# Hypothesis on why people can't understand that others like dissonant/atonal music.



## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Beats me. Is it really worth discussion?


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I don't think so, I'm busy enough listening to both. :tiphat:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

They may not understand why you like it, see in it, or hear that is so appealing. Music has always been central in my life, and already in my youth I knew not everyone around me, who might enjoy a bit of Beetoven, Mozart, Wagner, even Mahler, would not automatically "follow me" in my likes for the Prokofiev 2nd piano concerto, or name your tune or composer. They did not then, and do not know, why I like it, how much I like it, and some don't understand how I can even "Bear to listen to that stuff."

That doe not mean those who 'don't go there' don't understand you, just one of your likes, a particular sense of taste, is not to their liking.

When I was in grammar school, one afternoon I was home alone, had on the record player that very same Prokofiev 2nd piano concerto, as loud as the player could handle without distortion. My brother, in high school then, arrived home later. He came in, walked straight into my room, grabbed the stylus and dragged / lifted it off the record with that screeee-ing sound only people with LP's and record players would know of. He had that look where his eyes were truly looking almost like glowing red coals, being that genuinely irritated / ticked off. He glared at me and said, "You should paint your ears green. That way everyone would know right away they are different!" then he left the room.

We still get along. I email him links of Bach, Mozart and Chopin, pretty much stopping at his musical threshold of 'what is music.'

The simple and very true answer? 
"They are not you."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Because Schoenberg, who was out to systematically destroy music in 1899 with Verklarte Nacht with his devilish fourth-inversion ninth chords, was an evil man, probably tone-deaf in spite of his perfect pitch, who took a tradition of great beauty and power and, for his own sick intellectual pretensions, systematically dismantled it by his cold, calculated, mechanical processes, removing any hint of the emotion that audiences loved and leaving only hard, cold, dissonance in its place. He removed good triads and replaced them with evil quartal and augmented harmonies that only occasionally look sort of like triads by complete accident, certainly not a matter of design, which is cold and rationally motivated, devoid of personality or feeling. He had no talent to begin with, or he squandered it by smearing the Tristan ink too thick one too many times. The only music that survives is music the audience likes, but a vast left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals has forced this music onto an innocent and unsuspecting public that can see the nudity of this and all other contemporary music emperors at first glance.

Why _would_ anyone like such a heinous personage as that?


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Oh well done, Mahlerian.

I think you've touched on every major point, there. Great job!

To answer the OP question, probably not. But anything to get people thinking about why they think the way they think can't be bad.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

It's cool to go against the flow


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

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


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

We are all full of ourselves, in one way or another. It manifests itself in different ways at different times, but we cannot escape the fact that we spend most of our lives thinking about ourselves.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

GGluek said:


> Beats me. Is it really worth discussion?


Not really. I used to get emotional about these things but now I don't. Fact is, even though I dislike a number of composers (including so called dissonant or atonal ones), their reputation stands or falls regardless of whether I as an individual listener enjoys their music. Even though I am so-so with say Webern, his music will stand and his reputation as a composer is secure.

Another thing is it comes down to how I express my dislike, or more accurately my overall dislike, of Webern's music. If I say "I dislike Webern because..." and give some reasons related to the music - and I like to give examples of things, maybe things that are exceptions to the rule of my overall dislike, eg. works by Webern I like or like more than others - then that's okay.

But if I say something like "I dislike Webern because his music is rubbish," well I can expect some responses, many from irate fans of the composer. & they have a reason to be irate in that case, at least to some extent.

& to add insult to injury, if I say something like "I dislike Webern becaue his music is rubbish and his fans are degenerate" well that's asking for trouble, isn't it?

So if I do criticise a composer or an era, style, technique, 'school' of music, I try to be balanced, tone down the emotion, and just say it as naturally as possible without judgement or malice. Not get too emotional. Think things thru before I say them. And so on.

Hard to do but if I've learnt anything here, its to apply same rules of the game for communication as I do to conversations in real life.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Couchie said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia


That is quite an article Couchie Coo so people with a damage inside head are atonal freaks hmmmmm I always suspected as much


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## Tapkaara (Apr 18, 2006)

This is the ultimate flogging-a-dead-horse discussion. I used to participate in these discussions but refuse to do so nowadays. However, the premise of this thread is interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I have decided to chime in once and only once. You all have the option to agree with me or disagree. Nothing anyone can say will sway me of my position and nothing I can sway will sway anyone of their position. Therefore, back-and-forth "discourse" on this topic would be (for me) futile and best and a complete and utter frustrating waste of time for all parties at worst.

As mentioned, I used to try to discredit atonal and/or serialist music. (This thread makes specific reference to "dissonant" music and wonders why people do not like it. Most classical music has some amount of dissonance in it. OK, Haydn will have less dissonance than Webern, and I see where the thread wants to go with this. However, I think most people can tolerate highly dissonant music without utter revulsion; music that is dissonant can still be melodic and even tonal; I do not feel that dissonance, even great amounts of it, are as much as a turn-off to people as much as pure atonalism or serialism. Just my theory and I apologize for the digression.)

What interests me is the question: why people can't understand (those who) like dissonant/atonal music? I think the answer here should be obvious. This type of music is rarely "pretty" in the eyes of people who prefer more "traditional" types of musical idioms. To those who strictly prefer the Baroque, or Classicism or the Romantics, for example, antonal/serialist music will not sound melodic, coherent or "pretty." Surely, staunch supporters of atonal/serialst music would argue to the death that this type of music actually IS melodic and IS coherent (they may even pull out a score as an example and show you the tight, logical, perfectly and knowingly crafted structures). They will also argue that due to the melodies and structural genius, the music is, in fact, "beautiful," if "pretty" is not the best adjective to describe an atonal/serialist work's aesthetic value. Believe it or not, I have come to understand why some one may enjoy this music even if I think it's gratingly ugly. Although it's normally not for me, if someone else finds intrinsic aesthetic value and spiritual/emotional gratification from this type of music, that's just the way it is. Just because I do not find value in such music (most of the time), that has ABSOLUTELY NOTING TO DO with someone else's admiration of antonal/serialist music. "To each his own" said the farmer as he kissed the cow. 

The fact that someone would ask "why do people who don't like this type of music not understand the people who do" demonstrates something that I have found to be, over the years, a general unwillingness or even ignorance on the part of many antonal/serialist music fans to get off the high horse and come down to earth for a moment, brush aside their intellectual superiority, and say "Yeah. This is tough music that was created with the express intent to challenge convention. When convention is challenged in any arena, the public may meet such challenges with hostility." (This is absolutely NOT directed at anyone in particular and I am not trying to be nasty. This is more of a rhetorical question and slightly tongue-in-cheeck.) In other words, this type of music is not "easy' for a lot of people, perhaps even most people. It challenges convention and thus is challenging itself. Subversive music can and will be met with incomprehension, disdain and even revulsion. If you "get" this type of music and like it, good for you. But is it really so damn unclear why a lot of people WOULDN'T like it?

I think a more appropriate question should be "Why can't people who like atonal/serialist music understand people who don't?"

And that, my friends, is where I will leave it. You may agree, you may disagree. Not hard feelings if you disagree with my comments.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Tapkaara said:


> This is tough music that was created with the express intent to challenge convention.


Except, of course, that it wasn't.

You want us to lie to you?


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Tapkaara said:


> This is the ultimate flogging-a-dead-horse discussion. I used to participate in these discussions but refuse to do so nowadays. However, the premise of this thread is interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I have decided to chime in once and only once. You all have the option to agree with me or disagree. Nothing anyone can say will sway me of my position and nothing I can sway will sway anyone of their position. Therefore, back-and-forth "discourse" on this topic would be (for me) futile and best and a complete and utter frustrating waste of time for all parties at worst.
> 
> As mentioned, I used to try to discredit atonal and/or serialist music. (This thread makes specific reference to "dissonant" music and wonders why people do not like it. Most classical music has some amount of dissonance in it. OK, Haydn will have less dissonance than Webern, and I see where the thread wants to go with this. However, I think most people can tolerate highly dissonant music without utter revulsion; music that is dissonant can still be melodic and even tonal; I do not feel that dissonance, even great amounts of it, are as much as a turn-off to people as much as pure atonalism or serialism. Just my theory and I apologize for the digression.)
> 
> ...


