# If you're a proponent of all things atonal, or serial: I'm curious why....



## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

This thread has been born out of my disastrous first thread which you can check out if your interested in answering or pointing out my shoddy reasonings here:

http://www.talkclassical.com/33112-so-i-started-new.html

As a result, it got me to wondering why we love the music we do and I'm particularly puzzled by those who champion the composers of these genres (atonal or serialism). If Webern is in your top 5 composers of all time I'd like to know why and where you are coming from in your own musical mind. So please enlighten me as to why you adore this form of music that seems so anti-musical (My God I've gone and done it now)to a large majority of people (not my own feelings I fall somewhere in the middle myself).

Looking forward to it.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

It sends me into paroxysms of ecstasy.

Edit: It's not anti-musical. It is highly and strictly composed and not random or chance (there are some later variations of this type of music that did employ chance and randomness, but I don't prefer those types). We had a thread a few months ago about why we like the musics we do like, and it seems to be that we often prefer things we heard in our youth or early adulthood. There is a great chapter in Daniel Levitin's This is your Brain on Music that discusses this phenomenon in great detail. By the way, I think that the fugue is not so distant a cousin to the tone row, at least insofar as how the notes and the series interplay. And I should add that atonal/serial is not the only kind of music I like: I also adore Beethoven, Bach, etc.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From London in 1855: "...madmen, enemies of music to the knife, who, not born for music, and conscious of their impotence... their being is to prey on the ailing trunk until it becomes putrid and rotten."

Of Wagner and his 'disciples' of course, not the second Viennese school. But hey, if the shoe fits... And they were right about Wagner, weren't they? :lol::lol::lol:


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Webern is one of my favorite composers. His music really appeals to me because of its solid dialectic foundation, but at the same time its very natural and attractive sound-world of timbre, lyricism, motivic variations, concise form and monolithic emotionality, which can be perceived and enjoyed without thinking in that dialectic foundation I mentioned. That's, to me, the most successful way in which a "system" can be applied to music composition.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I'm a simple music lover, and a heap of atonal and serial music pushes my buttons. Also, I am most certainly not a proponent of all things atonal or serial, just the stuff I like! There's a big world of post-tonal music out there, but it still seems so easy for people to lump it together - do you like Verdi, Beethoven, Monteverdi and Andre Rieux equally? If you do, that's cool but quite unusual

I will say this though, I've always been interested in musical modernism from my first interest in classical as a teenager simply because it's there. I've always wanted to find the best in a broad range of music (and I continue to enjoy exploring pop and world, as well) being the stuff that excites and moves me. I've never had any trouble with whole "categories" (except for C19 bel canto/grand opera - what's up with that $%^&?)


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

"Seems so anti-musical" is your state of mind. Honestly, I have no idea why we like what we like. So why are listeners so obsessed with what others enjoy, and what they cannot enjoy? it's a waste of time fretting over this stuff.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Imagine the best experiences with music you've had. Those times when every element in a work comes together so perfectly and adds nothing more or less than is necessary to the whole, which is far more than the sum of its parts, and yet everything is interconnected and works together beautifully, as in Beethoven's Late Quartets, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, the symphonies of Mahler, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloe, or Bach's St. Matthew Passion. If asked why one likes any of these things, it's hard to point to a single element and say: "this is what makes it work and this is why I love it", because the truth is that these pieces are so musically _alive_, so bursting with possibilities and so full of wonderful details that only add to the impression of the whole, that it seems pointless to try to dissect them and see how they tick, because you know you'll never reach the bottom of it.

Is this what all serial/atonal music is like? Of course not. But not all non-serial modern/common practice music is like this either. To us it really is *simply music, period*. It sounds like music to us. The motifs/melodies come and go and work together as in any other piece of music, and the harmony changes to fit the expression of this or that phrase. And the masterpieces, such as Schoenberg's Moses und Aron, Pierrot Lunaire, and the String Quartets, Berg's Wozzeck, Lulu, Lyric Suite, and Violin Concerto, Webern's Op. 5 Pieces for String Quartet, Lieder, and Cantatas Opp. 29 and 31, are masterpieces because of their sheer musicality. Every note in these works is in its right place, and with the contrapuntal/melodic mastery of Schoenberg, the sensuous power of Berg, or the zen-like concentration of Webern, they are as different in their means as they are united in their mastery.

