Tonality, modality and atonality

Do you compose in a more or less tonal or modal style, or are your works more "noisy" sounding (for lack of a better word)? Not that all atonal music is "noisy" (in fact, I think a lot of it is pretty lyrical,) but I'm just wondering.

I like a kind of balanced sound with regards to tonality. I try to avoid a totally baroque/classical/romantic sound, but I don't like much music that's just a bunch of random notes thrown down, either. Modality is cool, too, because it makes music more interesting to listen too, imo.

What do you think?

Do you compose in a more or less tonal or modal style, or are your works more "noisy" sounding (for lack of a better word)? Not that all atonal music is "noisy" (in fact, I think a lot of it is pretty lyrical,) but I'm just wondering.

I like a kind of balanced sound with regards to tonality. I try to avoid a totally baroque/classical/romantic sound, but I don't like much music that's just a bunch of random notes thrown down, either. Modality is cool, too, because it makes music more interesting to listen too, imo.

What do you think?

The thing is, if the music is "a bunch of random notes" then it isn't "atonal". it's just a bunch of random notes. Atonality doesn't mean random. Most non-tonal music is quite highly structured.

It's a sad reality that many young composers decide to start writing non-tonal music by just plunking formless masses of sound down. That doesn't make a piece atonal.

If you have an interest in different non-traditional methods of organizing sound, there are books on the subject. One of the easiest to access, and covering a wide range of materials, is Vincent Persichetti's "Twentieth Century Harmony". It's not as detailed as some might like (and actually makes a few erroneous statements, particularly concerning polyharmony), but it's a good start.

The saddest thing is that too often, young composers think that writing "atonal" music means abandonning the "old rules" of counterpoint and voice leading. This is actually quite far from the truth. Most of those old compositional guidelines continue to have relevance even in a thoroughly non-tonal context. The difficult thing is learning HOW they continue to have relevance.

The thing is, if the music is "a bunch of random notes" then it isn't "atonal". it's just a bunch of random notes.

I didn't say that it was, sorry if I wasn't clear. I was just saying that I don't really like most pieces that I consider to be "a bunch of random notes, whether it's atonal or not.

I know that most atonal musical is very structured (take Schoenberg's serialism), I was just mentioning a preference.

Schoenberg was a composer who wrote atonal music in a very traditional way. And Schoenberg didn't quite write serial music, although dodecaphony is what kind of started serialism. Arguably, the first totally serial piece is the "Mode de valeurs et d'intensit

Personally, I'm often wondering whether to classify my music as "tonal" or "atonal". It's certainly atonal in the ears of most people, and I would call most of my previous works as such too, but my more recent pieces are built on harmonic concepts that do establish harmonic relationships and "reference points". While my harmonies aren't strictly hierarchical, that is to some degree true for Debussy too, and his music is also called "tonal". Of course, my harmonies aren't derived from common practice tonality, and there isn't really a tonal centre in my pieces, but I still find "atonality" not quite fitting. This has, by the way -nothing- to do with dissonance, being noisy, etc. One of my up to date most "tonal" pieces (in my opinion) is my computer piece "Spinnweben & Flughunde" (I posted it here somewhere), which is extremely noisy, dissonant, and not even based on a grid of 12 (or another number) pitch classes. It would definitely not sound tonal to most people (not even to me, if I just heard it), but the harmonic concept behind its making could well be called "tonal".

The thing is, if the music is "a bunch of random notes" then it isn't "atonal". it's just a bunch of random notes. Atonality doesn't mean random. Most non-tonal music is quite highly structured.

It's a sad reality that many young composers decide to start writing non-tonal music by just plunking formless masses of sound down. That doesn't make a piece atonal.

If you have an interest in different non-traditional methods of organizing sound, there are books on the subject. One of the easiest to access, and covering a wide range of materials, is Vincent Persichetti's "Twentieth Century Harmony". It's not as detailed as some might like (and actually makes a few erroneous statements, particularly concerning polyharmony), but it's a good start.

The saddest thing is that too often, young composers think that writing "atonal" music means abandonning the "old rules" of counterpoint and voice leading. This is actually quite far from the truth. Most of those old compositional guidelines continue to have relevance even in a thoroughly non-tonal context. The difficult thing is learning HOW they continue to have relevance.

