| Twelve-Tone Music |
My experiences in listening to twelve-tone music have not been pleasant. It seems to me that this is the stuff that new composers turn to as a last resort once they've realized that they can't do anything better than what's already been done in traditional classical music.
Can anyone disagree with me here and recommend some quality twelve-tone music for me to check out?
Can anyone disagree with me here and recommend some quality twelve-tone music for me to check out?
whats twelve tone? im assuming its not like 12 bar??
An official description of twelve-tone music can be found here.
It's basically a form of contemporary classical music that tries to create music based on a structure which tends to produce music... that sometimes sounds more like noise than music. Recently I heard this twelve-tone piece called The Seventh Face of the Cube in concert, for which the composer spoke beforehand, and the composer told this whole story about what was happening in the piece, and, in addition to sounding like audial excrement, the piece did not very well illustrate the story.
It's basically a form of contemporary classical music that tries to create music based on a structure which tends to produce music... that sometimes sounds more like noise than music. Recently I heard this twelve-tone piece called The Seventh Face of the Cube in concert, for which the composer spoke beforehand, and the composer told this whole story about what was happening in the piece, and, in addition to sounding like audial excrement, the piece did not very well illustrate the story.
Well, twelve tone music is a "new" concept developed by the German musician Shorenberg. This is a different aethetic approach to composition. It could be thought as an evolution of technique. This music may sound a complete disorder without harmony. But in fact it is the result of mathematical operations made mixing the 12 tones of western music. Should we think of this music as a revolution, that as many other revolutions , is hard to accept in the beginning?
I think the new conceptualization of art is going on every place, remember pop art for example, or the new "performance" made by plastic artists. The art works from late xxth and xxist centuries are completely different from the classical schools (renacentist, romantic, neoclassic, etc). Who knows in these days what ART actually is? I can harldy tell
I think the new conceptualization of art is going on every place, remember pop art for example, or the new "performance" made by plastic artists. The art works from late xxth and xxist centuries are completely different from the classical schools (renacentist, romantic, neoclassic, etc). Who knows in these days what ART actually is? I can harldy tell
What you guys are talking about is serialism, where you have a phrase in which all of the notes in the chromatic scale are used once. You can then have a inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion, where you flip the piece upside down, reverse it, and do both together, respectively. Generally speaking, it sounds terrible, and i can't believe some people actually like this kind of stuff (oh yes!) But it can be kinda fun, when you have the four different tone rows, and have four different instruments playing them at the same time.
*final note:You are allowed to have different rhythms*
Oh, and i think that the people who like the music are in a minority group, so i don't think you'll get any good pieces to listen to.
What is better though, is if you're someone who doesn't like it, but you compose a piece, because you're prone to want to make it sound pleasing to the ear.
Hope this clears things up
*final note:You are allowed to have different rhythms*
Oh, and i think that the people who like the music are in a minority group, so i don't think you'll get any good pieces to listen to.
What is better though, is if you're someone who doesn't like it, but you compose a piece, because you're prone to want to make it sound pleasing to the ear.
Hope this clears things up
| pure crockery |
bah, pure crockery is what i say!
music should be created from the seat of the soul
it should come from the passion within, not mathematical formulas
there is a reason this music sounds like crap...
cuz it's coming out of some anal retentive intellectual
bah! i say again... bah!
music should be created from the seat of the soul
it should come from the passion within, not mathematical formulas
there is a reason this music sounds like crap...
cuz it's coming out of some anal retentive intellectual
bah! i say again... bah!
well done JonnyC - you must have done music GCSE at school!! (note to americans ... GCSEs are the UK qualifications for 16 year olds)
yeah - serialism sounds crap. thats agreed. the top german feller had 2 students who messed around with it even more. Wern went and screwed it up even more, but Webern made it sound more musical - its worth checking out his stuff as a good middle ground (not diehard serialism but with that sort of vibe). hope this is of interest.
yeah - serialism sounds crap. thats agreed. the top german feller had 2 students who messed around with it even more. Wern went and screwed it up even more, but Webern made it sound more musical - its worth checking out his stuff as a good middle ground (not diehard serialism but with that sort of vibe). hope this is of interest.