Yea! you can say that again Tap


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Hahaha, I'm sure he will!

(Hey, if I can't resist, why the hell should he be able to?

Into the fray, mates!!)


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Dissonance is cool.

And discuss this: why can't some people understand why others can't understand why some people don't like atonal music?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> And discuss this: why can't some people understand why others can't understand why some people don't like atonal music?


Because they don't understand why they can't understand why some people can't understand why some people don't like atonal music!.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

There's a difference between

1) Believing that others like atonal/dissonant music and
2) Understanding how others could like atonal/dissonant music.

I don't really believe that anyone on TC _doesn't_ believe there are at least some people who like atonal/dissonant music. After all, people state that they do, people purchase CDs of atonal/dissonant music, and people attend concerts of atonal/dissonant music. I do think some here might have trouble understanding _why_ people might actually enjoy that type of music.

I dislike spicy food, and I find it somewhat hard to imagine someone enjoying such food. Of course, I realize that others' experience of spicy food is different than mine. Those who enjoy the food do not feel intense unpleasant burning in their mouth when they eat it. They experience the spiciness as a positive sensation rather than a negative one. I can ask them to describe the sensation, but I may never be able to truly understand their reaction. The same may be true of those who dislike atonal/dissonant music. They can ask others what they enjoy. They can think of works they originally disliked and later came to enjoy. But ultimately, they can only accept what those others report about the music - pleasure, enjoyment, satisfaction, etc.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I don't understand why satanists worship Satan either. But tell me this: is a Brandenburg Concerto or Stockhausen better for sacrificing a ram to the dark lord?

I'm not trying to imply people who enjoy atonal music are satanists or anything. Actually... yes, I am.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

The statement "I like this music" says something about me and nothing about the music.

I suspect a lot of people don't think that way.

"How can you like something I don't like? It's as if you're a whole other person or something!"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Of course, I realize that others' experience of spicy food is different than mine. Those who enjoy the food do not feel intense unpleasant burning in their mouth when they eat it.


Not so. Some years ago I was riding in a taxi in Bangkok, weaving wildly (as usual) through cars going every which direction. The taxi driver was munching on one of those super-hot screamers that are quite popular. Tears were running down his face. I asked, "Doesn't that hurt?" He answered, "Yes, it hurts. But it tastes so GOOD!" Maybe a connection to atonal music?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Tapkaara said:


> I think a more appropriate question should be "Why can't people who like atonal/serialist music understand people who don't?


I can understand why people can't according to my own theory...........

The universe, since its creation/beginning, has always had set rules and laws on the way the frequencies of a pitch with a particular tone works. From what it seems, before there was prehistoric music, early humans or primates yet to evolve into humans would have spent a great deal of time listening to the sounds of other animals and other members of their own species, and above all, their own voice. Their voice has pitch, and above the pitch is a series of harmonic overtones ordered the following way: 8ve above fundamental pitch, 5th above the previous overtone, 4th above previous overtone, major 3rd above previous overtone, minor 3rd above previous overtone and so on, the interval between each overtone becoming smaller and smaller the higher you go in the spectrum and also the less audible they are. Someone on the forums here (millionrainbows I think) once posted a list of intervals from most dissonant to least dissonant and looking at that, you can see some parallels between it and the harmonic overtone series (keeping in mind that 6ths are just inverted 3rds). It is no wonder that organum developed harmonising plainsong first at perfect intervals like 5ths, 4ths and 8ves! Looking back at the history of music and even prehistory and going back to nature and the physics of sound in the universe as it is, development of tonality _should_ sound more "normal" to people as it is natural according to how sound waves work, however atonality should sound more artificial........

I don't know if I'm right though, I only came up with this theory a couple of weeks ago and didn't really do any research. :lol:


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Oh, please!, don't tell me you are now one of those "music theory-universe-numbers-natural order" maniacs too!...


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Oh, please!, don't tell me you are now one of those "music theory-universe-numbers-natural order" maniacs too!...


I am, but Henze once said that things that deviate from the norm are beautiful. There is a lot of atonal music out there that I love.


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

Nereffid said:


> The statement "I like this music" says something about me and nothing about the music.
> 
> I suspect a lot of people don't think that way.
> 
> "How can you like something I don't like? It's as if you're a whole other person or something!"


Yes. I can go through life wondering/judging/shuddering because some people like white chocolate instead of dark. Why some people drink gin, which to me tastes like the Vitalis smelled that they used to use in barber shops. Why some women wear ultra-fashionable 4-inch stiletto heels which hurt their spine and feet in a way that will cost them dearly in later life,. Wonder/judge/shudder. 
What a great way to go through life, eh? 
Or I can say _chacun a son gout_ and get on with my own life.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

BPS said:


> We are all full of ourselves, in one way or another. It manifests itself in different ways at different times, but we cannot escape the fact that we spend most of our lives thinking about ourselves.


That reads like SLTI [Standard Late Teen Introspection]. Adults rely on their body's ICS [Involuntary Controls System], and avoid introspection. Later on in life the ICS begins to malfunction, and some folks try to take on some of the load consciously - via introspection. My advice is that it ain't going to work, so don't bother.

:cheers:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Because Schoenberg, who was out to systematically destroy music in 1899 with Verklarte Nacht with his devilish fourth-inversion ninth chords, was an evil man, probably tone-deaf in spite of his perfect pitch, who took a tradition of great beauty and power and, for his own sick intellectual pretensions, systematically dismantled it by his cold, calculated, mechanical processes, removing any hint of the emotion that audiences loved and leaving only hard, cold, dissonance in its place. He removed good triads and replaced them with evil quartal and augmented harmonies that only occasionally look sort of like triads by complete accident, certainly not a matter of design, which is cold and rationally motivated, devoid of personality or feeling. He had no talent to begin with, or he squandered it by smearing the Tristan ink too thick one too many times. The only music that survives is music the audience likes, but a vast left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals has forced this music onto an innocent and unsuspecting public that can see the nudity of this and all other contemporary music emperors at first glance.
> 
> Why _would_ anyone like such a heinous personage as that?


*ROFLMAO!* .. and by the way, it is perfect.

Between that left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals and Opus Dei, demons have taken over our pure, good and angelic existences, including the arts.

*The ********!*


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

CypressWillow said:


> Yes. I can go through life wondering/judging/shuddering because some people like white chocolate instead of dark. Why some people drink gin, which to me tastes like the Vitalis smelled that they used to use in barber shops. Why some women wear ultra-fashionable 4-inch stiletto heels which hurt their spine and feet in a way that will cost them dearly in later life,. Wonder/judge/shudder.
> What a great way to go through life, eh?
> Or I can say _chacun a son gout_ and get on with my own life.


There is an ongoing disagreement / debate in the culinary world: White Chocalate is made from the fat extracted from cacoa beans -- the argument is, Ergo, white chocolate is not actually chocolate


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*Hypothesis on why people can't understand that others like dissonant/atonal music.

*I like, as a general category, music that is dissonant, atonal, electronic, musique concréte, experimental, percussion, aleatoric; music which "invents" it own way of composing with each new piece.

I also like tonality.

I have carefully and thoroughly explored the different principles of how_ all_ music is produced, according to tonality and other ways.

Queries relating to social issues, of whether who likes what, and why, are irrelevant to me, because I believe more strongly than ever that music is not, for me, a social, but a solitary pursuit of the individual, in order to pursue metaphysical goals. The other stuff comes after.

If other people want to be entertained, then that's fine; If I can entertain them for money, or provide them with music in a consumable form, that's fine for me, but I don't really care what they like, or even if they listen. I create art out of an inner compulsion, which is often at odds with what most people view as music's function for them.

