Twelve-tone technique and the lack of harmonies

danielrast · Joined: Sep 11, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

Hello electro-music forum,

I'm very interested in the twelve-tone technique, but i'm also like colorful harmonies. Is there any chance to connect both? I know it's against the idea of Schoenbergs twelve-tone technique/dodecaphony, but without chords there is something i'm missing. Has anybody made experience in using chords and the twelve-tone technique? Or does anybody know a classical/avantgarde/jazz composer who made attempts in this direction?

thanks & greets

seraph · Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:40 am Post subject:

the theme of T.T.T. by Bill Evans is a twelve tone row harmonized with chords Exclamation

the guy was a genius Very Happy

and welcome to electro-music.com Wink

dewdrop_world

danielrast · Joined: Sep 11, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

Thanks for the Tips!

The Bill Evans tune is a little bit different, it has not the distinctive dodecaphonic sound to me. But it's always nice to know who made experiments and innovates jazz. I'm also like Coltrane, his circle-of-fifth progressions or interval cycles are not soo far away from (12tone) tonerows. I discovered the music of Wilson Gomes a few days ago. Very reduced tunes only played by guitar, but very smart. He combines short played and sustained tones, so he creates a "illusion" of harmonies. That's another possibility.

I do some own experiments in harmonisation of 12tonerows in the next weeks. Maybe i'm post it here if it sounds good... :)

greet daniel

x_x · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 10:06 am Post subject:

Samuel Barber is known to have experimented with that. I wouldn't know what specific pieces though.

mosc · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:05 am Post subject:

Chords are just notes sounded simultaneously. You can choose to assign the notes of the chords serially from the same row, or in a row dedicated to each voice. At one time I spent a great deal of time with 12 tone music and faced this harmony issue, as you are now. It is well worth the effort because it forces you to "accept" harmonies you would never have dreamed up your self. You can help your acceptance along by changing voicing, arpeggiation, or whatever. After a while, in my case at lease, I learned to be more tolerant and accepting of what the rows did by themselves.

12 tone proved to me to be a lot of work. Then I got interested in John Cage. His stochastic methods were much easier for me and the results weren't all that different for my purposes. So, I switched to his methods.

Now, I use the subconscious selection method. I pick notes for melodies and chords by instinct, personal choice, cosmic consciousness, blind luck, trained musicianship, or whatever you might choose to call it.

The lesson "this is 12 tone, learn to like it" was a good one for me. Now my musical tastes have expanded tremendously. Recently, I've found that I like Romantic music.

I'm not completely enlightened yet, however; I still don't care for Rap music too much. I guess I need to listen to some more Anton Webern. Wink

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:26 am Post subject:

I recommend checking out the music of Fartein Valen.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartein_Valen
This is not 12 tone music, but is rather the alternative route to Schoenberg as Valen developed his own systems.

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

Posted Image, might have been reduced in size. Click Image to view fullscreen.

An example of his music:

and..

There is more on Youtube.

BTW:Bill Evans is a genius too. Very Happy

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 11:40 am Post subject:

I should add that Valen writes in a way that applies polyphony and contrapuntal techniques. Thus there aren´t really a lack of "harmonies" even though what you are hearing isn´t quite within the traditional frameworks.. or quite what you think you are hearing or whatever Shocked

mosc · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 1:19 pm Post subject:

Thanks for the links to Farteir Valen. Wow, I really like this music.

x_x · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:07 pm Post subject:

Henri Pousseur, you should check him out too. Specially his opera Jeux de miroir de Votre Faust. Here is a part of the opera (it evolves to serialism towards the end):

You should also check out Scriabin. His music is not twelve-tone, but it's in some way atonal, his music is "colorful" in a way since he associated keys with specific colors.

And definitely you should check out Webern, the Glenn Gould version of the concerto for nine instruments blows my mind, and it's very colorful in my perspective. But he doesn't use diatonic harmony per se.

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:36 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:37 pm Post subject:

Pousseur and Scriabin, excellent suggestions.

elektro80 · Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2009 2:40 pm Post subject:

BTW. Glenn Gould was a big fan of Fartein Valen.

He plays Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 38 on "Glenn Gould Plays Contemporary Music".

bachus · Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2009 5:14 am Post subject:

As for 12 tone, Ernst Krenek is worth listening to. But in general I rather listen to Valen.

Octahedra

bachus · Last edited by bachus on Fri Oct 02, 2009 3:36 pm; edited 1 time in total

EDIT:

elektro80 · Posted: Fri Oct 02, 2009 10:02 am Post subject:

Off topic:
Clusters might be of interest too. Actually, I do find clusters and groups of clusters by be way more useful in composition than the plain vanilla serialist rows.

Anyways, I´m sorry to be throwing in stuff that doesn´t conform to the 12 note topic. Won´t do that again.

danielrast · Joined: Sep 11, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

No Problem, every non-tonal related ideas are welcome.

Yes, i like clusters too! The octatonic scale is predestinated for dissonant clusters, Olivier Messiaen has used it a lot in his birdsongs. "Small Sketches of Birds" are my favourite among this. But i'm also like and use pentatonic cluster in my music. Sometimes i have problems with to hard dissonances, i like more the beautyful but interesting soundcolors.

seraph · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:23 pm Post subject:

elektro80 · Posted: Sat Oct 03, 2009 6:09 pm Post subject:

Carlo, that is really a grand idea! I really like what you are doing and I just might want to look into working with microtonality. Thing is that you write in a very powerful and convincing way. You microtonal music is fully aware of whose ass it will kick and where it is going. Good stuff. That is not easy to do at all.

danielrast · Joined: Sep 11, 2009 Posts: 6 Location: Germany

seraph · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:27 am Post subject:

seraph · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 12:51 am Post subject:

Octahedra · Posted: Sun Oct 04, 2009 4:38 am Post subject:

GovernorSilver · Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 3:02 pm Post subject:

In the world of maqam (aka "Arabic") music, the quarter-tone system was settled upon as a means of preserving musical traditions in adapted Western musical notation.

What has happened in actual practice is that while maqam musicians don't seem to have a problem using the Western tuning for the 12 chromatic notes, the exact tuning of the quarter-tones, which reside somewhere between the chromatics, vary by region.

A similar situation apparently exists in Indonesian gamelan music, where even neighboring villages will tune their instruments differently.