# Approach and Accept, or Deny?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm categorizing for convenience, but it would be interesting to hear reactions to music by a composer such as, say, Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen's music. With such hard-core modern music, how do *you* approach it, if you do?

Assuming that you are sympathetic to it, define and accept it as music, I'm interested in hearing about the experiences of those who have made the attempt to approach and accept this music.

I'm assuming axiomatically that tonally is harmonically-based and evident to the ear, and this music isn't.
With a lot of music which is not completely or simplistically harmony-based, I first listen to it for the sensual sound experience, without trying to analyze it, as I do other music.

After that, since serial-based music does not reveal its secrets or methods on the surface like tonality, I might listen for intervals, or note the contour of melodic elements, or enjoy the color of the stacked pitches ('harmony'), and read the liner notes. Most of the time it's 'just listening' with acceptance of the sounds in the composer's and performers credibility. I can then form a general value judgement about it, deem it a 'good' work, or ignore it.

It would be interesting to hear what more might be said on this, meaning other approaches besides 'just listening' with acceptance. Are these additional factors experience based?

I've already formed some concepts about set-theory or serial music, and one is that very few listeners, unless they have photographic memories, could derive the same *kind* of experiential rewards from this music as they get from tonal music, which is 'self evident' to the ear because of its harmonic basis.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I found Schoenberg more difficult than either Carter or Wuorinen, so once I starting enjoying him, these two were not an issue. I enjoy the music sort of like the musical analogues of the images of Salvador Dali, that is like musical depictions of unusual surreal soundscapes that invoke strange atmospheres. And once you listen enough times to these works, you even start hearing their melodies.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Jacck said:


> I found Schoenberg more difficult than either Carter or Wuorinen, so once I starting enjoying him, these two were not an issue. I enjoy the music sort of like the musical analogues of the images of Salvador Dali, that is like musical depictions of unusual surreal soundscapes that invoke strange atmospheres. And once you listen enough times to these works, you even start hearing their melodies.


Schoenberg's music is some of the most profoundly beautiful I've ever had the pleasure of hearing. I am also a fan of Carter and Wuorinen, but their work doesn't satisfy me as the former's.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Jacck said:


> I found Schoenberg more difficult than either Carter or Wuorinen, so once I starting enjoying him, these two were not an issue. I enjoy the music sort of like the musical analogues of the images of Salvador Dali, that is like musical depictions of unusual surreal soundscapes that invoke strange atmospheres. And once you listen enough times to these works, you even start hearing their melodies.


Agreed, re: Schoenberg. I find him much more challenging than such later composers as Boulez, Carter, or Stockhausen, to say nothing of Berg and Webern.

@Millionrainbows, I love me a challenge. I'll always give unfamiliar music a chance. If I don't like it on first (or fifth) listen, all the better. It only piques my curiosity more, and it makes it extremely gratifying when I finally solve the puzzle, so to speak. And this goes well beyond just atonal music; I'm currently going through it with the symphonies of Nielsen, which I periodically return to and have never been less than mystified by. I'm sure many here will say I'm crazy, or stupid, or wasting my time for this approach. That doesn't affect me one bit. I have gotten some amazing experiences out of living like this.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I never envisioned myself enjoying atonal music, but the work that turned me around (slightly) was Schoenberg's _A Survivor From Warsaw_. It showed me how atonality can be used to harness a variety of emotions and ideas just like tonal music. Other current favorites include Pierrot Lunaire, miscellaneous Webern, most of Messiaen (by far my favorite modernist), Berg's Lyric Suite, and Ives's _Concord_ sonata. I don't listen to this challenging (for me) music as often as the stuff I'm more comfortable with, but I'm starting to feel it click. I haven't even dared the true radicals like Boulez, Carter, and Stockhausen yet. I think I need to get to the point where the Second Viennese School doesn't still sound foreign to me before I tackle them. I will say that I actually like Berio's Sinfonia though. Entertaining and thought-provoking. In general, for those like me who struggle with the atonal idiom, I would suggest thinking in terms of color and shape rather than traditional form, melody, and harmony. I evaluate this music just as I do other kinds: by the quality of its ideas and craftsmanship and its ability to move and challenge me. But I have to adjust my criteria a bit in order to do so.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Carter took me the longest to figure out in the most basic sense. I got the 2nd Viennese music down, but his was a mystery I couldn't crack by listening alone, till I started experimenting with all-interval chords. In the end the pitch relations mean nothing as I heard previously, but thought there was more to. It's about rhythm, register, duration, and their interactions. With Ferneyhough, he didn't follow the gestural patterns and momentum as many contemporary composers do. I hated him for it before, but later found it more stimulating for it. As I mentioned in another thread, Babbitt is a composer whose music is full of mystery, but that I love all the interaction including harmony. I can't put my finger on how it works, but didn't need to to enjoy it.

Boulez I find kind of cliche, due to what I feel a lot of composers either imitating him, or doing something similar.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

^^^ I'm right there with you, Allegro Con Brio. I feel very similarly about modernist / atonal music as well at this time. Though I'll say I have found some Stockhausen and Boulez pretty enjoyable. Messiaen is also my favorite mid/late 20th century composer. I cannot say I truly love the music of any living composer, which is a bit saddening to think about. I'm participating in a thread right now which focuses on works written from 1980 to 2000, and I hope to learn a lot from it and find works/composers that I really like or appreciate (so far, the works have all been enjoyable, but nothing's really clicked yet). Have you tried Takemitsu? If you like Messiaen you might like him as well.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Interesting that many here found Schoenberg more challenging than later composers. For me it was clearly the other way around. 

I have found that repeated listening to a wide variety of music greatly helps open up music that I have found difficult. In some cases listening to other composers allows me to hear previously unenjoyable music in a new manner such that I can enjoy it. I had listened to Schnittke many times without "success", but when I came back to his music after listening to many others, I found I liked almost everything I heard. 

I generally listen to new music trying to hear something that I find interesting or enjoyable without in any way analyzing what I'm hearing. If I don't hear something that grabs me, I may try another work by the same composer. If I see several recommendations for a particular composer or work, I will be more motivated to continue trying to hear something to enjoy. I may focus on timbres, rhythms, motifs, or any aspects that I think I'll "get." Sometimes I find that I don't know how to listen to the sounds to hear them as music. That was not the case with Carter or Wuorinen, but is the most challenging music for me. 

In some sense, I wish the process were more straightforward (i.e. listen in a particular manner and you will break through and enjoy the music). It doesn't seem to work that way, at least for me.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I enjoy many of Carter's orchestral works. I have CDs on EMI, Bridge, Nonesuch, Erato, Naxos, and DG. But I'm still not enjoying his quartets very much. I've listened to very little Wuorinen, but I gave his Horn Trio a listen last night and it sounded great to my ears. I just ordered a CD on the Koch label with his piano quintet, percussion quartet, and two other pieces.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm not sure what constitutes "hard-core modern music," but the OP seems to be suggesting that anything without a clear tonal harmonic scheme would fit into that category. I don't approach atonal music in any particular way. Once I know not to listen for tonal relationships and the formal and expressive values tonality is a vehicle for, I listen for other elements a composer uses to give a piece coherence: motivic development, rhythmic interest, repetition, variation, etc. Music which seems mainly devoted to looking for novel sounds doesn't interest me and I abandon it quickly. Learning of the death of Charles Wuorinen, I realized I hadn't heard his work for years, so I sampled a couple of things. His Piano Quintet, an atonal (evidently serial) piece, was interesting and invigorating, while the first five minutes of Time's Encomium (all I could stand of it) were an aimless bore; I thought of a kid who got a synthesizer for Christmas and just wanted to see what noises he could get out of it. But I suppose some people enjoy that sort of thing.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> It would be interesting to hear what more might be said on this, meaning other approaches besides 'just listening' with acceptance. Are these additional factors experience based?
> 
> .


"Just listening" is important because people find melodies by listening. When people listen attentively to discontinuous music which results from chance operations, they hear melodies -- I guess in the same way as people see real objects in drip paintings.



millionrainbows said:


> very few listeners, . . . could derive the same experiential rewards from this music as they get from tonal music, which is 'self evident' to the ear because of its harmonic basis.


I think this is right, because the sort of music we learn in nursery school is tonal, or close to tonal. So there's a sense of going back to the security of our early childhood. That's the reward which isn't available from non-tonal music.



millionrainbows said:


> I'm categorizing for convenience, but it would be interesting to hear reactions to music by a composer such as, say, Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen's music. With such hard-core modern music, how do *you* approach it, if you do?


Of those two I've only really listened to Carter's quartets and I don't think that the music's challenging. The music has an easily audible structure so you can orient yourself. Something like Ferneyhough's Time and Motion Study 2 or Boulez Structures 1a or Cage's Etudes is much more challenging.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I think this is right, because the sort of music we learn in nursery school is tonal, or close to tonal. So there's a sense of going back to the security of our early childhood. That's the reward which isn't available from non-tonal music.


Are there studies showing that children who experienced neither nursery school nor secure childhoods grow up preferring, say, Babbitt to Berlioz? Are there cultures in which young children are taught atonal songs, and grow up as exceptions to millionrainbows' generalization, "very few listeners, . . . could derive the same experiential rewards from this music as they get from tonal music, which is 'self evident' to the ear because of its harmonic basis"?

Isn't it likely that humanity's taste for tonality and tonal harmony derives from factors much more complex and fundamental than the lessons of nursery school and the imagined security of childhood, and that the presence of tonal systems in the music of virtually all cultures worldwide suggests that exploration of such factors might provide a truer explanation of the "self-evident experiential rewards" of tonality?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I've said before, and said it here again, that tonality works very naturally because of the way we hear sound (hamonically). In the case of people with 'very good ears,' this probably has to do with a certain part of the brain. 
Bearing that in mind, in the future don't look for any great musicians or composers who grew up in the Flint, Michigan area.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> ^^^ I'm right there with you, Allegro Con Brio. I feel very similarly about modernist / atonal music as well at this time. Though I'll say I have found some Stockhausen and Boulez pretty enjoyable. Messiaen is also my favorite mid/late 20th century composer. I cannot say I truly love the music of any living composer, which is a bit saddening to think about. I'm participating in a thread right now which focuses on works written from 1980 to 2000, and I hope to learn a lot from it and find works/composers that I really like or appreciate (so far, the works have all been enjoyable, but nothing's really clicked yet). Have you tried Takemitsu? If you like Messiaen you might like him as well.


I'll have to try Takemitsu more in-depth. I once tried "From me flows what you call time," but I don't think I was in the mood for it at the time because I quickly shut it off. Sounds like a good composer to try to get into during this virus quarantine (along with Morton Feldman, who flamencosketches recommended). Thanks!