12 tone music alone is horrible. But you can actually hear lots of influences in twelve tone in music like jazz, where scale changes bring anomalies for your ear. Example:
Bsus, Asus, Fsus, Ebsus
If you play the A major scale on the B and A chords, say going to the fourth, then the third on the scale (D, C#), you can modulate to the Eb dorian and play the sixth (C). These three notes, only a single semitone apart each, create tension that is related to twelve tone music.
Bsus, Asus, Fsus, Ebsus
If you play the A major scale on the B and A chords, say going to the fourth, then the third on the scale (D, C#), you can modulate to the Eb dorian and play the sixth (C). These three notes, only a single semitone apart each, create tension that is related to twelve tone music.
I have tried writing some 12-tone stuff in the last year, and tried to write it in such a way that it would sound melodic. Don Thompson, a bass player and teacher from Toronto, has written a handful of super-melodic 12-tone tunes that are really quite listenable. Anyway, for the record, here's one I wrote where the 12-tone row is in the bass. Then I built chords around it and then a melody.
http://static.zed.cbc.ca/users/b/btbowen/files/reuben2.jpg
...try playing through it. Has some really crunchy bits and some really pretty bits.
Yes, a totally academic exercise, but it made me do new things and has influenced the way I think musically about what I write since then...
http://static.zed.cbc.ca/users/b/btbowen/files/reuben2.jpg
...try playing through it. Has some really crunchy bits and some really pretty bits.
Yes, a totally academic exercise, but it made me do new things and has influenced the way I think musically about what I write since then...
I'm reaching a bit far back here, but here it goes. Stefos, it's Schoenburg, and he was Austrian. 12 tone music reaches back from before there was a point in melody. It's really only a device to dull the melody and to intensify rhythm. It's almost all about rhythm. When there's a harsher, angrier rhythm, you simply use more dissonant and complex chords. Not many things can represent anger better than a strangely voiced, 5th inversion 13 chord being played at a fortissimo with pummeling staccatto syncopations over frequently changing time signatures. I promise.
| I hate it, but I'll defend it |
I think FortressFromGuilt, XenoxX and Entheon are missing the mark, though hitting on smething important.
12-tone music sounds like crap to most Western ears, true. But most people with perfect pitch and audially perfect memories seem to love it (I imagine because they can actually hear it), and also those who have studied it for a long, long time. The bottom line is that it's a type of music that's made for a different type of audience, one that is able to understand it.
Try this for an analogy - some eastern musician comes to America to study music and finds that he can't stand most Western music because it sounds godawful. Most of us can't hear the semitones in his daily intonations (most Muslim calls to prayer have a guy singing semitones, so if you've heard that before, you know a little about what it sounds like). But mathematically, his music is actually more correct than ours, and 12-tone music is more correct than both systems. The only way we can call 12-tone music bad is to say that it sounds awful, but many Indian or eastern musicians have the same complaint about our music. Their brains are used to a different system than ours.
Eastern musicians with no experience in Western music aren't the ones to judge it, though, because they're not the ones who understand it. We are. And the same goes for 12-tone music. Granted, I hate it, but I can at least see that the math and the order to the tones are both solid. That's as far as I'll ever understand it - I'm not part of the audience it's able to reach, except for one piece that I was required to study for a week. After a week of listening, when I had enough of it memorized to know what was coming, I started to like it.
Or try it this way - we understand our music because it follows a general pattern of chords and tones, and though we can't guess exactly what's coming next, we have a good idea. And if something is too far off the mark, we usually hate the song. We're always prepped for what might come next. With 12-tone, we have no earthly idea, and can't follow it unless we can remember exactly what came before with perfect accuracy, which is why most of us can't stand it.
It actually is about the tone, not just the rhythm.
12-tone music sounds like crap to most Western ears, true. But most people with perfect pitch and audially perfect memories seem to love it (I imagine because they can actually hear it), and also those who have studied it for a long, long time. The bottom line is that it's a type of music that's made for a different type of audience, one that is able to understand it.