When we progress further on, to the Darmstadt School. I am fond of Boulez, with the beautifully sonorous textures of Le marteau and Repons or the sublimated vigor and fury of the Second Sonata, or Berio, with his explorations of the outer limits of what instruments can do in the Sequenzas or his repurposing of traditional forms and functions in Sinfonia or Coro. I confess that Stockhausen has never done much for me, and I have not done as much as I might to explore Nono, whose late works play with extremes of quiet verging on silence.

Seeing the variety of styles and composers above (and that's only beginning to scratch the surface of the matter), the reason why "atonal" is such a poor word is because it means nothing. It was coined, not by a composer, but by critics who wanted a word to denigrate things that they neither liked nor understood. Unfortunately, and in spite of its not meaning anything consistent (Mahler, Strauss, Reger, Debussy, and Stravinsky were once called atonal as well, until they were considered "acceptable"), it has caught on. I have encountered people who insist that it means something, even though they have no way of defining it, nor actually _hearing it_. "Atonal" music tends just as much towards this or that central pitch as tonal music does. It's not a genre, it's simply music that's not traditionally tonal (though neither is much of anything else in the 20th century) and is based on the consistent use of the chromatic scale. That's it.

Webern's music is based on the idea that everything can be distilled down to its barest essence and represent far more. His best works are wonderfully and beautifully expressive and precise, like a poem without a single unnecessary word. When performed well, the music takes on a reflective, lyrical sheen well-befitting one who spent time laboring over and crafting each individual work.

I love this comment from a contemporary review, and feel that it describes very well what those of us who love Webern hear in the music:


> "Anton Webern raised his baton before a chamber orchestra which included a guitar, mandolin, and cow-bells. From the silence there escaped into sound wafts of strangely beautiful colour. The ear caught wraith-like wisps of melody which, as smoke, eddied for a moment and then dissolved. A sudden shimmer of iridescence where form and colour became one - and then the silence gently withdrew from us that of which we had scarcely become aware. Only a true musical poet could give us these fugitive glimpses of a new and fascinating world of sound." - Christian Science Monitor


Personally, I don't have Webern in my own top 5, though I do put Schoenberg up in my top 10, and I love the music of both.


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2014)

I found myself wondering a couple of nights ago about a hypothetical experiment:

If a child were kept sheltered from the music of the world (no TV and what not) for the most formative years but exposed to music with different ideas of scales and/or tonality from an early age (or even in the womb!), what would the child's idea of the different musical idioms look like, once exposed?

In other words, I found myself wondering whether the preference for certain intervals and harmonies is derived from genetics or from culture or from both.

*Now that I've said that, I guess I just think that the music is neat.*


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Webern's music is in my top five. I don't know why, and that's what makes it so interesting.


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## Brad (Mar 27, 2014)

starthrower said:


> "Seems so anti-musical" is your state of mind. Honestly, I have no idea why we like what we like. So why are listeners so obsessed with what others enjoy, and what they cannot enjoy? it's a waste of time fretting over this stuff.


I think the OP is coming from a state of mind more like, "I want to understand this music and enjoy it. Maybe you can help me if you tell me about it." At least, that's what I would be asking. Maybe I'm wrong.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Since I don't hold to the notion that music must consist of a hummable melody supported by a "correct" harmony metered into an observable form played by conventional instruments in conventional ways, I'm open to new things. Nor do I hold to the notion that a painting must depict a human face or figure or a recognizable landscape in "correct" colors, etc. etc. So, when I view abstract paintings as by Willem de Kooning or Jackson Pollock, I can _enjoy _the patternings of the colors, the textures, and the freedom of thought the "image" allows me. So with music, whether by Schoenberg, Webern, or Henze. I can simply slip into the aural atmosphere and delight in the sounds swirling round me ... and again enjoy the freedom of thought the "music" allows me.







de Kooning, and Pollock


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## Guest (Jul 14, 2014)

SONNET CLV gets a like for a good analogy.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Brad said:


> I think the OP is coming from a state of mind more like, "I want to understand this music and enjoy it. Maybe you can help me if you tell me about it." At least, that's what I would be asking. Maybe I'm wrong.


