Harmony

[inspired young pianist]

Hi guys, can anyone tell me the difference between traditional and modren harmonic language? Not really sure what it's to do with, it is just mentioned in a book when discussing analysing music
Thanks

[counterpoint]

If it sounds ugly, it is modern harmonic language   

if it sounds nice, it's highly probable, that the composer died long, long ago.. 

[bella musica]

Possibly you are thinking of the difference between tonal and atonal music.  Tonal music is based on a certain scale which is composed of notes of varying... hm, I guess you could say importance, but they are all still important.   Atonal music is often based on a 12-note scale in which all of the 12 notes are equally important.

[desordre]

 Dear Pianist:
 If you want to do some serious study of harmony there are very good books on both Common Practice (traditional is not an appropriate term) and 20th century Harmony.
 Let me suggest Ottman, Piston or Kostka for Common Practice, and Persichetti for 20th century. Furthermore, some guide to musical analysis will be handy, such as Green, White or Cook.
 Notice that Common Practice stands for the music made between Monteverdi and Richard Strauss (more or less, since you have prodromes of tonality in the 16th century, and composers writing tonal music well into our days), and that the 20th century did not have a singular harmonic language, but many ones: expanded tonal, free atonal, serial, pantonal, bi or polytonal, modal, bi or polymodal, quartal, clusters, microtonality, and the conceivable mixtures of them.
 By no means the aesthesic component of perception can define a harmonic language: the kind of harmony that you love can be (and normally actually is) too boring or too harsh to other people. In other words, the fact that people mostly enjoy listen to Chopin doesn't have any single connection with the technique he used, but with its results.
 If you have any further questions and I could help with them, I'll be very glad.
 Best wishes!

[counterpoint]

By no means the aesthesic component of perception can define a harmonic language:

I'm sorry, but I totally disagree.

The harmonic language is the consequence of the sound impression, the composer wants to give. There are some rules (very few rules!), that allow or forbid special consecutive intervals or chords, but in general, the sound the composer wants to come out has the first priority in front of all rules.

[desordre]

 Mr(s). Counterpoint, accept my apologies for what follows:

(...)
The harmonic language is the consequence of the sound impression, the composer wants to give.

No it isn't. I think you're misunderstanding both harmony and "sound impression".

There are some rules (very few rules!), that allow or forbid special consecutive intervals or chords, but in general, the sound the composer wants to come out has the first priority in front of all rules.

Again, that's not true.

 Let's talk about some facts. The harmony of the Common Practice Period is so-called just because it consists of (harmonic) practices that were common to every single composer and to all of them. At least until Wagner and Liszt (keeping from mid-17th century) this sentence is always true. There is nothing about "sound impression", which is quite a misguided term to define historically the intention of a composer. But about this we shall speak later. The tonal harmony, hence, is basically the continuous cycle of Tonic-(Subdominant)-Dominant that you can find else and anywhere in the music of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin or Brahms. Any of these composers (and actually the list is much bigger than this) follows the same harmonic goal. At a superficial level, we find them very different, and they actually are. But in essence all are the same.
 By the way, when you talk about "forbidden rules" you make me feel as your only knowledge of harmony is some guidelines for a begginner's course about the matter, which I hope is not the case. For instance, the Fuxian and related counterpoint directives never were obstrusive to the use of harmony by the composers (just to remind, you can find consecutive perfect fifths elsewhere in Bach or Mozart).
 Finally, "the sound the composer wants (...) in front of all rules" is an affirmative, at least, naive: you seem to ignore all that were made in late-19th and 20th analysis (I don't even speak about music here, just analysis). For instance, any Schenkerian or post-schenkerian trend will demonstrate this. Also if we think about Nattiez theories (with which we can seriously argue with your concept of "sound impression"), or Piston, or Meyer, or Reti, or almost anyone else. By the way, even if we talk about Korsakov's or Hindemith's (that are a bit old-fashioned) we must revise this.
 I think that Nattiez in special may bring some light to our discussion. He divides the musical fact in three great parts: Poietic process, Neutral Stage, and Aesthesic process. In other words: the composer, the score, and ourselves. (Of course that it has a deep relation with Comunication Theories). So, when we talk about the sound we imply the perception of that particular intepretation to what we listen. This process will be always different according to someone's musical background. However, the score (the neutral stage) doesn't change. For instance, you seem to like 19th century music, and I do so, but by no means we "feel" the music the same way and the score (or even the recording) is the same.
 We must now procede to the score, then. What will we find there? The composer's intentions? The way we listen to the music? None. The score only brings part of the composer's idea about that special composition: the melody, the chords, the rhythm, very little of dynamics or agogics, very little of articulation or expression, almost nothing about sound and timbre. At this point, we can considere the harmony and, in the case of Common Practice one, what will we find? The same practices, as I said before. Any music that is "in that key" follows the same process. Comparing J.C. Bach and R. Wagner we will notice that in the music of the first there are a few non-harmonic tones and that the tonic comes over and over again all the time. The later, by his time, uses a lot of non-harmonic tones, but much less tonic recurrences than the first. Although there are that differences, their music are quite similar in its harmonic essence, since you certainly will, at the end, reach the Tonic Chord.
 Now, I think we must pay attention to something that you said: what the "composer wants to give". How do you know that? Have you read any letter of him? Or book, or primary source for that matter? This analysis of the compositional process (the poietic one) is a very delicate and controversial issue, since we are not able to guess what the composer had in mind. You have to actually know. When you listen to some Chopin and you feel in a melancholic mood that's nothing to do with Chopin himself, even if we all know that he was a person of melancholic moods: you can't tell that he was really in that state of mind when he did compose this "some" music which I'm refering to.
 I do respect you very much if you think that the music you want to hear is the one that pleases you. No problem at all! You're the one and only master of both your brain and ears, and so I would never say that the things that you love are wrong. I'm also think that most of it are the same for both of us. However, you should not try to justify this with false premises, because - furthermore - your listening habits don't need this. They're yours, period. However, all that I wrote is due to a kind of misconception or misunderstandig of compositional matters that is very very very common.
 Excuse me again for the harsh tone, but it's absolutely not personal.
 Best wishes!

