The thread to end all "Is X relevant?" threads. Ever.

[Old Composer]

But alas, Tonality still exists. So does atonality, but it's on the decline.

Back that up.

[SSC]

I think whats interesting, and I think that very few made mention of this, when the 2nd Viennese School went 'Atonal' it was intentional - at least from what I've read on this, this seems to be the consensus. Prior to 'the move', you had very few composers utilizing avant garde means in their music (poor, misunderstood Charles Ives!)

Surely, Hindemith would've seemed rather odd had 'the move' not taken place (as would, also, the entire state of 20th century music - neoclassical, neoromanticism, minimalism, etc.)

I think a good question that those who have argued over the 'divine supremacy' of tonal music should ask themselves what went wrong? What made composers decide to abandon the practice? *I hope your reading Anti*

Technically, it was a gradual shift that began during the romantic period. The expressionism of the 2nd viena school is nothing but the extreme of tendencies which began back as early as Schubert and Beethoven. You can see this gradual increase all the way through the romantic period and how it begins to "split up" nearing the 20th century, specially between french and german composers.

So, all Schoenberg and co. were doing was simply taking the line further. That's it. There's no "Jump into atonality" or any of that, there's a process of change which leads into it. Schoenberg himself thought he was simply "continuing" the German tradition, indeed, he wanted to ensure the future of that very tradition by devising the 12 tone technique which, actually few ended up using until the rise of serialism.

In any case, prior to Schoenberg and the modernist stuff you indeed had other composers doing things, but well not as prominently as the famous ones. Good example is Liszt's experiments for piano, and so on. Grieg and Faur

[Salemosophy]

So, all Schoenberg and co. were doing was simply taking the line further. That's it. There's no "Jump into atonality" or any of that, there's a process of change which leads into it. Schoenberg himself thought he was simply "continuing" the German tradition, indeed, he wanted to ensure the future of that very tradition by devising the 12 tone technique which, actually few ended up using until the rise of serialism.

In any case, prior to Schoenberg and the modernist stuff you indeed had other composers doing things, but well not as prominently as the famous ones. Good example is Liszt's experiments for piano, and so on. Grieg and Faur

[SSC]

According to bla bla bla

Maybe I don't have you on ignore anymore (which will change in a sec) but don't think for a second that I'm going to waste my time with you.

Troll harder~

----

As for the website in question, it's not really a good source on this for a couple of reasons. First off with things like:

"One can take the view that even with us there is still a tonic present -- I certainly think so . . ." [Anton Webern, 1933] [1]

Webern was already writing 12-tone serial "atonal" music when he said this. Yet today his music is usually described as atonal. Exactly what is atonal music if it has a tonic? Paradoxically, "atonal" means lacking a tonic or lacking tonality. So, how can atonal music have a tonic? To understand atonality, a negative term, we must first examine what it means for music to be tonal.

This is one of the clumsiest intros I've ever seen on the topic. Just because Webern implied something here, we can't deduce that "tonic" is the same "tonic" as in the harmonic function or "key," this is the classical error of exporting systems to styles/discussions where they cease to work because they weren't designed for it. Clearly Webern's bagatelles have no "tonic" in any sense of the word that we know, we have to go and invent a bridge or make up a new meaning for the term "tonic" if we were to apply it there. But WHY?

So obviously, Webern is sadly quote-mined here as certainly he was talking about something else than typical definitions of "tonic." He later stumbles trying to define it (with some pretty sad results as well) so it fits the article's prelude there to no avail.

Then there's stuff like:

Atonicity or atonic music would have no tonic, no pc dominance, and no pitch hierarchy. Atonicity is built upon a premise of negation. But is this really possible? To create completely atonic music would involve a negation of the five attributes listed above: no repetitions, no accents, no durational differences, no endings (cadences), no strategic placements.

Yeah, uh... I don't see why it's built on the promise of "negation." Negation of what? Tonality is just as artificial as any other man-made system of organization, and really, "atonality" (at least as he seems to be defining it) is just a different organization method which seeks to distance itself from "tonality." Nevermind that the definitions of these things aren't clear without real literature examples, but that overall the point is made several times that "atonality" is something "against" tonality, which is not historically accurate.

