# Just Another Atonality Thread



## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

For the past few days I have been on a Xenakis kick, and one of the highlights was discovering his piece for Saxophone Quartet. I found it very fascinating, with stunning counterpoint. I decided to share it with my friend (he dislikes most avante-garde music, mind you, but he _is_ a musician). Not only was he repulsed by the music itself, but he was repulsed by the idea that I would enjoy it, and was almost angry with me for sharing it with him  . He made me feel guilty for appreciating it. Would you care to listen to the piece and either affirm or disband this guilt of mine? Because I am beginning to wonder if atonal music truly _is_ disgusting, and its supporters have simply been desensitized to its naturally unpleasant harmonies. People in my church have even gone so far as to condemn such music for religious/moral reasons. What do you think?


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## jani (Jun 15, 2012)

Atonality is good on small doses
But i have to say that the part around 6:22-7:22 wasn't pleasant at all.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> People in my church have even gone so far as to condemn such music for religious/moral reasons. What do you think?


Many churches also condemned Elvis Presley! The first time he appeared on the Ed Sulivan show, he was shown singing only from the waist up. But this is the first time I've heard of Xenakis as a threat to Christian values or public morality! :lol:


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> For the past few days I have been on a Xenakis kick, and one of the highlights was discovering his piece for Saxophone Quartet. I found it very fascinating, with stunning counterpoint. I decided to share it with my friend (he dislikes most avante-garde music, mind you, but he _is_ a musician). Not only was he repulsed by the music itself, but he was repulsed by the idea that I would enjoy it, and was almost angry with me for sharing it with him  . He made me feel guilty for appreciating it. Would you care to listen to the piece and either affirm or disband this guilt of mine? Because I am beginning to wonder if atonal music truly _is_ disgusting, and its supporters have simply been desensitized to its naturally unpleasant harmonies. People in my church have even gone so far as to condemn such music for religious/moral reasons. What do you think?


Your friend sounds like kind of a jerk. XAS is a beautiful piece by a great composer. And the folks who condemn the music for religious/moral reasons are idiots. If you enjoy the music, good, keep listening ^^

If you don't, thats fine too, but don't put forth stupid crap about having moral reasons for disliking it XD


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I like it.


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## Guest (Feb 2, 2013)

CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> I decided to share it with my friend (he dislikes most avante-garde music, mind you, but he _is_ a musician). Not only was he repulsed by the music itself, but he was repulsed by the idea that I would enjoy it, and was almost angry with me for sharing it with him  .


Yes, I have had this experience, too. It comes from a sense of entitlement, a sense that was gradually developed over almost the entire 19th century. Even though it won, it was not without a fight. And the fight continues. Hopefully, it will eventually lose. But who knows?



CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> He made me feel guilty for appreciating it.


A common and rather disgusting ploy. Ignore him.



CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> People in my church have even gone so far as to condemn such music for religious/moral reasons. What do you think?


I think people in your church just need to CALM DOWN!!

The harmonies, as you put it, are not naturally unpleasant, but the nurture that has created a situation in which these people in your life find them unpleasant has been going on so long it _seems_ like nature. As you can tell for yourself, by listening, it's not unpleasant at all.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I love that piece!!


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

^ Me too! Thanks for making me feel better, everyone!


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## DrKilroy (Sep 29, 2012)

I think a lot of music by Charles Ives, though atonal, is beautiful. 

As for religious/moral condemnation of atonal music - I do not think it makes any sense.  I am a practising Christian, I like the most of atonal music and my conscience does not tell me that there is anything wrong with it, so I guess it is not immoral.  For example, how could any Messiaen piece, even the weirdest sounding, be immoral?

Harmonies in atonal music seem to be unnatural and disgusting to people because they are not prepared for them. They are shocked by unusual harmonies, but this would not happen if they were introduced into the world of modern music gradually. I started with Debussy and Ravel, then went on to Messiaen, then to Hindemith, Ligeti, etc., so the differences in "degree of weird sounds" were not great. I am pretty sure that some part of atonal haters would eventually begin to like atonal music if they followed the same procedure as me.

Best regards, Dr

PS Hindemith is his textbook explaned that chromatic scale is not less natural that diatonic scale.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Xenakis*

I hate the piece, but if you enjoy it, the h*ll with my opinion. What really counts are your ears not mine.

In my case what turned me off was the performance. I have frequently heard a modernist piece that I disliked and then I would hear someone else performing the same music and I would think, "Hey, this isn't as bad as I though it was."

Update. At least at TC you have gotten some positive feedback from some cool members  I visited my old forum and the last time anyone there had said anything positive about Xenakis was August, 2012.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Well this is not so bad. I almost like it, and even enjoy parts of it. The part around 4:25 reminds me little of Rautavaara and his frequent "detuned" string sonorities effect.

