote a C down, he wasn't allowed to write another C until all the other notes were done." Just like that, nothing about the results, nothing about the kind of expression Schoenberg's music had with this new technique, nothing.


So in a similar way we could speak about the sonnet. One could talk about sonnets by stressing the rules (meter, number of lines, rhyming scheme) and then mention that many sonnets were written using those rules. Or one could briefly describe the rules and then discuss Shakespeare's sonnets and the wondrous beauty they contain and the evocative language they use. The first downplays the artistic content whereas the second discusses them as though they are essentially the same as other poetry but with some new rules.

I do think it's possible I have almost never heard people talk about the beauty of atonal/avant-garde music except on this forum (and a composition student friend of my daughter's). I'm not sure how much difference that would make, but it certainly couldn't hurt in increasing music appreciation.


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## violadude

mmsbls said:


> So in a similar way we could speak about the sonnet. One could talk about sonnets by stressing the rules (meter, number of lines, rhyming scheme) and then mention that many sonnets were written using those rules. Or one could briefly describe the rules and then discuss Shakespeare's sonnets and the wondrous beauty they contain and the evocative language they use. The first downplays the artistic content whereas the second discusses them as though they are essentially the same as other poetry but with some new rules.
> 
> I do think it's possible I have almost never heard people talk about the beauty of atonal/avant-garde music except on this forum (and a composition student friend of my daughter's). I'm not sure how much difference that would make, but it certainly couldn't hurt in increasing music appreciation.


Well the problem is that a lot of people already have the bias in their mind that atonal music is "intellectual music". We need to start fresh on the new generation.


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## Oliver

Would you call this Bartok piece atonal? I heard it for the first time at a concert in feb this year. It was fantastic.


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## violadude

GeneralOJB said:


> Would you call this Bartok piece atonal? I heard it for the first time at a concert in feb this year. It was fantastic.


No. That piece is definitely tonal. Cool piece though.


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## millionrainbows

I think we all need to expand our idea about what "tonality" is. In its most basic forms, it's music that obeys an hierarchy of notes in a scale, and each scale-step has chords, in thirds, built on it; each step has a different harmonic function, 1 through 7. The "key" is defined by the notes that define the octave, or 1 & 8 (which is a repeat): C to C, F to F, and so on.

This is all based on 'harmonic stacking,' the way our ears hear overtones of a fundamental note. The steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, but also are given a specific scale degree (function) and place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as ratios (intervals), which are at the same time, physical harmonic phenomena.

Music can also be harmonically based, but not have chords derived from the scale-steps. This is like North Indian raga, which is all melodic figuration built on a drone note, or like early plainchant. This is better classified as "tone-centric" music.

In reference to "function" through linear time, vs. relative simultaneous harmonic dissonance (tension, compared to what) & consonance (compared to what), here is an interesting chart:

Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals, within one octave:
1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1

This is how intervals (two notes heard at once, or one at a time) are seen as ratios. As you can see, the simpler the ratio, the more consonant the interval. The most consonant ("sweetest or smoothest) intervals are at the bottom.

*Bartok* is harder to pin down, but his music is not tonal in the traditional sense. His is an "expanded tone-centric" system, with localized areas of pitch-centeredness; these 'seeds' of pitch can occur anywhere, around any note, then move on to another pitch area.

In this quote by *Ernö Lendvai,* he reveals the most profound aspect of Bartók's system:

_"A secret of Bartók's music, and perhaps the most profound, is that the 'closed' world of the GS (Golden Section) (1,2,3 and 6 being 'closed' or 'inward-directed' intervals, as opposed to 4ths and 5ths) is counterbalanced by the 'open' sphere of the acoustic system. The former always pre-supposes the presence of the complete system -- it is not accidental that we have always depicted chromatic formations in the closed circle of fifths. In the last, all relations are dependent on one tone since the natural sequence of overtones emerges from one single root: therefore it is open. Thus, the diatonic system has a fundamental 'root' note, and the chromatic system a 'central' note....Bartók's GS system always involves the concentric expansion or contraction of intervals..."_

So we can see from this exposition of the intervals that modern music started moving away from traditional tonality by way of exploiting the _*inherent symmetries*_ in the 12-note scale.

Bartók's 'chromatic' method was really only an 8-note scale, otherwise known as the diminished or whole-half tone scale. Apparently, this particular scale gave rise to an army of imitators, whose music exhibited symptoms of what I call *'diminished-itis.'*

In the bigger picture, what these small, recursive intervals do is allow the creation of pitch cells; these are aggregates of notes which expand around an axis of symmetry. Thus, localized areas of tonal centricity can be created on any note. An analogy would be, traditional tonality is like a tree which grows up in one direction from one 'rooted' spot; in the chromatic approach, tonality becomes radiant 'flowers' of pitch, centering on any possible note in the vertical spectrum.

Another aspect of Bartók's approach which has puzzled many is the fact that he still uses the fifth & fourth as generators of traditional tonality, sometimes mixing the two approaches.

All of these ideas were 'in the air' so to speak, around the turn of the century, and were not unique to Bartók; examples of symmetry began showing up as early as *R. Strauss,* in his 'Elektra' and 'Metamorphosen,' before he retreated back into conservative classicism.

*Debussy, *as most of us know, used the whole-tone scale in his music, most notably the prelude 'Voiles' from Book I. The 6-note whole-tone scale itself is a symmetrical projection of the major second, and there are only two of them; Debussy exploits this characteristic to create 2 areas of contrasting tonality.

*Schoenberg* was influenced by this idea as well; in an old post of mine from an Amazon thread, *"Schoenberg's Op. 26 Wind Quintet", *I pointed this out:

_[The row is (first hexad) Eb-G-A-B-C#-C, which gives an augmented/whole-tone scale feel, with a "resolution" to C at the end, then (second hexad) Bb-D-E-F#-G#-F, which is very similar in its augmented/whole-tone scale structure, which only makes sense: there are only two whole-tone scales in the chromatic collection, each a chromatic half-step away from the other. I've heard Debussy use the two whole-tone scales in this manner, moving down a half-step to gain entry to the new key area. This is why Schoenberg used a "C" in the first hexad, and the "F" in the second; these are "gateways" into the chromatically adjacent scale area. Chromatic half-step relations like these can also be seen as "V-I" relations, when used as dual-identity "tri-tone substitutions" as explained following.

Another characteristic of whole-tone scales is their use (as in *Thelonious Monk's* idiosyncratic whole-tone run) as an altered dominant, or V chord. There is a tritone present, which creates a b7/3-3/b7 ambiguity, exploited by jazz players as "tri-tone substitution". The tritone (if viewed as b7-3 rather than I-b5) creates a constant harmonic movement, which is what chromatic jazzers, as well as German expressionists, are after.

So Schoenberg had several ideas in mind of the tonal implications when he chose this row.]_

Also, from this we can see that, historically, it was the tritone (in both V7-I's and in diminished seventh chords) which was the first emergent symmetry which led to the expansion of tonality; this interval was the color tone in the V7-I progression, being the major third and flat-seven, which would then exchange places for the next cycle. This gave rise to new roots, moving chromatically instead of by fifths. This was tied-in (as mentioned above) with 'flat-nine' dominant altered chords, which are closely related to the diminished seventh. The use of 'flat-nine dominants' as true V chords appears as early as Beethoven and Bach. The vii degree of the major scale, a diminished triad, has always been treated as an incomplete dominant ninth with G as the 'imaginary' root, and resolved as a V7 chord would be (to C).

So, it can be seen from all this that *'tonality'* underwent great changes around the dawn of the 20th century; and one should not confuse this expanded _chromatic_ version of tonality with Schoenberg's 12-tone method, which just confuses the issue.

In fact, I am more critical of Schoenberg than I ever was before; his method treated dissonances like consonances, and renounced a tonal center. But dissonance is not the same as consonance; it has different acoustical and physiological effects. Therefore, dissonance ought not be treated as if it were identical with consonance.

Plus, Schoenberg's renunciation of a tonal center does not follow from any previously stated proposition, and is merely an assertion of his dogmatic belief that the negation of tonality was 'historically inevitable.' But Schoenberg was a German Expressionist, and embraced the bizarre and the downright "ugly."

However, Schoenberg's method gave rise to new ways of using musical materials, which add up to be more than just a renunciation of tonality and harmony, or a negation of it, or a reaction against it. Schoenberg's 12-tone method expanded into other ideas called "serialism." This has given rise to fractal composition and other ideas, like Peter Schat's "Tone Clock" of tonalities.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Oh no not this thread again.


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Oh no not this thread again.


I think we can excuse the revival of this thread this time since it was revived with MR's very informative post.


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## Arsakes

To make you feel super-elite :lol:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> I think we can excuse the revival of this thread this time since it was revived with MR very informative post.


Yes it was a very good post, but this thread generally drives me up the wall.


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## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Yes it was a very good post, but this thread generally drives me up the wall.


As does it with me.


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## Head_case

Hmmm.

One problem which a 'theory of negation' faces, is that it presupposes the existence of something, in order to generate its argument. If atonal music seeks to demolish tonal centres, then it would really take a very skilled listener to make sense of the serialism which follows. I suppose, this entails, some kind of appreciation for tonal music, before arriving at atonal serialism (like Schoenberg's). Equally, it presupposes, that there is intrinsic aesthetic integrity in tonal centring...before attempting to dismantle it. Perhaps it is this dismantling effort, which I don't particularly enjoy as a listener.

I've been blipping around with Bach's Partita in A minor (BWV1013) - the Allemande movement starts on a middle octave E note, and finishes on the highest baroque note of the time for the traverso flute - the high A. The perfect fourths of his composition is really striking; the accidentals fall before the fourth note like in the opening stanza in the middle octave: [E - A - Gsharp - A] and after the first breath in the bottom octave: A-Fnat-Gsharp-A and so on.

Not disputing that atonal music has its own form [i.e. serial form] and architecture. What's striking in the Partita in A minor, is the constant transformation of this theme of perfect intervals, striving and reworking it (thus the 'Frisch und bewegt [Vivo e con moto] expression for the music.

Playing it on flute, it really hits home, just how beautifully constructed the music is. Even more - it is hauntingly beautiful to my ears:











Now if only serial music could do that.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Head_case said:


> Playing it on flute, it really hits home, just how beautifully constructed the music is. Even more - it is hauntingly beautiful to my ears:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now if only serial music could do that.


hauntingly beautiful serial music:


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## mmsbls

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> hauntingly beautiful serial music:


I agree! Unfortunately it took me awhile to hear the beauty. Do you have other examples of serial/atonal music that is beautiful in a similar way? Or does anyone want to suggest some?

I realize that's a rather general request since many people may find much serial/atonal music beautiful. Given that I now love the Berg, I guess I'm asking for suggestions that people feel someone who loves the Berg might also like.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I agree! Unfortunately it took me awhile to hear the beauty. Do you have other examples of serial/atonal music that is beautiful in a similar way? Or does anyone want to suggest some?


David Froom bases his rows on major thirds, so the effect is not as dissonant as Schoenberg.

http://amzn.com/B00000DOLR

Remember, if Schoenberg's "String Trio" sounds dissonant, it's because, as an Expressionist, he wanted it that way.

Also, I find Dallapiccola to be very musical, if somewhat "suspenseful."

http://amzn.com/B000632POU

I like this George Crumb piece, also in that "Twilight Zone" way of being suspenseful.

http://amzn.com/B00008J2QT

It's funny how we never hear complaints about dissonance when it is used to create suspense, psychological tension, or fear.


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## Head_case

> hauntingly beautiful serial music:


Errrr..?

Let's recap. Here's what I said about why I find baroque music so fascinating (I used to hate this genre lol!!!)



> I've been blipping around with Bach's Partita in A minor (BWV1013) - the Allemande movement starts on a middle octave E note, and finishes on the highest baroque note of the time for the traverso flute - the high A. The perfect fourths of his composition is really striking; the accidentals fall before the fourth note like in the opening stanza in the middle octave: [E - A - Gsharp - A] and after the first breath in the bottom octave: A-Fnat-Gsharp-A and so on.
> 
> Not disputing that atonal music has its own form [i.e. serial form] and architecture. What's striking in the Partita in A minor, is the constant transformation of this theme of perfect intervals, striving and reworking it (thus the 'Frisch und bewegt [Vivo e con moto] expression for the music.


I've never listened to the flute sonatas by Bach prior to 2 years ago..and suddenly, they're making sense. In essence - the Bach sonatas, capture the quintessential quality of the baroque: that very motoric dance movement, which strives gracefully towards unity, rather than resembling an aleatory pattern of fractured tectonics of musical notes trying to cohere into some kind of agglutinated experience sold off as modern music.

Having never studied music theory since skool - I might be wrong and in need of correction, however it seems to me that the essence of the baroque vivo con moto ... exemplifies that very tonal centre of the music: the A minor key. Bach's Partita, demonstrates the beauty from the stylistics (the baroque tradition, of both dance and motoric themes), which hang on the very tonal centre, which enables the unity of the music to be expressed so succinctly: there is not a single misplaced note in his Partita in A minor. The beauty is given through the graceful transformation, by accepting the very limits of the key of the music, thus thereby exploring it more intensely, to its epitome. Can this be said for 'serialist music'?

Well we already know the difference between objective and detached linear forms of creation, rather than integrative forms, which seek to turn a line, into a human experience: like a new experience, or far from being 'just a line', it becomes 'a horizon for me'.

Now thinking about the example of the famous Berg Violin Concerto which has been linked, as an example of 'haunting' and 'beautiful' serial music.

Displacing my listener's experience aside, and reasoning from the a priori:

1. Why not link Schoenberg, the very figure and founder of serialism, and Berg's own teacher himself, instead of Berg? I wondered .... surely, the teacher should exemplify, the qualities of 'serialism', better than his students?

2. Berg's violin concerto is not 'pure' serialism; it is tonally rooted in chromatic tonal scale based cadences which give rise to Berg's 'hauntingly beautiful' music harking back to Bach's own 'Es ist genug' ("It is enough").



>


Sure enough, Berg's concerto interacts with serialism, incorporating it....into tonal music.

3. Berg acknowledges this reference to Bach: in this respect, his music is neither 'pure' serialism, nor is it representative of the kind of serialism which we come to associate with listener's experiences.

If Berg himself, acknowledges his debt and tonal reference to Bach's 'Es ist genug', then before we even listen to the music, we are not dealing with serialism in itself.

Now for a new premise:

I don't dispute that the interaction between serialism and tonal music, itself is a more interesting premise, than serialism in itself. Nothing could be more tedious lol. I find the interaction between serialism and tonal music; like the later music of Roslavets; the Futurists; even Salmanov's later music; Skalkottas; Rochberg's early stuff, Rauthaus' very serialist string quartets ...and of course Krenek's very distinctive voice ...all incorporate serialism, although I tend to see them as being on that very horizon which Gadamer speaks of, where 'fusion' of two different horizons, creates a world of music, which is much more rich; and rewarding, than either separate horizon of the tonal world vs the serialist one. The fruit of serialist influences on tonally centred music, may imho, be more interesting than serialism itself, no?

However my premise still skirts around the issue. Ultimately, I appreciate tonal based music (reflexively AND reflectively, rather than one or the other; the former (if only 'reflexively') would only lead to us being completely brain dead and wooed by any and every form of music, bopping mindlessly to Westlife's concert ditties) and the latter, if only reflectively, would only lead to a sterile intellectualisation of taste, and thus serialism lol.

But this still does not make sense....as the Bach flute sonatas have not made any impact (reflexively, or reflectively), until a year of trying to actually play them hmm....

In my simplistic way of thinking, "That was beautiful!" is a desirable attribute to much of the tonal music I listen to (be that baroque; romantic, neoclassical etc).

"That was scarily beautiful!" is an attribute of the kind of post-modern string quartets of the 21th century which came to incorporate serialism (and here, serialism is defined as a 'loosening' around the tonal dependency, however it is not of that awful 12 tone nonsense which is intolerable to listen to routinely; daily; every day).

And Berg? Well after Bach and baroque, what could so firm in holding the tonal centre of music? Every musical form thereafter was already prefiguring serialism and heading towards decay. Not in some arrogant or dismissive form of decay, but a movement towards a loosening of tonal exploration of music, since the zenith was already attained by Bach (imho - and he didn't even write any string quartets!)

Btw - if you listen to other serialist pupils like Webern too: his string quartets have an achingly beautiful quality (especially the piece - Langsammer Satz). Music like this, does suggest that after 66 pages of 'what is the point of atonal music', serialist music by the second generation Viennese school can be beautiful (because it roots itself on a tonal centre nonetheless, embracing some serialist influences) however it really only is Schoenberg whom we all think makes ugly jarring music lol (j/k).


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## myaskovsky2002

Sorry pal, we have already spoken about this topic Ad Aæternum.

Martin


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## Head_case

Yes - you've already said that before lol


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## myaskovsky2002

Head_case said:


> Yes - you've already said that before lol


I have noticed I am not the only one.

Martin


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## Sid James

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> ...this thread generally drives me up the wall.


I agree. Basically to get 'the point' of any music, its best not only to actually listen to it, but read about it from a variety of good sources. There are some good things online, but I've found things like books on music and cd liner notes much more useful. Not everything is on the net, not even on googlebooks (where often there's only previews/bits of books, not the whole thing).

So the 'old fashioned' way is the best way, imo. What millionrainbows post showed to me is he's read about and listened to (probably also studied) not only 'atonal' musics, but also music of the 20th century in general.

So we can argue till the cows come home about 'what is the point' of anything, esp. something as controversial as 'atonal' music. But best way is to do it the old way. There is no easy way out, no 'quick fix.' Music is art, there will always be grey areas in that.


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## Klavierspieler

Is this thread still going? I thought it was done a long time ago.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I love atonal music. It stimulates my................senses. :tiphat:


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## Sofronitsky

A few additional thoughts: 

In the Baroque era, serious music was mostly enjoyed by composers themselves. Almost everyone listening to new works of Vivaldi, Handel etc. were scholars, people with a strong grasp of music, musicians, or composers themselves. I'm not an expert on this time period, so you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that simple folk and bard songs etc. were pretty popular in "resturaunts" and "bars".

In the Classical era, serious music was widespread a bit more with Mozart, Haydn, etc. writing beautiful music with recognizable tunes for broader audiences.

In the Romantic to Late Romantic era, music had become interesting and entertaining to almost everyone, at least in Europe. You did not have to have a lot of previous musical experience to truly enjoy the music, you pretty much just had to have a soul. I'm not saying that everyone in the world listened to Romantic and Late Romantic composers, but we can pretty much consider this time period as the one where serious music was the most popular.

Today, our music is seperated almost entirely by two types of music: That which is easily understood and activates the pleasure center of the brain, and that which is understood only by scholars and activates an entirely different part of the brain. It seems like we have come full circle from the Baroque era. Great composers in our time probably will not make much money at all, whilst great performers and writers of popular music will receive ridiculous paychecks. What should happen from this point? Will music eat itself along with the world? Does the circle start over? ... It's very confusing to me.

I hope this post was at least entertaining. It's been quite some time since I started this thread, and I have opened up more to dissonant music, but I still agree mostly with the points I've made at the start of it all.


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## DeepR

I've said something similar in the Stockhausen topic, but I don't wish to read about art/music in order to "get it". I think art should be able to speak for itself without outside help. I'm stubborn, yes. 
I want to experience, discover and feel it myself. If there is no connection in the long run, then it has failed as art, _to me personally_. If there is a connection however, that connection could be enhanced by reading about it, but it shouldn't create the connection. 
Especially when focussing too much on other people's opinions, you will end up with a kind of second hand taste that is not true to yourself.


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## mmsbls

Klavierspieler said:


> Is this thread still going? I thought it was done a long time ago.


The qualities of a really good thread are 1) posts by a large number of people, 2) continued interest, and 3) few enough violations of the TOS that the thread remains. This thread has all 3. I wish TC had _many_ more threads like this one.


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## Guest

Sofronitsky, I know of no documentary support for any of your additional thoughts. On the other hand, I do know of a certain amount of evidence to the contrary.

DeepR, I know of no art anywhere that has ever been able to "speak for itself" except to a very few people--or not at first. Later, of course, once everyone's gotten used to the heretofore heterodoxies, all bets are off. (This is also true for Sofronitsky's characterization of Mozart's music as "beautiful" and with "recognizable tunes." It sounds like that *now,* to us. To his contemporaries? Um, not so much. As for the two types of music of today, how do you account for my experience, which was to devour everything "avant garde" I could find as soon as I found out about it, simply because I liked listening to it? (You may have oversimplified what "the brain" does to the point of making it unrecognizable.))


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## Sofronitsky

some guy said:


> Sofronitsky, I know of no documentary support for any of your additional thoughts. On the other hand, I do know of a certain amount of evidence to the contrary.
> 
> DeepR, I know of no art anywhere that has ever been able to "speak for itself" except to a very few people--or not at first. Later, of course, once everyone's gotten used to the heretofore heterodoxies, all bets are off. (This is also true for Sofronitsky's characterization of Mozart's music as "beautiful" and with "recognizable tunes." It sounds like that *now,* to us. To his contemporaries? Um, not so much. As for the two types of music of today, how do you account for my experience, which was to devour everything "avant garde" I could find as soon as I found out about it, simply because I liked listening to it? (You may have oversimplified what "the brain" does to the point of making it unrecognizable.))


Shrug... Oh well! I am happy to create a thread which sparked 1000 comments from all of you interesting people. Cheers


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## Toddlertoddy

Sofronitsky said:


> In the Romantic to Late Romantic era, music had become interesting and entertaining to almost everyone, at least in Europe. You did not have to have a lot of previous musical experience to truly enjoy the music, you pretty much just had to have a soul. I'm not saying that everyone in the world listened to Romantic and Late Romantic composers, but we can pretty much consider this time period as the one where serious music was the most popular.


I think one of the primary "pop" music was comic opera (and operetta), like Gilbert and Sullivan's. For example, the Mikado ran for 672 performances in London, according to Wikipedia, and if you see the score, you can tell that it's definitely not "serious" classical music.

The serious music was definitely more popular with the surge of the middle class but I think people still mostly liked the comic and casual music.


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## Guest

The surge of the middle class started a trend. In Haydn's time, the ratio of dead composers to living in concerts was one to nine. By the 1870s, that had changed to nine to one.

Thompson's request for 1/3 modern to 2/3 older seems quite tame in comparison to the ratio in Haydn's time.


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## BurningDesire

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This is my favorite accessible piece my Xenakis:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's a lovely piece to accompany your morning coffee and cinnamon rolls, or to sit back and contemplate while relaxing after a long day's work.


As we all know, music is only meant to be relaxed to. Great point dude!


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This is my favorite accessible piece my Xenakis:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> It's a lovely piece to accompany your morning coffee and cinnamon rolls, or to sit back and contemplate while relaxing after a long day's work.


Curse you. Now I'll be humming it for the rest of the day.


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## starthrower

And of course a composer's motivation for creating a piece of music should always include tickling the ears of cinnamon roll eating snobs with smug attitudes.


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## millionrainbows

Sofronitsky said:


> ...In the Baroque era, serious music was mostly enjoyed by composers themselves...I believe that simple folk and bard songs etc. were pretty popular in "resturaunts" and "bars"....In the Classical era, serious music was widespread a bit more with Mozart, Haydn, etc. writing beautiful music with recognizable tunes for broader audiences....In the Romantic to Late Romantic era, music had become interesting and entertaining to almost everyone, at least in Europe. You did not have to have a lot of previous musical experience to truly enjoy the music, you pretty much just had to have a soul....we can pretty much consider this time period as the one where serious music was the most popular.
> Today, our music is seperated almost entirely by two types of music: That which is easily understood and activates the pleasure center of the brain, and that which is understood only by scholars and activates an entirely different part of the brain. It seems like we have come full circle from the Baroque era. Great composers in our time probably will not make much money at all, whilst great performers and writers of popular music will receive ridiculous paychecks. What should happen from this point? Will music eat itself along with the world? Does the circle start over? ... It's very confusing to me.


I think what you are seeing here, and why this happened, is a result of social and historical change, the decline of the Church and Royalty system, and the emergence of a middle-class. What once was "entertainment" or a mere craft, is now seen as art.
Bach saw himself as a craftsman doing a job. Admittedly, he transcended this role, but that was his function back then. The Church sold-off many of his weekly Chorales as scrap paper!

Now that the Church and Kings are out of power, its a consumer society...$$$ rules everything. Modern composers have "taken over" the abandoned ivory tower of "art" music; there is a vast museum of past music available on recordings and DVDs. The reason "art" music like Milton Babbitt is "art" is because it is "useless" in a utilitarian sense; its "purity" is that it was produced solely as art, not for profit or to entertain.


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## millionrainbows

Short answer to thread question "What Is the Point of Atonal Music?"

The initial impetus for Schoenberg to develop his 12-tone method was that he saw the emerging historical tendency of music becoming more chromatic, i.e., losing its tonal center of gravity and becoming "keyless" and difficult to interpret in tonal terms. The 12-tone system eliminated tonal centers, and tonality.

The consequence of this new system, however, was that music produced this way also lost all harmony, i.e,. harmonic function. 

As Serialism began to expand on these ideas, "pitch identity" lost its primacy in this new hierarchy, and other aspects of pitch began to take on more significance, namely "interval relations." This new music developed its means and ideas not by harmonic considerations, but by way of mathematical permutations and set theory. 

Thus, the true meaning of this music was no longer based on harmonic considerations or inevitabilities apparent to the ear, as harmonically-based music was; it became based on abstract principles which, while invisible to the ear, nonetheless served as ways of generating materials, guiding principles, and forms which could be expressed musically, and from which musical compositions could be based on.


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## oogabooha

The point of atonal music is to do what any other type of music has done: express emotion.

In the case of atonal music, it is created by people who are pushing ahead and exploring new territories. Unlike completely tonal music, atonal music has a lot that can still be discovered, and many people are always thinking differently. Some people think in rigid colors that are set in tonal music, and others like to find a lot of beauty in dissonance. Of course atonal music evokes feelings of an unstable environment, but it's something that grows on you. The more you listen, the more your ear adjusts, and the more you start to think in dissonant intervals and find beauty in atonal music.

In terms of 12-tone technique, composers are allowed to play with textures and communicate through those when they aren't given the exact decision of which pitches they use.

Unfortunately, not everyone thinks this way, and this is why there are threads like these. This isn't meant to be conceited either, it's just that there's a whole other world for a reason, and it is helpful for people to know what to listen for if they're completely confused. It is an interesting discussion.


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## Rapide

oogabooha said:


> The point of atonal music is to do what any other type of music has done: express emotion.


Yes, I can agree with you. I think music has to fundamentally connect with the listener in ways that would trigger some emotional response, which makes the purpose of the music we are discussing about on a higher level of artistic plane.

But I have also read opinion of many here who would disagree about the part on "expressing emotion". I do not agree with such opinion.


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> Yes, I can agree with you. I think music has to fundamentally connect with the listener in ways that would trigger some emotional response, which makes the purpose of the music we are discussing about on a higher level of artistic plane....But I have also read opinion of many here who would disagree about the part on "expressing emotion". I do not agree with such opinion.


I see no difference in musical method when it comes to artistic expression. Like I said, serialism's methods were based on abstract principles which, while invisible to the ear, nonetheless served as ways of generating materials, providing guiding principles, and forms _which could be expressed musically and artistically,_ and from which musical compositions (which express *emotion* if desired) could be based on.

Let's not let a more technical explanation of procedures used distract us from the conclusion that serial-derived music can be emotionally expressive (Babbitt's *Philomel* comes to mind), but I don't think music has to "emotionally connect" with listeners unless you are willing to explain this emotional response in more detail, and be prepared to expand on this.

For example, my response to Glenn Gould playing Bach evokes "strong feelings" in me, but this seems to be a more cerebral, more intellectual apprehension of the *perfect beauty* expressed, rather than "emotion."

I would not characterize this apprehension of Bach as an "emotional" response in the same way that a female soprano voice in a dramatic scene evokes emotion of a different sort.

I think the *highest purpose of art* is to get us to a*pprehend beauty,* and beauty can come in different varieties, not just the "emotional" kind.

As Aaron Copland once told his orchestra, "This is not Tchaikovsky, gentlemen, this is American. Play it more coolly, more detached."


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## Rapide

Apprehending beauty triggers an emotional response. I see a beautiful painting (to my eyes), I feel positive as a result - an emotional response.


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> Apprehending beauty triggers an emotional response. I see a beautiful painting (to my eyes), I feel positive as a result - an emotional response.


Do you mean dramatic boo-hoo emotion, or a feeling of sublime ecstacy?


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## anasazi

I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to connect with atonal (or dodecaphonic) music for a number of years. So I do kind of understand the requirements of the music and of the listener. But I still feel that I'm wasting my time. Should not there not be some point to music or art of any kind, that relates to the pleasure of the listener or reader, etc.? How many years should a poor ignorant listener struggle to enjoy these works? It is not as if I don't get the structure of Sonata Allegro form or understand counterpoint or orchestration. 

I love to remember a quote by the 20th century composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, apparently made to another more famous 20th century composer Arnold Schoenberg. They were both sort of trapped in Hollywood, USA following Hitler's anexation of Austria, with hundreds of other refuge artists. Korngold's father, Julius Korngold, had been a fearsome music critic in Vienna at the turn of the last century, and had persecuted composers like Schoenberg. But in Hollywood USA in the 1930's and 1940's, his son Erich would get together with Schoenberg at tea time.

Korngold was noted for having a very quick, witty comeback for nearly everything. As well as noted for his music, and for being an unabashed chocoholic. Schoenberg never quite gave up trying to convert him to his 12 tone composing method, and as I have read, on one occasion, showed Korngold a pencil. Attempting to demonstrate his compositional basis, he turned the pencil around and proclaimed that it was still the same pencil. To which Korngold said something like - yes, but now you can't write with it!! 

Maybe that's the point.


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## SottoVoce

Rapide said:


> Apprehending beauty triggers an emotional response.


That's true, but the emotion that I get from Bach is so radically different from the emotion that I would get from Chopin that I wouldn't even call it the same mental state or feeling. Kind of being connected with this supreme greater mind. Looking at a cathedral and just being overwhelmed by the sublimity and the awesomeness. I quote Schweitzer:



> Bach's works have special characteristics about existence; it is not about fate or subjective emotion, they are works of art that which let you imagine the scenery of life, and even transcends the general life. His works are so objective and netural that they don't show a specific personality; everything you hear is like breathing inside of Bach, his works allow people freely wander his mind and find the true meaning of art.


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## neoshredder

To stimulate the mind. A refreshing change to the norm for those want more unpredictability.


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## DeepR

I'm sure there's some point to it, I just don't get it.
What does bother me is silly and bizarre things with metronomes and helicopters. What is the point of that? Other than desperately trying to be avantgarde.


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## Crudblud

The Helicopter String Quartet is actually quite interesting, but if you aren't accustomed to timbre being the main element of the composition it might just seem a little bit silly. Also, I think Stockhausen is aware of the humour derived from the way each player counts "eiiiiiiiin... zweiiiiiiii... drrrrreiiiiiiii".

As for the metronomes, I think that's an example of Ligeti's sense of humour more than anything, but I could be wrong.


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## BurningDesire

DeepR said:


> I'm sure there's some point to it, I just don't get it.
> What does bother me is silly and bizarre things with metronomes and helicopters. What is the point of that? Other than desperately trying to be avantgarde.


You could say the same thing about writing a bassoon solo in the stratospheric, extremely-difficult-to-play high register of the instrument, or writing in 2 or more keys at once, or using any extended techniques on any given instrument. They're all just the results of imagination. The metronome piece is a study in rhythms. The helicopter piece is a (rather extreme) development of spacial ideas in composition (and use of sounds besides those of standard instruments). They are quite unusual (especially the helicopter one, but Stockhausen was a very unusual man anyway), but its not some desperate attempt at being avant-garde. Neither Stockhausen nor Ligeti was without a sense of humor.


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## millionrainbows

I don't know about the rest of you, but I find most of John Cage's music to be very relaxing. Right now, it's "Music of Changes" for solo piano, Herbert Henck (WERGO). There's a lot of space in the music, with plenty of breathing room. Perfect for unwinding after work. Not the same effect I get from Brahms.


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## Crudblud

millionrainbows said:


> I don't know about the rest of you, but I find most of John Cage's music to be very relaxing. Right now, it's "Music of Changes" for solo piano, Herbert Henck (WERGO). There's a lot of space in the music, with plenty of breathing room. Perfect for unwinding after work. Not the same effect I get from Brahms.


Also, like with many pieces by Feldman, there is attention drawn to every single note.

Edit: Sigh, I really wish the page would update properly.


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## oogabooha

millionrainbows said:


> I don't know about the rest of you, but I find most of John Cage's music to be very relaxing. Right now, it's "Music of Changes" for solo piano, Herbert Henck (WERGO). There's a lot of space in the music, with plenty of breathing room. Perfect for unwinding after work. Not the same effect I get from Brahms.


I agree man, and--coincidentally enough--the piece I've fallen in love with by him recently is "Music of Changes" as well. It's a very spacious piece, and it's very intricately crafted to form one of my favorite pieces by him.


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## mtmailey

What i think is they did not want to limit how to write music it is such a pain to remember the minor & major scales it seems to be easy to use all the notes than a few of them.


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## millionrainbows

mtmailey said:


> (edited for clarity) What i think is: they did not want to limit how to write music. It is such a pain to remember the minor & major scales. It seems to be (easier) to use all the notes (rather) than a few of them.


So what you seem to be trying to say is that Cage took the easy way out, because he did not want to commit the major & minor scales to memory. I seriously doubt that. And you go on to say "it's easier to write (chromatically) than to write diatonically." I doubt that, as well.


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## neoshredder

Way easier to write diatonically imo with modulations of course.


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## millionrainbows

Ironically, the thread title itself----"What is the point of atonal music?"----seems to miss the point: that there was no "point" anymore, as explained in the liner notes of these two CDs. Also, a book was published recently of the letters between John Cage and Boulez.

After the horrors of World War II, the next generation had "lost faith" in humanity to a degree. In about 1950, Boulez crossed paths with Cage, and they found that they were both after the same thing, albeit using different methods. This goal was to create an "egoless" music, free of nationalistic bombast and the cult of personality.

Cage did this beginning with his "chance" works circa 1950; Pierre Boulez did it by creating systems of total control which determined the outcome, both men working from the premise of "minimal interference of the ego" or personality.

It was thought by them that the results were superior, rather than striving to "create" a work with one's conscious will, or as an expression of one's personality or "genius."

This was, of course, a Buddhist idea for Cage, but in Bouez' case, related more to the poetry of Mallarme, and French surrealism, where "automatic" drawing was created, and the "unconscious" was valued.

Brian Eno continued this "non-interference" policy into the present with his deck of cards called "Oblique Strategies."

So, "Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream."


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## millionrainbows

And then there's George Perle's book "Twelve Tone Tonality" which explores a rarified area of dodecaphony, an area which exploits certain 12-tone sets for their combinatorial possibilities of controlling harmony, which is the aspect of dodecaphony which is the least controllable and predictable, but, by God, George Perle is going to fight that dragon!
You realize, of course, that "harmony" depends on pitch relations, and this is totally antithetical to dodecaphony's concern with interval relations. When "order numbers" become "identity numbers," we are back in the realm of tonality----hence the term "Twelve-Tone Tonality."
This could really confuse the standard arguments about "tonality" vs. "atonality." But, there you have it....showing that both systems are flexible enough to feed off of each other. In fact, looking back, this may have been exactly the same way Schoenberg and his "school" were thinking. Schoenberg was also interested in these certain sets which exhibit symmetry under inversion. Plus, of 48 possible row forms, Schoenberg always used a very few select ones.


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## mtmailey

neoshredder said:


> Way easier to write diatonically imo with modulations of course.


If one wrote music in C MAJOR but use sharps & flats that would be easy rather than changing the key signatures remembering them is not easy.


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## millionrainbows

mtmailey said:


> If one wrote music in C MAJOR but use sharps & flats that would be easy rather than changing the key signatures remembering them is not easy.


Key signatures are really designed around the keyboard, not for guitarists.


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## neoshredder

mtmailey said:


> If one wrote music in C MAJOR but use sharps & flats that would be easy rather than changing the key signatures remembering them is not easy.


I used to play guitar. I found it easier to write with some surprises. Modulating adds that and makes putting together a song easier. Of course I didn't consider how hard it would be changing keys for piano. I also found it easier to write in the minor key. I relate to that emotion better. Writing for Atonal would be really difficult. I respect those that do it but that seems like the ultimate challenge.


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## mtmailey

neoshredder said:


> I used to play guitar. I found it easier to write with some surprises. Modulating adds that and makes putting together a song easier. Of course I didn't consider how hard it would be changing keys for piano. I also found it easier to write in the minor key. I relate to that emotion better. Writing for Atonal would be really difficult. I respect those that do it but that seems like the ultimate challenge.


That is true but i find using C MAJOR when writing a symphony and concerto is much easier to tell you writing all the flats & sharps for each instrument is not easy.


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## millionrainbows

mtmailey said:


> That is true but i find using C MAJOR when writing a symphony and concerto is much easier to tell you writing all the flats & sharps for each instrument is not easy.


A lot of composers write for the transposing instruments "as sounded" then transpose the parts later.


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## millionrainbows

This quote by George Perle/Paul Lansky is good:

"Perhaps the most important influence of Schoenberg's method is not the 12-note idea itself, but along with it the individual concepts of permutation, inversional symmetry, invariance under transformation, etc.....Each of these ideas by itself, or in conjunction with many others, is focused upon with varying degrees...by...Bartók, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse, etc...In this sense the development of the serial idea may be viewed not as a radical break with the past but as an especially brilliant coordination of musical ideas which had developed in the course of recent history. The symmetrical divisions of the octave so often found in Liszt and Wagner, for example, are not momentary abberations in tonal music which led to its ultimate destruction, but, rather, important musical ideas which, in defying integration into a given concept of a musical language, challenged the boundaries of that language."


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## PlaySalieri

I asked a tonal composer this question yesterday.
He felt the point of atonal music is purely intellectual.


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## BurningDesire

stomanek said:


> I asked a tonal composer this question yesterday.
> He felt the point of atonal music is purely intellectual.


He is wrong. Derp.


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## millionrainbows

stomanek said:


> I asked a tonal composer this question yesterday.
> He felt the point of atonal music is purely intellectual.


Yeah, but that's too general; and it uses the old paradigm of atonal/serial music as being "at odds" with tonal music, instead of seeing serialism as a pervasive influence through all 20th century music & beyond. It's like a virus you can't get rid of.

"Intellectual" as opposed to "boo-hoo emotions?" Music is not that one-dimensional, and neither are people. "Beauty" is a mysterious thing.


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## Crudblud

stomanek said:


> I asked a tonal composer this question yesterday.
> He felt the point of atonal music is purely intellectual.


Would make sense if he had only ever listened to new complexity or something, but I find such composers as Webern, Berg, Bartók, Messiaen etc. even at their most dissonant can be highly emotional.


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## dmg

mmsbls said:


> This thread has gone through phases of fascinating discussions and perhaps less interesting or attack posts. Overall, I feel it's one of the most thought-provoking threads on TC. So I'll try to bring the discussion back to the intent of the OP - understanding what atonal composers intended for their listeners to hear and why.
> 
> Early in the thread a quote from Sergei Rachmaninoff was posted, but no one responded to it. The quote is: "The new kind of music seems to create not from the heart but from the head. Its composers think rather than feel. They have not the capacity to make their works exalt - they meditate, protest, analyze, reason, calculate and brood, but they do not exalt."
> 
> I certainly don't think this quote describes all atonal/avant-garde music, but is there a sense where this statement does point out a real shift in compositional intent? I assume Rachmaninoff regarded the "new kind of music" in a negative way, but focusing on the intellect rather than the emotions is not necessarily negative.
> 
> Does atonal/avant-garde _tend_ to focus _more_ on the intellect and _less_ on emotional response than earlier music? And, _if so_, is that necessarily a bad thing?


I do not think atonality need be without emotion and feeling. While yes, there are many atonal composers who rely on things like mathematical equations and stuff to compose their works (or do silly things like make cute pictures on the page with the notes and what have you), but there are composers who simply see the boundaries of tonality as restricting them from conveying the emotions that they seek to convey.


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## BurningDesire

Whoever decided that dissonance = unemotional? If anything you could make the argument that alot of atonal music is _overly_ emotional (I wouldn't, I don't think you can be _overly_ emotional in music). Many of the most passionate or intense or heartbreaking or breathtaking moments in great tonal music are when a striking dissonance occurs.


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## mmsbls

BurningDesire said:


> Whoever decided that dissonance = unemotional? If anything you could make the argument that alot of atonal music is _overly_ emotional (I wouldn't, I don't think you can be _overly_ emotional in music). Many of the most passionate or intense or heartbreaking or breathtaking moments in great tonal music are when a striking dissonance occurs.


I don't think people view dissonance itself as unemotional. I think many people have trouble connecting emotionally to music that has too much dissonance (for them, of course). Those people have no hook into the music and only hear unpleasantness. There are certainly works that effect me that way. I'm not sure how similar excessive dissonance is to spiciness in food. I cannot enjoy food that is remotely spicy because it's simply unpleasant. I understand that people get used to the spiciness and come to enjoy that spiciness more than "bland" food. It's possible that I need more exposure to "excessive dissonance" to develop more tolerance and then enjoyment. Or it's possible that certain people will never develop that "taste" for dissonance.



dmg said:


> I do not think atonality need be without emotion and feeling. While yes, there are many atonal composers who rely on things like mathematical equations and stuff to compose their works (or do silly things like make cute pictures on the page with the notes and what have you), but there are composers who simply see the boundaries of tonality as restricting them from conveying the emotions that they seek to convey.


I agree. Atonal music _is not_ emotionless. I don't understand exactly why atonal music seems to give many people (including myself) such a difficult time in coming to enjoy it. Many threads on TC have discussed potential reasons for this effect, but I think it's fair to say that we don't understand this phenomenon. For most people I assume it's a matter of listening repeatedly in the proper manner to find a way into the music to enjoy it emotionally. Unfortunately, it's not clear when to move on or change tactics.


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## Philip

Emotion:

Daníel Bjarnason - Bow to String: Sorrow Conquers Joy


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## Petwhac

mmsbls said:


> I agree. Atonal music _is not_ emotionless. I don't understand exactly why atonal music seems to give many people (including myself) such a difficult time in coming to enjoy it. Many threads on TC have discussed potential reasons for this effect, but I think it's fair to say that we don't understand this phenomenon. For most people I assume it's a matter of listening repeatedly in the proper manner to find a way into the music to enjoy it emotionally. Unfortunately, it's not clear when to move on or change tactics.


I am going to define atonal music as that music which does not have any sense, however weak, of harmonic progression. Some works may slip in and out of tonality, especially more recent works such as Thomas Ades's 'Tevot' which I would not class as atonal. Also, some of Ligeti's Etudes retain a sense of harmonic progression.
As for purely atonal and particularly serial music, after many years of "listening repeatedly in the proper manner" I have found it not to be the case that I have been more engaged with it. In fact if anything your analogy with spicy food is exactly the reverse of what I find. It is the atonal music which is bland.
Dissonance for me is a relative term. In the context of tonal or harmonic music it is something that needs a resolution. There is nothing emotionally blander than say, a piece played only on the black keys of the piano (wholetone scale) because there can be no dissonance or resolution in such a piece. This concept has been such a fundamental driving force in music from the middle ages through to the non-atonal music of today. Composers have attempted to replace structural harmonic function with timbre or rhythm or note rows or other concepts but in my opinion it is not possible to really replace harmony altogether.
If you listen to Berg's Lyric Suite and then to Wuorinen's Piano Trio written nearly 60 years later you might find the harmonic 'language' far more similar than say between something composed in 1850 and 1910 or 1750 and 1810.
A work like Babbitt's 'Correspondences' is pleasant enough to listen too, even beautiful on the surface but to me it has no _audible_ sense of 'going anywhere' or 'saying anything'. It's just pleasant sonorities signifying nothing. There may be very precise concepts and processes being worked out in the piece but if I can't hear them they are irrelevant to me.
It is my view that atonal music is incapable of the same depth and subtlety of expression that makes harmony based music so universally appealing.
There are many atonal works that do engage me on some level but personally I find it usually a second best type of experience.

Of course I shall get a severe ticking off by some other members on this forum but hey, I'm only stating my opinion. To the lovers of serial and atonal music I say, enjoy and have fun! :tiphat:


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> It is my view that atonal music is incapable of the same depth and subtlety of expression that makes harmony based music so universally appealing.


And you would be wrong. Maybe you don't hear the same depth and subtlety of expression, but that's your problem, not the music's. I hear as much depth and subtlety of expression in what you call atonal as in any tonal piece. Indeed, I should maybe finesse this a bit. I hear more depth and subtlety of expression in some atonal works than in many tonal works. I hear less in others. Depends on the work, not on the technique used to create the work. This obsession with the technique and with the putative results of the technique has always puzzled me. There are plenty of shallow and unsubtle tonal works, after all.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I am going to define atonal music as that music which does not have any sense, however weak, of harmonic progression...It is the atonal music which is bland...A work like Babbitt's 'Correspondences' is pleasant enough to listen too, even beautiful on the surface but to me it has no _audible_ sense of 'going anywhere' or 'saying anything'. It's just pleasant sonorities signifying nothing. There may be very precise concepts and processes being worked out in the piece but if I can't hear them they are irrelevant to me...It is my view that atonal music is incapable of the same depth and subtlety of expression that makes harmony based music so universally appealing...Of course I shall get a severe ticking off by some other members on this forum but hey, I'm only stating my opinion...


I hear glaring dissonances in Beethoven, some of which do not resolve. What are these generalizations talking about? Even in the later Webern lieder, I can hear the music "resolve" or come to rest.

When I listen to Babbitt's "Correspodences" or Cage's "Atlas Eclipticalis," I do not expect the music to "resolve" or be harmonic. I think some of the generalizations being tossed around are way off base, in terms of what the music can be expected to provide.

This kind of "blind" generalization invites statements of listeners being "uninformed." I guess this is the "bait" for them to feel "slighted" or being called "uninformed."

I'm not taking the bait; I'm calling you on it. You're intelligent, and we know better.


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## mtmailey

millionrainbows said:


> A lot of composers write for the transposing instruments "as sounded" then transpose the parts later.


I like the idea of using all 12 notes on the scale rather than just using some of them,doing so helps me to remember the notes.


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## PlaySalieri

millionrainbows said:


> Yeah, but that's too general; and it uses the old paradigm of atonal/serial music as being "at odds" with tonal music, instead of seeing serialism as a pervasive influence through all 20th century music & beyond. It's like a virus you can't get rid of.
> 
> "Intellectual" as opposed to "boo-hoo emotions?" Music is not that one-dimensional, and neither are people. "Beauty" is a mysterious thing.
> 
> View attachment 7507


Of course he said much more than that but overall he felt that atonal music goes one step too far. Music can be intellectual without resorting to atonalism which he felt was just lazy non music. Essentially he thinks the point has been made and music should move on.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> I hear glaring dissonances in Beethoven, some of which do not resolve. What are these generalizations talking about? Even in the later Webern lieder, I can hear the music "resolve" or come to rest.


I would be very interested in having specific examples of the passages you refer to. It would make it much easier to understand your point of view. Can you provide any? Especially the Beethoven.



millionrainbows said:


> When I listen to Babbitt's "Correspodences" or Cage's "Atlas Eclipticalis," I do not expect the music to "resolve" or be harmonic. I think some of the generalizations being tossed around are way off base, in terms of what the music can be expected to provide.


I don't _expect_ the music to be harmonic. I don't expect music to be anything. It is what it is and all I'm saying is that some music I enjoy more than other music. But it has nothing to do with being informed, open or acclimatised, it' just the way my brain responds.



millionrainbows said:


> This kind of "blind" generalization invites statements of listeners being "uninformed." I guess this is the "bait" for them to feel "slighted" or being called "uninformed."
> 
> I'm not taking the bait; I'm calling you on it. You're intelligent, and we know better.


I don't know what you mean by this. I am very sincere in wanting to know what other people find engaging or enjoyable in music. I am just being honest about how I feel. As I said before, I wish we could talk about specific passages in specific works otherwise generalisation becomes inevitable.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I would be very interested in having specific examples of the passages you refer to. It would make it much easier to understand your point of view. Can you provide any? Especially the Beethoven.


The String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op.135, movement IV: about 50 seconds in, Beethoven uses a "flat-nine" chord in several emphatic "stabs," which the bass note at first defines as a diminished seventh, then drops a half-step, defining it as a dominant flat-nine. Both chords are dissonant. Usually, diminished sevenths resolve to "normal" V7s, but in this case the b9 is dissonant, and does not "resolve," either.

I hear other dissonances in the piano sonatas, but I don't feel like hunting them down to prove a point which probably does not need proving. Tonal music is full of dissonances, Bach probably more than Beethoven.



Petwhac said:


> I don't _expect_ the music to be harmonic. I don't expect music to be anything. It is what it is and all I'm saying is that some music I enjoy more than other music. But it has nothing to do with being informed, open or acclimatised, it' just the way my brain responds.


Well, you did say this:



Petwhac said:


> A work like Babbitt's 'Correspondences' is pleasant enough to listen too, even beautiful on the surface but to me it has no audible sense of 'going anywhere' or 'saying anything'. It's just pleasant sonorities signifying nothing. There may be very precise concepts and processes being worked out in the piece but if I can't hear them they are irrelevant to me.


You are entitled to your opinion, but in the larger scheme of things (artistic intent, type of music, etc), your expectations, and therefore your opinions, are flawed, in terms of what can be expected from a non-harmonic piece of music. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but in terms of the modern music being discussed, it is irrelevant. You say that "... it has nothing to do with being informed, open or acclimatised, it's just the way my brain responds...", *yet you seem to point to the music itself as being at fault. *

This is like expecting a lamp to be a chair, and then complaining because the lamp will not support your weight, and then declaring that the reason the lamp will not support your weight "...has nothing to do with being informed, open or acclimatised, it's just the way my brain responds."



Petwhac said:


> I don't know what you mean by this. I am very sincere in wanting to know what other people find engaging or enjoyable in music. I am just being honest about how I feel. As I said before, I wish we could talk about specific passages in specific works otherwise generalisation becomes inevitable.


As I see it, most of the generalization is done for convenience. Generalization itself is a kind of "dismissal" of specifics, as if they are unworthy or too bothersome to be discussed in detail. That's fine with me; it just indicates that someone doesn't like something and is dismissing it.

When you say "I am very sincere in wanting to know what other people find engaging or enjoyable in music," this seems to undermine your own seemingly objective criteria regarding the *exterior qualities* of non-harmonic music, which, by inference, is that the music should have _"...an audible sense of 'going somewhere' _or '_saying something'_ and to be more than _"...just pleasant sonorities which signify nothing,"_ and *implies qualities inherent in the music, not just interior opinion.*

Your objective criteria (not opinion) that atonal music should have _"...an audible sense of 'going somewhere' _or '_saying something'_ and to be more than _"...just pleasant sonorities which signify nothing,"_ is at odds with the reality of the aesthetics espoused by both Cage and Boulez, as I stated earlier, which is that there was no "point" anymore, as explained in the liner notes of those two CDs. The goal was to create an "egoless" music, free of nationalistic bombast and the cult of personality. Cage did this beginning with his "chance" works circa 1950; Pierre Boulez did it by creating systems of total control which determined the outcome, both men working from the premise of "minimal interference of the ego" or personality.

How can your stated objective criteria, posited as your opinion, hold any water, in light of an informed listener who has read the above-mentioned material available on this music and the aesthetic intent behind it?

In light of this, I feel entirely justified in declaring your 'opinion' to be more than mere opinion, and to be uninformed and flawed.

Whether or not you like the music is an entirely subjective matter, which needs no elaboration, defense, or explanation. *It's when opinion poses as a reflection of the objective qualities of the thing being experienced that credibilty must be backed-up,* and then it ceases to be 'mere opinion,' but a statement of criteria which must be made from an informed viewpoint.


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## Arsakes

The suffering caused by un-beauty of atonal music provides you enlightenment!


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## ArthurBrain

Petwhac said:


> I am going to define atonal music as that music which does not have any sense, however weak, of harmonic progression. Some works may slip in and out of tonality, especially more recent works such as Thomas Ades's 'Tevot' which I would not class as atonal. Also, some of Ligeti's Etudes retain a sense of harmonic progression.
> As for purely atonal and particularly serial music, after many years of "listening repeatedly in the proper manner" I have found it not to be the case that I have been more engaged with it. In fact if anything your analogy with spicy food is exactly the reverse of what I find. It is the atonal music which is bland.
> Dissonance for me is a relative term. In the context of tonal or harmonic music it is something that needs a resolution. There is nothing emotionally blander than say, a piece played only on the black keys of the piano (wholetone scale) because there can be no dissonance or resolution in such a piece. This concept has been such a fundamental driving force in music from the middle ages through to the non-atonal music of today. Composers have attempted to replace structural harmonic function with timbre or rhythm or note rows or other concepts but in my opinion it is not possible to really replace harmony altogether.
> If you listen to Berg's Lyric Suite and then to Wuorinen's Piano Trio written nearly 60 years later you might find the harmonic 'language' far more similar than say between something composed in 1850 and 1910 or 1750 and 1810.
> A work like Babbitt's 'Correspondences' is pleasant enough to listen too, even beautiful on the surface but to me it has no _audible_ sense of 'going anywhere' or 'saying anything'. It's just pleasant sonorities signifying nothing. There may be very precise concepts and processes being worked out in the piece but if I can't hear them they are irrelevant to me.
> It is my view that atonal music is incapable of the same depth and subtlety of expression that makes harmony based music so universally appealing.
> There are many atonal works that do engage me on some level but personally I find it usually a second best type of experience.
> 
> Of course I shall get a severe ticking off by some other members on this forum but hey, I'm only stating my opinion. To the lovers of serial and atonal music I say, enjoy and have fun! :tiphat:


It seems a bit narrow to suggest that only tonal music contains harmony or harmonic progression. I've never associated atonality or serial music with an abandonment of harmony, but rather a different harmonic world than that centred around the diatonic. A piece that springs to mind (and rather aptly considering) is Ligeti's 'Harmonies'. It's not a tonal work by any stretch of the imagination but it's abundant with harmony, and in my opinion very richly so.


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## millionrainbows

Arsakes said:


> The suffering caused by un-beauty of atonal music provides you enlightenment!


I get the analogy of "enlightenment through suffering" pointed at Eastern thought;

...but music is more than tonality, and can provide qualities other than harmony; there is space, the use of silence, the isolation of sounds which magnifies their presence.

When Suzuki walked into John Cage's loft in New York, there was no furniture, no carpet, no curtains, just a piano, some bamboo mats, and a sitting-table. Suzuki said *"An old shoe would look beautiful in this room."*

In fact, in listening to John Cage, it is the _*absence*_ of qualities associated with Western Classical music which I find appealing. It's like "fat-free" music.

Now you can go back to the "pleasures" of that other music to which you are presumably comparing atonal music, whether it be rich, fatty Brahms, bombastic Wagner, or nerve-wrenching Beehoven. I'll be in the sun-room.


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## Guest

Arsakes said:


> The suffering caused by un-beauty of atonal music provides you enlightenment!


If one wanted to explain what "question begging" really means, this quip would be a good example.

Suffering. Does atonal music cause suffering? (Does it cause it consistently, among all listeners?)

Un-beauty. Is it unbeautiful? (Does everyone who listens to it find it to be ugly?)

This remark assumes that things that have yet to be proven have already been proven.

Of course, the worst thing about Arsakes' remark is not the question begging but how it tramples all over some very finely argued remarks by millions, remarks that Arsakes has chosen, for whatever reason, to ignore and not just ignore but destroy.

Hah! But those remarks are still there. I can still read them and so can anyone else. And they still call the premises of the anti-modernists into question. These remarks will not go away. You can pretend all you want, but there they are. Calling you and your colleagues out.


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## aleazk

mmsbls said:


> I don't think people view dissonance itself as unemotional. I think many people have trouble connecting emotionally to music that has too much dissonance (for them, of course). Those people have no hook into the music and only hear unpleasantness. There are certainly works that effect me that way. I'm not sure how similar excessive dissonance is to spiciness in food. I cannot enjoy food that is remotely spicy because it's simply unpleasant. I understand that people get used to the spiciness and come to enjoy that spiciness more than "bland" food. It's possible that I need more exposure to "excessive dissonance" to develop more tolerance and then enjoyment. Or it's possible that certain people will never develop that "taste" for dissonance.
> 
> I agree. Atonal music _is not_ emotionless. I don't understand exactly why atonal music seems to give many people (including myself) such a difficult time in coming to enjoy it. Many threads on TC have discussed potential reasons for this effect, but I think it's fair to say that we don't understand this phenomenon. For most people I assume it's a matter of listening repeatedly in the proper manner to find a way into the music to enjoy it emotionally. Unfortunately, it's not clear when to move on or change tactics.


I don't agree with your analogy about atonalism and spicy food. Tonalism and atonalism are two systems for creating music. The 'peculiarity', if you want, is that they are opposites. And in a very objective way, since atonalism is constructed in such a way to avoid the main characteristics of tonalism. They may be opposites, but that doesn't mean that one is more emotive than the other. Your analogy seems to put tonalism in a special or privileged place. I don't think that's the case. In fact, you can deduce tonalism from atonalism, in the same way you deduce atonalism by neglecting the characteristics of tonalism. Tonalism only seems to have a 'special' place for historical reasons. One of the most attractive characteristics of tonalism is that the difference between consonance and dissonance is very sharp, so it's more easy to catch and understand. In atonalism, there's not consonance generally, you have dissonance at various degrees. So, in any case, I would say in atonalism, the distance between dissonance and 'consonance' (consonance understood in the comparison of dissonances) is not so big as in tonalism, but there's much more variety of this 'small distances'. So, tonalism would be like eating something composed of two very distinct and conflictive flavours (like bittersweet) and atonalism is a big salad of various vegetables.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> The String Quartet No. 16 in F Major, Op.135, movement IV: about 50 seconds in, Beethoven uses a "flat-nine" chord in several emphatic "stabs," which the bass note at first defines as a diminished seventh, then drops a half-step, defining it as a dominant flat-nine. Both chords are dissonant. Usually, diminished sevenths resolve to "normal" V7s, but in this case the b9 is dissonant, and does not "resolve," either.


If you are referring to this passage then the resolution, though somewhat delayed, quite plainly happens at the start of the Allegro section. (If you click the image it should enlarge)








This is,by the way an example of something quite impossible in atonal music. The setting up of expectation, the heightening of tension, the delay and then the release or resolution. The sense of 'arrival' at the Allegro.
In such a system, doors can be opened at every measure, turns in the road can be made, expectations can be satisfied or thwarted.
I am too busy to respond to the rest of your post until later. But thank you for providing the example.


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## Guest

In any system, doors can be opened at every measure, turns in the road can be made, expectations can be satisfied or thwarted.

_Any_ system.


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## mmsbls

aleazk said:


> I don't agree with your analogy about atonalism and spicy food. Tonalism and atonalism are two systems for creating music. The 'peculiarity', if you want, is that they are opposites. And in a very objective way, since atonalism is constructed in such a way to avoid the main characteristics of tonalism. They may be opposites, but that doesn't mean that one is more emotive than the other. Your analogy seems to put tonalism in a special or privileged place. I don't think that's the case. In fact, you can deduce tonalism from atonalism, in the same way you deduce atonalism by neglecting the characteristics of tonalism. Tonalism only seems to have a 'special' place for historical reasons. One of the most attractive characteristics of tonalism is that the difference between consonance and dissonance is very sharp, so it's more easy to catch and understand. In atonalism, there's not consonance generally, you have dissonance at various degrees. So, in any case, I would say in atonalism, the distance between dissonance and 'consonance' (consonance understood in the comparison of dissonances) is not so big as in tonalism, but there's much more variety of this 'small distances'. So, tonalism would be like eating something composed of two very distinct and conflictive flavours (like bittersweet) and atonalism is a big salad of various vegetables.


I think I understand what you are saying here, and it seems reasonable. As a consequence, my first thought was that tonal music then might have a greater ability to create tension and release (greater distance between dissonance and consonance). Of course that tension and relief could be produced in other ways in atonal music. Since tension and release is a very desirable trait for many, could that be a problem with atonal music (I don't mean problem in the sense that atonal music is then inferior)? I guess the more general question becomes whether tonal and atonal music are different but essentially equivalent ways of expressing emotions/feelings/ideas musically or they not equivalent.

My analogy was a bit more basic. For those who started with tonal music (myself and many/most others), tonal music is privileged historically (i.e. that's all we had heard). We were comfortable with tonal and uncomfortable with atonal. The analogy with food is the same. I started with little spicy food so I was comfortable with non-spicy and uncomfortable with spicy. Just as one can eat spicy food and "learn" to find it less uncomfortable (and even more enjoyable), I assume one can listen to atonal and "learn" to find it less uncomfortable (and perhaps even more enjoyable than tonal).

I have long wondered about an experiment where two groups are brought up on different music - one tonal and the other atonal. When they were adults, they would be exposed to the other music. Would both groups have very similar experiences in terms of their response to the "other" music? I know there are places where tonal music (at least standard Western Classical music) is not the norm, but I don't know enough about that music to understand if those places could be used for such studies.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> For those who started with tonal music (myself and many/most others), tonal music is privileged historically (i.e. that's all we had heard). We were comfortable with tonal and uncomfortable with atonal.


I'm a member of the "started with tonal music" club, myself. And because it was all I heard, at first, it wasn't even an issue. It was just Beethoven and Brahms and Tchaikovsky and so forth. Lots of people I liked, lots I didn't. Since they were all "tonal," tonality per se just didn't enter into it.

For me, it continued to be a non-issue as I plunged wholeheartedly into the heady world of twentieth century music. Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Janacek. Beauty!! And, within mere months, Carter and Stockhausen and Mumma. (I did say "plunged," didn't I?) I didn't like everything I heard, any more than I had liked everything of 18th and 19th century music. And some things I still do not like. But none of my likes or dislikes had anything to do with tonality or atonality. I liked Carter, for instance, but not Boulez. Similar sound worlds. You'd think if I liked the one I'd like the other. But I didn't. (I like both now, but neither nearly as much as I like other things.)

In short, for me it was never--and has never been, ever--"comfortable with tonal and uncomfortable with atonal." Indeed, for me it was never about comfort. Music was about adventure and exploring. About danger and excitement.

Still is.

In making your group too homogeneous in order to make some point about tonality, you have disenfranchised members of that group. Well, guess what? Your group is not all that homogeneous. And the different experiences that different members of that group have had are much much more interesting (and more valid) than your facile generalizations.


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## Philip

I'm not sure if it's even possible to enjoy atonal music without first being exposed to tonal music.


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## aleazk

mmsbls said:


> I think I understand what you are saying here, and it seems reasonable. As a consequence, my first thought was that tonal music then might have a greater ability to create tension and release (greater distance between dissonance and consonance). Of course that tension and relief could be produced in other ways in atonal music. Since tension and release is a very desirable trait for many, could that be a problem with atonal music (I don't mean problem in the sense that atonal music is then inferior)? I guess the more general question becomes whether tonal and atonal music are different but essentially equivalent ways of expressing emotions/feelings/ideas musically or they not equivalent.


Yes, I would say that tension and relief is one of the key characteristics of tonal music, in the sense that, in this system, it's something that is very easily achieved and it fits very naturally with the system, and the difference between tension and relief is often very pronounced and is recognized very straightforwardly by the ear. The brain is very sensible to this.
In atonal music you can have some tension and relief, but, I think, that's not atonalism's most strong or powerful characteristic. The key point is that, with atonalism, you can explore a wide variety of textures and sensations which are related with the different levels of dissonances (and their way of relating with each other) that you can have. For example, I think it would be imposible to have the textures, and the sensations that I have when I listen to them, of pieces like Ligeti's Atmospheres or Requiem, in the context of tonalism. So, I think they are not equivalent in the sense that they 'excite' different parts of the imagination. Of course, there's not a clear cut point. They are equivalent in the sense that both systems can move a person's emotivity and intellectuality ('emotivity and intellectuality' in a very broad meaning here).


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## aleazk

double post.


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## mmsbls

aleazk said:


> In atonal music you can have some tension and relief, but, I think, that's not atonalism's most strong or powerful characteristic. The key point is that, with atonalism, you can explore a wide variety of textures and sensations which are related with the different levels of dissonances (and their way of relating with each other) that you can have. For example, I think it would be imposible to have the textures, and the sensations that I have when I listen to them, of pieces like Ligeti's Atmospheres or Requiem, in the context of tonalism. So, I think they are not equivalent in the sense that they 'excite' different parts of the imagination. Of course, there's not a clear cut point. They are equivalent in the sense that both systems can move a person's emotivity and intellectuality ('emotivity and intellectuality' in a very broad meaning here).


That's an interesting notion - "exciting different paths of the imagination." I can believe that music can excite different paths. The question would be whether there truly is a clear distinction between tonal and atonal pathways. I would assume the answer is no, but this issue is clearly exceedingly complex.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> In any system, doors can be opened at every measure, turns in the road can be made, expectations can be satisfied or thwarted.
> 
> _Any_ system.


Any specific examples to back up that claim?


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> In making your group too homogeneous in order to make some point about tonality, you have disenfranchised members of that group. Well, guess what? Your group is not all that homogeneous. And the different experiences that different members of that group have had are much much more interesting (and more valid) than your facile generalizations.


The quote you are referring to references my analogy about spicy food made earlier:



mmsbls said:


> I don't think people view dissonance itself as unemotional. I think many people have trouble connecting emotionally to music that has too much dissonance (for them, of course). Those people have no hook into the music and only hear unpleasantness. There are certainly works that effect me that way. I'm not sure how similar excessive dissonance is to spiciness in food.


You left out the sentence in my quote that referenced the above analogy. That group _is_ homogeneous. It consists of people who have trouble connecting emotionally to certain music (not you, for example). Aleazk extended the excessive dissonance to atonal music. It's possible you personally have no interest in issues related to that group of people, but we do.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> Any specific examples to back up that claim?


Well, it's not really much of a claim. It's more an observation. An observation made after many years (many decades) of listening to all types of music.

So the examples could be any ol' pieces made in any ol' system. In them, you'll find the three things you identify as being peculiarly tonal phenomena. They're not. And, as a matter of fact, even tonal pieces achieve many of their effects, including your three, with other things besides keys and modulations and dissonance/consonance and the like. Rhythm, timbre, varying phrase lengths. I was just listening to Janacek's Concertino earlier today. There's a phrase near the end that's repeated a couple of times, the same each time. (In different registers is all.) Then, when it comes back, it's different. Not done with tonality, just with the shape (and length) of the phrase. Plenty of examples of that all throughout tonal pieces.

Point is "tonality" is not the be all and end all even in pieces from the common practice era. All sorts of things go into a piece of music besides the system for manipulating pitches. A lot of effects are created by other means than the pitch relations (and the harmonies that result from those relations). And you don't need the patterns or rules of common practice in order to open doors or make turns in the road or satisfy or thwart expectations. And I'm guessing that you already know that.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> The quote you are referring to references my analogy about spicy food made earlier. You left out the sentence in my quote that referenced the above analogy. That group _is_ homogeneous. It consists of people who have trouble connecting emotionally to certain music (not you, for example). Aleazk extended the excessive dissonance to atonal music. It's possible you personally have no interest in issues related to that group of people, but we do.


Not convinced. There's nothing in your original analogy or in your reference to it or in your characterization of the group (people who started out with tonal music) that would have suggested the alteration you have just made, that the group you were referring to is "the people who have trouble connecting emotionally to certain music."

And I think that THAT group is probably everyone in the world. Everyone has some music that they don't connect to emotionally. So what? Don't listen to that music, then. I don't listen to country & western, for instance. I also don't any more go around bad-mouthing country western or even suggesting that because I and others like me don't connect with it that therefore there's something wrong with it. I quite naturally still secretly think that there is, but I don't say it any more. What would be the point. There are people who do connect with it, boy howdy! Who am I to say that they're wrong?

(I'll say further, to confirm your suspicions, that I don't think that there is such a thing as a homogeneous group. You can't get homogeneity even with a group as small as only two people. Maybe not even one person. (I change my mind about things all the time.))


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Not convinced. There's nothing in your original analogy or in your reference to it or in your characterization of the group (people who started out with tonal music) that would have suggested the alteration you have just made, that the group you were referring to is "the people who have trouble connecting emotionally to certain music."


OK. It looks abundantly obvious to me, and I did just explain what I meant. Anyway I'd rather discuss those ideas than the non-homogeneity of people.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> If you are referring to this passage then the resolution, though somewhat delayed, quite plainly happens at the start of the Allegro section.


The note in question, D flat, is sitting on the very top. In the allegro, a very soft "C" is sounded, which would be the resolution (down a half step), but it's half-hearted. It's in a lower register, and there is no chord there, just "C" reinforcing the bass C. The dissonant chord just sort of disappears.

I suppose in your mind this proves that atonal music should "resolve" and behave like tonal music; but then, it wouldn't be "atonal" anymore if it did, would it?

Tonal music is sensual above all. It's as much a visceral experience as a cognitive one, if not more.

Serialism goes beyond visceral stimulation into the realm of pure idea. Tonality can't do that; it is forever tied to the ear.


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Anyway I'd rather discuss those ideas than the non-homogeneity of people.


Yes. And I'd rather have intelligent discussions about music rather than silly and pointless wrangles about personal tastes masquerading as assertions of immutable truth. But we none of us ever get what we want, do we?

Anyway, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Some people like tomatoes; some don't. Some people like Bellini; some don't. Why? Who knows. Grouping all the people together who don't like tomatoes and expecting to find something out about tomatoes by studying those people just doesn't seem an altogether profitable endeavor to me.

I'd rather just eat my tomato sandwich.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> I suppose in your mind this proves that atonal music should "resolve" and behave like tonal music; but then, it wouldn't be "atonal" anymore if it did, would it?


You'd be wrong to suppose that. I am saying that it _can't_ behave like tonal music if it wanted to where as tonal music _can_ behave like a atonal if it wants to.



millionrainbows said:


> Tonal music is sensual above all. It's as much a visceral experience as a cognitive one, if not more.


Nope, quite the opposite. Atonal music is sensual and visceral because what it is that say Stockhausen is doing in Klavierstuck X, for example, is not intended to be _followed_ cognitively except on a very superficial level, textures, gestures, registers etc. So if it is cognitive it is on a shallower level. Imagine delving into the detail like we have done with the Beethoven quartet. There's no point because the minutiae of note selection in the Stockhausen is not picked up by the ear/brain. Why? Because there is no reference point. The individual notes are irrelevant to the listener if not the composer.



millionrainbows said:


> Serialism goes beyond visceral stimulation into the realm of pure idea. Tonality can't do that; it is forever tied to the ear.


This seems nonsensical to me. Pure idea? Idea is what all art starts with.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Well, it's not really much of a claim. It's more an observation. An observation made after many years (many decades) of listening to all types of music.
> 
> So the examples could be any ol' pieces made in any ol' system. In them, you'll find the three things you identify as being peculiarly tonal phenomena. They're not. And, as a matter of fact, even tonal pieces achieve many of their effects, including your three, with other things besides keys and modulations and dissonance/consonance and the like. Rhythm, timbre, varying phrase lengths. I was just listening to Janacek's Concertino earlier today. There's a phrase near the end that's repeated a couple of times, the same each time. (In different registers is all.) Then, when it comes back, it's different. Not done with tonality, just with the shape (and length) of the phrase. Plenty of examples of that all throughout tonal pieces.
> 
> Point is "tonality" is not the be all and end all even in pieces from the common practice era. All sorts of things go into a piece of music besides the system for manipulating pitches. A lot of effects are created by other means than the pitch relations (and the harmonies that result from those relations). And you don't need the patterns or rules of common practice in order to open doors or make turns in the road or satisfy or thwart expectations. And I'm guessing that you already know that.


Well I was rather hoping for atonal examples but you have given me Janacek.

My point is (again) that yes, you are right in that pitch relations and key relations and harmonic progressions are not all that goes into tonal music. But is is where the real content lies. There is rhythm, timbre, register, dynamics, texture too. Atonal music is left with those things but is missing the chance to call into play the vast and endless possibilities of harmonic interplay. This is why I have repeatedly asserted that tonal music can do anything atonal music can but the reverse is not true.

These are my observations after decades of listening (and writing) all kinds of music.

If Boulez didn't care for minimalism because he found it too repetitive then perhaps I don't care for serialism because I find it not repetitive enough.


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## Guest

And my point, again, is that your experiences with what you call "atonal" music (as big a misnomer as could be imagined, as Schoenberg pointed out) are not equivalent to descriptions of the music and how it works.



Petwhac said:


> There is rhythm, timbre, register, dynamics, texture too. Atonal music is left with those things but is missing the chance to call into play the vast and endless possibilities of harmonic interplay. This is why I have repeatedly asserted that tonal music can do anything atonal music can but the reverse is not true.


Let's get something straight about the terms, if we possibly can. (I'm not holding my breath.) Tonality is a system. It has been in constant change since it developed out of modality, but its main features are recognizable, even as the details change over the years. Atonality is not a system. (It's not even a thing, but aside from that....) It's an umbrella term (kinda like "classical music") that covers all sorts of different and incompatible things. Dodecaphony is a system. Serialism is a system. Impressionism is not. Minimalism is not.

There can be no excuse for comparing a not system to a system. Comparing apples to oranges makes perfect sense. They are both fruits. Comparing apples to tables? Um not so sensical. And comparing atonal to tonal requires a series of nonsensical moves before it can even be done--the term "atonal" has to be taken as pointing to an identifiable thing; the many and various things it can be made to refer to have to be talked about as an "it"; and then the atonal thing, which is not the result of a system, is compared to tonal things, which are all results of a system.

Goofy!!

Otherwise, it is a historical fact that composers did not find the possibilities of harmonic interplay to be endless. Vast, may be (but only by means of constant and persistent pushing of the boundaries--a pushing that eventually led to realms that were no longer tonal). And I do not see how you get from "vast and endless possibilities" to "tonal music can do anything atonal music can but the reverse is not true." Something's missing from that construct to get me from the (single) premise to that particular conclusion. A conclusion, just by the way, that has been questioned over and over again, to no avail, obviously. And just a reminder that since you're not comparing equivalent things, your neat epigram is not quite as convincing as you might like it to be. (A table can do anything an apple can, but the reverse is not true.)


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> And my point, again, is that your experiences with what you call "atonal" music (as big a misnomer as could be imagined, as Schoenberg pointed out) are not equivalent to descriptions of the music and how it works.
> 
> Let's get something straight about the terms, if we possibly can. (I'm not holding my breath.) Tonality is a system. It has been in constant change since it developed out of modality, but its main features are recognizable, even as the details change over the years. Atonality is not a system. (It's not even a thing, but aside from that....) It's an umbrella term (kinda like "classical music") that covers all sorts of different and incompatible things. Dodecaphony is a system. Serialism is a system. Impressionism is not. Minimalism is not.
> 
> There can be no excuse for comparing a not system to a system. Comparing apples to oranges makes perfect sense. They are both fruits. Comparing apples to tables? Um not so sensical. And comparing atonal to tonal requires a series of nonsensical moves before it can even be done--the term "atonal" has to be taken as pointing to an identifiable thing; the many and various things it can be made to refer to have to be talked about as an "it"; and then the atonal thing, which is not the result of a system, is compared to tonal things, which are all results of a system.
> 
> Goofy!!
> 
> Otherwise, it is a historical fact that composers did not find the possibilities of harmonic interplay to be endless. Vast, may be (but only by means of constant and persistent pushing of the boundaries--a pushing that eventually led to realms that were no longer tonal). And I do not see how you get from "vast and endless possibilities" to "tonal music can do anything atonal music can but the reverse is not true." Something's missing from that construct to get me from the (single) premise to that particular conclusion. A conclusion, just by the way, that has been questioned over and over again, to no avail, obviously. And just a reminder that since you're not comparing equivalent things, your neat epigram is not quite as convincing as you might like it to be. (A table can do anything an apple can, but the reverse is not true.)


We seem to be going around in circles, surprise surprise!
Yes 'atonal' is not a satisfactory term just as 'classical' is not and just as 'tonality' is not. But I think we know what we are referring to.
You said of tonality .."its main features are recognizable, even as the details change over the years."
I ask you what you think it's main features are?

What is the point of programming a concert that contains a Beethoven Symphony and a serial work by Boulez? Presumably they are both examples of a musical composition to be listened to in a concert and can not help but draw comparison.



some guy said:


> Otherwise, it is a historical fact that composers did not find the possibilities of harmonic interplay to be endless.


 Really? You mean like Britten, Shostakovich, Strauss, Messiaen, Reich, Rautavaara,Glass, Persichetti, Aho, Dutilleux Schnittke.........I could go on. Oh and then there are all those Jazz composers.

If you think I am trying to compare apples with tables then what is TC all about? Surely you wouldn't discuss the singular quality of a fine mahogany desk in a forum for fruit growers would you?


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## jalex

some guy said:


> Let's get something straight about the terms, if we possibly can. (I'm not holding my breath.) Tonality is a system. It has been in constant change since it developed out of modality, but its main features are recognizable, even as the details change over the years. Atonality is not a system. (It's not even a thing, but aside from that....) It's an umbrella term (kinda like "classical music") that covers all sorts of different and incompatible things. Dodecaphony is a system. Serialism is a system. Impressionism is not. Minimalism is not.
> 
> There can be no excuse for comparing a not system to a system. Comparing apples to oranges makes perfect sense. They are both fruits. Comparing apples to tables? Um not so sensical. And comparing atonal to tonal requires a series of nonsensical moves before it can even be done--the term "atonal" has to be taken as pointing to an identifiable thing; the many and various things it can be made to refer to have to be talked about as an "it"; and then the atonal thing, which is not the result of a system, is compared to tonal things, which are all results of a system.
> 
> Goofy!!


This doesn't appear to make much sense. Could you define 'system' as you are using it here?



> "atonal" music (as big a misnomer as could be imagined, as Schoenberg pointed out)


I don't know why you are so uptight about this. Misnomer though it might be, most people who bother to talk about 'atonal' music know it refers to 'music not written using the tonal system', not 'music without tones'. There is not really any ambiguity beyond that associated with any similar term.


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## Guest

Come on, really guys?

My point was not so much that "atonal" is unsatisfactory, although it certainly is--everyone who uses it means whatever they want. (That's not quite the same as "we know what we are referring to.")

My point was that "atonal," however it has been used, does not designate a system. Tonal does. Comparing those things is what's goofy, not comparing a Beethoven piece to a Boulez piece. (Though I wooden recommend even that.)

And really, if ya don't know what a system is....

Tonality refers to a system. Serial refers to a system.

Atonal does not refer to a system.

You guys are workin' extra hard to avoid confronting your prejudices is what it looks like to me.


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## SottoVoce

jalex said:


> This doesn't appear to make much sense. Could you define 'system' as you are using it here?


Take for example the middle period of Schoenberg's music; when he first abandoned tonality in pieces such as op. 11 and op. 19, he was going with his musical intuition in how to formulate musical relationships; there was consonance and dissonance, no way of prioritizing musical events, no way of dividing musical "sounds" into diatonic and chromatic, basically everything was on the playing field and this made Schonberg very disillusioned, as he was unable to form large-scale structures without incoherency and he was not ready to become a miniaturist for his whole life (Webern was glad to however!). This frustrated period in Schoenberg's life was called "free atonality" as he had no system of structure to replace the one that tonality wrought.

Thus, he came to the system of dodecaphony, which would divide pitch classes into 12 notes and fundamentally changes the conception of dividing musical sounds; it is very similar from the change to modal to tonal in the Renaissance/Baroque era, as although major and minor did exist as modes in the Renaissance era, they weren't used as a tonal function. Dodecaphony is just using the chromatic scale as it's basis of dividing musical sounds, which was of course in tonal harmony, but now it's become the primary function of dividing and manipulating musical sounds. Now, he came with the idea of tone row (which of course existed in pre-atonal music as well), and thus created a system that is highly context-dependent; the intervallic relationships no more are based off external "rules" of tonal harmony (submediant, dominant, etc) but now the syntax comes from the tone row itself.

I am sure I have left gaps in the progression of atonal thought, and it does go through the post-1945 to integral serialism and beyond, but this is what I understand when people say that is a "system", just like tonality brings us a "system". By system, tonality gives us a way of differentiating musical events (consonance and dissonance), and a way to "play around" with musical relationships through tonal means. Serialism gives us another way to do that, through intervallic relationships.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Come on, really guys?
> 
> My point was not so much that "atonal" is unsatisfactory, although it certainly is--everyone who uses it means whatever they want. (That's not quite the same as "we know what we are referring to.")
> 
> My point was that "atonal," however it has been used, does not designate a system. Tonal does. Comparing those things is what's goofy, not comparing a Beethoven piece to a Boulez piece. (Though I wooden recommend even that.)
> 
> And really, if ya don't know what a system is....
> 
> Tonality refers to a system. Serial refers to a system.
> 
> Atonal does not refer to a system.
> 
> You guys are workin' extra hard to avoid confronting your prejudices is what it looks like to me.


Why can't you accept that a view point that differs from yours is not the result of _prejudice_? That is just insulting actually.
I guess it's easier to call someone prejudiced than to debate huh?


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## Vaneyes

Fighting *The System*...I like that.


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## jalex

SottoVoce said:


> x


I'm aware of the history, I just wished to be clear exactly what 'system' meant. I don't know why _some guy_ thinks it is obvious. In one sense which seems obvious to me, every piece of music is composed according to some 'system'. In which case, clearly there would be no problem with comparing tonal and atonal music because you would just be comparing a particular 'system' against a large collection of other 'systems'.


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## jalex

some guy said:


> You guys are workin' extra hard to avoid confronting your prejudices is what it looks like to me.


I wish you'd cut the 'holier-than-thou' stuff. I like a lot of atonal music. But I fail to see the problem with comparing the generalised products of 'tonality' with the generalised products of 'atonality'.


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## SottoVoce

jalex said:


> I'm aware of the history, I just wished to be clear exactly what 'system' meant. I don't know why _some guy_ thinks it is obvious. In one sense which seems obvious to me, every piece of music is composed according to some 'system'. In which case, clearly there would be no problem with comparing tonal and atonal music because you would just be comparing a particular 'system' against a large collection of other 'systems'.


Well, it's impossible analyzing atonal music with tonal analysis because they just don't hold the same musical syntax, which is the fundamental basis of comparing music with one another. That's why people like Allen Forte are trying to use analytic tools such as set theory to try to analyze non-tonal music, and people like Dmitri T. are trying to use four-dimensional geometry to compare both tonal and atonal music. There just seems to be relatively few similarities with the musical syntax of both these systems of music.

But moreover I think what he is trying to say is that you can't compare atonalism with tonalism, because atonalism can mean so many things - the only definition it has is "some conception that is not tonal", which could mean composers such as Scriabin, the Second Viennese School, Haure, etc), all which are as different from eachother as they are to tonality. Comparing serialism to tonality I think would make more sense, but even then I would tread wisely.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Why can't you accept that a view point that differs from yours is not the result of _prejudice_? That is just insulting actually. I guess it's easier to call someone prejudiced than to debate huh?


With all due respect, Petwhac, I think your comparisons of "what tonality can do that atonality can't" are rather one-sided and biased (not prejudiced) towards common-practice tonality of the 18th-19th century (aka Bach/Beethoven/Brahms).

There's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy Haydn ever so often.

But when I really want to _challenge_ my brain and ear, I listen to something like the Vincent Persichetti sonatas, as I did today.

It is "harmonic" music, using devices from tonality: triads, voice-leading, tension/resolution, etc, but it is not really "tonal" because proper "tonality" must function harmonically, within or between "key" areas, and I call this "common practice tonality" or "conservative tonality."

I don't suppose you have a problem with Debussy; yet his music is not "tonal" in the common-practice sense. There is no "root movement" in Debussy; much of it is so tonally ambiguous that it defies traditional tonal analysis.

So really, I think the difficulty you expeirence with "atonal" or serial music is that it is not "harmonically-based music."

But there are reasons why this is so, and many listeners enjoy this "non-harmonic" music anyway.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Atonal music is sensual and visceral because (it)...is not intended to be _followed_ cognitively except on a very superficial level, textures, gestures, registers etc. So if it is cognitive it is on a shallower level...the minutiae of note selection...is not picked up by the ear/brain...there is no reference point. The individual notes are irrelevant to the listener...


You said "ear/brain" first, so I'll run with it.

What I mean by tonal music being "visceral" or "of the senses" is because all its functions, even the "cerebral" ones (root movement, tension/resolution) are traced back to the ear/brain perception of vertical, instantaneous consonance/dissonance.

Sorry, but here's the long-winded explanation:
________________________________________

*Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals, within one octave:

1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1*

The steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; *the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, but also are given a specific scale degree (function) and place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. *This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as ratios (intervals), which are at the same time, physical harmonic phenomena.

One (1:1) is the ultimate consonance.

The interval ratios in the chart above, to the right, are just a way of expressing the relationship of two notes. For example, 2:1 is the octave, or doubling of frequency; conversely, 1:2 halves it.

In the key of C, a simple 1-3-5 G triad is not identical to the simple 1-3-5 C triad, because of its position (functioning as V) in relation to the root. The D, resolving down, now becomes root, as well as being the top of a fourth G-C, which is heard as root on top.

They are major triads and are equally dissonant. The functional difference is only apparent once tonic has been established. Tonic is established correctly once the listener has heard and connected (COGNITIVELY) the series of intervals that constitute the diatonic scale.

No chord exists in isolation, but all exist in relation to "1", unity, or tonic.

Implicit in any harmonic interval, whether it be 2:3 or 3:4, is an implicit relation, and specific note-position in the heirarchy, in relation to "1" or tonic, as well as its being more dissonant or more consonant in relation to "1" or the root.

Hearing *harmonic* (vertical) dissonance/consonance happens *instantaneously,* as the result of the ear/brain perceiving a harmonic relationship, or ratio (a ratio is not a fixed quantity, it is a relationship between two things).

But *chord function (horizontal time-line) takes time to establish.* This is _cognitive,_ although it is based on visceral harmonic (vertical) "instant" recognition of the ear/brain to consonance/dissonance.

In the case of simple pop song progressions, using static chord exchanges of say, C-F, it might be ambiguous whether "C" is I and "F" is IV, or if "C" is V and "F" is I; in fact, many pop songs play on this ambiguity.

*All chord functions relate to the Tonic, or unity. This is exactly the way interval ratios work, also.*

From* Harry Partch, "Genesis of a New Music:" *

[A ratio represents a tone and an interval at one and the same time; in its capacity as the symbol of a tone it is the over number that is nominally representative (in the upward manner), but since the over number exists only in relation to the under number, the ratio acquits its second function, as representative of an interval;

...conventional musical example: 3/2 represents "D" in the "key of G" - upward from "G"; it is thus simultaneously a representative of a tone and an implicit relationship to a "keynote" - or unity.]

Thus, it is seen that the steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by its ratio, but also is given a place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as...ratios.

[The scale of musical intervals begins with absolute consonance (1 to 1), and gradually progresses into an infinitude of dissonance, the consonance of the intervals decreasing as the odd numbers of their ratios increase.]

*So, how does the "time line" figure into the cognition of "function" of chords? Cognition of harmonic function always involves hearing a sequence of events.*


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> With all due respect, Petwhac, I think your comparisons of "what tonality can do that atonality can't" are rather one-sided and biased (not prejudiced) towards common-practice tonality of the 18th-19th century (aka Bach/Beethoven/Brahms).
> 
> There's nothing wrong with that. I enjoy Haydn ever so often.
> 
> But when I really want to _challenge_ my brain and ear, I listen to something like the Vincent Persichetti sonatas, as I did today.
> 
> It is "harmonic" music, using devices from tonality: triads, voice-leading, tension/resolution, etc, but it is not really "tonal" because proper "tonality" must function harmonically, within or between "key" areas, and I call this "common practice tonality" or "conservative tonality."
> 
> I don't suppose you have a problem with Debussy; yet his music is not "tonal" in the common-practice sense. There is no "root movement" in Debussy; much of it is so tonally ambiguous that it defies traditional tonal analysis.
> 
> So really, I think the difficulty you expeirence with "atonal" or serial music is that it is not "harmonically-based music."
> 
> But there are reasons why this is so, and many listeners enjoy this "non-harmonic" music anyway.
> 
> View attachment 7610


Now we are getting somewhere.

Firstly though, I'd like to know what gives you the impression that I am biased in favour of 18th-19th C common-practice tonality? I think you have jumped to a mistaken conclusion possibly because of the confusion regarding labels like 'tonality' and harmonic'.

You have correctly identified that what I really refer to is 'harmonic-based' music. Unfortunately others will insist that all music where more than one tone sounds simultaneously, can be called 'harmonic' and that the harmonies are just different. We will leave that to the pedants and proceed.

You are also right in your supposition that I have no problem with Debussy (I'm a huge admirer) and for that matter Persichetti (at least not as far as harmonic language goes) or many 20C composers who have not abandoned altogether the the "devices from tonality : triads, voice-leading, tension/resolution, etc," as you put it. Some of those devises are also to be found in Schoenberg and Berg too (well, just about)
Many essays and papers have been written about the opening of 'Tristan' and the breakdown of tonality but that work is nothing if not harmony-based as is Schoenberg's Pelleas.

What I don't really care for is the harmonic 'sameness' that results from techniques such as serialism. The lack of character and it's inability to surprise at any given moment. I'm sure you will disagree with me but I again beg for specific examples that you think may persuade me otherwise. Something like Babbitt's Correspondences, while attractive on the surface, is just a sonic wallpaper isn't it?


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> What I don't really care for is the harmonic 'sameness' that results from techniques such as serialism. The lack of character and it's inability to surprise at any given moment. I'm sure you will disagree with me but I again beg for specific examples that you think may persuade me otherwise.


I would disagree, too. And call your begging for specific examples disingenuous. Your notcaring is coming, I have concluded, from your prejudice, not from the music. And no example from anyone will be able to change that. Anything anyone comes up with will strike you as lacking in character and unable to surprise.

The "harmonic 'sameness'" you mention reminds me very much of other things I've heard from other listeners--the timbral sameness of the string quartet, for instance, or the overall sameness of Vivaldi (or even of all baroque* music). It's all perception, though, don't you see?** It's not any quality of the music; it's individual perception.



Petwhac said:


> Something like Babbitt's Correspondences, while attractive on the surface, is just a sonic wallpaper isn't it?


A really bad habit of yours. Taking your perceptions as descriptions of the music itself. If you are ever able to separate these two things out, you will find a whole new universe of musical pleasure awaiting you.

If you're into that kind of thing....

*Or any other era/style.

**Rhetorical question.


----------



## Petwhac

some guy said:


> I would disagree, too. And call your begging for specific examples disingenuous. Your notcaring is coming, I have concluded, from your prejudice, not from the music. And no example from anyone will be able to change that. Anything anyone comes up with will strike you as lacking in character and unable to surprise.


Well, no example from you has ever been forthcoming which leads me to conclude that you are unable to discuss actual music itself in any detail. A very bad habit of yours is to try to stifle any criticism of music by playing the " it says nothing about the music and everything about you" card.
If you like everything you hear I'm very pleased for you.



some guy said:


> The "harmonic 'sameness'" you mention reminds me very much of other things I've heard from other listeners--the timbral sameness of the string quartet, for instance, or the overall sameness of Vivaldi (or even of all baroque* music). It's all perception, though, don't you see?** It's not any quality of the music; it's individual perception.


There is a difference between timbral homogeneity and harmonic sameness. If you are not equipped to discuss these things just say so. There is no shame in it.

Have you ever looked at a score or actually delved into the minutiae of a composition?



some guy said:


> A really bad habit of yours. Taking your perceptions as descriptions of the music itself. If you are ever able to separate these two things out, you will find a whole new universe of musical pleasure awaiting you.
> 
> If you're into that kind of thing....


Your sarcasm does you or your views no credit.

*Or any other era/style.

**Rhetorical question.[/QUOTE]


----------



## Guest

Well petwhac, it's clear that I will never persuade you to like anything that you don't already like, nor will I ever convince you that your experience _with_ music is not the same thing as a description _of_ the music.

And you will never convince me that music I love is not lovable.

So mayhaps we should just leave it at that.


----------



## ArthurBrain

Petwhac said:


> Now we are getting somewhere.
> 
> Firstly though, I'd like to know what gives you the impression that I am biased in favour of 18th-19th C common-practice tonality? I think you have jumped to a mistaken conclusion possibly because of the confusion regarding labels like 'tonality' and harmonic'.
> 
> ]You have correctly identified that what I really refer to is 'harmonic-based' music. Unfortunately others will insist that all music where more than one tone sounds simultaneously, can be called 'harmonic' and that the harmonies are just different. We will leave that to the pedants and proceed.
> 
> You are also right in your supposition that I have no problem with Debussy (I'm a huge admirer) and for that matter Persichetti (at least not as far as harmonic language goes) or many 20C composers who have not abandoned altogether the the "devices from tonality : triads, voice-leading, tension/resolution, etc," as you put it. Some of those devises are also to be found in Schoenberg and Berg too (well, just about)
> Many essays and papers have been written about the opening of 'Tristan' and the breakdown of tonality but that work is nothing if not harmony-based as is Schoenberg's Pelleas.
> 
> What I don't really care for is the harmonic 'sameness' that results from techniques such as serialism. The lack of character and it's inability to surprise at any given moment. I'm sure you will disagree with me but I again beg for specific examples that you think may persuade me otherwise. Something like Babbitt's Correspondences, while attractive on the surface, is just a sonic wallpaper isn't it?


Oh, so someone's a 'pedant' if they take issue with what constitutes harmony or harmonic progression away from the tonal, diatonic or related? Well, no they aren't. They're pointing out that harmony exists without the need to limit such to any given system is all. It's not pretentious or pedantic to point that out. Else please explain what's 'harmonically lacking' in the piece I referred to earlier from Ligeti and uploaded here....






It ain't tonal but the harmonies are self evident and hardly 'static' either. So is it still pedantic to criticize your argument?


----------



## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Well petwhac, it's clear that I will never persuade you to like anything that you don't already like, nor will I ever convince you that your experience _with_ music is not the same thing as a description _of_ the music.
> 
> And you will never convince me that music I love is not lovable.
> 
> So mayhaps we should just leave it at that.


I'm not sure it is even possible to persuade someone to like something. You can lead a horse to water as the saying goes....It seems that your idea of persuasion is to merely state your fondness for something and to claim that anyone who doesn't share your fondness is either prejudiced, narrow-minded or uninformed.
I listen to and explore music that's new to me (though not always new) on a nearly daily basis ranging from Dufay to Murail to Ades. Recently I've been enthralled by Berio's Folk Songs and Martland's Street Songs. A bit less enthralled but fairly engaged by Liget's Hamburg Concerto and Ades's Tevot. And irritated to the point of depression by Scelsi's Konx-Om-Pax which is no doubt a favourite of yours.

It is also not possible to convince someone to not love something they love. But guess what, when a bunch of critics sit around a table on a TV show reviewing a new film or book or opera or exhibition, they sometimes disagree. And they point to things in the actual object that they feel leads them to like or dislike it or aspects of it. They don't tell each other "it says everything about you and nothing about the work".
As someone who writes, it is impossible to not have bias. It is impossible to not have strong opinions on what matters to oneself and to not dismiss certain aesthetics or philosophies as useless to oneself. But one can still try to find out what other people hear in things.

I don't hear what you hear and vice versa. So we should just leave it at that indeed.:tiphat:


----------



## Petwhac

ArthurBrain said:


> Oh, so someone's a 'pedant' if they take issue with what constitutes harmony or harmonic progression away from the tonal, diatonic or related? Well, no they aren't. They're pointing out that harmony exists without the need to limit such to any given system is all. It's not pretentious or pedantic to point that out. Else please explain what's 'harmonically lacking' in the piece I referred to earlier from Ligeti and uploaded here....
> 
> It ain't tonal but the harmonies are self evident and hardly 'static' either. So is it still pedantic to criticize your argument?


On the contrary, it is completely static harmonically. Individual pitches change slowly and slightly but the overall effect is one of complete stasis. It is more an exercise in subtly shifting tone colour than any kind of harmonic progression. Any one pitch could be replaced by any other pitch providing the interval between them is within the range of a semitone or perhaps a tone.
It is one long slightly varying tone cluster. Change does not equal progression.


----------



## ArthurBrain

Petwhac said:


> On the contrary, it is completely static harmonically. Individual pitches change slowly and slightly but the overall effect is one of complete stasis. It is more an exercise in subtly shifting tone colour than any kind of harmonic progression. Any one pitch could be replaced by any other pitch providing the interval between them is within the range of a semitone or perhaps a tone.
> It is one long slightly varying tone cluster. Change does not equal progression.


If it was 'complete stasis' there wouldn't _be_ any noticeable change. From the beginning of the piece there's harmonic progression and throughout. You just seem bent on defining harmony and progression of such on your own terms which is probably pointless to argue with. So I'll bow out.


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Now we are getting somewhere.
> 
> Firstly though, I'd like to know what gives you the impression that I am biased in favour of 18th-19th C common-practice tonality? I think you have jumped to a mistaken conclusion possibly because of the confusion regarding labels like 'tonality' and harmonic'.
> 
> You have correctly identified that what I really refer to is 'harmonic-based' music. Unfortunately others will insist that all music where more than one tone sounds simultaneously, can be called 'harmonic' and that the harmonies are just different. We will leave that to the pedants and proceed.
> 
> You are also right in your supposition that I have no problem with Debussy (I'm a huge admirer) and for that matter Persichetti (at least not as far as harmonic language goes) or many 20C composers who have not abandoned altogether the the "devices from tonality : triads, voice-leading, tension/resolution, etc," as you put it. Some of those devises are also to be found in Schoenberg and Berg too (well, just about)
> Many essays and papers have been written about the opening of 'Tristan' and the breakdown of tonality but that work is nothing if not harmony-based as is Schoenberg's Pelleas.
> 
> What I don't really care for is the harmonic 'sameness' that results from techniques such as serialism. The lack of character and it's inability to surprise at any given moment. I'm sure you will disagree with me but I again beg for specific examples that you think may persuade me otherwise. Something like Babbitt's Correspondences, while attractive on the surface, is just a sonic wallpaper isn't it?


Well, Petwhac makes a good point here, so for the time being I will "run with the Devil" and bolster his case regarding harmonic "sameness," but by using real data. Of course, this demonstration "abstracts" this idea of sameness, so this is not a specific case against any serial composer or work.

Another long-winded post.

This demonstration is from Howard Hanson's book "Harmonic Materials of Modern Music," and has been re-phrased by me for clarity.
__________________________________________________

"Projection": the building of sonorities or scales by superimposing ("stacking") a series of similar intervals one above the other.

First, some nomenclature: 
p=perfect fifth (or fourth) 
m=major third (minor sixth)
n=minor third (major sixth)
s=major second (minor seventh)
d=minor second (major seventh)
t=augmented fourth, diminished fifth

This is Hanson's projection of the fifth. Imagine a circle with all the note names on it, known as the "chromatic circle."

Beginning with C, we add G, then D, to produce the triad C-G-D, or reduced to an octave, or its "melodic projection", C-D-G. Numerically, in terms of 1/2 steps, 2-5. In terms of total interval content, using the nomenclature above: p2 s.

Next, we add A to the stack, forming the tetrad C-G-D-A, reduced melodically to C-D-G-A. Numerically, 2-5-2. Interval content: p3 n s2. 
The minor third appears for the first time.

Next, pentad C-G-D-A-E, reduced to C-D-E-G-A, recognizable as the pentatonic scale. The major third appears for the first time. Numerically, 2-2-3-2. Interval analysis: p4 m n2 s3.

The hexad adds B, forming C-G-D-A-E-B, reduced to C-D-E-G-A-B. Numerically: 2-2-3-2-2. Interval content: p5 m2 n3 s4 d. 
For the first time, the dissonant minor second (or major seventh) appears.

Continuing, we add F# to get the heptad C-G-D-A-E-B-F#, reduced as C-D-E-F#-G-A-B. Here the tritone appears; also, this is the first scale which in its melodic projection contains no interval larger than a major second; i.e., look, ma, no gaps. It contains all six basic intervals for the first time in our series. 
Numerically: 1-1-2-2-1-2-2. Intervals: p6 m3 n4 s5 d2 t.

Octad: Add C#, yielding C-C#-D-E-F#-G-A-B. Numerically, 1-1-2-2-1-2-2. Intervals: p7 m4 n5 s6 d4 t2.

Nonad: Add G#: C-C#-D-E-F#-G-G#-A-B. Numerically, 1-1-2-2-1-1-1-2. Intervals: p8 m6 n6 s7 d6 t3.

The Decad adds D#, yielding C-C#-D-D#-E-F#-G-G#-A-B. 
Numerically, 1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-2. Intervals: p9 m8 n8 s8 d8 t4.

Undecad: Add A#. C-C#-D-D#-E-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B. In 1/2 steps, numerically, it is 1-1-1-1-2-1-1-1-1-1. Interval content: p10 m10 n10 s10 d10 t5.

The last one, the duodecad, adds the last note, E#. C-C#-D-D#-E-E#-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B. 
Numerically: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1. 
Interval content: p12 m12 n12 s12 d12 t6.

Note the overall progression:
doad: p
triad: p2 s
tetrad: p3 n s2
pentad: p4 m n2 s3
hexad: p5 m2 n3 s4 d
heptad: p6 m3 n4 s5 d2 t 
octad: p7 m4 n5 s6 d4 t2
nonad: p8 m6 n6 s7 d6 t3
decad: p9 m8 n8 s8 d8 t4
undecad: p10 m10 n10 s10 d10 t5
duodecad: p12 m12 n12 s12 d12 t6

What can be noted is the affinity of the perfect fifth and the major second, since the projection of one fifth upon another always produces the concomitant interval of a major second; 
The relatively greater importance of the minor third over the major third; the late arrival of the minor second, and lastly, the tritone.

Each new progression adds one new interval, plus adding one more to those already present; but beyond seven tones, no new intervals can be added. In addition to this loss of new material, there is also a gradual decrease in the difference of the quantitative formation. 
In the octad, the same number of major thirds & minor seconds; In the nonad, same number of maj thirds, min thirds, and min seconds. In the decad, an equal number of maj/min thirds and seconds.
When 11 and 12 are reached, the only difference is the number of tritones.

So the sound of a sonority, whether it be harmony or melody, depends on what is present, but also on what is not present.

The pentatonic sounds as it does because it contains mainly perfect fifths, and also maj seconds, minor thirds, and one major third, but also because it does not contain the minor second or tritone.

*As sonorities get projected beyond the six-range, they tend to lose their individuality.*

_This is probably the greatest argument against the rigorous use of atonal theory in which all 12 notes are used in a single melodic or harmonic pattern. These constructs begin to lose contrast, and a monochromatic effect emerges.
_
Each scale discussed here can have as many versions as there are notes in the scale. The seven-tone scale has seven versions, beginning on C, D, E, and so forth. These "versions" should not be confused with involutions of the same scale.

What has the projection of a fifth revealed to us?

Quoting Hanson: _"Since, as has been previously stated, all seven-tone scales contain all of the six basic intervals, and since, as additional tones are added, the resulting scales become increasingly similar in their component parts, the student's best opportunity for the study of different types of tone relationship lies in the six-tone combinations, which offer the greatest number of scale types."_

(end of Hanson quote)

Of course, this applies to harmonic music, and since "atonal" or serial-based music is not harmonically based, the criticism of it having a "harmonic sameness" seems somewhat misplaced.

There must be _other_ reasons that serialism appeals to its admirers, other than purely visceral or harmonic reasons, although these visceral harmonic qualities can be found in many serial works; the *Second Viennese school,* as Petwhac mentioned, and *David Froom,* for another. Perhaps after this "harmonic quandary" is sufficiently resolved (pun intended), then we can discuss these _"other"_ factors. After all, Petwhac *did *say that he was genuinely interested in what the appeal of serial music is.


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> On the contrary, it is completely static harmonically. Individual pitches change slowly and slightly but the overall effect is one of complete stasis. It is more an exercise in subtly shifting tone colour than any kind of harmonic progression. *Any one pitch could be replaced by any other pitch providing the interval between them is within the range of a semitone or perhaps a tone.*
> It is one long slightly varying tone cluster. Change does not equal progression.


Hahaha! Well, if only we'd had this reaction sooner in the discussion. Coulda saved a lot of grief, eh?

Well, if this is what you hear, this is what you hear. But cripes! Really? This is what you hear?

(I bolded the most outrageous bit.)


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> Well, if this is what you hear, this is what you hear. But cripes! Really? This is what you hear?


To judge Ligeti by a criterion of "harmonic function" seems ludicrous, and doesn't even deserve defense. Besides, I see his music as being more concerned with rhythm and "synchronicities" of events, and "masses" of sound. The strictly pitched world of traditional harmony, and all its concerns with consonance & dissonance is at a remove from Ligeti's more experimental "art" approach. The Études are a formidable "snappy comeback" to all this criticism.

Until Petwhac is willing to get some perspective, I don't think these sorts of debate tactics are worth the trouble. After all, the reason I post all this stuff is because I am genuinely interested in getting to the real truth about music, tonality, Ligeti, and all of it; not just winning debates on the internet. And I want to inform and possibly enlighten other people of like mind, and give them the confidence in dealing with the difficulties of music and art.

But in the end, I'm afraid it's all going to boil down to aesthetics, and how much one is willing to do to approach modern music and art in a viable way. I can't change other people; change comes from within. But at least, I will try to be a catalyst.


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## millionrainbows

I've seen this for under $6.


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## millionrainbows

Webern gets more difficult in the later Opii, and Opus 28 is up there. I got it out & put it on and my first impression was how the sounds are "isolated," as if each one is standing alone. The angularity reminds me of the mountains that Webern loved so much in Austria. Would that be the Swiss alps? The "isolation" of each sound reminds me of some Cage works, and Morton Feldman; so I feel there is an "austere" quality to this work. And don't worry about "understanding" it; but I hope you grow to accept the sounds, then gradually warm up to them. Consider this to be like the mountains themselves; mysterious, huge, imposing. It's not exactly what I'd call a "like" environment. I hope all this poetic metaphor helps, because in the end, Webern is art, he is a poet. I'm sure Webern saw himself the same way, as evidenced by his early hyper-emotive tone poem "Im Sommerwind." That's why I wanted you to start chronologically, so you'd see how much of a post-Romantic he was. Remember World War II also, and how that almost certainly colored the later Webern works. What you are seeing as a turn towards "pure logic" or mathematics, might have been a "turning away from humanity" and a sort of "loss of faith" in Human aspirations & ambitions. "Just you, God, and the mountains" or something along those lines.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Hahaha! Well, if only we'd had this reaction sooner in the discussion. Coulda saved a lot of grief, eh?
> 
> Well, if this is what you hear, this is what you hear. But cripes! Really? This is what you hear?
> 
> (I bolded the most outrageous bit.)


Harmonically speaking it is what I hear. As millionrainbows rightly points out, this piece isn't _about_ "harmonic function" but more about "masses" of sound. I was not judging the piece (which is effective enough for what it is) but responding to Arthurbrain's comment about there being harmonic progression. 
I think million understands my use of the term even if you don't.

*What do you hear harmonically in it?* Am I right in thinking that if I changed one of the pitches by a semitone say around the three minute mark, you could tell? And even if you could tell, would you care?

Next, you're going to tell me you could proof read a Ferneyhough score... hahahahaha!!

I suspect the reason you like all the music you've ever heard is because you are a little bit afraid of opening yourself up to ridicule. Please be braver.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> There must be _other_ reasons that serialism appeals to its admirers, other than purely visceral or harmonic reasons, although these visceral harmonic qualities can be found in many serial works; the *Second Viennese school,* as Petwhac mentioned, and *David Froom,* for another. Perhaps after this "harmonic quandary" is sufficiently resolved (pun intended), then we can discuss these _"other"_ factors. After all, Petwhac *did *say that he was genuinely interested in what the appeal of serial music is.


Yes, let's explore those other reasons.


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I suspect the reason you like all the music you've ever heard is because you are a little bit afraid of opening yourself up to ridicule.


Of course that's it.

I mean, be fair, since the music is unlikable, anyone who claims to like it must be lying.:lol:


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## ArthurBrain

Petwhac said:


> Harmonically speaking it is what I hear. As millionrainbows rightly points out, this piece isn't _about_ "harmonic function" but more about "masses" of sound. I was not judging the piece (which is effective enough for what it is) but responding to Arthurbrain's comment about there being harmonic progression.
> I think million understands my use of the term even if you don't.


Well, dunno if this was addressed just to 'some guy' or both of us but I'll respond anyway. I'm not sure how you can call 'Harmonies' a mass of sound really. Other Ligeti works perhaps but even then chord clusters are still harmonic IMO. If you see harmonic progression as that restricted to the diatonic then we're just in disagreement. For example - Clocks and Clouds by Ligeti contains a lot of diatonic harmony - but certainly not in total, so are the only passages that count as harmonic progression the "tonal" ones?



> *What do you hear harmonically in it?* Am I right in thinking that if I changed one of the pitches by a semitone say around the three minute mark, you could tell? And even if you could tell, would you care?


I hear gorgeous harmonies in it. As much as Ligeti had a sense of humour in some of his work I don't think he called the piece 'harmonies' for a laugh.



> Next, you're going to tell me you could proof read a Ferneyhough score... hahahahaha!!


Nope, wouldn't have any interest in doing that either.



> I suspect the reason you like all the music you've ever heard is because you are a little bit afraid of opening yourself up to ridicule. Please be braver.


Eh? I don't like all the music I've ever heard. There's plenty Ligeti and atonal music that doesn't appeal at all frankly. There's plenty tonal music I love and plenty which bores me rigid in equal fashion. Why on earth would I be afraid of sharing or talking about music I like or dislike anyway? It's an internet forum for crying out loud. I'm not gonna cry into my cornflakes if someone doesn't agree or like the stuff....


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## Petwhac

@ ArthurBrain- I was responding to some guy's post previous to mine.

@ some guy- I never said you were lying. I know the music is likeable to some and less likeable to others but you'll have to accept the fact that liking it does not make you better informed, more open minded, less prejudiced, more musically sensitive or anything else. I don't _have_ to like Babbitt and I don't _have _to like Lloyd Webber.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> What do you hear harmonically in it? Am I right in thinking that if I changed one of the pitches by a semitone say around the three minute mark, you could tell? And even if you could tell, would you care? Next, you're going to tell me you could proof read a Ferneyhough score... hahahahaha!!...I know the music is likeable to some and less likeable to others but you'll have to accept the fact that liking it does not make you better informed, more open minded, less prejudiced, more musically sensitive or anything else. I don't _have_ to like Babbitt and I don't _have _to like Lloyd Webber.


Petwhac keeps discussing Ligeti and Babbitt in terms of harmonic function, which is off-base; that's not an informed criteria for commenting "objectively" about most serial or experimental music. He can use this as his own *personal* criteria, but the _net result_ of his comments can easily be construed as a put-down of Ligeti and Babbitt. That's like criticizing a grilled-cheese sandwich for not having enough "hot dog" qualities. Here I go with the food metaphors again.

Again, Petwhac is talking about Ligeti in terms of what he feels are its "deficiencies," which is a negative attitude.

Petwhac's statement "You'll have to accept the fact that liking it does not make you better informed, more open minded, less prejudiced, more musically sensitive or anything else" is very defensive.

The fact is, unless an opinion is i*nformed,* it means _very little_ to the listeners who _*do*_ like this music.

I consider Petwhac's opinion to be uninformed because it criticizes Serialism by using flawed criteria.

So, yes, Petwhac's opinion about this music is uninformed, close-minded, and musically insensitive, because he obviously doesn't care to listen to it, and has said outright that "he doesn't have to like it," which is a clever way of saying he *doesn't* like it, so he can retort with _"I never said I didn't like it,"_ and so on.

Moreover, I consider this sort of "picking" at people to be bait for conflict. Don't bother with it unless something substantial and informative can be discussed.


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## millionrainbows

Here's a juicy little quote from Schoenberg, from the book by Malcolm MacDonald:

"The expression 'tonal' has itself been wrongly used, exclusively instead of inclusively. It can mean only this: everything that results from a series of tones, whether its cohesion is the result of a direct relationship to a single tonic, or from links of a more complex kind, forms tonality...A piece of music will always have to be tonal at least insofar as, from one tone to the next, there is bound to be a relationship by which all the tones, successive or simultaneous, produce a progression that can be recognized as such."

This brings to mind the phrase "Man, the pattern-seeker." This process occurs even when you look at a tiled floor, and your brain struggles with the grid, sometimes seeing it as various sizes of squares, or triangles, constantly searching, hunting for pattern.

Conspiracy theorists rejoice!:lol:

View attachment 7734








What is the point of Atonal music? Newest snappy comeback: to create patterns of sound for your edification, o pattern-seekers!


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## science

I don't have anything to contribute, but I just noticed this is 74 pages! Wow!


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## Sator

millionrainbows said:


> What you are seeing as a turn towards "pure logic" or mathematics, might have been a "turning away from humanity" and a sort of "loss of faith" in Human aspirations & ambitions. "Just you, God, and the mountains" or something along those lines.


Webern had more of an interest in theosophy and the occult than anything mathematical. His PhD was on the Renaissance composer, Heinrich Isaac, whose works are also effectively atonal, although the usual euphemism is "pre-tonal". Yes, Webern's late works are more a climbing of lofty alpine peaks and their pure poetic air.


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## millionrainbows

Sator said:


> Webern had more of an interest in theosophy and the occult than anything mathematical. His PhD was on the Renaissance composer, Heinrich Isaac, whose works are also effectively atonal, although the usual euphemism is "pre-tonal". Yes, Webern's late works are more a climbing of lofty alpine peaks and their pure poetic air.


Yes, let's not forget that Webern was a poet. More specifically, the influence of older music on Serialism was not in the area of "tonality" per se, but in the use of isorhythms, which are fixed rhythmic formulae, and tetrachords, which are fixed intervallic "templates."


----------



## Guest

million, somehow I had missed your pattern seekers post.

glad I came back and found that.

it's a beauty!


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> million, somehow I had missed your pattern seekers post.
> 
> glad I came back and found that.
> 
> it's a beauty!


Thanks, some guy. Regarding my tendency to stare at tiled floors (especially in public restrooms), I am somewhat comforted by the fact that Leonardo Da Vinci also stared at stains on walls, looking for images.


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## Lenfer

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this but don't think it deserves one of it's own so I'm going to post it here come what may...

It's not a composer I'm familiar with but I came across this the other day:






To my ears this is more like "techno" music what do you all think? I don't like it either way.


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## Guest

Lenfer said:


> To my ears this is more like "techno" music what do you all think?


I think that for each person, the center of the universe is wherever they're standing.

But I digress. Riley having predated techno by some years, it would be more accurate to say that "techno" music sounds a little bit--a very little bit--like some Terry Riley.



Lenfer said:


> I don't like it either way.


The Internet: where music lovers meet to talk about the music they hate.


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## oogabooha

Lenfer said:


> I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this but don't think it deserves one of it's own so I'm going to post it here come what may...
> 
> It's not a composer I'm familiar with but I came across this the other day:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To my ears this is more like "techno" music what do you all think? I don't like it either way.


I don't think the use of synthesizers makes it "techno" music. Techno is a different thing. I actually love that piece and how he utilizes the synthesizer...I sometimes wonder why people think electronic instruments can't be used in modern classical wonderfully.


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## Lenfer

some guy said:


> The Internet: where music lovers meet to talk about the music they hate.


I didn't mean it in a ranting way just stating it was not my cup of tea. To avoid being inundated with copies for *Christmas*.



oogabooha said:


> I don't think the use of synthesizers makes it "techno" music. Techno is a different thing. I actually love that piece and how he utilizes the synthesizer...I sometimes wonder why people think electronic instruments can't be used in modern classical wonderfully.


I have no objection to synthesizers in classical music the piece just didn't feel "Classical" to me perhaps if not Techno then ambient music which I considered a sub-type of techno. Not being an authority on the subject I could be mistaken.

Thank you both for answering though I had never heard of *Riley* or this work before and had never seen him mentioned on the forum.


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## Crudblud

There's ambient techno, but ambient music itself is derived from minimalism (I think), and Riley is one of the main names in minimalism, which is considered classical music by some and not by others. The Riley/Reich/Glass school is usually tonal and revolves around a steady beat, while others like Feldman do not use pulses and their tonality is much less restricted.


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## millionrainbows

Lenfer said:


> I'm not sure if this is the correct thread for this but don't think it deserves one of it's own so I'm going to post it here come what may...*It's not a composer I'm familiar with *but I came across this the other day: To my ears this is more like "techno" music what do you all think? I don't like it either way.


You are correct in considering Terry Riley to be a composer.

I used to listen to part 2 of this at work, while running an automatic saw, cutting aluminum pipe. It never failed to put me "in the zone." Do you know what "the zone" is? It's the same zone produced by Hildegard von Bingen's music. This is the state of mind which is the goal of most sacred music. It allows us to focus in on our own sacred state of awareness, and reach meditative or prayerful states.

I also used to listen to Philip Glass' "Music in 12 Parts" and other "hard core" minimalism while performing other "mindless" mundane tasks. It was a small manufacturing operation, and I was allowed to listen to music, on earbuds slipped-in under my ear-protector "headphones."

This sort of repetitive music is meditative in nature, not really meant to "entertain" or involve us in lengthy plots, as in Wagnerian opera. This kind of sacred music is meant to focus our minds. This is Eastern music in spirit, but it can be understood and liked by any Westerner who can connect positively with their own sacred awareness, as they might do with Gregorian chant.

I suggest that anyone who is confused as to the nature, purpose, and intent of this kind of music should read up on the music of India, because both Terry Riley and Phil Glass studied music in India; Glass with the world-famous sitar viruoso Ravi Shankar, and Riley with Pandit Pran Nath, a master singer.

Terry Riley is part of the Western Classical tradition, and has composed other more Westernized, accessible music for the Kronos String Quartet and other ensembles.

*In the context of "Persian Surgery Dervishes" you are seeing a solo performance, which is only one aspect of Riley's total output.* In this regard, I would classify this as "live electronic" music, and include it with Stockhausen (who had an ensemble for the performance of "live" electronic music), Boulez (who has experimented with the alteration by computer of performing instruments), and Tod Dockstader. I think you'd have a more difficult time in characterizing "Salome Dances" as "techno."

"Electronica" and "Techno" are terms used to identify forms of popular dance music, sometimes played at "raves" or to enhance drug-induced states. Terry Riley is considered to be a "classical" composer, and his music is grouped in the classical section of stores and websites, and in music reference encyclopedias.

Meanwhile, I'm going to continue my listening to Rossini's "Lone Ranger Theme."


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## millionrainbows

This video shows another side of Terry Riley, with the Kronos String Quartet.


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## ArthurBrain

millionrainbows said:


> "Electronica" and "Techno" are terms used to identify forms of popular dance music, sometimes played at "raves" or to enhance drug-induced states. Terry Riley is considered to be a "classical" composer, and his music is grouped in the classical section of stores and websites, and in music reference encyclopedias.


Erm, not to try and sound too 'picky' but 'electronica' is hardly just a 'form of popular dance music'. Much of it isn't geared to the 'dancefloor' whatsoever and a lot of it has more in common with "classical" as oppose to rave. Just sayin....


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## millionrainbows

ArthurBrain said:


> Erm, not to try and sound too 'picky' but 'electronica' is hardly just a 'form of popular dance music'. Much of it isn't geared to the 'dancefloor' whatsoever and a lot of it has more in common with "classical" as oppose to rave. Just sayin....


I like elecronica & techno, but I don't consider them to be a direct part of the Western classical tradition, nor do I classify electronic music produced by Babbitt, Stockhausen, etc. to be "electronica."

I have 2 of the "All Music Guides," one for classical: http://amzn.com/0879308656

...and another for Electronica: http://amzn.com/0879306289

While it is true that Stockhausen & Babbit are listed in the "Electronica" reference volume, I think this is only for a complete history of electronically-produced music, and these men were the pioneers. Conversely, "D.J. Shadow" is not listed in the Classical volume as a "composer."

As Charles Wuorinen (composer of "Time's Encomium") said, I think we need to recognize the difference. Just my opinion, and my criteria, which seem to agree with the publishers of these books.


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## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> I like elecronica & techno, but I don't consider them to be a direct part of the Western classical tradition, nor do I classify electronic music produced by Babbitt, Stockhausen, etc. to be "electronica."
> 
> I have 2 of the "All Music Guides," one for classical: http://amzn.com/0879308656
> 
> ...and another for Electronica: http://amzn.com/0879306289
> 
> While it is true that Stockhausen & Babbit are listed in the "Electronica" reference volume, I think this is only for a complete history of electronically-produced music, and these men were the pioneers. Conversely, "D.J. Shadow" is not listed in the Classical volume as a "composer."
> 
> As Charles Wuorinen (composer of "Time's Encomium") said, I think we need to recognize the difference. Just my opinion, and my criteria, which seem to agree with the publishers of these books.


I list DJ Shadow as a composer X3


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## ArthurBrain

millionrainbows said:


> I like elecronica & techno, but I don't consider them to be a direct part of the Western classical tradition, nor do I classify electronic music produced by Babbitt, Stockhausen, etc. to be "electronica."
> 
> I have 2 of the "All Music Guides," one for classical: http://amzn.com/0879308656
> 
> ...and another for Electronica: http://amzn.com/0879306289
> 
> While it is true that Stockhausen & Babbit are listed in the "Electronica" reference volume, I think this is only for a complete history of electronically-produced music, and these men were the pioneers. Conversely, "D.J. Shadow" is not listed in the Classical volume as a "composer."
> 
> As Charles Wuorinen (composer of "Time's Encomium") said, I think we need to recognize the difference. Just my opinion, and my criteria, which seem to agree with the publishers of these books.


I think it depends on genres and sub-genres. The term 'electronica' covers a vast array of styles, some more geared towards the dancefloor, others more geared towards the headphones etc. Tangerine Dream were one of the early pioneers of electronic music, especially in their early years. Albums like 'Zeit' have a classical structure (It's called a largo in four movements) and there's no way you could dance to it. Same with plenty of modern electronica.


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## BurningDesire

Yet more proof of the shakiness of the entire genre system X3


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## Guest

Lenfer said:


> perhaps if not Techno then ambient music which I considered a sub-type of techno. Not being an authority on the subject I could be mistaken.


I think ambient came before techno - depending, I suppose, what you're counting as techno. Ambient does at least have an acknowledged pedigree, in that someone (Brian Eno) is actually credited with 'inventing' it and using the term too!


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## Carpenoctem

Why are you all referring to electronic music as "techno"? Techno is a sub genre of electronic music.

House (especially the acid-house movement) was invented earlier than techno and is way more influential. The use of synthesizers doesn't make a certain production be categorized as "techno".

Actually, it was more used in trance, although you can find it in almost every genre of electronic music.


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## millionrainbows

Carpenoctem said:


> Why are you all referring to electronic music as "techno"? Techno is a sub genre of electronic music.


I think that *"electronica"* is a better term to use when referring to genres and sub-genres of _popular_ music, hence the title of the All Music Reference Guide to _Electronica._





















"Electronic music" (the sub-genre of _classical_ music seen above) is now used as a more general term which could include everything produced electronically, including "popular" music like Tangerine Dream, and "art" electronic music such as Stockhausen; but the term originated as referring to a sub-genre of *classical* music produced electronically out of the Western classical tradition, sometimes using soprano singers, flutes, etc, in conjunction, and also music coming from university and radio labs, such as IRCAM, Columbia/Princeton, etc.


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## Carpenoctem

millionrainbows said:


> I think that *"electronica"* is a better term to use when referring to genres and sub-genres of _popular_ music, hence the title of the All Music Reference Guide to _Electronica._
> 
> View attachment 7842
> View attachment 7843
> View attachment 7844
> 
> 
> "Electronic music" is a more general term which includes everything produced electronically, including "art" electronic music such as Stockhausen.


It's very tricky. "Electronica" is not actually used as a term to describe popular electronic music. Why?

Because "Electronica" is a sub genre of electronic music. The term used to describe popular electronic music is *EDM* which stands for Electronic Dance Music.

So basically "Electronica" is electronic music (a part of it) , but so is EDM.

There is a difference between music that is produced 100% with electronic instruments and music in which you can hear electronic elements.

My favorite kind of EDM is trance, a style in which you can hear a lot of classical music samples/breakdowns etc. Mainstream trance sucks now though, popularity killed it.

In the late 90s and early 2000s it was so good.


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## Guest

There was a time when "electronic" meant "produced electronically." And, in the US at least, it was used for a time as the umbrella term for such things as musique concrete, electronic, tape music, synthesizer music. In Europe (where all this stuff started, after all), the umbrella term has long been "electroacoustic." That has been increasingly true in the US as well.

Which is fine, I think. Since "electronic" has been co-opted to cover some very different things than it at first referred to, and since electroacoustic covers more recent trends, too, like acousmatic and soundscape and live electronics and noise and drone minimalism, I guess we can let the record stores use "electronic" to refer to the other things. It's already happened, anyway. And we as individuals can do damn all about it!


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> There was a time when "electronic" meant "produced electronically." And, in the US at least, it was used for a time as the umbrella term for such things as musique concrete, electronic, tape music, synthesizer music. In Europe (where all this stuff started, after all), the umbrella term has long been "electroacoustic." That has been increasingly true in the US as well.


I've always thought of music produced electronically as *"electronic music,"* as distinct from *musique concréte.*

The term *"electroacoustic,"* which includes instruments or recorded sounds, I see as arising because of digital recording and sampling, which allows recorded "acoustic" sounds to be altered electronically through computers (see examples below), and is indicative of the gradual "merging" of electronic and musique concréte. The term includes pre-digital musique concréte, such as Varese's "Poeme Electronique," as well as classic electronic works and newer computer-aided music.















"Synthesizer" means an instrument, a keyboard attached to electronic modules, with modulation and filtering capabilities, which is designed for live performance; thus the term *"synthesizer music,"* which applies to Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and other popular artists.


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## brianwalker

some guy said:


> The Internet: where people who love certain things meet to talk about certain things they hate.


Fixed it for you.


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## JoeBarron

The point of atonal music is that it kicks neoromatic butt ...


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## Crudblud

^But does it kick aromatic duck?


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## BurningDesire

Crudblud said:


> ^But does it kick aromatic duck?


Why would you want to kick ducks? ;_; Ducks are so cute.


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## Guest

Well, if has just farted, though, it deserves to be kicked.


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## quack

Well this thread's taken a turn for the worse. Never forget anatidaephobia.


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## Ramako

atonal music may have a point, but Bach has a counter-point.


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## Crudblud

BurningDesire said:


> Why would you want to kick ducks? ;_; Ducks are so cute.


Why would you think I want to kick ducks?


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## millionrainbows

What is the point of Atonal music? Because, as Babbitt said, whether the source tone row sets are used as specific compositional sets or not, they possess properties of so general a nature as to warrant their presence as implicit structural entities.


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## millionrainbows

Sometimes I wonder if even the people who like & listen to Webern, Boulez, or other "hard core" serialists know what it is they are supposed to be hearing.

Schoenberg was always "thematic" in his use of tone rows. Webern, unlike Schoenberg or Berg, always carefully avoided any tonal associations, and used tritones and minor 9ths a lot, which is why Boulez rejected Schoenberg's thematic thinking and embraced Webern.

Yet, I've had more than one serial music listener tell me that they hear "themes" in Boulez, and act as if this was second nature. I've had to disagree with this, because "thematicism" does not figure into Boulez' aesthetic, as far as I can tell.

Thematic elements must have some sort of rhythmic identity; a tone-row is not a "theme" in and of itself; it must be "worked" rhythmically in order to gain this.

So, assuming I'm correct, what does Boulez intend for us to hear in his music, if not "themes"? Or, do you think I'm incorrect, and do you also hear thematic elements in Boulez?









Of course, my questions assume that the listener truly wants to understand this music, and that they have the tools to deal with it.


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## millionrainbows

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 - Fugue #6 In D Minor, BWV 875. I talk in one of my blogs about the "chromatic-fifths" connection. Well, you can hear it here. There's a descending chromatic line which appears, unadorned, in the beginning; it's easy to spot. Next time you hear it, Bach harmonizes it as a series of I-Vs. This type of stairstep progression is why jazz players like Bach.

Now, this is the reason music is so wonderful; if you can hear with your ears what I'm referring to, then you have recognized and intuitively grasped a musical concept, even without having any theoretical knowledge. That's the joy of music, and why I get tired of hearing complaints from insecure listeners about "all this high-falootin' theory." If you can hear it, you have understood it already, so stop whining.

View attachment 8346


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## LordBlackudder

people were told they can only compose in a certain way or they will go to jail. so these people rebelled and composed atonal music.

music doesn't have to have a point.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I talk in one of my blogs about the "chromatic-fifths" connection. Well, you can hear it here. There's a descending chromatic line which appears, unadorned, in the beginning; it's easy to spot.


Is it? Only if you know what one is!


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Is it? Only if you know what one is!


Well, any layman who has thumbed through a music appreciation text knows that they are expected to learn a few basic terms, in order to communicate with other listeners on a deeper level than 'like/dislike.'


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## Lukecash12

Holy crap... I come back, to find this, at the top... of my list of unread posts? You'd think this infernal, repetitive monster would heave it's last sigh at some point, but apparently Sofronitsky issued forth a resilient fart from his bowels that day. What did you eat?

That said, these last few posts were alright, although they didn't do anything for me. Still seems like stuff that's already been said ad nauseum.


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## ErinD

Well I can't claimed to have read the 75 paged before this, but a lot of modern music requiring knowing a bit about what the composer was thinking when he came up with it.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Well, any layman who has thumbed through a music appreciation text knows that they are expected to learn a few basic terms, in order to communicate with other listeners on a deeper level than 'like/dislike.'


And yet you also said this...



> if you can hear with your ears what I'm referring to, then you have recognized and intuitively grasped a musical concept, *even without having any theoretical knowledge.*


 (my bold)


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## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> And yet you also said this...
> 
> (my bold)


Hmmm, maybe he meant "theoretical knowledge" as in: college course type knowledge. As opposed to being taught how to read and what intervals, chords, and progressions are in high school.


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## millionrainbows

"Well, any layman who has thumbed through a music appreciation text knows that they are expected to learn a few basic terms, in order to communicate with other listeners on a deeper level than 'like/dislike.'"



MacLeod said:


> And yet you also said this...
> 
> (my bold)


"...if you can hear with your ears what I'm referring to, then you have recognized and intuitively grasped a musical concept, *even without having any theoretical knowledge.*

You really see that as a contradiction? It sounds like you are grasping at straws to invalidate my statements, while at the same time "encouraging illiteracy" of musical terms and nomenclature. God forbid that any listener should be "bullied" into knowing what a "concerto" is, or "sonata form"!

The only reason I mentioned a "chromatic descending line" in Bach was to reinforce the point that "...if you can hear with your ears what I'm referring to, then you have recognized and intuitively grasped a musical concept, even without having any theoretical knowledge."

I was attempting to communicate with listeners who have no nomenclature for anything, and telling them that "it's OK," especially if they think "modern" music requires any extra learning. New music should be approached like any other music, at least initially, on a visceral level, as the following quote says.

In the end, our ears are most important. Quoting Jacques Barzun in his intro to *Joan Peyser's "The New Music"* (p. xii):

*"Making music is for delight; it is intended for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions. Music does not tell about these movements of the human spirit, but it somehow transfixes them, elaborates them, and gives them enduring form and self-renewing vigor. This raison d'être of music is what our electronic composers must exhibit, and we listeners must learn to find in their works."*

But if a listener has no desire to _"communicate with other listeners on a deeper level than 'like/dislike,"_ then I would wager that their opinion is not going to give the impression of being informed or knowledgable to anybody;

...and I would question their presence in a discussion of "atonal music." Their subjective listening experience, while valid, cannot be explained or communicated by them, so it must remain a simple matter of "like/dislike," which tells us very little.


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## millionrainbows

ErinD said:


> Well I can't claimed to have read the 75 paged before this, but a lot of modern music requiring knowing a bit about what the composer was thinking when he came up with it.


Okay, if you say so. Since I always try inform myself regarding _any_ music I listen to, that point is neither here nor there to me.


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## PlaySalieri

MacLeod said:


> And yet you also said this...
> 
> (my bold)


There you go again - tell me - do you have anything of your own to say about classical music - or do you get something out of waiting for a member to unwittingly contradict himself and show them up? That's poor form if that is all you do. I repect people that just come out and say "Mozart is boring!" - at least it's an opinion and can get a discussion going. But you just lurk waiting for a generalisation, or suspect statement, to pounce on.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> [...] It sounds like you are grasping at straws to invalidate my statements, while at the same time "encouraging illiteracy" of musical terms and nomenclature. God forbid that any listener should be "bullied" into knowing what a "concerto" is, or "sonata form"!
> 
> [...] New music should be approached like any other music, at least initially, on a visceral level, as the following quote says.
> 
> In the end, our ears are most important. Quoting Jacques Barzun in his intro to *Joan Peyser's "The New Music"* (p. xii):
> 
> *"Making music is for delight; it is intended for sentient beings that have hopes and purposes and emotions. Music does not tell about these movements of the human spirit, but it somehow transfixes them, elaborates them, and gives them enduring form and self-renewing vigor. This raison d'être of music is what our electronic composers must exhibit, and we listeners must learn to find in their works."*


On the first point, I maybe 'grasping at straws', but not to invalidate your statements. I was trying to understand whether you think people need to acquire _some _technical terminology or not, since I didn't think you were clear.

Now, you have been. Thank you. Not only have you been clear, you have also posted a quote that encapsulates my own attitude to music: it is for delight. Nevertheless, increasing one's own technical knowledge can bring an added dimension.


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## PlaySalieri

"It sounds like you are grasping at straws to invalidate my statements"

No he's just being helpful, as always.


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## Guest

stomanek said:


> But you just lurk waiting for a generalisation, or suspect statement, to pounce on.


I don't think "lurk" is quite the right word here. You don't really lurk to find bees round a bee hive, or ants at a summer picnic, or flies at a dead horse, do you?

You don't really have to lurk to find a bee in a swarm.


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## quack

Interesting, is atonal music 1) honey 2) curling sandwiches or 3) a horse corpse. Sounds like a poll!


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## Guest

quack said:


> Interesting, is atonal music 1) honey 2) curling sandwiches or 3) a horse corpse. Sounds like a poll!


Tee hee.

Do it!!


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## PlaySalieri

some guy said:


> I don't think "lurk" is quite the right word here. You don't really lurk to find bees round a bee hive, or ants at a summer picnic, or flies at a dead horse, do you?
> 
> You don't really have to lurk to find a bee in a swarm.


So McCleod - you have another username - now that's against regulations.


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## etkearne

Atonal as well as tonal but extremely dissonant music, to me, brings forth emotions and strange feelings in my mind for which absolutely no other medium can bring forth. I recall hearing Schoenberg's six pieces for piano the other week for the first time (I have enjoyed atonal music for eight years though and composed it for a year now), and it brought forth this weird combination of fear, dread, hope, intellectualism, and euphoria at the same time. It was though I was alone to witness this "treat" that only few in the world have had access to (which is true in a way!).

It is analogous to explaining what a certain psychoactive drug "feels like" to someone who has not had it. Even coffee or alcohol would fall into this category. How exactly would you explain the feelings such agents produce? You would always fall short.

So are the emotions I feel listening to atonal and extremely dissonant tonal works (like Bartók from 1925-1932).


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> Atonal as well as tonal but extremely dissonant music, to me, brings forth emotions and strange feelings in my mind for which absolutely no other medium can bring forth. I recall hearing Schoenberg's six pieces for piano the other week for the first time (I have enjoyed atonal music for eight years though and composed it for a year now), and it brought forth this weird combination of fear, dread, hope, intellectualism, and euphoria at the same time. It was though I was alone to witness this "treat" that only few in the world have had access to (which is true in a way!).


I get a similar complex reaction to Schoenberg's "Five Pieces for Orchestra." More than just emotions, the returning celesta figure in "Verganges" seems to have a haunting significance, "resonating with meaning." It's like the musical figures become "characters" in a play. The celesta evokes childhood, just as Tchaikovsky used it in Nutcracker.

Perhaps it's over-simplifying it to say 'music evokes emotions;" it's more like we are "mapping our experience" onto its template, a true sharing of souls. In regard to your statement that "I alone to witness this "treat" that only few in the world have had access to," Schoenberg did not underestimate his audience. Perhaps it is true that only a few will 'get it', but as I get older I begin to realize that what I thought was my most private thought or perception turns out to be universally felt by all! This means, for me, that Beethoven, Schoenberg, and all great artists seem to have great faith in humanity: they never underestimate their audience. That is a wonderful, giving thing!


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## demondef

hey is anyone here familiar with the twelve tone method?
i need some help
to what extent can you change the order of the pitches in the first set or any of the derived forms?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

demondef said:


> hey is anyone here familiar with the twelve tone method?
> i need some help
> to what extent can you change the order of the pitches in the first set or any of the derived forms?


Original, inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion and that's it. You can transpose the row to give different pitches as well.


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## etkearne

I know a good deal about Serialism so shoot me a PM and I can give you a thorough explanation in the response.


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## BurningDesire

What is the point of music?


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## millionrainbows

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Original, inversion, retrograde, retrograde-inversion and that's it. You can transpose the row to give different pitches as well.


That's true concerning strictly 12-tone, but Boulez & others have come up with additional ways of transforming row material.


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> I know a good deal about Serialism so shoot me a PM and I can give you a thorough explanation in the response.


Hey etkearne, the book "Serialism" by Whittall is a good historical overview, and good reading, although it doesn't go into technical details as much as textbooks or George Perle's books. Have you heard about Peter Schat's "Tone Clock?" That's worth looking into.


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## etkearne

The tome that I learned 12 twelve tone technique from was "The Structure of Atonal Music" which is very informative. I then elaborated on the technique in a way that I know of no one else that has done similarly. Since I have a degree in Math and almost got a Ph.D. In it, I know a lot about Set Theory and Abstract Algebra so I thought: well, we know inversions and translations are isometries (distance preserving functions), but there are a slew of other isometries in Z12 (the integers mod 12) so I just started utilizing them in some works and it works out really nice.

I will use this technique in my next work (I already decided to "bring it out" for the public in the next work) so I will let you in on it when I have the music to back it up with!


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> The tome that I learned 12 twelve tone technique from was "The Structure of Atonal Music" which is very informative. I then elaborated on the technique in a way that I know of no one else that has done similarly. Since I have a degree in Math and almost got a Ph.D. In it, I know a lot about Set Theory and Abstract Algebra so I thought: well, we know inversions and translations are isometries (distance preserving functions), but there are a slew of other isometries in Z12 (the integers mod 12) so I just started utilizing them in some works and it works out really nice.
> 
> I will use this technique in my next work (I already decided to "bring it out" for the public in the next work) so I will let you in on it when I have the music to back it up with!


That sounds intriguing, etkearne. If "isometric" relates to geometric figures, the music journal Die Reihe number 8 "Retrospective" (Universal Edition) has an interesting article about isometric figures and their application to music.


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## mmsbls

etkearne said:


> I know a lot about Set Theory and Abstract Algebra so I thought: well, we know inversions and translations are isometries (distance preserving functions), but there are a slew of other isometries in Z12 (the integers mod 12) so I just started utilizing them in some works and it works out really nice.


I know relatively little music theory, but as a physicist, I'm always interested in scientific or mathematical approaches to music. I have wondered if serial music used more than the "standard" inversion, retrograde, and translation isometries. I often have trouble hearing simple inversions so I expect that more complicated operators could produce rows that are rather difficult for the listener to relate back to the original.

Given the power of set operators to produce a wide variety of rows, do you worry that you are sometimes driven more by the math than by the music? I've always imagined that the real difficulty is finding a row that yields musically "interesting" sounds under the various operators. Is that problem not so hard or so important (i.e. the sounds work fine with many rows)? I guess the real question is: if you like the original row, does everything else follow relatively smoothly, or do you find yourself exploring many rows until you get the isometries you like? Hopefully that question makes sense musically.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Given the power of set operators to produce a wide variety of rows, do you worry that you are sometimes driven more by the math than by the music? I've always imagined that the real difficulty is finding a row that yields musically "interesting" sounds under the various operators. Is that problem not so hard or so important?


I will assume that by even _implying_ that serialism is "More driven by the math than by the music" that you do not understand the most basic premise of Serialism, i.e., that it is not driven by purely sensual "harmonic" considerations, and that its constructive principles are based on other artistic considerations, such as symmetry and unity.

I will assume that by "musically interesting" you mean "what sounds good."

"What does "sounds good" imply? Harmony. In other words, those smooth harmonies which make the eardrum vibrate in agreeable, congruous patterns.

Once again, those who do not understand that music can be based on principles and artistic criteria _other _than the purely sensual and harmonic are asking the wrong questions to people who have "bigger fish to fry."


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I often have trouble hearing simple inversions so I expect that more complicated operators could produce rows that are rather difficult for the listener to relate back to the original.


You are assuming that tone rows should be _harmonic,_ i.e., should not "...produce rows that are rather difficult for the listener to relate back to the original." You are trying to apply harmonic principles of tonality to Serialism.

It's easy to hear inversions in tonality, meaning chord inversions. The major chord C-E-G sounds like a "major" chord to us (as opposed to "minor," augmented, diminished) no matter how it is inverted: E-G-C or G-C-E all sound like C major chords to our ears, because the pitch identities, meaning note-names, as a _set_ are preserved: (C-E-G-C-E-G-C-E-G...) and so on.

The ease and "instantaneous" recognition of all 3 inversions as "major" is due to the way our ears are "hard-wired" to hear, and the way sound itself has harmonics which are _higher_ in pitch, "stacked" on _top_ of the fundamental tone.

With serial thinking, an "inversion" is literal: CEG, in inversion, becomes C-Ab-F, or _F minor._ This is based on a number line, as in algebra, in which distances have "negative" direction.

Tonality is better considered as a circle, which, unlike a straight number line, is recursive. The 12 pitches on the circle have "pitch names" or identities which remain as stations on the circle. Thus, when we go "backwards" (counter-clockwise) on the circle to make an "inversion" of C-E-G (C-G-E-C-G-E-C-G-E...), we go backwards from C to G, seen as _stations (pitch identities),_ not as _distances (intervals)_ on a number line.

Thus, Serial thinking is concerned with _relations of quantity_ (intervals, or distances between pitches) rather than with _relations of identity_ (relations between pitches in refrence to a key note). Thus, new vistas are opened up, in finding new symmetries and unities.

One can hear these other kinds of inversions if things are kept relatively simple, as in hearing the retrogrades in Webern's "Variations for Piano."

But beyond that, things get too complicated for the ear to hear, and composers like Boulez don't expect our ears to keep up with and identify all the tone row permutations. The permutations are there to create variety from unity.

Therefore, a serial composer is content to know that there is a _quality of unity_ in his music, albeit more cerebral and idea-based than simple sensual vibration, which may only be experienced harmonically as an overall harmonic "flavor" or atmosphere, such as the use of fifths or minor thirds.

So. Yes, Serialism lets mathematics take precedence over the ear in its approach to inversion and to tone-row permutations and transformation of material. That's the nature of the beast.

This is modernism; accept it or reject it, but at least understand why.

The "ear" argument is valid as far as it reaches; everyone is entitled to like what they like. However, the "ear" argument is irrelevant artistically to the artistic methods and aims of Serial music.

I wouldn't worry about "hearing" Serial music; you would be better off trying to keep up with "ear" music such a R. Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande."

Elvis has left the building.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> This is modernism; accept it or reject it, but at least understand why.
> 
> The "ear" argument is valid as far as it reaches; everyone is entitled to like what they like. However, the "ear" argument is irrelevant artistically to the artistic methods and aims of Serial music.
> 
> I wouldn't worry about "hearing" Serial music; you would be better off trying to keep up with "ear" music such a R. Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande."
> 
> Elvis has left the building.
> 
> View attachment 8971


What are the "artistic aims of serial music" besides creating unity? If serial music is not "ear music" need it be performed or can it be fully appreciated on the page? What are it's qualities that require it to be experienced aurally? 
What are the principals that govern the compositional choices once the row has been constructed?
Are the vertical consequences of the working out of the row important? Measure by measure or beat by beat?

If you wouldn't worry about 'hearing' serial music then why worry about listening to it as opposed to reading about it?


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> I will assume that by even _implying_ that serialism is "More driven by the math than by the music" that you do not understand the most basic premise of Serialism, i.e., that it is not driven by purely sensual "harmonic" considerations, and that its constructive principles are based on other artistic considerations, such as symmetry and unity.


I certainly do not understand some aspects of serialism. I do know that the row variations are constructed through symmetry operations, but I assumed that serial music is not purely a mathematical exercise. I was attempting to ask about the musical aspects of serial music. I'm not surprised if my wording is not clear or if my questions are somewhat confused.



millionrainbows said:


> I will assume that by "musically interesting" you mean "what sounds good."


No, I meant musically interesting. Some people here say they find that serial music sounds good/beautiful/compelling. I thought interesting was more appropriate.



millionrainbows said:


> Once again, those who do not understand that music can be based on principles and artistic criteria _other _than the purely sensual and harmonic are asking the wrong questions to people who have "bigger fish to fry."


I may not understand your meaning. Do you mean something like, "If you don't understand, don't ask dumb questions to those who can't be bothered with you?" As an academic physicist, I've always been happy answering questions from those who are interested but may have little understanding of physics. I think experts are potentially the best to answer even the simplest or most confused questions.

On a more general note, I think TalkClassical is a place where _everyone_ should feel comfortable asking _any_ musical question if they are truly interested in the subject. TC is most certainly a place for beginners as well.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> You are assuming that tone rows should be _harmonic,_ i.e., should not "...produce rows that are rather difficult for the listener to relate back to the original." You are trying to apply harmonic principles of tonality to Serialism.


I was not assuming rows would be harmonic. I thought perhaps that those with experience and a good ear could recognize the different variations (but not necessarily through harmony).



millionrainbows said:


> But beyond that, things get too complicated for the ear to hear, and composers like Boulez don't expect our ears to keep up with and identify all the tone row permutations.


Thanks. That was helpful.



millionrainbows said:


> I wouldn't worry about "hearing" Serial music; you would be better off trying to keep up with "ear" music such a R. Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande."


I am interested in serial music so, for now, I will continue trying to appreciate it. Maybe I will succeed, and maybe I won't. Thanks for your response.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> What are the "artistic aims of serial music" besides creating unity?


It sounds to me like you are assuming that the purpose of all art is to _entertain you,_ and if it doesn't, it becomes invalid. Obviously, its artistic aims are as valid as all other music.



Petwhac said:


> If serial music is not "ear music" need it be performed or can it be fully appreciated on the page?


All I said was that the creating, manipulating, and transforming of tone-row sets in Serialism is based largely on non-harmonic criteria.

Take that ball and run in the wrong direction, and you are questioning the very existence of Serial music as an aural art form. All I can do is "clear the way" for you and tell you which direction to run, if you want to be on the team which supports this music.



Petwhac said:


> What are it's qualities that require it to be experienced aurally?


Pitch, rhythm, timbre, form, etc, the same as all music.



Petwhac said:


> What are the principals that govern the compositional choices once the row has been constructed?


These principles can vary from piece to piece, from composer to composer. Then again, the process can continue after the fact, by permutation & transforming of rows.



Petwhac said:


> Are the vertical consequences of the working out of the row important? Measure by measure or beat by beat?


If certain harmonic effects are desired, then yes, the vertical simultaneity of different row combinations would be important.



Petwhac said:


> If you wouldn't worry about 'hearing' serial music then why worry about listening to it as opposed to reading about it?


If critics wish to question the comprehensibility of Serial music, then those critics should "prove their mettle" by listening to advanced tonality such as R. Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande." That should put things in a more proper perspective.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Do you mean something like, "If you don't understand, don't ask dumb questions to those who can't be bothered with you?"...I think experts are potentially the best to answer even the simplest or most confused questions. On a more general note, I think TalkClassical is a place where _everyone_ should feel comfortable asking _any_ musical question if they are truly interested in the subject. TC is most certainly a place for beginners as well.


There is a difference. Physics is science, while music is ultimately an art form.

There are no "expert" answers to justify an art form's worth, only experts to aid in an understanding of the mechanics of its creation.

Art must be approached individually, as religion is. If you believe in the art, and have faith in its validity, then the art is serving your needs. In this regard, those who have answers are acolytes or priests, not experts.

I further must question, for my own defense, whether all such inquiries are based on innocent curiosity. From the tone and subtle spin of some of them, it seems that this curiosity is more than benign. If that makes anyone uncomfortable, that's just the way it goes.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> There are no "expert" answers to justify an art form's worth, only experts to aid in an understanding of the mechanics of its creation.


Then I'm simply asking experts (i.e. people with significantly more knowledge than I) to aid in my understanding of the mechanics of serial music creation.



millionrainbows said:


> I further must question, for my own defense, whether all such inquiries are based on innocent curiosity. From the tone and subtle spin of some of them, it seems that this curiosity is more than benign. If that makes anyone uncomfortable, that's just the way it goes.


If you are questioning whether "all such inquiries" on TC are based on innocent curiosity, I would answer that some may not be. My questions (in all fields) are always based on curiosity. Period. I don't spin (what's the point?). If you feel there is some special tone or subtle spin to my questions, you are reading much more into my words than what I intend. I simply want to know.


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## Rapide

millionrainbows said:


> View attachment 8969


I love that album!


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> It sounds to me like you are assuming that the purpose of all art is to _entertain you,_ and if it doesn't, it becomes invalid. Obviously, its artistic aims are as valid as all other music.


You said:
"Therefore, a serial composer is content to know that there is a quality of unity in his music, albeit more cerebral and idea-based than simple sensual vibration,…"
And:
"However, the "ear" argument is irrelevant artistically to the artistic methods and aims of Serial music."

And I asked you, besides creating unity, what are those artistic aims?
I never mentioned entertainment or validity. It was a simple question.

You see, Bach used inversion and transposition and created very unified music too. But in music of that period, the unity and coherence of the thematic material is one part of the story. The treatment of the themes was conditioned by it's ability to simultaneously articulate a very strict harmonic language and structure.
Therefore, not only is the melodic or horizontal aspect of the music highly unified but also the vertical or harmonic aspect. In addition, the larger scale structural aspect of the music is governed by a combination of thematic and harmonic considerations. This is as true for 'Pelleas' und Mellisande as it is for The Art Of Fugue.



millionrainbows said:


> If critics wish to question the comprehensibility of Serial music, then those critics should "prove their mettle" by listening to advanced tonality such as R. Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande." That should put things in a more proper perspective.


Quite what you mean by a critic 'proving their mettle" by listening to a particular piece, only you would know.
I love Pelleas, it is a favourite of mine. There is nothing incomprehensible there, at least not to me. It is highly chromatic and dense in texture but it is nothing if not 'harmonic' 'ear' and 'sensuous' music. One can follow the development of it's themes phrase by phrase, section by section. The means by which it builds into huge emotional and structural climaxes is overwhelmingly harmonic and especially by 'sequence'.

You wish to call it 'advanced tonality' and perhaps it can be seen like that but it has nothing to do with serialism except that both originate from the same brain.
Serialism is not a further 'advance' on Pelleas, except chronologically. It is is a complete break with the most fundamental driving force of Pelleas.
And no, I do not believe serial music is as comprehensible to the 'ear' in the same way as is Pelleas. And if, as you are so fond of saying, it is not 'ear' music then I repeat my question, why listen to it as opposed to read it or about it.
You might consider yourself a high priest as opposed to an expert but I am looking for 'insight' and 'illumination' not textbook explanations of the mechanics of serial music which I can read for myself.


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## Arsakes

Innovation, no matter it's interesting or not, for the sake of not being considered as "Conservative".
Like Hippies and Punks who rebelled against conservative social order.

I was tempted to compare Atonal music to Fashion artist who design absurd clothes that won't last even a year .. but it's more appropriate to Pop music!

Or with the worst situation, Music is fulfilled and there is not much to compose without being similar to older compositions.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Then I'm simply asking experts (i.e. people with significantly more knowledge than I) to aid in my understanding of the mechanics of serial music creation.


You're making some observations as well:



mmsbls said:


> I often have trouble hearing simple inversions so I expect that more complicated operators could produce rows that are rather difficult for the listener to relate back to the original. Given the power of set operators to produce a wide variety of rows, do you worry that you are sometimes driven more by the math than by the music? I've always imagined that the real difficulty is finding a row that yields musically "interesting" sounds under the various operators.


The way I see it, and from what I've heard Boulez say, the endless permutations give freedom, as they are so varied; and also, Boulez is a French aesthete, and is interested in exploring the "irrational" as well.

It's awkward to answer questions about aesthetic choice and artistic aims in the same breath as a discussion about the "mechanics"and raw material which is used to create this music. Queries like "do you worry that you are sometimes driven more by the math than by the music" distract from this. I don't want to have to justify the Serial method as being "musical" or not, I see it as a given; I'm a true believer. I'm just discussing the nuts and bolts of it.

The aesthetics of post-war composition are problematic as well for listeners with a Bach/Mozart/Beethoven paradigm. Boulez and Cage's desire to "transcend their conscious mind" or ego, or whatever you want to call it, is in keeping with Surrealism, Mallarme, Joyce, Freud, Jung, and other modernists.

I accept this whole modernist package as a "given."



mmsbls said:


> If you feel there is some special tone or subtle spin to my questions, you are reading much more into my words than what I intend. I simply want to know.


Then here is some material to explore:

http://www.jaytomlin.com/music/settheory/
http://www.ccarh.org/publications/data/humdrum/tonerow/
http://solomonsmusic.net/diss7.htm
http://www.tonalcentre.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch_multiplication
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inversion_(music)#Inversional_equivalency


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> ...Therefore, not only is the melodic or horizontal aspect of the music highly unified but also the vertical or harmonic aspect. In addition, the larger scale structural aspect of the music is governed by a combination of thematic and harmonic considerations.


 I think that post-war Serial works have just as much "unity."



Petwhac said:


> You might consider yourself a high priest as opposed to an expert but I am looking for 'insight' and 'illumination' not textbook explanations of the mechanics of serial music which I can read for myself.


 Then why bother me with it, as you appear to be hostile towards non-tonal music. I'm not here to convert you, only to guide you as a loving and caring priest would.



Petwhac said:


> Quite what you mean by a critic 'proving their mettle" by listening to a particular piece, only you would know.


...If a critic complains that he has problems trying to "follow" serial music, then the problem is not with the music, but with his ear.



Petwhac said:


> ...I do not believe serial music is as comprehensible to the 'ear' in the same way as is Pelleas. And if, as you are so fond of saying, it is not 'ear' music then I repeat my question, why listen to it as opposed to read it or about it.


Serialism's basic pitch-materials are not derived from or based on purely harmonic considerations, that's all. That doesn't negate it as being harmonically experienced as music. Intervals have harmonic consequences, and serialism is all about interval relations.



Petwhac said:


> You wish to call it (Pelleas & Metamorphosen) 'advanced tonality' and perhaps it can be seen like that but it has nothing to do with serialism except that both originate from the same brain.


...I disagree with that. I see tonality as containing the seeds of its own demise (tritones, chromaticism) and I see extreme chromaticism as leading to serialism, for numerous reasons I have already stated in my blogs.



Petwhac said:


> Serialism is not a further 'advance' on Pelleas, except chronologically. It is is a complete break with the most fundamental driving force of Pelleas.


Serialism is a break with tonalty, and I see Serialism's expansion of the possibilities of musical language as an "advance."



Petwhac said:


> And no, I do not believe serial music is as comprehensible to the 'ear' in the same way as is Pelleas. And if, as you are so fond of saying, it is not 'ear' music then I repeat my question, why listen to it as opposed to read it or about it.


 Serial music is music which was created to be heard as sound. Serialism doesn't cater automatically to the ear like harmonic-based music, but it does have a harmonic dimension. It's just that the harmonic dimension does not totally determine and dictate the possibilities. The "kneejerk" reactions of tonality are discarded. The "pervasive unity" you see in harmony, in determining local as well as global outcomes, can just as easily bee seen as a "straitjacket" which exhausted its potentials.


