Re: [crazy_music] Monzo's dreary effort to defend the indefensible

My apologies to everyone on this list who is bothered by
the argument between mclaren and I regarding Schoenberg,
and by the very excessive length of Brian's post and the
even more absurd length of this response. So just skip it
if you're not interested.

Now, on with the show... (and this is the end of it)

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <xed@...>
> To: <crazy_music@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 8:48 PM
> Subject: [crazy_music] Monzo's dreary effort to defend the indefensible
>
>
> FROM: mclaren
> TO: new practical microtonal list
> SUBJECT: Monzo's dreary effort to defend the indefensible
>
> In Message 16 of Digest 32, Joe Monzo made a fool of himself by
> making deliberate statements which are not true. Either Joe Monzo
> was lying outright, or he is pervasively ignorant of Arnold
> Schoenberg's writings.

Sorry, Brian, wrong on both counts. Neither.

I don't lie. Never.

And I am not "pervasively ignorant of Arnold Schoenberg's writings".
Quite the opposite.

What's happening here is that we are simply reading Schoenberg
differently, Brian.

I apologize if my criticism upset you, which it apparently has
based on the tone of your reply to me.

We are simply coming at Schoenberg's theory from two different
perspectives, and understanding what he wrote to mean two
different things.

This became clear to me because, to my mind, your response to my
criticism didn't negate what I said one bit. It simply pointed
out the fact that you understand the consonance/dissonance
relationships of tones in the same way William Thomson does,
which is the same perspective as "standard" music-theory, and
which I pointed out was *not* the way Schoenberg understood it.

> Dissonances, according to this theory, are merely more remote
> consonances in the series of overtones." [Schoenberg, Arnold,
> "Structural Functions of Harmony," New York: 1954, pg. 193]
>
> "The dissonances are consonances which as overtones are more
> remotely situated." [Schoenberg, Arnold, "Harmonielehre," 1911, pg.
> 356]

OK, so you want scholarship, I'll give you scholarship...

That page number is incorrect: it's page 358 in the 1911 edition.
For those who want to follow along in English, see Roy Carter's
1978 translation titled _Theory of Harmony_, p 318-320.

Page 356 in the original 1911 edition of _Harmonielehre_ is
taken up mostly by a polemic against Schenker, because of his
insistence on "the mysterious number 5" as a "boundary" in many
different aspects of music and harmony, which Schoenberg finds
laughable.

Also, this "quote" does not appear in exactly these words in
this discussion. Here is what Schoenberg actually wrote here:

>> Not merely the accidental chords but also the fundamental
>> ones were discovered because the natural prototype, by allowing
>> these discoveries, evoked them. The major consonances are
>> direct imitations of the prototype, the other consonances,
>> indirect. Both the latter and the former are contained in
>> the overtone series, as overtones whose relations to the
>> fundamental are more or less close. The dissonances,
>> corresponding to the remote overtones, are likewise in part
>> direct imitations of nature (even if inexact, as the tempered
>> system), in part indirect or inferred. The sounding tone
>> vindicates the exact and the inexact imitations. It permits
>> approximations, as the tempered system does in fact show.
>> [Schoenberg, _Harmonielehre_ [1911], p 357-358;
>> _Theory of Harmony_, p 320.]

And it's extremely interesting to me that you chose to cite
exactly this part of Schoenberg's _Harmonielehre_, because
it's one of the sections I bookmarked long ago, as it is
one of the very few places where Schoenberg actually speaks
favorably about the possibility of using microtones.

>> What has already been attained is a system that was able to
>> accommodate some overtones with considerable exactness, some
>> others rather inexactly. What has been attained is the almost
>> exhaustive combination of all possibilities of this system by
>> the unconscious ear of the creative musician, by his intuition.
>> Still absolutely missing is the correct identification of the
>> relation between what has been attained and what is still to
>> strive for. We must yet strive for everything that is left over:
>> the precise accommodation of all overtones, the relation to
>> roots, eventually the formation of a new system, the thorough
>> combination of resulting relationships, the invention of
>> instruments that can bring that music into being,... and so forth.
>> [_Harmonielehre_ [1911], p 357; _Theory of Harmony_, p 319-320.]