Try this for an analogy - some eastern musician comes to America to study music and finds that he can't stand most Western music because it sounds godawful. Most of us can't hear the semitones in his daily intonations (most Muslim calls to prayer have a guy singing semitones, so if you've heard that before, you know a little about what it sounds like). But mathematically, his music is actually more correct than ours, and 12-tone music is more correct than both systems. The only way we can call 12-tone music bad is to say that it sounds awful, but many Indian or eastern musicians have the same complaint about our music. Their brains are used to a different system than ours.
Eastern musicians with no experience in Western music aren't the ones to judge it, though, because they're not the ones who understand it. We are. And the same goes for 12-tone music. Granted, I hate it, but I can at least see that the math and the order to the tones are both solid. That's as far as I'll ever understand it - I'm not part of the audience it's able to reach, except for one piece that I was required to study for a week. After a week of listening, when I had enough of it memorized to know what was coming, I started to like it.
Or try it this way - we understand our music because it follows a general pattern of chords and tones, and though we can't guess exactly what's coming next, we have a good idea. And if something is too far off the mark, we usually hate the song. We're always prepped for what might come next. With 12-tone, we have no earthly idea, and can't follow it unless we can remember exactly what came before with perfect accuracy, which is why most of us can't stand it.
It actually is about the tone, not just the rhythm.
| Iszil - run like the wind |
You can read about it here:
Wikipedia on Schoenberg
But it's probably a waste of time as far as developing your music is concerned. 12-tone is so far different from Western music that you may as well be studying Orthodox Gregorian chant. And that analogy sucks, because you can still listen to chant and understand what's going on.
Wikipedia on Schoenberg
But it's probably a waste of time as far as developing your music is concerned. 12-tone is so far different from Western music that you may as well be studying Orthodox Gregorian chant. And that analogy sucks, because you can still listen to chant and understand what's going on.
| So I see this doesn't read HTML |
| re: Twelve-Tone Music |
i hope this helps-------------
first of all realize that 12 tone music is not to everyones taste----so dont expect to like it--------------it cant be ---------its as revolutionary as punk or heavy metal is today...............but it has a place.............the same as punk or heavy metal.
the composers of 12 tone were trying to get rid of crappy music rules most of the time
PUNKS...............of the classic music world
to understand a bit more go to http://www.thegreatness.com/old/schoenberg.html
its an understanding website that has some pretty neat wav files........................listen 2 them..................dont compare them 2 nething youve heard before............and then judge them
was he mad or bad?
the music is very different.....................but try not to dismiss it......
what was he trying to do?????????????
if you are a composer........what do his whacky ideas tell you?
hope this of help
the fish
p.s. i love this stuff..................................................sometimes
first of all realize that 12 tone music is not to everyones taste----so dont expect to like it--------------it cant be ---------its as revolutionary as punk or heavy metal is today...............but it has a place.............the same as punk or heavy metal.
the composers of 12 tone were trying to get rid of crappy music rules most of the time
PUNKS...............of the classic music world
to understand a bit more go to http://www.thegreatness.com/old/schoenberg.html
its an understanding website that has some pretty neat wav files........................listen 2 them..................dont compare them 2 nething youve heard before............and then judge them
was he mad or bad?
the music is very different.....................but try not to dismiss it......
what was he trying to do?????????????
if you are a composer........what do his whacky ideas tell you?
hope this of help
the fish
p.s. i love this stuff..................................................sometimes
a) Twelve tone music, or dodecaphony, is not serialism, per se. Webern was responsible for serialism, and the latter is essentially a form of composition which uses the principles of twelve-tone music and applies them to aspects of the score, other than pitch, i.e. dynamics, bowing technique, color, etc. It is in that sense the next "logical" step up from twleve-tone music.
b) The most famous twelve-tone composers are what is called the second vienese school: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Also see Stravinsky's last few pieces.
Serialists abounded in the States and Europe after the second world war and many a composer used serialist technniques, including early John Cage and Morton Feldman. Boulez is a well known continental serialist. The most well-known American Serialist would probably be Eliott Carter, Milton Babbit and Roger Preston. Serialists are still plenty active in academia world-wide, but, thankfully, there are fewer and fewer young purist composers hitting the scene.
b) The most famous twelve-tone composers are what is called the second vienese school: Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern. Also see Stravinsky's last few pieces.