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> I think this is right, because the sort of music we learn in nursery school is tonal, or close to tonal. So there's a sense of going back to the security of our early childhood. That's the reward which isn't available from non-tonal music.


"Colour lies at the heart of Messiaen's music. He believed that terms such as "tonal", "modal" and "serial" are misleading analytical conveniences. For him there were no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only music with or without colour. He said that Claudio Monteverdi, Mozart, Chopin, Richard Wagner, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky all wrote strongly coloured music."


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The Spirit Garden 2 disc set of Takemitsu's orchestral works is a good place to start. It's on Brilliant Classics.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure what constitutes "hard-core modern music," but the OP seems to be suggesting that anything without a clear tonal harmonic scheme would fit into that category. I don't approach atonal music in any particular way. Once I know not to listen for tonal relationships and the formal and expressive values tonality is a vehicle for, I listen for other elements a composer uses to give a piece coherence: motivic development, rhythmic interest, repetition, variation, etc. *Music which seems mainly devoted to looking for novel sounds doesn't interest me and I abandon it quickly. *Learning of the death of Charles Wuorinen, I realized I hadn't heard his work for years, so I sampled a couple of things. His Piano Quintet, an atonal (evidently serial) piece, was interesting and invigorating, while the first five minutes of Time's Encomium (all I could stand of it) were an aimless bore; I thought of a kid who got a synthesizer for Christmas and just wanted to see what noises he could get out of it. But I suppose some people enjoy that sort of thing.


I have the same issues. Maybe I lost a lot of good music all these years, but, most of the time, I don't feel sorry. Despite my difficulties, I try to listen some of this music and I invest also to it. Mostly a learning procedure.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Are there studies showing that children who experienced neither nursery school nor secure childhoods grow up preferring, say, Babbitt to Berlioz? Are there cultures in which young children are taught atonal songs, and grow up as exceptions to millionrainbows' generalization, "very few listeners, . . . could derive the same experiential rewards from this music as they get from tonal music, which is 'self evident' to the ear because of its harmonic basis"?
> 
> Isn't it likely that humanity's taste for tonality and tonal harmony derives from factors much more complex and fundamental than the lessons of nursery school and the imagined security of childhood, and that the presence of tonal systems in the music of virtually all cultures worldwide suggests that exploration of such factors might provide a truer explanation of the "self-evident experiential rewards" of tonality?


It's not that early experiences are the sole explanation of the ubiquity of tonal music, though no doubt that's part of it. Rather I'm saying that the distinctive reward of tonal music for the listener is that it lets him find again the reassuring and innocent music of his early years.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> It's not that early experiences are the sole explanation of the ubiquity of tonal music, though no doubt that's part of it. Rather I'm saying that the distinctive reward of tonal music for the listener is that it lets him find again the reassuring and innocent music of his early years.


Who needs to find it again? Has anyone ever lost it? I see no connection whatever between the satisfactions of tonality and the supposedly reassuring period of life called childhood. What I suspect I am seeing is a condescension toward people who don't like certain kinds of "modern music" and find atonality unpleasant. It suggests that people are immature and timid, that if they'd just grow up they'd be demanding Webern in restaurants (nothing against atonal dining, if that's your thing). It isn't that tonality communicates anything significant about living in the universe, it's that it makes people feel the way they did when Mommy kissed their scraped knee and gave them a cookie and the music box was playing "Rock-a bye Baby."

I think such an explanation of tonality's appeal is mere speculation at best, and at least as unsatisfactory as millionrainbows' endless campaign to pin it entirely on "the way we hear sound (harmonically)." I think the cognitive and emotional functions of tonality in music are much more complex and interesting.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I'm musically illiterate but it has seemed to me that the music children learn and become comfortable with in some cultures - I spent quite a long time in Bangladesh (Tagore's songs in particular sound very different to my ears but are widely learned) and also some time in India - is not tonal. Of course, they also encounter a lot of "western" tonal music in the form of pop songs, film music etc.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Are there studies showing that children who experienced neither nursery school nor secure childhoods grow up preferring, say, Babbitt to Berlioz? Are there cultures in which young children are taught atonal songs, and grow up as exceptions to millionrainbows' generalization, "very few listeners, . . . could derive the same experiential rewards from this music as they get from tonal music, which is 'self evident' to the ear because of its harmonic basis"?
> 
> Isn't it likely that humanity's taste for tonality and tonal harmony derives from factors much more complex and fundamental than the lessons of nursery school and the imagined security of childhood, and that the presence of tonal systems in the music of virtually all cultures worldwide suggests that exploration of such factors might provide a truer explanation of the "self-evident experiential rewards" of tonality?


It's my understanding that many people growing up in non-Western cultures are exposed primarily to non-tonal music when young and prefer that music over tonal music later in life. If that's true, it would seem that exposure to styles of music is more important than any potential innate preference to tonality.

Does anyone know if early musical style exposure has been studied to the point where a distinction can be made between the effect of possible innate preferences and early exposure?


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> It's my understanding that many people growing up in non-Western cultures are exposed primarily to non-tonal music when young and prefer that music over tonal music later in life. If that's true, it would seem that exposure to styles of music is more important than any potential innate preference to tonality.
> 
> Does anyone know if early musical style exposure has been studied to the point where a distinction can be made between the effect of possible innate preferences and early exposure?


Read these articles and decide for yourself:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3759965/
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn994-babies-musical-memories-formed-in-womb/
https://www2.uned.es/psicologiaabierta/psicomusica/complementarios/docs/antropologia/g.pdf
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1996/9/27/study-says-babies-born-with-musical/
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Tonality_96.html


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Colour lies at the heart of Messiaen's music. He believed that terms such as "tonal", "modal" and "serial" are misleading analytical conveniences. For him there were no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only music with or without colour. He said that Claudio Monteverdi, Mozart, Chopin, Richard Wagner, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky all wrote strongly coloured music."


This doesn't clarify anything; it just obfuscates issues which many listeners identify with. If we were all like Messiaen, we would accept all music, and this discussion would be pointless, and it probably is anyway. Sorry to have started it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> It's my understanding that many people growing up in non-Western cultures are exposed primarily to non-tonal music when young and prefer that music over tonal music later in life. If that's true, it would seem that exposure to styles of music is more important than any potential innate preference to tonality.


This post makes no sense at all to me, unless I'm misinterpreting the use of the term "tonality." You mean kids in Ethiopia are listening to serial music? As I said, I'm sorry I started this thread, and especially for using the term "hard-core modern," which many people do not even recognize as meaning anything.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> ...as unsatisfactory as millionrainbows' endless campaign to pin it entirely on "the way we hear sound (harmonically)." I think the cognitive and emotional functions of tonality in music are much more complex and interesting.


I didn't mean "exclusively." Of course I agree with you that there are the other reasons you cite.

As I said, why did I even bother to try to start a discussion? Sorry, folks.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I'm categorizing for convenience, but it would be interesting to hear reactions to music by a composer such as, say, Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen's music. With such hard-core modern music, how do you approach it, if you do?_

I knew and heard Wourinen beginning in his heyday which was the 1970s. His music made no impression on me. I listened to Carter beginning in the 1990s, both his older tonal stuff (Carter started composing in the 1930s) and his 12 tone music. It too made no impression and I quit working on it.

Generally speaking I listen to about anything anyone recommends whether modern or difficult or otherwise. If there is something about it I find attractive, interesting or worthwhile I may listen to all of it. If I think I may like it and want to listen for posterity I may search for recordings. If I find a recording I like that I think may satisfy me over time I'll buy it if I can find it for the right price.

If I don't like something or it makes no impression on me I don't waste time on it. That's because I have known hundreds of pieces of music over the years I liked the first time I heard it that I never liked again. The era of YouTube and streaming makes it much easier to discard now than in the past.

As my friend once told me after I asked him to listen to Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire, "I don't kow why I was listening to that when I could have been listening to something I like,"

I think there are people that think classical music is something so special that you have an obligation to hear anything. I don't think that way; I think it is more like television. There is a nearly inexhaustible supply of it yet so much of it is bland and unimpressive.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

larold said:


> _
> 
> I think there are people that think classical music is something so special that you have an obligation to hear anything. I don't think that way; I think it is more like television. There is a nearly inexhaustible supply of it yet so much of it is bland and unimpressive._


_

Yes, I guess it's from the C19 idea of a visionary genius whose music gives us all a glimpse of a truth he'd perceived. The Beethoven myth._


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> This post makes no sense at all to me, unless I'm misinterpreting the use of the term "tonality." You mean kids in Ethiopia are listening to serial music? As I said, I'm sorry I started this thread, and especially for using the term "hard-core modern," which many people do not even recognize as meaning anything.


You are misinterpreting or misusing the word "tonal". Tonal music and serial music are not antonyms, nor are they mutually exclusive. I can't speak for Ethiopian music but if you listen to any folk or classical music from India, for example, you will hear music that is not tonal. It is also, of course, not serial.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Fabulin said:


> Read these articles and decide for yourself:
> 
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3759965/
> https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn994-babies-musical-memories-formed-in-womb/
> ...


Thanks. I did look these over, but they seem to be focused on the effect of very early (fetuses or young babies) musical exposure rather than exposure throughout childhood. I wonder if people have studied exposure of those growing up in societies which generally feature non-tonal music (e.g. India) trying to determine if they preferentially enjoy their society's non-tonal music or Western tonal music. I imagine this is a hard study to do given the potential for people to easily hear music from other parts of the world.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

mmsbls said:


> It's my understanding that many people growing up in non-Western cultures are exposed primarily to non-tonal music when young and prefer that music over tonal music later in life. If that's true, it would seem that exposure to styles of music is more important than any potential innate preference to tonality.
> 
> Does anyone know if early musical style exposure has been studied to the point where a distinction can be made between the effect of possible innate preferences and early exposure?


I'm not aware that atonal music is indigenous to any culture. I think you may be defining "tonal" to refer only to the complex Western "common practice" harmonic system. Hierarchical organization of the notes of a scale around a tone functioning as a point of gravitation or resolution is ubiquitous in world music.

There IS the nature/nurture problem to consider, but the extent to which nurture can cancel out mankind's clearly spontaneous tendency to organize music tonally remains to be seen. Experiments would have to be conducted in which children are exposed only to atonal music for a significant period - possibly several years - at the beginning of life, and then later introduced to various forms of tonal music. It's hard for me to imagine this ever being done. But we do have evidence (see the articles in Fabulin's post) of infants' preference for consonant harmony, suggesting that an appreciation for dissonance is largely acquired rather than innate. For me that raises the question of why and how dissonance becomes enjoyable and why it appears more widely accepted and enjoyed in tonal music than in atonal.

