Re: Chord Function?

llatham@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>Spite. People said "it's no good because it's not tonal". So they said,
you 
>want non-tonal, I'll give you non-tonal!!!
>Just like rock and roll - performers were hell bent on doing anything and

>everything that the former generation found offensive - they siad their 
>music sounded tribal, so what did they do, play what they considered an 
>"African" beat on drums. Guitar sounded "harsh" - well, they added more
and 
>more distortion. Hair too long? We'll show you!
>The same thing actually did occur in poetry - oh, you say it's no goo 
>because it doesn't rhyme, well, I'll give you no rhymes then!!!

In those cases, there was enough of a spiteful audience to sup****t these 
creations as acts of rebellion or generational individuation. But, who 
honestly likes atonal music besides atonal composers?

>With sound, I see it as similar - the sounds are not supposed to be 
>recognizeable chords with their "meanings" as in the past - they're
simply 
>successions of sound that exist solely for the enjoyment of each sound in

>succession. Whether one sound relates to another may not have been an 
>im****tant consideration for the composer.

I see what you mean and might apply that principle to nonfunctional 
jazz.

>To draw a counter example - many people hear 15th and 16th century music
and 
>say things like "it ends on the wrong chord". No, it didn't, you just
can't 
>hear it outside of your common practice period mind set. The sounds are 
>similar, but they have different meaning. Just like "Tone". Spelled the 
>same, looks the same, sounds the same, but can mean "Timbre", or "a Note"
or 
>"firm (as in a muscle)". So that second to last C chord in a Palestrina
work 
>is not necessarily going to "mean" the 5 chord - it could be a Plagal 
>Cadence.

You're right.

>I wonder if this is because of our having heard tonal music our entire 
>lives. People probably could listen this way if they were raised on only 
>Schoenberg and his followers.

I don't think such an experiment would be worthwhile.

Orlando