----------



## mmsbls

millionrainbows said:


> It's awkward to answer questions about aesthetic choice and artistic aims in the same breath as a discussion about the "mechanics"and raw material which is used to create this music. Queries like "do you worry that you are sometimes driven more by the math than by the music" distract from this. I don't want to have to justify the Serial method as being "musical" or not, I see it as a given; I'm a true believer.


My question was probably not worded in a way that a more knowledgeable person might have asked it. I certainly did not mean to question whether serial music was or was not "musical". I accept that a composer's output is musical (in some sense, how could it not be?). I was trying to get a better understanding on how the math (set theory inputs) and other musical considerations interact in serial works. It may be better asked in person to people I know so misunderstandings can be minimized.



millionrainbows said:


> Then here is some material to explore:


Thanks. I had previously read that webpage on Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celeste and found it fascinating. I look forward to reading the Webern section when I get to his Piano Variations. Jay Tomlin's page was fun to explore. The Viennese row forms page ought to help as I work through more of Schoenberg and Berg. Up until earlier this year I had had no success in appreciating any music from the 2nd Viennese school (or other similar music). Recently I have come to love Berg's violin concerto. After listening many times without success, the piece gradually opened up (with help from an online analysis). I'm planning to explore Schoenberg's 3rd String Quartet and Berg's Lyric Suite again. So far, as with the Berg earlier, I have not had much luck with these works, but with more effort, who knows?

Once again, thank you for your time and effort.


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## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> Once again, thank you for your time and effort.


Oh, don't mention it! And remember to use your super-powers wisely!


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## millionrainbows

Rapide said:


> I love that album!


Me too; but I often wonder how History will view Boulez' comb-over.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Then why bother me with it, as you appear to be hostile towards non-tonal music. I'm not here to convert you, only to guide you as a loving and caring priest would.


I'm not hostile to the music or it's practitioners or it's fans. Only to some attitudes I encounter.



millionrainbows said:


> ...If a critic complains that he has problems trying to "follow" serial music, then the problem is not with the music, but with his ear.


Well, you said yourself that Boulez does not expect all his music to be 'followed'. So which is it?



millionrainbows said:


> Serialism's basic pitch-materials are not derived from or based on purely harmonic considerations, that's all. That doesn't negate it as being harmonically experienced as music. Intervals have harmonic consequences, and serialism is all about interval relations.


But would you not agree that many possibilities that can be exploited when writing in a coherent and highly developed harmonic language, are not available to the serial composer and the listener. For example: A theme may be restated half an hour later and be altered or harmonised differently and in such a way as to change the structural or emotional significance of it's reappearance. (I'm generalising). Such a change of context can be picked up and heard by the listener. Such changes of context are possible in non-harmonic music but can they ever be heard? And if they are not, then are they actually necessary?



millionrainbows said:


> Serial music is music which was created to be heard as sound. Serialism doesn't cater automatically to the ear like harmonic-based music, but it does have a harmonic dimension. It's just that the harmonic dimension does not totally determine and dictate the possibilities. The "kneejerk" reactions of tonality are discarded. The "pervasive unity" you see in harmony, in determining local as well as global outcomes, can just as easily bee seen as a "straitjacket" which exhausted its potentials.


I have the view that serialism is a straightjacket too. I guess we are all free to choose which colour straightjacket we prefer.


----------



## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I'm not hostile to the music or it's practitioners or it's fans. Only to some attitudes I encounter.


My attitude is no worse than yours.



Petwhac said:


> Well, you said yourself that Boulez does not expect all his music to be 'followed'. So which is it?


I didn't start the use of the the term "followed." I assumed that the person "having a hard time following Serialism" was trying to hear "themes" as in tonality, or hear easy-to digest rhythms. Boulez' music demands a different way of listening. I recognize "gestures" he puts forth, and sometimes "modules" of pitches which retain a recognizable identity.



Petwhac said:


> But would you not agree that many possibilities that can be exploited when writing in a coherent and highly developed harmonic language, are not available to the serial composer and the listener. For example: A theme may be restated half an hour later and be altered or harmonised differently and in such a way as to change the structural or emotional significance of it's reappearance....


That's because standard 18th century practice tonality is so recursive, redundant, and cliché-ridden; it uses the same formulae over and over. The only way "harmonic music" (advanced tonal thinking, like Persichetti) redeems itself is by escaping those clichés, and using techniques derived from Serialism: pitch multiplication, interval projection, etc.



Petwhac said:


> Such a change of context can be picked up and heard by the listener. Such changes of context are possible in non-harmonic music but can they ever be heard? And if they are not, then are they actually necessary?


If I tap you on the knee with a small hammer, you will respond. If you get a spoonful of sugar, it will taste sweet. Do these kinds of knee-jerk reactions represent the fabulous possibilities of harmony you tout so fervently?

If you apply those automatic reactions to Serialism, you're trying to "stuff a horse into a suitcase."

It is now possible to run Windows on a Mac, but why would you want to?



Petwhac said:


> I have the view that serialism is a straightjacket too. I guess we are all free to choose which colour straightjacket we prefer.


Serialism's influence on all music, including tonal (harmonic) and non-harmonic, has been pervasive. Whether it continues to be used as a specific method or not is moot; it has changed musical thinking forever, in ways you seem to be unaware of.


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> I didn't start the use of the the term "followed." I assumed that the person "having a hard time following Serialism" was trying to hear "themes" as in tonality, or hear easy-to digest rhythms. Boulez' music demands a different way of listening. I recognize "gestures" he puts forth, and sometimes "modules" of pitches which retain a recognizable identity.


Yes, gestures. Like gesture politics. I like substance.



millionrainbows said:


> That's because standard 18th century practice tonality is so recursive, redundant, and cliché-ridden; it uses the same formulae over and over.


18th century? Bartok, Stravinsky, Britten, Ligeti, Ades all well known 18th century composers.

Recursive, redundant and cliché-ridden? You mean like prose? You mean that having recognisable _refrerence _points is a bad thing? Why don't you use retrograde inversion in your prose? I'm sure you could come up with a very unifying scheme involving the 26 letters of the alphabet. You can then recite it and we can all enjoy the gestures. Perhaps you could colour it with different voices and shout or whisper certain passages.

Some kinds of music are better at communicating than others. There is nothing wrong with music that doesn't seek to communicate. But if it does seek to communicate it would be better off retaining some common reference points.



millionrainbows said:


> The only way "harmonic music" (advanced tonal thinking, like Persichetti) redeems itself is by escaping those clichés, and using techniques derived from Serialism: pitch multiplication, interval projection, etc.


That is too silly for a response.



millionrainbows said:


> If I tap you on the knee with a small hammer, you will respond. If you get a spoonful of sugar, it will taste sweet. Do these kinds of knee-jerk reactions represent the fabulous possibilities of harmony you tout so fervently?


No.



millionrainbows said:


> It is now possible to run Windows on a Mac, but why would you want to?


You or I may not want to but if there was no demand then the capability would not have been developed.



millionrainbows said:


> Serialism's influence on all music, including tonal (harmonic) and non-harmonic, has been pervasive. Whether it continues to be used as a specific method or not is moot; it has changed musical thinking forever, in ways you seem to be unaware of.


All music? No.
Influential? Yes.
Punk-Rock had a pervasive influence on pop music- for a time. It is historically important but very few of the actual songs will have entered the pop 'canon'. 
The limitations of the Serial method will ensure that future composers look for other ways of organising their music. Of that I am confident. But I may be wrong.

As for attitude. I trust, if you had been around at the time, you would not have been among Boulez's cronies who booed at concerts of Stravinsky's neo-classical works because it contradicted their *dogma.*

The Symphony of Psalms, Concerto For Piano And Wind Instruments and many other pieces will continue to delight audiences far into the future.


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## millionrainbows

Frank Zappa: there's a composer who did it all. He himself was quoted as saying "If you really want to be radical, write something diatonic." This album shows the many sides of him: snatches of atonality amidst bogus pomp fanfares, percussion out the wazoo, complex rhythms & meter-changes, it's all here:


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> The limitations of the Serial method will ensure that future composers look for other ways of organising their music.


It's not just "serialism" as a method; it's the pervasive influence of it on musical thinking. Get that Whittall book.
http://amzn.com/0521682002


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## Sid James

millionrainbows said:


> It's not just "serialism" as a method; it's the pervasive influence of it on musical thinking. Get that Whittall book.
> http://amzn.com/0521682002


Most of the post 1945 composers I like rejected serialism as a straightjacket. Or at least the stricter forms of it. Eg. Carter, Dutilleux, Walton, Tippett, Sculthorpe, Penderecki, Lutoslawski, Bernstein, Messiaen and so on.

So basically I fail to see tangible effects of its influence today, and in the past 50 or more years.

RE Whittall I have not read that book by him but another much earlier one (written in the 1970's) and it wasn't too bad but he came across as quite ideological sometimes (eg. arguing that Bartok's first 3 string quartets where basically better compared to his last 3, as the first three where more experimental). I doubt those opinions would be taken seriously by many musicologists today. All of Bartok's SQ's are great, equally great I'd say.


----------



## Guest

Sid James said:


> Most of the post 1945 composers I like rejected serialism as a straightjacket.





Sid James said:


> So basically I fail to see tangible effects of its influence today, and in the past 50 or more years.


But "composers I like" and "[no] tangible effects of its influence" are two radically different things. There are some circumstances under which these two radically different things could coincide, I suppose, but that doesn't make them anything more than radically different.

(This is not one of those circumstances, either.)

And, just by the way, most of the post 1906 composers that I like rejected common practice tonality as a straitjacket.


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## KenOC

Fascinating how these discussions often proceed. When the value of atonal and especially serial music is questioned, several arguments are typically raised in response:

- Tonality is exhausted, there's no choice but to move on.
- You don't 'get' it, but here's a book to read.
- It's gotta be good because it influenced so many (followed by list of composers nobody much listens to).
- Requires a very high intelligence, maybe you don't qualify.

I would love to read more helpful comments. The best ones I've seen so far are listeners' very personal reactions to the music -- I can relate to that.


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> But "composers I like" and "[no] tangible effects of its influence" are two radically different things. There are some circumstances under which these two radically different things could coincide, I suppose, but that doesn't make them anything more than radically different.
> 
> (This is not one of those circumstances, either.)
> 
> And, just by the way, most of the post 1906 composers that I like rejected common practice tonality as a straitjacket.


If you can tell me some composers today who work serially, I would be enlightened. I don't think serialism has survived, seriously. It did make an impact, but not the type that was predicted in roughly the first half of the 20th century. Composers who honed it to their own needs - some of them I mentioned in my last post - where touched by it, but I would not call those guys serial. Eg. neither Carter nor Messiaen where serialists, although they where clearly influenced by the 2nd Viennese School. Guys like Walton and Bernstein incorporated serialism into a more 'tonal' system (as did Bartok). So that's what I'm saying, I'm sure its not hard for you or anyone else here to understand. But whatever, I feel as if I'm talking to a brick wall here sometimes. The people most interested in new/newer music are unfortunately sometimes overly dogmatic about it (online that is).


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## clavichorder

Here is an example of strongly atonality influenced music that is actually very pleasant to listen to for a wide variety of people:





I would like to credit Steven Swayne's lecture on William Schuman's 7th symphony for leading me to this piece and pointing out the fact that it is a fugue based on a tone row. Nuts!


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## Sid James

^^Lenny's 'Cool Fugue' is one of the best examples of a more tonal leaning adaptation of the serial technique. I love it!


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> Fascinating how these discussions often proceed. When the value of atonal and especially serial music is questioned, several arguments are typically raised in response:
> 
> - Tonality is exhausted, there's no choice but to move on.
> - You don't 'get' it, but here's a book to read.
> - It's gotta be good because it influenced so many (followed by list of composers nobody much listens to).
> - Requires a very high intelligence, maybe you don't qualify.
> 
> I would love to read more helpful comments. The best ones I've seen so far are listeners' very personal reactions to the music -- I can relate to that.


Curiously though, one or two of the advocates of Classical period composers make similar claims for their heroes too - though in the case of your third point, not the part in parentheses).

I always find it odd that humans have a paradoxical desire to convert everyone to their way of thinking, yet revel in belonging to a memberless cult where they are the only ones who get it.


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## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> I always find it odd that humans have a paradoxical desire to convert everyone to their way of thinking, ...


You took the words right out of my mouth.

Now, is this song atonal???


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## Guest

Ken's list of typical events is more Ken's perception of what happens more than it is an accurate or complete portrayal of what happens. And MacLeod's assessment is even further out.

Here's what I find perfectly understandable, that people who love things want to talk with other people about those things.

Here's what I find perfectly objectionable--and all too frequent--that talking about contemporary music is seen as an opportunity to be rude and obnoxious. The music itself is seen as an easy mark and its proponents as misguided acolytes of a naked emperor.

How is it that a person who genuinely likes something that is obscure is immediately tarred with the "revel in belonging to a memberless cult where they are the only ones who get it" brush? Is it too difficult to accept that someone can like something you abhor without being a monster? Different people do indeed like different things.

And how is it that the genuine and genuinely human impulse to share one's interests with other humans gets so frequently and persistently turned into a "desire to convert everyone to their way of thinking"?

Here's what I think Ken leaves out of his picture: the persistent sniping of people who dislike contemporary music about how awful contemporary music is and how deluded its fans are, if they really are fans and not just poseurs. The consistent idea that the experiences of people who dislike something and who have very little contact with it (after all, they do indeed dislike it) is somehow more valid than the experience of people who like that something and who have quite a lot of knowledge and understanding about it. Now there's something that is _genuinely_ odd.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Ken's list of typical events is more Ken's perception of what happens more than it is an accurate or complete portrayal of what happens. And MacLeod's assessment is even further out.
> 
> Here's what I find perfectly understandable, that people who love things want to talk with other people about those things.
> 
> Here's what I find perfectly objectionable--and all too frequent--that talking about contemporary music is seen as an opportunity to be rude and obnoxious. The music itself is seen as an easy mark and its proponents as misguided acolytes of a naked emperor.
> 
> How is it that a person who genuinely likes something that is obscure is immediately tarred with the "revel in belonging to a memberless cult where they are the only ones who get it" brush? Is it too difficult to accept that someone can like something you abhor without being a monster? Different people do indeed like different things.
> 
> And how is it that the genuine and genuinely human impulse to share one's interests with other humans gets so frequently and persistently turned into a "desire to convert everyone to their way of thinking"?
> 
> Here's what I think Ken leaves out of his picture: the persistent sniping of people who dislike contemporary music about how awful contemporary music is and how deluded its fans are, if they really are fans and not just poseurs. The consistent idea that the experiences of people who dislike something and who have very little contact with it (after all, they do indeed dislike it) is somehow more valid than the experience of people who like that something and who have quite a lot of knowledge and understanding about it. Now there's something that is _genuinely_ odd.


Steady on. Who said I abhor anything?? I was merely seeing KenOC's post, recognising something I've seen here in the toing and froing of debates and drawing a general observation about people and stuff, not about you (or any other specific member here) and atonal. There are faults on both 'sides' here, as I pointed out, though the 'sides' seem to be taken by only a few. Most posters here are happy to get on talk about what they like and think without assuming a tone of superiority and disdain, or aggrieved paranoia.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Here's what I think Ken leaves out of his picture: the persistent sniping of people who dislike contemporary music about how awful contemporary music is and how deluded its fans are, if they really are fans and not just poseurs.


You are quite right that I didn't mention this, as it was (after all) not relevant to the topic of my post. Please read the post again, thanks!


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## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> Steady on. Who said I abhor anything?? I was merely seeing KenOC's post, recognising something I've seen here in the toing and froing of debates and drawing a general observation about people and stuff, not about you (or any other specific member here) and atonal...


Yes it is to-ing and fro-ing. I call these things 'merry go round debates.' & unlike that, its no fun at all, all I want to do is jump straight off.



> ...
> There are faults on both 'sides' here, as I pointed out, though the 'sides' seem to be taken by only a few. Most posters here are happy to get on talk about what they like and think without assuming a tone of superiority and disdain, or aggrieved paranoia.


I agree with that.

Re "aggrieved paranoia" I got a bit of that, or something like it. Mainly due to threads I make being jumped on by the very person you are addressing (and a few others). Lately its become less than before, but I think that may well be because I've been quite vocal in saying I don't find this acceptable. This kind of talking down, holier than thou, pedantic semantics games, painting me as biased (when basically everyone is), ra ra ra. I've had enough. Of course, not many people are willing to back me up publicly on all this. I like to talk about controversial issues, but not when people talk as if assuming I don't have a right to say something, I mean in a way they would NEVER address someone in real life. I find that to be very low.

But anyway, now I'm jumping off this thread. I don't have a problem with most contemporary music, but I do have a problem with some of the very hardened dogmas associated with it. Definitely.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Steady on. Who said I abhor anything??


Steady on yourself there, bucko! No one said that you, MacLeod, abhors anything. I was merely seeing your and Ken's posts, recognising some typical distortions of the situation (presented as typical occurences) and drawing a general observation about people and stuff, not about you.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> I was merely seeing your and Ken's posts, recognising some typical distortions of the situation (presented as typical occurences) and drawing a general observation about people and stuff, not about you.


On reflection, I think you're quite right that my post presented "distortions of the situation." There are really only one or two people here who respond to queries or criticisms on this topic with such obviously bruised egos. So, apologies if my post seemed to apply too wide a brush!


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> Fascinating how these discussions often proceed. When the value of atonal and especially serial music is questioned, several arguments are typically raised in response:
> 
> - Tonality is exhausted, there's no choice but to move on.
> - You don't 'get' it, but here's a book to read.
> - It's gotta be good because it influenced so many (followed by list of composers nobody much listens to).
> - Requires a very high intelligence, maybe you don't qualify.
> 
> I would love to read more helpful comments. The best ones I've seen so far are listeners' very personal reactions to the music -- I can relate to that.


People who dogmatically support tonality basically throw out similar arguments, or equivalent ones. If you want a helpful comment, I can recommend works, very beautiful ones. I don't agree with anybody here saying that tonality is exhausted, but I don't agree with anybody here also saying that tonality is superior. I can recommend music that is really good. It is up to you to actually listen and develop and understanding of the kind of vocabulary atonal and serial and avant-garde music generally employs, and I don't mean in any technical sense. I fell in love with beautiful modern music before I had any idea how it really worked, and it was because I put forth some effort to try and understand the music on an emotional level, just as with any other kind of music that is new to one's ears.


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> People who dogmatically support tonality basically throw out similar arguments, or equivalent ones. If you want a helpful comment, I can recommend works, very beautiful ones. I don't agree with anybody here saying that tonality is exhausted, but I don't agree with anybody here also saying that tonality is superior. I can recommend music that is really good. It is up to you to actually listen and develop and understanding of the kind of vocabulary atonal and serial and avant-garde music generally employs, and I don't mean in any technical sense. I fell in love with beautiful modern music before I had any idea how it really worked, and it was because I put forth some effort to try and understand the music on an emotional level, just as with any other kind of music that is new to one's ears.


There is no place for dogma in art. In fact there is no place for dogma anywhere. Dogma replaces thinking for oneself.

It is not for anyone to tell anyone else what they should or should not like. It is permissible to express one's own likes and dislikes and to try to rationalise why this may be so. And it is perfectly reasonable to analyse the music and not one's own brain to look for the answer. 
After all if one finds a meal distasteful one might find there was too much salt in it. Another person might find it not salty enough. It is not possible to persuade the other person that they are wrong to find it distasteful but one can point to the quantities of salt as being the issue. So it is with tonality.

Musicology is _not_ a science. Musicologists and scholars are expressing an _opinion_ about music. It is not possible to be flying at 30,000 feet and be of the opinion that Newton's Laws of motion were wrong or invalid, your plane was designed with those laws in mind. It works. Physics _is_ a science.

For someone to say this kind of music is necessary or that kind of music is exhausted is completely untestable and insupportable.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> It is not for anyone to tell anyone else what they should or should not like.


This comes up a lot as a thing that happens. But really, how often _does_ it happen? Not very often. It's one of the many chimera that are supposed to define the world of the avant garde and its hangers on but that really do nothing of the sort. It is, in short, a straw man.



Petwhac said:


> _t is perfectly reasonable to analyse the music and not one's own brain to look for the answer._


_If the situation is one in which a brain is processing some material, and it is, then it makes all sorts of sense to look at one's own brain for "the answer." Better yet to examine the situation, neither just the music nor just the brain, but at what happens when the music and the brain come into contact.



Petwhac said:



For someone to say this kind of music is necessary or that kind of music is exhausted is completely untestable and insupportable.

Click to expand...

Untestable, certainly. Insupportable, though? Not so sure. Certainly composers, some of them, found that for themselves, the patterns and possibilities of tonality had pretty much run out. Why else go in the direction, the directions, that they did? (A very popular theory, that avant garde composers did what they did in order to **** off the bourgeoisie, is really too too silly. Really? All those different people? A sufficient motivation for a life time of work? Malarkey!)

And certainly, it takes even less than a moment of reflection to realize this, for listeners, especially more conservative ones, tonality--the thing with which they are familiar--is not exhausted at all. But then, for listeners, Romantic music, Classical music, Baroque music, Renaissance music, Medieval music, none of those are exhausted, either. Of course not.* But the needs and desires and motivations of listeners and creators are somewhat different, n'est-ce que pas? I've noticed many times over the years that when talking about music and about what seems necessary or important or not that the roles of composer and listener get hopelessly muddled and jumbled together. Sorting those things out is often a necessary (!) first step to saying anything sensical about the situation. (Saying something sensical about the situation? Dream on, some guy!!)

*Well, "of course not" in our present reality. In Haydn's time, listeners would have thought of most music from twenty or thirty years ago and more as being not at all interesting or exciting. Now, of course, music from a hundred years ago can still be referred to as "modern."_


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Steady on yourself there, bucko! No one said that you, MacLeod, abhors anything.


But then I guess I was guilty of something I find annoying in others: making a generalisation about 'people' ("something I've seen in the debates and the toing and froing") when I actually had at least one person in mind, but I didn't name them. I've noticed, for example, that StLukesGuildOhio snips a quote, but without a reference, giving the impression that he is talking _about _a person ("he must be having one of those days"), but not _to _them. In your post, someguy, you talk about people who snipe, people who don't like atonal, and you quoted my post directly, so it was difficult to read it any other way than you were specifying me. I'm not sure how many people you are citing on TC who are "sniping" and who "do indeed dislike it." Perhaps if we generalised less, and spoke _to _each other more than _about _each other, there might be a little less friction.

For my contribution to friction, I apologise.


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## millionrainbows

*Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,* as I've already shown, with the use of tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines, since Bach & Beethoven, and increasing through Wagner, Liszt, R. Strauss, and Mahler.

_*I've proved my point; *_the rest of you are just saying "No, that's not true" without having an inkling of what you are speaking about, except your own precious uninformed opinions.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> This comes up a lot as a thing that happens. But really, how often _does_ it happen? Not very often. It's one of the many chimera that are supposed to define the world of the avant garde and its hangers on but that really do nothing of the sort. It is, in short, a straw man.


You have assumed that I was only referring to one 'side' of the debate.



some guy said:


> If the situation is one in which a brain is processing some material, and it is, then it makes all sorts of sense to look at one's own brain for "the answer." Better yet to examine the situation, neither just the music nor just the brain, but at what happens when the music and the brain come into contact.


Have you taken a step back from some of your previous statements that it is "_all_ about the listener" then? [my italics] And concede that the music itself plays a role?
This is a music forum not a psychology one. I'm here because my brain is interested in music.



some guy said:


> Untestable, certainly. Insupportable, though? Not so sure. Certainly composers, some of them, found that for themselves, the patterns and possibilities of tonality had pretty much run out. Why else go in the direction, the directions, that they did? (A very popular theory, that avant garde composers did what they did in order to **** off the bourgeoisie, is really too too silly. Really? All those different people? A sufficient motivation for a life time of work? Malarkey!)


Yes, _some_ composers, not all. It is up to each composer to find their own way forward. Tonality cannot run out any more than linguistic grammar or syntax can run out or representational painting can run out.
Composers go in the direction they do because it suits them, it enables them to produce work, to satisfy their impulse to compose. Reich and the minimalists as one example, chose one particular path very different from some of their contemporaries.
If you want to talk about straw men just look at what you said about "a very popular theory". Really? Very popular?



some guy said:


> And certainly, it takes even less than a moment of reflection to realize this, for _listeners,_ especially more conservative ones, tonality--the thing with which they are familiar--is not exhausted at all. But then, for _listeners,_ Romantic music, Classical music, Baroque music, Renaissance music, Medieval music, none of those are exhausted, either. Of course not.* But the needs and desires and motivations of listeners and creators are somewhat different, n'est-ce que pas? I've noticed many times over the years that when talking about music and about what seems necessary or important or not that the roles of composer and listener get hopelessly muddled and jumbled together. Sorting those things out is often a necessary (!) first step to saying anything sensical about the situation. (Saying something sensical about the situation? Dream on, some guy!!)
> 
> *Well, "of course not" in our present reality. In Haydn's time, listeners would have thought of most music from twenty or thirty years ago and more as being not at all interesting or exciting. Now, of course, music from a hundred years ago can still be referred to as "modern."


Let's start with the last paragraph. Do you have any evidence to support the statement about listeners in Haydn's time? It is unlikely that most listeners would have had the chance to hear the music of twenty or thirty years earlier. Music certainly was subject to changing tastes in fashion but we aren't talking fundamental deconstruction and completely new aesthetics, in those days we are talking small incremental changes.
The very fact that as you say, music from a hundred years ago can still be referred to as "modern", tells us that _for some composers_ small incremental changes weren't enough.

Now as for 'conservative' listeners, please define that term. Are there also 'conservative' composers? Any names? What is the opposite of a conservative listener? A radical? A progressive? A Communist?

You seem to have confused style and language. You see, Bach and Brahms are not exhausted for listeners any more than Shakespeare and Ibsen are exhausted for theatre goers or Rubens and Renoir are for art lookers.
No sensible person advocates that people should today write like Brahms or Shakespeare or paint like Rubens.
But tell the theatre goer that syntax, grammar, every day words, narrative, shared concepts and linguistic conventions are exhausted. Tell Hockney and Lucien Freud (Ok so he's dead)or Tracy Emin that representation of people or objects is exhausted.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,* as I've already shown, with the use of tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines, since Bach & Beethoven, and increasing through Wagner, Liszt, R. Strauss, and Mahler.
> 
> _*I've proved my point; *_the rest of you are just saying "No, that's not true" without having an inkling of what you are speaking about, except your own precious uninformed opinions.


What you have shown is that you are following a dogmatic line of thinking. "X must be true because it says so in my (holy) book."

Because you have read books and liner notes, that does not make you a prophet dear fellow. How many of your 'inklings' did you have all by yourself?

You complain about another forum persecuting you and then you come with your last sentence which smacks of disdain and intolerance. Why would you do that?


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## mud

If it had a point, the topic would not be this long (ironically). But seriously, atonality is the point, don't you think?


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## EricABQ

millionrainbows said:


> I've proved my point


Sweet, so you're done then?


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## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,* as I've already shown, with the use of tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines, since Bach & Beethoven, and increasing through Wagner, Liszt, R. Strauss, and Mahler.
> 
> _*I've proved my point; *_the rest of you are just saying "No, that's not true" without having an inkling of what you are speaking about, except your own precious uninformed opinions.


Sorry dude, but this is just silly. I _love_ more chromatic tonality, more ambiguous, complex harmonies and textures in music, but I'm not going to say that writing in a less chromatic or more straight-forward style is an exhausted resource. The possibilities are infinite in music. Besides, I still don't get the fetishism of serialism itself. Why serialism? I mean, there is wonderful music produced with that method, especially from the big three of the Second Viennese School, and people like Babbitt and Stockhausen, and Copland and Stravinsky for that matter. But it isn't the only way of writing music outside of tonality and diatonic modes. What about Messiaen? What about Ligeti and Xenakis and later Stockhausen? How about Varese and some of Debussy? Why the emphasis on this rigid system, that is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more restrictive than tonality is? I'm glad Schoenberg came up with this cool system, and later on Messiaen, Babbitt, and Boulez developed it further, and its just another tool that composers can use to make awesome music, but it is certainly not the only tool nor the best tool out there.


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## millionrainbows

millions said: "Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise, as I've already shown, with the use of tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines, since Bach & Beethoven, and increasing through Wagner, Liszt, R. Strauss, and Mahler.

I've proved my point; the rest of you are just saying "No, that's not true" without having an inkling of what you are speaking about, except your own precious uninformed opinions."



Petwhac said:


> What you have shown is that you are following a dogmatic line of thinking. "X must be true because it says so in my (holy) book." Because you have read books and liner notes, that does not make you a prophet dear fellow. How many of your 'inklings' did you have all by yourself?


No, these elements I speak of (tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines) are evident as _*sounds;*_ it's not just book-stuff. These things reflect the gradual transformation of tonality because they are part of tonality itself, as the mechanisms which allow it to function as it does. Tonality, as you yourself have said, is about going away from and returning to "home base." It's these various transformative elements which contributed to tonality's gradual expansion, and right up to the "precipice" of no return.

More elaborations on my proof:

For examples of *diminished flat nine altered dominant chords,* see Beethoven's late Quartet in F major, op. 135.

For examples of *harmonic progressions which wander chromatically and seem to be "keyless" and defy tonal analysis,* see Richard Strauss' "Metamorphosen" and Schoenberg's "Pelleas und Mellisande."

I was listening to J.S. Bach's "Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue" yesterday, and was struck by how it "wanders" all over the place, using *diminished chords which transform into dominants, and vice-versa.*

Etc, etc. I can hear all of this stuff, and long before I ever read books on the subject.



Petwhac said:


> You complain about another forum persecuting you and then you come with your last sentence which smacks of disdain and intolerance. Why would you do that?


Ohh, let's go into ad-hominem territory! I have some advice for you, my dear fellow: *Humble yourself before the great art and artists of our time,* and stop trying to prove that this modern century is invalid, or go back to your "museum of tonality" and have your recursive "inklings" all by yourself, to use your characterizations of me.


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## Fishballkwan

In my view, tonal or atonal is not important. What's important is, the artistry, and the expression of music. If I was a composer, I would use all usable technique if it is necessary, wheather it is from Schoenberg, or from Strauss.


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## millionrainbows

Fishballkwan said:


> In my view, tonal or atonal is not important.


Well, that's like "ignoring the elephant in the room."

As the works I listed above show, tonality itself can "wander away" until it becomes so chromatic that it is unrecognizable from "atonality." Thus, the transition from *Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg* is an unmistakable progression, one which took _decades,_ and is part of the *"Zeitgeist"* of history, being a _supra-personal historical inevitability._


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## Guest

I'm not sure about this 'wandering away and back home' idea.

I live and work in a rural part of the UK. Occasionally, I get invited to London as part of my job. The people I meet with in London don't like to travel to where I work because it's a long way away! I guess if you live in Austin, then New York and Washington are some distance away too: but the universe doesn't revolve around any of those centres, does it?

However, if 'tonality' is home, and wandering away from it takes you to other places where you find [insert the technically correct terms that get argued about for modern, serial, atonal, 12-tone etc] this suggests that the natural/default state of appeal for music is the simpler, plainer melodies and harmonies that are found in folk and traditional, pop and some Classical. Just as was being suggested by millionrainbows and others (including me) in the thread _Hypotheses on why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music._

So, the point of 'atonal' is the same as the point(s) of any music: the composer wants to explore the possibilities of "these sounds in this order" and it gives him pleasure to do so. Is it also reasonable to suppose that most composers would like to find listeners who also want the exploration and the possibilities?


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## Arsakes

The Atonalists ....
Repent and choose one or more of these three paths:
- Neo-Classic Music
- Neo-Romantic Music
- Minimalism, mixed with two paths above.


Then you will obtain Salvation!


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> I'm not sure about this 'wandering away and back home' idea..if 'tonality' is home, and wandering away from it takes you to other places, this suggests that the natural/default state of appeal for music is the simpler, plainer melodies and harmonies that are found in folk and traditional, pop and some Classical.


Oh, I think it's a matter of degree. In Be-bop jazz (Charlie Parker, etc.) there is a constant shifting of the harmonic center, a series of ii-V-I's which creates constant unrest, forward momentum, and is difficult to solo over.

Miles Davis' later modal (Kind of Blue) and "tone-centric" jazz (In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew) had a much more stable harmonic "drone" base, which created a more subdued mood.

The same with John Coltrane, whose restless "Giant Steps" gave way to the East Indian raga-like "My Favorite Things."

*Take your pick: constant modulation, with its restless anxiety, but moving forward constantly; 
...or a more laid back, stable modal or tone-centric approach.*

The "tone-centric" approach can be heard in Richard Wagner's operas (overture to "Das Rheingold") with long "tone-centric" stretches, which set the mood, create atmosphere, and calm the listener, preparing him for the coming scene.


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## millionrainbows

Getting back to the original thread idea, one of the "effects" of atonal (serial) music is its constant change, which by default would seem to create a restless, anxiety-ridden experience. 

However, John Cage seems to create "calm" no matter if it's his early 12-tone works for piano, or later stuff.

Schoenberg's piano music can be exquisitely introspective and calming, as can much of Webern.


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,* as I've already shown, with the use of tritones, tritone substitution, increased chromaticism, and diminished seventh/flat nines, since Bach & Beethoven, and increasing through Wagner, Liszt, R. Strauss, and Mahler.
> 
> _*I've proved my point; *_the rest of you are just saying "No, that's not true" without having an inkling of what you are speaking about, except your own precious uninformed opinions.


It may be true that tonality has exhausted itself. The proof is in the pudding. There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy; the latter was, strictly speaking, already on the very edge of tonality, Schoenberg merely crossed the line. Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler essentially Wagnerians.

That does not mean that atonality has a future or that atonality is the new horizon where things are not yet exhausted. Perhaps atonality has already exhausted itself too, perhaps there was nothing to exhaust in the first place.

"They always stick in one of those atonal things before the Beethoven," said Mrs. Bowman, who had just been to a symphony concert. "I never did like that sort of thing, but I guess I'm just not very musical."

"No one who loves music really loves twelve-tone music," Mr. Magundi said. "*There may be certain compositions that strike you as clever,* and you may enjoy some of the interesting sounds emanating from the different sections of the orchestra; but you will never love it. This is not a defect of your musical education, but a compliment to your ear: it simply shows that you have the ability to distinguish what is music from what is not. The modern twelve-tone system is designed expressly to prevent music from happening-that is, what any sane listener would define as music. Nor will I listen to that hoary and false assertion that the great composers of the past were similarly derided in their time. They were not*. Beethoven's seventh symphony, at its first concert, could not be continued until the audience had forced the orchestra to repeat the second movement. Wagner was the center of an almost religious cult. Ravel saw popular dance bands playing his "Bolero" when the ink was hardly dry on the score. These were composers who appalled the conventional critics with their innovations; but their innovations were music, and ordinary people heard it and loved it, and loved it while it was still fresh.* We have had a century to get used to atonal music, and all the great orchestras have been force-feeding it to us as the price we have to pay to hear Mozart or Mahler. Yet, during that long period, and with such a relentless campaign, not one composition in that style has made the slightest impression on the public at large. We must confess, therefore, that something more than fashion is at work here; and we may boldly state it as a law of nature that no sane and healthy person will ever really love atonal music."

*There are those who think that atonal music doesn't exist at all. * Consider this argument.

One of my hobbyhorses is the idea that there's no such thing as atonal music. It is, of course, quite possible to construct music without reference to the conventional key signatures and tonal relationships that people are used to, but this is of interest only to the analyst. In the listener's mind, old tonal listening habits are still working - any pitch repeated often enough becomes a tonic, any collection of pitches with consonant intervals becomes a chord. The only way to prevent the listener from listening in this way is to turn the piece into Hindemith's amusement park ride - to change the pitch centres around so frequently that he'll never be able to orient himself. There is very little music that does this, mostly because it's so difficult to write music that so systematically defies all our expectations. *But in none of these cases is the music exempt from tonality, any more than the man on the amusement park ride is exempt from gravity.*

So it's nice to have my prejudices confirmed by real, live, published scholars! Here's Peter Jona Korn* talking about the Second Symphony of Roger Sessions, which is organized atonally but nevertheless uses key signatures:
A minute analysis of this symphony will no doubt confirm the existence of carefully submerged tonal centres, to which these key signatures have reference. The same kind of analysis would bring forth very similar results with any given score of Schoenberg or - much more so - Berg or Dallapiccola, none of whom uses key signatures. Atonal music is, after all, nothing else but tonal music in which the tonal functions occur and permute in the shortest possible space of time.

Perhaps atonality is just part of the exhausted tonal horizon.

One of my pet projects on this blog is the attempt to debunk the conventional historiography of music. While the facts of music history (Beethoven was born in 1770; Rubbra wrote eleven symphonies; Delius is a terrible composer) are objective and unquestionable, our interpretation of those facts has been shaped by changing fashions. If you went to university in the 1960s, your professors probably taught history with the preconception that twentieth-century atonality was the logical, inevitable outcome of all previous musical developments. If you go to university today, your professors probably teach history with the preconception that twentieth-century atonality was an interesting anomaly, and that the resurgence of tonality (in either minimalism, neoromanticism or some form of popular music) has restored us to equilibrium. I don't find either of these narratives particularly convincing, but I'm naive enough to think that it's possible to come up with another one that works better. Before I can get to the stage of actually building a version of my own, however, I need to clear away a few lingering bits of mythology that turn up distressingly often:

Myth #1: It is possible to write atonal music.
This is a leitmotif of mine (see here, and here). I've never quite bought into the idea of atonal music, mainly because I've always perceived some level of tonal logic in works that I'm told are completely atonal. *So-called "atonal" music skews our sense of tonal centre in the same way that post-Romantic chromaticism does - by using so many different pitch-classes (simultaneously or in succession) that it is impossible to perceive one of them as a tonic.* The only difference between a piece by Wagner and one by Webern in this regard is that any individual combination of pitches in the Wagner will sound more familiar than the combination of pitches in Webern. (In his book, The Evolution of Music Through the History of the Perfect Cadence, Alfredo Casella shows how the increasing elongation and complication of cadential patterns through the nineteenth century finally gave way to a twentieth-century language in which cadential patterns are sometimes almost imperceptible, but still definitely present.)

Colored quotes from: http://angryorganist.blogspot.com

Adorno accused Stravinsky of keeping tonality alive in a refrigerator. Well, atonal composers have taken it out of the refrigerator, and now it is rotten and stinks to the high heavens.

The fact that Berg and Schoenberg and, I suppose, Webern are superior composers to Shostakovich *proves nothing.* They wouldn't been even better composers if they'd stayed tonal. I can't prove that, but you can't disprove it either.

The age of Dante and Shakespeare is over, has been over for a long time; that does not prove that if we change the Italian or English language we can reinvigorate art; Finnegan's Wake is a failure. The great period of Greek culture ended with Euripides. Perhaps the age of great music is over because the muses have departed mankind. We are the latecomers who can only wait for a new dawn. We can patiently wait and let things sit in the freezer before the fresh food arrives, or throw everything out and let it rot and starve ourselves to death.

Carolyn Abbate, whom I've sure you've read, describes her experience of performing Mozart.

Yet, as long as I was dealing with real music in real time, I could not establish the metaphysical distance represented by such arguments. When real music is present, the gnostic can be introduced. Yet while playing "Non temer," the procedure having been performed, the questions became absurd, as if they were being asked at the wrong moment and place about something other than the reality at hand. What, I asked, am I actually thinking about this music? Clearing my mind, I realized that words connected to what was going on did ﬂow in, albeit rarely, but these words had nothing to do with signiﬁcation, being instead _doing this really fast is fun _or _here comes a big jump._ [Italics hers.] A musicologist for decades, having made many, many statements about music's meaning over that time, I acknowledged that during the experience of real music-by this I mean both playing and listening-thoughts about what music signiﬁes or about its formal features do not cross my mind. They can cross it, as in this forced test case, only to be dismissed as ludicrous. While musicology's business involves reﬂecting upon musical works, describing their conﬁgurations either in technical terms or as signs, this is, I decided, almost impossible and generally uninteresting as long as real music is present-while one is caught up in its temporal wake and its physical demands or eﬀects. 

If you read her article *Wagner, 'On Modulation', and "Tristan"*, you'll see her make the case for why the "harmonic advances" Wagner made cannot be understood outside of his work as music dramas, and the importation of his "advances" into other forms were inappropriate.

My frustration with large-scale structuralist and reductive analysis is evident from my language and my tactics (both of which may seem blunt), but this frustration stems from suspicion that the 'insights' generated by such analysis do indeed shrink Wagner into the negligible, by the very discourse of the inter- pretation. What do we gain by saying that Tristan Act III is 'in' B major? Or, more alarmingly, that it is in sonata form? Or that it is 'unified'? So are many lesser works; the more unified a work, the more unquestionable its design, the more reduced, ordinary and negligible it becomes.

This was an appropriation of Wagner's music in readings of that music made by composers like Mahler, Debussy or Strauss, who thus initiated a critical phase of Wagnerian reception - critical because it was expressed in musical responses (not prose interpretations) and thus provided a powerful impetus to musical modernism. When we heard and absorbed their music, we assimilated without pain a particular reading of Wagner embedded in their scores. In the midst of all their other sounds, these scores are whispering, 'Wagner als Sympho- niker'.

Wagner put it in much less flowery terms. He lived long enough to observe the new generation of symphonists, and with a mixture of egotism and astuteness saw them as imitators 'misreading' his work. He wrote about them in 'On the Application of Music to Drama':

Erstaunen wir dann wieder iiber die Unbegrenztheit dieser Fahigkeiten, sobald sie in richtiger Verwendung auf das Drama entfaltet werden, so verwirren wir jene Gesetze, wenn wir die Ausbeute der musikalischen Neuerungen auf dem dramatischen Gebiete auf die Symphonie usw. iibertragen wollen.38 

[If we are once more amazed at the unlimited potential of these [musical] capabilities - when generated in their proper application in drama - so do we transgress certain rules if we take these treasures of musical novelties out of the realm of drama, and try to bring them into the symphony.] 

He heard in those symphonies what we might hear: adaptations of chromatic harmony, tonal ambiguities deliberately exploited, juxtaposition of unrelated gestures. And they are called ill-conceived, for a metaphorical musical language has been transferred to an instrumental world where it must remain incompre- hensible, like an empty ritual whose original significance has been lost to time. Another such remark was recorded in Cosima's diaries: 'at lunch R. explained how differently one must work in the symphony and in music drama, where all is permissible except stupidities, since the action explains everything'.39 The two statements - one lofty, one mundane - express the same stubborn conviction.


Is it a "fact" that can be "proved" that Tristan und Isolde was necessarily a development in the sonata form that lead music towards atonality? Not at all. In "The Tristan Chord Resolved", Nathan Martin said that in music scholarship there are five interpretations of the Tristan chord which contend with each other.

It is heuristically useful, though no doubt artificially neat, to group explanations of the Tristan chord into five broad families. These five classes variously take the Tristan chord as (1) a functional half-diminished seventh chord, (2) a minor triad with added sixth, (3) some sort of "pre-dominant" sonority, (4) a dominant-functioned harmony, and (5) a sonority that cannot be analyzed in tonal terms.

Abbate takes position five and expounds on it in her essay "Opera as Symphony, a Wagnerian Myth" in "Opera: Verdi and Wagner". 

Her conclusion? [From the modulations article.]



> Having improvised a reading upon Wagner's words, I should emphasise that it is no method, no tricky sieve through which all Wagner's music might be strained into explicability. We must at least entertain the thought that no other passage, in no other opera, is precisely like the 'Tagesgesprach', for Wagner in the end composed with many different voices, the voice that ignores poetry, the voice that hears poetry, the banal voice, the excessively formal voice, the anarchic voice, the diatonic voice, the chromatic voice. His music will not be subsumed under generalisations. *But by suggesting that Wagner's harmonic discourse might at times be transcendently incoherent,* elevated beyond the absolute-musical in part by formation of analogies to language, I should expect to call up a loud throng of opposing shouts.


If Wagner's music is transcendentally incoherent the greatness of his mature drama does not then necessarily vouchsafe Schoenberg's decision. *If* Abbate's analysis of Tristan und Isolde and Act II of Gotterdammerung are valid--I do not have the chops to adjudicate that--*the argument that atonality was "inevitable" and an absolute "necessity" is false.*


----------



## BurningDesire

brianwalker said:


> It may be true that tonality has exhausted itself. The proof is in the pudding. There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy;


Uh, what about Aaron Copland? Igor Stravinsky? Maurice Ravel? Alfred Schnittke? Paul Hindemith?


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> Uh, what about Aaron Copland? Igor Stravinsky? Maurice Ravel? Alfred Schnittke? Paul Hindemith?


...and Shostakovich, Britten, Adams, Sibelius, the minimalists? Not a bad haul for a century.


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## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> Uh, what about Aaron Copland? Igor Stravinsky? Maurice Ravel? Alfred Schnittke? Paul Hindemith?


1. No comment. 
2. Why did Stravinsky become neoclassical? Stravinsky didn't do for music what Beethoven did; he didn't open up a harmonic horizon. 
3. Did not open up harmonic language like Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner did. Of course I'm not of the opinion that tonality has been totally exhausted and Ravel is probably the best example of that. However, what Ravel was doing was very, very narrow, albeit fruitful. 
4. No comment. 
5. Some people will use him as proof that tonality has exhausted itself. Lots of people listen to Hindemith and think that they're listening to atonal music.


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## KenOC

The world is full of new music, almost all of it "tonal," music that brings people delight and excitement. Meanwhile, we seem to have put brackets around what we call classical music, perhaps to ensure its exclusivity, and succeeded in reducing its appeal to the tiniest sliver of the broader musical world. Even so, among ourselves only the older works are widely popular. We're in a museum.

Perhaps music isn't about some professor at a blackboard, drawing tone row grids and explaining how music "ought" to be written.


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## brianwalker

KenOC said:


> The world is full of new music, almost all of it "tonal," music that brings people delight and excitement. Meanwhile, we seem to have put brackets around what we call classical music, perhaps to ensure its exclusivity, and succeeded in reducing its appeal to the tiniest sliver of the broader musical world. Even so, among ourselves only the older works are widely popular. We're in a museum.
> 
> Perhaps music isn't about some professor at a blackboard, drawing tone row grids and explaining how music "ought" to be written.


You're not reading me. My point is twofold. 
1. Tonality hasn't necessarily exhausted itself. 
2. Even if it has, the developments in Liszt and Wagner is no proof that there is a musical imperative to composer atonally. The greatness of the latter is no testimony that music* must *most beyond tonality.



KenOC said:


> ...and Shostakovich, Britten, Adams, Sibelius, the minimalists? Not a bad haul for a century.


1. Are we really going to have to get into this?

2. No comment.

3. No comment.

4. Did Brahms kill Sibelius?

5. If minimalism is all that's left of tonality then tonality truly is dead.


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## KenOC

Brian, I wasn't responding to your post. Just making an observation. BTW I don't disagree with what you say. Well, the first part!


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## millionrainbows

brianwalker said: "There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy..."



BurningDesire said:


> Uh, what about Aaron Copland? Igor Stravinsky? Maurice Ravel? Alfred Schnittke? Paul Hindemith?


All of the above mentioned composers have been influenced by Serialism and serial thinking, even when they write tonally. Aaron Copland surprised everyone with his 12-tone Piano Quartet (1950), Stravinsky used poly-tonality and complex rhythms (the "Rite" chord is C Maj/F#Maj, a tritone apart), neither Ravel nor Debussy were "tonal" in the traditional sense...

*In other words, these composers serve as better examples of how Schoenbergian and post-Schoenbergian thought has influenced modern musical thinking, not as examples of tonality's survival.*


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## mud

brianwalker said:


> It may be true that tonality has exhausted itself. The proof is in the pudding. There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy; the latter was, strictly speaking, already on the very edge of tonality, Schoenberg merely crossed the line. Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler essentially Wagnerians.


I disagree. Pleasing tonal music is truly great to me no matter who composed it, when, or how much of it they composed, unlike atonal music (which is generally displeasing).

Beyond my opinion, atonal music has never been in the mainstreem like tonal has (and remains to whatever extent) and the enduring traditions of classical music will never be attributed to atonality. It should be considered a separate genre, like jazz is (even though it may use the same instruments).


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## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> brianwalker said: "There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy..."
> 
> All of the above mentioned composers have been influenced by Serialism and serial thinking, even when they write tonally. Aaron Copland surprised everyone with his 12-tone Piano Quartet (1950), Stravinsky used poly-tonality and complex rhythms (the "Rite" chord is C Maj/F#Maj, a tritone apart), neither Ravel nor Debussy were "tonal" in the traditional sense...
> 
> *In other words, these composers serve as better examples of how Schoenbergian and post-Schoenbergian thought has influenced modern musical thinking, not as examples of tonality's survival.*


Uh no. I've never heard anything about Ravel being influenced by serialism, same with Hindemith. Just because somebody writes music that is chromatic doesn't mean they were influenced by serialism. I am aware of their serialist works, which are for the most part really awesome, but they still worked with modes and keys and diatonic material before and after such works, and much of their manipulations of rows allows them to basically generate diatonic and modal and tonal sounds (I tend to suspect them of dabbling in serialism partly out of peer pressure from people like Boulez). Ravel and Debussy fit within tonality enough. Their pieces have pitch centers and make heavy use of diatonic materials. You can argue that their music is a break from common practice tonality (as would be Satie's, and a decent chunk of the Russian Romantic composers' music), but that in no way makes them proof of the the influence of Schoenberg's musical thinking. One could argue that Schoenberg himself was good proof of tonality's survival, even if we ignored the continued use of tonality and diatonic modes in musical composition even since the invention of serialism.

Also, it is the "Petrushka" chord, not the Rite chord you are referring to. The Rite chord is an E-flat dominant chord and an F-flat major triad superimposed on eachother.

Considering the fact that I'm composing a piece right now in G-Major, its obvious that tonality isn't an exhausted resource. Its fine that it isn't a resource that some composers wish to use. I'm fine with that. But if anybody wants to insinuate that one way of writing music is inferior, or stuck in the past, or an exhausted resource, I really don't have much to respond with except for rolling my eyes at their nonsense. Would a serialist like me telling them "Hey, the 1950s are over dude, serialism is exhausted. Babbitt took it as far as it would go, why don't you start writing minimalism now? Its the music of the future"? Probably not, because that would be wrong.


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## brianwalker

mud said:


> I disagree. Pleasing tonal music is truly great to me no matter who composed it, when, or how much of it they composed, unlike atonal music (which is generally displeasing).
> 
> Beyond my opinion, atonal music has never been in the mainstreem like tonal has (and remains to whatever extent) and the enduring traditions of classical music will never be attributed to atonality.


We are discussing the teleology of the history of harmony here, not the absolute merit of a work. No one said that the best works were the harmonically revolutionary ones, some of the most harmonically revolutionary works just happened to be some of the best works. In my evaluation Meistersinger is just as great a work as Tristan but from the standpoint of music history Tristan und Isolde is more significant; just take a look at the embarrassingly copious body of academic work on the Tristan chord.

Are people reading what I wrote or just skimming? I'm not siding with millionrainbows, I make that very clear.


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## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> It may be true that tonality has exhausted itself. That does not mean that atonality has a future or that atonality is the new horizon where things are not yet exhausted. Perhaps atonality has already exhausted itself too, perhaps there was nothing to exhaust in the first place.


Serialism _(I detest the term 'atonal')_ has not survived as a "school" of music, or a particular method, because it never was _simply_ those things. It is _a way of thinking_ about musical materials, and it is still constantly evolving and changing.



brianwalker said:


> There are those who think that atonal music doesn't exist at all. Consider this argument...there's no such thing as atonal music...In the listener's mind, old tonal listening habits are still working - any pitch repeated often enough becomes a tonic, any collection of pitches with consonant intervals becomes a chord.


Hence, the meaninglessness of the term "atonal." Schoenberg himself said the same thing:

"The expression 'tonal' has itself been wrongly used, exclusively instead of inclusively. It can mean only this: everything that results from a series of tones, whether its cohesion is the result of a direct relationship to a single tonic, or from links of a more complex kind, forms tonality...A piece of music will always have to be tonal at least insofar as, from one tone to the next, there is bound to be a relationship by which all the tones, successive or simultaneous, produce a progression that can be recognized as such."



brianwalker said:


> A minute analysis of this symphony will no doubt confirm the existence of carefully submerged tonal centres, to which these key signatures have reference. The same kind of analysis would bring forth very similar results with any given score of Schoenberg or - much more so - Berg or Dallapiccola, none of whom uses key signatures. Atonal music is, after all, nothing else but tonal music in which the tonal functions occur and permute in the shortest possible space of time.


I wouldn't waste more of our time debunking the term "atonal" music, since it is a misleading term. ALL music has a harmonic dimension, and as I said in my Bartok blog, "localized" centers of tonal gravity:

"In the bigger picture, what these small, recursive intervals do is allow the creation of pitch cells; these are aggregates of notes which expand around an axis of symmetry. Thus, localized areas of tonal centricity can be created on any note....An analogy would be, traditional tonality is like a tree which grows up in one direction from one 'rooted' spot; in the chromatic approach, tonality becomes radiant 'flowers' of pitch, centering on any possible note in the vertical spectrum."



brianwalker said:


> Is it a "fact" that can be "proved" that Tristan und Isolde was necessarily a development in the sonata form that lead music towards atonality? Not at all...the argument that atonality was "inevitable" and an absolute "necessity" is false.


Well, if it is not a "fact," then how can it be "false?" I happen to think that when harmonic progressions become too ambigious to be analyzed (or heard) in tonal terms, then tonality is breaking down into chromaticism.

*Let's ditch the term "atonal."*


----------



## Head_case

I haven't read it all (or at all!) but I just had to quote it in its entirety  

Kudos! Completely in awe at how serious debate here can be!



brianwalker said:


> It may be true that tonality has exhausted itself. The proof is in the pudding. There has been no truly great, harmonically original essentially tonal composer since Wagner and Bartok and Debussy; the latter was, strictly speaking, already on the very edge of tonality, Schoenberg merely crossed the line. Bruckner, Strauss, and Mahler essentially Wagnerians.
> 
> That does not mean that atonality has a future or that atonality is the new horizon where things are not yet exhausted. Perhaps atonality has already exhausted itself too, perhaps there was nothing to exhaust in the first place.
> 
> "They always stick in one of those atonal things before the Beethoven," said Mrs. Bowman, who had just been to a symphony concert. "I never did like that sort of thing, but I guess I'm just not very musical."
> 
> "No one who loves music really loves twelve-tone music," Mr. Magundi said. "*There may be certain compositions that strike you as clever,* and you may enjoy some of the interesting sounds emanating from the different sections of the orchestra; but you will never love it. This is not a defect of your musical education, but a compliment to your ear: it simply shows that you have the ability to distinguish what is music from what is not. The modern twelve-tone system is designed expressly to prevent music from happening-that is, what any sane listener would define as music. Nor will I listen to that hoary and false assertion that the great composers of the past were similarly derided in their time. They were not*. Beethoven's seventh symphony, at its first concert, could not be continued until the audience had forced the orchestra to repeat the second movement. Wagner was the center of an almost religious cult. Ravel saw popular dance bands playing his "Bolero" when the ink was hardly dry on the score. These were composers who appalled the conventional critics with their innovations; but their innovations were music, and ordinary people heard it and loved it, and loved it while it was still fresh.* We have had a century to get used to atonal music, and all the great orchestras have been force-feeding it to us as the price we have to pay to hear Mozart or Mahler. Yet, during that long period, and with such a relentless campaign, not one composition in that style has made the slightest impression on the public at large. We must confess, therefore, that something more than fashion is at work here; and we may boldly state it as a law of nature that no sane and healthy person will ever really love atonal music."
> 
> *There are those who think that atonal music doesn't exist at all. * Consider this argument.
> 
> One of my hobbyhorses is the idea that there's no such thing as atonal music. It is, of course, quite possible to construct music without reference to the conventional key signatures and tonal relationships that people are used to, but this is of interest only to the analyst. In the listener's mind, old tonal listening habits are still working - any pitch repeated often enough becomes a tonic, any collection of pitches with consonant intervals becomes a chord. The only way to prevent the listener from listening in this way is to turn the piece into Hindemith's amusement park ride - to change the pitch centres around so frequently that he'll never be able to orient himself. There is very little music that does this, mostly because it's so difficult to write music that so systematically defies all our expectations. *But in none of these cases is the music exempt from tonality, any more than the man on the amusement park ride is exempt from gravity.*
> 
> So it's nice to have my prejudices confirmed by real, live, published scholars! Here's Peter Jona Korn* talking about the Second Symphony of Roger Sessions, which is organized atonally but nevertheless uses key signatures:
> A minute analysis of this symphony will no doubt confirm the existence of carefully submerged tonal centres, to which these key signatures have reference. The same kind of analysis would bring forth very similar results with any given score of Schoenberg or - much more so - Berg or Dallapiccola, none of whom uses key signatures. Atonal music is, after all, nothing else but tonal music in which the tonal functions occur and permute in the shortest possible space of time.
> 
> Perhaps atonality is just part of the exhausted tonal horizon.
> 
> One of my pet projects on this blog is the attempt to debunk the conventional historiography of music. While the facts of music history (Beethoven was born in 1770; Rubbra wrote eleven symphonies; Delius is a terrible composer) are objective and unquestionable, our interpretation of those facts has been shaped by changing fashions. If you went to university in the 1960s, your professors probably taught history with the preconception that twentieth-century atonality was the logical, inevitable outcome of all previous musical developments. If you go to university today, your professors probably teach history with the preconception that twentieth-century atonality was an interesting anomaly, and that the resurgence of tonality (in either minimalism, neoromanticism or some form of popular music) has restored us to equilibrium. I don't find either of these narratives particularly convincing, but I'm naive enough to think that it's possible to come up with another one that works better. Before I can get to the stage of actually building a version of my own, however, I need to clear away a few lingering bits of mythology that turn up distressingly often:
> 
> Myth #1: It is possible to write atonal music.
> This is a leitmotif of mine (see here, and here). I've never quite bought into the idea of atonal music, mainly because I've always perceived some level of tonal logic in works that I'm told are completely atonal. *So-called "atonal" music skews our sense of tonal centre in the same way that post-Romantic chromaticism does - by using so many different pitch-classes (simultaneously or in succession) that it is impossible to perceive one of them as a tonic.* The only difference between a piece by Wagner and one by Webern in this regard is that any individual combination of pitches in the Wagner will sound more familiar than the combination of pitches in Webern. (In his book, The Evolution of Music Through the History of the Perfect Cadence, Alfredo Casella shows how the increasing elongation and complication of cadential patterns through the nineteenth century finally gave way to a twentieth-century language in which cadential patterns are sometimes almost imperceptible, but still definitely present.)
> 
> Colored quotes from: http://angryorganist.blogspot.com
> 
> Adorno accused Stravinsky of keeping tonality alive in a refrigerator. Well, atonal composers have taken it out of the refrigerator, and now it is rotten and stinks to the high heavens.
> 
> The fact that Berg and Schoenberg and, I suppose, Webern are superior composers to Shostakovich *proves nothing.* They wouldn't been even better composers if they'd stayed tonal. I can't prove that, but you can't disprove it either.
> 
> The age of Dante and Shakespeare is over, has been over for a long time; that does not prove that if we change the Italian or English language we can reinvigorate art; Finnegan's Wake is a failure. The great period of Greek culture ended with Euripides. Perhaps the age of great music is over because the muses have departed mankind. We are the latecomers who can only wait for a new dawn. We can patiently wait and let things sit in the freezer before the fresh food arrives, or throw everything out and let it rot and starve ourselves to death.
> 
> Carolyn Abbate, whom I've sure you've read, describes her experience of performing Mozart.
> 
> Yet, as long as I was dealing with real music in real time, I could not establish the metaphysical distance represented by such arguments. When real music is present, the gnostic can be introduced. Yet while playing "Non temer," the procedure having been performed, the questions became absurd, as if they were being asked at the wrong moment and place about something other than the reality at hand. What, I asked, am I actually thinking about this music? Clearing my mind, I realized that words connected to what was going on did ﬂow in, albeit rarely, but these words had nothing to do with signiﬁcation, being instead _doing this really fast is fun _or _here comes a big jump._ [Italics hers.] A musicologist for decades, having made many, many statements about music's meaning over that time, I acknowledged that during the experience of real music-by this I mean both playing and listening-thoughts about what music signiﬁes or about its formal features do not cross my mind. They can cross it, as in this forced test case, only to be dismissed as ludicrous. While musicology's business involves reﬂecting upon musical works, describing their conﬁgurations either in technical terms or as signs, this is, I decided, almost impossible and generally uninteresting as long as real music is present-while one is caught up in its temporal wake and its physical demands or eﬀects.
> 
> If you read her article *Wagner, 'On Modulation', and "Tristan"*, you'll see her make the case for why the "harmonic advances" Wagner made cannot be understood outside of his work as music dramas, and the importation of his "advances" into other forms were inappropriate.
> 
> My frustration with large-scale structuralist and reductive analysis is evident from my language and my tactics (both of which may seem blunt), but this frustration stems from suspicion that the 'insights' generated by such analysis do indeed shrink Wagner into the negligible, by the very discourse of the inter- pretation. What do we gain by saying that Tristan Act III is 'in' B major? Or, more alarmingly, that it is in sonata form? Or that it is 'unified'? So are many lesser works; the more unified a work, the more unquestionable its design, the more reduced, ordinary and negligible it becomes.
> 
> This was an appropriation of Wagner's music in readings of that music made by composers like Mahler, Debussy or Strauss, who thus initiated a critical phase of Wagnerian reception - critical because it was expressed in musical responses (not prose interpretations) and thus provided a powerful impetus to musical modernism. When we heard and absorbed their music, we assimilated without pain a particular reading of Wagner embedded in their scores. In the midst of all their other sounds, these scores are whispering, 'Wagner als Sympho- niker'.
> 
> Wagner put it in much less flowery terms. He lived long enough to observe the new generation of symphonists, and with a mixture of egotism and astuteness saw them as imitators 'misreading' his work. He wrote about them in 'On the Application of Music to Drama':
> 
> Erstaunen wir dann wieder iiber die Unbegrenztheit dieser Fahigkeiten, sobald sie in richtiger Verwendung auf das Drama entfaltet werden, so verwirren wir jene Gesetze, wenn wir die Ausbeute der musikalischen Neuerungen auf dem dramatischen Gebiete auf die Symphonie usw. iibertragen wollen.38
> 
> [If we are once more amazed at the unlimited potential of these [musical] capabilities - when generated in their proper application in drama - so do we transgress certain rules if we take these treasures of musical novelties out of the realm of drama, and try to bring them into the symphony.]
> 
> He heard in those symphonies what we might hear: adaptations of chromatic harmony, tonal ambiguities deliberately exploited, juxtaposition of unrelated gestures. And they are called ill-conceived, for a metaphorical musical language has been transferred to an instrumental world where it must remain incompre- hensible, like an empty ritual whose original significance has been lost to time. Another such remark was recorded in Cosima's diaries: 'at lunch R. explained how differently one must work in the symphony and in music drama, where all is permissible except stupidities, since the action explains everything'.39 The two statements - one lofty, one mundane - express the same stubborn conviction.
> 
> 
> Is it a "fact" that can be "proved" that Tristan und Isolde was necessarily a development in the sonata form that lead music towards atonality? Not at all. In "The Tristan Chord Resolved", Nathan Martin said that in music scholarship there are five interpretations of the Tristan chord which contend with each other.
> 
> It is heuristically useful, though no doubt artificially neat, to group explanations of the Tristan chord into five broad families. These five classes variously take the Tristan chord as (1) a functional half-diminished seventh chord, (2) a minor triad with added sixth, (3) some sort of "pre-dominant" sonority, (4) a dominant-functioned harmony, and (5) a sonority that cannot be analyzed in tonal terms.
> 
> Abbate takes position five and expounds on it in her essay "Opera as Symphony, a Wagnerian Myth" in "Opera: Verdi and Wagner".
> 
> Her conclusion? [From the modulations article.]
> 
> If Wagner's music is transcendentally incoherent the greatness of his mature drama does not then necessarily vouchsafe Schoenberg's decision. *If* Abbate's analysis of Tristan und Isolde and Act II of Gotterdammerung are valid--I do not have the chops to adjudicate that--*the argument that atonality was "inevitable" and an absolute "necessity" is false.*


----------



## mud

brianwalker said:


> Are people reading what I wrote or just skimming?


I just skim because the topic itself is as banal as atonality.


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

As the works I listed above show, tonality itself can "wander away" until it becomes so chromatic that it is unrecognizable from "atonality." Thus, the transition from Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg is an unmistakable progression, one which took decades, and is part of the "Zeitgeist" of history, being a supra-personal historical inevitability.

This thinking is about as ridiculous... and dated as the similar hyperbolic rhetoric of Clement Greenberg and others like him who argued that painting was an inevitable progression toward absolute abstraction... which had now permanently eliminated figurative (let alone realist) painting. Of course Greenberg's supposed "Thousand Year Reich" of abstraction lasted all of 15 years until Pop Art drove the nail into the coffin of Abstract Expressionism. Abstraction and figurative/realist painting now continue on side-by-side.

As the others here have all suggested, the very debate between traditional tonality and atonality has been irrelevant for years. The notion that traditional tonality is dead is a concept about as dated... and close-minded as any of those unwilling to accept the shattering of traditional tonality wrought by Wagner, Debussy, Scriabin, Schoenberg, etc...

Art does not evolve or develop in a linear progression. That's an idea best suited to sophomoric surveys of the history of art/music/literature. Of course the history of the arts are often taught in such a manner... and the artists that best suit this narrative are often stressed... but ultimately this is but an act of convenience. It is far easier the categorize artists into clear-cut styles and portray the history of art as some linear progression than it is to admit to the far more complex reality of art developing in every conceivable direction... or admitting to the fact that innovations and developments that are imagined as being of the greatest import to one generation are dismissed as minor the next.


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## Praeludium

I usually like your posts Millionrainbows, but here you make me think of something my harmony teacher (who's mainly concert organist) told me : that there were some persons who were still using serialism nowadays, mainly in Germany, and that I should avoid those conservative composers (we were talking about studying composition) lol 
Don't tell me he doesn't understand what serialism is about, because I'm pretty sure he does since he holds a master degree in analysis from the Paris Superior Conservatory.

I have nothing against serialism (I don't think it suits my needs at the moment, period), but this whole tonal vs. atonal, conservative (=tonal) vs. progressist (=serialist) thing has been outdated since, I'd guess, _at least_ 30 years. 
I'm sure you know that better than me, but there were already schools of thought (I'm particularly thinking about spectral music) which made serialism a thing of the past in the early 70's...


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## millionrainbows

Praeludium said:


> I usually like your posts Millionrainbows, but here you make me think of something my harmony teacher (who's mainly concert organist) told me : that there were some persons who were still using serialism nowadays, mainly in Germany, and that I should avoid those conservative composers (we were talking about studying composition) lol
> Don't tell me he doesn't understand what serialism is about, because I'm pretty sure he does since he holds a master degree in analysis from the Paris Superior Conservatory.
> 
> I have nothing against serialism (I don't think it suits my needs at the moment, period), but this whole tonal vs. atonal, conservative (=tonal) vs. progressist (=serialist) thing has been outdated since, I'd guess, _at least_ 30 years.
> I'm sure you know that better than me, but there were already schools of thought (I'm particularly thinking about spectral music) which made serialism a thing of the past in the early 70's...


You're thinking of Serialism as a particular method, and what you say is true: Stockhausen and Boulez' heyday is over.

But Serial thinking must be seen as a "way of looking at music" which pervades musical thought.

So, if you're going to write tonal music, you'd better read about interval projection from Howard Hanson's "Harmonic Materials of Modern Music" and Vincent Persichetti's "Twentieth Century Harmony," George Perle's "Twelve-Tone Tonality," and Joseph N. Straus' "Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory" (you can argue with the "evolutionary" modernist implications of the term "Post-Tonal" after you study it)

I'm well-aware of Grisey, Dumitrescu, Murail, and the other Spectralists. Most of these guys are French, and what they're doing is a result of spectral analysis done at IRCAM, synonymous with Boulez.

So, do you see what I'm getting at, that non-harmonic serial thinking, using mathematics, is still making its influence felt even on composers who wouldn't_ dare_ call themselves "serialists."


----------



## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> Hence, the meaninglessness of the term "atonal." Schoenberg himself said the same thing:
> 
> I wouldn't waste more of our time debunking the term "atonal" music, since it is a misleading term. ALL music has a harmonic dimension, and as I said in my Bartok blog, "localized" centers of tonal gravity:


"Atonal" is still an intelligible term to refer to a body of music that is outside of whatever you refer to whenever you use the word "Tonality". In the vulgar use of the term it refers to whatever is outside of what you refer to as "tonality".



millionrainbows said:


> I see tonality as containing the seeds of its own demise (tritones, chromaticism) and I see extreme chromaticism as leading to serialism, for numerous reasons I have already stated in my blogs.


*You can't have it both ways.* Tonality is dead and atonality is the future, yet atonality is still tonal and thus we cannot criticize atonal music? My definition of tonal is whatever you accuse of being exhausted, of being dead. My definition of atonal is whatever you think is not tonal, encompassing all that is not encompassed in the* X *of the *X has exhausted itself.*



millionrainbows said:


> Well, if it is not a "fact," then how can it be "false?"


The falseness refers to the status of the statement as a fact and not the statement itself.



> I happen to think that when harmonic progressions become too ambigious to be analyzed (or heard) in tonal terms, then tonality is breaking down into chromaticism.


This is where Abbate comes into play. She drives home the point again and again that Wagner's music cannot be analyzed as absolute music is analyzed. The most successful Wagnerites were those who adopted his form in either opera (Strauss) or small, relatively formless forms (Debussy's). Strauss integrated more of Wagner's instrumentation than his harmony. The composers who tried to integrate Wagner's chromaticism into traditional forms have not been wholly successful, and the more they integrate his methods the more unsuccessful they are. Mahler's most successful, perfect works are his rather diatonic, short songs and works set to a text.

In Robin Holloway's essay on Tristan he said of the "chromatic structure" of Act One that



Robin Holloway said:


> "To elaborate it to its fullest reaches of significance would take *years of labor."* and the same procedure for Act Three, where to explore "the quality whereby melodic contour, rhythmic propulsion, harmonic direction, timbre and all the future interlinked parameters of composition contain and convey meaning. But *this would take more than a lifetime!*"
> 
> By common consent Tristan is pivotal within this tradition of exploiting music's powers of inhalation and exhalation, intensifying them beyond anything imaginable before (and _*very little since, most of it by Wagner too,*_ or in his wake.)"


_And yet _everyone knows, *somehow very easily*, that Tristan signified the end of tonality, that there is somehow a direct, teleological line of continuity, of development, from Wagner to Schoenberg and Webern.

"A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn." - Debussy on Wagner.

Back to the main question.



> I happen to think that when harmonic progressions become too ambigious to be analyzed (or heard) in tonal terms, then tonality is breaking down into chromaticism.


Just because it cannot be analyzed in tonal terms doesn't mean that it can be analyzed in chromatic terms, serial terms, etc, or that the ex post facto invention of new terms to explain the "what" of the "what is going on in Tristan" is valid in terms of a vocabulary that is continuous with the tried and true traditional harmonic analysis. Phrases like "breaking down" and "exhausting itself" are purely rhetorical. Stravinsky's Russian Ballets were not atonal, nor Ravel. Again, perhaps the muses have departed, but they may return one day, and we have to wait patiently for them in the meantime and avoid activities that drive them away e.g. imposing arbitrary rules that renders their return impossible. Perhaps man pushed those muses away in the first place.

Abbate's conclusion that as a work, a work that includes text, Tristan und Isolde is "transcendentally incoherent" from a traditional analysis point of view. If that is true we cannot pass judgment on it from the standpoint of musical teleology.

Just because something is more chromatic and is a successful is no excuse for subsequent composers to become ever more more chromatic. Wagner's uses of modulation is not a free license for other composers to do the same. He himself disapproved of what he saw in his lifetime.

Abbate again, from "On Modulation".



> By the late nineteenth century,* Wagner's 'unacceptable' modulations - like many elements of his many musical languages - had become the most common of coins*. All the unrepaired interruptions,* unresolved tonal skirmishes, unmediated juxtapositions - in short, all the devices Wagner contrived as transgressions of absolute-musical rules and as projections of poetry* -* were absorbed into symphonic music. One interpretation of the fin-de-siecle might suggest that instrumental composers transformed the illogical into the acceptable, or that they mimicked certain musical gestures without caring about their origins as projections of poetry or stage event (remember Bruckner and Brunnhilde).* This was an appropriation of Wagner's music in readings of that music made by composers like Mahler, Debussy or Strauss, who thus initiated a critical phase of Wagnerian reception - critical because it was expressed in musical responses (not prose interpretations) and thus provided a powerful impetus to musical modernism. When we heard and absorbed their music, we assimilated without pain a particular reading of Wagner embedded in their scores. In the midst of all their other sounds, these scores are whispering, 'Wagner als Symphoniker'.
> 
> If we are once more amazed at the unlimited potential of these [musical] capabilities
> - when generated in their proper application in drama - so do we transgress certain
> rules if we take these treasures  of musical novelties out of the realm of drama, and
> try to bring them into the symphony.
> 
> 
> He heard in those symphonies what we might hear: *adaptations of chromatic harmony, tonal ambiguities deliberately exploited, juxtaposition of unrelated gestures. And they are called ill-conceived, for a metaphorical musical language has been transferred to an instrumental world where it must remain incomprehensible, like an empty ritual whose original significance has been lost to time.* Another such remark was recorded in Cosima's diaries: 'at lunch R. explained how differently one must work in the symphony and in music drama, where all is permissible except stupidities, since the action explains everything'.39 The two statements - one lofty, one mundane - express the same stubborn conviction. Wagner is hardly the last arbiter for interpretations of his own work.* Kurth and Schoenberg, to name only two, have laboured to give the empty ritual purely musical meaning, and we are labouring to construct a systematic theory for music at the turn of the century, and to extend that theory, and its bias towards purely-musical explanation, back to Wagner. *It would be a dreary work if its end were to 'harmonise, reduce and normalise' Wagner's music, to pass through thousands of notes without any sense of what is abrupt or enigmatic. One would suspect the worker deaf to poetry, deaf to many of the voices that have spoken about Wagner (including his own), and about the act of interpretation, since 1859.


millionrainbows, you, and so many others, are guilty of what's bolded in purple. You construct a theory broad in those dimensions that account for Wagner's unacceptable modulations and use that as a justification for the imposition of new, or shall I say, now, very old music. Abbate is talking about exactly what you're talking about; your "proof" that music must go in a certain direction is by enumerating the ways in which Wagner's modulations were adopted by his successors who produced works that 1. absorbed those modulations and 2. were successful. However, you've not proved that those successors were successful because of the adoption of those modulations and not because they merely happened to be extraordinarily talented composers. It could very well be that their integration of Wagner's modulations made their music worse, not better.

Spartan babies who looked unfit were killed at birth. If a Corinthian happened to visit Sparta and observed the health and vitality of their men despite their austere living, he would conclude that Corinthians should emulate the Spartans to improve their health. Astronauts have better health than non-astronauts. It does not follow that we should all become astronauts. It does not follow that the Corinthian should adopt an austere living to become more healthy and vital.

Only the most talented composers *dared to risk *the importation of Wagner's modulations into their music. Was it good for them? Their superiority to the second rate, generic composers of their time is no proof that it was Wagner's influence that elevated them into greatness.

Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art. - Debussy again.

The rub is very simple; the success of Wagner's late music dramas is not a justification for or a vindication of the direction that Schoenberg took in his music.

Moreover, the contention that Tristan is incoherent in tonal terms is a tendentious one. Just because the interpretations over it are more contentious does not necessarily mean that it points towards atonality.

The Tristan Chord Resolved 




> Hauptmann's text therefore suggests the following analysis of the Tristan chord's behaviour in measure 2 of Wagner's Prelude: the chord is a half-diminished seventh chord enharmonically reinterpreted to function as an augmented sixth. To return to my earlier paraphrase of Nattiez, the opening progression of the Tristan Prelude corresponds to none of the progressions classified by textbook harmony: the augmented-sixth chord in measure 2 is not French, or German, or Italian. Nattiez concluded that any analysis of these measures must consequently alter the Tristan chord in some way so as to make its resolution conform to some standard progression. But in fact there is another option available: we can simply admit an additional category of augmented-sixth chord.
> 
> The theoretical conclusion that this analysis entails may well be thought contentious. After all, pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate, and to invent a new category of augmented-sixth chord to cover just one instance would indeed be extreme. But luckily, the progression is not unique to Tristan und Isolde . Wagner himself employs it not infrequently in his post-Tristan works- the most famous example being "Kundry's kiss" in the second act of Parsifal (ex. 12). In Ernest Chausson's Le Roi Arthus, the progression figures prominently in act 3, when Geneviève strangles herself with her hair (ex. 13). Richard Strauss inserts it into act 1 of Der Rosenkavalier as a kind of musical wink to accompany Octavian's (inadvertent) parody of Tristan's language ("Was heißt das 'Du'? Was 'Du und ich'? Hat denn das einen Sinn? . . . das Ich vergeht in dem Du"; ex. 14). More enigmatically, Strauss also quotes it near the end of Til Eulenspiegel (ex. 15).


In summary.

1. Wagner's late works are coherent in tonal terms, however tenuously. Even though they're not coherent in those terms yet *it doesn't mean they always won't be. * It could be that his music is just so complex that we're still figuring it out. The fact that it hasn't been translatable into traditional analytic terms does not mean that it is totally incomprehensible relative to the old language and is an inauguration of a new language. 
2. Even if they are incoherent, that does not justify anything. 
3. The is scant evidence that the appropriation of Wagner's "chromatic" language by later composers into their works of a very different nature than Wagner's were successful. Of course there are many Wagner-influenced and inspired works that are undoubted successes, and many influences were fruitful, especially in terms of orchestration, but there is no evidence that those works couldn't have been better without the influence of his harmonic language. He could've been a bad influence on talented composers who succeeded in spite of his influences, not because of it.

*Proof: * The most successful post-Wagner composers who some of the most anti-Wagnerian. Debussy and Stravinsky were all vehement anti-Wagnerians, and Richard Strauss spoke contemptuously of Wagner in his youth and harmonically, he is no Wagnerian - the Wagnerian orchestration belies his classicism. Sibelius became disenchanted with Wagner. Ravel composed as if Wagner never existed.

Cleave the influence in orchestration from the influence in harmony and you'll see that there were no real successful post-Wagernites in the sense of Wagner that you hold him to be--a precursor to the Schoenberg subsequent of his second string quartet.

4. If I advance towards a tall, sloped downwards inland cliff adjacent to the sea the view becomes more beautiful and I can see more of the sea as I advance farther alone the cliff; it does not follow that I should advance forward indefinitely. Another parable.

I have no insecurities about my own taste and I've proved my mettle over (to myself of course) and over again through the highest appreciations for some of the most difficult, "boring" works in the common practice repertoire, from Bach's driest fugues to Beethoven's late quartets and sonatas and Brahm's relatively obscure, late chamber works; from Parsifal (where, unlike some people, I don't have zzzzzzzzz moments, the more I listen the more perfect the work becomes and the realization that my previous incomprehension were due to my own shortcomings during the initial listen) to Otello and Falstaff to Elektra and Jeux and Bartok's late works and yes, enthusiasm for, albeit reserved and mixed, for early Schoenberg.

The decline in my comprehension is gradual, proportional to the music's straying away from traditional tonal language. I enjoy much of Schoenberg's much later works to varying degrees, including his Violin Concerto, but the further he strays from his roots, the farther away his works keep me at an arms length, a leg's length, *at a football stadium's length, until it disappears off into the horizon entirely. * My love for Berg is well known but I'm sure you've heard that line a hundred times before.

Webern's music is largely incomprehensible to me despite my best efforts, Boulez even more so although he has composed some colorful pieces that are mildly enjoyable for their interesting--interesting, not beautiful, sublime, magnificent, noble--, interesting color and rhythm, *but I refuse to be brainwashed into liking his Second Piano Sonata * through theoretical inculcation and pseudo-scientific speculations on musical teleology like Kyle Gann was in his youth.



> In my early teens, I discovered Ives's "Concord" Sonata and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Both were incomprehensible but fascinating, and I kept listening over and over and over until I totally fell in love. Next came Carter's Double Concerto and Second String Quartet, and I assumed the same thing would happen. All through college and grad school I avidly followed every new Carter premiere, bought his scores and recordings, listened dozens of times, analyzed what I could. Then, one day in the early 1980s, I was listening to the Double Concerto with the score again for what was at least my 50th time. And the thought popped into my head:* "I've studied this piece and studied it for over ten years, and I don't give a damn if I ever hear it again." I closed the score, and never listened to the piece closely again until I wrote my American music book in 1995. *In a way, what drove me away from the music was its unmemorability. There's a tremendous pleasure in becoming familiar with something as mammoth, dense, and complex as the "Concord" Sonata, and learning to love every skewed little harmonic implication. But while I had the general overall plan of the Double Concerto in my head, and could anticipate the climaxes and piano and harpsichord cadenzas, the vast majority of the pitch complexes just never imprinted themselves on my memory.* (You can assume I have lousy ears if you want, but when I entered grad school the professor who administered the ear-training entrance exam told me I did better on it than he could have. It included some Stravinsky 12-tone vocal music that I transcribed correctly, including the solo vocalist's quarter-tone mistakes.) *Though by then fond of Ives, Stravinsky, Cage, Stockhausen, and even Babbitt's wonderful Philomel, I had failed to develop the slightest affection for the Carter Double Concerto after dozens, maybe hundreds of listenings.
> 
> And it wasn't just listening. In the '70s every young composer analyzed Carter's Second String Quartet, and I was no exception. I started with loads of enthusiasm, but increasingly found the ideas unmusical: especially that the tritones were all in the viola, the perfect fifths all in the second violin (or whatever - I disremember the details), which isn't something one can hear in a polyphonic texture. It's a stupid idea, really. And as fanatical as I am about tempo contrasts, *Carter's seemed mechanical and musically unmotivated. I came to think that Carter had invested a lot of time in overly literal aspects of music that didn't appeal to the ear. As I'm always reminding my students, art isn't about reality, it's about appearances.*
> 
> Except for Le marteau, Boulez is a different story. In youth I attacked that piece with all the fanatacism of a new convert: read Musique aujourd-hui (of which Boulez eventually autographed my copy for me), did what analysis I could, and even did an independent tutorial learning to conduct the piece. But here again, I eventually came back to the piece in the late 1980s and realized that, after so many years of devotion, I couldn't meaningfully tell one movement from another, aside from the instrumentation.* If someone had come out with a recording of Le marteau with half the pitches transposed by half-steps one way or the other, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. *(_I also analyzed every note of the Boulez Second Sonata before hearing it, and *was so brainwashed that, when I finally heard it, I cried over its beauty.* Today I wouldn't recognize that piece in a blindfold test._) Ultimately, I think Boulez was trying to be very avant-garde in Le marteau, but didn't really know what he was doing yet, and made lousy pitch choices. I've run into a surprising number of composers who have exactly the same opinion, and who were afraid to mention it for years.


----------



## Petwhac

Another very interesting post - thank you. I would like to ask though, by what criteria can a work be said to be successful or unsuccessful? What do you think of Mahler's 9th, especially the first movement?



brianwalker said:


> Mahler's most successful, perfect works are his rather diatonic, short songs and works set to a text.


Love those Debussy quotes too.


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## Fishballkwan

millionrainbows said:


> Well, that's like "ignoring the elephant in the room."
> 
> As the works I listed above show, tonality itself can "wander away" until it becomes so chromatic that it is unrecognizable from "atonality." Thus, the transition from *Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg* is an unmistakable progression, one which took _decades,_ and is part of the *"Zeitgeist"* of history, being a _supra-personal historical inevitability._


Aye. You talk about the transition of music, and I agree it is inevitable. Yet I think the modernism revolution in 20 century was failed. Nowadays, most people have given up the music after Schoenberg and Stravinsky, but return to some 'classical music'. I hate people call fine music as 'classical' because I don't want to admit this is something old and classic. However, we cannot deny that fine music is declining. Maybe we should look for a new road now, to rescue fine music from becoming antique. Maybe the new music is a bit too experimental. Personally, I don't really support standing on the 12-tone, Schoenberg had nearly discovered all elements of it, we need some new theory, new music. So should we still insist on atonal music or return to some traditional tonal music? I think no one can answer. But I think tonal music still have some desirable elements, like Yundi Li plays some traditional Chinese music which is also in tonal (Pentatonic scale), which it is spectacular and unique. I said "use all usable technique", that's mean we should assimilate different elements and combine them.


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## brianwalker

Petwhac said:


> Another very interesting post - thank you. I would like to ask though, by what criteria can a work be said to be successful or unsuccessful? What do you think of Mahler's 9th, especially the first movement?


I don't understand it, but I haven't given it enough attention. The orchestration is gorgeous and the famous climax wonderful, there are nice tunes and semi-climaxes later on but it's disjointed and lacks (in my opinion) the unity of his previous works, even up to the 7th.

My favorite Mahler thus far are his 5, 6, and the outer movements of the 7th, his songs and Das Lied.

Could you give an example of one of Mahler's worst moments?

Salonen: Well, in the first movement of the 3rd Symphony for instance, there's this sort of C major phrase in the middle of the march that sounds like the American navy arriving at one of their naval bases. There are some unbelievably banal, painfully banal moments. Some of the first Nachtmusik movement in No. 7 is also like that; sometimes it's hard to believe that he put that in - not the whole movement, but some phrases.



millionrainbows said:


> Well, that's like "ignoring the elephant in the room."
> 
> As the works I listed above show, tonality itself can "wander away" until it becomes so chromatic that it is unrecognizable from "atonality." Thus, the transition from *Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg* is an unmistakable progression, one which took _decades,_ and is part of the *"Zeitgeist"* of history, being a _supra-personal historical inevitability._


Let's break down your list.

*1. Mahler. 
*
There's a myth that somehow Mahler was a precursor to Schoenberg and that there is a continuous line between Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, and Schoenberg/Berg. This is tenuous at best and essentially misleading. Boulez himself didn't think that Mahler was a precursor to Schoenberg. In fact, Mahler is blamed for the romantic remnants in Berg's operas and other works. Mahler's music served a conservative function with regards to the Second Viennese School. Here's Boulez:

Boulez: Schönberg was an idealist, and did not want vulgarity to intrude. You know the kind of stylistic collage that Mahler is creating sometimes, and by instinct Schönberg was refusing that, because he wanted a kind of pure style. And Schönberg was always looking for purity of style. Always. And his system of twelve tones is not even purity, that's asceticism, certainly. And therefore I can understand the first reaction of Mahler. But if you can compare, for instance, the music of Mahler, and even the "vulgar" music of Moses und Aron, the march of the corporation. I can understand that there is the influence of Mahler in this very small department of Schönberg.

*How about the influence of Mahler on the so called avant-garde? Did he open the door to modern music?
*
*Boulez: I don't think so. *There were two generations in between. The length, also the dimension of the work maybe was still an influence, but I am still not sure. *A direct influence, certainly not.*

And the last movement, the last page of the 9th Symphony?

Boulez: Yes, there are a some moments, some features, but a kind of very strong general influence: No. If you would say there is a very strong influence of Debussy on: I would say no too. The direct influence is over, that's part of history. And you can have a partial influence, of that feature or that feature, and a very small thing can be used, but not a kind of general influence.

This question is highly speculative, but: in which direction would Mahler have proceeded?

Boulez: Well, if you look at the 10th Symphony especially, the Adagio, or even the 9th, certainly he would have pushed in the direction of expanding tonality. I don't think he would have given up, as it were, the grammar of the tonality, so the classified chords and so on, but he would have pushed the relationship between the chords very far. And I am more or less sure of that because if you see the relationship, harmonic relationship, in the 10th Symphony, in the Adagio of the 10th Symphony and the 9th Symphony, you can see that he is pushing in this direction certainly.

This is Boulez being polite and giving Mahler as much credit as he possibly can.

*2. Strauss. 
* 
One word: NO.

The most Wagnerian of Strauss' work, Die Frau ohne Schatten, was unsuccessful, though not wholly so. However, the more Wagnerian he was (harmonically), the bigger of a failure he was. See the bolded.



Robin Holloway said:


> Die Frau ohne Schatten all too obviously sets out to take the heights and depths by storm. But when musical inspiration manifestly fails to equate with sublime aspiration the result is cold, even when executed with flawless technique, boundless energy and millions of notes. This aesthetic area where will is required to pass for deed, after its relatively ingenuous beginnings in Liszt and Berlioz, becomes disingenuous where the last romantics cross with the early moderns. Especially with Strauss and Mahler, the language is mined with parody, irony, deliberate banality; alienation and dislocation lie just round the next bend. But the problem is larger, located in the overlifesized ambitions of the entire post-Wagnerian generation except for Debussy and Fauré. *One judges such high-flying curate's-eggs-of-genius as Mahler 8, Delius's Mass of Life, Scriabin's Prometheus, and indeed Die Frau, by the fairest and most precise criterion possible-work by the same artists that is perfectly achieved, e.g. Mahler 4, Sea Drift, Le poème d'extase, Salome. *
> 
> If he'd not said so we would know it from the music anyway.* Exhaustion and boredom are shown above all in the flogging-to-death of the two poor, short, unpregnant main themes, and then in the endless stretches of what Pauline 'very rightly' called note-spinning (it would be apt and piquant if this familiar phrase originated with her!). There is a lack of fresh ideas, alongside heavy dependence upon things done with greater zest in earlier pieces*-e.g. the long cello solo preceding then continued within the Emperor's big number in Act II (a diluted replay from Don Quixote) and the orchestral interludes where the vast forces seem to vomit themselves up (so much more thrilling in Salome and Elektra). The use of extreme intervals, in Act III especially, can epitomise the discrepancy between will and deed. They are literally an attempt to soar out of the habitual, but they don't sear and hurt like comparable places in Bruckner 9, Kundry's music and late Mahler (to say nothing of early Schoenberg) because the harmony is basically bland. Contrariwise, the mixture of blandness and surprise so magical in the late Strauss is also missing as yet.


Salome, Elektra, and Rosenkavalier and his tone poems were successful because they were less Wagnerian, harmonically at least. They aimed less for Wagnerian expressions, inhalations and exhalations and twists and turns of extreme chromaticism.

Salome influenced Schoenberg and Berg in color and orchestration. The conservatism of Rosenkavalier is salient enough. As for Elektra..



The Same Holloway Book said:


> "The problem in considering the orchestration of Elektra is to reconcile Strauss's instruction to play the work "as if [it] were by Mendelsson: fairy music" with the largest forces required by any opera in the repertory. Its starting point is the orchestra as constituted for the Ring, but the aesthetic goal is very different. Wagner deploys his vast forces to produce homogeneity, roundedness and warth; contrasts of colour and weight are gradual, as befits his scale and speed...Strauss' use of the same forces plus some extras come after Salome and all but one of the symphonic poems, whose tendency has been to break up the homogeneity, splash on the color, raise the tessitura and take brilliance of detail to the very edge of virtuosity...
> 
> These three episodes taken together make a "Dance of the Uberweib'-cum-Liebstod' whose athletic aspect evidently grows from the 'Ride of the Valkyries" and whose lyric aspect, less evidently but demonstratably, derives from the flowing 6/4 of Mendelsson's Schone Melusin and her warmer-blooded descendants of the Rhinemaidens. The whole is swathed in a vastly exploded Viennese waltz, updated to the Palm Court of the Ritz Hotel c.1908. It is a tribute to Strauss' panache that he can carry off such a melange with the complete lack of self-consciousness: confronted with triumphalism, 'tis folly to be wise.
> 
> By contrast with such gigantism, what Strauss might mean by 'fairy music" begins to become a little clearer. Two outstanding passages come to mind; though neither is exactly gossamer-like, they both have a speed and fluency that derive ultimately from Mendelsson's scherzo-types. The fleet 6/8 of the interlude, from five before fig.261 to the work's halfway break before 1a, is the first really fast music of the opera: its sharpness and apparent gaiety render at once the unholy exhilaration of Klytamnestra's joy at the news of Orestes' death and the lightning of torches to banish the nightmares she has just divulged. The starting point is the scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream, given weight, grandeur and length by Loge's big set-piece in Nibelheim, then restored by Strauss to the original quicksilver movement while retaining something of the Wagnerian weight.
> 
> The Second Mendelsson scherzo-type, the 2/4 scurry, comes when, abandoned by her sister, Elektra goes it alone, scrabbling dementedly for the axes and watches towards the end by a silent, unrecognized and unrecognizing brother.
> 
> From fig.118a sustained heavy brass begin very softly to fill out the bass registers as Orestes appears; they make a sudden lunge into fig.120a as Elektra perceives the stranger who watches her frenzies activity. AS she questions him and bids him move on, the little scherzando episode gutters out into the Wagner tuba chords that begin the recognition scene. Behind all this is, surely, another ver ydistant, fairy-Mendelssohn source; the centre of the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, where 'things go bump in the night'-sudden oles in the texture, alien blasts of horns or ophicleide, but distant and muffled, the delicate perpetual motion constantly set off-course, only to resume again in another place. This distant source, greatly strengthened and muddied by its recreation in the first scene of Das Rheingold when Alberich scrambles to reach the treasure is recreated by Strauss with a repossession of the Mendelssohnian transparency and speed to depict the thoughts as well as the emotion of the demented soil-scrabbler.


Any claim to continuity between Strauss and the Second Viennese School is based on specious examples that belies the fact that they are essentially different. Was the Elektra chord a sign that dictates the historical necessity of the Second Viennese School? Does chromaticism necessarily signal the end of tonality? *Variatio 25 from the Goldberg Variations *also had much chromaticism...

3. Wagner *- Wagner? The Wagner of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg? The Wagner of Parsifal, where all the heroes and triumphant moments are showered with 80-proof diatonic * magnificence and all that is evil and anguished and corrupt is painted with extreme chromaticism? That Wagner?


----------



## brianwalker

4. Beethoven. Late Period Beethoven was a more classical Beethoven, a more conventional, "backwards looking" Beethoven. But don't take my word for it, take Adorno's.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/should-we-adore-adorno/?pagination=false



Charles Rosen said:


> For a great part of his life, Adorno worked at a book on Beethoven. He did not succeed in finishing it, but left a mass of notes, now published, along with a few articles, the most important of which are two on Beethoven's Missa Solemnis and on his late style. The essay on the late style-by which Adorno meant the late quartets and late sonatas as well as the Diabelli Variations and the Ninth Symphony-reveals both Adorno's strength and his limitations. In criticizing Beethoven's late style he starts from the remarkably cogent observation that in the late works of Beethoven,
> 
> conventional formulae and phraseology are inserted. They are full of decorative trills, cadences and fiorituras. The convention is often made visible in unconcealed, untransformed bareness.
> 
> Adorno equates the attempt to get rid of convention with subjectivity, with the achievement of personal expression. He follows in this a well-established principle of eighteenth-century aesthetics: the conventional is arbitrary, imposed from without, and does not speak for the individual. To turn the arbitrary into the natural, to make it seem as if the language was created for the moment of writing or speaking, is the task of the poet, making the reader believe that the expressions are spontaneous, invented for the purpose at hand. Here in contrast to his view of the late style of Beethoven, in which he finds that the music has become fragmentary, he remarks on the success of the "middle Beethoven," that is, the Symphonies Three to Eight, the fourth and fifth piano concertos, Fidelio, and the "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" sonatas. About this period, Adorno writes:
> 
> For to tolerate no conventions, and to recast the unavoidable ones in keeping with the urge of expression, is the first demand of every "subjectivist" procedure. In this way the middle Beethoven absorbed the traditional trappings into his subjective dynamic by forming latent middle voices, by rhythm, tension or whatever other means, transforming them in keeping with his intention. Or-as in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony-he even developed them from convention through the uniqueness of that substance.
> 
> 
> This accurate description of Beethoven's technique is essentially what Guido Adler, the great Viennese musicologist and contemporary of Adorno, named in a brilliant account the defining characteristic of Viennese classicism, the obbligato accompaniment.5 With this technique, which Adler identified in Viennese works from Haydn to Mozart, the accompanying voices-what Adorno calls "the latent middle voices"-are derived from the same thematic material as the principal voice, and the accompaniment ceases to appear arbitrary or conventional, but arises organically from the basic material and conception of the work. The principal melody and the accompaniment are cut from the same cloth, and match each other.
> 
> What Adorno sees as discontinuity in the late style is in fact a more powerful integration on a larger scale, one that can reconcile the most brutal contrasts. What causes him to misrepresent the character of the late work is his too easy identification of convention with objectivity and original expression with subjectivity. This relegates the conventional to the inexpressive, but the musical conventions have in fact an expressive charge of their own and the art of the composer lies in knowing how to release that charge with the greatest effect. Adorno perceives the importance of the conventions in the work of elderly artists like Beethoven and Goethe, but he does not see the power of the most banal aspects of the musical and poetic languages, and he is hamstrung by the Romantic view that genius consists chiefly in breaking the rules.
> 
> This is manifest in a particularly absurd note for his Beethoven study:
> 
> The works of great composers are mere caricatures of what they would have done had they been allowed. One should not assume any pre-established harmony between the artist and his time, inseparable as the two may be…. [Mozart's] music is a sustained attempt to outwit convention. In piano pieces such as the B minor Adagio, the Minuet in D major; in the "Dissonance Quartet"; in passages of Don Giovanni and heaven knows where else, traces of the dissonance he intended can be discerned. His harmony is not so much an expression of his nature as an effort of "tact." Only Beethoven dared to compose as he wanted: that, too, is a part of his uniqueness.
> 
> Adorno has been trapped into this extravagance by a familiar critical penchant, one that we all share. *To explain the genius of an artist, we tend to concentrate on the more purple passages, the most outrageous and complex moments, the aspects that shocked contemporaries and that they found inacceptable. *This is particularly egregious when dealing with Mozart, although it apparently works a bit better with Beethoven. Part of the greatness of Mozart is that he handled the conventional better than any of his contemporaries. It is, of course, possible that he might have liked to experiment more than he did. One will distort Mozart by taking him out of history, however, if one argues that he unwillingly invested the simplest cadences with extraordinary grace, that his tact is not as much a part of his nature as his more radical impulses, and that the exquisite sonority of the spacing of his music is less essential than the occasional indulgence in dissonant chromatic harmony.
> 
> Nevertheless, Adorno had a particular strategy in mind.* For his view of the history of music and society, he needed the mass to be a failure-and not only the mass, but the whole late style of Beethoven,* which he nevertheless revered. In what seems like a forecast of the movement to come of deconstruction in criticism, it is the greatness of an artist's failure that awakens Adorno's imagination. In order to understand the seduction of Adorno's view, I quote the following passage:
> 
> The late Beethoven's demand for truth rejects the illusory appearance of the unity of subjective and objective, a concept practically at one with the classicist ideal. A polarization results. Unity transcends into the fragmentary. In the last quartets this takes place by means of the rough, unmediated juxtaposition of callow aphoristic motifs and polyphonic complexes. The gap between both becomes obvious and makes the possibility of aesthetic harmony into the aesthetic content of the work; makes failure in a highest sense a measure of success.
> 
> This is eloquent and moving. *It is also largely false. Contrary to what he says, the juxtaposition of disparate material begins very early in Beethoven*, reaching an early fulfillment in the piano sonatas Op. 31. In the "Tempest" Sonata, Op. 31 no. 2, for example, within the space of a few seconds Beethoven forces together a slow mysterious arpeggio and a dramatic short allegro phrase. The contrasts of the late style are perhaps more difficult to accept at first hearing but a close listening reveals a powerful interaction.
> 
> Adorno's contempt for contemporary society fueled his passion, and in a time of troubles, could be welcome; it strikes a responsive chord. It was brightly colored by the relentlessly polemical tone and the use of pejorative terms to express ordinary developments as if they were a failure of ethics. *If Stravinsky uses tonality in an original way, that is called "mutilated tonality." **Beethoven's increasing interest in fugue and his renewed study of Bach are pretentiously described by Adorno as if they were the acts of a desperate man:*
> 
> The composer experiments with strict style because formal bourgeois freedom is not sufficient as a stylization principle. The composition unremittingly controls whatever is to be filled out by the subject under such externally dictated stylization principles.
> 
> 
> Under Adorno's hands, many of the terms so frequently repeated begin to lose a great part of their meaning. He himself makes a fetish of "fetishism," as well as of "bourgeois," "subjectivity," "regressive," "infantile," and other words, which tend to become vacuous when applied so mechanically and so uncritically. I do not know what he means by "the withering of harmony" in late Beethoven, and I do not believe that it could be an adequate description of any phenomenon that I would recognize.


To reiterate.



> To explain the genius of an artist, we tend to concentrate on the more purple passages, the most outrageous and complex moments, the aspects that shocked contemporaries and that they found inacceptable...One will distort Mozart by taking him out of history, however, if one argues that he unwillingly invested the simplest cadences with extraordinary grace, that his tact is not as much a part of his nature as his more radical impulses, and that* the exquisite sonority of the spacing of his music is less essential than the occasional indulgence in dissonant chromatic harmony.*


This is exactly what you're doing, this is exactly what you're guilty of, *the Hegelian distortion and mutilation of actual musical history to fit squarely into your narrative whereby atonality is an inevitability rather than an aberration and abomination*; taking the inessential and making them the essential, cleaving masterpieces and music history into pieces incomprehensible to their creators to fit them in your Procrustean story about the "necessity of atonality" and the "seeds of demise" of tonality.

*Both Bach and Beethoven* looked increasingly looked backwards as they aged into the period in which they produced some of their best works. They followed Verdi's motto avant la lettre. They innovated, yes, but their innovations were the diametric opposite of Schoenberg's innovations in form and essence.

"*Tornate all'antico e sarà un progresso.*"



millionrainbows said:


> Thus, the transition from *Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg* is an unmistakable progression, one which took _decades,_ and is part of the *"Zeitgeist"* of history, being a _supra-personal historical inevitability._


*Hegel is dead. *Hegelianism has been dead for a long time. Zizek will not revive him. Try to keep up; I suggest "Being and Time" and the lectures on Parmenides and Nietzsche as well as Holzwege and Basic Writings. And of course, his lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology.

Beethoven was wrong? Perhaps in his middle period, which is why he changed towards the end of his life. Schoenberg is dead? True, but his meretricious spirit lives on. Hegel is dead, and wrong, dead wrong. Yes his ghost haunts us all, everywhere and completely.

In short, anything can be said about world history, anything that might occur to the most disordered imagination. There's only one thing that can't possibly be said about it-that it's rational. *You'll choke on the word.* - Dostoevsky. 

The proof is in the pudding. Stravinsky's neoclassical works, while not the most popular or beloved of his oeuvre, have entered the pantheon of eternal masterpieces. They've survived *despite *the undeserved scorn and neglect they've received from music cognoscenti for its supposed regressive nature. *If they had been promoted with the same vigor that "new music" was promoted, they would be far more popular. *

Stravinsky's neoclassical works is the most underrated body of work in history. In a certain vein they're like the hundreds of millions who perished under the Hegelian totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. The toxic blood of Hegelianism still runs through our veins.



ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> If he wants to do Baroque he will be laughed off the stage. When Stravinsky premièred his opera "The Rake's Progress" the audience was expecting some really modern sounding music. But what did they get? Bi-tonal Mozart. They were a little unimpressed.


"Bi-tonal Mozart" - in one Hegelian phrase, Stravinsky is finished off.

I remember Boulez coming to a concert of Bruckner's Eighth which I conducted in Paris, and he said oh, this music is so simplistic. And I said, but the slow movement should provide interest for you with rhythms which go two against three. Oh, he said, that was done much earlier and much better by Wagner in the second act of Tristan. And with that sentence, he finished off Bruckner. 

*Schoenberg is dead. Webern is Dead. Xenakis is dead. Stockhausen is dead. Babbitt, Nono, Berio, Cage, all dead. Their ghosts remain, their ghosts are ubiquitous, haunting us everywhere, but we must exorcise those ghosts too. *

unmistakable progression..."Zeitgeist" of history....being a supra-personal historical inevitability...unmistakable progression... unmistakable progression... unmistakable progression... 
"Zeitgeist", "Zeitgeist", "Zeitgeist"...supra-personal historical inevitability..._supra-personal_

Nay, the unmistakable decline began with Schoenberg, and Schoenberg alone. It is not historical inevitability, not the manifestation of the Absolute and divine providence; if anything, it is divine punishment.



Millionrainbows said:


> Thus, the transition from *Bach*-Beethoven-Wagner-R. Strauss-Mahler-Schoenberg is an unmistakable progression


*5. Bach. *

*Your reference to Bach in your Hegelian list-of-names is absolutely embarrassing.* If anything Bach is the ultimate antithesis and refutation of the Hegelian interpretation of music history. Bach actively went against the development of his time. *He overcame all challenges to preserve the old forms. *

http://www.geneveith.com/2009/10/15/bachs-smackdown-of-frederick-the-great/

In 1747, Frederick the Great-the king of Prussia, patron of Enlightenment rationalism, and military strongman-invited Johann Sebastian Bach, now an old man three years from his death, for an audience. Frederick fancied himself a musician and scorned the old-fashioned polyphony that Bach was known for in favor of music with a single pleasant melody.* Frederick, who enjoyed humiliatating his guests, had composed a long melody line full of chromatic scales that was impossible to turn into a multi-voiced canon* (that is, a "round": think "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with different groups starting at different times) and told Bach to turn it into a fugue (an even more complicated "round"). Whereupon Bach, on the spot, sat down at one of the new piano fortes and turned it into a three-part fugue. The flummoxed King said, in effect, OK, turn it into a 6-part fugue. A few days later, Bach sent him a 6-part fugue and more than a fugue, "A Musical Offering" that rebuked Frederick and all of his Enlightenment notions with the Christian faith.

http://www.doubleread.com/classical-music/back-to-bach-the-mysteries-of-the-musical-offering/

The Musical Offering originated in a dare - a mean-spirited one, by most accounts. "Old Bach," as Frederick the Great, Prussian king and renowned coffee hater, was wont to call Johann Sebastian, journeyed to Potsdam, where his son Carl Philipp Emanuel was in the service of the king. On arrival, he was summoned immediately before the king, a musician himself, who presented Bach with a theme and asked for a three-part fugue based on it on the spot.

The King's Theme, Gaines writes, was an "impossibly long and complex musical figure." He quotes composer *Arnold Schoenberg as saying it had been so cleverly put together that it "did not admit one single canonic imitation." In other words, it had been written, probably on purpose and perhaps with CPE's help, to be as difficult to write counterpoint for as possible.*

Bach, being Bach, killed it. So Frederick, who apparently fell more into the better-to-be-feared-than-loved camp of monarchy, "asked Bach if he could go himself one better, this time making the theme into a fugue for six voices."

Bach, who Gaines notes had never written a six-part fugue for keyboard, took a rain check. He returned home to Leipzig, where, within a fortnight, he had written a piece that included both a three-part and a six-part fugue, a sonata and trio, AND 10 canons (See Schoenberg above) all based on that theme. Along the way, he took every chance to thumb his nose at the king and everything this man, so different from Bach himself, stood for.

Bach "was a devout Lutheran householder," Gaines writes. Frederick, "a bisexual misanthrope," had a reputation for religious tolerance that "arose from the fact he held all religions equally in contempt." Bach "represented church music and especially the 'learned counterpoint' of canon and fugue." Frederick and his generation "denigrated counterpoint as the vestige of an outworn aesthetic, extolling instead the 'natural and delightful' in music."

"For Bach," Gaines writes, "this new, so-called galant style, with all its lovely figures and stylish grace, was full of emptiness." His works were always for the glory of God.

As is always the case with Bach, every word, every note seems to have meaning here. The dedication of the piece is "consecrated" to Frederick - Frederick, who didn't care for organized religion. The very title of it - "Opfer" in German - has an alternative meaning, of "victim," of "sacrifice." Between the fourth and fifth canons, there is an inscription to the king that reads, "As the notes increase, so may the fortunes of the king." But in the fourth canon, "the second voice is an inversion of the first and in notes twice as long" - meaning that any time notes are going up, they are also going to be going down. The fifth canon, inscribed "As the notes ascend, so may the glory of the king," has been likened to the works of M.C. Escher, where a staircase, for instance, appears to rise endlessly, while returning exactly to where it began. "Play it six times, and it will be back where it started, only an octave higher, and yet without seeming to have left its original key," Gaines writes. Then there are the canons, 10 in number. Whenever Bach wrote things in sets of 10, it was always associated with the law of the Old Testament, Gaines writes.

In Bach's dedication to the king, he wrote that the work's only purpose was to exalt Frederick. But Gaines writes, given the tone, the symbolism of the piece, "one may be excused for wondering if he is working to let the king's glory shine forth or digging a deep dark pit for it."

*Between Stravinsky and Schoenberg, who plays the role of Bach and who of Frederick the Great? *


----------



## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> "Atonal" is still an intelligible term to refer to a body of music that is outside of whatever you refer to whenever you use the word "Tonality". In the vulgar use of the term it refers to whatever is outside of what you refer to as "tonality".


I still don't like the implications of the term 'atonal,' and much prefer to categorize proper tonality as being just one form of music subsumed under the umbrella of the larger, more inclusive term "harmonic music."



brianwalker said:


> You can't have it both ways. Tonality is dead and atonality is the future, yet atonality is still tonal and thus we cannot criticize atonal music? My definition of tonal is whatever you accuse of being exhausted, of being dead. My definition of atonal is whatever you think is not tonal, encompassing all that is not encompassed in the X of the X has exhausted itself.


I can't go along with this, either. I never said that tonality "became" serialism, or that tonality "died" and serialism rose in its place; only that 'tonality' underwent great changes around the dawn of the 20th century; and one should not confuse this expanded chromatic version of tonality with Schoenberg's 12-tone method, which just confuses the issue. *I'm having it both ways:* I'm saying that this expanded chromatic version of tonality, representing the conclusion of the development derived directly from the history of Western tonality, led to the Serial ideas of Schoenberg and beyond. Your precious tonality (as a species of harmonic music) is still alive and kicking, and can, indeed, never die, since all harmonic music is based on sounds, overtones, and the way the ear hears things.

Also, neither the term "tonal" nor the term "atonal" accurately describe to my satisfaction the unique, harmonically-derived music of Debussy and Impressionism, which I consider to also be a break with proper tonality, yet has its feet in both camps. (When I say "proper tonality" I'm referring to common 18th century practice, which all music students learn as being "tonality").

Debussy used many of the harmonic _trappings_ and harmonic _mechanisms_ of tonality, and his music was very _harmonic_ and ear-friendly; but it cannot be analysed in terms of _proper tonality_ or _harmonic progression._

Example: Debussy, as most of us know, used the *whole-tone scale *in his music, most notably the prelude 'Voiles' from Book I. The 6-note whole-tone scale itself is a symmetrical projection of the major second, and there are only two of them; Debussy exploits this characteristic to create 2 contrasting "areas of tone-centricity."

Schoenberg also used the whole-tone scale in his 12-tone music to do the same thing: establish areas of contrasting "tone-centricity." In Schoenberg's Op. 26 Wind Quintet, the row is (first hexad) Eb-G-A-B-C#-C, which gives an augmented/whole-tone scale feel, with a "resolution" to C at the end, then (second hexad) Bb-D-E-F#-G#-F, which is very similar in its augmented/whole-tone scale structure, which only makes sense: there are only two whole-tone scales in the chromatic collection, each a chromatic half-step away from the other.

I've heard Debussy use the two whole-tone scales in this manner, moving down a half-step to gain entry to the new key area. This is why Schoenberg used a "C" in the first hexad, and the "F" in the second; these are "gateways" into the chromatically adjacent scale area. Chromatic half-step relations like these can also be seen as "V-I" relations, when used as dual-identity "tri-tone substitutions" as explained following.

Another characteristic of whole-tone scales is their use (as in Thelonious Monk's idiosyncratic whole-tone run) as an altered dominant, or V chord. There is a tritone present, which creates a b7/3-3/b7 ambiguity, exploited by jazz players as "tri-tone substitution". The tritone (if viewed as b7-3 rather than I-b5) creates a constant harmonic movement, which is what chromatic jazzers, as well as German expressionists, are after.

So Schoenberg had several ideas in mind of the "tonal implications" or the "harmonic effects" on the ear when he chose this row.

Also, from this we can see that, historically, it was the tritone (in both V7-I's and in diminished seventh chords) which was the first emergent symmetry which led to the expansion of tonality; this interval was the color tone in the V7-I progression, being the major third and flat-seven, which would then exchange places for the next cycle. This gave rise to new roots, moving chromatically instead of by fifths. This was tied-in (as mentioned above) with 'flat-nine' dominant altered chords, which are closely related to the diminished seventh. The use of 'flat-nine dominants' as true V chords appears as early as Beethoven and *Bach.* The vii degree of the major scale, a diminished triad, has always been treated as an incomplete dominant ninth with G as the 'imaginary' root, and resolved as a V7 chord would be (to C).

*So, it can be seen from all this that 'tonality' underwent great changes around the dawn of the 20th century; and one should not confuse this expanded chromatic version of tonality with Schoenberg's 12-tone method, which just confuses the issue. *



brianwalker said:


> Wagner's uses of modulation...You construct a theory broad in those dimensions that account for Wagner's unacceptable modulations and use that as a justification...


Wagner was stepping into the same territory as Debussy; abrupt or improper modulation is simply a harmonic mechanism. As long as it got the effect desired, Wagner used it.

Debussy did the same thing; both simply threw out the rule-book and did whatever they wanted. Debussy would move major chords up and down, like templates, in parallel, going wherever he wished.

These are examples of moving around "harmonic devices," but not tonality proper. These are successions of chords, not progressions.

Make this distinction: A _*succession*_ of chords may be functionless, like in Wagner's opera music. A _*progression*_ of chords, on the other hand, *aims for a definite goal.*

This is what distinguishes tonality from other harmonic musics;* harmonic function* of chords is synonymous with tonality.


----------



## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> I still don't like the implications of the term 'atonal,' and much prefer to categorize proper tonality as being just one form of music subsumed under the umbrella of the larger, more inclusive term "harmonic music."


I don't like the implications of the term "tonal" or "tonality" as in:



millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,*





millionrainbows said:


> I'm having it both ways: I'm saying that this expanded chromatic version of tonality, representing the conclusion of the development *derived directly *from the history of Western tonality, led to the Serial ideas of Schoenberg and beyond.


This is the central thesis that I have a problem with; there is undoubtedly an _intelligible continuity _ of harmonic metamorphosis along the Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-Schoenberg line of which the different epochs bears harmonic resemblance to each other, resemblance meaning family resemblance. However, they cannot be *derived* from each other, much less be seen as an inevitable, necessary, deducible sequence. The easiest proof of that is that after Wagner, music went into multiple directions; the harmonic language of Bartok, Debussy, early Schoenberg, and Webern are all galaxies apart from each other.

http://allthingsshiningbook.wordpress.com/2010/09/10/heidegger-on-the-geschick-of-being/

[T]he epochs suddenly spring up like sprouts. The epochs can never be derived from one another much less be placed on the track of an ongoing process.



millionrainbows said:


> So, it can be seen from all this that 'tonality' underwent great changes around the dawn of the 20th century; and one should not confuse this* expanded chromatic version of tonality with Schoenberg's 12-tone method, which just confuses the issue. *


This is exactly my point; the Hegelian view of history must conflate the two to make Schoenberg's method* inevitable,* which is your watchword. I don't deny that there is a "progression" in the sense that harmonic development followed a sequence in which the successors strayed farther and farther away from their predecessors; Bach bears more resemblance to Beethoven than Wagner, and Wagner bears more resemblance to Beethoven than Schoenberg, and Schoenberg to Wagner than Webern, and Webern to Schoenberg than Boulez. But the "necessity" that you speak of is only *imposed retroactively*. I don't deny that from history can be written as a sequence of development in harmonic language that lead to Schoenberg, but that inevitability cannot be proven. If a musical giant of the stature of Bach or Beethoven appeared once more and takes music in a different direction the twelve-tone epoch would be merely an unfortunate punctuation in history, a Holzweg,  a wood path that appeared to lead to somewhere but was instead a dead end.



millionrainbows said:


> *Tonality contained the seeds of its own demise,*


If "atonality" is a "bad" concept", then so is "tonality", as they are twin concepts semantically, which renders problematic your statement here.

Tonality and atonality are used more rhetorically and politically to refer to works which are considered good and appropriate those works as justification for further works that fall under the umbrella of vague terminology following the structure of:

I. Masterpiece X is Y.

II. Work Z is Y.

III. Ergo work Z is innovative, modern, part of the Zeitgiest, acceptable, etc.

The purpose of the tonal/atonal label is crucial when labeling the decisive, common-ground masterpieces (Tristan und Isolde, Debussy, Bartok) and appropriating those works as the basis for rhetorical ammunition for the praise and denigration of controversial works. What was that quote again? "If it works, it's tonal."



millionrainbows said:


> These are examples of moving around "harmonic devices," but not tonality proper. These are successions of chords, not progressions. This is what distinguishes tonality from other harmonic musics; harmonic function of chords is synonymous with tonality.
> 
> Make this distinction: A succession of chords may be functionless, like in Wagner's opera music. A progression of chords, on the other hand, aims for a definite goal.
> 
> This is what distinguishes tonality from other harmonic musics; harmonic function of chords is synonymous with tonality.


I've already conceded that Wagner's music is not _wholly_ intelligible from the standpoint of common practice analysis, but to say that this represents a clean break with tonality, strictly speaking, is specious and a half dichotomy. Just because not every single one of Wagner's chords in his most tonally adventurous works has a clear harmonic function doesn't mean that tonality has met its demise (your phrase, not mine). Wagner's "functionless" chords are nonetheless derivative of functional ones; Wagner's works belong to a certain culture with a certain history and cannot be interpreted in a vacuum. Analysis of his works in a vacuum may not cohere together

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/11/why-we-cant-hear-wagnerrsquos-music

In the final act of the opera Siegfried, the third of the Ring series, the hero has broken his grandfather Wotan's spear and braved the magic fire to find the sleeping Brünnhilde. He never has seen a woman before, but he quickly determines that she is not a man and vaguely recollects his mother, who died in childbirth. He kisses her, and the orchestra wanders into a loud B-major seventh chord that is announced in a grand crescendo over two measures in which the tempo slows to a stop. The B-major seventh loudly resolves on what, at first hearing, seems to be its tonic, in the form of an E-minor chord that appears to be the harmonic goal of the whole passage (although Wagner leaves room for doubt by sounding the E-minor triad in the brass only, and in the middle register rather than the bass). The E-minor triad diminishes in volume ("very slowly," according to the composer's instruction), and its upper tone B resolves upward into C major. The tone B, which we first heard as an element of E minor, turns out to be the leading tone, or seventh step, in C major.

In fact, the "Tristan chord" it is not a chord to begin with but, rather, a metrical caesura on chromatic passing motion between chords, in the reading of mainstream scholarship. Example 2 below is adapted from the work of John Rothgeb and William Rothstein:

The simultaneity f2, b2, d#3, g#3 that comprises the "Tristan chord" connects tonic and dominant, and its chromatic tones belong to an altered II chord. It is quite an ordinary progression. Two features of Wagner's move, though, produce an altered effect. The first is that he puts the ac-cent on the wrong syl-la-ble: that is, he places the metrical emphasis on passing motion rather than on the resolution. This presumably expresses longing and desire. The second is context: We do not immediately hear Wagner's voice-leading as a chromaticized I-II-V progression (from tonic through the second scale step to the dominant) because its initial statement occurs with no evident harmonic direction. As with the apparent E-minor chord that prepares Brünnhilde's awakening, we must reinterpret what we have heard in retrospect. Together, the caesura on passing motion and the absence of context bring musical time to a dead stop. The intensified moment triumphs over musical teleology.

The novelty in Wagner's cleverest moments, therefore, does not stem from harmonic innovation-he resorts to well-worn devices of classical composition-but, rather, from temporal manipulation.* Wagner takes for granted that his audience expects the classical resolution of voice-leading tension and will reinterpret his initially ambiguous material after the fact within the framework of classical expectations.* But that raises a paradox: Wagner's shift away from goal-oriented motion to intensification of the moment deafens our ears to the expectations embedded in classical composition and ultimately ruins our ability to hear his manipulation of these expectations. *In other words, Wagner's aesthetic purpose is at war with his methods.* Once we are conditioned to hear *music as a succession of moments rather than as a journey to a goal, we lose the capacity for retrospective reinterpretation, for such reinterpretation presumes a set of expectations conditioned by classical form in the first place.* 

Substitute Schoenberg for Wagner in the blue and you have my judgment of "atonal" music.



millionrainbows said:


> Wagner was stepping into the same territory as Debussy; abrupt or improper modulation is simply a harmonic mechanism.* As long as it got the effect desired*, Wagner used it.
> 
> Debussy did the same thing; both simply threw out the rule-book and did whatever they wanted. Debussy would move major chords up and down, like templates, in parallel, going wherever he wished.


Here's the thing; the modulations were effective insofar as the listener has tonal expectations and those expectations were subverted, like a body moving against the pull of gravity; a body of mass is more "free" without gravity, floating freely in space, but it is aimless and goes nowhere.

The farther you are away from earth the less gravitational pull it has on you; but there's always the risk that you'll drift out of orbit.

Why didn't Wagner become more chromatic (_as a whole;_ I know that there are _certain snippets_ of Parsifal which are, of course, considered in a vacuum, more chromatic and "advanced" from a Schoenbergian point of view than anything in Tristan.) with his post-Tristan works? Why Meistersinger? Why didn't he just write Transfigured Night himself, and the Second String Quartet himself? Why the largely diatonic prelude and Act I of Parsifal? Because the diatonic functioned as a "gravity" on his later chromaticism. It grounded his music from flying out of orbit and into outer space.

"What Parsifal does is to create a world that globally seems to be diatonic space but is in fact full of warps and seams that posit the coexistence of a chromatic space. What the opera is about tonally speaking, is the relation of diatonic space and chromatic space at the deepest of harmonic levels. Specifically, what enables the tonal magic of Parsifal to work is the interaction between diatonic space and chromatic space: the first act in the diatonic world of the Grail; the journey in act 2 through the magic, enharmonic, chromatic world of Klingsor; and finally, the reconciliation of the Riemannian world and the diatonic one by the end of Act 3. "

I know that this post does exactly what you pr*o*scribe, the conflation of "expanded chromatic version of tonality with Schoenberg's 12-tone method", but your story of inevitability has a key place for Wagner, since he's the bridge between Beethoven and Schoenberg, and his chromaticism is used again and again as a vouchsafe for the twelve-tone method, as evidence of its "necessity".

No new great tonal music has been written for a long time now. Does that mean that tonality has exhausted itself? That music must go in another direction? I'm not sure. All I know is that Wagner was a sunset, not a sunrise, and that we're in the depth of the night, where all is pitch black.



millionrainbows said:


> Serial music is music which was created to be heard as sound. Serialism doesn't cater automatically to the ear like harmonic-based music, but it does have a harmonic dimension. It's just that the harmonic dimension does not totally determine and dictate the possibilities. The "kneejerk" reactions of tonality are discarded. The "pervasive unity" you see in harmony, in determining local as well as global outcomes, *can just as easily bee seen as a "straitjacket" which exhausted its potentials*.


What is most irritating about these musical rebels, of whom Wagner offers us the most complete type, is the spirit of systemization, which, under the guise of doing away with conventions, establishes a new set,* quite as arbitrary and much more cumbersome than the old.* […] [A traditional convention] offers the musician the possibility of using it as a commonplace. Verdi, in the famous thunderstorm in Rigoletto, did not hesitate to make use of a formula that many a composer had employed before him. Verdi applies his own inventiveness to it and, without going outside of tradition, makes out of a commonplace a perfectly original page that bears his unmistakable mark. 

"Free verse'? You may as well call sleeping in a ditch 'free architecture'."


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> All I know is that Wagner was a sunset, not a sunrise, and that we're in the depth of the night, where all is pitch black.


This is not something you _know;_ this is something you've concluded, a judgment that you've made.

Others' mileage will vary.


----------



## SottoVoce

brianwalker said:


> *Hegel is dead. *Hegelianism has been dead for a long time. Zizek will not revive him. Try to keep up; I suggest "Being and Time" and the lectures on Parmenides and Nietzsche as well as Holzwege and Basic Writings. And of course, his lectures on Hegel's Phenomenology.


Nah. I actually don't know where you're getting your information from. I'm actually taking a class on Hegel's Phremenology of Spirit this semester, and it's taught by a major philosopher on the faculty. Both Robert Brandom, John McDowell, and the late Willfrid Sellars are heavily influenced by Hegelism, and these are all Anglophone analytic philosophers. So you're wrong. Hegel is not dead, it's just not the "End of History" as he said it was. Saying Hegel is dead is like Schoenberg and Webern are dead because their statement about atonality being the Music of the Future (which Schoenberg never even said, "Beautiful music can still be written in C Major") haven't panned out... oh wait, that is what you're saying. And it also seems like you're using Hegelism to refute Schoenberg and Webern while also saying Hegel is dead. What is it exactly that you're saying? I think you're just making a lot of Absolute (Hegel, haha) with a lot of circular reasoning.


----------



## SottoVoce

And I wouldn't say there is a line from Wagner to Schoenberg, but Schoenberg does seem to be the synthesis (Yes, I'm using Hegel. I guess I'm Hitler now) of the self-reference of Brahms and the chromaticism of Wagner. The first op. 11 Piano Piece sounds exactly like a Brahms intermezzo to me leaving out the tonality. 

And if you understand the historical progress of any other field of human inquiry, you would understand that atonality, or questioning the fundamental systems of structure, is not exclusive to music - Art (Kandinsky) did it, Philosophy (Wittgenstein?) did it, Mathematics (Non-Euclidean Geometry?) did it, Physics (Theory of Relativity?) did it, Linguistics (Basically all of it). So, this is basically a recurring idea of the 20th century, and surprise, surprise, all of these fields have been basically ignored by the public since this revolution, not just music. In the Enlightenment period mathematics columns would be read just as often as anything on politics. There is no public like that who exists today, and there was no public like that before the Enlightenment either. So it seems like we're entering a Pre-Enlightenment period of high knowledge, where most of the public doesn't seem to care much of it. It's a problem, but it's one that we need to tackle without retraction. So it's neither a good thing or a bad thing, due to historical circumstances.


Plus, I think there's some misunderstanding here. What millionrainbows is saying is not that music in general leads to atonalism, but the musical thinking of one lineage, that is the lineage derived from German music, seems to tend towards this self referential atonalism. I think that is much more reasonable, as many people hold on to that opinion; if you just watch that Milton Babbitt documentary on Youtube, you can see many scholars seeing Babbitt as, from the video, "the culmination of a certain lineage that thinks about music and makes music this way.."


----------



## brianwalker

SottoVoce said:


> Nah. I actually don't know where you're getting your information from. I'm actually taking a class on Hegel's Phremenology of Spirit this semester, and it's taught by a major philosopher on the faculty. Both Robert Brandom, John McDowell, and the late Willfrid Sellars are heavily influenced by Hegelism, and these are all Anglophone analytic philosophers. So you're wrong. Hegel is not dead, it's just not the "End of History" as he said it was. Saying Hegel is dead is like Schoenberg and Webern are dead because their statement about atonality being the Music of the Future (which Schoenberg never even said, "Beautiful music can still be written in C Major") haven't panned out... oh wait, that is what you're saying. And it also seems like you're using Hegelism to refute Schoenberg and Webern while also saying Hegel is dead. What is it exactly that you're saying? I think you're just making a lot of Absolute (Hegel, haha) with a lot of circular reasoning.


Brandom's Hegel is not the Hegelianism I'm referring to, Hegelianism commonly understood and the blatant, atavistic Hegelianism manifest in millionrainbows' rhetoric; "Zeitgiest", "unmistakable progression", "supra-personal historical inevitability". All classical Hegelian mantra, the Hegel of Marx and Kojeve. Brandom's Hegel is a proto-inferentialist. I've read plenty of Brandom's exegesis of Hegel including his untimely review of Phenemenology and his lecture notes. There is not a whiff of Zeitgeist or "supra-personal historical inevitability" i.e. the process of the Absolute becoming manifest in Brandom or Sellars. Brandom routinely makes fun of Hegelianism commonly understood, especially the Young Hegelians.

So yes, Hegel the protoinferentialist lives on, but Hegelianism proper is dead.



SottoVoce said:


> And I wouldn't say there is a line from Wagner to Schoenberg, but Schoenberg does seem to be the synthesis (Yes, I'm using Hegel. I guess I'm Hitler now) of the self-reference of Brahms and the chromaticism of Wagner. The first op. 11 Piano Piece sounds exactly like a Brahms intermezzo to me leaving out the tonality.


I'm well aware of Schoenberg's advocacy for Brahms, developing variation, etc.



> And if you understand the historical progress of any other field of human inquiry, you would understand that atonality, or questioning the fundamental systems of structure, is not exclusive to music - Art (Kandinsky) did it,


And how did that play out?



> Philosophy (Wittgenstein?) did it,


Philosophy has always been questioning its own foundations, searching for a foundation. Philosophy was never something that wasn't self questioning. Every genuine philosopher questioned the fundamental systems of structure. Every philosopher strives to be the last philosopher who discovers the foundation and builds everything from the ground up.



> Mathematics (Non-Euclidean Geometry?) did it, Physics (Theory of Relativity?) did it,


Completely continuous and harmonious with previous discoveries. Newton didn't have microfoundations. There is no contradiction.



> Linguistics (Basically all of it).


Linguistics is not an art, not a science. It's cataloging. Utterly trivial.



> So, this is basically a recurring idea of the 20th century, and surprise, surprise, all of these fields have been basically ignored by the public since this revolution, not just music.


Philosophy has always been ignored by the public. This includes mathematics, physics, linguistics, etc etc.



> In the Enlightenment period mathematics columns would be read just as often as anything on politics.


In the Enlightenment period 1. math was far more simple so the layman could grasp it. 2. most people didn't read at all.



> There is no public like that who exists today, and there was no public like that before the Enlightenment either.


There are 2.5 million PhDs in American alone. That public has enlarged beyond all proportion. More than a million people subscribe to the New Yorker.



> So it seems like we're entering a Pre-Enlightenment period of high knowledge, where most of the public doesn't seem to care much of it. It's a problem, but it's one that we need to tackle without retraction. So it's neither a good thing or a bad thing, due to historical circumstances.


On the contrary, the public consumes too much information. We are over-en-lightened, it's blinding us.



SottoVoce said:


> Plus, I think there's some misunderstanding here. What millionrainbows is saying is not that music in general leads to atonalism, but the musical thinking of one lineage, that is the lineage derived from German music, seems to tend towards this self referential atonalism.


What does "historical inevitability" mean to you, sir?



> I think that is much more reasonable, as many people hold on to that opinion; if you just watch that Milton Babbitt documentary on Youtube, you can see many scholars seeing Babbitt as, from the video, "the culmination of a certain lineage that thinks about music and makes music this way.."


Just like how drunk driving culminates into a car crash.

Irresponsible kid dies from drunk driving? Spuriously retrace causality and pin the blame on his parents, look for clues in his very earliest years; yes, the crib was not perfect, it was out of shape, he never received enough sunlight in his room due to the poor architecture in his house, which made him pale and want to stay indoors, which made him introverted as a child, which made him unpopular, which made him seek self validation in binge drinking and partying, which lead to his premature death.

Chromatic passages in Bach and Mozart? Why, they must have been precursors to Schoenberg! It was historical inevitability all along!

To reiterate. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2002/oct/24/should-we-adore-adorno/?pagination=false



> This is manifest in a particularly absurd note for his Beethoven study:
> 
> The works of great composers are mere caricatures of what they would have done had they been allowed. One should not assume any pre-established harmony between the artist and his time, inseparable as the two may be…. [Mozart's] music is a sustained attempt to outwit convention. In piano pieces such as the B minor Adagio, the Minuet in D major; in the "Dissonance Quartet"; in passages of Don Giovanni and heaven knows where else, traces of the dissonance he intended can be discerned. His harmony is not so much an expression of his nature as an effort of "tact." Only Beethoven dared to compose as he wanted: that, too, is a part of his uniqueness.
> 
> Adorno has been trapped into this extravagance by a familiar critical penchant, one that we all share. To explain the genius of an artist, we tend to concentrate on the more purple passages, the most outrageous and complex moments, the aspects that shocked contemporaries and that they found inacceptable. This is particularly egregious when dealing with Mozart, although it apparently works a bit better with Beethoven. Part of the greatness of Mozart is that he handled the conventional better than any of his contemporaries. It is, of course, possible that he might have liked to experiment more than he did. *One will distort Mozart by taking him out of history, however, if one argues that he unwillingly invested the simplest cadences with extraordinary grace, that his tact is not as much a part of his nature as his more radical impulses, and that the exquisite sonority of the spacing of his music is less essential than the occasional indulgence in dissonant chromatic harmony*.


Read this blog post by a Bard Music Professor and composer, Scotto, and get back to me or if you're lazy, just this summary is fine.



> In my early teens, I discovered Ives's "Concord" Sonata and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Both were incomprehensible but fascinating, and I kept listening over and over and over until I totally fell in love. Next came Carter's Double Concerto and Second String Quartet, and I assumed the same thing would happen. All through college and grad school I avidly followed every new Carter premiere, bought his scores and recordings, listened dozens of times, analyzed what I could. Then, one day in the early 1980s, I was listening to the Double Concerto with the score again for what was at least my 50th time. *And the thought popped into my head: "I've studied this piece and studied it for over ten years, and I don't give a damn if I ever hear it again." *I closed the score, and never listened to the piece closely again until I wrote my American music book in 1995. In a way, what drove me away from the music was its unmemorability. T*here's a tremendous pleasure in becoming familiar with something as mammoth, dense, and complex as the "Concord" Sonata, and learning to love every skewed little harmonic implication. *But while I had the general overall plan of the Double Concerto in my head, and could anticipate the climaxes and piano and harpsichord cadenzas, the vast majority of the pitch complexes just never imprinted themselves on my memory. *(You can assume I have lousy ears if you want, but when I entered grad school the professor who administered the ear-training entrance exam told me I did better on it than he could have. It included some Stravinsky 12-tone vocal music that I transcribed correctly, including the solo vocalist's quarter-tone mistakes.) *Though by then fond of Ives, Stravinsky, Cage, Stockhausen, and even Babbitt's wonderful Philomel, I had failed to develop the slightest affection for the Carter Double Concerto after dozens, maybe hundreds of listenings.
> 
> And it wasn't just listening. In the '70s every young composer analyzed Carter's Second String Quartet, and I was no exception. I started with loads of enthusiasm, but increasingly found the ideas unmusical: especially that the tritones were all in the viola, the perfect fifths all in the second violin (or whatever - I disremember the details), which isn't something one can hear in a polyphonic texture. It's a stupid idea, really. And as fanatical as I am about tempo contrasts, Carter's seemed mechanical and musically unmotivated. I came to think that Carter had invested a lot of time in overly literal aspects of music that didn't appeal to the ear. *As I'm always reminding my students, art isn't about reality, it's about appearances.*
> 
> Except for Le marteau, Boulez is a different story. *In youth I attacked that piece with all the fanatacism of a new convert: *read Musique aujourd-hui (of which Boulez eventually autographed my copy for me), did what analysis I could, and even did an independent tutorial learning to conduct the piece. But here again, I eventually came back to the piece in the late 1980s and realized that, after so many years of devotion, I couldn't meaningfully tell one movement from another, aside from the instrumentation. If someone had come out with a recording of Le marteau with half the pitches transposed by half-steps one way or the other, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.* (I also analyzed every note of the Boulez Second Sonata before hearing it, and was so brainwashed that, when I finally heard it, I cried over its beauty. Today I wouldn't recognize that piece in a blindfold test.) *Ultimately, I think Boulez was trying to be very avant-garde in Le marteau, but didn't really know what he was doing yet, and made lousy pitch choices. I've run into a surprising number of composers who have exactly the same opinion, and who were afraid to mention it for years.


Sound familiar?



> Just listened to Symphony op. 21* numerous times along with score and analysis from JSTOR. I fell in love with immediately, *but more and more I am shocked to the color that Webern uses; maybe not bright colors like Debussy (although even him I would associate more with blue/orange) but colors of purple and blue, cold and metallic colors.


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## SottoVoce

brianwalker said:


> Brandom's Hegel is not the Hegelianism I'm referring to, Hegelianism commonly understood and the blatant, atavistic Hegelianism manifest in millionrainbows rhetoric "Zeitgiest", "unmistakable progression", "supra-personal historical inevitability". All classical Hegelian mantra, the Hegel of Marx and Kojeve. Brandom's Hegel is a proto-inferentialist. I've read plenty of Brandom's exegesis of Hegel including his untimely review of Phenemenology and his lecture notes. There is not a whiff of Zeitgeist or "supra-personal historical inevitability" i.e. the process of the Absolute becoming manifest in Brandom or Sellars. Brandom routinely makes fun of Hegelianism commonly understood, especially the Young Hegelians.
> 
> So yes, Hegel the protoinferentialist lives on, but Hegelianism proper is dead.


Yeah, you're right, Brandom doesn't use Zeitgeist because he has nothing to do with the philosophy of history, which is a historical term of Hegel's. You can find that in R.G Collingwood, which was heavily influenced by Hegel and is extremely influential in history in general.

And I'm sorry I got the impression that you meant that "Hegel was dead" completely when you said "Hegel is dead". Oh, so now people can only be a little influenced by Hegel now? You just said before that no one is influenced by Hegel, therefore "Hegel is dead".



> Philosophy has always been questioning its own foundations, searching for a foundation. Philosophy was never something that wasn't self questioning. Every genuine philosopher questioned the fundamental systems of structure. Every philosopher strives to be the last philosopher who discovers the foundation and builds everything from the ground up.
> 
> Completely continuous and harmonious with previous discoveries. Newton didn't have microfoundations. There is no contradiction.


Maybe I've been a little too vague, but structure I mean self-referential structure; notably language. Metalinguistic analysis is basically the dominating interest in people who were influenced by middle Wittgenstein. It is true that Philosophy has always been questioning structure, that's the point really, but something inherent as language. Language, instead of using it to explain philosophical topics, has become the central focus of philosophy. Analytic philosophy is based on the proposition by clarifying language, we can solve philosophical problems. How is this any different than questioning the linguistic, or in this semiotic, structure of music?



> Linguistics is not an art, not a science. It's cataloging. Utterly trivial.


"Linguistics is the scientific study of human language."[1][2][3][4][5] 5 sources against one person's conjecture? Hmm...



> Philosophy has always been ignored by the public. This includes mathematics, physics, linguistics, etc etc.
> 
> There are 2.5 million PhDs in American alone. That public has enlarged beyond all proportion. More than a million people subscribe to the New Yorker.


Yeah you're right. Which is why Strauss has a tone poem called "Thus Sprauch Zathurstra". Which is why Wagner deeply admired Schopenhauer. Which is why Beethoven wrote "Kant!!" in his diary, and which is why practically any educated people read Plato. We have the educated people, they just don't read Plato anymore; they read the New Yorker.

Sure, we're getting more schooling. Not nearly as much education. Have you heard of "Enlightened Depotism?" It was when leaders of countries would follow the ideas of Spinoza. Now we are lucky if they acknowledge an economist or political scientist's existence once and while. Academia, and education in general, has shrunk in influence. That is a fact.

You should read this if you haven't already:http://www.imaginativeconservative.org/2012/10/dark-satanic-mills-of-mis-education.html



> In the Enlightenment period 1. math was far more simple so the layman could grasp it. 2. most people didn't read at all.
> 
> On the contrary, the public consumes too much information. We are over-en-lightened, it's blinding us.


I said "high" knowledge, not information; I'm not talking about Youtube videos of cats. And do you know what pure Math was before Non-Euclidean? Not exactly "simple". I'm talking about Gauss, Abel, Bernoulli. Hell, Lincoln read Euclid to get his reasoning straight! Mathematics, as a whole, has fallen out of favor in the public, and not because it was "simple" back then; it is much more complex than that. This just seems so obvious to me.


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## SottoVoce

> Adorno has been trapped into this extravagance by a familiar critical penchant, one that we all share. To explain the genius of an artist, we tend to concentrate on the more purple passages, the most outrageous and complex moments, the aspects that shocked contemporaries and that they found inacceptable. This is particularly egregious when dealing with Mozart, although it apparently works a bit better with Beethoven. Part of the greatness of Mozart is that he handled the conventional better than any of his contemporaries. It is, of course, possible that he might have liked to experiment more than he did. One will distort Mozart by taking him out of history, however, if one argues that he unwillingly invested the simplest cadences with extraordinary grace, that his tact is not as much a part of his nature as his more radical impulses, and that the exquisite sonority of the spacing of his music is less essential than the occasional indulgence in dissonant chromatic harmony.


Oh, this I can definetely refute. This quote would be said only by a person who had not the basic ideas in Mozart scholarship. Read Alfred Einstein's biography of Mozart, and you will see that largely the public saw Mozart as a "learned" composer by the end of his life; after coming into contact with Bach's music, he packed his music with incredibly difficult contrapuntal passages. Einstein compares it to Durer's journey to Italy; it was that big of a conceptual impact. And most people agree that Mozart's masterpieces tend to fall into his later years.


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## SottoVoce

brianwalker said:


> Just listened to Symphony op. 21 numerous times along with score and analysis from JSTOR. I fell in love with immediately, but more and more I am shocked to the color that Webern uses; maybe not bright colors like Debussy (although even him I would associate more with blue/orange) but colors of purple and blue, cold and metallic colors.
> 
> Sound familiar?


Yes, I think music needs to be understood before it can be liked in some cases. So what? I had to do the exact same thing with Beethoven's late quartets, hell I did even the same with Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony before I started to like it. Why is it so wrong to look at a piece in depth to love it? Maybe music doesn't need to be cried to. If that was the only thing music was for, as an expression and release of emotions, I'd be terribly disinterested in it.


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## brianwalker

SottoVoce said:


> Yeah, you're right, Brandom doesn't use Zeitgeist because he has nothing to do with the philosophy of history, which is a historical term of Hegel's. You can find that in R.G Collingwood, which was heavily influenced by Hegel and is extremely influential in history in general.
> 
> And I'm sorry I got the impression that you meant that "Hegel was dead" completely when you said "Hegel is dead". Oh, so now people can only be a little influenced by Hegel now? You just said before that no one is influenced by Hegel, therefore "Hegel is dead".


Stop quibbling. My rhetoric was a specific reaction to the rhetoric used by millionrainbows in this and other threads.



> Maybe I've been a little too vague, but structure I mean self-referential structure; notably language. Metalinguistic analysis is basically the dominating interest in people who were influenced by middle Wittgenstein. It is true that Philosophy has always been questioning structure, that's the point really, but something inherent as language. Language, instead of using it to explain philosophical topics, has become the central focus of philosophy. Analytic philosophy is based on the proposition by clarifying language, we can solve philosophical problems. How is this any different than questioning the linguistic, or in this semiotic, structure of music?


"Language" is now just another name for "consciousness", "the conditions of intelligibility", and "Geist". The subject matter of philosophy is still the same; it just goes under a different heading. Questioning the structure of music? When did that ever not happen? All composers have always questioned the structure of music to varying degrees.



> "Linguistics is the scientific study of human language."[1][2][3][4][5] 5 sources against one person's conjecture? Hmm...


The intellectual fashion of the hour means nothing.

"Scientific study" is not identical with science. A "musical language" is not literally music.



> Yeah you're right. Which is why Strauss has a tone poem called "Thus Sprauch Zathurstra". Which is why Wagner deeply admired Schopenhauer. Which is why Beethoven wrote "Kant!!" in his diary, and which is why practically any educated people read Plato. We have the educated people, they just don't read Plato anymore; they read the New Yorker.


Musicians still set their texts to intellectual things.

How do you know whether the frequency of Plato reading rose or declined since the Enlightenment? Where is your data?



> Sure, we're getting more schooling. Not nearly as much education. Have you heard of "Enlightened Depotism?" It was when leaders of countries would follow the ideas of Spinoza. Now we are lucky if they acknowledge an economist or political scientist's existence once and while. Academia, and education in general, has shrunk in influence. That is a fact.


I. Technocrats hold more power than ever. Bernanke, Cass Sunstein, the European Central Bank. 
II. Which leaders followed Spinoza? 
III. Fact? Says which peer reviewed study?



> I said "high" knowledge, not information; I'm not talking about Youtube videos of cats. And do you know what pure Math was before Non-Euclidean? Not exactly "simple". I'm talking about Gauss, Abel, Bernoulli. Hell, Lincoln read Euclid to get his reasoning straight! Mathematics, as a whole, has fallen out of favor in the public, and not because it was "simple" back then; it is much more complex than that. This just seems so obvious to me.


And did the public understand it or was it along the lines of the interest in quantum mechanics now? Interest doesn't mean understanding. Everyone has heard of quantum mechanics, watched a YouTube or two explaining it at least. A small newspaper column on Gauss is just as informative as a YT video on quantum mechanics.



SottoVoce said:


> Yes, I think music needs to be understood before it can be liked in some cases. So what? I had to do the exact same thing with Beethoven's late quartets, hell I did even the same with Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony before I started to like it. Why is it so wrong to look at a piece in depth to love it? Maybe music doesn't need to be cried to. If that was the only thing music was for, as an expression and release of emotions, I'd be terribly disinterested in it.


The eyes and the mind can conspire together to deceive the ears and the heart.


----------



## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> You're thinking of Serialism as a particular method, and what you say is true: Stockhausen and Boulez' heyday is over.
> 
> But Serial thinking must be seen as a "way of looking at music" which pervades musical thought.
> 
> So, if you're going to write tonal music, you'd better read about interval projection from Howard Hanson's "Harmonic Materials of Modern Music" and Vincent Persichetti's "Twentieth Century Harmony," George Perle's "Twelve-Tone Tonality," and Joseph N. Straus' "Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory" (you can argue with the "evolutionary" modernist implications of the term "Post-Tonal" after you study it)
> 
> I'm well-aware of Grisey, Dumitrescu, Murail, and the other Spectralists. Most of these guys are French, and what they're doing is a result of spectral analysis done at IRCAM, synonymous with Boulez.
> 
> _So, do you see what I'm getting at, that non-harmonic serial thinking, using mathematics, is still making its influence felt even on composers who wouldn't dare call themselves "serialists."_




This is true. Take Ligeti for example, http://kris.shaffermusic.com/wordpress/ligeti-the-serialist-part-1/.
Although I don't think Ligeti was a "full" serialist, the influece of serialism through all of his work is undeniable.


----------



## KenOC

SottoVoce said:


> ...you will see that largely the public saw Mozart as a "learned" composer by the end of his life; after coming into contact with Bach's music...


Interesting comment on Mozart becoming a "learned" composer. The Galante period prejudice against this sort of thing affected even early views of Beethoven. From a 1799 review of his Op. 12 violin sonatas: "Learned, learned, ever more learned, and no nature, no song!"

The whole period from about 1720 through the end of the century saw a growing reaction to the infrastructure of church music. In fact, atheism was quite common among the nobility of the day, and a new esthetic was needed to get rid of the "stink of the church" in music. Church music was even banned in many civic concert halls -- Beethoven, again, had to have his two masses presented in partial form as "sacred hymns" to get them performed in these venues.

A fascinating book about this period is "Evening in the Palace of Reason," ostensibly about the famous meeting between Frederick the Great and JS Bach but covering a lot more territory than that.


----------



## SottoVoce

brianwalker said:


> Stop quibbling. My rhetoric was a specific reaction to the rhetoric used by millionrainbows in this and other threads.


 Okay.



> "Language" is now just another name for "consciousness", "the conditions of intelligibility", and "Geist". The subject matter of philosophy is still the same; it just goes under a different heading. Questioning the structure of music? When did that ever not happen? All composers have always questioned the structure of music to varying degrees.


Common-Practice harmony shows otherwise, the whole questioning part.


> The intellectual fashion of the hour means nothing.
> 
> "Scientific study" is not identical with science. A "musical language" is not literally music.


This isn't "fashion". Linguistics attacks the problems of language scientifically. If it didn't, it wouldn't be called Linguistics anymore. It'd be something different.



> Musicians still set their texts to intellectual things.
> 
> How do you know whether the frequency of Plato reading rose or declined since the Enlightenment? Where is your data?


You were saying that contemporary philosophers were never popular. I'm saying they were. The synthesis of philosophical thought and other areas of thought are nowhere near the amount they were in the past. There is also more information on the subject here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Closing_of_the_American_Mind

Surprisingly (actually not so much), reading a book isn't just memorizing it to pass a class. It's taking it seriously. In this context, much less "educated" people read Plato; even without this, most universities are starting to stray away with this kind of reading. American universities are incredibly bad for this kind of thing.



> I. Technocrats hold more power than ever. Bernanke, Cass Sunstein, the European Central Bank.
> II. Which leaders followed Spinoza?
> III. Fact? Says which peer reviewed study?


These are fields based on the basis of practice. These fields have a lot of influence, but the non-practical ones, which is basically why academia was made in the first place, don't. So, yes, technical universities have immense influence, to the degree that the whole notion of academia has basically become getting a job rather than influencing yourself. Universities weren't made to teach people skills however, and then commit them to business. The goal was to make people educated, to learn for the sake of learning, how to achieve better people. The article that I gave you is a professor giving statistics on this manner. Not peer-reviewed, but based on fact.

Moreover, Spinoza was one of the harbingers of the Enlightenment, "Spinoza was "the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and nonabsolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority."



> And did the public understand it or was it along the lines of the interest in quantum mechanics now? Interest doesn't mean understanding. Everyone has heard of quantum mechanics, watched a YouTube or two explaining it at least. A small newspaper column on Gauss is just as informative as a YT video on quantum mechanics.


The educated knew far more about current developments of mathematics than we do now. If you read Bertrand Russell's autobiography, who is in the transition period of this phenomenon, he will say that the average person, at least in non-practical matters, is far less clueless now than he was in the past. 


> The eyes and the mind can conspire together to deceive the ears and the heart.


[/QUOTE]

Comeon, am I really supposed to respond to this? Are you saying that any sort of analysis in music is trivial? You know every composer from Bach to Babbitt has looked at scores and studied music? You know how many of the beloved Old Masters had read Fux's Gradus? This is ridiculous.


----------



## brianwalker

SottoVoce said:


> Okay.
> 
> Common-Practice harmony shows otherwise, the whole questioning part.


The parallel is specious.



> This isn't "fashion". Linguistics attacks the problems of language scientifically. If it didn't, it wouldn't be called Linguistics anymore. It'd be something different.


Still not a science.



> You were saying that contemporary philosophers were never popular. I'm saying they were. The synthesis of philosophical thought and other areas of thought are nowhere near the amount they were in the past.


Philosophy's influence on politics peaked during the middle of the 20th century. Heidegger was hugely influential in Nazi Germany and Marx and Hegel in the Soviet Union. Mussolini read Nietzsche and called himself a relativist in the Nietzschean vein.



> These are fields based on the basis of practice. These fields have a lot of influence, but the non-practical ones, which is basically why academia was made in the first place, don't. So, yes, technical universities have immense influence, to the degree that the whole notion of academia has basically become getting a job rather than influencing yourself. Universities weren't made to teach people skills however, and then commit them to buisness. The goal was to make people educated, to learn for the sake of learning, how to achieve better people. The article that I gave you is a professor giving statistics on this manner. Not peer-reviewed, but based on fact.
> 
> Moreover, Spinoza was one of the harbringers of the Enlightenment, "Spinoza was "the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and nonabsolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority."


Still haven't answered my questions.



> The educated knew far more about current developments of mathematics than we do now. If you read Bertrand Russell's autobiography, who is in the transition period of this phenomenon, he will say that the average person, at least in non-practical matters, is far less clueless now than he was in the past.


Learning curve is higher; public attention has shifted to other things e.g. quantum mechanics, string theory, etc.



> Are you saying that any sort of analysis in music is trival?


No.



> You know every composer from Bach to Babbitt has looked at scores and studied music? You know how many of the beloved Old Masters had read Fux's Gradus? This is ridiculous.


If you're a composer looking to compose in the vein of Webern's path, there's something to it, sure. You cite Wikipedia, so will I.

"[Fux] also states that theory without practice is useless. Thus, his book stresses practice over theory."

There is an infinite chasm between using analysis as a crutch and support to appreciate music and using instructional booklets that catalog previous music to use as part of the development of your own composition skills.


----------



## SottoVoce

brianwalker said:


> ]
> 
> Philosophy's influence on politics peaked during the middle of the 20th century. Heidegger was hugely influential in Nazi Germany and Marx and Hegel in the Soviet Union. Mussolini read Nietzsche and called himself a relativist in the Nietzschean vein.


These are not contemporary philosophers. How can you even call them such? That's like calling Schoenberg a contemporary musician. How was Hegel influential in Soviet Union? The Soviet Union's ideology was materialist, Hegel's was idealist. Marx brought nothing from Hegel except the process to come to conclusions (Dialectic Materialism). Marx is utilitarian in ethics and economics. These are simple mistakes.



> Still haven't answered my questions.


I answered all your questions. I don't think you want to hear them.



> Learning curve is higher; public attention has shifted to other things e.g. quantum mechanics, string theory, etc.


Not much higher. We have much more access to it than any educated person did at that time. We have universities teaching Non-Euclidean Geometry. Even if the learning curve is higher, that's not the fault of the science, or art, is it? Dumbing down something is a moral decision I never seemed to get, and I think it's a dangerous one.



> Still not a science.


Then, I'm confused on what you think science should be, either that or you don't know what science is. I think you're getting confused on what your position really is. This will be my final post, I don't think this discussion is very productive.


----------



## brianwalker

SottoVoce said:


> These are not contemporary philosophers. How can you even call them such? That's like calling Schoenberg a contemporary musician. How was Hegel influential in Soviet Union? The Soviet Union's ideology was materialist, Hegel's was idealist. Marx brought nothing from Hegel except the process to come to conclusions (Dialectic Materialism). Marx is utilitarian in ethics and economics. These are simple mistakes.


Name me specific kings who were* contemporaries with Spinoza* who were influenced by him.



> I answered all your questions. I don't think you want to hear them.


II. *Which leaders followed Spinoza?*

You failed to name even one.

III. Fact? Says which peer reviewed study?

You failed to provide any statistical evidence for the supposed decline.



> Not much higher. We have much more access to it than any educated person did at that time. We have universities teaching Non-Euclidean Geometry. Even if the learning curve is higher, that's not the fault of the science, or art, is it? Dumbing down something is a moral decision I never seemed to get, and I think it's a dangerous one.


No one is dumbing down anything; the learning curve is just too high.



> Then, I'm confused on what you think science should be, either that or you don't know what science is. I think you're getting confused on what your position really is. This will be my final post, I don't think this discussion is very productive.


There's a whole field of Philosophy of Science, you can start there.

Linguistics is not a science.



SottoVoce said:


> Oh, this I can definetely refute. This quote would be said only by a person who had not the basic ideas in Mozart scholarship. Read Alfred Einstein's biography of Mozart, and you will see that largely the public saw Mozart as a "learned" composer by the end of his life; after coming into contact with Bach's music, he packed his music with incredibly difficult contrapuntal passages. Einstein compares it to Durer's journey to Italy; it was that big of a conceptual impact. And most people agree that Mozart's masterpieces tend to fall into his later years.


I. You're reading this out of context. 
II. The author of that passage is *Charles Rosen. * You know, the pianist and musicologist?



millionrainbows said:


> When I hear Corelli or Mozart, I can almost predict what the next event will be. The only way Mozart can be "brilliant" in such a predictable context is when he throws in an extra half-measure, or lands on a halfway "surprising" chord. The whole experience is based on clichés, and how cleverly these are juggled, like a "hidden pea" carnival game for rubes.
> Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. You can swallow, can't you?


From learned composer to bread pudding.


