About standing in key

[jancivil]

To say "You can't escape from tonality" shows the opposite of what you want, and is in diametric disagreement with your Cambridge article, eg., 'in the broadest sense... however...'. That argument has it that it's about the organizational element per *tones*; so Schoenberg doesn't need to escape at all up to now, it was <everything which is organized to any sense> is tonal. One would have supposed you read it.

Where is the meaning? What would we escape? There is no 'there', there.

Schoenberg did say something like that but it's nuanced. I showed my own work where there is an ending which might demonstrate it; in this nuanced sense I'm trying to indicate, by which I mean the magnetic sense combinations of tones - particularly in the vertical, albeit the horizontal in terms of your aural memory may work the same - may have, or reveal to you. And I've been there where you say, "I'm going with this." as nearly inescapable.

But to say the thing is something to escape means we can define it. I have a working definition and it's not novel at all. It's conventional.
(I don't actually compose in tonal music, I have never actually except as student work when I was 18 or 19.)

I would say for instance to someone that wanted to exploit modal music, the character of the mode may be lost when they use elements of tonal music; the whole dominant/tonic thing may rear its head. B and F in a vertical combination magnetic to C and E and D Dorian has vanished in favor of C major. THIS is where we need meaningful statements and actual the f**k definitions.

[IncarnateX]

What I like to know at this point is whether poster at least can explain how he defines tonality in a traditional sense and a broaden sense. For if he cannot speak the language of traditional tonality, whatever notion he thinks of as broaden would be ill defined as it is right now, where he has not defined it at all. So plz explain traditonal tonality and functions for us plz, so we have a common ground and then broaden it.

[IncarnateX]

...and at the end of the day I would like to know how tonal music will benefit from understanding itself in other languages that it has done so far and have worked for all practical purposes for centuries. If you want to go Schoenberg, follow those his conceptions, if you want to go anywhere else, use other’s. These postmodern naming games are pointless to the core. You recognize the diversity of language as a core premis, right? Then use these diverse conceptions in the contexts where they belong instead of blurring them them up in vague and ungrounded conjecture.

[jancivil]

but whether it's Rameau or Schoenberg it's "outdated". That's the whole of it. He has a fully up-to-date definition because he's on top of it all, can't you see. We're never going to get more than the circular argument to that. He's superior.

There is no core, there is no center, there is no actual solid idea; it's a ghost.

[IncarnateX]

Ah, so even Shoenberg is outdated on his own approach. Guess he did not know he was tonal, thus to call dodecaphony atonal is one historical mistake we have to correct. But since I am mortal I still need to know why or else I won’t dedecate myself to the noble quest. Sorry.

But then again, in postmodernist thinking, why should we need a definition all together? A demand for definiton is just an oppressing social convention, so why not just let tonality be anything we decide it should be, from second to second, without minding contradictions and disambiguity? Traditionalists like us are just forcing people to submit to a meta narrative, a grand scheme, like that of the medieval church. We are the inquisitors, hand of the suppressors. Let us take consequence and free everyone from the slavery of fixed meanings of language.

[jancivil]

That's the pomo line in a nutshell. Well said, actually.

It's like everything wrong with music is all in this thread. 31-tone EDM FTW.

I would like to talk about useful things in contrast.
I just heard an old favorite, which is a totally tonal song and perfectly obviously so. But then it repeats its opening riff as an ostinato vamp til the end of the track, for the violin solo and some other more heady material. It's a suspended subdominant (2, 4, 5, 8 while the effect of the vamp amounts to pedaling 1 and 4.) and it never comes back. It's effective because we know where ONE is; it's a subdominant because the same relationship from Rameau to Schoenberg holds. He deals with it modally; which means it relates to I and it's effective because of the suspension in mid-air. Both these terms tonal and modal mean something here.

THIS does the same thing basically (except it goes to I at some point and finally ends at I). Yes, there is a tonal center. I would not however say it's tonal; it's modal. At most it does IV-I (and there's kind of a blur here due to the constant pedal). My idea of 'tonality' is supposed to be a definition; the root of the word definition is <definite> and that from <finite>. You limit it so it conveys something useful.