Back to mclaren:

>
> As even a small child can instantly tell, "the higher we go in
> the harmonic series, the greater the dissonance of the intervals"
> summarizes the exact gist of what Schoenberg said -- and Schoenberg
> said it not just once, he said it several times. Viz., "Dissonances,
> according to this theory, are...more remote...in the series of
> overtones" [op. cit., 1954] and "The dissonances are...overtones
> which are more remotely situated" in the harmonic series. [op. cit.,
> 1911]

Brian, perhaps *you* summarized as a "small child", in this fashion,
"the gist of what Schoenberg said".

But read again *every one* of the citations you provided!
In *every* case, Schoenberg is talking about where
"*the* dissonances" appear. He is *not* saying "intervals
become more dissonant". There's a huge difference... keep reading.

In fact, he did not believe that these higher-limit ratios
were *dissonant*; he thought of them as "extended consonances":

>> The term _emancipation of the dissonance_ refers to its
>> comprehensibility, which is considered equivalent to the
>> consonance's comprehensibility. A style based on this
>> premise treats dissonances like consonances.
>> [Schoenberg [1984], _Style and Idea_, p 217]

The big problem here is something I pointed out in my own
book, of which you (Brian) have a copy.

>> Certainly, a factor which contributes to much confusion
>> in all of his theoretical writings is the fact that
>> Schoenberg retained the use of *both* "consonance" and
>> "dissonance" - two terms which describe polar opposites
>> at the ends of a continuum, instead of adopting "sonance"
>> (as I have done), which describes the continuum itself,
>> to indicate the related rather than opposed nature of
>> the relationship between these two concepts.
>> [Monzo [1998], _JustMusic: A New Harmony_, p 123 in the
>> latest version, probably the same page number in the copy
>> you have.]

Schoenberg thought of the higher overtones as a paradigm for
the chromatic pitches of the 12-tET scale, and as they fit
into a harmonious structure in the single tone, he saw no
reason why they could not fit into chords in the same way.
But he still referred to them as "dissonances", which is how
the term had been and was still being used by most *other*
theorists and composers. This is why Thomson missed the
boat on this subject, and apparently you too are still on
the dock with *him*.

Schoenberg really would have been much better off to jettison
the relative terms "consonance" and "dissonance", and to replace
them with the single term "sonance", since that reflects much
better the way he actually thought about this subject. Schoenberg's
conception of "relative consonance/dissonance" is *exactly* the
same as Partch's, the only exception being that Partch used
small-integer ratios as his paradigm where Schoenberg used the
overtone series. [See _Genesis of a Music_, 2nd ed., p 86-87,
and compare with your Schoenberg citations.]

And, BTW, what happened to the page numbers in your subsequent
citations? Is there some reason for using the "scholarly vagueness"
for which you criticize me? Perhaps it's your way of exhorting
your readers to do some work and read the books themselves?

The citations you chose from Schoenberg's _Harmonielehre_ are
near the end of the book, from the chapter on "Non-Harmonic Tones".
Schoenberg's thesis was that "ornaments" were the doorway which
eventually led to the free use of the so-called "non-harmonic tones".

I leave it to the gentle reader to decide which of us
(McLaren/Thomson or Monzo) is on the right track, if indeed we
are not both wrong. Here's what Schoenberg actually has to say,
in detail, on the subject of "Consonance and Dissonance", from
Chapter 3 of _Harmonielehre_, which carries those words as its
heading:

>> ... Therefore, I will proceed in my study from the possibly
>> uncertain overtone theory because what I can deduce from it
>> seems to agree with the evolution of the harmonic means.
>>
>> Once again: the tone is the material of music. It must therefore
>> be regarded, with all its properties and effects, as suitable
>> for art. All sensations that it releases - indeed, these are
>> the effects that make known its properties - bring their
>> influence to bear in some sense on the form of which the
>> tone is a component, that is, on the piece of music. In the
>> overtone series, which is one of the most remarkable properties
>> of the tone, there appear after some stronger-sounding overtones
>> a number of weaker-sounding ones. Without a doubt the former
>> are more familiar to the ear, while the latter, hardly
>> perceptible, are rather strange. In other words: the overtones
>> closer to the fundamental seem to contribute more or more
>> perceptibly to the total phenomenon of the tone - tone accepted
>> as euphonious, suitable for art - while the more distant seem
>> to contribute less or less perceptibly. But it is quite
>> certain that they all do contribute more or less, that of
>> the acoustical emanations of the tone nothing is lost. And
>> it is just as certain that the world of feeling somehow takes
>> into account the entire complex, hence the more distant
>> overtones as well. Even if the analyzing ear does not become
>> conscious of them, they are still heard as tone color. That
>> is to say, here the musical ear does indeed abandon the
>> attempt at exact analysis, but it still takes note of the
>> impression. The more remote overtones are recorded
>> by the subconscious, and when they ascend into the
>> conscious they are analyzed and their relation to the total
>> sound is determined. But this relation is, to repeat, as
>> follows: the more immediate overtones contribute more, the
>> more remote contribute less. Hence, the distinction between
>> them is only a matter of degree, not of kind. They are no
>> more opposites than 2 and 10 are opposites, as the frequency
>> numbers indeed show; and the expressions "consonance" and
>> "dissonance", which signify an antithesis, are false. It all
>> simply depends on the growing ability of the analyzing ear to
>> familiarize itself with the remote overtones, hereby expanding
>> the conception of what is euphonious, suitable for art, so
>> that it embraces the whole natural phenomenon.
>>
>> What today is remote can tomorrow be close at hand; it is all
>> a matter of whether one can get closer. And the evolution of
>> music has followed this course: it has drawn into the stock
>> of artistic resources more and more of the harmonic possibilities
>> inherent in the tone.
>>
>> Now if I continue to use the expressions "consonance" and
>> "dissonance", even though they are unwarranted, I do so because
>> there are signs that the evolution of harmony will, in a short
>> time, prove the inadequacy of this classification. The
>> introduction of another terminology at this stage would have
>> no purpose and could hope for little success. Since I still
>> have to operate with these notions, I will define consonances
>> as the closer, simpler relations to the fundamental tone,
>> dissonances as those that are more remote, more complicated.
>> The consonances are accordingly the first overtones, and they
>> are the more nearly perfect the closer they are to the
>> fundamental. That means, the closer they lie to the fundamental,
>> the more easily we can grasp their similarity to it, the more
>> easily the ear can fit them into the total sound and assimilate
>> them, and the more easily we can determine that the sound of
>> these overtones together with the fundamental is "restful"
>> and euphonious, needing no resolution. The same should hold
>> for the dissonances as well. If it does not, if the ability
>> to assimilate the dissonances in use cannot be judged by the
>> same method, if the distance from the fundamental is no measure
>> of the degree of dissonance, this is even so no evidence against
>> the view presented here. For it is harder to gauge these
>> differences precisely, since they are relatively small. They
>> are expressed by fractions with large denominators; and as it
>> requires some thought to say whether 8/234 is larger or smaller
>> than 23/680, because a mere estimate can lead one astray, the
>> mere estimate made by the ear is just as undependable. Efforts
>> to make use of the more remote consonances (today called
>> "dissonances") as artistic means thus led necessarily to many
>> an error, to many a detour. The way of history, as we can see
>> it in that which has actually been selected by practice from
>> the practicable dissonances, hardly leads here to a correct
>> judgment of the real relations. That assertion is proved by
>> the incomplete or unusual scales of many other peoples, who
>> have, nevertheless, as much right as we to explain them by
>> appeal to nature. Perhaps their tones are often even more
>> natural than ours (that is, more exact, more correct, better);
>> for the tempered system, which is only an expedient for
>> overcoming the difficulties of the material, has indeed only
>> a limited similarity to nature. That is perhaps an advantage,
>> but hardly a mark of superiority. [_Harmonielehre_ [1911],
>> p 18-20; _Theory of Harmony_, p 20-21.]

Note that Schoenberg *does* consider the problem of retaining
the use of the terms "consonance" and "dissonance", and opts
to do so, even while noting that they do not well represent
his conception of the matter. This is where I think he made
one of his greatest mistakes. In my opinion, his new ideas
about harmony would have been much better assimilated if he
had indeed introduced new terminology to describe them, instead
of forcing those ideas into the mold of the preconceived notions
about sonance. *This* is what lies at the bottom of the argument
here between you and I.