----------



## millionrainbows

SottoVoce said:


> Plus, I think there's some misunderstanding here. What millionrainbows is saying is not that music in general leads to atonalism, but the musical thinking of one lineage, that is the lineage derived from German music, seems to tend towards this self referential atonalism. I think that is much more reasonable, as many people hold on to that opinion; if you just watch that Milton Babbitt documentary on Youtube, you can see many scholars seeing Babbitt as, from the video, "the culmination of a certain lineage that thinks about music and makes music this way.."


Yes, I think I agree...I want to deal with the actual nuts and bolts of the tonal system itself, rather than attaching changes in music to "schools" or "chronological history" for its own sake.

A perfect example of this is Bach. Bach devised his own tuning system, a "well-tempered" tuning, meaning that the tuning sounded good in all 12 major and minor key signatures.*

I'm saying that Bach always knew how to be chromatic, and was obviously able to exploit all the possibilities of the tonal system.

By the example of the Chromatic Fantasy, he demonstrated that he understood the significance of diminished chords being related to dominants, and demonstrates this clearly, backwards and forwards (diminished chords turning into dominant sevenths, or vice-versa). In the Sinfonia Nr. 9, Bach uses all 12 notes.

Bach obviously understood the concept of symmetry, exemplified by the tritone** and our Western division of the octave into fourths and fifths.***

Bach obviously understood how the minor third and major second, as "small" intervals, are recursive within the octave, and how these small divisions create music which becomes more and more recursive, chromatic, and inward-directed. ****

...in contrast to the fourth and fifth, which create harmonic movement in leaps, and are expansive by nature.*****

So bach knew all this, yet he did not act on it; the stylistic norms of the Baroque era, and aesthetics, would not allow the playing-out of these musical mechanisms to their ultimate consequences _*yet.*_ Bach could only "hint" at this. Baroque music was still "expanding," moving in V-Is, and developing the harmonic functions of chords and chord progressions. It was not until Bartok that the inward directed consequences of tonality could be fully elaborated.

So when I say that tonality "contained the seeds of its own demise," these are not superficial, historical, chronological or stylistic factors; these "seeds" are contained within the very DNA of tonality.

So, this DNA of tonality gives the term "historical inevitability" a dimension which does away with superficials. We are dealing here with the development of tonal thinking, not trends, styles, or chronological time.

_notes:_
---------------------------------
* This was actually a precursor to "equal-tempered" tuning, which was not truly achieved until the early 20th century, when measuring devices were invented. Before that, they used stopwatches and counted beats, so everything was approximate.

** Which divides the octave exactly in half.

*** A consequence of tetrads forming the 7-note diatonic scale).

**** In other words, if stacked, these intervals "come back into the octave" and repeat within one cycle, unlike the fourth and fifth, which require 5 and 7 cycles respectively.

***** .....5 (5 half-steps, the fourth) goes into 60, a multiple of 12 (circle of fourths, five octaves: C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G)........7 (7 half-steps, the fifth) goes into 84, a multiple of 12 (circle of fifths, seven octaves: C G D A E B Gb Db Ab Eb Bb F)....The fourth and fifth, as pointed out, cannot be used as divisors of 12 (the octave); therefore, they can be seen as "expanding" in nature, as they generate cycles of 12 notes (outside the octave). Remember, 60 and 84 had to be used as the common denominators for 5 and 7. These large numbers can be seen as 'outside the octave' or as a 'greater referential point.' Hence, the reason the 4th and 5th are the basis of traditional Western music; this facilitates movement outside the octave, to a new reference point or new key.


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## pendereckiobsessed

Whats the point of Atonal Music? Whats the point of Tonal music? Whats the point of ALL music?

Simple - to express that which cannot be said in words


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> Bach devised his own tuning system, a "well-tempered" tuning...


Well, he popularized it at least. The well-tempered system of the time seems to have been developed earlier, in the first decades of the 1600s. Andreas Werckmeister and Simon Stevin may have been involved, as well as (possibly) Prince Chu Tsai-Yü of the Ming dynasty in China. Hey, I'm not making this up!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament


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## millionrainbows

Johann Sebastian Bach's tuning

I believe that Johann Sebastian Bach notated a specific method of keyboard tuning. He did not express it in our normally-expected formats of theory, or numbers. Rather, he drew a diagram for a practical hands-on sequence to adjust the tuning pins, working entirely by ear.
It keeps the six main notes of the C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A) in evenly-spaced positions, at their normal spots within the context of late 17th century practice. The tuner is then to install the keyboard's six remaining notes (B and the sharps F#, C#, G#, D#, A#) in tastefully raised positions, with adjustments as indicated by the diagram, so they can also serve well as flats.

This process of minimal but necessary compromises makes the keyboard ready to play music in all 24 major and minor scales. Every scale has a subtly different expressive character, as the steps are not all exactly the same size. The harmonies have various tensions and spice, when the notes of the scales are built together into chords.

Bach demanded and exhibited a system of this enharmonic flexibility not only in the diagram, but also through the music in Das Wohltemperirte Clavier. It presents his tuning challenge (and gives the solution!), where most of the preludes and fugues each require the smooth handling of more than 12 notes. For example, his D major prelude and fugue use all of Bb, F, C, G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, and E# in the same piece: 14 notes. Some of the other pieces require 13, 15, up to 25! The last piece in the book, the B minor fugue, requires 17 (Eb up to Fx), and presents 13 of them as early as the subject: six naturals C, G, D, A, E, B, and seven sharps F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, and B#.

The resulting temperament has been absent from our history books. It was lost under layers of assumptions and habits that have led away from it.

I believe its particular sound, as an integrated part of musical practice, has profound implications for all of Bach's instrumental and vocal music that uses keyboards: either with written-out parts or in the basso continuo. Since every scale has a different Affekt or mood, from the different musical tension within the intervals, the music sounds colorful and "alive" as it moves. Bach's music itself is a large body of primary evidence for temperament: sounding convincingly brilliant and expressive when the intonation is right, or rough and ugly in temperaments that don't properly solve the enharmonic problems.

Bach obviously knew how to set up his keyboards appropriately before writing his music for them. The aim is to restore the specific intonation scheme of his everyday keyboard tuning, the sound relationships he expected to hear in his melodies and harmonies, as they may have influenced his creative imagination. By hearing how these musical elements work through composition and improvisation, we gain new clues into the interpretation of Bach's music: affecting at least the areas of articulation, phrasing, dynamics, timing, intensity, and drama. The tensions and resolutions within the music suggest fresh ideas in performance, both through intuitive reactions and through close analysis.

This "LaripS.com" web site clarifies and explains the material, both through theory and practice. It provides various introductions to this work, for different levels of readers' interest. It serves as an archive of ideas as this temperament is used and discussed among musicians, researchers, and enthusiasts.

Bradley Lehman, 
A.Mus.D. (harpsichord), 
[email protected]
[Biography] [Home page]

All LaripS.com contents © Bradley Lehman, 2005 
Improved graphics supplied by Joakim Bang Larsen (Norway), 5-Apr-05; thank you!


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## KenOC

Bach's first book of the WTC was published "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study." The second book had no such specificity, but we can assume the intent was similar.

To suggest that the work depended on a tuning system so recondite that it could only be unraveled 200+ years later beggars belief. Some even claim that the system was ingeniously encrypted in the whorls at the top of the first page of the manuscript!

In fact, there were already several "well-tempered" and "mean-tempered" systems available at the time, any of which would have served. Each would have sounded somewhat better than our modern system in some key signatures, in others somewhat worse. The same is true of the several hypothetical "Bach" systems.

It might be more useful to talk about how the proportions of the Great Pyramid forecast the development of quantum mechanics...


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## brianwalker

PetrB said:


> I would think that if any member of this forum were alive in 1605, and were accustomed to only the prior several hundred years of classical music literature up to that date, to then be sat down in a concert hall and be presented with Beethoven's Triple Concerto of 1805, the listener would be at sea from the moment they heard that modern oboe tuning to a noticeably different A, heard the modern orchestra, its instruments, the intonation, and the piece itself: they would find it a senseless cacophony, shapeless, devoid of meaning, expression, and yes... 'atonal.'


I. This thought experiment is unverifiable. 
I. b. I would venture to say that the first audiences would be puzzles but would still appreciate the music and come to terms with it quickly. 
II. Certain occurrences in history show that the opposite is true; for instance, musical cultures surrounding Beethoven sprung up in countries without the centuries of musical legacy that Europe had at the time in Japan. There was no continuous fabric of musical culture by which Beethoven's harmonic language was realized gradually. His popularity there was more or less ex nihilo; even the attempts to suppress his music in the name of nationalism were unsuccessful.


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## mud

Pragmatically, tonal and atonal music have the same point: inspiring people to buy it.


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## Petwhac

PetrB's original comment


> I would think that if any member of this forum were alive in 1605, and were accustomed to only the prior several hundred years of classical music literature up to that date, to then be sat down in a concert hall and be presented with Beethoven's Triple Concerto of 1805, the listener would be at sea from the moment they heard that modern oboe tuning to a noticeably different A, heard the modern orchestra, its instruments, the intonation, and the piece itself: they would find it a senseless cacophony, shapeless, devoid of meaning, expression, and yes... 'atonal.'





brianwalker said:


> I. This thought experiment is unverifiable.
> I. b. I would venture to say that the first audiences would be puzzles but would still appreciate the music and come to terms with it quickly.
> II. Certain occurrences in history show that the opposite is true; for instance, musical cultures surrounding Beethoven sprung up in countries without the centuries of musical legacy that Europe had at the time in Japan. There was no continuous fabric of musical culture by which Beethoven's harmonic language was realized gradually. His popularity there was more or less ex nihilo; even the attempts to suppress his music in the name of nationalism were unsuccessful.


Yes, I would say that PetrB's supposition is almost certainly an exaggeration. Sure Beethoven would sound very unfamiliar but probably only as unfamiliar as Shakespearian English would sound to a person who has only ever watched Die Hard movies or TV sitcoms. They might struggle with it and a lot of it will go straight by them but there will enough _common reference points_ for them to get a sense of what is going on. The sound of Beethoven's music is closer to Monteverdi's or Palestrina's than to Stockhausen's.


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## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> PetrB's original comment
> 
> Yes, I would say that PetrB's supposition is almost certainly an exaggeration. Sure Beethoven would sound very unfamiliar but probably only as unfamiliar as Shakespearian English would sound to a person who has only ever watched Die Hard movies or TV sitcoms. They might struggle with it and a lot of it will go straight by them but there will enough _common reference points_ for them to get a sense of what is going on. The sound of Beethoven's music is closer to Monteverdi's or Palestrina's than to Stockhausen's.


Your supposition is also silly. Consider that thirds and sixths were considered fairly dissonant basically until the Baroque period, and tritones were pretty much unacceptable until then. Such things are common in Beethoven's writing. The whole consideration is a bit odd, but in both directions. You can't say his is unverifiable and then posit your own unverifiable idea. Maybe they would have thought it dissonant. There were contemporaries of Beethoven who thought he was far too dissonant, but then there was music written before him which actually has a fair amount in common with 20th Century composition, so who knows?


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> I. This thought experiment is unverifiable.
> I. b. I would venture to say that the first audiences would be puzzles but would still appreciate the music and come to terms with it quickly.


But but but.... Your venture is equally unverifiable. [Note: burning's remark about petwhac's unverifiable remark came in as I was writing this. And is better, shorter and more incisive. Use it instead.] Indeed, it is quite a bit _more_ tenuous than the thought experiment. I should say that it's not more tenuous. It _is_ tenuous, and in a way that PetrB's remark is not. PetrB's remark makes sense because we've seen the pattern he's referring to happen over and over again. Which we have not with your venture.* Even with the occurrence in your roman numeral II.



brianwalker said:


> II. Certain occurrences in history show that the opposite is true; for instance, musical cultures surrounding Beethoven sprung up in countries without the centuries of musical legacy that Europe had at the time in Japan. There was no continuous fabric of musical culture by which Beethoven's harmonic language was realized gradually. His popularity there was more or less ex nihilo; even the attempts to suppress his music in the name of nationalism were unsuccessful.


Notice that you have said occurrence*s* but have only given one occurrence. Are we supposed to be so impressed by the ess that we don't notice that you actually only given us one thing?

That one thing is missing some things, too. When? When did this happen? And where? You refer to Japan, but the syntax is so muddled at that point that it's difficult to sort out. What the actual words in the order you've put them down _seem_ to say is that Beethoven cultures sprang up in countries inside of Japan. But the sentence is such a mess that you could be saying that while Japan shared a common musical legacy with Europe, there were other, unnamed, countries that did not. And that there were Beethoven cultures that sprang up in those countries.

If it's the first, then an easy fix would be to simply replace "in countries" with "in Japan. (Perhaps you were still working the plural idea, even though you only had one, singular example?)

If it's the second, then the reference to Japan is gratuitous and can be dropped.

In any event, the words "more or less ex nihilo," suggest a reality that is different from any historical account that I've ever come across. I mean, if we are talking about Japan here. And the hedging doesn't really let you off.

*I would venture to guess that you're just privileging your venture, investing in with a factitious validity because it's yours.


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Your supposition is also silly. Consider that thirds and sixths were considered fairly dissonant basically until the Baroque period, and tritones were pretty much unacceptable until then. Such things are common in Beethoven's writing. The whole consideration is a bit odd, but in both directions. You can't say his is unverifiable and then posit your own unverifiable idea. Maybe they would have thought it dissonant. There were contemporaries of Beethoven who thought he was far too dissonant, but then there was music written before him which actually has a fair amount in common with 20th Century composition, so who knows?


I think you are conflating my comments and brianwalker's. Obviously only a time-traveller could verify it. Thirds and sixths are plentiful in Renaissance music whether they were considered dissonant or not. I think the homophonic nature of classical music would have also sounded quite odd to even early Baroque. 
There may be _underlying_ similarities between the music 1500s or 1600s and 20c atonal but I am talking about the _sound_ of it.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> But but but.... Your venture is equally unverifiable. [Note: burning's remark about petwhac's unverifiable remark came in as I was writing this. And is better, shorter and more incisive. Use it instead.] Indeed, it is quite a bit _more_ tenuous than the thought experiment. I should say that it's not more tenuous. It _is_ tenuous, and in a way that PetrB's remark is not. PetrB's remark makes sense because we've seen the pattern he's referring to happen over and over again. Which we have not with your venture.* Even with the occurrence in your roman numeral II.


Just to be clear, are you really saying that in your opinion Beethoven would sound to the ears of a 16th C listener as Webern would sound to an 18th C listener?
That is what I took to be the essence of the whole though experiment.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I think you are conflating my comments and brianwalker's.


I think your eye skipped over BurningDesire's word "also."*



Petwhac said:


> There may be _underlying_ similarities between the music 1500s or 1600s and 20c atonal but I am talking about the _sound_ of it.


I think this is exactly the issue here, the _sound_ of it. And the sound of "it" is something that changes over time and even from region to region. And it is something, what's more, that differs from auditor to auditor as well.

"The sound of it" is not a constant, and what we think the music of Beethoven sounds like is not what people in 1812 thought it sounded like. That's because "sounds like" is not a description of the actual sound waves but a reaction by a given mind with certain experiences and prejudices. How else to account for the phenomenon that some people LIKE the sounds of Xenakis and Lachenmann and some people DISLIKE them? That some people, even today, find _Grosse Fuge_ an incomprehensible and dissonant mess.

*Well, this is not exactly what I think. But let that pass....:devil:


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> Just to be clear, are you really saying that in your opinion Beethoven would sound to the ears of a 16th C listener as Webern would sound to an 18th C listener?
> That is what I took to be the essence of the whole though experiment.


No.

I could say that, but that is not what I said. "Really" or otherwise.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> I think this is exactly the issue here, the _sound_ of it.


I think that's quite true. But even if those hypothetical renaissance listeners could get beyond "the sound of it" and the many technical matters, they might well be deeply offended by what they, quite accurately, heard. There had been major changes in what music was supposed to *be* since their time. In fact, that was the basis behind many early contemporary criticisms of Beethoven's music.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> I think your eye skipped over BurningDesire's word "also."*
> 
> I think this is exactly the issue here, the _sound_ of it. And the sound of "it" is something that changes over time and even from region to region. And it is something, what's more, that differs from auditor to auditor as well.
> 
> "The sound of it" is not a constant, and what we think the music of Beethoven sounds like is not what people in 1812 thought it sounded like. That's because "sounds like" is not a description of the actual sound waves but a reaction by a given mind with certain experiences and prejudices. How else to account for the phenomenon that some people LIKE the sounds of Xenakis and Lachenmann and some people DISLIKE them? That some people, even today, find _Grosse Fuge_ an incomprehensible and dissonant mess.
> 
> *Well, this is not exactly what I think. But let that pass....:devil:


And perhaps your eye skipped over BD's comment, the bit that said "you can't say his is unverifiable..." cos I didn't.

Funny how when one reads accounts by Beethoven's contemporaries of his life, descriptions of his music and of the reaction to his works, one gets the impression that his music sounded to their ears pretty much as it does to ours. His music was very highly regarded (and widely) in his own time and the very fact that it still is, is proof that it does sound to us very much like it sounded to his contemporaries.

The Cavatina from the late quartet in Bb has always been for me a very beautiful and moving piece. I have read that when Beet was asked to name a work by himself that he was particularly fond of he named the same Cavatina adding, "when I hear it now, it still brings a tear". I think that's a pretty good indication that our listening experience is not so very different. Or maybe LvB and I are just kindred spirits


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## Guest

"You" can mean "you, Petwhac" or "you all" or "one." I took Burning's you to be the latter, that's all.

Anyway, certainly one can read contemporary accounts of Beethoven's music that are positive. And the ones written by his fans or himself are more likely to be positive than not. (Beethoven's own responses don't really count, do they? Of course he understands his own music. He wrote the stuff! (Another confusion of the different worlds and different activities and different needs of creators and consumers, I guess.))

But those contemporary accounts you refer to are only some. And some, you'll recall, is not all.

That is all.


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## Ramako

KenOC said:


> I think that's quite true. But even if those hypothetical renaissance listeners could get beyond "the sound of it" and the many technical matters, they might well be deeply offended by what they, quite accurately, heard. There had been major changes in what music was supposed to *be* since their time. In fact, that was the basis behind many early contemporary criticisms of Beethoven's music.


Wherever this post is going, your signature represents an admirable idea 

EDIT: My brain has since woken up. I think you're right actually: that the changing concept of what music should be is what is really at stake here. I hadn't thought of it quite in that way before.


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## Ramako

Beethoven's music caught hold pretty fast and caught hold very hard. The man was a legend in his lifetime, even though often people did not understand his music. Beethoven's case is quite unique in music history it is perhaps not the best starting place for comparison.

Still, only the future can tell how modern music will be accepted... Except that Beethoven was not only accepted 75 years after his death but was practically worshipped. For generations after his death people had to define themselves relative to his stature. This has not happened yet. The closest are Mahler and perhaps Stravinsky, but they have none of the universal position of Beethoven, or Bach or Mozart, nor other figures depending on which circles you are in.

However I did just suggest that Beethoven was not necessarily the best person for comparison. Who else is? Bach? Whose music was not accepted until long after his death? Or does the fact that his music was considered very old-fashioned in his time (and this is perhaps why it was unpopular) exclude him? Brahms? Far too popular and accepted during his lifetime and also old-fashioned.

So perhaps there aren't really any valid comparisons to make for the contemporary unpopularity of modern classical music until Mahler, and Stravinsky is perhaps its champion from this point of view. History is constantly forging new ways and trying to use it to predict the future is somewhat tenuous at best. Doesn't mean it can't be useful and/or fun though


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## KenOC

Ramako said:


> Beethoven's music caught hold pretty fast and caught hold very hard.


Very true, although some cling to the legend that he was misunderstood and his music dismissed until later times. In fact, he was recognized as the greatest composer in Vienna (and thus the world) from 1802 or thereabouts, even before the Eroica.

There is a collection of contemporary reviews of his music here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/

The level of enthusasm for his music increases quite quickly after the first few reviews. These reviews may also help address the question, did his contemporaries hear his music as we do?


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## Guest

some guy said:


> "You" can mean "you, Petwhac" or "you all" or "one." I took Burning's you to be the latter, that's all.


Hahaha, I'm glad I noticed this before Petwhac did!

I couldn't have taken Burning's "you" to be the latter. It is unequivocally the former, "you, Petwhac."

(I'm just learning to read.)

And it was indeed brianwalker who said "unverifiable," not Petwhac.

There's a lesson in this for all of us.

OK, be fair, there's a lesson in this for me....


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## NightHawk

Not so. Thirds and Sixths began to show up in the late Middle Ages, particularly in England (known as 'the English 'Countenance'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contenance_Angloise

- one of the main differences in sound between Medieval and any Renaissance music is the sweetness of the 3rds and 6ths. .

Also, the Engish _rota_, _'Sumer is icumen in'_ is from the mid-13th century and has 3rd's bouncing off the walls as the piece goes through its stacking of the main melody.

Also, _fauxbourdon_, _Fauxbourdon (also Fauxbordon, and also commonly two words: Faux bourdon or Faulx bourdon) - French for false bass - is a technique of musical harmonisation used in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, particularly by composers of the Burgundian School. Guillaume Dufay was a prominent practitioner of the form, and may have been its inventor. The homophony and mostly parallel harmony allows the text of the mostly liturgical lyrics to be understood clearly. In its simplest form, fauxbourdon consists of the cantus firmus and two other parts a sixth and a perfect fourth below. To prevent monotony, or create a cadence, the lowest voice sometimes jumps down to the octave, and any of the accompanying voices may have minor embellishments. Usually just a small part of a composition employs the fauxbourdon technique._

Fauxbourdon sounds like a series of first inversion chords - very noticeable when the technique appears in the music.



BurningDesire said:


> Your supposition is also silly. Consider that thirds and sixths were considered fairly dissonant basically until the Baroque period, and tritones were pretty much unacceptable until then. Such things are common in Beethoven's writing. The whole consideration is a bit odd, but in both directions. You can't say his is unverifiable and then posit your own unverifiable idea. Maybe they would have thought it dissonant. There were contemporaries of Beethoven who thought he was far too dissonant, but then there was music written before him which actually has a fair amount in common with 20th Century composition, so who knows?


----------



## Guest

Ramako said:


> Beethoven's music caught hold pretty fast and caught hold very hard.


This was neither universal nor consistent. There are plenty of contemporary accounts of how unmusical his music was. How incomprehensible. How his deafness made him accept any sound, however ugly. And so forth.

And those did not end with his increasing reputation, either.

This isn't the place to go into a lot of historical detail, but generally Beethoven's fame was part and parcel of the new thinking about music (see Romantic idealism) and the new sense of Germany's replacement of Italy as the hegemonic musical country. (The new sense of Germany as Germany, for that matter.)



Ramako said:


> The man was a legend in his lifetime, even though often people did not understand his music.


It might be instructive to note that this was equally true for Wagner and for Cage.



Ramako said:


> Still, only the future can tell how modern music will be accepted...


And we're in the present. That could so easily be enough. I don't understand why it's not. I find that I just cannot get worked up over how someone else's great-great grandchildren will think about the music I listen to. These are not only people I don't know, because they haven't been born yet but are also people I will never know, because I'll be long dead by then.



Ramako said:


> Except that Beethoven was not only accepted 75 years after his death but was practically worshipped. For generations after his death people had to define themselves relative to his stature.


Part of that new thinking about music and value I referred to earlier, a kind of thinking that only really settled in good until about 60 years after Beethoven's death.

As for the legend, as Ken puts it. That was no legend. That was fact. It was not universally true is all. Neither is the adulation. Part of why he came to be considered "the greatest composer" by some was owing to the new idea that music has a moral dimension and thus greatness a valuable description of music and composers. The right guy in the right place at the right time kinda thing.

Simplifications are easier, true. Beethoven was misunderstood. Beethoven was idolized. But they rarely tell any more than just a part of the truth, which is much more complicated and messy than simplifications express. And replacing one simplification with another one is hardly a solution!


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## Sid James

I think this all boils down to:
- Atonal music has a 'point' if you like it
- Atonal music has no 'point' if you don't like it

Do we really need 86 pages to come to this conclusion? Geez.


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## crmoorhead

Sid James said:


> I think this all boils down to:
> - Atonal music has a 'point' if you like it
> - Atonal music has no 'point' if you don't like it
> 
> Do we really need 86 pages to come to this conclusion? Geez.


I think this dead horse has been well and truly flogged, but at least it attracts the flies.  I jest, of course, no offense intended.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> As for the legend, as Ken puts it. That was no legend. That was fact. It was not universally true is all. Neither is the adulation.


I'm not sure this is entirely accurate. As early as 1796, Beethoven could tell a friend, "I can sell everything that I write." Publishers were soon vying for his works because they could be profitably sold to an ever-wider audience. Even in his last years, his quartets were greatly in demand by publishers, who bid against each other for them. Incomprehensible? They didn't care, they had a public who would buy anything by Beethoven.

A good source for all this, and for Beethoven's commercial dealings generally, is Cooper's Beethoven.

BTW you're quite right that Beethoven wasn't universally admired. That remains true today of course.


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## Sid James

crmoorhead said:


> I think this dead horse has been well and truly flogged, but at least it attracts the flies.  I jest, of course, no offense intended.


Well maybe a kinder comparison would be like 'red rag to a bull.' If you put words like 'atonal' music in your thread title, you are bound to attract controversy simply by that fact.

Here's another (whimsical?) aside - bulls are colour blind.

& looky here, this 'reverse' thread has only 4 pages. It proves my point, does it not? 4 compared to 86.

http://www.talkclassical.com/20208-what-point-tonal-music.html


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## arpeggio

Sid James said:


> I think this all boils down to:
> - Atonal music has a 'point' if you like it
> - Atonal music has no 'point' if you don't like it
> 
> Do we really need 86 pages to come to this conclusion? Geez.


This is the point I have tried to make myself.


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## arpeggio

*Beating a dead horse.*



Sid James said:


> If you put words like 'atonal' music in your thread title, you are bound to attract controversy simply by that fact.


This is a point I tried to make in another forum about Xenakis. I posted, "As I stated in another thread all one has to do is mention 'atonal' or '12-tone' or 'avant-garde' or 'Schoenberg', etc. and World War Three or a reasonable facsimile breaks out. Unfortunately after 90 years there are still those who want to quarrel over this music."


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## Ramako

KenOC said:


> There is a collection of contemporary reviews of his music here:
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/
> 
> The level of enthusasm for his music increases quite quickly after the first few reviews. These reviews may also help address the question, did his contemporaries hear his music as we do?


Very interesting. It is particularly instructive to read the traditional formulation of (essentially) - Haydn is innocent, made instrumental music - followed by Mozart who is the foretaste of - Beethoven who sees the true essence of music - written in 1810.


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## Ramako

@some guy, I don't even know what I learn from your post other than that you are trying to disagree with me, which you seem to go to some lengths to try to do...


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## Ramako

arpeggio said:


> This is a point I tried to make in another forum about Xenakis. I posted, "As I stated in another thread all one has to do is mention 'atonal' or '12-tone' or 'avant-garde' or 'Schoenberg', etc. and World War Three or a reasonable facsimile breaks out. Unfortunately after 90 years there are still those who want to quarrel over this music."


And the best thing is that we are arguing about Beethoven now  This is clearly very relevant.


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## KenOC

Ramako said:


> Very interesting. It is particularly instructive to read the traditional formulation of (essentially) - Haydn is innocent, made instrumental music - followed by Mozart who is the foretaste of - Beethoven who sees the true essence of music - written in 1810.


That whole bit, which is actually quite famous, was written by ETA Hoffmann (yes, that Hoffmann). He classifies Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as "romantic" composers! Here's a better translation:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/eta-hoffman-on-beethoven


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## brianwalker

mud said:


> Pragmatically, tonal and atonal music have the same point: inspiring people to buy it.


*False.* Bach didn't write his music for wealth or else he would've changed his style to the gallant, monophonic music that was sweeping Europe during the later parts of his life. He continued composing in a style he thought was that which best glorified God even when it *defied the King of Prussia. *

Beethoven wrote the 11th String Quartet never intending it for public performance.

Schoenberg wrote to pander to the public For popularity?

I could go on and on and on and on.

Art music is not economically pragmatic; never has been, never will be.



some guy said:


> But but but.... Your venture is equally unverifiable...but have only given one occurrence. Are we supposed to be so impressed by the ess that we don't notice that you actually only given us one thing?


I. Hence I said "venture" and was more hesitant in my claim. 
II. Japan is one instance of the acceptance of Beethoven in cultures which didn't have a European musical culture which made them "accustomed" to many of the conventions Beethoven followed. This is evidence that the claim that there needs to be a musical culture where the audience is already accustomed to the harmonic language of the composition so that the compositions which are harmonically novel are only novel in a small way, a gradual way, and that sudden leaps necessarily cause misunderstanding. The opposite claim, the 16th century audiences would never accept Beethoven, or would treat Beethoven as the public now treats Schoenberg, has no empirical support whatsoever.



Sid James said:


> I think this all boils down to:
> - Atonal music has a 'point' if you like it
> - Atonal music has no 'point' if you don't like it
> 
> Do we really need 86 pages to come to this conclusion? Geez.


You obviously did not read the debate between me and millionrainbows; it was not the point of atonal music, as understood by the composers and its audience (Schoenberg wanted people to hum his tunes like people hum Tchaikovsky's tunes), but the "inevitability", the "unmistakeable progress" that he claims to discern in the history of Western tonal music, the twelve tone method as the "supra-personal" Geist which developed for centuries and as finally made manifest at the beginning of the 20th century. He claims that *the factual structures* of equal temperament, the history of harmonic development in the Bach-Beethoven-Wagner line makes the twelve tone system a historical inevitability; this has a *normative implication* which is supposed factually grounded. I'm denying the normative implication. What is also at stake is whether Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner can be said to be precursors to Schoenberg and whether Schoenberg is a proper part of that tradition, and whether it's justifiable to import into non-operatic music the wildest modulations in Tristan und Isolde and other music dramas which are "chromatic". There are atonal pieces which I like but consider decadent and distorted, genius managing to break through the straight jacket of an arbitrary system (Berg's Violin Concerto), and would consider to have been better if composed tonally. Also, the dichotomy between absolute liking or disliking a piece is dubious; you can still like a flawed work; it's quite possible to point out the pointless elements in a work that otherwise makes a great point.


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## KenOC

brianwalker said:


> Art music is not economically pragmatic; never has been, never will be.


A bit too absolute! Even LvB's late quartets were driven, at least partially, by economically pragmatic considerations. From Cooper's Beethoven: "It is often assumed that, after the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven turned his back on the public, withdrawing into a private world to write string quartets purely for his own satisfaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although his late quartets were supposedly sparked off by a request from Galitzin and sustained by his own love of the genre, it was public demand, filtered through a number of publishers, that fuelled this unprecedented burst of activity in a single genre. Beethoven had been asked for quartets by both Schlesinger and Peters even before Galitzin's commission had arrived; and Schott's and probably Steiner had joined the chase before a note of Op. 127 had been written. These and other publishers then sustained Beethoven's activities with offers of high rewards unmatched, as Schlesinger confirmed, in other types of music... He had, it is true, received 600 fl. from Schott's for the Ninth Symphony -- more than the 360 fl. now being offered for a quartet -- but in proportion to the work involved the rate was lower."


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## Sid James

brianwalker said:


> ...
> 
> You obviously did not read the debate between me and millionrainbows; it was not the point of atonal music, as understood by the composers and its audience (Schoenberg wanted people to hum his tunes like people hum Tchaikovsky's tunes), but the "inevitability", the "unmistakeable progress" that he claims to discern in the history of Western tonal music, the twelve tone method as the "supra-personal" Geist which developed for centuries and as finally made manifest at the beginning of the 20th century. He claims that *the factual structures* of equal temperament, the history of harmonic development in the Bach-Beethoven-Wagner line makes the twelve tone system a historical inevitability; this has a *normative implication* which is supposed factually grounded. I'm denying the normative implication. What is also at stake is whether Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner can be said to be precursors to Schoenberg and whether Schoenberg is a proper part of that tradition,
> ...


I did skim read your debate with millionrainbows and I am aware of that 'lineage' which Schoenberg saw himself part of, streching back to J.S. Bach. I would say there are commonalities and differences between him and guys like Wagner, Beethoven, Bach and so on. I suppose a big commonality is that they all wrote contrapuntal music, they where all very much interested in that. But then again, so did contemporaries of Schoenberg, like Busoni and Reger, they would see themselves as going back to Bach as well. It was a trend in the early 20th century, Mendelssohn was its percursor in the 19th century, and of course after WWI - the neo-classical fad - it really hotted up. So you had guys like Stravinsky and Bartok who also went 'back to Bach' and many others, big and small. Being composers, they where well versed in the scores of other composers along that historical 'contiuum.'

But apart from placing Schoenberg in that historical context, I see little point in arguing about inevitability. What conclusion one makes about inevitability or lack thereof regarding the emergence of serialism will ultimately depend on the person's bias and ideology.

I don't think I have much to add on this debate, other than I'm aware of it, but to me as a listener of many types of music, it has little difference in making me enjoy the music or not. I mean I am aware of Wagner's position as one of the great innovators of his time but hate his music. Similar with Bach, I recognise his greatness, but some pieces of his I don't like, others I love.

So again, I'd say it basically boils down to what we like and what we don't like and then attaching various bits and pieces to that - be it historical facts, dates, quotes, anecdotes, technical things, all that stuff.


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## Guest

Ramako said:


> @some guy, I don't even know what I learn from your post other than that you are trying to disagree with me, which you seem to go to some lengths to try to do...


I, on the other hand, have learned quite a lot, from just this.

(I did not have to try, just by the way.)


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## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> This is a point I tried to make in another forum about Xenakis. I posted, "As I stated in another thread all one has to do is mention 'atonal' or '12-tone' or 'avant-garde' or 'Schoenberg', etc. and World War Three or a reasonable facsimile breaks out. Unfortunately after 90 years there are still those who want to quarrel over this music."


And there we have the crux of the matter. 
90 years later there are many people, music lovers and musicians who have not come to terms with atonal music. (I am going to persist in using the term because it is a shorthand)
90 years after Bach there was no such problem with his music. 90 years after Beethoven there was no such problem with his. Nobody in 1820 would quarrel over whether or not Bach's music was perfectly understandable. Nobody in 1920 would have puzzled over the 'point' of Beethoven writing like he did.
These facts indicate to me that it is more than just a question of time. There is a fundamental difference between music which is rooted in triadic harmony however chromatic and tenuous it's link and music which has broken completely free of it.

Take the chord progression IV-V-I. When Bach does it it sounds different from when Brahms does it and from when Gershwin, Muddy Waters and Lady Gaga do it. And yet they _all_ do it. (Cole Porter too). Xenakis and Boulez don't do it.
This is a simplification for sure but I think the point is valid.

I'm not calling Xenakis or Boulez invalid or questioning their audience's right to enjoy their music. I am trying to show why i think "there are those who still want to quarrel over this music."


----------



## brianwalker

Sid James said:


> But apart from placing Schoenberg in that historical context, I see* little point in arguing about inevitability.* What conclusion one makes about inevitability or lack thereof regarding the emergence of serialism will ultimately depend on the person's bias and ideology.


The Hegelian religion of Schoenbergian Progress ruined entire generations of composers and alienated the general public from the art music culture, giving free reign to pop music to colonize the ears of our young and inculcate into them the pernicious values of rock, punk, metal, etc. The supposed necessity of atonality is a virulent strain of secularized religious Hegelianism supported by sophistry and Stalinist rhetoric.

Most people have an intrinsic yearning for the new, the what-came-out-last month, the present; atonality destroyed the musical culture in which Brahms composed along sides with Johann Strauss II with its quixotic metanarrative of the inevitability of the "demise of tonality" and the fetish with a rebellion again convention, the convention that allowed composers from Mozart to Brahms to flourish. This cleft musical culture right into two as there were no more easy, cliched, and most importantly, new tonal works by which the audience could gain appreciation for art music and use that as a step stone or a trial of cookie crumbs to retrace their steps back to the classics. This is why classical audiences are shrinking, this is why Lady Gaga and Nikki Minaj has taken over the world.

Even if the only composers who were working today were on the caliber of Johann Strauss II that continuity would not be broken, a common thread that will keep the museum of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc, alive. The problem with our music culture is not that it's a museum but it's a poorly kept, derelict, underfunded, marginalized, overshadowed museum. It is the most underrated museum in the world because the museum's curators, in an effort to make progress, hang the ugliest, most vile, grotesque and repugnant paintings and sculptures at the front of the museum and scare most people away.



Petwhac said:


> There is a fundamental difference between music which is rooted in triadic harmony however chromatic and tenuous it's link and music which has broken completely free of it.


This gets to the heart of the matter. There's a fundamental, *qualitative*, not merely quantitative, difference between putting salt and pepper on your steak and swallowing spoonfuls of salt and pepper wholesale. *Quantity has its own quality*; once the quantity is high or low enough, and after that quantity has been reached the difference cannot be described as merely quantitative, *as part of a continuum* of something.

*There is no line from Bach to Schoenberg*.* There was Bach; there was Haydn and Mozart; Beethoven and Schubert and Schumann and Brahms; Wagner and Bruckner and Mahler and Strauss; Debussy; Schoenberg.

*Unless your line look like this.








Is my rhetoric too impertinent? Has my language gone on a holiday too? I merely fight fire with fire.



millionrainbows said:


> Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. *You can swallow, can't you?*


*Yes, I can swallow;* but I prefer steak most of the time. I also avoid chewing on gravel to protect my excellent teeth.


----------



## arpeggio

*What's the Beef*



Petwhac said:


> I'm not calling Xenakis or Boulez invalid or questioning their audience's right to enjoy their music. I am trying to show why i think "there are those who still want to quarrel over this music."


This is exactly what I do not understand. I am not particularly fond of most avant-garde music: Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono _etc._ I like Krzysztof Penderecki and Lutosławski. Why? I do not know. If I dislike something, I simply do not listen to it. I have no desire to "quarrel over this music".


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## Guest

brianwalker said:


> The Hegelian religion of Schoenbergian Progress ruined entire generations of composers and alienated the general public from the art music culture, giving free reign to pop music to colonize the ears of our young and inculcate into them the pernicious values of rock, punk, metal, etc. The supposed necessity of atonality is a virulent strain of secularized religious Hegelianism supported by sophistry and Stalinist rhetoric.


Eh? I realise that some threads on here are for the hyper-intelligent, but just occasionally, terminology could be used that makes sense to the "below-average" classical listener.

I do, however, understand the meaning of the term 'pernicious'. Are you being serious?


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## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> This is exactly what I do not understand. I am not particularly fond of most avant-garde music: Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono _etc._ I like Krzysztof Penderecki and Lutosławski. Why? I do not know. If I dislike something, I simply do not listen to it. I have no desire to "quarrel over this music".


Well I think most of the quarrelling starts when some music lover says 'I just don't like serial or avant-garde music'. By this they obviously mean that they have yet to hear any that really keeps them coming back for more. What happens next is that they are told that:
1. They aren't _approaching_ it correctly.
2. They are narrow minded.
3. It is great music because Academia has proclaimed it so.
4. If they listened more to it they _may_ understand and like it more. (This is true up to a point but no more than for any music be it Indian Raga or Hip Hop.
5.__________________________ I'll let millionrainbows fill this one in with concepts like inevitability, necessity, etc,etc.
6. And the most (in my opinion) misguided view: Because people rioted at the premiere of The Rite Of Spring which is now a staple of the concert repertoire, the general concert going public will eventually accept Ferneyhough and Xenakis as they now do Stravinsky.


----------



## EricABQ

Petwhac said:


> 5.__________________________ I'll let millionrainbows fill this one in with concepts like inevitability, necessity, etc,etc.


You're going to need a much longer line than that.


----------



## brianwalker

arpeggio said:


> This is exactly what I do not understand. I am not particularly fond of most avant-garde music: Cage, Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono _etc._ I like Krzysztof Penderecki and Lutosławski. Why? I do not know. If I dislike something, I simply do not listen to it. I have no desire to "quarrel over this music".


But the quarrel over music desires you, my friend.



MacLeod said:


> Eh? I realise that some threads on here are for the hyper-intelleigent, but just occasionally, terminology could be used that makes sense to the "below-average" classical listener.
> 
> I do, however, understand the meaning of the term 'pernicious'. Are you being serious?


Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> Words ought to be a little wild, for they are *the assault of thoughts on the unthinking*.


So, your answer appears to be that the unintelligible post I quoted is wild and will assault me, the unthinking, presumably to get me to think?

And again you borrow another's words, seeming to claim them as your own (John Maynard Keynes).


----------



## brianwalker

MacLeod said:


> So, your answer appears to be that the unintelligible post I quoted is wild and will assault me, the unthinking, presumably to get me to think?


Wasn't replying to you.



> And again you borrow another's words, seeming to claim them as your own (John Maynard Keynes).


Of course I plagiarize. It is the privilege of the appreciative man.


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> Wasn't replying to you..


How else am I to interpret your post...



> _
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Originally Posted by *MacLeod*
> 
> Eh? I realise that some threads on here are for the hyper-intelleigent, but just occasionally, terminology could be used that makes sense to the "below-average" classical listener.
> 
> I do, however, understand the meaning of the term 'pernicious'. Are you being serious?
> 
> _Brianwalker;
> 
> Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.


----------



## KenOC

brianwalker said:


> Of course I plagiarize. It is the privilege of the appreciative man.


"So plagiarize, let no one else's work evade your eyes..."


----------



## brianwalker

MacLeod said:


> How else am I to interpret your post...


The sequence.



Sid James said:


> I did skim read your debate with millionrainbows and I am aware of that 'lineage' which Schoenberg saw himself part of, streching back to J.S. Bach. I would say there are commonalities and differences between him and guys like Wagner, Beethoven, Bach and so on. I suppose a big commonality is that they all wrote contrapuntal music, they where all very much interested in that. But then again, so did contemporaries of Schoenberg, like Busoni and Reger, they would see themselves as going back to Bach as well. It was a trend in the early 20th century, Mendelssohn was its percursor in the 19th century, and of course after WWI - the neo-classical fad - it really hotted up. So you had guys like Stravinsky and Bartok who also went 'back to Bach' and many others, big and small. Being composers, they where well versed in the scores of other composers along that historical 'contiuum.'
> 
> But apart from placing Schoenberg in that historical context, I see little point in arguing about inevitability. What conclusion one makes about inevitability or lack thereof regarding the emergence of serialism will ultimately depend on the person's bias and ideology.
> 
> I don't think I have much to add on this debate, other than I'm aware of it, but to me as a listener of many types of music, it has little difference in making me enjoy the music or not. I mean I am aware of Wagner's position as one of the great innovators of his time but hate his music. Similar with Bach, I recognise his greatness, but some pieces of his I don't like, others I love.
> 
> So again, I'd say it basically boils down to what we like and what we don't like and then attaching various bits and pieces to that - be it historical facts, dates, quotes, anecdotes, technical things, all that stuff.





brianwalker said:


> The Hegelian religion of Schoenbergian Progress ruined entire generations of composers and alienated the general public from the art music culture, giving free reign to pop music to colonize the ears of our young and inculcate into them the pernicious values of rock, punk, metal, etc. The supposed necessity of atonality is a virulent strain of secularized religious Hegelianism supported by sophistry and Stalinist rhetoric.
> 
> Most people have an intrinsic yearning for the new, the what-came-out-last month, the present; atonality destroyed the musical culture in which Brahms composed along sides with Johann Strauss II with its quixotic metanarrative of the inevitability of the "demise of tonality" and the fetish with a rebellion again convention, the convention that allowed composers from Mozart to Brahms to flourish. This cleft musical culture right into two as there were no more easy, cliched, and most importantly, new tonal works by which the audience could gain appreciation for art music and use that as a step stone or a trial of cookie crumbs to retrace their steps back to the classics. This is why classical audiences are shrinking, this is why Lady Gaga and Nikki Minaj has taken over the world.
> 
> Even if the only composers who were working today were on the caliber of Johann Strauss II that continuity would not be broken, a common thread that will keep the museum of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc, alive. The problem with our music culture is not that it's a museum but it's a poorly kept, derelict, underfunded, marginalized, overshadowed museum. It is the most underrated museum in the world because the museum's curators, in an effort to make progress, hang the ugliest, most vile, grotesque and repugnant paintings and sculptures at the front of the museum and scare most people away.
> 
> This gets to the heart of the matter. There's a fundamental, *qualitative*, not merely quantitative, difference between putting salt and pepper on your steak and swallowing spoonfuls of salt and pepper wholesale. *Quantity has its own quality*; once the quantity is high or low enough, and after that quantity has been reached the difference cannot be described as merely quantitative, *as part of a continuum* of something.
> 
> *There is no line from Bach to Schoenberg*.* There was Bach; there was Haydn and Mozart; Beethoven and Schubert and Schumann and Brahms; Wagner and Bruckner and Mahler and Strauss; Debussy; Schoenberg.
> 
> *Unless your line look like this.
> View attachment 9179
> 
> 
> Is my rhetoric too impertinent? Has my language gone on a holiday too? I merely fight fire with fire.
> 
> *Yes, I can swallow;* but I prefer steak most of the time. I also avoid chewing on gravel to protect my excellent teeth.





MacLeod said:


> Eh? I realise that some threads on here are for the hyper-intelligent, but just occasionally, terminology could be used that makes sense to the "below-average" classical listener.
> 
> I do, however, understand the meaning of the term 'pernicious'. Are you being serious?





brianwalker said:


> But the quarrel over music desires you, my friend.
> 
> Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking.


*IN SUMMARY. 
*

Even if the relationship between Wagner and Schoenberg were that of a simple, one-dimensional, linear progression towards the "stretching" of tonality, which it is not, as I have pointed out over and over again in the posts where Wagner's modulations are dissected, it does not justify the portrait of Wagner as a "Proto-Schoenbergian" or that Wagner "anticipated" Schoenberg. Wagner's relationship to Schoenberg is the same as that of a medium rare steak to a live cow. Red in your meat does not justify running into the fields and tearing at live cows with your teeth.

Beethoven; Wagner; Schoenberg; Webern: Well done; medium rare; steak tartare; a live cow.


----------



## etkearne

Any new developments in the past two or three weeks in this thread? I really can't focus enough to hunt through 20-30 pages of stuff which much of it is angry posting (which is understandable as it is a "hot topic" but I just would rather read the informative stuff right now). 

To re-new my point on what the POINT of atonal music is: It is individual but I can think of two main "points":

1. Experimentation - hundreds of years of major and minor chords (with major a dominant seventh and a rare diminished thrown in for good measure) over a handful of scales (major, minor, Harmonic Minor, maybe Dorian mode, Melodic Minor Ascending, etc.) made composers bored in all likelihood. They just wanted to experiment and breathe a little. 

2. Novel Emotions - atonal music or highly dissonant music (most people incorrectly label highly dissonant modern music as atonal) can bring forth strange and nearly "psychedelic" emotional platforms which simply don't arise from tonal cadences (at least in my experience and the experience of my classical music "convert" buddies I hang out with). I still remember my first atonal piece... (kind of sounds like someone reminiscing about their first time smoking pot or something similar...)


----------



## Sid James

brianwalker said:


> ....
> 
> *IN SUMMARY.
> *
> 
> Even if the relationship between Wagner and Schoenberg were that of a simple, one-dimensional, linear progression towards the "stretching" of tonality, which it is not, as I have pointed out over and over again in the posts where Wagner's modulations are dissected, it does not justify the portrait of Wagner as a "Proto-Schoenbergian" or that Wagner "anticipated" Schoenberg. Wagner's relationship to Schoenberg is the same as that of a medium rare steak to a live cow. Red in your meat does not justify running into the fields and tearing at live cows with your teeth.
> 
> Beethoven; Wagner; Schoenberg; Webern: Well done; medium rare; steak tartare; a live cow.


The most common school of thought is that Schoenberg was one of the composers around early 20th century who was addressing the 'crisis of tonality.' A lot of this came out of Wagner's _Parsifal,_ actually, that's pretty much baseline opinion. One critic jokingly called Schoenberg's _Transfigured Night _"Parsifal with the ink smeared."

But there where other composers addressing this 'crisis,' eg. Debussy (who was a big Wagner fan early on, but later went to great pains to be as distanced from him as much as possible). But Debussy went another route to Schoenberg entirely, eg. using the Asian pentatonic scale. I'd say he was equally revolutionary, but because Claude's music sounds 'nice' in comparison to ARnie's, Arnie becomes a whipping boy and a bogeyman. Others like Ives and Scriabin where also doing radical things, but Arnie gets the blame. Yeah, let's all blame him, he's an easy target, right?

Schoenberg's famous quote "I was a conservative forced to become a radical" feeds into all this.

But this is not the topic of this thread. This thread has not much to do with history or philosophy or whatever. It basically boils down to the 'point' of atonal music. In other words, whether people value it or like it, or not. Cut the gibberish and jargon and that's what it basically comes down to.


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> Well I think most of the quarrelling starts when some music lover says 'I just don't like serial or avant-garde music'.


You are wrong. And it's not at all difficult to demonstrate, since the quarrelling on online forums is all out there, readable by anyone.

It's very rare that anyone is criticized for making a simple statement of taste. Sometimes the reason for making that statement has been questioned--I've done this myself when it seems like the reason for saying it is to suggest that "serial or avant-garde" music" _cannot_ be liked, or at least not by normal or ordinary people.

The quarrelling often starts with the OP, as was the case with this gargantuan thread that we're making ginormouser by the second. That is, a person who is opposed to new music says something really outrageous about it. It's not natural. It's not music. It's fundamentally flawed. There's no intent to communicate with the audience. There's no way the human mind can process it. And so forth.



Petwhac said:


> By this they obviously mean that they have yet to hear any that really keeps them coming back for more.


Hmmm. This is true for everyone? How do you know? Obvious? Nah. I'll bet you can think of three or four other reasons for what they mean.



Petwhac said:


> What happens next is that they are told that:
> 1. They aren't _approaching_ it correctly.
> 2. They are narrow minded.
> 3. It is great music because Academia has proclaimed it so.
> 4. If they listened more to it they _may_ understand and like it more. (This is true up to a point but no more than for any music be it Indian Raga or Hip Hop.
> 5.__________________________ I'll let millionrainbows fill this one in with concepts like inevitability, necessity, etc,etc.
> 6. And the most (in my opinion) misguided view: Because people rioted at the premiere of The Rite Of Spring which is now a staple of the concert repertoire, the general concert going public will eventually accept Ferneyhough and Xenakis as they now do Stravinsky.


If you'll take the time to look back over any thread in which the troublesome issues of serial or atonal or avant garde music comes up, you will most assuredly not find anything of the sort. Some of these responses may come up, but not to "I just don't like it." Or if they do, it's after the quarrelling has already commenced, "I just don't like it" being part of the quarrelling, not the thing that precipitates it.

As far as I can recall, I have never seen anyone claim that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that any other particular piece will be eventually accepted, though I have seen it claimed over and over again that that's what's being claimed. _That_ claim has been made so often that it almost passes for current. Almost. It's not. It's just another straw man. Easily constructed; easily destroyed. How convenient. Except that no one is making the point that's so easily destroyed. What they're really saying (at the very least, to avoid some pointless wrangling, what _I_ say) is that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that those who make negative responses to things outside their experience or their zone of comfort might want to think twice about their ideas. After all, people like them have been wrong before. Not that disliking something necessarily means you're wrong about that thing, but that responding negatively to something new has indeed been demonstrated over and over again in the past to be premature.


----------



## BurningDesire

brianwalker said:


> The Hegelian religion of Schoenbergian Progress ruined entire generations of composers and alienated the general public from the art music culture, giving free reign to pop music to colonize the ears of our young and inculcate into them the pernicious values of rock, punk, metal, etc. The supposed necessity of atonality is a virulent strain of secularized religious Hegelianism supported by sophistry and Stalinist rhetoric.
> 
> Most people have an intrinsic yearning for the new, the what-came-out-last month, the present; atonality destroyed the musical culture in which Brahms composed along sides with Johann Strauss II with its quixotic metanarrative of the inevitability of the "demise of tonality" and the fetish with a rebellion again convention, the convention that allowed composers from Mozart to Brahms to flourish. This cleft musical culture right into two as there were no more easy, cliched, and most importantly, new tonal works by which the audience could gain appreciation for art music and use that as a step stone or a trial of cookie crumbs to retrace their steps back to the classics. This is why classical audiences are shrinking, this is why Lady Gaga and Nikki Minaj has taken over the world.
> 
> Even if the only composers who were working today were on the caliber of Johann Strauss II that continuity would not be broken, a common thread that will keep the museum of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, etc, alive. The problem with our music culture is not that it's a museum but it's a poorly kept, derelict, underfunded, marginalized, overshadowed museum. It is the most underrated museum in the world because the museum's curators, in an effort to make progress, hang the ugliest, most vile, grotesque and repugnant paintings and sculptures at the front of the museum and scare most people away.
> 
> This gets to the heart of the matter. There's a fundamental, *qualitative*, not merely quantitative, difference between putting salt and pepper on your steak and swallowing spoonfuls of salt and pepper wholesale. *Quantity has its own quality*; once the quantity is high or low enough, and after that quantity has been reached the difference cannot be described as merely quantitative, *as part of a continuum* of something.
> 
> *There is no line from Bach to Schoenberg*.* There was Bach; there was Haydn and Mozart; Beethoven and Schubert and Schumann and Brahms; Wagner and Bruckner and Mahler and Strauss; Debussy; Schoenberg.
> 
> *Unless your line look like this.
> View attachment 9179
> 
> 
> Is my rhetoric too impertinent? Has my language gone on a holiday too? I merely fight fire with fire.
> 
> *Yes, I can swallow;* but I prefer steak most of the time. I also avoid chewing on gravel to protect my excellent teeth.


If you can't see the connections between Schoenberg and Wagner, or even Schoenberg and Beethoven, or Mozart, or Bach, maybe you should spend more time reading and listening to experts and actually listening to the music instead of talking about it like you know everything. To say that classical music's audience is shrinking because of Schoenberg is beyond absurd. I don't appreciate the condescension towards rock and popular music, idioms which contain music as beautiful as that in the classical realm. I don't appreciate the emphasis on Germany, like its the only country that matters in classical music. It isn't. I really don't appreciate the cruel insults being thrown around about modern music, which reeks of bigotry, and ignores the huge variety of different kinds of music that was made and is being made in modern times, as if serialist music was the only thing being done for the past century. It wasn't. I like how your line of progression completely ignores vital elements, like Berlioz being a profound influence on your beloved Wagner, and Antonio Salieri being of pretty significant influence on Beethoven, considering he was one of his teachers. Musical evolution isn't a simple straight line. Just as with biological evolution, there are many divergent pathways. Schoenberg is certainly connected to Bach, and to Wagner, and to Brahms. Composers take influence from a variety of sources, and different ways of thinking about music. Schoenberg is heavily influenced by the strict and traditional counterpoint and harmony of Bach, and Brahms. In that way, one could describe him as something of a conservative, but he was also very much a Romantic and a musical progressive, like Wagner. His music is extremely emotional and passionate, and he was unafraid of pushing forward and expanding the harmonic and melodic vocabulary to suit his artistic needs, just as Wagner did. Its really not that hard to figure out when you aren't blinded by prejudice.


----------



## Sid James

Re Schoenberg's legacy & image, all that stuff people are talking about here, I just made this thread -
http://www.talkclassical.com/22070-schoenberg-bogeyman-messiah-classical.html


----------



## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> Its really not that hard to figure out when you aren't blinded by prejudice.


But when you are....


----------



## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> If you can't see the connections between Schoenberg and Wagner, or even Schoenberg and Beethoven, or Mozart, or Bach, maybe you should spend more time reading and listening to experts and actually listening to the music instead of talking about it like you know everything.


Of course there are connections; look at the picture I posted--the dots are all connected.



> To say that classical music's audience is shrinking because of Schoenberg is beyond absurd.


Many people have been saying it for years and have found the courage to say it despite the shaming that comes along with it from people like you who lambaste them as "regressive" and "out of touch" and "living int he 19th century", etc. The aggressive promotion of modern music drives people away.  The gunpoint Hegelian rhetoric that the twelve tone technique was the absolute future of music and that tonality was dead, exemplified with this quote from Boulez ("[A]ny musician who has not experienced - I do not say understood, but truly experienced - the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS. For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch.") has forced many people to falsely believe that modern music is part of the tradition and that if you don't like modern music you don't like classical altogether. To say that classical music's audience did not shrink because of Schoenberg is beyond absurd.



> I don't appreciate the condescension towards rock and popular music, idioms which contain music as beautiful as that in the classical realm.


Suit yourself.



> I don't appreciate the emphasis on Germany, like its the only country that matters in classical music.


Never said it was; millionrainbows brought up the "Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-Mahler-Schoenberg" line, not me.



> It isn't. I really don't appreciate the cruel insults being thrown around about modern music, which reeks of bigotry, and ignores the huge variety of different kinds of music that was made and is being made in modern times, as if serialist music was the only thing being done for the past century.


I said I liked Ligeti and that his music is quite expressive, give me some credit.



> I like how your line of progression completely ignores vital elements, like Berlioz being a profound influence on your beloved Wagner, and Antonio Salieri being of pretty significant influence on Beethoven, considering he was one of his teachers.


_*That's my whole point; *_progression of harmonic language and influence is secondary, which is why I brought up myself the influence of J. C. Bach on Mozart, which is why I made the Verdi/Liszt thread.



> Musical evolution isn't a simple straight line.


Read this, son. I've been the one arguing most vehemently and vociferously that musical evolution is not a straight line all along.



brianwalker said:


> *There is no line from Bach to Schoenberg*.* There was Bach; there was Haydn and Mozart; Beethoven and Schubert and Schumann and Brahms; Wagner and Bruckner and Mahler and Strauss; Debussy; Schoenberg.
> 
> *Unless your line look like this.
> View attachment 9179



View attachment 9179


Does this line look straight to you?



> Schoenberg is certainly connected to Bach, and to Wagner, and to Brahms. Composers take influence from a variety of sources, and different ways of thinking about music. Schoenberg is heavily influenced by the strict and traditional counterpoint and harmony of Bach, and Brahms. In that way, one could describe him as something of a conservative, but he was also very much a Romantic and a musical progressive, like Wagner. *His music is extremely emotional and passionate, *and he was unafraid of pushing forward and expanding the harmonic and melodic vocabulary to suit his artistic needs, just as Wagner did. Its really not that hard to figure out when you aren't blinded by prejudice.


I never denied that his music was passionate.


----------



## mmsbls

Petwhac said:


> Well I think most of the quarrelling starts when some music lover says 'I just don't like serial or avant-garde music'.


Discussions of serial or avant-garde music on TC often do lead to unpleasant exchanges. The internet is not a very good medium for discussions where faster feedback from the participants could help diffuse some of the antagonism. I think both sides share some blame for these exchanges.

To be fair, often the initial poster will say or strongly imply more than simply a lack of enjoyment in the music. Many posts have included derogatory statements about works or types of music. The statements go further than "I don't like this" to "The music itself is bad/inherently ugly/detrimental/etc.". These implications about the music can put those who enjoy it on the defensive. Those statements can make people feel _they_ are being personally attacked (e.g. "How can _you_ like music that no one can like?").

On the other hand, some defenders of modern music can be, perhaps, too quick to fight back at times. Some have told me they are sensitive to such attacks on modern music and are tired of having to defend it. That's certainly understandable. But I think people sometimes read more into posts than may actually be intended. People sometimes make statements _which do not imply value judgements_ or ask questions trying to understand aspects of music, and those posts are misunderstood. I can't speak for others, but I have had this happen to me.

As a possible example, I have read and reread the OP to this thread many times, and I believe the poster honestly wanted to start an interesting dialogue hoping to learn more about atonal music. The questions asked may seem naive to some, but the rationale was clear. The initial response to the OP was rather positive. There were 14 likes for that post, and the discussion was quite interesting with various viewpoints. Overall, I have found this thread to be one of TC's most interesting.

In a perfect world, those posting with negative comments on modern music could try to use less inflammatory wording (assuming that is not their intent). In addition, those replying to any posts on modern music could perhaps assume less negative intent on the part of the poster. Obviously, that world might be less interesting (for some) .


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> Many people have been saying it for years and have found the courage to say it despite the shaming that comes along with it from people like you


"Many people" are apparently really, really sensitive to any criticism. And really, really courageous, of course.:lol:



brianwalker said:


> The aggressive promotion of modern music drives people away.


Does it now? How delightful. Why that way, no one has to actually listen to any of that hideous stuff. All they have to do is run away from aggressive promoters. (Run away!!)



brianwalker said:


> The gunpoint Hegelian rhetoric that the twelve tone technique was the absolute future of music and that tonality was dead, exemplified with this quote from Boulez ("[A]ny musician who has not experienced - I do not say understood, but truly experienced - the necessity of dodecaphonic music is USELESS. For his whole work is irrelevant to the needs of his epoch.") has forced many people to falsely believe that modern music is part of the tradition and that if you don't like modern music you don't like classical altogether.


There's that "many people" thing, again. Apparently, many people are not only sensitive and courageous but easily influenced as well.

Who ARE these people?



brianwalker said:


> To say that classical music's audience did not shrink because of Schoenberg is beyond absurd.


The audience for living composers started to shrink in the early 1800s. Shortly after mid-century in the main musical towns of Europe (Paris, London, Leipzig, Vienna) the ratio of dead to living composers on concerts was in some instances as extreme as 9 to 1 or even 10 to zero. (In Haydn's time, that ratio was roughly 1 to 9.) Things were so bad by 1843 that a Viennese critic said "the public has got to stay in touch with the music of its time . . . for otherwise people will gradually come to mistrust music claimed to be the best." This is in Vienna, too, where the traditional attitude that old music was inferior to new persisted for awhile after London and Paris had begun squeezing out living composers from their concerts.

1800 not 1900.

William Weber's observation about post 1900 reactions goes like this: "After 1900 a suspicion of new music emerged among the classical music public that was far more categorical than what was expressed around 1870. A recurrent theme in many parts of Europe was the warning that the public found new works an insufferable burden. The standard repertory of classics had become so well known that almost anything unfamiliar was treated with suspicion." (_The Great Transformation of Musical Taste,_ p. 306.) While this is happening right around the time that Schoenberg was just starting to tinker with tonality, his works were not the ones being played or turning people away. Weber goes on to note that the "heightened suspicion of contemporary music was not triggered by the extravagances of an avant garde.... [N]either Arnold Schoenberg nor Igor Stravinsky broke fundamentally from traditional practices until almost 1910, and that music was not well known until the causes célèbres over _Rite of Spring_ and _Pierrot Lunaire_" (307-08).

Classical music's audience did not shrink because of Schoenberg.

I know it's become a deeply held belief, an unquestioned assumption, that it was Schoenberg's music and other avant garde monstrosities that drove classical audiences out of the halls, but the historical record indicates something _quite_ other. Indeed, Weber actually goes on to say that "_f anything, it was the heightened hostility to contemporary works [that] began driving composers into extreme directions" (308).

I don't go quite that far myself, but it's an attractive idea. Certainly Babbitt saw the abandonment of new music by traditional symphonic audiences as liberating. No one's going to be listening to you anyway, so embrace that and do what you need to do. His proposal that composers be funded to carry out their ideas, just as scientists are, was, sadly, not ever realized. Fortunately, composers continued to compose, and audiences for new music continued to grow._


----------



## Guest

someguy



> You are wrong. And it's not at all difficult to demonstrate, since the quarrelling on online forums is all out there, readable by anyone.


You're right. So I thought I'd check it out.



> It's very rare that anyone is criticized for making a simple statement of taste. Sometimes the reason for making that statement has been questioned--I've done this myself when it seems like the reason for saying it is to suggest that "serial or avant-garde" music" _cannot be liked, or at least not by normal or ordinary people.
> 
> The quarrelling often starts with the OP, as was the case with this gargantuan thread that we're making ginormouser by the second. That is, a person who is opposed to new music says something really outrageous about it._


In this thread, http://www.talkclassical.com/21938-hypotheses-why-certain-people.html etkearne also asked a perfectly reasonable question about "dissonant/atonal" music, and urged readers and contributors not to bash those of opposing opinions. No assertion that it can't be liked, or any outrageous comment about it.

After a few reasonable responses, it wasn't long before the suggestion was made that if only people would work at it, they would come to like it...

Burning Desire:



> I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music. It may be difficult at first, but there are so many things these composers have in common with more traditionally tonal composers that it doesn't take terribly long for one's listening vocabulary to grow to accept what occurs in their works, and enjoy them.


and a post from a member who reasonably asked for a definition of the types of music the OP was talking about, but wished to reserve themselves the right to bash.

someguy:



> [By the way, you really can't control our bashings, as Sid James has found out. Probably best to not even try. Remain civil yourself, if civility is what you value, and you're in the clear.]


Whilst BD's post provoked some mild reaction from Lukecash and petwhac, it wasn't until millionrainbows implied that listeners to tonal music were like Pavlov's dogs that we begin to see how a strongly phrased but reasonable assertion - that tonal appeals to the learned response - can breed discontent among those who would not to be portrayed as unthinking canines only able to enjoy 'easy listening'.



> I think it takes some effort to appreciate post-war serial-derived music, wheras with tonality, it's a knee-jerk reaction; the food smells good and Pavlov's unfortunate dogs begin to salivate. It's as simple as that.


On the other hand, HarpsichordConcerto's straightforward throwaway, though more direct, is easy to ignore.



> I can enjoy much of the post-war serial you mentioned (in particular opera), apart from the *avant-garde crap*, which is "composers" surrendering to any real creativity whatsoever.


Unfortunately, whilst the OP thought he was asking an innocent question, it was doomed to fail. The potential to explore how/why the human mind reacts to music in different ways got lost amongst the traditional tribal exchanges.


----------



## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> ....
> 
> Unfortunately, whilst the OP thought he was asking an innocent question, it was doomed to fail. The potential to explore how/why the human mind reacts to music in different ways got lost amongst the traditional *tribal* exchanges.


Yeah, sometimes I think we're not sophisticates listening to classical music in dinner jackets and drinking a fine wine, but more like a bunch of orcs going into battle:


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## BurningDesire

Sid James said:


> Yeah, sometimes I think we're not sophisticates listening to classical music in dinner jackets and drinking a fine wine, but more like a bunch of orcs going into battle:


Dude.... battle orcs are so much cooler than stuffy pseudo-intellectual snobs any day :3

edit: just to be clear to the mods, I'm not calling anybody here a stuffy pseudo-intellectual snob. I was referring to the hypothetical idea of sophisticates in dinner jackets drinking fine booze.


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## Sid James

BurningDesire said:


> Dude.... battle orcs are so much cooler than stuffy pseudo-intellectual snobs any day :3


Yeah, well you got a point of sorts :lol:

But seriously its just that when something like heavy metal or hip hop is mentioned, we all get on our high horses to say how superior we are to the people who listen to that kind of thing. We're much more civilised and intellectuals than those riff-raff. Or is it just that we can use fancy words and do these convoluted pseudo intellectual arguments?

But yeah, I'd take orcs over some people. What you see is what you get with those, but not with some smart aleks.


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## BurningDesire

Sid James said:


> Yeah, well you got a point of sorts :lol:
> 
> But seriously its just that when something like heavy metal or hip hop is mentioned, we all get on our high horses to say how superior we are to the people who listen to that kind of thing. We're much more civilised and intellectuals than those riff-raff. Or is it just that we can use fancy words and do these convoluted pseudo intellectual arguments?
> 
> But yeah, I'd take orcs over some people. What you see is what you get with those, but not with some smart aleks.


I don't o3o I like that kind of music.


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## mmsbls

MacLeod said:


> Unfortunately, whilst the OP thought he was asking an innocent question, it was doomed to fail. The potential to explore how/why the human mind reacts to music in different ways got lost amongst the traditional tribal exchanges.


I am quite interested in "how/why the human mind reacts to music in different ways." I have asked questions along these lines (and seen others ask similar questions) in various threads, but ultimately there seems to be relatively little interest. I'm not really surprised. I believe there are at least 2 reasons: 1) most people here are not scientifically oriented and 2) those questions are _extremely_ hard to make any progress on (even for cutting edge scientists/researchers now). Some can speculate, but we're all just guessing (even though that might be fun).

I have been fascinated by what _appears_ to me to be a vastly reduced interest in, for example, serial music (e.g. Second Viennese School) by classical music listeners (in order to define the group: say anyone who listens to any classical music at least twice a month). I don't understand why this would be. My first question, of course, is: Is there actually a clear reduced interest? Do we have any good data on people's preferences for music of various eras, and if so, is there a clear reduction of interest after late Romantic composers?

_some guy_ has posted information from Weber's _The Great Transformation of Musical Taste_ that indicates a reduction in programming of contemporary composers at live concerts starting back in the early 1800's. I thought that was quite interesting and useful. What I'd love to see is some analysis of how long it took various "great" composers to be "accepted" (there are problems with defining terms). What is the time delay for new music in the early 1800's, mid 1800's, late 1800's, etc. to become mainstream/enjoyed/popular? That's probably very hard to impossible to find.

Is the time delay much longer for music in the 1900's? We've had almost a century for the Second Viennese School's music. Is that too long to explain with the same reasons that applied to new music of the 1800's? If so, what is going on? As many people have pointed out, the changes were an extension of what had happened for the 50 years or so before. Why the discontinuity (_again assuming the effect is real_)? Simply referencing the fact that serial music is not tonal does not help much. Exactly why would music that has strayed farther (or broken from) from tonal centers be _significantly_ harder to enjoy?

People today can listen to more modern music in a year than I expect the average classical music listener of the 1800's did in their entire life. If people in the 1800's and early 1900's could learn to like "modern" music (i.e. music composed in the prior 30, 50, 70 years), what is different with current people's experiences? I have some thoughts on this, but nothing that seems to clears up the mystery.

I suspect most people here are not much interested in these questions, but I'd love to get answers. Of course, these questions have _nothing_ to do with whether modern music is fundamentally good, bad, better, worse, important, etc. My interest comes from a _perceived_ effect that I simply find mysterious. Well, that's the scientist in me.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> As far as I can recall, I have never seen anyone claim that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that any other particular piece will be eventually accepted, though I have seen it claimed over and over again that that's what's being claimed. _That_ claim has been made so often that it almost passes for current. Almost. It's not. It's just another straw man. Easily constructed; easily destroyed. How convenient. Except that no one is making the point that's so easily destroyed. What they're really saying (at the very least, to avoid some pointless wrangling, what _I_ say) is that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that those who make negative responses to things outside their experience or their zone of comfort might want to think twice about their ideas. After all, people like them have been wrong before. Not that disliking something necessarily means you're wrong about that thing, but that responding negatively to something new has indeed been demonstrated over and over again in the past to be premature.


Just when you had me thinking- "mmmm maybe I'm suffering from false memory syndrome and that since I don't have the time to trawl through hundreds of posts to back up my claim, I'll let it rest". Just before I read this-
*"What they're really saying (at the very least, to avoid some pointless wrangling, what I say) is that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that those who make negative responses to things outside their experience or their zone of comfort might want to think twice about their ideas."*

And-
"...*but that responding negatively to something new has indeed been demonstrated over and over again in the past to be premature".*

*New?* What's new about 12-tone music? Or Stockhausen or Xenakis? Some of us have been listening to _new_ (now quite old) music for *DECADES*. And guess what, a lot of it still fails to impress or resonate with the same force of harmonic based music. Conditioning? Maybe, maybe not. We only have anecdotal evidence and our own experience to draw on.

*"Outside their experience"? "Comfort zone"? *
Once upon a time Machaut was outside my experience as was Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto (much newer than those crusty old Second Viennesers). But with those it was a question of WOW I must hear that again, and again, and again.

I think you have actually reinforced my argument and demonstrated some of the assumptions made about the critics of atonal/avant-garde music that come to the fore.

I agree that a superficial acquaintance followed by a knee jerk response is not going to lend weight to an opinion on either Vivaldi or Varese. *But*- what about an in depth knowledge and considered response?


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## brianwalker

SottoVoce said:


> Yes, I think music needs to be understood before it can be liked in some cases. So what? I had to do the exact same thing with Beethoven's late quartets, hell I did even the same with Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony before I started to like it. Why is it so wrong to look at a piece in depth to love it? Maybe music doesn't need to be cried to. If that was the only thing music was for, as an expression and release of emotions, I'd be terribly disinterested in it.


*My work should be judged as it enters the ears and heads of listeners, not as it is described to the eyes of readers. 
*

~Arnold Schoenberg


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## Guest

mmsbls said:


> classical music listeners (in order to define the group: say anyone who listens to any classical music at least twice a month).


Ouch! Twice a month. How about twice a day? (Even that seems quite extreme to me. But there've been days in my life when I only listened to classical music about twice.)



mmsbls said:


> What I'd love to see is some analysis of how long it took various "great" composers to be "accepted" (there are problems with defining terms). What is the time delay for new music in the early 1800's, mid 1800's, late 1800's, etc. to become mainstream/enjoyed/popular? That's probably very hard to impossible to find.


One thing Weber notes in his book is the rise of the idea of greatness. Among other things, he traces the various fortunes of canonization throughout the century until Classical Music achieved hegemony. (It achieved such stature quite late in the century.)



mmsbls said:


> Is the time delay much longer for music in the 1900's?


Yes.



mmsbls said:


> We've had almost a century for the Second Viennese School's music.


This is a tricky one. Like Petwhac's strawman (which apparently he's not going to give up on!), this is frequently remarked. But how true is it? The dates, first of all: Schoenberg first wrote some pieces without any keys (pantonal) in 1909 if I recall. That's over a hundred years ago. But when were those pieces well known? And when, more importantly, was there a Second Viennese School? These things don't just happen over night. They take time. But still. A long time ago.

Attitudes, second of all: The anti-modernist stance is over two hundred years old. It was not as strong in 1810 as it was it 1910, and it took several hard knocks throughout the 19th century. But bolstered by Romantic idealism (which is still what drives the vast majority of ideas about music), it steadily grew, getting big bumps in 1830 and 1850 and 1870 (approximately) and an even bigger one in 1900, the one that secured it as a permanent thing. This goes right along with the idea of the canon, though anti-modernism lags behind that idea a little, naturally.

That is, anti-modernism was firmly ensconced before Schoenberg's pantonal and dodecaphonic music. Before the Second Viennese School. And it was also, for the first time, able to be reinforced by both musicology and technology--the rediscoveries, as it were, of Mozart and Vivaldi, and the invention of machines that would play whatever you wanted to hear. With the latter, you were for the first time in history able to listen to whatever you wanted without having to learn to play an instrument. So to speak. You were and are still at the mercy of record producers as you would have been at the mercy of concert producers. But still.



mmsbls said:


> Simply referencing the fact that serial music is not tonal does not help much. Exactly why would music that has strayed farther (or broken from) from tonal centers be _significantly_ harder to enjoy?


True words!! (And it is not significantly harder to enjoy for everyone. Just for some ones.)



mmsbls said:


> People today can listen to more modern music in a year than I expect the average classical music listener of the 1800's did in their entire life. If people in the 1800's and early 1900's could learn to like "modern" music (i.e. music composed in the prior 30, 50, 70 years), what is different with current people's experiences?


Can, yes. But there's not the desire. Music listeners wanted to hear new music in the 18th century and went to concerts expecting to hear new music. Throughout the 19th century, there were always some people complaining about the preponderance of old music on concerts. But those voices became fewer and fewer. Virgil Thompson's request for 1/3 new and 2/3 old as a reasonable ratio for concerts would have seemed very radical to a concert-goer in the 18th century, when the ratio hovered around 9 to one new to old. In the twentieth century, it seemed way too much for the new.

It's a self-perpetuating idea. If you hate modern music, then you tend not to listen to it (expect for reinforcing your idea of how awful it is), and you lose touch with what's going on right now (word in your ear, it's not serialism or atonality), and the best way to reinforce a prejudice is with ignorance. (How many kids do you know who have actually eaten the vegetables that they know they hate?) The most prominent difference between current attitudes and attitudes in 1900 is that nowadays we accept recent music if it sounds comfortable--if it mimics the sounds we're already familiar with, that we already like. In 1900 and earlier, attempts to woo people with old-fashioned sounding music were roundly rejected.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> *New?* What's new about 12-tone music? Or Stockhausen or Xenakis?


Well, historically nothing. In any individual's experience, though....



Petwhac said:


> Some of us have been listening to _new_ (now quite old) music for *DECADES*. And guess what, a lot of it still fails to impress or resonate with the same force of harmonic based music.


Yeah. And some of us have been listening to new music for decades with all sorts of impressed-ness and resonation. So the question is, who gets to win? The impressed or the unimpressed. Mostly, it seems, the unimpressed get to win. But why? Why do bad experiences get to be more valid than positive ones. Logically, one would think that the good experiences would be the more valid of the two. After all, negative means disconnect, lack of engagement. Positive means connection, engagement, and knowledge.



Petwhac said:


> *"Outside their experience"? "Comfort zone"? *
> Once upon a time Machaut was outside my experience as was Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto (much newer than those crusty old Second Viennesers). But with those it was a question of WOW I must hear that again, and again, and again.


Again, you're not the only one with experiences. Once upon a time the musics of the Sonic Arts Union were outside my experience, but with those for me it was definitely WOW I must hear that again, and again, and again.

And again, one of those experiences is just assumed to be the valid one.

(By the way, Lindberg's clarinet concert is in a very real and legally binding way much older than the Second Viennesers. It was written more recently, true. But "recent" is only one of the possible meanings of "new." As you very well know.)



Petwhac said:


> I think you have actually reinforced my argument and demonstrated some of the assumptions made about the critics of atonal/avant-garde music that come to the fore.


Not me, Pet. I think you've done that thing your own sweet self.



Petwhac said:


> I agree that a superficial acquaintance followed by a knee jerk response is not going to lend weight to an opinion on either Vivaldi or Varese. *But*- what about an in depth knowledge and considered response?


Well, speaking of reinforcing. You have reinforced my impression that your knowledge is not in depth and your responses are not considered.

[If you think you are sensing a pun in any of the above, you are absolutely correct!]


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> The anti-modernist stance is over two hundred years old.


Quite true. The first reference I can find is from 1782, remarking on the rise of the Galante which by then had totally replaced the baroque styles. Johann Samuel Petri, in his Anleitung zur Praktischen Musik, called this a "great catastrophe in music."

But anti-modernists have seldom delayed acceptance of new music; they have merely dissented from the broader view. Beethoven, for instance, was definitely subjected to attacks from anti-modernists, but they had no effect on the general enthusiasm for his music. Things in the modern world, since perhaps 1920, have been far different. Now, we are told by some, "anti-modernists" are in the majority!


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## Guest

Actually, what I have read indicates that anti-modernists have been in the majority since around 1860/1870.

Anti-modernism has been the broader view since then. 

NOTE: Since this page, 89, starts off with a post of mine, I want to remind everyone that the last post on 88, also by my own sweet self, is also worth reading. I think it's better than the one at the top of this page, but I couldn't resist responding to Pet, too. Read that one on page 88, though. It's full of nourishing goodness.


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## brianwalker

some guy said:


> The audience for living composers started to shrink in the early 1800s. Shortly after mid-century in the main musical towns of Europe (Paris, London, Leipzig, Vienna) the ratio of dead to living composers on concerts was in some instances as extreme as 9 to 1 or even 10 to zero. (In Haydn's time, that ratio was roughly 1 to 9.) Things were so bad by 1843 that a Viennese critic said "the public has got to stay in touch with the music of its time . . . for otherwise people will gradually come to mistrust music claimed to be the best."


The essence of your claim relies on the faulty assumption that the ratio of concerts of dead composers to living composers is the percentage of audiences who are still there as an audience for new composers; this is false; as the great works accumulate of course the former "current generations" will want to listen to the established classics as there was no recording technology of the day; the stabilization of the canon as the great works by the great composers accumulate means that there will be less space for new composers, but that doesn't mean that the audience for new composition has shrunk, there's just more competition with the dead; however, even after 1843 numerous composers and their works have entered into the canon; Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Schumann, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini, Ravel, Debussy, Strauss, and eventually, Mahler in the 1960s. "Musical conservatism" didn't stop those figures from entering into the pantheon of the immortals.

"Musical conservatism" is a bogeyman, a waving of the bloody shirt to terrorize contemporary audiences into accepting contemporary works, regardless of the dearth of merit in those works. The threat is obvious; "You! Yes, You! You're KILLING genius by not liking our music! If YOU were there in 1800 Beethoven would not have succeeded! YOU MUST SUPPORT US OR YOU'RE A HORRIBLE MONSTER WHO IS BEYOND REDEMPTION!! DU!" So the pliant crowd complies and attends Boulez concerts and Stockhausen piano recordings

Puccini and Wagner's operas are some of the most performed in the repertoire; both of them were maligned in the beginning by critics, but time adjudicated the dispute; "musical conservatism" didn't stop them, and if a composer of similar mettle were to appear it wouldn't stop him either.

Post-1950 avant-garde music is far more popular than it should be. It sells more records than it should. It relies on ideology, not substance, for its subsistence. But audiences will not tolerate manipulation and blackmail forever.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/09/classicalmusicandopera.culture

I started listening to classical music when I entered college, aged 17. Because of my working-class background, "serious" music was important to me - not only because it was mysterious and beautiful in a way the Rolling Stones were not, but because it confirmed that I had cut my ties with the proletariat and "arrived". Over the years, this sense of membership of a cultural elite has evaporated: after attending roughly 1,500 concerts in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Paris, London, Berlin and Sydney, I no longer believe that fans of classical music are especially knowledgeable - certainly not in the way jazz fans are. American audiences, even those that fancy themselves quite in the know, roll over and drool like trained seals in the presence of charismatic hacks phoning in yet another performance of the Emperor Concerto. The public likes its warhorses, but it doesn't seem to care how well these warhorses get played. They are particularly susceptible to showboaters like Lang Lang and Izzy Perlman and Nigel Kennedy; they turn out in droves to hear Andrea Bocelli warble his way through the Shmaltzmeister's Songbook. These people may think they care more about music than the kids who listen to hip-hop, but I've been eavesdropping on their conversations for 40 years and the results are not impressive. They know that Clair de Lune is prettier than Für Elise, that Mozart died penniless, and that Schumann went nuts. That's about it.

Because classical music fans are much older and more affluent than audiences for other types of music, the very notion of including contemporary music on a programme is problematic. Last winter, I attended a performance of Luciano Berio's seminal 1968 composition Sinfonia. _*Two days later, the New York Times reported that the New York Philharmonic gave an "electrifying and sumptuously colourful" reading of this "all-embracing and ingenious" masterpiece*_. Maybe they did. But the day I heard it, I gazed down from the balcony at a sea of old men snoring, a bunch of irate, middle-aged women fanning themselves with their programmes, and scores of high-school students poised to garrote their teachers in reprisal for 35 minutes of non-stop torture. Sinfonia may be one of the cornerstones of 20th-century music, and the Times critic may have been right in describing the quality of the performance. But he might have noticed that the audience merely tolerated it - and that unlike him, very few dismissed Brahms' Fourth Symphony as an "afterthought". Not judging from the applause I heard.

When I was 18, I bought a record called The New Music. It featured Kontra-Punkte by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki. *I was incredibly proud of myself for giving this music a try,* even though the Stockhausen sounded like a cat running up and down the piano, and the Penderecki was that reliable old post-Schoenberg standby: belligerent bees buzzing in the basement. I did not really like these pieces, but I would put them on the turntable every few months to see if the bizarre might one day morph into the familiar.* I've been doing that for 40 years now, and both compositions continue to sound harsh, unpleasant, gloomy, post-nuclear. *It is not the composers' fault that they wrote uncompromising music that was a direct response to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century; but it is not my fault that I would rather listen to Bach. That's my way of responding to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century, and the 21st century as well.

I have tried to come to terms with the demands of modern music. I am no lover of Renaissance Muzak, and own tons of records by Berg, Varèse, Webern, Rihm, Schnittke, Adès, Wuorinen, Crumb, Carter, and Babbitt:_* I consider myself to be the kind of listener contemporary composers would need to reach if they had any hope of achieving a breakthrough. So far, this has not happened, and I doubt that it will.*_

In March I saw Harrison Birtwistle's new opera, The Minotaur, at Covent Garden. I entered the concert hall with the same excitement I always have: prepared to be blown out of the room. This did not happen. The Minotaur, Frankenstein with a tauromatic twist, is harsh and ugly and monotonous and generically apocalyptic. Birtwistleites might dismiss me as a Luddite who despises new music, but the truth is, I find nothing new in The Minotaur's dreary, brutish score; it's the same funereal caterwauling that bourgeoisie-loathing composers have been churning out since the 1930s. To me, there is little difference between Birtwistle, now in his 70s, and Eric Clapton, now in his 60s. These are old men doing the same music in their dotage that they used to do as kids.

Earlier this year, I attended a concert at Carnegie Hall by the National Symphony under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin is a canny, industrious conductor and a champion of American music. His philosophy seems to be that if Americans do not support living composers, American composers will cease to exist - though if the best America can do is John Corigliano and Philip Glass and the dozens of academics who give each other awards for music nobody likes, this might not be such a bad thing. Slatkin's programme consisted of three gimmicky pieces: Liszt's flamboyant Second Piano Concert, Ravel's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; and an ambitious new work by a young American named Mason Bates. This last piece, entitled* Liquid Interface, examined "the phenomenon of water in its variety of forms",* something Ravel and Mussorgsky never got around to. It featured wind machines and bongos and an electric drum pad and a laptop and a gigantic orchestra. It was bloated but thoroughly harmless, and the audience responded warmly; nothing thrills a classical music crowd more than a new piece of music that doesn't make them physically ill. But the concert underscored_* the problem in including new work on the same programme as the old chestnuts: it is not just asking striplings to compete with titans; it is asking obscure, academically trained liquid interfacers to compete with titans at the top of their game. As the saying goes: you don't send a boy to do Franz Liszt's job.*_

The debate about what is wrong with the world of classical music has been going on for at least a half a century. (Meanwhile, jazz, lacking the immense state funding to which classical music has access, is literally dying.) Specious arguments dominate the conversation. Why has the public accepted abstract art but not abstract music? (Discordant visual art does not cause visceral pain, discordant music does.) Why does the public accept atonal music in films, but not in the concert hall? (Jaws wouldn't work if the shark's attacks were synchronised with Carmen. We expect sound effects in the movies, but we're not going to pay to hear them in the concert hall.)

Their hopes may be misplaced. A hundred years after Schoenberg, the public still doesn't like anything after Transfigured Night, and even that is a stretch. The works of the former wunderkindern Boulez and Stockhausen have not entered the permanent repertory, and Lutos...#322;awski and Elliott Carter, while respected, are not beloved. Last month, I attended a free concert in New York in honour of Carter and the France-based Greek composer Georges Aperghis. In a discussion that preceded the show,_ a woman in the audience reminded us that Haydn's work was first thought of as "radical"_, but had long since entered the mainstream.* This was an earnest reaffirmation of the theory that what starts out on the fringe ultimately makes its way to the middle.* The concert then got underway. The 70 or so people in the hall held up pretty well through a handful of progressively more difficult Carter pieces, though after the interval their numbers dwindled to 50. After the break, a singer performed Jactations No 1, 2 and 4, an Aperghis composition I had not heard before. _The singer preened, acted a bit goofy, stared at the score, made a few weird sounds, fell down, squatted, pouted, kissed the music stand, stretched out and simulated falling asleep._ He was succeeded by a young woman who regaled the crowd with six or seven minutes of sing-song gibberish. It was pretty radical stuff, all right. In a couple of hundred years, maybe it'll be as mainstream as Haydn's Creation. *But I'm not holding my breath.*



http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/alexross/2010/02/more-on-audiences.html

Audience attendance is steadily falling; correlation is not always causation but often it is.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> Anti-modernism has been the broader view since then.


If that's the case, we can no longer speak of "anti-modernists" or an "anti-modern contingent." We can only speak of "the judgment of history."


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> ...and eventually, Mahler in the 1960s.


Why, I do believe that you have very sweetly made my point for me.



brianwalker said:


> "Musical conservatism" is a bogeyman, a waving of the bloody shirt to terrorize contemporary audiences into accepting contemporary works, regardless of the dearth of merit in those works.


You remind me that I need to do my laundry.



brianwalker said:


> So the pliant crowd complies and attends Boulez concerts and Stockhausen piano recordings.


Wow. It does? Wow. The pliant crowd, eh?

Wow.

It's probably too much to ask that you even consider the possibility that people who regularly attend new music concerts do so because they like the music, isn't it?

Yeah. I thought it might be.

Oh well.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

brianwalker said:


> Puccini and Wagner's operas are some of the most performed in the repertoire; both of them were maligned in the beginning by critics, but time adjudicated the dispute; "musical conservatism" didn't stop them, and if a composer of similar mettle were to appear it wouldn't stop him either.
> 
> Post-1950 avant-garde music is far more popular than it should be. It sells more records than it should. It relies on ideology, not substance, for its subsistence. But audiences will not tolerate manipulation and blackmail forever.


Correct. Puccini and Wagners operas, and even berg and Britten are well established core repertoire as far as opera is concerned. Essentially, it is the music itself that must transcend all ears and times. None of these composers I mentioned were particularly "conservative" musically speaking.


----------



## brianwalker

some guy said:


> Why, I do believe that you have very sweetly made my point for me.


On the contrary, Mahler's music wasn't modern enough. Bernstein, twelve tone hater, revived Mahler.



> Wow. It does? Wow. The pliant crowd, eh?
> 
> Wow.


Pliant conservatory students and hipsters.



> It's probably too much to ask that you even consider the possibility that people who regularly attend new music concerts do so because they like the music, isn't it?


I've considered that they're brainwashed.

###

In my early teens, I discovered Ives's "Concord" Sonata and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Both were incomprehensible but fascinating, and I kept listening over and over and over until I totally fell in love. Next came Carter's Double Concerto and Second String Quartet, and I assumed the same thing would happen. All through college and grad school I avidly followed every new Carter premiere, bought his scores and recordings, listened dozens of times, analyzed what I could. Then, one day in the early 1980s, *I was listening to the Double Concerto with the score again for what was at least my 50th time. And the thought popped into my head: "I've studied this piece and studied it for over ten years, and I don't give a damn if I ever hear it again."* I closed the score, and never listened to the piece closely again until I wrote my American music book in 1995. In a way, what drove me away from the music was its unmemorability. There's a tremendous pleasure in becoming familiar with something as mammoth, dense, and complex as the "Concord" Sonata, and learning to love every skewed little harmonic implication. But while I had the general overall plan of the Double Concerto in my head, and could anticipate the climaxes and piano and harpsichord cadenzas, the vast majority of the pitch complexes just never imprinted themselves on my memory. (You can assume I have lousy ears if you want, _but when I entered grad school the professor who administered the ear-training entrance exam told me I did better on it than he could have. It included some Stravinsky 12-tone vocal music that I transcribed correctly, including the solo vocalist's quarter-tone mistakes._) Though by then fond of Ives, Stravinsky, Cage, Stockhausen, and even Babbitt's wonderful Philomel, I had failed to develop the slightest affection for the Carter Double Concerto after dozens, maybe hundreds of listenings.

And it wasn't just listening. In the '70s every young composer analyzed Carter's Second String Quartet, and I was no exception. I started with loads of enthusiasm, but increasingly found the ideas unmusical: especially that the tritones were all in the viola, the perfect fifths all in the second violin (or whatever - I disremember the details), which isn't something one can hear in a polyphonic texture. It's a stupid idea, really. And as fanatical as I am about tempo contrasts, Carter's seemed mechanical and musically unmotivated. I came to think that Carter had invested a lot of time in overly literal aspects of music that didn't appeal to the ear. As I'm always reminding my students, *art isn't about reality, it's about appearances.*

Except for Le marteau, Boulez is a different story. In youth I attacked that piece_ with all the fanatacism of *a new convert: [*/I]read Musique aujourd-hui (of which Boulez eventually autographed my copy for me), did what analysis I could, and even did an independent tutorial learning to conduct the piece. But here again, I eventually came back to the piece in the late 1980s and realized that, *after so many years of devotion, I couldn't meaningfully tell one movement from another, *aside from the instrumentation. *If someone had come out with a recording of Le marteau with half the pitches transposed by half-steps one way or the other, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. **(I also analyzed every note of the Boulez Second Sonata before hearing it, and was so brainwashed that, when I finally heard it, I cried over its beauty.* Today I wouldn't recognize that piece in a blindfold test.) Ultimately, I think Boulez was trying to be very avant-garde in Le marteau, but didn't really know what he was doing yet, and made lousy pitch choices. I've run into a surprising number of composers who have exactly the same opinion, and who were afraid to mention it for years. - KYLE GANN

http://www.artsjournal.com/postclassic/2003/09/loving_hating_carter_boulez.html
__

In the face of this one may ask: Why does the great fame of the atonal and serialist composers continue? The answer is that the fame and influence of the avant-garde composers is entirely independent of the feelings of its audience. Do you suppose that if the fame of Stockhausen depended on the typical listener in the street it would survive a fortnight? The fame of post-war avant-garde is originally made, and it is maintained, by a passionate few--conservatory students and musicologists and musicians who take progress in music as an article of faith and proselytize ceaselessly to gain new converts. Even when a superlative modern composer has enjoyed, relatively speaking, immense success during his lifetime, the patient audience have never appreciated him so sincerely as they have appreciated the pre-war composers. The post-war composers have always been reinforced by the ardour of the fanatical few, the Hegelian modernists and cultural revolutionaries. They could treat the post-war composers sincerely and honestly, but they did not as it violates their Hegelian religion. They kept on analyzing the scores of the avant-garde and praised them to the skys, talking about him to their students, inculcating the audience with the music by programming it with old warhorses, and they generally behaved with such eager zeal, and they were so authoritative and sure of themselves, that at last the contingent of conservatory students and listeners who consider themselves "open" and "modern" and "progressive" grew accustomed to the sound of the names of Schoenberg and Webern and Boulez and Babbitt and Carter and placidly agreed to the proposition that they were geniuses; the majority really did not care very much either way.

Do you suppose that the man in the street can really appreciate Webern without the crutch of analysis telling him how to appreciate Webern? The said man would not even understand a tenth of it. But when he is told scores of times by authoritative figures who wield great technical knowledge of music that Webern is a great artist, the said man believes-not by reason, but by faith. And he too repeats that he loves the Opus 21 Symphony, and he buys the complete works of Webern puts them on his shelves, he follows the clever modulations and pitch reorganizations and inversions on the score, and comes back religiously convinced that Webern was a great artist.

But then they become disillusioned; but the work is done, they've already wasted their youth promoting works they never really loved, aggregating social and cultural influence to manipulate people like Joe Queenan to attend their concerts and driving the young people who are not susceptible to brainwashing away from classical music; they've already passed on the baton to a (thankfully) smaller generation of brainwashed, passionate youth.

The supposed love of the post-war modernists is driven by political ideology, the same political ideology that drives Regietheather._


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Ouch! Twice a month. How about twice a day? (Even that seems quite extreme to me. But there've been days in my life when I only listened to classical music about twice.)


Yes, I'm sure almost everyone on TC listens much more than twice a month, and most listen at least once a day if not more. Still, I wanted to be inclusive .



some guy said:


> That is, anti-modernism was firmly ensconced before Schoenberg's pantonal and dodecaphonic music. Before the Second Viennese School. And it was also, for the first time, able to be reinforced by both musicology and technology--the rediscoveries, as it were, of Mozart and Vivaldi, and the invention of machines that would play whatever you wanted to hear. With the latter, you were for the first time in history able to listen to whatever you wanted without having to learn to play an instrument.


I agree that technology plays a potentially large part in people's musical choices. Technology has multiple effects, of course. One can hear all the rediscoveries from the past, and one can limit oneself to just the Baroque or Classical or Romantic era hearing just the music with which one is comfortable. On the other hand, I can listen to many works from contemporary composers that would be impossible without the present technology. I'm able to sample many more modern works than people in the 1700's ever could.



some guy said:


> Can, yes. But there's not the desire. Music listeners wanted to hear new music in the 18th century and went to concerts expecting to hear new music. Throughout the 19th century, there were always some people complaining about the preponderance of old music on concerts. But those voices became fewer and fewer.


Yes, the desire for new music appears much less strong. I want to know how much of this decrease is due to circumstances and how much is due to the nature of the music (interacting with people's brains, of course). A great (if impossible) experiment would be to move up the advent of technology and social circumstances 50 years without changing the music. Would Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, and Debussy be viewed similarly to Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern? To someone who's open to the possibility of multiple causes of dissatisfaction with modern music, it's _very_ difficult to determine the ultimate causes.



some guy said:


> It's a self-perpetuating idea. If you hate modern music, then you tend not to listen to it ...


I'm not sure how much that applies to TC members, but I agree completely that many (most?) classical music listeners are unhappy with modern music and choose not to listen (or especially, not to listen with the intent to potentially enjoy). I'm sure that would make a difference, but I still wonder how much a difference it would make.


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## KenOC

brianwalker said:


> Puccini and Wagner's operas are some of the most performed in the repertoire; both of them were maligned in the beginning by critics, but time adjudicated the dispute...


Maligned by some critics, but substantial successes in broad sectors of the musical public. What contemporary critics say has nothing to do with the "success" or survivability of the music -- only the breadth of public acceptance counts, when and if that occurs. In our times, some critics seem to think that the success of a piece of music is determined by their opinions. It's not.


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## mmsbls

brianwalker said:


> Pliant conservatory students and hipsters.
> 
> I've considered that they're brainwashed.


I see no reason to assume that someone who says they love Boulez or Cage or Xenakis truly loves them essentially the same way I love Mozart and Beethoven. There may be _some_ people who kid themselves into thinking they like Boulez, but there probably are people that do the same for some opera or some Beethoven.

I love math and physics. I don't just like them - I _love_ them. Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's equations are more beautiful than Mozart. Most people cannot understand how that's possible. Should they assume I'm kidding myself into believing that (i.e. I'm a hipster for physics)?


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## Guest

brianwalker said:


> I've considered that they're brainwashed.


Yes, of course you would.

And big deal that Kyle Gann doesn't like Carter's _Double Concerto._ Lots of other people do.* And find it perfectly memorable. Too bad that he doesn't. Says nothing about the music one way or another and very little about Kyle himself, really.



brianwalker said:


> The supposed love of the post-war modernists is driven by political ideology, the same political ideology that drives Regietheather.


What a tick. I thought that it was a result of being brainwashed. So which is it?

*These people have all been brainwashed, of course.


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## brianwalker

some guy said:


> Yes, of course you would.
> 
> And big deal that Kyle Gann doesn't like Carter's _Double Concerto._ Lots of other people do.* And find it perfectly memorable. Too bad that he doesn't. Says nothing about the music one way or another and very little about Kyle himself, really.
> 
> *These people have all been brainwashed, of course.


You said that Mahler is an example of how musical conservatism suppresses truly great music but I. Mahler wasn't progressive enough; he wasn't harmonically as "advanced" as Schoenberg, never was.

II. Why has *Baroque Opera been suppressed for so long?* Why is that only recently are *good recordings of Handel's masterpieces coming in*? Because his works were worthless to the "progressive" musical community. If musical conservatism had any force whatsoever Handel would have been much more popular during the post-war years, why has it taken now for decent recordings of his masterpieces to appear?

The musical establishment is overrun by radical Marxists and modernists; the musical conservatives have no power; look no further than the abomination that is the 2012 production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.



> What a tick. I thought that it was a result of being brainwashed. So which is it?


They're synonymous.


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## brianwalker

mmsbls said:


> I love math and physics. I don't just like them - I _love_ them. Quantum Mechanics and Maxwell's equations are more beautiful than Mozart. Most people cannot understand how that's possible. Should they assume I'm kidding myself into believing that (i.e. I'm a hipster for physics)?


No; physics and music are two separate spheres. I can understand why you find Maxwell's equations more beautiful than Mozart. It's pieces the things together, it makes things work. It's a sort of key to all mythologies.

A politician convinces people something is undesirable, a scientist convinces them it's impossible. Notice how, in this parable, the protagonist ultimately decides to embody the forces of nature after becoming a nobleman. Shifting your ambitions from human affairs to the natural world is venturing into Hyperborea: you pass beyond the northern winds and emerge in a spot unrecognizable as the pole. Nobody realizes how narcissistic scientists are, and don't even get me started on mathematicians. They want control over abstract ideas themselves. Theoretical physicists fancy themselves mathematicians, mathematicians fancy themselves meta-mathematicians, meta-mathematicians fancy themselves philosophers, and philosophers fancy themselves Gods. They're all natural philosophers anyways.

What I don't think the public realizes that all revolutionary scientific research happens at the fringe. That's because it's all about intellectual rebellion. A scientific revolution creates un-ideas far more brutally than the Bolsheviks created unpersons. I don't give cold fusion even a 20% chance of being real, I've just been trying to seek out and thoroughly evaluate every crackpot idea that people won't give the time of day. A paradigm shift changes what is considered a meaningful question to ask, so the way to be ahead of everyone else is to ask the questions nobody else has even thought of, not solve the problems everybody else is working on(you may render them trivial).

Classical electrodynamics, developed in the 19th century, is the real foundation of modern physics. Relativity is a natural consequence of it, quantum mechanics is based entirely upon particles whose interactions are all electric in nature, and the nuclear forces are only necessary because of Coulomb's law. I believe it is no coincidence that it is also the most interesting area of physics, despite the fact that it is not considered by academia to be a subject where new discoveries can be made. Unlike any of the other four forces in the Standard Model, the electrical is the only one we can exert any direct control over, as evidenced by the fact that there is no such thing as "gravitational engineering" and that "nuclear engineering" is really about the macroscopic mechanical and thermodynamic properties of reactors. For this reason I think it is the only one in which we have any real depth of understanding. Back when it was cutting edge theoretical physics, experiments were cheap(Hertz proved Maxwell right with a copper coil and a hoop of wire) and it had far-reaching practical applications; ignorance of Oliver Heaviside's writings on E&M delayed the introduction of the telephone by twenty years!

Quantum mechanics is non-deterministic, and so must be incomplete. This in and of itself is not a problem, but modern theoretical physicists, with a very scant few exceptions, ignore this fact and press on developing their Theories of "Everything". Far worse is that philosophical obscurantists have muddled things to make it seem to people that the current state of QM proves that nature is inherently probabilistic, never mind that it doesn't make any sense for a claim regarding the nature of empirical evidence to be proved using empirical evidence. Even in a hidden variables theory, where the holes in QM are "plugged up" to make it deterministic, one could still draw the metaphysical conclusion that nature was at heart probabilistic and that the hidden variables theory just had a very high probability of being correct. If you want an introductory QM textbook that skips the Copenhagen ******** to make more room for mathematics, Leslie Ballentine is a good place to start.

The issue of indeterminacy in quantum mechanics is very closely tied to Maxwell's demon, computational complexity theory, and the rise of "digital physics" and "information physics"(ugh), but that's a story for another time.

Before the advent of the statistical quantum theory one of the big problems in theoretical physics was what we now refer to as "classical unification", where electromagnetism and gravity would be welded together. I believe that in the same way the statistical mechanics of ideal gases is not the place to start when trying to figure out the Newtonian dynamics of the individual gas molecules, so quantum mechanics is not the place to start when trying to divine whatever sub-quantum dynamics QM is an emergent phenomenon of. Einstein thought this too, and he spent the last three decades of his life working on a classical unified field theory which he hoped would yield a complete deterministic picture of the universe even at the planck scale. For this, even he, the holiest of holies, was mocked.

An unwillingness to throw out classical electrodynamics or relativity might be part of why Einstein seemingly failed in his efforts, though I think the principle of relativity and Mach's principle are both good ideas. I like real numbers far more than I like rational numbers, and the continuum far more than the discrete. Classical mechanics, which operates on reals, has a property that QM, operating on rationals, doesn't: scale invariance. If gravity is the force dictating the "big picture" of the universe, then perhaps it can be unified with the strong nuclear force(which is the only one necessary after you cut the Gordian knot and eliminate quantum chromodynamics and its need for the weak one) by supposing there are miniature universes in subatomic particles. This might be similar to "strong gravity". Then one would have to unify this "nuclear-gravity" with electricity, which might be accomplished through something like polarizable vacuum theory or stochastic electrodynamics.

Originally Maxwell's equations were very complicated, large in number, and expressed in quaternions. Digression: Doug Sweetser has written a book reformulating modern physics in terms of quaternions, which I will get around to reading sometime. These equations were far too unwieldy for electrical engineers to use, so Oliver Heaviside had to invent vector analysis in order to recast them in the four famous equations we know today. Heaviside was a real genius, and a hero to me. He invented vector calculus, fractional calculus, operational calculus, Laplace transforms, transmission line theory, the theory of reactive circuit components using complex analysis, quadruplex telegraphs, and the ionosphere. He even foresaw many aspects of special and general relativity. He never attended college, was self-thought, unemployed for all of his life save three years in his teens, never married, was chronically poor, and lived as a hermit. For many years he had a personal feud with George Preece, who ran the government monopoly on telegraphs. While Tesla was brilliant, the modern age would have been impossible without Heaviside.

Now, there was a man named H. J. Josephs who was employed at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill. Dropped out of school at 14, but serendipitously ended up working somewhere where his talent in mathematics was appreciated(and exploited by much more famous people who used him to do the hard stuff). He wrote many articles about Heaviside and the papers of his that had been dug up from underneath the floorboards at the apartment where he used to live(he needed them for insulation). These claimed that he had independently discovered quantum mechanics, relativity, and a classical unified field theory. I don't put this beyond his talents. I am very interested in finding out more about these, however Josephs' biography of Heaviside was rejected for publication, so I had to track down what may very well be the only remaining copy of the unpublished manuscript in existence, and am in contact with the owner. Unfortunately, he is a paranoid crank(the line between genius and madness), and I hope I can convince him to digitize the documents so they can be preserved and distributed.

There are other paths to classical unification that have been explored, but it is just as likely that none of them work and a new one must be created de novo.

As the preceding lengthy account should make obvious, I don't care much for the Standard Model, String Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, cosmology, or their ilk. Particle physics has become botany. There may be some merit in them, but from where I stand they appear rococo and obscurantist. More importantly, they don't remedy the non-determinism in quantum theory. I think some people want to take the determinism out of the theory(science as an ideal) so they can put it in the theorist(science as an institution). Tarski's Theorem means that they can't have determinism in both. Institutions are just the corpses great men leave behind.

Interestingly, Paul Feyerabend lamented that the generation of physicists that came after Einstein were possibly more mathematically skilled but less philosophically inclined. Maybe the lack of real philosophical depth is what caused this mess and its pseudo philosophy(which reminds me of the hubris of Singularitarians, but that's also another story.) I agree with most of what Feyerabend says, but I come from a different direction; he believed society needed to be protected from the power of scientific institutions, but I believe scientists need to be protected from their own power.



> I see no reason to assume that someone who says they love Boulez or Cage or Xenakis truly loves them essentially the same way I love Mozart and Beethoven. There may be some people who kid themselves into thinking they like Boulez, _but there probably are people that do the same for some opera or some Beethoven. _


They're too old and too popular and too ingrained in existing institutions to be the part of the hype cycle where liking them gives them any additional social status. They've lost their subversive edge; modern music is still edgy and cool. Verdi, Wagner, Puccini, Beethoven are *outside of the hype cycle. 
*

http://nplusonemag.com/hype-cycle

No, the problem with hype is that it transforms the use value of a would-be work of art into its exchange value. For in the middle (there's no end) of the hype cycle, the important thing is no longer what a song, movie, or book does to you. The big question is its relationship to its reputation. So instead of abandoning yourself to the artifact, you try to exploit inefficiencies in the reputation market. You can get in on the IPO of a new artist, and trumpet the virtues of the Arctic Monkeys before anyone else has heard of them: this is hype. Or you issue a "sell" recommendation on the overhyped Arctic Monkeys: this is backlash. But there are often steals to be found among recently unloaded assets: "Why's everybody hatin' on the Arctic Monkeys?" says the backlash-to-the-backlash. _The sophisticated trader is buying, selling, and holding different reputations all at once; the trick in each case is to stay ahead of the market. And the rewards from this trade in reputations redound to your own reputation:_ even though the market (i.e., other people) dictates your every move, you seem to be a real individual thinking for yourself.

No one will admit to being the 100% tool whose taste is 100% social positioning. Probably no one is that person. But anyone sensitive to art is also sensitive enough to feel his true aesthetic judgments under continuous assault from publicists, bloggers, journalists, advertisers, reviewers, and assorted subcultural specimens._* Hype-and-backlash overwhelm the artifacts that supposedly occasion them.*_ At this point a basic inversion takes place. Never mind the moon; look at the finger pointing at the moon. Is it pointing too high, or too low? It makes you want to turn away from that overhyped satellite altogether. But there are perversities involved with ignoring hype, too. There's the person who demonstrates his individuality by patently false proclamations: "The Sopranos has nothing on Friends." _Or the person who by promoting a revival of some "underrecognized" artist wastes his time and others':_ "J. F. Powers is the greatest American novelist of the 20th century." Or you shut yourself off from the world and read only Dante. Some people even proclaim discrimination itself hopelessly snobbish, and just watch whatever's on.

Now look at the bullying charticles assembled by lifestyle journalists: the approval matrices and hype-and-backlash sine curves that now disfigure even such a once-proud publication as Les Inrockuptibles. Where the critic tells you what you should think-a proposition you're free to reject-the charticler tells you what you do think, already. The charticler takes his prejudices and dresses them up as sociology. _*You are told to get in line by someone pretending the line has already formed; the only comfort is when still others fall in behind you.*_

The strange thing is that we are not glad when other people like what we like, or vice versa. You'd think these would be happy occasions-as if the candidate you loved won the election. Hurrah! And indeed the excitement of buzz is a proto-political phenomenon; the collective apprehension of the next big thing is a bit like being on a march. You learn, for example, from the recent Nirvana biography that the pleasure of hearing the band play a small club in 1990 owed a lot to the audience's feeling that they were going to be huge: "Everyone was going around saying, 'This is the band that's going to make it.'"

*The really potent work of art implies a promise to change everything*-surely the world can't bear the awareness induced by true art!-that's always renewed and always broken. *What reveals the promise as broken is that everyone's now a fan of the art in question, and still the world goes on as before.* Hence the backlash. And if ever the artifact recovers its uncontested popularity, it will be as the work of a "classic" director, writer, or band, which status implies it's no longer a threat to anyone. People can still feel, in the face of all evidence, that a new album might change everything; not so a box set. That's how it goes: hype, then backlash, then oblivion or the collector's edition. The hype cycle has become the emotional life of capitalism, an internalized stock market of aesthetic calls and puts. It testifies first to the power and then, almost as soon, to the impotence of mere culture. It's how the public expresses faith in itself, and a still more unshakeable belief in its irredeemability: if we all like something, it can't be good. The extent of the hype cycle's corruption of our minds can be measured by the frequency with which you hear people complaining that environmentalism has grown so fashionable, so chic, so trendy. Try to imagine a similar complaint from another political era: "I was totally into democracy-before they extended the franchise. I was all about socialism-but it became so working class."


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## BurningDesire

brianwalker said:


> The essence of your claim relies on the faulty assumption that the ratio of concerts of dead composers to living composers is the percentage of audiences who are still there as an audience for new composers; this is false; as the great works accumulate of course the former "current generations" will want to listen to the established classics as there was no recording technology of the day; the stabilization of the canon as the great works by the great composers accumulate means that there will be less space for new composers, but that doesn't mean that the audience for new composition has shrunk, there's just more competition with the dead; however, even after 1843 numerous composers and their works have entered into the canon; Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, Schumann, Bizet, Verdi, Puccini, Ravel, Debussy, Strauss, and eventually, Mahler in the 1960s. "Musical conservatism" didn't stop those figures from entering into the pantheon of the immortals.
> 
> "Musical conservatism" is a bogeyman, a waving of the bloody shirt to terrorize contemporary audiences into accepting contemporary works, regardless of the dearth of merit in those works. The threat is obvious; "You! Yes, You! You're KILLING genius by not liking our music! If YOU were there in 1800 Beethoven would not have succeeded! YOU MUST SUPPORT US OR YOU'RE A HORRIBLE MONSTER WHO IS BEYOND REDEMPTION!! DU!" So the pliant crowd complies and attends Boulez concerts and Stockhausen piano recordings
> 
> Puccini and Wagner's operas are some of the most performed in the repertoire; both of them were maligned in the beginning by critics, but time adjudicated the dispute; "musical conservatism" didn't stop them, and if a composer of similar mettle were to appear it wouldn't stop him either.
> 
> Post-1950 avant-garde music is far more popular than it should be. It sells more records than it should. It relies on ideology, not substance, for its subsistence. But audiences will not tolerate manipulation and blackmail forever.
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/jul/09/classicalmusicandopera.culture
> 
> I started listening to classical music when I entered college, aged 17. Because of my working-class background, "serious" music was important to me - not only because it was mysterious and beautiful in a way the Rolling Stones were not, but because it confirmed that I had cut my ties with the proletariat and "arrived". Over the years, this sense of membership of a cultural elite has evaporated: after attending roughly 1,500 concerts in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Paris, London, Berlin and Sydney, I no longer believe that fans of classical music are especially knowledgeable - certainly not in the way jazz fans are. American audiences, even those that fancy themselves quite in the know, roll over and drool like trained seals in the presence of charismatic hacks phoning in yet another performance of the Emperor Concerto. The public likes its warhorses, but it doesn't seem to care how well these warhorses get played. They are particularly susceptible to showboaters like Lang Lang and Izzy Perlman and Nigel Kennedy; they turn out in droves to hear Andrea Bocelli warble his way through the Shmaltzmeister's Songbook. These people may think they care more about music than the kids who listen to hip-hop, but I've been eavesdropping on their conversations for 40 years and the results are not impressive. They know that Clair de Lune is prettier than Für Elise, that Mozart died penniless, and that Schumann went nuts. That's about it.
> 
> Because classical music fans are much older and more affluent than audiences for other types of music, the very notion of including contemporary music on a programme is problematic. Last winter, I attended a performance of Luciano Berio's seminal 1968 composition Sinfonia. _*Two days later, the New York Times reported that the New York Philharmonic gave an "electrifying and sumptuously colourful" reading of this "all-embracing and ingenious" masterpiece*_. Maybe they did. But the day I heard it, I gazed down from the balcony at a sea of old men snoring, a bunch of irate, middle-aged women fanning themselves with their programmes, and scores of high-school students poised to garrote their teachers in reprisal for 35 minutes of non-stop torture. Sinfonia may be one of the cornerstones of 20th-century music, and the Times critic may have been right in describing the quality of the performance. But he might have noticed that the audience merely tolerated it - and that unlike him, very few dismissed Brahms' Fourth Symphony as an "afterthought". Not judging from the applause I heard.
> 
> When I was 18, I bought a record called The New Music. It featured Kontra-Punkte by Karlheinz Stockhausen and Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki. *I was incredibly proud of myself for giving this music a try,* even though the Stockhausen sounded like a cat running up and down the piano, and the Penderecki was that reliable old post-Schoenberg standby: belligerent bees buzzing in the basement. I did not really like these pieces, but I would put them on the turntable every few months to see if the bizarre might one day morph into the familiar.* I've been doing that for 40 years now, and both compositions continue to sound harsh, unpleasant, gloomy, post-nuclear. *It is not the composers' fault that they wrote uncompromising music that was a direct response to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century; but it is not my fault that I would rather listen to Bach. That's my way of responding to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century, and the 21st century as well.
> 
> I have tried to come to terms with the demands of modern music. I am no lover of Renaissance Muzak, and own tons of records by Berg, Varèse, Webern, Rihm, Schnittke, Adès, Wuorinen, Crumb, Carter, and Babbitt:_* I consider myself to be the kind of listener contemporary composers would need to reach if they had any hope of achieving a breakthrough. So far, this has not happened, and I doubt that it will.*_
> 
> In March I saw Harrison Birtwistle's new opera, The Minotaur, at Covent Garden. I entered the concert hall with the same excitement I always have: prepared to be blown out of the room. This did not happen. The Minotaur, Frankenstein with a tauromatic twist, is harsh and ugly and monotonous and generically apocalyptic. Birtwistleites might dismiss me as a Luddite who despises new music, but the truth is, I find nothing new in The Minotaur's dreary, brutish score; it's the same funereal caterwauling that bourgeoisie-loathing composers have been churning out since the 1930s. To me, there is little difference between Birtwistle, now in his 70s, and Eric Clapton, now in his 60s. These are old men doing the same music in their dotage that they used to do as kids.
> 
> Earlier this year, I attended a concert at Carnegie Hall by the National Symphony under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin is a canny, industrious conductor and a champion of American music. His philosophy seems to be that if Americans do not support living composers, American composers will cease to exist - though if the best America can do is John Corigliano and Philip Glass and the dozens of academics who give each other awards for music nobody likes, this might not be such a bad thing. Slatkin's programme consisted of three gimmicky pieces: Liszt's flamboyant Second Piano Concert, Ravel's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; and an ambitious new work by a young American named Mason Bates. This last piece, entitled* Liquid Interface, examined "the phenomenon of water in its variety of forms",* something Ravel and Mussorgsky never got around to. It featured wind machines and bongos and an electric drum pad and a laptop and a gigantic orchestra. It was bloated but thoroughly harmless, and the audience responded warmly; nothing thrills a classical music crowd more than a new piece of music that doesn't make them physically ill. But the concert underscored_* the problem in including new work on the same programme as the old chestnuts: it is not just asking striplings to compete with titans; it is asking obscure, academically trained liquid interfacers to compete with titans at the top of their game. As the saying goes: you don't send a boy to do Franz Liszt's job.*_
> 
> The debate about what is wrong with the world of classical music has been going on for at least a half a century. (Meanwhile, jazz, lacking the immense state funding to which classical music has access, is literally dying.) Specious arguments dominate the conversation. Why has the public accepted abstract art but not abstract music? (Discordant visual art does not cause visceral pain, discordant music does.) Why does the public accept atonal music in films, but not in the concert hall? (Jaws wouldn't work if the shark's attacks were synchronised with Carmen. We expect sound effects in the movies, but we're not going to pay to hear them in the concert hall.)
> 
> Their hopes may be misplaced. A hundred years after Schoenberg, the public still doesn't like anything after Transfigured Night, and even that is a stretch. The works of the former wunderkindern Boulez and Stockhausen have not entered the permanent repertory, and Lutos...#322;awski and Elliott Carter, while respected, are not beloved. Last month, I attended a free concert in New York in honour of Carter and the France-based Greek composer Georges Aperghis. In a discussion that preceded the show,_ a woman in the audience reminded us that Haydn's work was first thought of as "radical"_, but had long since entered the mainstream.* This was an earnest reaffirmation of the theory that what starts out on the fringe ultimately makes its way to the middle.* The concert then got underway. The 70 or so people in the hall held up pretty well through a handful of progressively more difficult Carter pieces, though after the interval their numbers dwindled to 50. After the break, a singer performed Jactations No 1, 2 and 4, an Aperghis composition I had not heard before. _The singer preened, acted a bit goofy, stared at the score, made a few weird sounds, fell down, squatted, pouted, kissed the music stand, stretched out and simulated falling asleep._ He was succeeded by a young woman who regaled the crowd with six or seven minutes of sing-song gibberish. It was pretty radical stuff, all right. In a couple of hundred years, maybe it'll be as mainstream as Haydn's Creation. *But I'm not holding my breath.*
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/alexross/2010/02/more-on-audiences.html
> 
> Audience attendance is steadily falling; correlation is not always causation but often it is.


Here's your daily hint: if you want to sound credible, at least refrain from quoting articles by stupid, elitist people.


----------



## aleazk

brianwalker said:


> No; physics and music are two separate spheres. I can understand why you find Maxwell's equations more beautiful than Mozart. It's pieces the things together, it makes things work. It's a sort of key to all mythologies.
> 
> A politician convinces people something is undesirable, a scientist convinces them it's impossible. Notice how, in this parable, the protagonist ultimately decides to embody the forces of nature after becoming a nobleman. Shifting your ambitions from human affairs to the natural world is venturing into Hyperborea: you pass beyond the northern winds and emerge in a spot unrecognizable as the pole. Nobody realizes how narcissistic scientists are, and don't even get me started on mathematicians. They want control over abstract ideas themselves. Theoretical physicists fancy themselves mathematicians, mathematicians fancy themselves meta-mathematicians, meta-mathematicians fancy themselves philosophers, and philosophers fancy themselves Gods. They're all natural philosophers anyways.
> 
> What I don't think the public realizes that all revolutionary scientific research happens at the fringe. That's because it's all about intellectual rebellion. A scientific revolution creates un-ideas far more brutally than the Bolsheviks created unpersons. I don't give cold fusion even a 20% chance of being real, I've just been trying to seek out and thoroughly evaluate every crackpot idea that people won't give the time of day. A paradigm shift changes what is considered a meaningful question to ask, so the way to be ahead of everyone else is to ask the questions nobody else has even thought of, not solve the problems everybody else is working on(you may render them trivial).
> 
> Classical electrodynamics, developed in the 19th century, is the real foundation of modern physics. Relativity is a natural consequence of it, quantum mechanics is based entirely upon particles whose interactions are all electric in nature, and the nuclear forces are only necessary because of Coulomb's law. I believe it is no coincidence that it is also the most interesting area of physics, despite the fact that it is not considered by academia to be a subject where new discoveries can be made. Unlike any of the other four forces in the Standard Model, the electrical is the only one we can exert any direct control over, as evidenced by the fact that there is no such thing as "gravitational engineering" and that "nuclear engineering" is really about the macroscopic mechanical and thermodynamic properties of reactors. For this reason I think it is the only one in which we have any real depth of understanding. Back when it was cutting edge theoretical physics, experiments were cheap(Hertz proved Maxwell right with a copper coil and a hoop of wire) and it had far-reaching practical applications; ignorance of Oliver Heaviside's writings on E&M delayed the introduction of the telephone by twenty years!
> 
> Quantum mechanics is non-deterministic, and so must be incomplete. This in and of itself is not a problem, but modern theoretical physicists, with a very scant few exceptions, ignore this fact and press on developing their Theories of "Everything". Far worse is that philosophical obscurantists have muddled things to make it seem to people that the current state of QM proves that nature is inherently probabilistic, never mind that it doesn't make any sense for a claim regarding the nature of empirical evidence to be proved using empirical evidence. Even in a hidden variables theory, where the holes in QM are "plugged up" to make it deterministic, one could still draw the metaphysical conclusion that nature was at heart probabilistic and that the hidden variables theory just had a very high probability of being correct. If you want an introductory QM textbook that skips the Copenhagen ******** to make more room for mathematics, Leslie Ballentine is a good place to start.
> 
> The issue of indeterminacy in quantum mechanics is very closely tied to Maxwell's demon, computational complexity theory, and the rise of "digital physics" and "information physics"(ugh), but that's a story for another time.
> 
> Before the advent of the statistical quantum theory one of the big problems in theoretical physics was what we now refer to as "classical unification", where electromagnetism and gravity would be welded together. I believe that in the same way the statistical mechanics of ideal gases is not the place to start when trying to figure out the Newtonian dynamics of the individual gas molecules, so quantum mechanics is not the place to start when trying to divine whatever sub-quantum dynamics QM is an emergent phenomenon of. Einstein thought this too, and he spent the last three decades of his life working on a classical unified field theory which he hoped would yield a complete deterministic picture of the universe even at the planck scale. For this, even he, the holiest of holies, was mocked.
> 
> An unwillingness to throw out classical electrodynamics or relativity might be part of why Einstein seemingly failed in his efforts, though I think the principle of relativity and Mach's principle are both good ideas. I like real numbers far more than I like rational numbers, and the continuum far more than the discrete. Classical mechanics, which operates on reals, has a property that QM, operating on rationals, doesn't: scale invariance. If gravity is the force dictating the "big picture" of the universe, then perhaps it can be unified with the strong nuclear force(which is the only one necessary after you cut the Gordian knot and eliminate quantum chromodynamics and its need for the weak one) by supposing there are miniature universes in subatomic particles. This might be similar to "strong gravity". Then one would have to unify this "nuclear-gravity" with electricity, which might be accomplished through something like polarizable vacuum theory or stochastic electrodynamics.
> 
> Originally Maxwell's equations were very complicated, large in number, and expressed in quaternions. Digression: Doug Sweetser has written a book reformulating modern physics in terms of quaternions, which I will get around to reading sometime. These equations were far too unwieldy for electrical engineers to use, so Oliver Heaviside had to invent vector analysis in order to recast them in the four famous equations we know today. Heaviside was a real genius, and a hero to me. He invented vector calculus, fractional calculus, operational calculus, Laplace transforms, transmission line theory, the theory of reactive circuit components using complex analysis, quadruplex telegraphs, and the ionosphere. He even foresaw many aspects of special and general relativity. He never attended college, was self-thought, unemployed for all of his life save three years in his teens, never married, was chronically poor, and lived as a hermit. For many years he had a personal feud with George Preece, who ran the government monopoly on telegraphs. While Tesla was brilliant, the modern age would have been impossible without Heaviside.
> 
> Now, there was a man named H. J. Josephs who was employed at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill. Dropped out of school at 14, but serendipitously ended up working somewhere where his talent in mathematics was appreciated(and exploited by much more famous people who used him to do the hard stuff). He wrote many articles about Heaviside and the papers of his that had been dug up from underneath the floorboards at the apartment where he used to live(he needed them for insulation). These claimed that he had independently discovered quantum mechanics, relativity, and a classical unified field theory. I don't put this beyond his talents. I am very interested in finding out more about these, however Josephs' biography of Heaviside was rejected for publication, so I had to track down what may very well be the only remaining copy of the unpublished manuscript in existence, and am in contact with the owner. Unfortunately, he is a paranoid crank(the line between genius and madness), and I hope I can convince him to digitize the documents so they can be preserved and distributed.
> 
> There are other paths to classical unification that have been explored, but it is just as likely that none of them work and a new one must be created de novo.
> 
> As the preceding lengthy account should make obvious, I don't care much for the Standard Model, String Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, cosmology, or their ilk. Particle physics has become botany. There may be some merit in them, but from where I stand they appear rococo and obscurantist. More importantly, they don't remedy the non-determinism in quantum theory. I think some people want to take the determinism out of the theory(science as an ideal) so they can put it in the theorist(science as an institution). Tarski's Theorem means that they can't have determinism in both. Institutions are just the corpses great men leave behind.
> 
> Interestingly, Paul Feyerabend lamented that the generation of physicists that came after Einstein were possibly more mathematically skilled but less philosophically inclined. Maybe the lack of real philosophical depth is what caused this mess and its pseudo philosophy(which reminds me of the hubris of Singularitarians, but that's also another story.) I agree with most of what Feyerabend says, but I come from a different direction; he believed society needed to be protected from the power of scientific institutions, but I believe scientists need to be protected from their own power.


Are you a physicist?. I basically agree with your main point, and is something I too had thought. _The people who work on quantum mechanical related topics are philosophical-illiterates._ There's a book by Lee Smolin (a physicist who works on Loop Quantum Gravity) that touches this topic about quantum field theorists, and by extension string theorists, being ignorant about important philosophical problems in their theories because of their concentration on formal details, which he identifies as an anti-Einstein approach and very nocive to physics. He says that, from the philosophical point of view of general relativity, string theory is an abomination. As a general relativist, I agree. From what I have read of loop quantum gravity, the principles of general relativity are really considered. On the other hand, it uses standard quantum mechanics which, I think, is far from being a definitive theory. Smolin identifies the nonsensical philosophy that surrounds quantum mechanics as a big problem.


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## BurningDesire

You know, instead of typing long-winded essays that are off-topic, you could just go and listen to some music you do like. Wouldn't that be more fun than insulting and stereotyping and judging people for daring to like music you don't? The nerve of some people! Listening to what they like!


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## aleazk

BurningDesire said:


> You know, instead of typing long-winded essays that are off-topic, you could just go and listen to some music you do like. Wouldn't that be more fun than insulting and stereotyping and judging people for daring to like music you don't? The nerve of some people! Listening to what they like!


Well, I'm listening to Ligeti's violin concerto while reading this.


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## millionrainbows

I was listening to the Double Concerto with the score again for what was at least my 50th time. And the thought popped into my head: _"I've studied this piece and studied it for over ten years, and I don't give a damn if I ever hear it again."_ Of course, that was back before I realized that the world didn't revolve around me. So what if I didn't remember any "tunes" from it? If I wanted that, I should have listened to some Tchaikovsky. I was approaching this Carter the wrong way, placing unreasonable expectations on it. If I wanted my identity to be bolstered, I should have joined the Moose Lodge. I'm a beer and pretzels kinda guy, anyway, what the hell am I doing listening to Elliott Carter? This damn score cost almost thirty bucks, I coulda bought a new pair of shoes, or the Complete Monty Python on DVD. What was I thinking?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Here's your daily hint: if you want to sound credible, at least refrain from quoting articles by stupid, elitist people.

In order to gain any credibility at all YOU need to stop assuming that everyone who disagrees with you or is of an opinion contrary to your own is "stupid".


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> I was listening to the Double Concerto with the score again for what was at least my 50th time. And the thought popped into my head: _"I've studied this piece and studied it for over ten years, and I don't give a damn if I ever hear it again."_ Of course, that was back before I realized that the world didn't revolve around me. So what if I didn't remember any "tunes" from it? If I wanted that, I should have listened to some Tchaikovsky. I was approaching this Carter the wrong way, placing unreasonable expectations on it. If I wanted my identity to be bolstered, I should have joined the Moose Lodge. I'm a beer and pretzels kinda guy, anyway, what the hell am I doing listening to Elliott Carter? This damn score cost almost thirty bucks, I coulda bought a new pair of shoes, or the Complete Monty Python on DVD. What was I thinking?


Well, if there's a _problem_ with modern music is that the scores are not free because they are not in public domain yet.


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## BurningDesire

aleazk said:


> Well, I'm listening to Ligeti's violin concerto while reading this.


I wasn't saying that to you X3


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## BurningDesire

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Here's your daily hint: if you want to sound credible, at least refrain from quoting articles by stupid, elitist people.
> 
> In order to gain any credibility at all YOU need to stop assuming that everyone who disagrees with you or is of an opinion contrary to your own is "stupid".


I don't assume that somebody is stupid because they disagree with me. There's plenty of people on here I disagree strongly with, but I respect their opinions, and I do not think they're stupid at all. I believe somebody is stupid when they say something stupid, and that article was pretty stupid.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I don't assume that somebody is stupid because they disagree with me. There's plenty of people on here I disagree strongly with, but I respect their opinions, and I do not think they're stupid at all. I believe somebody is stupid when they say something stupid, and that article was pretty stupid.

You deny that you assume someone is "stupid" simply because you disagree with them... and then you turn around and say the same thing again. This critic... who seemingly has far more experience of classical music under his belt than you... dislikes the music you revere... thus he is "stupid". That's pretty much it, isn't it?

What did he say in his essay that appears so clearly "stupid"?

_I no longer believe that fans of classical music are especially knowledgeable - certainly not in the way jazz fans are. American audiences, even those that fancy themselves quite in the know, roll over and drool like trained seals in the presence of charismatic hacks phoning in yet another performance of the Emperor Concerto. The public likes its warhorses, but it doesn't seem to care how well these warhorses get played. They are particularly susceptible to showboaters like Lang Lang and Izzy Perlman and Nigel Kennedy; they turn out in droves to hear Andrea Bocelli warble his way through the Shmaltzmeister's Songbook._ 

Hmmm... he suggests that a good majority of the classical music audience might not be any more knowledgeable than the fans of jazz or rock music. I don't think many would find fault with that observation.

_It is not the composers' fault that they wrote uncompromising music that was a direct response to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century; but it is not my fault that I would rather listen to Bach. That's my way of responding to the violence and stupidity of the 20th century, and the 21st century as well._

I see nothing inherently wrong... let alone "stupid" with admitting that you don't really like a majority of 20th century "classical music". There are those who listen almost exclusively to the Baroque... or Renaissance and Medieval music... or opera... or chamber music. But to admit that you would rather not listen to Feldman, Ligeti, and Stockhausen is proof of "stupidity"?

_*I consider myself to be the kind of listener contemporary composers would need to reach if they had any hope of achieving a breakthrough. So far, this has not happened, and I doubt that it will.*_

This seems to me to be a more than legitimate point. There are more than a few in the classical music audience who are passionate listeners... who want nothing more than to love new music... and yet this has not happened. This seems a legitimate concern. Yes... as the author already stated it is not the composer's "fault". The artist must be free to create as he or she sees fit... to create what he or she believes in. But by the same token, it is not the audience's fault if they find that they dislike what the artist has created... and when you have an audience that in willing to put forth a degree of effort... and still finds that they dislike the work, then you have a disconnect. Our resident Modernist/Avant-Gardist, someguy, would argue that because he is able to take pleasure in the most grating noises is proof that such music is accessible... but the survival of any art requires more than a few admirers (unless we are speaking of painting and sculpture where a couple super-rich collectors can sustain an artist's reputation regardless of the opinion of the larger art audience).

_Earlier this year, I attended a concert at Carnegie Hall by the National Symphony under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. Slatkin is a canny, industrious conductor and a champion of American music. His philosophy seems to be that if Americans do not support living composers, American composers will cease to exist - though if the best America can do is John Corigliano and Philip Glass and the dozens of academics who give each other awards for music nobody likes, this might not be such a bad thing. Slatkin's programme consisted of three gimmicky pieces: Liszt's flamboyant Second Piano Concert, Ravel's everything-but-the-kitchen-sink orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition; and an ambitious new work by a young American named Mason Bates. This last piece, entitled *Liquid Interface, examined "the phenomenon of water in its variety of forms"*, something Ravel and Mussorgsky never got around to. It featured wind machines and bongos and an electric drum pad and a laptop and a gigantic orchestra. It was bloated but thoroughly harmless, and the audience responded warmly; nothing thrills a classical music crowd more than a new piece of music that doesn't make them physically ill. But the concert underscored *the problem in including new work on the same programme as the old chestnuts: it is not just asking striplings to compete with titans; it is asking obscure, academically trained liquid interfacers to compete with titans at the top of their game. As the saying goes: you don't send a boy to do Franz Liszt's job.*_

In my personal listening I tend to make huge stylistic jumps. I may follow a recital of 19th century French songs with a disc of Byzantine chant followed by Bob Dylan then Bach then Miles Davis then the Louvin Brothers. But... and you may disagree... I have long found the practice in including disparate works of music in a classical concert particularly egregious and I'm not alone in feeling this way. I imagine that most of those who attend a concert of bluegrass music would be somewhat disconcerted by the inclusion of a set of jazz or hip-hop. What is particularly annoying for many, I suspect, is the realization that the contemporary/avant-garde piece included along with the performance of works by Brahms and Liszt (or whoever) has been placed there in an attempt to leach off of the popularity of the other works. Why not a concert that focuses solely upon contemporary/avant-garde music... where the audience will be made up of those who truly love such music... and not of those who will use the inclusion of such between the Brahms and the Liszt to take a bathroom or cigarette break... or wish they had?

_The debate about what is wrong with the world of classical music has been going on for at least a half a century. (Meanwhile, jazz, lacking the immense state funding to which classical music has access, is literally dying.)_

This also seems a valid point. You yourself have expressed outrage over the assumption that what we have traditionally deemed as "classical music" is inherently superior to other genre... (and I have elsewhere suggested that the very term "classical music" is meaningless considering the vast array of forms and genre it includes... and that it should be taken as simply denoting the finest works of music or any era, form, or genre in the same manner as the term "the classics" is applied to literature). Why then should "classical music" be afforded greater financial support in the form of tax dollars than jazz or the blues or bluegrass? Why should "classical music" that is unpopular with the larger classical music audience be afforded any such support whatsoever? As a painter, I am free to paint whatever I wish and however I wish... but there is no guarantee that the audience will love my work... and I wouldn't even begin to expect that the audience should be forced to support my efforts in the form of governmental grants.

_Their hopes may be misplaced. A hundred years after Schoenberg, the public still doesn't like anything after Transfigured Night, and even that is a stretch. The works of the former wunderkindern Boulez and Stockhausen have not entered the permanent repertory, and Lutoslawski and Elliott Carter, while respected, are not beloved._ 

Is there anything to disagree with here? Or perhaps the crowds are rushing to purchase tickets to the "all-Boulez" concerts?

_Last month, I attended a free concert in New York in honour of Carter and the France-based Greek composer Georges Aperghis. In a discussion that preceded the show, a woman in the audience reminded us that Haydn's work was first thought of as "radical", but had long since entered the mainstream. This was an earnest reaffirmation of the theory that what starts out on the fringe ultimately makes its way to the middle._

This has been the argument of the avant-garde for at least a century: "Beethoven wasn't popular at first." "Bach was ignored." The same argument has become the mantra of Modern Art as well: "You think that can of artist's crap by Manzoni is literally crap? Well they thought Picasso and Matisse were crap too." Of course Picasso and Matisse were both embraced by the larger art audience by the time they had reached middle-age, while no one's rushing to see the Manzoni exhibition and Beethoven's funeral was attended by some 30,000 but how many will really shed a tear when Boulez bites the dust?

Honestly, I listen to a lot of Modern and Contemporary classical music, and I know I am not alone among those stereotyped as the old conservatives of TC. Some of us have far more experience... and a far greater collection of recordings by Modern and Contemporary composers than many of the self-proclaimed champions of new music. Contrary to the assumptions of some that disliking some aspects and some examples of new music and saying so is only about presenting some false dichotomy or tearing down the art of today in order to preserve some "sacred cow"... the reality is that I (and others here) want nothing more than to be wowed... moved... astounded by the music of today... and this has happened on a few rare occasions... but not enough. Far too often it seems that academia in the realm of classical music continues to push certain strains of music that have failed to garner any real interest by the listeners... and to underplay or dismiss alternative directions. Did we not have some dude suggesting that there is "new" music and "New Music"... in other words... some music, regardless of being "new" in that it was but recently composed is not "new" because it fails to meet a given litmus test of the avant-garde?

Looking at the decline in the audience for classical music I agree that there may just be a problem... and that it seems quite legitimate to question why there is this huge disconnect between the artists and the audience... and what can be done about it. But those are just my thoughts... and as they differ from your own undoubtedly you will accuse me a "stupidity" as well...


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## KenOC

_"In a discussion that preceded the show, a woman in the audience reminded us that Haydn's work was first thought of as "radical", but had long since entered the mainstream."
_
I noticed this in the article quoted. Haydn was never considered "radical." His music was extremely popular, to the point that other composers would forge his name on their music in order to sell it. Nicknames for his most popular works were asigned early and stuck. And, once he left the Esterhazys, he made a lot of money, purely through popular demand. On his first trip to London, after a concert: "3,000 gulden in one night. Only in England!"


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## arpeggio

I am very interested in this topic. The reason I have not made many contributions is because there is really nothing I can add to what many have already stated. Even when indiviuals disagree I find the various observations to be interesting.

I have participated in other forums where members have discussed atonal music. In Talk Classical the discourse is relatively speaking quite civilized.


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## science

Wow. I'm so sick of being told how much the music I like sucks.


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## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> Here's your daily hint: if you want to sound credible, at least refrain from quoting articles by stupid, elitist people.


Beware of being too fashionable, or you'll soon be unfashionable. A certain market for demanding new music can always be found among brash young urbanites, but this audience is not large, nor well-heeled. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the affection for new work survives one's youth, when sonically grating music is mostly a way of antagonising older people. The central problem in writing music targeting hipsters is that even hipsters one day stop being hip, and get replaced by hipsters who want their own brand of annoying music. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months

My point in quoting Joe Queenan is that he's the ideal target audience for new music and he hates it; he's living proof that it has no future.

Edit: StlukesguildOhio already got to that point, he quoted the line I was quote to quote.



science said:


> Wow. I'm so sick of being told how much the music I like sucks.


Whoever said such a thing? I love the Berg concerto and am fond of early Schoenberg; I just think it went in the wrong direction.


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## BurningDesire

science said:


> Wow. I'm so sick of being told how much the music I like sucks.


But Science, you don't really like it, you were just programmed to like it by the modernist hive-mind.


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## science

Stupid me.


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## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> But Science, you don't really like it, you were just programmed to like it by the modernist hive-mind.


There's a lot of beauty in early/middle Schoenberg and Berg.



science said:


> You, HarpsichordConcerto, SLGO.


Show me a specific instance where I criticized a specific piece you loved as being "sucky". My debate with millionsrainbow has first and foremost have to do with the Hegelian argument for progress and whether there is a linear, one directional Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-Mahler-Schoenberg-Webern line, whether Schoenberg is the proper "heir" to Wagner, etc.

No on ever said that all twelve tone music or even free atonal music had no merit whatsoever but that Schoenberg went in a direction with limited potential and ruined those who came after him.

You're attributing unfairly and injudiciously ascribing malice and condescension to posts where there was none.


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## science

BurningDesire said:


> But Science, you don't really like it, you were just programmed to like it by the modernist hive-mind.


I know, man. I know.


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## BurningDesire

brianwalker said:


> Beware of being too fashionable, or you'll soon be unfashionable. A certain market for demanding new music can always be found among brash young urbanites, but this audience is not large, nor well-heeled. Moreover, it is by no means certain that the affection for new work survives one's youth, when sonically grating music is mostly a way of antagonising older people. The central problem in writing music targeting hipsters is that even hipsters one day stop being hip, and get replaced by hipsters who want their own brand of annoying music. Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months
> 
> My point in quoting Joe Queenan is that he's the ideal target audience for new music and he hates it; he's living proof that it has no future.


Sorry, no. Snobby idiots aren't my ideal target audience, and I doubt any recent composer would say that is their audience either. All he's living proof of is that some music fans are really dumb.

Also, you really should stop calling people who like things you don't like "hipsters". I'll try to make it simple enough for you to understand: You see, you know how you like things? Well, sometimes, other people, you following? Well, other people may like things that are different from the things you like. This doesn't mean they are pretending to like it to "seem smart" or think better of themselves. Just like you enjoy things, they enjoy things. Understand?


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## science

brianwalker said:


> You're attributing unfairly and injudiciously ascribing malice and condescension to posts where there was none.


Right.

No, seriously, you're right.


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## Guest

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Some of us have far more experience... and a far greater collection of recordings by Modern and Contemporary composers than many of the self-proclaimed champions of new music.


Hahahaha.

Ya got any evidence to back this assertion up, there, David?

I don't recall ever participating in any of those "how big is your collection" threads. And I don't think you've ever been to my apartment.

Come to think of it, I don't recall ever proclaiming myself a champion of new music, either. (Really. D'ya really think I'd ever _need_ to?:lol

Anyway, once we get those items all cleared up, let's go head to head on that experience thing, may be. Get a coupla yer experiences cyberbuddies together. I'll tie one hand behind my back, and we'll go at it, eh?

Yours,

Michael


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## mmsbls

This thread is one of the longest running on TC. There is obviously significant interest in the various ideas and arguments by many people, and I think many have enjoyed reading and posting here. However, recently posts have gotten rather heated. Please remember the Terms of Service:



> Be polite to your fellow members. If you disagree with them, please state your opinion in a »civil« and respectful manner.
> 
> Do not post comments about other members person or »posting style« on the forum (unless said comments are unmistakably positive). Argue opinions all you like but do not get personal and never resort to »ad homs«.


It would be a real shame if we had to close the thread.


----------



## Petwhac

Petwhac said:


> Just when you had me thinking- "mmmm maybe I'm suffering from false memory syndrome and that since I don't have the time to trawl through hundreds of posts to back up my claim, I'll let it rest". Just before I read this-
> *"What they're really saying (at the very least, to avoid some pointless wrangling, what I say) is that the initial negative responses to particular pieces means that those who make negative responses to things outside their experience or their zone of comfort might want to think twice about their ideas."*





some guy said:


> Well, historically nothing. In any individual's experience, though....
> 
> Yeah. And some of us have been listening to new music for decades with all sorts of impressed-ness and resonation. So the question is, who gets to win? The impressed or the unimpressed. Mostly, it seems, the unimpressed get to win. But why? Why do bad experiences get to be more valid than positive ones. Logically, one would think that the good experiences would be the more valid of the two. After all, negative means disconnect, lack of engagement. Positive means connection, engagement, and knowledge.


I have stated countless times that I am not questioning the _validity_ of music or listeners' tastes. I am saying, for the umteenth time, one can have a negative response to something INSIDE their experience.
I believe we were discussing the cause of quarrelling about tonal/atonal. When you use the term _comfort zone_ you are being condescending.



some guy said:


> Again, you're not the only one with experiences. Once upon a time the musics of the Sonic Arts Union were outside my experience, but with those for me it was definitely WOW I must hear that again, and again, and again.
> 
> And again, one of those experiences is just assumed to be the valid one.


Nope, not by me it isn't.



some guy said:


> (By the way, Lindberg's clarinet concert is in a very real and legally binding way much older than the Second Viennesers. It was written more recently, true. But "recent" is only one of the possible meanings of "new." As you very well know.)


Do please elaborate. I would love to hear an in depth explanation of how that work is older than for example, Berg's Violin Concerto.

I shan't hold my breath.......


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> from the Terms of Service..."_Do not post comments about other members person or »posting style«"_


I'm not going to argue with the Terms of Service, though having fallen foul of this, I'd like to observe that it can be very difficult _not _to comment on 'posting style'. How can I explain the difficulty I sometimes have in understanding another's post, or accepting what they have to say when I attribute that difficulty to their style, particularly when posts are lengthy, cryptic, obscure, provocative ...etc?


----------



## EricABQ

At this point we should probably just start a thread called "What is the Point Of An Atonal Music Thread?"


----------



## emiellucifuge

MacLeod said:


> I'm not going to argue with the Terms of Service, though having fallen foul of this, I'd like to observe that it can be very difficult _not _to comment on 'posting style'. How can I explain the difficulty I sometimes have in understanding another's post, or accepting what they have to say when I attribute that difficulty to their style, particularly when posts are lengthy, cryptic, obscure, provocative ...etc?


You can ask:
Im sorry, but Im having difficulty understanding your post. Would you mind terribly just clarifying what you mean? I would be grateful.
in particular I'm referring to the following sections (etc...)

Just an exemplary demonstration.


----------



## brianwalker

BurningDesire said:


> Sorry, no. Snobby idiots aren't my ideal target audience, and I doubt any recent composer would say that is their audience either.


_"They do not know it, but they are doing it"
_



> All he's living proof of is that some music fans are really dumb.


Joe Queenan is a successful writer who has published numerous books and has a weekly column at the Wall Street Journal. He's exceptionally witty and not dumb at all. he has poured an enormous amount of effort into appreciating the post-war avant-garde. He's articulate, open minded, intelligent; he's the ideal audience for "New Music".

Your ideal target audience? I've never listened to your music so I can't comment.



> Also, you really should stop calling people who like things you don't like "hipsters".


People who don't want other people to regulate other people's behavior through insults should stop calling other people "really dumb" for expressing their sincere opinions and experiences.

Kettle and pot on display in a glass house.



> I'll try to make it simple enough for you to understand: You see, you know how you like things? Well, sometimes, other people, you following?


I'll try to make it simple enough for you to understand: You see, you know how you like to eat certain things? Well, sometimes, other people, you following?



> Well, other people may like things that are different from the things you like. This doesn't mean they are pretending to like it to "seem smart" or think better of themselves. Just like you enjoy things, they enjoy things. Understand?


_"They do not know it, but they are doing it"
_



BurningDesire said:


> But Science, you don't really like it, you were just programmed to like it by the modernist hive-mind.


*"Out of the mouths of babes."*


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> Joe Queenan is a successful writer who has published numerous books and has a weekly column at the Wall Street Journal. He's exceptionally witty and not dumb at all. he has poured an enormous amount of effort into appreciating the post-war avant-garde. He's articulate, open minded, intelligent; he's the ideal audience for "New Music".


He is the ideal writer for people who are generally disdainful of post-war (WWII?) avant garde. The other qualities? Um, not so much.

The ideal audience for "New Music" would be someone like myself, someone who does not have to pour an enormous amount of effort into appreciating it. Someone for whom listening to Lachenmann or Karkowski is as easy and natural and rewarding as listening to Monteverdi or Bach.

Hmmm. Apparently, I'm the ideal audience for "Old Music" as well. Well, well, well.


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> Hmmm. Apparently, I'm the ideal audience for "Old Music" as well. Well, well, well.


:lol:
Without commenting on the rest of your post, this part gets a pepper point!


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

BurningDesire-Sorry, no. Snobby idiots aren't my ideal target audience, and I doubt any recent composer would say that is their audience either. All he's living proof of is that some music fans are really dumb.

Also, you really should stop calling people who like things you don't like "hipsters".

I know I'm not the only one who had to laugh at this. Anyone that BD disagrees with she feels free to call an "idiot"... but then takes offence at someone else using the term "hipsters" in the exact same way.:lol:


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## StlukesguildOhio

someguy- Hahahaha.

Ya got any evidence to back this assertion up, there, David?

I don't recall ever participating in any of those "how big is your collection" threads. And I don't think you've ever been to my apartment.

Oh I have no doubt that you have far more modern/contemporary recordings than I. But then you're the exception... and you have a few more years... decades... on me... and unlike yourself I'm far less interested in contemporary music and far more interested in music across a broad spectrum of history. Yet a good many of the younger champions of Modernism/Contemporary music have far less experience and far fewer recordings upon which to base their opinions of the very music in discussion than myself and many others here who are regularly stereotyped as "conservative listeners".


----------



## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> My debate with millionsrainbow has first and foremost have to do with the Hegelian argument for progress and whether there is a linear, one directional Bach-Beethoven-Wagner-Mahler-Schoenberg-Webern line, whether Schoenberg is the proper "heir" to Wagner, etc.


I think part of the problem is that I'm not thinking of this progression in terms of specific composers (although I admit it's hard not to), but in terms of musical mechanisms which are built into the "game" itself. These mechanisms and qualities (tri-tones, etc.) would have been exploited in one way or another, regardless of who did it first. So in this sense, these ideas transcend the particulars and are inevitabilities which have to do with the properties of music itself.


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> :lol:
> Without commenting on the rest of your post, this part gets a pepper point!


:lol::lol:Haha, great, Ken! (I live for pepper points!!):tiphat:


----------



## KenOC

Collect all ten pepper points and you get a free Lothar and the Hand People album!


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## millionrainbows

That's right, boys...keep it light, keep it funny...don't make any statements you might regret...


----------



## Guest

Yes, we are all free, thank God, to do pretty much whatever we want--within the rules of the board. Including having nice light moments in a serious conversation.

As for regrets, I'm pretty much like everyone else in that regard--I regret what I haven't done much more than what I have done.

But your post does remind me that I have not yet said how incisively your post previous to that snaps the discussion into a sharp focus. You keep trying to talk about musical mechanisms, and your interlocuters keep trying to talk about historical determinism. It's no wonder there's been such a kerfluffle.

Be nice to be able to talk about those mechanisms, but the facts of the matter, as they so often do, would seriously interfere with ingrained ideas.

I just had the briefest of encounters with the programming director of my local symphony. He was interested in the book I was rereading, Weber's _The Great Transformation of Musical Taste,_ and voiced the common misconception that Schoenberg and the atonal avant garde in the teens of the last century were responsible for driving audiences out of the concert halls. When I said that the research in this book indicated that that was not so, he grimaced. Nothing like an oft repeated and strongly held idea. Mere facts break themselves against it like waves against a rock. We all know how that ends up, but it seems to take forever....

He's interested in history, though, so he might be able to alter his ideas (which, be fair, aren't really his ideas but more along the lines of what Jacques Barzun used to call "thought cliches"). Bring them in line with the historical record, maybe.


----------



## Guest

You say this program director of your local symphony talks 'cliche'. I wonder who would be better placed to make anecdotal observations than the program director of a symphony? Oh, that's right - an armchair expert/academic!! They know so much more than all of us - so, so much more. What's more they're enlightened, welcoming, politically correct, broadminded, well-read and researched, deep and meaningful (without a scintilla of either humour or irony to erode the 'seriousness' or 'gravity' of the task at hand), skilled in all aspects of culture, fundamentally non judgmental: in short, *all the things that the rest of us poor, concert-going sods aren't.* Next time I'm coming back as an armchair expert!! But I hope I've won the lottery before then, because I dislike being poor and serving fries at McDonalds!


----------



## mmsbls

some guy said:


> I just had the briefest of encounters with the programming director of my local symphony. He was interested in the book I was rereading, Weber's _The Great Transformation of Musical Taste,_ and voiced the common misconception that Schoenberg and the atonal avant garde in the teens of the last century were responsible for driving audiences out of the concert halls. When I said that the research in this book indicated that that was not so, he grimaced.


Does Weber's book give data to confirm that audience attendance at classical music concerts has declined significantly sometime in the past 100 years? Does he dispute that attendance has dropped, or does he simply believe there are other causes than atonal/avant garde music? I know there is recent data from 1982 - 2008 that indicates a modest drop in attendance, but I have not been able to find numbers reaching back to the early 1900's.

If the programming director feels that atonal/avant garde music is the cause of dropping attendance, does he believe that simply not programming that music would raise attendance? Or does he feel that somehow the damage has been irrevocably done (i.e. that period drove listeners away to other music such as Jazz, pop, etc. or even to other pursuits)?


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Does Weber's book give data to confirm that audience attendance at classical music concerts has declined significantly sometime in the past 100 years?


No, he covers from Haydn to Brahms, with a wee final chapter on the situation as it was in 1914. And his focus is not so much on attendance as on the actual contents of concert programs and how those changed and why.

Levels of attendance enter into it, but they're not his focus.

What he says about the responses to new music in that final chapter is that suspicion of new music peaked in 1870 and then again in 1900. "A recurrent theme in many parts of Europe was the warning that the public found new works an insufferable burden. The standard repertory of classics had become so well known that almost anything unfamiliar was treated with suspicion.... Listeners ceased to be attracted by a premiere at a concert; critics began making a sweeping denunciation of new music in and of itself." This was very different from what was going on in the eighteenth century and even well into the 19th, where the cry was often that there was too _little_ new music on concerts (a reaction to the new trend of programming older works more aggressively).

He goes on to say that "such criticism [in 1900] was aimed at pieces written in conservative as well as in advanced styles."

In short, audience rejection of new music pre-dates Schoenberg's pantonal and dodecaphonic music. Audience attendance, per se, was what the programming director was referring to. Weber's point is the broader one of rejection. Voting with ones' feet being only one way to reject.



mmsbls said:


> Does he dispute that attendance has dropped, or does he simply believe there are other causes than atonal/avant garde music?


Well, he certainly thinks there are other causes for the rejection, which starts being noticable in the early 1800s.



mmsbls said:


> If the programming director feels that atonal/avant garde music is the cause of dropping attendance, does he believe that simply not programming that music would raise attendance?


Judging from other brief exchanges we've had--I'm part of a team selling CDs in the lobby. He's out in the lobby talking to all sorts of different people--I think he was just retailing a cliche. He continues to program Dutilleux fairly often, for instance, and has world premieres from time to time. And of course the very controversial Janacek and Britten(!). (Which I referred to in the "My secret" thread.)

Higdon, Aho, Dutilleux--nothing terribly off-putting, one might venture to guess--but with such vitriolic responses to Britten and Janacek, he's being brave to do even that.

He has said that the symphony will "never play Lachenmann."


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> He has said that the symphony will "never play Lachenmann."


Well, it sounds like he's responsible for filling those seats with people's behinds. I assume he makes a living from this? People generally act from self-interest, and I'm sure he'd like to keep his job. He won't do that by alienating customers of (worse) donors. To someone in that position, vox populi, vox dei. As it ever has been.


----------



## Guest

I'd love to be in a town where Lachenmann is a draw....

Oh, wait. I have been!

I'd love to _live_ in a town where Lachenmann is a draw. (Actually, one of the towns on my shortlist is a place where Lachenmann would be considered quite old-fashioned already.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

:lol:


----------



## mmsbls

some guy said:


> "A recurrent theme in many parts of Europe was the warning that the public found new works an insufferable burden. The standard repertory of classics had become so well known that almost anything unfamiliar was treated with suspicion.... Listeners ceased to be attracted by a premiere at a concert; critics began making a sweeping denunciation of new music in and of itself."
> 
> He goes on to say that "such criticism [in 1900] was aimed at pieces written in conservative as well as in advanced styles."


