'Is tonal composition dead?'

So... had my final music exam today (A Levels). The synoptic question was 'It's now more than a century since some composers rejected tonality. Is tonal composition dead?'. I'll post what I said tomorrow (parents are going to bed now :P) but I thought it was a very interesting question. Anyway. So, discuss.

No.

Duh.

Don't ask dumb questions.

Realize he didnt ask the question, but a test did.

It is a fairly stupid quesiton though and I think the answer is no.

if anythign tonality has been reaccepted and combined wiht atonlity and other unconventional tonalities. Most peices are not purely atonal or poly tonal any way. Its almost like an effect from waht I gather

What a retarded question. No further comments necessary.

Try a top of the charts film score that isn't tonal... not going to fly very well. People love melodies... tonal ones. I don't think it could ever die out completely or even just mostly, and I stand by that prediction.

The fact that 90 percent of composers out there are still writing tonally means that tonal composition can't be dead, right? *shakes head*

Furthermore, I don't like the insinuation that ALL composers in the 20th century rejected tonality. That's ridiculous. What about Barber? Ravel? Debussy? Bartok didn't even write strictly atonal all the time. He just wrote very dissonant music. And we're not even considering pop music which has always remained hellishly tonal. Pretty stupid question, in my opinion.

First of all I agree that it's a rather stupid question. And I also agree that tonality (whatever that term means in the first place) isn't dead.

But I don't think poining out the number of writers and listeners of so-called "tonal music" is a sufficient explanation of this, as for me it doesn't suffice that "tonality" is used in order to truly live. It matters whether you treat tonality as something living, changing, as something you have to redefine constantly for yourself, something you can think about, experiment with etc., or whether you're just using it as a static given fact with unchangeable rules without thinking about it. I do think there's quite a lot of "tonal music" where the tonality is, in fact, rather "dead".

But not even that makes the music necessarily bad in my opinion. All composers focus more on some aspects than others and use some musical parameters in pretty "dead"/unimaginative/conservative ways while being very original in the treatment of other parameters. Such music may be lacking a lively tonality, but may still be very living due to other aspects.

single word essays were ok?

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NO!

No time to reply further right now... Paying too much attention to my CD to be (self) published... (and thus the spam-ish nature of my post! :D)

Can someone move this to "Composer's Headquarters" instead of "Repertoire"? :P

Aaand..

The fact that 90 percent of composers out there are still writing tonally means that tonal composition can't be dead, right? *shakes head*

Fact? 90% of composers out there? :X

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Fact? 90% of composers out there? :X

Yeah, I'll admit that I just made up that number. It's a rough estimate but from what I've observed, I see very few true atonalists. I realize that at the start of the 20th century, composers became a lot more dissonant and lax with tonality but even still, they had tonal centers. Here on YC, I've observed maybe 4-5 truly atonal composers and on other music upload sites I go to, I don't even see anything approaching atonality. Plus look at pop music and film music today, (to the best of my knowledge) almost all of it is hellishly tonal.

So, I do think it's safe to say that the large majority of composers out there compose tonally/modally. But I'll admit that 90 percent may be a tad too much.

So, I do think it's safe to say that the large majority of composers out there compose tonally/modally.

First of all, you're generalizing terribly, because you mention that most of the "composers" in YC write tonal stuff, so that's the case with all the composers all over the world.

And I wouldn't classify "pop" music as "composition". But let's not open that topic now.

About the vast majority of the "composers out there", I'd suggest you go and listen to music other than film music - film music is commercial, like pop, so I wouldn't again categorise it with concert music.

And music is not just tonality/atonality.

In fact, if you had some at least fundamental knowledge of 20th century music, you'd see that in fact most composers are not tonal, not in the way Mozart was or anyone else - maybe there are compositions with tonal elements, but there is an equal amount of compositions which haven't got any tonal reminisces.

This is turning into "my un-backed-up 'facts' are better than yours".

