Atonal and tonal music

[Madiel]

You don't need Groves. Wikipedia will do the same job.

[Ken B]

You don't need Groves. Wikipedia will do the same job.

I object to the word job.

[Madiel]

I object to the word job.

Wikipedia provides similar information about the controversies and uncertainties surrounding this particular term.

That's a first draft. My rates aren't that reasonable.

[ahinton]

I object to the word job.

I object to the word "object" - and perhaps also "Wikipedia"...

[PotashPie]

But you of all people should be able to understand how frustrated people can become if a term neither coined by composers nor precise and often used with polemical intentions has stuck and they are told to shut up about the problems with the term.
It is roughly the same as if a lot of people routinely called accidentally killing someone in a car accident murder. Wouldn't that provoke your protest as a legal professional? Would you like being called out as a pedant or revisionist with an agenda because who are you with your legal definitions to contradict something that is common, despite wrong from a professional pov?

Yeah, it's like the term "undocumented." BTW, I'm the ghost of negative threads past. I can see that this machine needs no input from me; it seems to have the power to replicate itself. I solved the dilemma for myself by calling atonal music "chromatic music." That takes care of the actual sound of it (the sense of no tonality) and "chromatic" takes care of the theoretical side of it. Tonality must be a limited number of notes to create that sense. And it can include Elliott Carter!

"Chromaticism" is music, or an approach to music, that wants to keep all 12 notes in circulation. 12-tone seems designed to do this, as does any music which uses "sets" as in Forte sets. This is not based on tonal hierarchy, so it's not tonal.

If the way these sets or rows are used happens to produce musical events which are perceived as being tonal, or tone-centric, then so be it; but this does not mean it is "tonal" in an hierarchical sense, or as a systematic outcome of a tonal system at work.

As such, this perception or allusion to tonality is incidental, and is based on purely harmonic factors.

All music is harmonic in this sense; all simultaneous soundings of note will produce some effect on the ear/brain which might be construed as sounding "tonal," but we must be aware that it is not, which is 99% of the time obvious to our ears.

"Real" tonality, based on an hierarchy, will be recognized because of the many cross-relations and structures which automatically result from a tonally-structured system.

Chromaticism will likewise, to 99% of all ears, be easily recognized as not being part of that tonal system. It will sound "atonal."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Yeah, it's like the term "undocumented." BTW, I'm the ghost of negative threads past. I can see that this machine needs no input from me; it seems to have the power to replicate itself. I solved the dilemma for myself by calling atonal music "chromatic music." That takes care of the actual sound of it (the sense of no tonality) and "chromatic" takes care of the theoretical side of it. Tonality must be a limited number of notes to create that sense. And it can include Elliott Carter!

"Chromaticism" is music, or an approach to music, that wants to keep all 12 notes in circulation. 12-tone seems designed to do this, as does any music which uses "sets" as in Forte sets. This is not based on tonal hierarchy, so it's not tonal.

If the way these sets or rows are used happens to produce musical events which are perceived as being tonal, or tone-centric, then so be it; but this does not mean it is "tonal" in an hierarchical sense, or as a systematic outcome of a tonal system at work.

As such, this perception or allusion to tonality is incidental, and is based on purely harmonic factors.

All music is harmonic in this sense; all simultaneous soundings of note will produce some effect on the ear/brain which might be construed as sounding "tonal," but we must be aware that it is not, which is 99% of the time obvious to our ears.

"Real" tonality, based on a hierarchy, will be recognized because of the many cross-relations and structures which automatically result from a tonally-structured system.

Chromaticism will likewise, to 99% of all ears, be easily recognized as not being part of that tonal system. It will sound "atonal."

Still, the use of 'chromaticism' in music from before the Common Practice Era as well as during it shows us various kinds of functions for chromatic notes in both tonal and modal music. Even in 20th century music that doesn't fall within the Common Practice, chromaticism would serve various purposes as well whether it be using a 12-note system as a tool for organising pitch, modes, microtones etc, each pitch would have a purpose. Deviations from the expected organisation of pitches—perhaps some kind of moment of 'chromaticism'—could show us a range of things from form to simply just the composer's sense of musical aesthetic at that moment.