I like music which transcends its ostensible function and purpose, or is produced within such functional institutions, yet transcends that function to become the sincere expression of more profound human concerns.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

PetrB said:


> *ROFLMAO!* .. and by the way, it is perfect.
> 
> Between that left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals and Opus Dei, demons have taken over our pure, good and angelic existences, including the arts.
> 
> *The ********!*


I take credit only for compiling it. It does not contain a single thought that I have not seen or heard expressed in earnest.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

I think it boils down to how people view music's purpose: many think it simply needs to be "pretty," which is of course entirely subjective.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I think it boils down to how people view music's purpose: many think it simply needs to be "pretty," which is of course entirely subjective.


So how does that 'subjective' judgement work? As we've seen, that leads to hostility and counter-reaction and to being stigmatized for liking the wrong kind of music in forums like this.

Objectively, there hasn't been any law against liking degenerate music since WWII, has there? And those Beatle record-burnings in the South were way back in 1965, as I recall. And only in Iran was music illegal, unless they've changed that since the Ayatolla Komenhi.

Personally, I don't think anybody has any business "viewing music's purpose."

Music is free territory. They can view *"their purpose for music"* if they want, as long as they leave me out of it.


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## Yardrax (Apr 29, 2013)

Is it really appropriate to talk about dissonance when discussing twelve tone music or other kinds of music made without reference to a tonal center? Dissonances are usually tones which need to be resolved into consonances, but in music which doesn't have a tonal center there's no need for harmonic resolution. 'Dissonance' in this case just seems to be a psychological description of sounds which the listener doesn't perceive as nice.

For the record, not less than a couple of months ago I was also filed under the category of not knowing and being slightly intimidated by contemporary classical music but after spending a bit of time with the composers and pieces recommended in Tom Service's guide to contemporary classical music plus the Second Viennese school and some other obvious modern picks I find it's not as intimidating as it seems, and a lot less homogenous as well.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I deeply love music, period: from Chant to Xenakis and beyond and all in between. My first stereo, acquired in the 6th grade had a demo record with excerpts from numerous composers and I remember particularly Beethoven and Stravinsky. This will sound stupid, but I didn't equate the difference in style with a difference in time - I really thought Beethoven and Stravinsky probably had a beer together once in a while. I don't say this is a superior position - we are free to focus our listening to that music that brings us the most joy. I love Mahler, hugely, but find him capable of making me sad far more deeply and easily than any music of the 2nd Viennese School. In fact, tonal music plays upon my emotions more readily than atonal - so maybe I listen to atonal with the left ear and tonal with the right ear. dunno.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Yardrax said:


> Is it really appropriate to talk about dissonance when discussing twelve tone music or other kinds of music made without reference to a tonal center? Dissonances are usually tones which need to be resolved into consonances, but in music which doesn't have a tonal center there's no need for harmonic resolution. 'Dissonance' in this case just seems to be a psychological description of sounds which the listener doesn't perceive as nice.
> 
> For the record, not less than a couple of months ago I was also filed under the category of not knowing and being slightly intimidated by contemporary classical music but after spending a bit of time with the composers and pieces recommended in Tom Service's guide to contemporary classical music plus the Second Viennese school and some other obvious modern picks I find it's not as intimidating as it seems, and a lot less homogenous as well.


I believe that when most people describe music as dissonant their reference point is all the music they have been brought up with. In other words from nursery rhymes through popular songs, TV and film music, jingles as well as tonal classical music.
It is perfectly natural in this case, to refer to twelve tone music as more dissonant than Handel or Debussy.

You are right that familiarity is the first step to understanding. Whether or not that leads to appreciation or love, depends on the listener.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I am, but Henze once said that things that deviate from the norm are beautiful. There is a lot of atonal music out there that I love.


Of course!. Tonal music is the natural order, but since we actually find beautiful the things that deviate from the norm, we then find atonal music beautiful. We love atonal music so much that sometimes we think it's embedded in the natural order of the universe... uh, wait...


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2013)

Yardrax said:


> Is it really appropriate to talk about dissonance when discussing twelve tone music or other kinds of music made without reference to a tonal center?


Not really. I've been beating this drum since 2007. Hasn't done a scrap of good. Thing is, most people use the word "dissonant" to mean "discordant" or even just "unpleasant sounding." Pleasant and unpleasant being well, you know.



Yardrax said:


> it's not as intimidating as it seems, and a lot less homogenous as well.


BINGO!


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

Kontrapunctus said:


> I think it boils down to how people view music's purpose: many think it simply needs to be "pretty," which is of course entirely subjective.


Seems to me in your case, music's purpose, judging by your signature, is to make your hi fi system sound good! (joke)


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

A quick comment. I had no thought of creating a thread that would either be taken seriously, or would engender serious discussion, as I thought I had signaled by my smiley face. It is just that the other thread with a similar title has been going strong through some 20 pages and I felt a need to express surprise at the longevity of that discussion. I like and dislike lots of music of lots of styles and feel no need to defend it to anyone.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Yardrax said:


> Is it really appropriate to talk about dissonance when discussing twelve tone music or other kinds of music made without reference to a tonal center? Dissonances are usually tones which need to be resolved into consonances, but in music which doesn't have a tonal center there's no need for harmonic resolution. 'Dissonance' in this case just seems to be a psychological description of sounds which the listener doesn't perceive as nice.


Dissonance and consonance are not merely about resolution, but are comparative descriptors. Wherever an interval (expressed as a ratio of two notes) sits on the scale towards "1" is its degree of consonance/dissonance, compared to other intervals, and to unity, or "1."
A 9:8 is more dissonant than a 3:2. A 3:2 is more consonant than a 9:8. Neither interval is inherently consonant or dissonant except in comparison to 1:1, or unity.



> ...but in music which doesn't have a tonal center there's no need for harmonic resolution. 'Dissonance' in this case just seems to be a psychological description of sounds which the listener doesn't perceive as nice.


True, in serial music, notes are not considered as having any resolution, but the intervals in the tone rows, between notes, have a quality of consonance/dissonance, perceived as pure sonority. Webern exploits this, creating areas or movements with preponderances of certain intervals, derived from the row, of course.

As a musician, I crave dissonance. I like minor/major 7th chords, minor ninths with a minor second between the min3 and 9th, Maj 7th chords with a minor second between the 7th and 8th, and things like that.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

What about the "social stigma" and criticism *Shostakovich* received, after his 5th and 7th (Leningrad) symphonies were received well, then the 8th and 9th were castigated publicly for "not being melodic enough" and not being "good examples of Socialist Realism," and being too "individualistic? This seems to me like a "State" policy, an objectification of of the "status quo" argument being put forth _here;_ most people like "pretty" music..._*don't they?

*_Dissonant music, or any music we find unpleasant, should always be allowed to flourish, for those very reasons.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

as others in this thread have already done, I would distinguish between dissonant music, free atonality and serialism.



Mahlerian said:


> Because Schoenberg, who was out to systematically destroy music in 1899 with Verklarte Nacht with his devilish fourth-inversion ninth chords, was an evil man, probably tone-deaf in spite of his perfect pitch, who took a tradition of great beauty and power and, for his own sick intellectual pretensions, systematically dismantled it by his cold, calculated, mechanical processes, removing any hint of the emotion that audiences loved and leaving only hard, cold, dissonance in its place. He removed good triads and replaced them with evil quartal and augmented harmonies that only occasionally look sort of like triads by complete accident, certainly not a matter of design, which is cold and rationally motivated, devoid of personality or feeling. He had no talent to begin with, or he squandered it by smearing the Tristan ink too thick one too many times. The only music that survives is music the audience likes, but a vast left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals has forced this music onto an innocent and unsuspecting public that can see the nudity of this and all other contemporary music emperors at first glance.
> 
> Why _would_ anyone like such a heinous personage as that?


this article by Fred Lehrdal on serialism is less sarcastic but a lot more serious (and really interesting if you ask me):
http://www.bussigel.com/lerdahl/pdf/Cognitive%20Constraints%20on%20Compositional%20Systems.pdf

This is the beginning of the article:

_Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre (1954) was widely hailed as a masterpiece of post-war serialism. *Yet nobody could figure out, much less hear, how the piece was serial*. From hints in Boulez (1963), Koblyakov (1977) at last determined that it was indeed serial, though in an idiosyncratic way. In the interim, listeners made what sense they could of the piece in ways unrelated to its construction. Nor has Koblyakov's decipherment subsequently changed how the piece is heard.... The serial organization of Le Marteau would appear, 30 years later, to be irrelevant. The story is, or should be, disturbing. There is a huge gap here between compostionals system and cognized result. How can this be?
*One might suppose that the impenetrability of Le marteau's serial organization is due to insufficient exposure. After all the piece was innovative: listeners must become accustomed to novel stimuli. Such has been the traditional defence of new art in the face of incomprehension.* (...) 
For one thing, *competent listeners to Le Marteau, even after many hearings, still cannot even begin to hear its serial organization. For many passages they cannot even tell if wrong pitches or rhythms have been played*
_


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> as others in this thread have already done, I would distinguish between dissonant music, free atonality and serialism.