Not necessarily. I've got quite a handle on it I feel and Mahlerian, who makes the greatest case so far has brought up many points that I have been presented with in my effort to know more about it. After all if any of you have ever seen the French film on Gould 
"The Alchemist", he does nothing but ooze admiration for it. However where I can enjoy and respect some aspects of it I simply feel that it will never truly overtake the music expression that came before it. Isn't it just a response to all the music that came before it anyway because everything tonal had already been expressed?

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Schoenberg even say knowing his music wasn't popular in his time that "in 50 years the postmen will be humming my tunes", well it didn't quite work out that way and you could even argue that it caused the public (after so many composers began writing in 12 tone theory) to re-embrace tonality to the extreme. So much so that the prevailing form of music to day is rock and pop (or in the U.S.A, rap and R&B) which all revolve around a central key. I often wonder if that radical movement of music that started with Schoenberg was really the beginning of the end for absolute music. Sure you can point to a myriad of people that still compose absolute music in all forms atonal, neoclassical, post modernism (Love David Lang) but what percentage of the population would actually know who were talking about when we name modern composers. They'd rather be listening to Beyonce and Miley Cyrus and the like.

I'm not really verse well enough to make these outrageous claims but I've heard many people who don't usually like absolute music recognize the sheer genius of someone like Beethoven or Brahms but when those same non classical people hear atonal they immediately don't know weather to take it seriously or not. To quote a friend for whom I played Schoenberg's concerto for piano said "it sounds like an eight year old banging around on the piano". I would never say that myself but I've got to question if this is why people think of absolute music in general as for snooty people. I think a lot of people see it as you have to be trained to write absolute music so it's an upper crust sort of thing and that atonal music takes it a step further because of all the math and reliance on tone rows to function, therefore it further alienates people.

Anyway I'm finished with my nonsense as I know a lot of you will no doubt think I'm just out to get these forms of music but I assure you, my motivation is purely to genuinely understand the other side of the coin (the people who love it) only because I've been so long surrounded by people who don't or reject it. If you think me wrong on any of my points please dissect away I want to know if anyone her sees any merit in what I brought up, and if I'm dead wrong let me know why.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

SONNET CLV said:


> Since I don't hold to the notion that music must consist of a hummable melody supported by a "correct" harmony metered into an observable form played by conventional instruments in conventional ways, I'm open to new things. Nor do I hold to the notion that a painting must depict a human face or figure or a recognizable landscape in "correct" colors, etc. etc. So, when I view abstract paintings as by Willem de Kooning or Jackson Pollock, I can _enjoy _the patternings of the colors, the textures, and the freedom of thought the "image" allows me. So with music, whether by Schoenberg, Webern, or Henze. I can simply slip into the aural atmosphere and delight in the sounds swirling round me ... and again enjoy the freedom of thought the "music" allows me.
> 
> View attachment 46526
> de Kooning, and Pollock
> View attachment 46527


I think this analogy works better for Boulez, Babbitt, Ligeti's micropolyphony, and others, particularly post-WWII.

In the case of Webern and Schoenberg, though it is still useful and should be kept in mind, there are plenty of more traditional elements in their music, and that's something it's also worth to point out, particularly in Schoenberg. Webern has a lot of motifs and variations, things which can be followed with a "traditional ear".