Well, it depends on how you define "atonal" then. I define it as a complete lack of a tonal center and the absence of the dissonance/consonance relationship. I hear/see very little music that actually follows that criteria. I won't get into a flame war with you because I don't see the point. You have your opinion and I have mine. If you had any way to prove that how many composers generally write tonally as opposed to atonally then I think you would've already shown me. So it's purely a matter of experience and/or opinion. If you ever do come across such proof, then I'll admit I am wrong.

Also, I find the comment "I'd suggest you go and listen to music other than film music" sort of offensive. A) You're implying that I'm close-minded and only listen to incidental music. B) You're making this assumption on absolutely nothing. C) It's not true.

I rarely listen to incidental music at all anymore. It's nice but it doesn't provide me with the same feeling it once did. To get that feeling anymore, I listen to Debussy, Ravel, Bartok, Barber, Satie, (the occasional) Schoenberg, Berg, Beethoven, and I even listen to Berio. If you notice, most of these composers *are* from the 20th century.

But I'm done with this debate. I'll admit that I was talking about music as a whole and not just concert music. As far as concert music goes, it's probably more even between atonality/tonality.

People, we need to remember that 'non-tonal' doesn't necessarily mean atonal... :whistling:

This is turning into "my un-backed-up 'facts' are better than yours".

Lol. I seem to have caused trouble, sorry...

Ok, so I realise I look a bit stupid here, haha, of course the answer is 'no'. :P It's not a stupid question at all though; it's a very good question for an exam, in that there is so much to say about why the statement that was made is incorrect, and what bits of truth there were in the statement that enabled them to use it as a sparking point. Obviously tonal composition will be popular as long as tonal music is popular, which in our culture is likely to be pretty much until it ends.

But I thought it was an interesting question because it made me think interesting things about tonality, and about whether it's important beyond simply being the way music has 'grown up' and tended to be done in our society. Let me make it clear the exam was not in any specific way about 'atonality'. Lol. I only made very passing reference to things like Webern and tone-rows in my answer. Mainly it made me think of Messiaen and his 'modes of limited transposition', and how he said (forgive me for citing from the monster) he experienced synesthesia and claimed "the terms "tonal", "modal" and "serial", and other such terms, are misleading analytical conveniences, and that for him there were no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only music with colour and music without colour" (Wikipedia). Messiaen said that it was his modes of limited transposition (the first of which is the whole-tone scale: definitely non-tonal, though of course not atonal) that produced for him the strongest colour-sensations. Blah blah blah... shabang, essay. Obviously this does not mean tonality is dead (indeed, rather, Messiaen is dead... :p). It just underlines - as we know anyway - that tonality need not be the only way, or even the only 'most effective' way to go about composition, and need not ever have been, except that it was and therefore by proxy only, is. (Wow, I love that fantastically rediculous sentence, haha, I feel like Milton on a bad day). Just thought it might incite interesting discussion lol.

Mark, I keep losing the damn game! :angry: :toothygrin:

*Mark wins the game*

Lol.

That's all I have to say. This post is probably spam. :whistling:

To Juji: How is a pop song not a "composition" again? If I write a pop song, I'm the goddamn composer of that pop song, and it can as well be called a "piece" and I can as well play it in a concert. Come on now.

Unless you argue that pop songs (or techno, dance, techno-pop, rock, and all the other million genres of music around...) aren't on par with, say, Ligeti, on any sort of objective parameter. Then, LOL. Otherwise, if it's just taste, fine. I don't think it's cool to speak lowly of composers just because they're not into the whole classical/contemporary/Bach/Penderecki thing composers. Much less of the, ahem, COMPOSITIONS of said, ahem, COMPOSERS.

Because last I checked, a composer is someone who writes music, not a specific TYPE of music. Right? Right?

And tonality can't be dead because it's a loving stylistic choice. It's like saying "The color red in clothing is dead!!!!!!!!" Sure thing! Good luck with that.

And tonality can't be dead because it's a loving stylistic choice. It's like saying "The color red in clothing is dead!!!!!!!!" Sure thing! Good luck with that.

Woah, chill. I believe you misunderstand. I don't believe tonality is dead, and I think I'm correct to suggest nor does anyone here. If you'd written that quote in the exam you might have failed spectacularly, I'm afraid to say... lol.

