Modern Harmony - Lesson 8a: Serialism (part 1)

Here is the PDF of the exercises and lessons:

[WilliamSlaght]

I'm extremely interested in these experiments/studies showing even advanced composers couldn't recognize the 12 tone rows. Not because of skepticism, but because of interest.

[tunesmusic]

I still go back to your videos. They are wonderful

[leeceero]

Excellent Mr. Belkin, we are waiting for the next video.

[AdamTorkelson]

post #4 (cont...)

There are several different ways of composing with a tone row, not just one. You could use the Segmentation technique and use notes 1-6 as a melody over 7-12 accompaniment, then switch to a new transformation and do 7-12 over 1-6 and do it again with another and again and again. When this happens, there is no appearance of the 12-tone row in the melody, ever, and you can really make for some thematic ideas more easily as notes will repeat more often naturally. You can make the melody last as long as you want.

Further, you could use the horizontal-vertical method (as used sometimes by Webern) in which you outline the rhythms of the melody and accompaniment you want and then fill in the notes, not vertically with the row or its different segments, but horizontally and vertically together (meaning you start with any notes that sound together, then fill in each note as it sounds in rhythmic order of occurrence in the texture as whole). This will also never yield any 12-tone rows in any voice, and will also make notes repeat in voices naturally. You also do not have to change transformations in a single piece (although I do when I compose this way, such as making the last note of the row the first note of the next transformation-which is what Stravinsky did a lot). You can make the melody last as long as you want.

[AdamTorkelson]

post #5 (cont...)

There are two primary methods of composing this music. In any given texture, you can use the notes from the same row (Method A), or use the notes from two or more rows simultaneously (Method B). So if you had a melody and chords/accompaniment together, you could use the same row for all the notes (A), or use one row for the melody and another row for the chords/accompaniment (B). Those are your only choices. In Method B, notes will repeat before the other 11 have sounded. That's the only way it can be done. This is what happens in instances such as Schoenberg's Piano Concerto. He is using a row for the right hand melody (prime), and another row for the accompaniment left hand (retrograde inversion). That's why the notes repeat in this instance. Other times, he is using a technique called "segmentation" where the row is divided up into equal parts and say the first four notes are used as an ostinato figure and so are repeated while another segment of the row is the melody. This is like the String Quartet No. 3 example.

For Method A, you would need to write very short pieces and use the vertical-horizontal method of assigning notes. It doesn't really work in solo pieces where an instrument can only play 1 note. In that case, all you would have is an isomelody if they followed the mythic/strawman "rule" on non-repetition because it would be the same notes over and over again in the same order throughout the piece. But professional serial composers don't do that (see Krenek's solo cello pieces). Also, it gives the piece the sound of randomness (random notes playing). Being able to repeat notes as shape and cohesion to the music as well as give the music identity.

There is no "rule" that you cannot repeat a note in the series until the other 11 have sounded when composing a piece with the row(s). That is a popular myth, but a myth nonetheless. Not repeating a note ONLY applies to CONSTUCTING THE ROW ITSELF, not when you COMPOSE THE ACTUAL MUSIC. The WIKIPEDIA page has had a paragraph about this on its entry of "TWELVE TONE TECHNIQUE" for at least a decade. Here it is under the heading "Application in composition", : "Note that rules 1-4 above apply to the construction of the row itself, and not to the interpretation of the row in the composition. (Thus, for example, postulate 2 does not mean, contrary to common belief, that no note in a twelve-tone work can be repeated until all twelve have been sounded.)"

[Hist_da_Musica]

Great lesson! But this mathematical version of serialism developed mostly in the US with Babbitt, and in a somewhat different way in the works of integral serialism composed by Boulez, Stockhausen, Goevayerts in the 1950s. Boulez and Stockhausen actually dropped integral serialism very quickly. And Schoenberg, Berg and Webern were very much involved with thematicism, motivic writing, form... Schoenberg's Wind Quintet Op. 26 and Webern's late works are rigid and perhaps even unmusical, but apart from these extremes they composed great music, I think.

[AdamTorkelson]

post #6 (cont...)

