Atonal music

[franzliszt2]

heres a thought:

We are inclined to listen to tonal music, yeah?, thats why music has always been tonal up until the 20th centruy. (Well people experimented before, but it never hit mainstream)

Tonal music has always dominated the ears of humans, becaus ethat is what we have listned to.

well.... if we were brought up, listening to nothing but atonal music, would we accept that, and hear tonal music as weird. Just as we hear atonal music now, and think what the hell??

[steve jones]

Hmmm, not sure!

Atonal music is inherently 'hard' to listen to and sometimes completely chaotic, so I doubt it would ever be whistled to on the way to work. So in that respect, maybe not.

But then again, we incorporate alot of inharmonic timbre within our music, and this is not repelant in the slightlest (cymbals for example). If we'd only ever heard predominently harmonic timbres (like clarinet) then maybe the sound of inharmonic sounds would not be so tolerated?

Interesting question, I will be fascinated to see what people think about this! I guess a good starting point might be to find out what imigrants thought of Western music when they first heard it?

SJ

[ahinton]

heres a thought:

We are inclined to listen to tonal music, yeah?, thats why music has always been tonal up until the 20th centruy. (Well people experimented before, but it never hit mainstream)

Tonal music has always dominated the ears of humans, becaus ethat is what we have listned to.

well.... if we were brought up, listening to nothing but atonal music, would we accept that, and hear tonal music as weird. Just as we hear atonal music now, and think what the hell??

Well, I can write only of my own experience. I led a life entirely sheltered from music of any kind until I was approaching 12 years of age. I then heard (by chance) one of Chopin's greatest works and was transfixed by the whole idea of music as a means of expression. I then heard a very few more tonal works - Ravel, Roussel, early Stravinsky - and, having thereby found myself impelled to become a composer (based only upon such slender experience - I must have been mad, really) - I tried to make a start, whereupon I immediately chanced upon a teacher who had been a pupil of Webern just before World War II; he introduced me to Webern's work and to that of some of the 1950s/60s composers active around the Darmstadt/Donaueschingen/Köln axis, took me to an illustrated lecture by Stockhausen and tried to get me to come to terms with the three piano sonatas of Boulez. By the time I was almost 14, almost my entire musical world was populated by these persuasions and I only got to know Schönberg, then Mahler and then earlier composers afterwards. Yes, when I first heard a Mozart piano concerto it sounded completely strange - because it was written in a language utterly unfamiliar to me at that time.

This educational experience eventually came to bestwo upon me what some might find to be a rather bizarre sense of what constitutes "tonal" music, in that my ears - surely sharpened by this kind of experience so early on - have since perceived tonal references in so-called "atonal" works even where such things may not necessarily have been intended by the composer. I consider that my own music is tonal - some would say that it hovers between tonality and atonality, but I can't recognise that. Tonality is a matter of degree. Tonality and atonality are not finitely definable things. I admit openly that it would indeed be very inconvenient (at least for me) if they were!

I don't know if, or to what extent, this may answer the question posed here, but I hope that my input will at least me of some use to someone.

Best,

Alistair

[prometheus]

Both our systems of tonal and atonal music are basicly articifial constructions, something that represents our culture. Yes, most people in the western world are rooted in the tradition of western tonal music. But there are tons of alternatives. Western music is very new and people have had music, well probably since the beginning of mankind.

So people are rooted in other systems of music.


But, atonal music is less natural and more farfetched than tonal music.

Actually, when you know a piece of atonal music very well you do not hear it is atonal. Normally with tonal music you can anticipate the next note, or rather narrow it down to only a few possibilities. When you hear atonal music that what you hear comes, partly, from confusion. But when you know a atonal piece by heart this 'sound of confusion' dissapears and it sounds just like tonal music. At least that is my experience.

So atonality is just an extention of tonality. A side less seen. To me the distinction is very blurry. Only twelve tone serial music sounds 'truly atonal' to me.

I must also add that the last few months I have primarily listened to Persian and Indian music. And I have been listening to eastern music for a long time. These systems are different from the western system though in a different sense since they don't focus that much on harmony. Since I am very familiar with these kinds of music as well I can't really tell how alien they are to western tonal music but some think or say they are. Their music also extends the most basic and simple system one could come up with. But they also use the unnatural extentions that one can possibly conceive. With my native perspective to both and the lack of distinctions I observe between tonal and atonal music I cannot really make the analogy I was trying to make so I will let it rest.


Also, why is this question in this forum? Atonality is not music? 

[jas]

Both our systems of tonal and atonal music are basicly articifial constructions, something that represents our culture.

I thought the harmonic series had something to do with it, that the ear has always heard the consonants first because of the order in which they're in the overtone series. So although tonality is an articial construction, consonance isn't... I don't know, that's just what I always assumed about why we largely prefer consonant intervals.
But I suppose if you grow up with anything you come to see it as natural, and anything else as "different".

Jas

[prometheus]

Yes, the overtone series is something 'totally natural' and our tonal system is based on it, but not in totality. The minor tonality is less natural than the major one.

So yes, one does expect to hear constants and something is constant when it is in accordance with the overtone series.

The idea of constant and dissonant intervals are universal to all people. It is only the way in which they are used that is different and cannot be classified as natural or unnatural.

[ahinton]

why is this question in this forum? Atonality is not music? 

I assume from the rest of what you wrote that you are joking here; if not, I would be obliged to respond that tonality is not music either - only music is music - tonality, atonality and all points between are merely characteristics of musical language.

Best,

Alistair

[musik_man]

Consonance and Dissonance deal with the ratio of the frequencies of two notes.  The ratio between the frequencies in a fifth is 3:2.  An Octave is 2:1.  A tritone is an irrational number.  Basically, the more complex the ratio, the more dissonant we find it.

[henrah]

I would like to say that I just listened to a Prokoviev toccata, and what I would consider dissonance (very chromatic changes in two voices, and the contrast between them being very dissonant) isn't actually so. Well it isn't to my ears. I can actually hum it along, and it's quite nice to listen to. This is a good example of atonality being pleasing to the ears. Of course it isn't as pleasing as a Chopin melody, but pleasing nonetheless.
Henrah


EDIT: Man I love Jack Johnson...

[Tash]

i've been listening to a lot of contemporary australian music recently, and if it's not completely atonal then it's really dissonant and doesn't make a whole lot of sense at first. but i've kind of gotten used to it, and then went and listened to some miriam hyde, and i couldn't handle the whole tonal factor!! like her music sounds like it should have been written with chopin, and i was like what is this, and had to stop listening because there was no crazy dissonance and cluster chords!!

i think people can adapt to music in any 'key' or lack of, just a matter of getting used to to.

and i think prometheus was regarding atonal as 'not being music' in the sense of why is a topic on atonal music in the 'non-piano forum' section, however, it does kind of fit this part of the forum because we're not directly talking about piano...

[prometheus]

Very pure tonality can be harsh. Take for example the comments by Scriabin about Beethoven. Beethoven was a romantic primarily in his 'piano banging' rather than in harmony, thought he did of course make progress in the harmonic sense they were minor.


And yes, this forum seems to be mainly about non-music subjects. I have seen a lot of topics that aren't about piano in the other forums. I would expect this in misc.