@ Mark: every time I see, or think, the word 'Mark' I lose the bloody game. :toothygrin:

Woah, chill. I believe you misunderstand. I don't believe tonality is dead, and I think I'm correct to suggest nor does anyone here. If you'd written that quote in the exam you might have failed spectacularly, I'm afraid to say... lol.

@ Mark: every time I see, or think, the word 'Mark' I lose the bloody game. :toothygrin:

Say what? What quote?

Tonality is a CHOICE. You can write something tonal, you can't write something quasi-tonal (or "floating in tonality", as Schoenberg put it) or downright atonal or not even qualifying as any of the above (See: Pierre Henry.)

How can a choice be dead...? And moreover, how would I have failed the exam? In fact, what the scraggy kind of exam is that? I would've probably refused to answer the damn question if it showed up in any of my exams on grounds that it's RETARDED.

And I'm quite calm, btw. :>

PS: I'm not saying you believe it or not. I'm just replyin' to the thread in general.

I personally don't find the question retarded it all - on the contrary. I thinks it's quite marvelous. The answer to the question is obvious beyond a doubt (and I still don't see why there is still some arguing going on over it) but the point of the question is to get you thinking of how to approach substantiating that response. To do this fairly WELL takes quite an amount of thought process skill and plenty of knowledge to back up the claim. I think it is a fair question - it is to see how much you really DO know and how you apply that knowledge to support your argument. Nothing wrong with that.

Of course if you are one of these people who think atonal and non-tonal composition is so very prevalent that it threatens the existence of tonalism... I sure hope you have some solid evidence, because I personally find that argument an uphill battle. A steep one, at that. With a hunk of freakin' Stone Henge involved. :ermm:

Is tonality dead? No, it just decided to make new friends.

Is tonality dead? No, it just decided to make new friends.

Well said!

In my opinion, yes It is a very silly question. Tonality is well alive, kicking, hale and blah. take me, I, (i am a plebian, i think?) cant really enjoy atonal music. As in, those that have no real tonal center throughout the piece. :zip:

At least I still call it music. My mum just brands it as

"RUBBISH".:horrified:

*disclaimer: this is in no way disparaging a remark against atonality, but just a viewpoint of the masses who aint that intellectual musically.*:innocent:

I personally don't find the question retarded it all - on the contrary. I thinks it's quite marvelous. The answer to the question is obvious beyond a doubt (and I still don't see why there is still some arguing going on over it) but the point of the question is to get you thinking of how to approach substantiating that response. To do this fairly WELL takes quite an amount of thought process skill and plenty of knowledge to back up the claim. I think it is a fair question - it is to see how much you really DO know and how you apply that knowledge to support your argument. Nothing wrong with that.

I think possibly let's just leave it at this... there's no point arguing over it, half of the people who've posted here I don't even know who you're arguing against, no-one has said they believe tonality is dead. :P And as I said, it's not a stupid question to put in an exam. I worded my original post in such a way that it induced discussion on 'whether tonality is dead or not'; what I meant to do was induce discussion on 'all the interesting things you could say in that exam to denounce the claim, and show why the claim is pertinent (if indefensible) through knowledge of 20th century musical history.'

But since we just seem to be having flame wars, we should probably just shtum. :D

(I have to add though, as I demostrated in my second post and a few people have said here, not being 'tonal' is not being 'atonal' (if you see what I mean, lol). 'Non-tonal' is just everything that is not based around the diatonic system of tonality that uses major and minor keys, including modes of any kind, different ways of breaking up the octave and deliberately non-tonal tuning systems, quartal harmony (CMIIW), and of course serialism - only the last of these, however, is 'atonal' proper in lacking any tonal centre. At least, that's the way I understand it, please set me straight if not.)

And moreover, how would I have failed the exam? In fact, what the scraggy kind of exam is that? I would've probably refused to answer the damn question if it showed up in any of my exams on grounds that it's RETARDED.

Hence, fail. Lol. :P

Thankfully there were a few other questions to choose from, hopefully one of which would have proven inoffensive enough for you to organise your thoughts and answer it... Lol. Or maybe they'd have given you full marks on bold intuitive thinking. :toothygrin: