# Hypotheses on why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music



## etkearne

Hi, everyone.*

First, please do not use this topic to bash people who LIKE atonal music and do not use it to bash people who think atonal music sounds like a cat running across a keyboard console!*

I just want to get a good, somewhat empirical discussion going as to _WHY_ certain people genuinely enjoy such music and why others will never ever find it attractive. My main motivation is from looking at the comments in certain You Tube videos by modern serial composers and modern atonal composers (Boulez and Carter respectively). Some people love the music and get a real emotional response from it (like myself). But there is just as equal of a camp who thinks that it lack any emotion and is just an academic exercise.

I think both camps are right, because you can only make an opinion from your _OWN_ personal experiences. So a person who genuinely cannot get an emotional response from such music will clearly just view it as a novel academic exercise and I think those folks should not get bashed upon.

This brings me to the topic: _WHY do some people like such music?_ Obviously, the fans must get a strong emotional response from the music and also get strong stimulation from it, or else they wouldn't like it. Music is generally considered "good" if it brings forth novel and strong emotions, good or bad or neutral.

I honestly do not have an answer to the question, so that is why I pose it here to see if anyone has any hypotheses.

I will chime in with my own "atonal timeline" after a few posts are written.

*Again, no bashing each other!*


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## jani

Some people don't like it because it sounds too "random" and its too hard for the brain to understand the patterns ,you have to be a musical genius like "Cough" certain user on this forum to truly love it.

I like it but i am not mad about it.


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## Guest

How about the greater or lesser need for pattern finding? Some listeners prefer (or their brains are wired to prefer) shorter patterns with greater repetitions, whether in the melody or the beat; some prefer (or are willing to sustain the concentration required to discern) much longer sequences and fewer repetitions, or none at all.


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## aleazk

It's an interesting topic, and I ask myself the same question sometimes. In the OP of this thread you can read some of my experiences about this topic:

http://www.talkclassical.com/20910-music-visual-arts-read.html


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## Andreas

etkearne said:


> This brings me to the topic: _WHY do some people like such music?_ Obviously, the fans must get a strong emotional response from the music and also get strong stimulation from it, or else they wouldn't like it. Music is generally considered "good" if it brings forth novel and strong emotions, good or bad or neutral.


I would say that it does not have to be an emotional response. I would suggest that it might also be something more primal. I experience this regularly with atonal (and tonal) music: it triggers a strong response, usually of a disarming and highly captivating nature, but I could not label it with any particular name. I just feel an intense stirring. A rush.

But this rush I would not call an emotion. Emotions are usually quite specific and somewhat easy to link to certain mental concepts we have, like sadness, jubilation, disappointment, anger, relief, mourning, etc. Those primal responses, however, simply cause some kind of diffuse excitement.

Which is strange, because one usually thinks of atonal music as particularly cerebral. However, I think it can also be, even simultaneously, just as primal.


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## Petwhac

I understand what you (OP) are getting at and I have been grappling with this question for many years.

I think this thread will get bogged down very soon though, in an argument about definitions of dissonance and atonality. There seems to be no consensus about those terms.

Perhaps we should make sure we limit our comments to our own response to music.
For me, I can and do admire some music that would be termed atonal or at least non-harmonic. However I have yet to be deeply moved by any music that does not contain some degree of tonality or harmonic progression be it Monteverdi or Britten.
I am a creature of harmony I suppose. Although I consider rhythm to be the most fundamental component music.


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## Ramako

A good question - one that I am actively considering at the moment...

I do not like this sort of music - I will not write this sort of music.

However, I do get some understanding out of it. I agree with the above that it is frequently more primal than common practice music. As to pattern recognition - modern music exploits this more deliberately perhaps than previous sorts, and at a more subconscious level as it appears at least to have less to do with themes at a superficial level than say Mozart. Perhaps I wrong but that is my impression.

However, there is no getting around the fact that to many people it sounds like a random series of noises. Is this because those listeners have not yet learned to speak the language? Personally I think not - some people do enjoy modern music with no initiation. The concepts of consonance and dissonance are, at both a superficial but also a fundamental level, linked to physics. Exactly how that connects to our musical experiences we cannot (yet) explain rigorously but the connection is there, whatever it implies. I don't know enough of these styles of music to be able to take this line of thought any further.


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## Hayze

I can't listen to atonal music and that is because I don't understand it (only tried a few times though). I genuinely cannot tell the difference between atonal music and sitting at my piano and randomly playing notes. This is just like some people think abstract paintings can be painted by randomly splashing different colors on canvas. Some can't understand it, and some see an abstract painting and do find its meaning and take pleasure in the process. I love abstract and modern paintings.
I'm pretty sure atonal music is an acquired taste. I will be able to understand it if I listen enough. I'm not sure I want it, though.


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## etkearne

Cool responses. Thank you for keeping this civil and on topic. Please continue doing so in order that we can all gain something from this.

The response that struck me most was the one that said "Atonal music strikes at a primal level - bringing forth something different than an emotion but nonetheless powerful". I agree with this. When I have more time, this evening, I will explain my first response to hearing extremely dissonant music about 10 years ago. Perhaps it wasn't emotional as I still cannot think of a particular emotion I would call it. But it was very powerful.


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## BurningDesire

Personally, it is hard for me to accept the idea that some people are incapable of enjoying music that is dissonant or atonal or highly chromatic or with irregular rhythms. I gradually fell in love with various music that used these things in various ways, and I don't think it is insurmountable for anybody else to come to a true understanding of this kind of music and derive the kind of passion they do from other music. I can listen to this sort of music and enjoy just as much as I enjoy rock music and tonal classical and jazz music, and that is because I gradually grew to understand the music and what it had to say. I am not without sympathy for those who have difficulty with some of the music. Total serialism and indeterminate and aleatoric music are extremely difficult to really get into. The syntax of that kind of music is extremely complex and difficult to understand, but that doesn't mean it is terrible music, it is just very challenging music. As far as music like that of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Cage's work from the 40's, and even to an extent composers like Crumb, Varese and Ligeti, I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music. It may be difficult at first, but there are so many things these composers have in common with more traditionally tonal composers that it doesn't take terribly long for one's listening vocabulary to grow to accept what occurs in their works, and enjoy them.

You don't really need to know how the music works in a technical manner. Do you need to know how tonal or modal music works technically, to be able to explain the theory behind it to enjoy it? No, and the same goes for music like this. It just may take a bit of effort on the listener's part, and I would think that somebody who loves music wouldn't feel it a chore to put some effort into their passion once in a while.


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## EricABQ

BurningDesire said:


> As far as music like that of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Cage's work from the 40's, and even to an extent composers like Crumb, Varese and Ligeti, I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music.


Why in the world would anyone need sympathy for that?


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## Guest

etkearne said:


> I just want to get a good, somewhat empirical discussion going as to _WHY_ certain people genuinely enjoy such music and why others will never ever find it attractive.


Well, unless you can be more specific, you will certainly never get an empirical discussion. (Somewhat? Is that like being "sorta pregnant"?)

To what are you referring by "such music" and "it"? You've mentioned Boulez and Carter. That's a start, I guess. But still hopelessly vague. And both men wrote quite a lot of music, different music. And they're very different from each other, too. And they're even more different from a lot of things that have been/that could easily be called "atonal."

Dissonant refers to responses. It's not a quality of the music. How otherwise could intervals we find perfectly consonant today have been heard as dissonant a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years ago? (How otherwise could we find people who enjoy minor seconds and others who excoriate them?)

Atonal, as I've pointed out before, is about as useful for musical discussions as acanine would be for taxonomic discussions. Acanine, even if confined to animals, is hopelessly broad. Some people may mean "insects" by it, some may mean "cats," some may mean all the African land mammals. Even canine covers covers quite a range of different things itself, does it not?

Some people get a kick out of Duke Ellington, some out of Helmut Lachenmann, some out of both. I doubt you'll ever get any closer as to *why* than you are now. Why do some people favor sweet and some savory? As for the "camp who thinks that it lack any emotion and is just an academic exercise," I'd first of all want to be sure I knew exactly what "it" referred to.

[By the way, you really can't control our bashings, as Sid James has found out. Probably best to not even try. Remain civil yourself, if civility is what you value, and you're in the clear.]

*Added:* Burning posted as I was typing. I just wanted to say how much I appreciated this remark of his: "I would think that somebody who loves music wouldn't feel it a chore to put some effort into their passion...."


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Personally, it is hard for me to accept the idea that some people are incapable of enjoying music that is dissonant or atonal or highly chromatic or with irregular rhythms. I gradually fell in love with various music that used these things in various ways, and I don't think it is insurmountable for anybody else to come to a true understanding of this kind of music and derive the kind of passion they do from other music. I can listen to this sort of music and enjoy just as much as I enjoy rock music and tonal classical and jazz music, and that is because I gradually grew to understand the music and what it had to say. I am not without sympathy for those who have difficulty with some of the music. Total serialism and indeterminate and aleatoric music are extremely difficult to really get into. The syntax of that kind of music is extremely complex and difficult to understand, but that doesn't mean it is terrible music, it is just very challenging music. As far as music like that of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Cage's work from the 40's, and even to an extent composers like Crumb, Varese and Ligeti, I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music. It may be difficult at first, but there are so many things these composers have in common with more traditionally tonal composers that it doesn't take terribly long for one's listening vocabulary to grow to accept what occurs in their works, and enjoy them.
> 
> You don't really need to know how the music works in a technical manner. Do you need to know how tonal or modal music works technically, to be able to explain the theory behind it to enjoy it? No, and the same goes for music like this. It just may take a bit of effort on the listener's part, and I would think that somebody who loves music wouldn't feel it a chore to put some effort into their passion once in a while.


Without wishing to become argumentative or hostile, I believe you are completely and utterly wrong and that you are making assumptions about other people that are absolutely unjustified. Let me explain.

Love of music has nothing to do with knowledge about it. It has nothing to do with capabilities or understanding. 
Serial or atonal or aleatoric or whatever musical 'syntax' you care to mention is most definitely _not_ more complex than the music of the common practice era. It is different yes but in many ways it is much simpler. Take _concrete_ music, take Murail, Grisey, Partch, Varese, take Stockhausen's Kontakte or Penderecki's Threnody- there is nothing particularly complex in a lot of music which might be described as 'difficult' by some.

No, I am coming to the conclusion that different people have a different make up. 
You said "I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music" ( referring to Crumb, Varese, Ligeti etc) Well my friend, I don't think that is an appropriate sentiment as nobody is looking for sympathy. The music is not hard to grasp but that doesn't mean one has to like it. 
There are some very very great musicians out there, educated, talented and passionate who just don't enjoy some of the music you do. Please do not make the mistake of assuming some lack of effort or interest on their part.


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## Lukecash12

Petwhac said:


> Without wishing to become argumentative or hostile, I believe you are completely and utterly wrong and that you are making assumptions about other people that are absolutely unjustified. Let me explain.
> 
> Love of music has nothing to do with knowledge about it. It has nothing to do with capabilities or understanding.
> Serial or atonal or aleatoric or whatever musical 'syntax' you care to mention is most definitely _not_ more complex than the music of the common practice era. It is different yes but in many ways it is much simpler. Take _concrete_ music, take Murail, Grisey, Partch, Varese, take Stockhausen's Kontakte or Penderecki's Threnody- there is nothing particularly complex in a lot of music which might be described as 'difficult' by some.
> 
> No, I am coming to the conclusion that different people have a different make up.
> You said "I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music" ( referring to Crumb, Varese, Ligeti etc) Well my friend, I don't think that is an appropriate sentiment as nobody is looking for sympathy. The music is not hard to grasp but that doesn't mean one has to like it.
> There are some very very great musicians out there, educated, talented and passionate who just don't enjoy some of the music you do. Please do not make the mistake of assuming some lack of effort or interest on their part.


"*Love of music has nothing to do with knowledge about it. It has nothing to do with capabilities or understanding.*"

And who are you to say that? These two statements pretty much toss most musicologists out of the picture as if they don't love music. Love of music *can* have pretty much everything to do with knowledge and capabilities and understanding. It doesn't have to. You really need to expand your horizons here if you think that is the case.


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## Ukko

Lukecash12 said:


> "*Love of music has nothing to do with knowledge about it. It has nothing to do with capabilities or understanding.*"
> 
> And who are you to say that? These two statements pretty much toss most musicologists out of the picture as if they don't love music. Love of music *can* have pretty much everything to do with knowledge and capabilities and understanding. It doesn't have to. You really need to expand your horizons here if you think that is the case.


So... replace "has nothing to do with" with 'has no requirement for'. Does that work for you? Does for me.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Personally, it is hard for me to accept the idea that some people are incapable of enjoying music that is dissonant or atonal or highly chromatic or with irregular rhythms...

Rather pretentious, don't you think? Others might suggest that it is hard to accept the idea of someone who cannot fully appreciate Mozart.

I don't think it is insurmountable for anybody else to come to a true understanding of this kind of music and derive the kind of passion they do from other music. I can listen to this sort of music and enjoy just as much as I enjoy rock music and tonal classical and jazz music, and that is because I gradually grew to understand the music and what it had to say. I am not without sympathy for those who have difficulty with some of the music. Total serialism and indeterminate and aleatoric music are extremely difficult to really get into. The syntax of that kind of music is extremely complex and difficult to understand, but that doesn't mean it is terrible music, it is just very challenging music.

Some undoubtedly dislike atonal music because they don't understand it... but seriously, it is no more complex or challenging than any number of other works of music. I suspect that there are more than a few who dismiss even trying to come to terms with atonal music because they are put off by this sort of attitude: "If you were willing to put forth the effort... if you weren't afraid of something just because it is intellectually challenging... if you were like me..." The reality is that some fully understand atonal music and still dislike it.

As far as music like that of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Cage's work from the 40's, and even to an extent composers like Crumb, Varese and Ligeti, I don't have much sympathy for people who can't grasp that music. It may be difficult at first, but there are so many things these composers have in common with more traditionally tonal composers that it doesn't take terribly long for one's listening vocabulary to grow to accept what occurs in their works, and enjoy them.

Contrary to your suggestion, I have little doubt that there are many good... even "great" works of music that you don't like/can't grasp... Ummm... Mozart? Honestly, I appreciate Schoenberg, Crumb, Feldman, Webern, Ligeti, etc... but I don't really love them. I need to be in the right mood for them... otherwise they strike me as nothing more irritating noise.


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## GGluek

This is too broad a question, and I could go in five different directions about it and write 3-4 pages, but I'll pick one -- the easiest. Simply, people are different and have different tastes, and the reasons go all over the map. I've already said elsewhere I don't have the patience for really dense music like say, Carter's or Sessions'. But at the other end of the spectrum, I don't have the patience for really slow moving music, like some of Bruckner, or Feldman, or Avro Part. But a good musical friend enjoys both, and I just chalk that up to ways we are different, without trying to analyze it.

Or, to use a different analogy, I have always read widely, but have never been able to get far in most works by Joyce or Faulkner. Doesn't mean I don't like Dostoevsky or Melville or Henry James or Conrad -- just have a block to those and maybe some others, without passing any value judgment on people who like and appreciate both. Who determines what "speaks" to a person, or what a person's taste is.

But to use an art analogy a mentor of mine advanced: If someone recoils emotionally to a certain school of contemporary art ("My child could do that." "I can't get past the automobile bumpers that sculpture is made of." . . .) Perhaps if that person were introduced to a roomful of art in that style, and told that he had to choose one piece to put in his living room and live with for the next year . . . then he would start looking at the pieces in a different way. The supposed childishness, or the materials, would recede into the background and he would start looking at things like form, arrangement, color, etc. and approaching the works as more than the individual things he derided. I'm not saying that's as easy to do with complex music, because it unfolds in time, so requires more effort to unlock the inner form -- but most people can "learn" to appreciate almost anything worthwhile, but for some it requires more effort or patience to do so than for others.

cheers -
george


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## KenOC

IMO "love" of dissonant/atonal music may, among certain people, arise from non-musical considerations. In motorcycling, for instance, I see plenty of people who have big bright shiny new motorcycles but don't really ride anywhere -- they're called "zip code riders" since they never get far from home. For them, it isn't really about motorcycling -- it's about being seen as a "motorcyclist" by their neighbors and peers.

Their aims, perhaps like some of the people this thread is about, are exclusiveness and bolstering self-esteem. You can usually tell by the nature of their replies to honest queries or criticism.

Please bear in mind that I'm using a narrow brush here!


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## Ukko

Are those habe~neros?


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## StevenOBrien

It's absolutely fine not to like it for what it is, everyone has that right, but I feel that a lot of people who think of atonal and extremely dissonant music as "garbage" feel that way because they judge it by the same terms that they would a tonal work by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms.

It may be a strange analogy to make, but it reminds me of classical music snobs who will boldly say that all pop music is garbage because the majority of it is uninteresting drivel. I don't want to overgeneralize here, but from what I gather, the goal of most pop songwriters is generally to make an enjoyable, memorable short piece that is fun to sing and dance to, not to make a piece that is complex, interesting and emotionally deep.

Of course you're going to think that a pop song is terrible if you judge it on the same terms that you would judge a Mozart or a Beethoven piece, just as most pop music lovers deem a Mozart or a Beethoven piece "*** **** *** ****** ****" when they judge it on the same terms as a pop song.

In other words, it's like saying that sailing yachts are stupid because you can't transport thousands of tons of cargo across the Atlantic on one. Invest in a bloody cargo ship and enjoy your holiday on your sailing yacht. Stop complaining that something is "bad" because it doesn't do something that it was never meant to do.

A work of art is objectively good if it meets the artist's goals, whatever those goals may be. That's how art should ALWAYS be judged. If you dislike those goals, fine, nobody's forcing you to listen.


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## KenOC

Hilltroll72 said:


> Are those habe~neros?


Nothing so Carmen-ish. Think of a certain famous Beethoven piano trio...


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## Ramako

StevenOBrien said:


> A work of art is objectively good if it meets the artist's goals, whatever those goals may be. That's how art should ALWAYS be judged. If you dislike those goals, fine, nobody's forcing you to listen.


Maybe I should start trying to write boring pieces of music - then I could probably be an excellent composer!

In my view, the aim is not superfluous to the art - in many cases it _is_ the art.


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## crmoorhead

I made a post somewhere before about the four elements that I believe attracts people to different kinds of music. Those elements are Beauty, Program, Complexity and Melody. Don't worry too much about the names, those are just my labels for them. It was initially just the first three, but Melody is (to me) one element to music that is mysterious enough to have its own appeal. 

Beauty: Quite simply, is it pleasant to the ear? Is the instrumentation complimentary? Is it harmonious?
Program: Obviously whether or not the music is trying to convey something in specific. 
Complexity: Are there a lot of things going on at once or some greater picture that I need to understand? Is part of the enjoyment understanding how it was constructed?
Melody: Can I hum it? 

To me, what kind of music one enjoys depends very much on the importance one places on each of the above. Bach's music is often high in complexity and in beauty, but has no program element to it. Sometimes, like with Liszt's Faust Symphony, the Program element is the key to enjoying the whole thing. If people really like the Program, then shortcomings in other elements are more accepted than if there were no program at all. Debussy's impressionist works often have very little melody that I can hum, but are still high in Beauty and Program. Mozart is high in melody etc etc

To answer the OP, however, I would say that those who like atonal music are capable of placing higher importance on the Complexity aspect and less or no importance on others, though the Program element can still remain very strong. I enjoy serialist (and other atonal) works in the same way as mathematical problems. I like to see how they work and coming to a 'solution' is very satisfying. Non-mathematical or non-scientific people may find something without a melody abhorrent. I find it fascinating.


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## arpeggio

So far I have really enjoyed that vast majority of the entries in this thread. I particularly enjoyed the observations of crmoorhead, StevenOBrien and GGluek. I really am unable to add very much to what has been said so far. Steven, I really think you are on to something. One can not apply the aesthetics of Mozart to Schoenberg. Although the relationship between Bach and Webern may be closer that some would want to admit.

As far as my own personal reactions to atonal music, I do not know. I believe in Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." There are tonal pieces I like and there are tonal pieces that I dislike. There are atonal pieces that I like and some that I dislike. It appears to me that how a person relates to a work of art really depends on his experiences. Why do I have positive experiences when I listen to Elliott Carter and negative ones when I listen to Xanakis? I do not have the foggiest idea. Maybe I do have flawed ears. Whenever I think I have come up with an answer, I discover it is bogus.

There is one interesting observation that I would like to make. Jerry Goldsmith has only composed a handful of concert works. Two of them are 12-tone pieces: _Music for Orchestra_ and _Christo Apollo_. What is interesting is that his 12-tone works still sound like Jerry Goldsmith.


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## bigshot

I think younger people tend to like it because it's more similar in spirit and sound to rock music.


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## millionrainbows

I think it takes some effort to appreciate post-war serial-derived music, wheras with tonality, it's a knee-jerk reaction; the food smells good and Pavlov's unfortunate dogs begin to salivate. It's as simple as that.

When I hear Corelli or Mozart, I can almost predict what the next event will be. The only way Mozart can be "brilliant" in such a predictable context is when he throws in an extra half-measure, or lands on a halfway "surprising" chord. The whole experience is based on clichés, and how cleverly these are juggled, like a "hidden pea" carnival game for rubes.
Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. _You can swallow, can't you?_

The further tonality is stretched, the better. Richard Strauss' surprising chord progression in his waltz from the Rosenkavalier Suite is the only appealing thing about an otherwise pedestrian piece. Those particular chords, the brief step outside the bounds of predictability, are the attraction of the piece. Otherwise, Mozart has "been there, done that."

_*And isn't this the dilemma of tonality?*_ It needed to constantly grow, to step outside itself. Audiences needed this constant change and titillation; they had become too familiar with the same old clichés.

And as composers evolved into the 20th century, they exploited the aspects of tonality which, ironically, contained the seeds of its own demise: increasing chromaticism, the tritone, diminished sevenths, dominant flat-nines, tri-tone substitutions, and more.

*That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities.*


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## starthrower

I don't like or dislike a piece of music based purely on the harmonies, rhythms, etc. There's an elusive or transcendent quality getting beyond the notes and moving the listener. Maybe this is naive, but that's my theory.


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## KenOC

"That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities."

*??? *"There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major." -- Sergei Prokofiev


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## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> "*Love of music has nothing to do with knowledge about it. It has nothing to do with capabilities or understanding.*"
> 
> And who are you to say that? These two statements pretty much toss most musicologists out of the picture as if they don't love music. Love of music *can* have pretty much everything to do with knowledge and capabilities and understanding. It doesn't have to. You really need to expand your horizons here if you think that is the case.


Well, who cares about musicologist anyway? I've been enjoying music - 'loving' music, even - without their assistance for long enough to know I can do without them. I don't need a physics teacher to explain how a rainbow works - it's just beautiful as it is.

Having said that, I might decide to learn something about how these things work.



GGluek said:


> Simply, people are different and have different tastes, and the reasons go all over the map. [...] but most people can "learn" to appreciate almost anything worthwhile, but for some it requires more effort or patience to do so than for others.


Assuming no value judgement is attached to the word 'effort', I'd agree. But doesn't this apply to anything unfamiliar? Having spent most of my life listening to pop and rock, my recent efforts to listen to more classical are proving very rewarding, but have still required a commitment on my part to get past the unfamiliarity - and possibly, the in-built receptors that seem to have been sensitised to certain musical forms and expectations and not others.



millionrainbows said:


> *That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities.*


For those of us who have limited classical experience, there's a whole world of tonality out there still to explore!


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> "There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major." -- Sergei Prokofiev


Far as I've been able to find, and I haven't looked all _that_ far, this is an unverified quote. (A very similar remark has been attributed to Arnold Schoenberg. "There is still plenty of good music to be written in C Major.")

In any case, let's ask this, how long ago did Prokofiev supposedly say this? Couldn't have been any later than 1953. (1951 for Schoenberg.)

Kodaly's Symphony in C Major is from 1960. Terry Riley's _In C_ is from 1964. I wonder if either could be advanced as proof of C Major's continued durability? I wonder if the suppositious quotes of either Schoenberg or Prokofiev or both can co-exist with Millions' assertion?

Whatever. It's interesting to see what traction this and similar "atonal" threads have gotten out of never getting down to specifics. I'd like to say that crmoorhead's suggestion that atonal music has no melody is absurd, but since I don't know to what he/she is referring when she/he says "atonal," I can't really say anything.

I've heard plenty of music that does not use common practice patterns, and quite a lot of it has melody. Indeed, if you define melody simply as the vertical changes along the horizontal axis (without any qualifiers), then very few things _don't_ have melody. A piece that just repeats the same pitch over and over again. A piece that consists of a single chord. A piece that consists basically of either white or pink noise. That's about it.


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## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> I think it takes some effort to appreciate post-war serial-derived music, wheras with tonality, it's a knee-jerk reaction; the food smells good and Pavlov's unfortunate dogs begin to salivate. It's as simple as that.
> 
> When I hear Corelli or Mozart, I can almost predict what the next event will be. The only way Mozart can be "brilliant" in such a predictable context is when he throws in an extra half-measure, or lands on a halfway "surprising" chord. The whole experience is based on clichés, and how cleverly these are juggled, like a "hidden pea" carnival game for rubes.
> Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. _You can swallow, can't you?_
> 
> The further tonality is stretched, the better. Richard Strauss' surprising chord progression in his waltz from the Rosenkavalier Suite is the only appealing thing about an otherwise pedestrian piece. Those particular chords, the brief step outside the bounds of predictability, are the attraction of the piece. Otherwise, Mozart has "been there, done that."
> 
> _*And isn't this the dilemma of tonality?*_ It needed to constantly grow, to step outside itself. Audiences needed this constant change and titillation; they had become too familiar with the same old clichés.
> 
> And as composers evolved into the 20th century, they exploited the aspects of tonality which, ironically, contained the seeds of its own demise: increasing chromaticism, the tritone, diminished sevenths, dominant flat-nines, tri-tone substitutions, and more.
> 
> *That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities.*
> 
> View attachment 8993


But tonality is just the frame of the painting. You really think there are no surprises in Mozart's music, that there is no novelty or invention to tonal music, that listening to it is just chewing on food? Why don't you just write your own symphony comparable to Schubert's 9th?


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## Lukecash12

> Well, who cares about musicologist anyway? I've been enjoying music - 'loving' music, even - without their assistance for long enough to know I can do without them. I don't need a physics teacher to explain how a rainbow works - it's just beautiful as it is.
> 
> Having said that, I might decide to learn something about how these things work.


Musicologists don't present a substitute system. They present an entirely different system of music appreciation that complements the typical type of listening. Musicology is about fascination and learning, and is just as rewarding emotionally.

The typical listener simply asks him/her self: "Do I like this?" Maybe that listener has some knowledge, or maybe that listener doesn't, and it will have whatever affect it does on his/her preferences. A musicologist asks a series of questions, and finds him/her self adventuring through rabbit trail after rabbit trail. They read journals, letters, newspapers, treatises, lectures, historical annals, and whatever other literature they can find.

I like that so many people enjoy music, and I especially like that so many people can enjoy art music without theoretical knowledge. However, I would be pretty disappointed if literally all of us couldn't ask questions more meaningful than: "Do I like this?" I would even venture to describe it as ignoble if all of us were to throw away this wealth of history, this index of man's emotion across time, and just resign to our impressions of music.

Of course, there exists many listeners of many different stripes in between, who do ask themselves a variety of questions when they listen to music. It wasn't my aim to describe you personally.


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> I think it takes some effort to appreciate post-war serial-derived music, wheras with tonality, it's a knee-jerk reaction; the food smells good and Pavlov's unfortunate dogs begin to salivate. It's as simple as that.
> 
> When I hear Corelli or Mozart, I can almost predict what the next event will be. The only way Mozart can be "brilliant" in such a predictable context is when he throws in an extra half-measure, or lands on a halfway "surprising" chord. The whole experience is based on clichés, and how cleverly these are juggled, like a "hidden pea" carnival game for rubes.
> Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. _You can swallow, can't you?_
> 
> The further tonality is stretched, the better. Richard Strauss' surprising chord progression in his waltz from the Rosenkavalier Suite is the only appealing thing about an otherwise pedestrian piece. Those particular chords, the brief step outside the bounds of predictability, are the attraction of the piece. Otherwise, Mozart has "been there, done that."
> 
> _*And isn't this the dilemma of tonality?*_ It needed to constantly grow, to step outside itself. Audiences needed this constant change and titillation; they had become too familiar with the same old clichés.
> 
> *That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities.*
> 
> View attachment 8993


If Mozart is too predictable for you, what value do you find in rock music?

Just curious.



> And as composers evolved into the 20th century, they exploited the aspects of tonality which, ironically, contained the seeds of its own demise: increasing chromaticism, the tritone, diminished sevenths, dominant flat-nines, tri-tone substitutions, and more.


Salt makes bland food taste better, but the man who dines on salt alone will die a quick death. A parable.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

millionrainbows said:


> *That's why I like post-war serial derived music; because tonality had exhausted its possibilities.*


I prefer the "exhausted" tonality, although I can enjoy much of the post-war serial you mentioned (in particular opera), apart from the avant-garde crap, which is "composers" surrendering to any real creativity whatsoever.


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## Guest

Knowledge, just by the way, is a very funny thing. Only when we notice it (like when we're first learning about something), do we call it knowledge. Otherwise, it's just assumed, taken for granted--not acknowledged (pun) for what it is, knowledge.

All of us bring knowledge to the table, all of us. We have all had experiences. We've all learned things from those experiences. The things we've learned constitute our knowledge. It might not be detailed or technical knowledge using the vocabulary of musicology or theory or even physics, but it's knowledge nonetheless. 

And even, it seems, some knowledge can be inherited. Certainly quite young people in 2012 have much less trouble with Beethoven's music than a lot of adult people did in 1810 (or even 1870, for that matter). Those sounds, those patterns, seem to have been culturally assimilated pretty thoroughly, though the TC thread on the Grosse Fuge shows that "pretty thoroughly" is not quite the same as "completely."


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## Lukecash12

some guy said:


> Knowledge, just by the way, is a very funny thing. Only when we notice it (like when we're first learning about something), do we call it knowledge. Otherwise, it's just assumed, taken for granted--not acknowledged (pun) for what it is, knowledge.
> 
> All of us bring knowledge to the table, all of us. We have all had experiences. We've all learned things from those experiences. The things we've learned constitute our knowledge. It might not be detailed or technical knowledge using the vocabulary of musicology or theory or even physics, but it's knowledge nonetheless.
> 
> And even, it seems, some knowledge can be inherited. Certainly quite young people in 2012 have much less trouble with Beethoven's music than a lot of adult people did in 1810 (or even 1870, for that matter). Those sounds, those patterns, seem to have been culturally assimilated pretty thoroughly, though the TC thread on the Grosse Fuge shows that "pretty thoroughly" is not quite the same as "completely."


But experiential knowledge and academically obtained knowledge aren't exactly the same. For example: There's a great difference between an older person who has experienced a lot, and may tell his/her children and other younger folk how that "people are this way, and this way, and that way", and a sociologist or cultural anthropologist who uses field knowledge and tested theories to describe and interact with people from many different groups, people who have had different experiences. While the elderly person is presented with trouble when he/she sees people from different cultures and micro-cultures, which that person may or may not reconcile with, one with academic knowledge is nonplussed by such a development, and even has theoretical tools ready to make a preliminary diagram in his/her mind after a short observation period. That person will manage being stuck in the boonies in Thailand, while the other probably won't manage so well. The elderly person may think along the lines of "this isn't how people should be", while the academic says to him/her self "this is a hunter-gatherer group, these are the resources they center their life around, this is how the sexes cope with one another and survive, this is how they have to deal with their sick and elderly, etc."

The same goes for most everything else. Maybe a good definition for knowledge as opposed to simple experience, is that knowledge is what we consider to be the most reliable information we can cull out from making a concerted effort to study an issue.

It's much like respecting your parents while doing things that don't necessarily resemble their wishes, as you go on with your life after childhood. Your parent tries to instill you with attitudes, prepackaged responses to situations, preliminary ideas that are useful enough to start you off. Your parents very well may not have been in your chosen profession, may not have experienced all of the red tape out there that you will face. It doesn't mean that they didn't teach you well. It means that you have arrived at a difference stage and type of learning. It means that you need to acquire a new base of knowledge with more specific applications.


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## arpeggio

*An advocate for Millions*

It appears that Millions statement satisfies the conditions established by the individual who initiated this thread which is to explain, if we like dissonant /atonal music, why?

One may differ with his reasons but Millions happens to be one of those who favor atonal music. Although I differ with some of his observations, I understand where he is coming from.

As stated earlier I am unable to explain why I like some atonal music. It seems that some of Millions rationalizations may be applicable to me as well. It appears that one difference between Millions and myself is that I still find some contemporary tonal music gratifying, _i. e._ the music of George Lloyd and Richard Danialpour.


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## Petwhac

Tonality has exhausted it's possibilities? Now _that_ is what I call an unverifiable statement.

I think it would be more true to say that certain people's ability to enjoy what they class as tonality, is exhausted. Bad luck for them.


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## science

I don't know about atonal, so I'll talk about weird. Thoughts on some really weird music that I love: 

Crumb: Black Angels - I love how shocking this was to me the first few dozen times I heard it, how it retains an element of shock even now, and how many patterns I can find in it. I'm sure there are more patterns than I've found too, because I'm not very good at that kind of thing. It expresses some really powerful emotions - emotions which, I can understand, some people might not enjoy feeling! But I feel those emotions often enough anyway, and I enjoy hearing music that expresses them so effectively. 

Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time - Beauty, strangeness, introspection.... There are a lot of things I love about this. Timbre is one of my favorite musical elements, and this work definitely explores a wide variety of interesting timbres. I love the use of silence - sometimes the silence is as sweet as the sound. 

Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - To me this is a great intellectual work. Following the variations is an adventure in Rzewski's great creativity. It's intellectually fun. 

Ostertag: All the Rage - I guess I would say many of the same things I said about Crumb's Black Angels. As far as I can tell, it is a less intellectual work, but the narration and tape bring in other elements, and the composer did a great job (IMO) of incorporating them. It is an intense work. 

I have to go now, but I'll do at least one more (a work by Nono) later. Maybe more people can do this. I'd like to see other people's contributions.


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## crmoorhead

some guy said:


> Whatever. It's interesting to see what traction this and similar "atonal" threads have gotten out of never getting down to specifics. I'd like to say that crmoorhead's suggestion that atonal music has no melody is absurd, but since I don't know to what he/she is referring when she/he says "atonal," I can't really say anything.


That isn't precisely what I said. I said that those that enjoy atonal music, including myself, are capable of placing _less importance_ on whether or not a piece has a catchy tune or not. Your definition of melody is one from a textbook. I can't disagree with it, but it also doesn't really explain why some things are regarded as having a _good_ melody or not. This is a mysterious element that very few skilled composers and songwriters have been able to reproduce with any regularity. I also did stipulate that my terming of Melody was simply my own label for the phenomenon that allows us to recall tunes later. Lovers of Mozart, Rossini and Offenbach would probably place more importance on the memorable nature of a tune than those who love Stockhausen, Boulez or Webern. That seems obvious.

I would be interested in hearing examples of what you think are successful melodies from atonal works according to whatever definition or definitions of atonal you wish.


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## Petwhac

crmoorhead said:


> I would be interested in hearing examples of what you think are successful melodies from atonal works according to whatever definition or definitions of atonal you wish.


In harmony based music, melody's function is to define and articulate the harmony. It's contours will outline either scales or arpeggios of the harmony. The melody may contain passing notes and appoggiaturas etc. but without the harmony being either stated or implied, it is impotent. As is rhythm without a stated or implied pulse.
Therefore, in non-tonal music, melody is fairly unimportant and seldom memorable.


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## crmoorhead

Petwhac said:


> In harmony based music, melody's function is to define and articulate the harmony. It's contours will outline either scales or arpeggios of the harmony. The melody may contain passing notes and appoggiaturas etc. but without the harmony either stated or implied, melody is like rhythm without pulse, impotent.
> Therefore, in non-tonal music, melody is fairly unimportant and seldom memorable.


This is definitely one of the elements, but there are others: Rhythm, duration, conjuntivity, repetition, variation. Most successful melodies that I can think of also don't have a huge variation in the number of notes in the scale that they use. * Serialist music, by definition, must use all the notes in the scale with regularity which, IMO, stunts the effectiveness of the melody or memorability. Total serialism even moreso. That isn't to say that it is impossible, just not something which is easy using that method and easier to achieve with conventional tonality. In the case of 'atonal' or 'dissonant' works, I find the process more interesting than the actual experience. I find Ligeti's Aventures, for example, very stimulating because of the way it uses sound.

*which probably has an effect on the harmonies, which goes back to your orginal point. You can't impose restrictions on one without affecting the other because they are interdependent.


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## realdealblues

I don't know why people enjoy a lot of things. They just do.

Speaking for myself, I am always trying new things. This week I listened to some Carter, Ives & Foss. Some people I have heard of for many years, but have never sat down and listened to. I had no preconceived notions about what their music sounded like. So, I listened and heard nothing of interest. Whether there is a pattern or method to the structure or whether everything is completely random makes no difference to me. I just know that it's not for me. I like melodies.


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## Aramis

etkearne said:


> Obviously, the fans must get a strong emotional response from the music and also get strong stimulation from it, or else they wouldn't like it. Music is generally considered "good" if it brings forth novel and strong emotions, good or bad or neutral.


A very silly myth. There are many people who are not very emotional and therefore do not look in music for the same thing as people with more sensitive personalities. There are lots of people who prefer music that has much diffrent goals than to express something and arouse emotions, lack them entirely. The main reason of misunderstandings over this subject is when people think that modern music lover listening to Stockhausen gets from what he hears the same kind of experience as some dreamer gets from daydreaming with Tchaikovsky and that the only thing that's diffrent is the way they come to it.