I think for my next comments I will just have to talk about the way composers used some kind of pitch hierarchy in the early days of music which is not tonal in the Common Pratice sense.

Voiles from Book I of Debussy's Preludes is an example of something which is absolutely not tonal in the sense that it doesn't use the standard chordal hierarchy that was prominent from Gabrieli to Mahler. Instead it uses primarily a mode with only two transpositions: the whole tone scale. With this, Debussy has set up a harmonic aesthetic which is built upon sonorities that can be derived from this mode and creates a sense of push and pull through varying registers, rhythms and the relation to the pedal B flat. No tonic-dominant relationship is possible ergo no tonality. When he does deviate from what he has set up, he opts for a pentatonic scale. This is ANOTHER mode which similarly cannot in any way express a tonic-dominant relationship that is the foundation of the Common Practice Era.

https://www.youtube.com/v/t_lsFxsAJEU

Unfortunately no one likes to call Debussy 'atonal' despite all the evidence in his music that points out a complete lack of tonality. In any music people can listen and hear the way pitches function in the context of the music.

Schoenberg's music always always has a sense of push and pull in his treatment of harmony and his music, even if some like to call it 'atonal,' can always be perceived in such a way that we hear how some pitches would lead to other pitches in almost a hierarchical fashion. In this piece, Schoenberg sets up the pitch content to be based around major and minor thirds, sometimes breaking away from the pattern just a little in order to make the piece sound the way it does—like Debussy broke away from our expectations two thirds of the way through Voiles. Anyone can make up their own mind about how the pitches sound in relation to one another.

https://www.youtube.com/v/XCZfvwfG9cw

It seems that ultimately there are people who like to call the former 'impressionistic' and the latter 'atonal' which is confusing as hell

[some guy]

If so, we are both of us in the same strange situation.

I remember trying (and failing) to make sense of the term, to no avail. It seemed to be being used to refer to all sorts of very different (to my ears) things, and I remember thinking that it was odd that I'd never run across anyone calling Varese's music atonal. (This was the seventies. I did eventually run across this.)

Years ago on the Talk Classical site, I outlined six different, distinct usages for the word. As I recall it was six, ranging from "not in a key" to "music I don't like." The guy who coined it, in 1907, used it in the latter sense to refer to people like Strauss and Mahler. It is certainly a very useful term for designating "music I don't like." Not only do you not have to admit, ever, that it's just your own likes and dislikes at issue, but you can appear to have a certain mastery of technical musical terms, which, of course, you do not.

Not sure why the term got picked up and run with at first. Perhaps it's just so damned catchy, you know? Oh well. We're stuck with it, I guess, because it is so useful. 'Course, we did manage, pretty well anyway, to get rid of nigger. Maybe we can do the same with atonal. Worth a shot.

[Monsieur Croche]

If so, we are both of us in the same strange situation.

I remember trying (and failing) to make sense of the term, to no avail. It seemed to be being used to refer to all sorts of very different (to my ears) things, and I remember thinking that it was odd that I'd never run across anyone calling Varese's music atonal. (This was the seventies. I did eventually run across this.)

Years ago on the Talk Classical site, I outlined six different, distinct usages for the word. As I recall it was six, ranging from "not in a key" to "music I don't like." The guy who coined it, in 1907, used it in the latter sense to refer to people like Strauss and Mahler. It is certainly a very useful term for designating "music I don't like." Not only do you not have to admit, ever, that it's just your own likes and dislikes at issue, but you can appear to have a certain mastery of technical musical terms, which, of course, you do not.

Not sure why the term got picked up and run with at first. Perhaps it's just so damned catchy, you know? Oh well. We're stuck with it, I guess, because it is so useful. 'Course, we did manage, pretty well anyway, to get rid of nigger. Maybe we can do the same with atonal. Worth a shot.