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I love how if someone wants to go "what's up with atonal/serial/whatever vague descriptor" they're always kinda auditioning the fans and supporters for a case/proof/justification for liking it or concluding it has emotions or is meaningful. And they always know a thing or two about it y'all, so they can sit back an say "hmm not convinced guys what else have you got"

The take-home learning might be "people like atonal/serial music because it's nice in their ears". If you're out to understand it then that's probably the first step to understanding - it's just music and there doesn't seem to be some magic ingredient to why people like it

In that way it's no different to "why do you like classical music?". I will, however, concede it is different to asking "why do you like Shostakovich?" or "why do you like Handel?" or "why do you like minimalism" where scientific studies have proven that the answer is "brain disease" (jks lol!!!!)


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Fugue Meister said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Schoenberg even say knowing his music wasn't popular in his time that "in 50 years the postmen will be humming my tunes", well it didn't quite work out that way and you could even argue that it caused the public (after so many composers began writing in 12 tone theory) to re-embrace tonality to the extreme. So much so that the prevailing form of music to day is rock and pop (or in the U.S.A, rap and R&B) which all revolve around a central key. I often wonder if that radical movement of music that started with Schoenberg was really the beginning of the end for absolute music. Sure you can point to a myriad of people that still compose absolute music in all forms atonal, neoclassical, post modernism (Love David Lang) but what percentage of the population would actually know who were talking about when we name modern composers. They'd rather be listening to Beyonce and Miley Cyrus and the like.
> 
> How many of those know about Gesualdo, Perotin, Bach's sons, and a big etc. So, fallacy No.1: the opinion of the general population means very little in a style of music (classical music) that only moves the 3% of that population. btw, you seem to like Kubrick, you like the music in 2001?, the monolith scene for example?, possibly your answer is yes, like a lot of people from this general population... you will be surprised with the answer about who's the composer.
> 
> ...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Fugue Meister said:


> Isn't it just a response to all the music that came before it anyway because everything tonal had already been expressed?


No. I've said this before, but Schoenberg didn't believe that he was doing anything besides extending tradition. He went to great lengths to justify what he was doing in light of what was done in the past.

Schoenberg was the one who said "there is still much great music to be written in C major", and called the term atonality "nonsense".

Besides, no composer of note born after 1880 or so composed in the common practice tonal system in their maturity.

Quoting Roger Sessions, who wrote in a Neoclassical idiom before he turned to writing 12-tone music (emphasis mine):


Roger Sessions said:


> It should be clear, for instance, that, even for those composers who are farthest from the radically chromatic idiom to which the term "atonality" is most generally applied, "tonality" is something quite different from the "tonality" of the past three hundred years. It is different in its motivation, in its principles of procedure, and in its effects. *It is so because of a deliberate selection of some of the available materials, and an equally deliberate exclusion of others.* In this manner, it differs from the earlier, expansive tonality, which was based upon use, by composers of each successive generation, of all materials bequeathed to them by their predecessors, and the gradual expansion of harmonic resources. The "tonal" composers of today are limited, not so much by the materials and the principles they have inherited from their predecessors, as by restrictions which they have imposed on themselves. This is said not by way of objection, but rather to point out that their "tonality", like the so-called "atonality" to which they are opposed, is something new, to which traditional principles no longer apply.





Fugue Meister said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Schoenberg even say knowing his music wasn't popular in his time that "in 50 years the postmen will be humming my tunes", well it didn't quite work out that way and you could even argue that it caused the public (after so many composers began writing in 12 tone theory) to re-embrace tonality to the extreme. So much so that the prevailing form of music to day is rock and pop (or in the U.S.A, rap and R&B) which all revolve around a central key.


The idea that Classical music was once the pop music of its day is wrong. Classical music has always existed alongside popular forms. Occasionally, something that would have been considered "popular music" in its time (operettas, Gershwin, ragtimes, Sousa marches, and Strauss family waltzes and polkas, some of the lighter pieces in these genres by Beethoven or Mozart) is treated as "classical music" today, and the main thing that separates these from the popular music of the 20th century is that they were, like what we normally call Classical music, notated, but there has long been a distinct separation between so-called "popular" and "art" music. (This has nothing whatsoever to do with quality. There is great popular music and absolutely horrible art music.)