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## Petwhac

Aramis said:


> The main reason of misunderstandings over this subject is when people think that modern music lover listening to Stockhausen gets from what he hears the same kind of experience as some dreamer gets from daydreaming with Tchaikovsky and that the only thing that's diffrent is the way they come to it.


Anyone who is 'daydreaming' while listening to music is by definition, not listening.


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## Ukko

Petwhac said:


> Anyone who is 'daydreaming' while listening to music is by definition, not listening.


Harumph. Reading the sense of _Aramis_' post, I suspect that his 'daydreaming' is a synonym for 'drifting'. If so, you are applying the wrong definition.


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## Petwhac

I know people who are 'tone-deaf'. They cannot distinguish pitches at all well. If you play them a note on the piano, they cannot sing it back or get anywhere near it. I've known for people to not be able to say if one note is higher than the previous note (when the gap isn't enormous). They cannot hear music in their head.
And yet, they love music, they really do. Or at least they say they do and I've no reason to think they are lying. 
I cannot fathom this. 
Evelyn Glennie, the famous percussionist is profoundly deaf and is a professional musician. She 'feels' music's vibrations. 
Given these facts I have concluded that I hear what I hear and everybody else hears what they hear.
It's that simple.


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## Petwhac

Hilltroll72 said:


> Harumph. Reading the sense of _Aramis_' post, I suspect that his 'daydreaming' is a synonym for 'drifting'. If so, you are applying the wrong definition.


Explain the difference. I presume you mean mentally drifting.


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## EricABQ

Petwhac said:


> I know people who are 'tone-deaf'. They cannot distinguish pitches at all well. If you play them a note on the piano, they cannot sing it back or get anywhere near it. I've known for people to not be able to say if one note is higher than the previous note (when the gap isn't enormous).


I cannot match a note played on a piano with my voice, or even come close.

I also struggle with being able to tell if one note is higher than another note, especially if they are played on different instruments (when the notes are very close.)

When I was trying to learn to play guitar I couldn't tune it. I couldn't tell when the note on the guitar sounded like the note I was hearing as an example. I would get it to where I thought it was tuned and my wife would hear it and laugh at me.


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## Ukko

Petwhac said:


> Explain the difference. I presume you mean mentally drifting.


Sure. Daydreaming consists of at least one, often more, 'soft focuses'. Drifting has no focus except for ephemeral thoughts. That's my concept of the difference.


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## PlaySalieri

EricABQ said:


> Why in the world would anyone need sympathy for that?


It is not a case of grasping the music - I can grasp Bruckner's symphonies - but I don't enjoy them as music. There are people who can't grasp Beethoven's quartets - but nonetheless enjoy listening to them.

With atonal music I feel that I can get a good sense of what is happening in a piece - it just doesn't give me anything positive.


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## Petwhac

EricABQ said:


> I cannot match a note played on a piano with my voice, or even come close.
> 
> I also struggle with being able to tell if one note is higher than another note, especially if they are played on different instruments (when the notes are very close.)
> 
> When I was trying to learn to play guitar I couldn't tune it. I couldn't tell when the note on the guitar sounded like the note I was hearing as an example. I would get it to where I thought it was tuned and my wife would hear it and laugh at me.


Can you imagine music? If I asked you to hum a famous melody but only in you're head, like the way you could imagine speech, is that possible for you? I am very interested.


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## Petwhac

Hilltroll72 said:


> Sure. Daydreaming consists of at least one, often more, 'soft focuses'. Drifting has no focus except for ephemeral thoughts. That's my concept of the difference.


Either way, daydreamer or drifter has lost concentration on the music, no?


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## PlaySalieri

Petwhac said:


> I know people who are 'tone-deaf'. They cannot distinguish pitches at all well. If you play them a note on the piano, they cannot sing it back or get anywhere near it. I've known for people to not be able to say if one note is higher than the previous note (when the gap isn't enormous). They cannot hear music in their head.
> And yet, they love music, they really do. Or at least they say they do and I've no reason to think they are lying.
> I cannot fathom this.
> Evelyn Glennie, the famous percussionist is profoundly deaf and is a professional musician. She 'feels' music's vibrations.
> Given these facts I have concluded that I hear what I hear and everybody else hears what they hear.
> It's that simple.


I have red/green colour deficiency - yet I love fine art.


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## Aramis

Petwhac said:


> Either way, daydreamer or drifter has lost concentration on the music, no?


If music is the background, then yes. But if the music is stimulation for imagination and the dreams follow it - no. At least not enough to deny that he's really, actively listening.


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## EricABQ

Petwhac said:


> Can you imagine music? If I asked you to hum a famous melody but only in you're head, like the way you could imagine speech, is that possible for you? I am very interested.


Yes, I can imagine music and whistle back melodies. I would be out of key, but it would be recognizable.

This really only manifested itself when I was trying to tune the guitar. I couldn't tell when I had an individual string matched to the tuning note but once all the strings were in tune I could recognize it as being in tune. And then I could tell when it needed to be tuned again. If that makes sense. I don't think I am tone-deaf, I just have trouble matching individual notes, but I could tell when the guitar was out of tune as a whole.


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## Petwhac

EricABQ said:


> Yes, I can imagine music and whistle back melodies. I would be out of key, but it would be recognizable.
> 
> This really only manifested itself when I was trying to tune the guitar. I couldn't tell when I had an individual string matched to the tuning note but once all the strings were in tune I could recognize it as being in tune. And then I could tell when it needed to be tuned again. If that makes sense. I don't think I am tone-deaf, I just have trouble matching individual notes, but I could tell when the guitar was out of tune as a whole.


When you hear it in your head I presume it sounds right but when you try to recreate the pitches by singing or whistling it it comes out wrong is that it? When you are imagining a melody are you also 'hearing' the harmony/chords?

Maybe it's a question of degree.
I once saw a program about an autistic kid who, with no musical training, could go to the piano and recreate almost perfectly a whole piece of music (can't remember what piece) after one or two hearings only. But probably the child would not be able to concentrate on anything else in life- the brain is very mysterious indeed.

The guitar tuning problem is very common even amongst experienced musicians.


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## Ukko

Petwhac said:


> Either way, daydreamer or drifter has lost concentration on the music, no?


Concentration, yes. When I listen to music for the first time - and don't connect with it, I wait a day and listen again. This time not concentrating, just letting it flow 'through' me, hoping to connect with the 'long line'. That process is so similar to drifting as to make no difference. Sorry about all these [' '] marks; I don't know the technical terms.


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## etkearne

You all move way too fast to keep up! Four pages in one day!

Anyways, it seems as though my question is too broad for some, but honestly, it is supposed to be broad and subjective since terms like dissonance and pleasure are subjective terms. Of course, there are relative levels of dissonance and such, but even cross-culturally, this changes.

So just use your own personal definition of such terms for your response. And if you don't feel comfortable with that, please define your terms as such.

Thanks for the continued responses. I am pretty darned busy right now so I can't write anything "deeper" yet, but I plan to write a good three or four paragraphs once I get some free time this week.


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## Ukko

etkearne said:


> You all move way too fast to keep up! Four pages in one day!
> [...]
> Thanks for the continued responses. I am pretty darned busy right now so I can't write anything "deeper" yet, but I plan to write a good three or four paragraphs once I get some free time this week.


 Don't rush. We're doing fine.


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## regressivetransphobe

Petwhac said:


> Anyone who is 'daydreaming' while listening to music is by definition, not listening.


On a similar note, if you've ever blinked during a movie, you haven't really seen it.


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## Guest

crmoorhead said:


> That isn't precisely what I said.


Exactly. That's why I used the word "suggestion."



crmoorhead said:


> I would be interested in hearing examples of what you think are successful melodies from atonal works according to whatever definition or definitions of atonal you wish.


My very dear CR, my point, *again,* is that I do not divide music into tonal and atonal, any more than I divide animals into canine and acanine (or even notdog). I don't use "atonal" at all.

You do. And since I don't know what you mean by it, since you've never said, I have to ask, "to what are you referring?" What I'm asking, in effect, is "are you talking about butterflies or elephants, earthworms or ospreys, sharks or giraffes? What?"

Just by the way, I also do not think "successful melodies" is a useful category, either. Successful to whom? I could point to a sequence of pitches (synchronous or asynchronous) in Xenakis' _Pithoprakta_ or Karkowski's _World as Will IV_ or Steen-Andersen's _Pretty Sound (Up and Down)_ and say "I like that." And there could be people here who would say that there is no melody at all in any of those pieces.


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## crmoorhead

some guy said:


> Exactly. That's why I used the word "suggestion."


Except that I didn't even suggest such a thing. 



> My very dear CR, my point, *again,* is that I do not divide music into tonal and atonal, any more than I divide animals into canine and acanine (or even notdog). I don't use "atonal" at all.


The term 'atonal' is used and understood by the rest of us, as is the term melodious. You can't autocorrect the English language because of your own viewpoint. If you want to be obstinate about it, I'm not willing to play that game. Adieu!


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## Petwhac

regressivetransphobe said:


> On a similar note, if you've ever blinked during a movie, you haven't really seen it.


That is not a similar note. But if a blink lasts as long as a daydream then you are correct.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> My very dear CR, my point, *again,* is that I do not divide music into tonal and atonal, any more than I divide animals into canine and acanine (or even notdog). I don't use "atonal" at all.


But one may divide animals into canine and acanine if one want's to make a point about dogs as a species or to discuss the merits of having a canine pet as opposed to an non-canine pet. One may prefer canine pets to non-canine for any number of reasons and vice versa.


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## Guest

crmoorhead said:


> You can't autocorrect the English language because of your own viewpoint. If you want to be obstinate about it, I'm not willing to play that game. Adieu!


Well, no one can AUTOcorrect anything. Auto means it does it itself. Soon as I do any correcting, the "auto" part vanishes.

Anyway, the issue hardly arises. I'm hardly doing anything to the English language when I explain to you why I cannot answer your question. I can't keep you from interpreting that as obstinate, though I must say that from where I'm standing, it's you who seems the obstinate one, you and everyone else who keeps using "atonal" as if it identified a particular type of music, as if it were equivalent to "tonal" and so able to be compared and contrasted to that.

It's as if (this is for you, Petwhac) a group of posters were to say "Acanines are all so big and gray" (which is certainly true-ish for elephants and hippos and rhinos) and another group (probably much smaller) were to counter with "but there are lots of small and colorful acanines" (which is certainly true-ish for butterflies and cats).

Come to think of it, saying "atonal music is dissonant" or "atonal music is merely an academic exercise" is very like saying "Mexicans are lazy" or "women are inferior" or "Muslims are terrorists." They are all ways of lumping together diverse individual entities and treating them as if they were all the same. It's intellectually lazy and no fruitful discussion will ever occur if we keep doing it.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> It's as if (this is for you, Petwhac) a group of posters were to say "Acanines are all so big and gray" (which is certainly true-ish for elephants and hippos and rhinos) and another group (probably much smaller) were to counter with "but there are lots of small and colorful acanines" (which is certainly true-ish for butterflies and cats).
> 
> Come to think of it, saying "atonal music is dissonant" or "atonal music is merely an academic exercise" is very like saying "Mexicans are lazy" or "women are inferior" or "Muslims are terrorists." They are all ways of lumping together diverse individual entities and treating them as if they were all the same. It's intellectually lazy and no fruitful discussion will ever occur if we keep doing it.


I think my first contribution to this discussion warned that we would get bogged down in arguments about definitions. I'm glad some things in life are as reliable as you, some guy!

Be that as it may, you have a point but have taken it too far. The statements you quote in your last paragraph are bigoted, that's for certain and to avoid causing offence I will change the objects of the statements to Martians. I might justifiably say I have never met a single Martian that was not a thief or a terrorist. (Justifiably if it were true) 
One might also say only canines do _all_ the following things: Wag their tales, bark, rollover on command, pee up against anything standing and have that doggy smell. Non-canines may display some of those individual traits but not all of them. Only canines can do this and that is why they are called 'man's best friend'.


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## clavichorder

Petwhac said:


> Explain the difference. I presume you mean mentally drifting.


Listen to music is not always an academically focused endeavor. When someone loves a piece, they have it in their head all the time and they imagine things while it plays in their head. When they hear it, they know all the things that are coming and can almost put images and stories to what is happening, it moves them everytime. Aramis used Tchaikovsky as the example, and there is no better example in my opinion, as a 9 year old, I was all over Tchaikovsky's music and it was intimately connected with my daydreams. That's a rich listening experience.

Aramis's point is interesting. I believe it to be far closer to reality than everyone seeing their own things in music and sounds.


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## Petwhac

clavichorder said:


> Listen to music is not always an academically focused endeavor. When someone loves a piece, they have it in their head all the time and they imagine things while it plays in their head. When they hear it, they know all the things that are coming and can almost put images and stories to what is happening, it moves them everytime. Aramis used Tchaikovsky as the example, and there is no better example in my opinion, as a 9 year old, I was all over Tchaikovsky's music and it was intimately connected with my daydreams. That's a rich listening experience.


I am not talking about academically focused. I'm talking about being engaged and engrossed. I suppose everyone listens differently and as long as it is a rewarding experience then it doesn't matter whether pictures come to mind. I took the meaning of drifting or daydreaming as being _distracted from_ the music.


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## clavichorder

Petwhac said:


> I am not talking about academically focused. I'm talking about being engaged and engrossed. I suppose everyone listens differently and as long as it is a rewarding experience then it doesn't matter whether pictures come to mind. I took the meaning of drifting or daydreaming as being _distracted from_ the music.


Perhaps its just a matter of misunderstanding. Knowing Aramis, he was probably so profoundly moved by one section of a piece that he has day dreams in the parts that are nice but aren't as striking. I do this a lot too, but often times if I am of a willing mindset, I will notice new things from time to time and develop new favorite sections.


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## KenOC

Daydreaming...I think we put up certain "protections" while we're awake. A couple of months ago I was dozing lightly in my chair while the radio played. Suddenly I realized I had been listening to something truly astonishing. So I *almost* woke up to wait for the announcement.

Turns out it was Poulenc's Concerto champêtre. I had never been a big fan of Poulenc and had never heard this piece. But I ran for the computer and ordered it lickety-split. Now I still think it's a fine piece and Poulenc is well inside my listening circle. So I don't knock daydreaming...


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> In harmony based music, melody's function is to define and articulate the harmony. It's contours will outline either scales or arpeggios of the harmony. The melody may contain passing notes and appoggiaturas etc. but without the harmony being either stated or implied, it is impotent. As is rhythm without a stated or implied pulse.
> Therefore, in non-tonal music, melody is fairly unimportant and seldom memorable.


I disagree with that. Melody's identitity comes from rhythm, not pitch.

If I bang out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with my fist, in rhythm, then you will recognize it, even though the pitches are way off. You might say the general "contour" helps in recognition, but rhythm is the main factor.

That being said, I think there are parallels between musical phases and speech, but I don't think harmony or exact pitch plays as crucial a role as Petwhac says it does; I think it hinges on rhythm.

So Serial, and serial-derived music can make "broad gestures" that are just as effective to our brains as tonality is.

Speech, however, must be learned. It's not a "knee-jerk" reaction on the eardrums like harmony, but involves a cerebral part of the brain.

Tonality's sensual harmonic effects can be gotten by anyone with ears wired-up to their brain. Just like babies attracted to sweet tasting things; no learning curve involved.

To begin to "crave" the spice of a good salsa, or appeciate a dry, bitter ale, one must put the "automatic" responses on hold, and open up to the *new.*


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree with that. Melody's identitity comes from rhythm, not pitch.
> 
> If I bang out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with my fist, in rhythm, then you will recognize it, even though the pitches are way off. You might say the general "contour" helps in recognition, but rhythm is the main factor.


I don' t think your example contradicts mine. And I would agree that rhythm is the most fundamental element in recognition.


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## Lukecash12

Petwhac said:


> In harmony based music, melody's function is to define and articulate the harmony. It's contours will outline either scales or arpeggios of the harmony. The melody may contain passing notes and appoggiaturas etc. but without the harmony being either stated or implied, it is impotent. As is rhythm without a stated or implied pulse.
> Therefore, in non-tonal music, melody is fairly unimportant and seldom memorable.


It depends upon the system of "non-tonal" music you are looking at. It's not as if all of it isn't harmonic. Really, atonal has always seemed like one of the most improper labels out there for a group of composers. Look at serialism: that's definitely tonal. It's just that it's harmonies are stretched out into longer intervals.


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## Lukecash12

Petwhac said:


> Anyone who is 'daydreaming' while listening to music is by definition, not listening.


As if the only way to listen is the way you define?


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## Lukecash12

Petwhac said:


> I know people who are 'tone-deaf'. They cannot distinguish pitches at all well. If you play them a note on the piano, they cannot sing it back or get anywhere near it. I've known for people to not be able to say if one note is higher than the previous note (when the gap isn't enormous). They cannot hear music in their head.
> And yet, they love music, they really do. Or at least they say they do and I've no reason to think they are lying.
> I cannot fathom this.
> Evelyn Glennie, the famous percussionist is profoundly deaf and is a professional musician. She 'feels' music's vibrations.
> Given these facts I have concluded that I hear what I hear and everybody else hears what they hear.
> It's that simple.


It's that simple if you try to simplify it that way. If you can't fathom it, it doesn't seem all that simple.


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## Lukecash12

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree with that. Melody's identitity comes from rhythm, not pitch.
> 
> If I bang out "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with my fist, in rhythm, then you will recognize it, even though the pitches are way off. You might say the general "contour" helps in recognition, but rhythm is the main factor.
> 
> That being said, I think there are parallels between musical phases and speech, but I don't think harmony or exact pitch plays as crucial a role as Petwhac says it does; I think it hinges on rhythm.
> 
> So Serial, and serial-derived music can make "broad gestures" that are just as effective to our brains as tonality is.
> 
> Speech, however, must be learned. It's not a "knee-jerk" reaction on the eardrums like harmony, but involves a cerebral part of the brain.
> 
> Tonality's sensual harmonic effects can be gotten by anyone with ears wired-up to their brain. Just like babies attracted to sweet tasting things; no learning curve involved.
> 
> To begin to "crave" the spice of a good salsa, or appeciate a dry, bitter ale, one must put the "automatic" responses on hold, and open up to the *new.*


I might append to that that the basis of melody is rhythm and it's distinction and definition come from it's pitch. There are plenty of melodies out there that are rhythmically identical. So, while rhythm may be the basic vehicle of those melodies, you couldn't tell them apart without pitch. Think of how many motifs in fugues you have heard that are either rhythmically similar or identical.

By the way, I do find a good deal of material in that post to be interesting and useful, so you have my compliments. You folks here seem to use a lot more metaphors than myself.


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## BurningDesire

The assertion that tonality or diatonic music is exhausted is absurd, equally as absurd as the claim that atonal or dissonant music is bad or overly-intellectual.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I don' t think your example contradicts mine. And I would agree that rhythm is the most fundamental element in recognition.


Good! I just thought I'd point out the crucial deficiency in your statement about melody.:lol:


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## Sid James

etkearne said:


> ...
> 
> This brings me to the topic: _WHY do some people like such music?_ Obviously, the fans must get a strong emotional response from the music and also get strong stimulation from it, or else they wouldn't like it. Music is generally considered "good" if it brings forth novel and strong emotions, good or bad or neutral...[/B]


To boil it down, I think my personal response to much music of the 20th century revolves around the historical context in which those works where produced. Eg. the first two pieces that got me into exploring 'atonal' and post-1945 musics where Messiaen's _Quartet for the End of Time_ and Berg's opera _Wozzeck_. The former work written when the composer was a prisoner of war, the latter first performed during the chaotic inter-war period. So they spoke to their times, music like this is far from being a 'technical exercise.' So too much post-1945 musics from Penderecki, to Xenakis to Bernstein and so on. Also, Australian composers.

But its more than just theory to me. I had relatives who witnessed some of these events. The last century had many horrible things happen. If you study the history, you cannot avoid them. So too, if you listen to much new or newer music, it will not all be a walk in the park.

However, it does not necessarily have to be about war or things like that. Hovhaness' _Sym. #50 'Mount St. Helens' _speaks to him being there on the ground when it happened. In that work, he describes how he heard the eruption, how he experienced it. So it can be more about nature, like that is.

But it has to be real, I tend not to connect with composers who avoid putting themselves in their music. Ear candy is fine, its a light relief from the more dark or full on things, but ultimately its just a kind of diversion. I mean I like things like Andre Rieu in that way. Its for a different purpose to 'serious' musics, that's all, not inferior just different.

That's my view, less a hypothesis than just how I see things, how I connect with things. Everyone will be different.


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## neoshredder

I enjoy the randomness of it. There are so many sounds you can get from music. Why limit what is capable with strict chord progressions?


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## Guest

Hey neo, what is "it"? Can you give us an example or two?


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## neoshredder

Xenakis - Metastasis 
Xenakis - Tetras


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## neoshredder

I just think going away from tonal allows for many more possibilities of sounds. Very interesting imo. And no you don't have to be a genius to like atonal music.


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## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> Musicologists don't present a substitute system. They present an entirely different system of music appreciation that complements the typical type of listening. Musicology is about fascination and learning, and is just as rewarding emotionally.
> 
> The typical listener simply asks him/her self: "Do I like this?" Maybe that listener has some knowledge, or maybe that listener doesn't, and it will have whatever affect it does on his/her preferences. A musicologist asks a series of questions, and finds him/her self adventuring through rabbit trail after rabbit trail. They read journals, letters, newspapers, treatises, lectures, historical annals, and whatever other literature they can find.
> 
> I like that so many people enjoy music, and I especially like that so many people can enjoy art music without theoretical knowledge. However, *I would be pretty disappointed if literally all of us couldn't ask questions more meaningful than: "Do I like this?"* I would even venture to describe it as ignoble if all of us were to throw away this wealth of history, this index of man's emotion across time, and just resign to our impressions of music.
> 
> Of course, there exists many listeners of many different stripes in between, who do ask themselves a variety of questions when they listen to music. *It wasn't my aim to describe you personally.*


You redeem your post with this final line! 

I can agree that there are different _types _of enjoyment, but not that there are different _levels _if that implies some kind of qualitative hierarchy. Music is music is music: it's not "meant" to be appreciated, understood, enjoyed, rejected, loathed in any particular way except where an individual composer sets out to effect a particular response in her listeners. Such deliberate intentions may be deliberately conveyed in the music ("Here I want you to feel the passion of a storm" - I'm thinking William Tell, for example) or occasionally through a proclaimed manifesto, or accompanying programme notes, but once time passes and history intervenes with its tendency to distort, the music just becomes a series of sounds that yields variable results in the listener.

A musicologist may listen to William Tell with a particularly well-informed ear, but the information is not a prerequisite for _enhanced _listening, just a _different _type of listening from the listening by an 8 year old who knows nothing about the Lone Ranger, or apples and crossbows or Schiller, but puts heart and soul into engaging with the trumpet fanfare and the galloping rhythm.

I don't see how "Do I like this?" is such a low-quality question. I didn't actually use the word 'like', but in any case, if it is taken to mean nothing more or less than "I want to listen to this again, and again, because it has a positive effect on my well-being," then this is as valid a response as "I want to understand how it is put together, what the historical context is, more about the composer..."


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## Guest

Sid James said:


> The last century had many horrible things happen. If you study the history, you cannot avoid them. So too, if you listen to much new or newer music, it will not all be a walk in the park.


That's an important premise in Alex Ross' book. And it ignores the reality that the 18th and 19th centuries also had many horrible things happen in them (and music and politics followed each other very closely). If you study the history, you cannot avoid them. But if you listen to 18th and 19th century music, it will likely all seem like a walk in the park.

That's because time has passed. We've become accustomed to those sounds. If we become accustomed to the sounds of the twentieth century, its music will also come to seem like a walk in the park. That is, it's not the putative connection between world events and twentieth century music that makes certain twentieth century music seem difficult; it's our familiarity with it.


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## Sid James

neoshredder said:


> I enjoy the randomness of it. There are so many sounds you can get from music. Why limit what is capable with strict chord progressions?





neoshredder said:


> Xenakis - Metastasis
> Xenakis - Tetras


I think there is structure in Xenakis, but more related to dynamics than anything else (like melody). Its these peaks and troughs. I see it visually sometimes, as his _Theraps for double bass solo_, which I described here. Since he was an architect, that's not hard to relate to how his music gives me a sense of these shapes, esp. curved shapes. & from works like La Legende d'eer you get a clear sense of architecture and also nature, I think. But its the visceral gut impact of his music i like a lot.

But I don't like _Metastasis_, I find it too dark. & I have not heard the other piece.


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## KenOC

some guy said:


> ...And it ignores the reality that the 18th and 19th centuries also had many horrible things happen in them...


Yes, the 18th and 19th century, and the previous centuries as well. The farther back you go, the more savage things become.

I've seen SO many people on these forums saying that music should be ugly because the times are ugly. Hello? In fact, there is a very good case that violence of all types has been steadily declining, on a per capita basis, for centuries. A great read is Steven Pinker's book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined."


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## Sid James

some guy said:


> ... And it ignores the reality that the 18th and 19th centuries also had many horrible things happen in them (and music and politics followed each other very closely). If you study the history, you cannot avoid them.


In the previous centuries, you did not have genocide killing around 100 million that we had in the 20th century - Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda...the list goes on. You did not have the sheer scale of mass murder. So I am disputing what you're saying.



> ... If we become accustomed to the sounds of the twentieth century, its music will also come to seem like a walk in the park...


Some yes, some never. Things like Schoenberg's piece addressing the Warsaw ghetto uprising, I think its wrong to think its a walk in the park. Or the 'Ode to Napoleon,' its ugly, meant to be. Even though Adorno blamed Schoenberg for nearly ending in E flat in the last work, and thus being 'too tonal.' So for Adorno its not ugly enough, but for most people, it quite brutally conveys the times Schoenberg was living in, metaphorically going back to a dictator of the past.


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## science

No matter how bad the nineteenth century was, it was often experienced as times of optimism and progress. From Napoleon until WWI Europeans had a pretty high opinion of themselves and their cultures, but WWI, the depression, the mass murders of fascism and communism, and especially WWII destroyed that high opinion. The music might reflect these things; some of it (like the Quartet for the End of Time) certainly tries to. 

From the end of WWII (or at least the death of Stalin) until now, I'd have to say Europe (especially the west) had generally pretty good times. Hungary 1956, Prague 1968 stand out as exceptions; generally it was just more and more people getting washing machines and automobiles. I wonder if the music reflects that? Or if perhaps the people who lived through the forties were never able to forget them...?


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## Sid James

science said:


> No matter how bad the nineteenth century was, it was often experienced as times of optimism and progress. From Napoleon until WWI Europeans had a pretty high opinion of themselves and their cultures, but WWI, the depression, the mass murders of fascism and communism, and especially WWII destroyed that high opinion. The music might reflect these things; some of it (like the Quartet for the End of Time) certainly tries to.


I think Mahler was like a dividing line in terms of what you're saying. His music expresses quite a lot of things to be bought to fruition later. Doubt, all this contrast of big emotional extremes, collage technique (of the mundane and sublime and things in between), autobiographical elements, its as he said, a microcosm for the whole world. Compare him to Bruckner, who's got this sense of belief and faith (in God, but also just in some sort of positive outcome), I think that's shattered by Mahler. The end of his 9th symphony and Das Liede, they just fade into nothingness. Tchaikovsky was also prophetic of this in the Pathetique.



> ...
> From the end of WWII (or at least the death of Stalin) until now, I'd have to say Europe (especially the west) had generally pretty good times. Hungary 1956, Prague 1968 stand out as exceptions; generally it was just more and more people getting washing machines and automobiles. I wonder if the music reflects that? Or if perhaps the people who lived through the forties were never able to forget them...?


Well, composers today still remember the various histories of the 20th century. I recently heard a new work by an Australian composer that was inspired by him talking to his grandfather, who had survived as a prisoner of war of the Japanese during WW2. It was a piece which did have percussion, so some dissonance, but also a blend of East and West (pentatonic). Its interesting how this composer said his grandfather harboured little or no ill feeling towards the Japanese. Just like them, he just wanted to survive and get through the war in one piece. & now, the Japanese government is paying Australian war veterans to go over there and tell/lecture people on what happened to them. These guys are now in their eighties, but I think its good that people still want to know what happened, they still want to remember. Music can be like this, a testimony, but not necessarily a direct one, it can come from future generations.


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## BurningDesire

Sid James said:


> In the previous centuries, you did not have genocide killing around 100 million that we had in the 20th century - Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, former Yugoslavia, Rwanda...the list goes on. You did not have the sheer scale of mass murder. So I am disputing what you're saying.
> 
> Some yes, some never. Things like Schoenberg's piece addressing the Warsaw ghetto uprising, I think its wrong to think its a walk in the park. Or the 'Ode to Napoleon,' its ugly, meant to be. Even though Adorno blamed Schoenberg for nearly ending in E flat in the last work, and thus being 'too tonal.' So for Adorno its not ugly enough, but for most people, it quite brutally conveys the times Schoenberg was living in, metaphorically going back to a dictator of the past.


And there wasn't mass murder, widespread slavery and segregation, large-scale bloody wars, and the like prior to the 1900s? Sorry, but that is absurd to claim. Also, I resent people calling Schoenberg's music ugly. It is beautiful. Just because something is dark, or twisted, or intense, or terrifying, doesn't mean it isn't beautiful.


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> And there wasn't mass murder, widespread slavery and segregation, large-scale bloody wars, and the like prior to the 1900s?


Indeed. And massive and accepted animal cruelty, mistreatment of women and children...you name it. And for the grand finale, check the Old Testament to see how inter-cultural encounters were handled in those days.


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## Sid James

BurningDesire said:


> And there wasn't mass murder, widespread slavery and segregation, large-scale bloody wars, and the like prior to the 1900s? Sorry, but that is absurd to claim...


I didn't say that history prior to 1900 was without those things. However a number of historians (and survivors) of events in the 20th century - esp. the Holocaust, the Shoah - say it kind of stands outside of the rest of history. The sheer scale of it, and also the way death was done so systematically, plus backed up by an ideology which legitimised it, and made many millions victims (and turned thousands into war criminals), this had not been done before. I pray it does not happen again, either, but there have been some 'mini' Holocausts since (eg. the Rwandan genocide resulted in about 1 million deaths). Again, it was systematic, being organised on radio airwaves. Technology not liberating in this case, but as an instrument of killing.



> ...
> Also, I resent people calling Schoenberg's music ugly. It is beautiful. Just because something is dark, or twisted, or intense, or terrifying, doesn't mean it isn't beautiful.


I see it as a kind of ugly beauty. But, going back to the issue of historical events, I don't say I enjoy watching films like Schindler's List. I say I think its important that things like this bear testimony, and accurately convey in an artistic sense, what happened and how it happened, and the human side of it. The two works of Schoenberg I talked of do similar things, I do not 'enjoy' the Napoleon piece, indeed in some ways I'm repelled by it, just as being unsettled by Schindler's List.


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## science

The thing is, things like slavery and the extermination of the Native Americans (and all the other colonial "adventures") weren't experienced as bad things by the majority of Europeans. Even the slums of the early industrial cities weren't experienced much by the consumers of art; they chose to focus their attention on pastoral romanticism. So the horror of those things barely affected their art. 

Prior to World War One there was a lot of unease, fin-de-siècle "anxiety." But on the whole things were optimistic, anxiety was a fashionable affectation, and the deeply anxious were the minority. 

By 1945 there could be none of that in Europe (although in the US of course there was and is still loads of it).


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## Lukecash12

KenOC said:


> Indeed. And massive and accepted animal cruelty, mistreatment of women and children...you name it. And for the grand finale, check the Old Testament to see how inter-cultural encounters were handled in those days.


Hah! Israel pales in comparison with Babylonian, Persia, Assyria, Rome, etc. As if the OT is the exemplar of that. No offense, but I find that silly. Israel was a blip that lived alongside massive empires. So they conquered Canaan. Babylon wrote the book when it comes to that kind of behavior, and the bloodiness that they bragged about makes Israel look pretty tame.


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## Sid James

science said:


> The thing is, things like slavery and the extermination of the Native Americans (and all the other colonial "adventures") weren't experienced as bad things by the majority of Europeans. Even the slums of the early industrial cities weren't experienced much by the consumers of art; they chose to focus their attention on pastoral romanticism. So the horror of those things barely affected their art.


I think in the late 19th century, nationalism was how politics entered music. Verdi's links with the move towards Italian unification is the best example. But in terms of what you say, the two 'Germanic' titans of the age, Brahms and Wagner, I don't think they addressed their times in their music, at least not as strongly and obviously as Verdi.

But I agree there was a sense of optimism or achievement then in many respects. Or faith in these things.

I think its safe to say that any disconnect between music and the wider world was harder to justify in the 20th century. It is modern composers who did address their times that I see as saying things that still matter, even now. & often, they are very uncomfortable things, or things that don't speak to 'art for art's sake' type ideology.

In terms of colonisation, I agree that not many Europeans addressed the horrific aspects of that. One I know was Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_. But with recent events in the Congo and Rwanda (slaughter, war, genocide) it shows that Europe's interventions there had no good effect. Their divide and conquer tactics amongst the tribes (the Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda) sowed the seed of horrible realities to come in the 20th century, after these countries got their independence. I have a jaundiced view of this because I think that Belgium kind of sabotaged the independence of these countries. Its easy to blame 'the savages,' but what about the so-called cultivated nations that colonised them?


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Good! I just thought I'd point out the crucial deficiency in your statement about melody.:lol:


My statement is true and you did not contradict it. You did however, add another nail to the coffin in which your credibility as a musical thinker is being slowly buried. :lol::tiphat:


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## crmoorhead

some guy said:


> Well, no one can AUTOcorrect anything. Auto means it does it itself. Soon as I do any correcting, the "auto" part vanishes.


It's a metaphor. If you don't understand how that applies here, I can't help you.



> I can't keep you from interpreting that as obstinate, though I must say that from where I'm standing, it's you who seems the obstinate one, you and everyone else who keeps using "atonal" as if it identified a particular type of music, as if it were equivalent to "tonal" and so able to be compared and contrasted to that.


Explain to me why it can't just mean "anything that is not tonal". While that it is still a vague term, it is also completely functional without having to overanalyse it. Unlike the "acanine" example, I would say that the term "atonal" is a lot more specific. It quite clearly, for instance, rules out Baroque, Classical and the vast majority of the Romantic eras. I cannot comment on the music from Renaissance and earlier because I don't have enough knowledge of it, though I doubt that this was of concern to the OP. It also rules out all the tonal music that was written since then. As a term, I think 'atonal' is fairly efficient in specifying a subset of music, albeit one with a lot of variation in it. It is certainly enough to qualify making statements why or why not people may prefer it to when compared to, say, music of the early Romantic period.



> Come to think of it, saying "atonal music is dissonant" or "atonal music is merely an academic exercise" is very like saying "Mexicans are lazy" or "women are inferior" or "Muslims are terrorists." They are all ways of lumping together diverse individual entities and treating them as if they were all the same. It's intellectually lazy and no fruitful discussion will ever occur if we keep doing it.


Except that most atonal music is dissonant and there is good reason for thinking so. There are a few notable exceptions, but they don't buck the trend. There is no valid reason for thinking that 'Mexicans are lazy'. If someone were to say to you, however, that they didn't like Mexican food because spicy food didn't agree with them, I doubt that you would berate them for assuming that all Mexican food was spicy. It is perfectly fine to make a statement to say that most people who like Mexican food like spicy food in the same way as it is to say most people who like atonal music are fine with dissonance. And this was the question, was it not? To understand why people liked atonal and/or dissonant music. This requires looking at the big picture of what is meant by 'atonal' and being aware of the relative importance of the key characteristics. Getting bogged down in details and semantics helps no one.


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## Petwhac

Lukecash12 said:


> It depends upon the system of "non-tonal" music you are looking at. It's not as if all of it isn't harmonic. Really, atonal has always seemed like one of the most improper labels out there for a group of composers. Look at serialism: that's definitely tonal. It's just that it's harmonies are stretched out into longer intervals.


I don't think it is correct to say serialism is tonal not by any meaningful definition of the term (and there are many).
Your last sentence makes no sense to me whatsoever. Please explain if you would.

As for the daydreaming part of the discussion: It's not _wrong _to let your mind wander while listening to a piece of music. I'm not _criticizing _ the tendency but you know how when reading a book the same thing can happen? Well, usually one goes back and re-reads the passage in case they missed something.


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## Guest

So, for those unfamiliar with the terms of this debate, is there any point looking at the entry in Wikipedia, which gives definitions, examples and what I take to be legitimate references...eg



> "The repertory of atonal music is characterized by the occurrence of pitches in novel combinations, as well as by the occurrence of familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar environments" (Forte 1977, 1).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality

Thanks

(Listening to Pierrot Lunaire while typing...)


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## mmsbls

crmoorhead said:


> Explain to me why it can't just mean "anything that is not tonal". While that it is still a vague term, it is also completely functional without having to overanalyse it. Unlike the "acanine" example, I would say that the term "atonal" is a lot more specific. It quite clearly, for instance, rules out Baroque, Classical and the vast majority of the Romantic eras. I cannot comment on the music from Renaissance and earlier because I don't have enough knowledge of it, though I doubt that this was of concern to the OP. It also rules out all the tonal music that was written since then. As a term, I think 'atonal' is fairly efficient in specifying a subset of music, albeit one with a lot of variation in it.


The term atonal is well defined in the abstract sense of referring to music that is _not_ tonal. Since the vast majority of music that many TC members listen to is tonal, the term, atonal, probably doe refer to a reasonable subset of classical music. People don't use a term like acanine because hardly anyone interacts so exclusively with dogs that all other animals are secondary.

The main problem with "atonal" is not so much the word as with the music. Animals are either dogs or "not dogs". The distinction is clear and everyone understands it. Almost all pre-20th century music is tonal, but much post 20th century music is tonal, semi-tonal, partly tonal, etc. When someone uses "atonal", we have a general sense of the what music is being referred to, but there is ambiguity. For some, that ambiguity may be too large for the term, atonal, to be useful.

I personally don't have a problem with the term, atonal, mostly because there does not seem to be a better way to speak easily about music that most of us view as significantly different from the tonal music of the past. I can accept that "atonal" does not refer to a clear subset of modern music and still view the term as useful (if somewhat messy).


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## mmsbls

I think the question of why people like or dislike non-tonal music is fascinating but unclear. I might say that much non-tonal music seems random to me. There are no patterns or unifying constructs _that I hear_. Each moment seems unrelated to what came before and what comes after. Using an analogy to visual art, hearing a non-tonal work is somewhat like looking at a painting and only seeing a blue dot here, a red dot there, and some green dots over there. I don't have a sense of the larger picture to find beauty in the picture or the music. I suspect that my lack of appreciation for much non-tonal work stems partly from that observation, but I also think there are other contributing factors.

Most people on this thread have discussed why they like or dislike non-tonal works, but I'm also interested in how one goes from disliking to liking the music. In fact as I have discussed in other threads, the main reason I joined TC was to learn precisely how to enjoy more modern music.



some guy said:


> That's because time has passed. We've become accustomed to those sounds. If we become accustomed to the sounds of the twentieth century, its music will also come to seem like a walk in the park. That is, it's not the putative connection between world events and twentieth century music that makes certain twentieth century music seem difficult; it's our familiarity with it.


I doubt all of us could learn to like _all_ styles of music simply by becoming familiar with them, but I do believe that becoming more familiar with the music is probably a necessary step for most people. I wonder if something else is needed for many people. Maybe a specific type of focused listening.

Everyone I know personally that has learned to enjoy modern, non-tonal music told me that it took them years to go from not liking to liking the music. _Most_ people on TC that I have heard from on the issue also required significant time listening to new sounds. Maybe simply time spent listening to a reasonable variety of the new sounds will eventually do the trick for the majority of people (eventually including me). Certainly my view of some music that years ago seemed difficult (Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Bartok, Stravinsky, etc.) has changed enormously. The music seems much more approachable and enjoyable. So maybe it is mostly a matter of listening.


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> So maybe it is mostly a matter of listening.


OTOH, we seem to have largely passed beyong the era of "common practice" approaches to music, where most or all music was written in the same "language" and with similar comventions. Aside from the more "tonal" composers you mentioned, it seems to me that many others are writing with their own "systems" in their own languages. I am unlikely to appreciate a poem in Urdu if I don't know the language, and how many languages can one be expected to learn?

Being an old-fashioned kind of person, I believe it's the artist's responsibility to communicate. If the artist fails, it doesn't do a lot of good to blame the audience.


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## Guest

The chief advantage to the term "atonal" is that it allows people to make all sorts of outrageous and contradictory claims about a variety of different things that cannot (need not) be supported. Like the racist and sexist examples I referred to. For this reason, I don't see it going away any time soon. Much easier to make blanket statements, without any proof, than to get down to specifics. And difficult to counter.

Take this assertion, for instance: "most atonal music is dissonant." A simple assertion, but it takes so much unpacking! So much so, that the unpacker can easily just look silly. But really. This is absurd. If you take "dissonant" in its technical sense (God forbid we take technical terms in their technical sense!!), then it's tonal music that is dissonant. Dissonance is the fundamental principle of tonality. It's the main motivating source, the thing that keeps things "moving" along. Take pantonal, dodecaphonic, or serial music. Since they're much less dissonant in the technical sense, they have to rely on rhythm and timbre quite a lot more than common practice tonal music does.

If you take "dissonant" to mean simply "unresolved dissonance," then you're talking nonsense. Since there's no system in place for resolution, it's absurd to talk about not resolving anything. There's no seesaw of consonance and dissonance that the term "resolution" refers to. (Indeed, that's a huge problem with using tonal and atonal as comparable categories--tonality is a system. Atonal refers to no system at all. Tonality is comparable to dodecaphony or to serialism, which are also systems. Atonal, since it includes everything except that one thing, includes systems--mutually contradictory systems--but it doesn't refer to any one of them.)

If you take "dissonant" to mean "discordant," which is what most people I've heard (mis)use this word to mean, then yes, there is some of that in some of the musics that have all been jumbled together under the word "atonal," just as some Mexicans are lazy (though I've never met any) and some women are inferior and so forth. But it's not really an identifying mark. Quite a lot of pieces that do not follow functional tonality are remarkably free of discords as well. I even know of one piece (Candy Apple) that was revised (Candy Apple Revision) to avoid there being any occurrence of tritones in its indeterminate course. And, speaking of indeterminacy, Riley's piece _In C,_ though its title might fool the unwary, is not really a tonal piece, but simply a piece in which the pitch, C, is relentlessly played throughout, while everyone else does other things. There's a little dissonance in that piece, but it's only an echo of "tonality." (A so to speak V chord might follow a so to speak IV chord. The pitch called B might precede the pitch called C. And so forth.)

And for many entire genres, minimal, electroacoustic, indeterminate, live electronics, turntable, and so on, there's little or no sense of synchronous pitch and so little or no sense in which referring to tonality even by slapping an a- in front of it makes any sort of sense at all. (Some animals besides dogs have fur and four legs and live birth and so on, but many lay eggs, have two, six, or eight legs (or even none), and not even a whisper of fur.)

To call a late piece by Egon Wellesz "atonal" makes a vague sort of sense. He is using tones, as in synchronous pitches, and arranging them in patterns more or less familiar to anyone who's heard Bruckner or Mahler or Krenek. Even though by the late pieces there is essentially no sense of key. To call a musique concrete piece by Lionel Marchetti composed entirely of train sounds "atonal" makes no sense at all. It has no point of contact with tonality or even with tones (except for those train whistles, of course). Either that, or Marchetti's kind of piece is the ONLY kind for which a-tonal would be appropriate. It is, literally, without synchronous pitches. But that's not how atonal has ever been used before. It would be a radical break from tradition!:lol:


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## EricABQ

Well, I can't seem to get rid of the picture so I guess I'm in trouble.


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## KenOC

What's "atonal"? From a NY Times story:

The composer William Schuman liked to tell about the time he heard one of his works performed in Macon, Ga. After the concert, he was approached by a woman of a certain age and social standing who told him that while she did not generally approve of atonal music, she had enjoyed his piece.

Schuman, a former professor and president of the Juilliard School, thanked her for the compliment, then tactfully corrected her analysis. Although his harmonies were sometimes complex, he explained, they were always rooted in a home key, which is the definition of tonal music.

"That's all very well, Mr. Schuman," the lady replied. "But in Macon, your music is atonal."


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## Lukecash12

Petwhac said:


> I don't think it is correct to say serialism is tonal not by any meaningful definition of the term (and there are many).
> Your last sentence makes no sense to me whatsoever. Please explain if you would.
> 
> As for the daydreaming part of the discussion: It's not _wrong _to let your mind wander while listening to a piece of music. I'm not _criticizing _ the tendency but you know how when reading a book the same thing can happen? Well, usually one goes back and re-reads the passage in case they missed something.


In Serialism, the tonal derivation is just further out. In any music that uses these tuned notes, if there is an actual pattern to the notes, then there is a tonal derivation. By that, I mean that there is an implied harmonic, an implied resolution, etc. "Atonal" music just doesn't concern itself with tonal resolution, typically. The twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg, for example, did focus on using all twelve tones equally, but has it's harmonic references not relative to key signature (meaning it's tonal). Now you might ask: "How is that tonal or harmonic when there is no reference to a key signature?" Well, there is a different between Schoenberg basing a harmony off of the note E, and the note E when used as the tonic of E major or as the submediant of G in E minor.

I usually have disdain for quoting wikipedia, but TC isn't a scholarly site so why not: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique


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## millionrainbows

"...from its earliest years, when the twelve-tone method showed itself able to relate to aspects of neo-classicism on the one hand (Schoenberg's Piano Suite) and late-romanticism on the other (Berg's Violin Concerto) serialism of one kind or another has proved to be a constant presence within the wider dialogue between the progressive and the conservative that has shaped music since 1900 as it extended, exploded, and reinstated tonality with a resourcefulness and flexibility paralleled by the resourceful and flexible employment of serial techniques themselves...The comprehensive relevance of serial thinking, even to composers who wouldn't dream of labelling themselves 'serialists', is clear...It seems more than likely that historians of music since 2000 will find it no less difficult to exclude serialism from their terminology, as composers continue to see no reason to exclude it from their thought."

-quoted from Arnold Whittall's "Serialism" 2008.


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## clavichorder

KenOC said:


> What's "atonal"? From a NY Times story:
> 
> The composer William Schuman liked to tell about the time he heard one of his works performed in Macon, Ga. After the concert, he was approached by a woman of a certain age and social standing who told him that while she did not generally approve of atonal music, she had enjoyed his piece.
> 
> Schuman, a former professor and president of the Juilliard School, thanked her for the compliment, then tactfully corrected her analysis. Although his harmonies were sometimes complex, he explained, they were always rooted in a home key, which is the definition of tonal music.
> 
> "That's all very well, Mr. Schuman," the lady replied. "But in Macon, your music is atonal."


I have heard that quote as well. I happen to like William Schuman's music fairly well, some of it is among my favorite mid 20th century music and I have a personal feeling for it because it is some of the first music that I took on in my adventures in listening to that period of music, it caused me to obsess for a long time(3rd Symphony, String Quartet 3, and the baffling yet interesting 6th symphony).

My girlfriend said she played a Schuman piece either at her college orchestra or youth orchestra, and that most of the players in the orchestra found it ugly. I've had trouble finding those who think as highly of Schuman's 3rd as I do and don't subscribe to a host of other Americana or later mid 20th century music that is more lukewarm to me.

At any rate, when I listen to the 3rd symphony, though I haven't done so recently, I seem to remember that it is based on tonal triads that often are non harmonically functional and not connected in obvious ways.


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## Guest

So, the answer is...yes? or no?


(To my previous post, overlooked in the rush to continue arguing over whether atonal means anything).

I get the impression that someguy is rejecting the use of the term 'atonal' to cover all modern music. Since that is not what the OP was asking, it's a digression.


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## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> So, for those unfamiliar with the terms of this debate, is there any point looking at the entry in Wikipedia, which gives definitions, examples and what I take to be legitimate references...eg
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
> 
> Thanks
> 
> (Listening to Pierrot Lunaire while typing...)


I wasn't sure you were actually looking for a reply directed specifically to this. Not sure what there is to reply to. Yep, that's pretty much the generally accepted idea of atonality.

But I'm not sure what sense of the word the folks debating here are debating over. I pointed out that "atonal", as in "no tonal reference whatsoever", isn't really a great description for the modern art music that people label as that. But of course there is the word "atonal" in it's generally accepted sense, that certain pieces don't have a key signature. Still not sure what definition they've been debating over, but I'm with you when it comes to the traditional sense of the word. It's more or less true, even though there is always a reference to a tonic. It's just that the tonic modulates a lot more in my example, twelve tone music.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> So, the answer is...yes? or no?


As to whether it's worth looking at an article that raises some of the same concerns about the term that I have raised. Yeah, I'd say it's worth looking at that. Worth looking at the whole article, too, even the bits like these:

"The term 'atonality' itself has been controversial. Arnold Schoenberg, whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that 'The word "atonal" could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis' (Schoenberg 1978, 432)."

And this: "'Atonal' developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe *a wide variety of compositional approaches* that deviated from traditional chords and chord progressions. Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as 'pan-tonal', 'non-tonal', 'multi-tonal', 'free-tonal' and 'without tonal center' instead of 'atonal' have not gained broad acceptance." [emphasis mine]

And this really delightful gem: "Setting out to compose atonal music may seem complicated because of both the vagueness and generality of the term. Additionally George Perle explains that, 'the "free" atonality that preceded dodecaphony precludes by definition the possibility of self-consistent, generally applicable compositional procedures'" (Perle 1962, 9).

As for what the OP asked, not even MacLeod can tell us that, because the OP defines none of its terms, which are all just assumed, and which this thread has shown simply cannot be just assumed as there's no real consensus as to what they mean.

Digression? It's a systematic calling into question of all the premises of the OP. At least accuse me of something I've actually done, eh?:lol:


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## Lukecash12

some guy said:


> As to whether it's worth looking at an article that raises some of the same concerns about the term that I have raised. Yeah, I'd say it's worth looking at that. Worth looking at the whole article, too, even the bits like these:
> 
> "The term "atonality" itself has been controversial. Arnold Schoenberg, whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that "The word 'atonal' could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis" (Schoenberg 1978, 432)."
> 
> And this: ""Atonal" developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe *a wide variety of compositional approaches* that deviated from traditional chords and chord progressions. Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as "pan-tonal", "non-tonal", "multi-tonal", "free-tonal" and "without tonal center" instead of "atonal" have not gained broad acceptance." [emphasis mine]
> 
> And this really delightful gem: "Setting out to compose atonal music may seem complicated because of both the vagueness and generality of the term. Additionally George Perle explains that, 'the "free" atonality that preceded dodecaphony precludes by definition the possibility of self-consistent, generally applicable compositional procedures'" (Perle 1962, 9).
> 
> As for the OP, not even MacLeod can tell us that, because the OP defines none of its terms, which are all just assumed, and which this thread has shown simply cannot be just assumed as there's no real consensus as to what they mean.
> 
> Digression? It's a systematic calling into question of all the premises of the OP. At least accuse me of something I've actually done, eh?:lol:


The problem here, is that the writer of the OP pretty much meant for us to discuss why certain people truly enjoy the music that has been blanketed under this term. It's not about the term. He may as well have said "modern music". It's not at all about how people define this music. He just made a reference to a group of music, a generally understood reference, so we could discuss why some people like it. I get that you may dissent from the general understanding, but that's just the UOD (universe of discourse) that was set up. We are using that UOD to discuss the topic of the OP, not the meaning of the word "atonal".

@The OP: Please correct me, if that isn't what you meant when you made this thread.


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## Guest

Returning to the OP's question by way of specific examples...

Listening to Stravinsky's 'Canticum Sacrum' and 'Agon' for the first time (just now, on Youtube) and comparing with Chopin's Ballades, also only recently experienced for the first time, I can say that neither is immediately inviting me to listen again. On the other hand, "new" pieces by Haydn ("London Symphony"), Beethoven (2nd Symphony) and Mozart (25th Symphony) offered sufficient immediate reward to merit multiple listenings.

As I suggested in my first two posts, and further explained by millionrainbows and others, it seems to me like the immediate pleasure of familiarity with the form, though whether that is hard-wired pre-disposition or the conditioning of prolonged exposure to 'easy listening' in all its genres I wouldn't like to say.

If I'd emerged from the womb listening to nothing but Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and so on, until my current age (early-fifties) would my ears now find Eine Kleine Nachtmusik initially repellent? I would think not.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> As to whether it's worth looking at an article that raises some of the same concerns about the term that I have raised. Yeah, I'd say it's worth looking at that.
> 
> [...]
> 
> As for what the OP asked, not even MacLeod can tell us that, because the OP defines none of its terms, which are all just assumed, and which this thread has shown simply cannot be just assumed as there's no real consensus as to what they mean.
> 
> Digression? It's a systematic calling into question of all the premises of the OP. At least accuse me of something I've actually done, eh?:lol:


Thanks someguy - a helpful post! I think I can tell what the OP asked if I take it in its common or garden sense, and not dissect each word to check for its absolute meaning. That may not satisfy what I might call the technically-aware listener (such as yourself) but for the amateur, I have no problem with his question. My ears are sufficiently attuned to the types of music etkearne was aiming at to be able to offer my thoughts without dwelling on whether what I'm listening to is strictly serial, atonal, dissonant, 12-tone...


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## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> Returning to the OP's question by way of specific examples...
> 
> Listening to Stravinsky's 'Canticum Sacrum' and 'Agon' for the first time (just now, on Youtube) and comparing with Chopin's Ballades, also only recently experienced for the first time, I can say that neither is immediately inviting me to listen again. On the other hand, "new" pieces by Haydn ("London Symphony"), Beethoven (2nd Symphony) and Mozart (25th Symphony) offered sufficient immediate reward to merit multiple listenings.
> 
> As I suggested in my first two posts, and further explained by millionrainbows and others, it seems to me like the immediate pleasure of familiarity with the form, though whether that is hard-wired pre-disposition or the conditioning of prolonged exposure to 'easy listening' in all its genres I wouldn't like to say.
> 
> If I'd emerged from the womb listening to nothing but Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and so on, until my current age (early-fifties) would my ears now find Eine Kleine Nachtmusik initially repellent? I would think not.


Just an honest question here:

I wonder how much of classical music you have heard, if you've recently heard Chopin's ballades for the first time? You and I, we aren't as familiar as each other, and given what you've said in this thread I am a bit interested in hearing from you about your background/experience in music. I do intend to discuss with you the subject of the thread, too.

Also, I don't mean to suggest that you haven't listened to much classical music. I simply don't know enough about you.


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## Turangalîla

Many people disagree with this, but I seriously believe that people's ears, over time, have been "tuned" to so-called tonal music, and so when composers started basing their music on other scales (much of which is considered atonal) the music was found unacceptable.
I wish that people would take the "atonality plug" out of their ears and listen objectively and without bias. This is very difficult for my friends, for example. Anything after Prokofiev they find repulsive. It is a trend in culture these days, and I am not sure that it is easily reversed.
I am blessed to have ears that can listen to Schoenberg, Webern, and Xenakis just like they can listen to Mozart, Bach, and Schumann—if you get past the initial "it's not tonal!" blockade, you will discover a whole new world of fabulous music.


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## Guest

CarterJohnsonPiano said:


> I wish that people would take the "atonality plug" out of their ears and listen objectively and without bias.


Let me be clear. I am not commending the acceptance of the merely familiar. I'm simply offering thoughts to answer the OP's questions...



> _*WHY certain people genuinely enjoy such music and why others will never ever find it attractive.* [atonal/dissonant] My main motivation is from looking at the comments in certain You Tube videos by modern serial composers and modern atonal composers (Boulez and Carter respectively). Some people love the music and get a real emotional response from it (like myself). But there is just as equal of a camp who thinks that it lack any emotion and is just an academic exercise.
> 
> I think both camps are right, because you can only make an opinion from your OWN personal experiences. So a person who genuinely cannot get an emotional response from such music will clearly just view it as a novel academic exercise and I think those folks should not get bashed upon.
> 
> This brings me to the topic: *WHY do some people like such music?*_


What I don't think I've read is a post from someone 'who likes such music' explaining why. But I may have overlooked it - my apologies if I have.


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## science

Lukecash12 said:


> Just an honest question here:
> 
> I wonder how much of classical music you have heard, if you've recently heard Chopin's ballades for the first time? You and I, we aren't as familiar as each other, and given what you've said in this thread I am a bit interested in hearing from you about your background/experience in music. I do intend to discuss with you the subject of the thread, too.
> 
> Also, I don't mean to suggest that you haven't listened to much classical music. I simply don't know enough about you.


I'm not sure where you're going with this, but I just want to make two points, just to be on the safe side:

- Even if MacLeod's experience is limited, his tastes are still valid. (Keep in mind that I like most weird music, so I'm not saying this just because he agrees with me; his tastes are valid even if they do not match mine!)

- It's possible for fairly experienced listeners to have not heard relatively famous works. Unlike most people, I have tried for several years to systematically check off the most famous works in approximate order of their approximate fame, and it's not so easy. All the time it turns out that I've overlooked something massively famous. I consider myself a fan of Fauré, but I discovered today that I have never heard his string quartet. Just a week or so ago I heard many of Fields' nocturnes and Albinoni's opus 7 concertos for the first time. About a month ago I heard Debussy's violin concerto for the first time. I've heard a few of Mozart's relatively famous violin sonatas only once, and that was in August.

So it takes a long, long time to get everything checked off, and there's no shame at all in not yet having heard something. You've got to give us time, lots and lots of time, and you've got to allow us to have tastes and opinions even before we've heard it all.


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## science

MacLeod said:


> What I don't think I've read is a post from someone 'who likes such music' explaining why. But I may have overlooked it - my apologies if I have.


Here you go!



science said:


> I don't know about atonal, so I'll talk about weird. Thoughts on some really weird music that I love:
> 
> Crumb: Black Angels - I love how shocking this was to me the first few dozen times I heard it, how it retains an element of shock even now, and how many patterns I can find in it. I'm sure there are more patterns than I've found too, because I'm not very good at that kind of thing. It expresses some really powerful emotions - emotions which, I can understand, some people might not enjoy feeling! But I feel those emotions often enough anyway, and I enjoy hearing music that expresses them so effectively.
> 
> Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time - Beauty, strangeness, introspection.... There are a lot of things I love about this. Timbre is one of my favorite musical elements, and this work definitely explores a wide variety of interesting timbres. I love the use of silence - sometimes the silence is as sweet as the sound.
> 
> Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - To me this is a great intellectual work. Following the variations is an adventure in Rzewski's great creativity. It's intellectually fun.
> 
> Ostertag: All the Rage - I guess I would say many of the same things I said about Crumb's Black Angels. As far as I can tell, it is a less intellectual work, but the narration and tape bring in other elements, and the composer did a great job (IMO) of incorporating them. It is an intense work.
> 
> I have to go now, but I'll do at least one more (a work by Nono) later. Maybe more people can do this. I'd like to see other people's contributions.


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## crmoorhead

some guy said:


> As to whether it's worth looking at an article that raises some of the same concerns about the term that I have raised. Yeah, I'd say it's worth looking at that. Worth looking at the whole article, too, even the bits like these:
> 
> "The term 'atonality' itself has been controversial. Arnold Schoenberg, whose music is generally used to define the term, was vehemently opposed to it, arguing that 'The word "atonal" could only signify something entirely inconsistent with the nature of tone... to call any relation of tones atonal is just as farfetched as it would be to designate a relation of colors aspectral or acomplementary. There is no such antithesis' (Schoenberg 1978, 432)."


Which is true in the strictly ****-retentive viewpoint that the use of the a- prefix usually means 'absence of', but this is not how the term is used. Including, I might say, in the entirety of the article itself. Debussy (and many others) objected to the term 'Impressionist' regarding their work much more vociferously, yet it has not fallen into disuse.



> And this: "'Atonal' developed a certain vagueness in meaning as a result of its use to describe a wide variety of compositional approaches that deviated from traditional chords and chord progressions. *Attempts to solve these problems by using terms such as 'pan-tonal', 'non-tonal', 'multi-tonal', 'free-tonal' and 'without tonal center' instead of 'atonal' have not gained broad acceptance."* [emphasis mine]


For the very good reason that 'atonal' is good enough for most people. As long as one uses it in a broad sense, it can be specific enough when compared to tonal music in the way I described earlier.



> And this really delightful gem: "Setting out to compose atonal music may seem complicated because of both the vagueness and generality of the term. Additionally George Perle explains that, 'the "free" atonality that preceded dodecaphony precludes by definition the possibility of self-consistent, generally applicable compositional procedures'" (Perle 1962, 9).


All this states is that those who were adopting 'free atonality' did it using a variety of different methods. That's why it was 'free'. But you missed out the two following paragraphs in which Perle and others are also quoted:


> _However_, he provides one example as a way to compose *atonal* pieces, a pre-twelve-tone technique piece by Anton Webern, which *rigorously avoids anything that suggests tonality, to choose pitches that do not imply tonality*. In other words, reverse the rules of the common practice period so that what was not allowed is required and what was required is not allowed. This is what was done by Charles Seeger in his explanation of dissonant counterpoint, which is a way to write *atonal* counterpoint (Seeger 1930).
> 
> Further, Perle agrees with Oster (1960) and Katz (1945) that, "the abandonment of the concept of a root-generator of the individual chord is a radical development that *renders futile any attempt at a systematic formulation of chord structure and progression in atonal music along the lines of traditional harmonic theory*" (Perle 1962, 31). *Atonal* compositional techniques and results "are not reducible to a set of foundational assumptions in *terms of which the compositions that are collectively designated by the expression 'atonal music'* can be said to represent 'a system' of composition" (Perle 1962, 1)


In other words, 'atonal music' can be used as a collective designation, but not one that can have any systematic approach or any one set of rules. IMO, while twelve-tone music can be said to have a lot of changing tone-centres, they change so often that using the term 'tonal' is meaningless. It's the same thing as taking a snapshot of a moving object (such as the second hand on a ticking clock) and then asserting that it is stationary. It might not be moving a lot of the time, but time is not standing still. In my view, the difference between 'atonal' music in all its guises and traditional harmony is fundamental.


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## Guest

science said:


> Here you go!


Oops - sorry - I did read this previously, but if I'm honest, only superficially, as I didn't recognise any of the composers! I'll give it proper consideration now, and look some of them up when I get away from work! An initial reaction is that you use terms that suggest you find the same things in Crumb and Takemitsu that I am finding in Beethoven and Debussy. This goes to show that 'beauty' and 'intellectual fun' are in the ear of the listener!


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## Arsakes

Introduce me some Japanese Composers who are not Atonal Composers!

I only know Asami Hirosawa.


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## neoshredder

Yoshimatsu


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## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> I wonder how much of classical music you have heard, if you've recently heard Chopin's ballades for the first time? You and I, we aren't as familiar as each other, and given what you've said in this thread I am a bit interested in hearing from you about your background/experience in music. I do intend to discuss with you the subject of the thread, too.


How much? How does one quantify? Enough to join conversation here and have accumulated 'likes' from some and annoyed one or two with my ignorance? Not even 1% of "core repertoire" never mind the non-core?

I've a very small CD and vinyl collection which includes some of the predictable works of Satie, Debussy, Stravinsky, Vivaldi, Shostakovich, Ligeti, Haydn, Mozart, Holst, Prokofiev, Dvorak, Roussel, Poulenc, Grieg. I'm now familiar (as a listener) with all Beethoven's symphonies. Over many years of listening, and as a teacher, I've listened to both the kind of stuff that you might expect primary school children to know (Saint-Saens) and the kind of stuff that older brothers might plague you with - Schoenberg, Berg, Ives, Penderecki, Lutoslawski - and rock songs they've written based on such music.

How am I doing?



science said:


> - Even if MacLeod's experience is limited, his tastes are still valid. (Keep in mind that I like most weird music, so I'm not saying this just because he agrees with me; his tastes are valid even if they do not match mine!)
> 
> - It's possible for fairly experienced listeners to have not heard relatively famous works. [...]
> 
> So it takes a long, long time to get everything checked off, and there's no shame at all in not yet having heard something. You've got to give us time, lots and lots of time, and you've got to allow us to have tastes and opinions even before we've heard it all.


Thanks science. I consider myself "a bit of a film buff" too. I've never watched _The Sound of Music_ all the way through, but I have watched Antonioni, Pasolini, Vigo, Chabrol, Truffaut etc etc. I don't want to watch the violence of _Raging Bull_ or _Reservoir Dogs_ or _Goodfellas_, but the Coen Bros are amongst my favourite directors.

Experience does not have to be comprehensive.


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## etkearne

Admittedly, I haven't read all nine pages (I have read the first six), but I have a few spare minutes that I can outline my views on the main question I proposed.

*So: Why do some people find an innate attraction to atonal music and/or (the or is important) dissonant music?*

By atonal, I mean the strict definition, meaning music that lacks a familiar centering note value. By dissonant, I mean music that relishes in intervals such as the minor second and tritone which are considered by MOST people to be dissonant sounding (not bad sounding, just harsher than, say, a perfect fourth).

My opinion is as follows: It all boils down to what the listener seeks to gain out the music listening experience. There are many types of listeners and I only will highlight three even though there are infinitely many.

Type I: Music serves as a calming mechanism while also being stimulating to the mind. These people listen to music as a way to enter a trance-like euphoria by observing how such complex interactions of melody, rhythm, and harmony can "keep it together" and yield unbelievably beautiful results.

Type II: Music serves to excite the mind in general. These listeners don't care so much if the music has relaxing epiphanies in it, but they care very much that the music be novel, full of variety, and unlike anything they have ever heard before. They are constantly searching to "top" the most novel thing they have heard.

Type III: Music serves to bring out emotions. These listeners get deeply involved in the music. They would enjoy tonal music as it brings out triumphant euphoric type of emotions like some sort of amphetamine or opioid drug. But they also know there are unique and hard to define emotions that atonal music can bring forth. These emotions are not encountered much in everyday life, so the music is very important in bringing them forward. This experience is more like taking a psychedelic drug or Cannabis to continue the drug analogy.

I highly doubt many people strictly fall into those categories. I, for example, am a mix of Type III and some Type II. But they can help explain what I am saying, as people who listen to music to have transcendent euphoric relaxation won't be as attracted to dissonance (perhaps they would be attracted to less dissonant atonality or bitonality which can be quite pleasing to the ear, however) as the novelty-seeker Type II would.

Type II people would start with, say, Bartok, "move on" to Ligeti's 1960s works, then "move on" to Carter's 1970s/1980s works. The more novel the better to them. And I am not implying Bartok is "less" than Ligeti who is less than Carter. They just tend to lie on a continuum of using extremely unusual features in their music and serve as an example. Bartok's Piano Sonata is far more dissonant than most of Ligeti's Piano Etudes, and Carter was a neoclassicist at one point!


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## Guest

I can be I or II or III at different times, depending on mood.


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## aleazk

I'm type III almost all the time. I like Ligeti, for example, because he is very effective evoking deep sensations on me. This sensations can be very uncommon (like the example I gave with the Hamburg concerto earlier in this thread) or something more common, but always in a very effective and direct way, without superficialities (for example, with his Requiem, I can feel the fear of death, the vastness and the mystery of the metaphysical concept of "non-being").


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## arpeggio

MacLeod said:


> I can be I or II or III at different times, depending on mood.


Same here. I am all types. Interesting list.


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## etkearne

Type III is generally where I started my classical journey, but I have picked up the other two since then to lesser degrees. I recall the very day I first heard a modernist classical piece of music. I was in my senior year of high school and I was driving to my friend's house after spending a few hours (it was a weekend) at the Barnes & Noble Booksellers. I had purchased Bartok's Piano Concertos I-III disc since my music theory teacher said that if you want to experience something really interesting, try Bartok. 

I drove through the old city of Lancaster PA and it was this time of year - autumn (for those of us in the Northern Latitudes) and the leaves were falling. As the first piano concerto played (the most dissonant one), I had this sweeping emotion come over me. It was very odd. I felt as though I was driving around in another world, some time in the distant future (because the music sounded so futuristic at the time to me). I had a sense of raw excitement coupled with an eerie sense of nostalgia and the feeling that something horrible was happening. But I never felt "sad" or "uneasy" which is rather odd, because usually a sense of impending doom makes one feel unpleasant. Instead it invigorated me!

I will never forget that day and honestly, that piece of music still excites me to this day. I listen to it at least once a week still.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> What I don't think I've read is a post from someone 'who likes such music' explaining why. But I may have overlooked it - my apologies if I have.


I would very much like to have been able to explain why I like what I like, but I have no idea what the OP is looking for. Is it indeed dodecaphony, serialism, and the various pitch-oriented but not in a key pieces that came out of the early decades of the twentieth century? Or is it simply "modern music"?

Sorry if my inability to respond to "such music" not having the foggiest idea what music that is has been seen as obstructionist or even obscurantist, but I'm just not happy mouthing vague generalities about poorly defined or undefined vague generalities. Call me kooky....

Otherwise....



MacLeod said:


> If I'd emerged from the womb listening to nothing but Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and so on, until my current age (early-fifties) would my ears now find Eine Kleine Nachtmusik initially repellent? I would think not.


Maybe not repellent, but almost certainly boring.


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## Petwhac

Originally Posted by MacLeod

_If I'd emerged from the womb listening to nothing but Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez and so on, until my current age (early-fifties) would my ears now find Eine Kleine Nachtmusik initially repellent? I would think not.
_


some guy said:


> Maybe not repellent, but almost certainly boring.


Funny you should bring that up as I was just thinking this..

Ask yourself what was the very first music you heard (not including from in the womb) or the first music you can remember hearing. More than likely it was a simply lullaby or nursery rhyme. Perhaps you may have been lying in your cot while your parents were playing their favourite Xenakis mix tape but I think the first music you would have had _played or sung to you_ where your attention was actively sought, would have been 'The Wheels On The Bus' or 'Row Row Your Boat' or something along those lines.
If it is true as some suggest, that we are _conditioned_ into hearing tonality as the norm, then it is from a very early age. Add to this a continued and ever present exposure to pop songs, TV music and the rest all throughout our childhood and beyond.

Now wouldn't it be interesting if we could take a new born baby and not let it hear any music but 12-tone and any of the various musics that have been labeled atonal, until the age of 15. No TV, no radio, no pop, no nothing. It would have had for a lullaby perhaps Berio's Sequenza for voice or perhaps something a little more hushed from the pen of Boulez of Babbitt.

At age 15 or 18 or 30, it doesn't really matter I suppose, our young subject is invited to listen to, Beethoven or Bach or Debussy or Chopin or Scott Joplin or Burt Bacharach or Coldplay or Stevie Wonder. Would any of those new sounds induce feelings of discomfort or bewilderment or irritation or boredom.

The experiment is obviously impossible to carry out so we can only guess.
I think a good bet would be that the person would be awestruck.

It strikes me that familiarity with a certain kind of music does not automatically produce a love of it. 
I have heard the argument time and again that a larger part of the listening public would come to love Xenakis or Ferneyhough like they love Beethoven or Irving Berlin if only they were more accustomed to it. I believe that to be nonsense even though it may be true of a tiny fraction. 
Is it really conditioning? 
Some people only really LOVE some if not all tonal music, I don't mean appreciate or grasp it, but LOVE it.
Some people love tonal AND some if not all serial, spectral, concrete, new complexity avant garde (mustn't call it atonal) music, really LOVE both.
How many people really ONLY love atonal (there, I just did) music?
Not even the Ferneyhoughs or Babbitts would claim that-because they are _musicians._
I think this is true and being true it is significant in that not all music is equal although all music is equally valid.


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## Guest

some guy said:


> Call me kooky....


Oh, well, if I must-

No, you're OK, I won't. I'm too busy mouthing vague generalities!


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> At age 15 or 18 or 30, it doesn't really matter I suppose, our young subject is invited to listen to, Beethoven or Bach or Debussy or Chopin or Scott Joplin or Burt Bacharach or Coldplay or Stevie Wonder. Would any of those new sounds induce feelings of discomfort or bewilderment or irritation or boredom.
> 
> The experiment is obviously impossible to carry out so we can only guess.
> I think a good bet would be that the person would be awestruck.


'Coldplay' and 'awestruck' almost in the same sentence. Now that is dissonant!


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## Petwhac

MacLeod said:


> 'Coldplay' and 'awestruck' almost in the same sentence. Now that is dissonant!


Ok, maybe they're 'punching above their weight' being included in that list though they have produced a few nice songs.:lol:

Seriously though, all those examples are very deeply connected to each other. As they are to Gesualdo and to Charlie Parker.
Bottom line? Major and minor triads! That's it.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> The experiment is obviously impossible to carry out so we can only guess.
> I think a good bet would be that the person would be awestruck.


Well, my three kids grew up hearing whatever I had on the stereo. That could have been Berlioz; that could have been Xenakis; that could have been Merzbow. Mostly it was twentieth century avant garde/experimental/electroacoustic.

My middle son's favorite piece growing up was Alice Shields' _Coyote,_ a scene from her opera _Shaman_ in which the shaman turns into a coyote and back into a shaman.

All of my sons listened to whatever the kids were listening to in those days, too.

My oldest took a degree in computer music composition; my middle son does electronic music; my youngest is a drummer.

I don't know if they've heard all of these--Beethoven or Bach or Debussy or Chopin or Scott Joplin or Burt Bacharach or Coldplay or Stevie Wonder--but the ones they have heard bore them. All except for Stevie Wonder, maybe. On their own, they tended to favor Primus and Mudvayne and Korn as kids and teenagers. Nile and Merzbow and Groundation as adults. In fact, Groundation is coming to Portland soon and my sons and their friends who are in Portland are all planning to go.

Debussy? Not so much.


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## Guest

science said:


> Crumb: Black Angels - I love how shocking this was to me the first few dozen times I heard it, how it retains an element of shock even now, and how many patterns I can find in it. I'm sure there are more patterns than I've found too, because I'm not very good at that kind of thing. It expresses some really powerful emotions - emotions which, I can understand, some people might not enjoy feeling! But I feel those emotions often enough anyway, and I enjoy hearing music that expresses them so effectively.
> 
> Takemitsu: From Me Flows What You Call Time - Beauty, strangeness, introspection.... There are a lot of things I love about this. Timbre is one of my favorite musical elements, and this work definitely explores a wide variety of interesting timbres. I love the use of silence - sometimes the silence is as sweet as the sound.
> 
> Rzewski: The People United Will Never Be Defeated - To me this is a great intellectual work. Following the variations is an adventure in Rzewski's great creativity. It's intellectually fun.
> 
> Ostertag: All the Rage - I guess I would say many of the same things I said about Crumb's Black Angels. As far as I can tell, it is a less intellectual work, but the narration and tape bring in other elements, and the composer did a great job (IMO) of incorporating them. It is an intense work.


I liked the Takemitsu, to the extent that I will search out and buy. The Crumb was...excruciating, but suspenseful...horror film soundtrack. I'm not sure I'd listen to it in the car! The Rzewski...mmm, Can't think what to say about that, but perhaps it's because I'm listening to the Ostertag as I'm typing and its distracting!


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Well, my three kids grew up hearing whatever I had on the stereo. That could have been Berlioz; that could have been Xenakis; that could have been Merzbow. Mostly it was twentieth century avant garde/experimental/electroacoustic.
> 
> My middle son's favorite piece growing up was Alice Shields' _Coyote,_ a scene from her opera _Shaman_ in which the shaman turns into a coyote and back into a shaman.
> 
> All of my sons listened to whatever the kids were listening to in those days, too.
> 
> My oldest took a degree in computer music composition; my middle son does electronic music; my youngest is a drummer.
> 
> I don't know if they've heard all of these--Beethoven or Bach or Debussy or Chopin or Scott Joplin or Burt Bacharach or Coldplay or Stevie Wonder--but the ones they have heard bore them. All except for Stevie Wonder, maybe. On their own, they tended to favor Primus and Mudvayne and Korn as kids and teenagers. Nile and Merzbow and Groundation as adults. In fact, Groundation is coming to Portland soon and my sons and their friends who are in Portland are all planning to go.
> 
> Debussy? Not so much.


Ah, it's genetic then.


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## BurningDesire

MacLeod said:


> The Crumb was...excruciating, but suspenseful...horror film soundtrack.


Just because something is scary doesn't mean it could only function or work as horror film music. Its like saying Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet sounds like romance movie music. Or Bach sounds like historical documentary music. Its kinda insulting.


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## mmsbls

BurningDesire said:


> Just because something is scary doesn't mean it could only function or work as horror film music. Its like saying Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet sounds like romance movie music. Or Bach sounds like historical documentary music. Its kinda insulting.


I didn't read MacLeod's post as suggesting that Black Angels could only function as horror film music, but certainly something that sounds scary could work in a horror film. Apparently, Crumb had this to say about his work, "Things were turned upside down. There were terifying things in the air ... they found their way into Black Angels." (George Crumb, 1990 found here). I've seen terrifying things in the air in the few horror films I've seen.

I don't see how the statement about horror films is insulting in any way. It simply seems more a statement on how MacLeod associated the sounds with other music he's heard.


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## Guest

BurningDesire said:


> Just because something is scary doesn't mean it could only function or work as horror film music. Its like saying Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet sounds like romance movie music. Or Bach sounds like historical documentary music. Its kinda insulting.


Well, I didn't say it _was _scary or sounded scary - you made that association between the terms I used. And even if I did, what's wrong with such an association? You may be able to listen to a new piece without making any connections with what you already know, but some of us are flawed human beings who like to cling to the familiar! 



mmsbls said:


> I didn't read MacLeod's post as suggesting that Black Angels could only function as horror film music, but certainly something that sounds scary could work in a horror film. Apparently, Crumb had this to say about his work, "Things were turned upside down. There were terifying things in the air ... they found their way into Black Angels." (George Crumb, 1990 found here). I've seen terrifying things in the air in the few horror films I've seen.
> 
> I don't see how the statement about horror films is insulting in any way. It simply seems more a statement on how MacLeod associated the sounds with other music he's heard.


Thanks.


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## Ukko

mmsbls said:


> I didn't read MacLeod's post as suggesting that Black Angels could only function as horror film music, but certainly something that sounds scary could work in a horror film. Apparently, Crumb had this to say about his work, "Things were turned upside down. There were terifying things in the air ... they found their way into Black Angels." (George Crumb, 1990 found here). I've seen terrifying things in the air in the few horror films I've seen.
> 
> I don't see how the statement about horror films is insulting in any way. It simply seems more a statement on how MacLeod associated the sounds with other music he's heard.


I have noticed that _BD_ has an expanded notion of what is included under the Insult Umbrella. This may explain your confusion.


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## millionrainbows

Nobody (except maybe a rock music exclusivist) would ever ask a lover of standard classical works (Haydn, Beethoven, etc) to "stand up in front of the rest of the class and explain to us why you like this music." On a certain level, this is ludicrous.

That's *not* because "normal tonality" is a _given,_ but because it is a system based on _harmonics,_ and the natural way we hear.

All "classical tonal" music is under the larger umbrella of *"harmonic" music,* which includes 99% of all folk forms and popular forms of music, eventually all melding into "The Great Drone." (Frank Zappa's "Big Note")

This is the *"Big Given"* and *belongs simultaneously to all harmonic music forms, and is inherent to Human existence *(if it has ears).

But, I suppose it's okay to ask this of *Serial* and *Serial-derived* music, because it is _not_ based *predominantly* on *"given"* harmonic effects.

Mathematics has come back into music in a big way in the 20th century and beyond, and will never leave it again.

The "Quadrivium" is being re-established: *arithmetic* was pure number, *geometry* was number in space, *music* number in time, and *astronomy* number in space and time.

Only this time, our assumption that "number as being" is no longer the only game in town.

Zero is not forbidden, as it was in calendars, years, and clocks;

the doctrine of *privati boni* begins to lose its potency in the cold light of science.

Of course, pure arithmetic and music were always closer bed-fellows than aesthetes cared to admit.

Theoretical physics? If you can believe in a black hole, then what's the problem with music?

And, more importantly, does anyone here realize the full metaphysical implications of this view besides *Kim Beazley?*


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## millionrainbows

For me, one of the most evocative pieces of music, of all time, is from Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 (1909; 1949 version); the second movement, "Vergangenes".

About midway-through, a little figure played on the celesta emerges; it repeats, over and over, like a broken music-box, or child's toy; reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's use of the celesta in "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies"; 

...only here, it sounds more obsessive, more foreboding; as if one were going over and over the same thought, in an effort to resolve it; or as if it is haunting you, insistently, and it won't leave you in peace. 
Woodwind figures in the background repeat also, short-long, short-long, short, limping along irregularly, as if it were time passing; other winds emerge, making clock-like twitters of even notes;
This eventually gets engulfed by louder, disturbing string figures, as if some dark realization of a chidhood memory or death of a loved one has surfaced; 
...next, it turns into a flutter of woodwinds, as if the memories, now dead and dried leaves, were being dispersed by a whirling, cold wind; 

...then, at the very end, the little repeating celesta figure returns, this time more slowly, more deliberately, as if to say, "You can try to resolve me, but I will always return to haunt you;" then a sympathetic, solo violin plays an emotive line, as if in sympathy. Wow.

The emotions Schoenberg expressed in this music are so nearly indefinable, so near to complete mystery; unless you follow with your feelings. Then it becomes clearer.
"Transfigured Night" does similar things, but not as darkly.


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> For me, one of the most evocative pieces of music, of all time, is from Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 (1909; 1949 version); the second movement, "Vergangenes".
> 
> About midway-through, a little figure played on the celesta emerges; it repeats, over and over, like a broken music-box, or child's toy; reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's use of the celesta in "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies";
> 
> ...only here, it sounds more obsessive, more foreboding; as if one were going over and over the same thought, in an effort to resolve it; or as if it is haunting you, insistently, and it won't leave you in peace.
> Woodwind figures in the background repeat also, short-long, short-long, short, limping along irregularly, as if it were time passing; other winds emerge, making clock-like twitters of even notes;
> This eventually gets engulfed by louder, disturbing string figures, as if some dark realization of a chidhood memory or death of a loved one has surfaced;
> ...next, it turns into a flutter of woodwinds, as if the memories, now dead and dried leaves, were being dispersed by a whirling, cold wind;
> 
> ...then, at the very end, the little repeating celesta figure returns, this time more slowly, more deliberately, as if to say, "You can try to resolve me, but I will always return to haunt you;" then a sympathetic, solo violin plays an emotive line, as if in sympathy. Wow.
> 
> The emotions Schoenberg expressed in this music are so nearly indefinable, so near to complete mystery; unless you follow with your feelings. Then it becomes clearer.
> "Transfigured Night" does similar things, but not as darkly.


Whenever you hear much of things being unutterable and indefinable and impalpable and unnamable and subtly indescribable, then elevate your aristocratic nose towards heaven and snuff up the smell of decay. It is perfectly true that there is something in all good things that is beyond all speech or figure of speech. But it is also true that there is in all good things a perpetual desire for expression and concrete embodiment; and though the attempt to embody it is always inadequate, the attempt is always made. If the idea does not seek to be the word, the chances are that it is an evil idea. If the word is not made flesh it is a bad word.

Thus Giotto or Fra Angelico would have at once admitted theologically that God was too good to be painted; but they would always try to paint Him. And they felt (very rightly) that representing Him as a rather quaint old man with a gold crown and a white beard, like a king of the elves, was less profane than resisting the sacred impulse to express Him in some way. That is why the Christian world is full of gaudy pictures and twisted statues which seem, to many refined persons, more blasphemous than the secret volumes of an atheist. The trend of good is always towards Incarnation. But, on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship the Devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon the shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination. They call him "horror of emptiness," as did the black witch in Stevenson's Dynamiter; they worship him as the unspeakable name; as the unbearable silence. They think of him as the void in the heart of the whirlwind; the cloud on the brain of the maniac; the toppling turrets of vertigo or the endless corridors of nightmare. It was the Christians who gave the Devil a grotesque and energetic outline, with sharp horns and spiked tail. It was the saints who drew Satan as comic and even lively. The Satanists never drew him at all.

And as it is with moral good and evil, so it is also with mental clarity and mental confusion. There is one very valid test by which we may separate genuine, if perverse and unbalanced, originality and revolt from mere impudent innovation and bluff. The man who really thinks he has an idea will always try to explain that idea. The charlatan who has no idea will always confine himself to explaining that it is much too subtle to be explained. The first idea may really be very outree or specialist; it may really be very difficult to express to ordinary people. But because the man is trying to express it, it is most probable that there is something in it, after all. The honest man is he who is always trying to utter the unutterable, to describe the indescribable; but the quack lives not by plunging into mystery, but by refusing to come out of it.

Perhaps this distinction is most comically plain in the case of the thing called Art, and the people called Art Critics. It is obvious that an attractive landscape or a living face can only half express the holy cunning that has made them what they are. It is equally obvious that a landscape painter expresses only half of the landscape; a portrait painter only half of the person; they are lucky if they express so much. And again it is yet more obvious that any literary description of the pictures can only express half of them, and that the less important half. Still, it does express something; the thread is not broken that connects God With Nature, or Nature with men, or men with critics. The "Mona Lisa" was in some respects (not all, I fancy) what God meant her to be. Leonardo's picture was, in some respects, like the lady. And Walter Pater's rich description was, in some respects, like the picture. Thus we come to the consoling reflection that even literature, in the last resort, can express something other than its own unhappy self.

Now the modern critic is a humbug, because he professes to be entirely inarticulate. Speech is his whole business; and he boasts of being speechless. Before Botticelli he is mute. But if there is any good in Botticelli (there is much good, and much evil too) it is emphatically the critic's business to explain it: to translate it from terms of painting into terms of diction. Of course, the rendering will be inadequate-but so is Botticelli. It is a fact he would be the first to admit. But anything which has been intelligently received can at least be intelligently suggested. Pater does suggest an intelligent cause for the cadaverous colour of Botticelli's "Venus Rising from the Sea." Ruskin does suggest an intelligent motive for Turner destroying forests and falsifying landscapes. These two great critics were far too fastidious for my taste; they urged to excess the idea that a sense of art was a sort of secret; to be patiently taught and slowly learnt. Still, they thought it could be taught: they thought it could be learnt. They constrained themselves, with considerable creative fatigue, to find the exact adjectives which might parallel in English prose what has been clone in Italian painting. The same is true of Whistler and R. A. M. Stevenson and many others in the exposition of Velasquez. They had something to say about the pictures; they knew it was unworthy of the pictures, but they said it.

Now the eulogists of the latest artistic insanities (Cubism and Post Impressionism and Mr. Picasso) are eulogists and nothing else. They are not critics; least of all creative critics. They do not attempt to translate beauty into language; they merely tell you that it is untranslatable-that is, unutterable, indefinable, indescribable, impalpable, ineffable, and all the rest of it. The cloud is their banner; they cry to chaos and old night. They circulate a piece of paper on which Mr. Picasso has had the misfortune to upset the ink and tried to dry it with his boots, and they seek to terrify democracy by the good old anti-democratic muddlements: that "the public" does not understand these things; that "the likes of us" cannot dare to question the dark decisions of our lords.

I venture to suggest that we resist all this rubbish by the very simple test mentioned above. If there were anything intelligent in such art, something of it at least could be made intelligible in literature. Man is made with one head, not with two or three. No criticism of Rembrandt is as good as Rembrandt; but it can be so written as to make a man go back and look at his pictures. If there is a curious and fantastic art, it is the business of the art critics to create a curious and fantastic literary expression for it; inferior to it, doubtless, but still akin to it. If they cannot do this, as they cannot; if there is nothing in their eulogies, as there is nothing except eulogy-then they are quacks or the high-priests of the unutterable. If the art critics can say nothing about the artists except that they are good it is because the artists are bad. They can explain nothing because they have found nothing; and they have found nothing because there is nothing to be found.


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## science

Even Shakespeare, whose language was as powerful as anyone's, was fascinated by the limits of language.


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## Guest

brianwalker said:


> Whenever you hear much of things being unutterable and indefinable and impalpable and unnamable ....etc


At least quote your source...G K Chesterton.

http://www.online-literature.com/donne/2590/


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## thesubtlebody

*Ooh, snap!*


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## millionrainbows

We all know what quantity is. Let's say I have 53 sheep. If I trade you one sheep for your Suhr guitar (because you can't get any jobs playing fusion and need to feed your family), I have 52 sheep left. Easy enough.

However, if I number each sheep 1-53 in order to keep track of them, then they have been given a number identity. For example, if I trade you sheep number 52 for your '67 Marshall 50-watt head, then I will have 52 sheep left, although sheep #52 is gone. So now we can see the difference between number as quantity and as identity.

These two ideas used to get mixed up in the olden days; we had no "zero" because people tended to see numbers as representing actual objects, and when they counted their sheep, for instance, each number corresponded to an actual sheep. There was no "zero sheep;" the concept was useless to these lamb-eaters and traders, who dealt in concrete terms.

This is part of the reason time is usually measured in numbers without zero; there are 7 days in a week, but there is no "zero" day of the week; they are 1 thru 7, as identities. There is no "zero year;" Christ was born in the year 1 A.D., and the year before that was I B.C., not "zero."

From WIK: Astronomical year numbering, used by astronomers, includes a year zero (0). Consequently, the first century in these calendars may designate the years 0 to 99 as the first century, years 100 to 199 as the second etc. However, in order to regard 2000 as the first year of the twenty-first century according to the astronomical year numbering, the astronomical year 0 has to correspond to the Gregorian year 1 BC.

According to WIK:
Start and end in the Gregorian Calendar

According to the Gregorian calendar, the 1st century A.D./C.E. started on January 1, 1 and ended on December 31, 100. The 2nd century started at year 101, the third at 201, etc. The n-th century started/will start on the year 100×n-99 and ends in 100×n . A century will only include one year, the centennial year, that starts with the century's number (e.g. 1900 is the final year in the 19th century).

1st century CE and BCE

There is no "zeroth century" in between the first century BCE and the first century AD. Also, there is no 0 AD[1]. The Julian calendar "jumps" from 1 BC to 1 AD. The first century BC includes the years 100 BCE to 1 BCE. Other centuries BC follow the same pattern.

Arthur C. Clarke gave this analogy (from a statement received by Reuters): "If the scale on your grocer's weighing machine began at 1 instead of 0, would you be happy when he claimed he'd sold you 10 kg of tea?" This statement illustrates the common confusion about the calendar. If one counts from the beginning of A.D. 1 to the ending of A.D. 1000, one would have counted 1000 years. The next 1000 years (millennium) would begin on the first day of 1001. So the calendar has not 'cheated' anyone out of a year. In other words, the argument is based on the fact that the last year of the first two thousand years in the Gregorian Calendar was 2000, not 1999.

So, in our non-zero system, the first century consisted of the years 1 B.C. thru 100; the second century was 101-200; and so on, until we get to the eighteenth century, 1701 to 1800, and the twentieth century, 1901 to 2000. That's why many experts were telling us that the "millenium" was not actually the year 2000, but January 1, 2001.

Part of the reason for avoidance of zero was religious, and goes back to the Church doctrine of "privatio boni"... Look it up if you're interested.

So, in the old days, up to today, there is no "zero" when talking about time measurement. Babies are not "zero" years old at birth;* time is seen as synonymous with being, and God the creator. If God created everything, how could there be "nothing"? "Nothing" is simply a lack, a deficiency, like a disease parasite; it cannot live without a host; it is essentially nothing.*

What does this have to do with music? Tonality is an hierarchy; it relates all notes of the octave back to "1" or the key note; all the notes have an identity, tied to a pitch/letter name.

In Serialism, all notes are equal, related only to each other. There is no "1" (as a root reference.) To explain:

The steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, but also are given a specific scale degree (function) and place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as ratios (intervals), which are at the same time, physical harmonic phenomena. (Harry Partch)

"One (1:1) is the ultimate consonance. In the beginning was ONE. From this, sprang forth the universe.

"All musical understanding can be reduced to the understanding of one note."

The interval ratios are just a way of expressing the relationship of two notes. For example, 2:1 is the octave, or doubling of frequency; conversely, 1:2 halves it.

Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals, within one octave:
1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1

In tonality, notes are numbered 1 through 12. In Serialism, the notes are on a number line, with "C" usually, but not always, being "zero."

So, class, what are the metaphysical and religious implications of this? Let's not lock the thread down, now.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> In Serialism, all notes are equal, related only to each other. There is no "1".
> 
> In tonality, notes are numbered 1 through 12. In Serialism, the notes are on a number line, with "C" usually, but not always, being "zero."


Just clarifying - in serialism, there is a 0 but not a 1?


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> For me, one of the most* evocative *pieces of music, of all time, is from Schoenberg's 5 Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 (1909; 1949 version); the second movement, "Vergangenes".
> 
> About midway-through, a little figure played on the celesta emerges; it repeats, over and over, like a broken music-box, or child's toy; reminiscent of Tchaikovsky's use of the celesta in "Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairies";
> 
> ...only here, it sounds more* obsessive*, more *foreboding*; as if one were going over and over the same thought, in an effort to resolve it; or as if it is *haunting* you, insistently, and it won't leave you in peace.
> Woodwind figures in the background repeat also, short-long, short-long, short, limping along irregularly, as if it were time passing; other winds emerge, making clock-like twitters of even notes;
> This eventually gets engulfed by louder, *disturbing* string figures, as if some *dark *realization of a chidhood memory or death of a loved one has surfaced;
> ...next, it turns into a flutter of woodwinds, as if the memories, now *dead *and *dried* leaves, were being dispersed by a whirling, cold wind;
> 
> ...then, at the very end, the little repeating celesta figure returns, this time more slowly, more deliberately, as if to say, "You can try to resolve me, but I will always return to *haunt* you;" then a sympathetic, solo violin plays an emotive line, as if in sympathy. Wow.
> 
> The emotions Schoenberg expressed in this music are so nearly indefinable, so near to* complete mystery*; unless you follow with your feelings. Then it becomes clearer.
> "Transfigured Night" does similar things, but not as *darkly.*


Let no one misconceive that I am deaf to the wide expressive palette of Schoenberg's music, his music is quite lyrical and romantic, of course I can hear that and the continuity between his earliest music to his middle period and later works, I believe the alleged quote of his desire for his tunes to be hummed, some of the mare quite capable of being hummed e.g. the opening of the Violin Concerto; I can hear all of which you'e described, but the farther that the music strays away from common practice harmony, the more merely "evocative", as opposed to expressive, the the "disturbing", "obsessive", "dead", and "dried" the music becomes more "haunting" and "indefinable", more "dark" than ever.

But (some, not all, morning, noon, and summer afternoons are all beautiful in their own way) the most beautiful things are that which plays the contrast between the light and night, between the emphatic and the evocative, between the disturbing and the comforting, between the obsessive and the prosaic; things are at the zenith of drama when a person is dying, not when a person is dead; things are at the apogee of excitement and fire when the leaves are being burned, not the pile of ashes that remain. A sunrise is beautiful, and perhaps even more so a sunset, but no poet has ever praises the pitch black night, they are merely invoked as something of a horror; night is not meant for man; a healthy man sleeps through the night. Amnesia is a sickness of the soul.

Light doesn't need the contrast of darkness to make things beautiful; it is beautiful in itself. Darkness is only an incidental contrast to it.


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## crmoorhead

@millionrainbows

Do you not know the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers?



> So, in the old days, up to today, there is no "zero" when talking about time measurement. Babies are not "zero" years old at birth; time is seen as synonymous with being, and God the creator. If God created everything, how could there be "nothing"? "Nothing" is simply a lack, a deficiency, like a disease parasite; it cannot live without a host; it is essentially nothing.


Sure there is. Babies are certainly 'zero' at birth and their age counted in smaller increments than years. The problem with the millenium is also easily solved when one considers that the calender year starting 2000 does not mean 'we have completed 2000 years' but rather 'we are celebrating the beginning of our 2000th year'. In birthdays, we celebrate completion, in calendar terms we celebrate the start of the new time period. Even so, celebrations of the millenium are simply an excuse for a party since the calendar was created arbitrarily hundreds of years after 'year 1' began. The significance of 2000 is some strange human fascination with numbers with zeros in them. It is no different from 1952 or 2048 (which is, at least, 2^11 and therefore numerically interesting).

So, it isn't possible to own zero sheep? No matter how you look at time, there will always be a zero. This has nothing to do with privatio boni. Time is quantitive, it can be measured. And it is progressive, so it can be traced back to an origin. That is the nature of time. Good/evil is qualitative and cannot be measured nor does it have an origin. If you would direct me to some material on just how zero was avoided in religon, then I would read it, but I haven't heard of such a thing.



> In tonality, notes are numbered 1 through 12. In Serialism, the notes are on a number line, with "C" usually, but not always, being "zero."


But the numbering is not random. It is numbered in order of consonance with the key with, of course, the tonic being the most consonant. Also, the major and minor keys do not use all 12 notes, they are mostly heptatonic, restricted to 7 notes per octave. Use of other notes being outside of the norm is what defines tonal works. Numbering the pitches in any key is a ranking system which applies a reasoning behind the numbering. Serialism says that the 12 standard pitches in the chromatic scale should be unranked. That consonance (or our notion of it) is unimportant. In microtonality, even 12 pitches is illogical. We adopt it simply for practical considerations.

Of course, the other thing about scales is that once one finishes an octave on a piano, the next one begins. There are many C notes on a piano - all that might be numbered as '1' in the key of C major. The concept of zero applying here is nonsensical since sound is a continuum limited only by the range of human hearing. It is not the same as time because time is not cyclical.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Christ was crucified in the year 1 A.D., and the year before that was I B.C., not "zero."


Surely you mean "born." Joseph and Mary dodged Herod's infanticide, which did not use crucifixion, anyway.

Otherwise, interesting post, eh?


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## Head_case

> It is not the same as time because time is not cyclical.


Mistakes and forum commentators are though. Both seem to come around and go around and round and round


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## millionrainbows

crmoorhead said:


> If you would direct me to some material on just how zero was avoided in religon, then I would read it, but I haven't heard of such a thing.


Why did the Church reject the use of zero?
http://amzn.com/0140296476


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Just clarifying - in serialism, there is a 0 but not a 1?


See the edited version. To explain how "1" works in tonality"

The steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, but also are given a specific scale degree (function) and place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as ratios (intervals), which are at the same time, physical harmonic phenomena. (Harry Partch)

One (1:1) is the ultimate consonance. In the beginning was ONE. From this, sprang forth the universe.


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## millionrainbows

crmoorhead said:


> @millionrainbows: Do you not know the difference between cardinal and ordinal numbers?


Yes, but I figured this out before I knew what they were called.



crmoorhead said:


> Sure there is. Babies are certainly 'zero' at birth and their age counted in smaller increments than years.


You seem to be taking all this too literally; my point is identity/being/time, and how this relates to the differences between tonality and the serial approach to music.

...And I never heard of a baby being called 'zero years old' all the way until it reached age one. They always say it in fractional divisions, like days, weeks, and months.

It seems that "zero" is avoided when dealing with time (not military, but look at any conventional clock).



crmoorhead said:


> The problem with the millenium is also easily solved when one considers that the calender year starting 2000 does not mean 'we have completed 2000 years' but rather 'we are celebrating the beginning of our 2000th year'. In birthdays, we celebrate completion, in calendar terms we celebrate the start of the new time period.


Yes, that's true, but implicit in your statement are the terms "start" and "complete," which refer to durations of time. "Duration" implies "being in time." You're not quite getting what I'm trying to say.



crmoorhead said:


> So, it isn't possible to own zero sheep? No matter how you look at time, there will always be a zero. This has nothing to do with privatio boni. Time is quantitive, it can be measured.


Arthur C. Clarke knows exactly what is being referred to when he made his "grocer's scale" comment earlier. Stockhausen might have a quibble with this, too, as he was concerned with subjective time. "Time is being in time," but this whole explanation routine is a distraction from what I'm trying to get at.



crmoorhead said:


> Of course, the other thing about scales is that once one finishes an octave on a piano, the next one begins. There are many C notes on a piano - all that might be numbered as '1' in the key of C major. The concept of zero applying here is nonsensical since sound is a continuum limited only by the range of human hearing. It is not the same as time because time is not cyclical.


That's what I'm saying; but your simple "numbering" of notes 1-7 does not illustrate the fractional aspect of intervals. Too literal.


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## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> ...I can hear all of which you'e described, but the farther that the music strays away from common practice harmony, the more merely "evocative", as opposed to expressive, the the "disturbing", "obsessive", "dead", and "dried" the music becomes more "haunting" and "indefinable", more "dark" than ever.


Yes, I think you're correct; the Schoenberg piece is rather dark and Germanic. Go figure.

But, I further think I see where you're coming from. Tonality is about identity and "the 1" which all other things are subordinate to; a Newtonian world of gravity and centeredness. Tonality's number is ordinal; no zero is possible. As you said,



brianwalker said:


> Light doesn't need the contrast of darkness to make things beautiful; it is beautiful in itself. Darkness is only an incidental contrast to it.


That's why there is no such thing as a "flashdark" which emits darkness, darkness is only the absence of light. Time is being; no zero is possible. Non-being is impossible; everything which _*is *_was created by you-know-who.

Serial methods are an Einsteinian universe, constantly expanding, floating; only local masses attract each other. The "1" is gone; God is gone; we are reduced to quantities. We are the Hollow Men, the dead men, headpiece filled with straw.

But, on the brighter side, consider this: submission, the death of the ego...*heresy!*



brianwalker said:


> Whenever you hear much of things being unutterable and indefinable and impalpable and unnamable and subtly indescribable, then elevate your aristocratic nose towards heaven and snuff up the smell of decay.


Uhh, dude, that might just as well be the smell of your own hubris, for creating an anthropomorphic God.



brianwalker said:


> The trend of good is always towards Incarnation. But, on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship the Devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon the shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination. They call him "horror of emptiness...It was the Christians who gave the Devil a grotesque and energetic outline, with sharp horns and spiked tail. It was the saints who drew Satan as comic and even lively. The Satanists never drew him at all.


The Devil does seem to go hand-in hand with the good stuff. Watch out; some folks might get offended with equating "the unspeakable" with evil; or is that built into the infrastructure, along with "the word made flesh?"

And, yes, you should quote your sources.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> See the edited version. To explain how "1" works in tonality"
> 
> The steps of our scale, and the "functions" of the chords built thereon, are the direct result of interval ratios, all in relation to a "keynote" or unity of 1; the intervals not only have a dissonant/consonant quality determined by their ratio, but also are given a specific scale degree (function) and place in relation to "1" or the Tonic. This is where all "linear function" originated, and is still manifest as ratios (intervals), which are at the same time, physical harmonic phenomena. (Harry Partch)
> 
> One (1:1) is the ultimate consonance. In the beginning was ONE. From this, sprang forth the universe.


A simple 'yes' or 'no' would have sufficed.


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> That's why there is no such thing as a "flashdark" which emits darkness, darkness is only the absence of light. Time is being; no zero is possible. Non-being is impossible; everything which _*is *_was created by you-know-who.


Black holes; they "emit darkness" by sucking out light.



> Serial methods are an Einsteinian universe, constantly expanding, floating; only local masses attract each other. The "1" is gone; God is gone; we are reduced to quantities. We are the Hollow Men, the dead men, headpiece filled with straw.


This is the clearest example of language "going on a holiday". There is no such thing as an "Einsteinian Universe". There is no more relation between any "progress" in physics and "progress" in music by virtue of the applicability of identical phrases such as "constantly expanding, floating; only local masses attract each other" than connecting an over-cooked steak and an older, wiser man because both are said to be *"mature". * A really mature steak is a failure; a really mature person is a success.

_We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature... _

Niels Bohr


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## crmoorhead

> You seem to be taking all this too literally; my point is identity/being/time, and how this relates to the differences between tonality and the serial approach to music.


Your words were "There is no zero when talking about time measurement". This statement is just plain false or poorly constructed. If you accuse me of taking this too literally, I will equally claim that you aren't being clear enough or eloquent enough about what it is you actually mean. Rehashing your post to cover up or attempt to clarify the errors doesn't exactly help.



> ...And I never heard of a baby being called 'zero years old' all the way until it reached age one. They always say it in fractional divisions, like days, weeks, and months.


But your exact words were "Babies are not "zero" years old at birth". Below one year, they are months old, before that they are weeks, days, hours and minutes. "At birth", t=0. Birth is simply a synonym for zero here. This is not the same analogy as with the Gregorian calendar where t never reaches a zero point. This is the definition of the difference between ordinal and cardinal numbers.



> It seems that "zero" is avoided when dealing with time (not military, but look at any conventional clock).


If you are talking about analog clock faces, this is just the same as babies ages. It counts the hours after midnight or midday. The only reason we don't say half past zero is because of convention. The hours are marked so that we can see it progress to 12 hours being the max. 12:20 spoken out loud is a crossover from the digital clock. Before that, people said 20 past midday or noon or midnight. If you want proof of this, just look at how it is said in foreign languages. Most languages don't say "Twenty past twelve", but "twenty past midday" because it counts from midday or midnight as zero. Since there are two zero points in a day, they must be named. There is no avoidance of zero here. One might as well also read significance into the fact that we use the words 'half past' or 'quarter to' because the numbers 30 or 15 are also taboo.



> Yes, that's true, but implicit in your statement are the terms "start" and "complete," which refer to durations of time. "Duration" implies "being in time." You're not quite getting what I'm trying to say.


Time has duration. It is a measure of duration by definition. I was simply trying to explain why celebrating the year 2000 instead of 2001 was logical from the perspective of celebrating the 2000th year rather than the completion of 2000 years.



> Arthur C. Clarke knows exactly what is being referred to when he made his "grocer's scale" comment earlier. Stockhausen might have a quibble with this, too, as he was concerned with subjective time. "Time is being in time," but this whole explanation routine is a distraction from what I'm trying to get at.


Well, if anyone is biased to talk about the start of the the new millenium then it would be the author of "2001: A Space Odyssey". After all, he didn't write "2000: A Space Odyssey". My point is that it is simply a matter of perspective. If someone were to claim that the 2000 millennium was the completion of the first 2000 years if the calendar, then they would be wrong simply because they don't understand that the calendar uses ordinal numbers for years. This is, I suspect, what Clarke talks about, or perhaps the use of the phrase "21st Century" (an ordinal term) being used to apply to the year 2000. Being wrong or right about celebrating the beginning of the year 2000 is a choice based upon whether you view celebrating the start of the "2000s"/2000th year or the "21st Century"/Completion of 2000 Years.



> That's what I'm saying; but your simple "numbering" of notes 1-7 does not illustrate the fractional aspect of intervals. Too literal.


Does it need to? The important part is that they are ordered in order of consonance - the ratios are unimportant. In your ORIGINAL, unedited post you made no mention of ratios and included all pitches even though, in the tonal systems, they are not all used.

With regards to taking a 'too literal' approach, it seems very easy to accuse me of being inept at understanding, but maybe if you communicated your intent a bit more efficiently I wouldn't just assume that you don't have a clue what you are talking about. Saying that I am taking you too literally seems to cover any amount of errors on your part. Your theories on the lack of zero in music seem, to me, to arise from simple misunderstandings about numbers and then trying to reconcile this with a mystical/incorrect philosophy instead of correcting those misunderstandings. We do not live in times of alchemy and astrology any more. Serialism simply does not apply ordering on notes, tonal systems do.

Now, if you are trying to say that the church saw relating all notes in one scale back to the tonic because they chose this as a mirror of how all of creation is related to God, then lets go with that. Firstly, this has nothing to do with zero. This is an argument for order/disorder or hierarchy vs equality. Secondly, it isn't really a choice. Harmonics dictate what does and does not sound 'good' to use based on the mathematical ratios. Harmony is a quality desirable to religious philosophy. With the major and minor scales, any note can be the tonal centre, so it parallels a polytheist viewpoint rather than a monotheistic one. Of you want to talk about harmonics before that and how that is based specifically on the notion of relating to God, then I'm all ears, but I can't help but think this is nothing but erroneous speculation and theory.



> Why did the Church reject the use of zero?


Can't you link me to something that doesn't require a purchase. If you have some evidence (or have read this book) then it can be easily verified. How about this from the wiki article on year 0?

_In chapter II of book I of Ecclesiastical history, Bede stated that Julius Caesar invaded Britain "in the year 693 after the building of Rome, but the *sixtieth year* before the incarnation of our Lord", while stating in chapter III, "in the year of Rome 798, Claudius" also invaded Britain and "within a very few days … concluded the war in … the *fortysixth* [year] from the incarnation of our Lord".[3] Although both dates are wrong, they are sufficient to conclude that Bede did not include a year zero between BC and AD: 798 − 693 + 1 (because the years are inclusive) = 106, but 60 + 46 = 106, which leaves no room for a year zero._

Note the use of ordinal terms here. Also:

_It is often incorrectly stated that Bede did not use a year zero because he did not know about the number zero. Although the Arabic numeral for zero (0) did not enter Europe until the eleventh century, and Roman numerals had no symbol for zero, Bede and Dionysius Exiguus did use a Latin word, nulla meaning "nothing", alongside Roman numerals or Latin number words wherever a modern zero would have been used._

Bede was writing in the 8th Century. He clearly knew about zero (and used it), but chose to use an ordinal system for numbering years.


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## brianwalker

millionrainbows said:


> I think it takes some effort to appreciate post-war serial-derived music, wheras with tonality, it's a knee-jerk reaction; the food smells good and Pavlov's unfortunate dogs begin to salivate. It's as simple as that.
> 
> The whole experience is based on clichés, and how cleverly these are juggled, like a "hidden pea" carnival game for rubes.
> Also, this "tonal food" tastes good; it sits on the ears like a sweet bread pudding, with no skill except that of swallowing. *You can swallow, can't you?*
> 
> *The further tonality is stretched, the better...
> *
> _*And isn't this the dilemma of tonality?*_ It needed to constantly grow, to step outside itself...
> 
> And as composers evolved into the 20th century, they exploited the aspects of tonality which, ironically, contained the seeds of its own demise: increasing chromaticism, the tritone, diminished sevenths, dominant flat-nines, tri-tone substitutions, and more.


*Is Liszt a superior composer to Verdi? *Yes or No? Because Liszt did some of the lengthiest stretches of tonality in the 19th century in his late piano works, many of them stretchier than Wagner, as I'm sure you're aware, even if Wagner were to be interpreted under the contentious theory that his harmonic modulations were independent of his librettos.


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## millionrainbows

crmoorhead said:


> Now, if you are trying to say that the church saw relating all notes in one scale back to the tonic because they chose this as a mirror of how all of creation is related to God, then lets go with that. Firstly, this has nothing to do with zero. _* [I disagree, and there is documentation on this.-millions] *_ This is an argument for order/disorder or hierarchy vs equality. Secondly, it isn't really a choice. Harmonics dictate what does and does not sound 'good' to use based on the mathematical ratios. Harmony is a quality desirable to religious philosophy. With the major and minor scales, any note can be the tonal centre, so it parallels a polytheist viewpoint rather than a monotheistic one. Of you want to talk about harmonics before that and how that is based specifically on the notion of relating to God, then I'm all ears, but I can't help but think this is nothing but erroneous speculation and theory.


That's exactly what I'm getting at, so I went on ahead and did a new blog on it.



crmoorhead said:


> Can't you link me to something that doesn't require a purchase. If you have some evidence (or have read this book) then it can be easily verified.


I do have several books on "Zero," but I don't want to dig them up and quote from them just yet, unless absolutely necessary. 
Actually, I think the best way to demonstrate this avoidance of (the idea of) zero by the Church is to look at the WIK entry on the doctrine of Privatio Boni. 
_Of course, you will have to think of zero as more than just a quantity, but as an identity, as it relates to being._ Didn't another philosopher write a book called "Being and Nothingness?" Gee, I bet that really warms your literal/mathematico cockles!

Also, you might find this infuriating, but I have a real problem with seeing time as merely a "quantity," like five dollars or three chickens. Since you yourself used the terms "start" and "finish" in reference to time, this seems to clearly imply a duration, not a mere quantity; and I see duration as related to being. I see this as obvious; after all, why is the non-use of zero only applied to time measurement, as in calendars and clocks? Why do we have to "imply" zero?


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## PetrB

I was 'exposed' first to recorded music about my late fourth year or so. The recordings I was first given were (what I can recall):

Rimsky-Korsakov, Sheherezade
Prokofiev; Lieutenant Kije suite & Janacek; Harry Janos suite
Landowska playing Bach on Harpsichord, the Italian Concerto and other pieces.

My first piano lessons, age six:
'Beginner's Bach' - the Schirmer edition collection
Bartok; Mikrokosmos, book I
and not much later... that same year
Octavio Pinto; Szenas Infantis
Schumann; Album fur die jugend

No one told me the Bach was superb and the Bartok not (and 'weird'), or vice verso.

Infected from early childhood with both early and contemporary music, which left me quite ready to 'access' either without further preconditioning or judgement. I repeat often enough a phrase which can sound glib but is not meant to be at all: it says it quite literally.... 'It is just music.'

So, Corelli or Carter, Bach or Bartok or Boulez, and any and all in between, well... it is just music... readily available for my listening pleasure, visceral and otherwise.

Resistance to 'other music' comes, most assuredly, from early and cumulative experience which is limited to one era, one mode, one sensibility. Pity, that in it creates for some temporary, for others, permanent -- impassable boundaries.