To create completely "atonic" music all you need is a tape recorder and a barking dog, so to speak. This article ignores the bluntly obvious truth of any artificial system, which is that the distinction between any system and any other is only to which degree it adheres to its own set of rules or parameters. His argument, if taken to the logical conclusion, would end up with my example above. You can't only eliminate those five things, you have to destroy the tuning system, instruments, ETC ETC. Anything that reminds "tonality" must go.

But clearly this isn't the case. That's why the progression view is much better accepted since it completely avoids the "versus" position (as a true 100% avoidance would result in something very different) and instead examines the historical context, specially the path towards and from the modernist period.

The way expressionism evolved into "atonality" is simply by the realization that, like I've said many times, the rules and standards that held "major minor tonality" as a system were being stressed to the point where the theory was there, but what it sounded like was alien at best. This is VERY well documented, specially since Schoenberg himself called attention to Wagner as an example of the tendencies leading into this. Hence, expressionism is STILL working with major/minor tonality standards, such as interval hierarchy and chord construction (!!!) but the key is that things such as passing notes, chromatic movement, non-functional chords and suspensions are abused, completely throwing off what would ordinarily be simply a D-T cadence into something that sounds more like what we know as "atonality." It was only a matter of time till one became the other.

I've analyzed in the forum already a couple of pieces (in Voce's lesson thread) which detail this path towards expressionism and the subsequent conclusion of "atonality." There's A LOT of examples of this happening all over the 19th century and getting more and more extreme by the time Schoenberg arrives on the scene. It was, in a way, inevitable much like what happened with the impressionists on the french side.

From this point on, talking about "tonality" as "major minor tonality" became obsolete since tonality as a "system" could be stretched to the point you could not recognize it at all (yet it was all there in theory.) Instead, it was better to talk of "tonal character." That way, you could fit, say, Debussy's music under the "tonality" banner, yet only because his music contained certain elements that were also present during the major/minor tonality period/theory.

Anyways, not everything written on the interwebs is trustworthy. In my defense (since this is also on the interwebs) I have provided more than a couple of examples of what I'm talking about in the actual literature through analysis. The point is, all theory and musicology falls apart without actual music to back it up and reading what this guy is writing, he's simply ignoring a lot of stuff in his little article that could shoot holes in his assumptions.

Plus, I don't know where he got his definitions but why the hell mix up major/minor tonality terminology such as function theory functions and something which has NOTHING to do with it? It's like talking about Pachelbel by invoking seralist terminology, you get only confusion.

Anyways, that should be enough. I don't have a lot of time for this now but I think that'll be enough to kill this article. If anyone (not AA) has any more questions I'll answer them if time allows.

[Qmwne235]

To create completely "atonic" music all you need is a tape recorder and a barking dog, so to speak.

Minus the barking dog, if you so choose.

But what happens in this progress is we lose sight (at least for a time) of what the tradition of music really is. Before, music was a tradition of aesthetic. It was writing music for the sake of music. I fear now, it's writing music for the sake of progress. And Babbitt attributes progress to music here

Well, if anything is irrelevant, it's the "tradition of music". Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with using hundreds of years of Western musical history, or music of other cultures and times, as a guide to writing music. There's nothing wrong with writing music completely using common-practice harmonies. My own music, and, I'm sure, that of nearly everyone else here, has a strong basis in history. Yet, if someone wants to break away completely from this so-called "tradition of music" and/or write "music for progress", that's his choice, and it's not any worse.

Of course, you can still the write to dislike it, hate it, or absolutely despise it, but you cannot call it "worse".

[Salemosophy]

Well' date=' if anything is irrelevant, it's the "tradition of music". Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with using hundreds of years of Western musical history, or music of other cultures and times, as a guide to writing music. There's nothing wrong with writing music completely using common-practice harmonies. My own music, and, I'm sure, that of nearly everyone else here, has a strong basis in history. Yet, if someone wants to break away completely from this so-called "tradition of music" and/or write "music for progress", that's his choice, and it's not any worse.

Of course, you can still the write to dislike it, hate it, or absolutely despise it, but you cannot call it "worse".[/quote']

Yikes! Nope, "worse" is not what I'm calling it. Like I said, I can't hate it because it opens doors for other avenues of expression, which I am very much for doing. The downside is what I'm addressing, and what I didn't include above is the carry-over affect it has on the composition education (to me, it's lacking, but others seem to be okay with it, whatever).

And calling the "tradition of music" irrelevant is... in a word... confusing. I'd love to read your explanation for what you mean by this, simply out of curiosity.

