Schoenberg's Style and Idea Discussion

[San Antone]

How many people can hear the music just by reading it, I wonder? Only those with perfect pitch, perhaps?

Perfect pitch is not necessary, but ear training study/knowledge is.

Since my music journey involved playing in high school bands and learning songs by ear off the radio, I had a distinct advantage over the students at music school whose background was learning to play the piano or violin, etc. from learning pieces and amassing formidable technique on their instruments.  I could easily hear intervals and chord progressions, whereas for them it was nearly impossible without much practice.  That kind of practice I had done for years just by learning those songs off the radio.

Today, as I look at a score I can hear the music in my head, i.e. if it is tonal and relatively simple in texture.  I have trouble with atonal music; I can do it but have to really think about the intervals and go slow.

[Florestan]

When my mind is composing music (it happens daily), I often see the score as the music plays.

Speaking of which, I have a question for you and also @Karl Henning, @Luke and @San Antone.

Two nights ago I dreamed a melody. It was a rather Bel Canto-ish one, the accompaniment was exactly that of Casta Diva. After I woke up, I could remember it for a few hours. It played in my head vividly, from start to finish, but how could I have written it down? How could I have known what note corresponded to the sounds I heard? How could I have known that the first bar translated into, say at random, the sequence C-E-B flat-D-E-C, and not into D-A flat-C sharp-E-B-C? How can one tell, and write down, what note one hears, if they don't have perfect pitch?

I ask because actually it's not the first time that I dream melodies and it would be very nice to be able to write them down after I wake up.

[Luke]

Initially it's not so much the notes themselves that are important, it's the interval relationships between them you'd need to recall and be able to find. That is, the distinctive sound qualities of the distance between one note and the next. You normally learn to identify quickly these as a youngster, it's part of aural training, Then, listening internally to your melody, you hear that it is - (for example) - ascending minor third; ascending major third; descending minor second, or, more likely, you'll hear it as recognisable groups of intervals - the one I just gave you'd probably hear as an ascending minor triad falling to a tritone above the first note. It doesn't at this point matter what those notes are - that little idea could equally be

 C -Eb - G - F#

or

 F - Ab - C - B

or the 10 other transpositions of this....which are all effectively the same thing (as Schoenberg's technique reminds us       ) You can choose which note you actually want to start on at a later point.

It's a harder job to figure out the harmonies that are playing, but if you recognised them as the same as Casta Diva, then Bellini already did that part for you. You will, of course, need to put your tune in the same key as your chords.

[Cato]

Speaking of which, I have a question for you and also @Karl Henning, @Luke and @San Antone.

 How can one tell, and write down, what note one hears, if they don't have perfect pitch?

I ask because actually it's not the first time that I dream melodies and it would be very nice to be able to write them down after I wake up.

Initially it's not so much the notes themselves that are important, it's the interval relationships between them you'd need to recall and be able to find. That is, the distinctive sound qualities of the distance between one note and the next. You normally learn to identify quickly these as a youngster, it's part of aural training,

Your assumption is quite right about perfect pitch: I recall a statement by Tchaikovsky that he often heard his inspirations with all the harmonization.

I have tended to see what sort of futures the initial inspiration can presage, and experiment with polyphonic additions almost immediately. 

"There should be no harmony as such, only counterpoint." - Mahler

Luke is also quite correct, of course!

The initial idea is never sacrosanct: one look at Beethoven's sketchbooks tells you that the initial idea is probably headed for major reconstructive surgery, along with extraction of its DNA to be altered and cooked for the creation of a related but possibly unrecognizable entity.

Some experimenters have looked into whether "Absolute Pitch" (i.e. Perfect Pitch) can be learned.

"This is the first significant demonstration that the ability to identify notes by hearing them may well be something that individuals can be trained to do," said Nusbaum. "It's an ability that is teachable, and it appears to depend on a general cognitive ability of holding sounds in one's mind."

See:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-be-possible-some-adults


Somewhere, perhaps in an interview, Schoenberg admitted that his ability to transcribe his inner music waned with fatigue, i.e. that the concentration needed tired him faster in his later years.

I have told the story about the eccentric musician Dika Newlin: as a child prodigy she was brought to Schoenberg for composing lessons.  He began testing her on the piano for perfect pitch, and with the annoying aplomb and insouciance one might imagine in such a child, she gave her correct answers with a bored air, so that he became ever angrier as she correctly identified triads and larger chords with the same bad attitude.

Finally, he slammed down a cluster of keys and growled: "Identify that!"  And she began saying "C-C#-D-D#-..." 

Despite the inauspicious beginning, he did accept her as a student.  Later she wrote the classic book Bruckner, Mahler, Schoenberg, which I highly recommend!

[Karl Henning]

The initial idea is never sacrosanct: one look at Beethoven's sketchbooks tells you that the initial idea is probably headed for major reconstructive surgery, along with extraction of its DNA to be altered and cooked for the creation of a related but possibly unrecognizable entity.

On the rare occasion when a younger composer asks if I have any advice, I generally offer: the eraser is your friend.

[Luke]

I have taken similar advice overmuch to heart, though!

[Karl Henning]

I have taken similar advice overmuch to heart, though!

Oh, I should be more cautious, then! For I suspect you may have plied too active an eraser

[krummholz]

Some experimenters have looked into whether "Absolute Pitch" (i.e. Perfect Pitch) can be learned.

See:

https://news.uchicago.edu/story/acquiring-perfect-pitch-may-be-possible-some-adults

Well, I present myself as exhibit for the prosecution in this case... I can identify any note to within a fraction of a semitone. But I don't consider myself as having innate perfect pitch - I've just learned to identify certain resonant lengths inside my body that correspond to the range from G5 to C6. IOW I imagine whistling or singing one of the notes that I can identify directly, and then relate the note in question to it by interval.

So basically, this finding doesn't surprise me and I'll bet anyone who has a good sense of relative pitch and can sing or whistle can learn to do it.