thoughts on 12-tone?

[Osama_Spears]

hello! this summer i plan on writing some 12 tone music, 1 to help with my reading and theory, and 2, to (hopefully) forum a dissonant grind band with.

i was just wondering what you guys feel about 12-tone/A-tonalization and if any of you play it/write it. is there any contemporary musicians applying it today?

[fingers]

Are you talking about Serialism?

I wrote a big paper on it in college.

[Dogbertday]

I like Atonal music better than 12 tone... 12 tone seems too much like math (even to listen to)

However I don't see how Atonal music would help with theory all that much (obviously i'm not talking about 12tone here)... both are noble arts... be sure to let us know how it goes!

Actually the stuff I really like is the Romantic/Impressionist stuff where the whole thing never really resolves.

[fingers]

Hold it. We need to make sure we are all talking the same language here. Any music that uses the Western Chromatic Scale can employ all 12 tones. There have been many schools of thought on how to do it though. Please clarify.

[damonsmith]

Schoenberg's music was beautiful, and never sounded like math, ditto for Webern. I would pick up a copy of Persichetti's 20th Century Harmony as well as some of Schoenberg's books.
You should also be able to at least play some of the earlier classical forms and have a working understanding of them.
It is not a new thing - 75+ years old at this point and modern composed music has gone through a lot of different things since. It is not a bad starting point, and understand chromatic harmony (which is used whether you are using a strict serial system or just all 12 tones) is required for jazz and most other music after the 1940s or maybe earlier.

What serialism and other concepts like Ornette Coleman's Harmolodics really did was equalize all the tones, not long after composers and improvisors started to equalize all the musical elements (tone, timbre, scale, dynamics, rhythm). Pierre Boulez for one began to serialize all those aspects Since then people have found endless ways to organize and disorganize those aspects.

[Pat Harris]

Wait... you can employ 12-tone/tone row writing and not have it be totally serialist or "mathematical." When I think of serialism, that's when I think of the math end of things, but 12-tone music to me just implies the use of a tone row or system. The form, dynamics, etc are not derived from some equation.

[Osama_Spears]

to clarify, i meant composing a tone-row, no major 3rds, or perfect 4 or 5ths incorporated. a-tonal to me is like Debussy, who wrote with no tonal center however, IIRC didnt have any 'real' tone rows in his compositions.

[damonsmith]

Debussy is very nice, but if you want modern composition applicable to grindcore, I would start with Xenakis, Radulescu, Lachenmann and Julio Estrada.

[David Kaczorowski]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

What serialism and other concepts like Ornette Coleman's Harmolodics really did was equalize all the tones,

In response to your statement about Ornette: yes and no. That's part of it, but only part.

The problem with bringing "Harmolodics" into any theory discussion is that it's not really a theory, or from what I've gathered, something that can be explained in words. Ask cats that used to play with Ornette and they can't even tell you what it is completely, and each time you ask you get a different part-answer.

I've always believed serialism to be one of a few different styles, or methods, of 12 tone composition.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by David Kaczorowski

In response to your statement about Ornette: yes and no. That's part of it, but only part.

The problem with bringing "Harmolodics" into any theory discussion is that it's not really a theory, or from what I've gathered, something that can be explained in words. Ask cats that used to play with Ornette and they can't even tell you what it is completely, and each time you ask you get a different part-answer.

I've always believed serialism to be one of a few different styles, or methods, of 12 tone composition.

But when you ask Ornette he says it has to with considering all the relationships a note can have at the moment, not just it's relationship to the root.
I think it got clouded later because he used it as a catch all for all of his music.
But in the beginning he used it to freely modulate.
He did use it to move from one key to another, but it still has to do with equalizing the tones.

[fingers]

Originally Posted by Osama_Spears

to clarify, i meant composing a tone-row, no major 3rds, or perfect 4 or 5ths incorporated. a-tonal to me is like Debussy, who wrote with no tonal center however, IIRC didnt have any 'real' tone rows in his compositions.

I'm not sure you really understand. I'm not sure but your explanations sound like you have a very cursory understanding.

Read "Serial Composition and Atonality" by George Perle.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by fingers

I'm not sure you really understand. I'm not sure but your explanations sound like you have a very cursory understanding.

Read "Serial Composition and Atonality" by George Perle.

-Perle wrote a bass piece. It is not bad, I think i might have it around somewhere.

[David Kaczorowski]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

But in the beginning he used it to freely modulate. He did use it to move from one key to another, but it still has to do with equalizing the tones.

Freely modulating and moving from one key to another implies there are resolutions and the tones aren't all equal, no?

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by David Kaczorowski

Freely modulating and moving from one key to another implies there are resolutions and the tones aren't all equal, no?

The decision to modulate is made based on all possible relationships a given note can have, so at least at that moment it is equal with all others. In a different way than serialism, but a step in that direction for sure, which was my original point.

[buddyro57]

Great thread, right down my alley. Schoenberg writes at length in the Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony, 1922) about tendencies of tones to follow or prepare one another, this is a similar idea to Coleman's Harmolodic approach. We might not think of those two figures having much to do with one another, but I think there is much common- at least in this context. It is not quite true that Schoenberg rigorously avoided adjacent perfect and imperfect consonances in the formation of a row. But he was careful about implying tonal function within the row, and its is evident that rows that contain more "tonal" implications ( opus 42 for instance contains some adjacent P4s), seem to produce a slightly more-stable tone world.
I would also recommend the Perle book- its might be the clearest examination of 12-tone technique. Also a terrific book by Miguel Roig- Francolli, Understanding Post-Tonal Muisc is fantastic....that is an exhaustive look at cellular and 12-tone approaches.
JS

[fingers]

Originally Posted by buddyro57

Also a terrific book by Miguel Roig- Francolli, Understanding Post-Tonal Music is fantastic....that is an exhaustive look at cellular and 12-tone approaches.

Yes. Very good book.

The fun thing about writing 12 tone music is it is like a puzzle. I did a composition project in undergrad where I explored different means of generating and organizing tone rows from totally random (using spinners, dice, mathematical equations, etc) to much more deliberate and organized. As a composer you can adhere to as many or as few of these 'rules' as you want. Make up your own set. It changes the nature of the game but keeps it fun all the same.

I think the biggest thing is doing your homework and exploring the history and possibilities of the genre. I always feel you gotta know the 'rules' to change them. Perle and Roig-Francoli and great places to start. Cheers.

[txstatebass]

If your idea for composition tends towards the twentieth century harmonic practices, then it behooves you to study more concepts than 12 tone, ie. pandiatonicism, collage, tintinnabulation. Post common practice stuff is great!

[Reuben]

I started with the Perle book, but nowadays FAR prefer Charles Wuorinen's "Simple Composition." The Perle books are much drier, and Wuorinen's book delves into things Perle only hints at. You can't do better.

I use serial methods to compose about 80% of my pieces. For a real bonehead example, check out this:

http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/radding-01.m3u

At first, the bassline of the head is just the prime row, and the "melody" is a transposed inversion. Really basic stuff.

[Eli_Upright12]

Its really tough to do it, but you can make 12 tone row melodic and nice, you just have to be tricky about sticking chords in there and stuff. Its hard, I did a couple for my HS theory class this year, it tests you nerves but it can work.

[Mark Perna]

Originally Posted by Reuben

I use serial methods to compose about 80% of my pieces. For a real bonehead example, check out this:

http://cdbaby.com/mp3lofi/radding-01.m3u

I wouldn't call it bonehead. I liked it enough to order the disc.

mark