CONFUSED?
ronald.thompson
harmony and counterpoint
is it not wise to say that harmony is tonal
and counterpoint is atonal?
and impressionism is that not atonal as well?
Albert Silverman
In article <32E9FE...@snet.net>,
ronald.thompson <ronald....@snet.net> wrote:
>harmony and counterpoint
>is it not wise to say that harmony is tonal
>and counterpoint is atonal?
No.
>
>and impressionism is that not atonal as well?
No.
pcol...@forest.drew.edu
In article <32E9FE...@snet.net>, "ronald.thompson" <ronald....@snet.net> writes:
> harmony and counterpoint
> is it not wise to say that harmony is tonal
> and counterpoint is atonal?
>
Yes, it is NOT wise to say that. But, since I am no reference book, let's
consult one...The New Harvard Dictionary of Music - 1986.
"Harmony [f. Gr., Lat. *harmonia; Fr., Ger. Harmonie;It.armonia;Sp.armonia].
The relationship of tones considered as they sound simultaneously, and the way
such relationships are organized in time;also any particular collection of
pitches sounded simultaneously, termed a chord" So, by my understanding
of the definition (and the long article that follows), we can have both
tonal and atonal harmony. Tonal has been most commonly defined as
conforming to the Western major (and their relative minor scales) in
exhibiting a tonic-dominant relationship. We've got all those chord
progressions--especially our friends, the cadences--that set up the
reinforcement of the tonic in the listener's ear. Now, this is entirely
cultural--we've "learned" that a V most commonly leads to I. So, the idea
of tonal music is an entirely western-centered concept. Harmony, however,
spans cultures.
As for counterpoint, I'd say that it's a special case of harmony. Here,
we specifically look at the relationsip of tones (see above) between two
or more melodic lines (a linear consideration). And, since it is a linear
consideration, we also look at the direction of the lines and their
rhythms. Like harmony, counterpoint can be both tonal or atonal. Go back
to Bach if you need to be remined what tonal counterpoint sounds like--he is,
of course, the Master.
> and impressionism is that not atonal as well?
Well, it's not necessarily atonal. The term impressionism in music is
most often used to descibe Debussy's music. While you could probably make
the argument that parts of Debussy's music may lack a tonal center, it's not
atonal. But, impressionism has very little to do with being classified
strictly as tonal or atonal. It has more to do with the coloristic
qualities of the harmonies and the instruments themselves (which is
probably why debussy abhored part doublings--they obcure the natural
timbre of each instrument). I think texture is more of an issue in
impressionism than the nature of it's harmonic progression.
Pinney
Michael Hassell
> >harmony and counterpoint
> >is it not wise to say that harmony is tonal
> >and counterpoint is atonal?
>
> >
> >and impressionism is that not atonal as well?
>
This is the most direct, forthright, clearheaded and unambiguous pair
of answers Mr. Silverman has provided to date. Hear, hear, Albert!...
a true conservator of bandwidth!
Mike H.
ronald.thompson
i was readin about an impresionness compers that instead of practicing
his scales he would come up with strange sounding chords
and it sound a little difficult to do with useing the tonal system
an they all were like that one way or another
any body argee
Michael P. Mossey
Nice poem.
MM
Courtney Evans
rick wrote:
>
> Albert Silverman wrote:
> > ronald.thompson <ronald....@snet.net> wrote:
> > >and impressionism is that not atonal as well?
> >
> > No.
>
> some of his other late music is too. I've heard it said that
> Jeux was influenced by hearing Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Anyone
> else heard that?
>
> Rick
and rick wrote:
>Makes no sense at all. Palestrina's counterpoint is extremely
>"tonal" to the point of virtual boredom. Stravinsky's hammer-chords
>in the Rite of Spring are not a bit contrapuntal, and they are
>atonal (well, okay, polytonal, but who really hears "polytonality"
>anyway? Common, 'fess up guyz)
and rick wrote:
>Tonality, as I think
>it is generally thought of (excuse my prepositioning), is that *narrow*
>usage starting with late Haydn and mature Mozart and going *all* the
>way to middle Beethoven, or about 35-40 years of *their* music,
>excluding all
>the *other* composers whose esthetics didn't conform to the Rosenesque
>"classical" model (and there were *many*).
You are definetly prepositioning here. Tonality, as I define it,
encompasses a far wider range of music. You yourself call Palestrina
"tonal" and then say that tonality only means Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven.
Jeux is certainly NOT atonal, as I see it. It is different than other
works of Debussy, but it is still tonal. When you abandon all traces of
scale, key, or mode, then you are moving into atonality.