[IncarnateX]

A very interesting piece. Now in my universe of thinking harmony, I really find that a more chords can have drives toward center to more or lesser extent. I get the lead tone point from the major dominant but frankly I think that VII, III, IV and VI have their particular drive towards tonic in both major and minor even without semistep lead tones. This dominant thing has always seemed like a convention about “best drive” to me, but being exposed to modal music early in my training, I do not really put such an emphasis on the dominant in the first place, just like open pure consonances may not feel as alienating to me in part writings due to Palestrina’s polyphony. A case that may seem unconventional is that being exposed to phrygian a lot, if introduced to E phrygian by a melody in that mode, I will hear F as a chord driving to Em by virtue of two lead tones, F and C, a fifth, to be moved downwards one semitone in complete parallel (while A goes two semitones to G). Now that drive is pretty outside a classical tonal framework and I am not sure others would hear the same. But it is still chords that are in question and when subordinated a mode like that, they create these inbetween-modality-and-tonality feelings like your example above.

[jancivil]

During my most consciously 'free' period one day (I was writing rather pretty music secretly) I found that IV^7 to I^7 was like the coolest thing in the world.

So a lot of what I've been digging today is IV - I with a few side moves but no V as dominant. But I gravitate to India musically at around 15. So I like just sitting there. In this there is either pure Ionian or a variant with b7 which has the aspect of a secondary subdominant. Ionian, not major.

Definitely I can think of the F as dominant to E. I'd say Bb is dominating C in Mixolydian.

Indian Classical uses the equivalent of the words dominant and subdominant.
Dominant might be E on the C 'tonic' and subdominant is B. Here is practically always the P5 relationship between the two.
So P5 is very important. And is the basis for most tuning systems.


Jeff Beck's cover of Nadia is a good example of modal quasi-tonal which is a thing in Indian fusion and a thing in film music there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drAv2Fo ... 2w&index=8

not a lot of chords but some

[IncarnateX]

Another interesting example. The in between is also an exciting part about Palestrina, you noted his use of cadances, which he use to close and sometimes open his piece, but in between these candences melodies go thier own ways, based on root, balanced and equally supportive of each other without being obliged to any triadic frame. Thus, they reach those fascinating levels of individual modal life but are introduced and concluded in near-tonal frames. One could say that the cadences is a net he throws out especially at the end to gather his pearls at the spot from which they were thrown. Thus you can really hear we are in a century in between polyphony and harmony, which makes it a very rich and exciting period because you can tip the balance in so many directions from such a point.

[jancivil]

right

[IncarnateX]

But taken to an extreme, as an abstract concept to be discussed at a high brow level I find the idea of music theory divisive, egotistic.

It is your call but why insisting on exposing in it a forum dedicated to people who feel quite the opposite?

The OP asked a pretty basic question, and yet reading through the answers I was no more enlightened than at the beginning. In fact, I was just plain confused.

This is an example that your confusion is about your own lack of concepts: Jan already gave a tentative and correct answer to the main question in his first post right after the OP. Then fmr followed in same line, then I followed on the same page and gave a direct answer to the question both in terms of tonal music, modal music and atonal music, which I left to Jan to elaborate, because I know my theoretical limits in contrast to the subject below:

Another poster answered,and I have no idea if what he said is correct, but he was treated rudely. Maybe "vilified" is pushing it, I will ponder that.

Wrong. He did not answer the main question. The OP’s question is answered on first page. Then a postmodern hero entered the sharp/flat sidetrack debate and began to spread notions of music theory, which at best are pretty idiosyncratic and thus misinformative in a conventional sense:

Melody can start on any note... Key, tonality,scale topics can get confusing, because of how much Western notation and theory is based on the diatonic scale and meantone temperament. I find the sharp vs flats debates ******** unless they actually are supposed to mean anything meaningful- unequal systems like just intonation and similar. Still, atonal integer notation is superior for any edo.