Lastly,

The best example of all this (12 tone music is quite capable of being "audible") is Rochberg's Second Symphony (right at the first movement):

The 12-tone melody is first stated right at the beginning. This theme is developed quite convincingly at 1:09 by the strings and again at 1:30 by the low brass. Notice the strings continue the melody it began at 1:09 as the brass come in. It soars and soars to greater and newer heights and creates tension not only on its own, but as expressive counterpoint to the brass. There is development, flow, and drive. Long, expressive, recognizable melody with elaboration.

[tesahe]

I think when listening to twelve-tone music you should not listen to rows. Rows are just to create surface material. They are intervallic chains that give the music a certain consistency. I find using twelve-tone method very satisfying. Not using a system is a no-no for me.

[AdamTorkelson]

post #2 (cont...)

It's also worth noting that this type of writing still uses good craftmanship and knowledge of the past (CPT) techniques in order to maintain high quality. For example, we know from the past that line independence is crucial in good counterpoint. You want the lines related, but not exact repetitions all the time. That is extremely boring. Transposed repetitions are better than exact repetitions. Inverted is also preferable. Oblique motion is preferable to parallel. Contrary motion is preferable to oblique (and therefore parallel as well)—which is another pro for invertible repetition.

All of those things apply no matter the style. Even in 12-tone. What is more, this principle applies to 12-tone music in that when the second voice or voices come in, it should introduce new notes not heard in the previous voice of the previous bar. This can be hard to do. In any event, the point is, is that it is NOT a “plug in the numbers”, “paint by numbers” system that “writes itself”. As you can see from my posts today, there is clear-cut craftmanship to it with direct influence and links to the past, including principles from CPT.

[pfylim]

You are doing a great job for putting together a structured course, and appreciate the enormous effort. Just wish you would deliver it with way more enthusiasm in your subject. People may get a little bored.

[AdamTorkelson]

post #3 (cont...)

The 12-tone system is NOT a "paint-by-number" system in which each-and-every note of the row is equal to each-and-every note of the melody. Note-for-note. No repetitions. No change of order. No different methods of composing with the notes. It all sounds the same. Etc. Etc. That is dead wrong.

A melody in 12-tone composition is just like a melody in all other music, as Schoenberg points out. Melodies, however constructed, IS the material. Do we criticize the major scale for producing greater or fewer combinations of notes, but none of them can combine itself more closely to the material than can the first statement of the scale?

As Brindle points out in his book, there is no law that states a melody must be confined to neatly fit a row perfectly (or vice versa). You can make a melody out of 6 notes of the row and use the next 6 of the row in the next phrase or chord or whatever you wish. You can use up all 12 notes of a row and then use the next 3 or 4 of the next transformation to finish the melody, etc. You can also keep using transformation after transformation of rows to complete the melody you are trying to achieve until you are done. You can go on for 100 bars writing a melody this way if you want.

[AdamTorkelson]

It is a moot point to say that people cannot recognize row transpositions (the point has no practical relevance). You are making the classic blunder most armchair critics of serialism make of equivocating the ROW ITSELF with a MELODY. However, A ROW IS NOT THE SAME THING AS A MELODY.

A row is a group of notes from which MELODIES CAN BE MADE, just as much a scale in tonal music is a group of notes from which melodies can be made. Notes of the row can be repeated one at a time or repeated in groups, and (gasp) even out of order depending on what method you are using (such as the horizontal-vertical method), or appear out of order to suit contrapuntal or expressive needs, notes of the row can also be (gasp) omitted if one so chooses (all of these claims are supported by the Brindle Smith book on serial composition).

Rhythms and texture create patterns in 12-tone music in the exact same way they do in tonal music. A case in point is much of Stravinsky’s 12-tone music. Stravinsky was extremely fond of counterpoint in old styles (i.e., the Renaissance). Like all sorts of canonic imitation, double canons, etc. Twelve-tone music lends itself extremely well to contrapuntal styles.

This kind of 12-tone music is VERY easy to hear and grasp and is extremely coherent. It is quite easy to hear the transpositions as well. Especially when it’s slow. It ain’t that difficult to hear a row start with an ascending half-step, ascending tritone, so forth, in a half note, two quarter rhythm, then hear a voice one bar away descend a half step, descend a tritone in the same exact rhythm, even if you can’t follow each and every interval thereafter (can’t tell a minor third from a major third or whatever). You can obviously tell the two are related thematically (inverted and the same rhythm). And so, it’s a “safe bet” the whole thing is coherently related. It’s very, very easy.