Ahh... um.. You can totally write "Atonal" music by just randomly throwing down notes on a score. After all, that's what we know as free-atonality. Free atonality simply throws away any concept of dissonance and consonance, and once you have that out of the way, treat both things as if they were one (Schoenberg called it "Sonance", I think?) You can do that just by ear, really.

Let's not forget, that 12-tone technique came after free-atonality due to an attempt to work back form which didn't depend on tonal principles. Basically, if you kill any concept of consonance and dissonance, the entire traditional/functional harmonic system falls apart, along with traditional forms which depend on this.

Schoenberg was a composer who wrote atonal music in a very traditional way. And Schoenberg didn't quite write serial music, although dodecaphony is what kind of started serialism. Arguably, the first totally serial piece is the "Mode de valeurs et d'intensit

Schoenberg DID write serial music, the difference is that it was called serial music after Messiaen. Messiaen serialized more parameters than just the pitches, and then later Nono, Stockhausen, etc, took it to extremes (Stockhausen's pieces for piano, oh god. The 10th is awesome, but it's a nightmare to play.)

I think it's a question of nomenclature here. In English, as far as I know, dodecaphony is also called serialism. In German, "serial music" only refers to music where all (or let's say several) parameters of music follow a row, as anticipated in Messiaens "Modes de valeurs et d'intensit

if webern's five pieces for string quartet is atonal, then it is no way non-structured or loose, because it's the most concentrated and calculated (like - necessary) work for strings that i have heard ,plus - add emotional charge and you have an immortal piece. AND i never seen it being played in national filharmony, on repertoire..

stupid schedule makers, as they say :)

if webern's five pieces for string quartet is atonal, then it is no way non-structured or loose, because it's the most concentrated and calculated (like - necessary) work for strings that i have heard ,plus - add emotional charge and you have an immortal piece. AND i never seen it being played in national filharmony, on repertoire..

stupid schedule makers, as they say :)

I share your love for this piece :wub:

Schoenberg was a composer who wrote atonal music in a very traditional way.

I write tonal.

I personally feel no need for the 'Do' effect, the landing at home, etc. Traditional tonality and I have never agreed - ever. I have never longed for the feeling of complete satisfaction musically speaking - as long as the path to nowhere is full of interesting surprises! ;)

My music leans towards following no set path as far as tonality is concerned. But that doesn't mean I randomly throw notes down. I would assert that working within a somewhat unlimited soundworld requires a lot more work - more time spent figuring out what chord works best next, rather than just 'feeling' it or following what Beethoven did. I really don't appreciate the bad light that atonality gets, even though I never claim to be an atonal composer. But I will fight for every kind of music because plenty of places out there, someone loves his atonal compositions. And he has every right to!

Sorry if I went off on a tangent!

Ahh... um.. You can totally write "Atonal" music by just randomly throwing down notes on a score. After all, that's what we know as free-atonality. Free atonality simply throws away any concept of dissonance and consonance, and once you have that out of the way, treat both things as if they were one (Schoenberg called it "Sonance", I think?) You can do that just by ear, really.

I think you may have misinterpreted what I wrote.

Obviously one can write abstract and aleatoric music by "tossing notes around in a free and unstructured fashion".

However, my comment was in response to the idea that non-tonal music IS "random notes".

And on a side-note, in French we refer to 12-tone technique as serialism. So yes, Schoenberg was a serialist to us.

For my own thinking, I happen to think it is wrong to "throw away concepts of dissonance and consonance". It is unrealistic, and in the end counterproductive, to do so. Too many composers, while saying they were removing the line between consonance and dissonance were in reality creating a NEW line, one that refuses the existance of consonance and its relationship to dissonance.

While it might be an interesting philosophical idea, removing all consonance simply removes one of the elements that identifies the relationship consonance/dissonance. Dark without light is nothing. Loud without soft is likewise nothing.

hello,

beyond konsonant music imho there is only one who sounds serious bold and massive.

he is none of the mentioned composers above, but he is on classical.net, too.

i have a question: what is modality? sounds interesting...