I do believe that is really ALL the resistance to modern / contemporary music is, i.e. far too late an experience after a relative lifetime of conditioning; even without influence of thought, expectations that music be _______ get so firmly set by all that repeated experience within the more limited parameters of only a few hundred years of what is available to us that the remainder outside of that experience becomes virtually inaccessible. 

(You might find nearly as much 'resistance against' in some to the six hundred years of repertoire prior the Baroque, such is the effect of limited exposure.)


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> (You might find nearly as much 'resistance against' in some to the six hundred years of repertoire prior the Baroque, such is the effect of limited exposure.)


'Resistance against' the six hundred years of repertoire prior the Baroque is conceivable (perhaps the drone of Gregorian chant bores them), but the argument to counter that would be easy compared to countering the resistance against modernism. 
It would eliminate the "evolution" argument, and no new 'methods' would need explaining; questions of "art" would be eliminated, since it was just craft; pre-Baroque is older, had a tradition, and originated in the Church...


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## Prodromides

Hi, PetrB.

I never had any resistance towards atonal music; however, my exploration into contemporary compositions did not occur until well after my formative years when I had gotten my first compact disc player in 1993 and began to purchase classical music albums after attainment of age 26.

Every 2 weeks or thereabouts, I'd visit the Tower Records classical annex here in Philadelphia and peruse the bins of CDs organized alphabetically by composer last name. More times than not, my purchases were "blind buys" and were based not upon listening to samples but upon reading the content on the reverse sides of the albums to glean the titles of the compositions - the year in which a work was completed - the year of birth of the composer, etc.

For one reason or another, my interest gravitated towards 20th century repertoire. Perhaps the most decisive factor was the number of albums filed under each composer. While there existed column after column of CDs on Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, etc., there were also a lot of composer tags under which only a single album was present.
Why were there hundreds of albums of Beethoven and only one disc of music by Aarre Merikanto on Finlandia Records?
I still don't know the answer but ... guess which CD I bought? The Merikanto album went home with me and I thrilled to listen to Merikanto's highly chromatic/dissonant orchestral compositions from the 1920s. Maybe I was the only person in the city who discovered what Merikanto's music sounds like, or maybe not. There might have been a handful of other customers besides me who purchased Finlandia discs, but, speaking for myself, I put the music of Tchaikovsky and the 3 "B"s on the back burner, so to speak, as I looked forward to my next excursion into the so-called "obscure".

The most significant blind buy for me occurred in 1995 when, at age 28, I purchased a 3-CD set on the Accord label of orchestral music by Giacinto Scelsi, one of which is pictured below:



















I am certainly gratified I took the risk on Scelsi, for his music transports me onto another level. Scelsi is "Top 10" with me.

Notice that, not only did I _not_ resist Scelsi's music, I embrace it. Not exactly a poster child for early conditioning, am I? 

My parents would have never listened to Scelsi's music even if it was readily available to them (which it wasn't). And they probably wouldn't have let me (as a child) listen to Scelsi had they known what it sounds like.
[actually, my childhood exposure to music was hand-me-down 45 r.p.m.s of recording artists, such as Petula Clark or Cat Stevens, from my parents and cousins]

The type of music I heard during my childhood did not come along with me into adolescence, and I never revisit it as an adult either.

Call me a late-bloomer or whatever, but it is possible to 1) overcome the limited exposure due to social conditioning brought on by family & friends & mass media, etc., and 2) accumulate appreciation for atonality later on in one's listening experience.


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## Guest

Cool story, Prodromides. Your buying practices and mine are very similar. I still raid the "one CD" sections. That's how I ended up with my Zych CD (and how I ended up with my Merikanto, as well, come to think of it).


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## mmsbls

One thing that TC has drilled into me is the variation of listener experience. Some people don't like Bach, some don't like Mozart, some don't like Wagner, Mahler, Classical era music, almost anything one can imagine. When I first came here, I was rather surprised that more than one or two people actually said they didn't like Bach or Mozart. It was hard for me to imagine that people who generally loved classical music could somehow not like composers' music that was unimaginably beautiful to me and every other classical music lover whom I'd ever known. How was that possible? Well, of course, precisely that _is_ possible; furthermore, people who don't love Bach or Mozart are not an infinitesimal percentage of overall listeners.

There was a time when I did not really like Debussy, Prokofiev, or the Grosse Fuge. How was that possible? I'm sure there are at least a few people who don't understand how it's possible not to like any Xenakis or Stockhausen. What would I say to them that would make them understand?

There are also people who don't like modern, atonal, or avant-garde music, but it's not so useful to split everyone into those who like such music and those who don't. There are _many_ categories. Some don't like it but never really listened to much. Some don't like it and listened seriously for many years. Some like a little, some like a bit more, and some like most. Some liked it right away. Some worked very hard for years and now like it. Some are working hard and slowly learning to like more and more. Some easily like various composers but dislike others after much effort. Furthermore, for each category some people started listening early, others late, others had friends and family to guide them, others studied music, and others can't even read music, etc. (and the etc. probably includes a large number of important selection criteria).

I don't really know what percentage of people fit into the many potential categories. I'm an experimental scientist, and without knowing that information, making hypotheses about why people do or don't like the music is _very hard_. Even with that information it's hard to gain confidence in any particular explanation without the ability to test the hypothesis (something that would be extremely hard to do). So unfortunately, while it's fun to speculate (and I certainly have done this), it's difficult to have any level of confidence as to the likelihood of any hypothesis being reasonable. While fascinating to me, the psychology of music enjoyment is more than a bit mysterious.


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## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> How much? How does one quantify? Enough to join conversation here and have accumulated 'likes' from some and annoyed one or two with my ignorance? Not even 1% of "core repertoire" never mind the non-core?
> 
> I've a very small CD and vinyl collection which includes some of the predictable works of Satie, Debussy, Stravinsky, Vivaldi, Shostakovich, Ligeti, Haydn, Mozart, Holst, Prokofiev, Dvorak, Roussel, Poulenc, Grieg. I'm now familiar (as a listener) with all Beethoven's symphonies. Over many years of listening, and as a teacher, I've listened to both the kind of stuff that you might expect primary school children to know (Saint-Saens) and the kind of stuff that older brothers might plague you with - Schoenberg, Berg, Ives, Penderecki, Lutoslawski - and rock songs they've written based on such music.
> 
> How am I doing?


Meh, I'm not the one to ask how you're doing. You seem to be doing fine, but I'm no teacher or judge of you, and wouldn't haughtily presume that position. I'm merely a person interested enough to ask you about your listening background.

It seems you are a teacher yourself, and that earns a measure of respect from me, having had family members with the same profession, and I guess some vicarious appreciation of the field, however shallow. I merely teach people to play the piano, not as demanding a teaching option as your job.

I find it actually peculiar, that you would say that primary school children in your area are familiar with say Saint Saens, because being where I'm from I have not been acquainted with that kind of a culture, I guess. That would be quite unexpected in the town where I live. But that is peculiar and encouraging as well.

But moving on: What makes you so sure that Ein Klein Nachtmusik wouldn't be initially repellent to this hypothetical version of yourself?


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## Guest

Lukecash12 said:


> But moving on: What makes you so sure that Ein Klein Nachtmusik wouldn't be initially repellent to this hypothetical version of yourself?


I wouldn't be sure. I just have a hunch that melody has a basic appeal.

The Saint-Saens by the way was just Carnival of the Animals..


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## arpeggio

I have always thought it is interesting that the vast majority of people who like atonal/avant garde music still appreciate a good tune. Listening to Schoenberg and Carter has not destroyed my ear for Beethoven.


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## BurningDesire

arpeggio said:


> I have always thought it is interesting that the vast majority of people who like atonal/avant garde music still appreciate a good tune. Listening to Schoenberg and Carter has not destroyed my ear for Beethoven.


I tend to think Schoenberg's music is full of "good tunes". Melody/tune != diatonic/pentatonic modes.


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## arpeggio

BurningDesire said:


> I tend to think Schoenberg's music is full of "good tunes". Melody/tune != diatonic/pentatonic modes.


You can hear tunes when listening to Schoenberg, Millions can hear tunes, others can hear tunes, even I can hear tunes. Technically you are correct. Maybe I should of used another term.


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## Lukecash12

MacLeod said:


> I wouldn't be sure. I just have a hunch that melody has a basic appeal.
> 
> The Saint-Saens by the way was just Carnival of the Animals..


However, if you are accustomed to music that is not very melodic at all? You might wonder what this gushy stuff is.


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## Petwhac

Lukecash12 said:


> However, if you are accustomed to music that is not very melodic at all? You might wonder what this gushy stuff is.


I wonder why you think it should sound _gushy_?


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> I tend to think Schoenberg's music is full of "good tunes". Melody/tune != diatonic/pentatonic modes.


If you were referring to his pre 12-tone period then I agree.
What do you consider a good tune from Schoenberg's 12-tone music?
I don't think _melody _in the generally accepted sense is a very important aspect of 12-tone music.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> I don't think _melody _in the generally accepted sense is a very important aspect of 12-tone music.


Melody is just as important in 12-tone music as it is in 8-tone music (8 or more, yes). The melodies of Schoenberg don't sound like the melodies of Bruckner, but then the melodies of Bruckner don't sound like the melodies of Berlioz, and the melodies of Berlioz don't sound like the melodies of Beethoven. And so forth.

Melody is possibly less important in serial music. Possibly.

In electroacoustic? It depends. In experimental? Maybe not too important, but there's an anecdote about Christian Wolff, who wrote some pieces for piano which consisted of isolated notes or chords suspended in long silences--done specifically to avoid the associations of melody. He heard a piece of his many years after he'd written it and noticed that he "could hear the melody," prompting him to add, "Everything we* do turns into melody."

*We being experimental composers, I assume, though it's hard to imagine how LaMonte Young's _Composition 1960 #10_ would ever produce a melody. Which _could_ lead us to see "melody" as simply another anti-modernist shibboleth. So much energy wasted on what this or that piece or this or that genre doesn't do. Makes so much more sense to expend one's energy on responding to the things that a particular piece actually does.


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## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> If you were referring to his pre 12-tone period then I agree.
> What do you consider a good tune from Schoenberg's 12-tone music?
> I don't think _melody _in the generally accepted sense is a very important aspect of 12-tone music.


Okay, so, the 12-tone system is a system for organizing PITCH. Yet neither harmony nor melody are important aspects of this music? Really? Pray tell what is important?


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Melody is just as important in 12-tone music as it is in 8-tone music (8 or more, yes). The melodies of Schoenberg don't sound like the melodies of Bruckner, but then the melodies of Bruckner don't sound like the melodies of Berlioz, and the melodies of Berlioz don't sound like the melodies of Beethoven. And so forth.


The melodies of Bruckner sound more like those of Beethoven than they do the 'melodies' of 12-tone Schoenberg.
Melody in tonal music cannot be divorced from it's function of articulating harmony and key and therefore structure.
Melodies in tonal music always move in scales or arpeggios of whatever chord or key they are there to articulate.
Since in 12-tone music key or functional harmony is not relevant then the main purpose of melody becomes redundant.

It seems that you want to have your cake and eat but you have not made a convincing argument for your statement that melody is _just as important_ in 12-tone music as it is in what you called 8-tone (?) music.


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Okay, so, the 12-tone system is a system for organizing PITCH. Yet neither harmony nor melody are important aspects of this music? Really? Pray tell what is important?


Now, that's a very good question.
My answer would be unity first and foremost. The 12-tone system organises pitch but _not _along harmonic or melodic lines.

I would be happy if you would nominate some of Schoenberg's best (in your opinion) melodies like I asked. I will oblige with hundreds of non 12-tone examples if you wish.

Some people seem to take offence when it is pointed out that melody is not an important feature of 12-tone music. Quite why, I'm not sure.


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## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> The melodies of Bruckner sound more like those of Beethoven than they do the 'melodies' of 12-tone Schoenberg.
> Melody in tonal music cannot be divorced from it's function of articulating harmony and key and therefore structure.
> Melodies in tonal music always move in scales or arpeggios of whatever chord or key they are there to articulate.
> Since in 12-tone music key or functional harmony is not relevant then the main purpose of melody becomes redundant.
> 
> It seems that you want to have your cake and eat but you have not made a convincing argument for your statement that melody is _just as important_ in 12-tone music as it is in what you called 8-tone (?) music.


Huh, I always thought that the point of melodies was that they are fun.


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## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> Okay, so, the 12-tone system is a system for organizing PITCH. Yet neither harmony nor melody are important aspects of this music? Really? Pray tell what is important?


That's why the 12-tone system and serialism are flexible; the only parameter which is defined is the note-order. These rows must be ordered, otherwise, the 12-tone row is just the chromatic scale.

This ordering is preserved in all permutations of the row; original, retrograde (reversed), inversion (like putting it on a mirror), and retrograde-inversion.

All other aspects of harmony and counterpoint are flexible, and left as challenges for the creator.

12-tone rows, _in themselves, _should not be seen as "melodies;" this would be akin to saying that every _tonal_ melody must contain _all 7 notes _of the diatonic scale. But it _*is*_ possible to create melodies from the rows, just as melodies are created from scales.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> Since in 12-tone music key or functional harmony is not relevant then the main purpose of melody becomes redundant.


Not at all; in serialism, melody is seen as a consequence of the _ordering_ of the row. The _ordering_ of the row provides unity throughout a composition, and is the function which "harmonic function" serves in tonality.



Petwhac said:


> Melody in tonal music cannot be divorced from it's function of articulating harmony and key and therefore structure.


Similarly, melody in "atonal" or serial music cannot be divorced from it's reflection of the _order_ in the tone-row; that's the function that ordering provides. And as I said, all 12 notes need not be stated.



Petwhac said:


> Melodies in tonal music always move in scales or arpeggios of whatever chord or key they are there to articulate.


Similarly, melodies in serial music will always articulate the ordering and interval-relationships of the tone-row.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Not at all; in serialism, melody is seen as a consequence of the _ordering_ of the row. The _ordering_ of the row provides unity throughout a composition, and is the function which "harmonic function" serves in tonality.
> 
> Similarly, melody in "atonal" or serial music cannot be divorced from it's reflection of the _order_ in the tone-row; that's the function that ordering provides. And as I said, all 12 notes need not be stated.
> 
> Similarly, melodies in serial music will always articulate the ordering and interval-relationships of the tone-row.


I didn't mean melody couldn't be said to exist in 12-tone music, although I would be interested to know if there are any particular noteworthy ones you would like to cite. It is a far less significant or expressive (musically not emotionally) or structural tool in 12-tone music than it is in tonal music.
The 'return of the big tune' is not something one associates with 12-tone music.

Your last sentence is a bit like saying the horizontal aspect of the music will always articulate the horizontal aspect of the music. It is a tone-row not a tone-column after all.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> All other aspects of harmony and counterpoint are flexible, and left as challenges for the creator.


The challenge, perhaps, being to create somethng people will enjoy given the rather strange underlying idea...


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I didn't mean melody couldn't be said to exist in 12-tone music, although I would be interested to know if there are any particular noteworthy ones you would like to cite.


Well, 12-tone music treats all 12 pitches equally, not as in a tonal hierarchy, so serial music is going to sound more chromatic. We were discussing a theme from one of Schoenberg's string quartets in another thread, earlier.



Petwhac said:


> It is a far less significant or expressive (musically not emotionally) or structural tool in 12-tone music than it is in tonal music. *The 'return of the big tune'* is not something one associates with 12-tone music.


There are no popular *serial broadway shows* that I can recall, either. And no *12-tone pop groups *with catchy hooks, either. Oh, *TV show themes:* Does *The Twilight Zone* count as one?



Petwhac said:


> Your last sentence is a bit like saying the horizontal aspect of the music will always articulate the horizontal aspect of the music. It is a tone-row not a tone-column after all.


Tone-rows can be stated vertically as well. Yep, they sure can. You could have 4 3-note chords, or 3 4-note chords, etc.


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## PetrB

Some people's ears stretch further than others. The rest is for the psychologists, I think


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> The challenge, perhaps, being to create somethng people will enjoy...


Who?

Who are these "people" whom it's such a challenge to please? "People" in this context almost always means "a sub-section of people for whom modern music is anathema" and as a result all the values are skewed.

Well, I enjoy quite a lot of 12-tone music. And I'm a person. Though I must confess it all sounds quite old-fashioned by now. So much so that that is what I find most perplexing about these tonal/atonal discussions--all the music that gets talked about (on the too infrequent occasions that we get down to specifics) is quite old.

Petwhac recently said that Bruckner's melodies sound more like Beethoven's than like Schoenberg's. I couldn't disagree more. Bruckner's melodies are much more like Schoenberg's than like Beethoven's. Beethoven's are crisp and short and not even "melodic" if Tchaikovsky is your benchmark, whereas both Bruckner's and Schoenberg's (including the 12-tone pieces--_Variations_ is obviously by the same guy who wrote _Pelleas und Melisande_) are big and voluptuous.

I have quite a good selection of late nineteenth and early twentieth century music. The things that sound (actually _sound_) like a break from the past are things like Ives' _Unanswered Question_ and Varese's _Hyperprism._ I know that aside from Schoenberg, Stravinsky's _Le Sacre_ has gotten a lot of attention as being ground-breaking. He certainly wanted it to be seen that way. But when I listen to _Petrushka,_ and consider all the other things that went on in the last century, I think I'm hearing a much more revolutionary work. Actually _sounds_ more revolutionary.


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## millionrainbows

"The challenge, perhaps, being to create somethng people will enjoy..."

Yes, I heard a story about Stockhausen using a stopwatch, and timing down to the second a guy eating a box of popcorn and drinking a large Coke, in order to correlate the time with the fuel consumption of a helicopter he was going to use in his next composition.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Petwhac recently said that Bruckner's melodies sound more like Beethoven's than like Schoenberg's. I couldn't disagree more. Bruckner's melodies are much more like Schoenberg's than like Beethoven's. Beethoven's are crisp and short and not even "melodic" if Tchaikovsky is your benchmark, whereas both Bruckner's and Schoenberg's (including the 12-tone pieces--_Variations_ is obviously by the same guy who wrote _Pelleas und Melisande_) are big and voluptuous.


Tchaikovsky is not necessarily the benchmark but I was referring far more to the way pitches are organized ( ie as a consequence of the underlying _harmony[/I. A harmonic underpinning which Bruckner and Beethoven most definitely share but 12-tone Schoenberg does not._


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## Guest

Whatever the logic of organization, our experience of music is with how it sounds. However the sounds were produced or arranged, what we hear when we listen are the results.

Now, there are many listeners who love to analyze now and again, with varying results, but at the end of the day, music is something that sounds. My point was simply that the sound world of Schoenberg has more in common with Bruckner than Bruckner's sound world has with Beethoven.

In any case, saying that Beethoven and Bruckner shared a harmonic underpinning is to gloss over some very remarkable differences in how they arranged and developed their ideas. Tonality is not a single static entity but a dynamic system that was in constant flux. And by Bruckner, it had fluxxed to a point that is far closer to Schoenberg's practices than to Beethoven's, just as Beethoven's was far closer to Berlioz's than to Buxtehude's.


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## Petwhac

some guy said:


> Whatever the logic of organization, our experience of music is with how it sounds. However the sounds were produced or arranged, what we hear when we listen are the results.


Yes and as you well know 'what _we_ hear' should be stated 'what _I _hear' which is different from what you hear or what they hear or he/she/it hears.

I trust my own ears as they are the only ones that I hear with and to me Bruckner is closer to Beethoven than to Schoenberg.
If you hear things differently so be it. 
There are many connections between Schoenberg and German late romantics probably because he was one himself and his pre 12-tone works share many things with Bruckner, Mahler and Wagner to name but three. His 12-tone works retain late romantic ways of thinking about phrasing, counterpoint, orchestration and texture but his treatment of *melody* which is what the discussion has been about, is and could not be other than radically different from pre 12-tone practice.



some guy said:


> Now, there are many listeners who love to analyze now and again, with varying results, but at the end of the day, music is something that sounds. My point was simply that the sound world of Schoenberg has more in common with Bruckner than Bruckner's sound world has with Beethoven.


You may find it to have more in common with Schoenberg but I don't so we will have to agree to differ. The greater part of analysis is all about how the analyser hears the music. I never take a scientific approach because I am a musician and not a scientist or psychologist and I'm not actually interested in anything other than the choices the composer made within a particular piece and what the _musical_ logic was behind those choices.



some guy said:


> In any case, saying that Beethoven and Bruckner shared a harmonic underpinning is to gloss over some very remarkable differences in how they arranged and developed their ideas. Tonality is not a single static entity but a dynamic system that was in constant flux. And by Bruckner, it had fluxxed to a point that is far closer to Schoenberg's practices than to Beethoven's, just as Beethoven's was far closer to Berlioz's than to Buxtehude's.


The harmonic differences between Beet and Bruck are small and incremental. They both wrote in keys and used many of the same chord progressions. Bruckner in many ways is much more diatonic sounding than say Mahler and I think the latter's 9th symphony is closer to Schoenberg's mind set than Bruckner is.
When key and chord progressions are dispensed with altogether then the change is no longer one of degree but it is one of kind. The 12-tone composer has to _replace_ the function of key and melody not just develop it further as Bruckner did with Beethoven.


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## Vaneyes

Jeepers Creepers, are we still goin' on about Tonal vs Atonal. Bigger fish to fry, people. Such as, Will Madonna ever cross over?


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## BurningDesire

Vaneyes said:


> Jeepers Creepers, are we still goin' on about Tonal vs Atonal. Bigger fish to fry, people. Such as, Will Madonna ever cross over?


I eagerly await her dodecaphonic free-jazz-trip-hop-fusion album.


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## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> I eagerly await her dodecaphonic free-jazz-trip-hop-fusion album.


I think Madonna will continue to be a "neo-monotonalist." That's a drone with a beat under it, interspersed with brief sections of repeating, elementary chord change loops.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> I think Madonna will continue to be a "neo-monotonalist." That's a drone with a beat under it, interspersed with brief sections of repeating, elementary chord change loops.


You're quite right. And it's nothing short of DISMAYING that a large number of people seem to like this elementary trivia, as opposed to the large body of far more intelligent music composed by extremely talented and (let's face it) smart people during the same time period. I'm stumped!


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> You're quite right. And it's nothing short of DISMAYING that a large number of people seem to like this elementary trivia, as opposed to the large body of far more intelligent music composed by extremely talented and (let's face it) smart people during the same time period. I'm stumped!


I have no dismay over who chooses to consume Madonna's music.

Admittedly, groups like Scritti Politti have produced music similar in style that is more complex, less "elementary;"

...but some of the main criteria of pop music are very ephemeral: persona, mannerism, gesture, style, texture, and a certain "eye on the zeitgeist." If one were "in resonance" and understood these criteria more fully, then dismay would be replaced with resonant enthusiasm. Pop music is about persona and personality, and performance, as well as musical factors. Madonna can dance, remember?


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## BurningDesire

millionrainbows said:


> I think Madonna will continue to be a "neo-monotonalist." That's a drone with a beat under it, interspersed with brief sections of repeating, elementary chord change loops.


Its like La Monte Young meets Philip Glass, minus La Monte's hippy weirdness


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## science

BurningDesire said:


> I eagerly await her dodecaphonic free-jazz-trip-hop-fusion album.


You better not be messing with me. I'm drafting a fan letter already.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> ...but some of the main criteria of pop music are very ephemeral: persona, mannerism, gesture, style, texture, and a certain "eye on the zeitgeist." If one were "in resonance" and understood these criteria more fully, then dismay would be replaced with resonant enthusiasm. Pop music is about persona and personality, and performance, as well as musical factors.


Yes, well, the market for prolonged, long-lasting intellectual music has already been cornered by the classical musos...where did you expect the pop artists to go?


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> ...but some of the main criteria of pop music are very ephemeral: persona, mannerism, gesture, style, texture, and a certain "eye on the zeitgeist." If one were "in resonance" and understood these criteria more fully, then dismay would be replaced with resonant enthusiasm. Pop music is about persona and personality, and performance, as well as musical factors.


Maybe I'm missing something? That's the same as, historically, classical music! Did we somewhere, sometime, take a turn for the better? Or worse?


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Maybe I'm missing something? That's the same as, historically, classical music! Did we somewhere, sometime, take a turn for the better? Or worse?


If you're saying that by comparison pop music lacks musical substance, that discounts 90% of the qualities which pop music has, and classical music hasn't. Different contexts, different criteria. Opinions become meaningless in the larger context.

If you're not saying that, then I probably agree somewhat.

"Did we somewhere, sometime, take a turn for the better? Or worse?"

...that doesn't tell us anything about either music's qualities, or your criteria for assessing it. A better/worse comparison is irrelevant except as opinion.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Admittedly, groups like Scritti Politti have produced music similar in style that is more complex, less "elementary;"
> 
> View attachment 9518


GREAT ALBUM! Largely down to the Synclavier/Fairlight programming and drum sequencing by David Gamson and Fred Maher.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> GREAT ALBUM! Largely down to the Synclavier/Fairlight programming and drum sequencing by David Gamson and Fred Maher.


Petwhac! *At last* we agree on something! Besides, what other pop group would mention _Foucault?_


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## millionrainbows

I think people with better ears like atonal music, as well as dissonance. By "ears" I mean an ihherent ability to perceive pitch very accurately. Not exclusively "perfect pitch," but really good relative pitch.

These people try to hear references to roots, which may or may not be there by intent, so their ears are always "trying" to hear a tonal center. If, as in atonal music, the harmonies are constantly shifting, this can be a quite excruciating experience to sustain. It's not so much "effort" as it is intuitive hearing. This hearing ability constantly prompts the brain to figure out the tonal center as the ear has already "presented" it. 

Then again, after years of effort, these hearer's brains "give up" trying to tune-in to a "root," and let the ear just lead them wherever it hears. It's like a direct visceral impression of color. "Red is red," even if we don't know its name, we know its flavor. They hear "harmonic entities."


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## LordBlackudder

the purpose of it is to be absurd and unusual. it is only natural not to like it.

you can build ideas around it and give yourself reasons to like it but you will still complain about children standing on the keys and dogs bouncing around on it. surely a fan of atonal would record it to cd.


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## Guest

LordBlackudder said:


> the purpose of it is to be absurd and unusual. it is only natural not to like it.
> 
> you can build ideas around it and give yourself reasons to like it but you will still complain about children standing on the keys and dogs bouncing around on it. surely a fan of atonal would record it to cd.


Dear Udder,

Thanks for labelling me unnatural. Absurd and unusual are also nice. Thank you.

I, just a little word in your beautiful, shell-like ear, do not and have never given myself reasons to like "it." I just do.

And I never complain about children standing on the [piano] keys and dogs bouncing around on "it."

I have plenty of CDs with children playing and dogs barking and train brakes screeching and so forth. Wanna fight?*

*Joke.


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## KenOC

millionrainbows said:


> I think people with better ears like atonal music...


I suspect it's simply that they're better-looking, brighter, and (in general) babe magnets.


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> I suspect it's simply that they're better-looking, brighter, and (in general) babe magnets.


I suppose we'll never know about the "hearing" part, since it's all inherent and subjective. The other qualities you mention could be much more easily construed as being superficial, or as adhering to an objective standard. Intelligence can be measured, supposedly.

Still, like looking at a tiled floor, the eye/brain will unconsciously seek pattern, and these shift in size, shape, etc. This was told to me by a handsome, highly intelligent babe magnet while he was looking at the floor of the women's restroom at Studio 54.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Still, like looking at a tiled floor, the eye/brain will unconsciously seek pattern, and these shift in size, shape, etc. This was told to me by a handsome, highly intelligent babe magnet while he was looking at the floor of the women's restroom at Studio 54.




(As usual, in ten characters or more.)


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## HarpsichordConcerto

some guy said:


> I have plenty of CDs with children playing and dogs barking and train brakes screeching and so forth.


Do these albums truely exist? If so, then examples please.


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## millionrainbows

Elektra put out a very nice 4-CD Sound Effects series. It includes trains.


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## Schubussy




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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Same old argument hey, but think of it this way- If there was only tonal music, what would there be to complain about......... for those hard of hearing!


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## Rapide

Schubussy said:


>


Ouch!! Painful.


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## millionrainbows

For someone with good ears, there is 'tonal' music all the time.

When I hear noises such as a ceiling fan whirring, motors, any sound - I can choose to hear it as several possible notes, by will. What I'm doing is tuning-in to particular harmonics, which are perceived as pitch within otherwise harmonically ambiguous noises.

"Noise" is simply the presence of many harmonics. Drummers who have good ears tune drums in a similar way, by "tuning-in" to certain harmonics.

Classical music is not necessarily the haven of people who are actually _engaged intimately_ with sound as sound, and hearing sound. Often people are drawn to it for cognitive reasons, as an offshoot of being literate or cultured. The sound "represents" something, rather than (or in addition to) being just sound.

In this way, old Furtwangler recordings are admired for reasons other than fidelity, as in reading a book. In this sense, music is not sound for these, but a system of semiotics, interpretation of symbols. I suppose this is "art" in that sense, but it seems to take all the color and life out of sound itself. It's like a black-and-white reproduction of the Mona Lisa: the Platonic idea is there, the symbol is there, but much is missing or discarded as inessential.

In this sense, many are in love with the _idea_ of music, as long as it fits their conception of what music is; but in the end, music is sound.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Rapide said:


> Ouch!! Painful.


Very cool and eclectic, I for one like it. But- 
"Some people... some people like cupcakes
exclusively, while myself, I say,
there is naught nor ought there be nothing
so exalted on the face of god's grey
Earth as that prince of foods..." variety in musical styles lol.


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## millionrainbows

etkearne said:


> Hi, everyone.*
> 
> First, please do not use this topic to bash people who LIKE atonal music and do not use it to bash people who think atonal music sounds like a cat running across a keyboard console!*
> 
> I just want to get a good, somewhat empirical discussion going as to _WHY_ certain people genuinely enjoy such music and why others will never ever find it attractive. My main motivation is from looking at the comments in certain You Tube videos by modern serial composers and modern atonal composers (Boulez and Carter respectively). Some people love the music and get a real emotional response from it (like myself). But there is just as equal of a camp who thinks that it lack any emotion and is just an academic exercise.
> 
> I think both camps are right, because you can only make an opinion from your _OWN_ personal experiences. So a person who genuinely cannot get an emotional response from such music will clearly just view it as a novel academic exercise and I think those folks should not get bashed upon.
> 
> This brings me to the topic: _WHY do some people like such music?_ Obviously, the fans must get a strong emotional response from the music and also get strong stimulation from it, or else they wouldn't like it. Music is generally considered "good" if it brings forth novel and strong emotions, good or bad or neutral.
> 
> I honestly do not have an answer to the question, so that is why I pose it here to see if anyone has any hypotheses.
> 
> I will chime in with my own "atonal timeline" after a few posts are written.
> 
> *Again, no bashing each other!*


Oh, I think that you are "bashing" modern music by vaguely characterizing it. I think that the _*idea *_of atonal and serial music, which represents an opposing mindset for the critics of it, is what allows us to speak in stereotypes this way. So really, this is not a discussion about music, but about "the politics of experience" and the worldview which different musics can represent to people.

Like any LadyGaga fan, classical fans like their music because it represents and reinforces their mindset, world view, and political/religious perspectives.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

millionrainbows said:


> Like any LadyGaga fan, classical fans like their music because it represents and reinforces their mindset, world view, and political/religious perspectives.


I can agree with that comment. Can I ask are you therefore suggesting that what the music might trigger appears to be inherently part of the music? You wrote "*it* represents and reinforces ..." That would be the age old question for example, does the music contain some emotional substance that make it what it is? Many would argue to the world's end that it does not (e.g. some of the most ardent supporters of avant-garde stuff).


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I can agree with that comment. Can I ask are you therefore suggesting that what the music might trigger appears to be inherently part of the music? You wrote "*it* represents and reinforces ..." That would be the age old question for example, does the music contain some emotional substance that make it what it is? Many would argue to the world's end that it does not (e.g. some of the most ardent supporters of avant-garde stuff).


I say, I why should it - is there some magical rule book that says what music has to be.................
and therefore that tonal music is music and atonal music is something else??


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## millionrainbows

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I can agree with that comment. Can I ask are you therefore suggesting that what the music might trigger appears to be inherently part of the music? You wrote "*it* represents and reinforces ..." That would be the age old question for example, *does the music contain some emotional substance that make it what it is? Many ardent avant-garde supporters would argue to the world's end that it does not...*(my edit for clarity)


Since music is a two-way communication between composer (artistic intent) and listener, or perhaps we should say "the art" (universally understood) and the listener, this "language" of music has _agreed-on meanings,_ which are arrived at by _convention and tradition_, but also has _"universal implications" of being human, _which need no agreement or tradition to function as implied and understood meanings.

The implied, _universal_ qualities are _generalized qualities_ which we immediately understand because we are human. Some of these qualities are conveyed almost unconsciously, below our awareness. When we hear a soprano singing, we immediately aprehend several "givens:" 1) The voice determines the gender and age, so she is an adult female; 2) the language being sung, and inflection or timbre, can determine ethnicity and/or nationality. These qualities can be conveyed regardless of the kind of music.



HarpsichordConcerto said:


> ...are you therefore suggesting that what the music might trigger appears to be inherently part of the music? You wrote "*it* represents and reinforces ..."


When music "represents and reinforces a mindset, world view, and political/religious perspectives," it can do this by _repeating and reinforcing traditional precedents,_ and these traditions are *not necessarily inherent characteristics* of music which are "universally" agreed-on, but might only function as reinforcers _within the context of that tradition._

Therefore, with qualification, "yes," you can say that these reinforcers of "mindset" are *"in"* the music, but _some are universal_, while _some are "agreed-upon conventions" which need context_, history, precedent, and even "agreement of a consensus reality."

These consensus reality agreements can be easy to accept as universals, when in reality _they may not be._ If we are totally immersed in our culture and its assumptions, we begin to see these cultural assumptions as "universal givens," when they are not. They are "cultural rhetoric," like "figures of speech" designed to persuade and reinforce its audience's mindset and expectations, and it does this very well.

I'll not comment on modernism, as this "converse explanation" covers the apposite features of such a dichotomy.


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## Misologos

Atonal music/serialism originated as part of the modernist backlash against Romanticism -- some of these modernists turned to neoclassicism, others turned to existentialism and absurdism, and others still turned to a kind of creative autism, where emotion and spirituality are dissolved in an obsessively logical rationalism. I regard serialism as an example of the latter. It's the sort of music that is only appreciated in the abstract, the kind that is more interesting to read, and read about, than to listen to.


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## Guest

Misologos said:


> It's the sort of music that is only appreciated in the abstract, the kind that is more interesting to read, and read about, than to listen to.


Hmmm. Why do I keep listening to it, then? And enjoying it?

(The clerks at my local record stores will back me up on this one, too.)


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## millionrainbows

Misologos said:


> Atonal music/serialism originated as part of the modernist backlash against Romanticism...


I think it's a distortion to say that modern approaches to music were a "backlash against Romanticism." A split had already occurred earlier with the Wagner/Brahms camps. I think modernism developed for more purely musical reasons. After all, Schoenberg was super-Romantic.



Misologos said:


> ...some of these modernists turned to neoclassicism...


This is just musical rhetoric, and surface "stylistic" manifestations. Stravinsky, Debussy, and Bartók had all started approaching the 12-note scale in modern ways, dividing it at the tritone and so forth. You can look at these new ways of thinking as more Apollonian or "classic," but it was not so much a "backlash against Romanticism" as it was a return to music as part of the Quadrivium, and a need to expand the possibilities of music.



Misologos said:


> ...others turned to existentialism and absurdism, and others still turned to a kind of creative autism, where emotion and spirituality are dissolved in an obsessively logical rationalism...I regard serialism as an example of the latter.


The views espoused here represent the worn-out traditional argument that music, as a conveyor of "emotion and spirituality," was hijacked by modernism.


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## HarpsichordConcerto

millionrainbows said:


> Since music is a two-way communication between composer (artistic intent) and listener, or perhaps we should say "the art" (universally understood) and the listener, this "language" of music has _agreed-on meanings,_ which are arrived at by _convention and tradition_, but also has _"universal implications" of being human, _which need no agreement or tradition to function as implied and understood meanings.
> 
> The implied, _universal_ qualities are _generalized qualities_ which we immediately understand because we are human. Some of these qualities are conveyed almost unconsciously, below our awareness. When we hear a soprano singing, we immediately aprehend several "givens:" 1) The voice determines the gender and age, so she is an adult female; 2) the language being sung, and inflection or timbre, can determine ethnicity and/or nationality. These qualities can be conveyed regardless of the kind of music.
> 
> When music "represents and reinforces a mindset, world view, and political/religious perspectives," it can do this by _repeating and reinforcing traditional precedents,_ and these traditions are *not necessarily inherent characteristics* of music which are "universally" agreed-on, but might only function as reinforcers _within the context of that tradition._
> 
> Therefore, with qualification, "yes," you can say that these reinforcers of "mindset" are *"in"* the music, but _some are universal_, while _some are "agreed-upon conventions" which need context_, history, precedent, and even "agreement of a consensus reality."
> 
> These consensus reality agreements can be easy to accept as universals, when in reality _they may not be._ If we are totally immersed in our culture and its assumptions, we begin to see these cultural assumptions as "universal givens," when they are not. They are "cultural rhetoric," like "figures of speech" designed to persuade and reinforce its audience's mindset and expectations, and it does this very well.
> 
> I'll not comment on modernism, as this "converse explanation" covers the apposite features of such a dichotomy.


Agreeable, and I can tell you are both a student of music and philosophy.


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## Minona

I certainly don't think it's about what you're 'used to'. Most of the music I heard as a child I hate. So this 'conditioning' argument doesn't wash.

Serial music has backed epic films since sound-on-film was developed, but most people still just find it irritating.

A lot of music can seem like 'noise' to people when they're not listening to it. Some music is more palatable background music and so it gets a head-start in that way. 

I find Liza Minelli irritating, annoying blaring brass against her quivering melodramatic vocals ...and yet her fans would probably claim Jimi Hendrix was just 'noise'.


