Re: Chord Function?

llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>Like I said Orlando, I think initially there was a concern that if the
music 
>was not "totally opposite" of tonality, people whose listening
experiences 
>had been rooted in virtually only one thing (remember, we didn't have the

>kind of world-wide communication we have today) would still "listen for" 
>that thing in their music. So for them, I don't believe it was a question
of 
>creating atonality, but one of negating tonality. Even distribution
wasn't a 
>characteristic of tonality, so it seemed like the most obvious
alternative. 

Why this particular obsession with negation of tonality? Few poets have 
opted to negate vocabulary or grammar in favor of gibberish. Yet, the 
twentieth century saw a unique proliferation of highly organized music 
that sounded identical to entirely random music, both bent on avoiding 
tonality.

>Furthermore, we always say "atonality" but Schoenberg was interested in 
>"Pantonality" - where "all" note had equal rights to be the most
im****tant. 
>Even distribution again seems like a logical methodology to achieve this.

Except that they misapplied popular monotonal theories of their day. 
These theories held that people could maintain a tonal center in their 
minds even when music wandered into very distant keys and remained there 
for long periods. What in fact happens with most listeners is that they 
just assume the tonal center has ****fted without necessarily caring how 
it happened. Schoenberg, in short, gave people's ears too much credit.

Orlando