Harmony and Theme

As I reading Schoenberg's text on composition, I came across a line that said that composer should not invent a musical theme with out a harmonic framework in his mind. To me this mean that we can't harmony, and all music is has that frame work in it. My definition of harmony is the vertical alignment of musical lines that are used to create chord. Now, "chords" and "harmony" can mean anything these days but that depends on the style I write in. I want to know what you fellow composers have to say. Take the poll and explain your answer.

I am sitting in a room, different than the one you are in.

Music on a long thin wire.

Drums of death.

Grindcore.

Come on. Easy-peasy.

Though I kind of get what you mean, sort of. Sure, the specific pitches of the drums create a sort of chordal basis. Sure, you could hear patterns of overlaid sounds in I am sitting in a room. Sure, there are tones in a pattern in grindcore. But it's not harmony per se, and trying to fit it into a box of harmony could be counterproductive to seeing what it's all about.

If you say "I'm sitting in a room" has any kind of "harmony" then the word stops having any meaning anymore.

If you choose to compose by multiple tones, then harmony is the result.

So, not that the harmony is inescapable, as if it were a all-powerful force of nature, I think it is the sum of the parts, the mere effect. This poll, reveals a premise, which I share/understand, by the way. That is, I have never tried to work with other sounds. And this premise was current in Schoenbergs days as well. I think there was no alternative then.

But that was a century ago. Thinks happen...

If you are able to define harmony in such a way that street sound (cf the Sticks work of Morgi, or works of pilorius) fall whitin your definition, I'll salute you. But I think you will have to bend the rules...

Interesting. Well with the sticks piece, I would not say that they form a musical chord or create harmony in that sense, but they do create a different form of harmony. Thus, let's extend the definition of harmony to include the combination of sounds and pitches that may or may not form a musical chords, or the alignment of the sounds in a musical compositional.

To define the combined sound of different sticks is closer to orchestration than to harmony

I would say the orchestration of the sticks creates a sense of harmony. Not in the way that we would usually think, but in a new way. The sounds come together at different time and intervals form a chords. Now we all know that chords and harmony are related, and that there are different types of chords. Some tonal and some atonal. Some aleatory and some are just sounds forming together. If listen closely enough the different bird song will form their sense of harmony. Oliver Messiaen adapted this into his music most of the time. Music has harmony it is part its nature.

the point is not wheter or not birds or sticks or whatever background noise can form a harmony, but that it does not apply to only non-pitched music.

Yeas you can achieve different sounds using different non pitched instruments of tapes or whatever. But combining that is orchestration, com-posing (putting together) the available (non-pitched) sounds

Yeah but that's what SSC meant by it losing any meaning. Sure, there are aspects of harmony -- but aspects of something do not necessarily make it that thing. It'd be like saying a metronome is/has a feel -- sure straight eighths is a feel, but I'd hardly call what the metronome is doing to be that.

On the other hand, we can say that a drum has pitch, or at least elements of that, and I'd find that pretty legitimate...

Yeah but that's what SSC meant by it losing any meaning. Sure, there are aspects of harmony -- but aspects of something do not necessarily make it that thing. It'd be like saying a metronome is/has a feel -- sure straight eighths is a feel, but I'd hardly call what the metronome is doing to be that.

On the other hand, we can say that a drum has pitch, or at least elements of that, and I'd find that pretty legitimate...

If "harmony" is whatever you want it to be, then why use the term at all since it takes longer to explain what you mean with "harmony" than to just say it outright.

And, everything has "pitch," the problem is simply the perception of pitch. Since percussion varies in this regard, saying "non-pitched" percussion is a practical solution that isn't factually accurate, but works well enough to separate instrument groups given the perception of pitch. This is the same thing we do when we call instruments by different names depending on the sound they produce.

To me, harmony is simply a term to describe tonal relationships within a specific set of music. More than that is making the term meaningless. It's like saying a boat is a "new kind" of car, therefore we can call them as well "cars" instead of boats, or that airplanes are a "different kind" of bird, thus we can call them birds instead. This doesn't work for obvious reasons.

The main question could've as well been "can you escape cars?" And then defining everything you interact with as a car, lol.

All interesting points here. :)