Would I run out and buy it? Probably not, but I would never condemn people for liking it. Any negative reaction is subconscious or not part of my conscious control. Subconsciously I find it harsh even while consciously I know our 12 tone equal temperament which we tend to use by consensus does not really harmonize perfectly with itself either. It is just a matter of convenience and we are used to hearing it. So to say something is tonal or atonal is just a matter of degree. If I think of the stacked harmonies as just their own kind of sonorities these pieces come closer to working for me.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I think the version on Mode records by the ST-X Ensemble has a somewhat sweeter tone, more a conversational sound than a honking argument of that interpretation. Still not one of my favourite pieces of his but I appreciate a lot more hearing it today than when I last listened to it.

Guilt when it comes to music I have never understood, but then people often seem to base their appreciation of music on other people's reaction. Also I would love to understand the supposed morality, good or ill, within that piece but I rather doubt some religious authority could convince me there amoral content to the sounds. Maybe if they sounded more like farts perhaps.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*"Do I dare to eat a peach?"*

- from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> In my case what turned me off was the performance. I have frequently heard a modernist piece that i disliked and then I would hear someone else performing the same music and I would think, "Hey, this isn't as bad as I though it was."


Reminds me of "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." (usually attr. to Mark Twain, but actually Edgar Wilson Nye)


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

This is one of the most gorgeous atonal works I've ever heard, truly moving:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This is one of the most gorgeous atonal works I've ever heard, truly moving:


I love that piece, but it sounds tonal to me. Oh well.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> I love that piece, but it sounds tonal to me. Oh well.


Sometimes Berg sounds tonal while being freely atonal. That's the art of using atonality really well.  It may be atonal, but it still sounds "human" in its emotions.


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## Bone (Jan 19, 2013)

I get on kicks for atonality, too, but I always find myself wishing for the consonance/dissonance of tonality after a while. Xenakis writes so well for instruments: his "Keren" for trombone is really fun to play (and the sax quartet sounds like a ball, too).


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Sometimes Berg sounds tonal while being freely atonal. That's the art of using atonality really well.  It may be atonal, but it still sounds "human" in its emotions.


Thats one way of writing atonal music well, but it doesn't make the music more "human" than say the music of Ives or Webern or Zappa or Xenakis or Ligeti. >_>


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

DrKilroy said:


> I think a lot of music by Charles Ives, though atonal, is beautiful.
> 
> As for religious/moral condemnation of atonal music - I do not think it makes any sense.  I am a practising Christian, I like the most of atonal music and my conscience does not tell me that there is anything wrong with it, so I guess it is not immoral.  For example, how could any Messiaen piece, even the weirdest sounding, be immoral?
> 
> ...


DrKilroy, I really appreciated this post. You have provided an excellent explanation of why some people hate atonal music, and I had no idea that Hindemith wrote on such a thing (I myself for months have tried to convince people that the chromatic scale is not intrinsically different from any other scale. Perhaps Hindemith does it better than I.)

Everyone, I hope that I didn't paint a terrible picture of the people in my church. However, everyone has their faults, and every church has a few members that tend towards legalism, and they will try to convince you that Bach, Mozart, etc., with its "natural", "God-pleasing" harmonies and forms, is the only "acceptable music".

Such people need our prayers  .


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This is one of the most gorgeous atonal works I've ever heard, truly moving:


That was gorgeous...thank you so much.


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> It may be atonal, but it still sounds "human" in its emotions.


Hmmmm. A wee bit category error, here, methinks. It's humans who have emotions, not pieces. Pieces can elicit emotions, but every emotion that any piece elicits will be a human emotion because it's a human doing the listening.

Doesn't matter if the piece uses common practice tonality or serialism. Doesn't matter if the piece is through composed or indeterminate. Doesn't matter if it's written out in standard notation or as a graphic score, if it's acoustic or electroacoustic, if it's a chamber work by Schubert or a live turntable set by Martin Tetreault. The person listening to any of those is a human, and a human will feel human emotions while listening.


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## Turangalîla (Jan 29, 2012)

some guy said:


> Hmmmm. A wee bit category error, here, methinks. It's humans who have emotions, not pieces. Pieces can elicit emotions, but every emotion that any piece elicits will be a human emotion because it's a human doing the listening.
> 
> Doesn't matter if the piece uses common practice tonality or serialism. Doesn't matter if the piece is through composed or indeterminate. Doesn't matter if it's written out in standard notation or as a graphic score, if it's acoustic or electroacoustic, if it's a chamber work by Schubert or a live turntable set by Martin Tetreault. The person listening to any of those is a human, and a human will feel human emotions while listening.


True; however, it is foolish to say that all pieces are equally emotional or unemotional and that only humans provide the emotion. Composers themselves possess human emotions and they can transfer those, to some degree, into their writing. In the equation, it _is_ the human, not the music, that is the emotional one, but a piece that characteristically elicits human emotions can be considered an emotional piece. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Tchaikovsky's music is generally considered to be more "emotional" than Steve Reich's. It is not always necessary to get hung up on technicalities.