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## millionrainbows

..........


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## millionrainbows

When I listen to atonal music, I understand that there is no functional harmony. I listen for interval sonorities, not root movement or function, unless the music is entirely contrapuntal; the, the only thing there is melody, or lines.

The interval sonorities in atonal music (if there are any) appear on various pitches, in higher and lower registers, and are not related to a single tonic, or even changing tonics, so it requires the ability to recognize different intervals. The ear does this naturally, by hearing consonance/dissonance. If your brain can identify them, that's an advantage for logical, informed listening.

I think Webern is a better place to start than Schoenberg or Berg, because the latter have too many tonal allusions and metaphorical "functions." Webern's textures are simpler and clearer, and he makes no tonal allusions.


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## violadude

I truly enjoy dissonant and atonal music because I am a robot. Silly humans and your costly emotions.


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## LindnerianSea

On a completely hypothetical manner, I would like to suggest an insight from a neuropsychological and political perspective.

Recently it was reported that people who can accommodate themselves with psychology clashes and discomfort have a larger grey matter density of the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) of the frontal cortex. This area of the brain has been previously associated with handling psychological distress; the larger the area, the more likely that people are able to deal with conflicting situations. Surprisingly (or rather unsurprisingly) this seems to be 'correlated' with political left-wing tendency. This was not the case for politically right-winged people. In the end, it's the politically left winged oriented & liberal people that are more likely to attack and criticize (and hence involve in more debates - distressing situations !) establishments. 

In this sense, I dare say, could it be logically possible that, since atonal music is often association with 'harmonies that do not make sense', - there have also been studies which showed that atonal music creates genuine distress&conflict in the brain- people who enjoy atonal music are relative capable of enjoying conflict, and hence potentially more politically left-winged ? 

I suggest this is a possible hypothesis is a purely speculative and logical outlook.

However, I do not buy the idea that atonal music is 'cerebral' and hence emotionless. As (I think) Stravinsky put it, as long as there is music, there is emotion. It's just a different way of experiencing ourselves in music.


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## Mahlerian

LindnerianSea said:


> In this sense, I dare say, could it be logically possible that, since atonal music is often association with 'harmonies that do not make sense', - there have also been studies which showed that atonal music creates genuine distress&conflict in the brain- people who enjoy atonal music are relative capable of enjoying conflict, and hence potentially more politically left-winged ?


It seems unlikely, given that Stravinsky, and the entire Second Viennese School, were rather conservative politically.

On the other hand, the most strenuous arguments regarding "degenerate art" typically come from the right.


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## Guest

LindnerianSea said:


> ...could it be logically possible that, since atonal music is often association with 'harmonies that do not make sense', - there have also been studies which showed that atonal music creates genuine distress&conflict in the brain- people who enjoy atonal music are relative capable of enjoying conflict, and hence potentially more politically left-winged ?


Flawed premises. What is this "harmonies that do not make sense" thing? The harmonies in music that hasn't been made with the system called "Western tonality" do not function like the harmonies in Western tonality function, but that's a long, long ways from saying that they don't make sense!

For that matter, the harmonies in Wagner do not function like the harmonies in Bach, either, and yet they are both German. I mean they are both considered to be tonal composers. Yeah. (Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

Otherwise, I think you'll find that there have been *no* studies that have shown that atonal music creates genuine distress and conflict in the brain. Think about it for a second. How could there be? The things listed are simply things that do not exist. Atonal music to start with. That is not a category that any scientist would use, so that's a non-starter from the start (as it were). And "the brain" does not exist, either. There are as many brains as there are people. And all those brains are different. Do they have similiarities? Of course. But with something like responses to music, we're talking about experience and taste and culture and the like. So the similarities don't really enter into it.

I know. A lot of people who react negatively to particular types of music want their reactions to be the only true and valid and reliable reactions. But "too bad." They're not.

Besides, without any details about these suppositious studies (a citation or two would be helpful), we don't know exactly what the researchers played to the people we know nothing about. It could have been isolated chords for all we know. Or maybe two or three chords--chords that were perhaps unrelated in a tonal context. Still, hardly what any of us would call "music."

That brings us to the truly laughable conclusion, that politically left-winged people enjoy conflict. Tee hee. Yes, yes, that must be it. (Wait a minute. What was the topic, again?)


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## PetrB

LindnerianSea said:


> 'harmonies that do not make sense', - there have also been studies which showed that atonal music creates genuine distress&conflict in the brain...


This tosses the rest of your posit, in that those "harmonies that do not make sense" do not make sense only because the habitual listening to a particular body of music will have those newer harmonies not making sense by context of the listener's experience, habits, and expectations of music as per those experiences.

It is simplistic, but some people have more open ears and minds for music than others, their political directions notwithstanding.


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## millionrainbows

PetrB said:


> This tosses the rest of your posit, in that those "harmonies that do not make sense" do not make sense only because the habitual listening to a particular body of music will have those newer harmonies not making sense by context of the listener's experience, habits, and expectations of music as per those experiences.
> 
> It is simplistic, but some people have more open ears and minds for music than others, their political directions notwithstanding.


The vertical dimension of serial music is heard as sonority. It is heard as consonance/dissonance by the ear. There is no "function" or expectation. There is only a moment-by moment manifestation of vertical consonance/dissonance which has no reference to a tonic, or to a function. There is no "goal" of resolution, or of expectations either fulfilled or thwarted.

So in a sense, LindnerianSea is correct, in that the vertical aggregates of serialism "make no sense" tonally, because in terms of tonal harmonic function, they don't. But they shouldn't be expected to, so this is a flawed criticism.

But PetrB's response is also flawed, because he's saying that these "new serial harmonies" will make sense, as long as our old expectations don't get in the way; which is true to a point, but what replaces these old expectations?

Nothing. There is no new "function" or expectation. There is only a moment-by moment manifestation of vertical consonance/dissonance, having no reference to a tonic, or to any function. There is no "goal" of resolution, or of expectations either fulfilled or thwarted.

The only vertical dimension is that which occurs as time unfolds, moment by moment.

Horizontally, there are "events" which occur. They may be related to other events in terms of the row structure, either as contrapuntal lines which coincide, or which occur in succession; or vertically, as 'sonorous events' which occur, and which contain a dissonant yield.

So, harmonically speaking, serial music "makes no sense" except as a purely visceral experience of consonance/dissonance; but all music does this.

In serial music, the consonance/dissonance has no inherent structural "meaning" and is not comparative, except to the ear; so its only meaning is sensual.

Serial music can make sense in other ways: it can be shaped into motives or phrases, or its vertical consonance/dissonance can be somewhat "channeled" into loose categories of harmonic sonority by use of its intervallic sonority; it can create 'gestures' and events; but it "makes no sense" in tonal terms. This is a different language.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> Serial music can make sense in other ways: it can be shaped into motives or phrases, or its vertical consonance/dissonance can be somewhat "channeled" into loose categories of harmonic sonority by use of its intervallic sonority; but it "makes no sense" in tonal terms. This is a different language.


This is why to me, I repeat, to _me_, serial and other non-harmonic music is lacking in that sense of _inevitability_ that great tonal music possesses. Motif, colour, sonority, reference intervals, inversions, retrogrades, clusters, texture and anything else that non-harmonic music can be built with - all these things are found in tonal/harmonic music too. But then tonal/harmonic music can add to that, if so desired, vertical function, harmonic movement and all the other accoutrements that have developed over 400+ years. And as is evident, it is endlessly able to reinvent itself.

You are right that serial music is a different language. Personally I find it not a particularly rich language in comparison, rather like English compared to Esperanto which has no irregular verbs.

Anyway I know I'll get stick for expressing my personal preferences but I must inform you good people that I am a bit of a lefty!


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## Guest

The fact that serialism uses motives and phrases, that it creates gestures and events, should have alerted you to the fact that it is _not_ a different language.

Different people will have different experiences with different pieces. (I can't believe I just typed that. Felt that I _had_ to type it....) And some of us hear all or almost all of the structural logic of tonality in serialism. That there are no "keys," to some of us, apparently makes much less difference than one might expect from reading million's analysis. Listen to all of Schoenberg, from start to finish. What are you inevitably struck with? (Yes, I know. _I_ think it's inevitable.) That it all sounds like it was written by the same guy. (Just as all of Beethoven, early, middle, and late, all sounds like it was written by the same guy.) And for why? Because it was.

The music of Berg and Webern and Wellesz and Gerhard, et al., all sounds like Western classical music. It all uses those nice phrases and motives, as all the rest of Western classical does. It all develops things in various ways. There are changes in tempo and dynamics. There are climaxes. Sound familiar? It is. (It also sound_s_ familiar, too.) That is, there is just as much room for expectation as in any other kind of music. It's not created by key relations. But all that means is that our expectations cover much broader ground than that created by how a key works, just as modulation is not just confined to what happens when you change keys.

And what million says about events happening in time and related to each other supports that view. I.e., it contradicts the assertion that serial music is "only a moment-by moment manifestation." It's not. Changes in dynamics, in instrumentation, in tempo, can all set up and fulfill (or subvert, which is just another type of fulfillment) expectations. To limit expectation to tonality is to posit an impossibly narrow and unrealistic notion of expectation.

(Million and I also disagree about consonance and dissonance, too. I see dissonance as a function of tonality. That is, dissonance is a structural element of the tonal system. Since serialism does not function according to keys, it is technically less dissonant than tonal music. Or, I would say, it is not dissonant at all. Here's how I hear it--the pitches that make up "chords" can occur along a continuum from far apart to close together. Period.)


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## Ondine

Atonality from a listener experience:

I enjoy a lot more atonality than German Romanticism, by far.

Schoenberg's 'Verklärte Nacht' or his String Quartet No. 2 is as enjoyable as Mozart's Haydn Quartets, for example. 

Beethoven's Piano Sonatas are as meaningful as Keith Jarrett's piano solo concertos where most of them are full of dissonant structures. Just try Paris/London 'Testament'.

Why? I don't know. I do not have a reasonable explanation for this nor a technical argumentation because I lack the tools and knowledge for that. But I can adventure two ideas:

There is a kind of sense of exploration or a pleasure for adventure and I think that atonality brings that opportunity, and;

Atonality brings novelty and novelty arouses curiosity which are distinctive traits of Life.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> This is why to me, I repeat, to _me_, serial and other non-harmonic music is lacking in that sense of _inevitability_ that great tonal music possesses. Motif, colour, sonority, reference intervals, inversions, retrogrades, clusters, texture and anything else that non-harmonic music can be built with - all these things are found in tonal/harmonic music too. But then tonal/harmonic music can add to that, if so desired, vertical function, harmonic movement and all the other accoutrements that have developed over 400+ years. And as is evident, it is endlessly able to reinvent itself.
> 
> You are right that serial music is a different language. Personally I find it not a particularly rich language in comparison, rather like English compared to Esperanto which has no irregular verbs.
> 
> Anyway I know I'll get stick for expressing my personal preferences but I must inform you good people that I am a bit of a lefty!


When I said...


> The vertical dimension of serial music is heard as sonority. It is heard as consonance/dissonance by the ear. There is no "function" or expectation. There is only a moment-by moment manifestation of vertical consonance/dissonance which has no reference to a tonic, or to a function.


...that was not completely clear. The six primary intervals (P4, M3, m3, M2, m2, and tritone) are fractional ratios which are related to "1," like all fractions are. In musical terms, a ratio such as 3:4 is a fraction of "1" or the octave.

In serial music, this "octave ratio" is not a specific pitch-to-pitch identity like it is in tonality, however; in serial terms, it is only a distance, and these intervals have no functional names, like "fifth" or "major second," because they are related only to one another, not to a specific, fixed pitch/tonic.

So, for me, the lack of harmonic function is indeed a distinguishing feature of serialism; its structures are not limited to being interpreted in an octave range, in an hierarchy of other intervals, but are simply the sonorities themselves, free to roam; intervals become the new identities.

So your "inevitabliity" of tonality becomes "predictability." Serialism produces a more random, unpredictable effect, more like Taoist oriental thought, or abstraction, or patterns in natural objects like leaves, rocks, etc.


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## Neo Romanza

There are good atonal composers that have rose above the occasion just like there's good tonal composers who have done the same thing. For me, it's all about finding a balance between consonance and dissonance. Most of the composers I admire have been able to build upon these contrasts with incredible results.


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## millionrainbows

some guy;47359[5 said:


> The fact that serialism uses motives and phrases, that it creates gestures and events, should have alerted you to the fact that it is _not_ a different language.


I think a lot of that is left-over tonal rhetoric. If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal. In this sense, both types of music are related to speech, but they are different in harmonic structure, where it counts. A screeching monkey can be expressive and speech-like, and convey basic emotions, but for me, music is a language which, in its most complete structural sense, is one of sustained pitches, more so than speech-like gesture.



some guy;47359[5 said:


> Different people will have different experiences with different pieces. (I can't believe I just typed that. Felt that I _had_ to type it....) And some of us hear all or almost all of the structural logic of tonality in serialism. That there are no "keys," to some of us, apparently makes much less difference than one might expect from reading million's analysis. Listen to all of Schoenberg, from start to finish. What are you inevitably struck with? (Yes, I know. _I_ think it's inevitable.) That it all sounds like it was written by the same guy. (Just as all of Beethoven, early, middle, and late, all sounds like it was written by the same guy.) And for why? Because it was.


I think this is due to Schoenberg's artistic will, not any fundamental structural quality of serial music. Schoenberg was a tonal thinker, so he made enormous efforts to make tonal allusions, or, as I call it, to "stuff a horse into a suitcase."



some guy;47359[5 said:


> The music of Berg and Webern and Wellesz and Gerhard, et al., all sounds like Western classical music. It all uses those nice phrases and motives, as all the rest of Western classical does. It all develops things in various ways. There are changes in tempo and dynamics. There are climaxes. Sound familiar? It is. (It also sound_s_ familiar, too.) That is, there is just as much room for expectation as in any other kind of music. It's not created by key relations. But all that means is that our expectations cover much broader ground than that created by how a key works, just as modulation is not just confined to what happens when you change keys.


Still, these elements you mention are universal, and do not illustrate the differences in tonality and serialism.
Phrases and motives: speech-derived
Development: all ideas can be developed
Changes in tempo: universal, related to being human and using speech
Climaxes: common to most expressions of any kind

If we ascribe these qualities as being a basic part of tonal music, without differentiating them as "universal," then we are equating tonality with atonality, which seeks to "justify" atonality by saying "yes, it's just like tonality, with its climaxes and phrases"...when the issue is: it's different, and that's why people complain. Why must we ignore their complaints, by drawing tenuous comparisons to tradition? Let's be bold, and tell the truth: serialism is a different language than tonality.



some guy;47359[5 said:


> And what million says about events happening in time and related to each other supports that view. I.e., it contradicts the assertion that serial music is "only a moment-by moment manifestation." It's not. Changes in dynamics, in instrumentation, in tempo, can all set up and fulfill (or subvert, which is just another type of fulfillment) expectations. To limit expectation to tonality is to posit an impossibly narrow and unrealistic notion of expectation.


True, but these elements you mention are just "window dressing." The real meat of the matter is sustained pitch, and harmonic language.



some guy;47359[5 said:


> (Million and I also disagree about consonance and dissonance, too. I see dissonance as a function of tonality. That is, dissonance is a structural element of the tonal system. Since serialism does not function according to keys, it is technically less dissonant than tonal music. Or, I would say, it is not dissonant at all. Here's how I hear it--the pitches that make up "chords" can occur along a continuum from far apart to close together. Period.)


Consonance/dissonance can be heard in isolation, in terms of its internal identity, which is inescapable to the ear: 1:2 is simpler, and more consonant, than 9:8...serialism just doesn't use a consonance/dissonance ranking hgierarchy as part of its structural generation of material, except as presented by the row itself.


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## Guest

Neo Romanza said:


> For me, it's all about finding a balance between consonance and dissonance.


Alternating between consonance and dissonance is a characteristic of tonal music. Alternating between loud and soft, between distant and near, between left and right, between one instrument and another (with the obvious exception), between "high" and "low," between different phrases or variants of the same phrase, between fast and slow as well. Serialism works with all those same balances except for the one between consonance and dissonance, though it does also alternate between open and close harmonies, as does tonal music. I'm a little hesitate* to call those harmonies in a serial piece consonant and dissonant, though, as you know.

*I don't know where I picked up this (mildly) humorous variant of "I'm a little hesitant." I couldn't find it listed as a variant in a thirty second search online. It might just be an idiolect of one of my parents or grandparents.


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## Neo Romanza

some guy said:


> Alternating between consonance and dissonance is a characteristic of tonal music. Alternating between loud and soft, between distant and near, between left and right, between one instrument and another (with the obvious exception), between "high" and "low," between different phrases or variants of the same phrase, between fast and slow as well. Serialism works with all those same balances except for the one between consonance and dissonance, though it does also alternate between open and close harmonies, as does tonal music. I'm a little hesitate* to call those harmonies in a serial piece consonant and dissonant, though, as you know.
> 
> *I don't know where I picked up this (mildly) humorous variant of "I'm a little hesitant." I couldn't find it listed as a variant in a thirty second search online. It might just be an idiolect of one of my parents or grandparents.


Hmmm..never thought about it this way, some guy. Do you consider composers like Berg and K. A. Hartmann atonal?


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## millionrainbows

Neo Romanza said:


> There are good atonal composers that have rose above the occasion just like there's good tonal composers who have done the same thing. For me, it's all about finding a balance between consonance and dissonance. Most of the composers I admire have been able to build upon these contrasts with incredible results.


...And there are "honest" atonal composers like Milton Babbitt, and less honest atonal composers like Berg. This is apparently what is meant by "rising above the occasion." Perhaps "occasion" means "the system." Perhaps "rising above" means artistic will; the "extras."

In tonality, the desire for consonance is the desire to "return to the 1:1." The desire for dissonance is to escape from the 1:1.

In serialism, consonance/dissonance is irrelevant, except as manifest as a consequence of the row structure, and we experience consonance/dissonance for what it is, moment-by-moment. 
If any "desire" is created, this is strictly artistic will or subjective whim; this is what is meant by "rising above" the system, and "defeating" atonality's inherent unconcern with those factors. This is like seeing "figures" in abstract painting, or seeing bunnies in clouds, just subjective reverie.

So, once again, atonality is "justified" when it sounds traditional; instead of accepting it on its own terms.

Ironically, Cage's aim of extinguishing his "ego," as well as Boulez' desire to create a system which eliminated his "will" and became as much as possible a self-sustaining system, is invalidated, and seen as the anathema of the Western tradition of the "genius artist" asserting and dominating his world, and "defeating" the serial system.


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## Neo Romanza

millionrainbows said:


> ...And there are "honest" atonal composers like Milton Babbitt, and less honest atonal composers like Berg. This is apparently what is meant by "rising above the occasion." Perhaps "occasion" means "the system." Perhaps "rising above" means artistic will; the "extras."
> 
> In tonality, the desire for consonance is the desire to "return to the 1:1." The desire for dissonance is to escape from the 1:1.
> 
> In serialism, consonance/dissonance is irrelevant, except as manifest as a consequence of the row structure, and we experience consonance/dissonance for what it is, moment-by-moment.
> If any "desire" is created, this is strictly artistic will or subjective whim; this is what is meant by "rising above" the system, and "defeating" atonality's inherent unconcern with those factors. This is like seeing "figures" in abstract painting, or seeing bunnies in clouds, just subjective reverie.
> 
> So, once again, atonality is "justified" when it sounds traditional; instead of accepting it on its own terms.


Rise above the occasion as in delivers an incredible piece of music that is marveled at and still continues to impress and have an impact on audiences.


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## Guest

Neo Romanza said:


> Hmmm..never thought about it this way, some guy. Do you consider composers like Berg and K. A. Hartmann atonal?


Well, as you may have noticed, I don't like using the term atonal at all. Berg and Hartmann both used twelve tone techniques, though that's just an observable fact, not a consideration of mine.

What I think about consonance and dissonance, however, that is definitely a matter of my consideration.


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## millionrainbows

George Perle touts his system of "Twelve-Tone Tonality" as being "a new kind of tonal music," a coherent, comprehensive musical language that "does the same things music has always done, through harmonic direction, phrases, cadences, and such - in short, the things that make tonal music comprehensible." Perle achieves this by using certain special forms of the 12-tone row, which exhibit certain symmetries under inversion or retrograde inversion.

Good luck with that, since "comprehensible" is used very loosely here. What Perle's music doesn't, and can't do, is make complete harmonic sense in a tonal way. The serial system is designed to avoid this "tonal harmonic meaning." But Perle's apparent strategy is to "divide and conquer." He has solved, or so he claims, to have solved the problem of "stuffing a horse into a suitcase" by simply cutting the horse up, and placing selected parts into the suitcase. His solution will never make it through "tonal customs," and we have numerous customs agents here from The Department of Tonality who will attest to that, should they ever hear Perle's music.

Granted, Perle's music is a pleasant, engaging experience; but I enjoy the hard-core serialism of Milton Babbitt just as much. Once again, it seems that serial music must be "apologized" for, by tenuous and far-flung comparisons to traditional tonality.

Consonance and dissonance are not "a matter of anyone's consideration;" they are physical facts, to be registered as vibrations on the eardrum. There is a point at which "consideration" must yield to the truth of physics and the ear-drum.

Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals in the 12-note division of the octave; the numbers in parentheses are the number of steps in the interval.

1. (10) 9:16
2. (11) 8:15
3. (2) 8:9
4. (8) 5:8
5. (3) 5:6
6. (4) 4:5
7. (9) 3:5
8. (5) 3:4
9. (7) 2:3
10. (12) 1:2
11. (0) 1:1

This differs from *tonal *consonance/dissonance only in that the distances are references to specific pitches in relation to a tonic note, in this case, "C":

Most dissonant intervals to most consonant intervals, within one octave:

1. minor seventh (C-Bb) 9:16
2. major seventh (C-B) 8:15
3. major second (C-D) 8:9
4. minor sixth (C-Ab) 5:8
5. minor third (C-Eb) 5:6
6. major third (C-E) 4:5
7. major sixth (C-A) 3:5
8. perfect fourth (C-F) 3:4
9. perfect fifth (C-G) 2:3
10. octave (C-C') 1:2
11. unison (C-C) 1:1

_The ratios remain the same in their degree of consonance and dissonance; the intervals still sound the same to the ear; _what is different is that tonality assigns "functions" to the intervals (minor seventh, etc.), whereas serial intervals are simply what they are, without reference to a particular tonic note: they are simply pitched sounds, which affect the ear just the same.

Therefore, the experience of intervals (two notes) as consonance and dissonance_ as sounds_ remains constant, no matter what system is used; the only thing that is different is whether the intervals are assigned a "function" after the fact.


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## Geo Dude

bigshot said:


> I think younger people tend to like it because it's more similar in spirit and sound to rock music.


I think this hits the nail on the head, not necessarily just for atonal music but for 20th century/late romantic music in general. When I first got into classical my big five were Bartok, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Mahler, and (big band style) Beethoven; these came most easily to me precisely because they had the intensity (and in some cases) emotion that I found in rock music and metal.

I've had eight years to mellow out since then, quit listening to classical for a few of those years, and found upon my return that my tastes had changed significantly in the interim: I love Beethoven but prefer a significantly different performance style*; Ligeti is mostly unlistenable to me; I can appreciate select pieces by Stravinsky and Bartok but have little interest in the majority of their work and Mahler is currently outside of my area of interest. (Don't worry Mahler fans, the next time I go on a Brahms Binge I also plan on doing a survey of the symphonies of Bruckner and Mahler + Das Lied von Der Erde. )

I will cite two examples of atonal music that I am displeased with since people have been critical about the lack of examples and use of generalities early on in the thread: I've listened to both Berg's violin concerto (recorded by Mutter & Levine) and Schoenberg's violin concerto (Hahn) a couple of times. In both cases the music came across, as noted earlier in the thread, as largely a collection of random notes and dissonance. Mind you, I don't particularly mind the dissonance--I certainly don't hate it--but the works have no appeal to me, either. Allow me to stress at this point that I'm sure that if I understood more music theory and could study the scores that it would probably not seem quite so random, but that is not the case. I also don't doubt that I could develop an appreciation for this sort of material if I took the time to do it, but frankly, it took me long enough to learn to appreciate Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Handel, etc. and now that I'm enjoying them I think I'll stick with that for a while.

I would also like to stress that contrary to certain people who share my dislike for atonal music--in particular a couple that inhabit the Amazon classical board--I do not _actively_ dislike atonal music, think it is disgraceful, wish to fight against it being played in concert halls or anything like that. When at home I choose to leave it to those who enjoy it rather than listen to it and then whine about it, and when at a concert hall or recital I feel that I should sit down, shut up and get through it, realizing that some of the people there aren't going to enjoy the stuff that I came to listen to.

*That said, I'm pretty sure that if I'd heard Immerseel's really intense recording of the fifth symphony back in the day I would have greatly enjoyed it.


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## Mahlerian

Geo Dude said:


> I think this hits the nail on the head, not necessarily just for atonal music but for 20th century/late romantic music in general. When I first got into classical my big five were Bartok, Stravinsky, Ligeti, Mahler, and (big band style) Beethoven; these came most easily to me precisely because they had the intensity (and in some cases) emotion that I found in rock music and metal.


Well, Mahler attracted me as much if not more for his deft motivic/thematic development, his constantly inventive and ear-opening orchestration, and the utter uniqueness of his symphonic conception than for his outward emotional aspects. Those are only a reflection of the deeper content of the works.

As for Stravinsky, the rhythm played a huge role in its initial appeal, but I quickly discovered a whole host of Neoclassical and Serial works of his that weren't as impulse-driven as The Rite of Spring but were filled with the same pioneering spirit in harmony and orchestration.



Geo Dude said:


> I will cite two examples of atonal music that I am displeased with since people have been critical about the lack of examples and use of generalities early on in the thread: I've listened to both Berg's violin concerto (recorded by Mutter & Levine) and Schoenberg's violin concerto (Hahn) a couple of times. In both cases the music came across, as noted earlier in the thread, as largely a collection of random notes and dissonance. Mind you, I don't particularly mind the dissonance--I certainly don't hate it--but the works have no appeal to me, either. Allow me to stress at this point that I'm sure that if I understood more music theory and could study the scores that it would probably not seem quite so random, but that is not the case. I also don't doubt that I could develop an appreciation for this sort of material if I took the time to do it, but frankly, it took me long enough to learn to appreciate Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Handel, etc. and now that I'm enjoying them I think I'll stick with that for a while.


And of course I don't mind you saying so. But you have to realize that there are numerous freely chromatic and 12-tone works that I've never seen the score for and can follow without any problems (Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, or the Variations for Orchestra, or his Psalm 130 setting). The music makes sense without knowledge of the theory, too, and I can't tell you when the Violin Concerto uses the prime, inversion, or retrograde of the row, only what the themes are and how they are developed, how the first movement is rooted in Sonata form, the middle movement in Theme and Variations, and the last in Rondo form.

And lastly, if something doesn't appeal to you at all, how do you think you understand the ways in which it appeals to someone else?


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## Geo Dude

Mahlerian said:


> But you have to realize that there are numerous freely chromatic and 12-tone works that I've never seen the score for and can follow without any problems (Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Cinematographic Scene, or the Variations for Orchestra, or his Psalm 130 setting).


Just for the record, I never claimed that one _must_ have knowledge of music theory and be able to follow the score to make sense of it; I'm just saying that I'm sure that would help me.



> And lastly, if something doesn't appeal to you at all, how do you think you understand the ways in which it appeals to someone else?


Two reasons: The first is that it appealed to me in the past--as I have stated--and I can draw on that experience. The second is that I was in communication with many people in my age group listening to the same composers (often the same recordings) and we discussed what we liked about it. I also drew upon that experience.

EDIT: Mahlerian, just in case my previous post on the subject wasn't clear, I was responding specifically to why youth (such as myself, a few years ago) are drawn to it, in particular as an introduction to classical music. I had no intention of arguing that this is why every fan is drawn to it, or implying that 20th century/late romantic are exclusively 'youth music' that people grow out of.

If that comment seems to come out of nowhere I'll note that I've seen people argue in the past (on other classical boards) that certain composers, Mahler for example, are 'youth composers' that people grow out of as they get older; the response I received from you reads like I may have given the impression that I was making that kind of an argument. (Of course, I could be entirely off base here, hard to determine tone on the internet and whatnot.)


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> the issue is: it's different, and that's why people complain.


I don't think repeating this canard does anyone any good at all. People were complaining long before any Schoenberg pantonality was made, and before anyone heard any of it. The complaining was part of the shift that took place in the 19th century. Nothing to do with serialism or any other twentieth century avant garde experiments. The audiences for concert music had rejected "new" music long before any of that.

Now? Now it may be true that some people complain about serialism because it's different from what they're used to. But that's now. And the number of people who have actually listened to a good deal of serial music and who complain about it is a smallish number. Half a dozen or seven. Mostly even now the complaining precedes experience and informs it, just as a child's dislike of a vegetable precedes actually eating it.

In any case, I have two reasons for harping away at this. One is that I think that people will be more likely to be open to serialism if they hear that it is not all that different from what they're used to, really it's not. The other is that when I listen to serial pieces, they sound to me, with all my experience, like music, with gestures and dynamics and phrases and development and tone color and all the rest.

Whether your line of argument is correct or not, and I don't think it is, it certainly plays into the hands of the complainers. "See, our complaining is justified. The music is different and difficult, so of course we don't like it."

It's for all the world like doing a chemical analysis of broccoli and concluding that people, especially young people, don't like it because of its chemical structure, which is different from fries and a coke. That ignores all the people who like broccoli just fine, thank you very much, who enjoy both broccoli and fries, and whose responses to the chemical makeup of broccoli are more important than the makeup itself--just like with music!


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## Mahlerian

Geo Dude said:


> Just for the record, I never claimed that one _must_ have knowledge of music theory and be able to follow the score to make sense of it; I'm just saying that I'm sure that would help me.


I don't think that you personally would need it either. I think that the idea that serial music requires an education to understand is a nasty canard that prevents people from being able to hear the music at all, let alone properly.



Geo Dude said:


> Two reasons: The first is that it appealed to me in the past--as I have stated--and I can draw on that experience. The second is that I was in communication with many people in my age group listening to the same composers (often the same recordings) and we discussed what we liked about it. I also drew upon that experience.


This was true for the first composers you mentioned, but not for the latter examples, which you seemed to tie in with the others as being a similar kind of case.



Geo Dude said:


> EDIT: Mahlerian, just in case my previous post on the subject wasn't clear, I was responding specifically to why youth (such as myself, a few years ago) are drawn to it, in particular as an introduction to classical music. I had no intention of arguing that this is why every fan is drawn to it, or implying that 20th century/late romantic are exclusively 'youth music' that people grow out of.
> 
> If that comment seems to come out of nowhere I'll note that I've seen people argue in the past (on other classical boards) that certain composers, Mahler for example, are 'youth composers' that people grow out of as they get older; the response I received from you reads like I may have given the impression that I was making that kind of an argument. (Of course, I could be entirely off base here, hard to determine tone on the internet and whatnot.)


No, you were saying that the emotionality (and dissonance?) of Late Romantic/Modernist music appealed to you for a time, but doesn't now. I was clarifying that for me personally, this was not what attracted me to the music, or, at least, was not what has kept me attracted to it after all this time. I imagine if we talked about what appeals to you about the music you like, and what appeals to me about the music I enjoy, we would find more in common than not. I too love Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn.


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## Geo Dude

Mahlerian said:


> I don't think that you personally would need it either. I think that the idea that serial music requires an education to understand is a nasty canard that prevents people from being able to hear the music at all, let alone properly.


This may very well be true. I'll acknowledge that including that in my first post was a defensive reaction because any time I speak of a personal dislike (though in my case it's more of a lack of interest) in atonal music I'm used to being met with a reaction of, "If you were a musician you would like it!"



> No, you were saying that the emotionality (and dissonance?) of Late Romantic/Modernist music appealed to you for a time, but doesn't now. I was clarifying that for me personally, this was not what attracted me to the music, or, at least, was not what has kept me attracted to it after all this time. I imagine if we talked about what appeals to you about the music you like, and what appeals to me about the music I enjoy, we would find more in common than not. I too love Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn.


Got it.


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## mtmailey

I do not mind atonal music as long it has my favorite rhythms.


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## millionrainbows

mtmailey said:


> I do not mind atonal music as long it has my favorite rhythms.


That sounds like you prefer atonal music with "phrasing" of tonal music; which is exactly why Schoenberg was criticized by Boulez.

Stockhausen: his Klavierstücke have no discernible rhythm patterns; it sounds random. That's its charm, though.


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## Celloman

I think that atonal music is probably an acquired taste. Most people don't start liking it right away. Once you "get used" to more dissonance, you start to appreciate the tonal richness that you don't find as much of in some other types of music. And you don't necessarily have to analyze it to death in order to appreciate it. : )

Some people choose not to acquire this "taste", and that's perfectly OK!


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## pluhagr

millionrainbows said:


> I think a lot of that is left-over tonal rhetoric. If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal. In this sense, both types of music are related to speech, but they are different in harmonic structure, where it counts. A screeching monkey can be expressive and speech-like, and convey basic emotions, but for me, music is a language which, in its most complete structural sense, is one of sustained pitches, more so than speech-like gesture.


I believe that you are wrong here. When one looks at Galant style which took place in the 17th century there are an abundance of themes or gestures, which are referred to as schema. Gjerdingen, a music theorist at Northwestern, focuses on galant style and schema and talks about how tonality is not involved at all in these sorts of compositions. They just consist of many small schema or gestures throughout the piece of music.

Another thing that needs to be made clear in this thread is that atonal music is not necessarily dissonant. There is tonal music where there is a pull back to a certain pitch. Tonal music is triadic as well. Then there is triadic but non-tonal music which has no home pitch. Neo-Riemannian analysis is used for triadic but non-tonal music. This music would be referred to as atonal music. Then there is non-triadic atonal music which has many smaller areas.


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## millionrainbows

pluhagr said:


> I believe that you are wrong here. When one looks at Galant style which took place in the 17th century there are an abundance of themes or gestures, which are referred to as schema. Gjerdingen, a music theorist at Northwestern, focuses on galant style and schema *and talks about how tonality is not involved at all in these sorts of compositions.* They just consist of many small schema or gestures throughout the piece of music.


I believe that's what I said as well: If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal (someguy's argument) or not tonal.



pluhagr said:


> Another thing that needs to be made clear in this thread is that atonal music is not necessarily dissonant.


No music is "dissonant" by itself. That's a comparative term.



pluhagr said:


> Then there is triadic but non-tonal music which has no home pitch. Neo-Riemannian analysis is used for triadic but non-tonal music. This music would be referred to as atonal music.


That's not the way I use the term "atonal." It's atonal when it uses ordered rows.


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## NickNotabene

I just joined TC & was immediately taken by this question. I haven't read all 250+ replies yet, and am not likely to, so apologies if I am repeating someone else. I understand the question is directed at the listener's experience, but from my standpoint an answer has to come from three not unrelated directions: composer, analyst and listener. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the answer for all three was the same, again for _me_, but for different reasons. Ignoring the fact that good & bad music has been written in any "system" - tonal or atonal - you care to name, there has always been one thing appealing to me about the IDEA of serialisms specifically and "atonal" approaches generally: I find a FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION available to composer and listener here that was lost as the common practice period used up the possibilities inherent in the ways Western tonality developed. There is a nice irony here, since serialism has been battered since the beginning by charges of dry "mathematism" (whatever that means) and has been seen as rule-bound (no pc shall be repeated until etc. etc., you can only do T, I & R etc. etc.) In fact, even if you consider those as "rules" for a canonical (Viennese) serialism (which they are not, of course), they are FAR outnumbered by the tonality "rules" that must (theoretically) be mastered in a typical music undergraduate curriculum. For the listener, too, there are fewer "rules" to follow in serial/atonal works. Even forms that composers have attempted to take over from tonality, due to loss of cadential common practice, can only be seen as quasi-sonata, quasi-canonical, quasi-fugal: the listener simply has to listen for different form signposts than tunes and chord progressions. Here is where I think the problem comes in. It really has nothing to do with "dissonance/consonance" but with large-scale forms which sometimes resemble older forms, but more often do not. I can experience many emotions through atonal works that are similar, possibly identical even, to those I experience through Bach or Mahler. But I can't experience the sense of excitement of invention and discovery in listening to Bach or Mahler that I can in a non-tonal work where I am left to my own resources to discover an internal form (that may or may not be there). In non-tonal works I am FREE to sail uncharted open seas in ways that are impossible when my ship is anchored in a tonal port. This in no way means that I no longer love Bach and Mahler: there are many things to do on shore.


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## arpeggio

*Good post*



NickNotabene said:


> I just joined TC & was immediately taken by this question. I haven't read all 250+ replies yet, and am not likely to, so apologies if I am repeating someone else. I understand the question is directed at the listener's experience, but from my standpoint an answer has to come from three not unrelated directions: composer, analyst and listener. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the answer for all three was the same, again for _me_, but for different reasons. Ignoring the fact that good & bad music has been written in any "system" - tonal or atonal - you care to name, there has always been one thing appealing to me about the IDEA of serialisms specifically and "atonal" approaches generally: I find a FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION available to composer and listener here that was lost as the common practice period used up the possibilities inherent in the ways Western tonality developed. There is a nice irony here, since serialism has been battered since the beginning by charges of dry "mathematism" (whatever that means) and has been seen as rule-bound (no pc shall be repeated until etc. etc., you can only do T, I & R etc. etc.) In fact, even if you consider those as "rules" for a canonical (Viennese) serialism (which they are not, of course), they are FAR outnumbered by the tonality "rules" that must (theoretically) be mastered in a typical music undergraduate curriculum. For the listener, too, there are fewer "rules" to follow in serial/atonal works. Even forms that composers have attempted to take over from tonality, due to loss of cadential common practice, can only be seen as quasi-sonata, quasi-canonical, quasi-fugal: the listener simply has to listen for different form signposts than tunes and chord progressions. Here is where I think the problem comes in. It really has nothing to do with "dissonance/consonance" but with large-scale forms which sometimes resemble older forms, but more often do not. I can experience many emotions through atonal works that are similar, possibly identical even, to those I experience through Bach or Mahler. But I can't experience the sense of excitement of invention and discovery in listening to Bach or Mahler that I can in a non-tonal work where I am left to my own resources to discover an internal form (that may or may not be there). In non-tonal works I am FREE to sail uncharted open seas in ways that are impossible when my ship is anchored in a tonal port. This in no way means that I no longer love Bach and Mahler: there are many things to do on shore.