In Western harmonic music in the common practice tradition, dissonance is used _contextually_ and _hierarchically,_ analogous to the way in which percepts and concepts are formed, related, and ordered in normal cognition (the same principle is operative in modal and non-Western music, but in ways less familiar to most of us). I'll posit that it's this cognitive basis of tonal organization that explains, to a great extent, how people who accept and enjoy high levels of dissonance and irresolution in a tonal context may nonetheless find atonal music, which eschews that basis for order and must find a less cognitively thorough substitute for it (such as serial organization), relatively unattractive or unrewarding. Tonality is about the mind and the "ear" (perception of harmony's degrees of consonance) simultaneously, directly embodying a fundamental operating principle of the former in the sensuous form of the latter. I believe that a thorough examination of music - not only of tonality - as an analogue of cognitive processes goes far in explaining music's extraordinary power to express a wide range of human emotion. (A good introduction to the subject remains Leonard B. Meyer's old classic, _Emotion and__ Meaning in Music._)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

flamencosketches said:


> You are misinterpreting or misusing the word "tonal". Tonal music and serial music are not antonyms, nor are they mutually exclusive. I can't speak for Ethiopian music but if you listen to any folk or classical music from India, for example, you will hear music that is not tonal. It is also, of course, not serial.


The term "tonal" shouldn't be confined to music in the Western harmonic tradition. Ethnomusicologists and psychologists who study music don't limit it in this way. The music of India is most definitely tonal; like virtually all music worldwide, it employs scales with tonal centers and hierarchical relationships among tones.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I'm not aware that atonal music is indigenous to any culture. I think you may be defining "tonal" to refer only to the complex Western "common practice" harmonic system. Hierarchical organization of the notes of a scale around a tone functioning as a point of gravitation or resolution is ubiquitous in world music.


Yes, thank you. An internet search let me realize that most (almost all?) culture's music is tonal.



Woodduck said:


> There IS the nature/nurture problem to consider, but the extent to which nurture can cancel out mankind's clearly spontaneous tendency to organize music tonally remains to be seen. Experiments would have to be conducted in which children are exposed only to atonal music for a significant period - possibly several years - at the beginning of life, and then later introduced to various forms of tonal music. It's hard for me to imagine this ever being done. But we do have evidence (see the articles in Fabulin's post) of infants' preference for consonant harmony, suggesting that an appreciation for dissonance is largely acquired rather than innate. For me that raises the question of why and how dissonance becomes enjoyable and why it appears more widely accepted and enjoyed in tonal music than in atonal.


Given that there appear to be few, if any, natural experiments in tonal versus non-tonal music, I agree such a study would be extremely problematic. I don't know how to limit anyone's listening to strictly non-tonal music in an ethical manner so no such studies will be performed. Since we know so little about the brain in general, I'm not completely convinced that people could not be brought up to prefer non-tonal music, but the vast societal preference for tonal rather than non-tonal may be suggestive.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Children can be joyfully impressed by free , atonal music . 'Tis soulful . You need to
experience this . Play it for them and be love-mobbed .


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

mmsbls said:


> Given that there appear to be few, if any, natural experiments in tonal versus non-tonal music, I agree such a study would be extremely problematic. I don't know how to limit anyone's listening to strictly non-tonal music in an ethical manner so no such studies will be performed. Since we know so little about the brain in general, I'm not completely convinced that people could not be brought up to prefer non-tonal music, but the vast societal preference for tonal rather than non-tonal may be suggestive.


My question here is: why? I don't see sado-maso practitioners trying to find scientific proof that would convince the world that everyone should be brought up to love doing what they are doing, not to mention to _prefer _it. Why are people who are into atonal music different?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Fabulin said:


> My question here is: why? I don't see sado-maso practitioners trying to find scientific proof that would convince the world that everyone should be brought up to love doing what they are doing, not to mention to _prefer _it. Why are people who are into atonal music different?


I apologize that I don't understand your post. I suspect that we are talking about different things. My posts have been focused on understanding if human brains are constructed with an innate preference for tonal music compared to non-tonal music. I'm simply curious about human brain response to music. I don't believe that people ought to be brought up to like or dislike any type of music or that people ought to do experiments that are unethical.

Personally, I don't think those who enjoy non-tonal music are much different from those who do not.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> My posts have been focused on understanding if human brains are constructed with an innate preference for tonal music compared to non-tonal music.


Everyone loves the song of the birds, the sound of the sea. So clearly no, there's nothing innate about it.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Everyone loves the song of the birds, the sound of the sea. So clearly no, there's nothing innate about it.


That depends on whether you consider birdsong and crashing waves non-tonal music, or music at all. If birds and seas didn't exist, and those sounds were created on a synthesizer by someone calling himself a composer, how much love would they receive? And of course there's always the sweet song of the crow. Nothing like a huge flock of those suckers to set your heartstrings to vibrating and make you reach for the staff paper. Or the shotgun.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

larold said:


> _I'm categorizing for convenience, but it would be interesting to hear reactions to music by a composer such as, say, Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen's music. With such hard-core modern music, how do you approach it, if you do?_
> 
> I knew and heard Wourinen beginning in his heyday which was the 1970s. His music made no impression on me. I listened to Carter beginning in the 1990s, both his older tonal stuff (Carter started composing in the 1930s) and his 12 tone music. It too made no impression and I quit working on it.
> 
> ...


That's better than attacking music and composers you dislike in a discussion, I suppose.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> You are misinterpreting or misusing the word "tonal". Tonal music and serial music are not antonyms, nor are they mutually exclusive. I can't speak for Ethiopian music but if you listen to any folk or classical music from India, for example, you will hear music that is not tonal. It is also, of course, not serial.


Ironically, see Woodduck's post #30. This was hashed out before you got on the forum. I agree with this view, which was _very difficult and tiring_ to establish. I'll not go through that again if I can help it. Woodduck's recognition of this distinction is very gratifying and reinforcing to me, so thank you!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Everyone loves the song of the birds, the sound of the sea. So clearly no, there's nothing innate about it.


To Mandryka, Ha ha...I was going to say something to you, before Woodduck's reply.

Normally, I think pitched music is based on harmonics, which is so different than birdsong; regardless of Messiaen's imitations on piano. :lol: So I think there is a good case for harmonic sounds (pitched music) being innate, since we hear that way, and like vision, there is probably a cortex area for 'good ears.' That's why there is an "Eric Johnson" born every 300 years.

But what you are saying is that birdsong is in a way "atonal," and I can see that, definitely. Good point!

Sounds of the ocean? For percussionists who like cymbals played with soft mallets. Whoosh! Or Varése.

But sustained pitch is the point.



Woodduck said:


> That depends on whether you consider birdsong and crashing waves non-tonal music, or music at all. If birds and seas didn't exist, and those sounds were created on a synthesizer by someone calling himself a composer, how much love would they receive? And of course there's always the sweet song of the crow. Nothing like a huge flock of those suckers to set your heartstrings to vibrating and make you reach for the staff paper. Or the shotgun.


I agree with Woodduck's reply on this on this, except for having to "consider" them as music.

Mandryka's metaphor makes a good point, _but,_ I still think there is a good case for harmonic sounds (pitched music) being innate, since we hear that way, and like vision, there is probably a cortex area for 'good ears.' That's why there is an "Eric Johnson" born every 300 years.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> That depends on whether you consider birdsong and crashing waves non-tonal music,.


No, I don't think it does depend on that. Whether you call it music or not everyone loves birdsong etc. There is no innate preference for tonality.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Something nobody has mentioned is the chromatic scale, which is based on the 12-division of the octave. 
Serialism (12 note) vs. diatonic music (7 note).

A case could be made that 12 notes is "less natural" than 7 (serial vs. diatonic).

See Schoenberg's _Harmonielehre. _

Like those real high upper harmonics that Schoenberg said represented the rest of the harmonics, a plethora of harmonic intervals are reduced to 12 intervals, based on the tempered 12-note scale.

Lower harmonics are considered consonant, while higher harmonics (like Schoenberg's F#, which are made to accommodate the tempered 12-note scale to fill out the 12 ratios) are considered dissonant.

Therefore, this is another case that chromatic music is "less natural" than diatonic, because of dissonance which enters as more notes are added to the 7-note scale.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> No, I don't think it does depend on that. Whether you call it music or not everyone loves birdsong etc.


We agree.



> There is no innate preference for tonality.


I think there could be an innate preference for _harmonic sound,_ since we hear that way. I wouldn't call it "tonality" except in a general way. Jeez, here we go again!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I think there could be an innate preference for _harmonic sound,_ since we hear that way. I wouldn't call it "tonality."


Maybe some people's minds construct melodies, like some people like to find real objects in a painting by Jackson Pollock. These people find melody in the sound of the wind on the waves.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> No, I don't think it does depend on that. Whether you call it music or not everyone loves birdsong etc. There is no innate preference for tonality.


If the claim that you are attempting to demonstrate is that there is no general preference for tonal music then it is, indeed, critical to establish whether these things are music; if they are not they clearly do not serve as counter-examples like you intended them to.

Regardless, I'm not so sure your conclusion follows from the premises. Pointing out that there exist sounds with no tonal structures does not preclude a general preference for tonal hierarchies in humans, rather, it merely says this preference is not absolute, which is not something anyone, as far as I can tell, was averring.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BachIsBest said:


> If the claim that you are attempting to demonstrate is that there is no general preference for tonal music
> g.


No that's not my claim, that's a red herring.



BachIsBest said:


> Regardless, I'm not so sure your conclusion follows from the premises. Pointing out that there exist sounds with no tonal structures does not preclude a general preference for tonal hierarchies in humans, rather, it merely says this preference is not absolute, which is not something anyone, as far as I can tell, was averring.


This thing being examined is the origin of the preference, whether it's biological or whether it's something else. 
What I'm pointing out is that there is ubiquitous aesthetic appreciation of non-tonal sound, natural song etc. 
Some people have learned to expect different things from music performed by humans, and the lesson has stayed with them for life.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Mandryka said:


> Everyone loves the song of the birds, the sound of the sea. So clearly no, there's nothing innate about it.


I retreat my like for your post upon realizing that it is not sarcastic. Of course bird song and the regularity of the sound of the ocean are tonal.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Fabulin said:


> Of course bird song and the regularity of the sound of the ocean are tonal.


Thanks for pointing it out. I know I'm really bad at telling whether music is tonal or not. Looks like I was wrong and Woodduck is right.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I was always taught that the term "tonal" refers to music with functional harmony, chordal relationships, tonic-dominant etc, ie. If this is wrong and I don't know it, then I'm sure I look like an idiot right now, so I'll drop it. But just for one last argument, I definitely would not agree that birdsong etc is tonal.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It seems we are coming close to saying that all sound can be heard as tonal. There are just different systems for the relationships between tones? That's good. We can stop worrying about atonality, then. 