_



Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre (1954) was widely hailed as a masterpiece of post-war serialism. *Yet nobody could...hear... how the piece was serial*.

Click to expand...

It doesn't matter if you "hear how music is serial." That's not the purpose of serial methods, because they are usually procedures which are not perceivable as such, but are used to generate sonic results which *are.
*




Boulez's Le Marteau sans Maitre (1954) was widely hailed as a masterpiece of post-war serialism. *Yet nobody could figure out...how the piece was serial*.

Click to expand...

That's irrelevant also. Boulez was beginning to use methods best described as "free serialism" which did not conform to strict serial row procedures. There was more repetition, reoccurrence of pitch aggregates, etc., than earlier serialism.




From hints in Boulez (1963), Koblyakov (1977) at last determined that it was indeed serial, though in an idiosyncratic way. In the interim, listeners made what sense they could of the piece in ways unrelated to its construction. Nor has Koblyakov's decipherment subsequently changed how the piece is heard.... The serial organization of Le Marteau would appear, 30 years later, to be irrelevant. The story is, or should be, disturbing. There is a huge gap here between compositional system and cognized result. How can this be?

Click to expand...

That's a biased view to say "...The serial organization of Le Marteau would appear...to be irrelevant..." because Boulez is producing music which is not self-evidently revealing in a harmonic sense.

Since tonality's vertical aspects (harmonic) and horizontal aspects (function across time) are both based on hierarchical relations to a tonic note (vertical), or a "I" function (horizontal), its system is more self-evident, perceivable as harmonic, and transparent in meaning, until it begins to become more chromatic.

In this sense, serialism does not intend to exhibit the process by which it is formed; its methods generate material which is, of course, audible, but not necessarily perceivable in terms of its method; nor was it intended to.

*



One might suppose that the impenetrability of Le marteau's serial organization is due to insufficient exposure....

Click to expand...

*



For one thing, *competent listeners to Le Marteau, even after many hearings, still cannot even begin to hear its serial organization. For many passages they cannot even tell if wrong pitches or rhythms have been played...*

Click to expand...

__As I said, you're not supposed to be able to hear or "penetrate" how serial music is generated, because it is largely an opaque process.
_


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> As I said, you're not supposed to be able to hear or "penetrate" how serial music is generated, because it is largely an opaque process.


If it's true, why should a composer use a complex method (a method that impose a lot of constrains) like serialism to avoid tonality if one can't tell if a note of the piece is correct or wrong?

Another extract:

_Cognitive psychology has shown in recent decades that humans structure stimuli in certain ways rather than others. Comprehension takes place when the perceiver is able to assign a precise mental representation to what is pereceived. Not all stimuli, however, facilitate the formation of a mental representation. Comprehension requires a degree of ecological fit between the stimulus and the mental capabilities of the perceiver. Experienced listeners, do not find Le marteau totally incomprehensible, but neither, I would argue, do they assign t oit a detailed mental representation. This is why the details of the piece are hard to learn and why the piece does not in the end feel complex. The serial organization that Koblyakov found is opaque to such structuring._


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> If it's true, why should a composer use a complex method (a method that impose a lot of constrains) like serialism to avoid tonality if one can't tell if a note of the piece is correct or wrong?


The purpose of music composition is to create music, not to produce results which enable you to tell if a note of the piece is correct or wrong.

It's also because the way you tell if a note is 'correct or wrong' in tonality is because its structures are based largely on harmonic principles which are audible harmonically.

In serialism, the results of the process are, of course, audible, as all music is, but the audible result is not based on (generated from) harmonically audible procedures. The procedures in serialism are mostlly based on permutations and structures of note sets, which are not inherently based on (generated from) audible principles.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> The question is too simplistic to address. Sorry.


I don't think it's simplistic. It's simple: why use a system if a listener can't tell if any note, right or wrong is consistent with that system.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

norman bates said:


> I don't think it's simplistic. It's simple: why use a system if a listener can't tell if any note, right or wrong is consistent with that system.


See edited post for simple answer.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Music is part of the quadrivium. It must be frustrating for musical literalists to see that music can be created from principles other than the senses.

It's like radio telescopes. They just use the spectral data to discover stars. 

"You mean I don't get to see the star? WAHHH!" :lol:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> The purpose of music composition is to create music, not to produce results which enable you to tell if a note of the piece is correct or wrong.


I disagree. The purpose of music composition in my opinion is to create emotion, as in any form of art. It implies that who compose and who listen have to share a code. But when you have a code that can't be deciphered as such it's like to read a book in japanese without knowing the language.



millionrainbows said:


> It's also because the way you tell if a note is 'correct or wrong' in tonality is because its structures are based largely on harmonic principles which are audible harmonically.
> 
> *In serialism, the results of the process are, of course, audible*, as all music is, but the audible result is not based on (generated from) harmonically audible procedures. The procedures in serialism are mostlly based on permutations and structures of note sets, which are not inherently based on (generated from) audible principles.


I'm not sure that those procedures are audible as you say. I definitely can't distinguish them (edit: I can't distinguish them even in Bach's music, but in that case at least the harmony is perfectly understandable), and I'm an ignorant, but it seems that even Lehrdal who theaches composition at the Columbia university can't...

I was forgetting, radio telescopes are not art.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

People just don't understand why Composers hit wrong notes on purpose. lol


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> For one thing, *competent listeners to Le Marteau, even after many hearings, still cannot even begin to hear its serial organization. For many passages they cannot even tell if wrong pitches or rhythms have been played*
> [/I]


I have listened to this work many times, and I cannot distinguish its serial organization. However, that does not make the statements that follow true.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7JIAVneYYoM#t=130s

One of these videos, the rhythm of the opening bar is more or less correct. The other, it is wrong. There's supposed to be something happening on every eighth note of the first bar (in various instruments), but in one of these, it seems entirely disorganized. Is it really hard for people to tell which?

Furthermore, the melodic organization is like Webern. You can anticipate the correct pitch class if you know the melodies of the movements well enough, but not necessarily the range or instrument in which it will appear.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> People just don't understand why Composers hit wrong notes on purpose. lol


Why would they indeed?

Maybe they don't, and you're not adding anything to this thread whatsoever.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Something that I find very frustrating is that you often hear certain people say that those who like more, for lack of a better word, _avant-garde_* type stuff only profess to do so to seem cool or smart or something. Like they can see into the hearts of such people and just _know_ that they don't _really_ like it, they just pretend to in order to project a certain image of themselves. It happens in visual arts, film, literature, you-name-it. And it's just flat-out wrong. I don't know why some people can't understand that someone else's tastes might actually be different from theirs.

I think there's a resentment and even some insecurity in this attitude. Some people seem honestly _upset_ when others like music that they don't. And this just will not do!

*Though maybe "avant-garde" isn't the right word for way of making music that's 100 years old or more.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Why would they indeed?
> 
> Maybe they don't, and you're not adding anything to this thread whatsoever.


