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From: rlr@pyuxn.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Rosen on atonality - Webern / what the hell is tonality, anyway?
Message-ID: <813@pyuxn.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 2-Jul-84 19:23:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxn.813
Posted: Mon Jul  2 19:23:31 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jul-84 03:23:22 EDT
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> Rich said something to the effect, "each moment having tonality, but the
> piece having no key". Tonality, like rhythm, is something that exists
> only in context. It is impossible to have rhythm with just one beat,
> likewise it is impossible to have tonality with just one note or chord. 
> Tonality is the sense that the pitches in a particular bit of music are
> in a heirarchy, with one note being the most important in some sense. 
> I suspect that, to a sufficiently trained ear, real atonality is not
> possible.

One comment about your analogy:  rhythm most definitely can only exist within
the context of time.  Tonality can exist for a given moment (like when you
hear a chord that you wish could last forever); key is the predetermined
ordering and organization of harmonies/tonalities over time.  I think we
*are* just playing word games, but I do believe one could have a tonality
for a moment rather than over time.  Maybe what I'm calling "key" you're
calling "tonality" and what I'm calling "tonality" you're calling "harmony".

> Here's an interesting thought for you: one could easily write a piece
> which used 12-tone rows as a structural element but was tonal as well.
> But such a piece certainly would not please the anti-atonalists any more
> than the most uncompromising serialist work, because what they object to
> (if they haven't learned to prate learnedly about the "unnaturalness" of
> dodecaphony) is dissonance, not lack of tonality.  (This is not aimed at
> Rich, I'm just making the comment.)

Interesting that you should say that.  Consonance/dissonance notions are by
their very nature arbitrary.  One could make claims about the harmonic series
with relation to major triads and such, but as listeners grew accustomed to
newer musics, additional expansions on triadic harmony grew to be considered
"consonant".  In other words, consonance is in the eye of the beholder (the
ear of the behearer?? :-).  Perhaps the real complaint about dodecaphony lies
in the listener's growth and acceptance period; in the fact that Schoenberg
had "accelerated" musical concepts faster than the listeners' abilities to
incorporate the sounds into the club of "acceptable" consonances.
-- 
WHAT IS YOUR NAME?			Rich Rosen
WHAT IS YOUR NET ADDRESS?		pyuxn!rlr
WHAT IS THE CAPITAL OF ASSYRIA?		I don't know that ...  ARGHHHHHHHH!