But the fact remains that someone brought up in, say, India and with one of the Indian classical disciplines will hear and "understand" the music of that tradition while we who are not brought up with it will not unless we put a bit of work in. Some here consider doing that work to be masochistic. Fair enough as no-one will forces them. But without doing that work can they meaningfully offer an opinion on the subject? I don't think so.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> I was always taught that the term "tonal" refers to music with functional harmony, chordal relationships, tonic-dominant etc, ie. If this is wrong and I don't know it, then I'm sure I look like an idiot right now, so I'll drop it. But just for one last argument, I definitely would not agree that birdsong etc is tonal.


But Fabulin was so confident! He must know that the sound of the wind on the sea is full of functional harmony.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

flamencosketches said:


> I was always taught that the term "tonal" refers to music with functional harmony, chordal relationships, tonic-dominant etc, ie. If this is wrong and I don't know it, then I'm sure I look like an idiot right now, so I'll drop it. But just for one last argument, I definitely would not agree that birdsong etc is tonal.


I agree, birdsong is not like any kind of tonal music by man; it is more like speech than music. The subject of birds is a waste of time. 
There is a 'general' definition of 'tonal' (Harvard Dictionary of music).

From my blog: Our entire Western system is founded on diatonic heptatonic scales. The primacy of the C major scale, and its counterpoint on the piano keyboard, is evidence of this. The key signature system exemplifies diatonicism, not tone-centricity or tonality in any broader sense. Tonality is nearly ubiquitous in every music created by Man, and diatonicism holds no exclusive right to this.

I have some blogs, for what it's worth, but really, I think you should all listen to what Woodduck said.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> It seems we are coming close to saying that all sound can be heard as tonal.


 No, not all *sound, *but most music systems of the world are tonal in a general sense. See post #31. read it again.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> No, I don't think it does depend on that. Whether you call it music or not everyone loves birdsong etc. There is no innate preference for tonality.


What evidence is there for that? You missed the point of the post you quote. The fact that we can enjoy sounds of various sorts, particularly sounds of nature which have all sorts of extramusical meaning for us, tells us absolutely nothing about preferences in music. What does tell us something is the actual prevalence of tonal music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> The fact that we can enjoy sounds of various sorts, particularly sounds of nature which have all sorts of extramusical meaning for us, tells us absolutely nothing about preferences in music.


There's no argument there. I'm conceding that people prefer tonal music. My claim is that it's a learned preference. And my evidence for that is that people enjoy atonal natural sounds.

By the way, just a quick question, maybe irrelevant. Are windchimes tonal?

Here's a good one


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I agree, birdsong is not like any kind of tonal music by an; it is more like speech than music. The subject of birds is a waste of time.


Yes.



> There is a 'general' definition of 'tonal' (Harvard Dictionary of music).


Yes.



> From my blog: Our entire Western system is founded on diatonic heptatonic scales. The primacy of the C major scale, and its counterpoint on the piano keyboard, is evidence of this. The key signature system exemplifies diatonicism, not tone-centricity or tonality in any broader sense. Tonality is nearly ubiquitous in every music created by Man, and diatonicism holds no exclusive right to this.


Yes.



> I have some blogs, for what it's worth, but really, I think you should all listen to what Woodduck said.


Yes.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I agree, birdsong is not like any kind of tonal music .


Agreed



millionrainbows said:


> it is more like speech than music.


You need to explain this to me, I always thought speech could be musical (think of those early tapes by Reich, those pieces by Luc Ferrari, if you don't know what I mean I'll find youtubes.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> There's no argument there. I'm conceding that people prefer tonal music. My claim is that it's a learned preference. And my evidence for that is that people enjoy atonal natural sounds.
> 
> By the way, just a quick question, maybe irrelevant. Are windchimes tonal?
> 
> Here's a good one


You said that people have no innate preference for tonal music, and you submitted as evidence the fact that they can enjoy other kinds of sounds. That fact is not evidence for your conclusion. As millionrainbows put it, "the subject of birds is a waste of time."

Human beings do, and enjoy, all sorts of things which are contrary to their innate, biologically determined tendencies. The existence of cigarettes doesn't demonstrate that there's no innate preference for breathing fresh air. Climbing sheer rock faces doesn't demonstrate that humans lack an innate preference for not falling a thousand feet to their deaths. People can learn to prefer practically anything. An innate preference is not an unalterable one.

The human sciences, such as anthropology and psychology, are to a great extent attempts to discover the innate preferences of humanity. Ethnomusicology finds that humans in widely separated, and virtually all, places have spontaneously created tonal music. There is no plausible explanation for this except an innate tendency of the human mind. This is REAL evidence. Birdsong and crashing waves are irrelevant.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> There's no argument there. I'm conceding that people prefer tonal music. My claim is that it's a learned preference. And my evidence for that is that people enjoy atonal natural sounds.
> 
> By the way, just a quick question, maybe irrelevant. Are windchimes tonal?
> 
> Here's a good one


I think it's the other way around. That bird sounds are a learned preference. When you listen to a bird chirp or wind chimes, are you listening to the atonal or tonal relationships? It's more the timbre and the feeling associated with it than anything I believe. Even if I could fart to a tune, I don't think anyone would really think the melody sounds good.

I say bird sounds are a learned preference, because it is associated with innocence, etc. Imagine if a kid hears a bird sound, but doesn't see the bird. Instead, every time he/she hears the bird, someone comes and beats the kid. The kid would eventually associate the sound with violence.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Phil loves classical said:


> I think it's the other way around. That bird sounds are a learned preference. When you listen to a bird chirp or wind chimes, are you listening to the atonal or tonal relationships? It's more the timbre and the feeling associated with it than anything I believe. Even if I could fart to a tune, I don't think anyone would really think the melody sounds good.
> 
> I say bird sounds are a learned preference, because it is associated with innocence, etc. Imagine if a kid hears a bird sound, but doesn't see the bird. Instead, every time he/she hears the bird, someone comes and beats the kid. The kid would eventually associate the sound with violence.


Association is an important part of our perception and preference for certain sounds, but I think experiments with infants have shown that there are innate responses to some kinds of sounds. These responses are presumably bred into the structure of our brains by evolution. My guess is that the "song" of a thrush or the murmur of a stream is quite naturally perceived as pleasant, while the growl of a tiger may inspire fear even in the absence of any experience or knowledge of large carnivores.

The relationship between "nature" and "nurture" is a basic fact of our physical and psychic humanity. Our genes are inborn, but whether and how they're expressed in health, capabilities, preferences or behavior depends on numerous factors. It seems clear that the physical and psychic factors which give rise to the phenomenon of music express themselves in the creation of tonality unless other factors intervene, and that this natural tendency is very strong.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> The human sciences, such as anthropology and psychology, are to a great extent attempts to discover the innate preferences of humanity. Ethnomusicology finds that humans in widely separated, and virtually all, places have spontaneously created tonal music. There is no plausible explanation for this except an innate tendency of the human mind. This is REAL evidence. Birdsong and crashing waves are irrelevant.


Let me just focus on this for the moment. Why is there a difference here? I mean, why can't the pleasure of birdsong and the pleasure of tonal music both be learned pleasures ?

Both tonal and non tonal sound processes are enjoyed by humans pretty ubiquitously. Why do you insist on explaining their origins differently?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> No, not all *sound, *but most music systems of the world are tonal in a general sense. See post #31. read it again.


I did read it but was not referring to it specifically. I was merely referring (semi-humorously) to the cumulative result of the thread to that point. Personally I care little whether music or any other sound is tonal or atonal and would often not be able to distinguish the one from the other. Perhaps that is what I meant: if everything is broadened out into all possible contexts (musics from different cultures, natural and unnatural sounds, then the distinction may become meaningless for all).


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Association is an important part of our perception and preference for certain sounds, but I think experiments with infants have shown that there are innate responses to some kinds of sounds. These responses are presumably bred into the structure of our brains by evolution. My guess is that the "song" of a thrush or the murmur of a stream is quite naturally perceived as pleasant, while the growl of a tiger may inspire fear even in the absence of any experience or knowledge of large carnivores.
> 
> The relationship between "nature" and "nurture" is a basic fact of our physical and psychic humanity. Our genes are inborn, but whether and how they're expressed in health, capabilities, preferences or behavior depends on numerous factors. It seems clear that the physical and psychic factors which give rise to the phenomenon of music express themselves in the creation of tonality unless other factors intervene, and that this natural tendency is very strong.


I can't speak for others, but I loved the growl of a tiger when I was a kid. I thought it was a symbol of power. Of course if it was loud and in my face, I would be startled or scared. I think what goes with the sound of birds is as important or more than the sound itself. Usually it's quiet and serene, for you to notice the sound of birds. When I hear it together with traffic as in my parts, it doesn't really do anything to me. I also wondered about what you said. It's hard to really know conclusively.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Phil loves classical said:


> I can't speak for others, but I loved the growl of a tiger when I was a kid. I thought it was a symbol of power. Of course if it was loud and in my face, I would be startled or scared. I think what goes with the sound of birds is as important or more than the sound itself. Usually it's quiet and serene, for you to notice the sound of birds. When I hear it together with traffic as in my parts, it doesn't really do anything to me. I also wondered about what you said. It's hard to really know conclusively.


You enjoyed it as a symbol of power because you were safe at home watching a tiger on TV, or the tiger was separated from you at the zoo by bars or a wall. Power is enjoyable only if we're not victims of it. You were also past the age where sounds could affect you without associations. These experiments can't be performed on adults, who have too much baggage.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

I loved a whistle in the wilderness . Camped for weeks by a mountain stream . Eventually I discovered
a stone in the stream had a hole in it . The music was not always , thus musical .

Today on the farm the first mourning dove arrived . No one answered its call .


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> I did read it but was not referring to it specifically. I was merely referring (semi-humorously) to the cumulative result of the thread to that point. *Personally I care little whether music or any other sound is tonal or atonal *and would often not be able to distinguish the one from the other.


If that's the case, your reply means little to me because you haven't thought about tonality in general or in any terms.



Enthusiast said:


> Perhaps that is what I meant: if everything is broadened out into all possible contexts (musics from different cultures, *natural and unnatural sounds,* then the distinction may become meaningless for all).


The Harvard Dictionary of Music (the older red edition) didn't include *natural and unnatural sounds *in a general definition of tonality.

BTW, Woodduck and I both agree on this general definition, for what that's worth.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> BTW, Woodduck and I both agree on this general definition, for what that's worth.


Amazing, isn't it? World, take note.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> Amazing, isn't it? World, take note.


I'm not concerned about the world, only the rulers of it: the mods.
Just as amazing on your part.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not concerned about the world, only the rulers of it: the mods.
> Just as amazing on your part.


So you wanted the mods to know that we agree on something? Why?

What do you mean, "on your part"?