I was just making a point that awkward notes is why people don't understand atonal notes. That does add to the thread. Maybe not something you agree with but still adding to the thread.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

neoshredder said:


> I was just making a point that awkward notes is why people don't understand atonal notes. That does add to the thread. Maybe not something you agree with but still adding to the thread.


How could you be making such a point if you didn't say this? You said the notes were "wrong", which implies that they are factually out of place, which is not true. Now you have softened this to "awkward", which still implies an objective value judgement.

I don't care whether you like the music or not, but the notes are not wrong. Many composers did tend to emphasize wide leaps (especially major 7ths and minor 9ths), but these can be found in pre-20th century composers as well, and nothing about such leaps implies non-tonal relations (the widest leap I've ever come across was in Beethoven, not Schoenberg or Boulez).


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Well wrong is more emphatic. And to many people, awkward and chaotic sounds wrong to them. And it's a series of notes that seem out of place more than just one interval jump that get people to feel this is weird. Like if I just hit 3 random notes on a piano, it will likely seem weird. That's the vibe many get from Atonal music.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

Yes, people should accept that others enjoy truly dissonant and atonal music.
However, these atonal music lovers should also accept that to most listeners, it is difficult to get to grips with, and so should not see someone's stating that they "don't enjoy atonal music" as an opportunity to rant about how "it's just the same as other music" (in surface accessibility).
I'm not referring to anyone in particular, it's just the general attitude I get sometimes (not always).


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> Originally Posted by millionrainbows
> The purpose of music composition is to create music, not to produce results which enable you to tell if a note of the piece is correct or wrong.





norman bates said:


> I disagree. The purpose of music composition in my opinion is to create emotion, as in any form of art. It implies that who compose and who listen have to share a code. But when you have a code that can't be deciphered as such it's like to read a book in japanese without knowing the language.


This whole line of inquiry is flawed, for several reasons. The questions asked about serial music seem intended to question its validity; that's because the questions asked are assuming inappropriate criteria (why can't I hear wrong notes, etc.)



norman bates said:


> I'm not sure that those procedures are audible as you say. I definitely can't distinguish them (edit: I can't distinguish them even in Bach's music, but in that case at least the harmony is perfectly understandable), and I'm an ignorant, but it seems that even Lehrdal who theaches composition at the Columbia university can't...


I didn't say that _the procedures themselves are audible in serial music;_ only that _the results of those procedures are,_ as all music is audible.

If you knew what you were listening to, and had names for it, and some training, you'd be able to hear when Bach uses a V7 chord. Tonality is self-evident; V7 chords do not occur except as the fifth-degree step of the key. This is heard as a certain kind of relation within a key area. You probably understand it intuitively, but can't articulate it.

Bearing this in mind, those who cannot articulate in musical terms have very little credibility to criticize serial music, or to question its validity.

Even intuitively, this is a ridiculous line of inquiry. That's like asking why, in a Jackson Pollock "drip-field" painting, one cannot see 'recognizable figures.' _Hey, get with the program, dude; this is abstract art!_



norman bates said:


> I was forgetting, radio telescopes are not art.


Like I said, Milton Babbitt and other serialists see music's connection to number and set. Music is part of the quadrivium. It must be frustrating for musical literalists to see that music can be created from principles other than the senses.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

apricissimus said:


> Something that I find very frustrating is that you often hear certain people say that those who like more..._avant-garde _type stuff _only profess to do so to seem cool or smart or something. _
> 
> Like they can see into the hearts of such people and just _know_ that they don't _really_ like it, they just pretend to in order to project a certain image of themselves. It happens in visual arts, film, literature, you-name-it. And it's just flat-out wrong. I don't know why some people can't understand that someone else's tastes might actually be different from theirs.
> 
> I think there's a resentment and even some insecurity in this attitude. Some people seem honestly _upset_ when others like music that they don't. And this just will not do!.


I agree totally. I really like this music! I don't care if they like it or not, but when they start saying "it's unlikable music" for whatever reasons, they are setting themselves up to be seen as "uninformed."

I think Stockhausen's _Klavierstücke_ and his Zeitmasse are beautiful, as is Cage's _Concert for Piano and Orchestra,_ the Sonatas and Interludes, all of Morton Feldman's music...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schuberkovich said:


> Yes, people should accept that others enjoy truly dissonant and atonal music.
> However, these atonal music lovers should also accept that to most listeners, it is difficult to get to grips with, and so should not see someone's stating that they "don't enjoy atonal music" as an opportunity to rant about how "it's just the same as other music" (in surface accessibility).
> I'm not referring to anyone in particular, it's just the general attitude I get sometimes (not always).


But there is less accessible tonal music as well. Why single out a whole swath of music for its supposed difficulty when there is music that is equally difficult elsewhere?

Furthermore, there is no justification to single out "atonal music" when people disagree as to what is and is not "atonal". How can you say "Atonal music is...." when you don't have any clear or distinct ideas about what the supposed attribute implies?


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2013)

schuberkovich said:


> Yes, people should accept that others enjoy truly dissonant and atonal music.
> However, these atonal music lovers should also accept that to most listeners, it is difficult to get to grips with, and so should not see someone's stating that they "don't enjoy atonal music" as an opportunity to rant about how "it's just the same as other music" (in surface accessibility).
> I'm not referring to anyone in particular, it's just the general attitude I get sometimes (not always).


Here is the clearest and most complete indication of what goes wrong with these conversations.

Never leaving the highest of high levels of generality.

How can we possibly talk about anything with any precision when everything is so general?

Names. Pieces. Specifics.

Enough of the vague bovine excrement about "atonal music lovers" or "most listeners" or "atonal music" or "general attitudes." Let's justify those generalities with some specifics for a change. Which pieces has Listener A heard? What were they like? Has Listener B, agreeing with the harsh criticisms of the vague "atonal music," heard the same pieces? Or is agreement between these two, ideologically, based purely on the fact that at such a high level of generality, neither of them really knows what the other is talking about. It's pretty easy to imagine Listener A hearing Berio's _Visages_ and Ashley's _Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon_ and Stockhausen's _Klavierstück X_ and saying "Ew. I hate this atonal crap," and Listener B, who has heard Britten's _Four Sea Interludes_ from _Peter Grimes_ and Bartók's _Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta_ and Berg's violin concerto agreeing wholeheartedly.

Here's a vague target: atonal music. Shoot an arrow at it. SCORE!!! Wow. That was even easier than the proverbial broad side of a barn. At least that's a tangible target, with distinct boundaries. "Atonal" could be practically anything. Ya can't miss!

And that, of course, is the lure of this particular sport. You can even have heard no "atonal" music at all, ever, and still play. And not only still play, but score (or have the ever intact illusion that you have scored) every time.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> This whole line of inquiry is flawed, for several reasons. The questions asked about serial music seem intended to question its validity; that's because the questions asked are assuming inappropriate criteria (why can't I hear wrong notes, etc.)


Again, I don't see where's the problem in the question. Why use a complex method like serialism if one can't distinguish it from free atonalism?



millionrainbows said:


> I didn't say that _the procedures themselves are audible in serial music;_ only that _the results of those procedures are,_ as all music is audible.
> 
> If you knew what you were listening to, and had names for it, and some training, you'd be able to hear when Bach uses a V7 chord. Tonality is self-evident; V7 chords do not occur except as the fifth-degree step of the key. This is heard as a certain kind of relation within a key area. You probably understand it intuitively, but can't articulate it.


when I was talking of Bach, I was thinking of this kind of procedures 







millionrainbows said:


> Bearing this in mind, those who cannot articulate in musical terms have very little credibility to criticize serial music, or to question its validity.