That's quite interesting. The idea that _any_ new work, even a conservative one, would be viewed as "suspicious" is somewhat amazing. I can understand people thinking they will not like the new works as much as the old ones they know, but to exclude _all_ new works would mean the end of music creation. I'm especially surprised that critics would denounce new music. What would be the point of critics then (other than to discuss the performance of an old work)?



some guy said:


> He continues to program Dutilleux fairly often, for instance, and has world premieres from time to time. And of course the very controversial Janacek and Britten(!). (Which I referred to in the "My secret" thread.)
> 
> Higdon, Aho, Dutilleux--nothing terribly off-putting, one might venture to guess--but with such vitriolic responses to Britten and Janacek, he's being brave to do even that.
> 
> He has said that the symphony will "never play Lachenmann."


Do you think he programs Higdon, Aho, Dutilleux, etc. because he feels he _ought_ to expose people to at least some modern music or because he feels he would lose attendance if he programmed no modern music?


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## Zauberberg

I'm pretty new on these realms, I'm exploring (somewhat) the earlier atonality, works of Schoenberg, Webern & Berg. I found myself listening to that when I'm tired of "tonal" music (not just classical), and when I'm tired of "atonal" music, I go back to tonal. Every time I have a change of heart, I find the contrast really pleasing, and came to the realization that both ways of making music are complementary. So I don't understand why these debates are so heated. Now I have a bigger spectrum to enjoy!


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## MROWE

"Atonal" is a screwy word like "post-modern." Poly-tonal would be an accurate description. And my experience is that this non-repeating, cacophony of sounds is a desperate attempt to be original by composers who have fallen under the all too common idea that originality is synonymous with genius (or at least higher intelligence). If music isn't deeply, spiritually beautiful, then it isn't great music. One can do as he/she pleases in composition, but unless it reaches the soul of listeners, then they've made a hash of it. I am also aware that what is perceived as beautiful changes with time and audience, but I've never met a person who could make a decent argument for the beauty of this kind of music. It seems that people who compose it and listen to it and play it are bored of classical and ancient music, or looking to be respected as "intellectuals on the cutting edge," or have fallen prey to that human desire to create something new. The last of these examples is quite understandable. What is not understandable is releasing it to the world in the guise of something superior, when it is inferior in beauty and structure to the high-art of the classical era. Progressing forward doesn't necessarily mean that one is moving in the right direction. One might move forward off a cliff. It is completely possible that the zenith of musical composition has come and gone. I believe in trying new things, but let's not betray fine music and ourselves by taking our hats off to that which is lesser. Remember, it is a decaying society that appreciates crude art forms.


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## BurningDesire

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> :lol:


:lol:


----------



## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> I think part of the problem is that I'm not thinking of this progression in terms of specific composers *(although I admit it's hard not to)*, but in terms of musical mechanisms which are built into the "game" itself. These mechanisms and qualities (tri-tones, etc.) would have been exploited in one way or another, regardless of who did it first. So in this sense, these ideas transcend the particulars and are inevitabilities which have to do with the properties of music itself.


And why do you think it's hard not to? I'm not being rhetorical, I sincerely want to know why you think it's hard not to.


----------



## Guest

MROWE said:


> [M]y experience is that this non-repeating, cacophony of sounds is a desperate attempt to be original by composers who have fallen under the all too common idea that originality is synonymous with genius (or at least higher intelligence).


This "non-repeating, cacophony of sounds," as you put it, may be many things, but your experience is one of the things that it simply _cannot_ be. Your reading of a situation, may be. Your interpretation of what other people are thinking, sure. But experience? Nah.



MROWE said:


> If music isn't deeply, spiritually beautiful, then it isn't great music.


Well, that's a very fine, stirring categorical assertion of the kind of idealism that was at the heart of all the controversy in the nineteenth century over new music and old, over canon and noncanon, over music as a moral force or not.

It does rather leave some questions begging, though. Like whether or not the non-repeating cacophony of sound is deeply, spiritually beautiful or not. Like if you say "No" and I say "Yes" who gets to win? On what grounds can anyone decide which of us is right?



MROWE said:


> One can do as he/she pleases in composition, but unless it reaches the soul of listeners, then they've made a hash of it.


Again, what if it reaches my soul but not yours? What then?



MROWE said:


> I am also aware that what is perceived as beautiful changes with time and audience,


That's good.



MROWE said:


> ...but I've never met a person who could make a decent argument for the beauty of this kind of music.


No, of course you haven't. But I'd venture to guess that you've never met a person who could make a decent argument for the beauty of the kind of music you do like. Possibly you never thought to ask. It's self-evident.

Exactly. And to those of us who enjoy "this kind of music" its beauty seems self-evident.

In any case, the beauty or otherwise of anything is not really something that can be argued. It's a matter of perception. Either you perceive it or you don't. Not really anything to argue about in that regard.



MROWE said:


> It seems that people who compose it and listen to it and play it are bored of classical and ancient music,


Yes, of course. That must be why I keep buying Monteverdi CDs, and Dvorak, and Saint-Saens, and Pergolesi, and Liszt. Just to name a few recent purchases.



MROWE said:


> or looking to be respected as "intellectuals on the cutting edge," or have fallen prey to that human desire to create something new.


Or they simply enjoy things like _Guerro,_ for instance, which seemed to amuse HC so much, because it sounds good. Or Karkowski because it sounds good. Or Goeringer because it sounds good (and because Lyn is wildly pretty, too, may be..)



MROWE said:


> What is not understandable is releasing it to the world in the guise of something superior,


To what, specifically, does this refer? When has this ever happened? Which piece or pieces? Which composer or composers?



MROWE said:


> when it is inferior in beauty and structure to the high-art of the classical era.


Well, that's your judgment. Mine might be different. Sid James's might be something other than either of ours. BurningDesire's might be yet another one. That's the nature of aesthetic reality. Superior and inferior are judgments by people about things, not characteristics of the things themselves.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Do you think he programs Higdon, Aho, Dutilleux, etc. because he feels he _ought_ to expose people to at least some modern music or because he feels he would lose attendance if he programmed no modern music?


I don't know. Like I said, the circumstances of our encounters do not conduce to prolonged discussion. (Wow. That was a mouthful!:lol

Of the two, probably the former. I would seriously doubt the latter. But there's at least one other possibility, which I think is the likeliest. He likes that music.


----------



## EricABQ

BurningDesire said:


> :lol:










..........


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

BurningDesire said:


> :lol:


I'm glad you enjoyed _Water Music_, along with billions of poeple over time. Nice of you to present the clip. Thank you.


----------



## KenOC

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I'm glad you enjoyed _Water Music_, along with billions of poeple over time.


John Cage updated Handel with his own _Water Walk_. Here he is, performing it on "I've Got a Secret" in 1960.


----------



## BurningDesire

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I'm glad you enjoyed _Water Music_, along with billions of poeple over time. Nice of you to present the clip. Thank you.


And I'm glad you enjoyed _Guero_ :3 Thanks for sharing an awesome piece of music with everybody ^^


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

KenOC said:


> John Cage updated Handel with his own _Water Walk_. Here he is, performing it on "I've Got a Secret" in 1960.


Thanks. Interesting, nice find. Cage needed gimmicks and was a great subject for a TV show audience. He should have been a composer-comedian.

Handel's audience was the king and circle, melody instruments of his day and that's about it.


----------



## millionrainbows

millionrainbows: "I think part of the problem is that I'm not thinking of this progression in terms of specific composers (although I admit it's hard not to), but in terms of musical mechanisms..."



brianwalker said:


> And why do you think it's hard not to? I'm not being rhetorical, I sincerely want to know why you think it's hard not to.


Because, the specific composers create concrete realisations of these musical mechanisms; and music/art is why most of us are interested, but this makes things very sticky, because composers and works of art have motives, contexts and other forces pulling on them, which might distract from seeing how "musical thinking" itself, as a language, has changed. For example, I can think of "tritones" and think of jazz, or classical. But when the _tritone itself _is examined, and the results of what it can do are considered, then the reverse happens: suddenly, the composers are seen as actors on a larger stage. I suppose this is what you'd call a "formal" approach.


----------



## buafafa

I understand that composers are always supposed to push the limits and find their own voice in their writing


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## BurningDesire

EricABQ said:


> View attachment 9282
> 
> ..........


oh this makes me giggle whenever I see it X3


----------



## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> millionrainbows: "I think part of the problem is that I'm not thinking of this progression in terms of specific composers (although I admit it's hard not to), but in terms of musical mechanisms..."
> 
> Because, the specific composers create concrete realisations of these musical mechanisms; and music/art is why most of us are interested, but this makes things very sticky, because composers and works of art have motives, contexts and other forces pulling on them, which might distract from seeing how "musical thinking" itself, as a language, has changed. For example, I can think of "tritones" and think of jazz, or classical. But when the _tritone itself _is examined, and the results of what it can do are considered, then the reverse happens: suddenly, the composers are seen as actors on a larger stage. I suppose this is what you'd call a "formal" approach.


Why do you think that composers don't sound alike more? Different composers at the same stage of the historical development sound so different; you'd never mistake Strauss for Mahler or vice versa. Why aren't there more great works of pastiche, or, for that matter, any great works of pastiche?


----------



## Guest

In this regard, two things happen to me when I listen to music. As I listen, I hear more and more similarities between composers writing around the same time. These are the similarities that identify eras or styles. Late romantic. Baroque. Early Modern. Classical.

The other thing that happens is that I hear more and more the differences between composers. These are the differences that identify individuals. Telemann. Vivaldi. Bach. Handel.

Both things happen, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes sequentially, but I cannot imagine only one or the other of them happening. They might seem, from the words "different" and "same" to be contradictory, but in practice they are really complementary. And they certainly are, or seem to be, equally necessary.

Different composers at the same time do have a lot in common. Strauss and Mahler, for instance.* But they are also at the same time quite distinct. So even though they share a lot, they also differ a lot. Even though one can say "late Romantic" about both, one can easily (well, depending on the piece or the phrase, not always all THAT easily) tell them apart.

*I recently bought Bruno Walter's symphony, as compelling and convincing a musical piece as one could hope for, in spite of its being completely pastiche. When I listen to it, I hear Mahler throughout. (I think they should have tapped Walter to complete Mahler's tenth instead of Krenek.) When my friend listens to it, he hears Strauss in every bar.


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## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> Why do you think that composers don't sound alike more? Different composers at the same stage of the historical development sound so different; you'd never mistake Strauss for Mahler or vice versa.


I think we tend to hear idiosyncratic differences or uniquenesses in composers; we identify these mannerisms as their style. Most of the times these stylistic mannerisms simultaneously involve musical mechanisms or ways of thinking which reflect the current state of musical thinking for that era. But when I hear a diminished chord, it's a diminished chord. When Beethoven transforms the diminished seventh chord into altered dominant flat 9, I know that this is not the way Corelli would have treated a diminished seventh chord; it would have been totally out of the paradigm for that particular historical stage of musical thinking.

Sometimes the development of musical forms reflect a development in musical thinking; the fugue didn't get perfected until the major-minor system in tonality was fully developed.

In a fugue, there is definite tonic-dominant organization, and a sense that the music headed toward a definite goal of tonic; by contrast, the older ricercar is more modal than tonal, and more calmly moves towards its goal without as much variety or finality as a fugue.



brianwalker said:


> Why aren't there more great works of pastiche, or, for that matter, any great works of pastiche?


It's called s_oundtrack music._


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## EricABQ

Can someone tell me if the backing music of this song would be considered atonal? Thanks.


----------



## arpeggio

Sounds pretty close to me.


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## EricABQ

arpeggio said:


> Sounds pretty close to me.


Thanks, man.


----------



## Renaissance

It was really interesting to hear Joe Queenan saying such things  What a blasphemy for his audience...But, somebody had to tell it anyway, because this joke is getting to looong...


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## brianwalker

I think the true point of atonal music is pretty clear; to incite endless sound and fury in the music world; to create internal divisions in the classical music world; to isolate it from the rest of the world.

_In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father.
_

This thread now exceeds the Metal thread by 42 pages. Bravo, Schoenberg.


----------



## Guest

brianwalker said:


> I think the true point of atonal music is pretty clear; to incite endless sound and fury in the music world; to create internal divisions in the classical music world; to isolate it from the rest of the world.
> 
> _In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crack'd 'twixt son and father.
> _
> 
> This thread now exceeds the Metal thread by 42 pages. Bravo, Schoenberg.


Well, that pretty well sums things up. People who don't like Schoenberg and his followers, elaboraters, extenders blame Schoenberg for how some listeners have reacted. Schoenberg even gets blamed for this thread, which was started long after his death, and which is entirely fueled by the passions of TC members.

Find a problem or define a situation as a problem (sometimes called "catastrophic thinking"), ignore the real causes of the situation (problematic or otherwise), invent false causes and false categories and repeat them until they're colorable.

And, don't forget an important additional step: keep repeating the falsehoods even after they've been demonstrated to be false.

It's a surefire recipe for success!!


----------



## mud

I blame quack's International Committee for the Elucidation, Branding, Enforcement and Registration of Genres (ice Berg for short), because they apparently caved on the issue of making atonality a separate genre.


----------



## millionrainbows

EricABQ said:


> Can someone tell me if the backing music of this song would be considered atonal? Thanks.


I hear it as being in C, but that's just me. It's definitely tonal (as opposed to being serial), because of the repetition of tones. Repetition of a pitch reinforces a tonal center (whether it be that pitch or not).

If you put a "drone" or bass-line under it, even a 12-tone row can begin to sound tonal. This effect is basically what Miles Davis was doing in his later work, when he would establish a groove, over which almost anything worked. It gave the players total freedom.


----------



## Sid James

The Melbourne Cup is on next week. Its Australia's (horse) 'race that stops the nation.' My bet is that I have next to no chance of winning the cup if I make a bet. But I've got a better chance of winning if I bet that this thread will reach 100 pages by next Tuesday (the time of the race).

I hope this doesn't make people argue whether horse races, or dog races, or camel races, or no races are better. In any case _the point_ of all those is to make cash from people betting on the race!


----------



## Guest

In the spirit of online arguments about music, I would like to see a race between a horse, a dog, and a camel.

Actually, to really get into the spirit, it would have to be a race between a horse, a dog, a skyscraper, and a bridge.


----------



## Sid James

some guy said:


> In the spirit of online arguments about music, I would like to see a race between a horse, a dog, and a camel.


It's on! Aussies would bet on anything.



> ...
> Actually, to really get into the spirit, it would have to be a race between a horse, a dog, a skyscraper, and a bridge.


Well if it's a trojan horse, a puppy dog made of flowers/plants by Jeff Koons, plus those other two built structures, we can maybe compare them. All you have to do is put em all on wheels, like this arty farty sculpture by Giacometti:


----------



## Guest

Sid James said:


> like this arty farty sculpture by Giacometti:


"Arty-farty"? How dare you insult my Favourite Sculptor of All Time!


----------



## Tomgreen

I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay


----------



## mud

If atonality was all classical music ever was, it would never have been popular enough to be called classical. I rest my case.


----------



## Lukecash12

What is the point of tonal music? I wonder how some of you might respond to that, if given many of the same lines of arguments that you have presented.


----------



## Lukecash12

some guy said:


> Well, that pretty well sums things up. People who don't like Schoenberg and his followers, elaboraters, extenders blame Schoenberg for how some listeners have reacted. Schoenberg even gets blamed for this thread, which was started long after his death, and which is entirely fueled by the passions of TC members.
> 
> Find a problem or define a situation as a problem (sometimes called "catastrophic thinking"), ignore the real causes of the situation (problematic or otherwise), invent false causes and false categories and repeat them until they're colorable.
> 
> And, don't forget an important additional step: keep repeating the falsehoods even after they've been demonstrated to be false.
> 
> It's a surefire recipe for success!!


It makes perfect sense. Success is in many ways a social process and end. Use social techniques in your arguments, and you have success. It doesn't require anyone to take a critical thinking course, so naturally it's the more popular way to go about arguing. But let's not be insulting, straw men take some intelligence to construct as well.


----------



## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> What is the point of tonal music? I wonder how some of you might respond to that, if given many of the same lines of arguments that you have presented.


What is the 'point' of any artistic endeavour? It's a pointless question, isn't it?


----------



## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> What is the point of tonal music? I wonder how some of you might respond to that, if given many of the same lines of arguments that you have presented.


There is a topic on that already.


----------



## Lukecash12

mud said:


> There is a topic on that already.


I'll have to peruse it a bit, then.


----------



## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> What is the 'point' of any artistic endeavour? It's a pointless question, isn't it?


If it's a pointless question then why do we come here, why do artists make art, and why do people appreciate that art? Surely the question is hard, but it can be a fruitful question too. If it were pointless, then it wouldn't have fueled so much literature. It is significant enough to people that instead of merely asking people the question, it gets protracted to the point of them arguing about Tolstoy's "What is art".

Now maybe some of the efforts made concerning this issue have been vacuous, pointless, or vain, but the question itself? Why, it could be said that this is one of the big questions, up there with any other famous humanist question. Art has often been used by anthropologists as a way of pointing out when we came into the picture, as they observe Archaics (earlier Homo Sapiens sapiens) who made crude flutes and other works of art. It was the beginning of culture. The beginning of what defined man. Asking what the point of art is, is maybe a question very similar to "what is man".


----------



## Guest

Of course, the arts have several purposes, and discussion about them is indeed worthwhile. But my response was aimed directly at the liking for threads which do not aim at discussion (as you and I would like it), but which simply ask rhetorical questions or offer retorts to the previous rhetorical question by asking another!


----------



## Guest

While you're here, I wonder if you're willing to reply to the response I gave to a question you asked me in another thread, on a similar theme ("Hypotheses on why certain people truly enjoy tonal/dissonant music")

http://www.talkclassical.com/21938-hypotheses-why-certain-people-9.html#post372405

Thanks.


----------



## mud

Lukecash12 said:


> I'll have to peruse it a bit, then.


Here it is: What is the point of Tonal music?


----------



## EricABQ

millionrainbows said:


> I hear it as being in C, but that's just me. It's definitely tonal (as opposed to being serial), because of the repetition of tones. Repetition of a pitch reinforces a tonal center (whether it be that pitch or not).


Thank you for the answer.


----------



## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> While you're here, I wonder if you're willing to reply to the response I gave to a question you asked me in another thread, on a similar theme ("Hypotheses on why certain people truly enjoy tonal/dissonant music")
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/21938-hypotheses-why-certain-people-9.html#post372405
> 
> Thanks.


I guess I missed that one.


----------



## millionrainbows

What is the point of atonal music? I hope it's not world domination.


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## Carpenoctem

millionrainbows said:


> What is the point of atonal music? I hope it's not world domination.


Korean Pop will dominate the world in a few years. It's already happening.


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## millionrainbows

Carpenoctem said:


> Korean Pop will dominate the world in a few years. It's already happening.


And we'll be listening to it on Korean stereos in Korean cars.


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## LordBlackudder

atonal music is used to create anxiety, unease, horror, reflection, futuristic, modern, mockery, tension, panic.


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## millionrainbows

LordBlackudder said:


> atonal music is used to create anxiety, unease, horror, reflection, futuristic, modern, mockery, tension, panic.


"Atonal" can mean just about anything; in this case, soundtrack music: Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, Twilight Zone TV music, etc.


----------



## arpeggio

*Surfing Through the Stargate*

In _2001_ can you imagined what it would have been like if instead of Legeti we heard the Beach Boys singing "Let's Go Surfing Through the Stargate". :trp:


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> In _2001_ can you imagined what it would have been like if instead of Legeti we heard the Beach Boys singing "Let's Go Surfing Through the Stargate". :trp:


As Townes Van Zant once said, "There's the blues, and there's Zip-ah-dee-doo-dah."


----------



## Lukecash12

LordBlackudder said:


> atonal music is used to create anxiety, unease, horror, reflection, futuristic, modern, mockery, tension, panic.


Actually, it can create all kinds of other emotions, too. Maybe it sets you on edge because you are listening with a tonal expectation the whole time. I find Xenakis' music very calming sometimes, like his piece on the Odyssey. Just like you can't come into the baroque with an expectation of the kind of drama that people are programmed to want because of later music, atonal music requires different expectations, a different interpretation altogether of what it is that you're hearing. Atonal music being dissonant isn't the same as Romantic music being dissonant, it's not necessarily the same as Romantic tension. People need to get the cadence resolutions out of their heads.


----------



## jani

Carpenoctem said:


> Korean Pop will dominate the world in a few years. It's already happening.


Yes it is, its already taking over famous Prog metal bands!


----------



## Art Rock

Rofl.......


----------



## millionrainbows

Lukecash12 said:


> Actually, it can create all kinds of other emotions, too. Maybe it sets you on edge because you are listening with a tonal expectation the whole time. I find Xenakis' music very calming sometimes, like his piece on the Odyssey. Just like you can't come into the baroque with an expectation of the kind of drama that people are programmed to want because of later music, atonal music requires different expectations, a different interpretation altogether of what it is that you're hearing. Atonal music being dissonant isn't the same as Romantic music being dissonant, it's not necessarily the same as Romantic tension. People need to get the cadence resolutions out of their heads.


True, I agree; Morton Feldman is a very interesting figure in this regard. His music can be experienced as random, chaotic, calming, darkly existential, spiritual, all depending on how you hear it.


----------



## Sid James

MacLeod said:


> "Arty-farty"? How dare you insult my Favourite Sculptor of All Time!


Yeah well I quite like Giacometti too. But he is kind of 'arty farty,' a bit like other modern sculpture (Picasso's bull's head made of a bicycle seat is a 'classic' if we're talking about this). If a nobody like me had made this, it would be junk. But since the great Picasso made it, its a great artwork. Go figure.












MacLeod said:


> What is the 'point' of any artistic endeavour? It's a pointless question, isn't it?


Yeah and considering how classical music now is kind of in danger (or almost?) becoming a museum piece, the question may as well be 'what is the point of classical music?' Today I mean, not in 1962, or 1912 or 1812 or whatever. Seriously, I wonder sometimes does this all matter, even to most listeners of classical who are not online? Who cares? Esp. with this natural disaster in the USA, and you got the election on.*

To paraphrase Bogey in_ Casablanca _"Classical music don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." To which Ingrid Bergman replies "Play it again, Sam...you know, that atonal serial thingy by Webern...does it for me every time."

But Sam has his own ideas and plays the famous ditty _you must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh_...

*& The Melbourne Cup is on tomorrow and this thread is not yet near 100 pages as I predicted. People, I don't want egg on my face, put more waffle on this thread, it has to reach the big 1-0-0 by tommorrow!!!


----------



## Guest

Sid James said:


> Yeah well I quite like Giacometti too. But he is kind of 'arty farty,' a bit like other modern sculpture (Picasso's bull's head made of a bicycle seat is a 'classic' if we're talking about this). If a nobody like me had made this, it would be junk. But since the great Picasso made it, its a great artwork. Go figure.


There's just nothing one can say to such appallingness, except to say that there's just nothing one can say to such appallingness.


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> There's just nothing one can say to such appallingness, except to say that there's just nothing one can say to such appallingness.


Well, I'll join Sid in your appalling bin on that one. Sorry to magnify your appalledness!


----------



## millionrainbows

Sid James said:


> Yeah well I quite like Giacometti too. But he is kind of 'arty farty,' a bit like other modern sculpture (Picasso's bull's head made of a bicycle seat is a 'classic' if we're talking about this). If a nobody like me had made this, it would be junk. But since the great Picasso made it, its a great artwork. Go figure.
> 
> To paraphrase Bogey in_ Casablanca _"Classical music don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." To which Ingrid Bergman replies "Play it again, Sam...you know, that atonal serial thingy by Webern...does it for me every time."
> But Sam has his own ideas and plays the famous ditty _you must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh_...


@some guy, also:
I don't get that sense of "arty-farty" from Giacometti, whatever that term is supposed to mean. Starting from his early Surrealist work, like "The Palace at 3 A.M." and "Woman with Her Throat Cut", and his flat, game-like pieces, to his drawings and paintings, Giacometti spanned the Surrealist era into the atomic age, and embodied a certain "existential" attitude that was at once in-tune with the late 1950s, and timeless enough to be relevant today. What a great artist he was!

The Picasso example is more of an assemblage than sculpture; and it is a humorous comment, both in execution and subject (bull: self-deprecating humor) on Duchamp's "found objects." There are dimensions of humor and commentary in this piece that you guys apparently missed, or didn't bother to mention. Picasso produced so much work that this little piece was probably something he just tossed-off in 30 minutes. He's got a clever eye, doesn't he? I bet you could have _never_ thought of doing that.

Modern art criticism should be placed in a context of general knowledge, not just jerked-out of context. What's next, "My two-year-old could do that?" Modern art should not concern you if you feel this way about it, so spare us the shallow observations.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Modern art criticism should be placed in a context of general knowledge, not just jerked-out of context. What's next, "My two-year-old could do that?" Modern art should not concern you if you feel this way about it, so spare us the shallow observations.


This is not exactly what I was gonna say, but it's close enough so that I no longer feel the need to say it. Better coming from someone other than myself, anyway.

Thanks a million, million.:tiphat:


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> This is not exactly what I was gonna say, but it's close enough so that I no longer feel the need to say it. Better coming from someone other than myself, anyway.
> 
> Thanks a million, million.:tiphat:


Well, I'm surprised at Sid James. If he still had that Mae West avatar, I'd give him a good spanking.


----------



## TresPicos

LordBlackudder said:


> atonal music is used to create anxiety, unease, horror, reflection, futuristic, modern, mockery, tension, panic.


Hm... In me, atonal music often creates fascination, joy, refreshment, harmony, tranquility and even bliss.

I must be doing it wrong.


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## millionrainbows

TresPicos said:


> Hm... In me, atonal music often creates fascination, joy, refreshment, harmony, tranquility and even bliss.
> 
> I must be doing it wrong.


Yeah, yeah, I agree. Morton Feldman produces in me a reverence (Rothko Chapel), detachment, quiescence, meditation, stillness, awe, sadness, profundity, sense of the absurd, hypnagogic states, mystery, suspense...all at once! _*~giggle!~*_


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## Guest

How dare you have positive experiences with such terrible music?:lol:


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## Mickey

Is there an atonal "progression" ? I'd like to try my hand at it.


----------



## Sid James

millionrainbows said:


> ...
> Modern art criticism should be placed in a context of general knowledge, not just jerked-out of context. What's next, "My two-year-old could do that?" Modern art should not concern you if you feel this way about it, so spare us the shallow observations.


It does concern me, but it was only a joke.

I am not ignorant about art, incl. modern/contemporary art, but as with music of recent decades, some of it in terms of its ideology doesn't hold water with me. Look at it this way. In this country, if you want to learn actual skills in art, you have to go to a private college to do it. Say traditional bronze or modelling techniques. The public universities did the throwing out the baby with the bathwater thing decades ago, due to trendy Modernist ideology, so students are taught about concepts and not skills. So yeah, they can't do something like what Rodin and guys before him did, they can do stuff like the Picasso bull piece though. I find this situation ridiculous. Picasso actually knew the academic techniques! He said something like you have to know the rules in order to break them. But ideology wins over common sense, always!

But anyway, as for my joke, I got egg on my face, its Melbourne Cup day today & this thread has not reached 100 pages. Damn!


----------



## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> Yeah, yeah, I agree. Morton Feldman produces in me a reverence (Rothko Chapel), detachment, quiescence, meditation, stillness, awe, sadness, profundity, sense of the absurd, hypnagogic states, mystery, suspense...all at once! _*~giggle!~*_


And of course the actual themes in modern music can be just as fascinating.


----------



## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> Ohh, let's go into ad-hominem territory! I have some advice for you, my dear fellow: *Humble yourself before the great art and artists of our time,* and stop trying to prove that this modern century is invalid, or go back to your "museum of tonality" and have your recursive "inklings" all by yourself, to use your characterizations of me.
> 
> View attachment 9093


You ought to humble yourself to the departure of the muses. There are no great artists of our times, yet.

The choice isn't between a vital culture and a "museum", but a museum filled with only what is noble and beautiful or a museum where garbage occludes the treasures of the past and turns the museum visitors away. Schoenberg is part of the museum. Boulez is a walking museum himself.

We can fill the museum with trash or keep it clean.


----------



## Renaissance

@ Million Rainbows :

Museum of tonality ? I beg you pardon, but it seems to me that "atonal" music is more like a museum now. Why ? Because all the music on the stage is fundamentally tonal, while serialiasm is already dying, and is dying for real. You, people need to get out of your head the idea that music should progress, because if we keep on this track we'll even consider sex as an intellectual concept. Really, do you listen to "modern" music because of its supposed "intellectual" profundity or conceptual meaning ? How can you call "music" like this, reproducible by anyone, intellectual ?? Is Cage's music more intellectual than Bach's ? Man, I can't believe this is happening. In modern art, ideology replace the real value. Otherwise, it would be too evident.


----------



## Renaissance

Sid James said:


> But ideology wins over common sense, always!


This is its purpose. This aggressive promotion of the so-called "modern" art through ideologies is very toxic because it's trying to change well-established values and traditions, things that do not came out of nothing, but after hundreds of years of experiments. One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art. Because traditional art was created to be different from these, in order to make a sense, because we are human beings, not soulless pseudo-intellectual robots. (though many started to behave this way). As long as traditional classical music has its intellectual rigor, I don't see why bothering with ideological crap. Why do we need these ? If a piece of art really has something to say, it won't need crappy ideologies to do it. Even a peasant finds a profound sense of beauty and unity in Da Vinci's paintings, thing that is not happening with Kandinsky for example, where the audience is told how to appreciate something that they can't appreciate at first. This is what ideology is supposed to do : to blind people and make them incapable of distinguish real value from crap.


----------



## Guest

Renaissance said:


> One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art.


There is a significant difference between being an artist and being an observer of art. For an artist to want to move away from the past is healthy and normal and to be expected. Why reproduce what someone else has done? The point of being an artist is to produce something that would not otherwise exist unless you do it. That means, naturally, that what you produce, being different from what people are used to, will confuse and bewilder and even anger some observers. This is all fine.

In addition, for an artist to do something new affects the status and availability of older art for the observer not one whit. The old art is still in place.



Renaissance said:


> Because traditional art was created to be different from these...


This is often asserted. Pretty sure it's not true. "Traditional" is something that, hopefully, happens to art over time, not something that art starts out being.



Renaissance said:


> in order to make a sense


"Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood."--Henry Miller

Everything humans do "makes sense" in the loose meaning of "is understandable." What artists do is quite literally _make_ sense, a sense that has not existed prior to the work that expresses it. Almost always there is a gap between the new sense and comprehension. The best criticism would be that that tries to close that gap, not exacerbate it.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Renaissance said:


> This is its purpose. This aggressive promotion of the so-called "modern" art through ideologies is very toxic because it's trying to change well-established values and traditions, things that do not came out of nothing, but after hundreds of years of experiments. One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art. Because traditional art was created to be different from these, in order to make a sense, because we are human beings, not soulless pseudo-intellectual robots. (though many started to behave this way). As long as traditional classical music has its intellectual rigor, I don't see why bothering with ideological crap. Why do we need these ? If a piece of art really has something to say, it won't need crappy ideologies to do it. Even a peasant finds a profound sense of beauty and unity in Da Vinci's paintings, thing that is not happening with Kandinsky for example, where the audience is told how to appreciate something that they can't appreciate at first. This is what ideology is supposed to do : to blind people and make them incapable of distinguish real value from crap.


Perceptive. I agree entirely.


----------



## Sid James

Renaissance said:


> ...This aggressive promotion of the so-called "modern" art through ideologies is very toxic because it's trying to change well-established values and traditions, things that do not came out of nothing, but after hundreds of years of experiments. One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art... If a piece of art really has something to say, it won't need crappy ideologies to do it...This is what ideology is supposed to do : to blind people...


I would put it differently, less strongly, but the gist of what you say in the parts I've quoted does make sense to me. What I was talking about regarding the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater applies to Modernism's positive aspects too. I think that ideas related to Modernism & things after (however we label them, eg. Post Modernist or whatever) did bring not only minuses but also pluses. I think the rigid academicism had to give way. Unfortunately, after 1945 you had another kind of rigid academicism, this time not conservative but radical. Its the same thing in the school system, they threw out the rule book entirely rather than adapting it to current needs. Updating it, in other words. In the last decade, grammar for example is being taught again, and this is good. A whole generation grew up without learning grammar in school. I think thats a real shame, its a travesty. Its the same thing as I was talking of re the problems of visual art education being overtaken by extreme 'trendy' ideologies.

Having said that I do enjoy 20th and 21st century arts. Its one of my favourite areas overall of artistic creation. Earlier, I made this thread critiquing what Modernism came out of, that rigid academicism of the late 19th century.

http://www.talkclassical.com/19522-academicism-creative-arts.html

The other thing is that I don't believe art=life (well, not taken to the ultimate extremes, anyway). If that were the case, we may as well not teach anything in music school, or art school, or anything like that. We can all be composers and visual artists without any practical/technical training, just concepts/theory/intellectualising. This is an extreme but not far from what's been going on since 1945, but in some areas at least its being rectified.


----------



## Guest

Renaissance said:


> This is its purpose. This aggressive promotion of the so-called "modern" art through ideologies is very toxic because it's trying to change well-established values and traditions, things that do not came out of nothing, but after hundreds of years of experiments. One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art. Because traditional art was created to be different from these, in order to make a sense, because we are human beings, not soulless pseudo-intellectual robots. (though many started to behave this way). As long as traditional classical music has its intellectual rigor, I don't see why bothering with ideological crap. Why do we need these ? If a piece of art really has something to say, it won't need crappy ideologies to do it. Even a peasant finds a profound sense of beauty and unity in Da Vinci's paintings, thing that is not happening with Kandinsky for example, where the audience is told how to appreciate something that they can't appreciate at first. This is what ideology is supposed to do : to blind people and make them incapable of distinguish real value from crap.


Then I think you should look up ideology. You're spouting an 'ideology' all of your own!


----------



## Guest

I'll say it again, there's a big difference between a maker of art and an observer of art. And much of the disagreement on these threads depends utterly on confusing the two, conflating the two, or just not clearly seeing the different between them. The business about throwing out the baby with the bath water kinds of comments, for instance. No amount of turning away from the past by an artist affects the past one iota. The creations of the past are still there for the observers' enjoyment. What of that has serialism or indeterminacy or experimentalism destroyed?

None of it.

There's still the same amount of Palestrina and Beethoven and Tchaikovsky to listen to. What serialism and indeterminacy and so forth have done is simply add to the amount of things we have to choose from. This seems so simple.

For artists, it is important to create. Creating means to make something that would not exist had you not made it. Simply. And that means making something that won't be immediately comprehensible, at least not to a majority of observers. Beethoven's ninth was wildly successful from the get go. And near his death, Cage was mobbed in Finland as if he were a rock star. But those are exceptions to, well, not quite a rule, but certainly a very commonplace situation. If new means anything besides "recent," then there will inevitably be a gap between presentation and comprehension. Simple.

The gap does not mean that the world is coming to an end. It does not mean the triumph of ideologues. (Any reading of history will show ideologies equally prominent--Liszt and Wagner, anyone? Monteverdi?) It does not mean that composers are trying purposely to **** you off. (Truly. They don't even know you.) It is simply a logical outcome of a very ordinary and to be expected reality. Nothing more, nothing less. (I realize I'm saying this in the face of both certain composers having said some pretty provocative things as well as in the face of certain listeners being certain that all avant garde composers are out to destroy culture and beauty for ever and ever, amen. "Oh, well.")

Truly. The most radical noise artist will have exactly zero effect on your ability to have as much Gesualdo as ever you have had, will have exactly zero effect on your ability to enjoy Gesualdo to the top of your bent. That there are some of us--and there are some us like this--who can enjoy both Gesualdo and Merzbow (who, so far, has stopped short of murder) should really put paid to any alarmism about the decline of culture or the stranglehold of modernism. It doesn't, I know.

It should.


----------



## Guest

@someguy

The only point I would take issue with, to a minor degree, is where you imply that the artist will necessarily turn away from the past.



> For an artist to want to move away from the past is healthy and normal and to be expected. Why reproduce what someone else has done? The point of being an artist is to produce something that would not otherwise exist unless you do it. That means, naturally, that what you produce, being different from what people are used to, will confuse and bewilder and even anger some observers.





> For artists, it is important to create. Creating means to make something that would not exist had you not made it. Simply. And that means making something that won't be immediately comprehensible


Presuming that we're not going to disagree over the definition of 'artist' ("one who creates original artifacts that confuse") there have been, and doubtless are, plenty of artists who choose to explore both current and past ideas and techniques, and maybe put a new spin on them. Yes, there have been in the past, from the perspective of the present, some dramatic breaks from previous traditions, but there has been continuity too. I went to an auction house last Saturday where I came across an art picture book from 1914. It was filled with portraits, landscapes, still lives, pretty pictures from accredited Royal Academy artists, but none seemed to have taken any account of the changes in art during the previous 30 years. Not one jot of Impressionism, never mind the emerging Cubism.

My wife, on the other hand doing a degree in textiles, completed a work recently and complained that her work is different than everyone else's and even her tutor said that she doesn't think like all the others. I pointed out (probably unhelpfully) that that makes it difficult for the tutors: it's all too easy to grade what they know, but not what looks unfamiliar. Yet having watched her at work, I know that she's taking inspiration from the 50s!


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> No amount of turning away from the past by an artist affects the past one iota. The creations of the past are still there for the observers' enjoyment.


Well, I'm not sure that's necessarily true. There are many examples in musical history where the works of major composers (by our lights anyway) became unavailable to the general listening public. Bach's choral music from 1750 to 1829 ( and actually beyond). Haydn's symphonies from 1800 or so through the entire 19th century. And so on. You'd almost never be able to hear these works in concert, and even buying CDs would have been difficult if they'd been invented!

But these works and styles were eclipsed by the popularity of new works and styles. I suspect that the non-modernist canon that is popular now is not threatened in the same way, at least yet.


----------



## TresPicos

Renaissance said:


> This is its purpose. This aggressive promotion of the so-called "modern" art through ideologies is very toxic because it's trying to change well-established values and traditions, things that do not came out of nothing, but after hundreds of years of experiments.


Toxic? Really? Would we even have Haydn or Beethoven to listen to today if such "well-established values and traditions" had been unchallenged and adhered to?

And why would artists suddenly stop experimenting, if they had been experimenting for centuries, as you say? When one artist stopped experimenting, having reached a perceived perfect state, another artist started experimenting because he saw that there were more to be done.

The history of art and music is one long sequence of rules being broken, boundaries being pushed and traditions being thrown overboard. One long, slow opening of minds. Painful for some, appreciated by others.



> One simply can not throw away centuries of tradition in the favor of randomness and chaos that dominates so well modern art.


A perfectly valid opinion back in 1912. Then, the art world slowly came to grips with it, understanding that the creative arts would actually benefit from artists being allowed to be... creative.



> Because traditional art was created to be different from these, in order to make a sense, because we are human beings, not soulless pseudo-intellectual robots. (though many started to behave this way). As long as traditional classical music has its intellectual rigor, I don't see why bothering with ideological crap. Why do we need these ? If a piece of art really has something to say, it won't need crappy ideologies to do it.


The crappiest of ideologies in the creative arts has always been the one saying "go ahead and create, but only within these narrow boundaries".



> Even a peasant finds a profound sense of beauty and unity in Da Vinci's paintings, thing that is not happening with Kandinsky for example, where the audience is told how to appreciate something that they can't appreciate at first.


Art is only art if it is immediately appreciated by a farmer?

I would argue that even a child could find beauty and value in a painting by Kandinsky at the very first viewing, without understanding any of the so called ideologies behind it, and without being told anything.



> This is what ideology is supposed to do : to blind people and make them incapable of distinguish real value from crap.


Tradition is quite good at blinding people too.


----------



## Guest

Excellent post , Tres Picos!


----------



## mud

TresPicos said:


> Tradition is quite good at blinding people too.


Genres are quite good at focusing people's attention on the merits of otherwise conflicting art forms. The contradiction that is occurring in these discussions is that atonal music is being lauded for braking the rules, while not being celebrated as a new genre apart from what it is antithetical to. It seems that its only real substance is the brand name of classical, which it leeches off of for an ounce of notoriety.


----------



## Zauberberg

mud said:


> Genres are quite good at focusing people's attention on the merits of otherwise conflicting art forms. The contradiction that is occurring in these discussions is that atonal music is being lauded for braking the rules, while not being celebrated as a new genre apart from what it is antithetical to. It seems that its only real substance is the brand name of classical, which it leeches off of for an ounce of notoriety.


Man, who cares about "genres", "brands"? do you realize it's all in your mind? I don't understand the obsession with these abstract categories. What would it change? oh we make a barrier between this and this, like two separated countries, like different races... but the world still keeps the same shape. Somehow that would make you happier, the imaginary stories of your mind, the purity, the order... things that reminds me all the stupid barriers that humans have imposed to themselves through history. You know the rest.


----------



## mud

Zauberberg said:


> Man, who cares about "genres", "brands"? do you realize it's all in your mind? I don't understand the obsession with these abstract categories. What would it change? oh we make a barrier between this and this, like two separated countries, like different races... but the world still keeps the same shape. Somehow that would make you happier, the imaginary stories of your mind, the purity, the order... things that reminds me all the stupid barriers that humans have imposed to themselves through history. You know the rest.


Genres are quite good at focusing people's attention on the merits of otherwise conflicting art forms.


----------



## Zauberberg

I can focus on the merits of diverse art forms without thinking in names and categories. You know, it's just pure intellectual stimulation, what more do I need?

Encouraging open-mindedness is more important than divide the art. The latter is counter-productive and gives you a limited amount of the stimulation you can receive.


----------



## mud

Zauberberg said:


> Encouraging open-mindedness is more important than divide the art. The latter is counter-productive and gives you a limited amount of the stimulation you can receive.


Categorizing art properly is more open minded than insisting it is all the same thing.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

Sid James said:


> I would put it differently, less strongly, but the gist of what you say in the parts I've quoted does make sense to me. What I was talking about regarding the mistake of throwing the baby out with the bathwater applies to Modernism's positive aspects too. I think that ideas related to Modernism & things after (however we label them, eg. Post Modernist or whatever) did bring not only minuses but also pluses. I think the rigid academicism had to give way. Unfortunately, after 1945 you had another kind of rigid academicism, this time not conservative but radical. Its the same thing in the school system, they threw out the rule book entirely rather than adapting it to current needs. Updating it, in other words. In the last decade, grammar for example is being taught again, and this is good. A whole generation grew up without learning grammar in school. I think thats a real shame, its a travesty. Its the same thing as I was talking of re the problems of visual art education being overtaken by extreme 'trendy' ideologies.
> 
> Having said that I do enjoy 20th and 21st century arts. Its one of my favourite areas overall of artistic creation. Earlier, I made this thread critiquing what Modernism came out of, that rigid academicism of the late 19th century.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/19522-academicism-creative-arts.html
> 
> The other thing is that I don't believe art=life (well, not taken to the ultimate extremes, anyway). If that were the case, we may as well not teach anything in music school, or art school, or anything like that. We can all be composers and visual artists without any practical/technical training, just concepts/theory/intellectualising. This is an extreme but not far from what's been going on since 1945, but in some areas at least its being rectified.


There are a few members here who have declared they like extremities for _the sake of extremity_. I recall member _some guy_ writing a preference to that effect; something along the lines of "keep pushing for the extreme". I cannot (nor bother) to locate the exact post but I do recall accurately.


----------



## Zauberberg

mud said:


> Categorizing art properly is more open minded than insisting it is all the same thing.


----------



## mud

Zauberberg said:


>


Try again, we were talking about music...


----------



## Guest

mud said:


> Genres are quite good at focusing people's attention on the merits of otherwise conflicting art forms.


Are they now? And do you have any examples of that happening?



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> There are a few members here who have declared they like extremities for _the sake of extremity_. I recall member _some guy_ writing a preference to that effect;


No you don't.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> something along the lines of "keep pushing for the extreme". I cannot (nor bother) to locate the exact post but I do recall accurately.


No you don't.

It's one thing to distort posts in a thread that anyone can look up and see how you've distorted them. It's quite another to simply lie. Please retract this and apologize. Quickly.


----------



## mud

some guy said:


> Are they now? And do you have any examples of that happening?


Genres exist for that very reason, each is an example.


----------



## Guest

Wow.

OK, then. Nevermind.


----------



## BurningDesire

mud said:


> Categorizing art properly is more open minded than insisting it is all the same thing.


War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Prejudice is Open-mindedness.


----------



## Renaissance

Go ahead people, be "open-minded", break every "narrow" rule for the sake of exploration... Traditions may blind people, but accepting every crap for the sake of being open-minded is just as stupid.


----------



## millionrainbows

_I am a gentleman, and as such, will continue to engage in discussion with civility, dealing with real ideas, not fluffy rhetoric which tells us nothing about the music or the ideas which produced it._

The grey area between serialism and tonality, if looked at in terms of advanced serial thought, is struggling to reconcile certain aspects of serialism with tonality. Most listeners here who are vehemently anti-serial are probably unaware of this aspect of serialism.

"All-interval tetrachords" and "all-triad hexachords," are certain sets (out of all the possible sets) which exhibit certain symmetries, such as producing the same set of pitch letter-names under inversion. As I have said in my past posts and blogs, pitch names are tied to pitch identity, a tonal concept, rather than being quantities, as in interval distance.

Thus, using these special-case sets, the composer is able to control the vertical, as well as horizontal consequences of several 'stacked' rows, thus producing controlled harmonic effects, yet never straying from serial principles.

Milton Babbitt is responsible for generating interest in these all-interval sets, although his music (excepting his broadway-style songs) does not reflect an interest in "reconciling" 12-tone ideas with tonality. Elliott Carter comes closer to exemplifying this reconciliation; and George Perle, whose music is largely unknown, espouses these same concepts in his book "Twelve-Tone Tonality."

Excerpts paraphased from Arnold Whitall's _Serialism:_

Steve Reich said "the reality of cadence to a key or modal center is basic in all the music of the world, Western and non-Western. This reality is also related to the primacy of the intervals of the fifth, fourth, and octave in all the world's music as well as in the physical acoustics of sound. Similarly for the regular rhythmic pulse. Any theory of music that eliminates these realities is doomed to a marginal role in the music of the world. The postman will never whistle Schoenberg."

Reich is not putting-down Schoenberg, but is saying that Schoenberg's best works pre-dated his adoption of the 12-tone system. But Reich is trying to maximise the differences between serialism and his music, minimalism.

Reich does not pursue the possibility that even if serialism eliminates such 'realities' as the acoustic primacy of certain intervals, compositional practice can effectively recontextualize these realities in ways which still remain true to serial method. Elliott Carter is a good example of this.

British composer Richard Barrett (b.1959) wrote in 1988 that "As far as I am concerned, the modernist project is still in its early stages...it is far too early to speculate meaningfully on what the implications of this may end up being."


----------



## Zauberberg

Renaissance said:


> Go ahead people, be "open-minded", break every "narrow" rule for the sake of exploration... Traditions may blind people, but accepting every crap for the sake of being open-minded is just as stupid.


I don't accept every crap. I just don't go nuts when I listen something new. I give it a time, and if it's no good, move along. Voilà!


----------



## BurningDesire

Renaissance said:


> Go ahead people, be "open-minded", break every "narrow" rule for the sake of exploration... Traditions may blind people, but accepting every crap for the sake of being open-minded is just as stupid.


Being open-minded isn't about just accepting everything. Its about being open-minded. Its about not assuming you know everything, or believing your opinion to be objective. There's modern music that I personally don't enjoy that much, but I have actually taken the time to learn about it and the artists behind it, and I can respect things they are doing, even though I wouldn't choose that technique or aesthetic for my own art.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> Are they now? And do you have any examples of that happening?
> 
> No you don't.
> 
> No you don't.
> 
> It's one thing to distort posts in a thread that anyone can look up and see how you've distorted them. It's quite another to simply lie. Please retract this and apologize. Quickly.


I am not apologizing. I did not insult. I do recall accurately. I am stating facts.


----------



## quack

I always pronounce genres as Jen ears, to confuse and annoy people.


----------



## HarpsichordConcerto

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I am not apologizing. I did not insult. I do recall accurately. I am stating facts.


Here is what I was referring to. As I stated, I recall accurately. (I am quite proud of my memory). This post was written on 13th October 2011. *Bold red font below is mine.*



some guy said:


> I don't usually talk about what I don't like. For one, everything I don't like is thoroughly enjoyed by someone, somewhere. Why sully their enjoyment with my idiosyncrasies? Plus, I think that saying "I dislike Bax" is to say nothing about Bax, only about me. And it's not saying anything very important about me.
> 
> I dislike most of the pop music I hear. The constant repetition. The simple tunes. But I thoroughly enjoy things like Rzewski and ten Holt, which also have a lot of repetition. The tunes aren't quite so simple, but still. I just don't find that pop repays any sort of listening. It seems like it's not even supposed to be listened to, simply reacted to, with a bobbing head or a tapping foot. And most of my friends who like pop tend to want me to listen to the lyrics, not the music. The music is only there to carry those dynamite lyrics that are so great. (I am indifferent to the lyrics.)
> 
> Closer to home, I found that after a few listens to Simpson, I didn't want to do that anymore. If I want to listen to the three or four Nielsen quotes he uses over and over again, then I'll listen to Nielsen. But I don't go around on Simpson threads bashing the guy or his music or his fans. I don't see the point in that. Some people do. Some people enjoy Simpson. Some people enjoy bashing. I enjoy neither. To each his own, I guess.
> 
> *Otherwise, I must say I do not seek for the middle ground very often, in anything. Certainly not in the arts. I want to push and keep pushing to the extremes. Well, no, I don't want to, I just do.* In fact, I'm going to go do that now. AEMAE, _Maw._ If it's not extreme, I am going to be soooooo angry!
> 
> [Edit: _Maw_ seems fine on first hearing.]


----------



## clavichorder

Christ, this thread is nearing the 100 page mark. Somebody needs to earn some kind of prize.


----------



## Guest

Congratulations on finding the relevant post, HC, I'll give you that. (And, as a reward, I'll withdraw my request.)

I do not think what'd you've found illustrates any liking of mine for extremities _for the sake of_ extremities, but to try to explain what I was really trying to convey in that post would be too tiring. Especially since you wouldn't believe me, anyway.

(I wrote the preceding about two hours ago and have been on Skype with my youngest son and now, looking at this, it looks easy. So here goes: I don't like extremes for their own sake; I like to push past what I know to what I don't know yet. To constantly move into new territory. As a listener. That means that as a listener, I'm more aligned with how the creators look at the situation than with how consumers look at the situation. Which is why, even though I'm not a composer, I can so bravely and intelligently explain how composers operate. At least this is so in my own mind. Anyway, it's not for extremity's sake but for the sake of continuing to grow and develop and learn.)


----------



## millionrainbows

George Perle is a good example of serial thought which diverges from the Stockhausen/Boulez type of strict, mechanistic serialism into a form of serialism which concerns itself with 'all-interval sets,' 'all-triad hexachords' and other 'special' sets chosen for their unique properties of symmetry and invariance under transformation, not unlike Elliott Carter's approach. For me, the results produce beautiful harmonic effects, and interesting melodic twists. No, it's not your grandpa's tonality, but, I think, produces music which is very interesting and listenable. It is more reminiscent of Schoenberg than Boulez, and more dense than Webern.


----------



## millionrainbows

More George Perle. I sense in this music, by its continuity and rhythmic coherence, a real desire to communicate.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

12 tone Blues - says alot to me - Music has to try new things - doen't alwayas matter what the outcome is - it the sense that something good might come....


----------



## violadude

AAAHHHHH It's the thread that wont die!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Oh no not this thread again.


----------



## violadude

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> 12 tone Blues - says alot to me - Music has to try new things - doen't alwayas matter what the outcome is - it the sense that something good might come....


This doesn't sound twelve tone to me.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

^ No your right - it sorta misses doesn't it - but at least they tried - I say.

Maybe someone should try and give it a go.......


----------



## Crudblud

It doesn't sound like blues either, but what can you do?


----------



## millionrainbows

Crudblud said:


> It doesn't sound like blues either, but what can you do?


You must be adhering strictly to your own personal concept of blues should be, rather than observing what is meant by the composition's title and the musicians' intent.

I can easily hear the 12-bar blues structure in this, right down to the I-IV-V changes, especially after the statement of the "head" which establishes this in a most obvious way. Tonally, it's centered around C, very firmly.

This is chromatic, not serial. But did it occur to anyone that the jazz musician here may be using the designation "12 tone" to mean "using all 12 notes" chromatically, and not in a Schoenbergian sense?

Bearing all this in mind, I think any criticism should be directed at the inaccurate posting of this video on this thread, an obvious error in understanding all the way around.

If you want to hear "authentically serial" jazz, using real tone-rows, I direct you to Don Friedman's _Dreams and Explorations._


----------



## sharik

Sofronitsky said:


> What is the point of Atonal music?


- expressiveness, for example, Schoneberg couldn't do best but use atonality for that Biblical story in his opera Moses Und Aron.


----------



## Ramako

Haha - first post of page 100!

:trp:


----------



## neoshredder

Sofronitsky said:


> (Okay, I'm pretty sure alot of people are scoffing at the title of this thread.  )
> 
> Since almost the very beginning of my introduction to classical music (A few years ago, though it practically consumes my life now), I have been aware of atonal composers and few of their works. Studying composition myself, I have always been told by teachers and professors that Atonal music or near atonal music (sorry I don't have a better term for this genre) is the only way to push forward with music.
> 
> I have made an effort on a few occasions to _really_ listen to atonal music and witness the superior range of expression contemporary composers claim it has. In general, I find most of what I listened to is just kind of terrifying and sometimes annoying. For instance, in Nono's piano concerto, I was either finding humor in how random some moments were, or being terrified by the sounds I was hearing. There is such a focus on this genre of music with musicians and composers now that I just don't understand.
> 
> Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.
> 
> I understand that composers are always supposed to push the limits and find their own voice in their writing, but if that Sciarrino piece represents the new voice of music, who will want to listen to it? It's true that good music should stimulate and challenge it's audience, but how challenging should it be to enjoy an artist's expression? In all of the different phases and evolutions of classical music, ours is certainly the age of challenged listeners.
> 
> I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay. I guess my questions to those that enjoy (and perhaps also compose!) atonal muisc would be: Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to? Do you feel strongly enough about the music to suggest that a friend should listen to it? What is the point of writing without tonality?


Great post. The best OP of all threads questioning atonal music.


----------



## hpowders

^^^^I guess we can all go home now. The definitive voices have spoken!


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## ahammel

Yeah, this thread desperately needed a revival.


----------



## hpowders

Sofronitsky said:


> (Okay, I'm pretty sure alot of people are scoffing at the title of this thread.  )
> 
> Since almost the very beginning of my introduction to classical music (A few years ago, though it practically consumes my life now), I have been aware of atonal composers and few of their works. Studying composition myself, I have always been told by teachers and professors that Atonal music or near atonal music (sorry I don't have a better term for this genre) is the only way to push forward with music.
> 
> I have made an effort on a few occasions to _really_ listen to atonal music and witness the superior range of expression contemporary composers claim it has. In general, I find most of what I listened to is just kind of terrifying and sometimes annoying. For instance, in Nono's piano concerto, I was either finding humor in how random some moments were, or being terrified by the sounds I was hearing. There is such a focus on this genre of music with musicians and composers now that I just don't understand.
> 
> Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.
> 
> I understand that composers are always supposed to push the limits and find their own voice in their writing, but if that Sciarrino piece represents the new voice of music, who will want to listen to it? It's true that good music should stimulate and challenge it's audience, but how challenging should it be to enjoy an artist's expression? In all of the different phases and evolutions of classical music, ours is certainly the age of challenged listeners.
> 
> I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay. I guess my questions to those that enjoy (and perhaps also compose!) atonal muisc would be: Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to? Do you feel strongly enough about the music to suggest that a friend should listen to it? *What is the point of writing without tonality?*


Please mail this post to the National Atonality Society. I can't imagine them not rendering obsolete those pointless pieces nobody can relate to starting with that disgraceful Berg Violin Concerto!!


----------



## neoshredder

ahammel said:


> Yeah, this thread desperately needed a revival.


Or we can merge all the atonal threads into this one. Just a thought.


----------



## hpowders

neoshredder said:


> Or we can merge all the atonal threads into this one. Just a thought.


A very good idea!!!


----------



## Anterix

neoshredder said:


> Or we can merge all the atonal threads into this one. Just a thought.


That sounds quite atonal....


----------



## millionrainbows

Sofronitsky said:


> Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to?


Yes; Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra does this well.



> What is the point of writing without tonality?


----------



## Anterix

millionrainbows said:


> Yes; Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra does this well.


What is done in these 5 pieces cannot be achieved within tonality, in my opinion.


----------



## millionrainbows

For me, one of the most evocative pieces of music, of all time, is from Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 (1909; 1949 version); the second movement, "Vergangenes".

About midway-through, a little figure played on the celesta emerges; it repeats, over and over, like a broken music-box, or child's toy; reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's use of the celesta in "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies";

...only here, it sounds more obsessive, more foreboding; as if one were going over and over the same thought, in an effort to resolve it; or as if it is haunting you, insistently, and it won't leave you in peace. 
Woodwind figures in the background repeat also, short-long, short-long, short, limping along irregularly, as if it were time passing; other winds emerge, making clock-like twitters of even notes;
This eventually gets engulfed by louder, disturbing string figures, as if some dark realization of a chidhood memory or death of a loved one has surfaced; 
...next, it turns into a flutter of woodwinds, as if the memories, now dead and dried leaves, were being dispersed by a whirling, cold wind;

...then, at the very end, the little repeating celesta figure returns, this time more slowly, more deliberately, as if to say, "You can try to resolve me, but I will always return to haunt you;" then a sympathetic, solo violin plays an emotive line, as if in sympathy. Wow.

The emotions Schoenberg expressed in this music are so nearly indefinable, so near to complete mystery; unless you follow with your feelings. Then it becomes clearer.
"Transfigured Night" does similar things, but not as darkly.


----------



## hpowders

^^^I'll bet you, I don't know, say a million rainbows to make it interesting, that none of the haters will ever listen to Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces no matter how great you maintain it is!


----------



## arpeggio

*Atonal Is Not Going Away*

One of the ongoing views that keeps appearing in all of the recent bickering over atonal music is when a member proclaims, "I have a right to my opinion. The pro-atonal crowd is being overly sensitive. They should learn to deal with it."

Really. If I express an opinion, that is OK, but if someone has a problem with it, they are being overly sensitive? 

Well guess what? Atonal music is here to stay. Maybe the anti-atonal crowd should learn to deal with that. :tiphat:

P. S. Today in the Washington Post there was an article about what orchestras are trying to do improve attendance. According to market surveys the decline has nothing to do with Schoenberg. Since it is off topic, when I have the time I might start a thread about the article.


----------



## BurningDesire

I find this whole atonal/tonal dichotomy to be problematic. Where do non-pitched percussion and electronic works fit into that? What about pieces like John Cage's prepared piano music? Or the diverse music of Charles Ives and Alfred Schnittke and Gyorgy Ligeti? How about the very ambiguous harmonic language that I, and many other composers, especially the impressionists, employ? There are 12-tone pieces that still achieve a feeling of grounded harmonies, and there are pieces that use solely diatonic and pentatonic and other modes, and sound anything but grounded.

I do love how the OP diminished all modern music to that one tone cluster-based piano piece (of which I'm actually not a huge fan, too repetitive and boring), when modern music is the most diverse musical culture that has ever existed, even if we limit it to "classical" alone.


----------



## Jobis

The Sciarrino sonata in OP is one I hadn't heard. fantastic stuff, thanks for the recommendation!


----------



## hpowders

BurningDesire said:


> I find this whole atonal/tonal dichotomy to be problematic. Where do non-pitched percussion and electronic works fit into that? What about pieces like John Cage's prepared piano music? Or the diverse music of Charles Ives and Alfred Schnittke and Gyorgy Ligeti? How about the very ambiguous harmonic language that I, and many other composers, especially the impressionists, employ? There are 12-tone pieces that still achieve a feeling of grounded harmonies, and there are pieces that use solely diatonic and pentatonic and other modes, and sound anything but grounded.
> 
> I do love how the OP diminished all modern music to that one tone cluster-based piano piece (of which I'm actually not a huge fan, too repetitive and boring), when modern music is the most diverse musical culture that has ever existed, even if we limit it to "classical" alone.


I say bring it all on!!! :clap:


----------



## Anterix

Cluster based???


----------



## ahammel

BurningDesire said:


> I do love how the OP diminished all modern music to that one tone cluster-based piano piece (of which I'm actually not a huge fan, too repetitive and boring)[...]


And it would presumably sounds just as repetitive and boring if they were major triads rather than cluster chords. Probably more.


----------



## ahammel

Anterix said:


> Cluster based???


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_cluster

Presumably.


----------



## Anterix

I know what is a cluster. But of what piece are you referring to? Webern's Op27?


----------



## tdc

There are a lot of atonal pieces and composers I enjoy, I just don't think anyone has yet created a system for organizing sounds that is as good as tonality, modality or neo-classicism/impressionism. Its great to have people out there pushing boundaries and seeking new things, but at the same time new doesn't mean better or suggest a replacement. Some current trends seek to eliminate things like harmony and rhythm out of music. I respect the ambition there, but when taking out the primary ingredients of what most people associate with music and actually in fact attempting to redefine what music is, to be successful requires a system as good or better than what was previously used, and I don't think anyone has yet come close to this. Its also a little arrogant for some to suggest its some kind of flaw with the listeners as to why these new styles aren't widely used or accepted. 

I also don't understand why when electronics came into the picture composers felt a need to simultaneously abandon tonality. Wouldn't bringing out a vast array of new sound possibilities offer more possibilities within a more tone-centric framework as well - not just an atonal one? Where are all the electronic tonal pieces?


----------



## ahammel

Anterix said:


> I know what is a cluster. But of what piece are you referring to? Webern's Op27?


The piece in the OP which sounds like it's played with the forehead, I believe.


----------



## violadude

OH GOD, NOT THIS THREAD! This thread has haunted me for years! Why does it keep coming back!


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> OH GOD, NOT THIS THREAD! This thread has haunted me for years! Why does it keep coming back!


To remind you it is patently absurd to at all anticipate "how to write for the general audiences" and just keep on truckin' -- follow the beat of your own drummer and make your own way down your own musical path. At least that's how I have to take it 

P.s. @ violadude: May you dream what you have not yet heard and then be able to write it down.

Always best regards.


----------



## Anterix

ahammel said:


> The piece in the OP which sounds like it's played with the forehead, I believe.


Ah! Ok. I was confused by other post. Sorry.


----------



## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Where do non-pitched percussion and electronic works fit into that?


Pure bliss and not a definite pitch in earshot.


----------



## EricABQ

violadude said:


> Why does it keep coming back!


The "why" is answered by looking at who bumped it.


----------



## Bulldog

neoshredder said:


> Great post. The best OP of all threads questioning atonal music.


Not a great post since there is no reason to question atonal music or any other type of music.


----------



## quack

violadude said:


> OH GOD, NOT THIS THREAD! This thread has haunted me for years! Why does it keep coming back!


Something about atonal threads, atonal music and lack of resolution?


----------



## hpowders

As long as there are folks who resist atonal music, there will be these kinds of threads.
As Mahler wrote at the end of Das Lied von der Erde: "ewig....ewig.....ewig.....ewig....."


----------



## Guest

tdc said:


> There are a lot of atonal pieces and composers I enjoy,


Such as?



tdc said:


> I just don't think anyone has yet created a system for organizing sounds that is as good as tonality, modality or neo-classicism/impressionism.


What do you mean, specifically, by "as good as"?



tdc said:


> Its great to have people out there pushing boundaries and seeking new things, but at the same time new doesn't mean better or suggest a replacement.


This is pertinent to what?



tdc said:


> Some current trends seek to eliminate things like harmony and rhythm out of music.


Such as? Really, tdc, these vague assertions without any specifics, one after another after another, are getting really old. Some current trends? What current trends? I've been listening to music for over fifty years; I've been closely associated with contemporary music and musicians for thirty of those fifty years, and I know of no current trends seeking to eliminate things like harmony and rhythm out of music.



tdc said:


> I respect the ambition there, but when taking out the primary ingredients of what most people associate with music and actually in fact attempting to redefine what music is, to be successful requires a system as good or better than what was previously used, and I don't think anyone has yet come close to this.


Again with the vague and undefined "good or better." Tell us what you really mean.



tdc said:


> Its also a little arrogant for some to suggest its some kind of flaw with the listeners as to why these new styles aren't widely used or accepted.


Hmmm. It might be, if anyone had ever suggested anything of the sort ever. Which no one ever has or ever will. It's a silly thing, and no one is silly enough to say it.



tdc said:


> I also don't understand why when electronics came into the picture composers felt a need to simultaneously abandon tonality. Wouldn't bringing out a vast array of new sound possibilities offer more possibilities within a more tone-centric framework as well - not just an atonal one? Where are all the electronic tonal pieces?


Um, the move away from common practice tonality preceded any serious use of electronics by about forty years. The people who did electronics in the fifties and sixties were not people who had been using common practice tonality in their acoustic work, either. Varese and Berio and Ussashevsky and Ligeti and Eimert and Henry and Dhomont and Schaeffer. None of those guys was writing tonal music anyway, so there was nothing for them to abandon.


----------



## ahammel

some guy said:


> Such as? Really, tdc, these vague assertions without any specifics, one after another after another, are getting really old. Some current trends? What current trends? I've been listening to music for over fifty years; I've been closely associated with contemporary music and musicians for thirty of those fifty years, and I know of no current trends seeking to eliminate things like harmony and rhythm out of music.


This may be an allusion to the vaguely-defined Continental post-serialist style which I sometimes hear talked about (mostly in dismissive terms), which includes athematicism, the avoidance of repetition, complicated rhythmic pulse and so on. (I suspect that this 'school' is code for Pierre Boulez and some of his students.) Here's Essa-Pekka Salonen talking about it:



> As a European Modernist, Salonen said, he had been inculcated with negatives, such as to avoid melody, harmonic identity and rhythmic pulse. Secretly, though, he was attracted to John Adams, who was then dismissed overseas as being simplistic. "Only after a couple of years here did I begin to see that the European canon I blindly accepted was not the only truth," he said. "Over here, I was able to think about this rule that forbids melody. It's madness. Madness!"


Kaija Saariaho[sup]1[/sup] feels the same way according to unsourced Wikipedia assertions:



> You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don't want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it's done in good taste.


Of course even if there are people who feel that melody and rhythmic pulse are undesirable in music, they can do nothing whatsoever to stop people from composing in this way.

This has the flavour of a furor that has wound down to me. Even Boulez has come to terms with themes as of the early nineties.



tdc said:


> I also don't understand why when electronics came into the picture composers felt a need to simultaneously abandon tonality. Wouldn't bringing out a vast array of new sound possibilities offer more possibilities within a more tone-centric framework as well - not just an atonal one? Where are all the electronic tonal pieces?


As was mentioned, common practice tonality was already some decades out of fashion by the time electronic music became possible. However, Messiaen wrote some of the earliest electronic classical music in a more or less modal style (Messiaen is a weirdo and difficult to classify). The New York minimalist school is well known both for consonant harmonies and the use of electronics.

1. Both Finns. Curious.


----------



## tdc

Thanks for the replies Ahammel and some guy.

Ahammel answered my post effectively and seemed to understand what I was saying without resorting to asking a bunch of questions which ultimately seem to discredit and ridicule, or to some extent - blame the listener, something some guy claims no one ever does.

@ some guy I'm not interested in debating the definition of atonal or the nature of subjectivity/objectivity, as usual you bring up some compelling questions and points, yet the logic you use could be used to defend anything, and any difference of opinion only subjective. If somebody calls something "not good" you just point to somebody saying the same thing about Beethoven in the past and use it to suggest the criticism is meaningless. Because of your logic, I don't think a debate on this topic would take us anywhere at all.

However, I am surprised that you claim no music movements seek to eliminate harmony and rhythm, as a while back after MR suggested Schoenberg was attempting to extinguish harmony, you made a post suggesting what he had written was intelligent and then asked why people don't pay more attention to other more recent innovations such as eliminating pitch relations from the compositional process (which would certainly take the elimination of harmony a step further).

This piece which is one you like and have posted here does in fact seem to be in line with this train of thought and does in fact not seem to have much perceptible harmony or rhythm:






Also I disagree with the assertion that the move away from tone centric music preceded electronic music, as only _some_ composers moved away from this type of music, yet tone centric music never actually went away and is still being composed today, probably by more people than any other style of music.


----------



## mmsbls

Bulldog said:


> Not a great post since there is no reason to question atonal music or any other type of music.


There is certainly no reason to question the validity of "atonal" or other music, but people should feel free to ask questions about various music. If all questions were sincere and those asking them were truly curious, then these discussions could be informative, interesting, and fun. Perhaps the OP could have been written differently using better terminology, but I personally feel the OP was a sincere attempt to learn. Unfortunately, some have used the forum and questions to make statements rather than ask honest questions. The problem is determining who is sincere and who is not. That's not remotely as easy as many believe.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I like atonal music, I write atonal music, I study atonal music, I talk to musicians and teachers about atonal music, but it is only on the Internet where I find people who make a point about saying that they hate atonal music.


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## brotagonist

Key or tonal centre don't mean a thing to me; hence, neither do tonal and atonal mean anything to my ears.


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## Centropolis

brotagonist said:


> Key or tonal centre don't mean a thing to me; hence, neither do tonal and atonal mean anything to my ears.


Yeah, as a newbie, I am still trying to figure out what's atonal. Maybe I haven't heard enough yet....or maybe I don't own any atonal stuff in my collection.


----------



## brotagonist

Centropolis said:


> I am still trying to figure out what's atonal. Maybe I haven't heard enough yet....or maybe I don't own any atonal stuff in my collection.


I can hear what I believe to be atonal when I hear it, but I could just as likely be reacting only to the modern style and not to the tonality of the music  Lacking musical training, I haven't been indoctrinated into the law of hierarchical relationships between triads. Keys, triads, consonance and all the rest of it, despite my efforts, mean little to me at this point. I'm just in love with the sensation of sound, whether harmonious or dissonant.

I didn't see anything that I know to be atonal in the photos you posted.


----------



## Mahlerian

Centropolis said:


> Yeah, as a newbie, I am still trying to figure out what's atonal. Maybe I haven't heard enough yet....or maybe I don't own any atonal stuff in my collection.


There's some in the Stravinsky box...


----------



## ahammel

tdc said:


> If somebody calls something "not good" you just point to somebody saying the same thing about Beethoven in the past and use it to suggest the criticism is meaningless. Because of your logic, I don't think a debate on this topic would take us anywhere at all.


Well, if you're going to claim that common practice tonality (and [neo?]modality and neo-classicalism) are 'better' than the alternatives, I think "for what?" is a fair question. Do you simply prefer the resulting music, or do you think that there are things that these systems achieve that others cannot?



tdc said:


> However, I am surprised that you claim no music movements seek to eliminate harmony and rhythm, as a while back after MR suggested Schoenberg was attempting to extinguish harmony[...]


Schoenberg certainly went out of his way to compose his own music without using the harmonic conventions of common practice tonality. I'm not aware of his attempting to prevent anybody else from composing this way, and harmony and counterpoint are notable features of his music. I'm not sure what it would mean for a piece of music to be entirely without harmony (unless it is completely homophonic).



tdc said:


> Also I disagree with the assertion that the move away from tone centric music preceded electronic music, as only _some_ composers moved away from this type of music, yet tone centric music never actually went away and is still being composed today, probably by more people than any other style of music. [Emphasis mine]


Tone-centric music (music in some identifiable key?) was certainly still composed when electronic instruments became available, but common practice tonality was virtually extinct, is my understanding. As to "tone-centric" composers didn't take to electronic instruments, some of them did. Some others who are nostalgic for the common practice period probably weren't drawn to electronic instruments because they're a bad way to try and evoke the romantic period and earlier.


----------



## ArtMusic

tdc said:


> There are a lot of atonal pieces and composers I enjoy ...


Likewise. My last major piece that I listened to entirely was Britten's _Gloriana_, which was composed in a mixed style, with significant atonality. His other operas featured more atonality, which I have also listened to before in previous recent years. It's not all perfect but it's quite good stuff, and I would warmly recommend other listeners to it, as a stepping stone to explore more of atonal opera.


----------



## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> Likewise. My last major piece that I listened to entirely was Britten's _Gloriana_, which was composed in a mixed style, with significant atonality. His other operas featured more atonality, which I have also listened to before in previous recent years. It's not all perfect but it's quite good stuff, and I would warmly recommend other listeners to it, as a stepping stone to explore more of atonal opera.


Which parts of Britten's operas are atonal? I'm curious because I haven't heard them.


----------



## ArtMusic

violadude said:


> Which parts of Britten's operas are atonal? I'm curious because I haven't heard them.


More mixed than atonal, strictly speaking. _Peter Grimes_ is probably the more popular one if you are interested.

But Berg's _Wozzeck_ is the real deal when it comes to atonal opera.


----------



## tdc

ahammel said:


> Well, if you're going to claim that common practice tonality (and [neo?]modality and neo-classicalism) are 'better' than the alternatives, I think "for what?" is a fair question. Do you simply prefer the resulting music, or do you think that there are things that these systems achieve that others cannot?


Well first of all my intention is not to belittle any style of atonal music (not even the clip I linked to in my last post which I don't think was without artistic merit.) I think there has been a lot of good avant-garde and atonal music composed since the early 20th century.

I do however question the importance many seem to place on innovation over other aspects of music, and where that ultimately leads. In my opinion there hasn't been as good a musical system created since Debussy and the neo-classicists, yes one could argue this is largely subjective, but I just don't see the evidence of another system since then that appeals to as wide a range of listeners, or is as versatile in its expression or its uses.


----------



## Couac Addict

For those with preconceived ideas of what atonal music sounds like...

It may be worth noting that atonal music can have smooth chromatic melodies. Schoenberg/Webern/Berg were fond of dissonance but it can be lyrical as well. Bartok and Copland's work could be quite beautiful.


----------



## tdc

Couac Addict said:


> Bartok...could be quite beautiful.


Bartok is among my favorite composers, but his music is quite tone-centric I think. I always considered his harmonic language more of the "extended tonality" variety and closer to the neo-classicists, and not actually "atonal". Though I could be wrong.


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## Andreas

I sometimes wonder whether it is possible that the human hearing in certain cases can be overly allergic, so to speak, to dissonances. I mean, in a physiological way. Perhaps not exactly the way somepeople are lactose-intolerant, but maybe similar nonetheless.

We know that the cry of a baby makes a mother's heart race and can induce spontaneous lactation. We know the famous fingernails-on-the-chalkboard sound. Such sounds provoke involuntary reactions, despite, perhaps, the best efforts by the hearer.

So maybe certain pitch relations and the corresponding wave frequencies produce, in degrees varying form person to person, a certain physiological stress or discomfort. And in music where dissonances are unresolved and persistent, this stress and discomfort proves unbearable.

Just wondering.


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## Guest

The biggest problem with the term "atonal" is that it doesn't point to anything. Or, rather, it points to too many things, no all of them congruent with each other.

I posted a list of, as I recall, six different meanings to the word, which I derived from simply noting how different people used it.

That list has been buried unretrievably, I'm sure, and I don't want to try to replicate it. But "atonal" is a nonsense word, and if you're looking for "atonal" music or trying to figure out which pieces are "atonal" and which not, then you'll be constantly frustrated.

Since we do not know which of the six definitions that ArtMusic is using when he says the Britten's operas are "mixed," it is terrifically difficult to point out what's wrong with his assessment. Easy to see that it's wrong. Difficult to explain why. If he were to explain, clearly and concisely, what he means when he says "atonal," it would be easy.

One thing maybe I'll bring up again. Won't do a scrap of good, except for keeping me from my work, but here goes: the word tonal points to a thing. It is a moving thing, a developing thing, so the tonal of Vivaldi is quite different from the tonal of Wagner. But it's possible to see what each is doing as tonal.

Atonal does not point to a thing; it points to a non-thing, an absence. Some people have tried to defend its use by saying it's easy, atonal is anything that doesn't use common practice tonality. So minimal, electroacoustics, experimental, serial, spectral, eai? But these things have little in common. Might as well just say "music" and be done with it.

Good idea!

MUSIC.


----------



## Guest

Andreas said:


> I sometimes wonder whether it is possible that the human hearing in certain cases can be overly allergic, so to speak, to dissonances. I mean, in a physiological way.


It is not.



Andreas said:


> fingernails-on-the-chalkboard


Before I had listened to a lot of contemporary music, this set up an uncomfortable buzzing in my throat. Afterwards, this was just another delightful sound, a pleasure to listen to. (And no discomfort any more.)



Andreas said:


> So maybe certain pitch relations and the corresponding wave frequencies produce, *in degrees varying form person to person, *a certain physiological stress or discomfort. And in music where dissonances are unresolved and persistent, this stress and discomfort proves unbearable.
> 
> Just wondering.


Emphasis mine. And even if you accept this hedging as legitimate, the answer is still "No." Pitch relations and wave frequencies do not produce stress or discomfort. Certain listeners may experience stress or discomfort (or report as experiencing stress or discomfort) to certain musical things. But certain others will experience elation or pleasure from the identical sounds. That is, your model is too simple. To make it work--that is, to get results that are solely a spectrum of stress or discomfort--you would have to choose your test subjects carefully to make sure that you don't get any of the "elation and pleasure" folk as subjects.

And that would be scientifically dishonest.


----------



## ahammel

tdc said:


> I do however question the importance many seem to place on innovation over other aspects of music, and where that ultimately leads. In my opinion there hasn't been as good a musical system created since Debussy and the neo-classicists, yes one could argue this is largely subjective, but I just don't see the evidence of another system since then that appeals to as wide a range of listeners, or is as versatile in its expression or its uses.


Your mileage may vary, of course, but I think the 12-tone system's versatility is vastly underrated (mostly because it's been associated with the expressionist style of the Second Viennese School).

Later in the 20th century it becomes difficult to talk about a system, because many composers didn't really use one (in the sense that common practice tonality is a system). They simply picked and chose whatever techniques they wanted for a particular piece and deployed them as they thought fitting. I've heard Ligeti's violin concerto called 'a cornucopia of different techniques and styles'. One can imagine Ligeti gleefully flipping through his mental catalogue of musical effects. "Yes, we must have some microtonality _here_, and a Bulgarian dance rhythm _there_..."

And then you have people like Lutosławski who spent their careers developing systems which were used only by themselves. Call it innovation for its own sake, if you like, but I think it's pretty fascinating to hear totally new solutions to the problems of tension, form and harmony.

At any rate, a system is just a system. Surely the important thing is the music that is produced. I doubt if architecture fans spend too much time bantering about what kind of cranes are best suited to making beautiful buildings.



Couac Addict said:


> Bartok and Copland's work could be quite beautiful.


Bartók is one of the reasons why I find the term 'atonal' obscures much more than it illuminates. He didn't do common practice tonality, certainly, but he insisted that his music was never 'atonal', and there is exactly one tone-row in his entire corpus. The again, he would frequently contrast two different pitch groups in two different voices (I think there's a study of his for piano where the left hand plays the black keys and the right hand plays the white), which would seem to suggest two different pitch centres, so is that tonal or polytonal or atonal or what?

In terms of lyrical "atonality", Rautavaara's early work (which is atonal if anything is, but sounds like nothing so much as Bruckner) and Luigi Dallapiccola (whose complete works I've been burning through since I heard his name) were mentioned in the other thread.



tdc said:


> Bartok is among my favorite composers, but his music is quite tone-centric I think. I always considered his harmonic language more of the "extended tonality" variety and closer to the neo-classicists, and not actually "atonal". Though I could be wrong.


I've never heard him called 'neo-classical' except for the _Divertimento_, which was a one-off experiment. He certainly doesn't strike me the same way as middle Stravinksy and Tippett and the rest.


----------



## Mahlerian

tdc said:


> Bartok is among my favorite composers, but his music is quite tone-centric I think.


So is Schoenberg's. It's just not in "a key". You make it sound as if the pitch relationships in his music were arbitrary (something that was also said of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring by a supposed authority in the 30s) when they're anything but.

This is why I hate the term atonal. People take it literally, and think it actually means what it purports to.


----------



## Andreas

some guy said:


> Certain listeners may experience stress or discomfort (or report as experiencing stress or discomfort) to certain musical things. But certain others will experience elation or pleasure from the identical sounds.


This was what I was wondering, whether there might be individual differences in the way the hearing apparatus (and its corresponding brain areas perhaps) are configured, if you like, which make certain people more and others less tolerant to certain combinations of frequencies. I'm wondering about the significance of the harmonic series too, and what role it might play with regard to (the perception of) consonance and dissonance.


----------



## Mahlerian

Andreas said:


> We know that the cry of a baby makes a mother's heart race and can induce spontaneous lactation. We know the famous fingernails-on-the-chalkboard sound. Such sounds provoke involuntary reactions, despite, perhaps, the best efforts by the hearer.


I find extraneous noise far more unnerving than most people I know.


----------



## millionrainbows

violadude said:


> OH GOD, NOT THIS THREAD! This thread has haunted me for years! Why does it keep coming back!


Yes, like the repeating, obsessive celesta figure in Schoenberg's Five Pieces, it has returned, as if to say "You can try to forget me, but I will never resolve, always haunting you..."


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> So is Schoenberg's. It's just not in "a key". You make it sound as if the pitch relationships in his music were arbitrary (something that was also said of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring by a supposed authority in the 30s) when they're anything but.
> 
> This is why I hate the term atonal. People take it literally, and think it actually means what it purports to.


Well, you sure knew what "tonal" meant back there when I was trying to define tonality more* openly*_(What is Tonality?)_, as generally "tone-centric." So, when it suits you, Schoenberg is tonal (if only locally), but then you quibble with academic definitions of "tonality" as being _only_ the diatonic scale and its modes. Hummph!


----------



## millionrainbows

ahammel said:


> ...I think the 12-tone system's versatility is vastly underrated (mostly because it's been associated with the expressionist style of the Second Viennese School).
> 
> Later in the 20th century it becomes difficult to talk about a system, because many composers didn't really use one (in the sense that common practice tonality is a system). They simply picked and chose whatever techniques they wanted for a particular piece and deployed them as they thought fitting. At any rate, a system is just a system.
> 
> Bartók is one of the reasons why I find the term 'atonal' obscures much more than it illuminates. He didn't do common practice tonality, certainly, but he insisted that his music was never 'atonal', and there is exactly one tone-row in his entire corpus. The again, he would frequently contrast two different pitch groups in two different voices (I think there's a study of his for piano where the left hand plays the black keys and the right hand plays the white), which would seem to suggest two different pitch centres, so is that tonal or polytonal or atonal or what?


Well, Bartok was not a serial composer, nor was he *traditionally* tonal, but his music *was tonal *in the sense that it had tonal centers; and functions as well, his own versions of tonic, dominant, and subdominant poles.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Well, you sure knew what "tonal" meant back there when I was trying to define tonality more* openly*_(What is Tonality?)_, as generally "tone-centric." So, when it suits you, Schoenberg is tonal (if only locally), but then you quibble with academic definitions of "tonality" as being _only_ the diatonic scale and its modes. Hummph!


Schoenberg's music is not _tonal_, but it is _tone-centric_, just like Bartok or Messiaen. The problem is that people use tonal to mean both, and modality on top of that. In _that_ sense, it is tonal to me.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Schoenberg's music is not _tonal_, but it is _tone-centric_, just like Bartok or Messiaen. The problem is that people use tonal to mean both, and modality on top of that. In _that_ sense, it is tonal to me.


Yay! That is music to my ears. We agree on that.

As to someguy's assertion that "atonal" is too vague, I admit that it is a problematic term;

...on the other hand, if music has no tonal hierarchy, it is "not tonal" because the notes do not refer to a "key note."
Thus, I have no real problem in calling serial music (which uses ordered, non-hierarchical sets of pitches) "atonal."

...but when "not tonal" is used to describe music which does not fit the academic definition of "tonality," yet is tone-centric (like Debussy), then I have a problem.


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## hpowders

Mainstream conservative listeners know it when they hear it, even though they may not be able to accurately label it as "atonal" or "tonal with harmonic dissonance".

My rule of thumb is, if my dog runs away when I start listening, I will enjoy it.
He never did want to make the required effort!


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Yay! That is music to my ears. We agree on that.
> 
> As to someguy's assertion that "atonal" is too vague, I admit that it is a problematic term;
> 
> ...on the other hand, if music has no tonal hierarchy, it is "not tonal" because the notes do not refer to a "key note."
> Thus, I have no real problem in calling serial music (which uses ordered, non-hierarchical sets of pitches) "atonal."
> 
> ...but when "not tonal" is used to describe music which does not fit the academic definition of "tonality," yet is tone-centric (like Debussy), then I have a problem.


I'm getting sick of going in circles with you on this.

What is the key note in Debussy's Prelude, Book II no. 1?

Give a specific answer, and explain your reasons for choosing it.


----------



## Guest

Andreas said:


> more and others less tolerant


For me, anyway, "tolerant" is simply the wrong word.

Actively seek out. Actively enjoy. Actively engage with even if I don't enjoy it at first.

(Enjoy, for me, is not a goal. It's an almost inevitable side-effect. As such, it makes for a terrible goal. A goal is something you have to work to reach. Enjoyment, for me, is something that simply happens.)


----------



## Fortinbras Armstrong

Listening to atonal music reminds me of my attempt to read _Finnegans Wake_. On the second or third page, I asked myself if I was getting enough out of the book to justify the amount of work I had to put into reading it. I said, "no", closed the book, and have never felt the loss of never having finished it.


----------



## Blake

I really could care less if we lump the dissonant style of Schoenberg and the ilk "atonal." I'll repeat this: the term is used in comparison to the traditional way that the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras structure melody and harmony. People impose much more meaning on words than its strict definition. 

I mean, is Rock music people beating on rocks?
Is the Blues people singing about the color blue?

I hope the answer to those is obvious.


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> Mainstream conservative listeners know it when they hear it....


I disagree. One, there is no "it" to know. Two, "mainstream conservative listeners" probably don't know any of the non-conservative musics that they are only rarely, if ever, exposed to. And not knowing means that every unknown gets lumped together. And instead of using the fairly neutral "unknown," they use the fairly contentious "atonal" to describe what they don't know.

The only thing that is known in this example is that certain things are unknown or unfamiliar. And, as we all know from our own experiences, things that we don't know tend to blur together in a vague lump of something or other. All country/western music sounds the same to me, for instance. All native american music does, too. If I listened to them more, i.e., became more knowledgeable, then individual songs would sound different.

Three, since "atonal" is an impossibly vague term, it cannot be used in an accurate way. And "tonal with harmonic dissonance" is just a long-winded way of saying "tonal," as that particular system works fundamentally by moving from (relative) consonance to (relative) dissonance. (Hence, just by the way, its actual history. As the relative dissonances become perceived as consonant, then to use the system, you have to make new dissonances until you get to a point where everything is equally consonant.

And, technically speaking, serial musics are all as a matter of fact entirely consonant, not entirely dissonant. Or, perhaps more accurately, the terms "consonance" and "dissonance" as technical terms mean nothing in a serial context. They are terms that apply only to tonal systems. Of course, as everyday conversational terms meaning "pleasant" and "unpleasant" (or unpleasant if held too long), a "mainstream conservative listener" will likely perceive serial music as entirely dissonant. That is, as entirely unpleasant. But that's just the delightful difference between conversational vocabulary and technical vocabulary.


----------



## Andreas

some guy said:


> For me, anyway, "tolerant" is simply the wrong word.


Tolerant as in lactose-intolerant, which I had mentioned earlier, not as a conscious decision.


----------



## Guest

I did not consciously decide to like music. I just liked it.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> I'm getting sick of going in circles with you on this.
> 
> What is the key note in Debussy's Prelude, Book II no. 1?
> 
> Give a specific answer, and explain your reasons for choosing it.


"Tonal" can refer to harmonically-based music in which the tonality is "vague" or suspended. Even traditional tonality contains elements inherent to its structure which are tonally vague, such as whole-tone scales and diminished seventh chords, which might have 4 possible centers or roots. Is this what you are referring to?

"Suspended tonality" is a term which is self-explanatory: it's a condition which depends on tonality in order to have meaning.

If the Debussy Prelude mentioned "has no tonal center," it still lies within the realm of tone-centricity, and uses harmonically-based devices such as scales, and chords.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> "Tonal" can refer to harmonically-based music in which the tonality is "vague" or suspended. Even traditional tonality contains elements inherent to its structure which are tonally vague, such as whole-tone scales and diminished seventh chords, whic might have 4 possible centers or roots. Is this what you are referring to?


Sort of. You can make a strong case for C being the central note in the Debussy piece, but you have to rely entirely on "circumstantial" evidence (the lowest notes of the repeated figures at the beginning oscillate between C and B, the lowest note in the whole thing is C, which comes at the climax and return to the initial figure), because C isn't even in the last sonority heard (B-D-F-G-Af-G-Af-G). In fact, all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are heard after the first C before the next one, although not used as an ordered set.

It's centered, but the manner in which this is done has very little to do with tonal hierarchy or organization, which is my point.

Your distinction between "harmonic" and "non-harmonic" music doesn't make any sense to me if a clearly cadential ending like that of Berg's Violin Concerto is considered atonal while the Debussy is not.


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## mmsbls

Andreas said:


> This was what I was wondering, whether there might be individual differences in the way the hearing apparatus (and its corresponding brain areas perhaps) are configured, if you like, which make certain people more and others less tolerant to certain combinations of frequencies.


This thread discusses a particular study which relates to your question. As I understand the results, the answer is a strong "yes" if by tolerant you mean something along the lines of perceived dissonance. The difference between people is believed to primarily be in the processing in the auditory cortex, the brainstem, and mid brain. More "experienced" listeners perceive less dissonance, and listeners can train their brains to become "more familiar" with sounds such that they perceive less dissonance.

NOTE: The study is not about music - it concerns the cognitive processing of sounds.


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## GiulioCesare

Mahlerian said:


> Sort of. You can make a strong case for C being the central note in the Debussy piece, but you have to rely entirely on "circumstantial" evidence (the lowest notes of the repeated figures at the beginning oscillate between C and B, the lowest note in the whole thing is C, which comes at the climax and return to the initial figure), because C isn't even in the last sonority heard (B-D-F-G-Af-G-Af-G). In fact, all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are heard after the first C before the next one, although not used as an ordered set.
> 
> It's centered, but the manner in which this is done has very little to do with tonal hierarchy or organization, which is my point.
> 
> Your distinction between "harmonic" and "non-harmonic" music doesn't make any sense to me if a clearly cadential ending like that of Berg's Violin Concerto is considered atonal while the Debussy is not.


Pages and pages have been written about Berg's violin concerto. A substantial amount of people consider it to be, at least, partially tonal.


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## hpowders

The last movement of the Berg violin concerto is tonal, which is why in a great performance becomes absolutely heartbreaking.


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## ahammel

GiulioCesare said:


> Pages and pages have been written about Berg's violin concerto. A substantial amount of people consider it to be, at least, partially tonal.


Why do they think that? What does "partly tonal" mean?

I have to say, my first reaction to hearing something like that is that somebody thinks that "atonal" music is bad _ipso facto_, and the Berg VC is good, therefore it must not be "atonal". I'm more than happy to be totally wrong about that, but that's what it smells of to me.

We have a poem about that phenomenon in the science fiction community:

_"SF's no good!"
They say until we're deaf.
"But this is quite good"
"Well then it's not SF!"_


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## Guest

Fortinbras Armstrong said:


> Listening to atonal music reminds me of my attempt to read _Finnegans Wake_. On the second or third page, I asked myself if I was getting enough out of the book to justify the amount of work I had to put into reading it. I said, "no", closed the book, and have never felt the loss of never having finished it.


It never fails to intrigue me how wildly absurd or inappropriate statements just slip right by, their validity never questioned. Why, this particular one slipped right by even me, with my enormous* intellect.

Comparing "atonal music" to _Finnegan's Wake_ is roughly like comparing the entire area known as Asia to one city in Canada. "Traveling to Asia reminds me of the time I visited Toronto once. On the second or third day in that city, I decided it was too hard to be comfortable there, so I left. I've never felt the loss of never finishing my stay there."

*Did I mean miniscule? I can never keep those two straight. Anyway, one or the other of those.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Sort of. You can make a strong case for C being the central note in the Debussy piece, but you have to rely entirely on "circumstantial" evidence (the lowest notes of the repeated figures at the beginning oscillate between C and B, the lowest note in the whole thing is C, which comes at the climax and return to the initial figure), because C isn't even in the last sonority heard (B-D-F-G-Af-G-Af-G). In fact, all 12 notes of the chromatic scale are heard after the first C before the next one, although not used as an ordered set.


Using the Durand edition, I see the Debussy prelude (Brouillards) as being in an ambiguous tonality. The opening figure Bb-Gb-Eb-Db over a C-E-G already creates a tri-tonic tension between C major and Gb (F#) major pentatonic, i.e. C/F#. As a tri-tone relation, this could go either way. At the bottom of page one, D is in the bass. On page two, there is a strong C-G bass. Then it goes into F# territory. On page three, a C# area is implied. Then F#, then to G#-C# (p.5), C# again on p.6, and C# at the end...followed by a G7, left unresolved. It looks to me like he's playing with tri-tone tensions, namely C-F#.



> It's centered, but the manner in which this is done has very little to do with tonal hierarchy or organization, which is my point.


My point is that this piece is tonal, using the general definition.



> Your distinction between "harmonic" and "non-harmonic" music doesn't make any sense to me if a clearly cadential ending like that of Berg's Violin Concerto is considered atonal while the Debussy is not.


Berg was known to combine tonal devices in the midst of his serial procedures. Debussy is "not atonal" because he did not use ordered rows or serial procedures. His music is harmonically-based, using tone-centered areas of tonality. Debussy is therefore "tonal," according to my tone-centric, general definition, which can exclude horizontal function altogether.

As I said earlier, when "not tonal" or "atonal" is used to describe music which does* not *fit the *academic* definition of "tonality" (harmonic functions, tonal hierarchy or organization, as you academically define it), yet is* tone-centric *(the more general meaning of tonality, like I say Debussy is), then I have a problem.

The term "harmonic" automatically assumes overtones "stacked" on top of a fundamental. It does not have to imply an _academically-defined _"tonality" with_ traditional _functions; in fact, it may be_ functionless,_ yet still be tonal _in a general sense.
_


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Debussy is "not atonal" because he did not use ordered rows or serial procedures.


As I recall, the articles that attempt to use "atonal" descriptively--academic or not--all distinguish "atonality" from "docecaphony" and "serialism."

Serialism is an extension of dodecaphonic principles into all parameters of music, both of them different from atonality in being ordered.

In that regard, to the extent that it is true, if Debussy _had _used ordered rows or serial procedures, that would have been sufficient say that he was not "atonal."

But, there again. If we continue to insist that "atonal" is a legitimate term, that it points to musical realities in the same way as "tonality" or "serialism" do, then we will continue to argue in circles. Argue in muddles, more like. In muddy puddles of muddles.

The word tonality describes a particular system of producing music. The word serialism describes a particular system of producing music.

The word atonality doesn't describe anything in particular. It is certainly not a system. It's not even really an "it." As I have said before, in the long, long ago, in the before time, atonal is about as useful a category as acanine. So everything that's not a dog is acanine, cats, elephants, streetcars, architecture, asphalt, philosophy....


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Berg was known to combine tonal devices in the midst of his serial procedures. Debussy is "not atonal" *because* he did not use ordered rows or serial procedures.


Then according to your definitions, Berg, because he used ordered rows and serial procedures, is, _in spite of any amount of devices derived from or relating to tonality_, atonal.

Thank you. You and I can never agree on this matter.



ahammel said:


> I have to say, my first reaction to hearing something like that is that somebody thinks that "atonal" music is bad ipso facto, and the Berg VC is good, therefore it must not be "atonal". I'm more than happy to be totally wrong about that, but that's what it smells of to me.


Exactly.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> As I recall, the articles that attempt to use "atonal" descriptively--academic or not--all distinguish "atonality" from "docecaphony" and "serialism."


That's true; "atonal" is usually used to label Schoenberg's works like *Pierot lunaire *and *Serenade,* just before he adopted his 12-tone system.

Still, that distinction is rendered irrelevant because of the use of the term "atonal" to also describe Debussy (as Mahlerian is attempting to do) and Bartok (who used his own "invented tonality; BTW, both composers wrote "harmonic," tone-centric, tonal music). Nice try, though.



> Serialism is an extension of dodecaphonic principles into all parameters of music, both of them different from atonality in being ordered.


We-e-el, I question that. In a work like Schoenberg's Serenade, an 11-note series is used...it's virtuall serial. Roger Sessions, as well, was writing music that was essentially serial before this was pointed out to him & he decided to adopt the system formally. Keep in mind the reason for ordered rows: not only for the "order" as thematic or melodic, but for its prohibition of repeated notes, preventing pitch repetition (which is an element in establishing a tonal center).



> In that regard, to the extent that it is true, if Debussy _had _used ordered rows or serial procedures, that would have been sufficient say that he was not "atonal."


If Debussy had used ordered rows, his music would be "not tonal" and "non-harmonically-based." Using the loose definition, he would have been "atonal."



> The word tonality describes a particular system of producing music.


Yes, but "tone-centric" music (functionless) is also "tonal" in the general sense of the word.


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## mmsbls

hpowders said:


> Mainstream conservative listeners know it when they hear it, even though they may not be able to accurately label it as "atonal" or "tonal with harmonic dissonance".





some guy said:


> I disagree. One, there is no "it" to know. Two, "mainstream conservative listeners" probably don't know any of the non-conservative musics that they are only rarely, if ever, exposed to. And not knowing means that every unknown gets lumped together. And instead of using the fairly neutral "unknown," they use the fairly contentious "atonal" to describe what they don't know.


I think those listeners _do_ know "it" when they hear "it", but the "it" they know is not what they think they know. The listeners hear music that sounds different, strange, and unpleasant _to them_. That is the "it" they hear, and of course, they certainly know their own response to music.

They became aware of the term, atonal, and saw it used in reference to some of the music that sounded different, strange, and unpleasant. They believed that the term was well-defined, and they believed they understood that definition as it applies to the music they hear. So far, so good. That's what all people do when they start to understand new words. The problem is that atonal has a technical meaning, and further, that music is much blurrier (to use a technical term) than many realize. So some of the works that sound different, strange, and unpleasant are, in fact, not atonal, and some works that are atonal do not sound different, strange, and unpleasant.

I think all of this is actually OK. When people use the term incorrectly or in a way that does not make musical sense, others can try to give them a better understanding of the word. I learned that way about "atonal" myself.

Maybe the most important thing for those who find certain music different, strange, and unpleasant, is that for many (most) people, music that is different and strange often sounds unpleasant. When the music is no longer different and strange, the listener then has a chance to find the music enjoyable.


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## hpowders

mmsbls said:


> I think those listeners _do_ know "it" when they hear "it", but the "it" they know is not what they think they know. The listeners hear music that sounds different, strange, and unpleasant _to them_. That is the "it" they hear, and of course, they certainly know their own response to music.
> 
> They became aware of the term, atonal, and saw it used in reference to some of the music that sounded different, strange, and unpleasant. They believed that the term was well-defined, and they believed they understood that definition as it applies to the music they hear. So far, so good. That's what all people do when they start to understand new words. The problem is that atonal has a technical meaning, and further, that music is much blurrier (to use a technical term) than many realize. So some of the works that sound different, strange, and unpleasant are, in fact, not atonal, and some works that are atonal do not sound different, strange, and unpleasant.
> 
> I think all of this is actually OK. When people use the term incorrectly or in a way that does not make musical sense, others can try to give them a better understanding of the word. I learned that way about "atonal" myself.
> 
> Maybe the most important thing for those who find certain music different, strange, and unpleasant, is that for many (most) people, music that is different and strange often sounds unpleasant. When the music is no longer different and strange, the listener then has a chance to find the music enjoyable.


I just have to chuckle when some of the atonally averse are asked to defend their positions and then place the names Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Britten into evidence. One recent poster had Britten and Berg on the same side of the fence, which I found rather comical.


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## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> I just have to chuckle when some of the atonally averse are asked to defend their positions and then place the names Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Britten into evidence. One recent poster had Britten and Berg on the same side of the fence, which I found rather comical.


I don't know, there are things in _some_ Prokofiev that sound more dissonant than most Schoenberg to me, like the 2nd symphony. It's just that Schoenberg is denser and usually harder to follow.

Britten, though....well, he actually was a Berg devotee....


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## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> I don't know, there are things in _some_ Prokofiev that sound more dissonant than most Schoenberg to me, like the 2nd symphony. It's just that Schoenberg is denser and usually harder to follow.
> 
> Britten, though....well, he actually was a Berg devotee....


If Britten is atonal, then I'll eat my tone row.


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## lupinix

why does music has to have a point? 
the only point any kind of music, whether its tonal or atonal, popular or classical, is that there is at least one person who enjoys making it, at least one person who enjoys playing it (even if its the composer himself), and at least one person who enjoys listening to it (even if it is only the composer or musician)

to me music has a point if I feel something when listening to it, if I feel something playing it or if I feel something making it
it also has a point if it makes me learn myself better or if it tells me a great fantastic story

and then why would any kind of music have "less point" than another, especially when its about something superficial like having a clear tonic or a certain musical technique, every composer or rather every piece should be able to decide on its own if it is important to you. dont push music in little boxes with lables on it (especially if its before you even have heard every specific piece you throw in them) like psychiatrist tend to do with people, because everyone is different and also every musical piece is different


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## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> If Britten is atonal, then I'll eat my tone row.


Not in any piece that I've ever heard. I'm just saying that there's some connection between them. Shostakovich also admired Schoenberg and Berg immensely (although he was later forced to retract this under official pressure).


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## lupinix

Mahlerian said:


> I don't know, there are things in _some_ Prokofiev that sound more dissonant than most Schoenberg to me, like the 2nd symphony. It's just that Schoenberg is denser and usually harder to follow.
> 
> Britten, though....well, he actually was a Berg devotee....


problem with atonal and tonal is that unlike many people think it is a polarity rather than a duality. works by prokofiev and britten and especially stravinsky aren't as tonal as mozart, while for instance late scriabin pieces are even less tonal and for instance stockhausen is one of the most atonal composers


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## lupinix

<3


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## quack

hpowders said:


> If Britten is atonal, then I'll eat my tone row.


Britten hated Brahms. That pretty much makes him 35% more atonal without having to even compose anything.


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## Guest

The New and Improved Britten.

Now 35% more atonal!!

As recommended by 9 out of 10 musicologists.

For a limited time only, 35% off!!!


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## samurai

I have followed this--at times, quite contentious--debate/tirade at times with a great deal of interest.
Being a musical ignoramus--especially when compared with many of my esteemed fellow TC members--I have wondered whether many of the works which have been debated do not in fact contain elements of atonality, dissonance and tonality within them, not only vis a vis the whole work itself, but indeed, both on an intra and inter movement basis as well.
And--if this question makes any sense at all--if they do, then what is all the "fuss" about anyway?
Regardless of the terminology/method used by the listener and composer respectively, doesn't it all in the final analysis come down to the subjective criterion of whether or not one enjoys the music or is in some way emotionally affected by having listened to it?


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## Mahlerian

lupinix said:


> problem with atonal and tonal is that unlike many people think it is a polarity rather than a duality. works by prokofiev and britten and especially stravinsky aren't as tonal as mozart, while for instance late scriabin pieces are even less tonal and for instance stockhausen is one of the most atonal composers


Well, if atonal meant literally what it purports to mean, it _would_ be a duality.

That is, if atonal literally meant "having no tonal center", then there would be pieces that are atonal, and pieces that aren't, and it would be as simple as that.

Of course, most _if not all_ atonal pieces have some central gravitating point(s), however strongly or weakly these are felt (and this differs by individual), and this ambiguity of meaning gives rise to much of the confusion here.


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## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> Not in any piece that I've ever heard. I'm just saying that there's some connection between them. Shostakovich also admired Schoenberg and Berg immensely (although he was later forced to retract this under official pressure).


Prokofiev wrote a lot of dissonant stuff, his war piano sonatas come to mind, but he also composed in an unashamedly neo-romantic style too, such as the second movement of his Third Piano Concerto, the second movement of his second violin concerto, the entire ballet Romeo and Juliet, and the slow movement of his 5th symphony. Some composers simply can't be labeled.


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## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> Prokofiev wrote a lot of dissonant stuff, his war piano sonatas come to mind, but he also composed in an unashamedly neo-romantic style too, such as the second movement of his Third Piano Concerto, the second movement of his second violin concerto, the entire ballet Romeo and Juliet, and the slow movement of his 5th symphony. Some composers simply can't be labeled.


Well, Schoenberg also wrote this....

I think any truly great composer has range in addition to technical and artistic ability.


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## hpowders

samurai said:


> I have followed this--at times, quite contentious--debate/tirade at times with a great deal of interest.
> *Being a musical ignoramus--especially when compared with many of my esteemed fellow TC members*--I have wondered whether many of the works which have been debated do not in fact contain elements of atonality, dissonance and tonality within them, not only vis a vis the whole work itself, but indeed, both on an intra and inter movement basis as well.
> And--if this question makes any sense at all--if they do, then what is all the "fuss" about anyway?
> Regardless of the terminology/method used by the listener and composer respectively, doesn't it all in the final analysis come down to the subjective criterion of whether or not one enjoys the music or is in some way emotionally affected by having listened to it?


I wouldn't say that!!!


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## hpowders

Musical conservatives cringe when they hear dissonant music, whether it has tonal elements like in Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Britten or Schuman or music that is essentially atonal.

The argument really isn't tonal vs atonal. It's dissonance vs consonance.


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## samurai

@ hpowders, Thanks for that! :wave:


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## lupinix

Mahlerian said:


> Well, if atonal meant literally what it purports to mean, it _would_ be a duality.
> 
> That is, if atonal literally meant "having no tonal center", then there would be pieces that are atonal, and pieces that aren't, and it would be as simple as that.
> 
> Of course, most _if not all_ atonal pieces have some central gravitating point(s), however strongly or weakly these are felt (and this differs by individual), and this ambiguity of meaning gives rise to much of the confusion here.


Yeah it depends how you define tonal, if it means "having a tonic or central gravitating point" than it would be a duality but as you said the problem is that there isn't actually music at which noone feels such a thing, or at least very little
Mostly "tonal" means music which has a very strong harmonic emphasis on the tonic, like classical era music, I would say this is the "most tonal music" whereas music (nearly) without any tonic at all is the "most atonal", modal kinds of music and many romantic music and composers lke prokofiev are somewhere in between


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## hpowders

samurai said:


> @ hpowders, Thanks for that! :wave:


I'm always here for you, pal!!! :wave:


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## Yardrax

hpowders said:


> Musical conservatives cringe when they hear dissonant music


Yes, it's difficult to imagine how so many people could refuse to listen to anything written after the advent of two voice polyphony.


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## MagneticGhost

People shouldn't confuse dissonance with atonality.
Tonality would become very boring very quickly without the driving force of dissonance. And it's possible to write atonally without using clusters and semi tonal clashes. 

Don't tell me! This was covered on page 32......right?


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## mmsbls

hpowders said:


> I just have to chuckle when some of the atonally averse are asked to defend their positions and then place the names Stravinsky, Prokofiev and Britten into evidence. One recent poster had Britten and Berg on the same side of the fence, which I found rather comical.


All of us were ignorant about music at some time, and we are all ignorant about a great many things now. I'm not sure exactly which composers or works I thought were "atonal" several years ago, but I'm certain that I was mistaken on some of them. Atonal is not an easy concept to grasp for those without a music theory education, but it _seems_ to be a straightforward concept giving rise to confusion.

(This part is not a response to hpowders but more general)
People who "hate" modern or post-tonal music don't _want_ to hate the music. In general they love classical music. They just don't understand why the newer classical doesn't sound as wonderful (to them) as the old classical. That's completely reasonable. I agree that they could express this feeling in more useful words and that they could refrain from trashing it or blaming it for the destruction of classical music.

I guess I'm hopeful that someday both "sides" can talk more productively to each other.


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## hpowders

There are some folks writing like they know about atonal music and list composers like Prokofiev and Britten to support their case. I don't mind folks not knowing anything about the subject and wanting to know more, that's admirable. If you have read any of my posts, that is not what concerns me. Just don't pass yourself off like you made a comprehensive study of the music, when you obviously haven't.


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## Sid James

violadude said:


> OH GOD, NOT THIS THREAD! This thread has haunted me for years! Why does it keep coming back!


Sorry, I think I put a link to it on one of my posts recently to demonstrate how these sorts of arguments go unresolved, even after 100 pages. But I have skimmed the posts since someone necroed it and it seems the discussion is less extreme or tit for tat than it was when in originally started.



mmsbls said:


> All of us were ignorant about music at some time, and we are all ignorant about a great many things now. I'm not sure exactly which composers or works I thought were "atonal" several years ago, but I'm certain that I was mistaken on some of them. Atonal is not an easy concept to grasp for those without a music theory education, but it _seems_ to be a straightforward concept giving rise to confusion.


Yes it is confusing, even if you know a good amount of music of the 20th century. Regarding what people are saying/asking about Bartok, I have been listening to his string quartets lately. In a book I read that the first two of his quartets mixed tonal (parts with key centres) and atonal (parts without) a lot. It said the melodic line was atonal in one, the accompaniment more tonal. I am not a musician, another thing I remember is nominal keys and something about ambigious tonality.

People trained in music will know this. One of my fav works of that type is Walton's String Quartet in A minor (which also freely incorporated serial techniques), which is by the title 'tonal,' but technically the matter is more complex.

But you know what? I really don't mind what it is, I go with what I like basically. The first two quartets of Bartok have been more of a challenge to me than his other four. Nos. 1-3 are more atonal than Nos. 4-6, where he returned to tonality in a big way. But you've got the flipside of that, I quite like Elliott Carter's String Quartet #1, its one of my favs in the genre, yet it would be more atonal (and possibly flexibly using serialism as Carter did?) than any of Bartok's.

& I quite like the Brits, Walton as mentioned, also Tippett and Rawsthorne, their quartets are in that ambigious tonal area.

Ultimately best idea is to read up on this, wiki is a start but you also got books. I tend to read these alongside things I am listening to such as this week the Bartok quartets. The liner notes are good too, as info online, cd reviews, articles in magazines etc. Its a case by case things, Bartok's use of the modern techniques of his day differ from others in that time. But the sound, what he does with the music itself, that's the main issue.



> (This part is not a response to hpowders but more general)
> People who "hate" modern or post-tonal music don't _want_ to hate the music. In general they love classical music. They just don't understand why the newer classical doesn't sound as wonderful (to them) as the old classical. That's completely reasonable. I agree that they could express this feeling in more useful words and that they could refrain from trashing it or blaming it for the destruction of classical music.
> 
> I guess I'm hopeful that someday both "sides" can talk more productively to each other.


Yes, and there have been people who came to TC totally against such music, and after a while they end up trying it out, listening to it. Maybe to test their preconceptions. Some even end up liking some of the stuff!

It was the same with me, the other way. I criticised composers like Saint-Saens, now I like him a lot. Sometimes one has to voice an opinion to be aware of it, maybe get responses to it, then test it.

The other thing is if people blame others for not liking certain types of music and stating it, even if its stated bluntly and without any restraint, then there is little chance of a true dialogue happening. You get bogged down in the blame game and tit for tat bunfights. Better to argue with the person's opinion, you can go hard on that, but you don't have to get personal and go hard on the person (eg. "people who think like that are ignorant/inflexible/don't know what they're talking about/etc.").


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## Guest

If the TC 'experts' can't agree on what 'atonal' means, or whether it is even worth establishing a meaning, what hope have the ignoramuses?

Or have I misunderstood the local definition of 'expert'?


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## ArtMusic

MacLeod said:


> If the TC 'experts' can't agree on what 'atonal' means, or whether it is even worth establishing a meaning, what hope have the ignoramuses?
> 
> Or have I misunderstood the local definition of 'expert'?


Well, before you pass judgement, would you at least have listened to a few CDs worth in total of atonal music?


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## ArtMusic

These are some fine examples of atonal music - instrumental and vocal (opera in this example) that I consider worthy examples of atonal music to explore. I admit I do not enjoy them as much as other classical music, but I have at least listened to these and do consider the experience worth while of attention.


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## Guest

ArtMusic said:


> Well, before you pass judgement, would you at least have listened to a few CDs worth in total of atonal music?


Pass judgement on what?


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## ArtMusic

The other recordings worth a listen, so that the "ignoramuses" as judged by some post above have some nice flavor of atonal music, are as follows:

Scriabin's piano sonatas - no.6 come closest to being pure atonal, others are not at all (but lovely music nonetheless)










Webern's works for SQ










As I mentioned, if you are totally new to atonal music, then there is a good chance you might not enjoy it. I do not fully enjoy it relatively speaking, but the experience was worth it, and overall makes me a more experienced listener, far from being "ignoramus" .....


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## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> The other recordings worth a listen, so that the "ignoramuses" as judged by some post above have some nice flavor of atonal music, are as follows
> 
> As I mentioned, if you are totally new to atonal music, then there is a good chance you might not enjoy it. I do not fully enjoy it relatively speaking, but the experience was worth it, and overall makes me a more experienced listener, far from being "ignoramus" .....


Uhh U mad bro? ..............


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## KenOC

MUSIC OF THE DEVIL! As noted earlier.


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## dgee

violadude said:


> Uhh U mad bro? ..............


Shhhh! I think he's doing very well


----------



## violadude

dgee said:


> Shhhh! I think he's doing very well


Ya, you're right. I shouldn't have interrupted.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

My iPad has gone kaput so I have to use my phone as a last resort for TC (computer unavailable until after the owner has completed a masters degree in library stuff and archives etc). If it wasn't for that, I would probably be writing more than the following:









Atonal music is cool


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

What is your favourite atonal work, Violadude? And do you still have that sexy neckbeard?


----------



## ArtMusic

violadude said:


> Uhh U mad bro? ..............


 I'm cool. I meant to say that although I do not enjoy atonal music as much, relative speaking to other earlier classical music, I do find it worthwhile because it is experience enriching (and educational but leave that aside for a moment). And some pieces in particular that I found experience enriching because of the rich atonality of the pieces were posted above.


----------



## violadude

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> What is your favourite atonal work, Violadude? And do you still have that sexy neckbeard?


Oh Jeeze that's a hard question. It's probably something by the Second Viennese School members. It's tough to beat the originals 

And yes, I do have somewhat of a neckbeard but I recently cut my hair.


----------



## ahammel

mmsbls said:


> All of us were ignorant about music at some time, and we are all ignorant about a great many things now. I'm not sure exactly which composers or works I thought were "atonal" several years ago, but I'm certain that I was mistaken on some of them.


I used to think that Shostakovich wrote atonal music. I suppose the fact that he usually indicated a key signature should have tipped me off.


----------



## violadude

ahammel said:


> I used to think that Shostakovich wrote atonal music. I suppose the fact that he usually indicated a key signature should have tipped me off.


If he didn't write any atonal music, he certainly came damn close a few times in his career.


----------



## ahammel

violadude said:


> If he didn't write any atonal music, he certainly came damn close a few times in his career.


I was thinking of the 10th symphony. In E-minor.


----------



## violadude

ahammel said:


> I was thinking of the 10th symphony. In E-minor.


Listen to his 12th and 13th string quartets. He gets fairly close to forming tone rows at various points in both those pieces.

12th: 



13th:


----------



## Mahlerian

ahammel said:


> I used to think that Shostakovich wrote atonal music. I suppose the fact that he usually indicated a key signature should have tipped me off.


The first movement of the Fourth is written without a key signature (but it's sort-of centered on C minor), and even has a 12-note chord at the climax of the development.

When you get chromatic enough, there's really not much point in indicating a key signature. This piece is actually written with one sharp indicating G major, and it ends on a G major triad, but practically every note has an accidental on it.


----------



## starry

Sofronitsky said:


> What is the point of Atonal music?


You may as well ask what's the point of music.


----------



## hpowders

So what is the point of music?


----------



## science

hpowders said:


> So what is the point of music?


Identity and belonging.

Maybe not consciously, but you know, consciousness is in most ways just constant deception.


----------



## starry

hpowders said:


> So what is the point of music?


There's definitely been threads on that here, not sure how to seach for it though.


----------



## hpowders

starry said:


> There's definitely been threads on that here, not sure how to seach for it though.


Please spare me. I feel a migraine coming on!


----------



## DeepR

I have no theoretical understanding of these concepts, my basic understanding comes from listening and reading a little bit, but I seem to like music that is harmonically far out... tonality stretched to its furthest, but not atonal and/or harshly dissonant all the way through (if that made any sense). I like it if there's at least one or a few moments of breathing space, maybe even a resolve here and there... like at the end of the piece, as my man Scriabin seems to do quite a bit.


----------



## hpowders

That's why the Berg violin concerto is so nice: you get that breathing space in the final movement: tonality aplenty!!


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> So what is the point of music?


To make your eardrums vibrate.


----------



## hpowders

some guy said:


> To make your eardrums vibrate.


I knew there was a purpose!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Atonal music doesn't have a "point," it's more of a curve.


----------



## ahammel

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Atonal music doesn't have a "point," it's more of a curve.


A curve has points.

Infinitely many of them, in fact.


----------



## Anterix

"Points on a curve to find" Luciano Berio. Excellent music!


----------



## hpowders

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Atonal music doesn't have a "point," it's more of a curve.


You've made a good curve!


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

hpowders said:


> You've made a good curve!


Thank you! 
All good things have curves it seems


----------



## Blake

ahammel said:


> A curve has points.
> 
> Infinitely many of them, in fact.


Infinity in the finite, or finite in the infinity? Whoa, dude.


----------



## PetrB

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Atonal music doesn't have a "point," it's more of a curve.


Luciano Berio: Points on the curve to find... (1974)


----------



## PetrB

violadude said:


> Uhh U mad bro? ..............


People in music schools begin to really hold a grudge against this sort of music when they realize they have to work MUCH HARDER to get a handle on it, pass those later semesters of ear-training where you have to be able to sight-sing and take dictation of atonal lines, and as instrumentalists read and play it. I suppose directing the rage in an outward direction may be better -- or at least more self-preserving -- than completely imploding with rage against the self for ones lesser abilities, or a childish resentment you may have to work even harder at something than you first thought.

[ All that above all means a lot of people and objects not in any way deserving it will get dinged, drubbed, and bashed... but there 'tis.... ]


----------



## hpowders

PetrB said:


> People in music schools begin to really hold a grudge against this sort of music when they realize they have to work MUCH HARDER to get a handle on it, pass those later semesters of ear-training where you have to be able to sight-sing and take dictation of atonal lines, and as instrumentalists read and play it. I suppose directing the rage in an outward direction may be better -- or at least more self-preserving -- than completely imploding with rage against the self for ones lesser abilities, or a childish resentment you may have to work even harder at something than you first thought.
> 
> [ All that above all means a lot of people and objects not in any way deserving it will get dinged, drubbed, and bashed... but there 'tis.... ]


I agree. Same deal with listeners. Who wants to do all that intense listening required to re-train one's ears to a new sound world? Much easier to cop out and say "that music sucks!"


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> I agree. Same deal with listeners. Who wants to do all that intense listening required to re-train one's ears to a new sound world? Much easier to cop out and say "that music sucks!"


A less valid generalisation than PetrB's, I'd say. In theory, "people in music schools" are doing what they like most, but I assume they are expected to listen to a full range, and therefore are sometimes working against their tastes. Listeners, on the other hand, are under no such obligation, so if they want to listen to 'harder' works, they can, and may well enjoy the effort.


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> I agree. Same deal with listeners. *Who wants to do all that intense listening required to re-train one's ears to a new sound world?* Much easier to cop out and say "that music sucks!"


Me.............................


----------



## hpowders

MacLeod said:


> A less valid generalisation than PetrB's, I'd say. In theory, "people in music schools" are doing what they like most, but I assume they are expected to listen to a full range, and therefore are sometimes working against their tastes. Listeners, on the other hand, are under no such obligation, so if they want to listen to 'harder' works, they can, and may well enjoy the effort.


But if listeners don't want to listen, they shouldn't be telling the rest of us that the music sucks.


----------



## millionrainbows

The problem with all these terms like "atonal" is that listeners keep using it subjectively. I can see the sense in that, since serial music, or tonality, should be self-evident to the ear.

The problem enters because *both systems use the same 12-note scale;* therefore, problems can arise.

For example, a serial tone row can be used which is the two whole-tone scales: C-D-E-F#-G#-A#/ C#-D#-F-G-A-B, and the result will be a suspended tonality which constantly shifts chromatically; _it would require effort to escape from this effect._

Similarly, a tone-row could be made using the diminished scale, C-D-Eb-F-Gb-Ab-A-B (or Bbb-Cb if you prefer), C#-E-G-Bb, and the result will probably end up sounding like _suspendedtonality a_gain.

What about the chromatic scale? The result of such a row would be musical mush, unless great _effort _was made on the composer's part to try and avoid this.

What about a row that uses tonal triads? This row, C-E-G/F-A-C/B-D-F#-A#-C#/G#, would usually always end up sounding like some sort of skewed tonality gone awry.

Of course, these are general examples, not axioms. After all, music has a subjective dimension.

My point is that *"atonal" *needs to, at least, have the _general_ meaning of* "not tonal," *meaning,* "not based on tonal hierarchy or harmonic hierarchies or factors".
*
Likewise,* "tonal" *needs to mean, at the very least, *music which is tone-centric*. *"Tonal function"* should *not* be included in this general meaning, as_ this would exclude tone-centric folk musics,_ and even blues, gospel, and jazz! Not to mention Debussy and Bartok...

Charles Ives used dissonance as an end in itself...he liked the way it sounded. This certainly does not make him an "atonal" or "non-tonal" composer, or serialist, because what Ives did was_ harmonic in nature, and in the context of a general tonal sense.
_
Likewise, Debussy used "suspended tonality" and functionless chords which wandered in parallel; this does not make him an "atonal" or "non-tonal" composer, because he was using harmonic devices (triads, scales) which are "tonal" and harmonic in a general sense.

Like I said earlier, there are ways to "stuff horses into suitcases," as in Berg's tonal replicas, created using dodecaphony, but that's the exception rather than the rule, and should not be touted as an example if a clear, general understanding of tonal/atonal is to be achieved.

I'm reminded of the Monty Python skit, in which the patron of a pet store, desiring a parrot, is offered a cocker spaniel with a "parrot job" performed on it: put wings and a beak on it, and call it a parrot. :lol:


----------



## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> A less valid generalisation than PetrB's, I'd say. In theory, "people in music schools" are doing what they like most, but I assume they are expected to listen to a full range, and therefore are sometimes working against their tastes. Listeners, on the other hand, are under no such obligation, so if they want to listen to 'harder' works, they can, and may well enjoy the effort.


To further extend this... music students are required to understand and 'do it all.' For some, playing baroque is not at all a pleasure (ex. all those piano majors who prefer romantic to that obligatory baroque contrapuntal work, or working on a Haydn or Mozart piece to acquire the necessary clean and balanced approach at the instrument -- which is absolutely necessary if you are going to play, say, Chopin or Ravel at all well.

Ditto for any personally 'less-favored' music or repertoire. BUT, the Full Monty is what they signed up for, and it is not only 'bite the bullet' time but necessary to go even further and make a very convincing performance of all that 'less-favored' stuff. Subjectively 'hating it' is not at all promising for that desired, and required, outcome.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> I'm reminded of the Monty Python skit, in which the patron of a pet store, desiring a parrot, is offered a cocker spaniel with a "parrot job" performed on it: put wings and a beak on it, and call it a parrot. :lol:


It's a terrier. The patron is there for a cat, actually. Parrot only comes up because the shop doesn't have any cats, only the terrier.


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> But if listeners don't want to listen, they shouldn't be telling the rest of us that the music sucks.


It's a free, if annoying world!


----------



## hpowders

Free? What planet are you living on? I'm being taxed to death merely for eating and breathing.


----------



## Guest

hpowders said:


> Free? What planet are you living on? I'm being taxed to death merely for eating and breathing.


Oh...er...you mean...well, I thought I was...you mean, this isn't Planet Zurg?


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

The pointless the better.


----------



## hpowders

What's the point of anything?


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> What's the point of anything?


Let's not get all emo here...


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Elliott Carter: Luimen, someone send me a link to a good analysis or something like that.


----------



## Guest

I love Elmo. He was always my favorite mu.... What?

Oh.

(Awkward.)


----------



## StlukesguildOhio

110 Pages?!!!.....................


----------



## hpowders

^^^^So what's your point?


----------



## neoshredder

hpowders said:


> ^^^^So what's your point?


Not long enough. Must keep going.


----------



## hpowders

Just remember: 43 years from now you may see "hpowders" posting on this thread. In my will, I've made provisions to license out the "hpowders" tag name. Hence, I'm not responsible for the content of those future posts.


----------



## Aramis

StlukesguildOhio said:


> 110 Pages?!!!.....................


This is not much, considering the difficult task set for this thread, that of finding the point of atonal music .


----------



## Blake

Well, if a lack of understanding indicates a lack of intelligence then I'd question our progress here.


----------



## Guest

Aramis said:


> This is not much, considering the difficult task set for this thread, that of finding the point of atonal music .


Well, I think if you review the thread, you'll see that the high number of pages is a direct result of a vocal contingent simply refusing to accept that the point of "atonal" music is the same as the point of any music.

The "point" was pretty well articulated already in post #2, after all. Post #8 added an important correction.

Post #11.
Post #18, which adds an important bit.
Post #20.
Post #24.
Post #25, which adds a couple more important bits.
Post #45.

The thread was basically done at this point. Last post of page three. So we've gotten over a hundred pages of people who just will not accept the obvious, the basic, the simple, and that is that "atonal" music is no different from any other music. It makes sounds. It makes your eardrums vibrate. It is a result of someone making decisions about volume and space and time, about whether to go up or down, to have one voice or many, to go faster or slower.

It's not hard; but it does seem to be impossible.


----------



## tdc

ahammel said:


> At any rate, a system is just a system. Surely the important thing is the music that is produced. I doubt if architecture fans spend too much time bantering about what kind of cranes are best suited to making beautiful buildings.


You brought up a lot of good points in your post, but I don't think this is really an accurate analogy of what we were discussing. The crane would be more like the pencil to paper or software a composer works with, not the actual system they are using to compose. I would imagine fans of architecture probably do talk about similar architectural and structural processes/systems used by the _architect_ in the creation of a building.


----------



## ahammel

tdc said:


> You brought up a lot of good points in your post, but I don't think this is really an accurate analogy of what we were discussing.


I agree, looking back on it. It seemed like a good idea at the time :lol:


----------



## Nevum

No point. Atonal music simply sucks. One of the worst discoveries ever. With all due respect to Schoenberg admirers.


----------



## MrTortoise

As the world turns, so does the thread about the point of atonal music...


----------



## ahammel

Nevum said:


> No point. Atonal music simply sucks. One of the worst discoveries ever. With all due respect to Schoenberg admirers.


You can't really make any sentence respectful by putting 'with all due respect' after it, but I appreciate the effort.


----------



## hpowders

The point of atonal music is exactly the same as the point of tonal music. Music is music: the ultimate means of expression.


----------



## Blake

Nevum said:


> No point. Atonal music simply sucks. One of the worst discoveries ever. With all due respect to Schoenberg admirers.


Haha, I love that last part. It's the words of someone who wants to make a bold statement without the consequences.


----------



## EdwardBast

hpowders said:


> The point of atonal music is exactly the same as the point of tonal music. Music is music: the ultimate means of expression.


Not all music is about expression. That is pretty much a Romantic conception of music's purpose. And it applies to much atonal music. And has nothing to do with other atonal music.


----------



## Blake

EdwardBast said:


> Not all music is about expression. That is pretty much a Romantic conception of music's purpose. And it applies to much atonal music. And has nothing to do with other atonal music.


Music is always expressing something.


----------



## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> Music is always expressing something.


Skipping back past Stravinsky this time:

"Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound." -- Eduard Hanslick


----------



## Aramis

KenOC said:


> "Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound." -- Eduard Hanslick


That's what Hanslick tells. If you will ask music itself, you might be told otherwise.


----------



## Nevum

Vesuvius said:


> Haha, I love that last part. It's the words of someone who wants to make a bold statement without the consequences.


Exactly..............


----------



## KenOC

Aramis said:


> That's what Hanslick tells. If you will ask music itself, you might be told otherwise.


Well then, Stravinsky.
-----------------------------------
In a famous interview, Stravinsky was asked, as a man whose works had changed the entire course of music, what music expressed. He replied: "Music expresses nothing." I'm sorry, said the interviewer, you cannot be serious. Then Stravinsky's wife explained apologetically that Igor was a wonderful, very emotional person who really believed that music expressed feelings. Stravinsky was adamant, repeating: "Music expresses nothing." And then he added: "Music expresses music."

Also, from his 1936 autobiography: "Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all."


----------



## Crudblud

Music expresses musical ideas, a piece of music expresses a series of interdependent musical ideas. Often someone will say that a piece of music expresses this emotion or that emotion, or the composer's unrequited love, or what they had for lunch on Saturday, or a particularly eventful session on the toilet, but the fact is that music cannot communicate these things because they are _extramusical_, they exist outside the bounds of music, and their communication must be made through extramusical media such as text or image.


----------



## hpowders

EdwardBast said:


> *Not all music is about expression*. That is pretty much a Romantic conception of music's purpose. And it applies to much atonal music. *And has nothing to do with other atonal music.[*/QUOTE]
> 
> So then what's the point of composing the "other" atonal music?


----------



## Itullian

so theres no such thing then as music that makes us feel happy or sad?
or inspired ?


----------



## Blancrocher

KenOC said:


> Well then, Stravinsky.
> -----------------------------------
> In a famous interview, Stravinsky was asked, as a man whose works had changed the entire course of music, what music expressed. He replied: "Music expresses nothing." I'm sorry, said the interviewer, you cannot be serious. Then Stravinsky's wife explained apologetically that Igor was a wonderful, very emotional person who really believed that music expressed feelings. Stravinsky was adamant, repeating: "Music expresses nothing." And then he added: "Music expresses music."


All very orthodox and reasonable. And yet, I'm glad Stravinsky isn't so philosophically scrupulous when he talks about his own compositions. The Symphony of Psalms, he tells us, was written "in a state of religious and musical ebullience," and his listening notes on the conclusion are not for the squeamish or faint of heart:



> The final hymn of praise must be thought of as issuing from the skies, and agitation is followed by 'the calm of praise'--but such statements embarrass me.


I think his more general reflections on music and expression may have proceeded from "embarrassment" rather than conviction.


----------



## Blake

KenOC said:


> Skipping back past Stravinsky this time:
> 
> "Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound." -- Eduard Hanslick


Music is a fabrication of humans based on mental projections.


----------



## Guest

Nevum said:


> No point. Atonal music simply sucks. One of the worst discoveries ever. With all due respect to Schoenberg admirers.


:lol::lol::lol:

Well, like I said....


----------



## hpowders

I don't see the point of a composer composing "atonally" if the composer has no intention of expressing anything. To me that's a contradiction. What's the point? It's inhuman.


----------



## lupinix

hpowders said:


> I don't see the point of a composer composing "atonally" if the composer has no intention of expressing anything. To me that's a contradiction. What's the point? It's inhuman.


to me also
I don't see the point of a composer composing if he has no intention of expressing anything either


----------



## hpowders

lupinix said:


> to me also
> I don't see the point of a composer composing if he has no intention of expressing anything either


It just doesn't sound right ( no pun intended.)


----------



## Huilunsoittaja

KenOC said:


> Skipping back past Stravinsky this time:
> 
> "Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound." -- Eduard Hanslick


Technically, however, language is simply _ just sounds _too, but we apply meaning/subject to it as involuntary as thinking. How then is language different from music in that respect? We apply meaning to all sorts of things in music. Major chord = Happy is kinda like saying "Meow!" is suppose to be a cat sound. But who said pursing your lips "m" followed by putting your tongue to the roof of your mouth "ee" and then putting your mouth into a circular shape "ow" has anything to do with what a cat is? Other cultures don't have "meow" to mean a cat sound, just as a major chord might not have any happy meaning to many cultures. So perhaps there's a dilemma in saying that music has no subject... we'd have to say language has no subject either then...?


----------



## KenOC

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Technically, however, language is simply _ just sounds _too, but we apply meaning/subject to it as involuntary as thinking. How then is language different from music in that respect?


Actually I agree with this. We have assigned conventions to music, just like we agree that certain combinations of spoken sounds mean quite concrete things. Of course music is less specific, but why does the Pastoral Symphony sound "pastoral"?

It is unlikely that listeners exposed only to Indian or traditional Chinese music could decipher these conventions, just as we have trouble fully appreciating their music.


----------



## violadude

I'm more confused about the point of football than I am about the point of atonal music.

I mean, what's my motivation to root for a specific team again? I don't know any of these guys.


----------



## hpowders

It's just entertainment designed to relieve our minds from thinking about our inevitable demise, at least temporarily.

I'm totally confused. Is it demise or demice?


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> It's just entertainment designed to relieve our minds from thinking about our inevitable demise, at least temporarily.
> 
> I'm totally confused. Is it demise or demice?


You're so uplifting.


----------



## hpowders

The truth hurts?


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> The truth hurts?




Awkward.


----------



## Guest

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Technically, however, language is simply _ just sounds _


No, it's not. Meaning, denotation and connotation, is intrinsic to it. With exceptions, meaning is not applied to language, it's already there. Music, on the other hand, is quite definitely sounds--and I would myself never put "just" in front of "sounds" like that.

Note and chords and sequences and melodies and harmonies--none of that has anything like the meaning of language. There are no equivalences to words; there is no equivalence to grammar. Though I'm sure that, yet again, people will rush out to discover that other people talking about music will use the words "words" and "grammar" to describe music. And that brings up another thing, music really doesn't have what is fundamental to language, metaphor.



Huilunsoittaja said:


> Other cultures don't have "meow" to mean a cat sound....


No, they have "miao."


----------



## violadude

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Major chord = Happy is kinda like saying "Meow!" is suppose to be a cat sound. But who said pursing your lips "m" followed by putting your tongue to the roof of your mouth "ee" and then putting your mouth into a circular shape "ow" has anything to do with what a cat is? Other cultures don't have "meow" to mean a cat sound


But the Thai word for "cat" is Maeo!


----------



## KenOC

some guy said:


> No, it's not. Meaning, denotation and connotation, is intrinsic to it. With exceptions, meaning is not applied to language, it's already there.


This seems a very strange statement. Humans make sounds with their mouths. Certainly people use these sounds to communicate, and in very concrete ways. However, cultures isolated from each other have developed very many totally different languages -- different words, different syntaxes, some tonal and some not, and so forth. These languages are often mutually unintelligible. If there is a "meaning" already there in language, people seem to be ignoring it rather uniformly.



some guy said:


> No, they have "miao."


Chinese also use "mao" both for the word cat and for its sound. However, the character "wang" is used for a dog's bark, a strangeness.


----------



## ahammel

KenOC said:


> This seems a very strange statement. Humans make sounds with their mouths. Certainly people use these sounds to communicate, and in very concrete ways. However, cultures isolated from each other have developed very many totally different languages -- different words, different syntaxes, some tonal and some not, and so forth. These languages are often mutually unintelligible. If there is a "meaning" already there in language, people seem to be ignoring it rather uniformly.


I suppose the point is that the sounds are the _medium_ of the language, but the language itself is the grammar and the syntax and the semantics and so forth.

You can imagine language without sounds (a language that is written but never spoken, for instance), but music without sounds doesn't really mean anything to me, even given the exisance of musical notation (which is just a representation of sounds) and deaf composers (who were presumably imagining sounds).

Everybody who is now thinking about making a joke about 4'33": do a push-up.


----------



## ComposerOfAvantGarde

violadude said:


> I'm more confused about the point of football than I am about the point of atonal music.
> 
> I mean, what's my motivation to root for a specific team again? I don't know any of these guys.


Football should be replaced by croquet. It should be a professional sport, I'd go to see croquet games as a spectator.

On the topic of atonal music, I am currently composing a serial composition for violin and piano. I have made 3rds very very important in the row (and also transposing rows a major or minor third up or down from the original) to give a sense of consonance albeit the absence of a chord hierarchy. I even incorporated traditional uses of dissonance in an atonal setting to blur the line Ben further. Once I have finished the piece I might upload it to sound loud and post it on this site for anyone who'd like to hear it.

What's the point of writing this atonal piece of music? For my own enjoyment of the act of composing, to be performed, to be listened to, for people to react to etc. just the same point of writing anything.


----------



## Piwikiwi

ahammel said:


> I suppose the point is that the sounds are the _medium_ of the language, but the language itself is the grammar and the syntax and the semantics and so forth.
> 
> You can imagine language without sounds (a language that is written but never spoken, for instance), but music without sounds doesn't really mean anything to me, even given the exisance of musical notation (which is just a representation of sounds) and deaf composers (who were presumably imagining sounds).
> 
> Everybody who is now thinking about making a joke about 4'33": do a push-up.


Sign language is a language without sound and it's a complete language with it's own grammar etc.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Technically, however, language is simply _ just sounds _too, but we apply meaning/subject to it as involuntary as thinking. How then is language different from music in that respect? We apply meaning to all sorts of things in music. Major chord = Happy is kinda like saying "Meow!" is suppose to be a cat sound. But who said pursing your lips "m" followed by putting your tongue to the roof of your mouth "ee" and then putting your mouth into a circular shape "ow" has anything to do with what a cat is? Other cultures don't have "meow" to mean a cat sound, just as a major chord might not have any happy meaning to many cultures. So perhaps there's a dilemma in saying that music has no subject... we'd have to say language has no subject either then...?


I can't remember where I got it from but I remember reading about a study where to played classical music for tribesmen in Africa(or Papua new guinea can't remember) and they asked them if they could tell if a piece of music was happy or sad. They were able to do that without much effort.


----------



## ArtMusic

Piwikiwi said:


> I can't remember where I got it from but I remember reading about a study where to played classical music for tribesmen in Africa(or Papua new guinea can't remember) and they asked them if they could tell if a piece of music was happy or sad. They were able to do that without much effort.


There is something definitely inherent in us humans that we recognise as "happy" sounding.


----------



## Ingélou

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Technically, however, language is simply _ just sounds _too, but we apply meaning/subject to it as involuntary as thinking. How then is language different from music in that respect? We apply meaning to all sorts of things in music. Major chord = Happy is kinda like saying "Meow!" is suppose to be a cat sound. But who said pursing your lips "m" followed by putting your tongue to the roof of your mouth "ee" and then putting your mouth into a circular shape "ow" has anything to do with what a cat is? Other cultures don't have "meow" to mean a cat sound, just as a major chord might not have any happy meaning to many cultures. So perhaps there's a dilemma in saying that music has no subject... we'd have to say language has no subject either then...?


I know nothing about music, but I have to say that the 'eow' sound in 'meow' is onomatopoeic. A documentary I saw in the 1990s looked at languages all over the world and concluded that they probably came from one language originally. Obviously all the language groups had huge differences but the sounds made to describe 'mother' and 'milk' were the same for every language, or for the many many disparate languages they looked at, anyway.

I think 'happy' & 'sad' may be transmissible in music, in all cultures; just an opinion.


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## Crudblud

Itullian said:


> so theres no such thing then as music that makes us feel happy or sad?
> or inspired ?


The experience of listening to music can do all of those things, but the emotion is not contained within the music, the listener supplies it themselves in response to certain cues which have become experientially associated with various things, which in turn are often derived from popular associations through their use in media (esp. cinema) and/or extramusical elements offered by the composers themselves. I think that is also one of the reasons why so-called "atonal" or "avant garde" musics get such a bum rap; people who are trained to listen for emotional cues rather than to take the music as it is may become uncomfortable, bored or confused when those cues aren't forthcoming.


----------



## Piwikiwi

Crudblud said:


> The experience of listening to music can do all of those things, but the emotion is not contained within the music, the listener supplies it themselves in response to certain cues which have become experientially associated with various things, which in turn are often derived from popular associations through their use in media (esp. cinema) and/or extramusical elements offered by the composers themselves. I think that is also one of the reasons why so-called "atonal" or "avant garde" musics get such a bum rap; people who are trained to listen for emotional cues rather than to take the music as it is may become uncomfortable, bored or confused when those cues aren't forthcoming.


Please read what I said on the previous place because that challenges your argument here


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## Guest

Language and music are not comparable. The word 'dog', spoken or written, depends for its usefulness on an agreement about what it means between those who are going to use it. Amongst those who agree to use it to a common meaning, it means "that four legged mammal etc etc etc". Among those who prefer to use the word 'chien', the meaning is the same - those of you used to 'dog' just have to be introduced to the (French) agreement to be able to use it.

The sounds you hear when someone plays a G minor chord are...mean...the sounds you hear when you play G minor chord, nothing more, nothing less. The human ear is attuned to certain responses when it hears certain sounds - a crying baby for example - and it's thought that this tendency has contributed to the development of early music, so it is possible to claim that many people hear 'sadness' in G minor - but this does not make it so for all listeners, and it's still not a 'meaning' in the same way that there is a meaning in the sounds 'd-o-g'.


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## Mahlerian

This thread will die.

The music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Boulez, Varese, Takemitsu, Ligeti, and many others has been around longer, and will continue to live on in performances and recordings.

Which one is more pointless?


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## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> *This thread will die.*
> 
> The music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Boulez, Varese, Takemitsu, Ligeti, and many others has been around longer, and will continue to live on in performances and recordings.
> 
> Which one is more pointless?


That's like predicting "The Titanic is unsinkable!"

This thread seems to be going along on its merry way to infinity.


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## Yardrax

MacLeod said:


> Language and music are not comparable. The word 'dog', spoken or written, depends for its usefulness on an agreement about what it means between those who are going to use it. Amongst those who agree to use it to a common meaning, it means "that four legged mammal etc etc etc". Among those who prefer to use the word 'chien', the meaning is the same - those of you used to 'dog' just have to be introduced to the (French) agreement to be able to use it.


This is an absurd view of language by the way. That the notion of a pre-linguistic state in which the meaning of words was determined by fiat is completely ahistorical should be cause enough for concern. But more to the point this way of thinking is only really persuasive if we focus exclusively on nouns, the function of language to label and categorise things. If we are talking about a word like dog, it is relatively easy to point to what the word refers to without involving any kind of language in the process (Actually, it isn't, there are many varying things which we call 'dog' which might not seem to have an obvious connection to one who wasn't already used to associating them in his mind, so the act of pointing may only give a limited understanding of what is meant by dog. Further, the act of pointing is already a symbolic gesture, it already presumes a common understanding of it's meaning before the act of extending ones finger can be seen to be indicating to look in a certain direction, but we can ignore these difficulties for now) but other kinds of words, and linguistic structures that go beyond the length of single words, prove more difficult.

"Yes, this pen is blunt. Oh well, it'll do." Try pointing to the pre-linguistic object or thought which that sentence indicates.

EDIT:

The Art-Language comparison is one with something of an intellectual history, by the by. Although it is pretty useless without further elucidation, some comparisons can be fruitful and others not so much.


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## lupinix

violadude said:


> I'm more confused about the point of football than I am about the point of atonal music.
> 
> I mean, what's my motivation to root for a specific team again? I don't know any of these guys.


Ive never liked football, I find it boring to watch and depressing to do personally


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## lupinix

some guy said:


> No, it's not. Meaning, denotation and connotation, is intrinsic to it. With exceptions, meaning is not applied to language, it's already there. Music, on the other hand, is quite definitely sounds--and I would myself never put "just" in front of "sounds" like that.
> 
> Note and chords and sequences and melodies and harmonies--none of that has anything like the meaning of language. There are no equivalences to words; there is no equivalence to grammar. Though I'm sure that, yet again, people will rush out to discover that other people talking about music will use the words "words" and "grammar" to describe music. And that brings up another thing, music really doesn't have what is fundamental to language, metaphor.
> 
> No, they have "miao."


I think music might be more "language" than real languages actually, it speaks right from heart to heart without being limited to things like words and grammar


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## Yardrax

lupinix said:


> I think music might be more "language" than real languages actually, it speaks right from heart to heart without being limited to things like words and grammar


If that is the case then it is a mystery why we teach languages at all in school since grammar is such a limit on expression!

There is a great book by the way, by G. L. Hagberg called Art as Language, which discusses many of the parallels drawn, positive and negative, between art and language. Unlike many similar books the author is actually intimately familiar on a personal level with many great works of art and this tends to come across fairly well. Coming back to this discussion, there is even a passage where the author (Who is, as it turns out, a fan of Schoenberg) discusses trying to convince someone familiar with the classical canon from Bach through Wagner, who is convinced that Schoenberg's music isn't music, that it is, I will try and find it.


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## Guest

Yardrax said:


> This is an absurd view of language by the way. That the notion of a pre-linguistic state in which the meaning of words was determined by fiat is completely ahistorical should be cause enough for concern.


Absurd? In what way?

I wasn't giving a history of the evolution of language, merely stating the facts of its current use. You and I can hold a conversation of considerable complexity because we have a shared understanding of the words we're using - of all parts of speech, not just nouns; except where we don't, and then we understand the conventions that allow us to negotiate, exchange and, ultimately, agree (or not) on our understanding of meanings.

This is not possible with music - not now at any rate. I suppose I could envisage an exchange similar to a conversation, where I play a sequence of notes and you offer a sequence in reply, but it would only really be like a conversation if we, wholly artificially, agreed that the notes had some representative meaning. But that would be a conversation exclusively between you and me, unlike a conversation in English where anyone who understands English could join in.


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## lupinix

Also I don't think a major chord is happy or a minor chord is sad. That is a really technical and limited way of thinking of emotions in music. Its just that there are a lot of 'sad' musical pieces with much minor chords and thats why you might associate the sound of the chord with sadness, and that there are a lot of happy pieces which use a lot of major chords. But I also know a lot of minor pieces which are happy and some major that are sad! You just have to listen better to the deeper layer in music if you are listening to music in atonal music or other music cultures, and even to some tonal pieces, to understand the emotional or spiritual meaning, to really get into the music and become a part of it


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## lupinix

Yardrax said:


> If that is the case then it is a mystery why we teach languages at all in school since grammar is such a limit on expression!
> 
> There is a great book by the way, by G. L. Hagberg called Art as Language, which discusses many of the parallels drawn, positive and negative, between art and language. Unlike many similar books the author is actually intimately familiar on a personal level with many great works of art and this tends to come across fairly well. Coming back to this discussion, there is even a passage where the author (Who is, as it turns out, a fan of Schoenberg) discusses trying to convince someone familiar with the classical canon from Bach through Wagner, who is convinced that Schoenberg's music isn't music, that it is, I will try and find it.


I cant understand either why we dont sing or play more,
but language itself is handy to, not better to express oneself, but a lot better when giving very concrete and rational information, or asking someone to do something, things like that


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## scratchgolf

This is why the accomplishments of Helen Keller have always amazed me. The more I think about it, the more amazing it becomes. A man born blind can hear music but how could you ever explain the Sistine Chapel to him? A man born deaf can see the ocean but how could you ever explain Bach to him? To be robbed of both senses, and become what she became seems truly impossible to me. I'm curious how much she benefitted from her 1.5 years with these senses and if she would have accomplished as much if she were born deaf and blind.


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## hpowders

Beethoven became practically totally deaf late in life. How could you hope to explain the music from late beethoven to him?


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## violadude

hpowders said:


> Beethoven became practically totally deaf late in life. How could you hope to explain the music from late beethoven to him?


I don't know how this relates to what scratchgolf said.


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## Crudblud

Piwikiwi said:


> Please read what I said on the previous place because that challenges your argument here


What do you want me to say? I can't really do anything unless you present your sources.


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## mmsbls

Piwikiwi said:


> I can't remember where I got it from but I remember reading about a study where to played classical music for tribesmen in Africa(or Papua new guinea can't remember) and they asked them if they could tell if a piece of music was happy or sad. They were able to do that without much effort.


There have been many studies where various people from around the world have been asked to interpret human facial expressions (smile, frown, scowl, etc.), and all cultures seem to recognize what apparently are universal facial expressions. Anthropologists understand this in the context of evolution where it seems rather important to recognize the intent of strangers.

I'd be fascinated to read the study you mention. Obviously it's possible that all cultures could assign the same emotion to passages of music, but it's not at all clear how this ability would originate or why. It could be an odd by-product of a complex system which evolved partially to make sense out of both sounds and emotions.

I used to think music could convey emotions, but I'm much less certain now, and I'm rather skeptical that music can distinguish between similar emotions such as excitement and happiness or doubt, frustration, and shame.


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## hpowders

violadude said:


> I don't know how this relates to what scratchgolf said.


I never posted what I wrote directly to s_________f.

It was meant as a variation on a theme.

Others can then go with it or ignore it.

No offence taken, or is it offense? A pondering for the ages.


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## Jobis

I thought we had been through the whole major = happy and minor = sad thing before.

The minor third has been detected in human speech patterns when people are expressing sadness or grief. Also its something like the 16th or 18th overtone as opposed to the major third being the 3rd or 4th (my memory is terrible), and its remoteness in the harmonic series is perhaps what makes it sound dissonant and uneasy.


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## quack

It may be this study:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090319132909.htm
http://pubman.mpdl.mpg.de/pubman/item/escidoc:722101:4/component/escidoc:722100/fritz.pdf

These all-or-nothing certainties: "minor keys are sad everyone knows that" or "music cannot contain emotion", never really do justice to the complexities of music appreciation. It's enough to note that many people find a commonality of expression in different music but not everyone hears the same and they often hear the near opposite. If music is communicating it is an imperfect medium.


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## Petwhac

lupinix said:


> Its just that there are a lot of 'sad' musical pieces with much minor chords and thats why you might associate the sound of the chord with sadness, and that there are a lot of happy pieces which use a lot of major chords.


That's a rather circular argument. The musical piece are 'sad' _because_ they contain minor triads. If that is not the case then what makes us determine that a piece was sad in the first place? Dynamics? Rhythm? Melodic contour? Tempo? They all play a role in defining the overall character of music (allowing for some degree of subjective disagreement) but harmony has always been the more potent ingredient for evoking emotion, at least in 'harmonic' music.
If you don't believe me play 'Happy Birthday' in the minor!

The emotion by 'association' argument doesn't really stand up.


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## tdc

quack said:


> These all-or-nothing certainties: "minor keys are sad everyone knows that" or "music cannot contain emotion", never really do justice to the complexities of music appreciation. It's enough to note that many people find a commonality of expression in different music but not everyone hears the same and they often hear the near opposite. If music is communicating it is an imperfect medium.


Agreed, I think the reality is certainly somewhere in between. I don't think that music is so much an imperfect means of communication, (at least compared to spoken language) but that it communicates with elements of the subconscious and intuition. Its function is not to communicate specific literal sentences.

Spoken language itself is also an imperfect medium for communication. Ever try to explain a spiritual experience? Do you think another person would truly understand this experience, or would they need the direct experience themselves, before they understand? The "real" world or the inner reality is the realm where music communicates. Ever hear someone say "Oh you just had to be there to understand"? Words themselves only have a very limited range of communication, and many words can have very different meanings and conjure very different images in different people. When one goes beyond explaining literal obvious things in the physical (illusive) world, words often fail.

In this sense one could argue music communicates things that are more real than words.


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## Petwhac

hpowders said:


> Beethoven became practically totally deaf late in life. How could you hope to explain the music from late beethoven to him?


Just show him the score!


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## hpowders

Petwhac said:


> Just show him the score!


Exactly! Score one big one for the Master!!!


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## Guest

Just before we get too carried away with the idea that language is imperfect and limited, let's consider some of the obvious (hackneyed?) evidence to the contrary...

_Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_
_Thou art more lovely and more temperate:_
_Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,_
_And summer's lease hath all too short a date;_

_Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,_
_And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;_
_And every fair from fair sometime declines,_
_By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;_

_But thy eternal summer shall not fade,_
_Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;_
_Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,_
_When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:_

_So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,_
_So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

_Or, for the prose lovers among you...
_

Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said - "Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic_
_order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently
stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang
suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only -

_
_"Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!"_


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## Petwhac

MacLeod said:


> Just before we get too carried away with the idea that language is imperfect and limited, let's consider some of the obvious (hackneyed?) evidence to the contrary...
> 
> _Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?_
> _Thou art more lovely and more temperate:_
> _Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,_
> _And summer's lease hath all too short a date;_
> 
> _Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,_
> _And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;_
> _And every fair from fair sometime declines,_
> _By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;_
> 
> _But thy eternal summer shall not fade,_
> _Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;_
> _Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,_
> _When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:_
> 
> _So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,_
> _So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
> 
> _Or, for the prose lovers among you...
> _
> 
> Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said - "Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic_
> _order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently
> stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang
> suspended in air; and for the same space of time John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only -
> 
> _
> _"Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!"_


Ya wanna trade Sonnets?

_I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away._


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## KenOC

Petwhac said:


> _"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings..._


And here I always thought he was the guy that bit the heads off bats.


----------



## Petwhac

How about something a little more contemporary .......

_And if it snowed and snow covered the drive
he took a spade and tossed it to one side.
And always tucked his daughter up at night
And slippered her the one time that she lied. 
And every week he tipped up half his wage.
And what he didn't spend each week he saved.
And praised his wife for every meal she made.
And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.

And for his mum he hired a private nurse.
And every Sunday taxied her to church.
And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse.
And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.

Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that. _


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.


----------



## KenOC

"To Sleep," a sonnet by Keats, set by Britten in his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings:

O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
And seal the hushed casket of my soul.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

My favourite poem: Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters. Here's an excerpt


----------



## Petwhac

KenOC said:


> "To Sleep," a sonnet by Keats, set by Britten in his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings:
> 
> O SOFT embalmer of the still midnight!
> Shutting with careful fingers and benign
> Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light,
> Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
> O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
> In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
> Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
> Around my bed its lulling charities;
> Then save me, or the passed day will shine
> Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
> Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
> Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole;
> Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
> And seal the hushed casket of my soul.


And the music ain't too shabby either!


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## Petwhac

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> My favourite poem: Ursonate by Kurt Schwitters. Here's an excerpt


we were talking sonnets............. stop going off topic....

ooops


----------



## Novelette

This is the most disorganized thread I've seen in a very long time.

My respects.


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## tdc

tdc said:


> Agreed, I think the reality is certainly somewhere in between. I don't think that music is so much an imperfect means of communication, (at least compared to spoken language) but that it communicates with elements of the subconscious and intuition. Its function is not to communicate specific literal sentences.
> 
> Spoken language itself is also an imperfect medium for communication. Ever try to explain a spiritual experience? Do you think another person would truly understand this experience, or would they need the direct experience themselves, before they understand? The "real" world or the inner reality is the realm where music communicates. Ever hear someone say "Oh you just had to be there to understand"? Words themselves only have a very limited range of communication, and many words can have very different meanings and conjure very different images in different people. When one goes beyond explaining literal obvious things in the physical (illusive) world, words often fail.
> 
> In this sense one could argue music communicates things that are more real than words.


To add to this, if one used a sentence with any of these words in it:

Germany
Christian
Money

These are just some examples of words like many others that have many other potential different connotations than their literal meanings. Due to these very different connotations speaking on these subjects can lead to listeners coming away with drastically different perceptions of what was spoken about, or what it means to them.

We've all heard the commonly used saying "actions speak louder than words" and understand what this means, it implies that some things that are said (for example the phrase "I love you") do not have very much inherent meaning in themselves if they are not followed up with certain actions.

Politicians have used words to fool the masses for generations, because what they do, turns out to be very different from what they say.

So going by this do we conclude that words do not communicate anything? Of course not. That is illogical, because they clearly do communicate some basic things. In the same sense Stravinsky's statement that music does not communicate anything is also illogical.

However, I believe I do understand why Stravinsky said what he did. I believe he said it in response to the common request many have of artists to explain their work. I think this is generally an extremely frustrating thing for artists to try to do because art communicates primarily on the subconscious, not the literal, therefore to reduce an explanation of music to words will never suffice, or lead to a sufficient understanding.

I could agree with Stravinsky's quote if he had extended it to "Music does not communicate anything _that can be explained with words_".