Secondly, to blame Schoenberg for the rise of rock n' roll is odd. Rock music didn't take off until after Schoenberg's death in 1951.

Thirdly, there was an era in which serial music may have had more prestige among universities and the like, mainly in the late 50s/early 60s, but there was no era in which the majority of composers performed, given prestigious awards, or recorded were serial/12-tone/atonal. That just never happened.

Fourthly, functional, common practice tonality is less important to popular music today than it has ever been. Lots of the chord progressions found in today's popular music fail to express a key clearly at all, and modal admixtures are common. If you're including these things, then why not call all of the music of the Second Viennese School tonal as well? It also revolves around central notes. The Schoenberg Piano Concerto you mentioned ends on a C major seventh chord in second inversion, hardly that unfamiliar of a sound to anyone who listens to jazz.

Finally, Schoenberg's music is more performed, recorded, and listened to today than it ever was in the past. Moses und Aron was recently staged in the UK to great acclaim. To claim that he's driving listeners away would naturally mean that he's bringing in new ones as well. It should also be noted that his music is far more often listened to, performed, and recorded than any number of conservative contemporaries, regardless of their merits.



Fugue Meister said:


> I often wonder if that radical movement of music that started with Schoenberg was really the beginning of the end for absolute music. Sure you can point to a myriad of people that still compose absolute music in all forms atonal, neoclassical, post modernism (Love David Lang) but what percentage of the population would actually know who were talking about when we name modern composers. They'd rather be listening to Beyonce and Miley Cyrus and the like.


Then they probably would be unlikely to be interested in much of the "art music" tradition anyway. There are many here who have grown up in an environment filled with popular music and listen to Classical music instead.



Fugue Meister said:


> I'm not really verse well enough to make these outrageous claims but I've heard many people who don't usually like absolute music recognize the sheer genius of someone like Beethoven or Brahms but when those same non classical people hear atonal they immediately don't know weather to take it seriously or not. To quote a friend for whom I played Schoenberg's concerto for piano said "it sounds like an eight year old banging around on the piano". I would never say that myself but I've got to question if this is why people think of absolute music in general as for snooty people.


I once believed that of all the criticisms of contemporary music, that at least the "random banging on a piano"/"cat walking up and down a piano" ones were exclusive to the contemporary age. I was wrong. Contemporaries said the same things of Wagner and Liszt. It's what you're accustomed to, nothing more.



Fugue Meister said:


> I think a lot of people see it as you have to be trained to write absolute music so it's an upper crust sort of thing and that atonal music takes it a step further because of all the math and reliance on tone rows to function, therefore it further alienates people.


"Atonal" music doesn't rely on math any more than any other music. A tone row is really nothing more than a set of materials for the composer to work with, to help them structure a piece. It doesn't automatically generate a piece of music (which is why I hate the term "system" in this context), and it doesn't do any of the composing for you. Give a tone row to 10 different composers, and you'll end up with not only 10 distinct pieces of music that show the individuality of their composers, but 10 different sets of motifs and themes that those composers drew from that single row.

I agree that the _idea_ that this music is somehow "mathematical" or "coldly intellectual" is alienating, and combined with the first impression of something unfamiliar and potentially bewildering, the idea that "serial music is for the eye rather than the ear" can take hold. But forget about it. No serial composer wants you to hear the processes he or she is using any more than a tonal composer thinks you should have a Schenkerian analysis in mind while listening.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Nice post Mahlerian! It's deja vu all over again tho isn't it? Since you have it covered so well maybe you could do a "common myths and misconceptions about atonality and serialism" blog post (or similar) and it could just get linked to for each time these threads come up


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

In my opinion, Schoenberg and Berg are awesome, emotionally powerful, and enjoyable, but Webern is quite... difficult for me. His music is much, much more abstract and hard to identify with. It's a bit strange that people often lump together the second Viennese school as one person, whereas to me they are quite different, especially Webern.

Further... what should one "listen for" in a twelve-tone work? I don't think I'm going to be picking up and following the tone row any time soon, given that the row is always used really creatively and distributed between the instruments. Is it enough to just enjoy the sounds and mood?

