From: John Young (jyoung@dmu.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Jun 21 2010 - 09:01:36 EDT
I think this point of Kevin's is the crucial thing:
>Tonal structures do not deal with pitches -- they deal with relationships. The ascending major third is an ascending major third in F# minor as it is in C major. VI - II - V - I is an abstracted relationship which is independent of pitch.
... ie independent of any particular pitch but reliant on the phenomenon of pitch, and relationships between them. Tonality's rootedness in a fundamental interplay of pitch-as-melody and pitch-as-harmony is crucial, and IMV quite different to issues of A/P, non A/P listeners and pitch recognition. Tonal relationships, of the simple kind above and much more complex ones (which interestingly often have cognates in simpler forms of progression), are easier to grasp than atonal ones (such as intervallic sets) maybe because they align well with basic aspects of the way hearing targets simplified explanations of events (I'm not denegrating atonal music, just to say that the conditions and therefore the formal properties are different).
I don't find a note-based and sound-based music differentiation particularly convincing, partly because the word 'music' is common to both. Another way of thinking of tonality is that although the same objects such as chords have the same structure, their function changes with context. A B-flat major chord is 'equivalent' to a C major chord, but has quite different functions in the tonal context of A minor, or F major, etc. So this difference between what a pitch 'is' and what it 'does' is very powerful, and it is a semantic rather than a sonic difference. An interesting question then is what is the equivalent set of realtionships for the totality of sounds? If there is sound based music, do we have to take that to mean the totlity of all sounds taken together (remembering that in tonal music, often what is implied within the solfege is not stated, and evocative for all that?). Most EA music is quite selective in the sound terms it sets up and develops. But the idea of 'sound-based' might be quite helpful for uninitiated/intimidated, even if ultimatley it might be misleading.
Actually a good way to think about it is the way the same piece of music can sound very different in interpretations, viz.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QB7ugJnHgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3AEfMMyH6A
(especially the middle section)
or this (if you can stand it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Qo6fmMkGE&feature=relatedtic rather1
are these differences in the notes, or the sounds? Are the differences in tempo, rubato, dynamics, weight, relationships of inner voices about the notes or the sounds?
Sorry to have gone on, I suppose I am voicing a fear that the tools we have for theorising about EA music often seem quite superficial against the compellingly audible nature of the musical syntax of tonality - and now you know my favourite (note-based) composer!
J
John Young
Professor of Composition
Faculty of Humanities
De Montfort University
Leicester LE1 9BH
UK
Tel: +44 116 207-8220
http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk
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