----------



## ahammel

tdc said:


> To add to this, if one used a sentence with any of these words in it:
> 
> Germany
> Christian
> Money
> 
> These are just some examples of words like many others that have many other potential different connotations than their literal meanings. Due to these very different connotations speaking on these subjects can lead to listeners coming away with drastically different perceptions of what was spoken about, or what it means to them.
> 
> We've all heard the commonly used saying "actions speak louder than words" and understand what this means, it implies that some things that are said (for example the phrase "I love you") do not have very much inherent meaning in themselves if they are not followed up with certain actions.
> 
> Politicians have used words to fool the masses for generations, because what they do, turns out to be very different from what they say.
> 
> So going by this do we conclude that words do not communicate anything? Of course not. That is illogical, because they clearly do communicate some basic things. In the same sense Stravinsky's statement that music does not communicate anything is also illogical.


I don't think you're being fair to Stravinsky's reasoning, really.

I think Stravinsky would say that, even if you can use words to communicate in an unclear way, the relationship between sounds and concepts is still a feature which language has but music doesn't. Even if, as seems to be the case, people in general think that minor keys sound sad, the minor key does not _refer to_ the concept of sadness in the way that the word 'dog' refers to the concept of a dog.

A composer might exploit the fact that people tend to associate minor keys with sadness, certainly, but for Stravinsky that's a very different thing than-for example-an author choosing words which convey sad concepts.


----------



## Guest

Wow. This thread took a really good turn there for a second. But I missed out on the poetry swapping there. Sucks to be me.


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## Guest

I should acknowledge that when I said earlier that music and language are not comparable, I set aside the fact that one could argue points of comparison. For example, sets of rules have evolved governing the way a community uses language and the same could be said of music. Such rules might be at the level of which sounds must go with which other to make acceptable sense - both intelligible words, and consonant chords - or at the level of organisation into types - sonnet or ode, symphony or song. But points of comparison added together does not equal complete apposition.


----------



## science

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.


You might be a great composer someday.


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## peeyaj

The POINT of atonal music is to get the old dinosaurs and modernist robots fight flame wars in the INTERNET. That's the POINT of atonal music.

*END OF DISCUSSION. *


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## ArtMusic

*Atonal Music on the guitar (quite listeneable example  )*





*Tonal*


----------



## Piwikiwi

Crudblud said:


> What do you want me to say? I can't really do anything unless you present your sources.


https://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&rct=...9TammHwhu7JJ6Qg&bvm=bv.59568121,d.d2k&cad=rja

It's a study on if people living in the western world could recognize emotion in indian music. They could recognize anger, joy and sadness but they couldn't recognize peace as an emotion. I didn't read the study I've linked to myself but it is cited in the book Music, Language and the brain by Aniruddh D. Patel.


----------



## starry

Spoken language in its expression can obviously have musical qualities to it in that it can transmit through the sounds and rhythm aside from the meaning of the words. This expression will still be guided by the grammar/sounds of the language as much as music is by its own conventions in different cultures.


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## tdc

ahammel said:


> A composer might exploit the fact that people tend to associate minor keys with sadness, certainly, but for Stravinsky that's a very different thing than-for example-an author choosing words which convey sad concepts.


Right, and this is basically in agreement with my overall point, its just that Stravinsky chose to say that music doesn't communicate _anything_. The word "anything" seems to cover more than just words. Stravinsky didn't say "music doesn't communicate in the same way as spoken language", he said it doesn't communicate anything at all, and that is what I am in disagreement with. Communication doesn't necessarily have to involve words.


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## hpowders

Well, his Le Sacre du Printemps sure fooled me, because as far as I'm concerned, it communicates plenty!


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## Guest

tdc said:


> Stravinsky didn't say "music doesn't communicate in the same way as spoken language", he said it doesn't communicate anything at all, and that is what I am in disagreement with. Communication doesn't necessarily have to involve words.


It doesn't, but presumably what he means is that music doesn't (doesn't have to?) communicate sense or meaning above and beyond the sounds of the music. He's a fine one to talk, given the meanings connected to Rite of Spring. I mean, he didn't say to Diaghilev and Nijinsky, so far as I know, "I'm sorry, but I can't write music to go with this ballet because it will create associations and meanings that will go totally against my philosophy that music doesn't communicate."

[edit] Besides, who cares what Stravinsky says - his opinion on the matter is one among many, and in any case, I would say that composers are not necessarily the most reliable narrators of what music is about (not least because some will want to sell you their wares!)


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## lupinix

MacLeod said:


> It doesn't, but presumably what he means is that music doesn't (doesn't have to?) communicate sense or meaning above and beyond the sounds of the music. He's a fine one to talk, given the meanings connected to Rite of Spring. I mean, he didn't say to Diaghilev and Nijinsky, so far as I know, "I'm sorry, but I can't write music to go with this ballet because it will create associations and meanings that will go totally against my philosophy that music doesn't communicate."
> 
> [edit] Besides, who cares what Stravinsky says - his opinion on the matter is one among many, and in any case, I would say that composers are not necessarily the most reliable narrators of what music is about (not least because some will want to sell you their wares!)


I believe it wasn't until after his 'russian period' that he began thinking like music stands for nothing? I remember a quote about some lady telling him after a concert later on in his life "I really like your Firebird" at which he replied "I really like your hat"


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## ahammel

tdc said:


> Right, and this is basically in agreement with my overall point, its just that Stravinsky chose to say that music doesn't communicate _anything_. The word "anything" seems to cover more than just words. Stravinsky didn't say "music doesn't communicate in the same way as spoken language", he said it doesn't communicate anything at all, and that is what I am in disagreement with. Communication doesn't necessarily have to involve words.


I think Stravinsky would say that these non-language ideas that music communicates are entirely about the music itself, that these ideas have no referents external to the music, and therefore that this doesn't count as 'communication' at all.


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## Guest

Well, by all means let's squabble about what "communication" means.

Be fair, squabbling's what we do best, eh?

But really. It's pretty easy. Language has many musical qualities, rhythm, tempo, pitch, sound. Music has few if any linguistic qualities. There is no musical equivalent to "Good morning, how are you?"


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> Well, by all means let's squabble about what "communication" means.
> 
> Be fair, squabbling's what we do best, eh?
> 
> But really. It's pretty easy. Language has many musical qualities, rhythm, tempo, pitch, sound. Music has few if any linguistic qualities. There is no musical equivalent to "Good morning, how are you?"


You mean "meanings," not "qualities," don't you? Louis Armstrong's trumpet playing has a very "vocal" quality, as does Jimi Hendrix' guitar. Hell, I've even heard ******** say "He makes that thang talk, don't he?" in referring to instrumentalists. What about the violin? What are you talking about?


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Well, by all means let's squabble about what "communication" means.
> 
> Be fair, squabbling's what we do best, eh?
> 
> But really. It's pretty easy. Language has many musical qualities, rhythm, tempo, pitch, sound. Music has few if any linguistic qualities. There is no musical equivalent to "Good morning, how are you?"


I wholly agree with your last three sentences. But I thought I was exchanging opinions, not squabbling?


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## hpowders

Some definitions:

It's "squabbling" when your opinion isn't approved by the other poster.

It's "communicating" when both of you agree.


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## ArtMusic

There *are* human perceptions of the music, and that is the fundamental point, even ones that might appear inherent to a particular culutre or society. Example, would you put on loud noise music the first night you invite your girlfriend over to your place or something more "suitable" - yes, there are of course exceptions in this world that some would put on noise music, but I suspect many else won't. This is the fundamental aspect of music - write what you will as an artist, care not of what you may beyond your last note the moment your pen is lifted off the page, but listeners have every damn right to judge, use, interpret what fine or not art you wrote.


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## Crudblud

ArtMusic said:


> There *are* human perceptions of the music, and that is the fundamental point, even ones that might appear inherent to a particular culutre or society. Example, would you put on loud noise music the first night you invite your girlfriend over to your place or something more "suitable" - yes, there are of course exceptions in this world that some would put on noise music, but I suspect many else won't. This is the fundamental aspect of music - write what you will as an artist, care not of what you may beyond your last note the moment your pen is lifted off the page, but listeners have every damn right to judge, use, interpret what fine or not art you wrote.


Calm down.


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## Aramis

some guy said:


> But really. It's pretty easy. Language has many musical qualities, rhythm, tempo, pitch, sound. Music has few if any linguistic qualities. There is no musical equivalent to "Good morning, how are you?"


I though these two chords opening _Eroica_ are such equivalent, perhaps more like "Good morning, how are you, here's my symphony!"

And I've read once that Chopin's Rondo in C minor, op. 1, says "Hi, I'm Chopin".


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## ahammel

Aramis said:


> I though these two chords opening _Eroica_ are such equivalent, perhaps more like "Good morning, how are you, here's my symphony!"


"Here's the tonic: it's E-flat major. Hope you like it. Know who's the best? Napoleon. Ok, let's go..."


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## Petwhac

ahammel said:


> "Here's the tonic: it's E-flat major. Hope you like it. Know who's the best? Napoleon. Ok, let's go..."


Or...."Shut up and listen to this!"


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## Richannes Wrahms

Is it possible not to like E-flat major, even G-flat major?


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## millionrainbows

Let's get down to the very basics of being human, in terms of sound.

Vocal sounds: Yay! Another human! And she's female, unless that's a counter-tenor...

Bass sounds: Bass = physically big, just to produce the sound. Basic physics 101. And if it's big, it was made by something big, and possibly dangerous. I'm scared, or at least in awe.

High sounds: If it's a flute or piccolo, it's a bird, unless you grew up in urban New Jersey. If the sounds are high-pitched, something small produced them, probably something that can fly. I look heavenward...

Rhythmic sounds: Something walking? No, it's cool; let's dance.

Loud, abrupt sounds: That certainly got my attention. I'm scared now. That startled me.

Soft sounds: I'd better tune in to that. It could be something big sneaking up on me.


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## Roi N

It is wrong to look at music as a regular art. Art conveys emotions. But at its core - classical music does not. I am not referring to music in general, but classical music only. Classical music is a different universe, that could merely be understood with emotions. The Romantic era destroyed this balance, and the modernists have destroyed the rest.


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## millionrainbows

Roi N said:


> It is wrong to look at music as a regular art. Art conveys emotions. But at its core - classical music does not. I am not referring to music in general, but classical music only. Classical music is a different universe, that could merely be understood with emotions. The Romantic era destroyed this balance, and the modernists have destroyed the rest.


That seems contradictory. Are you saying music is, or is not, based on emotion? and who destroyed it?


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## Guest

Roi N said:


> It is wrong to look at music as a regular art.


You're right...inasmuch as you should listen, not look. As for the rest, no-one's destroyed anything.


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## arpeggio

*Why*

I have been following this debate for several years.

One thing that I discovered is that there are some people who believe that their knowledge of classical music is so considerable that any music that they have an aversion too must be bad. They really have problems when they have to deal with individuals that actually like music they do not approve of.

In response, those who like degenerate music generate all sorts of bogus theoretical reasons to justify their musical tastes.

For example, atonal music is ugly, no beautiful, no ugly, no beautiful...

I will now provide the anti-modernist with a definitive answer on why I like atonal music.

Well, that question can be divided into two parts.

The first part is WHY? This is an issue that has been challenging artists, philosophers, theologians and civilizations for thousands of year. Why? Why? Why? 

The second part of that question is, "Do I like atonal music?" The answer to that is "Yes".


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## hpowders

I may or may not like it. The point is I would be tolerant of anybody else's desire to like it or hate it. 
I don't grind sharp axes!


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## millionrainbows

hpowders said:


> I may or may not like it. The point is I would be tolerant of anybody else's desire to like it or hate it.
> I don't grind sharp axes!


I agree. I support every long-haired adolescent male's right to listen to Metallica, as long as he doesn't throw up on my new tennis shoes.


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## Rapide

What is the point of Metallica? Not any more nor less than atonal music.


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## Whistler Fred

I find myself coming back to the music of some of the thornier composers of the atonal camp. I perhaps find it more fascinating than lovable, but some works, such as Elliott Carter's 3rd String Quartet, have grown on me. I also like much of the music of George Crumb, at least pre-American Songbook, but he often combined tonality with a freer harmonic style. I also like a lot of Morton Feldman, who again used tonal references from time to time.

But I think atonality in general, or perhaps more specifically serial music, was a kind of cul-du-sac brought about as a reaction to two world wars and other gloomy world events that would have impact on the Arts. A music that was strictly formalistic, with little or no concession to emotions, was the response, presumably under the theory that we can't be lead astray by totally organized music based wholly on logic. An overreaction in retrospect, at least in my opinion.

Of course, this is probably too simple an explanation about a topic for which books could, and have, been written. But a lot of post-serial music seems to be returning to tonality and even melody, even though rhythm still often seems to be more of a driving force. I suspect that serialism, like the tortured expressionism of Renaissance composers who followed Carlos Gesualdo, may end up becoming a footnote in music history. And just as we remember and enjoy Gesualdo's music, or at least I do, there will probably be some composers whose music will be remembered even after the events and fashions that prompted the music is forgotten.


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## hpowders

I think " more fascinating than lovable" is an apt description.
I just ordered Vincent Persichetti's complete piano sonatas. The last two are supposed to be atonal. We'll see what happens.


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## Mahlerian

Whistler Fred said:


> But I think atonality in general, or perhaps more specifically serial music, was a kind of cul-du-sac brought about as a reaction to two world wars and other gloomy world events that would have impact on the Arts. A music that was strictly formalistic, with little or no concession to emotions, was the response, presumably under the theory that we can't be lead astray by totally organized music based wholly on logic. An overreaction in retrospect, at least in my opinion.


Actually, this is chronologically and aesthetically incorrect. The 12-tone method was developed after the First World War under the same kinds of impulses as brought about the Neoclassicism of the time. Late Romanticism, Impressionism, and Expressionism (so-called "free atonality", which predated WWI) were seen as difficult to control and formally vague, so composers, including Schoenberg, looked back to pre-Romantic music as a model of formal and technical restraint (the first fully 12-tone piece was a Neobaroque Suite for piano).

The Neoclassicists wanted to rein in what they saw as the emotional excesses of Late Romanticism and Expressionism, but Schoenberg and his school, by contrast, wanted to preserve an emotionally expressive idiom. Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, Violin Concerto, and Lulu all make use of the 12-tone method, as do some of Schoenberg's most intense late scores.

The confusion comes in because the word serialism is associated with the post-WWII composers centered around Darmstadt: Stockhausen, Nono, and Boulez, among others. Boulez famously declared Schoenberg dead, and in so doing elevated Webern to prophet of the postwar avant-garde. But this too was based on something of a misconception, because Webern's music is not nearly as "objective" as was supposed at the time; more emotionally vital performances (including a number from Boulez himself) have revealed aspects which were not noticed before. Nono never declared Schoenberg dead, though (he even married Schoenberg's daughter), and neither did many other 12-tone composers like Roger Sessions in the US, who still admired his emotionally charged idiom.



Whistler Fred said:


> Of course, this is probably too simple an explanation about a topic for which books could, and have, been written. But a lot of post-serial music seems to be returning to tonality and even melody, even though rhythm still often seems to be more of a driving force. I suspect that serialism, like the tortured expressionism of Renaissance composers who followed Carlos Gesualdo, may end up becoming a footnote in music history. And just as we remember and enjoy Gesualdo's music, or at least I do, there will probably be some composers whose music will be remembered even after the events and fashions that prompted the music is forgotten.


Gesualdo was not particularly influential over half a century after his death, though (the Renaissance era had ended). Nobody looks at tonality (or rhythm!) today the way people did before Debussy, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Minimalism actually began as a far more methodical process-oriented idiom than did the 12-tone method. It's way too early to declare anything dead yet.


----------



## Whistler Fred

Mahlerian said:


> Actually, this is chronologically and aesthetically incorrect. The 12-tone method was developed after the First World War under the same kinds of impulses as brought about the Neoclassicism of the time. Late Romanticism, Impressionism, and Expressionism (so-called "free atonality", which predated WWI) were seen as difficult to control and formally vague, so composers, including Schoenberg, looked back to pre-Romantic music as a model of formal and technical restraint (the first fully 12-tone piece was a Neobaroque Suite for piano).
> 
> The Neoclassicists wanted to rein in what they saw as the emotional excesses of Late Romanticism and Expressionism, but Schoenberg and his school, by contrast, wanted to preserve an emotionally expressive idiom. Alban Berg's Lyric Suite, Violin Concerto, and Lulu all make use of the 12-tone method, as do some of Schoenberg's most intense late scores.
> 
> The confusion comes in because the word serialism is associated with the post-WWII composers centered around Darmstadt: Stockhausen, Nono, and Boulez, among others. Boulez famously declared Schoenberg dead, and in so doing elevated Webern to prophet of the postwar avant-garde. But this too was based on something of a misconception, because Webern's music is not nearly as "objective" as was supposed at the time; more emotionally vital performances (including a number from Boulez himself) have revealed aspects which were not noticed before. Nono never declared Schoenberg dead, though (he even married Schoenberg's daughter), and neither did many other 12-tone composers like Roger Sessions in the US, who still admired his emotionally charged idiom.


I was more thinking, and probably should have specified, of post-World War 2 serialism. In a sense, the neo-classicists were attempting something similar (getting away from emotion, or at least excessive emotion), but in a different way, after World War 1.

I personally like the music of the first twelve-tone "school" (Schoenberg, Berg & Webern) when the performance acknowledges it Romantic and expressionist roots.

And I agree, its probably too soon to know which music will be remembered by future generations But it's fun to speculate.


----------



## Mahlerian

Whistler Fred said:


> I was more thinking, and probably should have specified, of post-World War 2 serialism. In a sense, the neo-classicists were attempting something similar (getting away from emotion, or at least excessive emotion), but in a different way, after World War 1.
> 
> I personally like the music of the first twelve-tone "school" (Schoenberg, Berg & Webern) when the performance acknowledges it Romantic and expressionist roots.
> 
> And I agree, its probably too soon to know which music will be remembered by future generations But it's fun to speculate.


I see. I suppose I've overly accustomed to the "Schoenberg=soulless mathematics without music" statement that I begin to see it even where it isn't. My apologies.

Anyway, I do think that the obsession with having a gamelan of xylophones and marimbas used constantly throughout a piece was something of a fad that Boulez took away from Messiaen and spread to numerous lesser acolytes..._Le marteau sans maitre_ is a great work, but there's no reason to keep imitating imitations of it!

But the history of post-WWII music is far from set in stone at this point. Messiaen and Ligeti were certainly key figures, as was Cage (who influenced Feldman and Takemitsu and many others). Of the Darmstadt serialists, it seems like Boulez and Berio are the most frequently performed, but Stockhausen's music is usually incredibly resource-intensive. Post-serial music tends to draw from a pretty wide range of sources, like post-modern music of all stripes.


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## Whistler Fred

Mahlerian said:


> But the history of post-WWII music is far from set in stone at this point. Messiaen and Ligeti were certainly key figures, as was Cage (who influenced Feldman and Takemitsu and many others). Of the Darmstadt serialists, it seems like Boulez and Berio are the most frequently performed, but Stockhausen's music is usually incredibly resource-intensive. Post-serial music tends to draw from a pretty wide range of sources, like post-modern music of all stripes.


Part of the problem is simply defining what is meant by "atonal." The word itself doesn't really make sense (un-tonal?...call out the percussion ensembles and leave the vibes at home!). Schoenberg preferred the word pan-tonal, which makes more sense with 12 tune music. But I suspect for most people atonal simply means music not built on traditional melodic or harmonic structures. This could include anything from Schoenberg's expressionism, Milton Babbitt "total organization," Iannis Xenakis stochastic music or John Cage's Zen influenced chance music. And this leaves out the spectralists, the totallists, the modalists (not really atonal), the minimalists (ditto) and probably a lot more genres that I'm not recalling. Or for that matter, composers like Messiaen, Ligeti and Feldman, who may not fall into any easily defined category

And whereas I'm not (yet) convinced that the most hardcore serialism of Babbitt and even Boulez will have lasting staying power, its influence will no doubt be felt in various ways for some time to come.


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## Mahlerian

Whistler Fred said:


> Part of the problem is simply defining what is meant by "atonal." The word itself doesn't really make sense (un-tonal?...call out the percussion ensembles and leave the vibes at home!). Schoenberg preferred the word pan-tonal, which makes more sense with 12 tune music. *But I suspect for most people atonal simply means music not built on traditional melodic or harmonic structures.* This could include anything from Schoenberg's expressionism, Milton Babbitt "total organization," Iannis Xenakis stochastic music or John Cage's Zen influenced chance music. And this leaves out the spectralists, the totallists, the modalists (not really atonal), the minimalists (ditto) and probably a lot more genres that I'm not recalling. Or for that matter, composers like Messiaen, Ligeti and Feldman, who may not fall into any easily defined category


Right, except for those for whom it indicates "anything I don't like."



Whistler Fred said:


> And whereas I'm not (yet) convinced that the most hardcore serialism of Babbitt and even Boulez will have lasting staying power, its influence will no doubt be felt in various ways for some time to come.


I think that we've been for some time now in an era in which techniques are more an individual than a shared factor, but the outward sound or aesthetic philosophy behind a work or a composer's body of work live on. Look at the names of Babbitt's students, like Picker or Songheim, and you'll note that few of them composed in anything resembling his post-expressionist 12-tone style. But the rigor that he used to employ them is still respected by many to this day. Much the same applies, I believe, in the case of Boulez. Ligeti was, for a time, an outspoken critic of total serial techniques, like those in Boulez's earlier works (before Le marteau), and even those works he did love and respect he did nothing to imitate outwardly.

The majority of any period's compositions will sink into obscurity. It's true that the relatively small audience for the vast majority of works produced by the post-war serialists meant that these never managed to have even their proverbial 15 (9?) minutes of fame, but the few that have survived because of well-respected champions like Abbado for Nono or Pollini for Boulez seem to be holding on quite tenaciously. It seems clear that Stockhausen shot himself in the foot by restricting performances and recordings so severely.

But there are countless composers who never received anywhere near that recognition and probably will remain in deserved obscurity.

Like late Romantic Ernst Boehe.


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## Whistler Fred

Listening to this right now, and liking what I'm hearing!


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## violadude

Mahlerian said:


> But there are countless composers who never received anywhere near that recognition and probably will remain in deserved obscurity.
> 
> Like late Romantic Ernst Boehe.


Bleh, out of all the ranked mediocre music out there, it's the pieces of the late romantic persuasion I am most sick of.


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## ArtMusic

Rapide said:


> What is the point of Metallica? Not any more nor less than atonal music.


I suppose so but both have bery limited appeal overall.


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## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> I suppose so but both have bery limited appeal overall.


Classical music has bery limited appeal overall.


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## ArtMusic

violadude said:


> Classical music has bery limited appeal overall.


True but that doesn't bother me.


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> I suppose so but both have very limited appeal overall.


...what???



Wikipedia said:


> Metallica has released nine studio albums, four live albums, five extended plays, 25 music videos, and 37 singles. The band has won nine Grammy Awards, and has had five consecutive albums debut at number one on the Billboard 200, making Metallica the first band to do so. The band's eponymous 1991 album has sold over 16 million copies in the United States, making it the best-selling album of the SoundScan era. Metallica ranks as one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, having sold over 110 million records worldwide.


Hilary Hahn and Gustavo Dudamel combined don't have anything approaching that kind of star power.


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## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> True but that doesn't bother me.


Then what was your point?


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Hilary Hahn and Gustavo Dudamel combined don't have anything approaching that kind of star power.


 Maybe we need to clone Yuja Wang?


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Maybe we need to clone Yuja Wang?


We need Yuja Wang and Lang Lang to team up in the kitchiest way possible, and pair her ultra-short dresses with his over-the-top emoting. Instant success!


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## Guest

violadude said:


> Bleh, out of all the ranked mediocre music out there, it's the pieces of the late romantic persuasion I am most sick of.


We should have seen it coming. Schubert's 8th was, luckily, unfinished but the signs were there...the opening oboe melody in my head keeps morphing into Swan Lake!


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## DavidA

Roi N said:


> It is wrong to look at music as a regular art. Art conveys emotions. But at its core - classical music does not. I am not referring to music in general, but classical music only. Classical music is a different universe, that could merely be understood with emotions. The Romantic era destroyed this balance, and the modernists have destroyed the rest.


Hmmm so works like the St Matthew Passion, Handel's Messiah and Don Giovanni don't convey emotions? Better tell that to someone when they sing Mi Tradi!


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## hpowders

DavidA said:


> Hmmm so works like the St Matthew Passion, Handel's Messiah and Don Giovanni don't convey emotions? Better tell that to someone when they sing Mi Tradi!


 I was just singing that in the shower, even though it's a "girl's song". Don't tell anybody.
That's why many "label" threads are foolish in my opinion. No clearly defined boundaries.

Play the Bach fuga from the third solo violin sonata, the chaconne from the second solo violin partita, any of the slow movements from the keyboard partitas.

Bach can be as emotional as it gets, yet he's not a romantic? Ahhhh! Those darn labels!!!:lol:


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## millionrainbows

The reason Schoenberg used Baroque models in his early 12-tone works (like Serenade) is because the method lends itself to independent polyphonic textures, not vertical harmonic ones.

I have no problem with the term "atonal" covering both Second Viennese composers and post-WWII serialists, because the ordered rows common to both effectively discourage a sense of tonality, no matter how convincingly Berg was able to stuff that horse into a suitcase.

The main difference is a paradigm/aesthetic shift. The Second Viennese School were still operating within, and extending, the traditional Western paradigm because: 

1. They composed "thematically" using the row to generate themes and motives which could be developed melodically
2. They "developed" these ideas horizontally
3. They used vertical harmonic implications, even if the verticalities were not truly harmonic
5. They used traditional phrasing and rhythms
6. They used traditional forms & instrumentation: string quartets, opera, piano/violin sonatas and concertos, songs

This is why Boulez declared "Schoenberg est morte!" and used Messiaen and Webern as his models. With these composers, we begin to see:

1. "Linear development" abandoned, in favor of "sonic events" which happen in isolation;
2. The abandonment of horizontal harmonic function; Messiaen & Varese's use of "sonic events";
3. The use of vertical harmony as isolated timbral event of sonority, with no horizontal "function" projected from it
4. Exotic instrumentation influenced by Eastern models; vibraphone, plucked strings, percussion as used by Boulez
5. Messiaen's use of "modes" and additive rhythmic units, influenced by Indian music

In other words, the shift is one of the abandonment of the Western paradigm, which culminated in WWII, the decimation of Europe, and the hydrogen bomb era, in favor of a more Eastern world view, with its non-linear sense of time, and the abandonment of "narrative" and linear development.


----------



## Aramis

Mahlerian said:


> We need Yuja Wang and Lang Lang to team up in the kitchiest way possible, and pair her ultra-short dresses with his over-the-top emoting. Instant success!


How about simply having Lang Lang wear Wang's short dress, so we get the effects combined and don't have to split the resulting stardom in two.


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## rbfuchs

Yes, Messaien's works are full of positive emotions - joy, exaltation, transcendence, awe. His harmonic framework may not be rigorously atonal but it's unconventional enough to sound that way. Berg & Ives wrote atonal music with warm, elevated emotional content. Keep looking, you'll find something to love.


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## Guest

Wang in a short dress is good enough. More than. 

Plus she plays better.


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## neoshredder

rbfuchs said:


> Yes, Messaien's works are full of positive emotions - joy, exaltation, transcendence, awe. His harmonic framework may not be rigorously atonal but it's unconventional enough to sound that way. Berg & Ives wrote atonal music with warm, elevated emotional content. Keep looking, you'll find something to love.


I prefer my atonal music far away from Romanticism. They don't mix well imo.


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## violadude

neoshredder said:


> I prefer my atonal music far away from Romanticism. They don't mix well imo.


"Tha' **** did you just say?" -Arnold Schoenberg









"Herr Schoenberg, tha **** did he just say?" -Alban Berg











Edit: Thanks for the post deleting help, mods!


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## neoshredder

Exactly. Not a Schoenberg fan. Or Berg fan. I go right to Ligeti/Stockhausen/Xenakis when I feel the need to branch out.


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## millionrainbows

I see what neoshredder is saying. Schoenberg and Berg are really more "Romantics" than they are "atonalists" or "serialists." They were simply using the 12-tone method, but their artistic goals, forms, and syntax remained firmly in the late-Romantic tradition.

For truly "atonal" serial music which does not pretend to be "pretty," I'll listen to the post-war serialists.


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## vamos

This post was originally me complaining about atonalism, instead i'm going to try harder to study it as listening to carter quartet 2 atm, it is interesting when you focus. We shall see.


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## KenOC

Aramis said:


> How about simply having Lang Lang wear Wang's short dress, so we get the effects combined and don't have to split the resulting stardom in two.


That image made me rather spectacularly ill...


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## millionrainbows

Regarding the above exchange between neoshredder and violadude, there are some aspects of the Romantic worldview which I think *are *rather incongruous with serial music and hard-core modernism.

First, the Romantics were overthrowing the old, established order, in which the world and its social order was strictly and rigidly defined.

The old hierarchy was religious: everything in creation had its place in the order, and was more or less unchangeable. With the Enlightenment, science began to be more important than religion; and science was becoming seen (via Darminism) as a process of becoming, not static being.

Kings were deposed, democracy came in, and "everyman" became empowered. Beethoven celebrates this in his life and work; this is how how differs greatly from Haydn and Mozart, who were still under the influence of the established order. Beethoven proclaims this loudly in his Ninth, which transcends mere Christianity (of the old order) and touts a new "inclusive" everyman spirituality.


----------



## Morimur

What's the point of atonal music? One might as well question the purpose of all music. Tonal or atonal, music is music. Traditional Japanese music isn't tonal, so is it useless?


----------



## mmsbls

I realize this thread is rather long and most people will not read many earlier posts. Unfortunately, the thread title can be interpreted as, "Of what use is atonal music?" I think a better interpretation would be, "Why do some composers choose to write music with no tonal centers rather than music with tonal centers (i.e. What are they trying to accomplish by choosing non-tonal music?)?


----------



## millionrainbows

I think that the reason such questions are asked is because of a basic disconnect with the *Romantic* outlook, which serialism departed from, and became a new sort of 'classicism' of defined structures, compared to the open-endedness of Romanticism.

Romanticism celebrated individual characteristics, not meta-forms of classicism. Serialism, being a method, tends (in many people's eyes) to 'rob' the individuality of the composer, replacing it with a method, and creating music that all sounds the same.

The row, or series, is a 'given being,' in that it is the DNA for whatever comes out of it; in this sense, it does not exemplify 'becoming' as a fluid, ever-changing state, as Romanticism does.

Of course, all these criticism can just as easily be reversed, to justify serialism's vitality as a fluid and flexible form; but I think the initial impression in most listener's minds is a sense of rigidity and incomprehension.

This comprehensibility to the 'common man' is an important aspect of Romanticism as well. Whereas Classicism used Greek mythology for much of its subject matter, which one had to be conversant with in order to 'get it,' later Romantics used pictures of everyday things and scenes from life, which everyone could understand.

With serial music, many listeners get the sense that they are not comprehending the music, or that some sort of foreknowledge is necessary in order to understand it.


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## pileofsticks

I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


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## Morimur

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


You're trolling, right?


----------



## hpowders

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


I rack my brain over this stuff but even I recognize the genius of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony #1.
Try to hear the Zubin Mehta performance. It could change your mind about Schoenberg.


----------



## Guest

When will people catch on that because music is for listening, not for racking, racking means that something has gone wrong in the reception process.

People manage somehow to listen to this with nothing but pleasure:






And to this as well:






Any single piece of music is capable of being loved by someone and hated by someone else. The sounds are the same; the listeners are different. It's so basic. If you listen to something with pleasure, then good for you. And perhaps good for the people you talk to about it. If you listen to something with displeasure, then too bad. And too bad if you have to vent about it. You will give comfort to others similarly circumstanced, that is all. Temporarily. You won't even really give comfort to yourself. You will still want to vent.

If you like something and share that like, then you perhaps can open up whole worlds of pleasure for others. Perhaps pile will take hp's advice. Perhaps that will lead to something nice for pile. Perhaps not. It's not sure. Perhaps hp in other circumstances will take his own advice.

Only one thing is sure. If pile never takes his advice, he'll never know.

OK. Pile's under no compulsion, despite a recent spate of posts that he and others like him are, to like or dislike anything. What he should stop doing is treating his individual and personal responses as normative for anyone else. As important for other people to hear about. That is it. That is the whole extent of the "scorn," of the "condescension" that pro-modernists supposedly feel for their aesthetically impoverished brethren.


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## Mahlerian

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


Nope, sorry. The great thing is, you can guess again!


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


Did you meant Ferneyhough? _Even if he makes his music nearly impossible to coordinate within a considerable margin of error in the variable of time, there's still logic in there. _


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## science

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


I honestly think that this expression of your opinion is not actually a reaction to Schoenberg's music; you're projecting onto Schoenberg.


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## TresPicos

I listened to Schoenberg's piano concerto for the first time the other day, and I was really blown away. I admit that it's not that far away from random noise, but I loved it. And afterwards, I was completely refreshed and at peace. 

Ten years ago, I would have dismissed that piano concerto completely, as pretentious, unenjoyable and useless. I could have told the Schoenberg lovers that they just didn't get it. Now, I know I was the one who didn't get it. Now, I embrace that same piano concerto as pretentious, enjoyable and useful.


----------



## BurningDesire

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


That is some miraculously fortunate ink-spraying. Unfortunately for your hyperbole, Schoenberg is one of those great composers who greatly struggled over and crafted his work. It is so silly to be referring to this true master craftsman in this manner, that you might as well be saying it about Bach.

Schoenberg isn't even my favorite composer, but as a composer, I can tell you he was an unbelievable genius in the craft of music.


----------



## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> That is some miraculously fortunate ink-spraying. Unfortunately for your hyperbole, Schoenberg is one of those great composers who greatly struggled over and crafted his work. It is so silly to be referring to this true master craftsman in this manner, that you might as well be saying it about Bach.
> 
> Schoenberg isn't even my favorite composer, but as a composer, I can tell you he was an unbelievable genius in the craft of music.


I learned a long time ago that a number of performing musicians have no real discernment about the quality of the music they play. If it has a good part for their instrument, they think the music is great, and I think in some instances if that part is technically demanding more than they are used to -- or what they do not have -- in the way of range, the reading of it, difficult for them to read and count rhythms, they readily dismiss it as 'noise.' Bah & Lol.


----------



## violadude

PetrB said:


> I learned a long time ago that a number of performing musicians have no real discernment about the quality of the music they play. If it has a good part for their instrument, they think the music is great, and I think in some instances if that part is technically demanding more than they are used to -- or what they do not have -- in the way of range, the reading of it, difficult for them to read and count rhythms, they readily dismiss it as 'noise.' Bah & Lol.


I noticed this attitude a lot when I was in Youth Symphony as well.


----------



## PetrB

TresPicos said:


> I listened to Schoenberg's piano concerto for the first time the other day, and I was really blown away. I admit that it's not that far away from random noise, but I loved it. And afterwards, I was completely refreshed and at peace.
> 
> Ten years ago, I would have dismissed that piano concerto completely, as pretentious, unenjoyable and useless. I could have told the Schoenberg lovers that they just didn't get it. Now, I know I was the one who didn't get it. Now, I embrace that same piano concerto as pretentious, enjoyable and useful.


Listen to it several more times, (I'm assuming it is the very fine performance with Mitsuko Uchida, et alia) and you will begin to hear tons of lyric Viennese melodies, little waltzes, etc. Much of it really is a later embodiment of Germanic romanticism, lyric and highly sentimental.


----------



## Blake

PetrB said:


> Listen to it several more times, (I'm assuming it is the very fine performance with Mitsuko Uchida, et alia) and you will begin to hear tons of lyric Viennese melodies, little waltzes, etc. Much of it really is a later embodiment of Germanic romanticism, lyric and highly sentimental.


Yes, it's really something. Once your ear "adapts," you can pick up all sorts of little melodies in Schoenberg's music. It's lovely.


----------



## Alypius

I've been listening to Per Norgard's Symphonies recently. I've owned #3 for a couple of years, and just acquired #4, #5, & #6. These later ones are more challenging in some ways, and I'm still trying to find a way to make sense of them. Norgard clearly has an aesthetic very different from the Second Vienna school -- or, to put it a little more precisely, seems to work from a very different aesthetic tradition (i.e. not against the horizon of late romanticism). In any case, I don't have a good sense of what he means by his "infinity series" -- or at least how it can possibly generate the music he is coming up with. Whatever the mathematics, it's very different as well from what I know of Xenakis. I can hear in Norgard's a constantly shifting order, but can't pin down what he's doing. I've come across a comparison of his music to fractal geometry -- which makes a certain sense. His music has the mix of order and turbulence I associate with a thunderstorm -- a powerful, beautiful swirl. Any suggestions on getting a better fix on Norgard's work? 

I posted this here because his work might be heard as "atonal" (whatever that means), but it clearly has a point -- and a system for all its constantly shifting turbulence. So this seemed a good place to ask. If there is another thread that would be a better place to discuss this, please direct me. Thanks.


----------



## Andolink

Alypius said:


> I've been listening to Per Norgard's Symphonies recently. I've owned #3 for a couple of years, and just acquired #4, #5, & #6. These later ones are more challenging in some ways, and I'm still trying to find a way to make sense of them. Norgard clearly has an aesthetic very different from the Second Vienna school -- or, to put it a little more precisely, seems to work from a very different aesthetic tradition (i.e. not against the horizon of late romanticism). In any case, I don't have a good sense of what he means by his "infinity series" -- or at least how it can possibly generate the music he is coming up with. Whatever the mathematics, it's very different as well from what I know of Xenakis. I can hear in Norgard's a constantly shifting order, but can't pin down what he's doing. I've come across a comparison of his music to fractal geometry -- which makes a certain sense. His music has the mix of order and turbulence I associate with a thunderstorm -- a powerful, beautiful swirl. Any suggestions on getting a better fix on Norgard's work?


Like any rich, complex music the way to deepen your understanding and appreciation for what's going on with Norgard is to come back to the music repeatedly over time. Each subsequent listening will open more doors into the harmonic particularities and structural flow of each work. You didn't mention the 7th Symphony which is, if anything even better than 5 or 6, both of which I love. These symphonies contain such kaleidoscopic richness that I find that even with familiarity, there is never a loss of freshness or a sense of discovery. Also, don't worry too much about the mathematics of how the Infinity Series works. It's the sonic results of Norgard's method that matters.

I'm very impatient to get my hands on a commercially released recording of the 8th Symphony which at this point is only available as a youtube of the premier.


----------



## Alypius

Andolink said:


> Like any rich, complex music the way to deepen your understanding and appreciation for what's going on with Norgard is to come back to the music repeatedly over time. Each subsequent listening will open more doors into the harmonic particularities and structural flow of each work. You didn't mention the 7th Symphony which is, if anything even better than 5 or 6, both of which I love. These symphonies contain such kaleidoscopic richness that I find that even with familiarity, there is never a loss of freshness or a sense of discovery. Also, don't worry too much about the mathematics of how the Infinity Series works. It's the sonic results of Norgard's method that matters.
> 
> I'm very impatient to get my hands on a commercially released recording of the 8th Symphony which at this point is only available as a youtube of the premier.


Thanks. Your recommended strategy is one that I regularly use. Great artists always pack a lot into their work, and so repeated listening is obviously key to understanding. Repetition opens doors -- intuition opening doors before the analytical. That said, a few analytical perspectives often open things. In any case, some listeners find, say, Bartok's string quartets bewildering on first listen, but at this point, for me, I've listened to them so often that Bartok's logic (or inspired illogic) has a 'just so' quality -- not transparency, but a rightness. (And for Bartok, you have to like dance, so to speak). Well, Norgard is a different animal altogether. Norgard's 3rd Symphony had a strange accessibility despite the vastness and constantly shifting shimmerings of its sound world. Some of that has come from repeated listenings. I guess that I sense that he is doing something a little different in this next series of symphonies -- building on what he had done before, but something else is fueling things. "Kaleidoscope" seems the just right word to capture elements of his work.


----------



## millionrainbows

pileofsticks said:


> I honestly think that Schoenberg just wanted to **** people off by spraying ink onto a blank sheet music page and calling it "music".


No, that was John Cage. But I think he did it without purpose. The "pissed off people" were mad because he had attained legitimacy and charged them five dollars to see the performance, then made it into a record and made them buy it. There's a "sub-text" of anger as well, because he was a gay zen Buddhist.


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## Morimur

millionrainbows said:


> No, that was John Cage. But I think he did it without purpose. The "pissed off people" were mad because he had attained legitimacy and charged them five dollars to see the performance, then made it into a record and made them buy it. There's a "sub-text" of anger as well, because he was a gay zen Buddhist.


I'd be more upset about the Zen Buddhist thing than anything else. How dare he!!


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## hpowders

After 120 pages of thread lasting almost three years, shouldn't the point of atonal music have been well-established by now?


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## PetrB

hpowders said:


> After 120 pages of thread lasting almost three years, shouldn't the point of atonal music have been well-established by now?


It was... just another way to come up with music which makes sense, is expressive, but no longer bound by chord function as it was in common practice harmony. Plainly put, it is just another way to write music


----------



## Mahlerian

A moderately lengthy lecture on the origins of modernism and the barriers to understanding that it has encountered, delivered by the late Charles Rosen.






(You can very safely skip the opening remarks without worrying if you missed anything by jumping right to the 12:00 mark.)

Things I learned from this video: Charles Rosen thinks little of Xenakis, non-specialist record company execs have little awareness of what to do with the contemporary music in their catalogues, and everyone has memorized music that they later regret.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> ...and made them buy it.


This made me laugh out loud at 23:52 in my hotel room. You're gonna get me kicked out of the place. And I'm here to attend several free concerts of electroacoustic music. Free. Not only am I under no compulsion to be here, but I don't have to spend any money on it, either. Well, except for the hotel and the plane fare. But INA-GRM is hardly responsible for that, are they?

And it wasn't John Cage, it was Dick Higgins. And it wasn't ink, it was machine gun bullets. (His ink pieces are relatively sedate.)

It's funny about the challenges of modern music, too. Nearly everyone reports about the challenges of modern music, for good or for ill. I just feel in love with it. And forty+ years later, I'm still in love with it. In fact, there's been forty years of new new music to add to what I started out listening to.

There were no barriers for me, I can tell ya. Just my insatiable appetite. (That's how I know that anti-modernism is all ********, just by the way. The music is perfectly fine. It's just as enjoyable and as accessible and as delightful as all the 18th and 19th century music I started out listening to at the very beginning.)


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## Morimur

I like Rosen very much and agree with most of what he says, with the exception of his assessment of Xenakis' music.


----------



## Guest

some guy said:


> The music is perfectly fine. It's just as enjoyable and as accessible and as delightful as all the 18th and 19th century music I started out listening to at the very beginning.)


As you've written a personal comparative, it's difficult to disagree. I'll offer my own comparative and simply say that for this listener, some music is more accessible than others, but once you get to a certain level of complexity, the degrees of accessibility become smaller. Prokofiev's 1st and 5th Symphonies were not equally accessible to me, but the gap between them was not as great as the gap between Prokofiev's 1st and Three Blind Mice.


----------



## Blake

some guy said:


> Just my insatiable appetite.


This intensity, along with the thirst for progression, is really all that's needed. The rest sort of falls in place.


----------



## ptr

hpowders said:


> After 120 pages of thread lasting almost three years, shouldn't the point of atonal music have been well-established by now?


It was on page one I think! But to sum it up, Atonality was created as an antidote to all the prevailing inbred conservative music styles! I know, one can argue pros at cons, but as we all know there are cultures where cultural inbreeding is next best thing after marrying Your sister! 

/ptr


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## hpowders

ptr said:


> It was on page one I think! But to sum it up, Atonality was created as an antidote to all the prevailing inbred conservative music styles! I know, one can argue pros at cons, but as we all know there are cultures where cultural inbreeding is next best thing after marrying Your sister!
> 
> /ptr


Marrying one's sister may produce hemophilia in the offspring. That's the only thing that stopped me.


----------



## arpeggio

*Rough Video*



Mahlerian said:


>


For me this is a rough video.

As I have gotten older I have tried to be more tolerant of those who dislike modern music.

This lecture makes me want to embrace the disdainful attitudes of my youth.


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## Nereffid

hpowders said:


> Marrying one's sister may produce hemophilia in the offspring. That's the only thing that stopped me.


Bad science > incest! :lol:


----------



## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> For me this is a rough video.
> 
> As I have gotten older I have tried to be more tolerant of those who dislike modern music.
> 
> This lecture makes me want to embrace the disdainful attitudes of my youth.


Hmmm. Is it Ok to show disdain and intolerance to to "those who dislike modern music"?
Is that the same disdain and intolerance that others have shown_ towards _modern music which, when it occurs must be censured?
Perhaps it is not. Perhaps the disdain and intolerance shown by the knowing towards the ignorant is a more acceptable type of disdain and intolerance.

I'm not trying to pick a fight but just pointing out the perils of the pot calling the kettle black.


----------



## KenOC

Nereffid said:


> Bad science > incest! :lol:


"You should make a point of trying everything once, excepting incest and folk-dancing." --Sir Arnold Bax, Farewell, My Youth (1943)


----------



## arpeggio

*Yes You Are*



Petwhac said:


> I'm not trying to pick a fight but just pointing out the perils of the pot calling the kettle black.


Yes you are.

First of all I was being sarcastic.

There are those of us who have bent over backwards trying to be reasonable. In spite of our best efforts we have been accused of being arrogant and elitist.

In spite of our disagreements with Mr. Rosen, he probably has a better understanding of music than most of us here put together. If a man of his intellect is unable to convince anti-contemporary music types that contemporary music has worth than I seriously doubt than there is anything I could say. He just convinced me of the futility of the discussion.

I still believe that disliking Xenakis does not prove that one is a boor. But disliking Xenakis does not prove that one is a great connoisseur of classical music.

If liking music you have objections to means that in your eyes I am some sort of elitist snob, so be it.


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## KenOC

arpeggio said:


> There are those of us who have bent over backwards trying to be reasonable.


Darn! I miss all the good threads!


----------



## hpowders

In the lecture Mr. Rosen said that one of the barriers to absorbing atonal music is many of the performances of it are simply bad. How does one determine whether a performance of say, Carter or Boulez is good or bad? Which one should I listen to? It would be nice to be able to remove such a barrier to help in understanding the music.

Also regarding the lecture, I found it interesting that the more complex the music, the more popular it actually became over time. Mozart more difficult than Haydn. Beethoven more complex than Mozart. Never thought about it quite like that before.
Very interesting, Mr. Charles Rosen!


----------



## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> Yes you are.
> 
> First of all I was being sarcastic.
> 
> There are those of us who have bent over backwards trying to be reasonable. In spite of our best efforts we have been accused of being arrogant and elitist.
> 
> In spite of our disagreements with Mr. Rosen, he probably has a better understanding of music than most of us here put together. If a man of his intellect is unable to convince anti-contemporary music types that contemporary music has worth than I seriously doubt than there is anything I could say. He just convinced me of the futility of the discussion.
> 
> I still believe that disliking Xenakis does not prove that one is a boor. But disliking Xenakis does not prove that one is a great connoisseur of classical music.
> 
> If liking music you have objections to means that in your eyes I am some sort of elitist snob, so be it.


What make you think I object to any music?

What makes you think I would call you an elitist snob?

Or perhaps you are not addressing me personally.

As for bending over backwards to be reasonable. I'd give that up and just get the whip out eh?

Here's a scenario: Miley Cyrus fan tries and fails to use reason to persuade Brian Ferneyhough fan to like Miley Cyrus. Brian Ferneyhough fan accuses Miley Cyrus fan of being an elitist snob.


----------



## dgee

hpowders said:


> In the lecture Mr. Rosen said that one of the barriers to absorbing atonal music is many of the performances of it are simply bad. How does one determine whether a performance of say, Carter or Boulez is good or bad? Which one should I listen to? It would be nice to be able to remove such a barrier to help in understanding the music.


I must admit to have not watched the video so not entirely sure of the context but I agree with Mr Rosen here about live performances, especially back in the day where players weren't so technically proficient and often lacked a decent available recording to study (it's useful to have a reference to start with when you're playing something new).

You should be OK with recent recordings - some will be better than others but none should be problematically awful to the point where they don't accurately represent the score. Of course, the composer also may have been involved in the recordings in a performing or advisory capacity


----------



## hpowders

dgee said:


> I must admit to have not watched the video so not entirely sure of the context but I agree with Mr Rosen here about live performances, especially back in the day where players weren't so technically proficient and often lacked a decent available recording to study (it's useful to have a reference to start with when you're playing something new).
> 
> You should be OK with recent recordings - some will be better than others but none should be problematically awful to the point where they don't accurately represent the score. Of course, the composer also may have been involved in the recordings in a performing or advisory capacity


Thanks. I am not at the point where I can tell an extraordinary performance of atonal music from a mediocre one, as I can with Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.


----------



## Vaneyes

KenOC said:


> "You should make a point of trying everything once, excepting incest and folk-dancing." --Sir Arnold Bax, Farewell, My Youth (1943)


I may give Bax another listen.


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> Thanks. I am not at the point where I can tell an extraordinary performance of atonal music from a mediocre one, as I can with Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.


I've previously used this recording, available on Youtube, as a good example of how much performances of modern music have improved over the years, and, furthermore, how much better it makes the music sound.

In this movement of Le marteau sans maitre, the intonation on the viola is awful, the alto flute struggles somewhat, and the whole ensemble seems ragged.





Compare that to this. (The movement starts at 2:15 if the link doesn't automatically take you there.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7JIAVneYYoM#t=134

I'm sure that the musicians in the first video worked really hard at getting their parts right, but it was beyond the technique that they were accustomed to using. The second video, half a century later, is played by musicians who get what they're trying to do and know how to do it. It's not even close to the best performance of the piece I've heard. The one on the Ensemble Intercontemporain/Summers recording blows it out of the water by a long shot, but it still far surpasses the 60s performance.


----------



## Vaneyes

hpowders said:


> Thanks. I am not at the point where I can tell an extraordinary performance of atonal music from a mediocre one, as I can with Bach, Beethoven or Mozart.


One of the good things about atonal is their relative scarcity of recordings. I've found a high(er) percentage are excellent performances, probably due to the "seriousness" of the artists. IOW more specialized, more dedicated. :tiphat:


----------



## Morimur

Petwhac said:


> Here's a scenario: Miley Cyrus fan tries and fails to use reason to persuade Brian Ferneyhough fan to like Miley Cyrus. Brian Ferneyhough fan accuses Miley Cyrus fan of being an elitist snob.


Oh, the irony. Reason is a sworn enemy of Cyrus' 'music'.


----------



## KenOC

Vaneyes said:


> One of the good things about atonal is their relative scarcity of recordings.


Sometimes it's fun to take things out of context! :lol:


----------



## hpowders

Vaneyes said:


> One of the good things about atonal is their relative scarcity of recordings. I've found a high(er) percentage are excellent performances, probably due to the "seriousness" of the artists. IOW more specialized, more dedicated. :tiphat:


Okay. That's good to know. I figure if Boulez, Bernstein, Abbado or Levine is conducting it, it's probably good.


----------



## Mahlerian

In reference to Rosen's anecdotes about the person who claimed that "no one can play 12-tone music from memory", it's certainly not true today. Even a child can do it!


----------



## violadude

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Oh, the irony. Reason is a sworn enemy of Cyrus' 'music'.


I don't necessarily mind her music (which can be a little catchy if you're caught off guard) so much as her seeming insistence that all her music be about reckless, irresponsible partying.

But hey, that's the trend in music these days I guess. And I'm getting old already.

You damn kids! Get off my lawn!!! :scold:


----------



## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> In reference to Rosen's anecdotes about the person who claimed that "no one can play 12-tone music from memory", it's certainly not true today. Even a child can do it!


This was most heartening.

This made me very happy, even though I think that every eight year old should be playing Schoenberg by now.

And she had a fair amount of expressivity going on there, too. Nuances of touch and phrasing and tempo.

Sweet sweet video, Mahlerian.


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> I've previously used this recording, available on Youtube, as a good example of how much performances of modern music have improved over the years, and, furthermore, how much better it makes the music sound.
> 
> In this movement of Le marteau sans maitre, the intonation on the viola is awful, the alto flute struggles somewhat, and the whole ensemble seems ragged.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Compare that to this. (The movement starts at 2:15 if the link doesn't automatically take you there.)
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7JIAVneYYoM#t=134
> 
> I'm sure that the musicians in the first video worked really hard at getting their parts right, but it was beyond the technique that they were accustomed to using. The second video, half a century later, is played by musicians who get what they're trying to do and know how to do it. It's not even close to the best performance of the piece I've heard. The one on the Ensemble Intercontemporain/Summers recording blows it out of the water by a long shot, but it still far surpasses the 60s performance.


Interesting comparison. Also the sound is so much better in the second example. Anyhow, I wandered off and found Boulez conducting his Répons and I liked this much better.


----------



## violadude

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but today I read a great paragraph in the fantastic book "Emotion and Meaning in Music" by Leonard B. Meyer that I think is very relevant to the thread topic.

"Because of the tremendous importance of belief in the response to art, the most devastating criticism that can be leveled against a work is not that it is crude or displeasing but that it is not aesthetically purposeful and meaningful . Statements that compositions in the twelve-tone technique are conceived within an essentially mathematical framework , implying that they are not honestly felt or aesthetically conceived by the composer, have done more to make the music of this school unpopular and hated than all the accusations of cacophony and ugliness put together. It seems probable that audiences object to the dissonance in this music, not because it is unpleasant, but because they believe that it is the product of calculation rather than an aesthetic affective conception. These criticisms have weakened belief in the logic and seriousness of the music, and listeners have consequently abandoned their attempts to understand. The power of most journalistic criticism derives not so much from its ability to influence judgement as from its power to enhance or weaken belief." (pg. 76)


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## Blake

Sooo, ugly nastiness calculated by robots? Got it.


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## violadude

Vesuvius said:


> Sooo, ugly nastiness calculated by robots? Got it.


Are you responding to the quote I posted?

I don't know what your point is.


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## Blake

violadude said:


> Are you responding to the quote I posted?
> 
> I don't know what your point is.


I'm saying that's the sum-total of peoples' argument against "atonal" music.


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## violadude

Vesuvius said:


> I'm saying that's the sum-total of peoples' argument against "atonal" music.


I guess that's kind of what the quote implies, in a crude sort of way. But that's not the main point of it.


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## PetrB

Mahlerian said:


> In reference to Rosen's anecdotes about the person who claimed that "no one can play 12-tone music from memory", it's certainly not true today. Even a child can do it!


_...and with emotion / feeling! Sweet _


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## Blake

violadude said:


> I guess that's kind of what the quote implies, in a crude sort of way. But that's not the main point of it.


I know, it was thoughtful. I just felt like turning something sensible on it's head. Because it's pretty evident that the ones who really complain about that style around here don't do so with much sense.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> I don't necessarily mind her music (which can be a little catchy if you're caught off guard) so much as her seeming insistence that all her music be about reckless, irresponsible partying.
> 
> But hey, that's the trend in music these days I guess. And I'm getting old already.


Uh, oh... you are close to that pivotal juncture where you realize that over 95% of the pop music and video game and film score music you loved when 'young' is actually banal as all get out, and what attracted you to it was the over 95% text or contextual association, not the music.

Cheer up, that leaves a bit under 5% of all of that which is still of real musical interest


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## KenOC

Seen in another place:
----------------------------------
In an interview with composer/musicologist Manfred Stahnke, György Ligeti, one of the leading composers of the post-WWII avant-garde (along with Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, et al.) stated the following regarding the ugliness of the music produced by those composers, including himself:

"When I think of the avant-garde I have this image in my head: I am sitting in an airplane, the sky is blue and I see a landscape. And the plane flies into a cloud: everything is grey-white. At first the grey seems interesting if you compare it to the earlier landscape, but it soon becomes monotonous. I then fly out of the cloud and again see the landscape, which has completely changed in the meantime.

I believe that we have flown into such a cloud of high entropy and great disorder, particularly because of Schoenberg and the Viennese school but also due to the post-war generation in Darmstadt and Cologne - to which I more or less belonged. The instant I emerge out of the cloud I see, and this being very critical, that the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly. With 'we' I mean my generation, myself included. This ugly music was a consequence of twelve-tone music, of total chromaticism."
----------------------------------
Maybe relevant here, including the question of whether Ligeti's opinion counts for more than anybody else's.


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## Blake

Hmm, interesting.


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## Morimur

I have the utmost respect for Ligeti as he is one of my very favorite composers, but he was prone to exaggeration. The following quote was taken from the NY Times:

_The composer and conductor Gyorgy Ligeti, for instance, calls Mr. Nancarrow's work ''the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives.'' Since first coming across some of Mr. Nancarrow's piano pieces in a Paris record store in 1980, he has vigorously championed Mr. Nancarrow's jagged and elaborately contrapuntal music, both from the podium and in print.

''His music is so utterly original, enjoyable, constructive and at the same time emotional,'' Mr. Ligeti has written. ''For me, it is the best music by any living composer of today.''_

Mighty high praise for Nancarrow, who's music I also love but is hardly _''the greatest discovery since Webern and Ives.''_ or _"...the best music by any living composer of today."_. I wouldn't call the music conventionally beautiful either. Ligeti's quote is of no consequence because he unrepentantly continued to compose this 'ugly' music until the end of his days. He loved his monstrosities and so do I. Art isn't only about beauty because it cannot be. Look around. We need art to speak to our experiences as creatures of this fallen world.


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## starthrower

Ligeti's music isn't ugly to my ears. Gray and white is OK. I wouldn't want to watch Citizen Kane or the Twilight Zone in color.


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## Blancrocher

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Ligeti's quote is of no consequence because he unrepentantly continued to compose this 'ugly' music until the end of his days. He loved his monstrosities and so do I. Art isn't only about beauty because it cannot be. Look around. We need art to speak to our experiences as creatures of this fallen world.


I don't _agree_ with the Ligeti quote either--though I'd give him a "like" if he were a forum member. He illustrates his point with a lovely metaphor.

In any case, gray skies are ominous if I'm in a plane, but looking on them from the comfort of my living room they can be quite pleasant.






Heck--I appreciate a lightning storm from time to time.


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## arpeggio

*Out of Context*



KenOC said:


> Seen in another place:
> ----------------------------------
> In an interview with composer/musicologist Manfred Stahnke, György Ligeti, one of the leading composers of the post-WWII avant-garde (along with Boulez, Stockhausen, Nono, et al.) stated the following regarding the ugliness of the music produced by those composers, including himself:
> 
> "When I think of the avant-garde I have this image in my head: I am sitting in an airplane, the sky is blue and I see a landscape. And the plane flies into a cloud: everything is grey-white. At first the grey seems interesting if you compare it to the earlier landscape, but it soon becomes monotonous. I then fly out of the cloud and again see the landscape, which has completely changed in the meantime.
> 
> I believe that we have flown into such a cloud of high entropy and great disorder, particularly because of Schoenberg and the Viennese school but also due to the post-war generation in Darmstadt and Cologne - to which I more or less belonged. The instant I emerge out of the cloud I see, and this being very critical, that the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly. With 'we' I mean my generation, myself included. This ugly music was a consequence of twelve-tone music, of total chromaticism."
> ----------------------------------
> Maybe relevant here, including the question of whether Ligeti's opinion counts for more than anybody else's.


This cite was just recently used in another forum by one their most active anti-modernists to discredit modernistic music. He was essentially gloating that this single remark invalidated the entire avant-garde movement.

There have been several responses from some the members, including a musicologists, stating that the quote was being taken our or context in the post.

I do not the background to question the validity of the above statement. All I can state that individuals who are more knowledgeable than I am state that the post is bogus. It proves nothing.


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## mmsbls

violadude said:


> "Because of the tremendous importance of belief in the response to art, the most devastating criticism that can be leveled against a work is not that it is crude or displeasing but that it is not aesthetically purposeful and meaningful . Statements that compositions in the twelve-tone technique are conceived within an essentially mathematical framework , implying that they are not honestly felt or aesthetically conceived by the composer, have done more to make the music of this school unpopular and hated than all the accusations of cacophony and ugliness put together. It seems probable that audiences object to the dissonance in this music, not because it is unpleasant, but because they believe that it is the product of calculation rather than an aesthetic affective conception. These criticisms have weakened belief in the logic and seriousness of the music, and listeners have consequently abandoned their attempts to understand. The power of most journalistic criticism derives not so much from its ability to influence judgement as from its power to enhance or weaken belief." (pg. 76)


Of course, my view is just one opinion, but the quote doesn't quite ring true to me. It's possible most listeners knew that 12 tone music has some mathematical backing, but I suspect very few knew much about its construction. I doubt most listeners even know there is such a thing as 12 tone music. I think very few people associate math and music at least from the composer's standpoint. I think, like me, they heard something sounding bizarrely different from things they heard before (and possibly some dissonance), and the sounds were just too different for them.


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## KenOC

arpeggio said:


> There have been several responses from some the members, including a musicologists, stating that the quote was being taken our or context in the post. I do not the background to question the validity of the above statement. All I can state that individuals who are more knowledgeable than I am state that the post is bogus. It proves nothing.


One poster suggested it was out of context but offered no evidence. Nobody has claimed it was bogus (I wouldn't know, certainly). I think that pending further information, we need to consider Mr. Ligeti's statement as presented.


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## mmsbls

arpeggio said:


> This cite was just recently used in another forum by one their most active anti-modernists to discredit modernistic music. He was essentially gloating that this single remark invalidated the entire avant-garde movement.
> 
> There have been several responses from some the members, including a musicologists, stating that the quote was being taken our or context in the post.
> 
> I do not the background to question the validity of the above statement. All I can state that individuals who are more knowledgeable than I am state that the post is bogus. It proves nothing.


The quote comes from a chapter in the book György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds. The chapter is titled, _The Hamburg Composition Class_, by Manfred Stahnke. You can only read a couple of pages, but I still don't know what Ligeti meant by "ugly" and apparently neither does Stahnke.


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> ...but I still don't know what Ligeti meant by "ugly" and apparently neither does Stahnke.


I would assume he meant just what he said. Why not?


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> I would assume he meant just what he said. Why not?


He DID mean what he said. But it is not clear what he said unless you know what "ugly" means for him.

It almost certainly does not include Le marteau sans maitre, Nancarrow, Webern, or his own late works, music he loved (though he could apparently be quite self-critical). Presumably it refers to the works of Stockhausen, Nono, Berio, and Boulez, but which ones?


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> It almost certainly does not include Le marteau sans maitre, Nancarrow, Webern, or his own late works, music he loved (though he could apparently be quite self-critical). Presumably it refers to the works of Stockhausen, Nono, Berio, and Boulez, but which ones?


"...the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly. With 'we' I mean my generation, myself included."

Seems rather broad, and doesn't leave a lot of room to pick and choose.


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## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> "...the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly. With 'we' I mean my generation, myself included."
> 
> Seems rather broad, and doesn't leave a lot of room to pick and choose.


Many people make sweeping statements that do not represent the nuances of their views.

Mahler made a good number of them. The story that he was studying works of Brahms and Bruckner and exclaimed that "there were Beethoven and Wagner, and after them, nobody!" is quite famous, but he did continue to program the works of Brahms and Bruckner, as well as contemporary composers...

If you know a little bit about Ligeti, you'll know that he never quite fit into the Darmstadt culture, and found some of their views anathema from the beginning. He was excited by some of the musical possibilities that he found, and loved certain pieces, but not the more rigid ones. He wrote a famous critique of Boulez's Structures for two pianos. So it's not surprising that he critiqued it once again.

At the same time, Webern was a formative influence, although he never wrote anything using the 12-tone method, and he wrote a number of articles on Webern's music as he criticized the composers who considered themselves Webern's successors.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Many people make sweeping statements that do not represent the nuances of their views.


Just so. It seems useless to deny the plain meaning of Ligeti's statement. More to the point is, what's it worth? I know of other composers who, in their cantankerous old age, said cantankerous things. Shostakovich is an example...but like Ligeti, he was always entertaining.


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## PetrB

Lope de Aguirre said:


> _Art isn't only about beauty because it cannot be._


_

So many equate "beauty" with "pretty," the latter often being their sole criterion for works of art.

"Pretty" as a gauge, rules out an enormous amount of art music, including eliminating a good deal of the music of the older and antique eras.

"Pretty" is often the most superficial and / or shallow -- shallow, that's what it is, shallow _


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## mmsbls

KenOC said:


> I would assume he meant just what he said. Why not?


In the chapter Stahnke says, "The word 'ugly' is not easy to construe. Ligeti cannot have meant it as the opposite of conventionally beautiful sound, as his late music is not really 'beautiful'."

Later he says, "Perhaps Ligeti meant that the anonymity of the material was 'ugly'."

Clearly Stahnke does not really know exactly what Ligeti meant. I think the quote seems real, but the connotation of ugly is simply not clear.


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> Clearly Stahnke does not really know exactly what Ligeti meant. I think the quote seems real, but the connotation of ugly is simply not clear.


If anybody else had said this, it would seem clear enough I think. Why doubt it?


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## mmsbls

The quote comes from an interview Stahnke had with Ligeti. He interviewed him twice. As best as I can tell, Stahnke might have been Ligeti's student at one time. Stahnke was present at the interview (obviously) and seems to have known Ligeti fairly well. If he was unclear (as his statements seem to suggest), why shouldn't we feel uncertain as well?


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## PetrB

KenOC said:


> If anybody else had said this, it would seem clear enough I think. Why doubt it?


These artist's comments and statements are infamous for the same artist moments later ignoring what they said, or controverting all they do / did in later actual practice.

When artists mouth off, then go ahead and produce whatever it is they do produce _regardless,_ why anyone pays much attention to any of these quotes, let alone makes of them a backup citation for an anti or pro argument, is kinda beyond me.


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## PetrB

*to bug you*

Atonal music was specifically formulated to bug every and all listeners who are immersed in and happy with common practice tonal music and whose ears are so accustomed that they really find it next to impossible to follow or understand any music which proceeds differently.

Can there _possibly_ be any other reason?

Ha, haaaaa, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Atonal music was specifically formulated to bug every and all listeners who are immersed in and happy with common practice tonal music and whose ears are so accustomed that they really find it next to impossible to follow or understand any music which proceeds differently.


Is that so? First time I've heard that. A most interesting reason for writing music if true! For some people, it might explain a lot. [Added in respect to BD: Yes, I know it was a joke]


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## BurningDesire

I think he may have referred to the ugliness of the attitudes of that scene, of being exclusionary toward composers who didn't tow the serialist line. The ugliness of some people composing within very limiting boxes, possibly out of peer pressure, when this should have been an atmosphere of even greater artistic freedom. I dunno because it obviously isn't referring to dissonant aesthetics in general.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> Is that so? First time I've heard that. A most interesting reason for writing music if true! For some people, it might explain a lot.


it was a joke. :|


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> I think he may have referred to the ugliness of the attitudes of that scene, of being exclusionary...


Ligeti said, "The instant I emerge out of the cloud I see, and this being very critical, that the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly." I don't think he was talking about attitudes...


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

KenOC said:


> Ligeti said, "The instant I emerge out of the cloud I see, and this being very critical, that the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly." I don't think he was talking about attitudes...


The quote sounds like an opinion on music. 
Rather ugly=subjective
Music we wrote=objective
Sometimes the intent of art is to be shocking or disturbing, and in that there lies beauty. 
Why else would Cindy Sherman be one of the most successful photographers ever? Photos after photos of shocking and disgusting images that are sought all over the world and bought and sold at record prices. All art has elements of the objective and the subjective, the latter only being appropriate when the perceptions of an audience (and even a historical context in many cases) come in to play.

The perception of any art as "ugly" is an attitude.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> Ligeti said, "The instant I emerge out of the cloud I see, and this being very critical, that the music we wrote was in fact rather ugly." I don't think he was talking about attitudes...


It would be nice if you actually read the rest of what I wrote before coming up with a rebuttal. I was referring to the attitudes surrounding the scene that that music emerged from. Since he continued to use atonal and dissonant elements, I think its pretty clear that isn't what he found ugly.


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## Nereffid

mmsbls said:


> Of course, my view is just one opinion, but the quote doesn't quite ring true to me. It's possible most listeners knew that 12 tone music has some mathematical backing, but I suspect very few knew much about its construction. I doubt most listeners even know there is such a thing as 12 tone music. I think very few people associate math and music at least from the composer's standpoint. I think, like me, they heard something sounding bizarrely different from things they heard before (and possibly some dissonance), and the sounds were just too different for them.


I agree with you. The implication of this statement from the quoted passage


> It seems probable that audiences object to the dissonance in this music, not because it is unpleasant, but because they believe that it is the product of calculation rather than an aesthetic affective conception.


is that the sound of the music is less significant for audiences than their knowledge of the process by which the music was composed. Sure, reputation is important in how we perceive things, but it's not generally more important than the actual sounds being listened to, is it?


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## Guest

Music can (is) perceived to be 'ugly' for a whole variety of reasons. I tire of hearing the ugly version of Vivaldi's _Four Seasons _on other people's telephone systems. 12 tone and atonal are not necessary conditions for 'ugly' anymore than common practice tonality and consonance are necessary conditions for 'beauty'.


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## Guest

Careful about "actual sounds," though.

It's not the sounds themselves that are ever at issue; it's always the responses to them.

Berlioz noticed this over a hundred and fifty years ago--put four people in a box at a concert, you'll get four different responses, ranging from horrified rejection to ecstatic delight.

The sounds are the same for all four people. They're at the same show at the same time. The difference is not that one of them is listening to "ugly" music and another is listening to "beautiful" music. The music is identical. Only the reactions are different.

So yeah, insofar as how we react to sounds is determined by what we think, it makes perfect sense that the actual sound (whatever that may be) is less important than ideas. (I hesitate to call what people think about twelve-tone music "knowledge.") What is clearly more important than "the actual sounds" is the actual ability of any given listener to adequately _process_ those sounds.


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## Kilgore Trout

In Ligeti's quote, I think the metaphor says quite well what "ugly" means.
Ligeti is just saying that music went from the rich and varied colors of tonality and "post-tonality" (the landscape) to a different harmonic world with dodecaphonism and serialism (Viennese and Darmstadt schools). These new textures and harmonies were interesting at first because they sounded different, but proved to be monotonous and too uniform in the long term.
Messiaen said the same thing about dodecaphony and serialism in the 70's : he said there was only one color in all these musics, grey.

Ligeti's post-70's music, and moreso his post-80's music, was an attempt to get out of this grey harmonic world.


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## Kilgore Trout

some guy said:


> So yeah, insofar as how we react to sounds is determined by what we think, it makes perfect sense that the actual sound (whatever that may be) is less important than ideas. (I hesitate to call what people think about twelve-tone music "knowledge.") What is clearly more important than "the actual sounds" is the actual ability of any given listener to adequately _process_ those sounds.


Do you believe there is an adequate processing for every kind of music, and that the only thing that is "important" is the adequacy or inadequacy of the individual process ? Wouldn't that mean that there isn't any bad music, just inadequate listening, and that, in the end, there is no difference between Bach and Justin Bieber ?


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## Guest

So direct, empirical experience with all the colorful music by Nono and Ligeti and Maderna and Berio and Boulez and Webern and Gerhard and Skalkottas and Searle and Sessions and Scelsi and Lachenmann and so forth is worth exactly nothing?

I say it's worth everything.

And no, Mr. Trout, I do not mean that there is no difference between Bach and Bieber. Of course there are differences. One of them is the difference between the people who fancy them. Another is the difference in era. Yet another is the difference in purpose. Yeah. Quite a few differences, and we haven't even got to any of the actual qualities of the music itself.

And "less important" does not mean "unimportant," so I call "foul" on the words "...the only thing that is 'important' is the adequacy or inadequacy of the individual process." Plus, I was not talking about "every kind of music," either.

Change the context enough, rephrase the language enough, and any argument can be utterly destroyed. 

Or can it? Something's been destroyed, I'm sure we can all agree with that. But was it the argument or was it perhaps something made of straw? I'm gonna go with the latter in this case.


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## Kilgore Trout

some guy said:


> So direct, empirical experience with all the colorful music by Nono and Ligeti and Maderna and Berio and Boulez and Webern and Gerhard and Skalkottas and Searle and Sessions and Scelsi and Lachenmann and so forth is worth exactly nothing?


How does it relate here ?



some guy said:


> Plus, I was not talking about "every kind of music," either.


What kind of music are you talking about ?



some guy said:


> Change the context enough, rephrase the language enough, and any argument can be utterly destroyed.
> 
> Or can it? Something's been destroyed, I'm sure we can all agree with that. But was it the argument or was it perhaps something made of straw? I'm gonna go with the latter in this case.


I was merely asking a question.


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## peterb

BurningDesire said:


> I think he may have referred to the ugliness of the attitudes of that scene, of being exclusionary toward composers who didn't tow the serialist line. The ugliness of some people composing within very limiting boxes, possibly out of peer pressure, when this should have been an atmosphere of even greater artistic freedom. I dunno because it obviously isn't referring to dissonant aesthetics in general.


Could be. Philip Glass made a similar statement once:



Philip Glass said:


> I was living in a wasteland dominated by these maniacs, these complete creeps, you know - who were trying to make everyone write this crazy, creepy music.


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## Knotsofast

I am going strictly from the question posed in the "Title Header" line. I really have'nt viewed any of the discussions by others who have expressed 125 pages of (I would hope) thoughtful subjective opinions yet. I will do so at my leisure after I've "weighed" in with some of my thoughts.

In a way you could liken this question to asking a three year old "Why did you flush my car keys down the toilet". The answer to that is he was being a 3 yro learning things through "exploration". Now if he was an advanced "tyke" he might say "because I could".

Finding points to means of self expression may be a difficult (if not impossible) pursuit.


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## neoshredder

Extraterrestial sound effects. Well at least with Stockhausen.


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## millionrainbows

What is the _*'point'*_ of atonal music? Well, it is not someone's 'point;' atonality was* not *the result of anyone who had an 'intent' and a point to make.

*The fact is, music evolved to the point of 'atonality' in a very natural, inevitable way. 
*
From a musical craft perspective, the harmonic materials of tonality were becoming less relevant as chromaticism increased, and this is a natural consequence of increasing chromaticism. As all 12 notes begin to be in circulation more and more, until they are constantly in circulation, then, as a consequence, the tonality becomes more and more vague, and it becomes more & more difficult to analyze the tonal function.

Thus, tonality becomes more ambiguous: is this chord functioning as a b6 in C, or as a bVII in Bb?

So in a totally chromatic environment, although it is derived from and is part of tonal harmonic functions, tonality becomes too ambiguous to be 'decisively' in one or another key area.

Schoenberg saw this, and devised his 12-tone system, in which horizontal harmonic function is replaced by a horizontal ordering of pitches. Additionally, no pitch can be repeated until all 12 notes have been used. This insures that no tonal center will be sensed, as this ordering creates a constantly changing array of notes.

All that Schoenberg did was create a system which had usable principles, which continued the direction that total chromaticism had taken. If he hadn't, everybody would sound like post-Op. 70 Scriabin, or Berg's Op. 1 Piano Sonata, *forever. *You don't believe it? I do, and history showed this to be inevitable.

_Now, I'm very sorry that your precious tonality fell into dissolution because Pythagoras divided the octave into 12 notes, but that's over and done with. 
_
Now, let's move on. What is the point of refrigeration?


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## Kilgore Trout

millionrainbows said:


> All that Schoenberg did was create a system which had usable principles, which continued the direction that total chromaticism had taken. If he hadn't, everybody would sound like post-Op. 70 Scriabin, or Berg's Op. 1 Piano Sonata, *forever. *You don't believe it? I do, and history showed this to be inevitable.


This makes serialism sound like a historical necessity. There was the need of a system, but serialism was merely one of the possible systems, not the only one. There have been other systems which used total chromaticism since (and before), and they hardly sounded like post-Op. 70 Scriabin. Even at the time, there were other atonal works that didn't sound like Berg, Schönberg or Scriabin.
History shows the necessity of organization, not the necessity of serialism.


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## Celloman

Kilgore Trout said:


> History shows the necessity of organization, not the necessity of serialism.


Serial music is *extremely* organized. Logical structures are applied to various musical components such as pitch, rhythm, dynamic, and even timbre. The best examples of serialism shows a very precise organization that can easily be recognized in a simple analysis.


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## Kilgore Trout

Celloman said:


> Serial music is *extremely* organized. Logical structures are applied to various musical components such as pitch, rhythm, dynamic, and even timbre. The best examples of serialism shows a very precise organization that can easily be recognized in a simple analysis.


I'm sorry but I don't see your point. There is no historical necessity in the "amount" of organization. There is just the need to organize the harmonic material (in that example). Then let's not forget that the first serialism, the one from the second Viennese school, only organized pitchs through the series. The rhythm, dynamic and timbre were not "serialized" and were pretty traditionnal (Schoenberg wanted to organize pitchs first, he thought that a composer couldn't change all the components at once, it would be too much - Boulez would later criticize him for that, considering his music too traditionnal in form and rhythm!). It was the Darmstadt composers, following the example of the Messiaen's _Mode de valeurs et d'intensités_ (Messiaen hated himself for that!), who "serialized" the other musical components.
But it's just a choice among others. You can have a extremely organized musical system that is not serial (like Xenakis' early pieces). But in the end, they pretty much all, even Boulez, moved away from the radical serialism of the 50's...


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## millionrainbows

Kilgore Trout said:


> This makes serialism sound like a historical necessity. There was the need of a system, but serialism was merely one of the possible systems, not the only one.


Okay, agreed; but I never said serialism was the only solution.



Kilgore Trout said:


> There have been other systems which used total chromaticism since (and before), and they hardly sounded like post-Op. 70 Scriabin.


You need to be more specific, because Schoenberg's Pelleas, Berg's Op. 1, and Scriabin's late piano works all sound on the verge of atonality, so in this sense, they sound alike to me.



Kilgore Trout said:


> Even at the time, there were other atonal works that didn't sound like Berg, Schönberg or Scriabin.


Specific examples, please.



Kilgore Trout said:


> History shows the necessity of organization, not the necessity of serialism.


True, another method of organization was needed. But these_ other _methods share many characteristics with serialism. Bartok is the best example.

1. Bartok at times divided the octave at the tritone; this is a symmetrical division of the 12 notes of the octave. based on mathematical (12/2, 6+6) rather than a tonal hierarchy based on acoustics. This *concern with symmetry, *as well as *geometric/mathematical concerns rather than acoustic or harmonic considerations,* puts Bartok's way of thinking in line with serialism, and this includes other composers as well.

2. Debussy was concerned with the whole tone scale, which is the natural projection of the major second interval. This* concern with recurring in-octave projections of smaller intervals (m2,M2, m3, M3) rather than the P4 and P5 of tonality,* creates *symmetries of division *within the octave, and discourages root movement by fourths and fifths, which are more properly functions of tonality.

3.* Increased contrapuntal writing,* rather than "harmonic" writing in terms of chord function, is a natural result of increasing chromaticism. The musical texture becomes more linear as a result of chromaticism.

Serialism exemplified many of these new concerns, along with other methods. I see serialism as the culmination of this general move towards symmetry and small-interval divisions.

But which came first, the chicken or the egg? All of these solutions were "in the air" at the time Schoenberg devised his system.

As I've said before, it was not any one composer, but tonality itself which held the seeds of its undoing; and *this was historically inevitable from a musical materials standpoint, *not aesthetics.

Blame it on Pythagoras; his division of the octave into 12 notes gave us the tritone, as well as the chromatic scale; and tritone substitution interchange (b7-M3/M3-b7) gave rise to chromatic root movement of chords, instead of by fifths. Tonality was its own undoing.


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## Kilgore Trout

millionrainbows said:


> You need to be more specific, because Schoenberg's Pelleas, Berg's Op. 1, and Scriabin's late piano works all sound on the verge of atonality, so in this sense, they sound alike to me.


Are we talking about atonal pieces (free atonality), or highly chromatical tonal music which is still rooted in tonality? Scriabin's late pieces are atonal, Pelleas is tonal. And I would say that Scriabin's late sonatas don't sound like Schoenberg's Pelleas.


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## millionrainbows

Kilgore Trout said:


> Are we talking about atonal pieces (free atonality), or highly chromatical tonal music which is still rooted in tonality? Scriabin's late pieces are atonal, Pelleas is tonal. And I would say that Scriabin's late sonatas don't sound like Schoenberg's Pelleas.


Chromaticism (rooted in tonality) led directly into atonality and its related areas. Schoenberg's Pelleas sounds tonal to us because it is still dealing with harmonic entities (chord changes and root movement).

The more contrapuntal the music becomes, the root movements and chordal entities become less defined.

So the line becomes blurred, and harder to define than your statement would have us believe.

Earlier in another thread I mentioneded one of Berg's 'transitional' works:

______________________________________________________________________________________

Now, I'd like to turn the discussion to a "transitional" work, which begins to cross the border into "free atonality," which leads on to true serialism.

This will show that tonality led to chromaticism, which led to* total *chromaticism (free atonality); and free atonality is just a step away from serialism, except that serialism "codified" those conditions of total chromaticism into a new method.

Showing this transition goes a long way in "justifying" and proving that Schoenberg's dodecaphony, and the serialism which followed, were not arbitrary developments, but grew organically out of the methods and practices of the tonal system.

It might also be of aid to any listeners out there who can identify a simple V-I progression, yet are befuddled by more modern music. If you have a decent ear, _this is the piece for you _to listen to now, in order to gain this deeper understanding.

*Alban Berg: 4 Lieder op. 2, number 2. *This short song is titled _*Schlafend tragt man mich.*_ This song uses a dominant-seventh chord (a.k.a. *V* chord) with a lowered fifth (or augmented fourth). This altered fifth makes the chord unstable, but since it's a dominant seventh with the *flatted 7th,* it wants to resolve to *"I" *anyway, just like any other* V-I* that Haydn would use in tonality. We all should know what a *V-I *is by now, I hope.

This series of V chords is derived from the whole-tone scale. About the whole tone scale: it is a 6-note scale, and there are two of them, "threaded" right next to each other, in the chromatic octave. In C, this would be C-D-E-F#-G#-A#, and the other one is C#-D#-F-G-A-B.

Each WT scale, by itself, has a "flatted fifth" or tri-tone interval, which could be considered to be a 1/b5 relation, or a "root-flat-fifth" basis for a chord, which is how Berg uses them. Also present in each WT scale is the b7, which creates the dominant sound of a V chord, which wants to resolve or move on.

The dominant "V" chord of tonality also contains the tri-tone relation of Maj 3/b 7 (in C this is E-Bb). All diatonic major scales contain this tri-tone.

Now listen to the Berg song. It begins with a V7, then to another V7, in a series of cascading, descending V7 chords. These descending fifth root movements are derived from the relation of the two whole-tone scales. Although each WT scale taken alone contains no perfect fifth, by moving chromatically to the other WT scale, a V-V root movement is accomplished. In C, this would be *C*-D-E-F#-G#-A# to C#-D#-F-*G*-A-B. Ain't that nifty?

Listening to this song is like constantly falling through a series of descending root movements, never arriving, always moving, restless, just like the late-Romantic aesthetic would have it.

This Berg song also demonstrates the ongoing struggle of Western music, between the "harmonic" or aural, visceral aspects of music and tonality, and the mechanisms which are also at play, intrinsic to the 12-note division of our octave, a.k.a. the chromatic scale, and the various symmetrical divisions of the octave which are possible, into 2, 3, 4, and 6 parts, giving rise to the escape from tonality with its outward-going 5 and 7 divisions, into smaller, symmetrical "inner octave" divisions, which, instead of heading for infinity past "1," seek the other-directed infinity: "1" headed in the opposite direction, inward from "1" towards a "zero" never to be reached; the infinity of ever-smaller fractional divisions.

Western thought turns inward, away from expansion and conquering of new territories, and outer space, into an ever shrinking introspection and exploration of inner space. It seems antithetical to our conquering, dominating Western thought-style, doesn't it?

No wonder modernism had a problem "catching on" with the general status quo...but I'm beginning to wax philosophical; I'd better stop now.


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## millionrainbows

Here's another one on that subject:

Now another transitional work, *Schoenberg's String Quartet II, op. 10 (1907-08). *It's a four-movement work, and the first three movements have key signatures of F# minor, D minor, and Eb minor; the fourth movement has no key signature. That's a nice piece of information to know, isn't it? Such are the drudgeries of listening to modern music.

As is usual with "free atonality," works written before Schoenberg had devised the "serial" method, the whole-tone scale keeps cropping up. What is it with this six-note scale?

I think its appeal lies in:

(1) its neat division of the chromatic collection into two hexads,

(2) its symmetry, being composed of whole-steps, major thirds, tri-tones (flat fifths), augmented fifths (flat sixth, or flatted sub-mediant), and flat sevenths;

(3) its "floating" sound of suspended or ambiguous tonality,

(4) its M3, b5, and b7 suggesting altered dominant chords;

(5) its tri-tone suggesting an augmented chord. This has ties with Wagner and his use of the augmented chord.

The use of a soprano in this work shows ties with Mahler, who used it in a symphonic context.

The first movement, in D minor, is tentative. The themes are easily recognizable, although as a whole it doesn't develop very far. In this sense, it is a good starting place to listen for Schoenberg as a thematic composer.

The second "scherzo" movement is rather "schizo" in the way it jumps around. Schoenberg was certainly a clever fellow, but I doubt that he had much desire to communicate in this part. This seems like an internal reverie, perhaps affected by his life-events at this time (the Gerstl affair, his wife's return, and Gerstl's subsequent suicide).

Apparently, by his association with Gerstl and other fringe artistic-types, Schoenberg is revealed to be as much of an "outsider" as any of them, but Schoenberg was essentially a survivor who, in the end, wanted to belong to the Viennese tradition. Perhaps his alienation was more from without than from within, as Gerstl's was. Although Schoenberg was frequently accused of being mentally aberrant, and still may be considered so even today by hostile listeners, I can relate to the "outsider" mentality, and of shame-based identity being foisted upon people.

In the third movement, ostensibly in Eb minor, the soprano enters. Now we are in the variation stage, and thing begin to "click" in a more profound way. It harkens back thematically to the first movement.

The fourth, final movement also features the soprano, and here is the famous line "I feel the air of other planets." We done taken off into outer space! It opens with a figure which ascends all the way from the cello to the violins. Upon close examination, the violin figure that is settled on & repeated turns out to be whole-tone related, although Schoenberg covers his tracks with ornamental notes outside the scale, and is much sneakier than Berg was in his use of the WT scale.

So, we can see from this work that "free atonality" was something that came about naturally, as a consequence of increasing chromaticism, and began to use other symmetrical divisions of the chromatic octave. As total chromaticism is reached, all 12 notes are kept in circulation, until, finally, Schoenberg saw the need for some sort of "method" which could moderate and control this total chromaticism, since tonal functions had become ambiguous to the point of being meaningless in such a chromatic environment. Thus, "twelve-ness" begins to assert itself; the geometry of 12 and its subdivisions, from resonant, harmonic hierarchy, into the geometry of Apollonian idealism.


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## millionrainbows

And another:

"Non-harmonic mechanisms" began creeping into tonal music, even before it became "officially" serial or non-harmonic.

Scales and mechanisms such as the whole-tone scale are not based on harmonic factors of resonance as functional tonality is (although the WT scales sounds remarkably resonant since the introduction of ET tuning).

Since "free atonality" is still based on tonality, it is a good way to underscore these "intrusions" of geometric thinking, as opposed to the "givens" of harmonic tonality.

We can gain a valuable generalized idea from the above examples; of what it is that happens to tonality when it becomes more and more chromatic, and all 12 notes are in circulation; that the "mechanisms" generated by the division of the octave into twelve begin to naturally take over, in the absense of a clear tonal hierarchy.

From this, another valuable insight is gained: a sense of tonality is created by its notes, but also _just as much by what notes are left out.

_As chromaticism increases, "redundancy" of notes increases, and tonality becomes less focussed and defined.


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## millionrainbows

And again:

*Next* is a look at *tonality, total chromaticism ("atonality"), and serialism,* and how these are different, as well as being related.

In *traditional functional tonality,* diatonic major and minor scales are prevalent; root progressions are emphasized mainly by fifths (descending); chromatic notes are use to reinforce, or threaten the sense of tonality.

As the boundaries of tonality are approached, *total chromaticism, or so-called pre-serial "atonality" *is encountered.

Before delving into those characteristics, an exposition of what "ordering" really means. Ordered rows are only a partial aspect of the nature of serial rows vs. unordered scales. What does ordering do?

It does two main things: first, it "orders" the row _horizontally, in time,_ so that there are "melodic" or "thematic" elements created. After all, for a melody or theme to exist, it must "unfold in time" as a* succession *of pitch events.

Now, what else does ordering do?

An ordered row also implicitly insures that no note is repeated or is given undue emphasis or repetition, or is "returned" to until all other notes have been stated. This insures that a sense of tonality will be discouraged. What other reason could there be for the "non-repeating" rule?

These two characteristics of* ordered rows *are congruent in spirit & purpose to the characteristics of *"total chromaticism" or pre-serial atonality. *Let's examine those characteristics.

*"Total chromaticism" or "atonality"* is a way of avoiding tonal focus. It is usually based on the entire chromatic scale (like serial rows), and composers have used various ways of keeping all twelve notes "in circulation," which harkens to serialism's "non-repetition" requirement. Without tonality, atonality uses wide leaps to emphasize melody and avoid a chromatic "mush;" atonal sonorities are often more varied than in tonality, and more dissonant. Importantly, the texture of atonality is more often linear than chordal; and the various lines are transformed & developed through transposition, inversion, and retrograde, which is also very similar to serial methods. Check out Schoenberg's Serenade, with its imitations of Baroque dance-forms; also see, as a less extreme example, Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen for good examples of total chromaticism or "atonality."

So we can see that "total chromaticism" or "atonality" are closely related to serial methods, and how these developments at the extreme end of tonality led, inevitably, to a non-harmonic/hierarchic way of creating music which has no definite tonal focus.

Next, I'd like to go into how "tonality" and "harmonic hierarchies" are closely related, and other ways that tonality can be established, and how these concepts can differ.


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## Addlater

Thanks for the explanations. Although so far you've described the theory of atonal music, i.e. the rules it follows / can follow, the question remains on what makes an atonal piece good or bad; pleasant, compelling etc... or inane. With tonal music this is easier to decide, basing on the pleasantness or harmony of a piece (I'm simplifying). After all, you could compose meaningless or random melodies even within tonal music.

Say the composers focused on mathematical proportions or progressions more... to make the aesthetics lie on this different plane, not on that of harmonic "pleasantness": we could as well be looking at the score and not even listening to the music, to appreciate such symmetries. There must be something more than the pure abstract structure, for when the music is translated to sound, so to speak, a musical result is accomplished. Where do we, as listeners, look for this result?


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## Rhombic

Atonal music is not Schoenberg, Alban Berg, period. Even if you disliked that music, many fabulous symphonies and piano compositions are indeed atonal, because they lack tonality or, for pickier analysts (like me), lack an internal harmonic structure regardless of the inflections in consonance. This last definition would place modal music in a different position than atonal music. However, it is possible that you have enjoyed many types of atonal music due to the context. It is the case of some parts of a film's music, but not when it is the main theme, but just background music for a persecution, suspense, surprises, etc.

Comparing tonal to atonal usually is like comparing a comic to a deep, philosophical novel.


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## Addlater

Rhombic said:


> many fabulous symphonies and piano compositions are indeed atonal, because they lack tonality or, for pickier analysts (like me), lack an internal harmonic structure regardless of the inflections in consonance.


Care to name some? Thanks.


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## millionrainbows

Addlater said:


> Thanks for the explanations. Although so far you've described the theory of atonal music, i.e. the rules it follows / can follow, the question remains on what makes an atonal piece good or bad; pleasant, compelling etc... or inane.* With tonal music this is easier to decide, basing on the pleasantness or harmony of a piece (I'm simplifying). *After all, you could compose meaningless or random melodies even within tonal music.


I disagree with that simplification. What makes something sound "good" to us must be based on certain elements, which we can identify.

For example, a 'meaningless' tonal piece might appear that way because it has no goal, and appears to ramble. Tonal progressions are based on 'progressions' of chords which lead to a goal.

Also, tonal music is based on harmonic principles, of sonance, so each function in a key area (I,ii,iii,IV,V,iv,vii) is based on its degree of sonace in comparision to 'I.' This is detected by our ears as degrees of sonance, appearing as 'beating' or waves between intervals. See my blogs for a complete listing of these degrees of sonance.

So tonality is partly cerebral (harmonic function through time), and also sensual (degrees of sonance).

To make a straight comparison to serial or atonal music is flawed, since the two are based on different principles.



Addlater said:


> ...Say the composers focused on mathematical proportions or progressions more... to make the aesthetics lie on this different plane, not on that of harmonic "pleasantness": we could as well be looking at the score and not even listening to the music, to appreciate such symmetries. There must be something more than the pure abstract structure, for when the music is translated to sound, so to speak, a musical result is accomplished. Where do we, as listeners, look for this result?


With a Webern piece, there is no harmonic progression of chords; only the interval-content of the tone row. In this sense, serial music is 'sensual' in that we hear individual intervals as having sonance (varying degrees of consonance or dissonance) (see my chart in blogs). Webern created 'areas' in which certain intervals were prominent, such as fifths and major seconds. These areas were created by his rows, what intervals they contained, and how he combined the various forms of them. So, when we listen to Webern, our ears alone will still be the main factor in determining if the music is 'meaningful.'

If Webern used intervals which are dissonant, such as tritones, minor seconds, major sevenths, and minor ninths, then the resulting area of music will be 'dissonant' by comparison to tonality, which seeks to resolve these dissonances. But Webern, Schoenberg, and Berg were "expressionists" who were seeking extreme ways of expression. Look at the 'degenerate' paintings of Expressionists, and note the strong color, the roughness, the disturbing quality.

So part of the 'incomprehension' of this music is due to its aesthetics, not because "atonal music is inherently ugly."

On the other hand, in order to approach serial music, it is helpful to question our assumptions about music, sound, and art. We must understand that its goals are different from tonality, because of the nature of their functioning.

If you are drawn to music (tonal music) mainly because of its sensual qualities, and the way it avoids or resolves dissonance in favor of 'pretty' and smooth consonance, then that's your right. Dissonant, difficult, 'ugly' art might not be everyone's cup of tea.

Then again, there is much beauty in many kinds of serial music. if we can hear it with fresh ears, without unrealistic expectations.


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## hpowders

Addlater said:


> Care to name some? Thanks.


Vincent Persichetti, Piano Sonata #11.


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## arpeggio

*How about John Williams?*



Addlater said:


> Care to name some? Thanks.


I do not even know were to begin. Many of us have answered this question many times in other threads. Along with Persichetti, I can think of works of William Schuman.

How about the John Williams _Violin_ and _Flute Concertos_? See: http://www.talkclassical.com/22601-poll-most-accessible-contemporary-3.html#post387951

Edit: I just found a you tube of the "First Movement" of the _Sinfonietta for Wind Ensemble_:


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## norman bates

millionrainbows said:


> ut Webern, Schoenberg, and Berg were "expressionists" who were seeking extreme ways of expression. Look at the 'degenerate' paintings of Expressionists, and note the strong color, the roughness, the disturbing quality.


I have many problem considering Webern as the equivalent of Munch, Van Gogh, Soutine, Kokoshka etc. To me he's something completely different, in many senses quite the opposite of the expressionist movement.
Anyway I was thinking that in tonality the tonal center is something like the vanishing point in the perspective of a painting.
If in tonal music you have constantly many degrees of tension in atonality you have no more that reference so that tension disappears, or maybe it's more correct to say that it exists only between single elements. That is a reason for the effect of "sameness" that it has.


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## Mahlerian

norman bates said:


> Anyway I was thinking that in tonality the tonal center is something like the vanishing point in the perspective of a painting. If in tonal music you have constantly many degrees of tension in atonality you have no more that reference so that tension disappears, or maybe it's more correct to say that it exists only between single elements. That is a reason for the effect of "sameness" that it has.


I agree with the analogy, believe it or not, though I don't think that the lack of "linear perspective" leads to a "sameness" so much as a variety of possible perspectives which can change in an instant, or even multiple presented at the same time (cubism?). That is much more in tune with the way I hear Schoenberg/Webern/Carter/Boulez/Varese et. al.

You _can_ have a sort of moment-to-moment dialogue in which everything is predicated on what came immediately before, but you can also create long-range form through other means than key center and functional relations. When the tone row returns to its original form in the first movement of Schoenberg's Third Quartet, it's felt as a recapitulation, _even though the repetition of the theme is not literal_, simply because our expectations led us to hear those elements as "stable".

Of course, a floating sonority is sometimes desired, as in Debussy, or the finale of Schoenberg's Second Quartet, or pretty much all of Takemitsu, and then you have more color than distinct shape.

All of the above is prefigured in late Romanticism, though.


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## norman bates

Mahlerian said:


> I agree with the analogy, believe it or not, though I don't think that the lack of "linear perspective" leads to a "sameness" so much as a variety of possible perspectives which can change in an instant, or even multiple presented at the same time (cubism?). That is much more in tune with the way I hear Schoenberg/Webern/Carter/Boulez/Varese et. al.
> 
> You _can_ have a sort of moment-to-moment dialogue in which everything is predicated on what came immediately before, but you can also create long-range form through other means than key center and functional relations. When the tone row returns to its original form in the first movement of Schoenberg's Third Quartet, it's felt as a recapitulation, _even though the repetition of the theme is not literal_, simply because our expectations led us to hear those elements as "stable".
> 
> Of course, a floating sonority is sometimes desired, as in Debussy, or the finale of Schoenberg's Second Quartet, or pretty much all of Takemitsu, and then you have more color than distinct shape.
> 
> All of the above is prefigured in late Romanticism, though.


With sameness I mean "only" harmonic sameness, because in tonality all notes are considered not only in their relation with the others but also with their different tensions with the tonic, the thing that provides the unifying context. That's why I don't consider atonality wrong (as I don't consider certainly wrong paintings made without the use of perspective) but just another useful device and not certainly something that relegates tonality to the past. And that's why I disagree completely when I see someone mentioning "neo-tonalists" meaning with that just "reactionary composers".


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## Addlater

millionrainbows said:


> So part of the 'incomprehension' of this music is due to its aesthetics, not because "atonal music is inherently ugly."
> 
> On the other hand, in order to approach serial music, it is helpful to question our assumptions about music, sound, and art. We must understand that its goals are different from tonality, because of the nature of their functioning.
> 
> If you are drawn to music (tonal music) mainly because of its sensual qualities, and the way it avoids or resolves dissonance in favor of 'pretty' and smooth consonance, then that's your right. Dissonant, difficult, 'ugly' art might not be everyone's cup of tea.
> 
> Then again, there is much beauty in many kinds of serial music. if we can hear it with fresh ears, without unrealistic expectations.


Well I'm already into free jazz, in which I find some sort of refreshing vitality. Of course it completely depends on the piece. Classical music instead sounds to me very formal already, which is fine but combined with atonality gives me a sense of anguish and delirium. I've been looking into it a bit and some examples stand out for me, Messiaen for instance: it's not anguish or delirium, but the lack of tonality always gives this impression of loss, melancholy. Regarding serialism, it's different though: from what I understand it wants to make the music as "statistically random" as possible, so even if I find the artistic value pretty cool, I don't know about listening to it. When I might as well listen to a "coin in the washing machine", after hours of serialist pieces and sessions I fear I might end up feeling a little bit silly.


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## Mahlerian

Addlater said:


> Well I'm already into free jazz, in which I find some sort of refreshing vitality. Of course it completely depends on the piece. Classical music instead sounds to me very formal already, which is fine but combined with atonality gives me a sense of anguish and delirium.


Okay. You have to understand that your reaction is not the same as everybody else's.



Addlater said:


> I've been looking into it a bit and some examples stand out for me, Messiaen for instance: it's not anguish or delirium, but the lack of tonality always gives this impression of loss, melancholy.


Messiaen is one of the _least_ melancholic composers I know. His music is often redolent of nothing but joy. It is sometimes violent, but the next moment it can be radiantly ecstatic.



Addlater said:


> Regarding serialism, it's different though: from what I understand it wants to make the music as "statistically random" as possible, so


No. I can't respond to anything you said after "so", because the first clause is a falsehood. Serialist music is not about one thing at all, and I can't think of a single serial or 12-tone piece that is intended to sound as random as possible. The Second Viennese School's 12-tone music is more or less an extension of what they were already writing, i.e. developmental, thematic, expressive music with a Germanic, contrapuntal bent. Certainly not random-sounding at all.

The "Darmstadt serialists" that followed tended to use the serial idea in very different ways, so by the time you reach Stockhausen's Gruppen, Berio's Sequenzas, and Boulez's Le marteau sans maitre, the idea of what serialism means has widened pretty significantly. It still doesn't sound "random", though. If it did, there would be no way you could recognize the individual composer, which is generally quite easy to do.


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## norman bates

Mahlerian said:


> The "Darmstadt serialists" that followed tended to use the serial idea in very different ways, so by the time you reach Stockhausen's Gruppen, Berio's Sequenzas, and *Boulez's Le marteau sans maitre*, the idea of what serialism means has widened pretty significantly. *It still doesn't sound "random", though*. If it did, there would be no way you could recognize the individual composer, which is generally quite easy to do.


God I was listening it again two days ago for the hundredth time and I even if I know that it's completely composed using complex procedures still it sounds random to my ears. I like the combination of the instruments, but that's all with the positive things I can say about it.


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## Mahlerian

norman bates said:


> God I was listening it again two days ago for the hundredth time and I even if I know that it's completely composed using complex procedures still it sounds random to my ears. I like the combination of the instruments, but that's all with the positive things I can say about it.


Which recording? I've heard some bad ones.

Since I became acquainted with Boulez's DG recording, I can hear all of the themes and how they are interwoven through the movements, passed from instrument to instrument and register to register, fragmented and recombined.


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## norman bates

Mahlerian said:


> Which recording? I've heard some bad ones.
> 
> Since I became acquainted with Boulez's DG recording, I can hear all of the themes and how they are interwoven through the movements, passed from instrument to instrument and register to register, fragmented and recombined.


It wasn't a recording but this version on youtube


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## Mahlerian

norman bates said:


> It wasn't a recording but this version on youtube


Ensemble sounds somewhat sloppy (not the worst I've heard, though), but that's exacerbated by the absurdly reverberant acoustics. Le marteau needs a far drier sound. It's chamber music, not music for a symphony hall or church. I'm sure the musicians are quite talented (to even attempt Le marteau you have to be quite good), but I wouldn't listen to that version for pleasure.


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## millionrainbows

Addlater said:


> Well I'm already into free jazz, in which I find some sort of refreshing vitality. Of course it completely depends on the piece. Classical music instead sounds to me very formal already, which is fine but combined with atonality gives me a sense of anguish and delirium. I've been looking into it a bit and some examples stand out for me, Messiaen for instance: it's not anguish or delirium, but the lack of tonality always gives this impression of loss, melancholy. Regarding serialism, it's different though: from what I understand it wants to make the music as "statistically random" as possible, so even if I find the artistic value pretty cool, I don't know about listening to it. When I might as well listen to a "coin in the washing machine", after hours of serialist pieces and sessions I fear I might end up feeling a little bit silly.


If I may, here is my blog on the very subject of 'redundancy' in 12-tone music:

*Atonality: Creeping Redundancy?* 

When Schoenberg began using ordered sets, he was creating atonality.

As to the "they all look alike," the cumulative effect of adding notes to an unordered set might be mistakenly seen as a creeping-in of "redundancy" and lack of variation, as this chart from Howard Hanson's Harmonic Materials of Modern Music shows:

_p=perfect fifth (or fourth) _
_m=major third (minor sixth)_
_n=minor third (major sixth)_
_s=major second (minor seventh)_
_d=minor second (major seventh)_
_t=augmented fourth, diminished fifth_

_doad (2 notes): p_
_triad: p2 s_
_tetrad: p3 n s2_
_pentad: p4 m n2 s3_
_hexad: p5 m2 n3 s4 d_
_heptad: p6 m3 n4 s5 d2 t _
_octad: p7 m4 n5 s6 d4 t2_
_nonad: p8 m6 n6 s7 d6 t3_
_decad: p9 m8 n8 s8 d8 t4_
_undecad: p10 m10 n10 s10 d10 t5_
_duodecad (12 notes): p12 m12 n12 s12 d12 t6_

_Each new progression adds one new interval, plus adding one more to those already present; but beyond seven tones, no new intervals can be added. In addition to this loss of new material, there is also a gradual decrease in the difference of the quantitative formation. _

_So the sound of a sonority, whether it be harmony or melody, depends on what is present, but also on what is not present. The pentatonic sounds as it does because it contains mainly perfect fifths, and also maj seconds, minor thirds, and one major third, but also because it does not contain the minor second or tritone._

_As sonorities get projected beyond the six-range, they tend to lose their individuality. _

Which is all fine and well when dealing with scale-sets in harmonically-related ways, as unordered sets.

This statement is where Hanson falters:

*"This is probably the greatest argument against the rigorous use of atonal theory in which all 12 notes are used in a single melodic or harmonic pattern. These constructs begin to lose contrast, and a monochromatic effect emerges." *

-----------------------

There is a flaw in Hanson's statement about atonality, however. The chart above assumes that these additional added notes all refer to every other element of the set, like an unordered scale does: in scales, each pitch shares an interval with every other pitch in the scale.

But ordered tone rows relate only to each other (each preceding and succeeding note).

Ordered tone rows are used for their intervallic properties, as precise sequences of intervals. These intervals possess sonority, in terms of consonance/dissonance.

The row-sets, although usable melodically as "themes" or motives, are not referenced to a single tonic, as an unordered scale is, so the above chart of "creeping redundancy" is really only applicable to unordered sets, i.e. scales, as Hanson was using them.

This underscores the true primary significance of ordered sets: as conveyors of intervallic sonority due to their interval differences (not primarily as melodic entities). The most "variety" and unity comes from these intervallic sonorities, which Webern seemed to understand the best of the "Big 3." Schoenberg was still playing with "themes" and seemed to be more concerned with this aspect of the row. ​


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## Guest

norman bates said:


> God I was listening it again two days ago for the hundredth time....


But why? You don't like it. Do you listen to it over and over again--a hundred times!!--just to be able to confirm that your impression?

But it's just your impression. It's not the ultimate truth about _Le marteau._ The piece doesn't change because you think it's random, because you can only say one positive thing about it. It's the same. You have impressions of it. Fine. Those impressions are not descriptions; they're impressions. Only. Other people's impressions will be different.

One thing is certainly true, however random it may sound to any particular listener, a look at the score itself should settle any doubts that it is a carefully crafted piece.

Not that careful crafting is the only thing, either. It's a thing. And some things are random. Purposely so. _Le marteau_ just happens not to be not one of those.


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## hpowders

Some folks, including me, listen to a complicated new piece over and over to try to "get" it.

I'm doing that now with the Schoenberg Piano Concerto, the first movement of which sounded strange to these ears two days ago and now sounds similar to Berg's Violin Concerto. Not strange at all.

To me, it's not torture and it is not meant to reinforce pre-conceived uneducated, ignorant opinions. 
I simply want to learn and a lot of repetition helps me do that.


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## Blake

Yea, everyone intakes a bit differently. I'd just advise to not get too lost in techniques, though. The essence is where the sweeties are.


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## quack

It's odd _Le Marteau sans maître_ certainly isn't a favourite work of mine and i've never been one to hear the themes in a work and notice them develop unless they are really blatant but _Marteau_ just doesn't sound random at all to me. All the pieces seem to fit together, there's no seemingly erratic outbursts, it flows fairly smoothly and constantly onwards. Maybe it is best described as a stream, the surface if you look up close to it might appear chaotic and random but it is constrained and following a very clear path and you know it isn't totally random even if you can't actually see the stones of the bed which are forming the surface.


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## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> One thing is certainly true, however random it may sound to any particular listener, a look at the score itself should settle any doubts that it is a carefully crafted piece....some things are random. Purposely so. _Le marteau_ just happens not to be not one of those.


True, the piece is completely notated. But what 'someguy' seems to be unwilling to deal with is the *obvious impression of randomness *that is conveyed. I think this is a valid observation; *Le marteau *_does _sound random. I know exactly what is meant by 'sounding random.' I remember the first time I heard it, 40 years ago. Yesshir...

So, instead of trying to 'console' the listener by showing them the notated score (See? It's not random; it's all there...), perhaps we should 'deal with the symptom directly.'

Yes, *Le Marteau *sounds 'random' in terms of melodic and thematic continuity. Yes, compared to Beethoven, in terms of melodies, it does sound random. Why? What's wrong?

Well, there's nothing wrong with the work itself. The problem is with the listener. The reason it sounds random is that he is listening for the kind of melodic/thematic continuity that occurs in tonal music. *The piece is structured in form, and not random; it is just as Boulez wanted it.*

Sorry; there is really no 'thematic continuity' in* Le Marteau,* and if some brilliant geek thinks there is (in the form of tone-row unity), then I don't think Boulez wants us to hear it that way, in melodic or thematic terms. That's not why he permuted those tone rows.

He might have put a few *recognizable intervallic shapes* in there, but he certainly did not expect us to 'hear' complete tone rows, any more than Mozart expected us to hear 'scales.'

Even if Boulez did create some 'themes' or 'melodies' out of these tone rows, I don't think that was his goal in composing this. I think he was thinking more in terms of textures, and creating *'sonic entities' which are not inherently 'rememberable' or 'recognizable' on a micro-level. *
I think he was thinking more about color and texture, and of 'events' happening. You're not supposed to remember them as pitch-entities or recognize them as melodies. Your supposed to just experience them as 'entities which occur,' which have color, timbre, duration, and pitch content.

This quandary is kinda like a viewer of an Abstract Expressionist painting asking *"What does that drip over there mean? What is that brushstroke depicting? What does that splatter of red paint mean?"
*
_It's just a brushstroke, man. It's just a splatter. It's just a sound, a sonic entity. You've got to look at it in the correct way, or you'll never 'get' it.

_


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## norman bates

some guy said:


> But why?


For the reason Hpowders has said: many times with many listenings I've learned to appreciate things that I didn't liked at first. I didn't know what to do with Webern's music and now I appreciate it. So, even if now I continue to find Le marteau utterly pretentious (and I've listened to it for many years) sometimes I try to listen to it again.



some guy said:


> But it's just your impression. It's not the ultimate truth about _Le marteau._ The piece doesn't change because you think it's random, because you can only say one positive thing about it. It's the same. You have impressions of it. Fine. Those impressions are not descriptions; they're impressions. Only. Other people's impressions will be different.


I think we have discussed that already, and I perfectly now as I've said in the last post that it's a highly structured piece (as his infamous "structures", by the way, that as even Boulez admitted paradoxically sounded chaotic like a Cage piece), I'm saying that to me the effect of that construction sound like random sounds.


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> Well, there's nothing wrong with the work itself. The problem is with the listener. The reason it sounds random is that he is listening for the kind of melodic/thematic continuity that occurs in tonal music. *The piece is structured in form, and not random; it is just as Boulez wanted it.*
> 
> Sorry; there is really no 'thematic continuity' in* Le Marteau,* and if some brilliant geek thinks there is (in the form of tone-row unity), then I don't think Boulez wants us to hear it that way, in melodic or thematic terms. That's not why he permuted those tone rows.


100% Bull.

Boulez obviously _does_ want us to hear it in melodic/thematic terms, because the movements are labeled into groups. The melodic material is shared between the movements in each group.

The alto flute solo that begins the second movement (which is refracted by the surrounding instruments simultaneously)...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JIAVneYYoM#t=123

Is imitated by the singer starting here (broken up, and once again, refracted by the ensemble):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0ciuvBj55g#t=160

I understand why it might be a little hard to hear this at first, given that the movements with the same melodic material are separated, and the material is not repeated verbatim at any point.


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## Addlater

I'd like some subjective guidance, however subjective, though. I get how Messiaen sounds joyous, but the lack of tonality also causes enstrangement if not melancholy: it sounds like it wanders off.

Also these debates about sameness vs. small variations: I don't see much of a difference in the result. Whether it sounds "all the same" like a monochromatic painting, or "small variations each time" like a cubist painting, the small variations always wander off not sticking to a point, so... in music I don't see the whole picture anyway... I have to wait. And by the time there's a new movement, I don't remember the details of the previous one. Should I wait until the music is over and contemplate the after-taste, so to speak? I have no idea.


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## Morimur

Addlater said:


> I'd like some subjective guidance, however subjective, though. I get how Messiaen sounds joyous, but the lack of tonality also causes enstrangement if not melancholy: it sounds like it wanders off.


Messiaen's work is both tonal and atonal. Often, he walks a fine line between the two. The majority of his work is also, at least to my ears, frenetic, joyous and hyperrealistic.


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## aleazk

When I hear very dense serial pieces, the experience is kaleidoscopic. At the very surface, you hear a bubbling texture of intense activity. But this texture is composed of a lot of patterns, motifs, etc., that appear, disappear, dialogue with each other, etc.

So I think both Mahlerian and millionrainbows are right. Boulez does want us to hear some patterns, motifs, etc. But he also wants us to be overwhelmed by the complexity and to welcome this dense texture by itself. He explains himself here when talking about Ligeti.


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## Mahlerian

aleazk said:


> When I hear very dense serial pieces, the experience is kaleidoscopic. At the very surface, you hear a bubbling texture of intense activity. But this texture is composed of a lot of patterns, motifs, etc., that appear, disappear, dialogue with each other, etc.
> 
> So I think both Mahlerian and millionrainbows are right. Boulez does want us to hear some patterns, motifs, etc. But he also wants us to be overwhelmed by the complexity and to welcome this dense texture by itself. He explains himself here when talking about Ligeti.


Definitely. I'm not usually aware, at a given point, of the exact ways in which the material is being manipulated, but I'm aware that it's all related at any given point, and it's a pleasurable whirlwind of activity.


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## shangoyal

aleazk said:


> When I hear very dense serial pieces, the experience is kaleidoscopic. At the very surface, you hear a bubbling texture of intense activity. But this texture is composed of a lot of patterns, motifs, etc., that appear, disappear, dialogue with each other, etc.
> 
> So I think both Mahlerian and millionrainbows are right. Boulez does want us to hear some patterns, motifs, etc. But he also wants us to be overwhelmed by the complexity and to welcome this dense texture by itself. He explains himself here when talking about Ligeti.


Excuse me, but that sounds like you are leaning too much on a meta explanation of what the enjoyment of a piece constitutes. Perhaps "I loved it" would serve better.


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## Guest

Addlater said:


> I'd like some subjective guidance, however subjective, though. I get how Messiaen sounds joyous, but the lack of tonality also causes enstrangement if not melancholy: it sounds like it wanders off.


If you're expecting the logic of tonality, non-tonal music is not going to provide that. Wandering off might be an apt description of a tonal piece that, well, that wanders off. But it's not an apt description of a non-tonal piece. What is a non-tonal piece wandering off from?

My advice is to listen to each piece. Let each piece tell you how to listen to it. Jettison your expectations. Let each piece be itself. That's all it can be, anyway. It's not some other piece. It's only itself. So basic.



Addlater said:


> ...not sticking to a point....


Per example.



Addlater said:


> I don't remember the details of the previous one. Should I wait until the music is over and contemplate the after-taste, so to speak? I have no idea.


Try to stay in the moment, maybe. Eventually, you will understand the large picture. Why are you trying to understand the large picture of new music, however? Understanding the large picture is for old music, music that's familiar. New music is not familiar. Don't treat it the same. It's different. New music is best understood moment by moment. Eventually, you'll get something else. At the inevitable expense of losing that sense of newness, of bewilderment. The time is short enough as it is. Enjoy it while you have it.


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## aleazk

shangoyal said:


> Excuse me, but that sounds like you are leaning too much on a meta explanation of what the enjoyment of a piece constitutes. Perhaps "I loved it" would serve better.


Well, no. What I experience when listening to music is more complex than that. Of course I love it, but why I can't explain why I love it? 

Of course, others may differ. But from the very beginning I'm saying it's only my personal experience.


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## dgee

I've never warmed to Marteau particularly. If you want to really go for it on a work you absolutely know is a high water mark of serialism then listen to it 100 times, sure. But if you want to enjoy some great Boulez how about trying Repons or Sur Incises or Derive 2?

I enjoy contemporary/atonal/modernist music a lot and found the best way to get into it was not to ask too many questions of how it's put together but just enjoy each moment, mood and sound - but then I'm a simple soul. So if your concerns are with issues of clear form and structure, defined use and development of material, phrasing and voice leading you m,ay wish to undertake a course of study to develop your knowledge of how these pan out or not in a range of modern/contemporary scores. I would hope enjoyment of Boulez and others could be achieved more viscerally


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## norman bates

dgee said:


> I've never warmed to Marteau particularly. If you want to really go for it on a work you absolutely know is a high water mark of serialism then listen to it 100 times, sure. But if you want to enjoy some great Boulez how about trying Repons or Sur Incises or Derive 2?


I've listened a lot of Boulez's work, I like some of it a bit more, like Derive 2 or Le visage nuptial, but in general and probably not surprisingly I like much more the work of his detractors (even in the avantgarde). At least at this moment, in the future who knows.



dgee said:


> I enjoy contemporary/atonal/modernist music a lot and found the best way to get into it was not to ask too many questions of how it's put together but just enjoy each moment, mood and sound - but then I'm a simple soul. So if your concerns are with issues of clear form and structure, defined use and development of material, phrasing and voice leading you m,ay wish to undertake a course of study to develop your knowledge of how these pan out or not in a range of modern/contemporary scores. I would hope enjoyment of Boulez and others could be achieved more viscerally


like this? This is a thing I enjoy, talking of whirlwind of activity


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## Richannes Wrahms

Sorry if this has already been posted before in this thread.


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## norman bates

By the way, an interesting article of Kyle Gann on the techniques used in the Marteau, where he exposes many perplexities about it
http://www.kylegann.com/PC100621-How-to-Care.html

"Nevertheless, I get that Boulez divides up his row into five segments in five possible ways based on a rotating number series:








and so on. I also get that he "multiplies" each of those five segments by all five of them to build up derived unordered pitch sets - the process of "chord multiplication" being to transpose one chord to all the pitches of the other chord and add all the pitches together. And you can see how (if you take the trouble) each gesture is drawn from the pitches of these chord-multiplication products:








I also get how Boulez chose the order of chord multiples by making little diagonal patterns through his chart of available sets. Sounds like fun.

Well, that's great, sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski. What I can't see is why this method of generating pitches has any significant advantage over Cage's chance processes, which Boulez so vehemently rejected. I can't see what they have to do with the ostensive unifying purpose of the 12-tone row, and since Boulez plays around within them as unordered collections, plus has two of them going at any given time in extremely rapid succession (any one collection rarely occupying more than two beats at quarter = 168), I can't see what purpose this incredibly convoluted process serves in the least. Stephen Heinemann in "Pitch-Class Set Multiplication in Theory and Practice" (Music Theory Spectrum Vol. 20, No. 1, Spring 1998) promises to reveal a "process-based listening strategy" for Le Marteau based on all this, but by the time one's waded through all his math, the results aren't much. He shows how in "Domain 5" (one of the five harmonic areas) a certain octatonic partitioning tends to occur, but then writes

the other domains do not parse as easily as Domain 5, and... such an analytical approach is not without its obstacles. The aural "processing" in terms of interval class 3 and octatonic structuring is complicated... by the sheer rapidity of change...

If this is the best assurance we can get from someone who understands Le Marteau well enough to correct Koblyakov's misconceptions about it, I'm ready to give up on anyone ever making detailed aural sense of the piece. As Fred Lerdahl famously wrote (and Taruskin quotes it in his history),

Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre (1954) was widely hailed as a masterpiece of post-war serialism. Yet nobody could figure out, much less hear, how the piece was serial. From hints in Boulez (1963), Koblyakov (1977) at last determined that it was indeed serial, though in an idiosyncratic way. In the interim, listeners made what sense they could of the piece in ways unrelated to its construction. Nor has Koblyakov's decipherment subsequently changed how the piece is heard.... The serial organization of Le Marteau would appear, 30 years later, to be irrelevant. The story is, or should be, disturbing. ("Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems," in Generative Processes in Music, Oxford, 1988)"


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## Nereffid

As Irish prime minister Garret Fitzgerald is once supposed to have said, "It sounds great in practice, but how will it work in theory?"


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## dgee

Geez Norm - and Kyle - just listen to the music! The business above is of more use and relevance to Pierre than the listener - the guy just loves to work the %^&* outta his material, it his MO! Maybe in the way others would noodle on the piano. 

Certainly, I find Mr Gann's "disturbing", desire for "assurances" regarding the authentic serialism of Marteau etc to be comically inflamed

I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt? Are you a committed Schenkerian? Do you feel that falling standards of counterpoint instruction led to the dissolute horrors of romantic music? Or is it the "false advertising" that gets you here - a serial piece should be serial dammit! Won't the boys at the golf club give me a good ribbing after they discover this serialist masterpiece I've been going on about turns out not to be analytical verifiable!


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## Guest

dgee said:


> I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt? Are you a committed Schenkerian? Do you feel that falling standards of counterpoint instruction led to the dissolute horrors of romantic music?


I was wondering the same. And I suspect, with you, that the answer is no.

Sounds like _Le marteau_ is the bee in the bonnet. On another site, for another poster, it's Birtwistle's _Night's Black Bird_ that's the bee. Another has chosen Kirchner's innocuous _Triptych._ So many bees; so little honey.

I'm not excepting myself, just by the way. My bee is other people's bees.:lol:


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## Mahlerian

dgee said:


> I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt? Are you a committed Schenkerian? Do you feel that falling standards of counterpoint instruction led to the dissolute horrors of romantic music? Or is it the "false advertising" that gets you here - a serial piece should be serial dammit! Won't the boys at the golf club give me a good ribbing after they discover this serialist masterpiece I've been going on about turns out not to be analytical verifiable!


I came across a thesis on the web last night detailing how a different kind of operation accounted for 100% of the notes for the L'Artisanat Furieux movements. He also pointed out that, far from being random or arbitrary, Boulez stacks the deck to favor the same octatonic collections that Messiaen and Stravinsky used so much.


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## norman bates

dgee said:


> Geez Norm - and Kyle - just listen to the music! The business above is of more use and relevance to Pierre than the listener - the guy just loves to work the %^&* outta his material, it his MO! Maybe in the way others would noodle on the piano.
> 
> Certainly, I find Mr Gann's "disturbing", desire for "assurances" regarding the authentic serialism of Marteau etc to be comically inflamed
> 
> I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt? Are you a committed Schenkerian? Do you feel that falling standards of counterpoint instruction led to the dissolute horrors of romantic music? Or is it the "false advertising" that gets you here - a serial piece should be serial dammit! Won't the boys at the golf club give me a good ribbing after they discover this serialist masterpiece I've been going on about turns out not to be analytical verifiable!


well, I've posted it because even if I knew perfectly Gann (and I have discovered composers thanks to him) I don't remember to have read that article before yesterday, and I'm struck by the similarity of arguments he has made with what I've said. I've compared the effects of total control to the aural effects that it produces, similar to that of the aleatory procedures used by Cage and he uses the same comparison. 
By the way, I don't think that if you listen the first fifteen or twenty seconds of the Sun Ra's video I've posted you could even remotely think that I'm a fanatic of Schenker or a over-intellectual approach to music (like Boulez).



dgee said:


> I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt?


I certainly don't, but as Gann points out, it's strange that a composer who is known for his hyper analytical approach to music (he's the kind of person that could not understand why Messiaen used a simple C major!) uses such arbitrary procedures similar to that that he usually criticize.


----------



## Mahlerian

norman bates said:


> well, I've posted it because even if I knew perfectly Gann (and I have discovered composers thanks to him) I don't remember to have read that article before yesterday, and I'm struck by the similarity of arguments he has made with what I've said. I've compared the effects of total control to the aural effects that it produces, similar to that of the aleatory procedures used by Cage and he uses the same comparison.


Show me a single piece by Cage that sounds remotely similar to Le marteau, even if both pieces are transposed to piano (thus removing differences of timbre).

And Gann's remarks are similar because he had previously read Lerdahl's article, and was drawing from it.

As I said above, the article I glanced through last night disagrees with Lerdahl and (though I didn't read through the detailed workings out of the theory) claims that his biggest claim, that the way the piece is structured and the way people hear it are completely unrelated, is false. As evidence, he cites both the importance of the minor third to the serial procedures and the fact that the Grove dictionary entry on the piece, independent of the analysis that came out in the 70s, cited a fixation on single intervals in pieces during this part of Boulez's career, including a "preponderance of minor thirds in _Le marteau_".



norman bates said:


> By the way, I don't think that if you listen the first fifteen or twenty seconds of the Sun Ra's video I've posted you could even remotely think that I'm a fanatic of Schenker or a over-intellectual approach to music (like Boulez).


I hope that you understand that most free jazz sounds far more random to me than anything by Boulez. For someone who's familiar with Sun Ra, I'm sure that the music has his group's signature and is recognizably of his personality, but I'm not. I'm barely aware most of the major figures in jazz, beyond names and maybe a well-known recording or two. For me, it sounds more or less like any other free jazz improvisation.

I don't take this to mean that the music is inherently incomprehensible or that it actually is functionally equivalent to any other recording of the same genre. It's something I'm not familiar with.



norman bates said:


> I certainly don't, but as Gann points out, it's strange that a composer who is known for his hyper analytical approach to music (he's the kind of person that could not understand why Messiaen used a simple C major!) uses such arbitrary procedures similar to that that he usually criticize.


Because the procedures are actually not arbitrary. They were designed to strike a balance between determination and freedom, which the composer has said on multiple occasions.


----------



## norman bates

Mahlerian said:


> Show me a single piece by Cage that sounds remotely similar to Le marteau, even if both pieces are transposed to piano (thus removing differences of timbre).


It's clear that the music is completely different, but what it's interesting is the fact that the effect of a piece composed using rigorous techniques produces an aural effect that sounds very similar to that of a aleatoric piece.



Mahlerian said:


> And Gann's remarks are similar because he had previously read Lerdahl's article, and was drawing from it.
> 
> As I said above, the article I glanced through last night disagrees with Lerdahl and (though I didn't read through the detailed workings out of the theory) claims that his biggest claim, that the way the piece is structured and the way people hear it are completely unrelated, is false. As evidence, he cites both the importance of the minor third to the serial procedures and the fact that the Grove dictionary entry on the piece, independent of the analysis that came out in the 70s, cited a fixation on single intervals in pieces during this part of Boulez's career, including a "preponderance of minor thirds in _Le marteau_".


do you have a link?



Mahlerian said:


> I hope that you understand that most free jazz sounds far more random to me than anything by Boulez. For someone who's familiar with Sun Ra, I'm sure that the music has his group's signature and is recognizably of his personality, but I'm not. I'm barely aware most of the major figures in jazz, beyond names and maybe a well-known recording or two. For me, it sounds more or less like any other free jazz improvisation.


Sure, you're right, that sounds like a mess, but anyway there's an interplay that gives it a sort of unity (certainly not in the sense that it's possible to justify every note or noise, obviously) and I appreciate it for its dyonisiac viscerality and intensity (like the Pollock used as background). It sounds like going through a mysterious jungle at night.



Mahlerian said:


> Because the procedures are actually not arbitrary. They were designed to strike a balance between determination and freedom, which the composer has said on multiple occasions.


I don't know, it's perfectly possible that you're right and I don't get it, but still:
"Well, that's great, sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski. What I can't see is why this method of generating pitches has any significant advantage over Cage's chance processes, which Boulez so vehemently rejected. I can't see what they have to do with the ostensive unifying purpose of the 12-tone row"
But I guess that it's the point of view of a person that like me does not get the order under the apparent chaos.


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## Mahlerian

norman bates said:


> It's clear that the music is completely different, but what it's interesting is the fact that the effect of a piece composed using rigorous techniques produces an aural effect that sounds very similar to that of a aleatoric piece.


It's not, though. It's clearly recognizable as Boulez, and Boulez only briefly dabbled hesitantly in aleatory.

Pretty much the only thing serial music and aleatoric music of the same era have in common is they both tend to use the entire chromatic space, rather than a subsection. If you are accustomed to music that only uses a subsection (like diatonic or pentatonic music), then they may sound similar.



norman bates said:


> do you have a link?


It's extremely technical. Don't say I didn't warn you...
https://dlib.lib.washington.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/1773/11257/9401433.pdf?sequence=1



norman bates said:


> Sure, you're right, that sounds like a mess, but anyway there's an interplay that gives it a sort of unity (certainly not in the sense that it's possible to justify every note or noise, obviously) and I appreciate it for its dyonisiac viscerality and intensity (like the Pollock used as background). It sounds like going through a mysterious jungle at night.


When I hear Le marteau, I hear all of the instruments interacting with each other and playing with each other's material, like a hyper-focused laser refracted through a prism. I may not be able to see where the laser came from, or how every bit of light came to end up where it did, but it's stunning to look at (or listen to, in this case).



norman bates said:


> I don't know, it's perfectly possible that you're right and I don't get it, but still:
> "Well, that's great, sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski. What I can't see is why this method of generating pitches has any significant advantage over Cage's chance processes, which Boulez so vehemently rejected. I can't see what they have to do with the ostensive unifying purpose of the 12-tone row"
> But I guess that it's the point of view of a person that like me does not get the order under the apparent chaos.


Gann said that he can't tell the movements apart, other than the instrumentation.

I agree with Stravinsky and Ligeti, both far better composers (and I think Gann would agree with that assessment), that it's just a wonderful work, simply for the sounds it makes, regardless of any theory.


----------



## aleazk

dgee said:


> Geez Norm - and Kyle - just listen to the music! The business above is of more use and relevance to Pierre than the listener - the guy just loves to work the %^&* outta his material, it his MO! Maybe in the way others would noodle on the piano.
> 
> Certainly, I find Mr Gann's "disturbing", desire for "assurances" regarding the authentic serialism of Marteau etc to be comically inflamed
> 
> I wonder, would you or Kyle apply the same standards of analytical rigour while listening to, I dunno, Schumann, Wagner, Liszt? Are you a committed Schenkerian? Do you feel that falling standards of counterpoint instruction led to the dissolute horrors of romantic music? Or is it the "false advertising" that gets you here - a serial piece should be serial dammit! Won't the boys at the golf club give me a good ribbing after they discover this serialist masterpiece I've been going on about turns out not to be analytical verifiable!


If you are in love with a girl / boy you don't go and open her / his stomach in order to "see" what's inside!...


----------



## Morimur

aleazk said:


> If you are in love with a girl / boy you don't go and open her / his stomach in order to "see" what's inside!...


Unless one happens to be a murdering sociopath, of course.


----------



## aleazk

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Unless one happens to be a murdering sociopath, of course.


"But, Your Honor, she told me that her musical inspiration came from her inside... so I wanted to check!" :lol:


----------



## PetrB

aleazk said:


> If you are in love with a girl / boy you don't go and open her / his stomach in order to "see" what's inside!...


I've sometimes wondered how doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists generally 'see' their friends and loved ones


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## PetrB

aleazk said:


> "But, Your Honor, she told me that her musical inspiration came from her inside... so I wanted to check!" :lol:


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


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## Blake

PetrB said:


> I've sometimes wondered how doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists generally 'see' their friends and loved ones


I'm sure quite a few psychiatrists need a psychiatrist themselves.


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## PetrB

norman bates said:


> ...Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre (1954) was widely hailed as a masterpiece of post-war serialism. Yet nobody could figure out, much less hear, how the piece was serial. From hints in Boulez (1963), Koblyakov (1977) at last determined that it was indeed serial, though in an idiosyncratic way. In the interim, listeners made what sense they could of the piece in ways unrelated to its construction. Nor has Koblyakov's decipherment subsequently changed how the piece is heard.... The serial organization of Le Marteau would appear, 30 years later, to be irrelevant. The story is, or should be, disturbing. ("Cognitive Constraints on Compositional Systems," in Generative Processes in Music, Oxford, 1988)"


Really, only 'disturbing' if you are expecting that what is in the tin is going to be consistent with one big fat generalization about theory, and 'how it was put together.'

The following, on and about Schoenberg, should be taken to heart as to how _all_ composers work, regardless of any and all of their 'methods.'

The young players of the then newly formed Schoenberg quartet (Los Angeles based) worked with Schoenberg. (Of course, the ensemble were working on one of the string quartets.)

The 'Cellist told that he noticed a B-natural in his part which was out of place re: the integrity of the row. He pointed it out to Schoenberg and asked, _*"Shouldn't that be a Bb?"*_
(understandable -- it could have been a printing error.) 
He said Schoenberg's response was a quick and heated:
_*"If I had wanted a Bb there I would have written one."*_

So much for serial integrity, i.e. the ultimate determining factor is the composers' intuition as perceived by his ear.

This, of course 'disturbs' those who readily want to either dismiss such MO's as serialism, etc. as invalid (_*zOMG, it is actually just another creative, not solely intellectual, process!*_) ..or are some type of control freak, hoping against hope to find something wholly 'ordered.'


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## MoonlightSonata

I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like. Really, it sounds random and confusing. Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant. Human ears do not like dissonance. So why do we write it?


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## GreenMamba

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like. Really, it sounds random and confusing. Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant. Human ears do not like dissonance. So why do we write it?


Read the first 128 pages of the thread to find out.


----------



## Mahlerian

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like. Really, it sounds random and confusing. Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant. Human ears do not like dissonance. So why do we write it?


Actually, human ears love dissonance. More often than not, if you ask someone what the most beautiful moment in a particular piece is, they will point to a dissonance rather than a consonance. They just have a hard time with dissonances that they don't recognize and or don't understand the context for.


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## hpowders

Prescription: Listen to the Schoenberg Piano Concerto for a couple of weeks.
What sounds like random noise at first, begins to make sense after a while.


----------



## mmsbls

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like. Really, it sounds random and confusing. Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant. Human ears do not like dissonance. So why do we write it?


Many (most?) people who find that they like classical music will listen to Romantic music loving much that they hear. And they will listen to Classical era music with joy. And they listen to Baroque music and think it's great. Then they will try something non-tonal, and instead of more music they love, suddenly they hear something that sounds random and confusing. You're exactly correct - the music sounds random and confusing. But if you read posts from people who like non-tonal music, you'll see that those people do not view the music as random or confusing. The real question is how to get from where you are (and where many others were) to the other side.

Many who started off disliking non-tonal music began listening closely (and often) to the music of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, and others. Over time the language of these composers began to make more and more sense, and the sounds were not so bizarre/confusing/ugly. They came to enjoy the music and even find it truly beautiful just like earlier classical music. It just sounds very different, but then so does Romantic music sound very different from Renaissance music. Some people don't need to listen to non-tonal music for a long time before it starts to sound pleasing. Others need more time, and some never quite get there. For some it's not a short trip. But when it opens up, it's a remarkable feeling.


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## TurnaboutVox

PetrB said:


> I've sometimes wondered how doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists generally 'see' their friends and loved ones


It rather depends on what you use to 'see' with, of course, and with what motive. Such insights, or rather constructions, are usually better left unspoken!



Vesuvius said:


> I'm sure quite a few psychiatrists need a psychiatrist themselves.


Being human beings and as vulnerable as anyone else to stress and illness, yes.


----------



## ArtMusic

PetrB said:


> I've sometimes wondered how doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists generally 'see' their friends and loved ones


Speaking of psychiatrists and psychologists or even the dentist for that matter, I can't imagine attending their practice and them playing hard core atonal music in the background. It simlpky does not work.


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Some people don't need to listen to non-tonal music for a long time before it starts to sound pleasing. Others need more time, and some never quite get there. For some it's not a short trip. But when it opens up, it's a remarkable feeling.


Nice, but why did you leave out the group I'm in?


----------



## Guest

ArtMusic said:


> Speaking of psychiatrists and psychologists or even the dentist for that matter, I can't imagine attending their practice and them playing hard core atonal music in the background. It simlpky does not work.


The dentist I went to played the usual soft nothings in the waiting room. In the examining rooms there was nothing. The psychologist I went to didn't play any music at all.

The acupuncturist I went to played some "relaxing" new agey world music which made me tense up. So, for me, she didn't play any music at all.

Point being that people are more different than the dismissive "It simlpky (sic) does not work" would indicate.


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## ArtMusic

some guy said:


> The dentist I went to played the usual soft nothings in the waiting room. In the examining rooms there was nothing. The psychologist I went to didn't play any music at all.
> 
> The acupuncturist I went to played some "relaxing" new agey world music which made me tense up. So, for me, she didn't play any music at all.
> 
> Point being that people are more different than the dismissive "It simlpky (sic) does not work" would indicate.


It didn't work for you, that I wouldn't argue with. But fact is this: it ain't gonna work for the vast majority for his/her patients, who are paying their own money (or taxpayers') and so suitable types of music, if played, should be done with non-shocking taste.


----------



## ArtMusic

It's almost like me paying for an economy plane ticket and the flight attendants serve me chicken salad pasta, a nice enough and healthy enough dish for many, but I hate it, and expect to be served escargots instead.


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## dgee

Tonal music - it's suitable for most dental patients!


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## hpowders

My name is hpowders and here is my story:

I was as much of a doubter in atonal music as anyone.

(I've enjoyed contemporary compositions by Schuman, Ives, Persichetti and Mennin but these were essentially tonal with a lot of dissonance).

I bought the Schoenberg Piano Concerto (Uchida/Boulez) on a whim because I figured if Uchida bothered to record it, it must be good. I spent two solid weeks exclusively with this work. This concerto sounded like random noise to me in the beginning, but I refused to shelve it. I continued listening; over and over.

My judgment of the atonal Schoenberg Piano Concerto after two weeks:

A nostalgic, hauntingly beautiful, colorful score; a work of great genius.

It takes some work, but it can be done and the reward can be considerable.


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> My name is hpowders and here is my story:
> 
> I was as much of a doubter in atonal music as anyone.
> 
> (I've enjoyed contemporary compositions by Schuman, Ives, Persichetti and Mennin but these were essentially tonal with a lot of dissonance).
> 
> I bought the Schoenberg Piano Concerto (Uchida/Boulez) on a whim because I figured if Uchida bothered to record it, it must be good. I spent two solid weeks exclusively with this work. This concerto sounded like random noise to me in the beginning, but I refused to shelve it. I continued listening; over and over.
> 
> My judgment of the atonal Schoenberg Piano Concerto after two weeks:
> 
> A nostalgic, hauntingly beautiful, colorful score; a work of great genius.
> 
> It takes some work, but it can be done and the reward can be considerable.


You've seen the light, hpowders.


----------



## GioCar

hpowders said:


> My name is hpowders and here is my story:
> 
> I was as much of a doubter in atonal music as anyone.
> 
> (I've enjoyed contemporary compositions by Schuman, Ives, Persichetti and Mennin but these were essentially tonal with a lot of dissonance).
> 
> I bought the Schoenberg Piano Concerto (Uchida/Boulez) on a whim because I figured if Uchida bothered to record it, it must be good. I spent two solid weeks exclusively with this work. This concerto sounded like random noise to me in the beginning, but I refused to shelve it. I continued listening; over and over.
> 
> My judgment of the atonal Schoenberg Piano Concerto after two weeks:
> 
> A nostalgic, hauntingly beautiful, colorful score; a work of great genius.
> 
> It takes some work, but it can be done and the reward can be considerable.


Please try again with some other piece. 
If your "atonal therapy" works, you can patent it and send the protocol to, let's say, Classic FM.
Next year we could have a Webern topping the charts...


----------



## hpowders

GioCar said:


> Please try again with some other piece.
> If your "atonal therapy" works, you can patent it and send the protocol to, let's say, Classic FM.
> Next year we could have a Webern topping the charts...


I am. Webern's Variations for piano.


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## mmsbls

some guy said:


> Nice, but why did you leave out the group I'm in?


Michael, I'm always aware of the group that you are in . My terms "some" and "others" were subsets of the larger group discussed in that paragraph (i.e. Many who started off disliking non-tonal music). Your group is not a subset so I left you out.


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## arpeggio

*Dentist Music*

Oh goody. A new criteria for invalidating atonal music. Whether or not my dentist employs it as background music.

My dentist uses country and western. I guess that means that "I've got tears in my ears from lyin on my back in my bed while I cry over you" is comparable to "Nessun dorma".

As I mentioned in another thread, I recently had a root canal with an Endodontist. He played classical in the background. It did not help.

What's next? Atonal music causes cows to produce less milk?


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## mmsbls

I agree that no dentist would play non-tonal music in their office. They also would not play Renaissance music or opera. I'm not exactly sure what the term "hard core" means, but dentists probably wouldn't play any type of hard core music either.


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## Guest

Naw. What's next is "The Schoenberg Effect."

Kids played Schoenberg when young score consistently higher on SAT tests.

(My kids grew up with whatever I had on the stereo. Dvorak. Brahms. Bach. Lachenmann. Varese. Xenakis. Nurse With Wound. My oldest (who was only with me every other weekend) discovered Varese's _Poeme electronique_ on his own. And ended up taking a degree in computer music composition. My next son's favorite piece growing up was Alice Shield's "Coyote" from _Shaman,_ an electroacoustic piece inside an opera that accompanies the Shaman turning into a coyote and back again. My youngest son could fall asleep to Merzbow "because it is so soothing."

They all three grew up to be musicians.)


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## arpeggio

mmsbls said:


> I agree that no dentist would play non-tonal music in their office. They also would not play Renaissance music or opera. I'm not exactly sure what the term "hard core" means, but dentists probably wouldn't play any type of hard core music either.


Considering how I felt during the root canal, maybe the last movement of Berg's _Lulu Suite_ might have worked.


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## hpowders

Message to dentists:

Please avoid Le Sacre du Printemps as background music. It does not relax me.


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## arpeggio

*Biting the dentist*



hpowders said:


> Message to dentists:
> 
> Please avoid Le Sacre du Printemps as background music. It does not relax me.


If they did that I would get so excited that I would probably bite them.

That's it. A new thread. Listening to _4'33"_ WILL MAKE YOU BITE YOUR DENTIST! :devil:


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## GreenMamba

arpeggio said:


> If they did that I would get so excited that I would probably bite them.
> 
> That's it. A new thread. Listening to _4'33"_ WILL MAKE YOU BITE YOUR DENTIST! :devil:


And the sounds of the screams would become part of the music.


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## hpowders

arpeggio said:


> If they did that I would get so excited that I would probably bite them.
> 
> That's it. A new thread. Listening to _4'33"_ WILL MAKE YOU BITE YOUR DENTIST! :devil:


Some music makes one "overbite", I guess.


----------



## hpowders

TresPicos said:


> I listened to Schoenberg's piano concerto for the first time the other day, and I was really blown away. I admit that it's not that far away from random noise, but I loved it. And afterwards, I was completely refreshed and at peace.
> 
> Ten years ago, I would have dismissed that piano concerto completely, as pretentious, unenjoyable and useless. I could have told the Schoenberg lovers that they just didn't get it. Now, I know I was the one who didn't get it. Now, I embrace that same piano concerto as pretentious, enjoyable and useful.


I feel the same way. Boring noise turned into a profound, haunting musical experience on repeated hearings.


----------



## Blancrocher

GreenMamba said:


> And the sounds of the screams would become part of the music.


Reminds me of the soundtrack of "Marathon Man."


----------



## millionrainbows

From the OP, it seem he is alienated by the lack of "emotional" content in much serial music. With Schoenberg and the second Viennese composers, I have to say this is not true, where "atonal" is concerned...although in Webern, I begin too see the first emergence of a kind of "icy detachment" which is tied to the mountains of Mittersill, and the general intellectual, almost zen-like mood...

This business of the "emotions" in music came about during the Baroque, with comparisons of "the humors" and basic emotions. The expressivity of these Baroque works was something new, frowned upon by some. Vocal music had a lot to do with it, with the emergence of separate vocal lines, and the treatment of the bass line as an entity, which gave rise to our familiar tonal thinking, with root movement now being used as a template for mapping-out harmonic movement. Eventually, opera, which is the apotheosis of emotion in music.

"Absolute" music began to exist on its own, using "dramatic gesture" to express emotion, yet was not necessarily tied to plot or specific meaning.

Schoenberg saw, rightly, that serialism demanded a return to polyphony, since the melodic was its nature. 
The "voice" was not gone, however, as he used thematic elements, and plenty of dramatic gesture. The emotions depicted were becoming more complex, harder to define...

I have no problem in "shutting down" my emotions when listening to John Cage or Stockhausen, though. Perhaps the OP does not share this capacity...

I suppose that part of this capacity is the ability to "see past" the need for emotion, and see music as a sheer sensual and intellectual experience. It is a forgetting of one's self, and one's needy nature, always turning every sound into some sort of emotional cliche. "Scary", "creepy" or "anxiety" come to mind. 

You know, sound can exist as "just sounds," without having to be attached to sentimentality, as Morton Feldman so succinctly demonstrated. The aesthetic experience is more complex than many would have us believe, and certainly exceeds the confines of some Baroque definition of "the humors." When I listen to music, my whole experience comes into play, and I do not wish to be limited to Tchaikovsky-type Romantic conceptions of "emotion in music" unless that's appropriate.

I think the OP reveals limitations; limitations in conception of emotion, and in approach to art as a complex thing involving the intellect as well, and of limiting oneself to the Romantic era.


----------



## MoonlightSonata

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like. Really, it sounds random and confusing. Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant. Human ears do not like dissonance. So why do we write it?


I would just like to say that I have completely changed my opinion after hearing a few quality pieces from Schnittke and a few others. I have realised that after a few hearings I can start to understand what the composer is saying. I have even tried writing a few atonal pieces myself.


----------



## millionrainbows

MoonlightSonata said:


> I have never actually heard an atonal work that I like.


Not even Bartok? That's fair; it's your taste.



MoonlightSonata said:


> Really, it sounds random and confusing.


It might "sound" that way to you because you don't have any desire to approach it.



MoonlightSonata said:


> Atonal music is almost always constantly dissonant.


There are only 6 intervals, not counting their respective inversions. Atonal music uses the same intervals as tonal music, so it's not "constantly dissonant" if intervals are what you are listening to. I think you are hearing other elements of the 12-tone aesthetic that your traditionally-conditioned brain does not wish to engage with.



MoonlightSonata said:


> Human ears do not like dissonance.


"Ears" and eardrums vibrate with whatever frequency hits them. It's your brain that interprets it as good or bad. Even if that were true, then hearing Mozart played in equal temperament would be unbearable, because all its intervals are dissonant.



MoonlightSonata said:


> So why do we write it?


Who is "we?" You got a frog in your pocket?


----------



## Piwikiwi

millionrainbows said:


> Not even Bartok? That's fair; it's your taste.


Bartok is not atonal


----------



## Igneous01

MoonlightSonata said:


> I would just like to say that I have completely changed my opinion after hearing a few quality pieces from Schnittke and a few others. I have realised that after a few hearings I can start to understand what the composer is saying. I have even tried writing a few atonal pieces myself.


Yea... he kind of does that. I don't know why but I feel his music is more relevant to me in this day and age then his contemporaries. He simply put, didn't care to confine himself to one rigid set of rules. And yet people were surprised when he published his choir concerto; thinking he was making pastiche. For a work that is extremely tonal and almost ancient, there is nothing I have heard from the renaissance that sounds like it.

I'm not a religious person by any means, but when I listen to the choir concerto, I hear the voice of God. Similarly when I hear his 2nd String Quartet, I hear the voice of the Devil, and he is mourning. He was an expressionist and yet unromantic.

Anyway I need to stop now, I praise him too much as is


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## millionrainbows

Piwikiwi said:


> Bartok is not atonal


Bartok is not tonal, either. Oh, I forgot, you must be using the "new musical dictionary" definition: Atonal music is whatever sounds bad to me, and tonal music is whatever sounds good.


----------



## Ian Moore

The more you listen to 'atonal' music the less dissonant it becomes. I listen to 'atonal music' all of the time. Compositions around Palestrina's era would have sounded atonal to him. Our modern ears would struggle to hear atonality in early sixteenth century music.
Atonality is partially a psychological concept.


----------



## Andreas

Ian Moore said:


> The more you listen to 'atonal' music the less dissonant it becomes.


The first sip of liquor tastes like nail polish remover. The first cigarette almost makes one sick. Over time, though, one develops a tolerance, then a taste, and eventually an addiction for it.

Not to say that atonality is a harmful substance, as I'd be quite guilty of its use.

Personally, I believe that the specific configuration of one's hearing apparatus plus the sound of one's mother's voice (as well as other prenatnal sonic experiences) decide which sounds, if any, will strike one as dissonant or unpleasant.


----------



## Piwikiwi

millionrainbows said:


> Bartok is not tonal, either. Oh, I forgot, you must be using the "new musical dictionary" definition: Atonal music is whatever sounds bad to me, and tonal music is whatever sounds good.


Not traditionally no, but he even said that he wanted to proof to Schoenberg that you could compose music using all 12 tones and still remain tonal. Tonal music can be dissonant and atonal music can be consonant.

I like both Schönberg (mostly atonal) and Bartok (tonal)


----------



## Taggart

While the arguments may be robust, can members please be civil and comment on the topic rather than each other. Some personal comments have been removed.


----------



## hpowders

I was as repelled by atonal music as anyone could be. On a hunch I purchased Mitsuko Uchida doing the Schönberg Piano Concerto. It seemed logical to me, given her track record of recording great mainstream music for the piano, that she wouldn't have recorded the Schönberg if she didn't feel it was worthy. At first, I found it to be boring noise, and was disappointed, but I made a commitment to listen to it exclusively for two weeks. I'm glad I did. I now consider it to be a haunting, nostalgic piece; it is great music.


----------



## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> I was as repelled by atonal music as anyone could be. On a hunch I purchased Mitsuko Uchida doing the Schönberg Piano Concerto. It seemed logical to me, given her track record of recording great mainstream music for the piano, that she wouldn't have recorded the Schönberg if she didn't feel it was worthy. At first, I found it to be boring noise, and was disappointed, but I made a commitment to listen to it exclusively for two weeks. I'm glad I did. I now consider it to be a haunting, nostalgic piece; it is great music.


Uchida also designs good concert programs that bring out interesting comparisons and contrasts: such as alternating between piano works by Schumann and Schoenberg. Sort of the carrot and the stick, perhaps--though not everyone will agree on which is the carrot and which the stick.

*p.s.* I'm sorry I missed the inflammatory posts--I enjoy reading them with my morning coffee.


----------



## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> Uchida also designs good concert programs that bring out interesting comparisons and contrasts: such as alternating between piano works by Schumann and Schoenberg. Sort of the carrot and the stick, perhaps--though not everyone will agree on which is the carrot and which the stick.
> 
> *p.s.* I'm sorry I missed the inflammatory posts--I enjoy reading them with my morning coffee.


Whenever I see posts like that, I simply pop a Celebrex with a glass of water. It's an anti-inflammatory agent.


----------



## millionrainbows

Piwikiwi said:


> Not traditionally no, but he even said that he wanted to proof to Schoenberg that you could compose music using all 12 tones and still remain tonal. Tonal music can be dissonant and atonal music can be consonant.
> 
> I like both Schönberg (mostly atonal) and Bartok (tonal)


Still, I think it's somewhat misleading to characterize Bartok as "tonal" without qualifying that statement with some reference to modernist musical thought and procedure. There are plenty of instances in Bartok where modern structural considerations and forms overshadow any compliance with "tonality," even in its broadest sense. Use of tritones, localized tone-centers, octatonic scales, and chromaticism are the features of Bartok's aesthetic, not tonal features.

The same can be said for Debussy; I think the confusion arises by the use of "harmonic" mechanisms, like scales and triads, which appeal to the ear, plus, the tendency to be "tone-centric" that can lead to the mis-labelling of Bartok (or Debussy) as a "tonalists."

"Tonal" and "tonality" are not terms that I throw around indiscriminately.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

This was a quite rich thread despite everything.


There was a discussion some time ago with Septimal about the point of all the 'serialist machinery' in the compositional process of Boulez et al.

Some answers included: consistency, constructivity, kaleidoscope, organised delirium. The surprise element (coming up with something one otherwise would not think have thought of) should have also been mentioned. 

What do you think? What does music and composition need now? Is new music built on operations over pitch, rhythm, etc obsolete? Did (for example) spectralism succeeded or failed and in what way?


----------



## Rhombic

Art is all about expression.
Concepts do not change - at least not significantly.
Language evolves.
Mahler did not use Basso Continuo.
But changes are gradual.
In fact, many theorists analyse how pre-Baroque modal progressions are noticeable up until Beethoven.
This is how tonality is still perceived.
Whenever there are changes in harmony, polyphony is much more important than homophonic textures.
This can be seen in very late Medieval music, Ars Subtilior, Baroque and, of course, most 20th Century trends.


I will include an anecdote.
I attended a contemporary music concert with music by music students and other relatively well-known figures (Rebecca Saunders and Luca Francesconi). To my surprise, I overheard many conversations of some of my friends (undergraduates) who commented on how the works by these two composers were significantly better than the rest of them. I am pretty sure that they did not really listen to contemporary music too often. Yes, they study music, but that is still mostly irrelevant.
The fact that it is possible to distinguish between good and bad music, even in 21st century music, denotes intrinsic artistic value and not just pure cauliflower notation.

Maybe that last metaphor is already verging on surrealism.


----------



## Dim7

Amazing that the OP has 22 likes. If something like this would be posted today here on the other hand.............


----------



## hpowders

The point? I'll tell you the point.

It's a devilishly clever invention intended to cause dissension and revulsion among conservative classical music lovers.


----------



## violadude

Ooh...it's _this_ thread...what a surprise


----------



## hpowders

There is no such thing as "atonal" music. Music without a recognizable tonal center, is more to the point.

Something "atonal"? The sound of silence.


----------



## mstar

hpowders said:


> I was as repelled by atonal music as anyone could be. On a hunch I purchased Mitsuko Uchida doing the Schönberg Piano Concerto. It seemed logical to me, given her track record of recording great mainstream music for the piano, that she wouldn't have recorded the Schönberg if she didn't feel it was worthy. At first, I found it to be boring noise, and was disappointed, but I made a commitment to listen to it exclusively for two weeks. I'm glad I did. I now consider it to be a haunting, nostalgic piece; it is great music.


Funny- I listened to the Schoenberg piano concerto first thing this morning. I find it appealing; it's as if atonal music stimulates my mind in a very different way that I have never experienced with tonal. It feels invigoratingly fresh to my mind.


----------



## Richard8655

Dim7 said:


> Amazing that the OP has 22 likes. If something like this would be posted today here on the other hand.............


Maybe that says something about how unappealing it is to many. I think he makes a good point that classical music is dying as it is.


----------



## mstar

Richard8655 said:


> Maybe that says something about how unappealing it is to many. I think he makes a good point that *classical music is dying as it is.*


That depends on how you define "classical music". Personally, I don't think contemporary classical can be called "classical" it all, in the truest sense of the word. So we have to account for a change in the definition.
For instance, if someone 500 years ago said something was "cool", it would be understood much more differently than it would these days.

So if the old classical music is dying to the "new classical music" (contemp., etc.), I'm perfectly fine with that. 
Everything runs its course, anyway.


----------



## Richard8655

mstar said:


> That depends on how you define "classical music". Personally, I don't think contemporary classical can be called "classical" it all, in the truest sense of the word. So we have to account for a change in the definition.
> For instance, if someone 500 years ago said something was "cool", it would be understood much more differently than it would these days.
> 
> So if the old classical music is dying to the "new classical music" (contemp., etc.), I'm perfectly fine with that.
> Everything runs its course, anyway.


I can agree with that. It is all pretty relative and depends on definition.


----------



## millionrainbows

Operating with the understanding that "tonal" means "creating a sense of tonality or tone-centeredness," which, please remember is a matter of degree, then "atonal" music, such as Schoenberg's Fourth String Quartet, does not, by the logic of reference of my ear, create a sustained, credible sense of tonality for me. Where does that leave me?

It's not a matter of simply consonance or dissonance. I listen for harmonic references, using my "sense memory" as a reference template, a template which is partly ingrained into my sensibilities, and partly based on "samples" of the music as I progress through it in time.