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

For me, tonal music is and always has been “self-evident.” This certainly seems to be the case for the vast majority of normal-hearing people across cultures. Its psychological bases are interesting and have been studied experimentally using various approaches and methods, as I learned back when I was a cognitive scientist, though that was not my specialty and I can’t claim detailed knowledge in this area.

I can enjoy atonal music in general only when I have an idea about what sensations, perceptions, and emotions it is intended to evoke. I have had very enjoyable experiences at performances where the music was preceded by short lectures (usually at a university, but Bill McGloughlin et al. sometimes do this kind of thing on the radio, too). Without that background, philistine or just normal human that I am, I can’t get anything meaningful out of the atonal music. So I would never buy a CD of atonal music. I would definitely go to a lecture/performance of such or listen to one on the radio.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm categorizing for convenience, but it would be interesting to hear reactions to music by a composer such as, say, Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen's music. With such hard-core modern music, how do *you* approach it, if you do?
> 
> Assuming that you are sympathetic to it, define and accept it as music, I'm interested in hearing about the experiences of those who have made the attempt to approach and accept this music.
> 
> ...


This is a good question. I try to approach music, and art of any kind, with as few preconceptions as possible. I certainly have no preconceptions regarding harmony or tonality, for example. To pursue that point further, both Elliott Carter and Charles Wuorinen, the two composers you cite as examples, may have abandoned traditional western harmony, but they certainly didn't abandon traditional western instruments and timbres, or traditional western musical structures and ensembles. I am willing to free myself from preconceptions in those areas as well, and so listen to non-western music, for example, with as open ears as possible.

You seem to make the assumption that music based on traditional western harmony is "evident to the ear" and anything else isn't. I disagree regarding both of those assumptions. First, harmony need not be of the "traditional western" variety.  Second, harmony is not the only fundamental or important element of music. And third, even musical systems designed to avoid establishing tonal hierarchies or centers, or intervals based on the natural harmonic series, often don't eliminate those elements entirely -- a point you have made in other threads.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

blah blah blah.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

relevant classic debates

nature v nurture
cultural v genetic

and especially theories of language where they ask almost they same questions...and even physical theories of symmetry...

In the beginning there was chaos, no tonality, no information... the original being sang to itself in the absence of physical partners... so OB decided to start a band and needed some gear... but as the universe came to order and the band assembled to jam, the other band members couldn't quite follow OB's ideas, so OB had to make it simpler, and this is why we have tonality...


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

If there is indeed a so-called "language organ", as Noam Chomsky and many others believe, isn't the idea of a "music organ" also considerable, esp given that some people simply don't seem to be endowed with one  

If a child makes wind-whooshy noises instead of, say, descending fourths, is that child less musical or closer to the Original Being's intentions?


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Does spectralism hold a special place in the evolution of music, is it tonal, or atonal, or is it a bridge, or none of the above?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Cage seems to argue in the early paper East in the West that oriental music is not tonal. Rather it is not harmonic at all. Anyway, see what you think -- here it is

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/engl...andmusic/syllabus/week7/eastinthewestcage.pdf



> In general, then, there may be pointed out certain large musical conditions
> which are characteristically Oriental. They are: that the music be non-thematic,
> non-harmonic, non-motival; that it have (a) an integral step-wise use of scale,
> (b) structural rhythem, (c) an integral use of percussive sound and (d) pitch distances less than a semi-tone.


There's also this very well known comment which he made in a lecture at Darmstadt



> "In the course of a lecture last winter, Suzuki said that there
> was a difference between oriental and european thinking,
> that in european thinking things are seen as causing one another and having effects, whereas in oriental thinking
> this seeking of cause and effect is not emphasized but
> ...


Each sound is its own centre. Each sound connects to all other sounds in a complex relationship. Theories of harmony impose limiting relationships on sounds, which is incompatible with their interpenetration.



> For this music is not concerned with harmoniousness as generally understood, where the quality of harmony results from a blending of several elements. Here we are concerned with the coexistence of dissimilars, and the central points where fusion occurs are many: the ears of the listeners wherever they are. This disharmony, to paraphrase Bergson's statement about disorder, is simply a harmony to which many are unaccustomed.


Anyway, I thought I'd give you something to think about.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> So you wanted the mods to know that we agree on something? Why?
> 
> What do you mean, "on your part"?


That reminds me of an old joke. Two psychiatrists were walking down the hall towards each other. One said, "Good morning," to which the other replied, "Good morning." As they both walked away, each one thought, "I wonder what he meant by that?"


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Cage seems to argue in the early paper East in the West that oriental music is not tonal. Rather it is not harmonic at all. Anyway, see what you think -- here it is
> 
> https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/engl...andmusic/syllabus/week7/eastinthewestcage.pdf
> 
> ...


Thank you for those interesting comments. Millionrainbows has often discussed how traditional western harmony is largely about harmonic progression -- starting someplace, perhaps someplace remote and foreign to the ultimate conclusion, but ultimately always proceeding towards that conclusion. Though the description "non-western music" covers a lot of territory, both conceptually and geographically, a lot of it has in common the de-emphasis, or even abandonment, of the concept of progression to a conclusion. i think expecting that sort of progression is one of the main preconceptions one needs to free oneself from to listen to many types of non-traditional music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Cage seems to argue in the early paper East in the West that oriental music is not tonal. Rather it is not harmonic at all.


"Harmony" and "tonality" needn't refer only to the harmonic system of Western music. The relationship of melody notes to the drone in Indian music is both harmonic and tonal. The drone is the tonic, or anchor, of whatever scale is used, and there are hierarchies of importance and conventional relationships between all the notes of the scale, embodied in "ragas," that govern melodic movement and correspond to the particular emotional content of the music. There are "minor" and "major" tonalities in Indian music. There's harmony occurring at every moment, even if it isn't "progressive" as in Western music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Excellent post #76, Mandryka. Not only that, but I know it takes some work to type out those quotes.
_



In general, then, there may be pointed out certain large musical conditions

Click to expand...

_


> _which are characteristically Oriental. They are: that the music be non-thematic,_
> _non-harmonic, non-motival; that it have (a) an integral step-wise use of scale,_
> _(b) structural rhythem, (c) an integral use of percussive sound and (d) pitch distances less than a semi-tone._


If you've ever heard Japanese Noh music, it consists of clattering noise; likewise, Tibetan Buddhist ceremonial music with clattering metallic sounds.

Japanese Gagaku sounds like it might have "themes," but really they are idiomatic 'gestures' on an instrument like flute, with percussion and plucked strings.

This raises a question; since the music is ceremonial, can it really be considered to be "music" in the same way most CM listeners define music?

Probably not, so this is another case of "What is the music's function?" Is it for the artistic/aesthetic reason of 'divine contemplation,' or for ceremonial emblematic uses? ("Art" is a relatively recent function)

Just like our Gregorian chant was designed for Church ceremony, Cage's music is also "sacred" in nature, not on the same plane as our "art" music. This may strike some here as a contradiction or an absurdity, but I've always considered John Cage's music to be "sacred" from the very start.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

In Debussy's music, each "momentary chord" sounds cool on its own. But these chords make little relation to what came before and comes after. The whole thing is like a continual random succession. People make hyperbolic claims on his use of harmony, but I still think it's debatable how much genius it takes to create stuff like this. To be honest, I find the general style to be too close to modern ambient music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> In Debussy's music, each "momentary chord" sounds cool on its own. But these chords don't make relation to what came before and comes after. It's like a continual random succession. People make hyperbolic claims on his use of harmony, but I still think it's debatable how much genius it takes to create stuff like this. To be honest, I find the general style to be too close to modern ambient music.





> In Debussy's music, each "momentary chord" sounds cool on its own. But these chords don't make relation to what came before and comes after. It's like a continual random succession.


I don't see the Debussy that way at all. I hear distinct "partitions" of structure, in which another chord is emphasized. It's like a change of color.



> People make hyperbolic claims on his use of harmony, but I still think it's debatable how much genius it takes to create stuff like this.


What did you expect, strict counterpoint? This is "harmonic" music, not contrapuntal or melodic. Maybe you have to be "wired" (or a maverick who has escaped wiring) to appreciate this. Maybe its a conceptual or doctrine issue for some. It's from the era of "art" music, so there is a break from the way Western music had been so Church oriented.

Yes, anything is debatable. "Genius?" I think the term was becoming outmoded in his time, but from what I've heard, he had very good ears.



> To be honest, I find the general style to be too close to modern ambient music.


How about a little Mozart, then?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> In Debussy's music, each "momentary chord" sounds cool on its own. But these chords make little relation to what came before and comes after. The whole thing is like a continual random succession. People make hyperbolic claims on his use of harmony, but I still think it's debatable how much genius it takes to create stuff like this. To be honest, I find the general style to be too close to modern ambient music.


There's no reason why harmonic progressions have to conform to the rules of traditional common practice. If harmonic changes are expressive and there is a sense of overall shape and point to the composition, chord changes which may be "illogical" according to common practice can still be satisfying. We can accept Debussy's procedures on their own terms - many of us do - but not if we insist on common practice rules as our measuring stick. You must be aware that there's music all over the world that doesn't conform to those rules. By allowing chords to "float free" of them, Debussy achieved fascinating expressive effects impossible within "the system" and unprecedented in history.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> There's no reason why harmonic progressions have to conform to the rules of traditional common practice. If harmonic changes are expressive and there is a sense of overall shape and point to the composition, chord changes which may be "illogical" according to common practice can still be satisfying. We can accept Debussy's procedures on their own terms - many of us do - but not if we insist on common practice rules as our measuring stick. You must be aware that there's music all over the world that doesn't conform to those rules. By allowing chords to "float free" of them, Debussy achieved fascinating expressive effects impossible within "the system" and unprecedented in history.


I like this post; in fact I love it! It says it in a way I could not. Yes, overall shape and structure; I particularly hear the structure as abrupt 'partitions' and changes of color. Perhaps a comment on those Japanese parititions or panels?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm reminded of a story relayed by EdwardBast of Debussy and a friend listening to someone improvising at the piano. At a certain point Debussy looked at his companion and said, "He's starting to develop. Let's get out of here."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I like this post; in fact I love it! It says it in a way I could not.


Thanks........................


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I'm reminded of a story relayed by EdwardBast of Debussy and a friend listening to someone improvising at the piano. At a certain point Debussy looked at his companion and said, "He's starting to develop. Let's get out of here."


An actual LOL from me! :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> Excellent post #76, Mandryka. Not only that, but I know it takes some work to type out those quotes.
> If you've ever heard Japanese Noh music, it consists of clattering noise; likewise, Tibetan Buddhist ceremonial music with clattering metallic sounds.
> 
> Japanese Gagaku sounds like it might have "themes," but really they are idiomatic 'gestures' on an instrument like flute, with percussion and plucked strings.
> ...