I don't think "calculated" is a term that should be used to describe music. Not that some music isn't calculated, I just think it shouldn't be so. Music is NOT meant to be calculated, its meant to be felt. That's not really an opinion, its simply factual. Unfortunately, the last 80 years of classical music seems to lack that quality.

I don't think "calculated" and "felt" are necessarily exclusive though. A "calculated" structure can also be "felt", and at the very least can support a "felt concept". Palestrina's, Bach's, Webern's, Xenakis' music are all to some degree calculated, but there's still a strong musical sense behind all of them, which both decides the nature of the "calculations" and where to "bend (or even break) them" to meet your musical intuition. Just writing what "you feel" can be just as limiting as just writing what a system dictates you.

For my own thinking' date=' I happen to think it is wrong to "throw away concepts of dissonance and consonance". It is unrealistic, and in the end counterproductive, to do so. Too many composers, while saying they were removing the line between consonance and dissonance were in reality creating a NEW line, one that refuses the existance of consonance and its relationship to dissonance.

While it might be an interesting philosophical idea, removing all consonance simply removes one of the elements that identifies the relationship consonance/dissonance. Dark without light is nothing. Loud without soft is likewise nothing.[/quote']

But if a music doesn't define itself by consonance-dissonance harmonies, that doesn't mean it can't define itself by other parameters. Dark without light may be nothing, but complete darkness can heighten ones senses to sounds and smells, to continue the metaphor. A blind person for whom the category of "darkness" doesn't matter surely also has highly sensual and artistic experiences. You may say that being blind is still undesirable in the end, but in the case of a music piece it's only a temporal blindness which can be made up for by increased "sight" in other parameters. I'm not sure if the colourful variety of timbres in Ligeti's "Atmosph

Gardener, I think you and I may be arguing "

I personally prefer tonal and modal music. And I don't mean strictly sticking to the major-minor system; I mean a reference point to be present, feeling for a center, as Gardener mentioned before. I simply want the music to be accessible to and listened by more people... Of course, I think of atonality as very useful resource for expressive purposes and I appreciate atonal music, too.

Some atonalists defend themselves by saying that tonality is no more than a cultural bias. And some tonalists say that tonality is natural. I would say this is a stupid "war" and that the truth is in the middle of these two statements. It is explainable why so many people don't respond to atonal music as they do to tonal and here is how I would explain it: First, when there is a tonal center present, the structure of tones is easily, intuitively perceivable, so listeners are immediately aware that music is not random, it is felt that tones are in hierarchy and connected to a progenitor tone, so to speak. When there is no such a tone, structure is more subtle, in a sense that it is not perceivable by the listener at the same level, or at least not so easy to feel, so even if the piece is meticulously structured, it may still sound random to many listeners. And second, listeners are also "tuned" to look for structure in this manner.

For my own thinking, I happen to think it is wrong to "throw away concepts of dissonance and consonance". It is unrealistic, and in the end counterproductive, to do so. Too many composers, while saying they were removing the line between consonance and dissonance were in reality creating a NEW line, one that refuses the existance of consonance and its relationship to dissonance.

While it might be an interesting philosophical idea, removing all consonance simply removes one of the elements that identifies the relationship consonance/dissonance. Dark without light is nothing. Loud without soft is likewise nothing.

I'd like to say I agree. And I also think that such an abandonment kills a great resource of expressiveness.

But I agree with Gardener, too, that such a temporal abandonment allows for other parameters to manifest.

Overall, this is a very interesting topic.

QcCowboy: I see what you mean then. I don't think it's that much of a problem anymore though, today. This was mostly a phenomenon of the fifties in post-WW2 Europe, whose proponents (if still living) have generally become more moderate over the years. I do not think that it concerns the new generation of composers (which I count myself under) as much as it concerned our teachers, who were either still involved in this "school", or sought to free themselves from it.

Without continuing the blindness metaphor (we can't get stuck in a metaphor forever, can we!), I still think however that it's not quite clear that consonance and dissonance should simply be accepted as existing facts (independant of whether you use them or not). The definitions of "consonance" have changed so much over the centuries, that it's clearly a rather ambiguous concept. (While most cultures could agree on octaves and probably fifths as consonants, it already begins to fall apart with thirds, fourths, and sixths, not even to mention what happens when have more than one interval at the same time.)