Since this is the way I listen, I am left with no obvious or convincing sense of tonality, to my ear or brain. Thus, I am compelled to listen in "moment time," and I get glimpses of harmonic focus, which change constantly like a kaleidoscope of sonorities.

It is this "kaleidoscopic" quality of Schoenberg, and all other music in which I detect no tonal center, that distinguishes it from Debussy or Diamond or late Scriabin, all of which lie somewhere in that grey area of tonality. 

With Schoenberg, there are no left-over harmonic mechanisms that are obvious, as in Debussy. Debussy used triads, whole tone scales, and scale formations, and other vestiges of tonal music, as harmonic mechanisms, not tonally-derived or reinforcing mechanisms. Thus, these mechanisms sound ear-friendly, and are sustained for long enough for us to get a grasp on them as making harmonic sense to our ears.

Schoenberg, on the other hand, was not so gentle. His music was highly chromatic to begin with, so by the time he got to his 12-tone works, we were already on 'shaky ground.' With the 12-tone method, he was able to discard melodic contour; remember that the 12-tone row does not recognize register (what octave the note is in), so many of his "melodies" have great leaps in them. 

His harmonic offerings, which must be snatched as quickly as possible while on this atonal roller-coaster, are just as cruel. The harmonic formations are simply the result of the stacking of row elements. While these harmonic formations may create sonorities which are momentarily meaningful or sensible to the ear, but often not, they are not based on any reference to a center, and follow the logic of the system.

This becomes obvious to the ear; no overriding reference to a tone center is evident; we must simply accept the harmony as it is, isolated. While Schoenberg may use 'cadential sounding' phrases, these are self-contained entities which exist briefly, then fade away into the next event. He is using the mechanisms of tonality with none of the reference, and none of the harmonic trappings, of harmonic-based tonality. This makes for an extremely demanding, even hostile environment for the harmonically-searching ear. It must be satisfied with whatever isolated event it hears in the moment, and even then there is no guarantee of a 'harmonic payoff.'

The brain, on the other hand, can be satisfied that there are phrasings and structures which satisfy its need for pattern and seeming progress, and forward-moving events. The brain is much more forgiving than the ear, and with Schoenberg the atonalist, is even given a certain "independence" from the ear, and relegates itself to the satisfaction given by structure, phrasing, forward momentum, and generalities which these produce.

But harmonically, Schoenberg the atonalist gives the ear no tonal meaning; only glimpses of harmonic structures which ultimately mean nothing in terms of tone-centeredness or tonality. Yes, I like their beauty, and accept them for what they are.


----------



## Mahlerian

You could actually listen to the music, instead of obsessing about the method. Then you'll hear the tonality and harmony in it. It's as much "ear" music as anything else.

As I'm sure I said earlier in this thread, the answer to the OP's question is no more and no less than the answer to the question "What's the point of music?"


----------



## Dim7

I don't hear Scriabin piano sonatas 6-10 as any more "tonal" than I hear the "atonal" pieces of Schoenberg....


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## Mahlerian

Dim7 said:


> I don't hear Scriabin piano sonatas 6-10 as any more "tonal" than I hear "atonal" pieces of Schoenberg....


And I hear Palestrina as less "tonal" than late Schoenberg. But people don't seem to think that's important. Your ear only matters so long as it agrees that Schoenberg is the height of tonallessness.


----------



## violadude

_I don't like Mozart's music_

WELL, you need to open your ears then. Mozart is amazing. You just need to get used to his style.

_I don't like Schoenberg's music_

AHA, proof that atonal music SUCKS.


----------



## isorhythm

Leaving this quote from Charles Rosen here.



> From time to time there appear malicious stories of eminent conductors who have not realized that, in a piece of Webern or Schoenberg, the clarinetist, for example, picked up an A instead of a B-flat clarinet and played his part a semitone off. These recurrent tales, often true, do not have the significance given them by the critics who believe that music should have stopped at Debussy, as each individual line in Schoenberg's music and even in Webern's later pointillist style defines a harmonic sense that, even when transposed, can fit into the general harmony of the work as a whole. (Here we must remember that harmony is conveyed as powerfully along a musical line as it is by a simultaneous chord.) The attenuation of the traditional concept of dissonance gives a considerable freedom to the movement of the individual instrumental voices, and for this to take place the central position in the hierarchy of musical elements can no longer be given to pitch. What is clear, indeed, is that the simple linear hierarchy must give way to a new and more complex set of relationships in which pitch is only one element among others, and not by any means always the most important.


----------



## millionrainbows

Dim7 said:


> I don't hear Scriabin piano sonatas 6-10 as any more "tonal" than I hear the "atonal" pieces of Schoenberg....


Ah, but there is a subtle but crucial distinction: I hear Scriabin as more harmonically friendly than, say, Schoenberg's String Trio.

If there are areas of harmonic relativity, such as Debussy's use of the whole tone scale, then the ear is drawn to the momentary harmonic meaning, and interprets it as possibly tonal, until it is once again led into another ambiguous area.

In a strict sense, neither late Scriabin nor atonal Schoenberg are tonal, in that they do not produce, nor do they intend, to produce a firm or even semi-firm sense of tonality.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Leaving this quote from Charles Rosen here.


You skipped the part where he says that the same is true of Richard Strauss, and that tonality and modality are completely separate...


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> You skipped the part where he says that the same is true of Richard Strauss, and that tonality and modality are completely separate...


I don't remember either of those things at all. But I'll reread the whole thing (which can be found for free online, if anyone else is interested - google "rosen arnold schoenberg pdf").


----------



## millionrainbows

My comments in parentheses:



Mahlerian said:


> You could actually listen to the music _(I do)_, instead of obsessing about the method _(which I'm not)_. Then you'll hear the tonality _(no, I won't if I don't hear it)_ and harmony _(yes, it is harmonic in places) _in it. It's as much "ear" music as anything else _(all music is 'ear' music, in that it produces harmonic effects on the ear)_.





> As I'm sure I said earlier in this thread, the answer to the OP's question is no more and no less than the answer to the question "What's the point of music?"


I never questioned the existence of, say, The String Trio, as music for listening to.

It's just that a sense of tonality is an effect that is sensed by the ear. If the ear does not hear it, it is not there. Other harmonic phenomena may be there, but meaningful tone-centers must be made meaningful as the ear hears them, after enough of these similarly-related events have accumulated to hear them as all relating to a single shared tone-center. If too few events can be related by the ears as sharing a commonality, they are isolated and unrelated, as far as the ear is concerned. Green is not red, and brown is not yellow.


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> It's just that a sense of tonality is an effect that is sensed by the ear. If the ear does not hear it, it is not there.


But I _DO_ hear it, and you still keep telling me it's not there.


----------



## millionrainbows

violadude said:


> _I don't like Mozart's music_
> 
> WELL, you need to open your ears then. Mozart is amazing. You just need to get used to his style.
> 
> _I don't like Schoenberg's music_
> 
> AHA, proof that atonal music SUCKS.


But Mozart's music is based on the tonal system, which is intrinsically harmonic (adj.)

12-tone and serial music, on the other hand, is not based on the same harmonic principles as Mozart. This doesn't automatically mean that it sucks; it is just based on different principles, which many listeners might feel is sucky.

The ear hears pitches harmonically, and there is no escaping from that fact. That's why octaves of pitches sound are identified by the ear as the same note; an A is an A, whether it's A=440 or A=880. You're not going to refute that fact, are you?


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> But I _DO_ hear it, and you still keep telling me it's not there.


No, you are mis-identifying momentary or fleeting harmonic phenomena as being "tonal," i.e., producing a sense of tone-centeredness over longer areas than you are talking about.

But do not fret, what you are hearing is there. It simply does not meet the requirements to be called tonal in the accepted sense of the term.

You hear, I hear, Violadude hears, and we all hear the same way, because our ears are all basically the same.

We all hear octaves. That's called 'pitch equivalency. We all hear A=440 and A=880 as both being the same basic note. You don't dispute that fact, do you?


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> I don't remember either of those things at all. But I'll reread the whole thing (which can be found for free online, if anyone else is interested - google "rosen arnold schoenberg pdf").


Right before it:

"It is true that wrong notes matter far less in Schoenberg *and in many of his contemporaries such as Richard Strauss* than they do in Mozart or Wagner: they are even in fact less noticeable. This does not mean the music of Schoenberg does not sound a good deal better when played with the right notes and proper intonation, just as Mozart sounds best when played with the proper dynamics and a great sensitivity to tone color."

"Tonality is not, as is sometimes claimed, a system with a central note but one with a central perfect triad...A pretonal piece in Western music (a modal piece) does not have to end with a triad but only with a central note, the end of the mode; to this note a fifth or an octave could be added. Dissonance was conceived exclusively in terms of intervals. When music became triadic in nature, a new and powerful concept of expression was added: to the idea of the dissonant interval was joined the idea of the dissonant phrase or dissonant section."


----------



## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> No, you are mis-identifying momentary or fleeting harmonic phenomena as being "tonal," i.e., producing a sense of tone-centeredness over longer areas than you are talking about.
> 
> But do not fret, what you are hearing is there. It simply does not meet the requirements to be called tonal in the accepted sense of the term.


It meets your requirements, or would if you didn't have an ad hoc stipulation that it didn't.

It's fascinating that you have direct access to my perception, but I wish you would get it fixed so that you can perceive my perceptions more accurately.



millionrainbows said:


> You hear, I hear, Violadude hears, and we all hear the same way, because our ears are all basically the same.
> 
> We all hear octaves. That's called 'pitch equivalency. We all hear A=440 and A=880 as both being the same basic note. You don't dispute that fact, do you?


Obviously not.


----------



## isorhythm

There's a lot more about Strauss in the _Arnold Schoenberg_ monograph, and it's clear Rosen is referring only to Strauss's most chromatic passages and not the likes of _Der Rosenkavalier_. In fact he talks at length about Strauss's "final cowardice."

Throughout, he correctly analyzes Schoenberg's music, with numerous specific examples, as functioning in a completely different way from tonal music. The driving force is "the tendency of chromatic music to fill chromatic space." It's very insightful.

I think you've been asked this before, but can you provide an example of how you would analyze Schoenberg tonally, in a way that actually makes sense of the piece?

As for modal music, you could certainly analyze any passage of Josquin or Palestrina as being in a key with Roman numerals - the progressions would be un-classical, but perfectly intelligible. As far as I know this is rarely or never possible in Schoenberg's post-tonal music, but I'm open to counterexamples.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> There's a lot more about Strauss in the _Arnold Schoenberg_ monograph, and it's clear Rosen is referring only to Strauss's most chromatic passages and not the likes of _Der Rosenkavalier_.


Perhaps, but that's certainly not clear from the context here. He uses Strauss as an example of one contemporary, and the most extreme chromatic passages in Strauss are further than pretty much anyone before him. I think it's safe to assume that he was referring to a broader swath of works than that.



> Throughout, he correctly analyzes Schoenberg's music, with numerous specific examples, as functioning in a completely different way from tonal music. The driving force is "the tendency of chromatic music to fill chromatic space." It's very insightful.
> 
> I think you've been asked this before, but can you provide an example of how you would analyze Schoenberg tonally, in a way that actually makes sense of the piece?
> 
> As for modal music, you could certainly analyze any passage of Josquin or Palestrina as being in a key with Roman numerals - the progressions would be un-classical, but perfectly intelligible. As far as I know this is rarely or never possible in Schoenberg's post-tonal music, but I'm open to counterexamples.


You're changing from your own definition of tonality. Tonality in Schoenberg's later music is not a matter of triadic root progressions as in common practice music, but of goal-directed harmonic and melodic focuses.

This fits under a "broader" conception of tonality that includes much music that cannot be analyzed meaningfully in terms of roman numeral analysis.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> Tonality in Schoenberg's later music is not a matter of triadic root progressions as in common practice music, but of goal-directed harmonic and melodic focuses.
> 
> This fits under a "broader" conception of tonality that includes much music that cannot be analyzed meaningfully in terms of roman numeral analysis.


OK, what is a specific musical example of what you're talking about? Link to an imslp score with measure numbers, or something. I really do want to understand.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> It meets your requirements, or would if you didn't have an ad hoc stipulation that it didn't.


If what you are saying is that _all music is tonal_, then your sense of what is tonal is completely subjective, and there is no need to discuss what you subjectively affirm to be "tonal".

Why, then, would you question a sense of tonality which is flexible enough to have limits and degrees?

This is tantamount to saying "all music produces in the listener a sense that it has a tone center (i.e., is tonal)," and the terms 'tone center' and 'tonality' become meaningless.

Tonality, for most listeners with good ears, is a matter of degree. That's where we all get the variety of Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Scriabin, and all the modern variants of tonality.

To say "All music is Tonal" is rather absolutist, and if true, would remove all variety from music which has stretched those boundaries.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> OK, what is a specific musical example of what you're talking about? Link to an imslp score with measure numbers, or something. I really do want to understand.


I really don't understand how you hear it if you don't hear it that way. It's like saying that the music doesn't have any recognizable connections and just kind of floats around without any direction.

For me, asking how a Schoenberg melody has direction is like asking how a Bach melody has direction. It's just something that's obviously there and irreducible.

Forget the score. Just listen.


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> There's a lot more about Strauss in the _Arnold Schoenberg_ monograph, and it's clear Rosen is referring only to Strauss's most chromatic passages and not the likes of _Der Rosenkavalier_. In fact he talks at length about Strauss's "final cowardice."
> 
> Throughout, he correctly analyzes Schoenberg's music, with numerous specific examples, as functioning in a completely different way from tonal music. The driving force is "the tendency of chromatic music to fill chromatic space." It's very insightful.
> 
> I think you've been asked this before, but can you provide an example of how you would analyze Schoenberg tonally, in a way that actually makes sense of the piece?
> 
> As for modal music, you could certainly analyze any passage of Josquin or Palestrina as being in a key with Roman numerals - the progressions would be un-classical, but perfectly intelligible. As far as I know this is rarely or never possible in Schoenberg's post-tonal music, but I'm open to counterexamples.


I think you're on the right path, isorhythm. This Rosen quote seems to underscore the big difference in chromatic music, which is referenced tonally to a center (even if that reference is rapidly shifting), and music which uses all 12 notes.

Even analysis of the more chromatic Strauss becomes difficult. No only are there more root stations, rapidly changing, but they also have dual or triple meanings.

In the end, the ear analyzes, and makes these decisions, until it can no longer make tonal sense of the situation in a meaningful, sensually-based way.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> I really don't understand how you hear it if you don't hear it that way. It's like saying that the music doesn't have any recognizable connections and just kind of floats around without any direction.
> 
> For me, asking how a Schoenberg melody has direction is like asking how a Bach melody has direction. It's just something that's obviously there and irreducible.


Of course it has direction and connections. We're talking about tonality. That's what I'm asking about.

(And in _Hanging Gardens_, much like the last movement of the 2nd string quartet, there are lots of quasi-tonal vestiges, I'll give you that - I would be more interested in something like _Erwarting_ or Opus 25.)


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Tonality in Schoenberg's later music is not a matter of triadic root progressions as in common practice music, but of goal-directed harmonic and melodic focuses.
> 
> This fits under a "broader" conception of tonality that includes much music that cannot be analyzed meaningfully in terms of roman numeral analysis.


"Tonality" in its most pervasive sense must include harmonic criteria provided by the ear. By this requirement, "Goal-directed tonality" must be harmonically-based, or it becomes a cerebral matter.

A "goal" (in harmonic/tonal terms) implies a distance, or difference, to be spanned, and traversed, in reaching that goal, otherwise it is not a goal, but an arbitrary stopping place.

The elements used in reaching this goal must be harmonically related, and differentiated, in a meaningful way to the ear, before it can be properly called 'tonal.'

Melodic focus can be an element of this, as long as it is independently functioning as assisting a harmonic goal with a tonally meaningful purpose.

If this "broader sense of tonality" does not use harmonic principles, then its goals will not be based on what I call tonal principles. It then becomes a non-harmonic means of achieving structural goals which are more structural and cerebral. I.e., it becomes "brain music," not "ear music."

In this sense, the term "broader tonality" is a misuse of the term "tonality" and is misleading, and "expands" the meaning of tonality past its breaking point.

Of course, this is not to say that this kind of music is "musically" meaningless; it just becomes meaningless to associate it in any substantial way as conveying any real sense of tonality as the term is properly used.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Of course it has direction and connections. We're talking about tonality. That's what I'm asking about.


Well, common practice tonality is the way in which that era's music was given harmonic direction and constituted its connecting force.

I don't even know what you and others mean by your "broad" tonality if you say it includes things like this:






And this:






But not this:






I can hear musical direction and coherence in all three, and functional tonality of the common practice variety in none of them.

If music has direction and goals, then it has places towards which it is directed, does it not? Isn't that in itself enough to satisfy your condition for a broad tonality?



isorhythm said:


> (And in _Hanging Gardens_, much like the last movement of the 2nd string quartet, there are lots of quasi-tonal vestiges, I'll give you that - I would be more interested in something like _Erwarting_ or Opus 25.)


Yeah, there's the stray triad here and there, but how is it really so different from Erwartung or the Suite? I don't hear that much of a difference. Certainly not enough to classify one as "less tonal" than the others.


----------



## ArtMusic

mstar said:


> That depends on how you define "classical music". Personally, I don't think contemporary classical can be called "classical" it all, in the truest sense of the word. So we have to account for a change in the definition.
> For instance, if someone 500 years ago said something was "cool", it would be understood much more differently than it would these days.
> 
> So if the old classical music is dying to the "new classical music" (contemp., etc.), I'm perfectly fine with that.
> Everything runs its course, anyway.


I agree. I think by and large composers like Vaughn-Williams and Shostakovich brought classical music in the traditional heritage sense to an end. But of course there are composers today that still aspire to and compose in earlier styles (nothing wrong with that of course), such as Alma Deustcher. But even Alma Deustcher who chooses to compose in such a style is in a new generation without a continuous line of traditional heritage but that of by study. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. It's just a matter of history, and the music itself that matters most.


----------



## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> I agree. I think by and large composers like Vaughn-Williams and Shostakovich brought classical music in the traditional heritage sense to an end.


But neither of them wrote in a traditionally tonal style.


----------



## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> But neither of them wrote in a traditionally tonal style.


My point is they belong to a continuous line of traditional heritage (late Romanticism).


----------



## isorhythm

I don't know either gagaku nor that Bartok piece well enough to have an opinion about how tonal they are. I already explained in another thread that I don't see tonality (broad sense) as an either/or but as a collection of characteristics that can be present to varying degrees. I don't think most middle/late Schoenberg has any significant tonal characteristics.

Charles Rosen agreed, judging from his analysis of several Schoenberg pieces. That music works mostly works in different ways, not related to any kind of tonality.

Note that I'm not holding up Rosen as an authority with whom everyone must agree - just as an illustration that these are opinions that extremely intelligent and well-informed people can have, not misconceptions in need of correction.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> I don't know either gagaku nor that Bartok piece well enough to have an opinion about how tonal they are. I already explained in another thread that I don't see tonality (broad sense) as an either/or but as a collection of characteristics that can be present to varying degrees. I don't think most middle/late Schoenberg has any significant tonal characteristics.


I don't even know what you _mean_ by tonal. I read your list. I still don't know. As for tonal characteristics, how about the things I've been discussing?

Can't you judge how tonal they are based on listening to them? I made my judgments based on listening. Either they're all tonal, or none of them are.

As I've explained before, middle/late Schoenberg is more obviously related to common practice tonality to me than late Debussy or Scriabin, let alone the music of the pre-Baroque. His music carries on the melodic/harmonic tradition of late romanticism.



isorhythm said:


> Charles Rosen agreed, judging from his analysis of several Schoenberg pieces. That music works mostly works in different ways, not related to any kind of tonality.


Yes, and Rosen is taking tonality to mean common practice. In that sense, I agree Schoenberg's music is not tonal. Bringing him up doesn't support your conclusion that Schoenberg is non-tonal in some broader sense.


----------



## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> My point is they belong to a continuous line of traditional heritage (late Romanticism).


Neither of them wrote late romantic music, unlike Schoenberg, who continued that line directly.


----------



## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> Neither of them wrote late romantic music, unlike Schoenberg, who continued that line directly.


I was saying they belonged to late Romanticism school of training and they certainly was brought up in that tradition. Schoenberg was too.


----------



## violadude

ArtMusic said:


> I agree. I think by and large composers like Vaughn-Williams and Shostakovich brought classical music in the traditional heritage sense to an end. But of course there are composers today that still aspire to and compose in earlier styles (nothing wrong with that of course), such as Alma Deustcher. But even Alma Deustcher who chooses to compose in such a style is in a new generation without a continuous line of traditional heritage but that of by study. Again, there is nothing wrong with that. It's just a matter of history, and the music itself that matters most.


So...

This: 




Is in the same Classical tradition as this: 




But this: 




Is outside of the classical tradition...

Well my mind is blown, except it's not. Because that's ridiculous.


----------



## hpowders

Well, the world is getting more and more secular; more and more egocentric; less and less caring of one's fellow man.

Sounds like atonalism fits right in with the temper of the times.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Well, common practice tonality is the way in which that era's music was given harmonic direction and constituted its connecting force.


Even though "common practice" tonality is a certain classification, it still has in common with all varieties of tonality the fact that, to the ear, it creates a sense of tone-center. The term "common practice" is merely an academic/historic clarifying term, not a defining one.



> I don't even know what you and others mean by your "broad" tonality if you say it includes things like this:


This is Japanese Gagaku music, and it is not harmonically based music; so it is out-of-context to call it tonal. Beyond that, it is not this music's purpose to create a sense of tonality.



> And this:


This is a Bartok violin sonata. I do not get a sense of tonality from this. It seems that Bartok was using long arpeggios in the violin, and sound clusters in the piano. Neither element creates or reinforces a tonal sense. I do hear structural features in the violin notes, as if they are outlining a stretched-out chord, with kind of flat-nine dominant sounds. I bet he was using some idea based on the diminished scale.



> But not this:


This is Schoenberg, Phantasy for violin. I do not hear tonality in this.



> I can hear musical direction and coherence in all three, and functional tonality of the common practice variety in none of them.


"Functional tonality" does not apply here, so why use it as a criteria of tonality? A sense of tonal center can be created without common practice functions. Any scale with a stable fifth, such as most modes, can easily create a sense of tonality. You can even assign functions to them. But "functional tonality is, again, a specific clarifying term, not a defining one.

If you hear structural elements (which you seem to be vaguely calling "musical direction," whatever that means) and "coherence" (just as vague), these do not, in these cases, involve any harmonic elements which refer to a tonality or tonal center.



> If music has direction and goals, then it has places towards which it is directed, does it not? Isn't that in itself enough to satisfy your condition for a broad tonality?


If so, that renders the term "tonality" meaningless in its broadness. I think you are confounding "musical coherence" with tonality. Music can have more meanings than just harmonic ones.



> Yeah, there's the stray triad here and there, but how is it really so different from Erwartung or the Suite? I don't hear that much of a difference. Certainly not enough to classify one as "less tonal" than the others.


That's a rather absurd comparison. None of these Schoenberg pieces you mention have tonality as a priority, or even as a consideration.


----------



## arpeggio

Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.

People who like atonal music still like atonal music and people who do not still do not.


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## arpeggio

*What is wrong with the music of Frank Ticheli?*



ArtMusic said:


> I agree. I think by and large composers like Vaughn-Williams and Shostakovich brought classical music in the traditional heritage sense to an end.


Statements like this drive me crazy when I think of all of the outstanding living tonal composers.

Heather Reichgott's new CD of contemporary piano music includes many tonal works by living composers including our own Steven O'Brien.

See http://www.talkclassical.com/42710-best-composer-music-piano.html?highlight=#post1036941

I am still trying to figure out what is wrong with the music of Frank Ticheli, Mark Camphouse, David Maslanka, Philip Sparke, Kalevi Aho and many others.

Reminds me of the what the Romans have done for us skit from _Life of Brian_.


----------



## mstar

hpowders said:


> Well, the world is getting more and more secular; more and more egocentric; less and less caring of one's fellow man.
> 
> Sounds like atonalism fits right in with the temper of the times.


I'm lost - how is atonal "secular" or "less caring" and "more egocentric" than other types of classical music?


----------



## hpowders

mstar said:


> I'm lost - how is atonal "secular" or "less caring" and "more egocentric" than other types of classical music?


I'm just saying it seems to fit in with a more secular, less caring time. The machines are taking over.
Atonalism seems to fit in with the "new technological modernity".


----------



## Cosmos

What's the point of this thread?

What's the point of tonal music?

What's the point of music?


----------



## hpowders

Music is supposed to make me feel good and hit me emotionally. With the exception of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, I'm not feeling atonalism.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

ArtMusic said:


> I agree. I think by and large composers like Vaughn-Williams and Shostakovich brought classical music in the traditional heritage sense to an end.





ArtMusic said:


> I was saying they belonged to late Romanticism school of training and they certainly was brought up in that tradition.


That would seem to prove they brought late Romanticism to an end, if anything. If Wagner is supposed to share a "traditional heritage" with Bach and Mozart, but not with Stravinsky and John Luther Adams, then it's only because we've arbitrarily decided it's going to be that way.

Incidentally, while I can agree with seeing Shostakovich as a belated late Romantic (no redundancy), I don't think that applies to Vaughan Williams at all. Like Bartók, his conception of folk music is outright _anti_-Romantic - he's going to give you the _real_ folk music, not that bourgeois-adulterated 19th century stuff - and his mature compositions (I mean, I have no idea what he sounded like before the '20s) are case studies in the Modernist values of transparency and objectivity. Just because he's pretty doesn't mean he's at all Romantic.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> Music is supposed to make me feel good and hit me emotionally.


Will you accept one out of two?


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> Well, the world is getting more and more secular; more and more egocentric; less and less caring of one's fellow man.
> 
> Sounds like atonalism fits right in with the temper of the times.


"[L]ess and less caring of one's fellow man" is of course highly debatable at best. (Compared to what? The tender ministrations of Jim Crow?)

As for "more secular": Catholicism was still a vital force in Austria, Germany, and southern France for the first 65 years of atonality. (1908-c. 1975) Stockhausen was a devout Catholic when he wrote "Kontra-Punkte," "Gesang der Jünglinge," and _Gruppen_.

As for America, we seem now to be becoming secular at an unprecedented rate at exactly the moment when post-minimalism (in the broad sense) rules everything and Elliott Carter is dead in all senses of the word.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> The machines are taking over. Atonalism seems to fit in with the "new technological modernity".


The machines don't sound like this any more: 




Now they sound like this:


----------



## ArtMusic

Harold in Columbia said:


> That would seem to prove they brought late Romanticism to an end, if anything. If Wagner is supposed to share a "traditional heritage" with Bach and Mozart, but not with Stravinsky and John Luther Adams, then it's only because we've arbitrarily decided it's going to be that way.
> 
> Incidentally, while I can agree with seeing Shostakovich as a belated late Romantic (no redundancy), I don't think that applies to Vaughan Williams at all. Like Bartók, his conception of folk music is outright _anti_-Romantic - he's going to give you the _real_ folk music, not that bourgeois-adulterated 19th century stuff - and his mature compositions (I mean, I have no idea what he sounded like before the '20s) are case studies in the Modernist values of transparency and objectivity. Just because he's pretty doesn't mean he's at all Romantic.


I see what you wrote. I still think V-W wrote much in the late Romantic style, in particular his symphonies certainly have that feel to it, if not on score.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

arpeggio said:


> Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.


Kind of appropriate, nicht?


----------



## DaveM

Atonal music was developed for the sole purpose of providing thread material for this forum. It's the gift that keeps on giving.


----------



## isorhythm

Harold in Columbia said:


> Kind of appropriate, nicht?


Here we go:










What a relief!


----------



## Becca

ArtMusic said:


> I see what you wrote. I still think V-W wrote much in the late Romantic style, in particular his symphonies certainly have that feel to it, if not on score.


Have you listened to the 6th -> 9th symphonies lately?


----------



## violadude

hpowders said:


> Music is supposed to make me feel good and hit me emotionally. With the exception of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, I'm not feeling atonalism.


But...Hpowders...what about Persichetti's 1st piano sonata? That's a 12 tone work if I remember correctly.


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Even though "common practice" tonality is a certain classification, it still has in common with all varieties of tonality the fact that, to the ear, it creates a sense of tone-center.
> 
> A sense of tonal center can be created without common practice functions. Any scale with a stable fifth, such as most modes, can easily create a sense of tonality. You can even assign functions to them. But "functional tonality is, again, a specific clarifying term, not a defining one.
> 
> If you hear structural elements (which you seem to be vaguely calling "musical direction," whatever that means) and "coherence" (just as vague), these do not, in these cases, involve any harmonic elements which refer to a tonality or tonal center.
> 
> I think you are confounding "musical coherence" with tonality. Music can have more meanings than just harmonic ones.
> 
> None of these Schoenberg pieces you mention have tonality as a priority, or even as a consideration.


This is precisely what my ear and mind tell me.

Music can be organized according to criteria and principles other than tonal ones. "Coherence" does not equal tonality in music, and a "sense of direction" need not imply tonal direction. Centrality and hierarchy are principles of coherence, but not the only ones. Visual design, like musical design, may or may not be hierarchical, may or may not be organized with reference to a center.

"Tonality" is a _perceived system_ of _hierarchical relationships_, with emphasis on all of those words. It is a hierarchical system which transcends the musical moment; it is assumed by the listener as the basis of the musical idiom in play, and operates as a _set of expectations_ as to how individual notes and harmonies are felt to "naturally" relate in that idiom. If no systemic, expected hierarchy of relationships is utilized and perceived, there is no tonality.


----------



## Pugg

arpeggio said:


> Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.
> 
> People who like atonal music still like atonal music and people who do not still do not.


----------



## Gouldanian

Atonal music is for those who think they are too "sophisticated" for the tonal world.


----------



## arpeggio

Gouldanian said:


> Atonal music is for those who think they are too "sophisticated" for the tonal world.


But 90% of us who like atonal music still like tonal music.


----------



## Gouldanian

arpeggio said:


> But 90% of us who like atonal music still like tonal music.


Just like adults like watching cartoons from time to time. Doesn't mean they don't think they're above it.


----------



## arpeggio

Gouldanian said:


> Just like adults like watching cartoons from time to time. Doesn't mean they don't think they're above it.


But most of us do not. Of course there are a few. We are really getting tired of constantly being accused of something that we are not.


----------



## KenOC

(deleted) .........................


----------



## violadude

Gouldanian said:


> Just like adults like watching cartoons from time to time. Doesn't mean they don't think they're above it.


Ya know, it's funny. Here on TC I rarely meet someone who exclusively listens to atonal music to the disparagement or dismissal of tonal music. However, nearly every time I come on here I do see a certain group of people who do just the opposite.

Could these statements of yours be a bit of projection?


----------



## mstar

Gouldanian said:


> Atonal music is for those who think they are too "sophisticated" for the tonal world.


No, it's for people who _like_ atonal music. 
Your statement sounds familiar. Perhaps it's because people who enjoy modern classical were probably once ridiculed by devout fans of the romantic era.


----------



## hpowders

We should all set our smart phone ring tones to an excerpt from Schoenberg's Piano Concerto; then all go to crowded shopping malls and then we all call each other. Within minutes we will have the shopping malls completely to ourselves!


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Gouldanian said:


> Atonal music is for those who think they are too "sophisticated" for the tonal world.


Atonal music is for those who aren't scared of what will happen if they acquire a taste for atonal music.


----------



## isorhythm

Gouldanian said:


> Atonal music is for those who think they are too "sophisticated" for the tonal world.


Is this a joke?


----------



## DaveM

Atonal music is the result of the the classical world running out of tunes. Mozart & Beethoven are responsible for using up 38.8% of them. Pretty darn selfish if you ask me!


----------



## Mahlerian

Atonal music is an invention of the minds of those who dislike the existence of music they don't understand.


----------



## mmsbls

arpeggio said:


> Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.
> 
> People who like atonal music still like atonal music and people who do not still do not.


I assume the vast majority of people who have posted to this thread have not changed their feeling about atonal music, but some have. When this thread started, I disliked all works by the Second Viennese School except very early Schoenberg works. Now I like many of their works.

(This next part is not a response to arpeggio's post)

I don't think forum threads are meant to resolve things. They are simply discussions about topics. This thread had many wonderful parts and maybe unfortunate parts. Overall I thought the thread was a positive contribution to this site. Atonal music, however people interpret that concept, is clearly a popular topic for many. Some dislike it; some love it. Some disparage it. Some are befuddled by how composers could ever want to create it.

To me this thread was a wonderful opportunity for those who value atonal or post-tonal music to explain why they love it, why it came about, and how others can appreciate it as well. I think every such thread, whether started with a genuine question such as this one or started with a dismissive comment, is an opportunity for modern music lovers to increase understanding of and interest in the music they love.

For many, modern/atonal/post-tonal music is weird, unpleasant, even bizarre. People _honestly_ question why anyone would write such music. That's simply a fact. But there are good reasons why composers write the music, reasons why listeners enjoy the music, and ways to learn to appreciate the music. _By trying to understand why people hate, attack, or question that music, those who love it can help build bridges allowing more to join them in appreciating modern music._ I just wish more people would post with that understanding rather than attacking back.


----------



## Petwhac

"Atonal music is the result of the the classical world running out of tunes. Mozart & Beethoven are responsible for using up 38.8% of them. Pretty darn selfish if you ask me!" DaveM

Wrong

"Atonal music is an invention of the minds of those who dislike the existence of music they don't understand." Mahlerian

Also wrong


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.
> 
> People who like atonal music still like atonal music and people who do not still do not.


If it "resolved," that would favor tonal music. It needs no resolution. We shall keep on floating aimlessly, with no gravity, no reference, each of us like isolated pitches with no home.


----------



## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> Here is a thread that has been around for almost five years, has over 2,000 entries and has resolved nothing.
> 
> People who like atonal music still like atonal music and people who do not still do not.


Thank you for the retrospective, Bassoon. I consider it to be a tribute to five years of bitter sacrifice in the battle for atonality's honor. But we shall not give up; we shall fight the battle until it is won.


----------



## hpowders

If US border patrol agents blasted atonal music at the border, they wouldn't need to build a ridiculously expensive wall that goes against the inclusionist principles the US was founded on. "Natural selection" would prevail. The atonalists would come in. The tonalists would stay out.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> (deleted) .........................


Deleted by the member, obviously. If it was the moderators, the whole post would have disappeared. I've seen that happen, too.

Well, I just want to say that we all recognize the deletion, and would like to commend such restraint and spot-on perception of what is acceptable. I'm sure this will result in a long and illustrious run as a member here.

And remember, everyone, don't play near the train tracks, and always believe in yourself, and treat other people kindly.

At the same time, everybody here should always remember that there are consequences for their actions, and sometimes this means exacting justice and taking appropriate steps to discipline those who would defy the standards which have been set forth on this forum.

Onward!


----------



## Mahlerian

mmsbls said:


> For many, modern/atonal/post-tonal music is weird, unpleasant, even bizarre. People _honestly_ question why anyone would write such music. That's simply a fact. But there are good reasons why composers write the music, reasons why listeners enjoy the music, and ways to learn to appreciate the music. _By trying to understand why people hate, attack, or question that music, those who love it can help build bridges allowing more to join them in appreciating modern music._ I just wish more people would post with that understanding rather than attacking back.


I do not intend to attack anyone.

I wish to challenge the entrenched views of some here who insist that atonality constitutes some coherent category separate from other music.

In my experience, there is no such thing. Some have referred to the use of the term by scholars to back up their position that there is, but academic usage is significantly different from that encountered on classical forums. As the term is used in academia, it denotes a specific kind of music of the 20th century that developed as an extension of tonality, and may or may not include serial and 12-tone music. As the term is used here, it denotes a broad category which is in some way opposed to tonal music.

It is the latter perception that I challenge and think is ridiculous. There is no categorical difference between the music of Webern and that of Beethoven that does not also exist between Beethoven and early musics.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

I'm a complete layman with regards to music theory and music language, so forgive me if my question doesn't make sense, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around some of the "atonal" debate. Is *time* a factor at all? In other words, can extremely chromatic music that has a "tonal center" for a prolonged amount of time increase it sounding more tonal than other music that only has brief, fleeting tonal centers for small amounts of time (in relation to the other pitches being used, thereby not creating a sense of hierarchy)? I am most definitely wording this incorrectly or I'm completely off-base and I sound like a weirdo, :lol:, but I'll continue my mental gymnastics to make this at least sound like it makes sense. Can a piece of music "feign" sounding tonal by lingering on a home pitch or tonal center for a longer stretch of time giving it the appearance of being the center? Even if the music is completely chromatic.

Second question, isn't the point of serial music to deliberately avoid a tonal center by not repeating a pitch until the other 11 have been used? Let me clarify that I only mean the word "point" as in its mechanics and musical idiom, I'm not speaking of its point as music, which is the same as all other music, of course. Can serial music linger on a certain pitch longer, as mentioned above, or must it give equal time to all 12?


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> ...the inclusionist principles the US was founded on.


The US was founded on the principle of excluding the British state, by colonies that in turn were mostly founded on the principle of excluding people with the wrong religion or ideology (non-Puritans in New England; insufficiently submissive servants in the south), after excluding the American Indians from their own land.


----------



## Mahlerian

DiesIraeCX said:


> I'm a complete layman with regards to music theory and music language, so forgive me if my question doesn't make sense, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around some of the "atonal" debate. Is *time* a factor at all? In other words, can extremely chromatic music that has a "tonal center" for a prolonged amount of time increase it sounding more tonal than other music that only has brief, fleeting tonal centers for small amounts of time (in relation to the other pitches being used, thereby not creating a sense of hierarchy)? I am most definitely wording this incorrectly or I'm completely off-base and I sound like a weirdo, :lol:, but I'll continue my mental gymnastics to make this at least sound like it makes sense. Can a piece of music "feign" sounding tonal by lingering on a home pitch or tonal center for a longer stretch of time giving it the appearance of being the center? Even if the music is completely chromatic.


In the sense of emphasizing pitch centers, all of the music we're talking about is tonal.

Woodduck and others have muddied the waters with their use of the word "hierarchy," because they're using it incorrectly.

Tonal hierarchy is a feature of common practice tonality which evolved in the 17th century. Pre-Baroque music may have a sense of centricity, but it does not have tonality in the sense of a _key_. A key is not defined by a scale, but rather by a hierarchical relation of triads to a central triad, and a use of harmony that reinforces these relationships.

Schoenberg's music is not in a key in this sense. This is why it came to be called "atonal" by some. But that doesn't mean that it's not "tonal" in the sense of having centers.

What you're describing is "tonality by assertion," by using ostinatos or repetitions in order to focus the mind on a single pitch, regardless of other melodic or harmonic relationships, and it was a very popular technique in the 20th century, used by composers like Bartok, Britten, and Stravinsky.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> This is precisely what my ear and mind tell me.
> 
> Music can be organized according to criteria and principles other than tonal ones. "Coherence" does not equal tonality in music, and a "sense of direction" need not imply tonal direction. Centrality and hierarchy are principles of coherence, but not the only ones. Visual design, like musical design, may or may not be hierarchical, may or may not be organized with reference to a center.
> 
> "Tonality" is a _perceived system_ of _hierarchical relationships_, with emphasis on all of those words. It is a hierarchical system which transcends the musical moment; it is assumed by the listener as the basis of the musical idiom in play, and operates as a _set of expectations_ as to how individual notes and harmonies are felt to "naturally" relate in that idiom. If no systemic, expected hierarchy of relationships is utilized and perceived, there is no tonality.


As Woodduck says, tonality is not the only sense in which music can be enjoyed. Japanese Gagaku music, for example, is very interesting music, although it is non-harmonic, and consists of a series of 'musical gestures' played on unique instruments, and is a ceremonial music for the courts.

"Atonality" is a term which was originally coined to conveniently identify the then-current appearance of music without tonal centers. As such, it is a dialectic term which is used "in opposition" or to differentiate such music from the previous history of tonal music in the Western classical canon. It really is only meaningful in those terms, i.e., when tonality is confronted with 'non-tonality' and the prevailing concern of the dialogue is tonality and matters of pitch relations.

In other contexts where tone-centricity or pitch relations are not the main concern of the musical language, the terms 'tonal' and 'atonal' lose their contextual meaning, and it is rather absurd to apply them to, say, Gagaku music or African drumming.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> As the term is used here, it denotes a broad category which is in some way opposed to tonal music.


Most of us are not using it this way.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Most of us are not using it this way.


Really? I thought that you and others meant by it "music that lacks tonality."

Do you actually agree with me that so-called atonality is an extension of tonality?


----------



## Strange Magic

Harold in Columbia said:


> The US was founded on the principle of excluding the British state, by colonies that in turn were mostly founded on the principle of excluding people with the wrong religion or ideology (non-Puritans in New England; insufficiently submissive servants in the south), after excluding the American Indians from their own land.


You are emigrating to where? And what's the date for the move, again; I've forgotten. Seriously, these are the sorts of remarks that The Donald specializes in--adolescent rants that preclude thoughtful discussion of how flawed all countries are, and how to fix them.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> Really? I thought that you and others meant by it "music that lacks tonality."
> 
> Do you actually agree with me that so-called atonality is an extension of tonality?


In some ways yes, in other ways no.

As I think I've said before, I would tend to use the word atonal to describe music that uses all the chromatic pitches relatively equally, avoids establishing anything that feels like a tonic for any significant length time, and avoids triadic progressions. Other people might use it slightly differently. It's an imprecise word, but that doesn't make it meaningless.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> As I think I've said before, I would tend to use the word atonal to describe music that uses all the chromatic pitches relatively equally, avoids establishing anything that feels like a tonic for any significant length time, and avoids triadic progressions. Other people might use it slightly differently. It's an imprecise word, but that doesn't make it meaningless.


What do you mean by tonic? I don't hear keys in Debussy or Renaissance music, regardless of the triads used throughout both. They also lack the hierarchy of common practice tonality.

I hear tonal centers in all the "atonal" music I know well. Perhaps "atonality" is a subjective reaction to not being able to resolve the multiplicity of tonal relationships in a piece?

What makes it worthless is that it purports to describe something that it doesn't describe in any way. It's confusing and unhelpful, and leads to some of the bizarre things people say about Schoenberg lacking melody.


----------



## Poppy Popsicle

My answer to the OP dated June 19 2011 about the point of atonal music is that it ravishes the ear.


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Mahlerian said:


> *Schoenberg's music is not in a key in this sense. This is why it came to be called "atonal" by some. But that doesn't mean that it's not "tonal" in the sense of having centers.*
> 
> What you're describing is "tonality by assertion," by using ostinatos or repetitions in order to focus the mind on a single pitch, regardless of other melodic or harmonic relationships, and it was a very popular technique in the 20th century, used by composers like Bartok, Britten, and Stravinsky.


Thank you for your response. This is exactly what I suspected, and nothing I've read has made me think that atonal music is not just an extension of the seemingly very broadranging term, tonality. "Atonal" music would only truly be atonal if tonality only encompassed Common Practice and that's it. Therefore, if I'm not mistaken, in the same vein, Schumann and Chopin's music could be said to be an extension of tonality (of previous composers) just as Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Debussy are all extensions of tonality (of previous composers).


----------



## isorhythm

We will never reach agreement on this, but please accept that some of us, along with the majority of the musical establishment, are going to keep using the word atonal in some cases.

Your position is an eccentric one among players, critics and lovers of 20th and 21st century classical music, though you have some good company (e.g. Wuorinen). That's fine, but you can't demand that we all adopt it and it's not doing the music any favors.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Strange Magic said:


> You are emigrating to where? And what's the date for the move, again; I've forgotten.


"Lie about it or leave it"?



Strange Magic said:


> Seriously, these are the sorts of remarks that The Donald specializes in--adolescent rants that preclude thoughtful discussion of how flawed all countries are, and how to fix them.


"All countries are flawed" is code for "Stop talking about my preferred country's flaws."


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> We will never reach agreement on this, but please accept that some of us, along with the majority of the musical establishment, are going to keep using the word atonal in some cases.
> 
> Your position is an eccentric one among players, critics and lovers of 20th and 21st century classical music, though you have some good company (e.g. *Wuorinen*). That's fine, but you can't demand that we all adopt it and it's not doing the music any favors.


And Schoenberg, Sessions, Carter, Webern, Berg, Babbitt....I think it would be more difficult to find a composer who writes "atonal" music who doesn't consider the term irrelevant to what they do.

But please, continue to ignore that my use of the word also has the backing of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and call it eccentric.

Certainly, the word is not doing the music any favors. We can't seem to get past it to actually talk about the damn music for a change.

But can you answer my last question? _What do you mean by tonic?_


----------



## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> Atonal music is an invention of the minds of those who dislike the existence of music they don't understand.


So you are saying generally that people who use the words "atonal music" are by people who don't like the music? Papers, books, internet pages use such terms including "atonality", and they focus on musical discussions. You may not personally like the term, but there is no deny that it is used objectively in musical discussions. People in class use it to objective discuss what we discuss about. I don't see what the problem is.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> But can you answer my last question? _What do you mean by tonic?_


The usual definition in common practice music.

But I wrote anything that feels like a tonic - I should have written "acts like" - and I won't be able to define that for you because you believe precise, airtight definitions are always possible and necessary, and I do not.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> The usual definition in common practice music.
> 
> But I wrote anything that feels like a tonic - I should have written "acts like" - and I won't be able to define that for you because you believe precise, airtight definitions are always possible and necessary, and I do not.


So why ignore the fact that I hear tonics in much of the music you call atonal? Could you not say that the music itself is not actually atonal if a tonic can be felt in it by myself and others?


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> So why ignore the fact that I hear tonics in much of the music you call atonal? Could you not say that the music itself is not actually atonal if a tonic can be felt in it by myself and others?


Can you give an example of where you hear a tonic?


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Can you give an example of where you hear a tonic?


*Everywhere in all of Schoenberg's works!*


----------



## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


> So why ignore the fact that I hear tonics in much of the music you call atonal? Could you not say that the music itself is not actually atonal if a tonic can be felt in it by myself and others?


That's fine. That is your musical experience of such. Just the same I may actually love High Baroque and some think it is undeveloped boring tonal mess. The separation of my personal enjoyment and whatever perception by folks who dislike it and describe High Baroque owe nothing to my enjoyable of it. In other words think it is a linguistics argument but speaking to a friend who part majors in it, she says language is one of the poorest forms of defined social sciences. That explains a lot about use of words in society not just in music.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> *Everywhere in all of Schoenberg's works!*


That's not an example. I'm serious. I don't know what you're talking about. I like Schoenberg. This isn't about that. I want you to show me a passage of Schoenberg and tell me what tonic you hear there, so I know what you mean.


----------



## Strange Magic

Harold in Columbia said:


> "All countries are flawed" is code for "Stop talking about my preferred country's flaws."


"All countries are flawed" is code for "let's look at this in context; let's expand the view; let's not pretend we're holier-than-thou observers of truths that others are denied". I'm a big Howard Zinn fan also, but I've also read Jared Diamond's _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, and he has unpleasant truths about just about everyone under the sun. But where, exactly, is your Land of Dreams?


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> That's not an example. I'm serious. I don't know what you're talking about. I like Schoenberg. This isn't about that. I want you to show me a passage of Schoenberg and tell me what tonic you hear there, so I know what you mean.


What about the center of D established at the beginning of this?






Surely it's clearer than the supposed C of this:


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Strange Magic said:


> "All countries are flawed" is code for "let's look at this in context; let's expand the view; let's not pretend we're holier-than-thou observers of truths that others are denied"...


Where did that come from?



Strange Magic said:


> ...I'm a big Howard Zinn fan also, but I've also read Jared Diamond's _Guns, Germs, and Steel_, and he has unpleasant truths about just about everyone under the sun. But where, exactly, is your Land of Dreams?


It doesn't exist. For example, in my land of dreams people would read real historians.


----------



## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> What do you mean by tonic?


"Tonic" refers to function. It also means the tonal center, functioning as the main central note.



> I don't hear keys in Debussy or Renaissance music, regardless of the triads used throughout both.


"Keys" is a very limiting term used in regard to tonal music which I would not apply when discussing Debussy, or early music which was written before harmony had a chance to develop.



> They also lack the hierarchy of common practice tonality.


 Why do you mention common practice tonality? This is a descriptive term, not a defining one. Let's not use that term, and instead confine our focus to "tonality" in its general sense (see Harvard Dictionary of Music), which means "music which establishes a sense of a tonal center."



> I hear tonal centers in all the "atonal" music I know well.


Yes; you keep reiterating that. What we mean by 'tonality' and 'tonal centered music' is something different than what you are using the term to denote.



> Perhaps "atonality" is a subjective reaction to not being able to resolve the multiplicity of tonal relationships in a piece?


No, and I think you are still confusing localized harmonic perception with perception of tone centers. "Tonality" is a term which has limits; apparently you do not agree, and choose to apply the term to any harmonic event which occurs, however briefly, and however unrelated the events may be.

"Atonality" was a term which appeared to generally and conveniently identify music which did not establish a tone-centric sense of tonality, and which has become a general term referring to music and methods which create music by other ways than tonal methods, such as set theory and serialism. These are non-harmonic ways of structuring and creating musical relationships which are meaningful.



> What makes it worthless is that it purports to describe something that it doesn't describe in any way.


"Atonality" is not a descriptive term; it is a defining term.

It is simply an* exclusionary *term used to exclude "tonal music" which has a tone-center, and is applied to those systems which create musical structure in other ways.



> It's confusing and unhelpful, and leads to some of the bizarre things people say about Schoenberg lacking melody.


This seems to suggest a social agenda.

It's meaning is clear to me, and is in common use today, and ignores the negative connotations it once had. It is a defining term, not a descriptive one.


----------



## Strange Magic

Harold in Columbia said:


> It doesn't exist. For example, in my land of dreams people would read real historians.


I thought not. it is, in fact, a land of dreams, and there everyone does read real historians, and look out the window.....


----------



## Harold in Columbia

I have no idea what that last post was intended to convey.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> What about the center of D established at the beginning of this?]


I don't believe any D center is established, nor that Schoenberg was trying to establish one or would be happy that you hear one.

The notes D-C#-A in one part do not create a "tonal center" or "tonic."

If they did, then "D" would exert some kind of pull on following measures, in which the pitch D has ceased to have any special local significance. To my ears it doesn't. I believe I'm in the majority here; I've literally never come across anyone writing about Schoenberg in terms of tonal centers this way, so I doubt it's a very common perception.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> I don't believe any D center is established, nor that Schoenberg was trying to establish one or would be happy that you hear one.


He did say that future generations would discover the tonality in the music that was called "atonal."



isorhythm said:


> The notes D-C#-A in one part do not create a "tonal center" or "tonic."
> 
> If they did, then "D" would exert some kind of pull on following measures, in which the pitch D has ceased to have any special local significance. To my ears it doesn't. I believe I'm in the majority here; I've literally never come across anyone writing about Schoenberg in terms of tonal centers this way, so I doubt it's a very common perception.


Of course that's not the only thing I'm referring to. Just listen to the music. Listen, don't stare at the score.

And I've read numerous writers who refer to centers in Schoenberg's music. Your lack of experience with them makes for a poor argument.


----------



## isorhythm

By contrast, look how strong a pull toward the tonic is established in the very first phrase of this modal piece, without even sounding it!


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> And I've read numerous writers who refer to centers in Schoenberg's music. Your ignorance is a poor argument.


Who? Interested in people who saw this as a consistent feature of his music, not just "tonal allusions" here and there.

The reason we need some recourse to the score here is that if we both "just listen" either of us can say anything about our subjective impressions without contradiction. My subjective impression is I don't feel any pull toward a "home" of D in the opening of this quartet. If there's something that's really, objectively there that I'm failing to hear, you could point it out to me in the score.


----------



## DaveM

After further intense investigation & calculation, I have determined that Chopin used up 8.7% of remaining tunes and Brahms 9.25%. As of 1900, there were still some tunes left, but then Rachmaninoff came along and composed his 2nd & 3rd Piano Concertos substantially reducing remaining tunes. This is likely the cause of a change in the direction of 20th century music.

Interestingly, 20th century popular music writers found a treasure trove of tunes that they refused to share with classical music composers. Lennon/McCartney used up a substantial portion of those tunes. My research continues.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

If it's possible to "find" a treasure trove of tunes - i.e. you didn't know they existed until you found them - then it makes no sense to talk about "used up... remaining tunes."


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Who? Interested in people who saw this as a consistent feature of his music, not just "tonal allusions" here and there.


"Tonal allusions" is something that usually relates to common practice tonality. Yes, you can find occasional intimations of older cadences in his music, but that's only one way of asserting a center. As I've said, in the 20th century there are other ways, including harmonic/melodic and rhythmic emphasis, placement in phrases, and so forth.

Ethan Haimo is among the Schoenberg scholars who disagrees with the use of the term atonal. Roger Sessions also wrote about how atonality has nothing to do with how listeners hear Schoenberg's works.



isorhythm said:


> The reason we need some recourse to the score here is that if we both "just listen" either of us can say anything about our subjective impressions without contradiction. My subjective impression is I don't feel any pull toward a "home" of D in the opening of this quartet. If there's something that's really, objectively there that I'm failing to hear, you could point it out to me in the score.


To me it's obvious just hearing it. It's *at least* as obvious as the Palestrina you posted.

I don't know if I can explain how my perception is created, but I'd prefer if you didn't keep telling me it's something other than what it is.


----------



## millionrainbows

DiesIraeCX said:


> Thank you for your response. This is exactly what I suspected, and nothing I've read has made me think that atonal music is not just an extension of the seemingly very broadranging term, tonality. "Atonal" music would only truly be atonal if tonality only encompassed Common Practice and that's it. Therefore, if I'm not mistaken, in the same vein, Schumann and Chopin's music could be said to be an extension of tonality (of previous composers) just as Schoenberg, Webern, Bartok, and Debussy are all extensions of tonality (of previous composers).


 I use 'tonality" in the general sense of tonality, not limited by "common practice." which is a descriptive term, not a defining one. So yes, there is a connection of all tonal music, even CP tonality. This would include Debussy and Bartok to a degree, but not later Webern and Schoenberg's music produced with the 12-tone method.

This might also exclude some of the 'free atonal' works produced just before the adoption of the method. A good argument could be made that tonality was weakened to the point of non-existence during this free atonal period. This is not due to the "chromaticism" of the music, but because there is no central tonal reference.

In other words, common practice tonality is "tonal" in the same general way that a Chopin prelude or Debussy etude is, in that they both establish a sense of tone-centricity over large enough spans of time to qualify as "to some degree tonal," although this music may not use 'functions' as in CP tonality, and might use parallel chord movement, or other no-nos. Despite this, it is music which exhibits some degree of tone-centeredness.

Remember, "atonality" is a general defining term, and does not need to describe every form of non-tonality. It is an exclusionary term.

Likewise, tonality is a matter of degree, until it reaches a point where it becomes meaningless. Therefore, we cannot use the term 'tonal' to describe precisely to what degree any music is tonal. The term is a _general_ defining term, not descriptive.

Schoenberg's 12-tone method almost ensures that music produced under these conditions will result in 'atonal' music which does not produce a sense of tonality, and this perception is reinforced by knowing that the 12-tone method is inherently non-harmonically based, as tonality is.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> I don't know if I can explain how my perception is created, but I'd prefer if you didn't keep telling me it's something other than what it is.


I've never told you your perception isn't what you say it is.

What I'm saying is that if you can't explain how it's created, and no one else shares it, then it's not important for understanding Schoenberg's music to anyone but you.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> I've never told you your perception isn't what you say it is.


You certainly see fit to question it and find it suspect. You seem doubtful that I perceive centers at all in this music.



isorhythm said:


> What I'm saying is that if you can't explain how it's created, and no one else shares it, then it's not important for understanding Schoenberg's music to anyone but you.


I should think that anyone familiar with the work would hear it similarly. Roger Sessions discussed its D minor-ish quality in his book Harmonic Practice.

Perhaps you should explain how "atonal" is important to your or anyone else's understanding of Schoenberg's music. What insight does it give you that I cannot access?


----------



## Strange Magic

*Prokofiev on the Number of Possible Melodies*

"We begin a melody with a certain note; for the second note, we can choose any note in the octave above or below; in the octave above, we have twelve notes, and the same number in the octave below; if one adds to this the original note (for we can repeat the same note in a melody) there will be at our disposal, for the second note in the melody, twenty-five variants, and for the third, twenty-five multiplied by twenty-five, that is six hundred and twenty-five variants. Let us imagine a melody which is not particularly long--say eight notes. How many variants are there for such a melody? Twenty-five multiplied by twenty-five seven times, in other words twenty-five to the seventh power. How many does that make? Take a pencil and paper, fill your sheet up with sums, and you will get nearly six milliard [billion] possibilities. There are six milliard combinations from which the composer can choose those which he needs for his melody. But this is not all, for the notes have a different duration and the rhythm completely changes the shape of a melody. Moreover, the harmony and the accompaniment give the melody a totally different character. These six milliard have to be multiplied several times to obtain all the possibilities."

from _The Pioneer_ No. 7, 1939


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> You certainly see fit to question it and find it suspect. You seem doubtful that I perceive centers at all in this music.
> 
> I should think that anyone familiar with the work would hear it similarly. Roger Sessions discussed its D minor-ish quality in his book Harmonic Practice.


No, as I've just explained, I've never doubted your perceptions. I've doubted that they're widely shared or that they tell us anything important about Schoenberg's music, and I'm fairly certain they have nothing to do with Schoenberg's intentions (not that his intentions are necessarily controlling).

I'll try to get my hands on the Sessions book.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> No, as I've just explained, I've never doubted your perceptions. I've doubted that they're widely shared or that they tell us anything important about Schoenberg's music, let alone that they have anything to do with Schoenberg's intentions.


Well, we know for a fact that Schoenberg's intentions had nothing to do with atonality. He considered that term utter nonsense. His preferred term was "pantonality," a music that takes in and combines the characteristics of all keys.


----------



## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> Well, we know for a fact that Schoenberg's intentions had nothing to do with atonality. He considered that term utter nonsense. His preferred term was "pantonality," a music that takes in and combines the characteristics of all keys.


What I mean is I don't think his intentions in writing the opening of that quartet had anything to with D minor.


----------



## hpowders

Harold in Columbia said:


> The US was founded on the principle of excluding the British state, by colonies that in turn were mostly founded on the principle of excluding people with the wrong religion or ideology (non-Puritans in New England; insufficiently submissive servants in the south), after excluding the American Indians from their own land.


Tell that to the millions of those who flee/fled oppression as they gazed on the inscription on the Statue of Liberty, "Give me your tired, your poor..." as they entered New York Harbor for the very first time on the road to proudly becoming naturalized American citizens. Both sets of my grandparents came into the US this way, aboard ships from Russia, through Ellis Island and became loyal naturalized American citizens. The USA is one of the few countries based on INCLUSION!!

By the way, not one of my 4 grandparents was excluded from the USA for not being able to whistle the beginning of Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. Proud of that!


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> If it's possible to "find" a treasure trove of tunes - i.e. you didn't know they existed until you found them - then it makes no sense to talk about "used up... remaining tunes."


Well, the Theory of Finite Tunes (and associated terminology) is an evolving science and clarification and analysis by someone as learned as yourself will always be more than welcome.


----------



## arpeggio

isorhythm said:


> Can you give an example of where you hear a tonic?


Interesting that you should ask this question. Mahlerian prepared a transcription for orchestra of Schoenberg's _6 Little piano pieces, op. 19_. This was from Schoenberg's free atonality period.

Our community orchestra premiered it (unfortunately the recording really sucks). When we were rehearsing it we frequently could sense tonal centers.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Well, we know for a fact that Schoenberg's intentions had nothing to do with atonality. He considered that term utter nonsense.


He died in 1951, and said this way back in the 1920s, before the alternative method of set theory had been fully developed after 1945. Serialism grew out of the 12-tone method, so atonality is an extension of the 12-tone method. Both Serialism and 12-tone are "atonal" methods.



> His preferred term was "pantonality," a music that takes in and combines the characteristics of all keys.


In the context of this discussion, which seems to involve Schoenberg to a large degree, music is either tonal (or to some degree tonal) or it is atonal, meaning "not tonal."

12-tone and serialism are extensions of Debussy, Bartok, Schoenberg and Webern, in their non-tonal thinking.
There is a common area where modern thinking is present in both semi-tonal music such as Debussy and Bartok, and also in 12-tone and serial thinking; so in this sense, the non-tonal aspects of "tonal" music (which is to a lesser degree tonal than cut-and-dried CP tonality) share 'modernist' thought with the later atonal methods.

These 'modernist' musical methods include:

1.) Dividing the octave in different ways other than at the fourth and fifth; such as the tritone, and smaller divisions of 2, 3, and 4 semitones

2.) Using scales which reflect these smaller divisions: the whole tone scale, diminished scale, augmented scale

3.) Retrograde and inverted forms of melodies

4.) Tone-centricity around smaller in-octave stations based on the divisions in #1

5.) Functionless parallel movement of triads and "root" stations

These kinds of ideas were around before Schoenberg invented his method, so the 12-tone method was not all that innovative as it is usually said to be.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

*


Harold in Columbia said:



The US was founded on the principle of excluding the British state, by colonies that in turn were mostly founded on the principle of excluding people with the wrong religion or ideology (non-Puritans in New England; insufficiently submissive servants in the south), after excluding the American Indians from their own land.

Click to expand...

*The American Idea wasn't founded on 'exclusion' or 'inclusion' or even 'egalitarianism.' The generation of 1776 was conceived in 'liberty'- though of course it didn't end up that way.

The Articles of Confederation were a step backwards; and the Constitution were two steps back- as all government is essentially the negation of liberty.

"_Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country is doing to you_" . . . or anyone else for that matter.


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## isorhythm

deleted, off topic


----------



## mmsbls

Mahlerian said:


> I do not intend to attack anyone.


I didn't really have anyone specific in mind when I wrote about attacking. And I probably meant something more along the lines of strongly disagreeing although I'm sure many people took those disagreements as attacks.



Mahlerian said:


> I wish to challenge the entrenched views of some here who insist that atonality constitutes some coherent category separate from other music.
> 
> In my experience, there is no such thing. Some have referred to the use of the term by scholars to back up their position that there is, but academic usage is significantly different from that encountered on classical forums. As the term is used in academia, it denotes a specific kind of music of the 20th century that developed as an extension of tonality, and may or may not include serial and 12-tone music. As the term is used here, it denotes a broad category which is in some way opposed to tonal music.


When the term, atonality, is often used in academic journals and music theory classes, I think it's reasonable to assume it actually does have a clear meaning to music theorists. I agree completely that the term is used in a different manner than often used at TC. But statements such as, "Atonal music does not exist" are hard to understand in light of the frequent use in academia. Whether specific music is truly atonal or not is not the issue here.

The issue is that people strongly dislike certain music. Atonal music is likely part of that set, but those people dislike additional music as well. They know it sounds enormously different _to them and many others_. They don't have the knowledge to properly label the music they dislike, and of course, that's fine. They don't really care. I think it would be useful to focus on why they dislike the music and how they could learn to appreciate it _as many others in their current position have done._ That might deflect the issue from the terminology to the more important issue of the music's differing sound.



Mahlerian said:


> Well, we know for a fact that Schoenberg's intentions had nothing to do with atonality. He considered that term utter nonsense. His preferred term was "pantonality," a music that takes in and combines the characteristics of all keys.


This is very interesting. I don't know if musicologists distinguish between pantonality and atonality or if they view them as different terms meaning essentially the same thing. If the latter, there should be no issue. The term atonal is defined independent of its origin (i.e. not tonal). But if pantonality is different from atonality, why not suggest TC members use pantonality?


----------



## mstar

isorhythm said:


> deleted, off topic


Hey, no problem - I do it all the time.

Like right now.


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## Strange Magic

Marschallin Blair said:


> The American Idea wasn't founded on 'exclusion' or 'inclusion' or even 'egalitarianism.' The generation of 1776 was conceived in 'liberty'- though of course it didn't end up that way.
> 
> The Articles of Confederation were a step backwards; and the Constitution were two steps back- as all government is essentially the negation of liberty.
> 
> "_Ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country is doing to you_" . . . or anyone else for that matter.


What have we here--the Black Flag of Anarchy? Or merely Libertarianism; if so, the watered-down version of the Ron and Rand Pauls, or the harder stuff of Ayn Rand, the Real Deal. Here's Hobbes (Thomas, that is) on anarchy:

"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.

"To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.

"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."

I myself, in my youth, was an Ayn Rand libertarian, the Real Deal. Then I grew up. One of the nails in her coffin was Garrett Hardin's _The Tragedy of the Commons_, his extension of Malthus' writings. Tough stuff, but there it is. A little _The True Believer_ by Eric Hoffer figures in there too.


----------



## Woodduck

A.) Originally Posted by Gouldanian:

_"Atonal music is for those who think they are too 'sophisticated' for the tonal world."_

B.) Originally posted by Mahlerian:

_"Atonal music is an invention of the minds of those who dislike the existence of music they don't understand." _

Which of those statements is true? A? B? Neither? Both?


----------



## violadude

I think the existence of people who once thought Schoenberg and others were complete nonsense but now completely understand their music and think it sounds totally natural presents a problem to the "anti-atonalists" because it means: 

1. We were either somehow brainwashed into thinking music that doesn't make sense makes sense. (which to me sounds pretty ludicrous)

2. It does make sense, and you haven't taken the time it takes to become accustomed to the language. 

In fact, now that I think about it, saying that atonal music is just random noise IS sort of like telling a person speaking Chinese to quit with the meaningless jibber jabber.


----------



## mmsbls

violadude said:


> 2. It does make sense, and you haven't taken the time it takes to become accustomed to the language.
> 
> In fact, now that I think about it, saying that atonal music is just random noise IS sort of like telling a person speaking Chinese to quit with the meaningless jibber jabber.


I agree completely with #2 above. When I first came to TC, I asked people how long it took for them to appreciate this new music. Obviously, it varied, but most people I've talked with have said it took them a long time (years) to go from disliking the music to really liking it. I'm actually very thankful that I learned that because it meant 1) even though I had listened for awhile and still found the music unpleasant, there was hope and 2) while the process could take awhile, it was not decades or even five years so my search was near-term rather than a long way away.

When anyone says "atonal music is just random noise," I know they mean "atonal music _sounds like_ random noise." The latter is true while the former is not. Responses to the former statement completely miss the sense of the latter statement.


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## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Well, the Theory of Finite Tunes (and associated terminology) is an evolving science and clarification and analysis by someone as learned as yourself will always be more than welcome.


It's simple. The Beatles' tunes could only be created in the musical world created by Stravinsky, which the Beatles didn't have the talent to create. (But Stravinsky didn't have the talent to create the Beatles' tunes.)


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> It's simple. The Beatles' tunes could only be created in the musical world created by Stravinsky, which the Beatles didn't have the talent to create. (But Stravinsky didn't have the talent to create the Beatles' tunes.)


Not that simple. The Beatles' tunes required far more than the world created by Stravinsky, specifically amphetamines, LSD and cannabis with some help from George Martin.


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## Harold in Columbia

Yeah, but they still needed Stravinsky.

Likewise, this needed La Monte Young, and thus by extension needed Schönberg:


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Which composer had to exist in order for The Smiths to exist?


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## Harold in Columbia

The Beatles. (15 char)


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## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> It's simple. The Beatles' tunes could only be created in the musical world created by Stravinsky, which the Beatles didn't have the talent to create. (But Stravinsky didn't have the talent to create the Beatles' tunes.)


That is a very bizarre assertion.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

No it isn't.

It's a commonplace that Stravinsky is the most influential composer of the 20th century. Richard Taruskin, who as the author of the Oxford history is now about as establishment as you can get, has gone further, writing that Stravinsky "bequeathed a russkiy slog [Russian manner] to the whole world of twentieth- century concert music" (all I'm doing is omitting the qualifier "concert"). (https://books.google.com/books?id=tIh8JVOGuDMC&pg=PA79)

Likewise, it's a commonplace (just or not) that melodic invention was not one of Stravinsky's strengths.


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> No it isn't.
> 
> It's a commonplace that Stravinsky is the most influential composer of the 20th century...


Wrong! There is a concensus that Stravinsky was _one_ of the most influential composers of the 20th century. It is only one's _opinion_ that he was the most influential, educated opinion or not. (And no, it's not commonplace to accept him as first.)

But I do remember an occasion where McCartney stopped a rehearsal for 'Day In The Life' in the middle and said, "Lads, let us take a moment to thank God for Igor Stravinsky."


----------



## violadude

DaveM said:


> Wrong! There is a concensus that Stravinsky was _one_ of the most influential composers of the 20th century. It is only one's _opinion_ that he was the most influential, educated opinion or not. (And no, it's not commonplace to accept him as first.)


Who would you say is more influential?


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## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Wrong! There is a concensus that Stravinsky was _one_ of the most influential composers of the 20th century. It is only one's _opinion_ that he was the most influential, educated opinion or not. (And no, it's not commonplace to accept him as first.)


Yes it is. Deal with it. If there's such a thing as "consensus" at all - and you posit there is - then it's consensus that Stravinsky is #1 in the 20th century.



DaveM said:


> But I do remember an occasion where McCartney stopped a rehearsal for 'Day In The Life' in the middle and said, "Lads, let us take a moment to thank God for Igor Stravinsky."


McCartney was putting _The Rite of Spring_ on the record player in Astrid Kirchherr's home back in their Hamburg days (until Lennon told him to turn it off).

By the time they recorded _Sgt. Pepper_, they were listening to the harder stuff, such as Stockhausen's _Gesang der Jünglinge_. And they did take a moment to thank Stockhausen. Not privately in the studio (though of course for all we know maybe they did that too), but by putting him on the freaking album cover.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

To prevent my last post from being misunderstood, while the Beatles were aware of Stravinsky, I'm not asserting that he had any significant _direct_ influence on them, but rather that Stravinsky's inventions had permeated western music by the time the Beatles got started, and that the Beatles' music would have been impossible without them. (One can of course argue about whether somebody else would have eventually invented the same things, if Stravinsky hadn't.)


----------



## arpeggio

In spite of my complaining 'mmsbls' is correct in that there are some positive aspects to threads like this.

For example, at one time I considered Cage to be a fraud. As a result of the many attacks that have been mounted against him I actually discovered many works of his that I actually enjoy.

I have also discovered that that within the Talk Classical Universe, the number of members who enjoy atonal music outnumber the ones who do not. The anti crowd is a very vocal group whose bark is much worse than their bite. They are very persistent.

There is one question that I do not know the answer too. Why I did not appreciate atonal music until I was in my fifties. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that many musicians now know how to perform atonal music.


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## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> To prevent my last post from being misunderstood, while the Beatles were aware of Stravinsky, I'm not asserting that he had any significant _direct_ influence on them..


Too late my friend. You committed yourself to that premise in 2 different posts.


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## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Too late my friend. You committed yourself to that premise in 2 different posts.


No I didn't. I'm also probably not your friend.


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## Strange Magic

arpeggio said:


> I have also discovered that that within the Talk Classical Universe, the number of members who enjoy atonal music outnumber the ones who do not. The anti crowd is a very vocal group whose bark is much worse than their bite. They are very persistent.


I am relatively new to TC and may postdate any actual poll taken on this point. Can anyone provide statistics for the numbers either way? Was a poll taken of all members? Any hard data at all?


----------



## mmsbls

arpeggio said:


> I have also discovered that that within the Talk Classical Universe, the number of members who enjoy atonal music outnumber the ones who do not. The anti crowd is a very vocal group whose bark is much worse than their bite. They are very persistent.


I believe it's true that there are more pro-modern members posting about modern music than members who post about disliking the music. I don't know if TC actually has more members who enjoy modern music than those who dislike it. I actually suspect many who dislike the music simply ignore these types of threads.

I do think that several years ago threads such as these might have had more people posting negatively than positively. We seem to have acquired many modern music advocates in the past couple of years.


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## mmsbls

Let's refrain from posting about others and stay on the topic of atonal music.


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## Dedalus

mmsbls said:


> I believe it's true that there are more pro-modern members posting about modern music than members who post about disliking the music. I don't know if TC actually has more members who enjoy modern music than those who dislike it. I actually suspect many who dislike the music simply ignore these types of threads.
> 
> I do think that several years ago threads such as these might have had more people posting negatively than positively. We seem to have acquired many modern music advocates in the past couple of years.


Looking at old threads.. heck, even this one if you look at the beginning, that really seems to be the case. For good or bad, (I think it's fine).


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## Harold in Columbia

I think modern(ist) music may have become more popular now that triadic music is the establishment in America - just look at those Pulitzers pile up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulitzer_Prize_for_Music - which means modernism is rebellious again.

Unless the number of Steve Reich fans has been going up here at the same time, in which case so much for that theory.


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## KenOC

Harold in Columbia said:


> I think modern(ist) music may have become more popular now that triadic music is the establishment in America - just look at those Pulitzer's pile up:


Not at all sure what Pulitzers have to do with popularity. Well, they do start with the same letter, that's something.


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## Harold in Columbia

KenOC said:


> Not at all sure what Pulitzers have to do with popularity.


I didn't say they did. I said they were the establishment. I implied that being _opposed_ by the establishment - as atonal music now is in America, kind of - may make music more popular.


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## KenOC

Harold in Columbia said:


> I didn't say they did. I said they were the establishment. I implied that being _opposed_ by the establishment - as atonal music now is in America, kind of - may make music more popular.


Apologies for misunderstanding you!


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> To prevent my last post from being misunderstood, while the Beatles were aware of Stravinsky, I'm not asserting that he had any significant _direct_ influence on them, but rather that Stravinsky's inventions had permeated western music by the time the Beatles got started, and that the Beatles' music would have been impossible without them. (One can of course argue about whether somebody else would have eventually invented the same things, if Stravinsky hadn't.)


This isn't a persuasive line of argument at all. Were Elvis, Chuck Berry and dozens of other Blues, Skiffle and Rock n Roll groups also influenced by Stravinsky? 
What exactly were these Stravinskian inventions you speak of? Whatever they were they may have influenced classical music as you have said but would have been a tiny and mostly insignificant influence on The Beatles compared to say, Indian music.


----------



## mmsbls

Several posts were deleted that contained inappropriate comments. Some replies to those posts were deleted as well.


----------



## Poppy Popsicle

I'll say it again: the point of atonal music (and any other genre of music) is to ravish the ear and the mind. If you find that your ear and mind are not ravished, please go away and wash the wax away, open up your mind and give it another go.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Strange Magic said:


> What have we here--the Black Flag of Anarchy? Or merely Libertarianism; if so, the watered-down version of the Ron and Rand Pauls, or the harder stuff of Ayn Rand, the Real Deal. *Here's Hobbes (Thomas, that is) on anarchy:
> 
> "During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.
> 
> "To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
> 
> "No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." *


 

If Hobbes was right- and all men were corrupt- then how could government- which is made of men- be anything 'but' corrupt?

Even an anarcho-socialist like Proudhon admitted:

_"To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. . . To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."_


----------



## Strange Magic

I believe that Proudhon has demonstrated that he is a fool, by the very statement you quote. And I repeat the question: Anarchist? Libertarian? And please describe civilization without government: how does that work?


----------



## Marschallin Blair

*


Strange Magic said:



I believe that Proudhon has demonstrated that he is a fool, by the very statement you quote. And I repeat the question: Anarchist? Libertarian? And please describe civilization without government: how does that work?

Click to expand...

*

Voluntarily.

Anything the government ""provides"" the free market can do better. . . except of course for killing people.

Government only killed one-hundred million people last century, right?

--

So are you going to answer my original and unanswered question of how government can be good when its made up of men who are (presumably, according to _Etatist _Hobbes) bad?


----------



## Strange Magic

Herewith I provide the Wikipedia entry on John Locke; this will serve as an introduction to the notion of the place of government in human affairs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#Theory_of_value_and_property

I deduce from your responses that you are an Ayn Rand-style Libertarian. Good luck with that, but even Rand hypothesized a government that enforced contracts, provided police and detention powers, and defended the state, withered though it was to be.


----------



## mmsbls

Purely political or religious comments are not appropriate on the main forum and should only be placed in the groups area.


----------



## Strange Magic

I understand and hereby terminate this discussion on my part. I continue to appreciate the moderating on TC--it works pretty well.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

Strange Magic said:


> Herewith I provide the Wikipedia entry on John Locke; this will serve as an introduction to the notion of the place of government in human affairs.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Locke#Theory_of_value_and_property
> 
> *I deduce from your responses that you are an Ayn Rand-style Libertarian.* Good luck with that, but even Rand hypothesized a government that enforced contracts, provided police and detention powers, and defended the state, withered though it was to be.


I'm not. Not even close.


----------



## SimonNZ

Not even close? Come on. You've quoted her extensively on a variety of threads.

(actually if you could start a Group called Blair On Politics for these discussions, I'd really appreciate that, and would join immediately, and look forward to each new topic)


----------



## Marschallin Blair

*


SimonNZ said:



Not even close? Come on. You've quoted her extensively on a variety of threads.

Click to expand...

 *
You will of course have the good grace to furnish these imaginary ' ' extensive ' '_ in extenso _quotes that I make of her on a ' ' variety of threads, ' ' right?

*


SimonNZ said:



(actually if you could start a Group called Blair On Politics for these discussions, I'd really appreciate that)

Click to expand...

 *
You'd appreciate a Marxian monologue of the Self Annointed more.

--

Its really quite 'simple, Simon.'

I was responding to an imputation from Strange Magic that I was an Objectivist- which I'm in fact not; being a hypothetico-deductivist in epistemology (as opposed to Rand's inductivism) and an anarcho-Austro-libertarian in political ideology (as opposed to Rand's minarchism).


----------



## SimonNZ

Really: I encourage you to start and lead a political group area. I believe, quite sincerely, that it would be popular.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

*


SimonNZ said:



Really: I encourage you to start and lead a political group area. I believe, quite sincerely, that it would be popular.

Click to expand...

*You say the sweetest things.

- But I'd rather be beautiful than popular.

. . . though the two are known to coincide.


----------



## Woodduck

Poppy Popsicle said:


> I'll say it again: the point of atonal music (and any other genre of music) is to ravish the ear and the mind. If you find that your ear and mind are not ravished, please go away and wash the wax away, open up your mind and give it another go.


An open mind and a wax-free ear are no guarantors of ravishment.


----------



## SimonNZ

Marschallin Blair said:


> You say the sweetest things.
> 
> - But I'd rather be beautiful than popular.
> 
> . . . though the two are known to coincide.


And yet you feel the need to bring your politics into so many conversations that weren't until that point political.


----------



## Guest

SimonNZ said:


> You've quoted her extensively on a variety of threads.


Ayn Rand is a woman?


----------



## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Ayn Rand is a woman?


You clutching your pearls? 

(to be fair, it's not always easy to tell)


----------



## dgee

dogen said:


> You clutching your pearls?


You should be clutching something! Check it

http://the-toast.net/2016/02/11/ayn-rand-once-cursed-a-guys-dick-so-bad-he-moved-across-the-country/


----------



## Dedalus

dgee said:


> You should be clutching something! Check it
> 
> http://the-toast.net/2016/02/11/ayn-rand-once-cursed-a-guys-dick-so-bad-he-moved-across-the-country/


Wow all I learned from that is that Rand had a pretty active sexual life. I'm kind of jealous to be honest. Almost a Charles Manson type sexual life except... Yes with the cult, but without the murder.


----------



## Guest

dgee said:


> You should be clutching something! Check it
> 
> http://the-toast.net/2016/02/11/ayn-rand-once-cursed-a-guys-dick-so-bad-he-moved-across-the-country/


I may have lost my respect for her, I'll just check. Nope, had none.


----------



## AbdulHameed

I think atonal music is suitable for unstable emotion cases, it could be used to express terror and fear, and paradoxical situations...
who listen to this music needs time to have a perception experience. its not romantic I believe... but could be blended with some fragments of romantic music... its funny to produce atonal music, and each type needs the suitable instrument unlike the classic-romantic music...


----------



## Morimur

AbdulHameed said:


> I think atonal music is suitable for unstable emotion cases, it could be used to express terror and fear, and paradoxical situations...
> who listen to this music needs time to have a perception experience. its not romantic I believe... but could be blended with some fragments of romantic music... its funny to produce atonal music, and each type needs the suitable instrument unlike the classic-romantic music...


Yeah . . . Ok . . . ?


----------



## Guest

Marschallin Blair said:


> You say the sweetest things.
> 
> - But I'd rather be beautiful than popular.
> 
> . . . though the two are known to coincide.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are publicly saying that you prefer to break the rules (posting about politics in a non-political subforum) than to respect them?


----------



## hpowders

Sounds like some folks have had a good sized portion of testosteroni salad for lunch.


----------



## Morimur

hpowders said:


> Sounds like some folks have had a good sized portion of testosteroni salad for lunch.


I haven't even had breakfast yet. I do this to myself all too often-by the time I am in the kitchen my stomach seems ready to consume itself.


----------



## Fugue Meister

SimonNZ said:


> Not even close? Come on. You've quoted her extensively on a variety of threads.
> 
> (actually if you could start a Group called Blair On Politics for these discussions, I'd really appreciate that, and would join immediately, and look forward to each new topic)


I'd read that...


----------



## hpowders

OP: To take a bunch of people brought together through a love of classical music and divide them into two armed camps, adding a new dimension to the word "vitriol"? Just guessing.


----------



## Strange Magic

hpowders said:


> OP: To divide a bunch of people brought together through a love of classical music and divide them into two armed camps, adding a new dimension to the word "vitriol"? Just guessing.


What do you mean, only two armed camps?!?!


----------



## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> OP: To divide a bunch of people brought together through a love of classical music and divide them into two armed camps, adding a new dimension to the word "vitriol"? Just guessing.


Great--it seems like just yesterday that everyone was going on about all the "seconda pratica VS prima pratica" nonsense, and now this.


----------



## Ingélou

Realising that I knew nothing at all about atonal music - not even what it's supposed to be - I've just listened to three examples from YouTube. They were okay.

I confess that I have always loved Olde Worlde things - literature, music, dress, food - but I can quite see that the A***** Stuff might appeal to people who aren't like me - and thank goodness, the globe is *not *stuffed with Ingélouists.

I feel pleased that I didn't abhor the examples and will explore further.

So *what is the point of atonal music?*

Answer: - *It stretches the mind and enlarges one's sensibilities. *


----------



## Guest

Tell me the point of music in general, and you have the answer to this thread.


----------



## hpowders

Ingélou, If my mind gets anymore stretched, it will explode.


----------



## Fugue Meister

nathanb said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are publicly saying that you prefer to break the rules (posting about politics in a non-political subforum) than to respect them?


So what are you the posting police?... I don't see that post you reposted as breaking any rules not to mention the occasional response can have flavors of politics and religion as long as it's just a response to something and the conversation doesn't devolve into a whole argument... Why are you worried about it.. after all we must all learn to ignore some things we take issue with.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> This isn't a persuasive line of argument at all.


Sure it is, to the right people.



Petwhac said:


> Were Elvis, Chuck Berry and dozens of other Blues, Skiffle and Rock n Roll groups also influenced by Stravinsky?
> What exactly were these Stravinskian inventions you speak of? Whatever they were they may have influenced classical music as you have said but would have been a tiny and mostly insignificant influence on The Beatles compared to say, Indian music.


To answer the second question, I already referred to Taruskin's views on the subject, which might be supplemented with Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger's, with regard to both of which you can do your own homework. They of course are all talking about classical music, but then, popular music just copies classical music and folk music and other popular music. So to answer the first question, if Stravinsky is, to a significant extent, the reason why Messiaen doesn't sound like Debussy, then it's reasonable to speculate that by extension he may also, to a significant extent, be the reason why Elvis' band doesn't sound like Paul Whiteman's.

The importance of Indian music for the Beatles is of course exactly the opposite of Stravinsky's. Stravinsky was in their blood, because he was in everybody's, including people who never heard him. Indian music was a superficial exotic color.


----------



## Blake

hpowders said:


> Ingélou, If my mind gets anymore stretched, it will explode.


Hey, there's a reason nirvana literally means "blown out." That's the good stuff. :tiphat:


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> Sure it is, to the right people.
> 
> To answer the second question, I already referred to Taruskin's views on the subject, which might be supplemented with Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger's, with regard to both of which you can do your own homework. They of course are all talking about classical music, but then, popular music just copies classical music and folk music and other popular music. So to answer the first question, if Stravinsky is, to a significant extent, the reason why Messiaen doesn't sound like Debussy, then it's reasonable to speculate that by extension he may also, to a significant extent, by the reason why Elvis' band doesn't sound like Paul Whiteman's.
> 
> The importance of Indian music for the Beatles is of course exactly the opposite of Stravinsky's. Stravinsky was in their blood, because he was in everybody's, including people who never heard him. Indian music was a superficial exotic color.


You could always put the arguments of Andriessen and the others into your own words.

You previously said - "....but rather that Stravinsky's inventions had permeated western music by the time the Beatles got started, and that the Beatles' music would have been impossible without them. (One can of course argue about whether somebody else would have eventually invented the same things, if Stravinsky hadn't.)"

I asked what these inventions were. Can you furnish an example and show how they affected the music of Elvis and Chuck Berry?

In any case, you have rather climbed down from your position and now use terms like "reasonable to speculate" and "may also, to a significant extent..." 
You may speculate but you have not yet persuaded.

When you say "popular music just copies classical music and folk music and other popular music." All you are really saying is that whatever music one hears, may have an influence on what one writes. This is not much of a revelation.

I can find you numerous examples of the way in which Indian music directly influenced the way The Beatles music sounded. I'm racking my brain trying to find something Stravinskian.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> You could always put the arguments of Andriessen and the others into your own words.


Yes, I could. But you could also look them up yourself, and why should I do the work for you?



Petwhac said:


> In any case, you have rather climbed down from your position and now use terms like "reasonable to speculate" and "may also, to a significant extent..."


A gesture of politeness, with the usual result. My mistake. I'll rephrase: "...since Stravinsky is the reason why Messiaen doesn't sound like Debussy, he's also the reason why Elvis' band doesn't sound like Paul Whiteman's."



Petwhac said:


> You may speculate but you have not yet persuaded.


Yeah, but like I already said, that's your problem, not mine.



Petwhac said:


> When you say "popular music just copies classical music and folk music and other popular music." All you are really saying is that whatever music one hears, may have an influence on what one writes. This is not much of a revelation.


That blustery "This is not much of a revelation" (you can tell it's serious because there's no contraction) suggests that it _was_ a revelation - but anyway, that's not all I'm really saying. In fact in the context of this conversation it's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that whatever music the person who made the music that the person who made the music that the person who made the music one hears heard, may have an influence on what one writes.


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> Yes, I could. But you could also look them up yourself, and why should I do the work for you?


You made the claim, you must support it. Otherwise it is you who is having others do your work, no?

I have asked for a concrete example, a musical example, a passage or work that illustrates your claim. That none has been forthcoming is indicative of an insupportable generalisation.



Harold in Columbia said:


> A gesture of politeness, with the usual result. My mistake. I'll rephrase: "...since Stravinsky is the reason why Messiaen doesn't sound like Debussy, he's also the reason why Elvis' band doesn't sound like Paul Whiteman's."


You conclusion does not follow your premise.



Harold in Columbia said:


> That blustery "This is not much of a revelation" (you can tell it's serious because there's no contraction) suggests that it _was_ a revelation - but anyway, that's not all I'm really saying. In fact in the context of this conversation it's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that whatever music the person who made the music that the person who made the music that the person who made the music one hears heard, may have an influence on what one writes.


Oh dear! <sighs>


----------



## EdwardBast

Harold in Columbia said:


> To answer the second question, I already referred to Taruskin's views on the subject, which might be supplemented with Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger's, with regard to both of which you can do your own homework. They of course are all talking about classical music, but then, popular music just copies classical music and folk music and other popular music. So to answer the first question, if Stravinsky is, to a significant extent, the reason why Messiaen doesn't sound like Debussy, then it's reasonable to speculate that by extension he may also, to a significant extent, be the reason why Elvis' band doesn't sound like Paul Whiteman's.
> 
> The importance of Indian music for the Beatles is of course exactly the opposite of Stravinsky's. Stravinsky was in their blood, because he was in everybody's, including people who never heard him. Indian music was a superficial exotic color.


I think you are vastly overstating the influence - of influence, first and foremost, and of Stravinsky secondarily. Composers are not automatons controlled by some alien spoor in their bloodstreams. Their activity isn't a matter of choosing elements of style from a shelf and mimicking them or rearranging them in some deterministic way. They think creatively while and after digesting the musical language of an entire culture. Stravinsky's contributions to the musical language of the early 20thc, those that aren't just extensions of Rimsky-Korsakoff and his other Russian forebears, are a small part of the genome. Among candidates for greater influence in the 20thc are Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Brahms. Elvis and the Beatles? The influence of Stravinsky? I doubt anyone is expecting you to actually support this with musical evidence, but it would be interesting to see you try.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> You made the claim, you must support it.


No I don't. I've made available an opinion and cited a couple of relevant texts that people reading this forum can now consider and look up, or not.



EdwardBast said:


> I think you are vastly overstating the influence - of influence, first and foremost, and of Stravinsky secondarily. Composers are not automatons controlled by some alien spoor in their bloodstreams.


They largely are.



EdwardBast said:


> Their activity isn't a matter of choosing elements of style from a shelf and mimicking them or rearranging them in some deterministic way. They think creatively while and after digesting the musical language of an entire culture.


So all you're actually disagreeing about is the components of the musical language of the culture when the Beatles came in.



EdwardBast said:


> Stravinsky's contributions to the musical language of the early 20thc, those that aren't just extensions of Rimsky-Korsakoff and his other Russian forebears, are a small part of the genome. Among candidates for greater influence in the 20thc are Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Schoenberg, and Brahms.


Okay, so you've just got some anti-Stravinsky and pro-Schönberg axes to grind.



EdwardBast said:


> I doubt anyone is expecting you to actually support this with musical evidence, but it would be interesting to see you try.


If you're interested in the subject at hand, I've already given you a start. If you're interested in you and me arguing, I'm not very.


----------



## EdwardBast

Harold in Columbia said:


> They largely are.


Composers are largely automatons? Invasion of the body snatchers? 



Harold in Columbia said:


> So all you're actually disagreeing about is the components of the musical language of the culture when the Beatles came in.


No. I'm arguing that language does not reduce to stock components. It is living and spoken freely and no one is beholden to or limited by the usages of their forebears.



Harold in Columbia said:


> Okay, so you've just got some anti-Stravinsky and pro-Schönberg axes to grind.


Nice try. I am on record here as finding Schoenberg an uninteresting and mostly second rate composer, and in favoring all things Russian in the musical world, including Stravinsky.



Harold in Columbia said:


> If you're interested in the subject at hand, I've already given you a start. If you're interested in you and me arguing, I'm not very.


Not interested in arguing. I just wanted to see if you really believed in the kind of historical-deterministic world view you seemed to be espousing. Curiosity satisfied.


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> No I don't. I've made available an opinion and cited a couple of relevant texts that people reading this forum can now consider and look up, or not.


My mistake. I thought you had your own opinion. Evidently not.
Still like some musical examples though.
Won't hold my breath...........................


----------



## Harold in Columbia

EdwardBast said:


> No. I'm arguing that language does not reduce to stock components. It is living and spoken freely and no one is beholden to or limited by the usages of their forebears.


This is a wishful assertion.



EdwardBast said:


> I am on record here as finding Schoenberg an uninteresting and mostly second rate composer


I thought I remembered something like that. Okay, so in this case you're just finding him useful as a club to beat Stravinsky for some reason.



EdwardBast said:


> I just wanted to see if you really believed in the kind of historical-deterministic world view you seemed to be espousing. Curiosity satisfied.


The only people who use the word "determinism" are doctrinaire indeterminists.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> My mistake. I thought you had your own opinion. Evidently not.


I do. You didn't like it.

It partly agrees with other people's opinions, which you evidently don't like either, even though you haven't read them.


----------



## DaveM

Gee, I'm so glad this thread was resurrected. There's just so much more to argue over on this subject. And so much more to learn from one individual.


----------



## hpowders

Atonal music is simply unnatural. Music is supposed to consist of pleasant sounds. I like Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, but if anyone here believes atonality will ever become mainstream classical music, I have a bridge in Tarrytown to sell you.

If atonality was such an enormous breakthrough, don't you think that the mega-geniuses Bach, Beethoven and Mozart would have discovered it and used it?


----------



## Fugue Meister

hpowders said:


> Atonal music is simply unnatural (inhuman?). Music is supposed to consist of pleasant sounds. I like Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, but if anyone here believes atonality will ever become mainstream classical music, I have a bridge in Tarrytown to sell you.


If you feel this way, why do you embrace the Schoenberg piano concerto so much? How did that piece get through to you but nothing else HP? What do you think of Babbitt by the way?


----------



## hpowders

Fugue Meister said:


> If you feel this way, why do you embrace the Schoenberg piano concerto so much? How did that piece get through to you but nothing else HP? What do you think of Babbitt by the way?


It took me many months of listening to "get it" because its musical language is so contrary to what many of us consider to be music. Most folks hate mainstream classical music anyway. You think they will embrace this?

Atonal music is and will remain the stomping ground of a relatively small intellectual faction of the totality of classical music lovers.


----------



## Richard8655

hpowders said:


> Atonal music is simply unnatural. Music is supposed to consist of pleasant sounds. I like Schoenberg's Piano Concerto, but if anyone here believes atonality will ever become mainstream classical music, I have a bridge in Tarrytown to sell you.
> 
> If atonality was such an enormous breakthrough, don't you think that the mega-geniuses Bach, Beethoven and Mozart would have discovered it and used it?


I agree with you about atonality being difficult to listen to for most people. Not sure how to define what's unnatural however, as that's a very relative concept.

Regarding atonality and the baroque/classical period, maybe keep in mind that composers of that age were under social pressures of stylistic conformity, and musical compositional fashion is evolutionary not spontaneous. You wouldn't see a sudden appearance of "The In Crowd" Ramsey Lewis style in the 18th century as it would be outside the historical and cultural context.


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> If atonality was such an enormous breakthrough, don't you think that the mega-geniuses Bach, Beethoven and Mozart would have discovered it and used it?


No.

First of all, Schoenberg's music isn't atonal.

Second of all, Schoenberg's music couldn't have been written by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart because it was built on the changes in style that followed them.


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> I do. You didn't like it.
> 
> It partly agrees with other people's opinions, which you evidently don't like either, even though you haven't read them.


I neither like nor dislike it. I merely asked for facts to support it. You seem not to have any so we'll leave it there shall we?


----------



## isorhythm

hp, if you like Schoenberg's PC I bet there are hundreds of other atonal pieces you'd also like. There's nothing uniquely likable about that one.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

If tonality was so great, don't you think mega-genius Morton Feldman would have had more use for it?


----------



## Mahlerian

Harold in Columbia said:


> If tonality was so great, don't you think mega-genius Morton Feldman would have had more use for it?


If tonality was the most natural system, you'd imagine it would have shown up in _some_ other culture somewhere in the world.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> ...but if anyone here believes atonality will ever become mainstream classical music...


This is mainstream classical music: 




And it's impossible without the influence of atonality. It confirms the immortality of Schönberg, just as Debussy confirmed the immortality of Wagner.


----------



## hpowders

Mahlerian said:


> No.
> 
> First of all, Schoenberg's music isn't atonal.
> 
> Second of all, Schoenberg's music couldn't have been written by Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart because it was built on the changes in style that followed them.


Mega-geniuses like that think differently from the rest of us. If Einstein could discover relativity, those composers could have discovered atonality or music without a recognizable tonal center. The fact that they didn't, speaks volumes....pun intended. They surely had the capacity. If anyone back then could have done it, it should have been Beethoven. After the Hammerklavier and Grosse Fuge, it was ripe for discovery.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> If tonality was the most natural system, you'd imagine it would have shown up in _some_ other culture somewhere in the world.


So what. The wheel has been the most 'natural' mode of land transportation, but it didn't originally show up in some cultures. Tonal music has been picked up enthusiastically by Asian cultures, but their original music hasn't been picked up elsewhere. Why?


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> This is mainstream classical music:


No it isn't. But it did serve to reboot my brain.


----------



## Mahlerian

hpowders said:


> Mega-geniuses like that think differently from the rest of us. If Einstein could discover relativity, those composers could have discovered atonality or music without a recognizable tonal center. The fact that they didn't, speaks volumes....pun intended. They surely had the capacity. If anyone should have done it, it was Beethoven.


Schoenberg's music does have recognizable tonal centers. That's why, by the definition of atonality you're using, it's not atonal.

And secondly, what you're suggesting is like saying if Tesla was such a genius, why didn't he invent the iPhone? It just doesn't make sense for Schoenberg's style to have appeared earlier than it did.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> So what. The wheel has been the most 'natural' mode of land transportation, but it didn't originally show up in some cultures. Tonal music has been picked up enthusiastically by Asian cultures, but their original music hasn't been picked up elsewhere. Why?


It has? The popular music in other countries is just as far from traditional tonality (that is, from any conception of tonality which permits atonal as antithesis) as the popular music here is. I think you're confusing diatonicism with tonality.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> No it isn't. But it did serve to reboot my brain.


No, it is. Classical musicians either copy it or try to avoid copying it, popular musicians and film composers write attenuated versions of it. Sorry (not sorry), I didn't invent history.


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## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Tonal music has been picked up enthusiastically by Asian cultures, but their original music hasn't been picked up elsewhere.


We've picked up Indian classical music exactly as much as Asia has picked up tonal music (in the strict meaning of the word, which is the only meaning that makes any sense here, because if you just mean consonance, they had that all along) - which is to say, not much, except on the level of superficial pastiche.


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## isorhythm

"Unnatural" is a tricky word. All music is artificial.

Music based on using all 12 notes more or less equally is arguably less natural in a way than diatonic music. That doesn't say anything about its merit.


----------



## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> No, it is. Classical musicians either copy it or try to avoid copying it, popular musicians and film composers write attenuated versions of it. Sorry (not sorry), I didn't invent history.


Sure, it shows up all the time on classical music radio stations programming. It is frequently heard at major orchestral concerts. And recordings of it are flying off the shelves. How could I have missed it?


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## Harold in Columbia

hpowders said:


> If Einstein could discover relativity, those composers could have discovered atonality.


Okay, like, seriously, you _know_ that Einstein couldn't have discovered relativity without the precedent of, for example, Maxwell's equations, yes?

Discovery is (of course) genius plus circumstance. For example, Monteverdi was a genius, but he was only able to discover tonality because of the precedent of Vincenzo Galilei.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Sure, it shows up all the time on classical music radio stations programming. It is frequently heard at major orchestral concerts. And recordings of it are flying off the shelves. How could I have missed it?


Because you're out of touch.


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## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> "Unnatural" is a tricky word. All music is artificial.
> 
> Music based on using all 12 notes more or less equally is arguably less natural in a way than diatonic music. That doesn't say anything about its merit.


If so, then make the case.

I imagine the same case could be used to say that the most natural of all is pentatonic music. I am fully willing to admit that the pentatonic scale is the most natural. Baroque counterpoint is highly artificial, for example, and I would say not any less artificial than the 12-tone method (which doesn't really use the notes equally anyway).


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> It has? The popular music in other countries is just as far from traditional tonality (that is, from any conception of tonality which permits atonal as antithesis) as the popular music here is. I think you're confusing diatonicism with tonality.


I'm talking about classical music. If you haven't seen the explosion of the embracement of tonal classical music in China and particularly Japan, you haven't been paying attention.

Edit: And I mean tonal the way most people use the term. Forget the 'tonal & atonal' are the same stuff.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> I'm talking about classical music. If you haven't seen the explosion of the embracement of tonal classical music in China and particularly Japan, you haven't been paying attention.


Can you give me an example? Most of the music I listen to from Japan sounds like this:






There are a few composers, like Yoshimatsu, who use a bastardized kind of diatonic harmony derived from New Age and light jazz music, but that's not the same thing as tonality.


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## isorhythm

Mahlerian said:


> If so, then make the case.
> 
> I imagine the same case could be used to say that the most natural of all is pentatonic music. I am fully willing to admit that the pentatonic scale is the most natural. Baroque counterpoint is highly artificial, for example, and I would say not any less artificial than the 12-tone method (which doesn't really use the notes equally anyway).


The case is pretty easy to make just by noting that the equal-tempered 12-note scale is inherently unnatural (and really, once you're dividing the octave equally, the number 12 becomes arbitrary - it just happens to let us approximate just intervals).

But yes, the "unnaturalness" ship sailed a long time ago.


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## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> ...There are a few composers, like Yoshimatsu, who use a bastardized kind of diatonic harmony derived from New Age and light jazz music, but that's not the same thing as tonality.


We appear to be talking at cross purposes. I was responding to:


Mahlerian said:


> If tonality was the most natural system, you'd imagine it would have shown up in _some_ other culture somewhere in the world.


I am talking about how emphatically and almost ravenously the Chinese and Japan have embraced traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier, but no other cultures have embraced traditional Asian music. Why? I believe it is because that music speaks to the common man (woman) no matter the culture.


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## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> And I mean tonal the way most people use the term. Forget the 'tonal & atonal' are the same stuff.


As most people use the term, it is incoherent and subjective. The popular definition has no place in a serious discussion, because the term has no consistent popular application. In other words, the popular definition can make _anything_ atonal or tonal simply because it does not depend on any characteristic of the music.


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## majlis

I understand that some composers write atonal music. They want to be original, make some experiment and find where it takes them. What I don't understand, and will never do, is how it is that they found some who accept to prepare and play that ****.


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## EdwardBast

Harold in Columbia said:


> I thought I remembered something like that. Okay, so in this case you're just finding him useful as a club to beat Stravinsky for some reason.


Who is beating Stravinsky? I was only asserting that you overstate his influence and, more important, overstate the importance of influence in general. One can recognize that Schoenberg had historical impact without personally finding his music interesting.



Harold in Columbia said:


> The only people who use the word "determinism" are doctrinaire indeterminists.


Surely you jest? All kinds of people use the word determinism, including determinists.


----------



## Mahlerian

majlis said:


> I understand that some composers write atonal music. They want to be original, make some experiment and find where it takes them. What I don't understand, and will never do, is how it is that they found some who accept to prepare and play that ****.


Actually, they write it because it sounds good. (Few composers agree that the term atonal has any application to their work.)

People play it because it sounds good.


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## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> We appear to be talking at cross purposes. I was responding to:
> 
> *......*
> 
> I am talking about how emphatically and almost ravenously the Chinese and Japan have embraced traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier, but no other cultures have embraced traditional Asian music. Why? I believe it is because that music speaks to the common man (woman) no matter the culture.


Most people in Japan (haven't been to China) listen to popular music, the same as in the US. The common person doesn't listen to it there much more than here.

If traditional Asian music were played on standardized instruments and its techniques taught all over the world, it might be embraced in other places as well. Asian traditional musics also lack a large and ever-expanding repertoire.

You are assuming that the reason Western classical music caught on was because of some inherent naturalness in it, correct? I don't think you can make any kind of easy comparison and claim naturalness as the reason for the differences without any specific evidence.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> As most people use the term, it is incoherent and subjective. The popular definition has no place in a serious discussion, because the term has no consistent popular application. In other words, the popular definition can make _anything_ atonal or tonal simply because it does not depend on any characteristic of the music.


You appear to be the outlier on that subject.


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## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> You appear to be the outlier on that subject.


You can keep asserting that, but the popular definition is not at all the same as the one used in academic studies.

In academia, atonality is not something opposed to tonality, but a particular kind of style of chromatic music characterized by nontriadic harmony that grew out of 19th century Romanticism. Many academic definitions do not include serial music under this rubric.

In the popular understanding, atonality is defined as "not tonal," where tonal means anything that sounds coherent and normal enough to them.

Attempts to bridge these two definitions to make them congruent are bound to fail, because they're inherently contradictory.

At any rate, whether or not my perspective is common has nothing to do with whether or not it's correct. There are plenty of mistaken notions that are common.


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## arpeggio

My experience has taught me that some people like atonal music and some do not. Rightfully or wrongly many have used the term to identify the music of Schoenberg, Webern, _etc._

The people who like and dislike atonal or whatever you want to call it, indulge in lengthy meaningless discussions defending their tastes.

Do you like atonal music? The answer would be yes or no. That's it. Simple. We had a neat poll where that question was asked. It turns out the majority of the members like both.

I have seen nothing it the latest exchanges that has changed my mind. I can understand why some members dislike atonal music. But I like both.

One of the interesting debates that has occurred here concerns the music of Shostakovich. There are some members who believe that he was the last great classical composer. When some of these members have been queried concerning their position I have found that they have very little knowledge concerning classical music composed since 1975.

I had help prepare a list of living composers of concert band music. One of the proponents of the Shostakovich is the last school admitted that he had never heard of any of the composers on the list. Yet I have provided samples of many of these composers here at Talk Classical.

It makes me wonder if the opponents of atonal music are basing their assessment knowledge of just few works.


----------



## violadude

DaveM said:


> We appear to be talking at cross purposes. I was responding to:
> 
> I am talking about how emphatically and almost ravenously the Chinese and Japan have embraced traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier, but no other cultures have embraced traditional Asian music. Why? I believe it is because that music speaks to the common man (woman) no matter the culture.


Can you give any examples of Chinese or Japanese contemporary composers writing in "traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier"? I'll be waiting.


----------



## KenOC

There's quite a bit of Chinese-composed classical music firmly in 19th-century European styles. Two larger scale pieces often heard here are the Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang (1959) and the Yellow River Piano Concerto, a collaborative project from the Cultural Revolution based on an earlier cantata by Xian Xinghai (1969). Having lived in the Far East for many years, I can attest that a lot of this music is being played on the airwaves every day, mostly quite conservative and some of it very good.

You can check out the two concertos on YouTube.


----------



## violadude

KenOC said:


> There's quite a bit of Chinese-composed classical music firmly in 19th-century European styles. Two larger scale pieces often heard here are the Butterfly Lovers Concerto by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang (1959) and the Yellow River Piano Concerto, a collaborative project from the Cultural Revolution based on an earlier cantata by Xian Xinghai (1969). Having lived in the Far East for many years, I can attest that a lot of this music is being played on the airwaves every day, mostly quite conservative and some of it very good.
> 
> You can check out the two concertos on YouTube.


I have that piece. I was thinking I could get some more contemporary examples since DaveM claimed this to be a current phenomenon.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> You can keep asserting that, but the popular definition is not at all the same as the one used in academic studies.
> 
> In academia, atonality is not something opposed to tonality, but a particular kind of style of chromatic music characterized by nontriadic harmony that grew out of 19th century Romanticism. Many academic definitions do not include serial music under this rubric.
> 
> In the popular understanding, atonality is defined as "not tonal," where tonal means anything that sounds coherent and normal enough to them.
> 
> Attempts to bridge these two definitions to make them congruent are bound to fail, because they're inherently contradictory.
> 
> At any rate, whether or not my perspective is common has nothing to do with whether or not it's correct. There are plenty of mistaken notions that are common.


If one's perspective isn't common, then the question arises whether trying to force-feed that perspective on everyone else in thread after thread is, by any measure, productive.

And even if I were to believe that your perspective is accepted by the majority of academics, that still wouldn't mean that it reflects the real-world perspective. In the world of medicine, academic physicians usually go directly from residency into academic medicine. They do research. They author papers & articles. They teach and give speeches at conferences. That's all they know. But they are often pretty clueless about real-world clinical medicine and it is not unusual that they don't make very good real-world physicians and surgeons. In short, academics are not the de-facto experts.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> It has? The popular music in other countries is just as far from traditional tonality (that is, from any conception of tonality which permits atonal as antithesis) as the popular music here is. I think you're confusing diatonicism with tonality.


Pop music in the West is definitely not far from tonality. And non-Western pop music has appropriated the concept of triadic harmonic progression which is common to Bach, Mozart, Wagner, Gershwin, Bacharach, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Dr Dre, Kanye West and Adele.

If by 'traditional tonality' you mean establishing and then modulating away from key centres, you have a point as _most_ pop music doesn't modulate (especially these days).Though there are numerous examples from show tunes to prog-rock which do modulate.

But the _vocabulary_ of CP Tonality such as cadences, I-IV-V and other progressions, the circle of 5ths and the concept of contrast between major and minor triads, is what links the above composers/songwriters to each other. It is those things which when absent to a _greater or lesser degree_ cause people to describe music as atonal to a _greater or lesser degree._

There is more of a spectrum along which pieces or even passages lie than an absolutely clear division between what most people (I believe) call tonal and atonal.
Whether or not people use the term wrongly in strict academic terms is not important when it can be generally understood what is being referred to.

Thus Schoenberg sounds much less atonal than Stockhausen but much more atonal than Beethoven.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> I am talking about how emphatically and almost ravenously the Chinese and Japan have embraced traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier, but no other cultures have embraced traditional Asian music.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> But the _vocabulary_ of CP Tonality such as cadences, I-IV-V and other progressions, the circle of 5ths and the concept of contrast between major and minor triads, is what links the above composers/songwriters to each other.


It actually isn't.

http://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2013/toward-a-better-music-theory/


> As you'd expect, the tonic I is the most commonly-used chord in the Rolling Stone corpus. However, the next most common chord is IV, and it most frequently precedes I. Right away, we have a conflict with traditional classical theory, where the most basic tonal building block is the V-I cadence. Rock uses plenty of V-I, but it uses even more IV-I. And the third most common pre-tonic chord in rock is not ii, like you'd expect if you went to music school; it's bVII, reflecting rock musicians' love of Mixolydian mode. These same three chords, IV, V and bVII, are also the ones most likely to follow the tonic in rock, again very much at odds with classical practice.


----------



## KenOC

violadude said:


> I have that piece. I was thinking I could get some more contemporary examples since DaveM claimed this to be a current phenomenon.


Well, I haven't lived in that part of the world for 20 years, but I have no reason to think the spigot has been suddenly turned off, especially since that sort of music seemed to have a broad audience. Another example: I attended a concert by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, a large ensemble playing only traditional Chinese instruments. The music, all original, sounded more Western than Chinese. The orchestra is still active. Per Wiki, "it has commissioned numerous works by local composers from Hong Kong as well as Chinese composers around the world."


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## Petwhac

Actually it is! Harold.

I can point you to numerous passages. Please find me any example of those things in Stockhausen or Finnissy.


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## Harold in Columbia

Read the article, Petwhac. (Heck, read the paragraph I quoted.)


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> If one's perspective isn't common, then the question arises whether trying to force-feed that perspective on everyone else in thread after thread is, by any measure, productive.


I'm not force feeding anyone anything. I'm attempting to show people that their own usage of the word atonality, *their own*, is incoherent. Presenting a point of view is not force feeding it to someone. I have no way of compelling agreement, only of giving a case for it.

And the point remains that it's not about tricking someone into agreeing with me or using rhetoric to get them to assent emotionally. I'm trying to argue logically; it's not about what's commonly thought, it's about what's _true_.



DaveM said:


> And even if I were to believe that your perspective is accepted by the majority of academics, that still wouldn't mean that it reflects the real-world perspective. In the world of medicine, academic physicians usually go directly from residency into academic medicine. They do research. They author papers & articles. They teach and give speeches at conferences. That's all they know. But they are often pretty clueless about real-world clinical medicine and it is not unusual that they don't make very good real-world physicians and surgeons. In short, academics are not the de-facto experts.


You realize that you're changing the argument here.

First you said my position was uncommon, and this is bad.

Now you're saying that if my position is shared by others, there are some kinds of academics you don't trust, therefore these other academics are not worth listening to.

You need to present proof against a particular argument to dispute it, not just cast vague aspersions on the people who may or may not espouse it.

We're not talking about people who study, say, acoustics, which bears a similar relationship to music as academic medicine to practice, we're discussing those who study music directly. We're also discussing the actual "doctors" themselves, the composers who put ideas into practice. They are the ones most against the idea of atonality.


----------



## arpeggio

violadude said:


> Can you give any examples of Chinese or Japanese contemporary composers writing in "traditional tonal music of the 19th century and earlier"? I'll be waiting.


The band junkie knows of some band composers.


----------



## KenOC

For band junkies: Morton Gould's "West Point Symphony" was first performed today, in 1952, by the West Point Academy Band conducted by Francis E. Resta.


----------



## Petwhac

Deleted post.
Misunderstood a reference.


----------



## mmsbls

A suggestion:

The use of the term atonal to discuss specific music or musical styles is generally problematic because it will result in arguments (or worse) about the definition of the term rather than a discussion about the music. Musicologists use the term and even discuss Schoenberg's atonal music, but on TC the term is not well understood so even if one person uses it properly, most others will misinterpret the usage. Given that the term sidetracks discussions from a potentially productive and interesting conversation to unpleasant arguments, perhaps people could drop that term and refer to the music in another way. 

Maybe people could say 20th century music which appears to use extensive chromaticism and moves away from CP tonality such as much of the Second Viennese School, Xenakis, and Stockhausen (or whatever examples one likes). It's a pain not to have a nice term to use, but maybe people could ask for such a term. The bottom line is that the intent of these discussions is presumably not to spend endless posts on definitions, on arguments about what someone means, or on who knows what about music. The point would be to discuss issues related to well defined music. I'm sure there would still be arguments, but at least the arguments would focus directly on the issues rather than the terms.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> You realize that you're changing the argument here.
> 
> First you said my position was uncommon, and this is bad.
> 
> Now you're saying that if my position is shared by others, there are some kinds of academics you don't trust, therefore these other academics are not worth listening to.


No one's changing the subject. You're the one who raised academia as a support for your position. I'm pointing out that that doesn't prove your point. It doesn't disprove it either. But in the way 'tonality/atonality' is used and understood by many, it (academia) may be irrelevant.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> A suggestion:
> 
> The use of the term atonal to discuss specific music or musical styles is generally problematic because it will result in arguments (or worse) about the definition of the term rather than a discussion about the music. Musicologists use the term and even discuss Schoenberg's atonal music, but on TC the term is not well understood so even if one person uses it properly, most others will misinterpret the usage. Given that the term sidetracks discussions from a potentially productive and interesting conversation to unpleasant arguments, perhaps people could drop that term and refer to the music in another way.
> 
> Maybe people could say 20th century music which appears to use extensive chromaticism and moves away from CP tonality such as much of the Second Viennese School, Xenakis, and Stockhausen (or whatever examples one likes). It's a pain not to have a nice term to use, but maybe people could ask for such a term. The bottom line is that the intent of these discussions is presumably not to spend endless posts on definitions, on arguments about what someone means, or on who knows what about music. The point would be to discuss issues related to well defined music. I'm sure there would still be arguments, but at least the arguments would focus directly on the issues rather than the terms.


Works for me if a common term can be accepted. I doubt it though. I have a feeling that the very few who rail against the term, atonal, won't accept anything. And I'm certain that the one (or two) who don't distinguish between tonal and atonal won't.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> No one's changing the subject. You're the one who raised academia as a support for your position. I'm pointing out that that doesn't prove your point. It doesn't disprove it either. But in the way 'tonality/atonality' is used and understood by many, it (academia) may be irrelevant.


I didn't say the _subject_ was being changed, I said that the _argument_ was being changed. You were moving the goalposts to save your initial contention that my view was not held by many people. Now that I have cited people who do share my opinion, you dismiss them because of who they are, rather than because of what they have said.

If what they are saying is irrelevant, then prove it is, don't just assert it.

You haven't explained how tonality/atonality are understood by many; if it's different from what I've said is the common conception, tell me how.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> Works for me if a common term can be accepted. I doubt it though. I have a feeling that the very few who rail against the term, atonal, won't accept anything. And I'm certain that the one (or two) who don't distinguish between tonal and atonal won't.


If you read what I say, you'll notice that I do think there are distinctions between the music commonly called atonal and that commonly called tonal. They just don't have anything to do with he distinctions that are commonly cited, and they make the term atonal a misnomer.

Atonal is a bad term because it implies that the music is distinguished by being the opposite of tonal music or bereft of the basic elements that comprise tonal music, which is absolutely wrong as regards the vast majority of music called atonal.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> If you read what I say, you'll notice that I do think there are distinctions between the music commonly called atonal and that commonly called tonal. They just don't have anything to do with he distinctions that are commonly cited, and they make the terms misnomers.
> 
> Atonal is a bad term because it implies that the music is distinguished by being the opposite of tonal music or bereft of the basic elements that comprise tonal music, which is absolutely wrong as regards the vast majority of music called atonal.


Regarding my last post: I rest my case.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> Regarding my last post: I rest my case.


But you haven't _given_ a case.

Saying that something is true does not constitute arguing for it. Saying it multiple times doesn't do anything to fortify evidence.

You're saying that I won't accept any terms, but you haven't even seen any terms offered except by me. The problem is that as commonly conceived, the term atonality covers music that has about as much in common harmonically as a recording of Tuvan throat singing does with Eine kleine Nachtmusik in terms of construction.


----------



## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> Works for me if a common term can be accepted. I doubt it though. I have a feeling that the very few that rail against the term, atonal, won't accept anything. And I'm certain that the one (or two) who don't distinguish between tonal and atonal won't.


You are probably correct, but then you could simply define a set of music that you wish to discuss. Even if you included music that others felt was dissimilar (Schoenberg's 3rd quartet, Xenakis' Pithoprakta, everything by Varese, and similar music), then at least the discussion would be on the issue you intend and not the definitions.

Many people listen to classical music and love centuries of works from 1700 through the early 1900s. They then are exposed to strange sounding 20th century music that they hate. Understandably they are confused, even revolted, and have many questions. Some simply want to express their hatred. Fine. But others might want to understand why this new music sounds so horrible, why it was written if it sounds that way, and why don't composers write what "everyone" originally loved. There are sensible answers to these questions (if not ones that will make everyone happy), but those answers require getting past definitions and on to the music.


----------



## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> You are probably correct, but then you could simply define a set of music that you wish to discuss. Even if you included music that others felt was dissimilar (Schoenberg's 3rd quartet, Xenakis' Pithoprakta, everything by Varese, and similar music), then at least the discussion would be on the issue you intend and not the definitions.
> 
> Many people listen to classical music and love centuries of works from 1700 through the early 1900s. They then are exposed to strange sounding 20th century music that they hate. Understandably they are confused, even revolted, and have many questions. Some simply want to express their hatred. Fine. But others might want to understand why this new music sounds so horrible, why it was written if it sounds that way, and why don't composers write what "everyone" originally loved. There are sensible answers to these questions (if not ones that will make everyone happy), but those answers require getting past definitions and on to the music.


Couldn't agree more.


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> It actually isn't.


I said.
_But the vocabulary of CP Tonality such as cadences, I-IV-V and other progressions, the circle of 5ths and the concept of contrast between major and minor triads, is what links the above composers/songwriters to each other.
_

You said.
_"It isn't."_

And quoted this paragraph:

_"As you'd expect, the tonic I is the most commonly-used chord in the Rolling Stone corpus. However, the next most common chord is IV, and it most frequently precedes I. Right away, we have a conflict with traditional classical theory, where the most basic tonal building block is the V-I cadence. Rock uses plenty of V-I, but it uses even more IV-I. And the third most common pre-tonic chord in rock is not ii, like you'd expect if you went to music school; it's bVII, reflecting rock musicians' love of Mixolydian mode. These same three chords, IV, V and bVII, are also the ones most likely to follow the tonic in rock, again very much at odds with classical practice."_

To draw an analogy with language. That is more a change of 'accent' than vocabulary. I never said there were no differences between the way tonality or it's vocabulary was used. Otherwise all tonal music would sound the same. The fundamental building blocks of tonality which are, harmonic progression, cadence and major/minor contrast is found in all the music I cited but not found in what is commonly referred to as atonal music.

Hence, a circle of 5ths progression appears frequently in Baroque music and in 20C popular music but never in Webern, Berio, Birtwhistle, Xenakis etc.


----------



## Mahlerian

mmsbls said:


> You are probably correct, but then you could simply define a set of music that you wish to discuss. Even if you included music that others felt was dissimilar (Schoenberg's 3rd quartet, Xenakis' Pithoprakta, everything by Varese, and similar music), then at least the discussion would be on the issue you intend and not the definitions.
> 
> Many people listen to classical music and love centuries of works from 1700 through the early 1900s. They then are exposed to strange sounding 20th century music that they hate. Understandably they are confused, even revolted, and have many questions. Some simply want to express their hatred. Fine. But others might want to understand why this new music sounds so horrible, why it was written if it sounds that way, and why don't composers write what "everyone" originally loved. There are sensible answers to these questions (if not ones that will make everyone happy), but those answers require getting past definitions and on to the music.


You understand what's wrong with a loaded question, right?

You wouldn't just answer "Why have you been beating your wife?" with a reason if you couldn't agree that any domestic abuse had been taking place.

Similarly, questions like "Why did Schoenberg turn to an unnatural system like atonality?" are unanswerable until they are unpacked and the underlying premises confronted.

I'd be happy to talk about what Schoenberg actually _DID_ do with his works. In these arguments, no one actually seems interested in that, though.


----------



## mmsbls

Mahlerian said:


> You understand what's wrong with a loaded question, right?
> 
> You wouldn't just answer "Why have you been beating your wife?" with a reason if you couldn't agree that any domestic abuse had been taking place.
> 
> Similarly, questions like "Why did Schoenberg turn to an unnatural system like atonality?" are unanswerable until they are unpacked and the underlying premises confronted.
> 
> I'd be happy to talk about what Schoenberg actually _DID_ do with his works. In these arguments, no one actually seems interested in that, though.


I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. What does a loaded question have to do with these posts? You may want to talk about what Schoenberg did with his music, but others may want to understand why it sounds so awful to them. Presumably if someone hates the music, they are not so interested in exactly what the music is doing and more interested why it sounds so different and unpleasant to them. Of course it's possible the two are related.


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## SeptimalTritone

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. What does a loaded question have to do with these posts? You may want to talk about what Schoenberg did with his music, but others may want to understand why it sounds so awful to them. Presumably if someone hates the music, they are not so interested in exactly what the music is doing and more interested why it sounds so different and unpleasant to them. Of course it's possible the two are related.


Here is why people may not like Schoenberg.

1. The harmony and melody is extremely non-diatonic.
2. The harmony is non-triadic and non-diatonic seventh chordal, except in a select few cadential spots.
3. The harmony and melody are extremely dense, and built out of the same DNA (whether it be from a tone row or a set-theoretic construction). This produces a very complex sound.
4. The musical mood is very emotionally uncompromising.

These four points make it seem as if the music is best described by the word "atonal", but the word "atonal" is a really, really bad description of how the music both works on paper and sounds aurally. People all too often criticize Schoenberg for being atonal or lacking harmonic logic when in reality, it's just non-diatonic/triadic, very dense melodically and harmonically, and strongly emotionally uncompromising (which can be off-putting for some).

This is why. I agree with Mahlerian that "Why did Schoenberg write unnatural atonal music?" is like asking "Why do you punch your wife every day?" People are free to dislike Schoenberg, but criticizing him has to be done based on how his music actually works, both on paper and in sound. "Atonal" is not how Schoenberg's music works.


----------



## Chronochromie

SeptimalTritone said:


> Here is why people may not like Schoenberg.
> 
> 1. The harmony and melody is extremely non-diatonic.
> 2. The harmony is non-triadic and non-diatonic seventh chordal, except in a select few cadential spots.
> 3. The harmony and melody are extremely dense, and built out of the same DNA (whether it be from a tone row or a set-theoretic construction). This produces a very complex sound.
> 4. The musical mood is very emotionally uncompromising.
> 
> These four points make it seem as if the music is best described by the word "atonal", but the word "atonal" is a really, really bad description of how the music both works on paper and sounds aurally. People all too often criticize Schoenberg for being atonal or lacking harmonic logic when in reality, it's just non-diatonic/triadic, very dense melodically and harmonically, and strongly emotionally uncompromising (which can be off-putting for some).
> 
> This is why. I agree with Mahlerian that "Why did Schoenberg write unnatural atonal music?" is like asking "Why do you punch your wife every day?" People are free to dislike Schoenberg, but criticizing him has to be done based on how his music actually works, both on paper and in sound. "Atonal" is not how Schoenberg's music works.


I've noticed that the people who dislike Schoenberg and think that's because his music is "atonal" tend to dislike works like the Chamber Symphony No. 1 and String Quartet No. 1 as well.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Chronochromie said:


> I've noticed that the people who dislike Schoenberg and think that's because his music is "atonal" tend to dislike works like the Chamber Symphony No. 1 and String Quartet No. 1 as well.


Yes. I would add that a tonal, functional logic does not need to be based on triads or seventh chords or diatonicism. One can have music based on very chromatic tetrachords/pentachords etc. and have a functional logic based on them. This is how Schoenberg wrote his music. This is why Schoenberg's music has goal, cadence, and harmonic progression. "Atonal" is a terrible term to describe this.


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## MarkW

"The Thread That Wouldn't Die"

I happen to think coffee is an absolutely ghastly drink. But obsessing over what a large number of people find enjoyable about it does neither me, nor them, nor coffee (nor tea, for that matter), any good whatsoever.


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## isorhythm

SeptimalTritone said:


> Yes. I would add that a tonal, functional logic does not need to be based on triads or seventh chords or diatonicism. One can have music based on very chromatic tetrachords/pentachords etc. and have a functional logic based on them.


Hmmmmm I don't know about this. I've never seen anyone identify any kind of function in Schoenberg analogous to tonality. (Seems to me that's more what Hindemith was after, for what it's worth.)

The most convincing general principle I've seen applied to his music (free atonal and 12 tone) is Charles Rosen's observation that it's driven by "the tendency of chromatic music to fill chromatic space."


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## SeptimalTritone

isorhythm said:


> Hmmmmm I don't know about this. I've never seen anyone identify any kind of function in Schoenberg analogous to tonality. (Seems to me that's more what Hindemith was after, for what it's worth.)


Incorrect.

Take the tone row of op 25.










Notice how P-0 directly voice-leads into I-6 or P-6. Notice how every first tetrachord contains the G-C# dyad, and how the primary cadences of the piece are literally on the G-C# dyad in the bass (as part of the first tetrachord). Notice how the third tetrachord in each tone row presentation has a leading function. This can all be directly heard in, say, the beginning of the gigue.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Can anyone recommend a good atonal piece by Mozart?


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## Harold in Columbia

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> Can anyone recommend a good atonal piece by Mozart?


Sure.


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## Harold in Columbia

The thing is, this thread isn't even really about atonal music. Most of the people here complaining about atonality also complain about minimalism and post-minimalism when the subject comes up, and would complain about spectral music if they knew about it. I mean, it's one thing if you're tearing down atonality to build up something else. But if your position is essentially that there hasn't been a good new idea since Nationalist Stravinsky, then you don't have a problem with atonality, you're just using that as a red herring for a much bigger problem.


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## isorhythm

SeptimalTritone said:


> Notice how P-0 directly voice-leads into I-6 or P-6.


Yes, the last note of the row is six semitones above the first note. If it were five semitones it would "voice lead" into P-5 or I-5. Etc. This is a tautology, not an analytical statement.

There's no consistent harmonic syntax in Schoenberg analogous to tonality. Nor do I think Schoenberg's music would be improved if there were. I like it the way it is.


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## isorhythm

Harold in Columbia said:


> Sure.


Like I said...the tendency of chromatic music to fill chromatic space.


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## SeptimalTritone

isorhythm said:


> Yes, the last note of the row is six semitones above the first note. If it were five semitones it would "voice lead" into P-5 or I-5. Etc. This is a tautology, not an analytical statement.
> 
> There's no consistent harmonic syntax in Schoenberg analogous to tonality. Nor do I think Schoenberg's music would be improved if there were. I like it the way it is.


Then what harmonic relation is this










if not common chords, and voice leading between common chords?


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## isorhythm

There are only twelve notes. You put them in some order and you can find any number of trivial properties of that order. It's not an organizing principle of the music.


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## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> There are only twelve notes. You put them in some order and you can find any number of trivial properties of that order. It's not an organizing principle of the music.


But it is used as an organizing principle in this work. You seem to think that the order was arbitrary or the notes are used arbitrarily, when the exact opposite is the case.


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## SeptimalTritone

isorhythm said:


> There are only twelve notes. You put them in some order and you can find any number of trivial properties of that order. It's not an organizing principle of the music.


Really?

Absolutely zero of the relationships between and within tone row forms that I pointed out in my previous posts would hold if one used a random tone row. This is a _mathematical fact_ that I'm sure you realize. Why would you consider the tonic->dominant->tonic or tonic->subdominant->dominant->tonic voice leading relationships in Mozart essential but the clear ones I pointed out in Schoenberg non-organizing? Why would you treat this differently?


----------



## arpeggio

Harold in Columbia said:


> Sure.


I love it.

I think there is a movement in a Mozart symphony where he runs through all twelve tones.


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## Harold in Columbia

arpeggio said:


> I think there is a movement in a Mozart symphony where he runs through all twelve tones.


You may be referring to G minor, K. 550 - finale, beginning of the development section: 




There's also the Commendatore's dinner order in the act two finale of _Don Giovanni_: 




Phew. Shaw was right. _Tristan and Isolde_ is a relief after that stuff.


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## Woodduck

isorhythm said:


> Yes, the last note of the row is six semitones above the first note. If it were five semitones it would "voice lead" into P-5 or I-5. Etc. This is a tautology, not an analytical statement.
> 
> *There's no consistent harmonic syntax in Schoenberg analogous to tonality.* Nor do I think Schoenberg's music would be improved if there were. I like it the way it is.


I agree. And that's because he didn't _want_ to do anything analogous to tonality. Quite the contrary.

A musical style either employs a scale in which certain tones are felt to have definite functions, and greater or lesser importance, in relation to a centrally important tone, or it doesn't. If music isn't using a scale which is assumed to possess intrinsically such a hierarchy of relationships - assumed by the composer and listener prior to the sounding of any piece which might utilize it - and doesn't set up conditions which refer to or lead one to expect such relationships, that music lacks tonality.

A composer can create all sorts of patterns and cross references within a work and still not be working with or evoking a _tonal_ system or idiom. There's nothing wrong with that. Why is there such resistance to recognizing it?

What would be "analogous" to tonality anyway?


----------



## KenOC

arpeggio said:


> I love it.
> 
> I think there is a movement in a Mozart symphony where he runs through all twelve tones.


The subject of Bach's B-minor fugue from Book 1 of the WTC sounds like it uses all twelve tones -- or maybe even 13 or 14!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

arpeggio said:


> I love it.
> 
> I think there is a movement in a Mozart symphony where he runs through all twelve tones.


Love it too. Sounds very different from all modern atonal music I've heard.


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## Harold in Columbia

Lest I mislead the innocent: Mozart's gigue is not actually atonal. But I bet if I played just the first two bars to some of the people here and told them it was the work of Schönberg, Webern, or some equally dastardly person, they'd believe me.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Woodduck said:


> A composer can create all sorts of patterns and cross references within a work and still not be working with or evoking a _tonal_ system or idiom. There's nothing wrong with that. Why is there such resistance to recognizing it?


I think we can all agree that the more important question is:


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Woodduck said:


> A musical style either employs a scale in which certain tones are felt to have definite functions, and greater or lesser importance, in relation to a centrally important tone, or it doesn't. If music isn't using a scale which is assumed to possess intrinsically such a hierarchy of relationships - assumed by the composer and listener prior to the sounding of any piece which might utilize it - and doesn't set up conditions which refer to or lead one to expect such relationships, that music lacks tonality.


The first sentence, in the case of Schoenberg, is true. In op 25, we have a central note G, and tone row variants with tetrachords that establish this note in the bass. C# is a secondary note, and the notes E and B flat are supporting parts of the first tetrachord in every non-retrograded presentation of the tone row. All other notes are of less importance. In op 26, E flat is the central note, and this note is established through fourth/fifth relationship above and below within the P0 tone row, and between tone row variants. B flat is a secondary note (that is, a post-common practice dominant note), and F serves as B flat's own secondary dominant note. The piece begins by defining this opposition right from the start with the horn's held B flat and the flute's E flat on top (beginning on the dominant or dominant pedal was a thing from the romantic era started by Schubert and Schumann).

As for the second sentence, the importance of the diatonic scale isn't in the linear order of notes, but in the tonic-domaint relationship, and in the more auxiliary-functioning subdominant that leads into the more essential dominant. In a dominant 7th -> tonic cadence in C major, the note F goes down to E but the note B goes up to C and the note G (if in the bass) leaps to C. The dominant-tonic relationship is more primary than the linear ordering of notes in the scale, which inherently doesn't require a tonic-dominant relationship (indeed, Ionian modal music can have melodic cadences on the C major chord without establishing it through a root position dominant) So, in 12-tone music, we have primary chords and voice leading between these chords as defined through the tone row variants.

So there is a definite tonal system in Schoenberg's single-movement or multi-movement works. There is a heirarchy of notes. There is voice leading between chords. There are primary notes in chords, and subsidiary notes. There are links between notes and chords within and between tone rows.

Why is there such resistance to recognizing it?


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Harold in Columbia said:


> I think we can all agree that the more important question is:


Heh. Not only are there patterns in Schoenberg, but there is chordal voice leading, that is, chord progression, and primary central notes in these chords! It's completely tonal. Non-common practice tonal for sure and non-diatonically tonal, but still tonal, and it is not merely an analogy but a direct truth.


----------



## Woodduck

SeptimalTritone said:


> The first sentence, in the case of Schoenberg, is true. In op 25, we have a central note G, and tone row variants with tetrachords that establish this note in the bass. C# is a secondary note, and the notes E and B flat are supporting parts of the first tetrachord in every non-retrograded presentation of the tone row. All other notes are of less importance. In op 26, E flat is the central note, and this note is established through fourth/fifth relationship above and below within the P0 tone row, and between tone row variants. B flat is a secondary note (that is, a post-common practice dominant note), and F serves as B flat's own secondary dominant note. The piece begins by defining this opposition right from the start with the horn's held B flat and the flute's E flat on top (beginning on the dominant or dominant pedal was a thing from the romantic era started by Schubert and Schumann).
> 
> As for the second sentence, the importance of the diatonic scale isn't in the linear order of notes, but in the tonic-domaint relationship, and in the more auxiliary-functioning subdominant that leads into the more essential dominant. In a dominant 7th -> tonic cadence in C major, the note F goes down to E but the note B goes up to C and the note G (if in the bass) leaps to C. The dominant-tonic relationship is more primary than the linear ordering of notes in the scale, which inherently doesn't require a tonic-dominant relationship (indeed, Ionian modal music can have melodic cadences on the C major chord without establishing it through a root position dominant) So, in 12-tone music, we have primary chords and voice leading between these chords as defined through the tone row variants.
> 
> So there is a definite tonal system in Schoenberg's single-movement or multi-movement works. There is a heirarchy of notes. There is voice leading between chords. There are primary notes in chords, and subsidiary notes. There are links between notes and chords within and between tone rows.
> 
> Why is there such resistance to recognizing it?


Do you really believe that the perception of atonality (or non-tonality, or post-tonality, or whatever you prefer to call what Schoenberg did to harmony) is a matter of _resistance?_ I don't.

You can describe with painful terminological precision what's on a page of music till the earth is reabsorbed into the sun, but if vast numbers of people - many of them highly experienced and educated musically - listen to that music for the next century and persist in believing that the music is _not tonal_, you will simply have to end up claiming that their listening skills are defective.

If that's what you're claiming, just say so.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

Woodduck said:


> Do you really believe that the perception of atonality (or non-tonality, or post-tonality, or whatever you prefer to call what Schoenberg did to harmony) is a matter of _resistance?_ I don't.
> 
> You can describe with painful terminological precision what's on a page of music till the earth is reabsorbed into the sun, but if vast numbers of people - many of them highly experienced and educated musically - listen to that music for the next century and persist in believing that the music is _not tonal_, you will simply have to end up claiming that their listening skills are defective.
> 
> If that's what you're claiming, just say so.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

You have not responded to any of my points in a way other than through common logical fallacies.

If you have no counterargument to what I'm saying about the music, just say so.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

Wuddup said:


> Do you really believe that the perception of atonality (or non-tonality, or post-tonality, or whatever you prefer to call what Schoenberg did to your mum) is a matter of resistance (R=V/I)? I don't. I believe in angels, something good in everything I see.
> 
> You can describe with painful climatological precision what's on a page of music till the earth is reabsorbed into the sun, but if vast numbers of people - many of them high - experienced and educated musically listen to that music for the next musical century and persist in musing that the music is not music, you simply have to claim that their musical skills are defective and die.
> 
> If that's what you're claiming, just say so. I just want a hug.





Septicaltrichome said:


> You have not blown any of my curls away other than through common tricks of the tongue.
> 
> If you have found no opposition for my proposal, just say so. I'm getting old.


BananaPineappleBanana


----------



## SeptimalTritone

And speaking of resistance (R=V/I), it was _Woodduck_ who first brought up the idea of resistance, not me.



Woodduck said:


> A musical style either employs a scale in which certain tones are felt to have definite functions, and greater or lesser importance, in relation to a centrally important tone, or it doesn't. If music isn't using a scale which is assumed to possess intrinsically such a hierarchy of relationships - assumed by the composer and listener prior to the sounding of any piece which might utilize it - and doesn't set up conditions which refer to or lead one to expect such relationships, that music lacks tonality.
> 
> A composer can create all sorts of patterns and cross references within a work and still not be working with or evoking a _tonal_ system or idiom. There's nothing wrong with that. Why is there such resistance to recognizing it?


I explained clearly the existence of central tones, supporting tones (of lesser importance), chord progressions and heirarchical relationships. But then the response was:



Woodduck said:


> You can describe with painful terminological precision what's on a page of music till the earth is reabsorbed into the sun, but if vast numbers of people - many of them highly experienced and educated musically - listen to that music for the next century and persist in believing that the music is _not tonal_, you will simply have to end up claiming that their listening skills are defective.


Well, do you want to talk about the central notes, supporting subsidary notes, voice leading, and chord progressions that are on the published sheet music of several of Schoenberg's major multi-movement 12 tone works or not? Why would one claim that there are no heirarches of notes and no central notes, and then when this fact is demonstrated by myself, say that it's merely "painful teminological precision"?


----------



## KenOC

Atonal music (as defined by my ears) is not a way to win friends and listeners, generally speaking. It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer.

To the extent that "classical music" as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


----------



## Richannes Wrahms

. .


----------



## Ilarion

KenOC said:


> The subject of Bach's B-minor fugue from Book 1 of the WTC sounds like it uses all twelve tones -- or maybe even 13 or 14!


"...or maybe even 13 or 14".

Hi KenOC,

You have intrigued me greatly - Please enlighten me as to what is meant by 13 or 14, ok? I patiently await thy instruction, for I simply do not know...:angel:


----------



## Harold in Columbia

KenOC said:


> To the extent that "classical music" as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


What new works do you like, KenOC?


----------



## DaveM

KenOC said:


> Atonal music (as defined by my ears, not by certain Internet pedants) is not a way to win friends and listeners, generally speaking. It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer.
> 
> To the extent that "classical music" as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


Yes, that is both the truth and the elephant in the room.


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## Harold in Columbia

What new works do you like, DaveM?


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## DaveM

Harold in Columbia said:


> What new works do you like, DaveM?


Do you mean, new to me or as in recently composed?


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## Harold in Columbia

I mean as in recently composed.


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## Chronochromie

KenOC said:


> Atonal music (as defined by my ears, not by certain Internet pedants) is not a way to win friends and listeners, generally speaking. It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer.
> 
> To the extent that "classical music" as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


The people you speak of would probably change the station if they heard a symphony by Shostakovich or a string quartet by Bartók as well.

As you have done in the past, you are implying something about the value of the music based on (your perception of) its reception, which is still unconvincing.

As for me, as long as modern/contemporary music is regularly recorded and performed, which in my country it is, I couldn't care less about how popular or unpopular it is.


----------



## DaveM

Chronochromie said:


> As you have done in the past, you are implying something about the value of the music based on (your perception of) its reception, which is still unconvincing.


I'll horn in: Nothing was said or implied about the value of the music. It is a factual statement about the apparent accessibility of this music by the 'common man/woman'.


----------



## SeptimalTritone

KenOC said:


> Atonal music (as defined by my ears, not by certain Internet pedants) is not a way to win friends and listeners, generally speaking. It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer.
> 
> To the extent that "classical music" as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


As I've said before repeatedly, I'm only interested in factual questions about the published score. One is free to like or dislike Schoenberg. If largely the public doesn't want to listen to Schoenberg's non-triadic/diatonic music, that's unfortunate for me and other modern music fans. But it's not for the subject of the last few pages. I am only concerned here with the workings of his harmony and melody, and the clear demonstration of why atonal is a bad term. Very similarly to how one would want to establish in math that complex polynomials are factorizable, I am interested, as a music enthusiast, in the factual truths about Schoenberg's harmony and counterpoint. This seems so apparent that I am surprised some can deny it. But, deny it they will.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> I'll horn in: Nothing was said or implied about the value of the music. It is a factual statement about the apparent accessibility of this music by the 'common man/woman'.


What new works do you like, DaveM?


----------



## Chronochromie

DaveM said:


> I'll horn in: Nothing was said or implied about the value of the music. It is a factual statement about the apparent accessibility of this music by the 'common man/woman'.


He tries to be careful about not saying that, but in many posts and threads(and no, I'm not going to look for them) he heavily implies it.


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## DaveM

Here's an interesting article:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/7279626/Audiences-hate-modern-classical-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html


----------



## SeptimalTritone

KenOC said:


> Atonal music (as defined by my ears, not by certain Internet pedants)


Also, the parenthetic comment "defined by my ears" caught my eye.

If you don't hear heirarchy and voice leading, does that mean it doesn't exist?

If Schoenberg himself opposed the term atonal, why would the dislike of the term "atonal" be only among certain Internet pedants? Do you think that the aspects of the music (central tones, subsidary tones, and chordal voice leading) I'm pointing out are merely pedantry? Why would in, say, op 25, all the ending cadences end in G in the bass (with a higher C#) and directly voice-lead into through the Vienese trichord in the bass as defined through the tone row? Why would the third movement be an entire pedal stasis with only G in the bass for most of the third movement?

If published professors of Schoenberg analysis http://www.amazon.com/Schoenbergs-Twelve-Tone-Music-Symmetry-Musical/dp/1107046866 talk about tonality, cadences, and voice leading hierarchy in their textbooks and other articles, would that still relegate the dislike of the term atonal to "internet pedants"?

And finally, remember that the major of people are indifferent to ("it's relaxing") or actively dislike ("it's boring") classical music in general. This is also painfully obvious. It makes no sense to cherry-pick when to apply the popularity-quality relational argument. Either it applies in total, or it doesn't apply at all.


----------



## isorhythm

Septimal, Mahlerian,

I think the problem is you are taking me to mean that there is no relationship between pitches in 12-tone Schoenberg of any kind, that they are arbitrary and have no significance. That is of course not what I mean.


----------



## KenOC

Ilarion said:


> "...or maybe even 13 or 14".
> 
> Hi KenOC,
> 
> You have intrigued me greatly - Please enlighten me as to what is meant by 13 or 14, ok? I patiently await thy instruction, for I simply do not know...:angel:


I vass only choking.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Septimal, Mahlerian,
> 
> I think the problem is you are taking me to mean that there is no relationship between pitches in 12-tone Schoenberg of any kind, that they are arbitrary and have no significance. That is of course not what I mean.


Then explain what you did mean when you dismissed the connections Septimal pointed out as mere accidental byproducts of a process.



isorhythm said:


> There are only twelve notes. You put them in some order and you can find any number of trivial properties of that order. It's not an organizing principle of the music.


Or maybe you actually understood that the properties of this order, constructed for these purposes, are structurally important and utilized for the purposes of hierarchy and organization, and this was your way of intimating it?


----------



## Guest

How is it determined whether to play the Popularity Card or the Quality Card?


----------



## Mahlerian

dogen said:


> How is it determined whether to play the Popularity Card or the Quality Card?


The appeal to popularity is always a fallacy unless the question at hand specifically relates to or depends on popularity.

That is, we may appeal to popularity in order to determine which of the US presidential candidates is the best-liked, but we may not appeal to popularity to determine the speed of light.

I'm not sure what you mean by the quality card.


----------



## KenOC

Chronochromie said:


> The people you speak of would probably change the station if they heard a symphony by Shostakovich or a string quartet by Bartók as well.
> 
> As you have done in the past, you are implying something about the value of the music based on (your perception of) its reception, which is still unconvincing.


(A) Probably correct. And your point is...? (B) Absolutely untrue. I stated what seems to me an obvious fact and said or implied nothing about "value." I'm not even sure what that is. But I'd be happy to hear your definition!


----------



## DaveM

SeptimalTritone said:


> And finally, remember that the major of people are indifferent to ("it's relaxing") or actively dislike ("it's boring") classical music in general. This is also painfully obvious. It makes no sense to cherry-pick when to apply the popularity-quality relational argument. Either it applies in total, or it doesn't apply at all.


You can't really be serious. Yes, classical music has become a niche in the grand scheme of the musical world. KenOC's comment is a statement of fact regarding atonal music within the classical music niche: _It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer._

There's no cherry-picking. On any given classical music radio station or in most major concert programming, you will frequently hear early Baroque, late Baroque, early Classical Era, late Classical Era, early Romantic Era, late Romantic Era, 20th Century music if it is Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss etc. But you will only hear a smidgen of atonal-category music and, if you do, it is always sandwiched in-between the former.

I live in an orchestra-rich area. There are occasional all-atonal music concerts, but they are always in small venues and by small orchestras. Sometimes there are a fair number of empty chairs, something that the LA Times reviewer, Mark Swed, tries to acknowledge, but seems embarrassed when doing so. These are realities that have to be accepted if any discussion on the OP subject of 'What is the Point of Atonal Music' is going to have any substance.


----------



## Guest

Mahlerian said:


> The appeal to popularity is always a fallacy unless the question at hand specifically relates to or depends on popularity.
> 
> That is, we may appeal to popularity in order to determine which of the US presidential candidates is the best-liked, but we may not appeal to popularity to determine the speed of light.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean by the quality card.


It seems when it's Bach v Britney, we need to focus on Quality, but when it's Proper Music v Godforsaken Noise, one can focus on Popularity.


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> You can't really be serious. Yes, classical music has become a niche in the grand scheme of the musical world. KenOC's comment is a statement of fact regarding atonal music within the classical music niche: _It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer._
> 
> There's no cherry-picking. On any given classical music radio station or in most major concert programming, you will frequently hear early Baroque, late Baroque, early Classical Era, late Classical Era, early Romantic Era, late Romantic Era, 20th Century music if it is Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss etc. But you will only hear a smidgen of atonal-category music and, if you do, it is always sandwiched in-between the former.
> 
> I live in an orchestra-rich area. There are occasional all-atonal music concerts, but they are always in small venues and by small orchestras. Sometimes there are a fair number of empty chairs, something that the LA Times reviewer, Mark Swed, sometimes tries to acknowledge, but seems embarrassed when doing so. These are realities that have to be accepted if any discussion on the OP subject of 'What is the Point of Atonal Music' is going to have any substance.


I could equally say that when opera is played on my classical station it is always embedded within instrumental music.


----------



## DaveM

dogen said:


> I could equally say that when opera is played on my classical station it is always embedded within instrumental music.


In my area, operas are performed by the major orchestras and are almost always sold out.


----------



## Chronochromie

KenOC said:


> (A) Probably correct. And your point is...?


That the music being atonal or not has nothing to do with it being a turn off. As for the rest, I think you know what I meant.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> In my area, operas are performed by the major orchestras and are almost always sold out.


Indeed. As a matter of fact, Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron is about to enter a run of performances in Spain at the end of next month. Perhaps it was because the work was so successful last year in Berlin and Paris (also recently in the UK)?


----------



## Mahlerian

dogen said:


> It seems when it's Bach v Britney, we need to focus on Quality, but when it's Proper Music v Godforsaken Noise, one can focus on Popularity.


Ah, I understand now. Maybe I've been amiss all these years in thinking that popularity can't determine truth. Sometimes it can, clearly.


----------



## DaveM

It's interesting to me that, instead of addressing the substance and background of the facts behind KenOC's post, the response is to avoid it altogether and raise the issue of popularity vs. quality. IMO, that is nothing more than a smoke-screen. I don't like almost all atonal music, but I acknowledge that it has been a fact of life in classical music for over 100 years. As I've said, I try not to disparage it, because that would be an insult to those who find _value and quality_ in it.

But, and it's a big but, even if there is value and quality in atonal music, why has atonal music not caught on with the great majority of the classical music-listening community? I presented an article a few posts ago that may answer some of that question: The human brain searches for patterns. Some patterns are more accessible than others. Perhaps the majority of people simply find more pleasure in accessible patterns that 'soothe the soul' or 'tame the wild beast'. Maybe atonal music requires too much of an intellectual challenge of the individual when what the individual is trying to do is shut that part of the brain off. Food for thought...


----------



## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> I don't like almost all atonal music, but I acknowledge that it has been a fact of life in classical music for over 100 years. As I've said, I try not to disparage it, because that would be an insult to those who find _value and quality_ in it.
> 
> But, and it's a big but, even if there is value and quality in atonal music, why has atonal music not caught on with the great majority of the classical music-listening community? I presented an article a few posts ago that may answer some of that question: The human brain searches for patterns. Some patterns are more accessible than others. Perhaps the majority of people simply find more pleasure in accessible patterns that 'soothe the soul' or 'tame the wild beast'. Maybe atonal music requires too much of an intellectual challenge of the individual when what the individual is trying to do is shut that part of the brain off. Food for thought...


What new works do you like, DaveM?


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## Woodduck

SeptimalTritone said:


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition
> 
> You have not responded to any of my points in a way other than through common logical fallacies.
> 
> If you have no counterargument to what I'm saying about the music, just say so.


What logical fallacies? There's nothing eccentric about the way I define tonality, and nothing eccentric about the view that Schoenberg's music is not based on a tonal system, and is commonly heard not to be so based.


----------



## KenOC

Chronochromie said:


> That the music being atonal or not has nothing to do with it being a turn off. As for the rest, I think you know what I meant.


Please read what I wrote: "To the extent that 'classical music' as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works." Note the words "in the direction of." Re your examples, Shostakovich usually has very weak tonal centers, and Bartok (in some of the quartets) sounds close to atonal to most people regardless of any technical definitions.

As for "the rest," no, I don't know what you mean. Unless you think I was taking a swipe at the "quality" or "value" of the music by commenting on its popularity. Believe me, if I want to do that I'll do it directly. Meanwhile I urge you to read what I wrote and not presume to read my mind.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> It's interesting to me that, instead of addressing the substance and background of the facts behind KenOC's post, the response is to avoid it altogether and raise the issue of popularity vs. quality. IMO, that is nothing more than a smoke-screen. I don't like almost all atonal music, but I acknowledge that it has been a fact of life in classical music for over 100 years. As I've said, I try not to disparage it, because that would be an insult to those who find _value and quality_ in it.


KenOC's post was itself a distraction from the issues we were discussing before.

KenOC has always cherry-picked his facts. He's very fond of citing a single season of American orchestras performing the works of Schoenberg only a few times as proof that audiences don't want to hear this music. But one should also take into account the many successful performances that take place frequently in Europe, including of large scale works like the operas Wozzeck, Lulu, and Moses und Aron.

Are they performed _as frequently_ as the mainstays of the repertoire? No. I have not claimed that they are.

Are they performed _with regularity and to applause_? Yes.

Set a limit to what you consider approved enough, and I will show you whether or not it meets that, but don't keep changing the rules every time evidence is presented.



DaveM said:


> But, and it's a big but, even if there is value and quality in atonal music, why has atonal music not caught on with the great majority of the classical music-listening community? I presented an article a few posts ago that may answer some of that question: The human brain searches for patterns. Some patterns are more accessible than others. Perhaps the majority of people simply find more pleasure in accessible patterns that 'soothe the soul' or 'tame the wild beast'. Maybe atonal music requires too much of an intellectual challenge of the individual when what the individual is trying to do is shut that part of the brain off. Food for thought...


I and others who enjoy this music hear nothing but patterns in it. It's based on themes, melodies, and harmonies the same as any other. Is it complex? Yes. Can it be difficult? Yes. Does it sound random? Not to any of us.

Again, I want you to give some definite line, even if arbitrary and only useful for the sake of this discussion, as to what constitutes an "accessible" pattern. That's not something that's clear to any of us here. Then I'll show you some of the clearest elements in these works.


----------



## Woodduck

SeptimalTritone;105302 [I said:


> I explained clearly the existence of central tones, supporting tones (of lesser importance), chord progressions and heirarchical relationships.
> 
> Well, do you want to talk about the central notes, supporting subsidary notes, voice leading, and chord progressions that are on the published sheet music of several of Schoenberg's major multi-movement 12 tone works or not? Why would one claim that there are no heirarches of notes and no central notes, and then when this fact is demonstrated by myself, say that it's merely "painful teminological precision"?[/I]


The error in this is to think that "central notes, supporting subsidiary notes, voice leading, and chord progressions" constitute tonality. All those things can happen in music without any tonality being established. Tonality is a system of relationships between the notes of a scale which serves as the idiom in which a work is composed.

If you can tell us what are the features of the tonal system employed by the music you cite - what is the tonic or central note of the scale being employed, and how do the other notes of the scale characteristically function in relation to it and to each other in the work's idiom or style - you will have a case for that music being tonal. If not, your extensive descriptions of the music's internal relationships are, at least in the absence of aural demonstration (rather hard to achieve here), rather painful to read. Tonality has to be audible, after all, and above all felt. That's the only value of it.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> KenOC has always cherry-picked his facts. He's very fond of citing a single season of American orchestras performing the works of Schoenberg only a few times as proof that audiences don't want to hear this music.


I don't think it's cherry-picking if those are the only facts I have. And they're more convincing than anecdotal evidence of great popularity in Europe!

In any event, I now have two season's of programming. Would you like me to quote both? Meanwhile you might want to stop accusing me of cherry-picking when you make assertions based on no quantitative evidence at all.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> I don't think it's cherry-picking if those are the only facts I have. And they're more convincing than anecdotal evidence of *great popularity* in Europe!


Which I said nothing about. Do you take your readers for idiots? You treat them with no respect, just as you disrespect logic and ridicule your opponents (calling them pedants).

I was discussing the greater frequency of performances over in Europe, and I've shown this in the past with reference to the (non-exhaustive) collator Bachtrack, which lists upcoming performances, not "anecdotal evidence."



KenOC said:


> In any event, I now have two season's of programming. Would you like me to quote both? Meanwhile you might want to stop accusing me of cherry-picking when you make assertions based on no quantitative evidence at all.


I have cited quantitative evidence.

https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;medium=1;composer=96

Feel free to look. Find some new way of moving the goalposts and dismissing it as insignificant, change the argument, change the topic, shift the discussion until others give up, pretend you don't care, rail against those who disagree, insult the intelligence of everyone.


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> Which I said nothing about. Do you take your readers for idiots?


Hardly all of them! But what's this? "As a matter of fact, Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron is about to enter a run of performances in Spain at the end of next month. Perhaps it was because the work was so successful last year in Berlin and Paris (also recently in the UK)?"


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> I and others who enjoy this music hear nothing but patterns in it. It's based on themes, melodies, and harmonies the same as any other. Is it complex? Yes. Can it be difficult? Yes. Does it sound random? Not to any of us.


That seems to support the premise of my last post. In general, it may take too much work for a majority of listeners to understand and enjoy atonal music. And I suspect that most of them, including myself, simply don't hear anything initially that would make them/me want to put in the work. I want music where something speaks to me almost immediately.

And since I'm on that subject. Those who try to use the analogy that the process of getting used to the 'new music' during the Classical and/or the Romantic Era (such as the early reaction to some of Beethoven's music) to getting used to atonal music in the present day are comparing apples with oranges. There was still something in the music of those eras that made the listener want to hear more. Those great composers of old who came up with something new only continued to build a following because there was something relatively easily accessible to work with.



> Again, I want you to give some definite line, even if arbitrary and only useful for the sake of this discussion, as to what constitutes an "accessible" pattern. That's not something that's clear to any of us here...


IMO, there's a clue to that in the article I cited:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/7279626/Audiences-hate-modern-classical-music-because-their-brains-cannot-cope.html

I don't put the substance of that article forth as something that proves my point, but rather as something that just may be operative.