The examples you cite are some of the most "far out" music in the world. I think you're right that we can't fully compare them with other music, in that they serve a ceremonial function and are intended to create a particular effect on the hearer, rather like chanting, incense, icons and other adjuncts to religious observance.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> In Debussy's music, each "momentary chord" sounds cool on its own. But these chords make little relation to what came before and comes after. The whole thing is like a continual random succession.


Sorry mate, something's wrong here because I just don't hear a continual random succession at all.

This is more like a random succession maybe


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Agreed. Debussy is not random.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Sure Debussy has his own procedures, and calling them "random" might be too harsh a judgement, but he only seems to be interested in creating "momentary atmosphere" at every moment of his passages, not a "grand statement" through structure like Beethoven's 9th for example.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I've heard that it's impossible to generate a truly random series of numbers. Maybe we should reign-in our definition of random and let him explain what he means by "a continual random succession." To me, serial music is much more 'random' sounding, if only because of the 12-note collection being in constant circulation.

I think Xenakis is much closer to random.

One piece strikes me as having a kind of entropic randomness, and that's Milton Babbitt's Piano Concerto. But for some reason, it has a surreal stillness that makes me imagine an elephant graveyard.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Cage seems to argue in the early paper East in the West that oriental music is not tonal. Rather it is not harmonic at all. Anyway, see what you think -- here it is
> 
> https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/engl...andmusic/syllabus/week7/eastinthewestcage.pdf


I don't think he's making that argument. He is trying to draw some parallels between 12-tone music and Hindustani music which I find interesting if not immediately convincing. In any case it doesn't implicate the concept of tonality as it's being discussed in this thread.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> One piece strikes me as having a kind of entropic randomness, and that's Milton Babbitt's Piano Concerto. But for some reason, it has a surreal stillness that makes me imagine an elephant graveyard.


With the elephants tossing the bones around and bloodsucking tsetse flies hovering.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I don't think he's making that argument. *He is trying to draw some parallels between 12-tone music and Hindustani music *which I find interesting if not immediately convincing. In any case it doesn't implicate the concept of tonality as it's being discussed in this thread.


He mentions Hovhaness, and that doesn't support any 12-tone connection to me, unless you can explain in more detail. I think instead he was seeing *oriental qualities* in Western music.
One interesting quote was this:


> One other characteristic, not technical, must be added to the above. It is the quality of being static in sentiment rather than progressive.


This describes the Babbitt concerto for me. The Baroque could add this to their list of affections: static, man, static, like Syd Barrett.


isorhythm said:


> In any case it doesn't implicate the concept of tonality as it's being discussed in this thread.


 I agree, I think Cage is talking about more conceptual features, not pitch.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> There's no reason why harmonic progressions have to conform to the rules of traditional common practice. If harmonic changes are expressive and there is a sense of overall shape and point to the composition, chord changes which may be "illogical" according to common practice can still be satisfying. We can accept Debussy's procedures on their own terms - many of us do - but not if we insist on common practice rules as our measuring stick. You must be aware that there's music all over the world that doesn't conform to those rules. By allowing chords to "float free" of them, Debussy achieved fascinating expressive effects impossible within "the system" and unprecedented in history.


Yes, well said. Debussy has long since had such a profound effect on all kinds of music, "serious" or popular (without getting back into a debate about that dichotomy -- maybe it's better to leave it at "all kinds of music") that it's easy to forget how extraordinary and unprecedented (good word, Woodduck) his music was. For me, his solo piano music is what stands out the most, as there, without the help of his lush and beautiful orchestrations and his mastery of the contrasting timbres of the instruments of the traditional symphony orchestra (already long established by his time), one can appreciate his ability to achieve those expressive effects even with a minimal palette of sounds.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Yes, well said. Debussy has long since had such a profound effect on all kinds of music, "serious" or popular (without getting back into a debate about that dichotomy -- maybe it's better to leave it at "all kinds of music") that it's easy to forget how extraordinary and unprecedented (good word, Woodduck) his music was.


Impressionism in both music and visual art has become almost a cliche, I think. It's just so easy on the ear and the eye. Since "culture," in popular perception - at least for Americans - became somehow identified with France, who's the most popular painter? Monet. Where did everyone go to study art or music? Paris. Debussy may not have quite the same ubiquity as Monet - you can't hang him over the fauteuil - but his harmonic innovations became essential to jazz and popular music. He can become flowery wallpaper if we're not listening closely (or even, at times, if we are), and I'm probably among those guilty of taking him too much for granted. But I never do when I hear _Pelleas et Melisande,_ where, like Berg in _Wozzeck,_ he shows that he can bring in the emotive language of traditional harmony when he needs it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Some more of John Cage's thoughts on harmony


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> I've heard that it's impossible to generate a truly random series of numbers.


This is essentially true. However, it is essentially possible to get arbitrarily close to a random series of numbers and, although philosophically I think there is an important distinction, for musical purposes and human perception this is the same thing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

fluteman said:


> Yes, well said. Debussy has long since had such a profound effect on all kinds of music, "serious" or popular (without getting back into a debate about that dichotomy -- maybe it's better to leave it at "all kinds of music") that it's easy to forget how extraordinary and unprecedented (good word, Woodduck) his music was. For me, his solo piano music is what stands out the most, as there, without the help of his lush and beautiful orchestrations and his mastery of the contrasting timbres of the instruments of the traditional symphony orchestra (already long established by his time), one can appreciate his ability to achieve those expressive effects even with a minimal palette of sounds.


I hate to say this, but Debussy mostly consists of two styles that I'm not very fond of. One is the kind I have already described in my previous posts. (La Mer seems to consist of nothing but momentary atmospheric gestures; with schizophrenic wind passages increasing up to FFF, dying down to ppp, rinse and repeat, it could make for good ambient music for films about the ocean and sea, as the title suggests) 
The other is the style like his Suite bergamasque (with Claire de lune being the worst). The Arabesques, Reverie are other examples. (Some other ones like L'isle joyeuse fall in between.) The ones that are way too Newagey (for lack of a better term) that I can't help but think that they could have been written by today's Newage artists. I don't know how to put it precisely, but this is the kind of image I get in my mind:










(I also understand and respect the preferences of other people who dislike older classical music for the powdered wig or religious dogma, or whatever. Each to their own.)


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> Sure Debussy has his own procedures, and calling them "random" might be too harsh a judgement, but he only seems to be interested in creating "momentary atmosphere" at every moment of his passages, not a "grand statement" through structure like Beethoven's 9th for example.


I think his music has a lot of structure, just not in traditional harmony. I felt that way about La Mer before, just passing moods or images. But listening to it a while back, I realized there is a lot of structure I hadn't paid attention to. There is also a lot of motion in its harmony. As much or more than Mozart


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> I hate to say this, but Debussy mostly consists of two styles that I'm not very fond of. One is the kind I have already described in my previous posts. (La Mer seems to consist of nothing but momentary atmospheric gestures; with schizophrenic wind passages increasing up to FFF, dying down to ppp, rinse and repeat, it could make for good ambient music for films about the ocean and sea, as the title suggests)
> The other is the style like his Suite bergamasque (with Claire de lune being the worst). The Arabesques, Reverie are other examples. (Some other ones like L'isle joyeuse fall in between.) The ones that are way too Newagey (for lack of a better term) that I can't help but think that they could have been written by today's Newage artists. I don't know how to put it precisely, but this is the kind of image I get in my mind:
> 
> 
> ...


_Suite Bergamasque_ is early Debussy, and still relatively conventional harmonically. That isn't a defect, of course. I wonder how you can think of it as new agey, since there's far more going on in it melodically, harmonically, rhythmically and contrapuntally than in any new age music I can recall. As for your description of _La Mer_ as "nothing but momentary atmospheric gestures," I'm at a loss for words.

It's kind of sad that we have to add Debussy to Schubert and Chopin among widely respected composers you don't appreciate. Are there others we don't know about yet? We need to prepare ourselves in advance; these shocks could compromise our immune systems, a very bad thing just now.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I hate to say this, but Debussy mostly consists of two styles that I'm not very fond of. One is the kind I have already described in my previous posts. (La Mer seems to consist of nothing but momentary atmospheric gestures; with schizophrenic wind passages increasing up to FFF, dying down to ppp, rinse and repeat, it could make for good ambient music for films about the ocean and sea, as the title suggests)
> The other is the style like his Suite bergamasque (with Claire de lune being the worst). The Arabesques, Reverie are other examples. (Some other ones like L'isle joyeuse fall in between.) The ones that are way too Newagey (for lack of a better term) that I can't help but think that they could have been written by today's Newage artists. I don't know how to put it precisely, but this is the kind of image I get in my mind:
> 
> 
> ...


Again, negatively comparing a composer's music to a style that didn't exist until after his death is a glaring fallacy. I like my Debussy to sound like Debussy, my Beethoven Beethoven, my Mozart Mozart. Debussy making "big formal statements" like Beethoven would be out of his style just as it would be out of Mozart's style to write impressionistic miniatures. I like them all for totally different reasons - that's a big part of why I love classical music so much; it contains an infinite amount of variety. Wouldn't it be boring if all composers wrote the same way? And what does a powdered wig have to do with being able to appreciate music? That's a totally extramusical element. I can't help but think you may have a similar obstacle blocking your enjoyment of Chopin, Debussy and others...you're unfairly associating it with other kinds of music that have nothing at all to do with the source material. Just enjoy it as it is! See if you can be emotionally/aesthetically moved by it rather than analyzing it so intensely. Just a suggestion - I'm a naturally analytical person too, but I wasn't able to appreciate some composers (i.e. Bach) until I quit focusing on the formal and intellectual elements and just let the sublimity of the music wash over me and move me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> See if you can be emotionally/aesthetically moved by it rather than analyzing it so intensely. Just a suggestion - I'm a naturally analytical person too, but I wasn't able to appreciate some composers (i.e. Bach) until I *quit focusing on the formal and intellectual elements and just let the sublimity of the music wash over me and move me.*


Indeed.

"Why, then, 'tis none to you, for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison." - Hamlet


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> I hate to say this, but Debussy mostly consists of two styles that I'm not very fond of. One is the kind I have already described in my previous posts. (La Mer seems to consist of nothing but momentary atmospheric gestures; with schizophrenic wind passages increasing up to FFF, dying down to ppp, rinse and repeat, it could make for good ambient music for films about the ocean and sea, as the title suggests)
> The other is the style like his Suite bergamasque (with Claire de lune being the worst). The Arabesques, Reverie are other examples. (Some other ones like L'isle joyeuse fall in between.) The ones that are way too Newagey (for lack of a better term) that I can't help but think that they could have been written by today's Newage artists. I don't know how to put it precisely, but this is the kind of image I get in my mind:
> 
> 
> ...