[Qmwne235]

Oh, by the end, I just got to addressing this forum in general. I didn't have you in mind when I wrote that last sentence.

And calling the "tradition of music" irrelevant is... in a word... confusing. I'd love to read your explanation for what you mean by this, simply out of curiosity.

It's all in that paragraph. Irrelevant isn't really the right word, because the history of Western music is very relevant for most people, including me. But caring about all music before now (while, I admit, certainly helpful :P) is not the only option.

Really, I don't believe that the term "tradition of music" is really even valid, considering that there are so many traditions of music, and so many that could have been but were not.

[Ferkungamabooboo]

Minus the barking dog, if you so choose.

Mmmmmm taaaappppeeee hissssssss.

Of course, you can still the write to dislike it, hate it, or absolutely despise it, but you cannot call it "worse".

Wait? Why? The same thing that gives you the right to say, "Cosmically, everything's equal," gives me the right to say, "X is better than Y."

Listen to my music to tell what's X, Y, Z, A, and

[Andy1044]

I just write music, I don't care what it is.

[Daniel]

According to Tonality, Modality, and Atonality, Schoenberg was in a huge hurry to beat Josef Hauer (1883 - 1959) to his new discovery. And the idea that created what we know as atonality was Schoenberg's attempt to "democratize" pitches, which as the article goes on to claim, is very difficult if not impossible to achieve because of the elements that create hierarchies in music. Schoenberg devised his 12-tone technique to eliminate pitch hierarchies, but he couldn't do it without sacrificing duration, rhythm, repetition, or endings of music phrases.

JAWoodruff posted the link in the other discussion, so I thought it would be better to just correct you now, SSC, before you start going off on another tangent. Looks like you have some more reading to do :)

First, I think the tone of this question is all wrong. There is no 'divine supremacy' of tonal music. Music is music no matter how it's crafted, and beyond some of the subjective arguments of superiority on both sides of the aisle for which is more authentic or which is just plain better, no one seems to approach this 'divine supremacy' argument in any credible way. To explain what I mean, I want to emphasize that tonality doesn't end with the pitch-class discussion. Indeed, there are underlying factors to the discussion, and one of the most important for me is the concept of music components. Jan LaRue explains them in a dichotomy of five components of equal importance in music - Sound, Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, and Growth (SHMRG). This dichotomy is where I'd like to begin, because to understand the 'divine supremacy' discussion and put it in a better context, I think clarification is extremely necessary before I can continue with answering your question.

First and foremost, the SHMRG concept (if you're reading and unfamiliar with it) is just a way to speak about music at different levels. It is a dichotomy - a division of one concept into specifically two subcategories and the division of a sub-category into two components, etc. All of these sub-classifications are meant to create a summary impression of a work of music. But there's a level to this that many don't take into account. This very same technique of analysis is applicable (and very apparently used by composers from the tonal era) to composition of tonal music. Additionally, it applies to some of the atonal works today, using alternative methods of analyzing harmonic content and tone-rows. The importance of SHMRG is in analyzing events in music. When you come across a particularly important moment in music but can't understand why it's important, you can use the SHMRG method to analyze that moment and create a context for it. Amazingly enough, when you look at some of the more well-known works by composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, and more, you find that a continuity exists within the SGMRG principle. This transfers well to some of the most memorable works of the 20th Century as well. In almost all of these cases, it is not by accident that these events in music take place at all, because these composers knew what they were doing before Jan LaRue ever came along to apply a theoretical framework to it.

But it goes to another level as well because while continuity concerns us with more than one element, a term called Concinnity is the measurement of all the continuity within a given piece and at given moments within a piece. Generally, tonal works contain a high level of Concinnity, where purely atonal works generally contain a very low level with some very notable exceptions I'll discuss in a moment. Before you get angry and say, "Oh, well that can't be! Look at Boulez or Stockhausen! They have continuity!" look at the reasoning behind atonality. The idea of atonality, as a move away from the common-practice, was an effort not only to do away with the idea that pitches and harmony carried with them certain hierarchies but also to replace the components of the tonal tradition with a new methodology for creating cohesiveness without making atonal music obvious and predictable. So, instead of focusing in at given moments of a work by manipulating all the SHMRG elements of music, the idea became to break apart the elements of SHMRG to remove the predictability factor. This meant breaking the connection between melody and harmony or removing the cadence of a phrase altogether to eliminate the germane characteristics inherent in tonal music.