----------



## isorhythm

In a tonal piece every note is related to the tonic, often through a complex web of secondary relationships.

A 12-tone row can be arranged to take advantage of certain properties, like combinatoriality, or some the things Septimal noted. These may be useful at various points in the composition, but they don't structure the entire composition throughout the way tonality does.

This is not a criticism.

Also, yes, modern classical music is unpopular. You know, fans of other unpopular musics - free jazz, thrash metal, whatever - do not have this neurosis. If anything they revel in the fact that their music is unpopular.

It doesn't matter. The music is great whether or not it's popular. I do not understand this desire to wage a hopeless war against facts.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> Hardly all of them! But what's this? "As a matter of fact, Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron is about to enter a run of performances in Spain at the end of next month. Perhaps it was because the work was so successful last year in Berlin and Paris (also recently in the UK)?"


Well, reviews of those productions were consistently positive. The ones I read cited enthusiastic audiences. Maybe you can find otherwise?

Perhaps you believe that the reason the work has been played the last few years is because opera companies are willing to mount expensive failures if they believe in them enough.


----------



## Chronochromie

KenOC said:


> Please read what I wrote: "To the extent that 'classical music' as we define it here has moved in the direction of atonal music, it has lost listenership and has contributed to the narrowing of the audience for new works." Note the words "in the direction of." Re your examples, Shostakovich usually has very weak tonal centers, and Bartok (in some of the quartets) sounds close to atonal to most people regardless of any technical definitions.
> 
> As for "the rest," no, I don't know what you mean. Unless you think I was taking a swipe at the "quality" or "value" of the music by commenting on its popularity. Believe me, if I want to do that I'll do it directly. Meanwhile I urge you to read what I wrote and not presume to read my mind.


But the first part of your post says: "Atonal music (as defined by my ears, not by certain Internet pedants) is not a way to win friends and listeners, generally speaking. It is seldom encountered in concert halls and is enjoyed by few -- in fact, it is widely disliked in a very active sense. It seems the majority of listeners finds it repellent, to the extent that on the radio it is considered that worst of things, a station-changer." So where do _you_ draw the line between what's sufficiently atonal and what isn't? You said that you can identify it by ear. When does a piece or composer begin to supposedly alienate listeners due to its lack of tonality? I'd like to know which music are we talking about exactly. Here you seem to lump Bartók and Shostakovich with Schoenberg as less tonal/not tonal but in other threads you try very hard to show that Shostakovich is (one of) the most popular 20th century composers and Schoenberg isn't.

And you brought popularity into this for no clear reason.

"Believe me, if I want to do that I'll do it directly. Meanwhile I urge you to read what I wrote and not presume to read my mind."

I find it hard to believe that when you have done the opposite, not one but many times, so if reading and interpreting your posts is trying to "read your mind", so be it.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> Also, yes, modern classical music is unpopular. You know, fans of other unpopular musics - free jazz, thrash metal, whatever - do not have this neurosis. If anything they revel in the fact that their music is unpopular.
> 
> It doesn't matter. The music is great whether or not it's popular. I do not understand this desire to wage a hopeless war against facts.


*What war against facts? What neurosis?*

Other people are insisting that nobody plays this music, that nobody listens to this music, and I can show with evidence that that's not true.

I'm not saying it's popular compared to Beethoven or Brahms. I'm saying it's not the utterly despised thing that KenOC and Woodduck seem to think it is.

I present arguments to the contrary, and match evidence for evidence.

And for this you say I'm waging a war on facts? For this you say I'm suffering a neurosis?


----------



## isorhythm

It's probably more popular than Ken and Dave realize, sure.

I just don't see why we need to care either way.


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## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> It's probably more popular than Ken and Dave realize, sure.
> 
> I just don't see why we need to care either way.


Because their arguments *depend* on it being completely unpalatable, therefore unnatural, therefore unacceptable.

That constitutes the bulk of ALL arguments against atonality here.


----------



## arpeggio

I have been reviewing some of the recent threads, even by those I normally ignore.

Please spare us the bogus rationalizations about the superiority of tonal music and we will stop reminding everyone of my our positive experiences in the real world with contemporary music.

It is ironic that the article that was cited from the Telegraph made me think that maybe the ears of the people who like atonal music are actually superior to those who only understand tonal music. Even if it is unnatural.

Most of the tonal only people I have met have no problems with people listening to or groups programing atonal music. I had a friend here who admitted his preference to tonal music still enjoyed the Schoenberg _Piano Concerto_.

We had a recent poll where the majority of the members who follow classical music listen to both tonal and atonal music. The last time I checked the tonal only crowd only amounted to 1/3 of the respondents. If person can not deal with the fact that they are in a minority in this arena maybe they should go to Macon, Georgia.

Note: Some of you are on my ignore list so unless someone quotes your response I will not see it.


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## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> Other people are insisting that nobody plays this music, that nobody listens to this music...


Do you really want to be on record saying that? That's a 'loss of objectivity' category statement. I haven't seen that anywhere.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> Do you really want to be on record saying that? That's a 'loss of objectivity' category statement. I haven't seen that anywhere.


Okay, I did not literally mean that others had been saying "nobody" as in "never," but you and Ken have made a point of saying that performances are rare and unliked.


----------



## Chronochromie

DaveM said:


> That seems to support the premise of my last post. In general, it may take too much work for a majority of listeners to understand and enjoy atonal music. And I suspect that most of them, including myself, simply don't hear anything initially that would make them/me want to put in the work. I want music where something speaks to me almost immediately.


Maybe understanding complex Bach fugues comes easily to you, but not for me. If I had thought that way I wouldn't have gotten into half of the music I enjoy nowadays. And there's also something accumulative to me, i.e. if I "understand" a work I find difficult, the next difficult work is easier. I'm not saying you should do the same, just making an observation.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> That seems to support the premise of my last post. In general, it may take too much work for a majority of listeners to understand and enjoy atonal music. And I suspect that most of them, including myself, simply don't hear anything initially that would make them/me want to put in the work. I want music where something speaks to me almost immediately.
> 
> And since I'm on that subject. Those who try to use the analogy that the process of getting used to the 'new music' during the Classical and/or the Romantic Era (such as the early reaction to some of Beethoven's music) to getting used to atonal music in the present day are comparing apples with oranges. There was still something in the music of those eras that made the listener want to hear more. Those great composers of old who came up with something new only continued to build a following because there was something relatively easily accessible to work with.


But it's clear that the new composers also have been able to build up a following, albeit a smaller one.

It's because we do hear things that make us want to hear more. It's because the beauty and power of music survives the criticism leveled at it. It's because it speaks to us immediately and urgently.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> Okay, I did not literally mean that others had been saying "nobody" as in "never," but you and Ken have made a point of saying that performances are rare and unliked.


I'm a stickler for correct interpretation of what I say (well, as much as possible). I can't speak exactly for KenOC, but for me, I mean that those performances are relatively rare (which is not to say they are infrequent -there's a difference). They are liked by those who go them, but the size of the audience is usually, though not always, noticeably smaller.


----------



## DaveM

Mahlerian said:


> But it's clear that the new composers also have been able to build up a following, albeit a smaller one.
> 
> It's because we do hear things that make us want to hear more. It's because the beauty and power of music survives the criticism leveled at it. It's because it speaks to us immediately and urgently.


Well, I'm happy for you. No, really, I am. You get to have access to, (as in, it's accessible to you) and enjoyment of, a whole wealth of music that I never will. That's a fact and I acknowledge it.


----------



## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> I'm a stickler for correct interpretation of what I say (well, as much as possible). I can't speak exactly for KenOC, but for me, I mean that those performances are relatively rare (which is not to say they are infrequent -there's a difference). They are liked by those who go them, but the size of the audience is usually, though not always, noticeably smaller.


Can you back this up with statistics? I imagine you've never been to such a concert, so you're going off of secondhand anecdotes. Speaking from firsthand experience, when I've heard newer works live, they've been well-received, whether by large or small crowds.

I see empty seats at symphony concerts for traditional music too. The question is whether or not there are more.

Mark Berry, though obviously for one side of the issues here, remarks on this:



> I have lost count of the times I have heard claims that Schoenberg is 'box office poison', or some other such drivel. I could not see an empty seat in the vast Bastille amphitheatre; likewise, the Royal Opera House was full, not a seat remaining, for Welsh National Opera's two performances in London last year. Stockhausen's Mittwoch in Birmingham sold out even more quickly.


http://boulezian.blogspot.com/2015/10/moses-und-aron-opera-national-de-paris.html


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## arpeggio

Mahlerian said:


> Can you back this up with statistics? I imagine you've never been to such a concert, so you're going off of secondhand anecdotes. Speaking from firsthand experience, when I've heard newer works live, they've been well-received, whether by large or small crowds.
> 
> I see empty seats at symphony concerts for traditional music too. The question is whether or not there are more.
> 
> Mark Berry, though obviously for one side of the issues here, remarks on this:
> 
> http://boulezian.blogspot.com/2015/10/moses-und-aron-opera-national-de-paris.html


Some of your remarks go along with my experiences. I have attended many successful music festivals that were devoted to contemporary music.

Mahlerian, when our orchestra premiered you transcription of the Schoenberg, many members of the audience stated that is was their favorite work on the concert.

A gentleman in another forum made the point that we already have Beethoven. Having a living composer who composes like Beethoven will not increase the attendance of concerts.


----------



## violadude

I'm still waiting for someone like DaveM to explain to me why this double standard exists regarding accessibility. 

When it comes to Beethoven or some such earlier composer, you guys proudly state that getting this music takes time and patience to understand. Anyone who switches the music off without taking the time to really listen is truly missing out on something special.

But when it comes to atonal music, all of a sudden immediate pop-style accessibility is of utmost importance. Those who turn off the dial without taking the time to really listen are, in this context, used as poof that the music isn't good.

So which is it? What's with the double standard? I have the first attitude when it comes to any classical music. But for some people, atonal music seems to be held to the standards of pop music, where "Is it catchy?" is the only question that matters.


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## arpeggio

I will say one thing in defense of DavidM. He is basing his observations on his experiences. Problems arise when his experiences are different that ours.


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## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> Other people are insisting that nobody plays this music, that nobody listens to this music, and I can show with evidence that that's not true.
> 
> I'm not saying it's popular compared to Beethoven or Brahms. *I'm saying it's not the utterly despised thing that KenOC and Woodduck seem to think it is.*


Hey! Don't speak for me! I've never offered any opinion, nor do I care greatly, about how popular or unpopular music displaying various types and degrees of tonality is. My interest is technical/philosophical: what is tonality, and what are the attributes of tonal music? I only get involved when I see people obscuring the real differences between ways of structuring and perceiving music, and calling music tonal when it isn't based on any tonal system.

I really don't care who likes Schoenberg or Webern and who doesn't. I may differ with other people's preferences, but I won't argue with them. I will, however, argue with their descriptions.

As far as the popularity issue is concerned, I will observe that many decades of listening to classical radio in several major cities bear out KenOC's basic point. Boston in the '70s was graced with three classical stations and very knowledgeable commentators, and the programming was enormously diverse. Washington D.C. in that decade was not bad either. Seattle in the '80s and '90s was a bit more conservative. I live now in southern Oregon and our public radio network plays a good variety of classical music from Medieval to contemporary, including opera and, quite regularly, obscure stuff from the Baroque through Romantic eras. But there is a "tonality barrier" which has rarely, in my experience, been crossed by any of these radio stations: neoclassical Stravinsky, Bartok (but probably not the string quartets), and Messiaen might turn up, maybe some Berg (mainly an opera or the violin concerto), and then some contemporary stuff deemed not too intimidating (e.g. Adams), but almost never late Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Babbit, Wuorinen, or other "post-tonal" music. This is anecdotal observation. If anyone's observations are different, it would be interesting to hear them.

Personally, I'd be happy if more "difficult" music were programmed more often - or if it were not. But I think we might recognize that the presence of such music in the active repertoire would indicate, at the very least, that there is a substantial audience for classical music.


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## DaveM

arpeggio said:


> I will say one thing in defense of DavidM.


You are now officially on record of saying one thing in defense of DaveM.


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## Mahlerian

DaveM said:


> Well, I'm happy for you. No, really, I am. You get to have access to, (as in, it's accessible to you) and enjoyment of, a whole wealth of music that I never will. That's a fact and I acknowledge it.


I'm not sure that you couldn't appreciate it, but certainly, you never will if you don't have any interest in doing so.


----------



## Vaneyes

"Can't we all just git along."


----------



## Guest

Since Woodduck asked:
The main UK classical radio stations are ClassicFM and Radio 3. I listen to the latter (no adverts and all round better). If one listens to Radio 3 regularly you will hear any, all and everything. Off the top of my head, I have recently heard Bartok, Glass, Reich, Webern and Messiaen.


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## Harold in Columbia

DaveM said:


> Well, I'm happy for you. No, really, I am. You get to have access to, (as in, it's accessible to you) and enjoyment of, a whole wealth of music that I never will.


Try them! Try them! / And you may.



Woodduck said:


> But there is a "tonality barrier" which has rarely, in my experience, been crossed by any of these radio stations: neoclassical Stravinsky, Bartok (but probably not the string quartets), and Messiaen might turn up, maybe some Berg (mainly an opera or the violin concerto), and then some contemporary stuff deemed not too intimidating (e.g. Adams), but almost never late Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Babbit, Wuorinen, or other "post-tonal" music.


It's not a "tonality" barrier. It's a new ideas barrier. Those stations don't play Terry Riley - that's as "tonal" as can be - or Tristan Murail either.

----

General reminder that so far neither KenOC nor DaveM has answered my question. (What recent compositions do they like?)


----------



## Guest

...and the biggest UK classical music festival is the Proms. This is last year's listing...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/r89mxj/series


----------



## millionrainbows

Look, how many times do I have to repeat this before it finally sinks in?

"Tonality is God, and atonality is Humanism."

Tonality relates all intervals to the "1" root note (or God), and they are subservient ratios of 1. It all relates to God. God is the center.

In 12-tone, and some aspects of atonality, there is no "1" or God, and everything relates to what is around it equally. It is Einstein's relativity as compared to the old Newtonian universe.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Does that mean total serialism is quantum mechanics?


----------



## SimonNZ

DaveM said:


> I live in an orchestra-rich area. *There are occasional all-atonal music concerts,* but they are always in small venues and by small orchestras. Sometimes there are a fair number of empty chairs, something that the LA Times reviewer, Mark Swed, tries to acknowledge, but seems embarrassed when doing so. These are realities that have to be accepted if any discussion on the OP subject of 'What is the Point of Atonal Music' is going to have any substance.


Could you tell me the specific repertoire being played at these concerts, ideally with a link or two, so I may have some idea of what you mean by "atonal"? Because reading your posts you seem to use it, as so many others do, as meaning nothing more than recent/contemporary, and you apply it on assumption of unapproachableness and unenjoyableness without having even heard the music.


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Look, how many times do I have to repeat this before it finally sinks in?
> 
> "Tonality is God, and atonality is Humanism."
> 
> Tonality relates all intervals to the "1" root note (or God), and they are subservient ratios of 1. It all relates to God. God is the center.
> 
> In 12-tone, and some aspects of atonality, there is no "1" or God, and everything relates to what is around it equally. It is Einstein's relativity as compared to the old Newtonian universe.


What has become clear in this discussion is that tonality/atonality exists in a state of quantum super-position like Schrodinger's Cat. A piece is both tonal and atonal until the the listener decides.

I know exactly when a piece is tonal or atonal and no amount of protest from others can dissuade me.


----------



## SimonNZ

Petwhac said:


> What has become clear in this discussion is that tonality/atonality exists in a state of quantum super-position like Schrodinger's Cat. *A piece is both tonal and atonal until the the listener decides.
> *
> I know exactly when a piece is tonal or atonal and no amount of protest from others can dissuade me.


Er, no. See above post. The piece is, apparently, strictly "Atonal" until the unlikely event that the anti-modern person actually listens to it. All of it. Not just the first minute.


----------



## isorhythm

A couple days ago I reread Charles Rosen's essay "Styles and Manners" from _Piano Notes_ and was struck by how he freely used the word "atonal" to describe all kinds of music, from Schoenberg to Elliott Carter - like most people do. Very relaxing.


----------



## Petwhac

SimonNZ said:


> Er, no. See above post. The piece is, appartly, strictly "Atonal" until the unlikely event that the anti-modern person actually listens to it. All of it. Not just the first minute.


I don't hear this as tonal. Not by my definition. I'd like someone to demonstrate to me that it is.


----------



## Mahlerian

isorhythm said:


> A couple days ago I reread Charles Rosen's essay "Styles and Manners" from _Piano Notes_ and was struck by how he freely used the word "atonal" to describe all kinds of music, from Schoenberg to Elliott Carter - like most people do. Very relaxing.


You realize that he is not using it as you are, right?

I have already explained that as most people use the term, it means non-common practice music that is chromatic and non-triadic. Just as Rosen explains that modal music is something separate from tonality, by virtue of not being harmonically determined by functional root progressions.

Rosen also asserts the fundamental differences between tonal music of the common practice period and the "tonal" music of the 20th century by composers like Stravinsky and Britten, which is not based on the same principles at all.

You and Woodduck have tried to say that not only is common practice music tonal, but also that earlier music that preceded common practice tonality is tonal in a sense that atonality is not. Woodduck has said many times that he believes that tonality is _the_ natural condition that "atonality" departs from. This is also something Rosen spoke out against in his book on Schoenberg.

So whatever Rosen may say, you can't use him to back your arguments as if he is using the terms the same way you are.


----------



## Richard8655

If tonality and atonality are on equal footing and value as many here believe, why is there a natural disdain for atonality by the vast majority of people? To appreciate and like atonality requires a learned or forced experience. 

Isn't it similar to how the brain seeks patterns and avoids unrecognizable chaos? Preferring tonality as musical order is probably an evolutionary survival trait similar to visual perception preferences.

And I don't think it has anything to do with God.


----------



## Mahlerian

Richard8655 said:


> If tonality and atonality are on equal footing and value as many here believe,


Actually, I don't believe atonality is a real category at all. It's a catch-all for a variety of kinds of music with different kinds of harmonic relationships from the traditional ones of common practice music.



Richard8655 said:


> why is there a natural disdain for atonality by the vast majority of people? To appreciate and like atonality requires a learned or forced experience.


Not for me. Like anything else, it just took exposure to music like The Rite of Spring, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Jeux, and Pierrot lunaire to find myself drawn to it.



Richard8655 said:


> Isn't it similar to how the brain seeks patterns and avoids unrecognizable chaos? Preferring tonality as musical order is probably an evolutionary survival trait similar to visual perception preferences.


Maybe if there were no order in the music. Could you find music that lacks patterns and doesn't avoid "unrecognizable chaos"? I suppose you could cite something like Cage's Music of Changes where the notes were determined in large part by chance, but that's not really the focus of these discussions.


----------



## SimonNZ

Richard8655 said:


> If tonality and atonality are on equal footing and value as many here believe, why is there a natural disdain for atonality by the vast majority of people? To appreciate and like atonality requires a learned or forced experience.


I believe that these misleading or downright false assumptions grew with the nature of television reporting on the arts starting in the Fifties, which emphasises the kind of attention-grabbing or rates-grabbing that we would now call "click-bait" of the novelty-extremes of the arts, and even then presenting that limited focus in a distorted and superficial way. Actual considered and intelligent reporting on the full spectrum of the arts would be, then as now, long, slow, unsexy and an invitation to change chanel. Righteous indignation at percieved charlatans will keep the tv viewer watching, and let them congratulate themselves on their ability to see through these shams - without having to actually investigate themselves.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> You realize that he is not using it as you are, right?
> 
> I have already explained that as most people use the term, it means non-common practice music that is chromatic and non-triadic. Just as Rosen explains that modal music is something separate from tonality, by virtue of not being harmonically determined by functional root progressions.
> 
> Rosen also asserts the fundamental differences between tonal music of the common practice period and the "tonal" music of the 20th century by composers like Stravinsky and Britten, which is not based on the same principles at all.
> 
> *You and Woodduck have tried to say that not only is common practice music tonal, but also that earlier music that preceded common practice tonality is tonal in a sense that atonality is not.* Woodduck has said many times that he believes that tonality is _the_ natural condition that "atonality" departs from. This is also something Rosen spoke out against in his book on Schoenberg.
> 
> So whatever Rosen may say, you can't use him to back your arguments as if he is using the terms the same way you are.


Can you not see where someone may find this tonal in a way that they would not find the Finnissy piece I just previously posted, tonal? Really? What with all those major and minor harmonies and cadences?


----------



## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Can you not see where someone may find this tonal in a way that they would not find the Finnissy piece I just previously posted, tonal? Really? What with all those major and minor harmonies and cadences?


Sure, if their definition of tonal is based on diatonicism and common triads, rather than on the definition Rosen is using of functional harmonic progression based on hierarchy. I'm not saying there aren't differences between music like this and the music people call atonal, although people here have told me that I'm saying that. I'm saying that the differences are not ones relating to tonality as such.

I can hear the differences between that piece and common practice tonality immediately, and I'm sure everyone else can too.


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> If tonality and atonality are on equal footing and value as many here believe, why is there a natural disdain for atonality by the vast majority of people? To appreciate and like atonality requires a learned or forced experience.
> 
> Isn't it similar to how the brain seeks patterns and avoids unrecognizable chaos? Preferring tonality as musical order is probably an evolutionary survival trait similar to visual perception preferences.
> 
> And I don't think it has anything to do with God.


I think humans have shown throughout the centuries that they have a "natural disdain" for anything they aren't familiar with, so I wouldn't bet on basing my judgements on the human species' "natural disdain" for this or that.

But you're right about one thing, the brain does indeed seek patterns. That's why I begun to enjoy Schoenberg the minute I began to perceive the patterns that are in his music. Seriously, you would realize that if you just took the time to recognize those patterns the same way you did with any other composer. Calling the music unrecognizable chaos is complete nonsense.

How much "atonal" music have you actually sat down and honestly listened to with open ears? It baffles me how so many people say that atonal music is "nonsense", "unrecognizable chaos" and then it turns out that they don't listen to the music because they think it's so awful. Well who the hell are you to make such pronouncements about music you don't listen to? I don't pass such judgement about music I've never listened to (unless the music is transparent enough, i.e. pop music), or at least I try not to.


----------



## Richard8655

Ok fellow opposing-view TC travellers, I respect your opinions on this and am trying to understand them.

If atonality is not a category as per Mahlerian, then this thread subject really has no real meaning. Then also how to explain so many member views here that "atonality" is instinctively recognizable as opposed to "tonal", such that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., you know it's a duck.

I'm not sure anyone really answered this question. Why is it that (what is perceived) as atonality is pretty much universally disdained if it's supposedly as equally acceptable as tonality? I don't see how it could be 50's TV propaganda per SimonNZ as these are gut emotional preferences. Similarly, why is almost all popular music tonal (I rarely hear any dissonance there).


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Ok fellow opposing-view TC travellers, I respect your opinions on this and am trying to understand them.
> 
> If atonality is not a category as per Mahlerian, then this thread subject really has no real meaning. Then also how to explain so many member views here that "atonality" is instinctively recognizable as opposed to "tonal", such that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., you know it's a duck.
> 
> I'm not sure anyone really answered this question. *Why is it that (what is perceived) as atonality is pretty much universally disdained if it's supposedly as equally acceptable as tonality*? I don't see how it could be 50's TV propaganda per SimonNZ as these are gut emotional preferences. Similarly, why is almost all popular music tonal (I rarely hear any dissonance there).


Because people don't listen to it.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Sure, if their definition of tonal is based on diatonicism and common triads, rather than on the definition Rosen is using of functional harmonic progression based on hierarchy. I'm not saying there aren't differences between music like this and the music people call atonal, although people here have told me that I'm saying that. I'm saying that the differences are not ones relating to tonality as such.


As I have said before, I think it is a matter of _degree._ Neither Palestrina nor Finnessy may be strictly called tonal ( I don't think the latter could be called tonal strictly or not. I'll wait for SimonNZ's pronouncement on that one!) But one has more in common with tonality, shares so much more common ground with tonality that it is, like much Stravinsky and Britten _more _ tonal than Stockhausen or <insert name>. 
I also think, as I have said before, that the more common ground a piece shares with tonality (mainly harmonically) the more popular it tends to be. Which is why even Schoenberg is more popular than Finnissy and Ferneyhough!


----------



## Guest

violadude said:


> Because people don't listen to it.


Yup.Yup.Yup.Yup.


----------



## DaveM

SimonNZ said:


> I believe that these misleading or downright false assumptions grew with the nature of television reporting on the arts starting in the Fifties, which emphasises the kind of attention-grabbing or rates-grabbing that we would now call "click-bait" of the novelty-extremes of the arts, and even then presenting that limited focus in a distorted and superficial way. Actual considered and intelligent reporting on the full spectrum of the arts would be, then as now, long, slow, unsexy and an invitation to change chanel. Righteous indignation at percieved charlatans will keep the tv viewer watching, and let them congratulate themselves on their ability to see through these shams - without having to actually investigate themselves.


Not to mention the aliens in UFOs that since the 50s have reinforced and supported this agenda against the distardy new-fangled music.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> Can you not see where someone may find this tonal in a way that they would not find the Finnissy piece I just previously posted, tonal? Really? What with all those major and minor harmonies and cadences?


If Palestrina is "tonal," so is this, and the conservatives hate it anyway: 






Richard8655 said:


> Why is it that (what is perceived) as atonality is pretty much universally disdained...


It isn't. Classical music is pretty much universally disdained. Nobody except the classical public radio crowd - a faction within a minority - cares one way or the other.


----------



## Richard8655

violadude said:


> Because people don't listen to it.


Ok, and why don't they listen to it?


----------



## SimonNZ

Richard8655 said:


> Ok fellow opposing-view TC travellers, I respect your opinions on this and am trying to understand them.
> 
> If atonality is not a category as per Mahlerian, then this thread subject really has no real meaning. Then also how to explain so many member views here that "atonality" is instinctively recognizable as opposed to "tonal", such that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., you know it's a duck.
> 
> I'm not sure anyone really answered this question. Why is it that (what is perceived) as atonality is pretty much universally disdained if it's supposedly as equally acceptable as tonality? *I don't see how it could be 50's TV propaganda per SimonNZ* as these are gut emotional preferences. Similarly, why is almost all popular music tonal (I rarely hear any dissonance there).


I'm saying it's a paradigm of reporting that grew with television. And its not by any means the only factor. But how is it that people who listen to almost no modern classical at all have such very strong opinions about it? Where does this perception of a well-informed judgement come from when its not based on anything beyond the smallest of actual exposure?


----------



## violadude

Richard8655 said:


> Ok, and why don't they listen to it?


I don't know. Why don't you listen to it?


----------



## Guest

SimonNZ said:


> But how is it that people who listen to almost no modern classical at all have such very strong opinions about it? Where does this perception of a well-informed judgement come from when its not based on anything beyond the smallest of actual exposure?


The true mystery, indeed.


----------



## violadude

DaveM said:


> Not to mention the aliens in UFOs that since the 50s have reinforced and supported this agenda against the distardy new-fangled music.


Hmm yes, media doesn't have ANY effect on the attitudes of people. No, not at all.


----------



## mstar

Richard8655 said:


> Ok, and why don't they listen to it?


The same reason most people don't listen to classical music. 
So could we also make a thread like this about CM? 
*"What is the point of Classical music?"*


----------



## Petwhac

Harold in Columbia said:


> If Palestrina is "tonal," so is this, and the conservatives hate it anyway.


Who says a 'conservative' has to like everything tonal? 
They probably find the Reich monotonous not atonal. See the difference?


----------



## Mahlerian

Richard8655 said:


> If atonality is not a category as per Mahlerian, then this thread subject really has no real meaning. Then also how to explain so many member views here that "atonality" is instinctively recognizable as opposed to "tonal", such that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc., you know it's a duck.


Because there are obvious differences between the music they consider atonal and the music they know, and they accept that atonality covers these differences and is meant literally.

If the differences were obvious, you would expect that the distinction would both be widely recognized and the cases agreed upon. But I think you'll find that there is very little in the way of agreement as to what music actually is atonal. Some say Bartok, some don't. Some say Berg, some don't. Some say Shostakovich, some don't. Some include all of Schoenberg's works, while some include only the 12-tone works. If you're consistent with traditional designations of common practice tonality, Debussy wouldn't fit either, but most wouldn't call him atonal simply because his idiom is familiar.



Richard8655 said:


> I'm not sure anyone really answered this question. Why is it that (what is perceived) as atonality is pretty much universally disdained if it's supposedly as equally acceptable as tonality? I don't see how it could be 50's TV propaganda per SimonNZ as these are gut emotional preferences. Similarly, why is almost all popular music tonal (I rarely hear any dissonance there).


Most popular music isn't tonal, by a strict definition as mentioned above, and there's plenty of (often unresolved) dissonance in it.

Which is beside the point anyway because dissonance is not related to whether or not something is considered tonal.


----------



## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> Look, how many times do I have to repeat this before it finally sinks in?
> 
> "Tonality is God, and atonality is Humanism."
> 
> Tonality relates all intervals to the "1" root note (or God), and they are subservient ratios of 1. It all relates to God. God is the center.
> 
> In 12-tone, and some aspects of atonality, there is no "1" or God, and everything relates to what is around it equally. It is Einstein's relativity as compared to the old Newtonian universe.


It's an interesting theory. Especially considering the eras of these forms. Tonality being in a time flooded with religious, godly beliefs. And Atonality flourishing around a time of more atheistic or agnostic perspectives.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Petwhac said:


> Who says a 'conservative' has to like everything tonal?
> They probably find the Reich monotonous not atonal. See the difference?


What new compositions do you like, Petwhac?


----------



## dgee

mstar said:


> The same reason most people don't listen to classical music.
> So could we also make a thread like this about CM?
> *"What is the point of Classical music?"*


Yay for this! The "disdain" most people feel for tonal classical music is something few people will own up to...


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Blake said:


> It's an interesting theory. Especially considering the eras of these forms. Tonality being in a time flooded with religious, godly beliefs. And Atonality flourishing around a time of more atheistic or agnostic perspectives.


Except for the problem of geography: Austrians still went to church for the first three quarters of the 20th century. Catholic Rhinelanders and southeastern French still went to church during Stockhausen's and Boulez's formative years. Meanwhile, northern France, pioneer in secularism, produced... Debussy.


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> You and Woodduck have tried to say that not only is common practice music tonal, but also that earlier music that preceded common practice tonality is tonal in a sense that atonality is not. *Woodduck has said many times that he believes that tonality is the natural condition that "atonality" departs from. * This is also something Rosen spoke out against in his book on Schoenberg.


What Woodduck has _actually_ said many times is that in its fundamental meaning, "tonality" - of which common practice is our traditional Western species - is the structuring of music according to a system which uses the notes of a specific scale, in which a particular note of that scale is perceived as a center or "tonic," and in which the other notes of that scale are assumed to have particular relationships to that tonic and to each other. "Atonality," in the broadest sense, is the structuring of music without such an underlying tonal system - or, in the narrower, most commonly used sense, the structuring of music using the twelve tones of the chromatic scale without such a system.

As for "naturalness," all music is artificial and conventional, but some conventions have a tendency to arise spontaneously, frequently, or on a wide scale, as expressions of human psychic and physical nature, while others are creations of more limited circumstances and purposes. I believe that tonality, in the broad sense given above, is a convention of the former sort, and the majority of the world's musical expressions are evidence of this, whether the "tonic" occurs as a simple, steady drone against which other scale notes are heard, or as the gravitational center of a complex hierarchy of chords and keys. Obviously, music does not _have_ to employ the convention of tonality; there are other ways of organizing music, applicable to both tonal and nontonal music. But just as obviously, the idea of a tonal center exercising gravitational force is a convention deeply rooted in mankind's musical - and nonmusical - patterns of thinking and being: a principle of organization which is elegant, thoroughgoing, and capable of unifying a maximal amount of data by means of a single easily perceived structural idea. The human mind makes sense of the world by doing exactly this - seeking the simplest, most explanatory concept in a plethora of information - and tonality is an affirmation of the mind's power of integration, as well as an expressive metaphor for man's need for a sense of stability amid the flux of experience.

Conventions, in short, are not all equal, and not necessarily arbitrary. The very etymology of the word - from the Latin _con venire_, "to come together" - indicates a product of collective or common consciousness. In this sense, tonality is a convention which is "natural," a word which is used in enough senses that no one ought to freak out over it here.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

What new compositions do you like, Woodduck?


----------



## Woodduck

Mahlerian said:


> I think you'll find that there is very little in the way of agreement as to what music actually is atonal. Some say Bartok, some don't. Some say Berg, some don't. Some say Shostakovich, some don't. Some include all of Schoenberg's works, while some include only the 12-tone works. If you're consistent with traditional designations of common practice tonality, Debussy wouldn't fit either, but most wouldn't call him atonal simply because his idiom is familiar. Most popular music isn't tonal, by a strict definition as mentioned above, and there's plenty of (often unresolved) dissonance in it.


How does the fact that not everyone perceives tonality in its subtler manifestations prove anything? Isn't it simply what we'd expect of aesthetic perception in general?

Constantly referring to people who can't tell tonal from atonal music doesn't show that there is no difference, or that atonality doesn't exist. To do that you have to show that music commonly considered atonal exhibits construction according to a system of tonality, or at least substantially references idioms commonly perceived as tonal and sets up tonal expectations.


----------



## Woodduck

Originally Posted by Harold in Columbia:
_If Palestrina is "tonal," so is this [Reich's "Drumming"], and the conservatives hate it anyway._



Petwhac said:


> Who says a 'conservative' has to like everything tonal?
> They probably find the Reich monotonous not atonal. See the difference?


I'll go further and say "boring." But "hate" is too strong a word for something so trivial.

There's a team of construction workers putting new siding on my apartment today. I've taken my computer elsewhere to escape the constant banging, and what do I get?

Oh well.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

What new compositions do you like, Woodduck?


----------



## Becca

Woodduck said:


> There's a team of construction workers putting new siding on my apartment today. I've taken my computer elsewhere to escape the constant banging, and what do I get?
> 
> Oh well.


Is there a tonal center to the banging?


----------



## DiesIraeCX

I laughed out loud at nobody responding to Harold's repeated question on the past couple of pages. I'll lend you a hand.

I enjoyed the Leroux links you posted recently. Also Grisey's _Vortex Temporum_, _Périodes_. Takemitsu's _From Me Flows What You Call Time_ (not "new", I know). Some Murail, some _Haas_ (the stuff that didn't give me a pounding headache). Boulez _Sur incises_, _Une page d'éphéméride pour piano_.

Definitely lots more, the contemporary I listen to often is found in the glorious place known as YouTube. I'll listen to one piece, I then click on one of the recommendations to the right. We all know the routine, it's addicting.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Out of curiosity, what stuff by Haas gave you the pounding headache?


----------



## DiesIraeCX

Concerto Grosso No. 2 (2014). I dunno, maybe I already had a headache that day and it exacerbated it. I'm always willing to try again.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

I once read a comment on Youtube on one of Haas' concertante works - might even have been that one - to the effect of "enough of this lawnmower music." (Or it may have been in German, in which case, Rasenmähermusik.) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find it again. I like a lot of lawnmower music, but it's such a perfect description that I'd like to see it come into wider use.


----------



## Chronochromie

Harold in Columbia said:


> I once read a comment on Youtube on one of Haas' concertante works - might even have been that one - to the effect of "enough of this lawnmower music." (Or it may have been in German, in which case, Rasenmähermusik.) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find it again. I like a lot of lawnmower music (though with regard to Haas, I can never make up my mind whether he's adding anything to what's already been done), but it's such a perfect description that I'd love to see it come into wider use.


Oddly enough I remember that, it's in the violin concerto video, here.


----------



## Woodduck

Becca said:


> Is there a tonal center to the banging?


The bangs being of indefinite pitch, tonality is not a relevant concept.

Ask a serious question, get a facetious answer. Or is it the other way around?

At least I know that the sounds have some purpose besides annoying me.


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Chronochromie said:


> Oddly enough I remember that, it's in the violin concerto video, here.


Thank you!!!

(blah blah 15 characters)


----------



## Guest

DiesIraeCX said:


> I laughed out loud at nobody responding to Harold's repeated question on the past couple of pages.


He really can't catch a break


----------



## isorhythm

Anyone is free to read Rosen's many works for themselves. They are excellent. That's the end of my contribution here.


----------



## bz3

Chronochromie said:


> Oddly enough I remember that, it's in the violin concerto video, here.


My lawnmower doesn't sound much like this and I guess I should be grateful. It is "monolith music" to me, for its relation to the Ligeti stuff.


----------



## EdwardBast

never mind..................


----------



## Nereffid

Woodduck said:


> Originally Posted by Harold in Columbia:
> _If Palestrina is "tonal," so is this [Reich's "Drumming"], and the conservatives hate it anyway._
> 
> I'll go further and say "boring." But "hate" is too strong a word for something so trivial.
> 
> There's a team of construction workers putting new siding on my apartment today. I've taken my computer elsewhere to escape the constant banging, and what do I get?
> 
> Oh well.


Thank goodness Reich isn't popular among the right people, or you'd really be in trouble! :lol:


----------



## Guest

Some people have very weird lawnmowers.


----------



## isorhythm

Reich is popular with me, am I not one of the right people??


----------



## Harold in Columbia




----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> Reich is popular with me, am I not one of the right people??


I would also say that, based on the days when I wasn't a fan of classical music and I was on many different forums/websites, Reich is probably as popular as Beethoven to primarily non-classical listeners.


----------



## isorhythm

nathanb said:


> I would also say that, based on the days when I wasn't a fan of classical music and I was on many different forums/websites, Reich is probably as popular as Beethoven to primarily non-classical listeners.


I think you're right.

Though most people only know _Music for 18 Musicians_ and maybe some of the early tape and phase pieces.


----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> Reich is popular with me, am I not one of the right people??


Good grief no, whatever gave you that idea? Didn't you get the list? :lol:


----------



## mstar

nathanb said:


> I would also say that, based on the days when I wasn't a fan of classical music and I was on many different forums/websites, Reich is probably as popular as Beethoven to primarily non-classical listeners.


Woah - I don't think I've ever heard of Reich. I don't exactly know where that puts me...


----------



## Harold in Columbia

Well, are you a primarily non-classical listener?


----------



## ArtMusic

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, are you a primarily non-classical listener?


What do you mean by that? I am primarily a classical music listener. Does that help?


----------



## Blake

Harold in Columbia said:


> Except for the problem of geography: Austrians still went to church for the first three quarters of the 20th century. Catholic Rhinelanders and southeastern French still went to church during Stockhausen's and Boulez's formative years. Meanwhile, northern France, pioneer in secularism, produced... Debussy.


Yea, but just as you cut the power to the fan... the blades keep spinning for a while. The deed is done, and you may be able to blame the switch.


----------



## Guest

isorhythm said:


> I think you're right.
> 
> Though most people only know _Music for 18 Musicians_ and maybe some of the early tape and phase pieces.


My buddy was really digging _Four Organs_ back when he was primarily listening to Autechre and Brian Eno and I was primarily listening to Slayer and Dead Can Dance and Joy Division and so on. My experiences on the majority of the internet sites I have ever frequented are much the same. Can't say any of those guys ever listened to Mozart, although it was occasionally 'cool' to laud the Requiem Mass.


----------



## quietfire

What is the point of tonal music?


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

quietfire said:


> What is the point of tonal music?


Yeah, right on its boring stuff


----------



## Phil loves classical

On the original post, it states "classical music is dying...", i thought it should already be dead (in terms of composition). Who wants to hear another Bach-wanna-be? Who paints in Rembrandt's style still? We have recordings of the old Great Masters, which are still being made. We have movie music in the style of old Romanticism. Also I have a CD on Naxos by Alla Pavlova, who writes Neo-Romantic music still. It is enough. I'm glad there is more of an audience for the avant garde now. Hey Eddy, even Varese sounds old to me now. I can argue Lutoslawski and Penderecki, doesn't get the audience they deserve, or others can say they get too much attention.

Music has to keep moving forward, friends.


----------



## DaveM

This is the Dracula of threads. Someone finally drives a stake through its heart and then hundreds of days later someone feels the need to open the casket.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

Phil loves classical said:


> Hey Eddy, even Varese sounds old to me now.


Varese has sounded old ever since Boulez one-upped his music-that-sounds-like-you-think-atomic-theory-would with music-that-sounds-like-you-think-quantum-mechanics-would.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Magnum Miserium said:


> Varese has sounded old ever since Boulez one-upped his music-that-sounds-like-you-think-atomic-theory-would with music-that-sounds-like-you-think-quantum-mechanics-would.


Boulez's music doesn't quite do it for me. Couldn't find his wavelength yet.


----------



## Robfro

Is there a great atonal opera?


----------



## Phil loves classical

Berg's Wozzeck is the most popular.


----------



## Selby

DaveM said:


> This is the Dracula of threads. Someone finally drives a stake through its heart and then hundreds of days later someone feels the need to open the casket.


It is rare that a TC post will prompt me to actually laugh. This one did. I'm still chuckling.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

But Schoenberg's "Erwartung" is the best. Though some might argue that's not exactly an opera since there's only one character - in which case Schoenberg's "Moses und Aron" is the best.


----------



## quietfire

I think if there is a spectrum between tonal and atonal music, I think I wouldn't mind if it is somewhere in between.

There are some pieces with atonal character that I like:






Actually not so bad!


----------



## Neward Thelman

"What is the point of Atonal music?"

To make you miserable.


----------



## Barbebleu

Selby said:


> It is rare that a TC post will prompt me to actually laugh. This one did. I'm still chuckling.


Me too. It was a great post. Made my day.


----------



## Chronochromie

Neward Thelman said:


> "What is the point of Atonal music?"
> 
> To make you miserable.


Those who complain so much about it are the miserable ones, yes.


----------



## Captainnumber36

I like it around Halloween time.


----------



## AstoundingAmadeus

I haven't read all 160 pages, though I can assume it's been debated at length. When people talk about change in musical expression due to circumstance I understand why we may have arrived here, though I'm still confused as to the argument about having enough of a certain style. What classify's as enough, and isn't it entirely possible for late romanticism to have grown even further. If not grown at least remain in it's state of large scale expressive works. Not that I am against any form of music but it's interesting that while our minds are developed to enjoy the likes of Bruckner, composers are driven by invention and change rather than the interests of the public. As a listener I am content with the wealth of music the 19th century provides, yet from time to time question why there aren't composers "copying" others. Don't we have room for one more Mahler?. What would music from the last century look like in a hypothetical scenario where the allies lost the war. What music would the Reichsmusikkammer be promoting? Pointless to ask I know, but it puts these questions into perspective.


----------



## Tchaikov6

I will admit I struggle with Schoenberg (except for his earlier works like Verklarte Nacht) but I love most things by Berg and Webern- I find their atonalism to be not as harsh and more Romantic (if you can make atonal music sound Romantic). I enjoy atonal music more than I did a couple months ago, I will say.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

I really don't know how the opening scene of "Moses und Aron" could sound harsh to anybody.


----------



## millionrainbows

Atonal music? You just dig it, man.


----------



## Tchaikov6

Magnum Miserium said:


> I really don't know how the opening scene of "Moses und Aron" could sound harsh to anybody.


I hadn't listened to Moses und Aron until just now- I will admit that is more of my style of atonalism- but Schoenberg still- most of the time- leaves me bewildered and with a headache.


----------



## ArtMusic

Tchaikov6 said:


> I will admit I struggle with Schoenberg (except for his earlier works like Verklarte Nacht) but I love most things by Berg and Webern- I find their atonalism to be not as harsh and more Romantic (if you can make atonal music sound Romantic). I enjoy atonal music more than I did a couple months ago, I will say.


My observation too. That's because Schoenberg was obsessed with developing atonal music theoretically, whereas Berg for example was more keen to see it "work" musically to the listener.


----------



## Omicron9

Why stop with "what's the point of atonal music?" Why not "what's the point of Romantic music?" Or what's the point of art evolving from cave drawings to oil paintings? It's the evolution and advancement of the art. It's expanding the palette. Just as the romantic period built upon and greatly expanded from the classical period, so too does atonal build upon and expand what's possible in music composition. You don't have to like it. But understanding it might be helpful to you.

To put it another way: A friend of mine once said he didn't like modern classical because he couldn't hear a melody. I asked him if he looked at Jackson Pollock paintings and complained because he couldn't find the bowl of fruit. Being a fan of painting, he immediately knew what I was getting at. He later told me that he now hears modern classical in an entirely different way, and has actually found pieces that he likes.

You can't judge 21st-century art with 18th-century aesthetics.

-09


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Omicron9 said:


> [...]
> 
> You can't judge 21st-century art with 18th-century aesthetics.
> 
> -09


You can, and then you can post your conclusions here. :tiphat:


----------



## Magnum Miserium

ArtMusic said:


> My observation too. That's because Schoenberg was obsessed with developing atonal music theoretically


He also ate babies.



ArtMusic said:


> , whereas Berg for example was more keen to see it "work" musically to the listener.


Berg doesn't make atonality '"work musically to the listener" any more than anybody, he just includes passages that sound tonal.

Personally I find Schoenberg way more enjoyable than Berg - Schoenberg sometimes writes sad music, like Verdi; Berg writes music that tries to _make_ me sad, like Puccini. Not to mention, Berg has charm sometimes - e.g. the Alternberg lieder - but Schoenberg has more - e.g. much of "Pierrot lunaire."


----------



## Phil loves classical

TurnaboutVox said:


> You can, and then you can post your conclusions here. :tiphat:


I sure did before, and the conclusion was that 21st century music was chaotic and messy, harsh-sounding, and emotionally distant. Now I judge 18th century music with 20th century aesthetics, and conclude it is highly-processed unorganic, mostly unoriginal in timbre, style over substance, and emotionally distant.


----------



## Omicron9

Perhaps I should have said "You can't judge 21st-century art with 18th-century aesthetics _and come away with a better understanding or appreciation of it._"


----------



## topo morto

Not sure if this has been mentioned over the course of this thread, but I always felt that trying to get away from the idea of a tonal centre, and yet using the 12-tone scale to do so, was a bit self-contradictory, given that the 12-tone scale is so closely related to the diatonic scale. It seems more intuitive to me that you'd want to get away from ideas of scale completely - so it's continuous-pitch instruments that would be the tools for the job...


----------



## isorhythm

topo morto said:


> Not sure if this has been mentioned over the course of this thread, but I always felt that trying to get away from the idea of a tonal centre, and yet using the 12-tone scale to do so, was a bit self-contradictory, given that the 12-tone scale is so closely related to the diatonic scale. It seems more intuitive to me that you'd want to get away from ideas of scale completely - so it's continuous-pitch instruments that would be the tools for the job...


Taking the 12TET scale as foundation - rather than the compromise it is - is very ugly just conceptually and I'm surprised 12-tone haters don't make this point more often. (I am not a 12-tone hater myself.)


----------



## hpowders

OP: To quote Star Trek: "To explore strange new worlds. To boldly go where no man has gone before." Kirk might have well been talking about atonalism.


----------



## Reichstag aus LICHT

hpowders said:


> OP: To quote Star Trek: "To explore strange new worlds. To boldly go where no man has gone before." Kirk might have well been talking about atonalism.


With a subtle difference. One could say: "Kirk hatte böse Klingons, aber Atonalismus hat böse Klänge"


----------



## hpowders

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> With a subtle difference. One could say: "Kirk hatte böse Klingons, aber Atonalismus hat böse Klänge"


German puns aren't my thing, but that's a good one.


----------



## pierrot

I can't talk about specifics or actual musical technicalities but for this dilettante here they all sound the same, with the same mood: a mix of agony and neurotic obsession with precision.


----------



## TurnaboutVox

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> With a subtle difference. One could say: "Kirk hatte böse Klingons, aber Atonalismus hat böse Kritik"


"Kirk had evil Klingons, but atonalism has nasty criticism"


----------



## DaveM

Wasn't there a Startrek episode where the Enterprise picks up transmissions of atonal music and Kirk is sure it is a new weapon and is determined to prove that the Klingons are responsible for it?


----------



## JAS

DaveM said:


> Wasn't there a Startrek episode where the Enterprise picks up transmissions of atonal music and Kirk is sure it is a new weapon and is determined to prove that the Klingons are responsible for it?


You haven't heard Wozzeck until you have heard it in the original Klingon. :devil:


----------



## Chronochromie

pierrot said:


> I can't talk about specifics or actual musical technicalities but for this dilettante here they all sound the same, with the same mood: a mix of agony and neurotic obsession with precision.


And here I thought your name was a Pierrot lunaire reference...


----------



## EdwardBast

pierrot said:


> I can't talk about specifics or actual musical technicalities but for this dilettante here they all sound the same, with the same mood: a mix of agony and neurotic obsession with precision.


Is there a reason you think mood and emotion are the right channels to process this music? Is it possible the sameness you sense is an artifact of approaching the music from this direction, which, while it is arguably fruitful for Schubert and Brahms, might not be apt for much later music?


----------



## pierrot

EdwardBast said:


> Is there a reason you think mood and emotion are the right channels to process this music? Is it possible the sameness you sense is an artifact of approaching the music from this direction, which, while it is arguably fruitful for Schubert and Brahms, might not be apt for much later music?


There aren't 'right' channels, there are different ones and they offer different goals on different levels. As I see, moods or emotions are inevitably determined by the overall objective or underlying idea the composer has in mind, so because I'm ignorant of music theory and therefore unable get to the ideas themselves I am left with the 'images' they project in the form of moods. And based on moods, 20th Century classical abandoned the sublime or the the beautiful as a framework to work within (on a very broad level) for a more mathematical and self-contained approach.

That's not limited to music.






----


----------



## TurnaboutVox

pierrot said:


> I can't talk about specifics or actual musical technicalities but for this dilettante here they all sound the same, with the same mood: a mix of agony and neurotic obsession with precision.





EdwardBast said:


> Is there a reason you think mood and emotion are the right channels to process this music? Is it possible the sameness you sense is an artifact of approaching the music from this direction, which, while it is arguably fruitful for Schubert and Brahms, might not be apt for much later music?


I have been sitting here for the last couple of hours listening to songs by Berg and Schoenberg, finishing with the latter's "15 Poems from the Book of the Hanging Gardens", Op. 15. Approaching this highly dissonant 'atonal' or 'pantonal' work from just that direction of mood and emotion, what is evoked in me are intimations of love, loss, longing, despair and anguish. Having got to know it over the past 12 months I also perceive considerable musical beauty of a kind which is of course different to that evoked by earlier music.

My point is that it [highly dissonant music] can be approached from this angle, but it may require more familiarisation with the music than is often necessary with music that is capable of being assimilated or 'taken inside' more readily, and it also requires a willingness to be moved in ways which may be uncomfortable, but, to me, recognisably and reassuringly human. In certain moods I am always grateful to artists of any and all kinds who can 'touch' - recognise and express some response to - what I am feeling.

To Pierrot I put this - perhaps you have not yet learned to hear and appreciate atonal music. It took me quite a while to do so, having first encountered it, but it can be very worthwhile indeed.


----------



## pierrot

TurnaboutVox said:


> I have been sitting here for the last couple of hours listening to songs by Berg and Schoenberg, finishing with the latter's "15 Poems from the Book of the Hanging Gardens", Op. 15. Approaching this highly dissonant 'atonal' or 'pantonal' work from just that direction of mood and emotion, what is evoked in me are intimations of love, loss, longing, despair and anguish. Having got to know it over the past 12 months I also perceive considerable musical beauty of a kind which is of course different to that evoked by earlier music.
> 
> *My point is that it [highly dissonant music] can be approached from this angle, but it may require more familiarisation with the music than is often necessary with music that is capable of being assimilated or 'taken inside' more readily, and it also requires a willingness to be moved in ways which may be uncomfortable, but, to me, recognisably and reassuringly human.* In certain moods I am always grateful to artists of any and all kinds who can 'touch' - recognise and express some response to - what I am feeling.
> 
> To Pierrot I put this - perhaps you have not yet learned to hear and appreciate atonal music. It took me quite a while to do so, having first encountered it, but it can be very worthwhile indeed.


This is most certainly going to sound contradictory to what I said before, but I'm actually a huge free jazz fan. However, I think the medium a music is made in will shape the content towards one way or another, and the more improvisation heavy format of jazz music (or the artificial medium of electronic for that matter) are not only more appropriated to experimentation from old traditions, but its format help dissonant music to sound actually _more _ transcendental and beauty oriented. Dissonance in orchestras or chamber ensembles sound... contrived and not naturally developed. That's what I see.


----------



## Chronochromie

pierrot said:


> This is most certainly going to sound contradictory to what I said before, but I'm actually a huge free jazz fan. However, I think the medium a music is made in will shape the content towards one way or another, and the more improvisation heavy format of jazz music (or the artificial medium of electronic for that matter) are not only more appropriated to experimentation from old traditions, but its format help dissonant music to sound actually _more _ transcendental and beauty oriented. Dissonance in orchestras or chamber ensembles sound... contrived and not naturally developed. That's what I see.


So what do you think about musique concrete?


----------



## pierrot

Chronochromie said:


> So what do you think about musique concrete?


I didn't heard much of it, but what I did seemed closer to some kind of electronic rather than atonal classical music, i.e. an artificial format giving birth to artificial and disjointed music (not a negative comment.


----------



## EdwardBast

pierrot said:


> There aren't 'right' channels, there are different ones and they offer different goals on different levels. As I see, moods or emotions are inevitably determined by the overall objective or underlying idea the composer has in mind, so because I'm ignorant of music theory and therefore unable get to the ideas themselves I am left with the 'images' they project in the form of moods. And based on moods, 20th Century classical abandoned the sublime or the the beautiful as a framework to work within (on a very broad level) for a more mathematical and self-contained approach.
> 
> That's not limited to music.
> View attachment 93676
> ----
> View attachment 93677


IMO, one should never have to know theory to appreciate a piece of music, although there are undoubtedly cases where knowledge enhances the experience for some listeners. By "right" channels I meant those most appropriate to getting at what a particular work has to offer (that is, what the composer intentionally put into it) or what is most fundamental about the way it is organized. Listening to some atonal music with a Romantic sensibility - and focusing predominantly on mood and emotion is quintessentially a romantic stance - might not be a productive approach to many works, mostly because the moods in such cases don't belong to the music, but are imposed on it by the listener. Needless to say, one can listen with the "right" sensibility, whatever that is, and still not like or appreciate a work or style.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

pierrot said:


> View attachment 93676
> ----
> View attachment 93677


Boy that pretty much says it all, doesn't it.


----------



## Ziggabea

I can't people are arguing here about something that happened over 100 years ago, all for their own egos.

Dissonance never hurt nobody, "atonality" (as they incorrectly call it) is a part of harmonic language and it is HERE TO STAY. There is NOTHING wrong with it, there is nothing bad about it. 

Get over yourselves chaps :lol:


----------



## Gordontrek

The point of atonal music is that it....

dang, can't think of anything to add.


----------



## Phil loves classical

I remember one time i heard someone playing on the piano some very atonal, dissonant music, and my mind was following the music for a while, making sense of it for what seemed like several measures, but as the playing kept going, i went to see who was actually playing and it was some kid playing randomly.


----------



## Gradeaundera

Phil loves classical said:


> I remember one time i heard someone playing on the piano some very atonal, dissonant music, and my mind was following the music for a while, making sense of it for what seemed like several measures, but as the playing kept going, i went to see who was actually playing and it was some kid playing randomly.


Sounds like you're not good at differentiating major differences, it shows two things: complete ignorance to the languages of atonal music (I mean, from LISTENING and being familiar with the way it works) and complete lack of understanding of what "atonality" is.

There is no way you are being serious


----------



## Rosie

I don't know much music theory sorry but I don't hear any difference in purpose between tonal and atonal music, they both express feelings, emotion, images and are both a part of the human condition/experience. 

Someone that knows theory, what is the difference?


----------



## Phil loves classical

Rosie said:


> I don't know much music theory sorry but I don't hear any difference in purpose between tonal and atonal music, they both express feelings, emotion, images and are both a part of the human condition/experience.
> 
> Someone that knows theory, what is the difference?


You're right. The purpose very often is the same, just different ways. Atonality is more free in its expression, sometimes Puts more emphasis in rhythms, and accenting certain chromaticisms.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Gradeaundera said:


> Sounds like you're not good at differentiating major differences, it shows two things: complete ignorance to the languages of atonal music (I mean, from LISTENING and being familiar with the way it works) and complete lack of understanding of what "atonality" is.
> 
> There is no way you are being serious


No, I am serious. My example is I familiarized with myself with atonality to a point that a random series of notes (atonal, except by coincidence) started to have meaning to a certain degree. It may not have been the random notes themselves, but a certain suggestion that came to mind.


----------



## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> No, I am serious. My example is I familiarized with myself with atonality to a point that a random series of notes (atonal, except by coincidence) started to have meaning to a certain degree. It may not have been the random notes themselves, but a certain suggestion that came to mind.


Not surprising. The mind is made to seek order in any collection of sense data, tonal hierarchy (tones relating in a systematic way to a central tone) is the most orderly principle for organizing tones, and in a passage of music utilizing the twelve notes of the chromatic scale familiar from tonal music the mind accustomed to tonality naturally tries to find "quasi-tonal" relationships even if the sequence of tones is random.


----------



## Torkelburger

EdwardBast said:


> IMO, one should never have to know theory to appreciate a piece of music, although there are undoubtedly cases where knowledge enhances the experience for some listeners. By "right" channels I meant those most appropriate to getting at what a particular work has to offer (that is, what the composer intentionally put into it) or what is most fundamental about the way it is organized. Listening to some atonal music with a Romantic sensibility - and focusing predominantly on mood and emotion is quintessentially a romantic stance - might not be a productive approach to many works, mostly because the moods in such cases don't belong to the music, but are imposed on it by the listener. Needless to say, one can listen with the "right" sensibility, whatever that is, and still not like or appreciate a work or style.


This is a very good point. I wish more instrumentalists and conductors understood it. It also happens with other eras of music, not only modern and atonal. Take baroque music. I once listened to a friend of mine rehearse for an audition and he was playing a sarabande by Bach arranged for euphonium. He was playing it very beautifully and musically, with great dynamic contrasts and range, and with molto rubatos, showing off his musicianship. While impressive, I had to tell him his interpretation was dead wrong. Not only the dynamics but the tempo should be steady as the sarabande was a *dance*, etc. He fell into the trap of equating romantic expression with *all* musical expression. But focusing on mood and emotion was not the productive approach to the work. The moods didn't belong to the music.


----------



## Naughtilus

emiellucifuge said:


> Music can be used politically.
> Music can be paint a picture.
> Music can speak to the fundamentals of your subconscious.
> Music can reveal principles of nature and philosophical ideas.
> Etc...
> 
> Tonality seems capable only of appealing to the emotional part of your brain (you could say 'the heart'). If you want to reach other goals with the music such as those I listed above then tonality might not be the best method.
> If you listen to music in order to e filled with emotions then stick to tonality.
> I sometimes want to stand in awe at the power of the forces of nature, to be frightened by what is revealed in my mind, realise the futility of life, realise that life is full of meaning etc... Some of these things are done better without tonality.


Well said. Music can be more than just bread and circuses for the masses. I can induce thinking, vast levels of emotions, not just the pleasant ones. However, some will object that it can become too intellectualized, art for art's sake (Xenakis, Cage), too political (Cardew) etc.

Anton Rubinstein and Ornette Coleman changed everything.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

Torkelburger said:


> This is a very good point. I wish more instrumentalists and conductors understood it. It also happens with other eras of music, not only modern and atonal. Take baroque music. I once listened to a friend of mine rehearse for an audition and he was playing a sarabande by Bach arranged for euphonium. He was playing it very beautifully and musically, with great dynamic contrasts and range, and with molto rubatos, showing off his musicianship. While impressive, I had to tell him his interpretation was dead wrong.


If it was beautiful, it wasn't wrong.



Torkelburger said:


> Not only the dynamics but the tempo should be steady as the sarabande was a *dance*, etc. He fell into the trap of equating romantic expression with *all* musical expression. But focusing on mood and emotion was not the productive approach to the work. The moods didn't belong to the music.


Or maybe you fell into the trap of projecting Modernist anti-Romanticism onto Baroque music.


----------



## Torkelburger

> If it was beautiful, it wasn't wrong.


Good thing I never said it was wrong because it was beautiful.


> Or maybe you fell into the trap of projecting Modernist anti-Romanticism onto Baroque music.


You misunderstand, I love Romantic music and expression. My comments were not bashing romantic expression, just the misappropriation of it. Baroque music should be played as baroque music was intended (in this case, a sarabande).


----------



## Magnum Miserium

Torkelburger said:


> Good thing I never said it was wrong because it was beautiful.


No, you just said it was wrong. Which, if it was "beautiful" and "musical," it wasn't.



Torkelburger said:


> You misunderstand, I love Romantic music and expression. My comments were not bashing romantic expression, just the misappropriation of it. Baroque music should be played as baroque music was intended (in this case, a sarabande).


No, you misunderstand. You don't know much about how Baroque music was intended and neither does anybody else since Baroque performance practice passed out of living memory. You think Baroque music should be played as Stravinsky intended.

And we now have a "historically informed" performers like Roger Norrington and Charles Mackerras pretending that their style is not only as Bach and Mozart "intended," which it isn't, but as Wagner and Brahms intended, which we _know_ it isn't. I'll bet you that somebody, somewhere has already gravely explained that Chopin's mazurkas "should be steady as the mazurka was a *dance*."


----------



## EdwardBast

Magnum Miserium said:


> No, you just said it was wrong. Which, if it was "beautiful" and "musical," it wasn't.


Beautiful and musical by romantic standards is often anachronistic when applied to the Baroque Era, which is how I understood the word wrong in this context.



Magnum Miserium said:


> No, you misunderstand. You don't know much about how Baroque music was intended and neither does anybody else since Baroque performance practice passed out of living memory. You think Baroque music should be played as Stravinsky intended.


Fortunately, the human capacity for writing makes "living memory" unnecessary. There are treatises, historical and contemporary addressing these issues. The bit about Stravinsky, of course, you borrowed from Richard Taruskin's brilliant essay that first appeared, I believe, in the "failing" NY Times.



Magnum Miserium said:


> And we now have a "historically informed" performers like Roger Norrington and Charles Mackerras pretending that their style is not only as Bach and Mozart "intended," *which it isn't,* but as Wagner and Brahms intended, which we _know_ it isn't. I'll bet you that somebody, somewhere has already gravely explained that Chopin's mazurkas "should be steady as the mazurka was a *dance*."


Either we know enough about performance practice to make definitive pronouncements or we don't. You said we don't and then a couple of sentences later did what we supposedly can't. Make up your mind.


----------



## Magnum Miserium

EdwardBast said:


> Fortunately, the human capacity for writing makes "living memory" unnecessary.


What an incredibly naïve thing to say.



EdwardBast said:


> There are treatises, historical and contemporary addressing these issues.


Which I'm guessing you haven't actually read or you'd know how infuriatingly ambiguous the written record is. (Example: By how much "should" the left and right hands be out of sync when playing Mozart?)



EdwardBast said:


> The bit about Stravinsky, of course, you borrowed from Richard Taruskin's brilliant essay that first appeared, I believe, in the "failing" NY Times.


Yes, and I've borrowed it here before, with attribution. Though since you mention it, I'll add - and I think Taruskin would agree - that "Stravinsky" is here best understood as a synecdoche for Modernist aesthetics more generally.



EdwardBast said:


> Either we know enough about performance practice to make definitive pronouncements or we don't. You said we don't and then a couple of sentences later did what we supposedly can't. Make up your mind.


If you don't know what the composer's practice was, then your practice won't be the composer's practice. ("But duuuuude, what if, like, by total coincidence")


----------



## Woodduck

Magnum Miserium said:


> You don't know much about how Baroque music was intended and neither does anybody else since Baroque performance practice passed out of living memory. You think Baroque music should be played as Stravinsky intended.
> 
> And we now have a "historically informed" performers like Roger Norrington and Charles Mackerras pretending that their style is not only as Bach and Mozart "intended," which it isn't, but as Wagner and Brahms intended, which we _know_ it isn't. I'll bet you that somebody, somewhere has already gravely explained that Chopin's mazurkas "should be steady as the mazurka was a *dance*."


Because I agree with this, and because I like to prick the bubble of the "HIP" phenomenon, I'll insert here something I wrote yesterday here: http://www.talkclassical.com/48608-b-minor-mass-definitely-4.html#post1225759

"Baroque architecture and painting are extravagant, fleshy and grand, so why has our concept of the sound of Baroque music become so hyperrefined, anorexic and puny? Was the pomp and grandeur of Handel merely a Victorian projection, or do we find it in the culture of his time? Colorful old oboes, detailed phrasing, transparent textures - all good. But the complete elimination of vibrato in string playing? Female voices that pipe and tweet like boys (when they're allowed to participate at all)? Meditative chorales taken at the speed of light? Clipped phrase ends? No ritardandos? Swelling and diminishing on every held note? Things like this are widely taken as "authentic" in Baroque music even though there's no good basis for them, and appear to be accepted because they're "anti-Romantic." Well, no argument there. But what would Bach or Handel say? What did they hear in their heads while composing? What would they like to hear from us? Does anyone know?

Given that we can't even play the music of 1900 the way people played it in 1900, and might not want to if we could, it's foolish to think that we can read a treatise by Quantz and play music the way he heard it played. And why should we anyway? We, in 2017, are the ones playing and listening to it. What any composer wants, ultimately, is that his music be played with spontaneity, naturalness and conviction, and that's what musicians ought to do, regardless of how, or whether, they execute an inverted mordent."


----------



## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> Because I agree with this, and because I like to prick the bubble of the "HIP" phenomenon, I'll insert here something I wrote yesterday here: http://www.talkclassical.com/48608-b-minor-mass-definitely-4.html#post1225759
> 
> "Baroque architecture and painting are extravagant, fleshy and grand, so why has our concept of the sound of Baroque music become so hyperrefined, anorexic and puny? Was the pomp and grandeur of Handel merely a Victorian projection, or do we find it in the culture of his time? Colorful old oboes, detailed phrasing, transparent textures - all good. But the complete elimination of vibrato in string playing? Female voices that pipe and tweet like boys (when they're allowed to participate at all)? Meditative chorales taken at the speed of light? Clipped phrase ends? No ritardandos? Swelling and diminishing on every held note? Things like this are widely taken as "authentic" in Baroque music even though there's no good basis for them, and appear to be accepted because they're "anti-Romantic." Well, no argument there. But what would Bach or Handel say? What did they hear in their heads while composing? What would they like to hear from us? Does anyone know?
> 
> Given that we can't even play the music of 1900 the way people played it in 1900, and might not want to if we could, it's foolish to think that we can read a treatise by Quantz and play music the way he heard it played. And why should we anyway? We, in 2017, are the ones playing and listening to it. What any composer wants, ultimately, is that his music be played with spontaneity, naturalness and conviction, and that's what musicians ought to do, regardless of how, or whether, they execute an inverted mordent."


And to get this full circle, I'll copy my response:
"Has it? I agree with your conclusion, but the bulk of the post reads as if you had been strapped to your seat and tortured by listening to Roger Norrington recordings for 2 weeks. 
Its unnecessary I think to focus on the worst HIP performances, when there are at the same time so many wonderful ensembles who don't do away with vibrato completely or speedrun through pieces as if they were late for an appointment.
It's as if I generalised and talked about Bach performances on modern instruments as being overblown and sluggish. I'm sure not all of them are like that."


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## millionrainbows

When I listen to atonal music, I do not expect or seek to hear any _tonal meaning_ in it; it's just sounds, hopefully beautiful and interesting. Therefore, since there is no tonal hierarchy to grasp, I tend to listen to it rhythmically, texturally, and look for _melodic_ phrases and themes; but I do NOT listen to it harmonically, except in a color sense. I do not listen for harmonic tension and release in the tonal sense; these are just harmonic colors, and sometimes they are tense, and might grow more tense or less tense, but not in the same manner as tonality.

I think other people also hear these harmonic tensions, and mistake them for "tonal" meaning, like they are accustomed to in other "normal" music; but this is not really an accurate description, to call it "tonal." This was Mahlerian's big folly. It's not tonal; it's A-tonal.


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## Woodduck

Chronochromie said:


> And to get this full circle, I'll copy my response:
> "Has it? I agree with your conclusion, but *the bulk of the post reads as if you had been strapped to your seat and tortured by listening to Roger Norrington recordings for 2 weeks. *
> Its unnecessary I think to focus on the worst HIP performances, when there are at the same time so many wonderful ensembles who don't do away with vibrato completely or speedrun through pieces as if they were late for an appointment.
> It's as if I generalised and talked about Bach performances on modern instruments as being overblown and sluggish. I'm sure not all of them are like that."


To get WHAT full circle? Are you chasing me from thread to thread for a reason?

The point being made in this thread, which you are missing, is that _we do not know and cannot know_ how music was played in eras before sound recording. It is certain that to some degree or other we are not doing it the way they did it then (and their performance styles certainly varied even among themselves), and it is therefore presumptuous to think that we are performing Baroque music "authentically." As both I and magnum miserium have pointed out, we don't even perform _Romantic_ music authentically. All we can do, after doing our research, is play music in the way that makes the most sense - emotional sense, not academic PC sense - to us.

What sort of seat I've been strapped to and what's been done to torture me are irrelevant. Scratchy, whiny old violins inflicting squeezebox dynamic swells on note after note and grown women imitating the sexless hooting of choirboys are torture enough.


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## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> To get WHAT full circle? Are you chasing me from thread to thread for a reason?
> 
> The point being made in this thread, which you are missing, is that _we do not know and cannot know_ how music was played in eras before sound recording. It is certain that to some degree or other we are not doing it the way they did it then (and their performance styles certainly varied even among themselves), and it is therefore presumptuous to think that we are performing Baroque music "authentically." As both I and magnum miserium have pointed out, we don't even perform _Romantic_ music authentically. All we can do, after doing our research, is play music in the way that makes the most sense - emotional sense, not academic PC sense - to us.
> 
> What sort of seat I've been strapped to and what's been done to torture me are irrelevant. Scratchy, whiny old violins inflicting squeezebox dynamic swells on note after note and grown women imitating the sexless hooting of choirboys are torture enough.


Calm down. I'm not chasing anyone, I felt it was relevant to repeat it (your post was an answer to one of mine originally too).


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> ..._we do not know and cannot know_ how music was played in eras before sound recording. It is certain that to some degree or other we are not doing it the way they did it then (and their performance styles certainly varied even among themselves), and it is therefore presumptuous to think that we are performing Baroque music "authentically."


Let's focus on the things that we CAN know: what instruments were used, and the tunings of those. That goes a long way towards determining the overall "sound" of the music, so I will give HIP performances some slack.

Equal temperament is definitely artificial, and steel strings on violins are certainly inauthentic, although these things are what most listeners feel comfortable with.

As far as the complete elimination of string vibrato, I'm sure Itzhak Perlman would agree, but I consider him a complete Romantic in everything he does, including some of the schmaltzy offerings he has presented at times, in those little collections and soundtrack CDs. He is too burdened by fame and the pressure to entertain to be anything but a product of his time. Not to be overly critical, but I know a Romantic when I hear it. It is refreshing to hear violin without all that cultural overlay.
The same way it is refreshing to hear Coltrane or Sonny Rollins play it "straight," without all that 1930s Guy Lombardo vibrato on the saxes:


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## Chronochromie

millionrainbows said:


> This was Mahlerian's big folly. It's not tonal; it's A-tonal.


Good thing that he isn't here to respond, then.


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## Magnum Miserium

millionrainbows said:


> As far as the complete elimination of string vibrato, I'm sure Itzhak Perlman would agree, but I consider him a complete Romantic in everything he does, including some of the schmaltzy offerings he has presented at times, in those little collections and soundtrack CDs. He is too burdened by fame and the pressure to entertain to be anything but a product of his time. Not to be overly critical, but I know a Romantic when I hear it.


Not if you think Itzhak Perlman is Romantic. Fritz Kreisler is Romantic.

The outright suppression of vibrato is a late 20th/early 21st century mannerism, but the heavy use of vibrato against which we're reacting isn't _even_ a Romantic mannerism but rather a _mid 20th century_ Modernist mannerism (coinciding, maybe not coincidentally, with the suppression of portamento, the heavy use of which _was_ a Romantic mannerism).


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## ArtMusic

It is in the environment of equal temperament that atonal music such as that written with the twelve tone technique or serialism developed and flourished.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Let's focus on the things that we CAN know: what instruments were used, and the tunings of those. That goes a long way towards determining the overall "sound" of the music, so I will give HIP performances some slack.
> 
> Equal temperament is definitely artificial, and steel strings on violins are certainly inauthentic, although these things are what most listeners feel comfortable with.


These physical differences tell us almost nothing about the way music is played. Heifetz - a truer Romantic than Perlman - played on gut strings.


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## millionrainbows

Chronochromie said:


> Good thing that he isn't here to respond, then.


What is he, Tony Soprano? Yes, it's very good not to hear him drivel on.


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## millionrainbows

Magnum Miserium said:


> Not if you think Itzhak Perlman is Romantic. Fritz Kreisler is Romantic.
> 
> The outright suppression of vibrato is a late 20th/early 21st century mannerism, but the heavy use of vibrato against which we're reacting isn't _even_ a Romantic mannerism but rather a _mid 20th century_ Modernist mannerism (coinciding, maybe not coincidentally, with the suppression of portamento, the heavy use of which _was_ a Romantic mannerism).


So I guess you think Guy Lombardo sounds modern! :lol:

I think this response is counter-intuitive poppycock, designed simply to win an argument.
I think most people think of "Romantic" violin as having heavy vibrato, as opposed to HIP with no vibrato at all. 
Woodduck just got through posing this as the same difference (criticizing HIP as having no vibrato at all), and Itzhak Perlman has commented himself on his distaste for lack of vibrato as a criticism of HIP. i.e, it's a given assumption among almost everyone except you.

If you're trying to prove me wrong, you sure are asking us to ignore all the evidence which contradicts you. But if technically, you are somehow right, then you get a great big pat on the back, and a chocolate.


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## millionrainbows

ArtMusic said:


> It is in the environment of equal temperament that atonal music such as that written with the twelve tone technique or serialism developed and flourished.


Equal temperament also gave Debussy's whole-tone scales their shimmer, as major seconds now became precise. He's modern, but I also consider him to be Romantic in crucial, obvious sense. Are you saying ET tuning is more conducive to modernism, and less to older music? That's partially true.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> These physical differences tell us almost nothing about the way music is played.


No, these physical differences of tuning and string materials only tell us about the way music sounds; and we all know that sound has nothing to do with music. (sarcasm) :lol:



> Heifetz - a truer Romantic than Perlman - played on gut strings.


I consider Perlman to be quite a Romantic. His playing on Schindler's list is almost over-the-top with sentiment. I doubt that you could find as convincing an example from Heifetz if you tried…one that would be as obvious as Perlman.


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## Chronochromie

millionrainbows said:


> What is he, Tony Soprano? Yes, it's very good not to hear him drivel on.


You're fully aware of the irony here, right?


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## Magnum Miserium

millionrainbows said:


> So I guess you think Guy Lombardo sounds modern! :lol:


Guy Lombardo was eleven years old when "The Rite of Spring" premiered. He is modern.



millionrainbows said:


> Woodduck just got through posing this as the same difference (criticizing HIP as having no vibrato at all), and Itzhak Perlman has commented himself on his distaste for lack of vibrato as a criticism of HIP. i.e, it's a given assumption among almost everyone except you.


No, you just read wrong. Go back and read it again. Woodduck and I are in complete agreement on this subject.



Magnum Miserium said:


> *The outright suppression of vibrato is a late 20th/early 21st century mannerism*, but *the heavy use of vibrato against which we're reacting *[...] *[is] a mid 20th century Modernist mannerism* (coinciding, maybe not coincidentally, with the suppression of portamento, the heavy use of which _was_ a Romantic mannerism).





millionrainbows said:


> But if technically, you are somehow right, then you get a great big pat on the back, and a chocolate.


Have you ever listened to a recording of Fritz Kreisler? Listen to a recording of Fritz Kreisler. He doesn't play like Perlamn.


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## Magnum Miserium

millionrainbows said:


> I consider Perlman to be quite a Romantic. His playing on Schindler's list is almost over-the-top with sentiment. I doubt that you could find as convincing an example from Heifetz if you tried…one that would be as obvious as Perlman.


Google video search, page 1:


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## Woodduck

Magnum Miserium said:


> Google video search, page 1:


Why not hear Perlman too? 




Heifetz, born in 1901, was one of the last of the Romantic musicians, the people for whom the written note was a vessel to be filled by the performer's imagination, and who had the imagination to fill it. Rhythm, pitch, portamento, vibrato, dynamics, tone color, embellishment - Heifetz spoke the language naturally and fluently. By the time Perlman came along, 44 years after Heifetz, the art was no longer natural and people could only imitate its broader mannerisms. Perlman's "Romanticism" consists of pouring molasses over everything. It's rich and sweet, but it quickly has me craving sardines and dill pickles.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Perlman's "Romanticism" consists of pouring molasses over everything. It's rich and sweet, but it quickly has me craving sardines and dill pickles.


Well, at last someone actually admits that Perlman _poured syrup_ over it!

Sorry if that does not fit the technical, chronological dictionary definition of "Romantic" that is prescribed by overly-literal academics!


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## Magnum Miserium

millionrainbows said:


> Well, at last someone actually admits that Perlman _poured syrup_ over it!
> 
> Sorry if that does not fit the technical, chronological dictionary definition of "Romantic" that is prescribed by overly-literal academics!


Because when I think Shelley's "Prometheus Unbound," Caspar David Friedrich's "Wanderer Above the Clouds," and Wagner's "Götterdämmerung," I think syrup.


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## mmsbls

Let's focus on issues surrounding atonal music and not on other members even of they are not presently commenting in the thread.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Well, at last someone actually admits that Perlman _poured syrup_ over it!
> 
> Sorry if that does not fit the technical, chronological dictionary definition of "Romantic" that is prescribed by overly-literal academics!


Ah, c'mon, million! We literal-minded academics make some good points now and then!


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Ah, c'mon, million! We literal-minded academics make some good points now and then!


Yes, you do, but some of the others here seem more concerned with strict definitions than with what is common knowledge. After all, any idiot can tell the difference between Itzhak Perlman and Giuliano Carmignola…can't they? I would much prefer to hear the latter on Vivaldi.


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## mmsbls

Some posts were deleted due to inappropriate comments on other members. In addition some responses that quoted those posts were deleted.


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## arpeggio

mmsbls said:


> Let's focus on issues surrounding atonal music and not on other members even of they are not presently commenting in the thread.


The problem with this forum is that we have some very difficult members, that dominate the discussions, who know how to belittle people without violating the TOS.


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## Guest

arpeggio said:


> The problem with this forum is that we have some very difficult members, that dominate the discussions, who know how to belittle people without violating the TOS.


Another question is or these _ so -called difficult members " have some popularity on this forum.Do they think that they can loose their droppings in the conviction that it is approved by many others on this forum?


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## Magnum Miserium

arpeggio said:


> The problem with this forum is that we have some very difficult members, that dominate the discussions, who know how to belittle people without violating the TOS.


Trust me, I don't.


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## arpeggio

Traverso said:


> Another question is or these _ so -called difficult members " have some popularity on this forum.Do they think that they can loose their droppings in the conviction that it is approved by many others on this forum?


Yes.

We have a new member who is being reamed out because he likes Cage. As a result of his reaction to the anti-Cage remarks, he will probably get banned.


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## Forss

This is my personal assessment of atonality:

Perhaps it was inevitable, in the end, to break down "harmony" as a musical concept, much in the same way as society at large broke down during the second world war, and in much the same way as Kant (in a previous century) had inadvertently destroyed the prison of absolute truth?

"Dissonance is as beautiful as harmony", Schönberg said, "and it's a new harmony." In a strict philosophical sense his statement is obviously false. The concepts of "harmony" and "dissonance" are by their very nature binary, as it were, but one still gets his sentiment. (The proposition "A and ~A" is a logical contradiction.)

Twelve-tone music is not interested in reaching for a resolution, but rather jumps from one irrational thought to another in a seemingly odd fashion. (Doesn't it remind one of one's own irrational psyche?) It was not a coincidence, I think, that this kind of musical development emerged in the time of Freud. Schönberg democratized the tones, giving all of the twelve semitones between the octaves equal rights within the whole.

Now, as we all know, Kandinsky was directly influenced by Schönberg and, as a result of this stimulus, started the whole revolution of abstract painting. (That alone cements the latter's place in the history of classical music.)

To sum up: Schönberg's introduction of the twelve-tone technique was, above all, an _intellectual_ feat: it was both inevitable and necessary for the evolution of classical music, and its subsequent impact has been rather profound. It showed good manners, so to speak, being True to its specific time and culture. To strip bare the music to its very essence-to resist ornamentation!-was honest and therefore _right_ (as was Adolf Loos in architecture); but for the actual music itself, as expressed in the works by Schönberg, Webern, Berg and the like, I couldn't care less. It is all worthless, in my opinion.

The best thing would've been if they wrote their compositions, quietly acknowledged their importance and then burnt them-moving on to harmonic structures with an all-new set of skills.


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## Woodduck

Forss said:


> Perhaps it was inevitable, in the end, to break down "harmony" as a musical concept, much in the same way as society at large broke down during the second world war, and in much the same way as Kant (in a previous century) had inadvertently destroyed the prison of absolute truth?
> 
> Schönberg's introduction of the twelve-tone technique was, above all, an _intellectual_ feat: it was both inevitable and necessary for the evolution of classical music, and its subsequent impact has been rather profound. It showed good manners, so to speak, being True to its specific time and culture. To strip bare the music to its very essence-to resist ornamentation!-was honest and therefore right (as was Adolf Loos in architecture); but for the actual music itself, as expressed in the works by Schönberg, Webern, Berg and the like, I couldn't care less. It is all worthless, in my opinion.


That things break down is apparently a universal law. In that sense, breakdown is "necessary," i.e., inevitable. But to say that something is "necessary" for the achievement of some purpose is to use the term in another sense. These two senses often get confused, and I think that the idea that the "breakdown" of tonality (a disputable concept, but let it pass for now) and the invention of dodecaphony were "necessary for the evolution of classical music" is an example of that confusion. The idea of atonality, and the invention of techniques for writing music without tonality, were probably bound to arise, but music would have evolved with or without them, and for most of the musical universe it did and still does.

Isn't it a rather curious idea that a musical development "necessary for the evolution of classical music" should result in a large body of music that's "all worthless"?


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## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> The idea of atonality, and the invention of techniques for writing music without tonality, were probably bound to arise, but music would have evolved with or without them, and for most of the musical universe it did and still does.


I mean, it happened, the influence is there, no way to escape it now. Reactions against hardcore serialism like Minimalism included.


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## Johnnie Burgess

Chronochromie said:


> I mean, it happened, the influence is there, no way to escape it now. Reactions against hardcore serialism like Minimalism included.


Most people has escaped it they ignore it. You can not force us to listen to us. Thank God there is recordings of Great music by Beethoven and Haydn and Bach so I can ignore the music I hate.


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## Omicron9

"What's the point of atonal music?" What was the point of music of the Romantic period? What's the point of the color yellow? What's the point of poetry?


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## Tallisman

It's a very hard thing to get right. But when it's right, its quite captivating. I personally can only really fully stand atonality on the piano: 




That's a lovely little atonal piece by Howard Shore that shows atonality can be lovely...


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## Agamemnon

I think the question is the same as 'why is modern art so ugly'? Well, I think to understand and to appreciate modern art it is important to understand the distinction (of Kant and/or Burke) of the beautiful and the sublime. Classical art strives to be beautiful which is pleasant to experience because it projects the human will (the subject) in the material (the object) in a way we understand. The sublime is perhaps a christian notion and refers to that which transcends what we understand: the sublime doesn't deliver an ideal world (as beauty does) but overwhelms and awes us. Like natural numbers beauty refers to the measurable; like irrational numbers the sublime refers to the infinite. Modern art strives not to be beautiful but to be sublime. 

I think also Nietzsche's 'death of God' and the nazi idea of Entartete Kunst has to do with it. Tonal music is grounded in what we know: the music can wander somewhat but always returns to 'home' which is a fundamentally nice feeling for us. But because of the death of God we have lost all our anchors and every home: the nazi would say that like the Jew the modern man is an eternal homeless wanderer. Atonal music is an expression of that homelessness because it doesn't return to a home but only wanders (and I think the nazi's were keen to point out that it is no coincidence that the pioneers of atonal music were Jews). But like it or not, the modern homeless and restless age is our age: God is dead. Tonal and other classical music is inevitably music of the past (when God was not dead yet and people were connected to their traditions and communities): it can't be music of our age anymore. Modern art confronts us with our actual - frightening alienated and disconnected - condition, even though this Truth isn't pretty.

BTW, yet postmodernists feel no need anymore to tell the ugly, atonal truth of modernity: they want to see some beauty in the arts again!


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## Forss

I am in complete agreement with your assessment, and that was also the point of my own contribution to this thread: Twelve-tone music is perhaps not "beautiful" in the classical sense, and hence not pleasant in accordance with our experience of the world, but it is nevertheless-and for that very reason-True to _our_ own time and culture, which is, as you say, characterized by homelessness and disorientation, etc.. Perhaps my objection is not to atonal music _per se_, but rather to our present time and culture (which is a most degenerated one, one must admit). Isn't the question really about ethics? The atonal composers were at least True in their output, and, at least for me, incorruptibility is everything! (Thanks for a lovely contribution!)


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## Agamemnon

Yes, for modernists a return to classical tonal music would be a lie and a case of nostalgia and therefore not artistic and truthful. What is the purpose of art other than to show us the eternal truths (and romantics believe that the Truth can not be communicated rationally like philosophy pretends and that only Art can literally reveal the Truth to us)? Modernists especially have a liking of the naked truth which is always an ugly and disturbing truth because it takes away all clothing which covers the truth up (it confronts and thus shocks the people/bourgeoisie who live a lie so obviously these people dwell in classical art forms to avoid the truth!). You are right that eventually it is about ethics, even about politics (the nazi's and communists were right about that but unfortunately they were as totalitarians strictly intolerant of any artistic view that didn't match their political goals)...


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## Strange Magic

In our everyday contacts and encounters with people of all walks of life, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, etc., what sorts of music and art do we overwhelmingly see and hear them surrounded by? What art is on the wall at Uncle Whatever's house? What is your niece listening to?


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## JAS

All this histrionic pleading for "eternal truth" is just so much self-evoking claptrap. If all art can do is repeat and emphasize the ugliness that is already all too present in our lives, then I have absolutely no use for it at all. One might as well decry the use of artificial light at night because, of course, the night is dark. Instead, I crave the art that revels in the beauty that once was, that seeks out and encourages the last few embers of beauty that remain, and creates beauty where it might not be found on its own. My soul requires it and my head demands it.


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## Chronochromie

JAS said:


> All this histrionic pleading for "eternal truth" is just so much self-evoking claptrap. If all art can do is repeat and emphasize the ugliness that is already all too present in our lives, then I have absolutely no use for it at all. One might as well decry the use of artificial light at night because, of course, the night is dark. Instead, I crave the art that revels in the beauty that once was, that seeks out and encourages the last few embers of beauty that remain, and creates beauty where it might not be found on its own. My soul requires it and my head demands it.


That is that particular member's view. I for one think that Schoenberg's Piano Concerto is beautiful, as are many other of his works.


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## Phil loves classical

Omicron9 said:


> "What's the point of atonal music?" What was the point of music of the Romantic period? What's the point of the color yellow? What's the point of poetry?


Aye.. What is the point of this thread?


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## ArtMusic

Omicron9 said:


> "What's the point of atonal music?" What was the point of music of the Romantic period? What's the point of the color yellow? What's the point of poetry?


The point of Romantic music was to express emotions. The point of poetry as well through choice pick of words. Atonal music in my opinion does not do that well enough. It's an academic course of musical development in history.


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## Phil loves classical

Agamemnon said:


> I think the question is the same as 'why is modern art so ugly'? Well, I think to understand and to appreciate modern art it is important to understand the distinction (of Kant and/or Burke) of the beautiful and the sublime. Classical art strives to be beautiful which is pleasant to experience because it projects the human will (the subject) in the material (the object) in a way we understand. The sublime is perhaps a christian notion and refers to that which transcends what we understand: the sublime doesn't deliver an ideal world (as beauty does) but overwhelms and awes us. Like natural numbers beauty refers to the measurable; like irrational numbers the sublime refers to the infinite. Modern art strives not to be beautiful but to be sublime.
> 
> I think also Nietzsche's 'death of God' and the nazi idea of Entartete Kunst has to do with it. Tonal music is grounded in what we know: the music can wander somewhat but always returns to 'home' which is a fundamentally nice feeling for us. But because of the death of God we have lost all our anchors and every home: the nazi would say that like the Jew the modern man is an eternal homeless wanderer. Atonal music is an expression of that homelessness because it doesn't return to a home but only wanders (and I think the nazi's were keen to point out that it is no coincidence that the pioneers of atonal music were Jews). But like it or not, the modern homeless and restless age is our age: God is dead. Tonal and other classical music is inevitably music of the past (when God was not dead yet and people were connected to their traditions and communities): it can't be music of our age anymore. Modern art confronts us with our actual - frightening alienated and disconnected - condition, even though this Truth isn't pretty.
> 
> BTW, yet postmodernists feel no need anymore to tell the ugly, atonal truth of modernity: they want to see some beauty in the arts again!


You have some very interering points on the beautiful, role of religion. I believe Modern was saying ugly is beautiful. And i don't think postmodern is trying to find beauty, except for the neo-X genres, but rather beauty is irrelevant. i read somewhere modern is still searching for truth, but in different ways (or opposite?) than before, while postmodern rejects the idea of truth.


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## Chronochromie

ArtMusic said:


> The point of Romantic music was to express emotions. The point of poetry as well through choice pick of words. Atonal music in my opinion does not do that well enough. It's an academic course of musical development in history.


Tell us more about how Expressionist music can't express emotions.


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## Phil loves classical

ArtMusic said:


> The point of Romantic music was to express emotions. The point of poetry as well through choice pick of words. Atonal music in my opinion does not do that well enough. It's an academic course of musical development in history.


Poetry also went through many of the same eras alongside music. Renaissance. Romanticism. Postmodern.


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## Daniel Atkinson

Imagine music that expresses all facets of emotions and has a hierarchical system to defend the notes it uses? 
That is both tonal (Diatonic) and 12 Tone music.

Daniel


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## Daniel Atkinson

ArtMusic said:


> It's an academic course of musical development in history.


Surely 12 tone music isn't more academic than diatonic music just because people choose to make a big deal about it


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## Bettina

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Imagine music that expresses all facets of emotions and has a hierarchical system to defend the notes it uses?
> That is both tonal (Diatonic) and 12 Tone music.
> 
> Daniel


12-tone music isn't hierarchical. The whole idea behind serialism is that every pitch gets treated equally. That's why none of the notes can be repeated until the entire row has been played - the lack of repetition prevents the composer from emphasizing any one note more than the others. (Of course, in practice the system is more flexible than this, because there can be permutations of the rows.)


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## Daniel Atkinson

Bettina said:


> 12-tone music isn't hierarchical. The whole idea behind serialism is that every pitch gets treated equally. That's why none of the notes can be repeated until the entire row has been played - the lack of repetition prevents the composer from emphasizing any one note more than the others. (Of course, in practice the system is more flexible than this, because there can be permutations of the rows.)


Yes, that was the intention back in the 20s but it failed in every way to succeed in it's premise. 
What it resulted in was a new harmonic system that is built upon a similar cognitive reasoning as diatonic music and using all the same stock composition techniques and procedures.

One question, what is the purpose of a tone row? (again, this is about 12 tone and serial music vs intuitive "atonal" music)

It is to create a logistical hierarchy of notes that will be manipulated (like in diatonic music) and will be able to be drawn back to primary explanations. E.g. in diatonic music a chord might be borrowing from the relative minor key

Daniel


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## fluteman

Bettina said:


> 12-tone music isn't hierarchical. The whole idea behind serialism is that every pitch gets treated equally. That's why none of the notes can be repeated until the entire row has been played - the lack of repetition prevents the composer from emphasizing any one note more than the others. (Of course, in practice the system is more flexible than this, because there can be permutations of the rows.)


I just noticed this marathon thread. What puzzles me is that serialism is now nearly a century old, and atonal music, even if you're only talking about Arnold Schoenberg's work, is over a century old. Western music, though much of it continues to incorporate or at least show the influence of some sort of atonalism, has long since moved on to many other things. Isn't this debate the day before yesterday's news?


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## DaveM

What I find instructive is that after a century of atonalism, serialism and whatever else classical music has allegedly moved on to, none of it, after all this time can sustain the health and well-being of most orchestras. Maybe there are some exceptions that escape me, but in the Los Angeles area alone, only the the LA Symphony can get away scheduling and commissioning some of it because Dudamel is such a draw. If you look at the schedule of other smaller local orchestras in the area, there is relatively little of it.


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## arpeggio

DaveM said:


> What I find instructive is that after a century of atonalism, serialism and whatever else classical music has allegedly moved on to, none of it, after all this time can sustain the health and well-being of most orchestras. Maybe there are some exceptions that escape me, but in the Los Angeles area alone, only the the LA Symphony can get away scheduling and commissioning some of it because Dudamel is such a draw. If you look at the schedule of other smaller local orchestras in the area, there is relatively little of it.


Every few months someone makes the above observation.

And the only response I can think of is to repeat (based on fifty years experience of performing and serving on the boards of various community orchestras) the impact of copyright laws on programming.


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## BabyGiraffe

fluteman said:


> I just noticed this marathon thread. What puzzles me is that serialism is now nearly a century old, and atonal music, even if you're only talking about Arnold Schoenberg's work, is over a century old. Western music, though much of it continues to incorporate or at least show the influence of some sort of atonalism, has long since moved on to many other things. Isn't this debate the day before yesterday's news?


I doubt that even the people that consume 12tone music every day can process most of it. Don't expect the human beings that live in a world where most of the music they listen usually repeats 5-6 notes to appreciate 12tone music.
Let's say that in the future people will augment their memory and mental capabilities with computer technologies. Probably more people will be able to understand the normal classical music, but I don't think that people will learn to like 12 tone music at all.
Symmetrical division of the octave (tritones, augmented, diminished, wholetone and so on) sound horrible to the human species and are used only to picture horror, shock, anger, weirdness and war - which is the last thing most people want from music.


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## EdwardBast

BabyGiraffe said:


> Let's say that in the future people will augment their memory and mental capabilities with computer technologies. Probably more people will be able to understand the normal classical music, but I don't think that people will learn to like 12 tone music at all.
> Symmetrical division of the octave (tritones, augmented, diminished, wholetone and so on) sound horrible to the human species and are used only to picture horror, shock, anger, weirdness and war - which is the last thing most people want from music.


What nonsense! Here is a piece in a whole tone scale. It does not sound horrible to normal humans. In fact, it is kind of popular:






Here is a work whose beginning is based on symmetrical division of the octave. It sounds good too:






Symmetrical divisions by minor and major thirds are commonplace in some of the most popular music of the 20thc, including that of Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.



Daniel Atkinson said:


> Yes, that was the intention back in the 20s but it failed in every way to succeed in it's premise.
> What it resulted in was a new harmonic system that is built upon a similar cognitive reasoning as diatonic music and using all the same stock composition techniques and procedures.


Oh good! Someone knows the "harmonic system" underlying 12-tone music. Perhaps you would explain a little bit of how it works? We've been waiting years for someone with this knowledge.


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## DaveM

arpeggio said:


> Every few months someone makes the above observation.
> 
> And the only response I can think of is to repeat (based on fifty years experience of performing and serving on the boards of various community orchestras) the impact of copyright laws on programming.


The other reason I can think of is that the seats wouldn't be filled. I have a hard time thinking that copyright has anything to do with it. I would guess that the owners of the copyright whether composer and/or publisher would want the works performed and wouldn't price themselves out of the market.


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## Magnum Miserium

EdwardBast said:


> What nonsense! Here is a piece in a whole tone scale. It does not sound horrible to normal humans. In fact, it is kind of popular:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here is a work whose beginning is based on symmetrical division of the octave. It sounds good too:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Symmetrical divisions by minor and major thirds are commonplace in some of the most popular music of the 20thc, including that of Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.


One of life's simple joys is people who start from the solid enough premise that 12 tone music is unpopular, then try to demonstrate that this is because of physics/biology, and end up proving that nobody likes Debussy.


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## TurnaboutVox

Please do not post personal remarks about the musical tastes or supposed attitudes of other forum members, unless unambiguously positive. As ever, negative personal comments will be removed by the staff if sufficiently likely to cause offence. Posts in this thread should focus on the music, please.


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## JAS

Chronochromie said:


> That is that particular member's view. I for one think that Schoenberg's Piano Concerto is beautiful, as are many other of his works.


So one member declares that ugliness has triumphed over beauty, as a more modern virtue, and another that what I am fairly confident most people would call ugliness _is_ beauty. (Yes, I find the Schoenberg Piano Concerto to be ugly, perhaps not as ugly as a number of other examples might be, but quite ugly enough that I would prefer not to hear it again.) Tastes vary, and you are, of course, perfectly entitled to listen to the music that you like, as long as it isn't being foisted on the rest of us.


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## TurnaboutVox

JAS said:


> [...] Tastes vary, and you are, of course, perfectly entitled to listen to the music that you like, as long as it isn't being foisted on the rest of us.


Could you give us an example of this happening, JAS?


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## JAS

Magnum Miserium said:


> One of life's simple joys is people who start from the solid enough premise that 12 tone music is unpopular, then try to demonstrate that this is because of physics/biology, and end up proving that nobody likes Debussy.


There is, of course, a wide range in the music of Debussy. The notable gulf between Claire de Lune and his opera La chute de la maison Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher) is very wide indeed. How popular is the one piece versus the other? If one does not like one of these pieces, does one "dislike" Debussy? If one likes one of these pieces, does one "like" Debussy? If one says that one likes Debussy, does that mean that both pieces must be intended?


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## JAS

TurnaboutVox said:


> Could you give us an example of this happening, JAS?


Many, many, many concerts, most of which I have given up on attending. (I got tired of paying for, and sitting through, two pieces I absolutely hated to hear one that I enjoyed.) Fortunately, the local classical radio station mostly avoids these pieces, but even there, from time to time, I have to change the dial. (A small matter, and quite reasonable to stretch to the more extreme tastes that at least a few other listeners may enjoy.)

And, of course, there is the ever present claim that we must support "the music of our time."


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## mmsbls

BabyGiraffe said:


> I doubt that even the people that consume 12tone music every day can process most of it. Don't expect the human beings that live in a world where most of the music they listen usually repeats 5-6 notes to appreciate 12tone music.


I'm not sure what you mean by processing music. I don't feel I process music by Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven. I just enjoy it. Perhaps I do hear particular aspects of the music that I don't immediately identify. I believe I respond to atonal music in a similar manner. I probably hear aspects of those works (different aspects in some cases) but don't identify them as well.



BabyGiraffe said:


> Let's say that in the future people will augment their memory and mental capabilities with computer technologies. Probably more people will be able to understand the normal classical music, but I don't think that people will learn to like 12 tone music at all.


I don't believe knowing more about the music is necessary to enjoy it. As I said I don't really understand music whether Romantic, Baroque, or Modern, but I can enjoy works from any period.



BabyGiraffe said:


> Symmetrical division of the octave (tritones, augmented, diminished, wholetone and so on) sound horrible to the human species and are used only to picture horror, shock, anger, weirdness and war - which is the last thing most people want from music.


Some do, some don't. Context is important.


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## TurnaboutVox

So in the Baltimore area there is so much modernist and contemporary music performed that those who don't like it have to stop going to concerts? In the North-West of England it's just possible to pick out a schedule of performances of 20th century music across each year, but really only our regional music conservatoire and an annual university festival performs contemporary works.

I appreciate that it's not to your taste, but it does sound as if there's much for the 'modernist' fan to enjoy where you live.


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## fluteman

DaveM said:


> What I find instructive is that after a century of atonalism, serialism and whatever else classical music has allegedly moved on to, none of it, after all this time can sustain the health and well-being of most orchestras. Maybe there are some exceptions that escape me, but in the Los Angeles area alone, only the the LA Symphony can get away scheduling and commissioning some of it because Dudamel is such a draw. If you look at the schedule of other smaller local orchestras in the area, there is relatively little of it.


Here's another often-made comment I don't understand. The "modern" symphony orchestra is a late-nineteenth century instrument. In fact, most of the individual instruments, the piano included, reached their fully mature form or were very close to it by the mid-19th century. Technological developments of the 20th century didn't make the orchestra entirely obsolete, but it did bring many other media for music and entertainment generally onto the cultural scene. In my opinion, the symphony orchestra, though it's still important, will never again have the dominant role in western music it enjoyed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At this point it is, as one famous conductor noted, "a museum". Yet, it's still very expensive to maintain one. So the economic issues we see with many orchestras are probably inevitable.


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## JAS

TurnaboutVox said:


> So in the Baltimore area there is so much modernist and contemporary music performed that those who don't like it have to stop going to concerts? In the North-West of England it's just possible to pick out a schedule of performances of 20th century music across each year, but really only our regional music conservatoire and an annual university festival performs contemporary works.
> 
> I appreciate that it's not to your taste, but it does sound as if there's much for the 'modernist' fan to enjoy where you live.


It actually appears to have gotten a little better over the last year or so, but it still tends to be divided between the very light "pop" concerts and the more "serious" ones, which tend to mix periods, perhaps because they want to appeal somewhat to more modern interests but know that it just hasn't got enough support to do separate concerts. It was particularly terrible under David Zinman, who repeatedly insisted that we, the audience, had to support "modern" composers. (I never want to sit through another Rouse piece . . . never, never, never.)

We have swerved off the topic proper, but I note that I have recently purchased a copy of a book, Surprised by Beauty, by Robert E. Reilly and Jens F. Laurson. It laments a loss of "spirituality" (their choice of term) in much modern music, but insists on a rich vein still to be found here and there. Unfortunately, many of their examples hardly seem to live up to their descriptions. (As an example, they have a chapter called "John Cage: Apostle of Noise," which makes a number of strongly critical comments overall but ultimately ends in a recommendation for his ballet "The Seasons" as "downright melodic." It has no melody of any kind that I can hear. They do include a few well-known names, like Sibelius or Vaughn Williams, and even Elgar, none of whom have ever struck me as especially "modern" and for whom I have many pieces I like very much. Perhaps they are included for the sake of having some clear recommendations that are likely to find pretty wide acceptance. And it also gives some, like Korngold and Hermann, for whom I mostly prefer their film music, which the authors seem to look down on, but also some of their classical music, particularly Korngold.)


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## Omicron9

ArtMusic said:


> The point of Romantic music was to express emotions. The point of poetry as well through choice pick of words. Atonal music in my opinion does not do that well enough. It's an academic course of musical development in history.


Clearly that is your opinion. My opinion is that atonal music expresses emotions far better than any other period, because the restrictions of diatonicism are removed. This would be akin to a painter going from a palette of three colors to palette with unlimited colors.

One could argue that one point of the Romantic movement was to throw off the shackles of the classical period, and move art forward. One could also state that one purpose of atonal music was to throw off the shackles of the Romantic period and move art forward. Academic motives had nothing to do with either movement.


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## Omicron9

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Yes, that was the intention back in the 20s but it failed in every way to succeed in it's premise.
> What it resulted in was a new harmonic system that is built upon a similar cognitive reasoning as diatonic music and using all the same stock composition techniques and procedures.
> 
> One question, what is the purpose of a tone row? (again, this is about 12 tone and serial music vs intuitive "atonal" music)
> 
> It is to create a logistical hierarchy of notes that will be manipulated (like in diatonic music) and will be able to be drawn back to primary explanations. E.g. in diatonic music a chord might be borrowing from the relative minor key
> 
> Daniel


Keep in mind that not all atonal music is 12-tone music.


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## Omicron9

And.... to add one other thought: just because you don't like or don't understand a specific period of music does not render that music invalid.

Not just for the atonal movement, but for all music.


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## EdwardBast

JAS said:


> We have swerved off the topic proper, but I note that I have recently purchased a copy of a book, Surprised by Beauty, by Robert E. Reilly and Jens F. Laurson. It laments a loss of "spirituality" (their choice of term) in much modern music, but insists on a rich vein still to be found here and there. Unfortunately, many of their examples hardly seem to live up to their descriptions. (As an example, they have a chapter called "John Cage: Apostle of Noise," which makes a number of strongly critical comments overall but ultimately ends in a recommendation for *his ballet "The Seasons" as "downright melodic." It has no melody of any kind that I can hear.*


Seriously? There are so many obvious melodic bits in this I find it hard to believe anyone with ears could miss them. Many of the fragments are short, of course, but they are often presented in balanced phrases. The periodicity is clearly linked to traditional patterns and is not particularly challenging.


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## JAS

EdwardBast said:


> Seriously? There are so many obvious melodic bits in this I find it hard to believe anyone with ears could miss them. Many of the fragments are short, of course, but they are often presented in balanced phrases. The periodicity is clearly linked to traditional patterns and is not particularly challenging.


Absolutely true, whether you believe it or not. I hear nothing in it that approaches anything I would call melodic, and "melodic" would certainly not be on the short list of things that come to mind in describing it. The one thing I did find entertaining (in watching a video of the performance on youtube) was the conductor, who is clearly not only really into it but almost dancing (in a way). I don't know that I could have gotten through it without her. (For reference, her name is Tania Miller.)


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## isorhythm

JAS said:


> Absolutely true, whether you believe it or not. I hear nothing in it that approaches anything I would call melodic, and "melodic" would certainly not be on the short list of things that come to mind in describing it. The one thing I did find entertaining (in watching a video of the performance on youtube) was the conductor, who is clearly not only really into it but almost dancing (in a way). I don't know that I could have gotten through it without her. (For reference, her name is Tania Miller.)


We're all entitled to our own tastes, but if this is your reaction to something like that Cage piece (



 for reference), it's clear that your tastes are exceptionally narrow - much more so than the vast majority of the listening public, including most who would consider themselves conservative.

That's fine, but maybe something to keep in mind when approaching music a lot of other people like.


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## millionrainbows

To understand serial music, you have to understand tonal music, and what makes it tonal.

Also, you have to realize that tonal music had become more & more chromatic by Wagner's and Schoenberg's time.

Originally, tonality was based on 7-note scales, with key areas & key signatures, and modulated to different keys. Also, tonality was originally based on triads and their consonances: root, major third, and fifth.

The 12-note scale developed out of Pythagoran procedures of "stacking" fifths. At the 12th cycle (C-G-D-A-E-B-F#-C#-G#-D#-F), they stopped, thinking that the cycle had overlapped on to itself, but this was merely a "close enough" stopping point, in order to "close" the octave. Thus, the Pythagoran comma, as it is called, was adjusted by 2 cents (a very small amount) to make all the notes equal.

Thus, the present day chromatic scale favors fifths (only 2 cents flat), but major thirds suffered: they became 14 cents sharp.

So "tonality" works fine if you stay in one or two keys, and maybe modulate 2 or three keys away (C-G-D-E) or (C-F-Bb-Eb). This is where Valotti and mean-tone temperaments came in, to give better thirds within a close range. Outside this range produced what are called "wolf fifths" which do not work.

So when chromaticism come in, tonality does not work as well. Its original basis of consonant triads is gone, replaced by equally "out-of-tune" triads. 

With all 12 keys in use, the chromatic scale must be as even as possible throughout its range; thus the gradual rise and achievement of equal-tempered tuning, in use today.

After late Romantic tonality became almost totally chromatic, musical thinking began to turn to the 12-note chromatic scale as its starting point. This was a natural consequence of chromaticism; the reference back to tonality, cited by Wagner aficionados as "extended tonality" was only paying lip-service to tonal tradition; the "sound" of tonality was already gone, and tonality further became an abstracted, idealized idea of what it was originally intended to be: consonant sound.


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## eugeneonagain

fluteman said:


> Here's another often-made comment I don't understand. The "modern" symphony orchestra is a late-nineteenth century instrument. In fact, most of the individual instruments, the piano included, reached their fully mature form or were very close to it by the mid-19th century. Technological developments of the 20th century didn't make the orchestra entirely obsolete, but it did bring many other media for music and entertainment generally onto the cultural scene. In my opinion, the symphony orchestra, though it's still important, will never again have the dominant role in western music it enjoyed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. At this point it is, as one famous conductor noted, "a museum". Yet, it's still very expensive to maintain one. So the economic issues we see with many orchestras are probably inevitable.


If that's the case, why do so many modern composers still write for the orchestra (often even bigger orchestras than in the past)? The orchestra is a superlative instrument which tests the skill of the composer, players and the audience. Composers know this and they are drawn to it.

I like a lot of modern music - though 'modern' now has a vague meaning, is Scriabin still modern? Is Hindemith modern? - and I am open to the changes in approaches. Schnittke's music appeals to me as music, but I'm certain it's also the things I know about him that add to that experience.

There was a string quartet I heard on youtube recently - and I'll try to track it down. It had extensive notes preceding it, but it was without doubt the most pretentious and diabolical rubbish I've heard in some time. Some of the scores of these things are laughable with time signatures like "12 1/2" and the signature changing every three bars or so. The quartet who suffered it must have been kidnapped and bullied into it.
I am convinced that like shoddy academic writing it's easier to hide behind a web of cutting-edge complex twaddle and even the experts sometimes fail to spot this, so eager are they to not appear a cultural barbarian. In discussions of this the charge is always put forward that the person questioning atonal/serialism/polystylism or what-have-you is:

1. Not a sophisticated enough listener.
2. Unrealistically expecting to feel something in the same way they felt things from tonal/diatonic music.
3. Basically is suffering from luddism.

There may be some truth in the first. I remember as a teenager hearing my biology teacher playing Thelonious Monk after school hours and thinking it was weird. Later on I learned to 'hear' it by becoming accustomed to it and I now love it.

The second is to me the most spurious. Is the music political? Well that involves emotional agency. Is it representing a moment, a scene? That involves emotional interactions too. If someone is trying to _not_ express things through the medium of music they've certainly chosen the wrong medium. To say atonal music tries to make an audience feel _certain_ things or _different_ things is probably more realistic. 
It's fair enough to suggest that like all books are not the same (50 Shades of Gray vs Madame Bovary) and different levels will exist, there are also other mechanisms at work than just pure experience and cultural sophistication. I don't even believe that all of Wagner's so-called army of fans are all people who just discovered his music and liked it. There is a weird cachet in being a Wagner fan and people seem to cultivate certain tastes for reasons of cultural display. Personally I think he is largely a drab, noisy bore. I'd sooner listen to Bizet's Carmen suites than Wagner's cacophonous brass-heavy groanings.

Since diatonic-based music was almost fully exploited over 200-300 years it seems obvious that the only thing to do was to break the grip of music largely based upon limited I-VI-V harmony, nice cadences, expectations fulfilled etc. Now, however, you get the extreme opposite - no expectations, no recognisable harmony, no cadences. Very often even this sort of composer collapses into the strange pull of harmony and cadences and recognisable melodic shapes and then you think to yourself: "Oh just write what you really want to write and stop trying to be an intellectual you twit!"
Now we've had a century of atona;/modernism/serialism etc there's been time to hear that even this has a certain recognisable form and sound: massive jumps over an octave or three, strings stabs like Herrmann's _Psycho_ time signatures everywhere. Perhaps even this has become predictible?


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## DaveM

isorhythm said:


> .... it's clear that your tastes are exceptionally narrow - much more so than the vast majority of the listening public, including most who would consider themselves conservative.
> 
> That's fine, but maybe something to keep in mind when approaching music a lot of other people like.


That's a conclusion based on something being stated as fact (about the taste of the vast majority of the listening public) which at the very least is largely unknown. I would be very interested to know what the real facts are, but I've never seen a good study to hang one's hat on.

When it comes to 'modern' music, determining the tastes of the general public is rather tricky because there are so many sub-categories compared to the pre-20th century. The Cage The Seasons is an interesting case in point. I can hear the snippets of melody (e.g. by the flute at the beginning) and I don't get the 'I want to runaway screaming' reaction I get from some works. But if I was a season ticket holder, I must admit I would have rathered that something else was scheduled (although the referenced performance was part of a Cage 100 series so the audience had to know what was coming ) But, obviously there are those who find those snippets of melody satisfying.

Still, to get a real idea of what the present taste of the listening public is, you'd have to do a survey using a lot of people and a daunting variety of works. One of the only sources of some information on the subject is IMO the present concert scheduling of large and small orchestras.


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## JAS

isorhythm said:


> We're all entitled to our own tastes, but if this is your reaction to something like that Cage piece (
> 
> 
> 
> for reference), it's clear that your tastes are exceptionally narrow - much more so than the vast majority of the listening public, including most who would consider themselves conservative.
> 
> That's fine, but maybe something to keep in mind when approaching music a lot of other people like.


My "exceptionally narrow" tastes include music from a wide range of cultures and over a span of 1,000 years. If it does not include even a substantial portion of the broadly designated classical music of the last 50-80 years, that is hardly narrow. And listening to it again, I still find nothing melodic about it, certainly nothing to justify the description "downright melodic." Every time that a few notes seem as if they might be coming together, something comes along to step on it. (It might be somewhat more melodic than much of Cage's output, pushing the term to its utmost extremes as a relative reference, but that is hardly making much of a claim.) And if I were in such a small minority, there would not be so much whining and pearl clutching, mostly not on my side of the argument, at the occasional disagreements that occur here at TC.


----------



## isorhythm

DaveM said:


> That's a conclusion based on something being stated as fact (about the taste of the vast majority of the listening public) which at the very least is largely unknown. I would be very interested to know what the real facts are, but I've never seen a good study to hang one's hat on.
> 
> When it comes to 'modern' music, determining the tastes of the general public is rather tricky because there are so many sub-categories compared to the pre-20th century. The Cage The Seasons is an interesting case in point. I can hear the snippets of melody (e.g. by the flute at the beginning) and I don't get the 'I want to runaway screaming' reaction I get from some works. But if I was a season ticket holder, I must admit I would have rathered that something else was scheduled (although the referenced performance was part of a Cage 100 series so the audience had to know what was coming ) But, obviously there are those who find those snippets of melody satisfying.
> 
> Still, to get a real idea of what the present taste of the listening public is, you'd have to do a survey using a lot of people and a daunting variety of works. One of the only sources of some information on the subject is IMO the present concert scheduling of large and small orchestras.


I wasn't commenting on whether or not people like _The Seasons_ - I haven't listened to it beyond the first couple minutes, so I can't say whether I like it myself. I was just noting that someone who can hear "no melody of any kind" in it obviously has ears and a brain calibrated very differently from most listeners, including conservative listeners.

I think your own reaction demonstrates this, actually.


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## DaveM

isorhythm said:


> I wasn't commenting on whether or not people like _The Seasons_ - I haven't listened to it beyond the first couple minutes, so I can't say whether I like it myself. I was just noting that someone who can hear "no melody of any kind" in it obviously has ears and a brain calibrated very differently from most listeners, including conservative listeners.
> 
> I think your own reaction demonstrates this, actually.


This assumes that you know for a fact how most listeners, including conservative listeners, would respond to The Seasons which is really a significant part of the point I was making in my previous post.


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## EdwardBast

Double post. See below …


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## EdwardBast

JAS said:


> My "exceptionally narrow" tastes include music from a wide range of cultures and over a span of 1,000 years. If it does not include even a substantial portion of the broadly designated classical music of the last 50-80 years, that is hardly narrow. *And listening to it again, I still find nothing melodic about it, certainly nothing to justify the description "downright melodic." Every time that a few notes seem as if they might be coming together, something comes along to step on it.* (It might be somewhat more melodic than much of Cage's output, pushing the term to its utmost extremes as a relative reference, but that is hardly making much of a claim.) And if I were in such a small minority, there would not be so much whining and pearl clutching, mostly not on my side of the argument, at the occasional disagreements that occur here at TC.


The opening minute of the work is a continuous melody with two large balanced phrases almost like a classical period. What might be throwing you off is that it is presented in dialogue form. The first idea isn't stepped on, it is answered. The statements and answers fall into a consistent long-term pattern. In the original piano version the dialogic aspect is less prominent because the timbre is homogeneous.

Edit: Having listened again, it has become clear that nearly every new idea is immediately restated in a balanced pattern, often followed by another elaborating phrase.

Note that I have never studied the score and in fact hadn't heard the piece (as far as I remember) before this thread. So what I am reporting above isn't based on analysis, just on casual listening.


----------



## Phil loves classical

EdwardBast said:


> The opening minute of the work is a continuous melody with two large balanced phrases almost like a classical period. What might be throwing you off is that it is presented in dialogue form. The first idea isn't stepped on, it is answered. The statements and answers fall into a consistent long-term pattern. In the original piano version the dialogic aspect is less prominent because the timbre is homogeneous.
> 
> Edit: Having listened again, it has become clear that nearly every new idea is immediately restated in a balanced pattern, often followed by another elaborating phrase.
> 
> Note that I have never studied the score and in fact hadn't heard the piece (as far as I remember) before this thread. So what I am reporting above isn't based on analysis, just on casual listening.


It's one of his works that works on me. With his works on random chance, I just try to get a grasp of the concept and overall picture without getting too much into details.

Here is one based on using text from I-Ching to determine the tones, durations, etc.






Yes, it is pure randomness. Any melodic/harmonic associations are purely coincidental, not to say they can't be made

P.s. How are the trills determined? :lol:

Ah, the generated tone must have landed directly halfway between two notes.


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## Bettina

Perhaps one point of atonal music is to draw more attention to certain aspects of music such as timbre, rhythm and register - aspects that are often subordinated to harmonic organization in pieces of tonal music. When tonality is removed from the equation, then these other musical features can acquire a greater salience for the composer and listener. This is particularly clear in total serialist pieces, such as those by Boulez and Babbitt, in which rhythm and register take on an organizing role that they could never possess in a common-practice tonal style.


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## Phil loves classical

Bettina said:


> Perhaps one point of atonal music is to draw more attention to certain aspects of music such as timbre, rhythm and register - aspects that are often subordinated to harmonic organization in pieces of tonal music. When tonality is removed from the equation, then these other musical features can acquire a greater salience for the composer and listener. This is particularly clear in total serialist pieces, such as those by Boulez and Babbitt, in which rhythm and register take on an organizing role that they could never possess in a common-practice tonal style.


Not only perhaps. It definitely is the case in at least some atonal works. A certain rhythmic freedom, not confined by harmony. Question is whether you are paying a price for that freedom.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

aToNaL post............................


----------



## fluteman

eugeneonagain said:


> If that's the case, why do so many modern composers still write for the orchestra (often even bigger orchestras than in the past)? The orchestra is a superlative instrument which tests the skill of the composer, players and the audience. Composers know this and they are drawn to it.


Yes, I agree. But I didn't say the symphony orchestra is obsolete. Far from it. I just said that it doesn't have as central a role in our musical culture as it did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Newer technologies have created other options. And I find it quite ironic when people complain, as some do here, about composers who try to keep it relevant by moving it in new directions. It seems they would keep it solely as a monument to music of the distant past, which would only marginalize it further.


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## Bettina

Phil loves classical said:


> Not only perhaps. It definitely is the case in at least some atonal works. A certain rhythmic freedom, not confined by harmony. Question is whether you are paying a price for that freedom.


Any musical style involves trade-offs. You pay a price in common practice tonal music too - the sense of meter and phrasing is very much tied to the harmonic progressions, rather than existing as an independent element. I enjoy both tonal and atonal music (though I must admit that most of my listening is focused on tonal music), and I am always aware of how any musical work operates within a set of constraints and conventions.


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## Phil loves classical

Bettina said:


> Any musical style involves trade-offs. You pay a price in common practice tonal music too - the sense of meter and phrasing is very much tied to the harmonic progressions, rather than existing as an independent element. I enjoy both tonal and atonal music (though I must admit that most of my listening is focused on tonal music), and I am always aware of how any musical work operates within a set of constraints and conventions.


My view is, like Omicron9 says about atonal, I would add also weak tonal, you get more colour in the palette, plus more rhythmic freedom. Postromantic and early modern music is what I consider the best of both worlds, traditional and modern. Personally I'm not that crazy about John Cage, in that I feel his music makes a lot sacrifices of the things I like. On other hand I feel a lot of rigidness in most works in pre-20th century music.


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## Pugg

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> aToNaL post............................


Better then having a Anatol post.


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## hpowders

As "civilized" humanity became less religious and more secular, less caring and compassionate, two world wars, people killed like flies without a thought in various holocausts, increasingly egocentric; religious holidays becoming simply another excuse to shop; atonal music evolved.

What would you expect? Music with heart? Faggetabout it!

People evolved into "in-humans". So did the music. A logical progression.


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## Lenny

For me personally atonal music is a nice fresh air sometimes. Too much "3 B"'s, then I need my fix of atonality.


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## fluteman

hpowders said:


> As "civilized" humanity became less religious and more secular, less caring and compassionate, two world wars, people killed like flies without a thought in various holocausts, increasingly egocentric; religious holidays becoming simply another excuse to shop; atonal music evolved.
> 
> What would you expect? Music with heart? Faggetabout it!
> 
> People evolved into "in-humans". So did the music. A logical progression.


I don't want to get into a politics and religion debate (I happen to be a religious persons myself), but it must be said that religious fervor has long been (mis)used as an excuse for political oppression and to fuel war and genocide, and still is today. Religious institutions (not the same thing as religion itself) have often censored artistic expression. The Russian Orthodox Church once banned secular music entirely. So, I think it's more accurate to say that free expression, including but not limited to atonal music, resulted from periods in the modern era where oppressive secular and religious institutions lost some of their control.


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## DaveM

Lenny said:


> For me personally atonal music is a nice fresh air sometimes. Too much "3 B"'s, then I need my fix of atonality.


Here's some nice fresh air for this morning's fix (due credit to another forum):


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## millionrainbows

I wouldn't characterize what Ferneyhough is doing here as "atonal" except in the most general sense of the term. It is definitely constructed outside the bounds of any sort of tonality, again in the general sense. It is not constructed from a harmonic hierarchy created by scales. The use of traditional instruments only confuses the issue.

The violin, in particular, seems to be unconcerned with discreet pitch as such, and more concerned with gesture and declamatory statements of sound. Ferneyhough seems to be interested in pure sound, not any sort of tonality or atonality. We define pitch as a sustained frequency, distinguishable as a musical pitch rather than a percussive noise with indefinite pitch. There are pitches here, but also plenty of non-pitched "gesture" which some might characterize as "noise" if they do not accept it as pure sound.

He also seems to be largely uninterested in "harmony" except in a very general and literal way, as it occurs as the simultaneous sounding of pitches. The horns at the end hint at a type of harmony, as they are playing together. The music is certainly not constructed from any overall harmonic principles which provide structure.

The declamatory nature of some of this sounds language-like, as if the players are speaking through their instruments. He has definitely left the realm of the tonal/atonal dialectic, and is into the area of pure sound and gesture. It does have a more deliberate sound than much of John Cage's later work; it does not exactly give the impression of total randomness, but seems to express the intent of the composer at work.


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## DaveM

millionrainbows said:


> I wouldn't characterize what Ferneyhough is doing here as "atonal" except in the most general sense of the term. It is definitely constructed outside the bounds of any sort of tonality, again in the general sense. It is not constructed from a harmonic hierarchy created by scales. The use of traditional instruments only confuses the issue.
> 
> The violin, in particular, seems to be unconcerned with discreet pitch as such, and more concerned with gesture and declamatory statements of sound. Ferneyhough seems to be interested in pure sound, not any sort of tonality or atonality. We define pitch as a sustained frequency, distinguishable as a musical pitch rather than a percussive noise with indefinite pitch. There are pitches here, but also plenty of non-pitched "gesture" which some might characterize as "noise" if they do not accept it as pure sound.
> 
> He also seems to be largely uninterested in "harmony" except in a very general and literal way, as it occurs as the simultaneous sounding of pitches. The horns at the end hint at a type of harmony, as they are playing together. The music is certainly not constructed from any overall harmonic principles which provide structure.
> 
> The declamatory nature of some of this sounds language-like, as if the players are speaking through their instruments. He has definitely left the realm of the tonal/atonal dialectic, and is into the area of pure sound and gesture. It does have a more deliberate sound than much of John Cage's later work; it does not exactly give the impression of total randomness, but seems to express the intent of the composer at work.


If it's not under the category of atonal, then what category is it in? Your description "language-like' and 'pure sound and gesture' seems applicable, but much like similar works, I don't understand the language or the purpose of the sound and gesture. Would works like this be generally liked by those who favor atonal works or is this yet a whole separate category that has its own separate following?


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## mtmailey

The point of atonal music is to USE ALL 12 NOTES ON THE SCALE.You see it is pain to play certain key signatures.The 3 easy ones are f major,c major & g major .C#MAJOR is not easy.


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## Bettina

mtmailey said:


> The point of atonal music is to USE ALL 12 NOTES ON THE SCALE.You see it is pain to play certain key signatures.The 3 easy ones are f major,c major & g major .C#MAJOR is not easy.


Many tonal pieces use all 12 notes too, so I wouldn't necessarily consider that a defining characteristic of atonal music. Music can be highly chromatic while still remaining tonal, if the chromatic notes are resolved in such a way as to support the standard tonal progressions.


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## millionrainbows

DaveM said:


> If it's not under the category of atonal, then what category is it in? Your description "language-like' and 'pure sound and gesture' seems applicable, but much like similar works, I don't understand the language or the purpose of the sound and gesture. Would works like this be generally liked by those who favor atonal works or is this yet a whole separate category that has its own separate following?


I put it in the category, similar to Varese and Messiaen, of composers who use sound as "stuff" that they move around in big blocks, or as little threads of stuff, like Ferneyhough.

The understanding is "just listen to the sound."

It is just sound. The "purpose" of it is something from the other classic music paradigm, where "great composers" make "great music." All of this seems to me have been discarded with Ferneyhough, but so did Cage. They still manage to make music that became famous, and it's coming out on CDs, so there must be something to it. Mustn't there?

I think listeners who can listen to John Cage might also like this.

I have one CD of Ferneyhough. I have not explored him yet. I hear his name mentioned a lot.


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## Phil loves classical

mtmailey said:


> The point of atonal music is to USE ALL 12 NOTES ON THE SCALE.You see it is pain to play certain key signatures.The 3 easy ones are f major,c major & g major .C#MAJOR is not easy.


Not all atonal music necessarily needs to use all 12 notes, but 12-tone certainly does.


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## Bettina

Phil loves classical said:


> Not all atonal music necessarily needs to use all 12 notes, but 12-tone certainly does.


Yes! It's important to draw a distinction between "free atonality" (which is what I think Schoenberg called it) and serialism.


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## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> I put it in the category, similar to Varese and *Messiaen*, of composers who use sound as "stuff" that they move around in big blocks, or as little threads of stuff, like Ferneyhough.


I wouldn't put Messiaen in this category at all.

ButI agree with your point here, that there's a bunch of modern music that's most interested in timbre and gesture. It's not a strain of music that has ever interested me much personally and I'm always surprised when I hear a premiere and find that some composers are still at it.


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## Daniel Atkinson

millionrainbows said:


> I put it in the category, similar to Varese and Messiaen, of composers who use sound as "stuff" that they move around in big blocks, or as little threads of stuff, like Ferneyhough.


Well I don't agree on that.

Varese uses a combination of harmony, heavily emphasized melodies, polyphony and syncopated rhythm.
Messiaen (depending on what decade), uses octatonic and extended scales (see modes of limited transposition), his music is contrapunctal but often chordal (as he was an organist)

Ferneyhough, is more in the lineage of Webern (and Elliott Carter) than the latter composers. Ferneyhough is canons galore

Daniel


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## Daniel Atkinson

Bettina said:


> Yes! It's important to draw a distinction between "free atonality" (which is what I think Schoenberg called it) and serialism.


Tell us all what the distinction is between "free atonality" and "free tonality"? 

Daniel


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## bz3

So it's been 170 pages. I have to assume we've come to a conclusion as to what the point of atonal music is. Anyone want to give me a tl;dr?


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## Gradeaundera

bz3 said:


> So it's been 170 pages. I have to assume we've come to a conclusion as to what the point of atonal music is. Anyone want to give me a tl;dr?


Don't expect any answers about anything on the internet matey


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## Bettina

Daniel Atkinson said:


> Tell us all what the distinction is between "free atonality" and "free tonality"?
> 
> Daniel


Good question! I've never thought about it in those terms before, but here's a stab at it: free atonality is music without any tonal center. Free tonality is music that has a tonal center, but doesn't follow the conventions of common-practice tonality. I would put a lot of Wagner, Debussy and Stravinsky (to name just a few) into the "free tonal" category.


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## Bettina

bz3 said:


> So it's been 170 pages. I have to assume we've come to a conclusion as to what the point of atonal music is. Anyone want to give me a tl;dr?


Isn't it obvious from this thread? The point of atonal music is to cause arguments on TC! :lol:


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## hpowders

Gradeaundera said:


> Don't expect any answers about anything on the internet matey


Just a vehicle for "killing time". Never have so many done so little! :lol::lol:


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## Gradeaundera

hpowders said:


> Just a vehicle for "killing time". Never have so many done so little! :lol::lol:


The internet is for strangers to aimlessly argue about stuff they're not qualified to talk about, eh?


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## hpowders

Gradeaundera said:


> The internet is for strangers to aimlessly argue about stuff they're not qualified to talk about, eh?


Opinions are simply heresay, if unconfirmed by serious research sources. I take them as such.


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## Gradeaundera

hpowders said:


> Opinions are simply heresay, if unconfirmed by serious research sources. I take them as such.


I like your philosophy matey


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## hpowders

Gradeaundera said:


> I like your philosophy matey


Thank you. People who offer unsubstantiated opinions should Koala-fy them as such!!!


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## deprofundis

I dont know, but atonal music is so darn interresting


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## Pugg

Bettina said:


> Isn't it obvious from this thread? The point of atonal music is to cause arguments on TC! :lol:


Finally, someone sprayings it out loud.


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## Pugg

bz3 said:


> So it's been 170 pages. I have to assume we've come to a conclusion as to what the point of atonal music is. Anyone want to give me a tl;dr?


Come back in about another 170 pages.


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## Lenny

I'd imagine atonal music becoming less and less significant in the age of computers and electronic music.

For me the most captivating idea in the early 1900's atonal music was this notion on _machinery_, or algorihms as we say nowdays, playing a major role in making music. But what makes it really working is that humans play it with analog instruments.

So maybe the next step is that we humans just start to play music created by a real machine? After that, we become totally useless... But it certainly doesn't look like it. This is of course just another interwebs-idiot's opinion, but I think there's a kind of "empire strikes back" going on. Return to "medieval", also in music.


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## Phil loves classical

"Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"

Prokofiev


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## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> "Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"
> 
> Prokofiev


I assume Prokofiev is saying this with the Second Viennese School in mind. In that context, I agree with him. It was Copland, I believe, who said that atonal music tends to sound too much like itself. Of course that didn't stop him from trying his hand at it:


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## Petwhac

Phil loves classical said:


> "Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"
> 
> Prokofiev


For manipulating the emotions, precisely, on a moment by moment basis and in a nuanced way, I'd agree.


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## fluteman

Phil loves classical said:


> "Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"
> 
> Prokofiev


Fortunately, music need not be entirely one or the other (for example, Prokofiev's music for the most part is tonal and diatonic but often makes significant use of dissonance, Bartok and Stravinsky even more so), and those are not the only possibilities.


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## Kajmanen

A good memorable melody/theme/motif always wins in the end.There are some objective qualites that will never change.



> The true goal of music-its proper enterprise-is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubt, the means is subordinate to the end.


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## Guest

Kajmanen said:


> A good memorable melody/theme/motif always wins in the end.There are some objective qualites that will never change.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The true goal of music-its proper enterprise-is melody. All the parts of harmony have as their ultimate purpose only beautiful melody. Therefore, the question of which is the more significant, melody or harmony, is futile. Beyond doubt, the means is subordinate to the end.
Click to expand...

Still just an opinion. Personally, I can't stand a melody without a rhythm.


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## Lisztian

Kajmanen said:


> A good memorable melody/theme/motif always wins in the end.There are some objective qualites that will never change.


Surely you realise how subjective this is.


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## Timothy

Phil loves classical said:


> "Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"
> 
> Prokofiev


Is that statement meant to be ironic?


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## Timothy

"Atonal" music expresses emotions, ideas and concepts just like "tonal" music, there's really nothing more too it. Thread closed.


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## Kajmanen

MacLeod said:


> Still just an opinion. Personally, I can't stand a melody without a rhythm.


No, its not merely an opinion. Theres no objective qualites in music ? Everything is just subjective? Thats ridiculous. Subjectivism is ridiculous.


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## Guest

Kajmanen said:


> Subjectivism is ridiculous.


And that's just an opinion too!


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## Kajmanen

MacLeod said:


> And that's just an opinion too!


This is aswelll !


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## Guest

Returning to the music, explain how melody works without rhythm.


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## mmsbls

MacLeod said:


> Returning to the music, explain how melody works without rhythm.


Isn't a melody defined by the note values along with the rhythm (i.e. the length of each note)?


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## mmsbls

Timothy said:


> "Atonal" music expresses emotions, ideas and concepts just like "tonal" music, there's really nothing more too it. Thread closed.


I agree with your statement, but I think the OP wanted to understand why composers chose to move away from tonal music to a different style. If the two styles are similar in what they can express, why make the change? What drives a composer to decide to use atonality rather than tonality?


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## Nereffid

Kajmanen said:


> No, its not merely an opinion. Theres no objective qualites in music ? Everything is just subjective? Thats ridiculous. Subjectivism is ridiculous.


But, aside from mechanical aspects such as note values, what _are_ the objective qualities in music?


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## Kajmanen

Nereffid said:


> But, aside from mechanical aspects such as note values, what _are_ the objective qualities in music?


If there weren't any objective values/ qualities how could we even discuss, analys,agree or disagree about anything in music? Everybody basically likes the same stuff (well atleast the same ingredients) and most people who are serious about their music listening seem to be able to acknoledge what sounds good in music.

If we put aside some intellectual snobbery etc - isn't there something in music that just speaks to humans, something which in the end isnt necessary to put words to.

Every serious music listener can acknowledge this objectively sounds better. And dont say they arent even comparable.






Than this ****:


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## lextune

This thread is wonderful. 
I am only 31 pages into it, (six years ago!), but I look forward to reading more, and wanted to post.


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## mmsbls

Kajmanen said:


> Every serious music listener can acknowledge this objectively sounds better. And dont say they arent even comparable.


I may not be a serious music listener, but I play the Ives more than the Brahms even though I have both. Brahms is one my my very favorite composers and I do greatly enjoy that Hungarian Dance. It has wonderful melodies, and Brahms is a great orchestrator. I also love Ives quartets. I find the music more interesting, at least now, and generally I'm more engaged with it. I'm not sure I would say one is or sounds better.

Even if I clearly liked the Brahms more, I would not say it was _objectively_ better. I would say I find it subjectively better.

Also please do not use obscene language even if our censor overwrites the letters with asterisks.


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## millionrainbows

_"*Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities than music that is atonal and chromatic"*_



Woodduck said:


> I assume Prokofiev is saying this with the Second Viennese School in mind. In that context, I agree with him. It was Copland, I believe, who said that atonal music tends to sound too much like itself. Of course that didn't stop him from trying his hand at it...


That's true, to a tonalist; Western tonality has more possibilities for the listener to adapt his set of ingrained expectations in endless new diatonic major/minor key areas. Ahh, now my "natural" knee-jerk ideology of music has more wiggle room! Thank you, chromaticism! :lol:

But it presents far fewer possibilities in interpreting the chromatic set of 12 notes.

Also, *"diatonic" *music can mean just about anything, as long as it comes from an unordered set (scale), as WIK explains:


"Exclusive" usage
Some writers consistently classify the other variants of the minor scale - the melodic minor (ascending form) and the harmonic minor- as non-diatonic, since they are not transpositions of the white-note pitches of the piano. Among such theorists there is no agreed general term that encompasses the major and all forms of the minor scale.

"Inclusive" usage
Some writers consistently include the melodic and harmonic minor scales as diatonic also. For this group, every scale standardly used in common practice music and much similar later music is either diatonic (the major, and all forms of the minor) or chromatic.

"Mixed" usage
Still other writers[weasel words] mix these two meanings of diatonic (and conversely for chromatic), and this can lead to confusions and misconceptions. Sometimes context makes the intended meaning clear.Some other meanings of the term diatonic scale take the extension to harmonic and melodic minor even further, to be even more inclusive.

In general, diatonic is most often used inclusively with respect to music that restricts itself to standard uses of traditional major and minor scales. _When discussing music that uses a larger variety of scales and modes (including much jazz, rock, and some tonal 20th-century concert music), writers often adopt the exclusive use to prevent confusion.

_So if Prokofiev meant the 'exclusive' usage of "diatonic," he has severely limited his possibilities.


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## mmsbls

lextune said:


> This thread is wonderful.
> I am only 31 pages into it, (six years ago!), but I look forward to reading more, and wanted to post.


Many people have derided this thread for various reasons, but I agree it is a great thread. There are some wonderful discussions that contributed greatly to my understanding of atonal and other new music.


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## millionrainbows

Tonal and diatonic music has much greater possibilities of function and tonal meaning than music that is atonal and chromatic, because atonal and chromatic music is not functionally tonal. That seems self-evident to anyone who assumes all music should be tonally functional. :lol:


----------



## Kajmanen

mmsbls said:


> I find the music more interesting, at least now


Everyone goes through phases. Experimental music is challangeing and interesting. But timeless iconic melodies outweighs that in the end. I know this because ive gone through several phases. A couple of years ago I'd argue this type of music was superior to evertyhing else.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

MacLeod said:


> Still just an opinion. Personally, I can't stand a melody without a rhythm.


I can't even think of a melody without a rhythm.


----------



## millionrainbows

mmsbls said:


> I agree with your statement, but I think the OP wanted to understand why composers chose to move away from tonal music to a different style. If the two styles are similar in what they can express, why make the change? What drives a composer to decide to use atonality rather than tonality?


I think composers wanted to escape from the restrictions of Western tonality and its functions and conventional devices (resolutions, cadences). All these conventions are there to 'restrict' the 12 notes into having tonal meaning.

Debussy is an example; he wanted to move major chords in parallel, and he couldn't do this in the tonal system. His ear liked it, but it broke the rules. In the end, I think it's sound. They wanted to hear different sounds.

I think people are still confused as to the true nature of tonality. Western tonality is only one way of creating "harmonic music." Debussy again is the best example.

What REALLY bothers people is when music leaves the realm of _harmonic construction,_ in which chords are derived from scales (any scales, not just major/minor). Harmonically constructed music can be _any _tonality, not just Western CP: jazz, folk, world, synthetic).

It's not that 12-tone is a "system" that irks most people; it's that it is not based on _harmonic models,_ which are scales. A scale always relates to a tonic, so scales are _always_ tonal in this regard. This means chords are built on the steps. These chords make the harmony, and thus the chords relate to a tonic also. This makes it "harmonically constructed."

Tone rows, or sets of notes from 2 to 12, are not related to a tonic because _they are not scales;_ they are ordered sets. Therefore, any "chord" you build out of that set will not have a harmonic reference to a tonic note; it just "is" what it is, a set of three notes or more.

So atonal composers either invent their own ways of making the harmony "sound sensible" or meaningful, or they abandon it altogether and go with counterpoint or melody, or linear elements.

Berg's Violin Concerto "makes sense" to me when I hear the harmonies.


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## millionrainbows

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> I can't even think of a melody without a rhythm.


Without rhythm, which progresses in time, time stops. So a melody "without rhythm" is a sustained note which never ends. OMMMMMMM.....but wait! Time can't stop! I'm still here, experiencing this drone. So a melody "without rhythm" is the NOW of BEING. OMMMMMM....

Enter La Monte Young and minimalism...


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## mmsbls

Kajmanen said:


> Everyone goes through phases. Experimental music is challangeing and interesting. But timeless iconic melodies outweighs that in the end. I know this because ive gone through several phases. A couple of years ago I'd argue this type of music was superior to evertyhing else.


Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music _for some people and less so for others_. That's why people's views of which music is more enjoyable are subjective. I'm sure you're aware there are members here who prefer modern music. Do you believe they are wrong when they say they find that music more enjoyable?


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough

I'd take that Ives quartet movement to a desert island over the Brahms any day. What's objective is that Brahms's dance is satisfying certain neurologically inherent musical expectations that the Ives's quartet is purposefully subverting. That does not make one objectively better. 

In fact, the Ives sounds a lot more accessible to me than some other things you could have chosen. There are moments of traditional beauty and the chaotic sections are not nearly as impenetrable or dense as some of the tougher Schoenberg, for one example, is to a layman like me. What does it even mean for melody to win out in the end? Relative to who? Maybe your love of Autechre didn't last because his music itself wasn't timeless, not because experimental music as a whole is challenging and interesting but ultimately and objectively less good.

I got into composers who sound like Ives and Xenakis because I was tired of composers who sounded like Brahms. A year later that is still the case, and even if my taste were to eventually revert, how do I know that would be a return to objectivity (if that even makes sense) and not another simple case of fatigue? Why even acknowledge the susceptibility of taste to phases only to act as if your current phase is more correct than everyone else's?


----------



## millionrainbows

Melodies are like voices, and talking. Sometimes I get tired of hearing all this talk.


----------



## isorhythm

millionrainbows said:


> Without rhythm, which progresses in time, time stops. So a melody "without rhythm" is a sustained note which never ends. OMMMMMMM.....but wait! Time can't stop! I'm still here, experiencing this drone. So a melody "without rhythm" is the NOW of BEING. OMMMMMM....
> 
> Enter La Monte Young and minimalism...


I know they were associates, but was Young involved with that track in particular?


----------



## Timothy

mmsbls said:


> I agree with your statement, but I think the OP wanted to understand why composers chose to move away from tonal music to a different style. If the two styles are similar in what they can express, why make the change? What drives a composer to decide to use atonality rather than tonality?


Why is it such a big controversy all of a sudden, I don't get it.

Rock can express happiness, sadness, love etc, so can jazz, even though jazz is stylistically different.

If you can understand that, what is the big deal about understanding how both "tonal" and "atonal" music express many human emotions and ideas?


----------



## mmsbls

Timothy said:


> Why is it such a big controversy all of a sudden, I don't get it.


It's been a big controversy for 100 years or so - not all of a sudden.



Timothy said:


> If you can understand that, what is the big deal about understanding how both "tonal" and "atonal" music express many human emotions and ideas?


I think maybe you're not putting yourself in their position. Many people listen to atonal (or highly chromatic) music and only hear unpleasant sounds. They love classical music from Baroque through Romantic (hundreds of years), but suddenly they only hear ugly, weird sounds from the new music. They don't understand why music changed from being profoundly beautiful to being incredibly ugly (to their ears of course). Why wouldn't they ask what the point of atonal (ugly, repulsive) music is?


----------



## Timothy

mmsbls said:


> I think maybe you're not putting yourself in their position. Many people listen to atonal (or highly chromatic) music and only hear unpleasant sounds. They love classical music from Baroque through Romantic (hundreds of years), but suddenly they only hear ugly, weird sounds from the new music. They don't understand why music changed from being profoundly beautiful to being incredibly ugly (to their ears of course). Why wouldn't they ask what the point of atonal (ugly, repulsive) music is?


Maybe I am just profoundly ignorant but I don't understand this apparent opposing duology between "beautiful" and "Ugly'. You seem to be stating that "atonal" music is ugly and "tonal" music is beautiful right? why are you doing this?


----------



## mmsbls

Timothy said:


> Maybe I am just profoundly ignorant but I don't understand this apparent opposing duology between "beautiful" and "Ugly'. You seem to be stating that "atonal" music is ugly and "tonal" music is beautiful right? why are you doing this?


I don't think that atonal music is ugly. There are many atonal works I love. However, a large percentage of classical music listeners view atonal (or highly chromatic) music as soundly profoundly ugly. That's why radio stations don't play it. I'm trying to explain why someone might ask what the point of atonal music is. Once you understand how some people view the music, it's easier to understand why they respond as they do.


----------



## Timothy

mmsbls said:


> I don't think that atonal music is ugly. There are many atonal works I love. However, a large percentage of classical music listeners view atonal (or highly chromatic) music as soundly profoundly ugly. That's why radio stations don't play it. I'm trying to explain why someone might ask what the point of atonal music is. Once you understand how some people view the music, it's easier to understand why they respond as they do.


What is ugly and what is beautiful? Why is it relevant what radio stations think of music without a solid root tone? I've never been a radio listener, so I don't really know the overall validity of consensus on this.


----------



## KenOC

The greatest sin in radio (next to dead air) is playing something that makes the listener change the station. Incidentally, "dead air" is the reason you'll never hear* 4'33" on the radio -- all kinds of alarms go off at the station!

*Or "not hear" depending on how you look at it.


----------



## Timothy

KenOC said:


> The greatest sin in radio (next to dead air) is playing something that makes the listener change the station. Incidentally, "dead air" is the reason you'll never hear* 4'33" on the radio -- all kinds of alarms go off at the station!
> 
> *Or "not hear" depending on how you look at it.


I don't like radio at all, I prefer to search out music for myself. Whether that be Cage or Bach


----------



## mmsbls

Timothy said:


> What is ugly and what is beautiful? Why is it relevant what radio stations think of music without a solid root tone? I've never been a radio listener, so I don't really know the overall validity of consensus on this.


I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to know why people would start a thread like this. We don't seem to understand each other.


----------



## eugeneonagain

KenOC said:


> The greatest sin in radio (next to dead air) is playing something that makes the listener change the station. Incidentally, "dead air" is the reason you'll never hear* 4'33" on the radio -- *all kinds of alarms go off* at the station!
> 
> *Or "not hear" depending on how you look at it.


That's just a Milton Babbitt piece.


----------



## Timothy

eugeneonagain said:


> That's just a Milton Babbitt piece.


Milton Babbitt just wrote for traditional ensembles from what I understand. If he did write for an alarm clock, could you direct me to the piece? I'd been interested in hearing it. Thank you


----------



## Timothy

mmsbls said:


> I'm sorry. I thought you wanted to know why people would start a thread like this. We don't seem to understand each other.


Well I originally said



> "Atonal" music expresses emotions, ideas and concepts just like "tonal" music, there's really nothing more too it. Thread closed.


----------



## eugeneonagain

Timothy said:


> Milton Babbitt just wrote for traditional ensembles from what I understand. If he did write for an alarm clock, could you direct me to the piece? I'd been interested in hearing it. Thank you


I think the piece was called: 'Failure to grasp a joke' for nose-flute and hurdy-gurdy.


----------



## Timothy

eugeneonagain said:


> I think the piece was called: 'Failure to grasp a joke' for nose-flute and hurdy-gurdy.


I am having trouble finding this piece or even a record of it


----------



## Timothy

Do you know where I can find that other piece for an alarm clock that you mentioned?


----------



## Guest

mmsbls said:


> Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music _for some people and less so for others_. That's why people's views of which music is more enjoyable are subjective. I'm sure you're aware there are members here who prefer modern music. Do you believe they are wrong when they say they find that music more enjoyable?


Just to be clear, my point was not related to the idea that 'timeless melodies' belong with the pre-modern era. Bring any piece of music to mind, think about how the rhythm might be different, and lo! you have a different melody. Saint-Saens treatment of Offenbach is a real example that shows how melody and rhythm (and the rest - timbre, dynamics etc) are inseparable.


----------



## Kajmanen

mmsbls said:


> Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music _for some people and less so for others_. That's why people's views of which music is more enjoyable are subjective. I'm sure you're aware there are members here who prefer modern music. Do you believe they are wrong when they say they find that music more enjoyable?


Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music for most people and less so for others.

Fixed it for you.

Their subjective taste is not wrong per se but their acknowledgement of objectivity in music isnt clear.


----------



## Nereffid

Kajmanen said:


> *Every* serious music listener can acknowledge this objectively sounds better.


Even if you took out the word "objectively", that claim would have been incorrect 100 years ago; Ives's idiom would have been unfamiliar to most, but I can't imagine that Ives himself was the only serious music listener who didn't personally prefer the Brahms. Now that we've had an entire century to get used to Ives, that "every" is extraordinarily shaky.

I discussed on mmsbls's "talking about music" thread how _just listen to the music_ is the best way of making a point about music but is also, when people like different things, a really terrible way of making a point.
It's just _so not obvious_ that the Brahms "sounds better" than the Ives. What on earth does "sounds better" actually _mean_?

If by "sounds better" you mean "has a lively, easily memorable tune that we can all hum along to" then, yeah, sure, the Brahms "sounds better" to my ears. But if by "sounds better" you mean "attempts with sly humour to depict some complex human interactions" then... well...

Actually here's Ives himself:


> It used to come over me--especially after coming from some of those nice Kneisel Quartet concerts--that music had been, and still was, too much an emasculated art. Too much of what was easy and usual to play and to hear what was called beautiful, etc.--the same old even-vibration, Sybaritic apron-strings, keeping music too much tied to the old ladies. The string quartet music got more and more trite, weak, and effeminate. After one of those Kneisel Quartet concerts in the old Mendelssohn Hall, I started a string quartet score, half mad, half in fun, and half to try out, practise, and have some fun making those men fiddlers get up and do something like men


(I can't say I agree with Ives's masculine/effeminate dichotomy here though!)


----------



## eugeneonagain

Timothy said:


> I am having trouble finding this piece or even a record of it


It's available in all good record shops.


----------



## Larkenfield

_It used to come over me--especially after coming from some of those nice Kneisel Quartet concerts--that music had been, and still was, too much an emasculated art. Too much of what was easy and usual to play and to hear what was called beautiful, etc.--the same old even-vibration, Sybaritic apron-strings, keeping music too much tied to the old ladies. The string quartet music got more and more trite, weak, and effeminate. After one of those Kneisel Quartet concerts in the old Mendelssohn Hall, I started a string quartet score, half mad, half in fun, and half to try out, practise, and have some fun making those men fiddlers get up and do something like men._

That's quite an Ives quote. I believe he's saying something important about the existence of the masculine and feminine in music, musicians and performances, and that the reality of those energies can be felt.

An example is the rich and deep sounds of those great male voices within the tradition of sacred Russian music. I'm not referring to those from other cultures singing it, but those authentic voices from within the country. At it's best it has a certain kind of a strong and unapologetic masculine virility unlike any such rich and deep voices I've heard from anywhere else. Powerful, thrilling! And I believe Ives may have liked its power.


----------



## Guest

Kajmanen said:


> Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music for most people and less so for others.
> 
> Fixed it for you.
> 
> Their subjective taste is not wrong per se but their acknowledgement of objectivity in music isnt clear.


You're fond of this business of objectivity. Perhaps you'd like to explain how it works.


----------



## mmsbls

Kajmanen said:


> Timeless iconic melodies outweighs other attributes of music for most people and less so for others.
> 
> Fixed it for you.
> 
> Their subjective taste is not wrong per se but their acknowledgement of objectivity in music isnt clear.


I don't understand your last sentence. Are you saying something like the vast majority of listeners prefer music with timeless iconic melodies; therefore, music with those type of melodies is objectively better?


----------



## Kajmanen

mmsbls said:


> I don't understand your last sentence. Are you saying something like the vast majority of listeners prefer music with timeless iconic melodies; therefore, music with those type of melodies is objectively better?


So music is exclusively subjective? Everything is just different? Theres no objective values in music? How do we analyse,discuss,agree or disagree upon certain elements of music then?


----------



## Ralphus

"Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." (William Burroughs)


----------



## Kajmanen

Ralphus said:


> "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted." (William Burroughs)


Is that suppose to be a truth statement?


----------



## mmsbls

Kajmanen said:


> So music is exclusively subjective? Everything is just different? Theres no objective values in music? How do we analyse,discuss,agree or disagree upon certain elements of music then?


Music is not exclusively subjective. There are plenty of objective metrics in music. The problem arises from determining the relative importance of those objective metrics. Let's assume that everyone agreed there were 3 objective musical metrics. Obviously there are more, but for simplicity let's assume the following three - good melodies, proper harmonies, and new ideas. Let's further assume that everyone agrees perfectly on evaluating each metric for every musical work (i.e. everyone gave Mozart's Symphony 41 a 95 on melodies, a 99 on harmonies, and an 80 on new ideas).

There still would be no objective way to determine which works were better. The metrics must be weighted to calculate an overall objective score. Someone may weight melodies .6, harmonies .3, and new ideas .1 while another might weight them melodies .3, harmonies .4, and new ideas .3. Those two people would not agree on which works were better even though they agree completely on which metrics are important and how to score each metric.

So yes, we can talk about objective values, but a final determination of which works are best, most important, or great is still subjective (based on internal individual weightings).


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

The point of atonal music, maybe it was the begining - this sounds Atonal to me


----------



## eugeneonagain

It sounds a lot like _God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen_,


----------



## Woodduck

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> The point of atonal music, maybe it was the begining - *this sounds Atonal* to me


It doesn't. It's just another example of how ancient tonality is. It may even have been the beginning...but it wasn't.


----------



## fluteman

Sofronitsky said:


> (Okay, I'm pretty sure alot of people are scoffing at the title of this thread.  )
> 
> Since almost the very beginning of my introduction to classical music (A few years ago, though it practically consumes my life now), I have been aware of atonal composers and few of their works. Studying composition myself, I have always been told by teachers and professors that Atonal music or near atonal music (sorry I don't have a better term for this genre) is the only way to push forward with music.
> 
> I have made an effort on a few occasions to _really_ listen to atonal music and witness the superior range of expression contemporary composers claim it has. In general, I find most of what I listened to is just kind of terrifying and sometimes annoying. For instance, in Nono's piano concerto, I was either finding humor in how random some moments were, or being terrified by the sounds I was hearing. There is such a focus on this genre of music with musicians and composers now that I just don't understand.
> 
> Classical music is dying, and composers are writing this.
> 
> I understand that composers are always supposed to push the limits and find their own voice in their writing, but if that Sciarrino piece represents the new voice of music, who will want to listen to it? It's true that good music should stimulate and challenge it's audience, but how challenging should it be to enjoy an artist's expression? In all of the different phases and evolutions of classical music, ours is certainly the age of challenged listeners.
> 
> I could write more, but I don't want to drag this out into a huge essay. I guess my questions to those that enjoy (and perhaps also compose!) atonal muisc would be: Have you ever heard an atonal work that expressed joy, or another emotion other than sorrow or violence, that you could relate to? Do you feel strongly enough about the music to suggest that a friend should listen to it? What is the point of writing without tonality?


You're absolutely right, there is no point in writing music without tonality. I don't know why I never realized this before. Thanks so much for pointing it out.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Woodduck said:


> It doesn't. It's just another example of how ancient tonality is. It may even have been the beginning...but it wasn't.


Your so Tonal its scary


----------



## Woodduck

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Your so Tonal its scary


Don't be scared! I'm really quite atonal before my morning coffee.


----------



## David OByrne

I'm so sick of hearing about tonal and diatonic all the time, I just want to hear music


----------



## Woodduck

David OByrne said:


> I'm so sick of hearing about tonal and diatonic all the time, I just want to hear music


You've come to the wrong place. This is the conference room. The concert hall is on the first floor.


----------



## violadude

This is the thread that wont die.


----------



## eugeneonagain

David OByrne said:


> I'm so sick of hearing about tonal and diatonic all the time, I just want to hear music


The best thing for sickness is a tonic.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

eugeneonagain said:


> The best thing for sickness is a tonic.


Does that my dear Watson, mean that sick people listen to Tonal music ?


----------



## eugeneonagain

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Does that my dear Watson, mean that sick people listen to Tonal music ?


Only to get better.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

eugeneonagain said:


> Only to get better.


Lets just leave the Atonal music to All Good People, as Yes used to say.................


----------



## millionrainbows

isorhythm said:


> I know they were associates, but was Young involved with that track in particular?


No, Cale recorded that track afterwards, in the studio at the time he was making Vintage Violence. But yes, Cale was involved with Young in the Dream Syndicate. There has been a big dispute about Cale releasing some recordings of Dream Syndicate, and Young has tried to stop these.


----------



## Tristan

I have two theories about why atonal music exists:

1) To **** me off 

2) To give TC members something argue about other than 4'33". 