Not only would there be no "new age" music as we know it today, there would be none of all sorts of music, or at least it would not be at all the same, without Debussy. So it can be hard to peel away all that subsequent history and listen to the "original", as it were, afresh. But very rewarding, at least for me. I was going to post a youtube clip of Le petit berger (The Little Shepherd) from Childrens' Corner Suite rather than Suite Bergamasque, but to my surprise I couldn't find one that did it justice after listening to at least half a dozen. A very simple and easy piece to play by young students, yet very much not simple and not easy to play. There is a video of Alain Planès playing the entire Suite, apparently at the same recital that is the source for the Suite Bergamasque I linked to, that's worth hearing.
Anyway, I try to listen to the music of Elliott Carter or Charles Wuorinen as I try to listen to that of Debussy, with as little as possible historical, political or any other unnecessary baggage. Musicological analysis is fine so long as my ears can confirm what the words are telling me.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Debussy had an intuitive style, I do hear a grand design and a beauty inspired by nature in his music. Debussy's style is very impressive because it isn't dependent on the same rules of harmony as earlier music. It can't be easily analyzed, boxed in or categorized. A lot of post-modern composers have attempted to create music with more of an intuitive feel, with much less success. 

As long as we are throwing around subjective perceptions I think Debussy's music is more imaginative than Beethoven's music. It is not so rigid sounding. His music is more 'zen' and less uptight. When I listen to Beethoven it often brings to mind soldiers marching with high leg kicks. When I listen to Debussy I hear someone who is more laid back with a profound imagination. The music of a day dreamer, a magi who understood how to translate those perceptions into sound.

As I read somewhere Debussy's music suggests "The indefinable that sings and vibrates under the appearance of things and beings."

As far as John Cage's thoughts on harmony, those would be about as interesting and insightful as reading up on Schubert's insights on counterpoint.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> And what does a powdered wig have to do with being able to appreciate music?


"Powdered wig" is a metaphor in this case; it is used to mean certain austere formal elements (such as certain phrases and cadences that often lead to the tonic, or certain formulas in structure) in earlier common practice music some people find unattractive.



Woodduck said:


> I wonder how you can think of it as new agey


I've taken note of everyone's points defending Debussy, and I also understand this is not a thread for bashing Debussy, so I'll keep my rant on his music to a minimum. But I just want to make a few more points regarding New age and classical music:










For a long time, I've been disturbed by these unanswered questions regarding this matter:
1. If John Cage (who said that _"If you listen to Mozart and Beethoven, it's always the same. But if you listen to the traffic here on Sixth Avenue, it's always different."_) is part of the "classical music tradition", why can't classically-inspired New age music be considered "classical"?
2. Aren't classical music miniatures (by some Romantic and Impressionist composers) and New age too aesthetically close?
3. Does that mean classically-inspired New age can also potentially be considered "classical music"? Would it be accepted as a part of classical music in the future, by the posterity? (like 100~200 years from now)






But in reality, I can't accept this composer as a part of classical music. Thinking too much on this topic makes me feel some kind of mild aversion to both New age and certain classical music with New-age like tendencies. I can't help it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> "
> 
> 1. If John Cage (who said that _"If you listen to Mozart and Beethoven, it's always the same. But if you listen to the traffic here on Sixth Avenue, it's always different."_) is part of the "classical music tradition", why can't classically-inspired New age music be considered "classical"?


It's inaccurate to say that Cage is part of classical music tradition. Clearly he rubbed shoulders with people who were interested in classical music, like Schoenberg. But all the core works of his own art reject the essential aspects that tradition.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Powdered wig" is a metaphor in this case; it is used to mean certain austere formal elements (such as certain phrases and cadences that often lead to the tonic, or certain formulas in structure) in earlier common practice music some people find unattractive.
> 
> I've taken note of everyone's points defending Debussy, and I also understand this is not a thread for bashing Debussy, so I'll keep my rant on his music to a minimum. But I just want to make a few more points regarding New age and classical music:
> 
> ...


The Kuramoto can be called pop-classical, kind of like the stuff Richard Clayderman plays. It's not New Age. Why is it not considered Classical? I'm going to say, pop-classical follows rigid chord progressions, and the melody is basically improvised around each chord. In Mozart and Beethoven you can analyze the chords, but there is more to their music. A lot more inflections in the melody. Take that Waltz for Chopin, the real Chopin doesn't just build around those chords as Kuramoto does. The ear can hear pretty quickly music that is almost built entirely on chord progressions.

With some New Age, they do take some stuff from the Impression masters. But their music has much less movement. It's built around a certain hook, like a juxtaposition between certain notes. So I'd say Pop and New Age simplifies stuff they took from Classical. I'm not a fan of John Cage. But he pushed the envelope on certain techniques. Pop and New Age don't.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Millionrainbows, or indeed anyone else, have you explored anything by James Tenney? I Just noticed that Cage said some very positive things about his harmonic techniques, I can post the quote if anyone’s interested, and so I’d like to hear what he does. I’m just looking for guidance really, what’s interesting by him? What’s he about?


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Powdered wig" is a metaphor in this case; it is used to mean certain austere formal elements (such as certain phrases and cadences that often lead to the tonic, or certain formulas in structure) in earlier common practice music some people find unattractive.
> 
> I've taken note of everyone's points defending Debussy, and I also understand this is not a thread for bashing Debussy, so I'll keep my rant on his music to a minimum. But I just want to make a few more points regarding New age and classical music:
> 
> ...


The Kuramoto piece sounds a lot more like derivative Chopin than derivative Debussy, but but without Chopin's formidable skills in harmony and thematic development. Charles Rosen's book The Romantic Generation goes into all that in some detail.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Phil loves classical said:


> The Kuramoto can be called pop-classical, kind of like the stuff Richard Clayderman plays. It's not New Age. Why is it not considered Classical? I'm going to say, pop-classical follows rigid chord progressions, and the melody is basically improvised around each chord. In Mozart and Beethoven you can analyze the chords, but there is more to their music. A lot more inflections in the melody. Take that Waltz for Chopin, the real Chopin doesn't just build around those chords as Kuramoto does. The ear can hear pretty quickly music that is almost built entirely on chord progressions.
> 
> With some New Age, they do take some stuff from the Impression masters. But their music has much less movement. It's built around a certain hook, like a juxtaposition between certain notes. So I'd say Pop and New Age simplifies stuff they took from Classical. I'm not a fan of John Cage. But he pushed the envelope on certain techniques. Pop and New Age don't.


I'd say this is a very good summation. Kuramoto is pop-Romanticism - a pale, clicheed, sentimental, simplified footnote to the real thing. I'll define sentimentality as emotionality without responsibility - in this case, the responsibilty of coming up with anything fresh, inventive, interesting or memorable. There needs to be a richness of invention commensurate with the expressive pretensions of a piece. To compare even Chopin's or Debussy's lightest work with Kuramoto's sappy drivel is a criminal offense against those composers.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I'd say this is a very good summation. Kuramoto is pop-Romanticism - a pale, clicheed, sentimental, simplified footnote to the real thing. I'll define sentimentality as emotionality without responsibility - in this case, the responsibilty of coming up with anything fresh, inventive, interesting or memorable. There needs to be a richness of invention commensurate with the expressive pretensions of a piece. To compare even Chopin's or Debussy's lightest work with Kuramoto's sappy drivel is a criminal offense against those composers.


Yes. It's one thing to write a piece that is recognizably in the basic style of Chopin, as Kuramoto does in this instance, or of Debussy, or Mozart, or Bach, or even Beethoven. It is quite another to equal their formidable skills both in formulating ambitious large scale concepts and constructing the numerous intricate and subtle details that bring it to life. There is a highly entertaining youtuber who posts piano music with an uncanny ability to imitate these composers. She annotates her music to illustrate her technique along the way. Here is an example of her, ahem, work:




and another:


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

^Good point. If someone really wants to debunk Hammeredklavier's moronic claim that Chopin and Debussy are just a couple of steps away from tacky new age, they would find a new agey musician that parrots Mozart. I can't be bothered to find anything like that, but I suppose something of that nature is out there.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

flamencosketches said:


> ^Good point. If someone really wants to debunk Hammeredklavier's moronic claim that Chopin and Debussy are just a couple of steps away from tacky new age, they would find a new agey musician that parrots Mozart. I can't be bothered to find anything like that, but I suppose something of that nature is out there.


Here ya go:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

In what year does New Age become Old Age?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

flamencosketches said:


> Hammeredklavier's moronic claim that Chopin and Debussy are just a couple of steps away from *tacky* new age


I wouldn't consider Chopin, Grieg, or Debussy or even Yuhki Kuramoto "superficial". They move people in ways other composers don't. It's more a matter of individuals' perception.
With Chopin, the fourth Ballade gives us glimpse of what he might have achieved had he lived longer. But other times, I find that "reduction of form" in Chopin is a bit too extreme. So many times Chopin writes 10~20 measures of music and calls it a piece. Look at some of the Preludes or Mazurkas. There's nothing wrong with "breaking down of form", but the way he and Debussy did seems a little extreme.






There's no doubt the miniaturists' music is passionate and emotional in their own way, but is it really philosophically in vogue with "classical music"? By philosophy I mean the kind of great vision Brahms showed us with his final two symphonies, for example.
I would still consider Chopin and Debussy to be genuinely "classical music", and definitely not "New age". But something "feels off". It's hard to describe in words so I'm using "New age" as an analogy to express the kind of impression I get from their music. You once said that you had issues with Dittersdorf, Stamitz, Boccherini - presumably it was their "powdered wig" that you couldn't stand. It's the same idea.



hammeredklavier said:


> "Spring Waltz" is a 2006 South Korean television series in the genre of romance and melodrama.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Waltz_OST
> If you look at Spring Waltz OST, disc 1 contains a whole bunch of works by Yiruma and disc 2 contains these works by classical music composers:
> Chopin Nocturne in C # minor (쇼팽 녹턴 C#단조)
> ...





hammeredklavier said:


> Charles Mayer (21 March 1799 - 2 July 1862), also known as Carl Mayer or Charles Meyer, was a Prussian pianist and composer active in the early 19th century.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I wouldn't consider Chopin, Grieg, or Debussy or even Yuhki Kuramoto "superficial". They move people in ways other composers don't. It's more a matter of individuals' perception.
> With Chopin, the fourth Ballade gives us glimpse of what he might have achieved had he lived longer. But other times, I find that "reduction of form" in Chopin is a bit too extreme. So many times Chopin writes 10~20 measures of music and calls it a piece. Look at some of the Preludes or Mazurkas. There's nothing wrong with "breaking down of form", but the way he and Debussy did seems a little extreme.
> 
> 
> ...