Of course, there being several definitions of what consonance is doesn't have to mean that the concept of consonance doesn't matter. The idea of harmonic concepts for which consonance-dissonance relationships matter without any common-practice tonality (or even any tonality at all) seems sensible to me, just as much as music that works without such relationships.

But while I think one shouldn't reject the possibility of composing in consonances and dissonances right away, I can sort of also understand if someone says "there is no such thing as consonance and dissonance", if ones musical thought just operates in different categories. (Which, agreed, may become problematic when you force that view upon others. But there's hardly a musical style or school that doesn't force musical concepts on its students.)

Yes this IS a very interesting discussion. There are a lot of deep issues for a person involved in creative endeavours. This is one of the issues facing composers. I'm not sure it has a resolution. However, how each person deals with it is also what creates the richness of tapestry to which we all belong as composers.

I personally feel that the musical world would be a barren place if only one musical philosophy held court to the exclusion of all others. While I might not necessarily like all "atonal" music (and honestly, I dislike the term "atonal"... it means what? it means "not tonal"... but "modal" is also "not tonal". What I dislike about the term is that it is used to describe something vast and varied, yet all it says is what that vast and varied thing "is not". It is "not tonal") there are still works of music which eschew tonality and which bring me great pleasure and emotion.

It boils down to semantics, apparently. Is white noise consonant? Dissonant? Is it anything, everything? There's a lot of stuff to do with perception, but in the end the reality is pretty simple; It's extremely easy to "break" the tonal system, and pretty much any tone-organization system. They're not designed to be end-all compositional solutions, and shouldn't be treated as such.

And, as far as I can see, I'm seeing WAY more composers go the neo-classical/neo-romantic way. It's not very surprising, since there's no "eternal Zeitgeist" for 20th century music (yet?), as there is for Mozart and Co. Despite the reality being that, as discussed elsewhere, the validity and authenticity of historical imitation is very questionable despite its pedagogical value. It's simply a matter that people THINK they understand the music, and therefore they do, in their own level.

A lot less people feel they connect with Penderecki's music (rough estimate!), compared to older (western traditional) composers. There's no automatic context for "new music" in this way, therefore there is no automatic connection and people feel alienated by something they don't understand.

Like that article I posted a bit off translated, today a lot of focus is put on excessive traditional theory. While theory is relatively important, this emphasis draws a large gap between "new music" and traditionalists, etc. The main reason is that the context and relationships between the traditional idioms have been mostly lost, and what remains its their popularity, along with the fossils.

Today's context is entirely different. Today, composition is a field that is immense in scope compared to the past centuries. Things go by increasingly faster, and composition practice has been railed into "total freedom" and that is a fundamental problem. It's no wonder traditional composers wrote so much music. It's very simple to learn a formula and churn out piece after piece based on similar models.

The body of work for a composer today can never be expected, no matter how brilliant, to equal in number to one of old. The quality of the work itself is the determining factor. I believe the responsibility of the composer is to actually make use of every single available method to get a point across. Considering all the history up to this point, this is worth years and years of study and practice. In this respect, the quality today of a piece is measured by countless parameters which may or may not be even intended. So, when it comes to composing a modern piece of music, the possibilities are also countless.

In the face of a huge, ever-growing ocean of possibilities, a lot of people just don't venture out very far. My beef is that this isn't because people are lazy, but because there are plenty of misconceptions which prevent a lot of young people from understanding that having possibilities as vast as what we have today is a GOOD thing.

And of course, the way traditional theory is treated, plays a huge factor in this.

As far as composition circles where no consonance is allowed, there's all sorts of junk in the world. There are composition professors that expect you to write 10 string quartets in Vienna classic style before you can even think of writing something atonal. There are those that simply have no idea at all and just say whatever, and since they're popular people give a scraggy.

That's another thing altogether though. The teacher doesn't make the composer, and pretty much a lot of people "Studied" with big-name composers mostly to get ahead in terms of popularity, press, whatever. Saying you were part of the Darmstadt thing, with Ligeti, Xenakis and co. surely gets you some rep in a lot of places. More so if you actually had pieces performed there.