Carry on


----------



## Portamento

violadude said:


> This is the thread that wont die.


We stab it with our steely knives, but we just can't kill this thread.


----------



## millionrainbows

Western tonality, with its built-in chromaticism, is the real culprit. Western tonality is a very specific, specialized form of general tonality (didgeridoo players) with its own set of diatonic scales (major/minor) and instruments.

When Western tonality started getting more chromatic, and the pitch centers and functions of chords got more vague, this opened the door to a non-functional form of music which was based more on chromaticism than diatonic tonality or scales. This already happened, before Schoenberg made it into the 12-tone method. It was already like this, and called "free atonality." You can hear it in Schoenberg's "free-atonal" period, Richard Strauss' "Elektra", Berg's Piano Sonata Op. 1, Schoenberg's Opus 11 "Three Pieces", some Scriabin late Sonatas, Josef Hauer, Siegfried Karg-Elert, Karol Symanowski, Charles Koechlin...


----------



## Melvin

To me it's like mustard or mushrooms. Repulsive at first instinct, but then I was curious as to why any one could like them. Wanting to expand my pallet I started trying them out in small doses until over some years, I found I gradually liked them more and more.

"The point" of atonal is I guess that it makes available an entire 2nd universe of possibilities for western music.

"what I feel" when I listen to it... when it's the best kind of stuff: edge-of-the-seat concentration, 110 % focus on the music, hypnotic mental stimulation and ecstasy.

To me it's definitely a different type of enjoyment then what I get from baroque music, to contrast. Baroque is direct, and joyful, and logical, and easy to interpret.

Anyone unwilling to make space for atonal in their life will be just fine without it, but they will be taking a pass on about 100 years worth of classical music.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Melvin said:


> To me it's like mustard or mushrooms. Repulsive at first instinct, but then I was curious as to why any one could like them. Wanting to expand my pallet I started trying them out in small doses until over some years, I found I gradually liked them more and more.
> 
> "The point" of atonal is I guess that it makes available an entire 2nd universe of possibilities for western music.
> 
> "what I feel" when I listen to it... when it's the best kind of stuff: edge-of-the-seat concentration, 110 % focus on the music, hypnotic mental stimulation and ecstasy.
> 
> To me it's definitely a different type of enjoyment then what I get from baroque music, to contrast. Baroque is direct, and joyful, and logical, and easy to interpret.
> 
> Anyone unwilling to make space for atonal in their life will be just fine without it, but they will be taking a pass on about 100 years worth of classical music.


The music of Bach to Mahler produced overall better music than in the last 100 years.


----------



## David OByrne

The point of atinal music is on the tip of the pencil it is written on, to make a point


----------



## Guest

Johnnie Burgess said:


> The music of Bach to Mahler produced overall better music than in the last 100 years.


No, I don't think so, not overall. In any case, it's a bit arbitrary to draw a line between the music of the last 100 years and the 100 preceding that.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

MacLeod said:


> No, I don't think so, not overall. In any case, it's a bit arbitrary to draw a line between the music of the last 100 years and the 100 preceding that.


I am putting the years of 1700 to 1915 being better than most of the music since 1915.


----------



## Guest

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I am putting the years of 1700 to 1915 being better than most of the music since 1915.


Well then you're stacking 100 years against 200. On quantity grounds alone, that's hardly fair.

Regardless, I prefer the music of the last 140 years overall.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

MacLeod said:


> Well then you're stacking 100 years against 200. On quantity grounds alone, that's hardly fair.
> 
> Regardless, I prefer the music of the last 140 years overall.


I prefer more composers from the years before 1915 than since then. There are composers since 1915 that I do like.


----------



## Portamento

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I prefer more composers from the years before 1915 than since then. There are composers since 1915 that I do like.


I'd rather have more composers that I don't like so that they can all grow on me.


----------



## Guest

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I prefer more composers from the years before 1915 than since then. There are composers since 1915 that I do like.


Haydn and Beethoven are the only two composers pre 1880 that I return to regularly and are among my favourites. Debussy, Mahler, Messiaen, Shostakovich, Satie, Sibelius, Prokofiev...the better collection since 1880.

And then there's pop and rock too!


----------



## millionrainbows

I came from a complex tonal background, listening to my mother play "Tenderly," "April In Paris," "Blue Skies," and other harmonically complex tin-pan-alley songs later used as vehicles for jazz improvisation.

I had to "assimilate" the simplicity of Mozart and Haydn. It was so simple it was alien


----------



## Melvin

Johnnie Burgess said:


> The music of Bach to Mahler produced overall better music than in the last 100 years.


Bach and Mahler are great. I have spent many years listening to them. But trust me you will get bored of them one day. Bartok and Tippet are actually scientifically proven to be more fun to listen to! Trust me.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Melvin said:


> Bach and Mahler are great. I have spent many years listening to them. But trust me you will get bored of them one day. Bartok and Tippet are actually scientifically proven to be more fun to listen to! Trust me.


I do not just listen to Bach and Mahler. I also like Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart. And Since 1915, Shostakovich, Williams and Rock and Country music. So I will not get bored.


----------



## DaveM

David OByrne said:


> The point of atinal music is on the tip of the pencil it is written on, to make a point


Oh darn! Now yet a third form of music is being introduced.


----------



## Chronochromie

The point of atunal music is to make you hungry. Truly evil, perverse stuff.


----------



## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> You can hear it in Schoenberg's "free-atonal" period, Richard Strauss' "Elektra", Berg's Piano Sonata Op. 1, Schoenberg's Opus 11 "Three Pieces", some Scriabin late Sonatas, Josef Hauer, Siegfried Karg-Elert, Karol Symanowski, Charles Koechlin...


Any thread where Karg-Elert and Koechlin are discussed can't be entirely useless. Recently I got to play Koechlin's hauntingly beautiful Epitaphe de Jean Harlow from 1937. If everyone here plugged earphones into their computers or phones and listened to this piece it might have saved 2,000 posts in this thread. Of course it is tonal, as well as lyrical in the most late romantic way, but the trend towards what millionrainbows refers to as chromaticism is evident.


----------



## DaveM

fluteman said:


> Any thread where Karg-Elert and Koechlin are discussed can't be entirely useless. Recently I got to play Koechlin's hauntingly beautiful Epitaphe de Jean Harlow from 1937. If everyone here plugged earphones into their computers or phones and listened to this piece it might have saved 2,000 posts in this thread. Of course it is tonal, as well as lyrical in the most late romantic way, but the trend towards what millionrainbows refers to as chromaticism is evident.


I gave the Koechlin Epitaphe a listen. It's tonal (and not the least disagreeable) so I'm not sure how it would have saved 2000 posts in a 'What's The Point of Atonal Music' thread. It's stuff more like Ferneyhough that's responsible for 2000 posts.


----------



## Chromatose

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I do not just listen to Bach and Mahler. I also like Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart. And Since 1915, Shostakovich, Williams and Rock and Country music. So I will not get bored.


I feel we have a similar sensibility, which is why I think you should take him up on Bartok (specifically concerto for orchestra & Music for Strings percussion & celesta if you like those move on two his piano concertos No. 1 especially greatest piano concerto of the 20th century).

You should also add Borodin, Prokofiev, & Walton to your listening list..


----------



## Chromatose

Chronochromie said:


> The point of atunal music is to make you hungry. Truly evil, perverse stuff.


Perhaps try eating, then give it a whirl again. You might just be disagreeable from hunger..


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Chromatose said:


> I feel we have a similar sensibility, which is why I think you should take him up on Bartok (specifically concerto for orchestra & Music for Strings percussion & celesta if you like those move on two his piano concertos No. 1 especially greatest piano concerto of the 20th century).
> 
> You should also add Borodin, Prokofiev, & Walton to your listening list..


I do listen to some of Bartok, I have his string quartets. I also have the concerto for orchestra lead by Skrowaczewski.

I also listen to some of Borodin, Prokofiev and Walton. They are good but I like earlier periods of music.


----------



## Chromatose

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I do listen to some of Bartok, I have his string quartets. I also have the concerto for orchestra lead by Skrowaczewski.
> 
> I also listen to some of Borodin, Prokofiev and Walton. They are good but I like earlier periods of music.


How 'bout Scarlatti, CPE Bach, or Gesualdo (the man)...


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Chromatose said:


> How 'bout Scarlatti, CPE Bach, or Gesualdo (the man)...


I kinda like Scarlatti but not as much as Bach. I like CPE Bach I think he was very good. But I do not care for Gesualdo.


----------



## Chromatose

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I kinda like Scarlatti but not as much as Bach. I like CPE Bach I think he was very good. But I do not care for Gesualdo.


What?!... What's your beef with Gesualdo? To chromatic? Not into voice music?


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Chromatose said:


> What?!... What's your beef with Gesualdo? To chromatic? Not into voice music?


Not into voice music in classical music.


----------



## Chromatose

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Not into voice music in classical music.


Ah there's the rub. Well perhaps one day.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Chronochromie said:


> The point of atunal music is to make you hungry. Truly evil, perverse stuff.


I thought that was Atuna music, just ask klassik, its his favourite kind...........


----------



## Nereffid

Johnnie Burgess said:


> The music of Bach to Mahler produced overall better music than in the last 100 years.





Johnnie Burgess said:


> I am putting the years of 1700 to 1915 being better than most of the music since 1915.





Johnnie Burgess said:


> Not into voice music in classical music.


I'm curious here. Your opinion on vocal music seems to be couched in subjective "personal preference" terms, but your opinion on 20th century music seems like it's intended to be more of an objective statement.


----------



## fluteman

DaveM said:


> I gave the Koechlin Epitaphe a listen. It's tonal (and not the least disagreeable) so I'm not sure how it would have saved 2000 posts in a 'What's The Point of Atonal Music' thread.


I'm glad you enjoyed it, DaveM. Why not listen to it a few more times? Charles Koechlin (1867-1950) is an interesting link between the era of his teacher Gabriel Faure, and that of his student Francis Poulenc. He was also keenly interested in the music of Arnold Schoenberg.


----------



## Johnnie Burgess

Nereffid said:


> I'm curious here. Your opinion on vocal music seems to be couched in subjective "personal preference" terms, but your opinion on 20th century music seems like it's intended to be more of an objective statement.


I think my dislike for voice in classical music is because I do not care for opera like most of the classical music of the 20th century.


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## Nereffid

Johnnie Burgess said:


> I think my dislike for voice in classical music is because I do not care for opera like most of the classical music of the 20th century.


No, my point was you said the music of 1700-1915 is _better than_ the music post-1715, and I was curious whether there was a reason why you didn't say that non-vocal music was _better than_ vocal music.


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## eugeneonagain

> Quote Originally Posted by *Johnnie Burgess*
> I think my dislike for voice in classical music is because I do not care for opera like most of the classical music of the 20th century.


The above sentence implies (unwittingly) that opera is only from the 20th century. Syntax is everything,


----------



## fluteman

Nereffid said:


> No, my point was you said the music of 1700-1915 is _better than_ the music post-1715, and I was curious whether there was a reason why you didn't say that non-vocal music was _better than_ vocal music.


Much of the negative tone one sometimes sees here comes from posters who don't bother to distinguish matters of subjective opinion from matters of objective fact. Also, pronouncements like "music x is bad", or "music x is not as good as music y", even if qualified with "in my opinion", don't add a great deal to the discussion. In my opinion. Better to talk about music you think is good, so others who aren't already familiar with it can check it out, or if you must say "music x is bad", at least explain why you think it is bad in a clear and articulate way, so others can get some insight into your thought process. Some here do a good job of that, others less so.


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## millionrainbows

Chronochromie said:


> The point of atunal music is to make you hungry. Truly evil, perverse stuff.


Then stop smoking pot while listening to it.


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## millionrainbows

This John Cage piece: what's the point of it?


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## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> This John Cage piece: what's the point of it?


The bottom right vertex of the green, acute scalene triangle.

Personally I don't think this is music, except in the very broad definition, rather than a sound-scape or musique concrète.


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## Melvin

When people say 20th century / atonal music is bad and then they use John Cage or Schoenberg as their primary examples, I think this is weak argument. Cage and Schoenberg are extremes and not at all representative of the majority of 20th century or atonal music.


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## fluteman

Melvin said:


> When people say 20th century / atonal music is bad and then they use John Cage or Schoenberg as their primary examples, I think this is weak argument. Cage and Schoenberg are extremes and not at all representative of the majority of 20th century or atonal music.


Exactly! In fact, your argument would hold perfectly well if you just pointed out that Cage and Schoenberg are not representative of the majority of 20th century music and left it at that. You can also call them "extreme" and I won't fight with you over it, but they might better be described as mavericks who, though usually influenced by their predecessors and contemporaries to some extent, created almost entirely new artistic genres and modes of expression all by themselves, much as literary artists James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, Jack Kerouac and Alan Ginsberg did. Though the best work of artists like that often has a ripple effect impact that lasts many decades, being new it does stand out from the work of predecessors and contemporaries and is extreme in that sense.


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## Johnnie Burgess

Nereffid said:


> No, my point was you said the music of 1700-1915 is _better than_ the music post-1715, and I was curious whether there was a reason why you didn't say that non-vocal music was _better than_ vocal music.


The only vocal music I do not care for is in classical music.


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## Johnnie Burgess

Melvin said:


> When people say 20th century / atonal music is bad and then they use John Cage or Schoenberg as their primary examples, I think this is weak argument. Cage and Schoenberg are extremes and not at all representative of the majority of 20th century or atonal music.


Or examples that most people would know and not some unknown composer that you would have to roam over the entire earth to find a work to hear.


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## Johnnie Burgess

eugeneonagain said:


> The above sentence implies (unwittingly) that opera is only from the 20th century. Syntax is everything,


No, I do not like opera from any century and is not the same as all 20th century music.


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## Chronochromie

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Or examples that most people would know and not some unknown composer that you would have to roam over the entire earth to find a work to hear.


But you'll have just as good a chance that people would recognize Ligeti or Schnittke (who sound nothing like the other two or each other).


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## Melvin

Johnnie Burgess, it is fine if you are not willing to learn to appreciate opera or 20th century music, but please don't say they are bad!


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## 13hm13

I like atonal music on its own -- it's interesting.
But I can't listen to it for very long. 
And when I do switch back to tonal/romantic-- after a run of atonal -- it does really sound/feel better than ever before. Metaphor: the desert has its own beauty -- but after a brief, dehydrating trek -- the oasis its water taste better than ever.


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## Johnnie Burgess

Melvin said:


> Johnnie Burgess, it is fine if you are not willing to learn to appreciate opera or 20th century music, but please don't say they are bad!


I never said I hated all 20th century music, I like Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams and others I have not found a single opera I have liked.


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## mathisdermaler

Threads like this miss the point of atonalism. It is not something that needs to be asked. It is to make enjoyable music in a creative way, which is probably the goal of all great or important music.


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## Nereffid

mathisdermaler said:


> Threads like this miss the point of atonalism. It is not something that needs to be asked. It is to make enjoyable music in a creative way, which is probably the goal of all great or important music.


... and of all bad or insignificant music, too!


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## millionrainbows

Aphorisms overheard at the water cooler:

I "like" atonal music in the same way that I "like" cayenne pepper.

People who like tonal music just want to hear the sound of a major triad.

I "like" teddy bears. I "like" bubble gum.

If I want to go from the desert to the oasis, I take the shortest road possible: Ravi Shankar.

Early Mozart: small little circles. Late Mozart: bigger circles.

Music is abstract; it does not represent anything.

A chair is a chair. That's what language does.

Music is not a chair, but it represents and embodies all of my prejudices, attractions, and identity. That hurts more than a chair, if you throw it at somebody.

Classical music is like a book; you read the narrative from start to finish, and it takes time.

Charles Bukowski listened to classical music, but not opera. He said that because opera had singing, and singing was done by humans, that it irked him, because he hated humans.

Western tonality is just a way of convincing the ear, over a span of time, that what it is hearing was all just the drone of a single note. But it does this so convincingly that you don't notice that ringing in your ears.

In Western tonality, the diatonic scale is a harmonic model which defines all functions and attractions; the triad is just a smaller model of this. Fractal composition?

Time does not move; it is always now. We do not move in time. So what is moving?

I love the fact that atonal music is not tonal. I also love the fact that tonal music is not atonal.

It's those in-between cases that I really hate.


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## millionrainbows

Atonal Muzak? Have you heard any? Why not?


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## millionrainbows

*4th Mvt of Beethoven's Ninth*

I maintain that people who dislike the 4th Mvt of Beethoven's Ninth are misanthropes.


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## eugeneonagain

millionrainbows said:


> Atonal Muzak? Have you heard any? Why not?


Shops want the customers to stay.


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## mathisdermaler

eugeneonagain said:


> The bottom right vertex of the green, acute scalene triangle.
> 
> Personally I don't think this is music, except in the very broad definition, rather than a sound-scape or musique concrète.


Musique concrete is music you just dont like it. I used to think the same but then I had a revelation and I began hearing it as all other music and found out much of it is beautiful


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## eugeneonagain

mathisdermaler said:


> Musique concrete is music you just dont like it. I used to think the same but then I had a revelation and I began hearing it as all other music and found out much of it is beautiful


Who says I don't like musique concrète? I didn't say so.


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## millionrainbows

What is the point of atonal music? Here's the way I see it:

First, we have to define "tonality" in its most general and basic way, in order to place a limit on things. If you disagree with this general definition, or cannot distinguish it from Western tonality (which is a specialized form of general tonality), then you will not be able to follow the ideas I present.

The simplest form and definition of "natural" tonality is defined exclusively vertically, not horizontally. 

This means that concepts such as "dimension," "attraction," and "directionality," which are all horizontal ideas, occur after the fact of vertically established tonality, and are "unnatural" in this sense, since they involve the passage of time and cognition. 

Function, and tonal meaning, come first from the instantaneous perception of sound and its inner relations, not from successions of events, which simply elaborate this.

Western tonality is not "that natural," although, like all similar tonal harmonic-model systems, it started that way. 

Soon after, it departs from its simple pre-compositional scale-index of diatonic beginnings and becomes more and more a horizontal syntax which is based on various horizontal mechanisms of voice leading, resolutions, cadences, and chord function, all of which are ways of convincing the ear that the modulation or new key area is a new tonic. 

CP Western tonality, and its unstable diatonic scale with the F-B tritone, and the key signature system, are designed for travel and movement through different key areas, and this makes it complex, as well as 'unnatural,' to the degree that it is a syntax which "departed" from its natural beginnings. 
I'm not criticizing this, but you can't call it totally 'natural.'

With this conclusion in mind, Schoenberg wanted to proceed in the horizontal direction, to have a music of "dimension," "attraction," and "directionality," but he did not want the baggage of a pre-compositional vertically established tonality. So with an ordered row as the starting point, every pre-compositional element is defined as a horizontal succession of pitches. There is no pre-compositional, predetermined vertical tonality.

This lack of a pre-compositional defined vertical dimension of tonality insured that this vertical dimension would be undetermined, and unpredictable to the ear, except as a consequence of horizontal, directional events resulting from the tone row's unfolding.

In other words, Schoenberg took all of the horizontal, cerebral, cognitive, directional elements of Western tonality, all those things which distinguished it from simple, "natural" tonalities based on harmonic models (scales), and created a music based (structurally) totally on these forward-moving cognitive procedures, with no predetermined vertical tonality.

This makes the "harmony" and vertical dimension of Schoenberg's music totally undefined except as definition is imposed upon it during composition and its movement. There is no vertical pre-compositional "goal" or direction imposed; all this is now under the control of the composer in his creation of the row.


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## mathisdermaler

eugeneonagain said:


> Who says I don't like musique concrète? I didn't say so.


You said it was only music in the broadest sense, that's wrong


----------



## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> In other words, Schoenberg took all of the horizontal, cerebral, cognitive, directional elements of Western tonality, all those things which distinguished it from simple, "natural" tonalities based on harmonic models (scales), and created a music based (structurally) totally on these forward-moving cognitive procedures, with no predetermined vertical tonality.
> [/FONT][/COLOR]


I do enjoy your posts, millionrainbows. I especially like this comment that I've excerpted from your post, because it suggests one important way Schoenberg's music is firmly rooted in that of his late-19th century romantic predecessors. If you ever expanded your analysis beyond harmony and tonality, you could discuss how Schoenberg's music is even more firmly rooted in the 19th century.
My only caveat is that your comments best apply to Schoenberg or perhaps to the second Viennese school generally, but not equally well to all atonal ideas and approaches used in 20th and now 21st century music. And that strong connection to Wagner, Brahms, Dvorak and Mahler you can hear in Schoenberg, Berg and Webern isn't necessarily present in later music.


----------



## KevinFromFrance

mathisdermaler said:


> You said it was only music in the broadest sense, that's wrong


.. not sure if its a troll


----------



## eugeneonagain

mathisdermaler said:


> You said it was only music in the broadest sense, that's wrong


I did not. I said "I don't think this [the piece posted] is music, except in the very broad definition,_ rather than a sound-scape or musique concrète_".

That means I thought it was something other than even a soundscape or musique concrète.


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## eugeneonagain

KevinFromFrance said:


> .. not sure if its a troll


Be assured 'Kevin from France' that "it" isn't.


----------



## millionrainbows

fluteman said:


> I do enjoy your posts, millionrainbows. I especially like this comment that I've excerpted from your post, because it suggests one important way Schoenberg's music is firmly rooted in that of his late-19th century romantic predecessors. If you ever expanded your analysis beyond harmony and tonality, you could discuss how Schoenberg's music is even more firmly rooted in the 19th century.
> My only caveat is that your comments best apply to Schoenberg or perhaps to the second Viennese school generally, but not equally well to all atonal ideas and approaches used in 20th and now 21st century music. And that strong connection to Wagner, Brahms, Dvorak and Mahler you can hear in Schoenberg, Berg and Webern isn't necessarily present in later music.


Thanks, the general concept here of horiz/vertical applies to later serialism, most of which is in the vertical category.


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## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> Thanks, the general concept here of horiz/vertical applies to later serialism, most of which is in the vertical category.


Of course, atonal ideas encompass much more than serialism.


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## Woodduck

*Millionrainbows writes:* What is the point of atonal music? Here's the way I see it:

First, we have to define "tonality" in its most general and basic way, in order to place a limit on things. If you disagree with this general definition, or cannot distinguish it from Western tonality (which is a specialized form of general tonality), then you will not be able to follow the ideas I present.

Having said that, you proceed to leave tonality, in its most "general and basic" sense, undefined. So how are we expected to follow the ideas you present, since you've told us we won't be able to?

The simplest form and definition of "natural" tonality is defined exclusively vertically, not horizontally.

This isn't a definition, but seems to suggest that there's one on the way. Let's see...

This means that concepts such as "dimension," "attraction," and "directionality," which are all horizontal ideas, occur after the fact of vertically established tonality, and are "unnatural" in this sense, since they involve the passage of time and cognition. 

No, no definition yet. But there's something called "vertically established tonality." No definition of it, though. You haven't defined the concept "natural" either. And why do the involvement of "cognition" and the passage of time render music, or tonality, or anything at all, "unnatural"?

Function, and tonal meaning, come first from the instantaneous perception of sound and its inner relations, not from successions of events, which simply elaborate this.

What can "function" mean without the presumption of time? Sounds may have internal components (e.g. simultaneous pitches) but these can't be said to _function_ in any way unless they somehow become active. How can the internal components of sound determine the function of musical tones in time?

Western tonality is not "that natural," although, like all similar tonal harmonic-model systems, it started that way. 

Well, now you're talking about "Western tonality" when you haven't even defined tonality generally, although you told us we had to do that to understand what you're talking about. And what are all those tonal systems which are "similar tonal harmonic-model systems"?

Soon after, it departs from its simple pre-compositional scale-index of diatonic beginnings and becomes more and more a horizontal syntax which is based on various horizontal mechanisms of voice leading, resolutions, cadences, and chord function, all of which are ways of convincing the ear that the modulation or new key area is a new tonic.

"Simple pre-compositional scale-index of diatonic beginnings"? Whew. Where did that come from?

CP Western tonality, and its unstable diatonic scale with the F-B tritone, and the key signature system, are designed for travel and movement through different key areas, and this makes it complex, as well as 'unnatural,' to the degree that it is a syntax which "departed" from its natural beginnings. I'm not criticizing this, but you can't call it totally 'natural.'

We haven't been shown that there is any tonal syntax that should be called "natural," or that the syntax of Western tonality had any "natural beginnings," or underwent any "departure" from them.

With this conclusion in mind, Schoenberg wanted to proceed in the horizontal direction, to have a music of "dimension," "attraction," and "directionality," but he did not want the baggage of a pre-compositional vertically established tonality. So with an ordered row as the starting point, every pre-compositional element is defined as a horizontal succession of pitches. There is no pre-compositional, predetermined vertical tonality.

With _what_ conclusion in mind? Schoenberg is unlikely to have proceeded from a desire to rid himself of "pre-compositional vertical baggage." And it surely makes no sense whatsoever to say that he "defines" any pre-compositional elements as horizontal successions.

This lack of a pre-compositional defined vertical dimension of tonality insured that this vertical dimension would be undetermined, and unpredictable to the ear, except as a consequence of horizontal, directional events resulting from the tone row's unfolding.

I can't say what your ears are doing when you listen to music, but I know that mine are not predicting vertical dimensions.

In other words, Schoenberg took all of the horizontal, cerebral, cognitive, directional elements of Western tonality, all those things which distinguished it from simple, "natural" tonalities based on harmonic models (scales), and created a music based (structurally) totally on these forward-moving cognitive procedures, with no predetermined vertical tonality.

There seem to be a lot of assumptions in these "other words," but as nothing has been defined so far, and new terms of uncertain relevance are being introduced ("cerebral," "cognitive"), it may be useless to try to point them out.

This makes the "harmony" and vertical dimension of Schoenberg's music totally undefined except as definition is imposed upon it during composition and its movement. There is no vertical pre-compositional "goal" or direction imposed; all this is now under the control of the composer in his creation of the row.

You haven't established that such a thing as a "vertical pre-compositional 'goal' or direction" exists or can exist. On its face the idea seems a bit oxymoronic: if there's no composition, there are no goals or directions and nothing capable of pursuing any goal or direction.

The oddest thing is that you begin by saying that "we have to define tonality in its most general and basic way," which you don't do, and then you proceed to talk about Western tonality only. Obviously tonal systems around the world are based on a great variety of scales, and the music that uses these systems differs greatly in the ways the notes of its scales behave and function with respect to each other. If your discussion doesn't explain the process by which the internal components of sounds give rise to the melodic or harmonic movements of even Western music, can you hope to explain how the movements of other music, utilizing other scales, could be similarly determined?

It doesn't appear to me that your essay even tries to answer the question "What is the point of atonal music?" It just looks like another iteration of your pet claim that the pitch components in an individual tone (its fundamental and overtones) - the "instantaneous perception of sound" - can tell us what sounds in succession (melody and harmony) will "naturally" do, how they will "naturally" function, as music - at least Western music - unfolds in time. Apparently, you believe that musical thinking is "naturally" channeled by our perception of the components of pitched sounds in such a way that we end up with Western tonality, at least in its simplest form, whatever that is. But that "simple," "natural" tonality isn't defined here either. So what do you expect us to get from this whole essay?


----------



## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> The oddest thing is that you begin by saying that "we have to define tonality in its most general and basic way," which you don't do, and then you proceed to talk about Western tonality only. . . . So what do you expect us to get from this whole essay?


Ahh, Woodduck, I enjoy your posts. However, as you are or by now should be well aware, the majority of millionrainbow's music theory and history posts, which I also enjoy, focus on a certain narrow subset of issues that interest him, and that's perfectly all right. You seem to imply that his posts, perhaps in part due to their frequency, length and detail, are intended to work towards some broad, overarching principle that eludes you. Well, it would elude me too, but I'm not looking for one, and I don't think there is one.


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## eugeneonagain

fluteman said:


> Ahh, Woodduck, I enjoy your posts. However, as you are or by now should be well aware, the majority of millionrainbow's music theory and history posts, which I also enjoy, focus on a certain narrow subset of issues that interest him, and that's perfectly all right. You seem to imply that his posts, perhaps in part due to their frequency, length and detail, are intended to work towards some broad, overarching principle that eludes you. Well, it would elude me too, but I'm not looking for one, and I don't think there is one.


Is that the long version of saying: smoke and mirrors?


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## fluteman

eugeneonagain said:


> Is that the long version of saying: smoke and mirrors?


After all that's been written in this thread, you call my last post "long"? Tough crowd. But I tip my hat to you anyway, since "eugeneonagain" is good, assuming you thought of it, and even if you didn't.


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## Woodduck

fluteman said:


> Ahh, Woodduck, I enjoy your posts. However, as you are or by now should be well aware, the majority of millionrainbow's music theory and history posts, which I also enjoy, focus on a certain narrow subset of issues that interest him, and that's perfectly all right. You seem to imply that his posts, perhaps in part due to their frequency, length and detail, are intended to work towards some broad, overarching principle that eludes you. Well, it would elude me too, but I'm not looking for one, and I don't think there is one.


Thanks for your concern for my sanity. I could just give up the struggle for coherence, as everyone else on TC appears to have done, and let the forum be flooded by the endless outpouring of only slightly varied reiterations of the same highly questionable - when comprehensible at all - theory of tonality's nature and the origins of tonal hierarchies and functions. It's tough having no one offering other views of what I consider a fascinating subject, and hardly anyone asking tough questions of dubious assertions. I have a lot of time on my hands these days, but if my plan to come out of retirement and go back to accompanying ballet at the piano comes to fruition, I may be content to let millionrainbows and the Theory of the Single Tone as Matrix of All Functions take over the forum. Stay tuned.

:tiphat:


----------



## Guest

It seems that millions' theory is that you can tell whether music is tonal or atonal just by listening to the 'vertical' ie, without any 'horizontal' progression. I'm not sure what value there is in music that doesn't exist in time!


----------



## fluteman

Woodduck said:


> Thanks for your concern for my sanity. I could just give up the struggle for coherence, as everyone else on TC appears to have done, and let the forum be flooded by the endless outpouring of only slightly varied reiterations of the same highly questionable - when comprehensible at all - theory of tonality's nature and the origins of tonal hierarchies and functions. It's tough having no one offering other views of what I consider a fascinating subject, and hardly anyone asking tough questions of dubious assertions. I have a lot of time on my hands these days, but if my plan to come out of retirement and go back to accompanying ballet at the piano comes to fruition, I may be content to let millionrainbows and the Theory of the Single Tone as Matrix of All Functions take over the forum. Stay tuned.
> 
> :tiphat:


Well, good luck to you either way. As for finding the "origins of tonal hierarchies", I think you have your work cut out for you. The ancient Greeks and Egyptians, upon whom much of our civilization is based, were highly sophisticated mathematicians, made extensive use of ordering systems generally, and certainly had developed recognizable musical scales and a variety of instruments to play them. I think you've already made this point here, no? The oldest known musical instrument, a flute (of course!) meticulously carved and constructed from mammoth ivory 40,000 years ago, was clearly designed to play multiple distinct pitches. How it sounded, we don't know.
My own view is, there is a natural human inclination to put things in a recognizable order or pattern. That includes the sounds we can make, either by voice or instrument, which in turn can involve a finite collection of distinct, stable pitches organized into a hierarchy, but in my opinion anyway, doesn't necessarily have to. That's all I can figure out. Pace.


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## Woodduck

MacLeod said:


> It seems that millions' theory is that you can tell whether music is tonal or atonal just by listening to the 'vertical' ie, without any 'horizontal' progression. I'm not sure what value there is in music that doesn't exist in time!


The Tone. The OM that never ends. The Alpha and Omega. "I Am!" If the ancient Hebrews had thought of it they'd have spelled it TNLT.

"Value" is irrelevant. Pleasure is irrelevant. _Life_ - pathetically time-bound, directional, dimensional, goal-oriented, restless, ego-driven life - is irrelevant.

Be the Tone. Be the OM.

Be.


----------



## Kajmanen

kanonathena said:


> The music of ocean and birds are tonal to or in harmony with them I would say. The early barbarians also play drums in a fashion that's harmonious to their ears.
> 
> From baroque to classical to romance to today's pop, as humans evolve you find the music become more and more tonal, more and more able to express our complex emotions. By tonal I mean harmonic to human psyche of the time. Tonal is a academic term but still can be used generally replace harmony or resonance.
> 
> Atonal music can be divided into two groups, one that reflect the disturbance created by war and that people not live in harmony with the environment at around 1990, academically this is atonal but it still sound "right" to our ears given the context like bartok's use of atonal. Another one is totally intellectual, people going out of their way to be different for the sake of seeking new development, their mind tell their there is no where to go. To change for the sake of change is doomed to fall, you are not listening to your heart, you are not creating something that is in harmony with you, or at least with most other people.
> 
> Actually some experimental music like John Cage's Water Walk and 4:33 is the way to go. New age music in general is also right. Some atonal music are very inspiring too. But most are purely intellectual exercise, the whim of human's mind.
> 
> Bartok was right about the importance of folk music, that's what music is about, human nature. Thanks to the arise of pop music, too bad it captured too much negative aspect. Still, atonal music will stay as minority and it will disappear quickly, unless human become computers with no consciousness.
> 
> The perfect music can be created by people who understands who we human really are and experiences the ecstasy brought about by that understanding.


I love what you wrote there. Are you still around?


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## Larkenfield

All music is the same. It only sounds different. --Lark


----------



## Daybloom

Asking what the point of atonal music is is silly because what's the point of tonal music either?


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## millionrainbows

An important aspect of 12-tone and serial music (or like Eliot Carter) is that it is a language which uses the total chromatic pitch collection. What does this mean to a listener?

It means that you are not going to get much, if any, sense of tonality from it, since it's keeping all 12 notes in circulation all the time. So you'd better start listening for something else, like gesture, texture, or color, or symmetries, if you can hear them.

The "point"of atonal and tonal music, and all art, is for "divine contemplation."


Statue The Spirit of Contemplation by Albert Toft

Contemplation is profound thinking about something. In a religious sense, contemplation is usually a type of prayer or meditation. According to Aquinas, the highest form of life is the contemplative which communicates the fruits of contemplation to others, since it is based on the abundance of contemplation.


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## arpeggio

Actually I have learned to hear tunes.

We had an eccentric music theory professor in college who liked to do atonal music with solfege.


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## millionrainbows

arpeggio said:


> Actually I have learned to hear tunes.
> 
> We had an eccentric music theory professor in college who liked to do atonal music with solfege.


It makes sense that you can hear tunes or melodic lines. But not tonality.


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## Guest

For me the point of atonal music is that there are atonal compositions that sound good to me and I enjoy them when I hear them. I have the same opinion of D major, G sharp minor, the octatonic scale and many others.......


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## hammeredklavier

Ravellian said:


> Medieval chant was composed to elevate the listeners to a higher spiritual state. Classical composers aimed to make their listeners happy with pleasant and sweet-sounding melodies. Romantic composers were probably the most successful at conveying tragic emotions. But now, modern composers are creating something completely different, not even related to emotion.


throughout the common practice period, composers used dissonance effectively to create contrast, even in the Classical period 








As other people have pointed out, some contemporary music on the other hand, sounds as if they use dissonance for the sake of using dissonance. Common practice period composers used dissonance, but they also knew when to stop. Whereas some modern composers don't seem to. I think that's the difference.


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## Phil loves classical

Point of atonal music? To explore different combinations of sound. Pure and simple.


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## DaveM

And just when we thought this subject was put to bed...


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## Larkenfield

What's the point of it? Well, in some of Schoenberg's works it was to explore the unconscious with a new vocabulary of sound that had never been heard before, including the dark side of the unconscious. It was unprecedented. It could tell an entirely different kind of story:






"Time: Night
Place: A forest
A woman is in an apprehensive state as she searches for her lover. In the darkness, she comes across what she first thinks is a body, but then realises is a tree-trunk. She is frightened and becomes more anxious as she cannot find the man she is looking for. She then finds a dead body, and sees that it is her lover. She calls out for assistance, but there is no response. She tries to revive him, and addresses him as if he were still alive, angrily charging him with being unfaithful to her. She then asks herself what she is to do with her life, as her lover is now dead. Finally, she wanders off alone into the night."

"In Erwartung the aim is to represent in slow motion everything that occurs during a single second of maximum spiritual excitement, stretching it out to half an hour."

But the woman walking through the forest who finds a dead body isn't exactly what I would call a spiritual experience, unless one sees that facing the darkness is part of the path to spiritual awareness. Consequently, some of the music can be quite disturbing, at least it was to me, as part of that journey. And I feel it was deliberately _meant_ to be.


----------



## SONNET CLV

The point of atonal music?

The point of _all_ creative works of man: to imbue a sense of meaning into one's existence and, by way of extension, outward into one's world.


----------



## KenOC

The point of atonal music?

Possibly to prove the wisdom of Pecunius the Cynic: “There is no outrage so appalling that man cannot inure himself to it.”


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> The point of atonal music?
> 
> Possibly to prove the wisdom of Pecunius the Cynic: "There is no outrage so appalling that man cannot inure himself to it."


That seems like an appropriate response, considering the way the question is posited: "What's the point?"

You could take this even further by asking, as John Cage did, "What's the point of music?"

Ultimately, music, for most listeners, is a way of identifying the music they like with their idea of what their identity is, in the way the music represents those values and lifestyles.

Thus, KenOC likes tonal music because it is conservative and universally accepted as "what music should be" to the majority of listeners, who represent a status quo to which KenOC feels he belongs. Classical music is associated with upper social echelons of society, royalty, and class, and with intelligent, cultured listeners with whom KenOC apparently feels he belongs with and identifies with.

This "status quo" is suspicious of intellectuals and outsiders, and with anyone who is "different" or opposed to the status quo. Thus, atonal music is not trusted by "the herd" which constitutes the status quo. It is too different, and too daring and unsettling.

These are the same reasons that modern art and music are distrusted by large State entities such as fascist governments and Communist-dominated countries.


----------



## Phil loves classical

millionrainbows said:


> That seems like an appropriate response, considering the way the question is posited: "What's the point?"
> 
> You could take this even further by asking, as John Cage did, "What's the point of music?"
> 
> Ultimately, music, for most listeners, is a way of identifying the music they like with their idea of what their identity is, in the way the music represents those values and lifestyles.
> 
> Thus, KenOC likes tonal music because it is conservative and universally accepted as "what music should be" to the majority of listeners, who represent a status quo to which KenOC feels he belongs. Classical music is associated with upper social echelons of society, royalty, and class, and with intelligent, cultured listeners with whom KenOC apparently feels he belongs with and identifies with.
> 
> *This "status quo" is suspicious of intellectuals* and outsiders, and with anyone who is "different" or opposed to the status quo. Thus, atonal music is not trusted by "the herd" which constitutes the status quo. It is too different, and too daring and unsettling.
> 
> These are the same reasons that modern art and music are distrusted by large State entities such as fascist governments and Communist-dominated countries.


Have to disagree with you there. How is atonal music more intellectual? It is more fanciful to me, which works best when I brace myself, ready for it to lay it all on me. But it doesn't linger (and not supposed to, if it avoids tonality). I've played Carter's Piano Concerto, Concerto for Orchestra, and 3 Occasions, over and over constantly over a few long drives. I remember vaguely parts that come up and which piece, but still nothing lingers, while with tonal music, I can visualize the score, structure.


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## Dimace

As a student of Theodoros Antoniou in my youth, I can say that the point of the atonal music, if one exists, is the sound experiments. Where these experiments drive the ''music" (because most of the times, the outcome is no music but a sound monstrosity) is obscure. If all my respect to Xenakis and Antoniou (I use these names, because I'm somehow familiar with their music) this game between continuous dissonance and atonality destroys my nerves and provokes me headache. A no go for me.


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## Larkenfield

_What's the point of Atonal music?_

It definitely has one but the trick is to find it.


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## starthrower

Phil loves classical said:


> Have to disagree with you there. How is atonal music more intellectual? It is more fanciful to me, which works best when I brace myself, ready for it to lay it all on me. But it doesn't linger (and not supposed to, if it avoids tonality). I've played Carter's Piano Concerto, Concerto for Orchestra, and 3 Occasions, over and over constantly over a few long drives. I remember vaguely parts that come up and which piece, but still nothing lingers, while with tonal music, I can visualize the score, structure.


I fail to read in million's post where he deems atonal music "more intellectual". Whatever that means? Someone else mentioned too much dissonance, but there's plenty of that in tonal music. As far as the socio political aspect goes, I don't think it applies in the free world. It's more about economics and what sells tickets.


----------



## KenOC

_What's the point of Atonal music?_

Perhaps to remind us of the wisdom of Camille Saint-Saëns: "Why cannot we understand that in art, as in everything else, there are some things to which we must not accustom ourselves?"


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## starthrower

KenOC said:


> _What's the point of Atonal music?_
> 
> Perhaps to remind us of the wisdom of Camille Saint-Saëns: "Why cannot we understand that in art, as in everything else, there are some things to which we must not accustom ourselves?"


If we followed his advice Debussy would be out of the question.


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## arpeggio

Irritate people who only like tonal music :devil:


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## Zhdanov

Sofronitsky said:


> What is the point of writing without tonality?


no point whatsoever other than to destroy the very language of music in order to render it unable to deliver the messages a customer ordered a composer to put in there.


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## starthrower

Composers are order fillers? They were liberated from being *** kissers by Beethoven so let them be.


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## Luchesi

One of the points of atonal music is to captivatingly display where music has been and how it's developed down through history.

It's only one of the marvelous results and we can probably say this about any Art that's fairly recent. Humans love to find and recognize patterns in history, in nature, and in accomplished works of expression. 

We can hold this above the animals. lol We can feel sorry for them, and for the folks who aren't interested in recent artistic offerings. ...Neither of them care what we think, ha ha.


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## philoctetes

Harmony is a science, and music advances by exploring new harmonic relationships. In time, the human ear can usually adjust, even if the mind cannot...

Without music labs like IRCAM we wouldn't have harmonic theories like spectralism, which I find refreshing and listenable... 

Personally I think "atonal" is a non-stationary concept, gradually being eroded...


----------



## tdc

starthrower said:


> Composers are order fillers? They were liberated from being *** kissers by Beethoven so let them be.


I don't know why Beethoven gets this reputation, what evidence is there? Was Beethoven ever thrown in jail by an employer like Bach? Personally I see Bach as more of the uncompromising artist and the one who was under appreciated in his time. Beethoven was loved and adored by the rich and powerful and dedicated countless works to wealthy patrons and nobility with dedications like _"On the departure of his Imperial Highness, for the Archduke Rudolph in admiration"_. How many Beethoven works were dedicated to Prince Lobkowitz?

Here is a response by Beethoven upon receiving a gift from a wealthy piano manufacturer:

_My very dear Friend Broadwood,
I have never felt a greater pleasure than that which was caused me by the Intimation of the arrival of this Piano, with which you are honouring me as a present. I shall look upon it As an Altar upon which I shall place the most beautiful offerings of my spirit to the divine Apollo. As soon as I receive your Excellent Instrument, I shall immediately send you the fruits of the first moments of inspiration I will spend at it, to serve as a souvenir from me to you, my very dear B.; and I hope that they will be worthy of your instrument. My Dear Sir and friend, accept my warmest consideration, from your friend and very humble servant, 
Louis Van Beethoven_
Vienna,
3rd February 1818.

I would say this qualifies as a little bit of a s s kissing, no?


----------



## KenOC

Beethoven an a**kisser while Bach was the brave and upright man? Read Bach’s transmittal letter to the Margrave of Brandenburg:

“…I have in accordance with Your Highness's most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him.”

Or the letter to Frederick II of Prussia accompanying his Music Offering, or the little comments within:

“May the fortunes of the king increase like the length of the notes.”

“As the modulation rises, so may the King's glory.”


----------



## tdc

KenOC said:


> Beethoven an a**kisser while Bach was the brave and upright man? Read Bach's transmittal letter to the Margrave of Brandenburg:
> 
> "…I have in accordance with Your Highness's most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him."
> 
> Or the letter to Frederick II of Prussia accompanying his Music Offering, or the little comments within:
> 
> "May the fortunes of the king increase like the length of the notes."
> 
> "As the modulation rises, so may the King's glory."


All I was saying is there seems to be more evidence for Beethoven being favored by the "elites" than Bach. People act as though Beethoven was this independent man of the people that didn't care about his relations with the wealthy and did things his own way. To the latter point there is some truth, (that he stuck to his artistic vision) but he certainly wasn't the first artist by any stretch (nor was Bach) to challenge people with his music and stick to his integrity in his compositions. Beethoven was blessed with more public understanding and acceptance of his music than many great composers before him.


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## Zhdanov

they all were toadies, such is the way of things in arts, especially these days, and the past was no better.


----------



## Luchesi

Zhdanov said:


> they all were toadies, such is the way of things in arts, especially these days, and the past was no better.


Thanks, I had to look up toadies.

noun (pl. toadies)
a person who behaves obsequiously to someone important.

DERIVATIVES
toadyish adjective.
toadyism |-ˌizəm| noun
ORIGIN
early 19th cent.: said to be a contraction of toad-eater, a charlatan's assistant who ate toads; toads were regarded as poisonous, and the assistant's survival was thought to be due to the efficacy of the charlatan's remedy.


----------



## ptwilder

I find myself listening to Webern regularly. I find a few of his pieces relaxing. Sometimes it’s the only music I can have on when I’m at my desk at work that doesn’t distract me. My brain isn’t expecting the music to “go” anywhere.


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## millionrainbows

Zhdanov said:


> no point whatsoever other than to destroy the very language of music in order to render it unable to deliver the messages a customer ordered a composer to put in there.


Would you like fries with that symphony?


----------



## Steerpike

ptwilder said:


> I find myself listening to Webern regularly. I find a few of his pieces relaxing. Sometimes it's the only music I can have on when I'm at my desk at work that doesn't distract me. My brain isn't expecting the music to "go" anywhere.


If your brain isn't expecting the music to go anywhere, then what is the difference between the music and any other sort of background noise?

As a very non-expert listener to classical (or any other) music, I certainly expect the music to go somewhere: I need it to have elements that I can comprehend. The enjoyment I derive from a large scale work, such as a symphony, is absolutely linked to the idea that it takes me on some kind of journey.

If one of the functions of music is that it somehow communicates with its audience, then surely it needs to have an audience in the first place. If atonal music generally has little appeal, then perhaps it also has little purpose.


----------



## Luchesi

Steerpike said:


> If your brain isn't expecting the music to go anywhere, then what is the difference between the music and any other sort of background noise?
> 
> As a very non-expert listener to classical (or any other) music, I certainly expect the music to go somewhere: I need it to have elements that I can comprehend. The enjoyment I derive from a large scale work, such as a symphony, is absolutely linked to the idea that it takes me on some kind of journey.
> 
> If one of the functions of music is that it somehow communicates with its audience, then surely it needs to have an audience in the first place. If atonal music generally has little appeal, then perhaps it also has little purpose.


What would musicians do without atonal music? It's a fair question. The accomplishments are so great by the very brave creators who composed trying to 'democratize' every single note, so that we mere musicians can only sit back in awe.

If you don't believe me, study music and play music for many years and then try to compose some short atonal piece with all the orderly logic, using variation and imitation and counterpoint and approximate recapitulations.


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## Larkenfield

Atonality is anti-fascist and anti-totalitarianism music. It defies despots and dictators. But too much of it can be disquieting to the soul … :tiphat:


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## Red Terror

It’s meant to be enjoyed like any other art form. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it.


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## Red Terror

Larkenfield said:


> Atonality is anti-fascist and anti-totalitarianism music. It defies despots and dictators.:tiphat:


Atonality in music is not anti-anything-it's just sound.


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## Enthusiast

ptwilder said:


> I find myself listening to Webern regularly. I find a few of his pieces relaxing. Sometimes it's the only music I can have on when I'm at my desk at work that doesn't distract me. My brain isn't expecting the music to "go" anywhere.


I guess quite a lot of music - especially short pieces - doesn't really "go anywhere". Among longer pieces, do tone poems really go anywhere? There is quite a lot of music that paints pictures rather than presents a narrative. But I was also thinking that study of famously creative people shows that many needed a certain circumstance, like a messy desk or even an exceptionally dusty room, in order to create. Perhaps your working habit is of the same type? (I do like Webern, by the way).


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## Phil loves classical

Steerpike said:


> If your brain isn't expecting the music to go anywhere, then what is the difference between the music and any other sort of background noise?
> 
> As a very non-expert listener to classical (or any other) music, I certainly expect the music to go somewhere: I need it to have elements that I can comprehend. The enjoyment I derive from a large scale work, such as a symphony, is absolutely linked to the idea that it takes me on some kind of journey.
> 
> If one of the functions of music is that it somehow communicates with its audience, then surely it needs to have an audience in the first place. If atonal music generally has little appeal, then perhaps it also has little purpose.


I agree that atonal music should go somewhere. That is what separate good atonal from bad. Schoenberg and Webern are examples of good atonal.


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## Red Terror

Phil loves classical said:


> I agree that atonal music should go somewhere. That is what separate good atonal from bad. Schoenberg and Webern are examples of good atonal.


I would add:

Kurtág
Krenek
Takemitsu
Ferneyhough
Xenakis


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## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> I agree that atonal music should go somewhere. That is what separate good atonal from bad. Schoenberg and Webern are examples of good atonal.


I don't think this is quite correct. Music isn't necessarily about closed structures of departure and arrival! It can be about becoming, changing. Think late Feldman for example. Or Abelard.


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## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> I don't think this is quite correct. Music isn't necessarily about closed structures of departure and arrival! It can be about becoming, changing. Think late Feldman for example. Or Abelard.


That's why I hate Feldman.


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## DaveM

Phil loves classical said:


> I agree that atonal music should go somewhere. That is what separate good atonal from bad. Schoenberg and Webern are examples of good atonal.





Red Terror said:


> I would add:
> 
> Kurtág
> Krenek
> Takemitsu
> Ferneyhough
> Xenakis


I would say that all of those composers (immediately above), except Krenek, are in the avant-garde category rather than atonal.


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## Phil loves classical

DaveM said:


> I would say that all of those composers (immediately above), except Krenek, are in the avant-garde category rather than atonal.


Huh? Who is atonal to you then besides Krenek?


----------



## Red Terror

Phil loves classical said:


> That's why I hate Feldman.


Feldman is 'everything', Phil! One of my favorites!


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## DaveM

Phil loves classical said:


> Huh? Who is atonal to you then besides Krenek?


The term 'atonal' these days appears to be applied very narrowly to very broadly. I choose to follow the more narrow application. Avant-garde music often sounds like noise to people like me and bears no relationship to even the music of Schoenberg. If you prefer the broad application (ie. a skiff and aircraft carrier are both boats ) then fine.


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## Dimace

DaveM said:


> The term 'atonal' these days appears to be applied very narrowly to very broadly. I choose to follow the more narrow application. Avant-garde music *often sounds like noise *to people like me and bears no relationship to even the music of Schoenberg. If you prefer the broad application (ie. a skiff and aircraft carrier are both boats ) then fine.


I have also this impression… But who knows? Maybe today's noises will be the music of tomorrow. Music is very personal and volatile.


----------



## lextune

tdc said:


> I don't know why Beethoven gets this reputation, what evidence is there?


There is plenty of "evidence" I suppose. But there is "evidence" for other composers too.

Some of the reputation itself comes from this book written in the 20s though:

https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-man-who-freed-music/dp/B0006AKQXU

I have read it, and can recommend it, that is, if you are interested in the history of music history (if you will), it certainly cannot be called authoritative in the face of the more modern Beethoven biographies.


----------



## DaveM

Dimace said:


> I have also this impression… But who knows? Maybe today's noises will be the music of tomorrow. Music is very personal and volatile.


I highly doubt it. The serialists in the Schoenberg era complained about limited audiences. But composers such as Fernyhough have been around for quite awhile and practically no one is beating down the door to hear them. A composer such as Feldman is a niche within a niche within a niche.


----------



## KenOC

(Deleted due to the requirements for "good taste" in the Terms of Service.)


----------



## millionrainbows

Since "atonal" (if I understand the OP's use of the term) uses all 12 notes of the octave, not repeating, and keeping all 12 in circulation constantly, then we must conclude that the purpose of atonal music is NOT to produce "recognizable" themes or tonally-related melodies, although "themes" can be used (though probably not recognizable).

But I trust that the Op is sharp enough to find _something_ to replace this.


----------



## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> (Deleted due to the requirements for "good taste" in the Terms of Service.)


(Deleted due to the requirements for "less calories" in the Terms of Service.) Ba-da-bing!


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## Zhdanov

on the other hand, notes have letters and numerals, which makes a score a suitable tool to encrypt messages, which is easier if you go atonal completely, with no melody and harmony to it any longer.


----------



## Dimace

DaveM said:


> I highly doubt it. The serialists in the Schoenberg era complained about* limited audiences.* But composers such as Fernyhough have been around for quite awhile and practically *no one is beating down the door to hear them*. A composer such as Feldman is a niche within a niche within a niche.


I have written a lot in Boulez's thread about this situation. You are 100% correct! The listeners like good melodies and something to help them escape from every day problems. This music fulfill not this task, generally speaking and as far as I know. (and I don't know a lot of things)


----------



## Luchesi

Dimace said:


> I have written a lot in Boulez's thread about this situation. You are 100% correct! The listeners like good melodies and something to help them escape from every day problems. This music fulfill not this task, generally speaking and as far as I know. (and I don't know a lot of things)


to help them escape every day problems? Really?

There's plenty of good melodies in the 60 or more years of old pop songs. They're everywhere.


----------



## aleazk

Dimace said:


> I have written a lot in Boulez's thread about this situation. You are 100% correct! The listeners like good melodies and something to help them escape from every day problems. This music fulfill not this task, generally speaking and as far as I know. (and I don't know a lot of things)


You go quite straight away to sweeping generalizations... I assume, then, that you know all listeners... and that you know all atonal music... and that you know the reactions of all listeners to all atonal music.

I, for the record, don't belong to those groups, and, yet, I'm a classical listener. Thus, just because of that, your simplistic generalizations are all wrong. Welcome to the far more complex real world, Boulez will be your guide


----------



## DaveM

aleazk said:


> You go quite straight away to sweeping generalizations... I assume, then, that you know all listeners... and that you know all atonal music... and that you know the reactions of all listeners to all atonal music.
> 
> I, for the record, don't belong to those groups, and, yet, I'm a classical listener. Thus, just because of that, your simplistic generalizations are all wrong. Welcome to the far more complex real world, Boulez will be your guide


I could say the same thing about your post below ie. sweeping generalizations and do you know enough about today's composers, their art and public discourse to pigeonhole them as boringly politicically correct, except, of course, your Boulez? Of course, you might be assuming that we understand that this is just an opinion, just as is the post you are criticizing.



aleazk said:


> I wish there were more Boulezs these days... composers today are so boringly politically correct, both in their art and their public discourse.


----------



## aleazk

Lol, that was just a joke, while the post I was answering to seemed serious.


----------



## DaveM

aleazk said:


> Lol, that was just a joke, while the post I was answering to seemed serious.


Makes one wonder how one could tell when you're serious.


----------



## Dimace

Luchesi said:


> to help them escape every day problems? Really?
> 
> There's plenty of good melodies in the 60 or more years of old pop songs. They're everywhere.





aleazk said:


> You go quite straight away to sweeping generalizations... I assume, then, that you know all listeners... and that you know all atonal music... and that you know the reactions of all listeners to all atonal music.
> 
> I, for the record, don't belong to those groups, and, yet, I'm a classical listener. Thus, just because of that, your simplistic generalizations are all wrong. Welcome to the far more complex real world, Boulez will be your guide


Thanks a lot for your comments dear friends.

I just shared with you my personal experience (in Boulez thread) and nothing more. I admitted that my knowledge to this music is limited and I spoke for my felling. This felling maybe is wrong. Maybe everyone likes the atonal music and I didn't understand it. In every case my humble apologies if I have offended your music style. I respect all kinds of music and mostly those I don't know.


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## jalexis

Atonal music obviously has its merits in creating certain emotional states, which can be very useful as movie background etc.

As a full concert music I find atonal music boring, because it lacks logical part of music. A bit like reading a book full of letters that don't mean anything, it would get boring quite quickly.


----------



## Kjetil Heggelund

Atonal and most modern/contemporary music takes me to "another universe" where I enjoy being led where the sounds are taking me. It's a colorful universe and I have no expectations.


----------



## Simon Moon

jalexis said:


> Atonal music obviously has its merits in creating certain emotional states, which can be very useful as movie background etc.


Speak for yourself.

I listen to atonal music and enjoy it on its own merit. No need to be part of a movie soundtrack.



> As a full concert music I find atonal music boring, because it lacks logical part of music. A bit like reading a book full of letters that don't mean anything, it would get boring quite quickly.


While I listen to alot more types of music than just atonal, it never bores me. Especially when played live.

Of course it doesn't lack "the logical part of music". It may, to use your metaphor, use different "logic".


----------



## Luchesi

Simon Moon said:


> Speak for yourself.
> 
> I listen to atonal music and enjoy it on its own merit. No need to be part of a movie soundtrack.
> 
> While I listen to alot more types of music than just atonal, it never bores me. Especially when played live.
> 
> Of course it doesn't lack "the logical part of music". It may, to use your metaphor, use different "logic".


People who understand and care about how the logic in music is created by the composer will also hear the logic in atonal music with a little bit of surveying. 
Because atonal composers are unable to completely stifle the tonal relationships that are heard, - whether they want to or not.


----------



## Phil loves classical

A lot of atonal music is more concerned with surface detail and effects. Conservatives find it rather superficial. Here is a question, would atonal music be a genre to start to train a beginner musician's ear, even in atonality? Without tonal music to begin with, there would be no atonal music, no matter where in the world you are.


----------



## Enthusiast

^^^ I'm not sure if you are right but what you say bolsters my own personal approach not to divide music into tonal vs. atonal. Divisions and categories are fine but those terms don't seem to tell me much that is important in my listening. That might be because I am not always confidently aware of whether a piece is atonal or not ... or how tonal it is. I'm not knocking those with the technical knowledge to use these categories but do still wonder if they are useful.


----------



## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> Without tonal music to begin with, there would be no atonal music, no matter where in the world you are.


Why?



Phil loves classical said:


> no matter where in the world you are.


WTF?



Phil loves classical said:


> A lot of atonal music is more concerned with surface detail and effects.


More concerned with details and effects than concerned with . . . what?



Phil loves classical said:


> Conservatives find it rather superficial.


Compared with what? What is this depth that they're looking for and failing to find? Structure?


----------



## Jacck

most atonal music is not memorable. You hear one piece from Brian Ferneyhough and you heard all. There is no memorable tune to remember. And Ferneyhough is interchangable with Babbit or Carter etc. I agree that most of it is superficial and cheap. There are some interesting piece though. As to what is the purpose of atonal music: to express the emotion of 20th century angst?


----------



## BabyGiraffe

Phil loves classical said:


> Without tonal music to begin with, there would be no atonal music, no matter where in the world you are.


I'm not sure that you are right. Tonal and atonal are very different. Atonal serial music is exploring combinations and permutations of pitch material. There is also atonal music that can be classified as "sound effects " or "timbre explorations".

Good tonal music doesn't just permutate pitches (or other symmetry operations). There are "topological deformations" and changes in context (like transformation/transposition of the material) that don't exist in serial music (or can't be heard or recognized - there is a lot of beauty in the scores of let's Schoenberg, but it's revealed only when doing analysis of his score; plus it sounds, well, not that great).

Training to recognize musical intervals has nothing to do with tonal or atonal. And even trained ears can make mistakes especially with music using unfamiliar tuning systems or intervals existing between the standard Western pitches.

How would you train someone's ear in music like this of Xenakis (based on mathematical formulas with randomness)??? I guess that there are prodigies that can accurately transcribe glissandi, but music theory in every country is based on discrete, not continuous pitches.


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## Luchesi

Jacck said:


> most atonal music is not memorable. You hear one piece from Brian Ferneyhough and you heard all. There is no memorable tune to remember. And Ferneyhough is interchangable with Babbit or Carter etc. I agree that most of it is superficial and cheap. There are some interesting piece though. As to what is the purpose of atonal music: to express the emotion of 20th century angst?


If you think it's superficial and cheap then try to compose some pieces.

If you're trying to appreciate it this will help. If you're not trying to appreciate it we know what your response will be, and it won't be memorable.


----------



## Jacck

Luchesi said:


> If you think it's superficial and cheap then try to compose some pieces.
> 
> If you're trying to appreciate it this will help. If you're not trying to appreciate it we know what your response will be, and it won't be memorable.


I composed this




it is perfectly atonal, all I need to do is to transcribe it into musical notation


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## Red Terror

Jacck said:


> I composed this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it is perfectly atonal, all I need to do is to transcribe it into musical notation


Wow. You're the new Stockhausen.


----------



## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> most atonal music is not memorable. You hear one piece from Brian Ferneyhough and you heard all. There is no memorable tune to remember. And Ferneyhough is interchangable with Babbit or Carter etc. I agree that most of it is superficial and cheap. There are some interesting piece though. As to what is the purpose of atonal music: to express the emotion of 20th century angst?


You sound like a friend who hated classical music - he said it all sounded identical: "you've heard one piece of Mozart and you've heard them all". But, actually, given that you are here and that you presumably have some basic respect for other members, you should at least acknowledge that we would have noticed such a paucity of ideas if it were true.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> Why?
> 
> WTF?
> 
> More concerned with details and effects than concerned with . . . what?
> 
> Compared with what? What is this depth that they're looking for and failing to find? Structure?


All folk music started tonal, even if they don't use the same scale as Western music, even Gamelan, in the sense they have a tonal centre. It's just a basic way it was used to organize music. Atonal music is consciously getting away from the tonal centre. In some atonal music, there isn't what is traditionally motivic or thematic development. The motivic development of some atonal music can be so loose. Sometimes just a short rhythm forms the motif, that the development has way too many possibilities, and too little implication. It is possible to compare the motivic development of Beethoven's 5th with, say, Ferneyhough's 6th Quartet. The Beethoven has way more implications, by changing the notes. You can change the notes in the Ferneyhough with no loss of balance, counterpoint, tone colour, etc.

I have nothing against atonal music. But there are clear tradeoffs. It is not like just a different language that can be used to express the same things as tonal music. We are approaching the 100th year anniversary of the 12-tone technique, and there has been little progress in making it a more understandable language, beyond sounds and bits of colour. I think Schoenberg would have been disappointed.


----------



## DaveM

Enthusiast said:


> ...you should at least acknowledge that we would have noticed such a paucity of ideas if it were true.


Based on what evidence? I haven't read any posts here or elsewhere that describe innovative ideas in the music of Ferneyhough et al. Descriptions by those who like the music are broad generalizations and nothing (at least from my reading) that distinguishes one composer from another.


----------



## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> You can change the notes in the Ferneyhough with no loss of balance, counterpoint, tone colour, etc.
> 
> .


I don't believe that. Let's take one of the pieces by Ferneyhough which I really love in fact, _Mnemosyne _. It's the final piece of a long art inspired cycle called Carceri, and it makes all sorts of references, echoes, to things we have heard before in the cycle. But put that aside for now. I don't believe that you can change the notes are inessential to what the music means here any more than in the Beethoven. You can't "change the notes" in this music without changing the way the energy accumulates, without changing the dialogue between the spontaneous and the planned, the moving and the still; without altering the sense of approaching catastrophe








Phil loves classical said:


> It is not like just a different language that can be used to express the same things as tonal music.


You may be right about that. I think that _Mnemosyne _ is very expressive, whether tonal composers could have expressed the same ideas, I do not know. My own feeling is that tonality is a limitation on expression, and that atonal music is more expressive. But I haven't got the proof of that yet -- something to think about maybe.



Phil loves classical said:


> We are approaching the 100th year anniversary of the 12-tone technique, and there has been little progress in making it a more understandable language, beyond sounds and bits of colour. I think Schoenberg would have been disappointed.


Well I put it to you that _Mnemosyne _ is an example of progress, a very impressive one. I could find others.


----------



## DaveM

Mandryka said:


> You can't "change the notes" in this music without changing the way the energy accumulates, without changing the dialogue between the spontaneous and the planned, the moving and the still...


Seems to me that if some portions of the work are spontaneous, then one could change notes without anyone being the wiser.


----------



## Lisztian

Jacck said:


> most atonal music is not memorable.


Apparently many in this thread disagree.



Jacck said:


> You hear one piece from Brian Ferneyhough and you heard all.


Why Ferneyhough of all people? Does he constitute 'most atonal music'?



Jacck said:


> There is no memorable tune to remember.


Isn't melody just one aspect of music? Personally I (and many others) find a lot of pre-20th century music to be rhythmically 'unmemorable' and I still love lots of it.



Jacck said:


> And Ferneyhough is interchangable with Babbit or Carter etc.


You can't tell the difference between these guys? What about Ferneyhough and Boulez, Carter and Stockhausen, Babbit and Xenakis?



Jacck said:


> I agree that most of it is superficial and cheap.


You agree that many of us are somehow being duped when we enjoy this music for its depth and richness?


----------



## Red Terror

People and their obsession with "tunes". Drives me bananas.


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## Steerpike

It (Mnemosyne) sounded to me like a wasp trapped in a kettle, though I admit I could only listen to the first couple of minutes.

I'm sure this stuff is very clever, difficult to compose, and has a very fetching looking score, but to me it just doesn't serve any of the purposes I look to music for. I accept that there are people who do get something from these kinds of compositions, but if this piece is a good example, then the appeal is likely to remain limited to a very niche segment.


----------



## Red Terror

Steerpike said:


> It (Mnemosyne) sounded to me like a wasp trapped in a kettle, though I admit I could only listen to the first couple of minutes.
> 
> I'm sure this stuff is very clever, difficult to compose, and has a very fetching looking score, but to me it just doesn't serve any of the purposes I look to music for. I accept that there are people who do get something from these kinds of compositions, but if this piece is a good example, then the appeal is likely to remain limited to a very niche segment.


Try these:


----------



## Resurrexit

Steerpike said:


> I'm sure this stuff is very clever, difficult to compose, and has a very fetching looking score, but to me it just doesn't serve any of the purposes I look to music for.


Me either. I listen to music for the artistic expression it embodies, and have little fascination with acoustical sound as sound, though obviously others do.


----------



## Steerpike

I listened to the first 4 minutes of the Concertante, then moved to a point further along in the piece (not an ideal way to listen I admit). The overall impression was that I was listening to something that could accompany some disturbing events in a film. In other words, I was hearing sound being produced on musical instruments rather than music.

Listening to it in better circumstances (through headphones from a decent source rather than through the speakers on an old laptop), it could have held my attention better, but I still think I would have come away from it wondering what it was I'd heard.


----------



## Red Terror

Steerpike said:


> I listened to the first 4 minutes of the Concertante, then moved to a point further along in the piece (not an ideal way to listen I admit). The overall impression was that I was listening to something that could accompany some disturbing events in a film. In other words, I was hearing sound being produced on musical instruments rather than music.
> 
> Listening to it in better circumstances (through headphones from a decent source rather than through the speakers on an old laptop), it could have held my attention better, but I still think I would have come away from it wondering what it was I'd heard.


*Vyacheslav Artyomov* isn't exactly an atonal composer but his music is contemporary:


----------



## Luchesi

Jacck said:


> I composed this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it is perfectly atonal, all I need to do is to transcribe it into musical notation


Do you see how you're making my point?

It's like looking at a Pollock painting and saying, "my kid does better!, and with brighter colors!".

Do you agree that these composers are serious creators and they've studied music for years and years? Maybe you don't. I can't tell.


----------



## Steerpike

Thanks, I'll give them a listen as soon as I get an opportunity.

I'm interested in expanding my repertoire, so recommendations are always welcome (it's one of my reasons for joining this forum). I do have some fairly modern compositions in my collection - I've just finished listening to Trisagion by Arvo Part - but I don't think many of them would be described as atonal.

Update: Listening to Tristia right now. Although still somewhat alien at first hearing, this is a piece I would listen to again. I'll do some reading up on this composer at the very least.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> I don't believe that. Let's take one of the pieces by Ferneyhough which I really love in fact, _Mnemosyne _. It's the final piece of a long art inspired cycle called Carceri, and it makes all sorts of references, echoes, to things we have heard before in the cycle. But put that aside for now. I don't believe that you can change the notes are inessential to what the music means here any more than in the Beethoven. You can't "change the notes" in this music without changing the way the energy accumulates, without changing the dialogue between the spontaneous and the planned, the moving and the still; without altering the sense of approaching catastrophe
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You may be right about that. I think that _Mnemosyne _ is very expressive, whether tonal composers could have expressed the same ideas, I do not know. My own feeling is that tonality is a limitation on expression, and that atonal music is more expressive. But I haven't got the proof of that yet -- something to think about maybe.
> 
> Well I put it to you that _Mnemosyne _ is an example of progress, a very impressive one. I could find others.


I think the highlight of the piece are the textures, and the fluttering of the flute, and the improvisation of the flute part. You can keep the same shape of the melody, but change some of the notes a semitone or more higher or lower and still achieve the same effect. There is no strict relationship as in a Beethoven trio, that if you change the notes, you would affect the horizontal and vertical melody critically.

As to the types of expressions, there are some types that are exclusive to one or the other, but by keeping a tonal centre, I think there is more variety of effects that can be achieved, since the specific relations are more pronounced, while with atonal music you get way higher chromatic saturation (or is it variation?) to the point of emancipation, as the ear becomes overwhelmed, making certain emotional associations impossible. It does create a new effect, but how varied can that effect be?


----------



## aleazk

Jacck said:


> most atonal music is not memorable. You hear one piece from Brian Ferneyhough and you heard all. There is no memorable tune to remember. And Ferneyhough is interchangable with Babbit or Carter etc. I agree that most of it is superficial and cheap. There are some interesting piece though. As to what is the purpose of atonal music: to express the emotion of 20th century angst?


Their writing couldn't be more different. Ferneyhough's extensive use of nested tuplets makes the music sound very free and improvisatory, while in the other two the structure and organization is on the surface. It's like a Pollock vs. a Mondrian. They also use different instrumental techniques, types of attacks, etc. Babbitt is serial, while Carter and Ferneyhough are not. All of those things have acoustic correlates which can be easily distinguished by an experienced musician or listener. In this line, Ferneyhough is particularly easy to recognize (or someone composing in his style). Even @DavidM has separated Ferneyhough from other atonal music in his critiques (as far as I remember, he considers his music particularly dreadful; in any case, even someone who intensely dislikes it, finds it somewhat different and distinguishable from others in one way or another).


----------



## aleazk

Dimace said:


> Thanks a lot for your comments dear friends.
> 
> I just shared with you my personal experience (in Boulez thread) and nothing more. I admitted that my knowledge to this music is limited and I spoke for my felling. This felling maybe is wrong. Maybe everyone likes the atonal music and I didn't understand it. In every case my humble apologies if I have offended your music style. I respect all kinds of music and mostly those I don't know.


No, you didn't offend my musical style. And no, not all people likes atonal music. But not all people dislikes it either. What I was saying was simply that sweeping generalizations of these types don't help the discussion. And it's not a question about being 'polite' because some people may like it. It's about bringing some more nuance to the discussion since this is a music forum, a place to discuss precisely those things that don't fit into those nice and simple generalizations.


----------



## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> I think the highlight of the piece are the textures, and the fluttering of the flute, and the improvisation of the flute part.


You're ignoring long term development, the way the energy develops over the whole 10 minutes. I also think the counterpoint between tape and flute is a "highlight." It's as if you're predisposed to focus in on the superficial effects in the music, at the expense of the structural aspects. (Don't forget also that it's the last movement of a larger cycle, and it takes on a different meaning in context. And that it has a relation to some medieval images, but this isn't the place I guess . . . )



Phil loves classical said:


> As to the types of expressions, there are some types that are exclusive to one or the other, but by keeping a tonal centre, I think there is more variety of effects that can be achieved, since the specific relations are more pronounced, while with atonal music you get way higher chromatic saturation (or is it variation?) to the point of emancipation, as the ear becomes overwhelmed, making certain emotional associations impossible. It does create a new effect, but how varied can that effect be?


This is a quantitative question isn't it? I've got no idea how to answer it. My ear does not become overwhelmed in _Mnemosyne_, any more than it becomes saturated with resolution and white note harmonies when I listen to music which is naive, like _The Magic Flute_.


----------



## Jacck

Luchesi said:


> Do you see how you're making my point?
> 
> It's like looking at a Pollock painting and saying, "my kid does better!, and with brighter colors!".
> 
> Do you agree that these composers are serious creators and they've studied music for years and years? Maybe you don't. I can't tell.


the Pollock is a good example. Yes, I actually do believe (a please don't be offended) that much less skill and talent is required to make a Pollock painting compared for example to Zdzisław Beksiński. Similarly, I believe that it takes less skill and talent to produce an atonal modern composition (say Brian Ferneyhough - Unsichtbare Farben) to a good tune (say Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto). Obviously, some effort (possibly a lot of effort) is required to produce this modern art, and that is the main reason why I am not going to try to compose an atonal composition. I am not willing to exert such effort for the sake of an argument on internet. But I believe, that lot of atonal music is cheap and superficial and not much talent is required to produce it. Just like Pollock almost randomly throws colors at the palette using random strokes of the brush, so these atonal composers seem to randomly throw notes and sounds. Let a child randomly fiddle the violin or bash piano and a lot of it will resemble modern atonal music.

And I also believe that atonal music is severely limited in its capacity to induce emotions/atmospheres. It is not by chance that this music is often used in horror movies to depict anxiety, anger and similar negative emotions. But I challenge to you to find atonal music that depicts the atmosphere of joy, sadness, spirituality. Contrary to that, tonal music can depict all the emotional spectrum.

Atonal music has its place, but I doubt it is superior to classical tonal music as its proponents would like to claim. It is inferior, just a Pollock painting is inferior to any serious painting that actually tries to depict something, instead of just throwing random colors.


----------



## Jacck

if I composed music (I won't), I would be something like Xenakis, using mathematics to produce music. 




does this differ that much from Stockhausen?


----------



## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> Atonal music has its place, but I doubt it is superior to classical tonal music as its proponents would like to claim. It is inferior, just a Pollock painting is inferior to any serious painting that actually tries to depict something, instead of just throwing random colors.


As a personal belief this is OK with me. I suspect many of us would feel sympathy for someone who is clearly missing so much rather than condemning you. But you do have to accept that many people do not feel the same way and are able to get far more out of the art you deride. They can often do so without knocking art that you might love. I know that subjective feelings about music - "I find x more powerful than y" - can be hard to experience as _merely subjective _and that you can want to hold them up as absolute standards. But when so many people as so in awe of Pollock and derive enormous satisfaction from his work I really can't see how you can sustain such an opinion even as a subjective one. You can search out experts who feel the same way but will find that there are ten times that number who disagree. In the end you can only find yourself recognising that the weakness, the gap, is in you.


----------



## Art Rock

Jacck said:


> ... just a Pollock painting is inferior to any serious painting that actually tries to depict something, instead of just throwing random colors.


You confuse personal preference with objective truth. My wife is a professional artist who went to the fine art universities of Shanghai and Beijing. She can paint whatever she wants as if it were a photograph. That's "just" skill, and she has not done it for decades because it does not satisfy her as an artist. She paints in an impressionist or expressionist style, depicting persons, city scenes, or abstracts. And she notes that abstracts are at least as difficult as the ones that depict "something".


----------



## Jacck

Art Rock said:


> You confuse personal preference with objective truth. My wife is a professional artist who went to the fine art universities of Shanghai and Beijing. She can paint whatever she wants as if it were a photograph. That's "just" skill, and she has not done it for decades because it does not satisfy her as an artist. She paints in an impressionist or expressionist style, depicting persons, city scenes, or abstracts. And she notes that abstracts are at least as difficult as the ones that depict "something".


it goes without saying that all my views presented here are subjective. I doubt there is much objective truth in the appreciation of art. While I can appreciate some abstract art, a lot of it leaves me puzzled and wondering what others appreciate about it. There certainly is a lot of very interesting abstract painting or atonal music, but there is a much bigger heap (in my opinion) that is uninspired and dull (subjective evaluation). The parallels between the music and painting are actually quite good and telling. Bach is like the Flemish masters, Hindemith is like cubism and Pollock is like Carter. 
I certainly do not know what I should appreciate in a musical piece such as this one




Is it beautiful? No. Is it interesting? No. Does it make me want to invest time in it to learn to appreciate it? No. This is one of the pieces that leaves mu puzzled as to what the intention of the composer was and also as to what others appreciate in a music like that.

and again a subjective judgement. Composers compose music like that, because they lack the talent to compose something like this




not bad for a chemist.


----------



## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> it goes without saying that all my views presented here are subjective. I doubt there is much objective truth in the appreciation of art. While I can appreciate some abstract art, a lot of it leaves me puzzled and wondering what others appreciate about it. There certainly is a lot of very interesting abstract painting or atonal music, but there is a much bigger heap (in my opinion) that is uninspired and dull (subjective evaluation). The parallels between the music and painting are actually quite good and telling. Bach is like the Flemish masters, Hindemith is like cubism and Pollock is like Carter.
> I certainly do not know what I should appreciate in a musical piece such as this one
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is it beautiful? No. Is it interesting? No. Does it make me want to invest time in it to learn to appreciate it? No. This is one of the pieces that leaves mu puzzled as to what the intention of the composer was and also as to what others appreciate in a music like that.
> 
> and again a subjective judgement. Composers compose music like that, because they lack the talent to compose something like this
> 
> 
> 
> 
> not bad for a chemist.


I don't know - Hindemith as a Cubist might work my isn't Pollock a little too fluid for Carter to be a good fit? And, OK, you don't like that powerful and intense piece by Ferneyhough - no-one says you should - but to held up a second rate quartet as a model for how music should be! That goes too far. Just joking. (Well, I did mean it but know you will hear it differently and that is fine).

But, look, you accept that all your art judgments are subjective but don't go the extra inch and see the implication that when so many who enjoy modern music think the Ferneyhough is great it must be your own shortcoming if you can't find any sense it it. Either that or you believe that people who do enjoy the avant garde are experiencing - what exactly do you think they are experiencing?

And why the need to assert the ridiculous (that Ferneyhough lacks the talent to write a quartet like Borodin's)? You must surely have a sense that this is not true?


----------



## Luchesi

Jacck said:


> the Pollock is a good example. Yes, I actually do believe (a please don't be offended) that much less skill and talent is required to make a Pollock painting compared for example to Zdzisław Beksiński. Similarly, I believe that it takes less skill and talent to produce an atonal modern composition (say Brian Ferneyhough - Unsichtbare Farben) to a good tune (say Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto). Obviously, some effort (possibly a lot of effort) is required to produce this modern art, and that is the main reason why I am not going to try to compose an atonal composition. I am not willing to exert such effort for the sake of an argument on internet. But I believe, that lot of atonal music is cheap and superficial and not much talent is required to produce it. Just like Pollock almost randomly throws colors at the palette using random strokes of the brush, so these atonal composers seem to randomly throw notes and sounds. Let a child randomly fiddle the violin or bash piano and a lot of it will resemble modern atonal music.
> 
> And I also believe that atonal music is severely limited in its capacity to induce emotions/atmospheres. It is not by chance that this music is often used in horror movies to depict anxiety, anger and similar negative emotions. But I challenge to you to find atonal music that depicts the atmosphere of joy, sadness, spirituality. Contrary to that, tonal music can depict all the emotional spectrum.
> 
> Atonal music has its place, but I doubt it is superior to classical tonal music as its proponents would like to claim. It is inferior, just a Pollock painting is inferior to any serious painting that actually tries to depict something, instead of just throwing random colors.


Thanks. I won't worry about you like I would a young rebellious nay-sayer that the world is full of. You're clearly not.

You likely already know that everything you've said has been said so many times. In fact, some of us atonal enthusiasts have thought along these lines. And then, I guess, we went beyond it.

And again, I don't believe that you think that Pollock or Ferneyhough are unable to paint a pretty picture with exacting realism or use tonality to give you some nostalgic pleasure and traditional assurance. But some neophytes actually believe that.. and they think it's a good, conclusive argument, when it's just ignorance and inexperience and feeling superior/the stupidity of anti-intellectualism.


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## Tikoo Tuba

I would help a child to first be comfortable with atonal music . Tonal music is a subset of atonal .


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## millionrainbows

Some sweeping generalizations: I equate tonal melodies, themes, and musical meaning with representational art, in that it reproduces meaningful 'sound objects' which have 'tonal meaning' and tonal relationships which make sense to most listeners, as landscapes, portraits, and tables of fruit do in representational art.

Cezanne the modernist did bowls of fruit, and Picasso did portraits, so I equate them with what Schoenberg and Berg were doing; using the traditional forms as vehicles for new, modern ideas. This is a halfway area.

When I listen to more uncompromising atonal music, I listen for "shapes" in the sound, and since I've got a good ear, I listen to intervals as they occur. I hear the general polyphonic textures, and listen "in the now" without resisting or expectations. I hear chromatic lines which could be 'themes,' but they sound more random than tonality. This does not bother me.

When I hear something like Schoenberg's Wind Quintet Op. 26, in which he is often exploring the strange possibilities that occur when the tone-row material is exploited for its _harmonic_ consequences, I am truly in awe of the otherworldly results.

Yes, it's obvious that atonal music's point is to produce "listening" music, whatever else may be occurring below the surface. If you want "surface" results, go to Minimalism, in which the process and the result are all apparent.

In other words, there will always be a disconnect in serial music, between what we hear, and what process was used to produce it. This is true for both composer and listener. It may be less true for composers like George Perle and Milton Babbitt, both of whom "struggle" more with the process in order to produce certain desired audible outcomes, in terms of symmetry and interval content, but even these kinds of results are not entirely what I would call "entirely audible" in their nature. Still, this creates a "ballpark" area of audible outcomes, which gives Perle, Babbitt, and Carter a "certain sound" in terms of their composing methods. In fact, George Perle calls this "twelve-tone tonality."


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## Luchesi

Tikoo Tuba said:


> I would help a child to first be comfortable with atonal music . Tonal music is a subset of atonal .


Tonality comes from underlying integer relationships (physics). After the child is acculturated to the leading tone resolutions, then tonal patterns in atonal music are everywhere and can't be 'unheard'.

The primitive brain takes over.

It's how we improvise and extemporize in jazz. We hear things..


----------



## DaveM

Improvisational/Extemporaneous Jazz has a very limited audience just as much contemporary, particularly what we are calling (for want of a better word) avant-garde music has. Both have been around long enough that the fact of the limited audience is unlikely to change. Take that as a disparagement if you wish, but that’s not what is intended.

The attempt of some to infer that those who don’t like much of contemporary classical music have a limitation of understanding, experience or education is a ludicrous endeavor. It’s interesting to me that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has said that those who like contemporary music have a problem, but above, more than one poster have suggested that those of us who largely don’t like the genre or particularly the avant-garde category, do.


----------



## aleazk

In my case, I really don't think that _all_ of those who don't like much of contemporary classical music have a limitation of understanding, experience or education. But, in certain cases, I do think that's the case, something which can be easily inferred by the things they post.


----------



## DaveM

aleazk said:


> In my case, I really don't think that _all_ of those who don't like much of contemporary classical music have a limitation of understanding, experience or education. But, in certain cases, I do think that's the case, something which can be easily inferred by the things they post.


I think that those appreciate contemporary music would benefit more by avoiding speculation on the personal characteristics -understanding, experience, education- of those who don't like parts or much of it. It seems that the tendency to do so stems from taking criticism of contemporary music as a personal affront. I would think that one should be proud of one's tastes regardless of criticism of what they happen to like. I've lived most of my life as the only one in my family and among all of my friends -except those I sought out for classical music purposes- who loves classical music. They just aren't into it and dismiss it as highbrow or some sort of retro music. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Mandryka said:


> You're ignoring long term development, the way the energy develops over the whole 10 minutes. I also think the counterpoint between tape and flute is a "highlight." It's as if you're predisposed to focus in on the superficial effects in the music, at the expense of the structural aspects. (Don't forget also that it's the last movement of a larger cycle, and it takes on a different meaning in context. And that it has a relation to some medieval images, but this isn't the place I guess . . . )
> 
> This is a quantitative question isn't it? I've got no idea how to answer it. My ear does not become overwhelmed in _Mnemosyne_, any more than it becomes saturated with resolution and white note harmonies when I listen to music which is naive, like _The Magic Flute_.


Tell me what is the structure of this piece by itself? It is improvisational, even if it uses the notes from chords from previous movements according to Ferneyhough. He compares it with a Debussy prelude, which are also improvisational, but are structured on their chord progressions. Again, because the Debussy is tonal, you can follow the clear movement of the chords. But the Ferneyhough doesn't have an overriding chord or key even if the flute momentarily plays notes of a chord, because the tape accompaniment throws it off, and doesn't harmonize, nor is it meant to.

Overwhelm may not be an accurate word, but ambiguous relationships, since there is no tonic.


----------



## aleazk

DaveM said:


> I think that those appreciate contemporary music would benefit more by avoiding speculation on the personal characteristics -understanding, experience, education- of those who don't like parts or much of it. It seems that the tendency to do so stems from taking criticism of contemporary music as a personal affront. I would think that one should be proud of one's tastes regardless of criticism of what they happen to like. I've lived most of my life as the only one in my family and among all of my friends -except those I sought out for classical music purposes- who loves classical music. They just aren't into it and dismiss it as highbrow or some sort of retro music. Doesn't bother me in the slightest.


I wouldn't care in that case either. But in a forum whose only purpose is to discuss music, then I expect people that want to undertake in polemics to be well educated in the topics they, by themselves, are putting on the discussion table.


----------



## DaveM

aleazk said:


> I wouldn't care in that case either. But in a forum whose only purpose is to discuss music, then I expect people that want to undertake in polemics to be well educated in the topics they, by themselves, are putting on the discussion table.


Perhaps in a perfect world. But that cuts both ways. There is no evidence that one side is more or less educated than the other. What is incontrovertible is that each of us knows our own tastes. Much of contemporary music has taken a rather extreme turn from traditional classical music. IMO, it was inevitable that the sort of blowback we see in these threads would occur.


----------



## millionrainbows

There will always be a disconnect in serial music, between what we hear, and what process was used to produce it. This is because atonal music is not based on harmonic principles. Harmonic principles are based on audible phenomena; serial principles are not. I don't care, because both processes still produce audible results.


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## Captainnumber36

I enjoy some A-tonal works, when done well it's quite hypnotizing.

The point is to enjoy it, or not enjoy it, just like any other Art!


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## Tikoo Tuba

All harmonic principals have potentiality in atonal music . We shall have our Shattertone Orchestra , the sublime uncontrived . And certainly the concert is free , all ages welcome .


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> There will always be a disconnect in serial music, between what we hear, and what process was used to produce it. This is because atonal music is not based on harmonic principles. Harmonic principles are based on audible phenomena; serial principles are not. I don't care, because both processes still produce audible results.


I find this view demonstrably false. You are conflating two things which are different.

You seem to be referring to the overtone series, which certainly determines why some intervals are more consonants than others. Physics says that an octave, a perfect fifth, a perfect forth, a major third, a major triad are consonant and an augmented forth, a minor second, a major seventh are more dissonant, less consonant. But atonal music can also play with consonance and dissonance and take advantage of the physic. Maybe I'd like to follow a C major triad with a F# major triad. Both perfectly consonant and taking advantage of the physics of sound, but an anathema to common practice harmony. Common practice harmony is one ingenious way to take advantage of the mathematics of sound, various serial schemes are another way.


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## Tikoo Tuba

Those who get the point are sitting atop a pyramid .


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> ...The attempt of some to infer that those who don't like much of contemporary classical music have a limitation of understanding, experience or education is a ludicrous endeavor. It's interesting to me that, to the best of my knowledge, no one has said that those who like contemporary music have a problem, but above, more than one poster have suggested that those of us who largely don't like the genre or particularly the avant-garde category, do.


When I first came to TC, I disliked much of modern/contemporary music. I didn't understand why anyone would write that music, and I had trouble understanding how anyone could enjoy the music. I _absolutely believed_ that I had a limitation of understanding, serious lack of experience, and little education. Even though I hated the music, I never thought that was the fault of the music or composer rather than my limitations.



DaveM said:


> Perhaps in a perfect world. But that cuts both ways. There is no evidence that one side is more or less educated than the other. What is incontrovertible is that each of us knows our own tastes. Much of contemporary music has taken a rather extreme turn from traditional classical music. IMO, it was inevitable that the sort of blowback we see in these threads would occur.


Perhaps given human nature, it may have been inevitable to see blowback against modern music, but it certainly could have been otherwise. I can imagine TC members who strongly disliked modern music having two reactions. First, people could state that they dislike the music and generally ignore the modern music threads. Second, people could state that they dislike the music and try to understand what others enjoy, why composers decided to write the music they do, and how they could learn to like the music.


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## Luchesi

mmsbls said:


> When I first came to TC, I disliked much of modern/contemporary music. I didn't understand why anyone would write that music, and I had trouble understanding how anyone could enjoy the music. I _absolutely believed_ that I had a limitation of understanding, serious lack of experience, and little education. Even though I hated the music, I never thought that was the fault of the music or composer rather than my limitations.
> 
> Perhaps given human nature, it may have been inevitable to see blowback against modern music, but it certainly could have been otherwise. I can imagine TC members who strongly disliked modern music having two reactions. First, people could state that they dislike the music and generally ignore the modern music threads. Second, people could state that they dislike the music and try to understand what others enjoy, why composers decided to write the music they do, and how they could learn to like the music.


"First, people could state that they dislike the music and generally ignore the modern music threads. Second, people could state that they dislike the music and try to understand what others enjoy, why composers decided to write the music they do, and how they could learn to like the music."

Yes, what does 'dislike' mean to another poster?

I dislike golf (Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden). What do people get out of it? It's a waste of time? It's possible I might 'like' it if I tried..


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## Luchesi

Baron Scarpia said:


> I find this view demonstrably false. You are conflating two things which are different.
> 
> You seem to be referring to the overtone series, which certainly determines why some intervals are more consonants than others. Physics says that an octave, a perfect fifth, a perfect forth, a major third, a major triad are consonant and an augmented forth, a minor second, a major seventh are more dissonant, less consonant. But atonal music can also play with consonance and dissonance and take advantage of the physic. Maybe I'd like to follow a C major triad with a F# major triad. Both perfectly consonant and taking advantage of the physics of sound, but an anathema to common practice harmony. Common practice harmony is one ingenious way to take advantage of the mathematics of sound, various serial schemes are another way.


"Common practice harmony is one ingenious way to take advantage of the mathematics of sound, various serial schemes are another way."

I think a listener needs to imagine tonal sequences. Without our tonal predisposition how would we know what's atonal?


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## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> When I first came to TC, I disliked much of modern/contemporary music. I didn't understand why anyone would write that music, and I had trouble understanding how anyone could enjoy the music. I _absolutely believed_ that I had a limitation of understanding, serious lack of experience, and little education. Even though I hated the music, I never thought that was the fault of the music or composer rather than my limitations.
> 
> Perhaps given human nature, it may have been inevitable to see blowback against modern music, but it certainly could have been otherwise. I can imagine TC members who strongly disliked modern music having two reactions. First, people could state that they dislike the music and generally ignore the modern music threads. Second, people could state that they dislike the music and try to understand what others enjoy, why composers decided to write the music they do, and how they could learn to like the music.


I don't think it's as simple as that. For one thing it is not just a matter of someone like myself avoiding modern music threads. The very title of certain threads open the door for discussion, perhaps a debate and sometimes an airing of gripes from both sides that, believe it or not, can have some redeeming value. The very title of this thread, for example, does not imply subject matter totally in support of modern music...on the contrary.

For another thing (re: your second point), yes, people could state they dislike modern music and try to understand what others enjoy etc., but why shouldn't people who love modern music be a little more understanding of why some of us who dislike much of it have legitimate issues. More of that in a minute.

One thing in particular that causes problems in these 'discussions' is that too many -on both sides- talk about modern music as if it is a subject like romantic era music where the music throughout a century had more in common than not. It isn't. It consists of a potpourri that includes the Schoenberg era, serialism, a whole bunch of other 'isms' and, to my dismay, so-called avant-garde works.

Fwiw, my issues are twofold: first I resent the fact that romantic music with a century of history dropped off a cliff like a stone in the space of no more than a decade or less due to an atonal-related agenda of entities other than the audiences. Second, I don't believe that some of what is called avant-garde music is classical music at all. Some of it, from a classical point of point is bizarre. I don't particularly like Schoenberg, but his music is not bizarre and it does not sound like random noise.

People speak here of a process of learning that is required to understand contemporary music. Has it ever occurred to anyone that when it comes to Ferneyhough and the boys, that this might just mean that we're talking about an entirely new genre of music that bears little or no relationship to classical music of the previous 3 centuries? The acceptance of this premise would mean that people would be free to enjoy that music without trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of classical music. Some of the dissension in these threads surrounds this very issue.

People like myself who have many years of classical music experience are being told that they have some sort of limitation because they don't accept that music without any apparent melody, harmony or logical form and which is left with remarkably few characteristics to describe it with (one apparently being timbre) is just another progression of classical music. And again, I am categorically not talking about Schoenberg or early 20th century atonal music.


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## Luchesi

DaveM said:


> I don't think it's as simple as that. For one thing it is not just a matter of someone like myself avoiding modern music threads. The very title of certain threads open the door for discussion, perhaps a debate and sometimes an airing of gripes from both sides that, believe it or not, can have some redeeming value. The very title of this thread, for example, does not imply subject matter totally in support of modern music...on the contrary.
> 
> For another thing (re: your second point), yes, people could state they dislike modern music and try to understand what others enjoy etc., but why shouldn't people who love modern music be a little more understanding of why some of us who dislike much of it have legitimate issues. More of that in a minute.
> 
> One thing in particular that causes problems in these 'discussions' is that too many -on both sides- talk about modern music as if it is a subject like romantic era music where the music throughout a century had more in common than not. It isn't. It consists of a potpourri that includes the Schoenberg era, serialism, a whole bunch of other 'isms' and, to my dismay, so-called avant-garde works.
> 
> Fwiw, my issues are twofold: first I resent the fact that romantic music with a century of history dropped off a cliff like a stone in the space of no more than a decade or less due to an atonal-related agenda of entities other than the audiences. Second, I don't believe that some of what is called avant-garde music is classical music at all. Some of it, from a classical point of point is bizarre. I don't particularly like Schoenberg, but his music is not bizarre and it does not sound like random noise.
> 
> People speak here of a process of learning that is required to understand contemporary music. Has it ever occurred to anyone that when it comes to Ferneyhough and the boys, that this might just mean that we're talking about an entirely new genre of music that bears little or no relationship to classical music of the previous 3 centuries? The acceptance of this premise would mean that people would be free to enjoy that music without trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of classical music. Some of the dissension in these threads surrounds this very issue.
> 
> People like myself who have many years of classical music experience are being told that they have some sort of limitation because they don't accept that music without any apparent melody, harmony or logical form and which is left with remarkably few characteristics to describe it with (such as timbre) is just another progression of classical music. And again, I am categorically not talking about Schoenberg or early 20th century atonal music.


Reading all that, thanks. What is it that you want?

I want people to never stop learning about the arts. I want the coming generations to learn about the achievements. To learn what the composers are trying to convey. What is it that you want?


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## Enthusiast

I wish things could move on in this age old (it seems) discussion about whether or not music can be atonal and ... and what? Enjoyable? Worthwhile? Meaningful? Art? Given that so many discerning music lovers in the world are convinced that music can be atonal and ... enjoyable, meaningful, worthwhile art ... I wonder how some people are able to sustain a belief that all those people are deluding themselves and that their own perceptions are the only true ones even though they are inevitably based on far less experience with atonal music (I don't believe someone who hates atonal music can have listened to as much of it as I have - except perhaps the masochists among them).

These days I am spending a little more time than I have previously listening to pre-Baroque music and have been slowly developing an appreciation of some of it. I found it "hard". It didn't come naturally. And, even when I heard things that were clearly impressive or "apparently meaningful" (musically communicative) in some way, much of the music seemed a little dry and unmemorable ... of academic interest only. I often found myself wanting to get back to music I already loved. All this time I knew that the problem was my own lack of understanding. It would have felt very arrogant to me to think the music - music which many "great listeners" have come to love and have gotten more and more deeply into - was just "too simple" for me or "came from a time before composers developed the ability to depict or excite emotion". But, to be honest, it was negating arguments like those that summed up my experience with the music. However, as I say, I am now slowly finding an enjoyment with some of that music and, as it is a different enjoyment to that I get from any other music, this seems particularly precious. I suspect that, if I had given in to my arrogant rejection of this music instead of recognising that *logically *the fault had to be with me, I would never have found the way to open up this new potential for rewarding musical experiences.

When it comes to atonal music the never-ending discussion tends (here anyway) to be between those who like atonal as well as many types of tonal music and those who like some or most tonal music but dislike music that is atonal. I would hazard a guess that in general the people who love some atonal music are also people who like a wider spectrum of tonal music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, chamber, song, orchestral, opera, choral) than many of the people who dislike atonal music. The difference being an enjoyment of exploration vs. an "I know what I like" satisfaction. _*There is nothing wrong with either position. *_But that is the point: enjoy your music and let others enjoy theirs.


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## Mandryka

Phil loves classical said:


> Tell me what is the structure of this piece by itself?


I think that there's a transfer, an exchange, of energy. The tape starts off still, the bass flute starts off very active, and by the end their characters have, to an extent, reversed.

There's a video, a very good video, of someone called Matteo Cerasi playing it on YouTube. It really is interesting to see it live because it becomes evident which parts are soloist and which parts are tape. And it's also interesting to see the physicality of the solo parts.

Re what you said about harmonies (sorry, I deleted it from the quote, I'm using my phone and it's not easy!) I know that for Ferneyhough the harmonies are really important. He thinks that the soloist has to play accurately with the tape, because if he gets out of sync the harmonies will be spoilt. I know that's cryptic and not much help, I can't do better - one problem I have is that I don't have access to Ferneyhough's writings, the book is too expensive and I'm not part of a library.

I'll just say what a pleasure it's been for me to listen again to this wonderful piece of music.


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> I don't think it's as simple as that. For one thing it is not just a matter of someone like myself avoiding modern music threads. The very title of certain threads open the door for discussion, perhaps a debate and sometimes an airing of gripes from both sides that, believe it or not, can have some redeeming value. The very title of this thread, for example, does not imply subject matter totally in support of modern music...on the contrary.


This thread is rather long with both valuable parts and not so valuable parts. I personally think this is one of TC's better threads due to the good parts. Valuable discussions on modern music depend on how discussants (on both sides) engage with the other side.



DaveM said:


> For another thing (re: your second point), yes, people could state they dislike modern music and try to understand what others enjoy etc., but why shouldn't people who love modern music be a little more understanding of why some of us who dislike much of it have legitimate issues. More of that in a minute.


In general, they are although I suppose it depends on what is considered a legitimate issue. Many of those who like modern music have stated over and over that they have no problem with people saying they dislike modern music or even discussing specific issues. They do have problems with the tone and content of all too frequent comments (the music is garbage, sounds like cats on piano, only mathematical types can like it, etc.).

I think people respond to not only the content but also the perceived tone. If someone appears to be trying to engage with honest questions and not appearing negatively judgmental, I suspect there would be few problems. Sometimes modern music lovers do respond inappropriately. I have been called a musical Nazi for suggesting 4'33" is not music. I understand such responses because there is a long history of unjustified attacks on modern music resulting is modern music lovers leaping to conclusions that may not be appropriate.



DaveM said:


> One thing in particular that causes problems in these 'discussions' is that too many -on both sides- talk about modern music as if it is a subject like romantic era music where the music throughout a century had more in common than not. It isn't. It consists of a potpourri that includes the Schoenberg era, serialism, a whole bunch of other 'isms' and, to my dismay, so-called avant-garde works.


Yes, on a forum it may be natural to leave out important caveats or distinctions at times.



DaveM said:


> Fwiw, my issues are twofold: first I resent the fact that romantic music with a century of history dropped off a cliff like a stone in the space of no more than a decade or less due to an atonal-related agenda of entities other than the audiences. Second, I don't believe that some of what is called avant-garde music is classical music at all. Some of it, from a classical point of point is bizarre. I don't particularly like Schoenberg, but his music is not bizarre and it does not sound like random noise.


I don't know what you mean by resent. Do you mean that you wish it were different? Also given that romantic sounding music has been continuously written from 1900 through today, I don't know what you mean by dropped off a cliff. I assume you don't think the Romantic era should have lasted forever. 
In fact Romantic and what I and others refer to as neo-Romantic music has lasted for over 200 years and is still going strong. Isn't that pretty good for those who like Romanticism?



DaveM said:


> People speak here of a process of learning that is required to understand contemporary music. Has it ever occurred to anyone that when it comes to Ferneyhough and the boys, that this might just mean that we're talking about an entirely new genre of music that bears little or no relationship to classical music of the previous 3 centuries? The acceptance of this premise would mean that people would be free to enjoy that music without trying to fit that square peg into the round hole of classical music. Some of the dissension in these threads surrounds this very issue.


I'm sure people have thought of that since I have, but does it matter? Whether one views Ferneyhough as classical music or something different, isn't everyone free to enjoy it?

I suspect one issue with your comments may be that they _seem_ to stem from a desire to negate (i.e. show that there is something wrong with) some modern music. If you were simply interested in the difference between CPT, for example, and some modern music, I think your comments would have a very different sense.



DaveM said:


> People like myself who have many years of classical music experience are being told that they have some sort of limitation because they don't accept that music without any apparent melody, harmony or logical form and which is left with remarkably few characteristics to describe it with (one apparently being timbre) is just another progression of classical music. And again, I am categorically not talking about Schoenberg or early 20th century atonal music.


As I have said, I thought it was obvious that I had limitations preventing me from enjoying modern music. Limitations in that sense are hardly bad. Most people have limitations causing them not to enjoy physics and math (and remember, both physics and math are more beautiful than any music ). But I agree that there are better ways to interact with someone who does not enjoy modern music than to tell them they have limitations. I prefer to let people know of my journey - that I was in roughly the same place disliking/hating much modern music and that with continued listening focusing on musical content other than melody and harmony (timbre and rhythm, for example) I was able to enjoy much modern music.

I think the bottom line for you is to decide what you wish to convey to modern music lovers on TC. if it's primarily negative, many will likely not respond well. If it's the desire for discussion and understanding, things may be different.


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## DaveM

mmsbls said:


> ...I think the bottom line for you is to decide what you wish to convey to modern music lovers on TC. if it's primarily negative, many will likely not respond well. If it's the desire for discussion and understanding, things may be different.


I appreciate your taking the time to respond in detail. There is much to think about. However, in reference to your closing comment above, I would point out that, for the most part, I stay away from obviously pro-modern music threads, but where threads are started that question some aspects of contemporary music, I will take part, more often in response to provocational posts. I purposely don't comment with negativity at the outset.

For instance, the following quote from a post above. It is just the sort of provocational silliness that is just begging for a response:
_
"I would hazard a guess that in general the people who love some atonal music are also people who like a wider spectrum of tonal music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, chamber, song, orchestral, opera, choral) than many of the people who dislike atonal music. The difference being an enjoyment of exploration vs. an "I know what I like" satisfaction."_


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## mmsbls

DaveM said:


> I appreciate your taking the time to respond in detail. There is much to think about. However, in reference to your closing comment above, I would point out that, for the most part, I stay away from obviously pro-modern music threads, but where threads are started that question some aspects of contemporary music, I will take part, more often in response to provocational posts. I purposely don't comment with negativity at the outset.
> 
> For instance, the following quote from a post above. It is just the sort of provocational silliness that is just begging for a response:
> _
> "I would hazard a guess that in general the people who love some atonal music are also people who like a wider spectrum of tonal music (Baroque, Classical, Romantic, chamber, song, orchestral, opera, choral) than many of the people who dislike atonal music. The difference being an enjoyment of exploration vs. an "I know what I like" satisfaction."_


I certainly do not view you as a prime culprit in the "I hate modern music group." Your posts tend to be more measured. I don't view the above quote as silly. It certainly may be wrong, but there is some reason to suspect those who like atonal music may be more open to liking other genres. Interestingly, member nereffid actually did a long series of polls that would allow us to determine if the above is roughly true on TC or not. I have data from his polls that shows whether a member likes each of roughly 650 composers. In theory someone could select those who like several atonal composers and a control group who don't and see whether those who like the atonal composers actually like more composers in varied genres.

An easier task would be to simply select a group who likes atonal and a group that doesn't and see whether the first group likes more composers overall. if you want to give me a few (maybe 3 at the most) atonal composers, I can do that for those who like all 3 and those who do not like any of the 3.

NOTE: I just realized that the "easier task" doesn't tell us much since the extra composers liked by the atonal liking group may generally be modern composers.


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## BabyGiraffe

Baron Scarpia said:


> Maybe I'd like to follow a C major triad with a F# major triad. Both perfectly consonant and taking advantage of the physics of sound, but an anathema to common practice harmony.


Good luck trying this in authentic historical tuning with just 12 keys per octave (have you seen the split keys on these old harpischords - have you ever wondered why would anyone on earth need them???)... Unless you like "out of tune" chords.
Maybe research something about pythagorean, meantone and well-tempered systems before talking about common practice.
Unfortunately, much of the stuff mentioned in many harmony textbooks can't be heard on a modern tuned instruments in 12 ET - like augmented seconds or dimished fifths and augmented fourths etc, becayse it simply doesn't exist.
Many software instruments allow retuning and have preset programs with historical mappings for anyone interested. For example - Pianoteq or Kontakt.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Here's a point of atonal music  This is fantastic and beautiful.


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## Luchesi

BabyGiraffe said:


> Good luck trying this in authentic historical tuning with just 12 keys per octave (have you seen the split keys on these old harpischords - have you ever wondered why would anyone on earth need them???)... Unless you like "out of tune" chords.
> Maybe research something about pythagorean, meantone and well-tempered systems before talking about common practice.
> Unfortunately, much of the stuff mentioned in many harmony textbooks can't be heard on a modern tuned instruments in 12 ET - like augmented seconds or dimished fifths and augmented fourths etc, becayse it simply doesn't exist.
> Many software instruments allow retuning and have preset programs with historical mappings for anyone interested. For example - Pianoteq or Kontakt.


You're talking about pianists who don't tune their own pianos. I've experimented with all the ideas from history.

"simply doesn't exist"? You're making it sound mysterious.


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## Torkelburger

Jacck said:


> the Pollock is a good example. Yes, I actually do believe (a please don't be offended) that much less skill and talent is required to make a Pollock painting compared for example to Zdzisław Beksiński. Similarly, I believe that it takes less skill and talent to produce an atonal modern composition (say Brian Ferneyhough - Unsichtbare Farben) to a good tune (say Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto). Obviously, some effort (possibly a lot of effort) is required to produce this modern art, and that is the main reason why I am not going to try to compose an atonal composition. I am not willing to exert such effort for the sake of an argument on internet. But I believe, that lot of atonal music is cheap and superficial and not much talent is required to produce it. Just like Pollock almost randomly throws colors at the palette using random strokes of the brush, so these atonal composers seem to randomly throw notes and sounds. Let a child randomly fiddle the violin or bash piano and a lot of it will resemble modern atonal music.


I don't think what Pollock did was totally random, and I certainly know that the atonal compositions of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern were not random. There is a chapter in Reginald Smith's book _Serial Composition_ dedicated to extensive analysis of Schoenberg and Webern's atonal works, including their methods which were very different from each other and neither of them were "random".

If you can't tell the difference between a child fiddling with a violin and the highly-acclaimed atonal works of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Carter, etc. then the fault is completely yours.



> And I also believe that atonal music is severely limited in its capacity to induce emotions/atmospheres. It is not by chance that this music is often used in horror movies to depict anxiety, anger and similar negative emotions. But I challenge to you to find atonal music that depicts the atmosphere of joy, sadness, spirituality. Contrary to that, tonal music can depict all the emotional spectrum.


One way that emotions in atonal music can be portrayed is with the varying intervals that sound together. Music dominated by minor ninths like B-C compared to music dominated by major thirds like F-A yield two different emotions, for example. Atonal music even has new emotional territory you can't get anywhere else, (a tritone for example is emotionally ambiguous).

I hear emotions in Schoenberg's music (Op. 25 for example) including joy, and sadness (parts of Op. 31); and in Roger Sessions symphonies (No. 6, ii-sadness); and Jonathan Harvey (_towards a pure land_-spirituality) just off the top of my head.



> Atonal music has its place, but I doubt it is superior to classical tonal music as its proponents would like to claim. It is inferior, just a Pollock painting is inferior to any serious painting that actually tries to depict something, instead of just throwing random colors.


But why must representational art necessarily be superior to non-representational (abstract) art? Just because it attempts to "depict" something? I don't follow that. That implies that any abstraction at all that does not contribute to the "serious" attempt of "depiction" is inferior. Or in other words, we consider the greatest artist in the world whoever is the one who can paint the most realistic-looking tree, or the most photographic-quality piece of fruit, because they have "depicted" it the best. I find that very shallow and unrewarding artistically--leaves no room for expressing the world around you or within you through an artistic lens. And if that were the case, then artists like van Gogh, Matisse, Cezanne and a whole bunch of others we hold in high regard would be seen as inferior. But that is not so. What about what one finds pleasing to the eye? And what does it matter how much skill is involved in its creation? Again, if the final result is appealing to the eye or ear of the consumer, what does it matter? (There is, in fact, much skill needed to compose modern atonal music).

We enjoy abstractions each and every day, without realizing it. Most everyone on the planet has a favorite color. That is abstract. We don't know why or how. What's wrong with putting colors that please you on a canvas in an abstract way? And doesn't most everyone enjoy certain patterned clothing in their wardrobe? Enjoying the patterns on a shirt or blouse is another example of an abstraction. Why not enjoy patterns or designs of various abstractions arranged on a canvas? Can't the colors and patterns express a mood, good or bad and can't the result be pleasing to the eye? Isn't that what we care about the most? It's not inferior to me if the final result is pleasing to my tastes.


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## Larkenfield

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Here's a point of atonal music  This is fantastic and beautiful.


Greatly enjoyed hearing this. I think more is owed to 20th-century music than it's given credit for. What in 19th-century music was able to express the mysterious or the ambivalent or the troubled or the inner processes of the mind? I don't believe the way to do that, or the interest in it, truly existed then; it was all under the surface until the 20th century finally brought it out, and its ultimate purpose was to be healing and informative about a dimension of the mind that could sometimes be deeply troubled or unconscious as a mirror to the deeper self. It was needed during such a troubling century full of violence and upheaval that one struggled to understand. Not everything in life has clear, clean cut answers but just as many unanswered questions as well. It's the asking of the question without necessarily expecting an answer that became important. Perhaps that's why Charles Ives composed something called The Unanswered Question, not written in any key.


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## MaxKellerman

Larkenfield said:


> Greatly enjoyed hearing this. I think more is owed to 20th-century music than it's given credit for. What in 19th-century music was able to express the mysterious or the ambivalent or the troubled or the inner processes of the mind?


Umm. Wagner, for starters.


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## Larkenfield

MaxKellerman said:


> Umm. Wagner, for starters.


I don't think so. His music wasn't disturbing enough. There was no upheaval in art like what took place during the beginning of the 20th century, nor did he live through the horrors of the first world war. I do not see it possible to have actual 20th-century experiences in the 19th. Nor do I believe that he ventured into the deeply disturbed or troubled aspects of the mind like Schoenberg or Freud. The 20th century composers were willing to deal with the abnormal and that's what a great number of people don't like about it, including myself at times. But it was needed or it wouldn't have happened. Schoenberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, and others, we're all interested and willing to venture into the dark side of life with a certain raw directness of approach. They were curious and plummeted their curiosity.


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## MaxKellerman

Larkenfield said:


> Nor do I believe that he ventured into the deeply disturbed or troubled aspects of the mind like Schoenberg or Freud.


I believe he did. I can't think of many more penetrating portraits of obession and heartless ambtion in music than the prelude to Siegfried depicting Mime's quest for the ring; or just look at the psychologically hair-raising action of Act 2 of Parsifal, between the hysteria, the manipulation in the opening scene with Klingsor and Kundry, and Kundry's erotic seduction of Parsifal to some remarkable and disturbingy sensual music, recalling the memory of his mother and implying that it is Parsifal's duty as a son to respond to "a mother's last greeting, love's first kiss." If this isn't Freudian, I don't know what is!


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## Bwv 1080

So audiences generally dislike modernist music, which also takes more time and money for performers to play as pieces are under copyright and require more rehearsal time.

So why do so many very talented musicians devote substantial portions of their careers to playing this music? They are not getting secretly paid by the serialist cabal that supposedly controls academia.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that they think it is great music?


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## Phil loves classical

Bwv 1080 said:


> So audiences generally dislike modernist music, which also takes more time and money for performers to play as pieces are under copyright and require more rehearsal time.
> 
> So why do so many very talented musicians devote substantial portions of their careers to playing this music? They are not getting secretly paid by the serialist cabal that supposedly controls academia.
> 
> Perhaps the simplest explanation is that they think it is great music?


Stuff like Ferneyhough are technically very challenging for musicians. That in itself is a nice challenge for musicians to want to play this music. Also to broaden their repertoire. Musicians don't always believe in the music they play.

Much of atonal music is abolishing old rules, and making their own. So does it make for great music? Not in the traditional sense of course, but they could be interesting in their own right. How can you judge a work that operates on its own rules?


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## Larkenfield

I’m not convinced that one has to think that 20th-century music is “great” music. It wasn’t all great music in the 18th and 19th century either. But I think it was a product of its time, a response to the world by the composers, and that the music says something important about life in that century and the human condition. It’s worth knowing about just like it’s worth knowing about what happened during the world wars and other historic political developments, not only political but the developments in the arts. Many of the artists rebelled against the status quo. They felt that music had become conventional and false and that a new vocabulary of sound was needed to expand its emotional range of possibilities. As much as some people hate modern or contemporary Art, and some of it is pretty bad, the 20th century did exist and everyone is who’s old enough was touched by it. But it also spawned lazy listeners who can’t seem to find anything listenable within the last 120 years and that lack of curiosity is not inspiring.


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## Red Terror

Vazgen said:


> I don't know where you got the idea that you're not supposed to feel anything. Certainly you're not supposed to feel the same thing you feel when you listen to your old familiar favorites, but that's not to say it's supposed to be emotionally null.
> 
> I'd say the range of emotions in an accomplished atonal work may just be too complex for passive listening. If you're going to dismiss it as pointless and sterile just because it doesn't evoke the same exact emotions, in the same exact way, that your favorite old composers did, then maybe you're not meeting atonal composers on their own terms. And that's your prerogative, but it's not their fault.
> 
> -Vaz


Not all music is concerned with general personal emotion. For instance, Hindustani/North Indian classical music is contemplative and spiritual nature -- much like the majority of western music prior to the age of enlightenment.


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## Steerpike

Larkenfield said:


> I'm not convinced that one has to think that 20th-century music is "great" music. It wasn't all great music in the 18th and 19th century either. But I think it was a product of its time, a response to the world by the composers, and that the music says something important about life in that century and the human condition. It's worth knowing about just like it's worth knowing about what happened during the world wars and other historic political developments, not only political but the developments in the arts. Many of the artists rebelled against the status quo. They felt that music had become conventional and false and that a new vocabulary of sound was needed to expand its emotional range of possibilities. As much as some people hate modern or contemporary Art, and some of it is pretty bad, the 20th century did exist and everyone is who's old enough was touched by it. *But it also spawned lazy listeners who can't seem to find anything listenable within the last 120 years, and that lack of curiosity is really something*.


As someone who has found their interest in classical music developing with age, I don't believe there is any shortage of good music available from the last 120 years. I haven't actually gone through my collection and done the maths, but I'm pretty sure the 20th century is represented just as much as any other. I'm still discovering works and composers that are new to me, and most of these discoveries are post 1900.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but my general dislike for the music that has been described as atonal is not down to any lack of curiosity, nor is it down to laziness. It is simply that I listen to music for the enjoyment of it. I am more likely to enjoy music if it has certain characteristics, and those seem to be the very characteristics that are disdained by atonal composers. I'm certainly prepared to persevere with a piece which I don't 'get' first time around if I think there is some prospect of me enjoying it eventually (in fact, this is usually the case).

As a non-musician and non-expert, it is all about the aesthetics of the music for me. The cleverness of the composition and the originality of the ideas count for nothing if the end product isn't music that I can actually enjoy.


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## Bwv 1080

Red Terror said:


> Not all music is concerned with general personal emotion. For instance, Hindustani/North Indian classical music is contemplative and spiritual nature -- much like the majority of western music prior to the age of enlightenment.


Nope, Hindustani music is court music that is supposed to evoke specific motions and when singers are invloced the lyrics are typically about romance, not reaching enlightenment.

Medieval secular music likewise was not 'contemplative and spiritual'. Mostly about adultery with some dope smoking tunes in the late 14th century


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## Bwv 1080

Phil loves classical said:


> Stuff like Ferneyhough are technically very challenging for musicians. That in itself is a nice challenge for musicians to want to play this music. Also to broaden their repertoire. Musicians don't always believe in the music they play.
> 
> Much of atonal music is abolishing old rules, and making their own. So does it make for great music? Not in the traditional sense of course, but they could be interesting in their own right. How can you judge a work that operates on its own rules?


Maybe i am being naiive, but I tend to take statements by artists like Irvine Arditti or Ursula Oppens at face value and give them the respect, or at least the benefit of the doubt, to believe them when they say they perform Ferneyhough or Carter because they they believe it is great music, on par with anything written in the 19th century (but that is a view I share)


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## DaveM

Bwv 1080 said:


> Maybe i am being naiive, but I tend to take statements by artists like Irvine Arditti or Ursula Oppens at face value and give them the respect, or at least the benefit of the doubt, to believe them when they say they perform Ferneyhough or Carter because they they believe it is great music, on par with anything written in the 19th century (but that is a view I share)


Do you have a source for those quotes. I'm familiar with Ursula Oppens. I don't think she's ever played Ferneyhough.


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## Sid James

If a topic like the present one is controversial and impossible to resolve on this forum, it is more than likely that the same situation exists among the experts on music. Put a bunch of them in a room, and the debate about issues such as atonality will go on forever.

The threads on such topics that have passed without too much rancour are brief. A few pages are enough for everyone to state their position. There’s no need to try convince others or go into convoluted arguments about some infinitesimally fine point.

Being a veteran participant of controversial topics here, it took me a long time to learn how to contribute in a way which is constructive rather than reactive. I have definitely become better at stating my opinion and the way I address other members responses. It’s not easy but like any challenge can only improve with practice.


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> I don't think so. His music wasn't disturbing enough. There was no upheaval in art like what took place during the beginning of the 20th century, nor did he live through the horrors of the first world war. I do not see it possible to have actual 20th-century experiences in the 19th. Nor do I believe that he ventured into the deeply disturbed or troubled aspects of the mind like Schoenberg or Freud. The 20th century composers were willing to deal with the abnormal and that's what a great number of people don't like about it, including myself at times. But it was needed or it wouldn't have happened. Schoenberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, and others, we're all interested and willing to venture into the dark side of life with a certain raw directness of approach. They were curious and plummeted their curiosity.


I find this notion that 20th century art deserves some sort of award for confronting the "dark side" of life to be both a conceit and a cliche, and not fully supported by the evidence. I'd argue that as far as radical "modernity" is concerned, the third act of _Tristan und Isolde,_ depicting Tristan's agonized self-analysis in music of vertiginous chromaticism, and virtually the whole of _Parsifal_, the psychological compexity of which virtually defies description, opened up a realm of musical expression more radical and disturbing than virtually anything by Schoenberg or his successors (and, in fact, directly ancestral to them). Berg certainly depicted Wozzeck's madness brilliantly, but that is arguably a simpler assignment than the multiple personalities, good/evil polarity, hysterical volatility, and desperate longing for salvation we see in Wagner's Kundry - depicted, again, in chromatic harmony that bends and stretches tonality with unprecedented resourcefulness and iron control.

Granted, none of Wagner's contemporaries could equal him in psycholgical penetration, and until the 20th century no one really tried to or, possibly, wanted to. Like the music of every era, 20th-century music did explore new expressive territory. But if you find _Pierrot Lunaire_ or _Lulu_ more "disturbing" than the soul-sick, self-lacerating agonies of Amfortas, or the boy Parsifal's collapse into near-infantilism in the arms of a scarlet-mouthed seductress pretending to be his dead mother reincarnated, we're hearing music quite differently. Whatever was gained by the unmooring of harmony from tonality, something was lost as well, and if Berg was skilled in the art of dancing on tonality's edges - the boundary, as it were, between the "normal" and the "abnormal" - for maximum expressive poignancy, it was Wagner, pushing the limits, who opened the door to the unconscious and showed himself completely at home with what he found there. I don't think anyone after him equaled his expressive range or depth.


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## BabyGiraffe

Luchesi said:


> You're talking about pianists who don't tune their own pianos. I've experimented with all the ideas from history.
> 
> "simply doesn't exist"? You're making it sound mysterious.


Of course, it doesn't exist. I don't know with all ideas you have experimented, but you don't sound like you understand much about tuning systems. The smaller the equal temperament system, the more commas (small interval differences) are tempered. I've messed with some historical tunings and most of them can be approximated with selections from a way-way bigger (like 2000 steps per octave, but in practice even 31 to 55 steps can be reasonably close) equal system.
If you temper the differences between major and minor thirds in just intonation and the syntonic comma (which is usually tempered in all western music, but not in some Indian or Arabic music), you will get the 7 equal steps "chromatic gamut" (used in Thai music and in ancient times by Chinese too) instead of the white keys diatonic. The same way 12 ET can be detempered in more accurate system from harmonic standpoint.
For the music around Beethoven's time 12 note selection from 31 (I think that Handel was known to have such organ) or 43 ET sounds authentic enough. It will have some septimal intervals that were considered out of tune (used usually in augmented sixth chords back then). The whole "chromatic" scale of 31 is good not only for Western European, but for African (and blues) and even Arabic music. Any meantone system will have fifth flatter than the perfect 3/2 (which is around 702 cents), because the "wolf fifth" D-A in just intonation will become "perfect interval". In 19 it's very flats - like 694 c., but it's the optimal tuning for minor thirds, because they are pure there. You won't find anything new as intervals for Western music in systems biggers than 19 - while 31 has better fifths and major thirds, the augmented and diminished fifths become closer to septimal than 5-limit intervals, minor thirds become less good etc.

Schoenberg and friends ignored the acoustic side of music -what sounds good, also the orchestra plays in adaptive tuning, retuning the material, so the dream of 12 equal is more correctly implemented in electronic midi keyboards...


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## Jacck

Torkelburger said:


> I don't think what Pollock did was totally random, and I certainly know that the atonal compositions of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern were not random. There is a chapter in Reginald Smith's book _Serial Composition_ dedicated to extensive analysis of Schoenberg and Webern's atonal works, including their methods which were very different from each other and neither of them were "random". If you can't tell the difference between a child fiddling with a violin and the highly-acclaimed atonal works of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Carter, etc. then the fault is completely yours..


I was not speaking about these. I quite respect Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and I know that there music had structure, or even melody. I was speaking about the more modern avantgarde composers who took the deconstruction of music even a step further from Schoenberg and their music is hardly distinguishable from random noise.



> But why must representational art necessarily be superior to non-representational (abstract) art? Just because it attempts to "depict" something? I don't follow that. That implies that any abstraction at all that does not contribute to the "serious" attempt of "depiction" is inferior. Or in other words, we consider the greatest artist in the world whoever is the one who can paint the most realistic-looking tree, or the most photographic-quality piece of fruit, because they have "depicted" it the best. I find that very shallow and unrewarding artistically--leaves no room for expressing the world around you or within you through an artistic lens. And if that were the case, then artists like van Gogh, Matisse, Cezanne and a whole bunch of others we hold in high regard would be seen as inferior. But that is not so. What about what one finds pleasing to the eye? And what does it matter how much skill is involved in its creation? Again, if the final result is appealing to the eye or ear of the consumer, what does it matter? (There is, in fact, much skill needed to compose modern atonal music).We enjoy abstractions each and every day, without realizing it. Most everyone on the planet has a favorite color. That is abstract. We don't know why or how. What's wrong with putting colors that please you on a canvas in an abstract way? And doesn't most everyone enjoy certain patterned clothing in their wardrobe? Enjoying the patterns on a shirt or blouse is another example of an abstraction. Why not enjoy patterns or designs of various abstractions arranged on a canvas? Can't the colors and patterns express a mood, good or bad and can't the result be pleasing to the eye? Isn't that what we care about the most? It's not inferior to me if the final result is pleasing to my tastes..


https://hyperallergic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Screen-Shot-2018-03-23-at-11.31.39-AM.png
this is abstract art (Pollock). You might enjoy it and be willing to pay a lot of money for it. But from my perspective, it is junk suitable for being burned, because I can see neither any depth nor any serious skill required to produce it. A I have similar feelings about a lot of atonal music. It does not represent anything.


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## Jacck

why is modern art so bad?
1) you can either blame the public for not being able to appreciate it
2) you can blame the artists for producing crap
I fall mostly into the second category


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## Art Rock

Jacck said:


> why is modern art so bad?
> 1) you can either blame the public for not being able to appreciate it
> 2) you can blame the artists for producing crap
> I fall mostly into the second category


You forget:
3) Modern art is not bad at all.

We get it, you don't like modern art (including music). A perfectly valid preference. No need to repeat that over and over again in the same thread. Lots of others do like it though. Your insistence that there is something inherently wrong with it, in addition to your own opinion, is tiring, and quite frankly insulting to those who do like it.


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## Jacck

Art Rock said:


> You forget:
> 3) Modern art is not bad at all.
> 
> We get it, you don't like modern art (including music). A perfectly valid preference. No need to repeat that over and over again in the same thread. Lots of others do like it though. Your insistence that there is something inherently wrong with it, in addition to your own opinion, is tiring, and quite frankly insulting to those who do like it.


if people want to buy Pollock and pretend how amazing the emperor's new clothes are, or listen to the musical equivalents of Pollock's paintings, it is their full right to do so. But so is my right to think that the people have a really bad taste.


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## Art Rock

You can think all you want. That does not mean you're right.


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> if people want to buy Pollock and pretend how amazing the emperor's new clothes are, or listen to the musical equivalents of Pollock's paintings, it is their full right to do so. But so is my right to think that the people have a really bad taste.


It's not a matter of "rights" at all. You no more have "rights" to disdain the tastes of others than you have to think Beethoven is the greatest composer who ever lived, or that racism is acceptable, or that Václav Havel was an a***hole.

What is important is not what you have a right to say, but the manner in which you express your opinions among people whose opinions differ from yours. That's about civility and sensibility.


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## BabyGiraffe

Art Rock said:


> You can think all you want. That does not mean you're right.


The same statement is valid for modernist lovers.

I personally find 12note and serial composers for insanely overrated and blame them for the slow death of the classical concert hall music...


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## Guest

BabyGiraffe said:


> The same statement is valid for modernist lovers.
> 
> I personally find 12note and serial composers for insanely overrated and blame them for the slow death of the classical concert hall music...


But, thus far, you're not insisting that what you "personally find" is also objectively true.


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## Enthusiast

Jacck said:


> if people want to buy Pollock and *pretend how amazing the emperor's new clothes are, or listen to the musical equivalents of Pollock's paintings*, it is their full right to do so. But so is my right to think that the people have a really bad taste.


You obviously got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning, Jacck. The insult of half the forum's members - to say nothing of many of our top performers and critics - that was implied in your earlier posts has finally been spoken openly! But, worse than that, you posted that awful ignorant clip "why is modern art so bad?" It ought to be banned from the forum as it crops up too often. You should be embarrassed posting it! My advice to you is to listen to the music you enjoy and explore the music you don't yet enjoy but feel you might do. Enjoy life and don't worry too much about what the rest of us are listening to or what art we like. I have my own taste and "detection-of-great-aesthetic-experience mechanism" - I know viscerally and emotionally and intellectually what art excites me and makes me feel something unimaginable and indescribable - just as you may do. And, hey, right now what does it for me is sometimes different to what does it for you. I was once as baffled as you by much of what I now _*know *_to be the best contemporary art. But I was different in one respect - I never felt a need to dismiss it or put it down and I was just happy to accept that it wasn't for me.

This need to put down the modern - not just to say I don't like it or get it or even believe it - is something I don't understand. Is it insecurity? That would also explain the apparent arrogance of some contemporary art haters, the "my view is the only sensible/honest view" tendency.


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## BabyGiraffe

I do not insist for any objective truth...
Still, I think that even perfectly tonal with simple harmonies, but with complex (polyphonic or timral) textures, music cannot become popular at any point in history among casual public.
Insisting that atonal or dissonant is the future is a joke. It won't happen. Trying to brainwash human nervous system does not work.
(I personally think that late Renaissance modernism - Gesualdo or Vicentino - along with post-Wagnerian romanticism, but in historical macro-tonal meantone musical systems bigger than 12 notes are the future of Western art music...)


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## Enthusiast

BabyGiraffe said:


> Insisting that atonal or dissonant is the future is a joke. It won't happen. Trying to brainwash human nervous system does not work.


I don't know what the future holds but I do know that an awful lot of the best music of the last 100 has been "atonal or dissonant". Some of it has been embraced by the CM loving public (a very small subset of "music lovers") and it seems likely to me that a lot more of it will be. But, as I say, I do not know the future. I wonder what music people will go for after the climate apocalypse (or the nuclear one or the zombie one)? It always amazes me that an audience of POWs and their captors enjoyed the first performance of The Quartet for the End of Time - it only needed for Messiaen to be among them!


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## Guest

BabyGiraffe said:


> Insisting that atonal or dissonant is the future is a joke. It won't happen.


Has someone been insisting so? I participated in this thread some time ago, I think, and am not about to trawl through the preceding 189 pages to find out.


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## Kjetil Heggelund

Wowie! There is no point...over 30 years of listening to modern music for nothing...Glad I found some black metal to listen to


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## BabyGiraffe

MacLeod said:


> Has someone been insisting so? I participated in this thread some time ago, I think, and am not about to trawl through the preceding 189 pages to find out.


"Emancipation of dissonance" is the metanarrative of Schoenberg and his pupils trying to justify their music.

The timbres used in Indonesian traditional music are based on more complex vibrational models than sine waves and this is reflected in their scales and tunings. So we can get "phase locked" discordant "consonant" chords that can work in musical context, but not with HARMONIC timbres like human voices and strings. (Fun fact: the interval pattern of the Indonesian seven note scale is the same as major scale, but large and small step sizes are switched; this is known in geometry as duality. So, 9 ET is a nice equal tuning for it.)

Of course, then playing chords with tritones with instruments (like strings) that clash with them won't work, but it can work with metallic timbre that have intervals close to tritone as one of the first partials in their "in-harmonic" series of vibration.

Playing close note chord clusters in any intonation or tuning system does not work even with inharmonic timbres, so it is a technique that creates mood good only for "scary or evil" music - the opposite of what much of the "classical humanistic ideas" are about... (I guess that's why modernism is so popular in horror movies and they are mostly about superstition, death and ignorance.)


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## Bwv 1080

DaveM said:


> Do you have a source for those quotes. I'm familiar with Ursula Oppens. I don't think she's ever played Ferneyhough.


Sorry if I was not clear, was tying Oppens to Carter and Arditti to Ferneyhough as examples. Arditti has of course played and recorded Carter but am not aware of Oppens playing Ferneyhough


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## Enthusiast

BabyGiraffe said:


> ..........it is a technique that creates mood good only for "scary or evil" music - the opposite of what much of the "classical humanistic ideas" are about... (I guess that's why modernism is so popular in horror movies and they are mostly about superstition, death and ignorance.)


I don't want to pick on you but what is this thing about horror movies that seems to get into every "I hate atonal/modern music" post these days? Its not a genre I watch but I will accept the observation that the music in such films is often atonal/modern. What I don't get is what that is taken to mean. Is it something to do with the argument I used to hear a lot for not liking any CM - "it just sounds like film music" - or is there another point aside from atonality being useful for accompanying or underlining discomfort? "That is all its good for", I guess, is the implication but, of course, if stated plainly it will immediately get responses of putting forward other qualities that can be found in what is a very wide and varied field.


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## millionrainbows

Originally Posted by *millionrainbows* 
_There will always be a disconnect in serial music, between what we hear, and what process was used to produce it. This is because atonal music is not based on harmonic principles. Harmonic principles are based on audible phenomena; serial principles are not. I don't care, because both processes still produce audible results._



Baron Scarpia said:


> I find this view demonstrably false. You are conflating two things which are different.
> 
> You seem to be referring to the overtone series, which certainly determines why some intervals are more consonants than others.


No, I'm referring to "harmonic models" which are 'models' of the harmonic series of overtones. This simply means taking an octave and dividing it into the steps of a scale (any scale), and then stating each step as a ratio to "one" (the tonic, which starts and ends the scale). The ratios thus created automatically form a succession of degrees of dissonance. For example, 1:1 (unison), 1:2 (octave), 2:3 (fifth), 3:4 (fourth), 4:5 (major third), etc. for any scale.

As far as the "hidden" processes in serial music, on p. 43 of Griffiths' book we read:

_...the new 'through-organized' music demanded a kind of 'meditative' listening: "One stays in the music...one needs nothing before or after in order to perceive the individual now (the individual sound)." Here is confirmation of what was said...that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it.

For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena.
_


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## Phil loves classical

Enthusiast said:


> I don't want to pick on you but what is this thing about horror movies that seems to get into every "I hate atonal/modern music" post these days? Its not a genre I watch but I will accept the observation that the music in such films is often atonal/modern. What I don't get is what that is taken to mean. Is it something to do with the argument I used to hear a lot for not liking any CM - "it just sounds like film music" - or is there another point aside from atonality being useful for accompanying or underlining discomfort? "That is all its good for", I guess, is the implication but, of course, if stated plainly it will immediately get responses of putting forward other qualities that can be found in what is a very wide and varied field.


Atonal music can't sound sad, romantic, euphoric, dancey to most people. It can convey uncertainty, ominous, and occasionally playful or funny. I don't think it's the right approach for atonal fans to say it can convey all of these emotions. Music doesn't need to convey clear emotions to be interesting.

Question: Berg's violin concerto is not necessarily atonal (it is enough for me), but I don't hear it being sad, without a lot of gestures by performers. Without knowing the inspiration to the piece, how many people would actually feel sadness in the music? How much of it is autosuggestion?


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## dimitriarnauts

Hello Mr 'Sofronitsky'

A very interesting topic and discussion... I'd like to react on your particular point: which emotions/concepts can be expressed best through tonality, and which ones better through atonality?

As a composer myself, I have the same overall feeling with strictly atonal music as you as a keen listener: where have joy, pride, drive, honor, humility, hope, goodness, tenderness, melancholy, jealousy and anger, justice, temperance, faith, enthusiasm, adoration all gone? Those sentiments, emotions and feelings are largely absent in the 'contemporary common practice', perhaps because in the western civilization also they are going through a deep 'relevance crisis'.

But I do see also the point of 'emiellucifuge': some kind of intellectual consideration or revelations can be as well very well expressed, or rather 'described' then, through the more chaotic sounds of atonality: the crawling of insects, natural forces and struggles, the mysteries of the stars and galaxies..

Could this be because we are living (or dying?) in the quite unforgiving and chaotic paradigm of evolutionary/competitive/relativistic/stochastic science - as opposed to the providential/meaningful/loving/caring/ethical/teleologic creationist paradigm… (sorry for all those adjectives)?

As for me personally, I've chosen to further explore the delights of beauty through mostly tonal ways… I gladly invite you to listen to and hopefully enjoy some of my music on www.dimitriarnauts.com.

Do not hesitate to send me some feedback about it!


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## millionrainbows

dimitriarnauts said:


> Hello Mr 'Sofronitsky'
> 
> A very interesting topic and discussion... I'd like to react on your particular point: which emotions/concepts can be expressed best through tonality, and which ones better through atonality?


You and 'Phil loves classical' are talking about emotions as if they objectively exist in the music itself. This belies an awful lot of assumptions on your part, and is dismissive to those listeners who do get something out of atonal and serial music. It also reveals your worldview/paradigm of "art" which is very conservative; as your statement reveals: 
_
Could this be because we are living (or dying?) in the quite unforgiving and chaotic paradigm of evolutionary/competitive/relativistic/stochastic science - as opposed to the providential/meaningful/loving/caring/ethical/teleologic creationist paradigm…__where have joy, pride, drive, honor, humility, hope, goodness, tenderness, melancholy, jealousy and anger, justice, temperance, faith, enthusiasm, adoration all gone? Those sentiments, emotions and feelings are largely absent in the 'contemporary common practice', perhaps because in the western civilization also they are going through a deep 'relevance crisis'. _

Creationism? Really? It seems that you see an interest in the "human" qualities of "art" as being closely connected to conservative religion and metaphysical subjects. I don't think this is true.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> You and 'Phil loves classical' are talking about emotions as if they objectively exist in the music itself. This belies an awful lot of assumptions on your part, and is dismissive to those listeners who do get something out of atonal and serial music.


He is not assuming that emotions are "in" music, merely that music can express them. He begins by asking, "which emotions/concepts can be expressed best through tonality, and which ones better through atonality?" It's a reasonable question, completely relevant to the OP's question, and he gives an answer with which we're free to agree or disagree. He doesn't "dismiss" people who enjoy atonal music, and the possibility that he believes in creationism is no reason to dismiss him.


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## Luchesi

God intentionally created this world like this when He was 13.8 billion years younger.


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## eugeneonagain

I don't think music actually 'expresses' any emotions. It is more like a code which fires off _our_ emotional states and that the layers of response get thicker as we then associate certain musical devices with emotions we have felt, then reason backwards to the assumption that the emotion is 'contained' within the music.


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## eugeneonagain

Luchesi said:


> God intentionally created this world like this when He was 13.8 billion years younger.


And had fewer wrinkles and no lumbago. 13.8 billion years later, he can no longer be ***** and lives a life of regret and eternal heavy drinking.


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## BachIsBest

Phil loves classical said:


> Atonal music can't sound sad, romantic, euphoric, dancey to most people. It can convey uncertainty, ominous, and occasionally playful or funny. I don't think it's the right approach for atonal fans to say it can convey all of these emotions. Music doesn't need to convey clear emotions to be interesting.
> 
> Question: Berg's violin concerto is not necessarily atonal (it is enough for me), but I don't hear it being sad, without a lot of gestures by performers. Without knowing the inspiration to the piece, how many people would actually feel sadness in the music? How much of it is autosuggestion?


I remember finding it sad before hearing the back story. However, I believe I had read somewhere that it was quite an 'emotional' piece before I heard it.


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## Eva Yojimbo

eugeneonagain said:


> I don't think music actually 'expresses' any emotions. It is more like a code which fires off _our_ emotional states and that the layers of response get thicker as we then associate certain musical devices with emotions we have felt, then reason backwards to the assumption that the emotion is 'contained' within the music.


I'm not sure how what you're describing meaningfully differs from music expressing those emotions. One doesn't have to believe emotion is contained in the music to express it. The meaning of "tree" is not contained in the graphemes used in the word, but when we say that the word expressed the concept we're referring to how communally agreed upon definitions allow us to extract the meaning from the use of the word. Music's a bit different in that I think the emotions comes more through abstract metaphor-like associations, but once we have those associations it seems possible to use music to express them similarly (though not the same) to how we use language.

The problem most seem to have with atonality is that they have difficulty forging such associations between the music and the ways in which we experience mental and physical life; or what associations we do find seem rather limited in their scope. Perhaps some do not have this trouble, or perhaps even find the lack of obvious associations appealing as it allows a freer, less specific, experience. I enjoy many atonal compositions myself, but it's rarely because I think they express specific emotions; though I'd have difficulty in explaining what, exactly, it is in them I find appealing.


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## eugeneonagain

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I'm not sure how what you're describing meaningfully differs from music expressing those emotions.
> One doesn't have to believe emotion is contained in the music to express it. The meaning of "tree" is not contained in the graphemes used in the word, but when we say that the word expressed the concept we're referring to how communally agreed upon definitions allow us to extract the meaning from the use of the word.


It's clearly diametrically opposed to that idea. The key is in the word 'expressing'. You can express admiration for something, say a beautiful vase, but that doesn't mean the admiration is _in_ the vase. What it is, its qualities, elicit an emotion in you which you express. The fact that some will express something different is a clue.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> Music's a bit different in that *I think the emotions comes more through abstract metaphor-like associations, but once we have those associations it seems possible to use music to express them similarly* (though not the same) to how we use language.


That's basically what I 'expressed' in what I wrote.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> The problem most seem to have with atonality is that they have difficulty forging such associations between the music and the ways in which we experience mental and physical life; or what associations we do find seem rather limited in their scope. Perhaps some do not have this trouble, or perhaps even find the lack of obvious associations appealing as it allows a freer, less specific, experience. I enjoy many atonal compositions myself, but it's rarely because I think they express specific emotions; though I'd have difficulty in explaining what, exactly, it is in them I find appealing.


I don't like the word 'atonal' because it doesn't properly represent the larger portion of serial and poly-stylistic approaches that aren't 'a-tonal'. 
Unfortunately it seems to me that many people who don't like 'atonal' music, don't like it simply because it doesn't tally with an approach that has been deeply ingrained into cultural ideas about music. Once one decides that music _is_ largely consonant, interspersed with some dissonances from which you must resolve; that it consists of a certain sort of melody; that it _must always_ elicit certain feelings, one will be disappointed with 'atonal' music.


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## Eva Yojimbo

eugeneonagain said:


> It's clearly diametrically opposed to that idea. The key is in the word 'expressing'. You can express admiration for something, say a beautiful vase, but that doesn't mean the admiration is _in_ the vase. What it is, its qualities, elicit an emotion in you which you express. The fact that some will express something different is a clue.


Yes, the vase elicits the emotions, but the vase was created by a human who has a similar psychological makeup as my own, so they could've easily made the vase to express something via that vase. I don't think anyone says a sunset expresses beauty; rather we save that for things created by other humans. Saying "music expresses sadness" is just a short-hand for saying "the composer is expressing sadness using this music." Perhaps some might even be saying that the music elicits such sadness that they think any uses of it SHOULD be intended to express sadness.



eugeneonagain said:


> I don't like the word 'atonal' because it doesn't properly represent the larger portion of serial and poly-stylistic approaches that aren't 'a-tonal'.
> Unfortunately it seems to me that many people who don't like 'atonal' music, don't like it simply because it doesn't tally with an approach that has been deeply ingrained into cultural ideas about music. Once one decides that music _is_ largely consonant, interspersed with some dissonances from which you must resolve; that it consists of a certain sort of melody; that it _must always_ elicit certain feelings, one will be disappointed with 'atonal' music.


This is the old "nature" VS "nurture" debate. I don't know how much preferences for tonality are shaped by culture VS by our natural inclinations, but I'm sure there's probably been studies done on infants pertaining to the matter. Not that it would matter much, since I don't subscribe to the appeal to nature fallacy (many things that are natural to us aren't good; see racism) anyway and realize many of life's greatest pleasures are acquired tastes, which are often acquired in opposition to our natural inclinations.


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## eugeneonagain

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Yes, the vase elicits the emotions, but the vase was created by a human who has a similar psychological makeup as my own, so they could've easily made the vase to express something via that vase. I don't think anyone says a sunset expresses beauty; rather we save that for things created by other humans. Saying "music expresses sadness" is just a short-hand for saying "the composer is expressing sadness using this music." Perhaps some might even be saying that the music elicits such sadness that they think any uses of it SHOULD be intended to express sadness.


This all relies on a shared (and accepted) view of what is supposed to represent what. I've heard plenty of music that is supposed to be sad or happy or moving and didn't think it was particularly anything like. Sometimes it has been little more than expressing 'sadness' by pulling a sad face and miming rubbing your eyes. Cheap code.

It doesn't matter if someone made a vase with an intention of it being 'beautiful' or 'modern' or representing social progress or whatever because tastes will differ and interpretations. It's a basic notion of art. Art is slathered in social and cultural residue and codes, but folk act as if they have some sort of pure, unadulterated fundamental connection when they listen.



Eva Yojimbo said:


> This is the old "nature" VS "nurture" debate. I don't know how much preferences for tonality are shaped by culture VS by our natural inclinations, but I'm sure there's probably been studies done on infants pertaining to the matter. Not that it would matter much, since I don't subscribe to the appeal to nature fallacy (many things that are natural to us aren't good; see racism) anyway and realize many of life's greatest pleasures are acquired tastes, which are often acquired in opposition to our natural inclinations.


Yes that discussion crops up here all the time. Woodduck has some strong and persuasive views on it (as originating as part of our nature). I accept that at a basic level, but when we codify our culture (interpret our behaviours and rationalise them) in certain ways then engage in its repetition, anything else always appears unorthodox.


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## Mandryka

This is Maurice Kagel's Osten .

I read (Bjorne Heile, "Collage versus Compositional Control" in Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, _Postmodern Music, Postmodern Thought_ (Routledge 2002))



> The melodic line, as folk music as it may sound, is thoroughly atonal, and the root progression of the minor chords is at times serially based.


Can someone verify?


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## Larkenfield

Mandryka said:


> This is Maurice Kagel's Osten .
> 
> I read (Bjorne Heile, "Collage versus Compositional Control" in Judy Lochhead and Joseph Auner, _Postmodern Music, Postmodern Thought_ (Routledge 2002))
> 
> Can someone verify?


Delightful work. One man's opinion: No. It's not a work of atonality though there may be some playful elements of it. Most of it has a clearly defined bass line that gives the sense of being in a key that could be easily and readily determined, though there is more than one key involved and there are other melodic lines and influences that play with keys and tonality... Not pure atonality and neither are most of the harmonies though tonality is being stretched with an element of play, unpredictability, or combined in delightful and interesting ways. I never had the sense that he was interested in anything related to pure abstract atonality because the bass lines continue to suggest certain keys and were an important foundation in the work. Kagel wrote a great deal for the theater and I believe that he wanted his music to reflect his own individuality in a more accessible way. The more I hear Osten the more I like it. It's so skillfully done.

He did something similar here that I also do not consider a work of atonality in the usual abstract sense of the word, though he sometimes suggests that the music is in an unusual combination of elements and in more than one key at a time, perhaps to the point where the sense of key is almost completely dissolved or ambiguous... Music that's perfect for the Theater of the Absurd:






But here's something different that might be described as related to the atonal universe, far more abstract and indeterminate in key centers:






I think one has to be careful of pigeonholing a composer as unique as Kagel and assigning him a strict label.


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## Mandryka

Thanks, Larkenfield.

-:-:+£)#(£(


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## millionrainbows

I would not describe Kagel's "Music for Renaissance Instruments" as atonal either, since it apparently has nothing to do with key areas, harmonic relations, or pitch, but simply sound and texture. 
In the other pieces, if Kagel uses a melody line which is based on a 12-note series, it could be placed in a harmonic context that is tonal, and become "chromatic." Also, if a 12-note series is used to denote root movement, this again is a "harmonic" use of a series, and is not based on 12-tone or atonal principles, but is, again, simply chromatic.

I think Bjorne Heile is demonstrating the post-modern use of 12-note sets as harmonic entities, juxtaposing two different systems.


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## EdwardBast

dimitriarnauts said:


> Hello Mr 'Sofronitsky'
> 
> A very interesting topic and discussion... I'd like to react on your particular point: which emotions/concepts can be expressed best through tonality, and which ones better through atonality?
> 
> As a composer myself, I have the same overall feeling with strictly atonal music as you as a keen listener: where have *joy, pride, drive, honor, humility, hope, goodness, tenderness, melancholy, jealousy and anger, justice, temperance, faith, enthusiasm, adoration* all gone? *Those sentiments, emotions and feelings are largely absent in the 'contemporary common practice'*, perhaps because in the western civilization also they are going through a deep 'relevance crisis'.
> 
> But I do see also the point of 'emiellucifuge': some kind of intellectual consideration or revelations can be as well very well expressed, or rather 'described' then, through the more chaotic sounds of atonality: the crawling of insects, natural forces and struggles, the mysteries of the stars and galaxies..
> 
> Could this be because we are living (or dying?) in the quite unforgiving and chaotic paradigm of evolutionary/competitive/relativistic/stochastic science - as opposed to the providential/meaningful/loving/caring/ethical/teleologic creationist paradigm… (sorry for all those adjectives)?
> 
> As for me personally, I've chosen to further explore the delights of beauty through mostly tonal ways… I gladly invite you to listen to and hopefully enjoy some of my music on www.dimitriarnauts.com.
> 
> Do not hesitate to send me some feedback about it!


Most of the "emotions" you've listed are largely absent from tonal music as well, and some aren't emotions at all. Pride? - Maybe pomp (with or without circumstance) but how would it express pride? Honor? No. Humility? No. Jealousy? No. Justice? Seriously? Temperance? Nope. Faith? Not a chance. Adoration? No way. None of these emotions can be expressed by music without the adjunct of words, because they are defined by complex intellectual content that instrumental sounds can't convey. Why would one expect atonal music to do what tonal music can't?

More important, why assume that music is always about conveying emotion?



eugeneonagain said:


> I don't think music actually 'expresses' any emotions. It is more like a code which fires off _our_ emotional states and that the layers of response get thicker as we then associate certain musical devices with emotions we have felt, then reason backwards to the assumption that the emotion is 'contained' within the music.


A number of writers on musical aesthetics believe music both expresses emotions _and_ conveys them indirectly by convention through learned codes. Some believe it expresses emotion in the same ways humans do. Music that droops, sighs, sinks, and plods sounds sad. Buoyant music that leaps and prances sounds happy.


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## Mandryka

Re Kagel, I think the whole thing is well worth listening to here, better than the bit I posted before






It's the voices and sections in different styles which makes it a candidate for post-modernity, serial, popular, stereotype regional styles etc. I'm not sure this comes across best in Osten, but it is there elsewhere in the cycle.

The concept makes me think of this thing that George Rochberg said in "No Center" (1969) (reprinted in William Bolcom (ed) _Aesthetics of Survival_ (Michigan 1984))



> I stand in a circle of time, not a line. 360 degrees of past, present and future. All around me. I can look in any direction I want. Bella Vista.


I haven't had time to listen to the other videos Larkenfield posted yet.


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## millionrainbows

A quote by co-authors George Perle and Paul Lansky:

_"Perhaps the most important influence of Schoenberg's method is not the 12-note idea itself, but along with it the individual concepts of permutation, inversional symmetry, invariance under transformation, etc.....Each of these ideas by itself, or in conjunction with many others, is focused upon with varying degrees...by...Bartók, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse, etc...In this sense the development of the serial idea may be viewed not as a radical break with the past but as an especially brilliant coordination of musical ideas which had developed in the course of recent history. The symmetrical divisions of the octave so often found in Liszt and Wagner, for example, are not momentary abberations in tonal music which led to its ultimate destruction, but, rather, important musical ideas which, in defying integration into a given concept of a musical language, challenged the boundaries of that language."_


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## Eva Yojimbo

eugeneonagain said:


> This all relies on a shared (and accepted) view of what is supposed to represent what. I've heard plenty of music that is supposed to be sad or happy or moving and didn't think it was particularly anything like. Sometimes it has been little more than expressing 'sadness' by pulling a sad face and miming rubbing your eyes. Cheap code.
> 
> It doesn't matter if someone made a vase with an intention of it being 'beautiful' or 'modern' or representing social progress or whatever because tastes will differ and interpretations. It's a basic notion of art. Art is slathered in social and cultural residue and codes, but folk act as if they have some sort of pure, unadulterated fundamental connection when they listen.


Well, yes, I'm not denying it relies on a shared/accepted code as well, but the code isn't entirely arbitrary, and we do seem to share pretty broad and general swaths of it. I defy you to find anyone who thinks the faster movements of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik are sad. Yes, interpretations can differ on details, and a great many works work in ambiguous grey areas. Art, in general, seems to mix the communally shared codes of language and semiotics, but eschews their precision in order to create something closer to ontological experience. That middle-ground allows artists to imply, and us to infer, meanings to a certain extent, but also to experience it as just an experience.



eugeneonagain said:


> Yes that discussion crops up here all the time. Woodduck has some strong and persuasive views on it (as originating as part of our nature). I accept that at a basic level, but when we codify our culture (interpret our behaviours and rationalise them) in certain ways then engage in its repetition, anything else always appears unorthodox.


I'm not denying this either. Culture can absolutely reinforce aspects of our nature to such a degree that anything outside it appears, perhaps, more unnatural than it would be if we encountered it without that conditioning.


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## Steerpike

Whilst I have posted in this thread previously, I haven't just ploughed through the nearly 3,000 posts preceding this one, so I apologise if I'm just making a point that has been made already.

The question posed in the title, "What is the point of atonal music?", seems odd. It suggests that the person posing it thinks atonal music has to serve a purpose that is different from tonal music. The questions, surely, should be what is the point of music generally, and what is the point of a particular piece of music specifically. I see no reason why the answers to such questions would vary according to the degree of tonality in the music.


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## Luchesi

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Well, yes, I'm not denying it relies on a shared/accepted code as well, but the code isn't entirely arbitrary, and we do seem to share pretty broad and general swaths of it. I defy you to find anyone who thinks the faster movements of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik are sad. Yes, interpretations can differ on details, and a great many works work in ambiguous grey areas. Art, in general, seems to mix the communally shared codes of language and semiotics, but eschews their precision in order to create something closer to ontological experience. That middle-ground allows artists to imply, and us to infer, meanings to a certain extent, but also to experience it as just an experience.
> 
> I'm not denying this either. Culture can absolutely reinforce aspects of our nature to such a degree that anything outside it appears, perhaps, more unnatural than it would be if we encountered it without that conditioning.


When I was young I used to keep lists of the top 10 on the radio. ..Reams of paper over the years. I was trying to crack the formula. I was trying to figure out what they were doing in the scores to garner the fame and the money. Not that I wanted to be famous, that wasn't my outlook.

I went into science, more serious, but I remain fascinated by what's in the popular appeal, as we might say. Anthropologists are interested in this appeal, this attractiveness. What is it? Where does it come from? It seems to be a primal part of the maturation process. Linked with feelings of a sexual outlook, peer approval, with a future life of purposeful belonging.


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## Larkenfield

*Z*



millionrainbows said:


> A quote by co-authors George Perle and Paul Lansky:
> 
> _"Perhaps the most important influence of Schoenberg's method is not the 12-note idea itself, but along with it the individual concepts of permutation, inversional symmetry, invariance under transformation, etc.....Each of these ideas by itself, or in conjunction with many others, is focused upon with varying degrees...by...Bartók, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Varèse, etc...In this sense the development of the serial idea may be viewed not as a radical break with the past but as an especially brilliant coordination of musical ideas which had developed in the course of recent history. The symmetrical divisions of the octave so often found in Liszt and Wagner, for example, are not momentary abberations in tonal music which led to its ultimate destruction, but, rather, important musical ideas which, in defying integration into a given concept of a musical language, challenged the boundaries of that language."_[/QUOTE
> 
> Interesting and useful to a point. But I think the authors have the cart before the horse and they are placing technique first and its variations without saying enough about what motivated them in the first place-the _why_. What motivated these changes was the need for expanded self-expression. It was that that came first rather than the search for new techniques. The technique was the result of a need for a new vocabulary that could express such things as unconscious drives and emotions. There was nothing previously that could really do that and the language of atonality could do that and that's what led to these experimental techniques in the freeing up of the individual notes and tonality. Interesting from the music theory standpoint, but to me, there's nothing more boring than technical explanations that are disconnected with the meaning behind them and what they express. Emotionally and psychologically the 20th century was very different from the 19th and a new language was needed more than just technical developments and explanations that seem to stand in a vacuum. These developments in theory and techniques can only be understood by experiencing their unpredictability and ambiguity in the music and the hearing of them in the music, and there are often unusual feelings and sensations connected with the expression of this new vocabulary, and that's what upset a lot of people and is still upsetting a lot of people because they do not want to experience these emotions or they are uncomfortable experiencing these emotions that are often connected with the expression of the unconscious, the undefined, the abstract, the shadow or submerged side of the personality that we all have, and to bring it to light in a positive and constructive way, or there would be no reason to explore it through the arts and music.


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