I'm sorry to repeat the same thing but Lehrdal teaches composition at the Columbia university...



millionrainbows said:


> Like I said, Milton Babbitt and other serialists see music's connection to number and set. Music is part of the quadrivium. It must be frustrating for musical literalists to see that music can be created from principles other than the senses.


to me the pretense of Babbitt was absurd. If I remember well he pretended that composers should be criticized only by people who have a very advanced knowledge of music (theory, harmony) like they were scientists. Imagine a chef making a similar pretension. "Hey you can't say that my cuisine is not good because it's very complex and you are ignorant" 
Art is not just science and even at his most complex has to be understandable even by those who know absolutely nothing about music or it's failing. And this does not means in any way that a composer has to limit in any way the complexity of his music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> Again, I don't see where's the problem in the question. Why use a complex method like serialism if one can't distinguish it from free atonalism?


Because the method is not the point. (For the first time in a while millionrainbows and I are agreeing again here.)

The serialist method helps a composer to structure the material in his/her piece. In "free atonal" music, the composer has to work very hard to create structure without some of the more familiar signposts (such as V-I cadences), and this proved difficult to work with over long stretches without a text or some other aid. The 12-tone method which later evolved into serialism helps to keep things on track in this new chromatic world.



norman bates said:


> *Art is not just science* and even at his most complex has to be understandable even by those who know absolutely nothing about music or it's failing. And this does not means in any way that a composer has to limit in any way the complexity of his music.


I agree with the portion in bold, and I do not agree with Babbitt's constant analogies in that direction. However, I doubt that you would agree with the rest of your statement.

Are you really so naive as to believe that Bach's Musical Offering can be understood by people knowing nothing about music? It seems that by "knowing something about music" you mean explicit understanding of its theoretical basis, and I argue, and have argued in the past, that there is no need for the listener to modernist music to have any such understanding. As with my love of non-modernist music, the love preceded any knowledge of theory.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> But there is less accessible tonal music as well. Why single out a whole swath of music for its supposed difficulty when there is music that is equally difficult elsewhere?
> 
> Furthermore, there is no justification to single out "atonal music" when people disagree as to what is and is not "atonal". How can you say "Atonal music is...." when you don't have any clear or distinct ideas about what the supposed attribute implies?


Well, the OP and title actually single out "dissonant/atonal" music. I adopted this generalisation to fit what the thread appeared to concern. In the same way, there is no justification for you to say that there is less accessible tonal music. If people disagree as to what is atonal, then they must disagree as to what is tonal so... don't be a hypocrite.

I accept there is more difficult "tonal" music but as a general rule, those who are more used to listening to music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (which I would assume is the majority of classical music listeners) will find something with a tonal centre easier to appreciate than 12-tone music.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Mahlerian said:


> Are you really so naive as to believe that Bach's Musical Offering can be understood by people knowing nothing about music?


My question is if an expert listener could recognize a procedure like the one employed in the video just listening to it. I know I can't, but I'm not a particularly expert listener.



Mahlerian said:


> It seems that by "knowing something about music" you mean explicit understanding of its theoretical basis, and I argue, and have argued in the past,* that there is no need for the listener to modernist music to have any such understanding*.


I think I was saying exactly the same thing...


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

some guy said:


> Here is the clearest and most complete indication of what goes wrong with these conversations.
> 
> Never leaving the highest of high levels of generality.
> 
> ...


First, calm down.
Second: let's give examples. Suppose Listener A (let's call him Andrew) enjoys classical music. His favourite composers are those generally considered the greatest - Bach, Mozart and Beethoven - decidedly tonal composers. He enjoys a lot of their music, but some things he finds more difficult (e.g. Beethoven's Grosse Fugue). However, one day he hears Boulez's second piano sonata, a very modern 12-tone piece. He finds it very difficult to handle - it, compared to Bach, may *initially* seem like "random sounds". This is why I used the term "surface accesibility".


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schuberkovich said:


> Well, the OP and title actually single out "dissonant/atonal" music. I adopted this generalisation to fit what the thread appeared to concern. In the same way, there is no justification for you to say that there is less accessible tonal music. If people disagree as to what is atonal, then they must disagree as to what is tonal so... don't be a hypocrite.


There are things that everyone agrees are tonal. There is nothing (aside, perhaps, from some unpitched percussion pieces) that everyone agrees is atonal.

The following is tonal, by any definition. The piece is written with a key signature, includes conventional cadences, and so forth. But would most people find it difficult? I think so.







schuberkovich said:


> I accept there is more difficult "tonal" music but as a general rule, those who are more used to listening to music from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (which I would assume is the majority of classical music listeners) will find something with a tonal centre easier to appreciate than 12-tone music.


I hear tonal centers in all of Schoenberg and Berg, as well as occasionally in Webern. There are pieces by Debussy, Stravinsky, Messiaen, and others where tonal centers are established only by emphasis and repetition (not by cadential formulae or functional harmonic progression).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

norman bates said:


> My question is if an expert listener could recognize a procedure like the one employed in the video just listening to it. I know I can't, but I'm not a particularly expert listener.


Oh, you mean crab canon? Perhaps some, but not most.



norman bates said:


> I think I was saying exactly the same thing...


Perhaps, but you seemed to be claiming that serial music would require a listener to have theoretical knowledge for enjoyment, which is not true.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> There are things that everyone agrees are tonal. There is nothing (aside, perhaps, from some unpitched percussion pieces) that everyone agrees is atonal.
> 
> The following is tonal, by any definition. The piece is written with a key signature, includes conventional cadences, and so forth. But would most people find it difficult? I think so.


OK, so if no one can agree that anything is atonal, then what is this thread asking?
Would most people not think this atonal? 






> I hear tonal centers in all of Schoenberg and Berg, as well as occasionally in Webern. There are pieces by Debussy, Stravinsky, Messiaen, and others where tonal centers are established only by emphasis and repetition (not by cadential formulae or functional harmonic progression).


Well done, you can hear the tonal centres. But when I mention "surface accessibility" for most listeners, do you think they listen to Schoenberg's Piano Concerto and hear implied G flat minor V9 chords or whatever. No.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

With a lot of atonal music I don't try to pay attention to actual pitches, more like a general contour and also I listen out to more things like tone colours and rhythms. The music of the second Viennese school is very melodic and contrapuntal and the melodies are easier to pick out. Later in the 20th century composers do more interesting things with the _other_ components of music so I tend to focus on those instead.

My view is that pitch is merely a medium in which tone colour, rhythm, etc. can be explored. Have a look at how klangfarbenmelodie came to be! And even Schoenberg's string quartet no. 3 uses a lot of interesting rhythmic motifs to listen to! It isn't all about the pitches!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schuberkovich said:


> OK, so if no one can agree that anything is atonal, then what is this thread asking?
> Would most people not think this atonal?


This thread (as I interpret it) is referring to things that have been called atonal, which I take as meaning a chromatic type of music that does not adhere to functional tonality. Under that definition, Boulez's work is atonal. However, if atonal is understood as "random notes", "constant dissonance without resolution", or "lacking any gravitational pull towards a note whatsoever", as it is by some, then I do not hear the work as atonal (although I'd like a better recording without such an obscene amount of echo, which destroys the delicate sonority of the piece).



schuberkovich said:


> Well done, you can hear the tonal centres. But when I mention "surface accessibility" for most listeners, do you think they listen to Schoenberg's Piano Concerto and hear implied G flat minor V9 chords or whatever. No.


I doubt most people hear these things when they listen to unquestionably tonal music.

But as a matter of fact, the ending of the Schoenberg concerto is in an implied C major.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Beats me*



GGluek said:


> Beats me. Is it really worth discussion?


Beats me too.

I enjoy some dissonant/atonal music.

The only comment that I can add is that I have read an awful lot of anti-dissonant/atonal music rhetoric. So far I have read nothing that convinces me that I should burn my collection of Elliott Carter CD's. Ironically some of the the anti rhetoric has introduced me to some new dissonant/atonal music that I now enjoy.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

> This thread (as I interpret it) is referring to *things that have been called atonal, which I take as meaning a chromatic type of music that does not adhere to functional tonality*. Under that definition, Boulez's work is atonal. However, if atonal is understood as "random notes", "constant dissonance without resolution", or "lacking any gravitational pull towards a note whatsoever", as it is by some, then I do not hear the work as atonal (although I'd like a better recording without such an obscene amount of echo, which destroys the delicate sonority of the piece).