The fact is that generations of music students in formal training have sat through, and today sit through, something akin to both lecture and polemic from their profs about both the misnomer and misconceptions of the term when they arrive at that juncture in their harmony courses (i.e. near all of academe has huge issues with the term as both wrong and horribly misleading) and that many a harmony textbook goes through some similar verbiage in their chapter(s) on "atonal" as well.... These chapter length corrections and qualifications around the given term over generations and continued through to this present day should be indicator enough that of all the sundry terms generalizing about a particular harmonic vein or practice, "Atonal" is in desperate need of revision / replacement.

One colleague's entry in this thread has argued that the term serves well and is understood 'by specialists,' while for the general reader wanting to know more about it (non-specialists, lol), the term is as much an actual mess as shown by those professor's classroom diatribes and the similar cant -- paragraphs and paragraphs -- found in the harmony textbooks themselves.

Yes, it deserves a formal death notice, appropriately respectful funeral service, and a neologism which is clear enough to not become renown as a major kerfuffle of misunderstanding.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

They should play Stravinsky's Opus 5 at its funeral service I reckon 

[Overtones]

I am certainly closer to being a layman than a specialist, so I cannot comment on the technicalities that have been addressed here.

However, these words I understand (bolds are mine):

The twelve tones employed by Schoenberg are the same old twelve tones employed by everyone else, derived in the same way from the same natural harmonic series. They are the same twelve well-tempered tones of Bach, only their universal hierarchy has been destroyed - or at least, an attempt has been made to destroy it.
Schoenberg himself was the first to recognize this all-important truth, and, indeed, the first to renounce the word "atonality", even to deny the possibility of atonality. [...]
He knew - and we too must learn from him - that if ever a true atonality is to be achieved, some uniquely different basis for it must be found. The rules of the 12-tone method may be non-universal and even arbitrary, but not arbitrary enough to destroy the inherent tonal relationships among those twelve notes.
Perhaps a real atonality can be achieved [...] through a truly arbitrary division of the octave space into something other than the twelve equidistant intervals of our chromatic scale - say, thirteen equidistant intervals, or thirty, or three hundred. But not twelve, not the twelve tones of Bach and Beethoven and Wagner; with those twelve universals, neither Schoenberg nor Berg nor Webern could ever escape the nostalgic yearning for the deep structures implied by - indeed inherent in - these notes.

(L. Bernstein, 1973)

[PotashPie]

Still, the use of 'chromaticism' in music from before the Common Practice Era as well as during it shows us various kinds of functions for chromatic notes in both tonal and modal music. Even in 20th century music that doesn't fall within the Common Practice, chromaticism would serve various purposes as well whether it be using a 12-note system as a tool for organising pitch, modes, microtones etc, each pitch would have a purpose. Deviations from the expected organisation of pitches—perhaps some kind of moment of 'chromaticism'—could show us a range of things from form to simply just the composer's sense of musical aesthetic at that moment. 

Yes, but you are giving instances of chromatic notes used in a tonal context, as passing tones, etc. When I use "chromaticism" as a problem-solving term, I use it to denote a compositional approach which keeps all 12 notes in circulation with no hierarchy which systematically favors a tonal center.

Voiles from Book I of Debussy's Preludes is an example of something which is absolutely not tonal (?) in the sense that it doesn't use the standard chordal hierarchy that was prominent from Gabrieli to Mahler. Instead it uses primarily a mode with only two transpositions: the whole tone scale. With this, Debussy has set up a harmonic aesthetic which is built upon sonorities that can be derived from this mode and creates a sense of push and pull through varying registers, rhythms and the relation to the pedal B flat. No tonic-dominant relationship is possible ergo no tonality. When he does deviate from what he has set up, he opts for a pentatonic scale. This is ANOTHER mode which similarly cannot in any way express a tonic-dominant relationship that is the foundation of the Common Practice Era.

I've heard this argument used before, for this same reason. Actually, Debussy's use of the two WT scales is very tonal, if you uncover the reasons.

Schoenberg used rows with tonal implications.