So in the end, really. These days it's just a matter of picking up whatever materials (musical or not) are necessary to represent an idea, concept, whatever, and go with that. Like I always say, writing "what comes out", ignorantly and by force of habit, doesn't benefit the composer much. It's practically inexcusable today, considering all the huge amount of material available to study and learn from.

Rant rant rant, roar, hahaha~

I had written a quite big post, but I accidentally took my battery off and I have to rewrite most of it now... argh...

Anyway, here it goes;

Music is NOT meant to be calculated, its meant to be felt. That's not really an opinion, its simply factual.

It's really funny of you to speak of "facts" about music, when in a previous post you said that you thought music is the most subjective thing in the world.

But in any case, let's look at the "facts". Music has always been calculated. From Machaut and isorhythm, to Bach and his Well-Tempered Clavier or his Goldberg Variations, to Mozart and his piano sonatas, to Bartok and his "Music for strings percussion and celesta", to John Cage and his "Music of Changes", to Boulez and his "Structures" for two pianos, to Xenakis and his probabilities, to anyone really.

Pitches are all about frequencies, and frequencies are maths. The equal temperament scale is basically a geometric progression with a common ratio of the twelfth root of 2. Even the pythagorean intervals are based on maths and ratios (the perfect fifth being 3/2 of the fundamental etc). All the elements of music are calculated, intervals, dynamics, instrumentation, harmony, voice-leading, organisation of sound in time, form, a balance between any of the aforementioned elements and so on. You can't "not calculate" music. Whether it is done consciously or not, music is calculated. Every single choice you make about music is a calculation, or a series of calculations.

And you can also take a look at the history of painting. How can you say that a painting by DaVinci is not calculated? How can you assume that the Last Supper or Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam had not been calculated and was just "felt"? Of course, there comes a point where after having calculated for a long period of your life, most of the calculations come out naturally, almost effortlessly, but that doesn't mean they are just "felt", they are still "calculated", just in a more unconscious level.

Also, a Rothko painting is much less calculated than a DaVinci painting. Can you therefore say that a DaVinci painting is less artistic than a Rothko? I bet many people will say that Rothko's works are not even Art. And if you think of Rodin and his sculptures, I don't believe he actually just threw himself into sculpting and created the sculptures he did. He calculated and planned the sculpture (much like a poet or a novelist would calculate many details of his writing before writing it, whether that's because it has to fit in a specific form -e.g. Shakespeare when writing sonnets- or because you just want to "hide" meanings and symbolisms in your story -e.g. any poem by Kavafis) before carving it. Also take a look at contemporary poetry: you can say it is much less calculated than medieval, renaissance or romantic poetry. Still, people tend to consider the latter ones more artistic.

Unfortunately, the last 80 years of classical music seems to lack that quality.

Unfortunately, the last 80 years of classical music seems to lack that quality.

I've replied to you about this in another thread, but as a short comment again, I'd say you over-generalise a very diverse era of composition which cannot be generalised in such crude terms.

I hate batteries.

i had long time thinking of it.....music and mathematics.

so, what is relation between these two forms of thought?

firstly, i think, there's great historical evidence of music being concerned with mathematics - from paul hindemith's mathesis universalis to my home country composer rytis mazulis whose works you can find on Megadisc - A contemporary classical catalogue featuring unique recordings. also through names like erkki-sven tuur's architectonics or even webern's 5 pieces for string quartet. what all these have in common is the sense of musical composition being its inner form of numbers. like in pure mathematics it has no other meaning, but just its (compositional/ equational) inner formal order. like mathematics,this music starts from axioms,and stays faithful to the principal of using as little as possible. and, what is of most importance, music, like mathematics, is infinite

- an examples of the infinite that lives in thought.

yet, the question goes - what is it that seperates music from mathematics?

my answer would be - singing. singing, which is subject's voice, born in particular time. mathematics has no concern with subject. music, like all other arts, is of and for subject.

i forgot to write an opening quotation for the topic, which was pessoa's, now i don't remember it so good, but it goes like this - newtonian equation is as beautiful as a blossom of the flower. so, the meaning would be to take beauty as a formal (and in a way cold) property.

