Leaderboard

Sonority is any vertical combination of any number of pitches. Chord is three or more pitches sounding together, no matter if they are part of tertian or quartal/quintal harmony. Secundal chords (clusters) may be listed here, too, but I prefer to exclude them for obvious reasons. However, don't forget that dyads may function as incomplete chords.

I don't think the term "atonal" is going away. :P Many people I've talked with don't really call that many pieces "atonal," because many modern/contemporary works which some might call atonal actually have tonal implications throughout. That makes it neither atonal nor tonal. I'm finding more and more that it's not that accurate a term, but we have to deal with it. +1 on AA. I'd suggest, JRC, not to allow your row to become a sort of "A", because IMO tone rows are not characteristic enough in and of themselves to be identifiable as connective musical glue. Perhaps I am betraying my ignorance, but they all sound so similar once they get going that the individual rows get lost on me and I'm just paying attention to the motion and textures.

You're clearly retarded.

Well, durr... your brain is made to look for patterns even when there are really no patterns evident. Applying that to your listening to music that does not have some sort of repetitive nature to it means that your brain latches onto things that it recognizes as a pattern. So, for each and every person listening -as is the case even in 'classical/romantic' music- they may find something inherently different. Schoenberg's style works because of just what you said: he creates moments in his music the listener can grasp on to. That's all its about really.