Serialists abounded in the States and Europe after the second world war and many a composer used serialist technniques, including early John Cage and Morton Feldman. Boulez is a well known continental serialist. The most well-known American Serialist would probably be Eliott Carter, Milton Babbit and Roger Preston. Serialists are still plenty active in academia world-wide, but, thankfully, there are fewer and fewer young purist composers hitting the scene.
| 12-Tone Recommendation |
An amusing introduction to 12-Tone is David Shire's soundtrack to the film "The Taking of Pelham 123". 12-Tone and Serialist music are denigrated constantly by the classical music crowd -- but are constant elements in movie soundtracks. Particularly horror movies. Give people's eyes something to do and they'll listen to anything.
Anyway, the above-mentioned music is basically 70's "thriller" movie music with a hint of era-blaxploitation. The liner notes describe in not extensive detail how Shire used the 12-tone method to create a very exotic-sounding piece of funk.
You know, it's only a matter of time before some wise-ass garage band discovers this method and applies it to loud instrumental rock.
Anyway, the above-mentioned music is basically 70's "thriller" movie music with a hint of era-blaxploitation. The liner notes describe in not extensive detail how Shire used the 12-tone method to create a very exotic-sounding piece of funk.
You know, it's only a matter of time before some wise-ass garage band discovers this method and applies it to loud instrumental rock.
| Twelve-tone should die... |
... except in practical jokes.
Today, my music teacher explained the basic principals of 12tone, one of the things he said: "If it sounds good, it should be changed", as it isn't meant to sound pleasant. Who was the idiot who said "let's play all twelve tones at random to see what it sounds like".
However, I would use the 12 tone system to lure people into hearing what they seem to be "good" music, then hit them with the wrath of the 12tone
Also, I dunno how these sound but:
Polytonal: playing more than one key at a time.
Atonal: No recognized set key.
Polyrhythm: the use of separate rhythms in separate parts (not really terrible sounding, but interesting, nonetheless). I'm learning a piano piece at the moment with frequent time changes 4/8... with occasional triplets, strange rhythms and unusual ties, not to mention the random notes and accidentals, the difference this has from 12tone is that it's about mood and creating imagery, rather than ear infections.
Anyways, interesting topic (helped me revise for school).
That was my two cents...
WB
Today, my music teacher explained the basic principals of 12tone, one of the things he said: "If it sounds good, it should be changed", as it isn't meant to sound pleasant. Who was the idiot who said "let's play all twelve tones at random to see what it sounds like".
However, I would use the 12 tone system to lure people into hearing what they seem to be "good" music, then hit them with the wrath of the 12tone
Also, I dunno how these sound but:
Polytonal: playing more than one key at a time.
Atonal: No recognized set key.
Polyrhythm: the use of separate rhythms in separate parts (not really terrible sounding, but interesting, nonetheless). I'm learning a piano piece at the moment with frequent time changes 4/8... with occasional triplets, strange rhythms and unusual ties, not to mention the random notes and accidentals, the difference this has from 12tone is that it's about mood and creating imagery, rather than ear infections.
Anyways, interesting topic (helped me revise for school).
That was my two cents...
WB
| re: Twelve-Tone Music |
SamuraiMoose wrote…
My experiences in listening to twelve-tone music have not been pleasant. It seems to me that this is the stuff that new composers turn to as a last resort once they've realized that they can't do anything better than what's already been done in traditional classical music.
Can anyone disagree with me here and recommend some quality twelve-tone music for me to check out?
I absolutely disagree.
In order to understand you must distill what "music" is to the most general definition.
Music is an abstraction of sound and the absence of sound.
In one's life and interaction with others the concept of music is introduced over and over again.
For example someone says to you "listen to this piece of music" or "I don't like this music"
You can only assume that they are defining music in their "ears" and that is what they consider music.
As you experience things in your life you "sound world" increases and you constantly redefine music.
Twelve-Tone "music" is only twelve tones.
There are many cultures that have music that is more than twelve tones; indian music is a good example.
Anyway, twelve tones refers to the NOTATION of the sound and not necessarily the sound itself which may include "gestures" that slide from one pitch to the next. You can't exclude the "sound between the sound" that is not a specific pitch.