Excellant first post. You actually brought up some new ideas that no has mentioned before.


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## pluhagr

NickNotabene said:


> I just joined TC & was immediately taken by this question. I haven't read all 250+ replies yet, and am not likely to, so apologies if I am repeating someone else. I understand the question is directed at the listener's experience, but from my standpoint an answer has to come from three not unrelated directions: composer, analyst and listener. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the answer for all three was the same, again for _me_, but for different reasons. Ignoring the fact that good & bad music has been written in any "system" - tonal or atonal - you care to name, there has always been one thing appealing to me about the IDEA of serialisms specifically and "atonal" approaches generally: I find a FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION available to composer and listener here that was lost as the common practice period used up the possibilities inherent in the ways Western tonality developed. There is a nice irony here, since serialism has been battered since the beginning by charges of dry "mathematism" (whatever that means) and has been seen as rule-bound (no pc shall be repeated until etc. etc., you can only do T, I & R etc. etc.) In fact, even if you consider those as "rules" for a canonical (Viennese) serialism (which they are not, of course), they are FAR outnumbered by the tonality "rules" that must (theoretically) be mastered in a typical music undergraduate curriculum. For the listener, too, there are fewer "rules" to follow in serial/atonal works. Even forms that composers have attempted to take over from tonality, due to loss of cadential common practice, can only be seen as quasi-sonata, quasi-canonical, quasi-fugal: the listener simply has to listen for different form signposts than tunes and chord progressions. Here is where I think the problem comes in. It really has nothing to do with "dissonance/consonance" but with large-scale forms which sometimes resemble older forms, but more often do not. I can experience many emotions through atonal works that are similar, possibly identical even, to those I experience through Bach or Mahler. But I can't experience the sense of excitement of invention and discovery in listening to Bach or Mahler that I can in a non-tonal work where I am left to my own resources to discover an internal form (that may or may not be there). In non-tonal works I am FREE to sail uncharted open seas in ways that are impossible when my ship is anchored in a tonal port. This in no way means that I no longer love Bach and Mahler: there are many things to do on shore.


Your bit about how atonality and tonality being able to express different things is something which I find to be true as well. Philosopher, Susanne Langer, talks about art in terms of each specific medium being able to symbolize a certain type of emotion best. Music, for example, expresses things that deal with time due to music's inherent temporality. A piece of music would thus be able to express something like death and the growth through life as it is a temporal concept. But, it is difficult if not impossible, for music to be representational.

Now, I do not think it is appropriate to distill atonality and tonality down to confining categories like atonal music expresses bad/creepy emotions best as this sort of generalization has only occurred due to the fact that atonal music has found itself being used in film scores. We can thank Bernard Hermann for introducing the movie industry to atonal music.

Atonal music will be able to express sounds which are more "natural" (I use the term natural with great hesitation as it is very unclear). By natural I mean sounds that one would find in day to day life (extra-musical sounds). The sounds of birds chirping or floorboards creaking are in no ways tonal. The whir of a fan accompanied by cars driving by are also not tonal. Elliot Carter did something very interesting with rhythm as well which I think is useful to think about in this discussion. He equated time signatures and heavy downbeats with marches and hoof steps. Now that we are in a society where we no longer march and use horses this music is no longer "contemporary". Carter wanted to write music that sped up and slowed down like a car or airplane. This release from strict meter was not begun by Carter but Carter, in my opinion, took the use of metric modulation to a new and previously unexplored level. This liberation from meter is much like the liberation from tonality. Where atonality doesn't represent the strict dissonances of Webern's tone rows where the most dissonance in a row was best. But now is much different where in atonality even serial music can be centric (centered around a note but not tonal). Stravinsky did this with much of his serial music. The lines between tonality and atonality have become increasingly blurred. A great example of the use of tonality and atonality together in one piece of music is Corigliano's Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal (someguy's argument) or not tonal.


Just for the record, this was most definitely NOT my argument.

I distinctly said that serial music uses gestures and phrases just like all other kinds of music. It's one of the ways that serial and tonal musics are alike.


----------



## millionrainbows

some guy said:


> The fact that serialism uses motives and phrases, that it creates gestures and events, should have alerted you to the fact that it is not a different language.





> Originally Posted by millionrainbows
> I think a lot of that is left-over tonal rhetoric. If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal. In this sense, both types of music are related to speech, but they are different in harmonic structure, where it counts. A screeching monkey can be expressive and speech-like, and convey basic emotions, but for me, music is a language which, in its most complete structural sense, is one of sustained pitches, more so than speech-like gesture.





> Originally Posted by pluhagr
> I believe that you are wrong here. When one looks at Galant style which took place in the 17th century there are an abundance of themes or gestures, which are referred to as schema. Gjerdingen, a music theorist at Northwestern, focuses on galant style and schema and talks about how tonality is not involved at all in these sorts of compositions. They just consist of many small schema or gestures throughout the piece of music.





millionrainbows said:


> I believe that's what I said as well: If "gestures and phrases" are in serial music, it is because they are universal, like speech, not because they are tonal (someguy's argument) or not tonal.





some guy said:


> Just for the record, this was most definitely NOT my argument.
> 
> I distinctly said that serial music uses gestures and phrases just like all other kinds of music. It's one of the ways that serial and tonal musics are alike.


Okay, but I said that to phlugar, because from his post, he assumed it was your position.


----------



## millionrainbows

NickNotabene said:


> I just joined TC & was immediately taken by this question. I haven't read all 250+ replies yet, and am not likely to, so apologies if I am repeating someone else. I understand the question is directed at the listener's experience, but from my standpoint an answer has to come from three not unrelated directions: composer, analyst and listener. The more I thought about it, the more I realized the answer for all three was the same, again for _me_, but for different reasons. Ignoring the fact that good & bad music has been written in any "system" - tonal or atonal - you care to name, there has always been one thing appealing to me about the IDEA of serialisms specifically and "atonal" approaches generally: I find a FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION available to composer and listener here that was lost as the common practice period used up the possibilities inherent in the ways Western tonality developed. There is a nice irony here, since serialism has been battered since the beginning by charges of dry "mathematism" (whatever that means) and has been seen as rule-bound (no pc shall be repeated until etc. etc., you can only do T, I & R etc. etc.) In fact, even if you consider those as "rules" for a canonical (Viennese) serialism (which they are not, of course), they are FAR outnumbered by the tonality "rules" that must (theoretically) be mastered in a typical music undergraduate curriculum. For the listener, too, there are fewer "rules" to follow in serial/atonal works. Even forms that composers have attempted to take over from tonality, due to loss of cadential common practice, can only be seen as quasi-sonata, quasi-canonical, quasi-fugal: the listener simply has to listen for different form signposts than tunes and chord progressions. Here is where I think the problem comes in. It really has nothing to do with "dissonance/consonance" but with large-scale forms which sometimes resemble older forms, but more often do not. I can experience many emotions through atonal works that are similar, possibly identical even, to those I experience through Bach or Mahler. But I can't experience the sense of excitement of invention and discovery in listening to Bach or Mahler that I can in a non-tonal work where I am left to my own resources to discover an internal form (that may or may not be there). In non-tonal works I am FREE to sail uncharted open seas in ways that are impossible when my ship is anchored in a tonal port. This in no way means that I no longer love Bach and Mahler: there are many things to do on shore.


I see what you mean, but I don't think serialism is the only route to "freedom." I speak of 'true chromaticism', in which the 12-notes are considered as the starting point, without any root, unless one wishes to set-up inter-octave relations, by dividing the octave at the tritone, and various other symmetries. To me, this has harmonic advantages which serial row-orders cannot achieve as easily, since tone-rows are ordered, and this systematically avoids and prevents any tonal or harmonic hierarchy from emerging as structurally primary.

Serialism, though, does hold the answer, if it is defined less rigidly than Schoenberg's 12-tone system.

Reading the WIK entry "Serialism," it divides serial thought into two camps: Twelve-tone serialism, meaning Schoenberg's ordered row system, and other, newer forms of non-twelve-tone serialism. I found this distinction to be interesting:



> _*
> Non-twelve-tone serialism*_
> _
> The series is not an order of succession, but indeed a hierarchy-which may be independent of this order of succession. (Boulez 1954, translated in Griffiths 1978, p. 37)_
> _
> Rules of analysis derived from twelve-tone theory do not apply to serialism of the second type: "in particular the ideas, one, that the series is an intervallic sequence, and two, that the rules are consistent" (Maconie 2005, 119).
> 
> Stockhausen, for example, in early serial compositions such as Kreuzspiel and Formel, "advances in unit sections within which a preordained set of pitches is repeatedly reconfigured. . . . The composer's model for the distributive serial process corresponds to a development of the Zwölftonspiel of Josef Matthias Hauer" (Maconie 2005, 56), and Goeyvaerts, in such a work as Nummer 4, provides a classic illustration of the distributive function of seriality: 4 times an equal number of elements of equal duration within an equal global time is distributed in the most equable way, unequally with regard to one another, over the temporal space: from the greatest possible coïncidence to the greatest possible dispersion. This provides an exemplary demonstration of that logical principle of seriality: every situation must occur once and only once. (Sabbe 1977, 114)_
> 
> _For Henri Pousseur, after an initial period working with twelve-tone technique in works like Sept Versets (1950) and Trois Chants sacrés (1951), serialism evolved away from this bond in Symphonies pour quinze Solistes [1954-55] and in the Quintette [à la mémoire d'Anton Webern, 1955], and from around the time of Impromptu [1955] encounters whole new dimensions of application and new functions._
> 
> _*The twelve-tone series loses its imperative function as a prohibiting, regulating, and patterning authority; its working-out is abandoned through its own constant-frequent presence: all 66 intervallic relations among the 12 pitches being virtually present. Prohibited intervals, like the octave, and prohibited successional relations, such as premature note repetitions, frequently occur, although obscured in the dense contexture. The number twelve no longer plays any governing, defining rôle; the pitch constellations no longer hold to the limitation determined by their formation. The dodecaphonic series loses its significance, as a concrete model of shape (or a well-defined collection of concrete shapes) is played out. And the chromatic total remains active only, and provisionally, as a general reference. *(Sabbe 1977, 264)_


In this sense of "serialism," the possibilities are indeed enormous.


----------



## NickNotabene

millionrainbows,
Way too much to get into specifics here (& just sampling those specifics would lead to misunderstandings), so generally: I agree with the direction you appear to be taking vis a vis serialism. My own inclination is to view the "history" of serialisms (I hate the word but what are you gonna do) as more of a continuity starting with the 2ndVS (canonical TT operations etc.) and almost immediately breaking out in all sorts of related/contrasting ideas. So I tend to I view big-board serialism as a project-in-progress - a timeline with a lot of threads rather than two or more distinct parts. One of the more interesting contrasts, though, which often seems to be overlooked - possibly because it's misunderstood - is not within serialism, but between tonal & atonal systems which can be seen as the distinction between combinational (former) and permutational (latter) approaches. Here is a quick summary if you've never come across the idea before:

http://eschbeg.blogspot.com/2011/11/lewin-on-babbitt-on-schoenberg.html


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## pluhagr

I think another interesting thing to think about is Gamelan music. Especially Javanese Gamelan music. The scales which are used consist of quarter tones and to many western ears, can sound excruciating. But when one grows up in that sort of culture one is accustomed to that sort of musical language. I believe the same thing would happen if a child were to grow up listening to purely serial or atonal repertoire.


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## Guest

pluhagr said:


> The scales which are used consist of quarter tones


Is that why it sounds out of tune?



pluhagr said:


> and to many western ears, can sound excruciating


Not to these ears. What gamelan goes to show is that music is more than just about the "accuracy" of pitch. It's also about texture and purpose (among other things).


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## millionrainbows

NickNotabene said:


> One of the more interesting contrasts, though, which often seems to be overlooked - possibly because it's misunderstood - is not within serialism, but between tonal & atonal systems which can be seen as the distinction between combinational (former) and permutational (latter) approaches.


Yeah, I see all that as true, but still, it seems I'm always having to constantly explain the difference between tonal & atonal systems as they relate to harmonic/vertical aspects. Aggregates are just fine, as long as one understands that they are very much non-specific in regard to any single specific pitch; in other words, they're not harmonically-derived, i.e. tonal.


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## millionrainbows

pluhagr said:


> I think another interesting thing to think about is Gamelan music. Especially Javanese Gamelan music. The scales which are used consist of quarter tones and to many western ears, can sound excruciating. But when one grows up in that sort of culture one is accustomed to that sort of musical language. I believe the same thing would happen if a child were to grow up listening to purely serial or atonal repertoire.


I've got some information on gamelon tunings, which I'll post later. As I recall, Javanese music is melodic only, so there will not be any harmonic clashes, as there is no harmony. Don't hold me to that, however, until I check my facts.


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## millionrainbows

Javanese *slendro* tuning:

C (zero), 
Eb (37 cents flat), 
F (14 cents flat), 
G (34 cents sharp), 
Bb (30 cents flat), and 
C (zero).

Or, 
C-Eb (263 cents), 
Eb-F (223 cents), 
F-G (253 cents), 
G-Bb (236 cents), and 
Bb-C (225 cents).

*Pelog* tuning is:

C (zero), 
D (33 cents flat), 
E (12 cents sharp), 
F (37 cents sharp), 
G (17 cents flat), 
A (35 cents sharp),
B (zero), and
C (zero).

Or,
C-D (167 cents), 
D-E (245 cents), 
E-F (125 cents), 
F-G (146 cents), 
G-A (252 cents), 
A-B (165 cents) and 
B-C (100 cents).



pluhagr said:


> I think another interesting thing to think about is Gamelan music. Especially Javanese Gamelan music. The scales which are used consist of quarter tones and to many western ears, can sound excruciating. But when one grows up in that sort of culture one is accustomed to that sort of musical language. I believe the same thing would happen if a child were to grow up listening to purely serial or atonal repertoire.


A quarter-tone would be 50 cents sharp or flat. As you can see many of these notes are not that far-off.


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## millionrainbows

I think people who enjoy serial music are able to hear it as "just sound," and tend to be seduced by sheer beauty; of instruments, of registers, of gestures, of notes in isolation. They also like to gaze at the night sky.


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## Minona

Gamelan tunings reflect the inharmonic sonarity of the instrument. They are not arbitrary preferences.


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## millionrainbows

Minona said:


> Gamelan tunings reflect the inharmonic sonarity of the instrument. They are not arbitrary preferences.


I'm not sure what you mean, but Gamelon music is monophonic, meaning that it is strictly melodic, and the tunings do not relate specifically to small-number ratios for any specifically harmonic or consonant purposes; but there are some 3:2s in there. The instruments from which these tuning-tables were derived did exhibit inconsistency from instrument to instrument.


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## Minona

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not sure what you mean, but Gamelon music is monophonic, meaning that it is strictly melodic, and the tunings do not relate specifically to small-number ratios for any specifically harmonic or consonant purposes; but there are some 3:2s in there.


By inharmonic, I mean the in-harmonic series inspired by the gamelian fundamental tones. The reason bell tones have a 'vague' tonality is because the overtones are stretched and scattered and often warped with respect to what a pure overtone series would be. With most instruments, overtones reinforce the fundamental pitch (because if Fundamental=100Hz, then 200Hz-100Hz=100Hz, 300Hz-200Hz=100Hz, etc). When overtones are not at near-perfect ratios, this affects what pitch we recognise as the fundamental tone which can often become vague with bells.



millionrainbows said:


> The instruments from which these tuning-tables were derived did exhibit inconsistency from instrument to instrument.


This is because the each gamelian instrument has its own peculiar overtones.


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## millionrainbows

That's why I dislike the sound of a carillon when they play hymns or Christmas carols on them. It sounds horrible.


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## pluhagr

millionrainbows said:


> I think people who enjoy serial music are able to hear it as "just sound," and tend to be seduced by sheer beauty; of instruments, of registers, of gestures, of notes in isolation. They also like to gaze at the night sky.


I don't hear serial music as "just sounds". I listen to it the same way that I would listen to any other type of music, there is just no harmonic movement. I do listen for instruments, registers, gestures, etc. but I do the same with tonal music. I believe that the difference that I notice is the fact that tonal music is usually predictable (one is able to feel the pull of a leading V7 to the I). While atonal music is less predictable. Of course atonal music does have predictability in other areas, like rhythm. I find that atonal music, to me, is refreshing and interesting. I find that when listening to atonal music I am more engaged with the music and am prompted to listen more carefully. Elliot Carter said that his music is not background music, but music that must be paid close attention to. I find that this is the case with much of atonal and serial music.


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## millionrainbows

pluhagr said:


> I don't hear serial music as "just sounds". I listen to it the same way that I would listen to any other type of music, there is just no harmonic movement. I do listen for instruments, registers, gestures, etc. but I do the same with tonal music. I believe that the difference that I notice is the fact that tonal music is usually predictable (one is able to feel the pull of a leading V7 to the I). While atonal music is less predictable. Of course atonal music does have predictability in other areas, like rhythm. I find that atonal music, to me, is refreshing and interesting. I find that when listening to atonal music I am more engaged with the music and am prompted to listen more carefully. Elliot Carter said that his music is not background music, but music that must be paid close attention to. I find that this is the case with much of atonal and serial music.


All music is eventually "just sound." Isn't it?


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## pluhagr

millionrainbows said:


> All music is eventually "just sound." Isn't it?


All music is always "just sound", when one perceives the sound as music it becomes music and the fact that it is just sound or noise dissipates.

I assumed your usage of "just sound" applied to atonal was the same as noise from a street. Now, I am just trying to say that I do not perceive atonal music as "just sound" as I would perceive noise on the street (I am not getting into making an argument for noise being music). You said that people who like 12 tone music are able to hear it as "just sound". I am telling you that you are incorrect. I could hear it as sound, but I could hear any music as "just sound". I hear 12 tone music as music most of the time. I am able to hear 12 tone, atonal, tonal, chant, pantonal, polytonal, etc. as MUSIC.

So, you are correct in saying that "All music is eventually "just sound." Isn't it?". But I don't see how that statement is moving this conversation anywhere. You made an incorrect assumption that you "think people who enjoy serial music are able to hear it as "just sound,"". And I told you why I don't hear it that way.


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## apricissimus

millionrainbows said:


> All music is eventually "just sound." Isn't it?


I don't think so. I think music is what the listener creates from sound in his or her internal world. The experiencer fleshes out those sounds to create music (i.e., thoughts, feelings, associations, reactions, etc.)

I think. Maybe.


----------



## science

apricissimus said:


> I don't think so. I think music is what the listener creates from sound in his or her internal world. The experiencer fleshes out those sounds to create music (i.e., thoughts, feelings, associations, reactions, etc.)
> 
> I think. Maybe.


There's something beautiful about the thought.

It's got to be true, though, that "music" isn't only sound - of course it is sound, but to be "music" there must be something special about the sound, and/or the way our brains perceive and/or interpret it.

One interesting thing to me about music is... I'll call it "intentionality." Ordinarily music is sound that we (or the musicians) intended to make, and ordinarily we value unintentional sounds less. Ordinarily even found sound or noise music is manipulated with a degree of intentionality, but always we must say "ordinarily" because at this point every generalization has been violated at least once.

But there is intentionality on the listener's part as well. It sometimes seems like some people's ideal audience would be a completely non-participatory audience, but the closest we actually get to that is when we're ignoring the background music. Of course there are no rules, but that doesn't strike me as the normal human condition: usually music has to be performed, and someone, even if only the performer, is paying active attention. Perhaps ordinarily not analyzing it like "well, we're in triple time and the horns are playing the melody that the strings played earlier," but at least responding to it physically. And from what I can tell of anthropology, ordinarily everyone was expected to participate actively, at least clapping or singing along.

At it's core, music is ordinarily a human interaction, really analogous to communication. There must be, at least occasionally, some credibility even for the romantic idea that music can express things too primal, or too deep, or too meaningful, or too something like that, for ordinary verbal expression.


----------



## pluhagr

I think intentionality is what makes something art and not just something else. I think this intentionality has much to do with presentation. When something is presented as art it becomes art. One can present an object, like a stone, as art and it will be just that. But when a stone is presented to us as something useful, like a stepping stone, it ceases to become art. This presentation has a lot to do with our perception of said object as well. This can be related to noise heard in a city. If one simply walks through the city and perceives the sound as noise, it is noise to them. But if this noise is recorded and then presented to an audience as art, it is art as the audience is expecting it to be. 

Also, music does do things which language cannot. But these sorts of things are going to be different than the romantic notion. The problem with the romantic notion is that music is representational and tries to tell a story. Why have music do something that words can only do better. It is difficult to articulate in words what symbolic expressions music can put forth because they are not explainable through language.

That being said, and bringing this thread back to its original topic. I make the case for atonal music. If music's aim is to articulate things which words cannot, music should strive for the best and most eloquent articulation of such thing. Tonal music is one way to organize pitches in music, it can articulate certain things. Atonal music can do the same thing as tonal music but can articulate something different. 12 tone music along with microtonal music can be seen as a way of opening up the spectrum of articulations in order to symbolically express the desired thing. This can be related to an artist using more colors to symbolically express more things. Though limiting oneself is also an issue here. Just as Picasso limited his resources in his blue period, Stravinsky did the same when he began his serial period. It's a sort of limiting of the the palette in order to bring about more creativity. One could see free atonality as the urge to express oneself with the most freedom. This can also be said about extended techniques where the normal timbre of the instrument is found to be not expressive enough. 

So, in the end, people enjoy atonal and 12 tone music because they like what it expresses symbolically. 

I personally have found that I don't even notice when a piece is atonal if I am not paying too much attention. I have just become used to the sound of it. I will just not listen for triads as I would in tonal music. I think that the reason people have such a difficult time listening to atonal music is because we have been raised in a society where the music that is primarily listend to is tonal music. So it is no surprise that people will not like it upon first listening.


----------



## Guest

science said:


> there is intentionality on the listener's part as well.


Science and I have not been agreeing very much of late. But we certainly agree on this point. :tiphat:


----------



## millionrainbows

All sound is eventually "just music." Isn't it?


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> There's something beautiful about the thought.
> 
> It's got to be true, though, that "music" isn't only sound - of course it is sound, but to be "music" there must be something special about the sound, and/or the way our brains perceive and/or interpret it.
> 
> One interesting thing to me about music is... I'll call it "intentionality." Ordinarily music is sound that we (or the musicians) intended to make, and ordinarily we value unintentional sounds less. Ordinarily even found sound or noise music is manipulated with a degree of intentionality, but always we must say "ordinarily" because at this point every generalization has been violated at least once.
> 
> But there is intentionality on the listener's part as well. It sometimes seems like some people's ideal audience would be a completely non-participatory audience, but the closest we actually get to that is when we're ignoring the background music. Of course there are no rules, but that doesn't strike me as the normal human condition: usually music has to be performed, and someone, even if only the performer, is paying active attention. Perhaps ordinarily not analyzing it like "well, we're in triple time and the horns are playing the melody that the strings played earlier," but at least responding to it physically. And from what I can tell of anthropology, ordinarily everyone was expected to participate actively, at least clapping or singing along.
> 
> At it's core, music is ordinarily a human interaction, really analogous to communication. There must be, at least occasionally, some credibility even for the romantic idea that music can express things too primal, or too deep, or too meaningful, or too something like that, for ordinary verbal expression.


All sound is eventually "music." Isn't it? "Intentionality" is not the exclusive domain of man...is it? (see Lao Tzu) 
When it rains, I value that sound...don't you?

Pick a tempo you want to work with. Find it on your metronome. While the metronome is ticking, start some activity that will take between 5-15 minutes to complete. (Washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning up a messy desk, shaving, watering plants, whatever...) While doing this activity (and listening to the metronome), try to observe all of your movements relative to the tempo of the metronome. Experiment with changing the speed of your movements to synchronize with the metronome. -- Mick Goodrick, _The Advancing Guitarist_


----------



## apricissimus

millionrainbows said:


> All sound is eventually "music." Isn't it? "Intentionality" is not the exclusive domain of man...is it? (see Lao Tzu) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_tzu
> When it rains, I value that sound...don't you?
> 
> Pick a tempo you want to work with. Find it on your metronome. While the metronome is ticking, start some activity that will take between 5-15 minutes to complete. (Washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning up a messy desk, shaving, watering plants, whatever...) While doing this activity (and listening to the metronome), try to observe all of your movements relative to the tempo of the metronome. Experiment with changing the speed of your movements to synchronize with the metronome. -- Mick Goodrick, _The Advancing Guitarist_


How about when a tree falls and no one's around to hear it? Music?

Anyway, no I don't think that all sound is music. It takes a listener to make it music. Of course it's hard for a listener _not_ to impose certain patterns and ideas onto even random noises, but even then it's the listener's intentionality coming forward, maybe even against his will.

As for whether intentionality being strictly a human thing... I'm not sure how that's relevant. I don't know to what degree chipmunks and lizards and potted plants are able to comprehend things musically, but let's suppose they do have some ability. Then just include them in the discussion. I don't think it changes anything.


----------



## millionrainbows

apricissimus said:


> How about when a tree falls and no one's around to hear it? Music?
> 
> Anyway, no I don't think that all sound is music. It takes a listener to make it music. Of course it's hard for a listener _not_ to impose certain patterns and ideas onto even random noises, but even then it's the listener's intentionality coming forward, maybe even against his will.


My statement implicitly assumes a listener. I don't care to debate ontology.



apricissimus said:


> As for whether intentionality being strictly a human thing... I'm not sure how that's relevant. I don't know to what degree chipmunks and lizards and potted plants are able to comprehend things musically, but let's suppose they do have some ability. Then just include them in the discussion. I don't think it changes anything.


Boy, you totally missed that. I'm not talking about chipmunks and lizards and potted plants. I'm still assuming a subjective listener. I don't want to argue about what is subjective or not.


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## apricissimus

millionrainbows said:


> My statement implicitly assumes a listener. I don't care to debate ontology.
> 
> Boy, you totally missed that. I'm not talking about chipmunks and lizards and potted plants. I'm still assuming a subjective listener. I don't want to argue about what is subjective or not.


I guess you're right. I did miss it. I don't know what you're saying.


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## pluhagr

millionrainbows said:


> All sound is eventually "just music." Isn't it?


All sound can eventually be "just music". I think we're almost in agreement here.


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## millionrainbows

apricissimus said:


> I guess you're right. I did miss it. I don't know what you're saying.


You probably won't, soon. You are a different kind of thinker than I. When it comes to my "experience" or subjectivity, I don't like to objectify it. I like to keep it subjective. But when needed, I can see and use things objectively. It's just that I have been interested in Eastern thought for a long time, and it has slowly eroded my concept of "what is objective," unless it's getting run over by a Mac truck.  :lol:


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## millionrainbows

brianwalker said:


> Whenever you hear much of things being unutterable and indefinable and impalpable and unnamable and subtly indescribable, then elevate your aristocratic nose towards heaven and snuff up the smell of decay. It is perfectly true that there is something in all good things that is beyond all speech or figure of speech. But it is also true that there is in all good things a perpetual desire for expression and concrete embodiment; and though the attempt to embody it is always inadequate, the attempt is always made. If the idea does not seek to be the word, the chances are that it is an evil idea. If the word is not made flesh it is a bad word.


"Evil?" That's a rather stern assessment.Those graven image makers would love you.

All religious allusions aside, it seems self-evident that art is the expression of human existence. It also seems to me that *"unarticulated feelings"* are what all thought and art seeks to manifest or "make flesh."


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## millionrainbows

All good art, for me, must retain some degree of mystery; otherwise, it holds less charm for me. If I know it through and through, how can it keep its attraction?


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> All good art, for me, must retain some degree of mystery; otherwise, it holds less charm for me. If I know it through and through, how can it keep its attraction?


I would put it like this.
I may know a piece through and through and yet the piece retains it's attraction? That is the mystery. That is what defines all good art, to me.


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## millionrainbows

Petwhac said:


> I would put it like this.
> I may know a piece through and through and yet the piece retains it's attraction? That is the mystery. That is what defines all good art, to me.


You're going to ridiculous extremes to disagree, in order that you may "appropriate" what I was trying to say. It seems to have worked.


----------



## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> You're going to ridiculous extremes to disagree, in order that you may "appropriate" what I was trying to say. It seems to have worked.


Neither ridiculous nor extreme.


----------



## arpeggio

*Hate to repeat myself.*

I really hate to repeat myself about this.

Some members dislike certain forms of 20th Century Music. They keep repeating themselves and it appears that they are compelled to remind the rest of us of that fact at every opportunity they get. I did a search and found over ten posts by Mr. Petwhac since 2010 where he expressed his criticism of Cage and other modernistic composers he disapproved of.

No reasonable person is forcing anyone to listen to any music they dislike.


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## pluhagr

No one can have a reasonable discussion of atonal music on here without someone bashing it and going off topic...


----------



## arpeggio

*Exercise in Futility*



pluhagr said:


> No one can have a reasonable discussion of atonal music on here without someone bashing it and going off topic...


Actually I use to participate in a forum where the level of discourse is much worse that it is here. The situation there got so bad that the anti-modernists succeeded in suppressing 99% of the discussions concerning modernistic music.

Many of us have been locking horns with these individuals for many years with no satisfactory resolution. No matter what, whenever a discussion starts up concerning this type of music, the usual suspects show up to remind us that they dislike atonal music and why. In spite of their rhetoric, they have never convinced anyone who enjoys atonal music to burn their Schoenberg collection.

I do not know why I like this type of music. As I have stated in another post I never started to appreciate it until I was in my fifties. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/26562-non-classical-listeners-more.html#post489009

As I have stated above, my position has always been, if you don't like it, don't listen to it.

I really have better things to do with my time than participate in an exercise in futility. If a person dislikes Schoenberg or Webern or Carter _etc._ it is not my job to convince them otherwise. For me, I have found that the best strategy is to avoid discussions with anti-modernists concerning this topic.


----------



## brotagonist

Has anyone come up with an hypothesis on why some of us truly enjoy dissonant and/or atonal music?

I believe I once read something about Zen beautiful accidents or unintentional intentions that might somewhat parallel Marcel Duchamp's readymades. Notes are like readymade sounds and their expected and unexpected juxtapositions can appeal, surprise &c.

There is something heavenly and thrilling about notes that sound off and yet fit so perfectly in their 'offness', that I am often unable to suppress a smile of comprehension; or in sequences of notes that become so hopelessly tangled up, only to finally cascade back into some perfect or imperfect semblance of their original order, that I am left gasping in rapturous appreciation.

Sometimes I can't hear it right away, but when I do, it is like a satori moment, but there is always the tantalizing thought that there must be more to it than what I got, so I want to listen again.


----------



## Guest

arpeggio said:


> No matter what, whenever a discussion starts up concerning this type of music, the usual suspects show up to remind us that they dislike atonal music and why.


And yet, the title of so many of these threads "invites" all types of people to show up and express an opinion. By the time the main exchanges have been posted (certainly after 20 pages), you have the usual range of opinions that have helped explore the usual elements. The pros and antis each have their contribution to make.

In the case of this particular variation on a theme, the words "certain", "truly", "enjoy", "dissonant", "atonal" all deserved some attention which inevitably attracts interest of both polarities (and those who might not regard themselves as 'charged' either way!)

What it seems to boil down to is that this forum, like others, encourages posting that cannot help but declare, "One of us / not one of us". This is not intrinsically 'wrong', but needs to be done with sensitivity so that when I say, "I like coffee, but not tea" I can do so without a cudgel in my hand, and without fearing that when you say you like tea but not coffee, you will beat me with your cudgel.

Basically, we should not complain that others express their contrary views, repeatedly, in threads that repeat the subjects in which people are encouraged to repeat themselves.

Hope that's clear.


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## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> Basically, we should not complain that others express their contrary views, repeatedly, in threads that repeat the subjects in which people are encouraged to repeat themselves.


That's assuming that everything is based on opinion. I don't buy into that assumption.

Generally, I think there are those listeners with "good ears" and good pitch acuity who are more likely to be receptive to atonal or more dissonant music.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> That's assuming that everything is based on opinion. I don't buy into that assumption.
> 
> Generally, I think there are those listeners with "good ears" and good pitch acuity who are more likely to be receptive to atonal or more dissonant music.


It's not assuming anything of the kind.


----------



## millionrainbows

MacLeod said:


> It's not assuming anything of the kind.


Your last post treats it as if it were a polarized *political issue* (which are inevitably based on opinions), and the highlighted terms repeatedly reinforce this notion:



MacLeod said:


> And yet, the title of so many of these threads "invites" all types of people to show up and *express an opinion.* By the time the main exchanges have been posted (certainly after 20 pages), you have the usual *range of opinions* that have helped explore the usual elements. The *pros and antis* each have their contribution to make.
> 
> In the case of this particular variation on a theme, the words "certain", "truly", "enjoy", "dissonant", "atonal" all deserved some attention which inevitably attracts interest of *both polarities* (and those who might not regard themselves as 'charged' either way!)
> 
> What it seems to boil down to is that this forum, like others, encourages posting that cannot help but declare, *"One of us / not one of us".* This is not intrinsically 'wrong', but needs to be done with sensitivity so that when I say, *"I like coffee, but not tea"* I can do so without a cudgel in my hand, and without fearing that when *you say you like tea but not coffee,* you will beat me with your cudgel.
> 
> Basically, we should not complain that others express their *contrary views,* repeatedly, in threads that repeat the subjects in which people are encouraged to repeat themselves.


Generally speaking, I don't think that the reason why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music is merely opinion, though in certain exceptions it can be; I think it's firstly based on acuity of hearing, and perception of sound.

After the initial visceral response (or non-response/rejection), then other aspects of perception can be developed which will reinforce this initial visceral response, such as context, understanding of the art, willingness to engage, refusal to engage, etc., which are more political in nature.

But the initial visceral response is what really counts, and I think the refusal to engage is based on an innate deficiency, or undeveloped ability. The politics is all after the fact. This is, after all, art, not a political issue.


----------



## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> Generally speaking, I don't *think *that the reason why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music is merely opinion, though in certain exceptions it can be; I *think *it's firstly based on acuity of hearing, and perception of sound.
> 
> After the initial visceral response (or non-response/rejection), then other aspects of perception can be developed which will reinforce this initial visceral response, such as context, understanding of the art, willingness to engage, refusal to engage, etc., which are more political in nature.
> 
> But the initial visceral response is what really counts, and I *think *the refusal to engage is based on an innate deficiency, or undeveloped ability. The politics is all after the fact. This is, after all, art, not a political issue.


But that's just your opinion!


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## aleazk

I would say that, to some extent, people have more difficulties with "dense" music, e.g., music with many notes, intricacies in rhythm and harmony, and all other kind of complexities you can add.
This kind of music is not easy to grasp if you don't have enough experience, and even will to understand it. 
Subtlety and details often play an important role in this music.
The unexperienced listener finds an impenetrable dense texture, an unintelligible texture, like the background noise at a construction site.
Often, this kind of music does not have a direct and unique interpretation. Repeated listening often reveals details and new ways of understanding the piece.
I think this music is for people which love complexity and believe that certain things cannot be always expressed in simple terms.
Often people search for certain kind of experiences in music, they want to "own" the music, they have no interest in being surprised. "I don't like that, it's not melodious", i.e., they want the music to behave like they want. In "atonal" music, the music owns you. It's like a trip through an unknown place. People who love this music want to be surprised, want to discover new and unexpected realms or realities.
So, that's why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music.


----------



## Petwhac

arpeggio said:


> I really hate to repeat myself about this.
> 
> Some members dislike certain forms of 20th Century Music. They keep repeating themselves and it appears that they are compelled to remind the rest of us of that fact at every opportunity they get. I did a search and found over ten posts by Mr. Petwhac since 2010 where he expressed his criticism of Cage and other modernistic composers he disapproved of.
> 
> No reasonable person is forcing anyone to listen to any music they dislike.


Firstly Mr. Arpeggio, I wonder why you single me out. Am I the worst offender? 10 posts in 3 years! Wow I must be obsessed with trying to stop people listening to music I don't like. I must remember to get a life and not spend all those hours bashing 'modernist' (whatever that means) composers. Let's see, that's about one modernist bashing post every 3.6 months! I really do keep repeating myself at every opportunity!

Secondly Mr Arpeggio, is it a crime to express one's aesthetic preferences or to critique the work of others? Is it a form of blasphemy to say anything negative about a 'modernist' like Cage yet perfectly Ok to do likewise with 'conservative' or 'neo-....' composers like Jennifer Higdon? Apparently so, according to you. So much so that you have actually searched out my posts to expose me as an anti-modernist Perhaps I should be flattered that you give such weight to my opinion.

It is a certain kind of fascism that demonises opinions in order to close down dissent. It is a common tactic of the far right and the far left and the religious zealot. I'm not accusing you of deliberately doing this but it is a danger that the effect of labelling someone an anti-...this or a basher of that inhibits the expression of sincerely held opinion.

Thirdly Mr Arpeggio, I would be very grateful if you could tell me where I said other people should not write or listen to any particular 'form' of music. I believe I have stated on more than one occasion that composers should compose whatever it is they feel compelled to compose and people are free to love or loathe it or to be indifferent to it.

There is much music in the last 100 or so years that I'm quite indifferent to. I hope that is OK with you.
However, being a professional composer/arranger and musician and someone who has been thinking deeply about music for decades, I feel it is perfectly reasonable for me to look into the music that I am indifferent to but which others' like, and to analyse what characteristics and qualities the music has or lacks that may lead me to feel how I do.