This is not a bad thing, but it is intentional and thoroughly mechanical at its core. So, before prefacing the discussion with the 'divine supremacy' undertone of tonal music, let's be sure we're all on the same page. The intent of atonality is to eliminate the predictability of music and to equalize the importance of all pitch content, including the structural components of music (at least this is level of abstraction that was reached by the Avant Garde Composers and Theorists). What is most interesting is how many of the works that equalize the pitch content but carry with them a higher degree of Concinnity among the elements of music (in effect, not showing any concern with sounding predictable while exploring new regions of sound space) seem to be the most memorable works of the 20th Century. An analysis of Berg's Wozzeck or even Penderecki's St Luke Passion renders some very interesting results (feel free to offer your own insight from your own analysis of either of these works for further discussion). With that understood, let me actually respond to the question of why composers felt it necessary to abandon tonality.

JW is right that atonality was intentional. SSC is also right that atonality was inevitable. If Schoenberg and Fauer were both racing against one another to lay claim to being credited with atonality, I'm left to ask myself, "Why the race to lay claim?" What was happening to make these two individuals try to lay their claim to this concept and more importantly, what was the result? Like I said before, atonality was the endeavor to equalize the importance of every pitch and remove the predictability of the music. But this is only part of the context. The advent of the Atomic Age in 1915 created the perfect conditions for atonal music to thrive. This condition is simply progress, the desire to create something original or unique and lay claim to it. In America, Intellectual Property began as early as 1790, so the origins of this pursuit of progress (at the time limited to inventors of new machines) precede history's account by over 100 years or more. But by 1915, when Einstein introduced his New Theory of Relativity, the race was on. No one knows if Schoenberg ever knew of Einstein (I suspect he did, as both men come from Germany and Einstein's finding was publicly hailed as a breakthrough). Uniquity started becoming more profoundly important. It wasn't enough to be good, you had to be 'new'.

So, for Schoenberg and his predecessors, tonality was reaching its peak for them. What more could they do but compose more tonal music? Sure, it was quite inevitable that an idea like atonality surface. Schoenberg wasn't even the first to write about the idea of removing a tonal center from music, and we should all know Liszt's Bagatelle sans tonalite' by now, written in 1885. But atonal took on a completely different focus after Schoenberg, especially in the writings composed during and after the World Wars. By the time we get to Babbitt, atonality as Schoenberg imagined it all but disappeared. All music resembling any sort of traditional component or the continuity of components seemed out of place as predictable and not of the era of new music. You had Cage, Babbitt, and many others all questioning how far the concept of removing traditional components of music and replacing them with something else could really go. Cage wrote a philosophical inquest into the very nature of sound and time. Babbitt wrote about finding another audience, one that would appreciate the uniqueness of the work and what these composers of "serious music" were attempting to do.

All the while, it was never the case that anything was "wrong" with tonality. It was the pursuit of progress that led Schoenberg to create atonal writing, to remove tonal centricity from music. It was the pursuit of progress that led Cage and Babbitt to further remove the components that exist in tonal writing. But what happens in this progress is we lose sight (at least for a time) of what kind of art form music really is. Before, music was an art form of aesthetic. It was writing music for the sake of music. I fear now, it's writing music for the sake of progress. And Babbitt attributes progress to music here:

And so, as long as you are creating "progress" in music, you're keeping music alive. I find this to be the most artificial reason to compose out of them all. How much more can we take away from music and replace before we have no music at all? When all we have to listen to are the sounds of flying cars or of nature (and don't get me wrong, nature is a great inspiration for music), but we can't do anything new with it so we don't even bother, maybe then we'll learn that progress is not the most important aspect of music composition.

China called:

"F*ck it, you can keep it."

[SSC]

Important distinction is between calling something "worse" and it actually BEING worse objectively. You can call stuff whatever you want, you can make all value judgments you want, but that doesn't make them true.

And yea, you can do without the dog, but why would you want to?? ;P

[Ferkungamabooboo]

Important distinction is between calling something "worse" and it actually BEING worse objectively. You can call stuff whatever you want, you can make all value judgments you want, but that doesn't make them true.

This is where I disagree, but that argument is neither on topic nor anything more than philosophy. I'm pretty sure there's a thread about it somewhere...

All I'm saying is that there's a lot of assertions that need to be marked as such, and not assumed that they're correct.