Analysis for Composers # 15 - Tonality/Atonality

[@kappabravomusic2101]

Very interesting! I've learned plenty from this video Alan. Thank you.

[@wingflanagan]

Excellent video. Once again, exactly the sort of lesson that I look forward to. Being self-taught, with a loose grasp of theory, I eat this sort of thing up. I find myself freeze-framing the examples so I can look at them more closely. This is one of the best resources for budding composers on the Internet. Concise, but packed with useful information. Well done.

[@russell_szabados]

Wing Flanagan I agree. Prof Belkin contributes to a group on Facebook called Orchestration Online, which itself is a treasure trove of useful knowledge. But I always look forward to his comments, they’re almost always the highlight of any given conversation.

[@almuel]

I really enjoyed the excerpt from your 5th symphony is there any way I could listen to the entire piece? This was very useful because I use to wonder how Shostakovich‘s music felt atonal most of the time and tonal at some points And please analyze more contemporary concepts like this one. Thanks for this.

[@wingflanagan]

@Alan Belkin I often find myself just turning on your music and listening as I work. I would love to hear some of these pieces in a concert hall.

[@neilwalsh3977]

What a wonderful teacher! This is what theory misses out on. We want to compose

[@ne0romantic]

Idk, I think most of my professors taught that your first example is tonal in a sense just because it is triadic. E.g. when you asked "can anybody sing a tonic" I could certainly sing the A where we ended which feels stronger to many than the other places we've been simply because we've been sitting there a bit longer at that point. I know I've read some theory about similar chord progressions that tend to claim any of the roots can be perceived as tonic... which is maybe something like how Schonberg says he wanted his music to be perceived but I don't think it is. Now whether one is stronger than another when you don't stop there or whether the root is really perceived as the root when you're not in root position, well there are questions, but I don't think the common idea that kind of music is "more tonal" and something that doesn't use triads at all, where you don't have even at the level of the measure or chord something like one note that is the "main note" is "less tonal" really is a misconception... well you get what I'm trying to say. Though certainly there's a difference between perceiving something when you're trying to perceive it being able to actively change your perception and hear it a different way because it really is ambiguous and music where everyone will have the same perception because it's clear... it's semantics but I think a lot people, at least my teachers used a slightly different definition which seems to jive with the rest of what you're saying in this video, and it seems to me both definitions can be useful, and maybe not worth arguing which one is "right"... anyway. Thank you for the videos.

[@0live0wire0]

I don't think it's black and white - there is not a clear line between tonality and atonality. I think of tonality as a force, a physical one like gravity. On one end of the spectrum you have the dominant resolving to a tonic (with the proper voice leading) as the strongest tonal function and on the other the 12 tone row which is the best way to secure pure atonality or tonal vacuum. Anything in between has traces of one or the other. A serious musical problem is to think about how voice leading relates to tonality and atonality. Sometimes stepwise movement in atonal music gives the ear a sense of faint tonicization due to a perceived resolution.

[@russell_szabados]

Stephen Dedalus I agree with your final statement, and believe perceived resolution has to do with the harmonic series of notes, and how they move within chords and through progressions. When one takes the harmonic series into account in harmonic study, “tonality” aligns with diatonicism and the line between tonal or atonal becomes less ambiguous. In other words, it’s not so much nurture as it is nature. IMHO.

[@ethanblackburn5817]

What sound library do you use?

[@hom2fu]

piccolo sound 1 octave higher compare to written. some new composers might not know that.