And finally, what was the point of twelve-tone serialism as a way to write atonal works? Was it for structural unity? How does the average listener pick up on this structural unity?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> I agree that the _idea_ that this music is somehow "mathematical" or "coldly intellectual" is alienating, and combined with the first impression of something unfamiliar and potentially bewildering, the idea that "serial music is for the eye rather than the ear" can take hold. But forget about it. No serial composer wants you to hear the processes he or she is using any more than a tonal composer thinks you should have a Schenkerian analysis in mind while listening.


:clap::clap::clap:

Cliffhanger; is Fugue Meister a part of the Musical Borg Hive... Full disclosure in the next episode of: Music, the next generation, explorations of the sonic frontiers beyond...

/ptr


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

I might need to take a break before I get back to this thread. I'm getting torn apart here... Think I'll wait until I bleed out a little more..


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

SeptimalTritone said:


> Is it enough to just enjoy the sounds and mood?


Yes, yes and yes!!!! At least, I would hope that is enough. If not, then a lot of people are listening to music all wrong


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Fugue Meister said:


> I might need to take a break before I get back to this thread. I'm getting torn apart here... Think I'll wait until I bleed out a little more..


This forum can be like that. The fact is, proponents of what we call atonal music have heard many of the same mis-characterizations and mis-representations of their music many times over and it can be a frustrating topic to go over again. Try not to take anything anyone says personally


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Fugue Meister said:


> This thread has been born out of my disastrous first thread which you can check out if your interested in answering or pointing out my shoddy reasonings here:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/33112-so-i-started-new.html
> 
> ...


I'm a proponent of finely composed atonal music, such as Bartok's SQ, which while I do not listen to that often, I do enjoy them once a while (once a year maybe). All in moderation.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> ... what should one "listen for" in a twelve-tone work?
> *Is it enough to just enjoy the sounds and mood?*


What on earth would prompt that Q but _an atmosphere infected with dreadful presentations teaching the plebes about classical music_ wherever some music appreciation class is available; grade schools, high schools, a junior college or university, online universities, etc.

*Of course you sit back and just listen to the sound* -- isn't that what anyone basically does with any classical music before their minds were infected with _"It is necessary to understand sonata-allegro form and some of the principles of common practice harmony in order to gain access to and enjoy classical music?" _
Hogwash! 
Phooey! 









Yeah. All the more technical elements, if learned about, can bring more interest to listening to a piece... as a sort of additional side entertainment adding to the main course... but 
_most composers and players do not expect the audience to be at all technically informed, and they do not compose -- most usually -- much that would be wholly dependent upon those technical aspects in order for it to be enjoyed_ -- ergo, they're writing music which should be able to be fully enjoyed "Just for the sound it makes."

And that is the trouble with the egregious pedantry of those music courses for neophytes, or beginners who would like to know a bit more, they ladle out just enough about form, accompanied by outright or implicit statements which lead the laymen to believe they really need to 'know all that' to enjoy classical music. That's where you get the phenomenal question "What should I be listening for." The answer, _but of course,_ is simply _the sound the music makes, and the rest is any visceral or emotional reactions you get from it..._ (and we hope you enjoyed the ride,) period.

Repeat listening, over time, not forced, will probably reveal more even to the untrained who think they know nothing... familiarity gives ready and readier access to what is going on -- maybe then, and not before, is the time to delve in to some of the technical aspects of what is going on.

Just listen and stop _thinking_ so much, lol.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> I'm a proponent of finely composed atonal music, such as Bartok's SQ, which while I do not listen to that often, I do enjoy them once a while (once a year maybe). All in moderation.


I don't think Bartok is considered atonal.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

violadude said:


> I don't think Bartok is considered atonal.


To a degree, absolutely! Not pure or simple, unfortunately :-(

But nice one on the Bartok, Art. I was listening to some of the quartets earlier today - powerful stuff and definitely an entree into wilder worlds to come ;-)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> I don't think Bartok is considered atonal.