Additionally, the Rite of Spring is not atonal. Those hammer chords that
you describe are the same chords I pointed out to Silverman, which are
(quite clearly) combined Eb dom 7 and Fb major chords. Hence, polytonal
is a much better term. When I hear the Rite of Spring, I feel that I am
listening to tonal music. Of course, that is such a broad term that I
might as well say I am listening to music. =)
Courtney Evans
rick
rick
ronald.thompson wrote:
>
> harmony and counterpoint
> is it not wise to say that harmony is tonal
> and counterpoint is atonal?
Makes no sense at all. Palestrina's counterpoint is extremely
"tonal" to the point of virtual boredom. Stravinsky's hammer-chords
in the Rite of Spring are not a bit contrapuntal, and they are
atonal (well, okay, polytonal, but who really hears "polytonality"
anyway? Common, 'fess up guyz)
Rick
bhene...@aol.com
In article <32EEBE...@columbia.edu>, Courtney Evans <cm...@columbia.edu>
writes:
>Additionally, the Rite of Spring is not atonal. Those hammer chords that
>you describe are the same chords I pointed out to Silverman, which are
>(quite clearly) combined Eb dom 7 and Fb major chords. Hence, polytonal
>is a much better term. When I hear the Rite of Spring, I feel that I am
>listening to tonal music. Of course, that is such a broad term that I
>might as well say I am listening to music. =)
>
>Courtney Evans
If the pitch relationships have a recognisable "flavour" (one that you'd
notice if it recurred), such as the hammer chords of Le Sacre, then the
music's not atonal. I think that's a more important distinction to make -
between atonal and not atonal.
One is the equivalent of (NOT "the same as") white noise; the other is
the equivalent of coloured noise, or even, to sustain the analogy, a
definite pitch. Non-atonal music contains recognisable harmonic (ie,
non-melodic, order-insensitive) gestalts, even if they're not easy to
define. Consider how often Debussy maintains a harmonic "setting", rather
like a harp's pedal setting - it's not leading anywhere, it's not
teleological, it's just "this flavour" for now, till the pedal setting
changes.
Pointlessly yours,
Ben Heneghan
rick
Courtney Evans wrote:
> rick wrote:
> > "Jeux" by Debussy is pretty doggone atonal, and
> > some of his other late music is too. I've heard it said that
> > Jeux was influenced by hearing Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Anyone
> > else heard that?
> >...Palestrina's counterpoint is extremely
> >"tonal" to the point of virtual boredom. Stravinsky's hammer-chords
> >in the Rite of Spring are not a bit contrapuntal, and they are
> >atonal (well, okay, polytonal, but who really hears "polytonality"
> >anyway? Common, 'fess up guyz)
> >Tonality, as I think
> >it is generally thought of (excuse my prepositioning), is that *narrow*
> >usage starting with late Haydn and mature Mozart and going *all* the
> >way to middle Beethoven, or about 35-40 years of *their* music,
> You yourself call Palestrina
> "tonal" and then say that tonality only means Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven.
Nope, didn't say that. Look again. I said tonality as "it is
generally thought of." Tonality as it actually *is* is much bigger
and totally nebulous. Palestrina - tonal. Even Dufay is tonal, if
Brahms is. Same for Sibelius, or Rachmaninoff. Hm, we're up to
500 years so far. And of course, many today are tonal, so we're
pushing 600 years. A very nebulous realm, tonality.
> Jeux is certainly NOT atonal, as I see it. It is different than other
> works of Debussy, but it is still tonal.
LOL! If you say so, man!
on Rite of Spring:
> Hence, polytonal
> is a much better term. When I hear the Rite of Spring, I feel that I am
> listening to tonal music. Of course, that is such a broad term that I
> might as well say I am listening to music. =)
Point of order. Polytonal isn't tonal. Polytonal is a form
of atonal in that there isn't any 'tonality'. BTW, I'm not talking
about pandiatonic tonality - the kind of nebbishy Irving Fine and
early Arthur Berger stuff that squiggles around in "keys" with
naughty and prissy little polychords telling us we're in the
20th century. That's basically tonality. Not on the same page
as Rite.
Polytonality really is diffusion between 2 or more would-be tonal
centers, but they aren't centers. They are "weightings"
or preferences to certain 'poles,' but that isn't tonality.
Polytonality is a stupid idea - there aren't two tonalities going
in parallel - impossible. Tonality is like Jehovah - Thou
shalt have no other key centers before me. Can't worship
D Major and F minor at once, blah blah blah... <g> (Now I
suppose someone's going to run to the computer and churn out
an etude "in 2 keys", I'll betcha :))
Anywhow, the Rite is pretty damned dissonant and I wouldn't call it
tonal just because you can find some polychords in it. Okay, some of
the passages are tonal, I grant that. But Danse Sacrale? No way.
Rick
Chris Koenigsberg
rick <stc...@mit.edu> writes:
> Polytonality really is diffusion between 2 or more would-be tonal
> centers, but they aren't centers. They are "weightings"
> or preferences to certain 'poles,' but that isn't tonality.