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2013)

And Xenakis' music more emotional than either of those.:tiphat:

No, I really think the idea that Tchaikovsky's music is more emotional than, say, Reich's is an illusion. Tchaikovsky's music is older, for one, so is more familiar. But to call it more emotional generally is, I think, at the very best, simply to privilege certain emotions, the ones that Tchaikovsky's music appears to convey most efficiently.

But what if you get someone who doesn't like Tchaikovsky? For that listener, the emotions are quite likely to be quite a different set to that of the person for whom Tchaikovsky is a beloved friend. As it were....


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> *Arpeggio* : ...In my case what turned me off was the performance. I have frequently heard a modernist piece that I disliked and then I would hear someone else performing the same music and I would think, "Hey, this isn't as bad as I though it was. ..."


Very true, performances mean a lot. The difference of such a beautiful piece as Webern´s "Piano Piece in the Form of a Minuet" (1925) in the flat, mechanical and hastened performance by Melikyan (



)

versus Zimmerman´s airy and meditative on DG is very striking (not on you-t, but at least a sample here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VHKII6/ref=dm_dp_trk159?ie=UTF8&qid=1359873735&sr=1-1).


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## Andolink (Oct 29, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Sometimes Berg sounds tonal while being freely atonal. That's the art of using atonality really well.


Interesting. If the art if using atonality really well consists of making it sound tonal then why not just write tonal music in the first place?

What I love about Berg's music (and this really applies to all my favorite composers' whose music has no tonal center) isn't how tonal or atonal it sounds but about how expressive, inventive, passionate, fascinating, innovative and expertly crafted it is. Forget about how tonal or atonal a piece sounds; it either moves you by what it does with the medium of sound or it doesn't.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Andolink said:


> Interesting. If the art if using atonality really well consists of making it sound tonal then why not just write tonal music in the first place?
> 
> What I love about Berg's music (and this really applies to all my favorite composers' whose music has no tonal center) isn't how tonal or atonal it sounds but about how expressive, inventive, passionate, fascinating, innovative and expertly crafted it is. Forget about how tonal or atonal a piece sounds; it either moves you by what it does with the medium of sound or it doesn't.


This brings up an issue I've sometimes wondered about. You say "no tonal center," which to my mind doesn't necessarily equate to harsh dissonances*, and honking clashing shrill ambulance sirens mixed with a cat fight over a mass torture chamber obbligato. Why must so many atonal works have to be all shrill all the time? What does one get out of that?

I've wondered how four traditional stringed instruments can send me scurrying to the fast forward button if they hit a loud B C G# C#, when I can listen all day to a wailing electric guitar solo filled with growls, shrieks, passing tones and microtones. I think it is because with the latter there is a build up to the harshness with more consonant passages for contrast, therefore it comes across as epic. Would it be so bad to use a slightly more consonant sonority once in while in atonal music? You know - for shock value?

*Folks, I have been ridiculed before by condescending academic pedants with a persecution complex about my use of the word "dissonant." We all know what I mean by this. Our ideas of consonance and dissonance are not merely handed down to us by tradition. They are pure and simple mathematics (fudging a bit with equal temperament). Let's not put a spin on it by calling it something else.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Weston said:


> This brings up an issue I've sometimes wondered about. You say "no tonal center," which to my mind doesn't necessarily equate to harsh dissonances*, and honking clashing shrill ambulance sirens mixed with a cat fight over a mass torture chamber obbligato. Why must so many atonal works have to be all shrill all the time? What does one get out of that?


This is simply not the way Schoenberg sounds to me (or most other composers, with the possible exception of Penderecki's early period). His music is far less strident and shrill than, say, Shostakovich's (DSCH loved those extremely high, squeaky registers. Piccolos, shrill oboe, E-flat clarinet, etc.) There's one movement of Pierrot lunaire that begins with an extremely shrill piccolo note, and another where the cello plays awkwardly in its highest register, but there's another set entirely with flute and voice in quiet, subtle tones, and one set to a slow moving passacaglia bass. In my mind, there is no connection between atonality and the things you mention. Other than that, it's aesthetics.



> I've wondered how four traditional stringed instruments can send me scurrying to the fast forward button if they hit a loud B C G# C#, when I can listen all day to a wailing electric guitar solo filled with growls, shrieks, passing tones and microtones. I think it is because with the latter there is a build up to the harshness with more consonant passages for contrast, therefore it comes across as epic. Would it be so bad to use a slightly more consonant sonority once in while in atonal music? You know - for shock value?


