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Topic: post-Schonbergian music and human nature  (Read 2419 times)

Offline mephisto

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post-Schonbergian music and human nature
on: June 03, 2012, 12:57:50 PM
Since I am quite interested in both human nature and music (!), I have often thought about wether or not there is a relationship between various aspect of human nature and music.

For instance most music is tonal. Is this just random or is tonal music easier for our brain?

I think it's not controversial to say that  much modern music is accessible to professionals and may be to people with a special bent but it's not popular with most people. Maybe this is because we are proprogrammed to listen to tonal music or something similar.

I found this interesting interview and would like to know if anyone have any opinions on this subject.



PS: I like Schoenberg  :)

Offline p2u_

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #1 on: June 03, 2012, 01:20:58 PM
Since I am quite interested in both human nature and music (!), I have often thought about wether or not there is a relationship between various aspect of human nature and music.

For instance most music is tonal. Is this just random or is tonal music easier for our brain?
You can answer that one for yourself I think. Beethoven would have turned the melody from the following "Guess that song" quiz from nature into a nice theme with variations, don't you think so?


Paul
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Offline mephisto

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #2 on: June 03, 2012, 01:42:39 PM
Beethoven would have turned the melody from the following "Guess that song" quiz from nature into a nice theme with variations, don't you think so?


Paul

I don't think there are any limits as to what Beethoven could have done with anything regarding music ;)

I wonder if Messiaen used this bird-song in any of his pieces?

Offline p2u_

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #3 on: June 03, 2012, 01:49:22 PM
I wonder if Messiaen used this bird-song in any of his pieces?

Maybe not this song, I don't know, but he believed birds to be great musicians and wrote down bird songs worldwide, which he later used. I do think, though, that birds are basically tonal and that the arrangements people make of their songs may be atonal. I see atonal music as something not directly related to nature, but more to people's subconscious protest against the established order of nature and society.

Paul
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No more pearls before swine...

Offline brianvds

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #4 on: June 08, 2012, 05:24:46 AM
I tend to be rather skeptical about completely atonal music in the Schoenberg mode. But some time ago I saw a performance on TV of one of his orchestral pieces and, rather to my own surprise, found myself quite fascinated by it. :-)

The problem is that much music basically depends on the creation and resolution of dissonance for its effect and forward movement. But once a particular set of dissonances has been used for a few decades, it ceases to sound dissonant to experienced ears, and composers have to come up with somewhat harsher ones to achieve the same effect. In this way, over a span of several centuries, music perhaps inevitably evolves toward noise? Then we wipe the slate clean by returning to ancient musical times, hence composers like Pärt - by now, medieval music is old enough that instead of sounding bland, we tend to experience it as wonderfully exotic sounding. :-)

Offline j_menz

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #5 on: June 08, 2012, 05:39:39 AM
In this way, over a span of several centuries, music perhaps inevitably evolves toward noise?

Does that make dubstep the most highly evolved possible form of music?
"What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left" -- Oscar Levant

Offline ahinton

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #6 on: June 08, 2012, 08:49:39 AM
I tend to be rather skeptical about completely atonal music in the Schoenberg mode. But some time ago I saw a performance on TV of one of his orchestral pieces and, rather to my own surprise, found myself quite fascinated by it. :-)
Well, don't be surprised; Schönberg is rarely less than fascinating! That said, I presume you to mean one of the Fünf Orchesterstücke Op. 16 of 1909, yet these are by no means "completely atonal"; for example, the 5-note chord that underpins the middle piece, Farben - out of which everything in it grows - has a 6/3 chord of E major at its centre (C-G#-B-E-A) and there are many other tonal allusions spread across all five pieces. There are tonal references all over Schönberg's music, including those works written within 12-note serial practice - and let's not forget that the level of tonality in his music varies from time to time quite widely, for an example of which one has only to consider the Variations for Wind Band in G minor and the Kammersymphonie Nr. 2 in E flat minor, each written when the composer was in his 60s.

The problem is that much music basically depends on the creation and resolution of dissonance for its effect and forward movement. But once a particular set of dissonances has been used for a few decades, it ceases to sound dissonant to experienced ears, and composers have to come up with somewhat harsher ones to achieve the same effect. In this way, over a span of several centuries, music perhaps inevitably evolves toward noise? Then we wipe the slate clean by returning to ancient musical times, hence composers like Pärt - by now, medieval music is old enough that instead of sounding bland, we tend to experience it as wonderfully exotic sounding. :-)
I think that you make a good point in the opening part of your statement here, but as it progresses I think that you miss a vital point, which is that, over the past 100 years or so during which the bonds of tonality have been severed, much overtly tonal music has continued to be written in many countries, so what "atonality" has achieved is to broaden expressive capability by adding to the musical languages that preceded it, so no slate has been wiped clean at all!

Best,

Alistair
Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive

Offline brianvds

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #7 on: June 08, 2012, 09:52:11 AM
Well, don't be surprised; Schönberg is rarely less than fascinating! That said, I presume you to mean one of the Fünf Orchesterstücke Op. 16 of 1909, yet these are by no means "completely atonal"; for example, the 5-note chord that underpins the middle piece, Farben - out of which everything in it grows - has a 6/3 chord of E major at its centre (C-G#-B-E-A) and there are many other tonal allusions spread across all five pieces. There are tonal references all over Schönberg's music, including those works written within 12-note serial practice - and let's not forget that the level of tonality in his music varies from time to time quite widely, for an example of which one has only to consider the Variations for Wind Band in G minor and the Kammersymphonie Nr. 2 in E flat minor, each written when the composer was in his 60s.

If memory serves, the piece was titled "Variations for orchestra." It was conducted by Barenboim; rather amusingly, some time before the ending, he had to prevent the audience from bursting into applause after someone, presumably thinking the work had ended, had started clapping. :-)

Quote
I think that you make a good point in the opening part of your statement here, but as it progresses I think that you miss a vital point, which is that, over the past 100 years or so during which the bonds of tonality have been severed, much overtly tonal music has continued to be written in many countries, so what "atonality" has achieved is to broaden expressive capability by adding to the musical languages that preceded it, so no slate has been wiped clean at all!

Yes, indeed, I greatly oversimplified the matter, and my point was sort of semi - but not entirely - facetious.

Offline ahinton

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Re: post-Schonbergian music and human nature
Reply #8 on: June 08, 2012, 12:10:41 PM
If memory serves, the piece was titled "Variations for orchestra." It was conducted by Barenboim; rather amusingly, some time before the ending, he had to prevent the audience from bursting into applause after someone, presumably thinking the work had ended, had started clapping. :-)
Ah, yes - Op. 31 - a very fine work and certainly by no means "totally atonal"! I' ve heard Barenboim conduct this myself; it's repertoire that well suits him.

Yes, indeed, I greatly oversimplified the matter, and my point was sort of semi - but not entirely - facetious.
OK!

Best,

Alistair
Alistair Hinton
Curator / Director
The Sorabji Archive
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