> Polytonality is a stupid idea - there aren't two tonalities going
> in parallel - impossible.
Ornette Coleman has been leading jazz bands that play in several keys
simultaneously, since the late 1950's. He calls it "harmolodics"
(which is actually more than just polytonality, and his explanations
are rather vague unfortunately, he's not the most articulate guy when
he uses words instead of sounds :-).
Sometimes every band member is playing in a different key, in a
different rhythm and time signature etc., all at once. They may mimic
each other, and do call and response etc., but they may be doing so
each in their own separate tonal space.
Ornette's also been known to give out identical copies of a part to
different "transposing" instruments, and tell each of them to play it
simultaneously in their instrument's natural key, i.e. a Bb clarinet
will play it in Bb, an Eb instrument plays it in Eb, a non-transposing
instrument like guitar will play it in C, a bass will play it in C but
an octave lower, etc. so any harmony which results is just from the
relationships of the different transpositions of the instruments, not
of the composer's notated design.
(one of his albums is entitled "In All Languages" which is a nice
expression for this notion, of letting the instruments each do its own
transposition of a common melodic part)
Surely you could notate music like this, with several independent
parts each tending towards its own tonal center, without explicitly
considering the overall relationships between them. Wouldn't that be
"polytonality"?
Of course someone could do a technical analysis of the overall
relationships and say something about that but what if it were so
complex, and never entered into any of the practical aspects of the
music itself?
And to keep Uncle Al happy, suppose it's all purely "triadic" music,
except that the clarinet's playing triads which all resolve to a Bb
major triad, the Eb instrument's triads go to an Eb major triad, the
guitar's in C, etc. all simultaneously.
--------------------
Chris Koenigsberg: c...@pobox.com
<URL: http://www.pobox.com/~ckk>
Boycott Internet Spam/Junkmail! see <http://www.vix.com/spam/> for help
jaq...@en.com
In article <tkybd9tn...@comet.scr.siemens.com>, c...@pobox.com (Chris
Koenigsberg) wrote:
> rick <stc...@mit.edu> writes:
> > Polytonality really is diffusion between 2 or more would-be tonal
> > centers, but they aren't centers. They are "weightings"
> > or preferences to certain 'poles,' but that isn't tonality.
> > Polytonality is a stupid idea - there aren't two tonalities going
> > in parallel - impossible.
>
> Ornette Coleman...<snip> Surely you could notate music like this, with
several independent
> parts each tending towards its own tonal center, without explicitly
> considering the overall relationships between them. Wouldn't that be
> "polytonality"?
>
> Of course someone could do a technical analysis of the overall
> relationships and say something about that but what if it were so
> complex, and never entered into any of the practical aspects of the
> music itself?
The problem you run into is that in our music tradition, whatever's in the
bass has a stronger role in defining tonality than any other part, so that
other parts get interpreted by the ear in the context of the lowest voice.
higher notes are heard in reference to the harmonics of the bass. If you
were to maximize contrapuntal differentiation between two strata, and use
purely diatonic harmonies within each stratum to maximize its tonal
identity (creating polychords), sure you could have audible polytonality.
But being "purely polytonal" is the same kind of game as being "purely
tonal"--it doesn't have much to do with real music.
--
Jeffrey Quick
http://www.en.com/users/jaquick
K C Moore
Some people think that "tonal" is a category. The problem with this is
that there are multiple definitions of the distinguishing criterion, so
most of the time I think of "tonal" as near one end of a spectrum with
atonal at the other end and lots of space in between.
This thread has been running for so long that I have forgotten lots of
the contributions to it, so can someone tell me whether there is a
consensus one way or another on this? If not, it would be helpful if
contributors said what their view was (TS or TC) at the beginning of
their contribution.
--
Ken Moore (TS)
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
rick
Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
> rick <stc...@mit.edu> writes:
> > Polytonality is a stupid idea - there aren't two tonalities going
> > in parallel - impossible.
> Ornette Coleman has been leading jazz bands that play in several keys
> simultaneously, since the late 1950's. He calls it "harmolodics"
Uh-oh, another "theory" <g>
> Sometimes every band member is playing in a different key, in a
> different rhythm and time signature etc., all at once. They may mimic
> each other, and do call and response etc., but they may be doing so
> each in their own separate tonal space.
Simulaneous "keys" cancel each other out. The idea of simultaneous
keys is a theoretical construct, and that's all.
> Ornette's also been known to give out identical copies of a part to
> different "transposing" instruments, and tell each of them to play it
> simultaneously in their instrument's natural key
I don't care. Maybe it works musically, but it isn't really
polytonality. It's just a structured form of atonality using the
paper-concept of keys the way composers use tone rows.