[prometheus]

Please Counterpoint, this forum is meant as a serious place to talk about music theory. If you knew anything about music theory then you should have known that aesthetics don't play any role at all.

[counterpoint]

@desordre and prometheus

You seem to be in a special club, which has a sort of religious insight in what composers do, when they write their music.

What desordre talks about is Hugo Riemann's theory, that "all music" can be reduced to the 3 harmonic "functions" he names Tonica, Subdominante and Dominante.
Hugo Riemann lived from 1849 to 1919. Therefore his influence on composers like Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert is rather limited 

But anyway: I said, that harmonic structure is a consequence of what the composer wants. If you say, that's not true, then I ask you: what other inner logic does harmonic structure have than to reflect the imagination of the composer? You don't have an answer to this question, do you?

By the way: there's no problem with harsh tones (in discussion or in music), it's perhaps the consequence of having touched a very sensible part of someone 

[prometheus]

I didn't read what Desordre posted but I think it is still a staw man. I never said anything about what composers think or do. How can I claim to have a religious insight?

I only said that your first comment was non-sense, which you probably agree with because  you added so many smilies. It can only be a troll. And since your current post has again two of them I wonder how seriously I should take this message.

Take your trolls and empty comments somewhere else and lets try to actually inform people that aks questions here.

As for the difference between modern and traditional harmony. This is a strange question since 'modern' is poorly definied. Modern would be defined by time. Anything recent enough is modern. Tradition doesn't talk about time. This means something can be both modern and traditional. And that means there is no difference between them since both of them talk about different things. As for traditional and non-traditional harmony. The difference isn't a clear line or point. At one end we have traditional and at the other we have non-traditional. Then when we explore everything inbetween the two we see that it gradually develops from the one to the other.

But I guess one can say that we see an increase of unresolved dissonance and modulations that are both faster and mode distant.

[counterpoint]

I'm very sad, that it is not possible, to talk about harmonic in an ironic way.
Perhaps that's what modern harmony is: composers making fun about the classical harmonic formulas. Especially when I hear Prokofieff, I hear always his "hehe, you want me to write a f#minor chord - paah, I will write Eb9 with a flatted fifth added instead!!!    "

[desordre]

(...)What desordre talks about is Hugo Riemann's theory, that "all music" can be reduced to the 3 harmonic "functions" he names Tonica, Subdominante and Dominante.
Hugo Riemann lived from 1849 to 1919. Therefore his influence on composers like Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert is rather limited (...)

Again, you're misunderstanding what Riemann said. He's not refering to "all music". Anyway, I think you know that every theory comes after the practice itself. Although I do agree that none of these masters were influenced by Riemann's theory, would you say that their music is not tonal, that it don't follow the T-S-D relations? To ignore the history of music knowledge and think that in a time when people thought that music was kind of supernatural manifestation of a genius is something that I really can't understand.

(...)But anyway: I said, that harmonic structure is a consequence of what the composer wants. If you say, that's not true, then I ask you: what other inner logic does harmonic structure have than to reflect the imagination of the composer? You don't have an answer to this question, do you?(...)

Of course I do. The "inner logic" of tonal harmony is the same you pointed out: the existance and confirmation of a tonic. However, I do agree with you that, given the possibilities, is all about the composer's imagination.

[desordre]

 Mr. Prometheus:
 How can you judge me without even read what I did post?

I didn't read what Desordre posted but I think it is still a staw man. (...)

As a PS, I must say that your last line deals only with tonal harmony (the traditional one). It's absolutely not valid when talking about 20th century non-tonal harmonic practices.

[prometheus]

I said that Conterpoint's post about what I said was one. Note that he ties together both of our comments. Since I mentioned I didn't read your post I didn't see a need to specify I was referring to Couterpoint's post since without the comment about not reading your post it would have been ambigious.