Here's an old post of mine from the "Schoenberg's Op. 26 Wind Quintet" thread in Amazon Classical:

The row is (first hexad) Eb-G-A-B-C#-C, which gives an augmented/whole-tone scale feel, with a "resolution" to C at the end, then (second hexad) Bb-D-E-F#-G#-F, which is very similar in its augmented/whole-tone scale structure, which only makes sense: there are only two whole-tone scales in the chromatic collection, each a chromatic half-step away from the other.

(This refers to Debussy's Voiles:)

I've heard Debussy use the two whole-tone scales in this manner, moving down a half-step to gain entry to the new key area.
This is why Schoenberg used a "C" in the first hexad, and the "F" in the second; these are "gateways" into the chromatically adjacent scale area.
Chromatic half-step relations like these can also be seen as "V-I" relations, when used as dual-identity "tri-tone substitutions" as explained following.

Another characteristic of whole-tone scales is their use (as in Thelonious Monk's idiosyncratic whole-tone run) as an altered dominant, or V chord. There is a tritone present, which creates a b7/3-3/b7 ambiguity, exploited by jazz players as "tri-tone substitution". The tritone (if viewed as b7-3 rather than I-b5) creates a constant harmonic movement, which is what chromatic jazzers, as well as German expressionists, are after.
So Schoenberg had several ideas in mind of the tonal implications when he chose this row.]

Unfortunately no one likes to call Debussy 'atonal' despite all the evidence in his music that points out a complete lack of tonality. In any music people can listen and hear the way pitches function in the context of the music.

Schoenberg's music always always has a sense of push and pull in his treatment of harmony and his music, even if some like to call it 'atonal,' can always be perceived in such a way that we hear how some pitches would lead to other pitches in almost a hierarchical fashion. In this piece, Schoenberg sets up the pitch content to be based around major and minor thirds, sometimes breaking away from the pattern just a little in order to make the piece sound the way it does—like Debussy broke away from our expectations two thirds of the way through Voiles. Anyone can make up their own mind about how the pitches sound in relation to one another.

It seems that ultimately there are people who like to call the former 'impressionistic' and the latter 'atonal' which is confusing as hell

If you mean Debussy is not strictly tonal, I'm sure many academics would agree. But his music is under the broad umbrella of tonal music, meaning a general sense of tone-cenrticity, and triadic structures and scales derived from tonal practices.

Scales cover an octave, and have a starting note. They are 'automatic' mechanisms of tonality. Tone rows and sets are not.

Triads based on thirds are also "automatic mechanisms" of tonality, in that they will cover an area which includes a third and a fifth above a note on bottom.

My point is that when music is totally chromatic, using all 12 notes constantly and statistically equally, the result sounds "atonal," to not tonal.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

You have really interesting points there, Foomsbah. I can see what you mean more clearly when you call it 'chromatic' now actually; and I can't really argue with any of your examples although I must say that I think when you and I use the word 'tonal' i tend to be a little more strict in its definition according to Common Practice tonality. Monteverdi would understand the harmonies used by Mahler as he has done pretty much the same thing, but the Debussy example is a totally different ball game.

[PotashPie]

You have really interesting points there, Foomsbah. I can see what you mean more clearly when you call it 'chromatic' now actually; and I can't really argue with any of your examples although I must say that I think when you and I use the word 'tonal' i tend to be a little more strict in its definition according to Common Practice tonality. Monteverdi would understand the harmonies used by Mahler as he has done pretty much the same thing, but the Debussy example is a totally different ball game.

I mostly agree; the only reason I include Debussy (and Stravinsky, even Bartok) under the general umbrella of tonality (meaning tone-centric, as most folk & ethnic music is), is because he is not as chromatic as 12-tone or serial music is, uses devices of tonality (scales, triads, parallel and functionless root movement). This is a general categorization which excludes him from "atonality."

I would call Elliott Carter a chromaticist, since he uses "sets" like the Forte sets. Therefore, he sounds "atonal" or "not tonal."

Most listeners would, I think, be able to immediately distinguish "highly chromatic atonal music" from "extended or modified tonal music."