SOOOOOOOO
If you just take the time to listen over and over again to "twelve tone" music you will begin to hear it as it becomes part of your sound world.
Start with small pieces.
Roswell Rudd (jazz trombonist) once told me the truth:
If you want to go to heaven train your ear (the ear in your mind).
Iszil wrote…
Can anybody tell me some Twelve-tone song or author, so then I can look for in on Internet and see what's this about?
> Iszil
Google "Perspectives in New Music" and I am sure you'll be able to find twelve tone composers.
There are several theory books on the subject.
Also, youmay want to distinguish between twelve-tone composition and serial composition. They are similar but not the same monster.
It is interesting that much of Wagner's music uses twelve tones like the prelude to tristan and isolde which is chromatic from the start. Check it out.
| a twelve tone piece |
TRY PLAYING THIS
right hand starting on middle C on the piano:
C A F G# ------ F# C# B Eb D
left hand starting on Bb below middle C on the piano
Bb-----------E-----------G-----------------------------
Well, how do you like it?
If you answered BLECH!!!
Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get the full flavor.
If you answered OOOH! NICE!
Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get rid of the bad taste.
lol
right hand starting on middle C on the piano:
C A F G# ------ F# C# B Eb D
left hand starting on Bb below middle C on the piano
Bb-----------E-----------G-----------------------------
Well, how do you like it?
If you answered BLECH!!!
Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get the full flavor.
If you answered OOOH! NICE!
Well, maybe you just haven't listened to it enough to get rid of the bad taste.
lol
| now thats funny |
yeah i look at 12 tone as a love hate relationship. you love it and you hate it .
here is a simple 12 tone tune ...... All Systems Go....by Philip Ahern this is a simple piece........... people seem to think that 12 tone has to sound bad, but it doesn't......... if you work it right.
12 tone pieces are serialized combinatorial pitches.... well to be specific it's in accordance with hexachordal combinatoriality you can take both treble and bass clefs voicing state a 12 note row in the first 12 measures. the first half of each row ( first hexachord in each row) is stated in the first 6 measures.the second half in the second six measures.
oh well this would be to long a thread to try to explain.
But 12 tone does not have to sound bad.
Cool link for 12 tone
http://solomonsmusic.net/setheor2.htm
here is a simple 12 tone tune ...... All Systems Go....by Philip Ahern this is a simple piece........... people seem to think that 12 tone has to sound bad, but it doesn't......... if you work it right.
12 tone pieces are serialized combinatorial pitches.... well to be specific it's in accordance with hexachordal combinatoriality you can take both treble and bass clefs voicing state a 12 note row in the first 12 measures. the first half of each row ( first hexachord in each row) is stated in the first 6 measures.the second half in the second six measures.
oh well this would be to long a thread to try to explain.
But 12 tone does not have to sound bad.
Cool link for 12 tone
http://solomonsmusic.net/setheor2.htm
I AM AGAIN amazed at some of the things I've read in this thread...."12 tone music is not part of Western Music" for one, is the most preposterous assertion I've heard as well as "Stravinsky - at the end - was a 12-tone composer." Stravinsky NEVER was a12-tone composer!!!!! If anything you would have to say that Stravinsky was a pan-diatonic composer. Look at the Piano Concerto for Piano and Winds, the Rite of Spring, Firebird....it's all white notes. Schoenberg, the founder of the 12-tone or "atonal" notational system, and Stravinsky were are such odds with each other that during their lifetimes, and whilst simultaneously living in Beverly Hills - FOR YEARS - they never spoke to each other. They avoided each other like the plague.** Their wives tried to affect some form of dialogue, but no soap. If you want to listen to some really GREAT 12-tone music, start with the composer who was the first composer in music history to use ALL 12 tones of the diatonic scale in a systematic and methodical way: Johann Sebastian Bach. You will find a wealth of knowledge ABOUT ALL musical concepts in the Well-Tempered Klavier Books 1 and 2 which comprise 48 preludes and fugues (24 each: meaning 12 major and 12 minoir keys). It is from Bach's genius that Schoenberg began the systematic construction of a 12 tone series of notes (tone row) upon which most of his compositions were written. After that, go to Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstucke (three piano pieces) Op. 11 and then to the Piano Suite Op. 23 for a wild, and I do mean WILD conception of the baroque keyboard suite, the last piece, the Gigue, will knock your socks off. Something to ponder: Charlie Parker's chord progressions were not far afield from atonal music. You can also listen to the Berg Piano Sonata Op. 1, the Piano Variations (1931) of Aaron Copland and even the music of George Crumb or pierre Boulez to hear examples and influences of 12-tone music. Joihn Cage'/s music does not reflect atonal music. His music was alleatoric. Schoenberg created this system because Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner and the rest had stretched harmony, and chromaticism to as far as anyone could possible have stretched it. It was time ripe for a new language and his system did for harmony what Stravinsky did for rhythm. Stravinsky, and I emphasize this most strongly, WAS NOT a 12-tone composer.