The reason people like these kind of shrill sonorities in rock music is because they get why they're there. It's expressive, and it's over a hammered-out backbeat (1-*2*-3-*4*). It's a movement away from center back to center. For you in particular, those overtones produced by an amplified guitar are familiar. The overtones produced by a violin bowed "at the bridge" are likely not as familiar outside of horror movies, so although they are far less dissonant than the above, they seem more alien.

I would go on further, but Andolink's excellent post said everything I wanted to.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Andolink said:


> Interesting. If the art if using atonality really well consists of making it sound tonal then why not just write tonal music in the first place?
> 
> What I love about Berg's music (and this really applies to all my favorite composers' whose music has no tonal center) isn't how tonal or atonal it sounds but about how expressive, inventive, passionate, fascinating, innovative and expertly crafted it is. Forget about how tonal or atonal a piece sounds; it either moves you by what it does with the medium of sound or it doesn't.


Well, what if it's not really about tonality vs. atonality? What if it's really just about... beauty, expressing and communicating to the human spirit, reaching out to the world? Doesn't matter the _technique _as much as the thought and execution, I guess. We may never know why, but when we just hear a piece we like, we just know deep down inside, whatever is in it, it touches us in some fundamental way, or doesn't.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> Thats one way of writing atonal music well, but it doesn't make the music more "human" than say the music of Ives or Webern or Zappa or Xenakis or Ligeti. >_>


Well, did_ I_ claim that _those _composers weren't good users of atonality? Maybe they are, I wasn't thinking about them, only that particular work I posted, and Berg who I felt had similar mentality. You could put them all in the same category as "great users of atonality" as you like.

Just as a composer can fail to grasp our hearts with tonal music, so can a composer fail to grasp our hearts with atonality. So is it _just _because of the atonality/tonality? I vie that it isn't always so, it's something deeper. Atonality can express great emotions too, and if a composer understood how to use atonality that way, they would be successful.

In my humble opinion, I have a problem with composers that refuse to acknowledge the human element of emotion when writing music, and intend their music to suppress emotion or to numb it. I just feel that emotion is a supremely important element of music, and to take it away is like taking its soul away, and all you have is a shell.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> In my humble opinion, I have a problem with composers that refuse to acknowledge the human element of emotion when writing music, and intend their music to suppress emotion or to numb it. I just feel that emotion is a supremely important element of music, and to take it away is like taking its soul away, and all you have is a shell.


You know, some composers may have ways of expressing emotion that might not occur to you. Just because _you_ don't hear it, doesn't mean it's not there.


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## Guest (Feb 3, 2013)

As the following was being written, the preceding post of Crudblud appeared.

Crudblud! How DARE you post something better in every way to what I hadn't posted yet??!!:lol:



Huilunsoittaja said:


> I have a problem with composers that refuse to acknowledge the human element of emotion when writing music, and intend their music to suppress emotion or to numb it.


Emotion is a fundamental quality of humans whether you acknowledge it or not. I know of no composers ever, anywhere, who intend their music to suppress emotion or to numb it. I call "null set."

As for what composers are doing when they're writing, I don't think that they are acknowledging or not acknowledging anything about emotions. They are all humans themselves. Emotions are a given. What their job is is to write music. That means either manipulating sounds or setting up situations in which sounds will occur. Nothing else.

And no composer anywhere, at any time, has to think about emotions, because every human who listens to music is going to make an emotion response to it, always.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

By Way Of Explanation This Is Not A Direct Response Post.

I hit 'save' having left one part of my original response blank, meaning to look up the OP to be exact in a quote, then edit.

Going back, I saw the 'acknowledge the human element of emotion' argument in one of its ten thousand manifestations, also "yet again." Addressing that 'emotion in music', both Crudblood and Some Guy had already more than succinctly and elegantly said anything I would have wished on composers, composing, and 'emotion' therefrom.

*This is revised:* it just struck me that anyone with one rationale or another, whether it be 'tonality within atonality' giving a 'human emotion' import to atonality, i.e. evidently, a tertian-based triad, to one listener, denotes 'human emotion' in music, that there is no real discussion, at least in a written forum format, which will have much effect on giving more than a technical understanding to atonal music for those who have not yet arrived at a more visceral reception -- and on their own.

I'm more convinced after the reading of the other tonality / atonality threads that whether it is one vocabulary or another, any listener may, eventually, come to some terms of enjoyment of what they presently do not, or they will not. I think their is nothing to be done, including understanding, really, why some people can readily hear beauty in music of any and all periods, and others can or will not.

Other than a very different and very early exposure to music, and I mean early as in it is too late for anyone old enough to be on this forum, I think every and all must simply find their own way to this music, or simply leave it alone.

The rest of the hyperbole against this sort of music is moot.

*[P.s. To hear that newer music is being 'demonized' from a pulpit of sorts is horrifying, and more than alarming in recalling music proclaimed as 'decadent' by other bureaucratic agencies in history past.]*


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