Varese is a unique case. Since he does not, to my ears, circulate all 12 notes continually (in fact, "tonality or not" does not seem to be his concern), the terms "tonal" or "atonal," as used in music in which this is part of the dialectic, seem irrelevant, and not part of his concerns.

He seems to be using idiosyncratic pitch masses and "signature" riffs. Some of it sounds Stravinskian; a sort of "tribal" or primitive sense is evoked.

[Mahlerian]

I mostly agree; the only reason I include Debussy (and Stravinsky, even Bartok) under the general umbrella of tonality (meaning tone-centric, as most folk & ethnic music is), is because he is not as chromatic as 12-tone or serial music is, uses devices of tonality (scales, triads, parallel and functionless root movement). This is a general categorization which excludes him from "tonality."

So wait, you're saying that devices antithetical to tonal perception (parallel and functionless chord successions) are "devices of tonality"?

I would call Elliott Carter a chromaticist, since he uses "sets" like the Forte sets. Therefore, he sounds "atonal" or "not tonal."

Most listeners would, I think, be able to immediately distinguish "highly chromatic atonal music" from "extended or modified tonal music."

I can't.  Schoenberg's style is nothing other than an extension of tonal practice (Debussy's music, on the other hand, is constructed in a way that contradicts tonal practice).  To me, Schoenberg sounds "more tonal" than Debussy, though of course without functional harmony, neither of them can really be "tonal" in the sense under discussion.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Voiles from Book I of Debussy's Preludes is an example of something which is absolutely not tonal in the sense that it doesn't use the standard chordal hierarchy that was prominent from Gabrieli to Mahler. Instead it uses primarily a mode with only two transpositions: the whole tone scale. With this, Debussy has set up a harmonic aesthetic which is built upon sonorities that can be derived from this mode and creates a sense of push and pull through varying registers, rhythms and the relation to the pedal B flat. No tonic-dominant relationship is possible ergo no tonality. When he does deviate from what he has set up, he opts for a pentatonic scale. This is ANOTHER mode which similarly cannot in any way express a tonic-dominant relationship that is the foundation of the Common Practice Era.

Unfortunately no one likes to call Debussy 'atonal' despite all the evidence in his music that points out a complete lack of tonality. In any music people can listen and hear the way pitches function in the context of the music.

Nor do I. "Voiles" is a special case in its use of a whole-tone scale, but you won't find many other Debussy pieces that use that same scale. Obviously functional harmony in the classical sense is being subverted in all of Debussy, but tonal centers still remain. I am as sure as anything that the Afternoon of a Faun concludes on a tonal center of E, that the outer movements of La Mer end on Db, that Minstrels from Preludes I ends in G, etc. This is hardly a "complete lack of tonality," but a use of tonality in a quite different sense than Mozart or even Mahler.

[Madiel]

Book-burning is scheduled for 3 this afternoon.

[Mahlerian]

Nor do I. "Voiles" is a special case in its use of a whole-tone scale, but you won't find many other Debussy pieces that use that same scale. Obviously functional harmony in the classical sense is being subverted in all of Debussy, but tonal centers still remain. I am as sure as anything that the Afternoon of a Faun concludes on a tonal center of E, that the outer movements of La Mer end on Db, that Minstrels from Preludes I ends in G, etc. This is hardly a "complete lack of tonality," but a use of tonality in a quite different sense than Mozart or even Mahler.

But the exact same is true of Schoenberg and others deemed atonal.  It's not the lack of tonality (in the sense you mean) that characterizes "atonal" music, but a different use of "tonality" in that sense (though not tonality at all in the sense Jessop means).  I hear tonal centers in everything.

[Madiel]

I hear tonal centers in everything.

In which case your categorisation system is in fact useless. If everything is in the category, it serves no point of distinction.

[Keep Going]

[...] images [...][/img]

[Mahlerian]

In which case your categorisation system is in fact useless. If everything is in the category, it serves no point of distinction.

But I'm not using it as a system of categorization!  I'm pointing out that the way others use the terms, they are useless and don't delineate any distinctions!