To return to the "non-western" issue though: there are no microtones in 12-tone music, nor are there in Stravinsky. Both systems are rather conventional if you come right down to it. the influence of Indian, Eastern, or music from the southern hemisphere were not influences on Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Both composers took their inspiration from rather old-fashioned accepted practice and FORM from the classical manner was rather strictly adhered to. By form I mean an exposition, development and recapitulation. Even Wagner and Liszt, who were at odds with the romantics of the late nineteenth century (Brahms, Schumann, etc.) knew better than to toy with form. They used monothematic material (leitmotif) in ways that were never used before but there was still the exposition - devlopment - recapitulation format present.
As an aside, if you listen closely to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, you will find something quite strange in it...you will, unlike much if not most of the modern music of the 20th century, find melody. For this alone, one can say that Schoenberg was more of a classicist than a modernist even though, at least to me, his music, still, today, in the 21st century, sounds more modern than any of the others. Even Boulez or Crumb or even Ligety, although Ligety is perhaps the best of both worlds.
** History lesson: Beverly Hills was a hotbed of emigre life in the years following the Russian Revolution and World War I. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel (she got around), even Thomas Mann and his brother, and Ayn Rand ALL lived in Southern California. They all knew each other in one way or another but never socialized together for some reason.. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were at a dinner party given by the famous concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein at his home in Beverly Hills and Rachmaninoff is said to have done nothing but scream at Stravinsky across the table that he was nothing but a composer of oom-pa-pa music for ballets and parades!
To return to the "non-western" issue though: there are no microtones in 12-tone music, nor are there in Stravinsky. Both systems are rather conventional if you come right down to it. the influence of Indian, Eastern, or music from the southern hemisphere were not influences on Schoenberg or Stravinsky. Both composers took their inspiration from rather old-fashioned accepted practice and FORM from the classical manner was rather strictly adhered to. By form I mean an exposition, development and recapitulation. Even Wagner and Liszt, who were at odds with the romantics of the late nineteenth century (Brahms, Schumann, etc.) knew better than to toy with form. They used monothematic material (leitmotif) in ways that were never used before but there was still the exposition - devlopment - recapitulation format present.
As an aside, if you listen closely to the music of Arnold Schoenberg, you will find something quite strange in it...you will, unlike much if not most of the modern music of the 20th century, find melody. For this alone, one can say that Schoenberg was more of a classicist than a modernist even though, at least to me, his music, still, today, in the 21st century, sounds more modern than any of the others. Even Boulez or Crumb or even Ligety, although Ligety is perhaps the best of both worlds.
** History lesson: Beverly Hills was a hotbed of emigre life in the years following the Russian Revolution and World War I. Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Rachmaninoff, Alma Mahler-Gropius-Werfel (she got around), even Thomas Mann and his brother, and Ayn Rand ALL lived in Southern California. They all knew each other in one way or another but never socialized together for some reason.. Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky were at a dinner party given by the famous concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein at his home in Beverly Hills and Rachmaninoff is said to have done nothing but scream at Stravinsky across the table that he was nothing but a composer of oom-pa-pa music for ballets and parades!
| But is it music? |
From the vehemence in a number of these posts I suddenly understand why there were riots in the street after the first performance of "Rite of Spring" regarding whether it was or was not music. I personally subscribe to the notion that in any disagreement between music theory and the ear, the ear must have the final authority.
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