Totally fine if you get negative impressions from their music. I have such personal negative reactions to a few composers - we all have our blind spots, fine. But honest question: if you didn't know there was such thing as "new age" music, would you still have a negative reaction to Chopin and Debussy? I still think you're judging them based off a contemporary musical genre that they had nothing to do with. I could criticize Mozart for always being included in cheesy compilations like "relaxing classical songs" and "Mozart for babies." But I don't, because that says something about how people view the music and try to sell it as, not about the inherent worthiness of the composer/composition. And "great visions" don't require large forms to communicate. For me, Brahms's 4th and Chopin's minor-key nocturnes (like the C minor and C#minor) are incredibly and equally moving in their inexorable sense of tragedy. Comparison is often a futile exercise.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> I find that "reduction of form" in Chopin is a bit too extreme. So many times Chopin writes 10~20 measures of music and calls it a piece. Look at some of the Preludes or Mazurkas. There's nothing wrong with "breaking down of form", but the way he and Debussy did seems a little extreme.
> 
> There's no doubt the miniaturists' music is passionate and emotional in their own way, but is it really philosophically in vogue with "classical music"? By philosophy I mean the kind of great vision Brahms showed us with his final two symphonies, for example.
> I would still consider Chopin and Debussy to be genuinely "classical music", and definitely not "New age". But something "feels off". It's hard to describe in words so I'm using "New age" as an analogy to express the kind of impression I get from their music.


Do you enjoy haiku? The miniature is a distinct art form, in any art. It takes a fine creative mind to make something absolutely distinctive and memorable in three lines of imagery or less than a minute of music. There is noting quite like Chopin's set of 24 preludes, each one a finely chiseled, aphoristic gem, the whole spanning an extraordinary variety of moods. It's always been one of my favorite works of Chopin.

What do you mean by the phrase "philosophically in vogue with classical music"? I don't know that classical music has, over a number of centuries, sustained any sort of "philosophical vogue." Certainly Romanticism cultivated smallness and intimacy every bit as much as expansiveness and grandeur. In fact, in Romantic music much of the latter consists of an accumulation of the former; the variety and detail is arguably more essential than the grand plan in the Romantic urge to explore the nooks and crannies of human subjectivity. I'd say that the "great vision" you find in Brahms arises from his efforts to hold on to an Olympian perspective and is a product of his Classicism: it's in composers like Wagner and Mahler that you find the truer Romantic perspective, for whom works are as large as they are because that's what's needed to put all the nuances of emotion under the microscope. Chopin's preludes do this in 24 distinctive, sharply focused moments. This is about as far from the beginningless, endless bubble bath of New Age music as one can get.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Do you enjoy haiku? The miniature is a distinct art form, in any art. It takes a fine creative mind to make something absolutely distinctive and memorable in three lines of imagery or less than a minute of music. There is noting quite like Chopin's set of 24 preludes, each one a finely chiseled, aphoristic gem, the whole spanning an extraordinary variety of moods. It's always been one of my favorite works of Chopin.
> 
> What do you mean by the phrase "philosophically in vogue with classical music"? I don't know that classical music has, over a number of centuries, sustained any sort of "philosophical vogue." Certainly Romanticism cultivated smallness and intimacy every bit as much as expansiveness and grandeur. In fact, in Romantic music much of the latter consists of an accumulation of the former; the variety and detail is arguably more essential than the grand plan in the Romantic urge to explore the nooks and crannies of human subjectivity. I'd say that the "great vision" you find in Brahms arises from his efforts to hold on to an Olympian perspective and is a product of his Classicism: it's in composers like Wagner and Mahler that you find the truer Romantic perspective, for whom works are as large as they are because that's what's needed to put all the nuances of emotion under the microscope. Chopin's preludes do this in 24 distinctive, sharply focused moments. This is about as far from the beginningless, endless bubble bath of New Age music as one can get.


Ah, you must have peeked at Rosen's book! He makes a similar point. The art of the miniature reached great heights with both Chopin and Debussy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> Ah, you must have peeked at Rosen's book! He makes a similar point. The art of the miniature reached great heights with both Chopin and Debussy.


I haven't read Rosen's remarks, but in this moment of social distancing I appreciate his company. (That mazurka is heartbreaking. It cuts me like a knife.)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Another thing about Debussy is that he uses a lot of chords in parallel fashion, (especially in piano music) so the general impression I get is that he often sounds — I don't know — "oriental"? The sort of music you hear in fantasy-themed movies about ancient mystical lands and heavens of China. There's something about him that makes me feel he's not "western" enough.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> Another thing about Debussy is that he uses a lot of chords in parallel fashion, (especially in piano music) so the general impression I get is that he often sounds - I don't know - "oriental"? The sort of music you hear in fantasy-themed movies about ancient mystical lands and heavens of China. There's something about him that makes me feel he's not "western" enough.


Maybe it's you who are not "Eastern" enough.  (Where do you think the film composers learned about parallel chords?)


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe it's you who are not "Eastern" enough.  (Where do you think the film composers learned about parallel chords?)


I think hammeredklavier is having fun with us. But the fact that one can hear hints of Debussy even today in "fantasy-themed movies about ancient mystical lands and heavens of China" says a lot about the profound long-term influence one great artist can have on an entire culture, as well as Debussy's oriental influences. Sure, some of those movie soundtracks are better, and more original and imaginative, than others. That doesn't bother me.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> Sure Debussy has his own procedures, and calling them "random" might be too harsh a judgement, but he only seems to be interested in creating "momentary atmosphere" at every moment of his passages, not a "grand statement" through structure like Beethoven's 9th for example.


That's a difference in time-perception. Beethoven was narrative. Continuous, uniform, and connected, like the eye-biased culture he was in. Debussy is not "eye," he was "ear." The "ear" mode of perception is sudden, disconnected, unpredictable. The ear does not anticipate, engulf large areas of travel, is not linear; thus Debussy might seem "primitive" and illiterate to the visually biased listener.
But ultimately, like John Cage said, music is sound, not story or narrative.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I feel embarrassed when Debussy has to be 'justified' or defended. Yes, we are on the right track; a more 'oriental' or Eastern way of perceiving. For untrained, musically illiterate listeners, a Godsend, since this is 'ear' music. Even grandmothers like it back in the 20s-30s-40s-50s. "Clare de Lune is just beautiful! More tea?"

Comparing Beethoven to Debussy? Why? To tear one or the other down? "New Age?" That's under the umbrella of "Eastern," so you don't have to like it or compare it to Debussy.
Debussy has CP "cred" because he is from the era before recording took over, got developed, & got good enough to compete.

I still look at the score to the Preludes Book 2 and am in awe of how his ideas were even written down. Like catching the wind.

But for me, Debussy gave cred to "ear" music and "just do what the hell you want to," sweeping away centuries of CP oppression. He was a revolutionary.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Maybe it's you who are not "Eastern" enough.  (Where do you think the film composers learned about parallel chords?)





fluteman said:


> the fact that one can hear hints of Debussy even today in "fantasy-themed movies about ancient mystical lands and heavens of China" says a lot about the profound long-term influence one great artist can have on an entire culture







Likewise, composers of tragic/sad drama shows like Yuhki Kuramoto and Yiruma learned their art from guys like Chopin, Grieg, Charles Mayer. But again, I don't consider them or Debussy musically superficial or artistically inferior to other classical music composers. Again, it's more about individuals' preferences. I don't consider "classical music composers' influence on jazz, metal or other modern alien genres that speak foreign languages" really all that important.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> I feel embarrassed when Debussy has to be 'justified' or defended. Yes, we are on the right track; a more 'oriental' or Eastern way of perceiving. For untrained, musically illiterate listeners, a Godsend, since this is 'ear' music. Even grandmothers like it back in the 20s-30s-40s-50s. "Clare de Lune is just beautiful! More tea?"
> 
> Comparing Beethoven to Debussy? Why? To tear one or the other down? "New Age?" That's under the umbrella of "Eastern," so you don't have to like it or compare it to Debussy.
> Debussy has CP "cred" because he is from the era before recording took over, got developed, & got good enough to compete.
> ...


Two very good posts, millionrainbows. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven created temporal narrative structures of extraordinary scope, precision, intricacy and sophistication. Much of that was done in the context of thematic development (of which thematic unity, which we bickered about in an earlier thread, is only a part).

Debussy departs that world in spectacular fashion, in some ways even more so than Wagner. Rather than giving music its own temporal narrative (other than to some extent in relatively brief preludes and interludes), Wagner turned the music's focus towards a dramatic narrative. And like Wagner, if Debussy didn't abandon temporal narrative entirely, he did suspend it for long stretches, but unlike Wagner, he often did so without any dramatic narrative to take its place, and especially in the solo piano music, without lush orchestral colors and textures to beguile and entertain the ear. Truly revolutionary, as you say.

The Preludes and Images for piano may be Debussy's crowning achievement. As a flute player, I'm also partial to another of his great late works, the trio for flute, harp and viola. But one can sense this suspension of temporal narrative even in a short, (deceptively) simple and playful piece like Le petit berger.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

The first time I heard _Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun_, it felt like there was a rainbow pouring down my ears. Debussy aimed to engage the senses very intimately, and I would say he does this better than any composer I know.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I was listening to "Jeux" and noticed how it is 'partitioned;' ideas seem to come one after the other in 'partitions'. Like those oriental paintings that stand up and fold.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I was listening to "Jeux" and noticed how it is 'partitioned;' ideas seem to come one after the other in 'partitions'. Like those oriental paintings that stand up and fold.


Have a listen to Christian Wolff's _Long Piano?_ There's a recording on spotify I think. Is it the same idea?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Have a listen to Christian Wolff's _Long Piano?_ There's a recording on spotify I think. Is it the same idea?


I'm not on Spotify. 
Why don't you provide a YouTube link?
I hear the same kind of partitioning in Varese. I've heard Frank Zappa thinks like this, he calls them "modules." It seems similar to working in computers to me; I can move "blocks" of MIDI data around. I'm sure all modern music producers are aware of this.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not on Spotify.
> Why don't you provide a YouTube link?
> I hear the same kind of partitioning in Varese. I've heard Frank Zappa thinks like this, he calls them "modules." It seems similar to working in computers to me; I can move "blocks" of MIDI data around. I'm sure all modern music producers are aware of this.


Because it's not on youtube! Wolff talks about collages.

This may be of interest to you. I've not read it yet, I just found it yesterday in fact.

http://www.plainsound.org/pdfs/Form.pdf

(Really enjoying exploring Tenney's Changes for 6 Harps.)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Because it's not on youtube! Wolff talks about collages.
> 
> This may be of interest to you. I've not read it yet, I just found it yesterday in fact.
> 
> ...


Thank you, Mandryka. I've added the link to my 'music & theory' bookmarks folder, and will read it in detail at my leisure. Your presence is appreciated.


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