This is what I meant by atonal music as well. Seeing as we both agree on this, I see no need for this comment:


> Furthermore, there is no justification to single out "atonal music" when people disagree as to what is and is not "atonal". How can you say "Atonal music is...." when you don't have any clear or distinct ideas about what the supposed attribute implies?


I'm glad that's sorted.



> I doubt most people hear these things when they listen to unquestionably tonal music.


They may not know that what is actually going on theoretically in terms of cadences, but I bet they notice and can tell that the piece sounds finished. In this example, most people would notice the feeling of the way this piece ends 



 without knowing that it is in fact a V7 I progression.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Music that goes on and on and on......*



schuberkovich said:


> They may not know that what is actually going on theoretically in terms of cadences, but I bet they notice and can tell that the piece sounds finished. In this example, most people would notice the feeling of the way this piece ends
> 
> 
> 
> without knowing that it is in fact a V7 I progression.


Your statement reminded me of an experience I had with the noted American band composer W. Francis McBeth. He was a guest conductor with our community band a few years ago. He stated that he was happy that he lived long enough to see the death of communism and the 12-tone system. Macbeth and I got into some good nature ribbing over Webern. I told him how I would like to play Webern's VARIATIONS on my CD player, set in repeat mode, and unless you hear that little wherrr, you could not tell when the piece ended. He then felt my head for a fever and my wrist for a pulse.

(Note: McBeth would on occasion employ some modernistic techniques in his music. In one of his pieces we performed, _Of Sailors and Whales_, there were aleatoric sections.)


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schuberkovich said:


> This is what I meant by atonal music as well. Seeing as we both agree on this, I see no need for this comment:
> 
> I'm glad that's sorted.


There are many who disagree with those boundaries. I personally don't believe the word atonal is meaningful as long as it does not apply to all non-functional (and non-modal) music, regardless of the level of chromaticism.



schuberkovich said:


> They may not know that what is actually going on theoretically in terms of cadences, but I bet they notice and can tell that the piece sounds finished. In this example, most people would notice the feeling of the way this piece ends
> 
> 
> 
> without knowing that it is in fact a V7 I progression.


But is this because of inherent acoustic reality or convention? I know people who cannot recognize the end of a complex symphonic movement, and simply feel that it comes to a stop. This is not their fault; they simply are not familiar enough with the formulae that such endings employ to recognize their usage.

I know for my part that when I become familiar with an idiom, the endings of movements/pieces begin to seem more inevitable than before.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> But is this because of inherent acoustic reality or convention? I know people who cannot recognize the end of a complex symphonic movement, and simply feel that it comes to a stop. This is not their fault; they simply are not familiar enough with the formulae that such endings employ to recognize their usage.


That's interesting. Are you sure that this person you know wouldn't at least be able to sense the fact that the prelude was drawing to a kind of final resolution?
If then this recognising of basic cadences is due to familiarity and exposure, then it aids my argument that those who are used to them in most classical music would find 12-tone music (created deliberately to avoid such tonal elements) more difficult, as they are not used to it.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2013)

Well, there are people who partake in online discussions of music who are sincerely and passionately interested in listening to music and who like to hear what others have to say about their passion.

And there are people who like to win arguments.

I think it's pretty easy to tell the two apart. It's less easy to disengage from an interesting discussion when the argument winners weigh in. Be nice if everyone really loved music. But then again, if wishes were wings....

And I, for one, don't think flying pigs at all a good idea.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

schuberkovich said:


> That's interesting. Are you sure that this person you know wouldn't at least be able to sense the fact that the prelude was drawing to a kind of final resolution?


I can't get inside anybody's mind, but possibly not.



schuberkovich said:


> If then this recognising of basic cadences is due to familiarity and exposure, then it aids my argument that those who are used to them in most classical music would find 12-tone music (created deliberately to avoid such tonal elements) more difficult, as they are not used to it.


12-tone music was not created to deliberately avoid cadences and other tonal elements (as I have said, they pop up in much of it, and not usually by accident). It was created to organize the complexities of "free atonality" into a more workable form.


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

some guy said:


> Well, there are people who partake in online discussions of music who are sincerely and passionately interested in listening to music and who like to hear what others have to say about their passion.
> 
> And there are people who like to win arguments.
> 
> ...


I can't tell if this a reply to my post.
If it is, it does not seem like you're trying to win an argument seeing as you completely ignored everything I wrote.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> There is an ongoing disagreement / debate in the culinary world: White Chocalate is made from the fat extracted from cacoa beans -- the argument is, Ergo, white chocolate is not actually chocolate


Gosh I thought they just added colour, life is full of little tricks


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2013)

Petwhac said:


> Seems to me in your case, music's purpose, judging by your signature, is to make your hi fi system sound good! (joke)


Haha, well, I assure you it's quite the opposite. There are people who buy recorded music to listen to their audio systems, though.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> Originally Posted by schuberkovich
> If then this recognising of basic cadences is due to familiarity and exposure, then it aids my argument that those who are used to them in most classical music would find 12-tone music (created deliberately to avoid such tonal elements) more difficult, as they are not used to it.





Mahlerian said:


> 12-tone music was not created to deliberately avoid cadences and other tonal elements (as I have said, they pop up in much of it, and not usually by accident). It was created to organize the complexities of "free atonality" into a more workable form.


With "free atonality," ordered sets do not have to be used. Pitch cells, hexads, pentads, and other subsets of the chromatic set can be used in unordered fashion, as "note indexes" or scales. These can be hierarchical, and can relate to local or temporary tone-centers or areas of tone centricity.

With 12-tone rows, the rows are ordered, thus avoiding the repetition of any note until all 12 have occurred.

Whether or not one wishes to argue the point, the net result of ordered 12-note rows is the avoidance of the establishment of a tonal center.

"Free atonality" had already been using the 12 chromatic notes as a starting point, was dividing the octave at the tritone (thus avoiding 4ths and 5ths), was using pitch-cells, principles of symmetry and inversion, and many other "complexity-organizing" principles.

"Free atonality" did not need Schoenberg's method to organize itself. Bartok is ample proof of that, as well as many other composers who rejected the 12-tone system: Panufnik, Elliot Carter, Roger Sessions, etc.

While Schoenberg may have thought that he was "extending" or serving tonality, or organizing "free" atonality, his ordered rows cross a borderline that can not ultimately be honestly reconciled with any form of chromaticism or "free atonality."

Ordered sets are not only "atonal" or non-tonal in the horizontal sense, but they are at the same time "non-harmonic" in the vertical sense, because the ordered row removes all vertical correspondence with the horizontal dimension.

While "free atonality" was able to deal with this vertical/harmonic aspect in many ways, using unordered sets and divisions/symmetries of the chromatic set, local pitch-centers, etc, Schoenberg and serialism basically removed all possibility of this vertical aspect being "structurally inherent" in the row.

The best we can hope for in 12-tone and serial music is "sonorous areas of interval similarity," which the ear might pick up as a horizontal comparision, as we do functions in tonality. Other than that, the purpose of serial rows is structural in a non-harmonic sense.

Therefore, I feel it is misleading to suggest that Schoenberg's 12-tone method is best seen as an extension or "aid" to other forms of harmonically-based music, even if Schoenberg himself thought this.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Therefore, I feel it is misleading to suggest that Schoenberg's 12-tone method is best seen as an extension or "aid" to other forms of harmonically-based music, even if Schoenberg himself thought this.


Quite right! he did not know what he was talking about.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> millions said: Therefore, I feel it is misleading to suggest that Schoenberg's 12-tone method is best seen as an extension or "aid" to other forms of harmonically-based music, even if Schoenberg himself thought this.





Andante said:


> Quite right! he did not know what he was talking about.


Is that sarcasm?

Boulez would agree with me, and his essay "Schoenberg est morte" goes into the details.