And note how he thinks that all theory beyond his own modern is “********” ect. However, he never really explains his notions, but just insists through out the thread that he is in charge and that it is us who have to take lessons (though not from him, from payed non peer reviewed articles within the art of postmodern namegaming).

So to understand whom is really offensive to whom and whether the OP had his question answered in the first place you got to have some basic knowledge of theory or else you can easily fill the blanks in such distorted ways as above and get it all upside down.

Taken together I think we have two related answers to the question already at first page:

1) Yes, stay in key if you want to make tonal music but with possible visits and variations outside the key and

2) you better notate in Bb instead of A#

Both of them completely fair suggestions and on topic indeed.

[jancivil]

The OP asked a pretty basic question, and yet reading through the answers I was no more enlightened than at the beginning. In fact, I was just plain confused.

Are you unable to read and follow what was written - particularly the beginning of the thread - or are you just being obnoxious because you have a beef, and willing to look like a complete idiot.
Seriously.

The original poster asked what key he's in AND THERE'S NO WAY TO TELL. If you read their second post, there is nothing there to even give a hint. And that was their only response.

Key of A#, I went into why it's probably not a key. I am certain that I wrote that up comprehensively.
Then as far as anyone reasonable can even be concerned, the thread as though far as answering a question is completed.

[jancivil]

And beyond that, you appear to have only followed the thread in order to get arsey with people.
Insulting them and impugning their integrity. Let's never talk above the lowest common denominator or you're resentful and have to strike back, right?

Do you also find other fora, fields of endeavor you don't understand well and tell those people they're egotists and that going into more than you're comfortable with is DIVISIVE? Who do you think you're kidding trying to make your shit not stink with {political} lingo like that? "was treated rudely" - are you the tone police? You have no contribution to make whatsoever here. You have a lot of gall.

"anomandaris1" came in with some rubbish. fmr said it muddied the waters - it does - and it states some bullshit. Not everybody wants to read bullshit and let muddying the waters stand. For the good of all, I feel it has to be countered.
What's your dog in this hunt? Tone policing is an excuse for you to go off? You're offended by music theory?

"Abstract" - I use everything I talk about. I have a quest to know how things work because I'm a composer.
I went into what you think is really high falutin' in order to address and make clear what someone decided to strike out against, desperate to formulate a smart-looking argument as though it supported some nonsense. And it's more nonsense. I barely scratched the surface of "meantone temperament" and made what I think is a comprehensible argument that it doesn't do what anomandaris1 tried to fake that it does.

He had the gall to link to something that was supposed to make his argument for him which we'd have to jump thru some hoops to even read. Which did show that it was essentially the argument he couldn't make himself; which amounts to anti-definition (the more up-to-date, postmodern version of a definition).

So, yeah, I hate bullshit. I hate dishonesty. I hate the dishonesty of someone that came in to insult people with the excuse he was policing tone using a word like 'divisive'. One supposes there is a division naturally between those with curiosity who practice intellectual rigor and the willfully ignorant who resent and practice deception in trying to bring people down.

[IncarnateX]

How hard is to understand that the concept of "tonality" is way broaded than the narrow sense of 18th century major/minor musical system?

Here we have the key to it all. It seems that the poster all the time has spoken of “tonality” with quotation marks. Quotation mark tonality is what the postmodern “article” is about, so yes it has broadened and apparently into obscurity like the article illustrates. And here we were talking about tonality without quotation marks, which seems to be so last century that one doesn’t even have to know what it was about in the first place. And of course we understand now that being a quotation mark tonality, it means anything you want at any time you want. Got it

[jancivil]

I just read the first page of the thread. The question was do instruments all have to be in the same key, key of A#.
I went into it in common language, provided how in real life someone may stray from the key - the soloist does some things while the support may not - and/but that if you don't know what you're doing you may run into some ugly business. And the notion of A# as a key appears to be well sorted, given the contribution of the three members who later took issue with the posturing anomandaris1.

What do you want from people, "dellboy"? Jesus F Christ are you bullshitting, trying to make coming in shitting on people seem reasonable. I would think you could find something here on a forum which would seem to have something for about everyone that is within your wheelhouse.