> Surely you could notate music like this, with several independent
> parts each tending towards its own tonal center, without explicitly
> considering the overall relationships between them.
Surely be damned. How can you *not* consider the overall relationship
between them? It's *there*, dammit! You want me to stop listening and
enter some mental psychosis or trance state where I've totally
shut down my natural musical senses? No way, man.
> Wouldn't that be "polytonality"?
No. It would be an interesting experiment that might or might not
produce music worth listening to.
Take care,
Rick
Chris Koenigsberg
rick <stc...@mit.edu> writes:
> > rick <stc...@mit.edu> writes:
> > > Polytonality is a stupid idea - there aren't two tonalities going
> > > in parallel - impossible.
> Simulaneous "keys" cancel each other out. The idea of simultaneous
> keys is a theoretical construct, and that's all.
> > Surely you could notate music like this, with several independent
> > parts each tending towards its own tonal center, without explicitly
> > considering the overall relationships between them.
> Surely be damned. How can you *not* consider the overall relationship
> between them? It's *there*, dammit! You want me to stop listening and
> enter some mental psychosis or trance state where I've totally
> shut down my natural musical senses? No way, man.
Rick, you are limited in your analysis by only considering
through-composed music in which the composer has an absolute frame of
reference on everything that is going on, considered
simultaneously.
Perhaps I did not make the alternative explicit enough, in my attempt
to mention Ornette Coleman's process. His groups proceed via
improvisation and there is no universal frame of reference, except in
a listener's ear, and there is so much going on that no two listeners
can possibly "hear" the same thing, their finite attention must be
directed towards some subset of what is happening.
Similarly, if you limit the epistemic horizon of the process by which
the parts are composed, then the overall relationship is a by-product,
a secondary result, of the primary processes.
That is, the parts come about with no full knowledge of the "overall
relationship". This can be done by adding improvisation as Ornette's
groups do, or by introducing other aleatoric elements that vary the
details in performance, in ways that are not under complete control of
a single entity.
Or, by the composer generating such complexity that no single person
can possibly grasp it all at once, and then providing ways it can be
"mixed" with things coming in and out at performance time.
Chris Koenigsberg
Let me mention my own "LCM" pieces again (look at my LCM essay at my
Web site <http://www.pobox.com/~ckk>), as an example of what I
referred to as "limiting the epistemic horizon", of processes that
proceed with no single universal frame of reference.
By the way, I borrow that notion (limiting the epistemic horizon) from
Daniel C. Dennett, especially in his book "Elbow Room: the Varieties
of Free Will Worth Wanting", though I hadn't read his books yet when I
composed the original 3 LCM pieces. Dennett uses it as a way of
providing a "rational decision-maker" with "free will", despite the
apparent inevitability of "determinism". The point is that the
rational agent can make decisions and be held responsible for them, if
its epistemic horizon is limited, so even if all its actions are
"completely determined" in a determistic universe, still IT doesn't
have the information necessary to predict its own actions...
Actually I'm cheating somewhat; in my case you could say there IS a
universal frame of reference, however it would be so complex to
analyze and notate that I think my alternative process-based
specification is much more parsimonious.
I was inspired by Ornette's music and also by reading Stockhausen's
comments, about experiments with alternative ways of notating musical
events.
I don't want to monopolize the discussion and I'm too busy to type up
yet another long essay today :-) so a brief summary is:
I can use simple underlying processes, and linear combinations of them
(could be extended to non-linear combinations), to generate
"resultant" musical events which are quite complex and subtle and
would be fiendishly difficult to notate explicitly or to perform from
such notation.
I think this is a fruitful area for further investigation, if we are
interested in exploring musical complexity further.
--------------------
Chris Koenigsberg: c...@pobox.com
<URL: http://www.pobox.com/~ckk>
Siemens Corporate Research, and Rutgers University Dept. of Computer Science
Boycott Internet spam/junkmail! see <http://www.vix.com.> for help.
Matthew H. Fields
What if you can hear the sense of key of each voice *and* the
sense of, say, Petruchka-chord-ness of the overall texture?
--
Matt Fields URL:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~fields
Anthony Cornicello
Chris Koenigsberg wrote:
>
> (lots deleted)
>
>
> Perhaps I did not make the alternative explicit enough, in my attempt
> to mention Ornette Coleman's process. His groups proceed via
> improvisation and there is no universal frame of reference, except in
> a listener's ear, and there is so much going on that no two listeners
> can possibly "hear" the same thing, their finite attention must be
> directed towards some subset of what is happening.
>
Chris, can you explain Ornette's process? I've heard about it for
sometime,
but I've never really heard a satisfactory explanation. I like the
results,
but what exactly _is_ Harmolodics?
Thanks,
Anthony Cornicello