Neither I, nor Boulez, believe that Schoenberg used his 12-tone system "by itself" on its own inherent strengths without reference to Brahmsian rhetoric, tonal mechanisms, horses stuffed into suitcases, etc.

I think that Webern had a better grasp, actually, of what the system's implications were, and these were not "imitations of tonality" or "cadential-sounding" mock-ups.


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Is that sarcasm?
> 
> Boulez would agree with me, and his essay "Schoenberg est morte" goes into the details.
> 
> ...


Only a little bit, but as I know nothing about your qualifications I am surprised that you seem to put your self on the same level as Boulez in which case we are all out classed.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> "Schoenberg est morte"


For a second I thought that said "Schoenberg est merde," it would be quite a surprise if Boulez said that! :lol:


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## Yardrax (Apr 29, 2013)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> For a second I thought that said "Schoenberg est merde," it would be quite a surprise if Boulez said that! :lol:


It really wouldn't be a surprise at all. Boulez was ambivalent about Schoenberg in his younger years and has a track record of making inflammatory statements. Some people saw 'Schoenberg is dead' as deliberately provocative since it was an article criticising Schoenberg's traditionalist leanings released quite soon after his death.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andante said:


> Only a little bit, but as I know nothing about your qualifications I am surprised that you seem to put your self on the same level as Boulez in which case we are all out classed.


I'm not "putting myself on the same level as Boulez, in which case you are all out classed." 
I read Boulez' book _Notations_ and the _"Schoenberg est morte"_ essay is common knowledge.

If you feel unqualified or "outclassed" in a discussion, then it's your job to inform yourself to change it.

Otherwise, if you don't care to do the work, these types of observation amount to nothing more than subtle personal jabs.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> For a second I thought that said "Schoenberg est merde," it would be quite a surprise if Boulez said that! :lol:


Yeah! Ha ha!...harumph....


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## schuberkovich (Apr 7, 2013)

"Schoenberg est mort*e*" implies that Schoenberg was female...


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## RussianIvan (Jun 30, 2013)

I do not think, that people have completely no understanding of dissonant or atonal music. It is widely used in soundtracks for almost every movie. Stanley Kubrik's movies are quite popular, but several of them use music from quite "difficult" XXth century composers: e.g. in his famous "Shining" he utilized music by Bartok and Penderecky, "Eyes wide shut" and "Space oddysey" used music by Ligety. And soundtrack for the classical blockbuster "Planet of the apes" is even somewhat close to Xenakis - and I've never heard enyone complaining about it.
Yet, of course, heavily dissonant sections of music are generally understood as "scary", or "unnatural", or "ethreal".

Avante-garde composers like Webern probably intended their kind of music to become more mainstream in time. But it can't happen, world can't be populated only with intellectuals (and even among them lovers of atonal music are not so frequent . 

But good tonal music is also not so well percieved. Most people will not listen to WTC more, than for 2-3 minutes. Yet there are tons of guys listening to, I don't know, dubstep, grindcore and so on. These styles use very unconventional sounds but... I can't listen to this. It is too boring.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Is that sarcasm?
> 
> Boulez would agree with me, and his essay "Schoenberg est morte" goes into the details.
> 
> ...


Actually, Boulez disagrees with you, at least as far as whether or not the system was an extension of the old order:
http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1034&Itemid=748&lang=en

_In Schoenberg's case I am still fascinated by only one relatively short, but important period [i.e. freely atonal, 1909-1921] - though I hasten to add that *this includes almost all the chief discoveries of the twentieth century*, which have had an influence on music that cannot be gainsaid._

_Still, however, as before, the whole process of composition rests on the endless flow of motives and motivic principles and the play of predominant intervals. Invention expands in an anarchical efflorescence troubled by no scruples of economy. It becomes, on the other hand, the central reflecting point in *the subsequent transition towards a final codification of the language.* The lava cools and we find ourselves facing a crystallization, or geometrization, of forms, a verification of the constituents of the musical organism, a classification of methods and an inventory of the means available._

He criticizes the later works, but not because of their latent tonal leanings, but rather because of their adherence to the old forms. And in spite of that he has conducted and continues to conduct many of those works he calls "ephemeral" in the above-linked article.

For a different view, in response to Boulez, more or less:
http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1036&Itemid=750&lang=en

Edit:http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/14/a...e-to-make-converts.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Another Boulez quote:
_He has somewhat more sympathy for the Neo-Classical works of Schoenberg. ''At his core,'' he said, ''Schoenberg is at least a real Neo-Classicist who tries to be integrated with the tradition.''_


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## Guest (Jun 30, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm not "putting myself on the same level as Boulez, .


You are, the very way that you word your post e,g "*Boulez would agree with me*" suggests you are equals. has Boulez heard of you?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andante said:


> You are, the very way that you word your post e,g "*Boulez would agree with me*" suggests you are equals. has Boulez heard of you?


No, but I have always admired your rabbit. Hey Mahlerian! OK, you win!


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## Guest (Jul 1, 2013)

Covet ye not your neighbors *** or any of her possessions or my ***** (it is not a Rabbit) actually I am on your side so don't give up

*My edit* The asterisks automatically replaced the popular name for my pet Cat  which is my signature.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

schuberkovich said:


> "Schoenberg est mort*e*" implies that Schoenberg was female...


Another "other" for the Female Composer thread poll..........


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I take credit only for compiling it. It does not contain a single thought that I have not seen or heard expressed in earnest.





Mahlerian said:


> *Because Schoenberg, who was out to systematically destroy music in 1899 with Verklarte Nacht* with his devilish fourth-inversion ninth chords, was an evil man, probably tone-deaf in spite of his perfect pitch, who took a tradition of great beauty and power and, for his own sick intellectual pretensions, systematically dismantled it by his cold, calculated, mechanical processes, removing any hint of the emotion that audiences loved and leaving only hard, cold, dissonance in its place. He removed good triads and replaced them with evil quartal and augmented harmonies that only occasionally look sort of like triads by complete accident, certainly not a matter of design, which is cold and rationally motivated, devoid of personality or feeling. He had no talent to begin with, or he squandered it by smearing the Tristan ink too thick one too many times. The only music that survives is music the audience likes, but a vast left-wing conspiracy of academics and intellectuals has forced this music onto an innocent and unsuspecting public that can see the nudity of this and all other contemporary music emperors at first glance.
> 
> Why _would_ anyone like such a heinous personage as that?


_Please_ tell me that this opening bit includes some artistic license...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Geo Dude said:


> _Please_ tell me that this opening bit includes some artistic license...


Not really...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1HXUC...e=UTF8&ASIN=B00000DBV6&linkCode=&nodeID=&tag=

I've also seen Verklarte Nacht referred to as atonal:





"Verklärte Nacht certainly not twelve tone but touches upon atonal music. The piece does not have a tonal center which is probably why some people might think it to be twelve tone, but don't let that throw you away from this composition which is brilliant and emotional."

The other thing that I drew upon for that opening was the "Tristan score smeared before the ink was dry" comment that referred to Op. 4.


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## Geo Dude (May 22, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Not really...


...Why am I not surprised that the first thing you linked to is an Amazon review?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Andante said:


> Covet ye not your neighbors *** or any of her possessions or my ***** (it is not a Rabbit) actually I am on your side so don't give up
> 
> *My edit* The asterisks automatically replaced the popular name for my pet Cat  which is my signature.


Well, since you know what I'm referring to, then you, on some level, implicitly recognize that it could easily be interpreted as a rabbit, thus eroding your argument somewhat.

Therefore, your "it's not a rabbit" argument is not 100% water-tight; I have exposed its weakness, its inherent ambiguity.

I have turned what you thought was a defeat into victory; I shall live to expose rabbits again, perhaps on some other distant forum, with other adversaries. This is what it means to be...a hero. _(exits)_


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## Guest (Jul 2, 2013)

Don't leave, million!

It's just a harmless bunny!!


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Don't leave, million!
> 
> It's just a harmless bunny!!


_(returns, stage left) _...and I hold its carcass up for your examination! _(pivots like a rooster, then exits stage left)_


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