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Pretty much same thing I said... but not as nice. ;)

Okay... so, I didn't mean for this thread to be resurrected in this manner. What I meant by my post was that... one year ago, I held a very conservative view on music. I appreciated atonal and serial works BUT.. at that time, I felt they were inferior to the beauty I saw in the works I was more familiar with. In the course of that year, I have explored serialism and atonality (as well as polytonality and modalism). In that year.. I have come a long way in my understanding of music. Writing works whose primary focus is the material itself - independent of traditional harmonic models - is a difficult task in and of itself. A year ago, I didn't see that! I can speak from experience now and say that it is a viable form of expression and one that I would recommend every composer (no matter your personal opinion) undertake. There's a lot to learn from it. I really don't want to have to lock this thread though... so I ask that everyone here please keep the personal attacks separate. Discuss and argue with the other persons position - don't attack that person.

QFT It's like I always said, people who attack the stuff often have no experience with it or are hating out of internet jerkass syndrome. Whatever happened to trying stuff out? Oh that's right, everyone is an expert on everything always even without having given the topic any serious attention. Seriously, stoppu.

You're just trying to steal my thunder... :P Like what? I agree with pretty much everything you said. I do think learning about contemporary music is worthwhile as long as it helps to inspire you as a composer. If you're tormenting yourself trying to "get it", you're probably not listening to the right music. Just keep opening your ears and listening to more works. The largest portion of my compositional process is actually listening to music I've never heard before and refining musical ideas and gestures in my mind before I ever start composing into Finale or what-have-you.

I wasnt referring to you. I just wanted make sure people saw it. I was afraid with your wall of text... that people wouldnt see it, so I posted it again. Though, did you read all I wrote? Certainly you could comment about other facets of it.

I wasn't "attacking" anyone, just telling them both why they're wrong.

FROM MY OTHER REPLY, THAT GOT SWALLOWED BY ALL THIS: Okay... so, I didn't mean for this thread to be resurrected in this manner. What I meant by my post was that... one year ago, I held a very conservative view on music. I appreciated atonal and serial works BUT.. at that time, I felt they were inferior to the beauty I saw in the works I was more familiar with. In the course of that year, I have explored serialism and atonality (as well as polytonality and modalism). In that year.. I have come a long way in my understanding of music. Writing works whose primary focus is the material itself - independent of traditional harmonic models - is a difficult task in and of itself. A year ago, I didn't see that! I can speak from experience now and say that it is a viable form of expression and one that I would recommend every composer (no matter your personal opinion) undertake. There's a lot to learn from it. I really don't want to have to lock this thread though... so I ask that everyone here please keep the personal attacks separate. Discuss and argue with the other persons position - don't attack that person.

First, Hecklaphone is categorically wrong. Second, Nirvana, your response doesn't seem to address why it's wrong, at least not to my satisfaction. Maybe you're going too easy on Heckla :P Forget what we know about "prescriptive" structures in these various languages and styles of music. None of these formulaic systems of compositional style are "concrete," per se. "Common-practice tonality" DOES NOT base itself on ONE NOTE. Traditional western music centralizes and manipulates a diatonic sonority, usually either the Major or Minor tonalities of the style. A 'C' isn't the gravitational factor, it's the combination of C, E, and G or A, C, and E, for example, that are the focal points of the style, and these are only "gravitational" due to the relationship of the dominant/dissonant sonority to the tonic/consonant sonority. In short, we wouldn't say a piece is written in the "tone of C", we'd say the piece was written in the "key of C", the "key of C Major/Minor," etc. because we're referring to a sonority, whether applicable in an ensemble work or harmonically implicit in solo works. That music is formulaic doesn't legitimate it. I could make up any set of guidelines for organizing pitches, rhythms, sonorities, etc, claim it's a language of music, and no one will have any way to say, "No, it's not." Traditional western music doesn't even require that we follow every single one of its "form, rules," etc, which is one reason why we learn about "exceptional" composers of the tradition like Bach, Beethoven, etc who more or less made their own rules rather than blindly following in others' footsteps - one good example is Wagner's Liebstod from Tristan where the climactic harmonic progression is actually a "regression" from a V to a IV - not exactly a "common practice" of traditional western music, but who honestly thinks in makes a difference at this point whether it makes the Liebstod "tonal" or "atonal" because of some "rule"? In this way, Nirvana, I think you're misunderstanding what is "legitimate" about contemporary music... Just like these composers of traditional music just happened to refine their approach to music in an "aesthetically convincing way", so to speak, that's exactly what we do in contemporary music where no harmonic hierarchies or "rules" apply. We're losing sight of this in the discussion of tonal/atonal music. It's not an issue of whether rules are followed, whether one is more complex than the other. The greatest thing we can take away from the emergent contemporary styles of the 20th Century in western music is the understanding that these "rules" aren't rules at all... we don't need to follow them to create convincing music. We only need to appreciate why these theoretical principles exist, why they are relevant to us (if at all), and whether our music benefits from the application of these principles. Thus ends another rant. -AA