rytis mazulis, for example, by using microtones, creates a realy beautiful geometrical/architectural sheet of music. his black notes lying on the paper are much the same as sound - overtly structured, bare, and beautiful. so, i think, geometrical/architectural form of writing is very much an inspiration for the sound itself.

now, for example take morton feldman, you almost can't see no diffrence in his notes on paper, same patterns all over (in the same piece of music), except for some minor change to occur, which gives beauty to music. and take some mathematical equation - it's much the same - couple of moves here and there may make one equation completely preferable (more beautiful, or just beautiful) to another. what i am suggesting is that it's not a far way from these to processes, at least for some kind of music. as for emotions - they are more or less patterns of experience, nothing more.so, they can be put in terms of scientific research, and maths, no doubt. as a piece of music has no inner feeling, so does equations. yet, one, engaged in them may feel diffrent kind of feelings.

by introducing notion of 'singing', i was trying to go to completely other direction. which was not that of theory, but of history. singing, time and voice would emerge as a names for such a demarcation, and a possiblity for music as subjective ongoing into objects of sound (which has properties much the same as maths). the name for this subject to emerge is an event. there's no music without an event, or events. let's say dodecaphonic/twelve music tone event put into life so much new music, which was completely out of reach for the classical bach,haydn,mozart. this event, like the ones before, have brought into being a thing which theoretically has much the same properties - desire for structure, for patterns, for formal order. yet, what was completely diffrent, was a new subject emerging out of that event. a new voice, new singing, new time. so, i think, only this feature, is that, which seperates music from math. math is eternal, and underlies all of our activity. it's necessary. music is not. it's a voice, written in the language much the same as maths, yet from completely diffrent time and place.

i wholy agree with the statement that music is language, which i meant by arguing about music source as a voice and becoming subjet. and music is made true art not by math, yes. yet i don't believe that getting rid of all of its mathematical features is a way of making it an art. noise to me is not an art form. as well as silence.

music can be arranged according to mathematics to suit no one else, but the work and composer in question. as true mathematics isn't about technological achievement, but about true beauty of thought movements in number. art can be decadent as science.

music is about thought movements(embodied in sounds). both, math and music is about thought movements. if pop culture use trivial maths to get fast acknowledgement and money, that doesn't mean math is trivial - it only means they are thinking base.thinking false movements.

alain badiou, french philosopher, wrote that scientist (mathematician) needs only one other scientist to approve of his results, while artist ultimately needs no one (nevertheless, work of art has an adress, such being the nature of all language). plus it's good to remember that math has it's riddles that are waiting to be solved for centuries,a s with ferma's (hope i wrote it right) equations, and we all know of musical riddles as that of old bach. as for emotional/intuitive part we can remember mozart words, which sounded smth like this - ordinary people will admire this music not knowing why, while professionals will see it's structural beauty. it could seem that math lacks its "ordinary people", yet when one learns and starts to understand new (to him/her) math, threre's really a big emotional or intuitive change. they might not seem, but numbers and sequences are unique. all odd numbers versus/together with numbers like 2,4,6,8,10. having diffrent relations, diffrent taste. and it's not too far to claim, that 17 is quite diffrent from 4. i had a discussion with mathematician, who, when i used to stay that it's just calculating, it's just computation, would completely deny my words and response with something like - you don't know how much imagination and intuition as well as a brave choice is needed for good mathematician. yes, for us, not exceptional in maths, it is hard to see, whre the beauty comes in, but it is as well with people, who don't understand some music - they really don't see how some sound sequences and layers can be beautifull.

You can't "not calculate" music. Whether it is done consciously or not, music is calculated. Every single choice you make about music is a calculation, or a series of calculations

Again with semantics. What "calculating" means is probably more related to the composition process than physics and quantification of natural phenomena in mathematical formulas. Furthermore, "calculating" is not "planning", they are two different things. Calculating something can be part of planning something, but I'd say planning is the key here.

I think all approaches to writing music are valid, when it comes to method, so long as it's a conscious choice and it's what the composer wants. (I've said this way too much~)

Either way, you can always boil everything down to mathematics, but that doesn't mean anything to the music itself, or art in general.