Never wrote a truly atonal piece in his entire career, lol.

Neither did Prokofiev, since I've heard him called 'atonal,' as well 

Late 20th century academe has hair split 'atonal' and made it into a tree, or at least a shrub, where much early 20th century music we know is not 12-tone atonal -- and us older geezers still call 'tonal' -- is now being called some variety of atonal, including Debussy, Bartok, the early Stravinsky works, etc  
Those academics clearly need to get out more, or were desperate to write a paper displaying 'something new' in order to get or maintain tenure, lol. 
[I find this further hairsplitting which has crept into academe something seriously and badly precious -- it actually gets away from a basic and fuller understanding and jumps down rabbit holes of minutia. There is almost no real utility to those extended declensions, i.e. they are that trivial, and so unnecessary there is no good justification for them.]

If you're going to go there, I prefer the perfectly clear and understandable definition as given by our TC colleague Some Guy: 
"It ain't your grandma's tonality anymore."


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

violadude said:


> I don't think Bartok is considered atonal.


You talking about Bartok in general or the SQ? I was talking about the SQ.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> You talking about Bartok in general or the SQ? I was talking about the SQ.


See post No. 28, above.

Best regards.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Which SQ did you listen to Art? They all sound different from Pleyel and Weber but they ain't atonal. Atonal's such a difficult term and so often incorrectly applied which is why folks get a bit het up about using it incorrectly. Nothing more, nothing less


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> to blame Schoenberg for the rise of rock n' roll is odd. Rock music didn't take off until after Schoenberg's death in 1951.


I would not even use the word blame in pointing to what stimulated Rock 'n' Roll into existence.

What did catalyze the birth of rock 'n' roll was a young generation who, in numbers and for the first time, had cars or ready access to them. That generation experienced that state of autonomous being while in the *automobile.* Even then, it is just not the fact of auto-mobility and the generation who experienced the automobile, but the feel of driving, forward momentum, the power, and the palpable _sound_ of the internal combustion engine which propels the vehicle.

Rock 'n' Roll is unthinkable without the existence of the internal combustion engine and a number of a youth generation who for the first time -- and collectively -- experienced it, literally, with speed and force.

_"If it ain't rowdy, it ain't rock 'n' roll."_

Blame Henry Ford


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

That and the surfboard.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> That and the surfboard.


and, may be...


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

SeptimalTritone said:


> And finally, what was the point of twelve-tone serialism as a way to write atonal works? Was it for structural unity? How does the average listener pick up on this structural unity?


Yes, the point is structural unity. The other problem is that while a "freely atonal" work, such as those of Schoenberg between 1908 and 1923, can certainly be unified, it is difficult to maintain a long-range unity of materials and focus, which is why the majority of works of this period and style are brief or tied to a text.

The listener is aware that all the parts of a composition fit together in that work, and belong to no other. It's not terribly different from asking oneself why all the parts of a Renaissance mass setting fit together, as the average listener doesn't necessarily notice the cantus firmus used to unify the setting. That the listener cannot remember a tone row in full is not a problem, because the tone row is not (usually) a theme in itself, but rather the basis for the thematic/motivic material of the composition, which is usually far more succinct and distinctive.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Fugue Meister said:


> This thread has been born out of my disastrous first thread which you can check out if your interested in answering or pointing out my shoddy reasonings here:
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/33112-so-i-started-new.html
> 
> ...


I see serialism as a* subset *of modernist ideas which can be found elsewhere, and it all hinges on acoustic, ratio-based tonality vs. the mathematical, geometric 12-note scale of Pythagoras.

Pythagoras based our 12 note scale on a cycle or stack of 3:2s (perfect fifths). 
These are acoustic, ratio-based intervals, discovered through their sound, not by arbitrary calculation. 
The octave needed to be preserved, and be repeatable, not cyclical. 
This is called "octave equivalency" or pitch identity, the way our ears hear, which is the 1:1 or 2:1 ratio.

