jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (06/30/84)
I think Rich and I are having more of an argument of words than an argument of ideas (yeah, I finally figured it out). But I have a few comments. It's interesting that you find Webern more tonal than Schoenberg. I have always felt that if you looked hard enough at Schoenberg's "atonal" music, you could find tonal processes going on. There's an intended one in "ode to napoleon", of course, but I'm referring to more canonical things, like the "orchestra variations", for instance. After all, S. had composed a lot of tonal music, and had a commanding grasp of traditional harmony, so do you think he could really completely escape it? on the other hand, Webern's op. 1, if I remember correctly, is a "passacaglia" of only very vague tonality. perhaps the reason Webern's music sounds more tonal to you (enter wild guess mode) is that the thinner textures allow overtones of the played notes to sound untrammeled by (presumably conflicting) upper voices that would exist in a thicker texture. Those overtones might tend to give a tonal "sound" to a piece that was theoretically not. Just an idea. Rich said something to the effect, "each moment having tonality, but the piece having no key". Tonality, like rhythm, is something that exists only in context. It is impossible to have rhythm with just one beat, likewise it is impossible to have tonality with just one note or chord. Tonality is the sense that the pitches in a particular bit of music are in a heirarchy, with one note being the most important in some sense. I suspect that, to a sufficiently trained ear, real atonality is not possible. Here's an interesting thought for you: one could easily write a piece which used 12-tone rows as a structural element but was tonal as well. But such a piece certainly would not please the anti-atonalists any more than the most uncompromising serialist work, because what they object to (if they haven't learned to prate learnedly about the "unnaturalness" of dodecaphony) is dissonance, not lack of tonality. (This is not aimed at Rich, I'm just making the comment.) Jeff Winslow
rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (07/03/84)
> Rich said something to the effect, "each moment having tonality, but the > piece having no key". Tonality, like rhythm, is something that exists > only in context. It is impossible to have rhythm with just one beat, > likewise it is impossible to have tonality with just one note or chord. > Tonality is the sense that the pitches in a particular bit of music are > in a heirarchy, with one note being the most important in some sense. > I suspect that, to a sufficiently trained ear, real atonality is not > possible. One comment about your analogy: rhythm most definitely can only exist within the context of time. Tonality can exist for a given moment (like when you hear a chord that you wish could last forever); key is the predetermined ordering and organization of harmonies/tonalities over time. I think we *are* just playing word games, but I do believe one could have a tonality for a moment rather than over time. Maybe what I'm calling "key" you're calling "tonality" and what I'm calling "tonality" you're calling "harmony". > Here's an interesting thought for you: one could easily write a piece > which used 12-tone rows as a structural element but was tonal as well. > But such a piece certainly would not please the anti-atonalists any more > than the most uncompromising serialist work, because what they object to > (if they haven't learned to prate learnedly about the "unnaturalness" of > dodecaphony) is dissonance, not lack of tonality. (This is not aimed at > Rich, I'm just making the comment.) Interesting that you should say that. Consonance/dissonance notions are by their very nature arbitrary. One could make claims about the harmonic series with relation to major triads and such, but as listeners grew accustomed to newer musics, additional expansions on triadic harmony grew to be considered "consonant". In other words, consonance is in the eye of the beholder (the ear of the behearer?? :-). Perhaps the real complaint about dodecaphony lies in the listener's growth and acceptance period; in the fact that Schoenberg had "accelerated" musical concepts faster than the listeners' abilities to incorporate the sounds into the club of "acceptable" consonances. -- WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Rich Rosen WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS? pyuxn!rlr WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA? I don't know that ... ARGHHHHHHHH!