You see, I don't have an agenda. I take music as I find it. Justin Bieber's or Milton Babbit's. If I say something negative about a Justin Bieber song will I be taken to task? I think not. How about Babbit's? I think so. At least by the anti-dissent zealots. 
Why do you think that is?


----------



## DeepR

I don't know if this has come up, but - among other things - it may have something to do with having a good memory? Certain complex music needs to be listened to a lot before one can really appreciate it. With each listen, one remembers more details of a piece, which may gradually increase appreciation for it and eventually lead to "getting the bigger picture". I guess it's harder to remember details in atonal/dissonant music. So for people who's memory is not that good, it may be very hard to get into such music, no matter how much they try. Well, that's just a theory. I'm only saying it could be one of many factors.


----------



## tdc

aleazk said:


> Often people search for certain kind of experiences in music, they want to "own" the music, they have no interest in being surprised. "I don't like that, it's not melodious", i.e., they want the music to behave like they want. *In "atonal" music, the music owns you*. It's like a trip through an unknown place. People who love this music want to be surprised, want to discover new and unexpected realms or realities.
> So, that's why certain people truly enjoy dissonant and/ atonal music.


I'm not sure I agree about the "music owning you" part, other than that I largely agree. There is something very gratifying about new discoveries, "unexpected realms" etc.

For myself I often just crave new musical experiences, and "fresh" sounds. When I first heard the music of the second Viennese school, I remember thinking that it sounded very fresh and I was impressed that composers from so long ago were already taking such creative artistic risks. I love great new music of different varieties, and in no way does it threaten my ability to enjoy Bach or Mozart or Brahms etc.


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## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Secondly Mr Arpeggio, is it a crime to express one's aesthetic preferences or to critique the work of others? Is it a form of blasphemy to say anything negative about a 'modernist' like Cage yet perfectly Ok to do likewise with 'conservative' or 'neo-....' composers like Jennifer Higdon? Apparently so, according to you. So much so that you have actually searched out my posts to expose me as an anti-modernist Perhaps I should be flattered that you give such weight to my opinion.


Criticism is fine, as long as it's backed up by argument. People are free to have any opinions they like, but they shouldn't be surprised if, from time to time, the basis of those opinions is called into question. Arpeggio has actually defended Higdon in the past (against my and others' criticisms), citing her band works as examples of fine music.


----------



## mmsbls

I just reread every post in this thread along with some posts in other related threads. Very roughly the hypotheses given can be compiled into 4 categories.

1) *Hearing ability (aural skills)*. Some people can hear notes, especially in chords, better, and therefore, perhaps make more sense of dissonant/atonal/complex sounding music. In this sense some people have the ability to enjoy modern music in a way that others may not. A study discussed in this thread gives some evidence for this basic skill (but not related to music enjoyment). It's not clear how much innate variation in this trait exists among people or how much practice can increase one's ability.

2) *Initial exposure*. Those who were exposed to certain music while young (or younger) may be more likely to appreciate dissonant/atonal/complex music. If one grows up with Chinese, one is more likely to enjoy it. The same may be true of modern music. There is a thread that has some discussion of people's early non-classical interests and how that relates to their classical interests (pre-20th century or avant-garde, for example).

3) *"Hard" work*. If one does not like dissonant/atonal/complex music, one can "work" to appreciate those types of music. By "work" people generally mean continued listening with a goal of greater appreciation. By "hard" I simply mean that for many it may take awhile. While not everyone requires repeated listening, clearly many do. Everyone I know personally (not through TC) who appreciates composers such as Schoenberg, Varese, Boulez, Takimatsu, etc. (hopefully people will recognize the type of music I am referring to here), required a significant listening period before they "learned" to appreciate these composers.

4) *Complexity and varied emotional response*. Some feel there are listeners who highly value complexity to the point where 20th century music gives more intellectual enjoyment. Some also referred to emotions that 20th century music conveys better or that earlier music simply does not convey.

I suspect that each general category has some truth, and perhaps much of the difference between those who like dissonant/atonal/complex music and those who dislike such music can be explained in some sense through these ideas.

One can work on one's aural skills, and there exists relatively straightforward ways to practice those skills. It's unclear how much progress one will make in hearing better or in appreciating the type of music discussed in this thread. The one thing _everyone_ can do is listen repeatedly with the goal of learning to appreciate/understand/enjoy this music. The questions become, "How much will extended listening help?" and "Is there a particular method or methods of extended listening that will produce better results?" Of course each person must decide for his or herself whether extended listening is worth it.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> Criticism is fine, as long as it's backed up by argument. People are free to have any opinions they like, but they shouldn't be surprised if, from time to time, the basis of those opinions is called into question. Arpeggio has actually defended Higdon in the past (against my and others' criticisms), citing her band works as examples of fine music.


I'd be very happy to have the basis of my opinions questioned. Unfortunately what usually happens is that one gets dismissed as a 'conservative' or an anti-modernist. Thus closing down open discussion.
The Higdon thread was full of smug hypocrisy by those who should know better.


----------



## Ondine

science said:


> There's something beautiful about the thought.
> 
> It's got to be true, though, that "music" isn't only sound - of course it is sound, but to be "music" there must be something special about the sound, and/or the way our brains perceive and/or interpret it.
> 
> One interesting thing to me about music is... I'll call it "intentionality." Ordinarily music is sound that we (or the musicians) intended to make, and ordinarily we value unintentional sounds less. Ordinarily even found sound or noise music is manipulated with a degree of intentionality, but always we must say "ordinarily" because at this point every generalization has been violated at least once.
> 
> But there is intentionality on the listener's part as well. It sometimes seems like some people's ideal audience would be a completely non-participatory audience, but the closest we actually get to that is when we're ignoring the background music. Of course there are no rules, but that doesn't strike me as the normal human condition: usually music has to be performed, and someone, even if only the performer, is paying active attention. Perhaps ordinarily not analyzing it like "well, we're in triple time and the horns are playing the melody that the strings played earlier," but at least responding to it physically. And from what I can tell of anthropology, ordinarily everyone was expected to participate actively, at least clapping or singing along.
> 
> At it's core, music is ordinarily a human interaction, really analogous to communication. There must be, at least occasionally, some credibility even for the romantic idea that music can express things too primal, or too deep, or too meaningful, or too something like that, for ordinary verbal expression.


This explains perfectly well what I experience. At listening I experience a relationship that is as creative as creative is the working of the composer: so, there is a relationship with the author, his music and that who listen. All kind of music is capable of doing this and, if this is so -believe it or not- the frontiers between such and such music fade away.

Also we know that what is listen is not a single note one by one, but the relationship between them.


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## aleazk

tdc said:


> I'm not sure I agree about the "music owning you" part, other than that I largely agree. There is something very gratifying about new discoveries, "unexpected realms" etc.


I was trying to say that, since the music is taking you to new places now, the listener is in the reverse situation, he's the one in new territory, and the music is the boss there. In the other music, the listener is aware of the rules the music should obey, so he has some "control" of the situation. In this new* music, he can _only_** contemplate and be surprised by the new worlds.
It was just a metaphor, you can take it or not. 

*very broad category, I'm referring to music which in general does not follow the "traditional" rules, that's all.
**of course, in all kinds of music, we only contemplate; what I'm trying to say is that we can't, mentally, anticipate and, in this way, participate in the music, in some sense.


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> There's something beautiful about the thought.
> 
> It's got to be true, though, that "music" isn't only sound - of course it is sound, but to be "music" there must be something special about the sound, and/or the way our brains perceive and/or interpret it.
> 
> One interesting thing to me about music is... I'll call it "intentionality." Ordinarily music is sound that we (or the musicians) intended to make, and ordinarily we value unintentional sounds less. Ordinarily even found sound or noise music is manipulated with a degree of intentionality, but always we must say "ordinarily" because at this point every generalization has been violated at least once.
> 
> But there is intentionality on the listener's part as well. It sometimes seems like some people's ideal audience would be a completely non-participatory audience, but the closest we actually get to that is when we're ignoring the background music. Of course there are no rules, but that doesn't strike me as the normal human condition: usually music has to be performed, and someone, even if only the performer, is paying active attention. Perhaps ordinarily not analyzing it like "well, we're in triple time and the horns are playing the melody that the strings played earlier," but at least responding to it physically. And from what I can tell of anthropology, ordinarily everyone was expected to participate actively, at least clapping or singing along.
> 
> At it's core, music is ordinarily a human interaction, really analogous to communication. There must be, at least occasionally, some credibility even for the romantic idea that music can express things too primal, or too deep, or too meaningful, or too something like that, for ordinary verbal expression.


That brings us to the possibility of walking along a beach at twilight, listening to the sounds of the waves, and hearing the "intentionality" of the sound, as if it were made for our ears only. This sort of thing happens all the time in Taoism. I think that's what John Cage was trying to get us to hear, not just in 4'33", but in all his aleatoric works.

...and I agree with alezak in post #304 about being "receptive." Apparently, people have wildly varying ways of approaching music. It appears that some listen to music for the conscious purpose of reinforcing or bolstering certain aspects of their being, while others listen receptively, and let the music affect them. I'm the latter type.


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## aleazk

science said:


> At it's core, music is ordinarily a human interaction, really analogous to communication.


There's a very subtle point here, which I want to point. Some composers are not interested in communication at all, even if their music actually communicates something!. 
I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music. 
They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all.
It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.
Like when you are alone and you hit your finger with the hammer by accident. You loudly say "shi*!". You are using language, so someone may say you were trying to communicate. But no, you are simply expressing disgust.
For communication, of course expression is needed. But expression can stand by itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/carter_transcript.shtml, Carter interview.





, Ligeti interview, at 8:29.


----------



## science

millionrainbows said:


> All sound is eventually "music." Isn't it? "Intentionality" is not the exclusive domain of man...is it? (see Lao Tzu)
> When it rains, I value that sound...don't you?
> 
> Pick a tempo you want to work with. Find it on your metronome. While the metronome is ticking, start some activity that will take between 5-15 minutes to complete. (Washing dishes, preparing food, cleaning up a messy desk, shaving, watering plants, whatever...) While doing this activity (and listening to the metronome), try to observe all of your movements relative to the tempo of the metronome. Experiment with changing the speed of your movements to synchronize with the metronome. -- Mick Goodrick, _The Advancing Guitarist_


I'm sorry, I didn't see this post before.

The sound of rain is lovely, and I also like thunder, and so on. Unless it has been recorded or is being amplified or something, I don't see how it could be called "music" in a literal sense. Metaphorically, sure, but not literally.

But I don't think music is the only valuable sounds. ("Valuable" as in "I value that sound.") So many sounds are valuable. That doesn't, to me, make them the same as music.

"the exclusive domain of man" - Trying to make sense of that in light of rain, I guess the idea is that rain is a god's music? Sure, if you believe in a god, that could make sense.


----------



## science

aleazk said:


> There's a very subtle point here, which I want to point. Some composers are not interested in communication at all, even if their music actually communicates something!.
> I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music.
> They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all.
> It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.
> Like when you are alone and you hit your finger with the hammer by accident. You loudly say "shi*!". You are using language, so someone may say you were trying to communicate. But no, you are simply expressing disgust.
> For communication, of course expression is needed. But expression can stand by itself.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/carter_transcript.shtml, Carter interview.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> , Ligeti interview, at 8:29.


I don't doubt their sincerity, but I disagree with them anyway - and I note that they did, in fact, share their music.


----------



## Petwhac

aleazk said:


> There's a very subtle point here, which I want to point. Some composers are not interested in communication at all, even if their music actually communicates something!.
> I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music.
> They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all.
> It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.
> Like when you are alone and you hit your finger with the hammer by accident. You loudly say "shi*!". You are using language, so someone may say you were trying to communicate. But no, you are simply expressing disgust.
> For communication, of course expression is needed. But expression can stand by itself.
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/carter_transcript.shtml, Carter interview.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> , Ligeti interview, at 8:29.


If it is really only expression, why the need to transcribe it for the ears of others? When you yell after hammering your finger you do not seek an audience. 
If expression was paramount then what makes Ligeti more worth listening to than a 3 year old expressing their joy at the piano by hammering fistfuls of notes? 
To be sure there are elements of expression and communication at work but I think it boils down to the creation of something which brings pleasure to the creator by the act itself which is then shared in order to bring a similar pleasure to others. 
It is not so easy to do and that is why not everyone who creates music is an equally skilled composer. We can all express ourselves in one way or another and we can all communicate in one way or another. The hard bit is expressing and communicating or indeed creating something which resonates within others, whatever that something may be.


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## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> If expression was paramount then what makes Ligeti more worth listening to than a 3 year old expressing their joy at the piano by hammering fistfuls of notes?


A 3 year old is not expressing anything by pounding on the keyboard. They simply enjoy the action and the sound it makes, and the fact that it is produced on a musical instrument is completely incidental. There is no intent to create music.


----------



## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> A 3 year old is not expressing anything by pounding on the keyboard. They simply enjoy the action and the sound it makes, and the fact that it is produced on a musical instrument is completely incidental. There is no intent to create music.


I disagree. The child is very much attempting to make music and the activity may be accompanied by the exclamation "listen to me, listen to me!" Perhaps a 3 year old is a bit young, how about a 6 year old. The principle is exactly the same.
In fact yesterday I had in my studio 3 of my friends children all from 6-12 all bashing on drums, plonking on keyboards and strumming guitars. All untutored, all making a cacophony and all pleading with me to listen to their efforts.
They were making music, expressing themselves and communicating to me. Was it something worth recording and releasing to the world or would one be better off with a pair of sturdy earplugs. For me the latter but I daresay some would enjoy it.


----------



## Guest

Petwhac said:


> When you yell after hammering your finger you do not seek an audience.


My wife would say I do. That's not meant to be trite. It's possible to argue both that much that we "express" is done in the hope or expectation of audience; yet also that the need to communicate to/with others is secondary to the need merely to express. I don't think we can generalise, either for us in daily life, or for artists engaged in their activity. The need to express and the need to communicate with others take various forms and are mixed differently in different individuals. They are added to, with greater or lesser subtlety, by the degree to which the need to communicate is refined or coarsened by the motivations that drive the need - to seem clever; to seem honest; to act as transparent medium for a 'message'; to worship god; to exult in the glory of musical virtuosity...etc etc...

Let's not be so simplistic about this. Humans may be driven by basic emotions, but there is a complex interplay between them, between the emotions and the intellect, and between the emotions and intellect(s) of those engaged in the communication. That's before you introduce the medium of the music itself, which can act as barrier or conveyer (sometimes both).


----------



## millionrainbows

science said:


> I'm sorry, I didn't see this post before.
> 
> The sound of rain is lovely, and I also like thunder, and so on. Unless it has been recorded or is being amplified or something, I don't see how it could be called "music" in a literal sense. Metaphorically, sure, but not literally.
> 
> But I don't think music is the only valuable sounds. ("Valuable" as in "I value that sound.") So many sounds are valuable. That doesn't, to me, make them the same as music.
> 
> "the exclusive domain of man" - Trying to make sense of that in light of rain, I guess the idea is that rain is a god's music? Sure, if you believe in a god, that could make sense.


Let's just call it a spiritual awareness as a general category, and if anybody wants to more specifically call it God, that's up to them.


----------



## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music.


The composer is _transcribing_ his experience, and musical thinking, into the form of scored music. This concrete "map" of his experience of musical thinking allows the music to be performed as actual sound, and for this to be "mapped onto" the listener's experience. This is the basic art experience, a two-way mapping of experience.

Just because a composer is interested in his own thinking processes, and not intentionally composing "for" a person, does not invalidate that thinking process; in fact, it cuts through much of the unnecessary "entertainment" element, and invites us to try to experience musical ideas as musical ideas, as the composer experiences these ideas. The composer is expressing musical thought, and it is there for us to experience, if we try.



aleazk said:


> They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all. It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.


I disagree. The composer's intention has very little to do with our experience of the end result, which is a discreet pathway between his experience and ours. It is an expression of musical ideas, which has now been put into a form for us to experience. It is up to us to approach the art, and attempt to "enter in" to the creator's experience. Whether or not the composer is "trying" to communicate with us specifically is irrelevant, because the "music map" is there for us, regardless.

This sounds like you are expecting to be "catered" to, or babied. In Elliott Carter's music, the music itself is the important thing; he is conveying musical ideas, which you are to approach and experience. In this sense, Carter wants you to look, with him, at the music itself, as objectively as possible, without bringing his own "personal" experience into it. If "personal" stories are what you are after, perhaps you should go to opera, or read a novel, or watch some re-runs of _Gilligan's Island._


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## science

millionrainbows said:


> Let's just call it a spiritual awareness as a general category, and if anybody wants to more specifically call it God, that's up to them.


I'd like to call it something like "enjoying the rain."

I like that kind of verbal precision.


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## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> I disagree. The child is very much attempting to make music and the activity may be accompanied by the exclamation "listen to me, listen to me!" Perhaps a 3 year old is a bit young, how about a 6 year old. The principle is exactly the same.
> In fact yesterday I had in my studio 3 of my friends children all from 6-12 all bashing on drums, plonking on keyboards and strumming guitars. All untutored, all making a cacophony and all pleading with me to listen to their efforts.
> They were making music, expressing themselves and communicating to me. Was it something worth recording and releasing to the world or would one be better off with a pair of sturdy earplugs. For me the latter but I daresay some would enjoy it.


But the intent is to make the sound, in that moment. It is not to construct a musical dialectic structured by that sound. The latter is composition, and it is the obvious difference between Ligeti and a 3-year old. To ignore this is disingenuous at best.


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## arpeggio

*Random sounds*



Mahlerian said:


> But the intent is to make the sound, in that moment. It is not to construct a musical dialectic structured by that sound. The latter is composition, and it is the obvious difference between Ligeti and a 3-year old. To ignore this is disingenuous at best.


I agree with Mahlerian on this issue. It appears to me that subconsciously the random sounds produced by adult are going to be different than the random sounds produced by a child, a cat or a dog.


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## Petwhac

Mahlerian said:


> But the intent is to make the sound, in that moment. It is not to construct a musical dialectic structured by that sound. The latter is composition, and it is the obvious difference between Ligeti and a 3-year old. To ignore this is disingenuous at best.


Of course I agree. I do not equate the two, I was merely responding to aleazk's post regarding music as _only_ expression for expression's sake without the desire to communicate.

I think the craft of musical composition lies not in only expression but also construction. For me music is poetry + architecture. I doubt any 3 year old has anything particularly poetic to utter and even if they did they would not be good enough architects to realise it. Even Mozart himself didn't have anything interesting to say at 3!!:lol:


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## Mahlerian

Petwhac said:


> Of course I agree. I do not equate the two, I was merely responding to aleazk's post regarding music as _only_ expression for expression's sake without the desire to communicate.
> 
> I think the craft of musical composition lies not in only expression but also construction. For me music is poetry + architecture. I doubt any 3 year old has anything particularly poetic to utter and even if they did they would not be good enough architects to realise it. Even Mozart himself didn't have anything interesting to say at 3!!:lol:


I agree that construction is a vital part of music, but why assume that this was not part of aleazk's formulation? Part of what is expressed is in the method of expression, is it not?


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> But the intent is to make the sound, in that moment. It is not to construct a musical dialectic structured by that sound. The latter is composition, and it is the obvious difference between Ligeti and a 3-year old. To ignore this is disingenuous at best.


But all you have to do is record it, and this puts a "frame" around it. Then the baby's intent becomes irrelevant, and we are looking at art.

What y'all are really disagreeing about is whether a type of "dialectic form" or experience-map has been created which contains enough recognized and "agreed-upon" syntax of meaning to pass as "agreed-upon art."

But if it's a urinal, and Marcel Duchamp says it's art, it's art.


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## Petwhac

millionrainbows said:


> But if it's a urinal, and Marcel Duchamp says it's art, it's art.


........Unfortunately!


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> The composer is _transcribing_ his experience, and musical thinking, into the form of scored music. This concrete "map" of his experience of musical thinking allows the music to be performed as actual sound, and for this to be "mapped onto" the listener's experience. This is the basic art experience, a two-way mapping of experience.


I totally agree with this. In fact, even if the composer just wants to write music just for the expression's sake, as I said, nothing prevents us to play that music and understand it, and even understand what was the thing the composer was expressing. We do have communication there, even if the composer was not interested in it. 
This thing about the composer writing music just for the interest in writing it, is related to that claim by Babbitt about music as an experiment, i.e., composers are interested in experimenting new things, to see "what happens", to see what kind of final product you get. And this is related to the desire for mere expression too. Composers have intellectual concerns, they are curious about the limits and properties of their compositional systems.
Anyway, I think Ligeti was exaggerating a little in order to make his point clear. Obviously, he was interested in the way his music was performed, in order that his ideas can be clearly communicated to others.
I think, as McLeod says, in reality, we have both things. The composer is just expressing himself, because he has to, but also is interested in the actual communication of his music to others.



millionrainbows said:


> Just because a composer is interested in his own thinking processes, and not intentionally composing "for" a person, does not invalidate that thinking process; in fact, it cuts through much of the unnecessary "entertainment" element, and invites us to try to experience musical ideas as musical ideas, as the composer experiences these ideas. The composer is expressing musical thought, and it is there for us to experience, if we try.


Agree.



millionrainbows said:


> I disagree. The composer's intention has very little to do with our experience of the end result, which is a discreet pathway between his experience and ours. It is an expression of musical ideas, which has now been put into a form for us to experience. It is up to us to approach the art, and attempt to "enter in" to the creator's experience. Whether or not the composer is "trying" to communicate with us specifically is irrelevant, because the "music map" is there for us, regardless.
> 
> This sounds like you are expecting to be "catered" to, or babied. In Elliott Carter's music, the music itself is the important thing; he is conveying musical ideas, which you are to approach and experience. In this sense, Carter wants you to look, with him, at the music itself, as objectively as possible, without bringing his own "personal" experience into it. If "personal" stories are what you are after, perhaps you should go to opera, or read a novel, or watch some re-runs of _Gilligan's Island._


Agree. I address this in my first response.

Maybe I should have stated my first post more clearly, in a more tempered way.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

millionrainbows said:


> The composer is _transcribing_ his experience, and musical thinking, into the form of scored music. This concrete "map" of his experience of musical thinking allows the music to be performed as actual sound, and for this to be "mapped onto" the listener's experience. This is the basic art experience, a two-way mapping of experience.
> 
> Just because a composer is interested in his own thinking processes, and not intentionally composing "for" a person, does not invalidate that thinking process; in fact, it cuts through much of the unnecessary "entertainment" element, and invites us to try to experience musical ideas as musical ideas, as the composer experiences these ideas. The composer is expressing musical thought, and it is there for us to experience, if we try.
> 
> I disagree. The composer's intention has very little to do with our experience of the end result, which is a discreet pathway between his experience and ours. It is an expression of musical ideas, which has now been put into a form for us to experience. It is up to us to approach the art, and attempt to "enter in" to the creator's experience. Whether or not the composer is "trying" to communicate with us specifically is irrelevant, because the "music map" is there for us, regardless.
> 
> This sounds like you are expecting to be "catered" to, or babied. In Elliott Carter's music, the music itself is the important thing; he is conveying musical ideas, which you are to approach and experience. In this sense, Carter wants you to look, with him, at the music itself, as objectively as possible, without bringing his own "personal" experience into it. If "personal" stories are what you are after, perhaps you should go to opera, or read a novel, or watch some re-runs of _Gilligan's Island._


I think that complex philosophical thoughts are better expressed in writing, on paper, than in music. Music should be first and foremost an emotional language.


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## aleazk

Petwhac said:


> I think the craft of musical composition lies not in only expression but also construction. For me music is poetry + architecture. I doubt any 3 year old has anything particularly poetic to utter and even if they did they would not be good enough architects to realise it. Even Mozart himself didn't have anything interesting to say at 3!!:lol:


But I totally agree with this. My favorite music has emotions, but always carefully constructed in a dialectic process (i.e., from first principles, the piece is constructed). 
I think we are taking different meanings for the word expression. When I said expression, I was not referring just to a primitive and the brute expression of emotions, without intellectuality. I meant the desire "to do something interesting", as Carter says. The desire to produce music. That's all. Ligeti makes an interesting analogy with science in the video I posted. He says that a real scientist is interested in some problem just for the sake of understanding the true behind it. The composer, he says, may also be interested in producing some piece of music just for the sake of producing it, to see what happens, what kind of product do you get (the piece can be complex, etc., that's not the relevant thing here). That's what I'm calling the desire for expression.


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## aleazk

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> I think that complex philosophical thoughts are better expressed in writing, on paper, than in music. Music should be first and foremost an emotional language.


Complex philosophical thoughts are often accompanied by strong emotions. How do you feel when you think about the vastness of the universe (in both time and space)?, for example. Music, art in general, can recreate these emotions. I find that one of the most appealing features of art.
So, complex philosophical thoughts can be expressed to some extent with music, since I don't think nobody can articulate with words those strong emotions. But music can. Those emotions are part of these philosophical thoughts, since we think about them and we feel the emotions, we feel the emotions and we think about them.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

aleazk said:


> Complex philosophical thoughts are often accompanied by strong emotions. How do you feel when you think about the vastness of the universe (in both time and space)?, for example. Music, art in general, can recreate these emotions. I find that one of the most appealing features of art.
> So, complex philosophical thoughts can be expressed to some extent with music, since I don't think nobody can articulate with words those strong emotions. But music can. Those emotions are part of these philosophical thoughts, since we think about them and we feel the emotions, we feel the emotions and we think about them.


ok, I see what you mean. I had to think of Haydn's 'Representation of Chaos' when I was reading your post . Yes, I guess there is always some 'philosophy' in the way the music is structured, especially in classical, since structure had to be decided (at least partially) using logic.

Well, I don't know - maybe you should at least accompany highly abstract music with a philosophical message so that it becomes clearer. Maybe some kind of title that hints at the meaning.


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## millionrainbows

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> I think that complex philosophical thoughts are better expressed in writing, on paper, than in music. Music should be first and foremost an emotional language.


Well, I see what you mean, but music should be first and foremost a musical language, about musical ideas. There are many "logical" aspects to music; phrases which answer each other in logical ways, phrases which add-up, and these have their own inner logic. If they are expressed emotively, then they become emotionally charged, like speech. But I can't see how music can be primarily "emotional" if its elements (pitch, rhythm, timbre) do not include this.

I don't think music has to be first and foremost an emotional language. I think most of that is added later by performers.


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## Guest

HaydnBearstheClock said:


> I think that complex philosophical thoughts are better expressed in writing, on paper, than in music. Music *should *be first and foremost an emotional language.





millionrainbows said:


> Well, I see what you mean, but music *should *be first and foremost a musical language, about musical ideas. There are many "logical" aspects to music; phrases which answer each other in logical ways, phrases which add-up, and these have their own inner logic. If they are expressed emotively, then they become emotionally charged, like speech. But I can't see how music can be primarily "emotional" if its elements (pitch, rhythm, timbre) do not include this.
> 
> I don't think music has to be first and foremost an emotional language. I think most of that is added later by performers.


I refer the honourable members to my previous answer in another thread...music _should _be whatever the composer wishes it to be, and whatever the audience takes from it.

http://www.talkclassical.com/26592-classical-music-entertainment-there-2.html#post490069


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## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> There's a very subtle point here, which I want to point. Some composers are not interested in communication at all, even if their music actually communicates something!.
> I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music.
> They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all.
> It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.





MacLeod said:


> I refer the honourable members to my previous answer in another thread...music should be whatever the composer wishes it to be, and whatever the audience takes from it.


Yes, and Elliott Carter is no different than Beethoven or Mozart in that regard, regardless of what they might be quoted as "intending." Beethoven gave us musical ideas, and created music, as did Carter. It's up to us to approach the music.

*aleazk* seems to be trying to say that because Elliott Carter and Ligeti are not interested in communicating, and are quoted as not intending to communicate, that their art is irrelevant; and that audience incomprehension is a failure of the artist, not the listener.

Their intent, stated or otherwise, is not essential, because they are "in the game." Art automatically communicates by its very presence as a medium.

For me, aleazk's view is just another case of listeners expecting art to "entertain" them and cater to the status quo.


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> *aleazk* seems to be trying to say that because Elliott Carter and Ligeti are not interested in communicating, and are quoted as not intending to communicate, that their art is irrelevant.


LOL

That's definitely not what I'm trying to say!. You are utterly confused...
You are taking what I said as some kind of criticism, when in fact I saw it as something positive!. I think artists should be worried about their art, and the relation they have with their own art, the public is secondary, i.e., not the central thing!. That's why I criticized this "communication" thing. 
Please, I invite you to think outside your belligerent framework. This is surreal...


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## apricissimus

I think too often we try to put music in terms of other human activity or mental states, like _language_, _emotion_, or _communication_, or even in sort of mathematical or visual terms. I suppose there is some overlap among all of these things, but I think music is best considered as its own thing, and emphasizing these other aspects can sometimes obscure that.

Avoiding those other aspects does make it harder to talk about music though.


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## HaydnBearstheClock

millionrainbows said:


> Well, I see what you mean, but music should be first and foremost a musical language, about musical ideas. There are many "logical" aspects to music; phrases which answer each other in logical ways, phrases which add-up, and these have their own inner logic. If they are expressed emotively, then they become emotionally charged, like speech. But I can't see how music can be primarily "emotional" if its elements (pitch, rhythm, timbre) do not include this.
> 
> I don't think music has to be first and foremost an emotional language. I think most of that is added later by performers.


Ok, I do agree that Musical structure incorporates logic into it. But, I think the works of art which truly touch the most amount of people are those where the logic perfectly complements the emotional content.


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## Guest

millionrainbows said:


> *aleazk* seems to be trying to say that because Elliott Carter and Ligeti are not interested in communicating, and are quoted as not intending to communicate, that their art is irrelevant; and that audience incomprehension is a failure of the artist, not the listener.


I don't read aleazk's post that way at all. I just read it is offering a further thought on the extent to which composers aim to "express themselves" with or without (in the cited cases, without) the additional intent to engage in communication.


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## aleazk

MacLeod said:


> I don't read aleazk's post that way at all. I just read it is offering a further thought on the extent to which composers aim to "express themselves" with or without (in the cited cases, without) the additional intent to engage in communication.


Exactly! .


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## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> LOL
> That's definitely not what I'm trying to say!. You are utterly confused...
> You are taking what I said as some kind of criticism, when in fact I saw it as something positive!. I think artists should be worried about their art, and the relation they have with their own art, the public is secondary, i.e., not the central thing!. That's why I criticized this "communication" thing.
> Please, I invite you to think outside your belligerent framework. This is surreal...


Well, you could have fooled me. Belligerent?


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## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> There's a very subtle point here, which I want to point. Some composers are not interested in communication at all, even if their music actually communicates something!


I disagree with that. I think that's an exaggeration. I don't think they bend over backwards to please people, but I don't think they are "not interested in communication at all."



aleazk said:


> I have read interviews to Carter and Ligeti, for example, in which both composers say that they don't compose for a person, they compose because they have the necessity to do it, because they are interested in producing music.
> They need to express themselves, but this process involves only one person: the composer. They feel the necessity of discharging their feelings into something. In this case, their music. That's all. It's expression, but not with the intention of communication, it's just expression for the sake of expression.


I think you're exaggerating. In that interview, Elliott Carter said "...I feel that in the end the music that I've always liked, and the music that I admire and the music that I write considers the public as a secondary matter and the reason we write is because we love to write and we think music is a very beautiful thing and we hope that we can do something nice."

In his interview, Ligeti states that when he composes, he has no interest in "intending" or targeting anyone, that he does art as an "act" which has no intent other than the act itself.

This is quite different than saying they are "not interested in communicating at all," and your statement could be easily misconstrued and used as fodder for the anti-modernist "Babbitt quoters."

Let's just agree (without reacting belligerently) that artists do art as a compulsion. The art-game is always a 2-way communication, regardless if the act is done compulsively or consciously for an audience. I think art which is done primarily as compulsive act which expresses the "being" of the artist does not, of necessity, exclude a potential audience; after all, art is an expression of Humanity and experience and being, so this assumes that one is always "a member" of humanity. Art will always communicate.


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree with that. I think that's an exaggeration. I don't think they bend over backwards to please people, but I don't think they are "not interested in communication at all."
> 
> I think you're exaggerating. In that interview, Elliott Carter said "...I feel that in the end the music that I've always liked, and the music that I admire and the music that I write considers the public as a secondary matter and the reason we write is because we love to write and we think music is a very beautiful thing and we hope that we can do something nice."
> 
> In his interview, Ligeti states that when he composes, he has no interest in "intending" or targeting anyone, that he does art as an "act" which has no intent other than the act itself.
> 
> This is quite different than saying they are "not interested in communicating at all," and your statement could be easily misconstrued and used as fodder for the anti-modernist "Babbitt quoters."
> 
> Let's just agree (without reacting belligerently) that artists do art as a compulsion. The art-game is always a 2-way communication, regardless if the act is done compulsively or consciously for an audience. I think art which is done primarily as compulsive act which expresses the "being" of the artist does not, of necessity, exclude a potential audience; after all, art is an expression of Humanity and experience and being, so this assumes that one is always "a member" of humanity. Art will always communicate.


Indeed, at the end, that's what can be said. I admitted in a previous post that I exaggerated (#330). I was trying to emphasize the point. As usual, one has the risk of oversimplifying things in this way.


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## millionrainbows

aleazk said:


> Indeed, at the end, that's what can be said. I admitted in a previous post that I exaggerated (#330). I was trying to emphasize the point. As usual, one has the risk of oversimplifying things in this way.


aleazk, I'm sorry that I misconstrued what you said, and over-reacted as part of my "defend modernism" mindset.

The opposite of rejecting the audience would be the audience rejecting the artist.

You know, this makes me think of what is called "outsider art," art created by people who for one reason or another, have been marginalized from society. Their art is done as an expression of their being, even though they have been rejected by society. That says something profound to me about the power of art as an expression of humanity, no matter where in the societal hierarchy it may lie.

They say that Van Gogh, great as he was, was actually an "outsider" artist. Interestingly, a search of outsider artist Adolf Wölfli reveals that he inspired music: 
_Perhaps most notable the Danish composer Per Nørgård who after viewing a Wölfli exhibition in 1979 embarked on a schizoid style lasting for several years; among the works of this time are an opera on the life of Wölfli called The Divine Circus. _


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## pluhagr

I think that music can express emotions and philosophical concepts equally well. But I do believe that music is not best suited to express these two things. Emotion is best expressed in human interaction e.g. a smile or hug. Concepts are best expressed in words e.g. the concept of the sublime. This being said, art and music can still express these things. There does exist art which is conceptual and music which tries to convey a story or emotion. What I think is at the core of this discussion is that music best expresses form. Atonal music contains form just like the rest of music. The form of atonal music is probably its most important attribute as we are left without a formal melody most of the time. I know that when I listen to atonal music I am listening for the form of the music. I find that atonal music exemplifies form better than tonal music does.


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## millionrainbows

pluhagr said:


> I think that music can express emotions and philosophical concepts equally well. But I do believe that music is not best suited to express these two things. Emotion is best expressed in human interaction e.g. a smile or hug. Concepts are best expressed in words e.g. the concept of the sublime. This being said, art and music can still express these things. There does exist art which is conceptual and music which tries to convey a story or emotion. What I think is at the core of this discussion is that music best expresses form. Atonal music contains form just like the rest of music. The form of atonal music is probably its most important attribute as we are left without a formal melody most of the time. I know that when I listen to atonal music I am listening for the form of the music. I find that atonal music exemplifies form better than tonal music does.


I don't know about that, pluagr; I was watching the "Lewis and Clark" PBS series, and when it came to the sad demise of Lewis, they played this achingly sad violin/piano tune, and everybody in the cellblock started crying.


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## pluhagr

millionrainbows said:


> I don't know about that, pluagr; I was watching the "Lewis and Clark" PBS series, and when it came to the sad demise of Lewis, they played this achingly sad violin/piano tune, and everybody in the cellblock started crying.


Are they crying solely because of the music or because of the situation in which the music was played?


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## Borodin

I wrote my first atonal piece at the age of 0 when I came from my mother's womb. This influence had further implication years later, at the age of 3, when I found myself writing my first virtuosic atonal development for piano. Probably the most successful thing I ever did, and now forever forgotten


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## millionrainbows

Borodin said:


> I wrote my first atonal piece at the age of 0 when I came from my mother's womb.


I was wondering why the score was so stained and smelled so bad.


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## pluhagr

clever and original...


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## millionrainbows

pluhagr said:


> clever and original...


Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too? Dr. Pepper, drink Dr. Pepper...


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## Albert7

I can listen to any type of music because as a former visual artist, I can enter into pieces without a melody or tonal center... even stuff without beginning or end.

Electroacoustic music being a prime example.


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## violadude

I personally couldn't care less about the amount of dissonance in a piece. Dissonance alone has nothing to do with whether the music is good or not. Schoenberg, Boulez, Elliot Carter, Ives and all those other "modernist" composers wrote great music that happens to have a higher saturation of dissonance than pieces written earlier by great composers. If Mozart suddenly introduced 10 loud augmented 7th chords in the middle of one of his piano concertos for absolutely no reason, that had nothing to do with the rest of the piece it wouldn't make the piece better, it would suck.


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## Albert7

violadude said:


> I personally couldn't care less about the amount of dissonance in a piece. Dissonance alone has nothing to do with whether the music is good or not. Schoenberg, Boulez, Elliot Carter, Ives and all those other "modernist" composers wrote great music that happens to have a higher saturation of dissonance than pieces written earlier by great composers. If Mozart suddenly introduced 10 loud augmented 7th chords in the middle of one of his piano concertos for absolutely no reason, that had nothing to do with the rest of the piece it wouldn't make the piece better, it would suck.


Haydn played around with a ton of dissonance for subversive humor and man that made his works just great.


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