The octave cannot be arrived at in any cycling of any interval other than itself.
This failure to reconnect after 12 cycles of the 3:2 around the octave circle is called "The Pythagoran Comma." 
The 3:2 fifths were adjusted, and the error was spread out, so that the octave circle would coincide and close, rather than keep on cycling.

So after tonality, based on these acoustic ratios, began to play itself out, the pure mathematics of the 12-division took over, encouraged by Equal Temperament.

Tonality is acoustic, based on proportion (ratios), not quantities, which also correspond to degrees of consonance. Tonality was created with our ears as the guide.
As music became more chromatic, it was headed in a mathematical direction anyway, away from its original acoustic intent, and Modernism took it the rest of the way. 
The octave was divided at the tritone, and smaller, recursive (reoccurring within the octave when projected) intervals other than fourths and fifths were coming to the fore: m3s, m2s, M2s, and the tritone...
These facilitated the breakdown of the tonal hierarchy.

So, tonality was imperfect from the start, and as it became more chromatic, began to break down as far as the hierarchical organization of it went.

Serialism simply took the mathematical approach a step further, and codified it, like it was a different type of hierarchy.

Other modernists wrote non-tonal music, but did not feel the need to use a new system. Debussy and Bartok are good examples.

I think the main problem people have with serialism, is that it is not based on acoustic harmonic factors. Debussy, by contrast, still used harmonic devices which work in isolation, like triads and scales. The only difference is that he left the hierarchy of tonality behind, but it still sounds 'harmonically good' to most tonal ears.

Serialism makes no concessions to dissonance in that regard, and is not based, generally speaking, on harmonic principles or effects. Webern is 'harmonic' in the way he uses intervals, but you have to hear them as intervals, in isolation, not as related to an overall sense of key, or one reference note.

Too bad you can't hear it on its own terms, as it is quite beautiful music in its own way.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Yes, the point is structural unity. The other problem is that while a "freely atonal" work, such as those of Schoenberg between 1908 and 1923, can certainly be unified, it is difficult to maintain a long-range unity of materials and focus, which is why the majority of works of this period and style are brief or tied to a text.
> 
> The listener is aware that all the parts of a composition fit together in that work, and belong to no other. It's not terribly different from asking oneself why all the parts of a Renaissance mass setting fit together, as the average listener doesn't necessarily notice the cantus firmus used to unify the setting. That the listener cannot remember a tone row in full is not a problem, because the tone row is not (usually) a theme in itself, but rather the basis for the thematic/motivic material of the composition, which is usually far more succinct and distinctive.


I think "Ode To Napoleon" is a really good example of this. The tone row is a pretty distinct one (I think there's something mathematically special about it, but I can't recall what), and the themes Scheonberg derives from it I found were very clear and easy to follow.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Guten tag. Ludwig here to remind everyone that these boys were all riding on my coat tails. You've been served.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I like alot of it because it is beautiful, exciting, and interesting. The same reasons I like other kinds of music.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I bet there are more / most who would be proponents / zealous advocates of all things tonal, lol. Half of them more than likely not so much truly musically literate as to modality, tonality, or really having any real notion of what atonal means. 

For many, Atonal = dissonant, that dissonance relative to the personal perceptions of whomever is speaking, lol, and they are unaware of all the dissonance in the tonal music they love, or that without it that music would be as flavorless as processed cheese.

Objections to atonal music, levels of dissonance remind me of that true story of the major Hollywood movie studio mogul's directive to some film score composer, who after the meeting discussing the desired emotional tone of the score for the film, said to the composer -- who was on his way out the door -- "And no minor chords!"


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

dgee said:


> Nice post Mahlerian! It's deja vu all over again tho isn't it? Since you have it covered so well maybe you could do a "common myths and misconceptions about atonality and serialism" blog post (or similar) and it could just get linked to for each time these threads come up


Or made compulsory reading before registering one's account with TC, or embedded into the ToS.


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2014)

Fugue Meister said:


> I simply feel that it will never truly overtake the music expression that came before it.


Classical music is a race?

I did not know that.


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