Obviously, in atonal music there is is not the possibility to resolve dissonance since there is no tonic. But obviously non-tonal music, at least in western classical music, is clearly part of non-traditional music. The topic starter didn't really specify the area she or he would want to have explained. But when we are talking about the grey area then it starts with Beethoven, of after Beethoven, one could argue. From our perspective I would say that Mozart and Haydn are clearly traditional in their harmonic language. Beethoven moved towards romantizism but in terms of harmony only through unconventional modulations. His music was very different from that of other composers before him. But he didn't take the step of adding more dissonance, a step that we do see later and that clearly marks the romantic age in western classical music.

[desordre]

 Dear Mr. Prometheus:
 Sorry. I've taken what you said in the wrong way. About your explanation, I agree but not a hundred percent (the term "traditional" in particular). However, it is very valid and that divergence is of lesser importance, hence seems clear to me that both of us agree with the fact that are disctinct approaches toward tonal and non-tonal harmonies, don't you think? I write this because the starter post (by Mr. Pianist) was dealing with this separation, as far as I did understand it (he uses the terms "traditional" and "modern").
 Best wishes!

[prometheus]

Well, yes. Her or his use of both terms is unclear.
As for the difference between the two. There is no seperation between the two. There is no clear differentiation. The two flow into each other. If we substitute 'traditional' and 'modern' with 'tonal' and 'atonal' then there is music that is clearly tonal or atonal, and there are distinct ways to approach these kinds of music, both in listening and analysis, but there is also music that fits neither. Music that exists in the grey inbetween tonality and atonality.

But then again, modern music can be both traditional and non-traditional, tonal and atonal. So until the original poster clarifies what she or he ment to ask we cannot really answer the question, which is what we are supposed to do.

As for the term traditional. I didn't come up with it. I tried to make an educated guess about what the TS meant with this word. To me tradutional music would include all western classical music, medieval, modern and everything inbetween.

[arbisley]

 

[arbisley]

If we substitute 'traditional' and 'modern' with 'tonal' and 'atonal' then there is music that is clearly tonal or atonal, and there are distinct ways to approach these kinds of music, both in listening and analysis, but there is also music that fits neither. Music that exists in the grey inbetween tonality and atonality.

Schoenberg's "Verklaerte Nacth" fits quite well into that category.

Humans have a tendency of discovering something nice, studying it, and getting so thoroughly immerged into its own world that they cannot make any new opinion respond to it easily. For example, most people appreciate classical and/or early music, romantic music varies depending on the person, but for the biggest part of the "non-musical" population, atonal, experimental, generally "modern" music is widely misunderstoof as far too dissonant. I used to agree with this opinion, but having listened to more Prokofiev and other advanced romantic composers, I find I can appreciate pieces written very recently much more. It seems to me to be a matter of having "hearing patterns", where you come to expect certain things in listening to a piece of music.

From here we can see that because most early music is so straightforward in its basic harmonic structure, more people can enjoy it without having heard any before. The more dissonant music gets, the more one has to sink into a completely different harmonic attitude, and since "modern" composers tend to try out new things almost every day on a very individual basis, their music is more and more difficult to understand to a simple human being.

I sometimes think of it like writing essays for english literature: the more I study, read, think about it, the better my essays get, but any person confronted with the tools for the first time will be completely incapable of reproducing a similar task. Where is the logic in that? Surely music, literature and the Arts in general are supposed to be acknowledgeable by anyone since they define what is human in us?

I ask more questions than I answer, but I believe that to the original question there was only a simple answer required. It sounds like the difference between "traditional" and "modern" in this case seems to be of the type: modern harmonies do not focus around a central key and do not firmly place themselves within a melodic structure.

Basically, it's a question of straighforward harmony and melody for the traditional, and chord extension, dissonance, atonality for the modern.

[pianistimo]

texture is a portion of harmony that is listenable and definable.  one of my teachers said that sometimes in music analyzation - beginners or non-musicians are better able to listen (without that shaking fear that they are missing something) and hear 'points of articulation' or texture changes and identifiable points in music that greatly affect them.

he had us, as a class, listen (without the score), to a piece of music and just write general impressions first.  we learned to start listening to the instrumentation and these 'points of articulation' and the textures of the music (whether thick or thin or counterpoint/stretto vs. chordal).  it was interesting how much more we heard without prior expectations.  i would say the most enjoyable listening is without having to analyze at all - but to simply point out your favorite part of a piece of music.  or, as he had us do - to section it into the typical forms (AB or ABA) and also then, subgroups of 'points of articulation.'

these points are usually at the end of a page or page and a half and are accompanied by rests or longer notes that lead into a definable change of character in the piece or texture. (usually both).  sometimes dynamic changes as well.  then - we'd put these 'railroad tracks' in our music at those points (//) and it worked like a charm.  no more of this tedious music analyzation at the very beginning.  although you can always go back and add more and more analzyation of chords, etc.

ps agreed about the exact harmonies needing exact figuring of chords and progressions.  some pieces repeat like jazz numbers - a sort of figured bass.  others are wild and never repeat. the latter is most interesting because you would need a really good ear to hear the subtle changes and intricacies in not only harmony but rhythm.