OK, back to quoting mclaren:

> It's so simple and so easy to prove that Schoenberg's foolish
> claims are false that it's insulting to even to have descend to this
> kind of kindegarten level to prove these obvious facts. But
> apparently that's what people like Joe Monzo require -- the
> kindergarten level. So let's head back to nappy-nap time and show,
> once again, that Schoenberg's claims about the overtone series are
> foolish and obviously false:
> Once again, compare the ratio 10/9 with the ratio 8192/6561.
> Sounded as dyads, the first ratio lying low in the overtone series
> sounds grindingly rough, while the second ratio lying high in the
> overtone series sounds smooth and euphonious when played with
> sustained harmonic series timbres. (The ratio 8192/6561 occurs in 12-
> note Pythagorean tuning.)
> Again, compare the ratio 11/10 with the ratio 19683/16384. Sounded
> as dyads, the first ratio lying low in the overtone series sounds
> gratingly rough, while the second ratio lying high in the overtone
> series sounds stable and acoustically smooth when played with
> sustained harmonic series timbres. (Again, the ratio 19683/16384
> occurs in the 12-note Pythagorean tuning.)
> Once again, compare the ratio 13/12 with the ratio 16/13. Played
> as dyads, the first ratio lying low in the overtone series sounds
> rough and harsh while the second ratio lying high in the overtone
> series sounds much smoother when played with sustained harmonic
> series timbres.

While what you say here is true enough, especially in light of
your own experiements, it's a ridiculous refutation of what
Schoenberg wrote, because it has nothing to do with any of
Schoenberg's concepts. He was thinking of high-limit ratios
as *overtones*, not as ratios _per se_, which is how you present
your argument here.

So the "dissonances" were always being measured from 1/1
and its "octaves". As I pointed out in my original post,
Schoenberg's categorization of notes as either "consonances"
or "dissonances" depends on the comprehensibility of their
ratios. So, for example, 13:8 is less comprehensible
(= "more dissonant") than 7:4, which in turn is less
comprehsible than 3:2.

And in _Harmonielehre_, he only specifically illustrates
the applicability of his theory up to the 12th partial
(i.e., 11-prime-limit) [Schoenberg 1911, _Harmonielehre_,
p 23; _Theory of Harmony_ p 24-25], and in his later essay
"Problems of Harmony" [Schoenberg [1984], _Style and Idea_,
p 271], up to the 13th (13-prime-limit). Schoenberg never
wrote anything about any overtones higher than that, or
by implication, about any ratios involving higher primes.

So it's quite pointless to invoke ratios like 8192/6561 or
19683/16384 here. Sure, they occur in Pythagorean tuning, but
what does that have to do with Schoenberg or the audible
overtone series? Not a thing.

> So the larger point here is that Schoenberg was triply ignorant
> and triply arrogant and triply incompetent -- not only did Schoenberg
> make a fool of himself by parrotting the antique and long-disproven
> Rameauvian superstition that musical consonance is defined by
> position in the overtone series, Schoenberg also made a foolish
> blunder in equating acoustic roughness with the much larger and
> much more complex issue of overall musical dissonance,
> and Schoenberg made an even more foolish and more ignorant
> blunder in failing to recognize that musical consonance consists of
> 2 separate components -- acoustic roughness and musical context.

I'm of the opinion that Schoenberg's compositional practice
refutes what you say here. He was well aware that dissonance
is a function of musical context, and *his* style after 1907
recognized these "more remote relationships" as consonances
while the rest of the *theoretical* world continued to view
them as dissonances.

Please note that one of the reasons why Schoenberg felt justified
in taking this path was that the compositions of other composers
whom he admired (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, etc.),
boldly used "dissonant" notes in ways that broke the rules
that were published in the theory books. Schoenberg points
these instances out again and again; for example,

Bach [_Harmonielehre [1911], p 363, 367; _Theory of Harmony_, p 324, 327]
Mozart [_Harmonielehre [1911], p 363; _Theory of Harmony_, p 324]
Mahler [_Harmonielehre [1911], p 372; _Theory of Harmony_, p 330]

And without mentioning Beethoven, Schoenberg illustrates the
clashing harmonies resulting from using scales in contrary
motion, as Beethoven did in several of his pieces (for one instance,
measures 134-143 in the 2nd movement of his 5th Symphony, op. 67.)
[_Harmonielehre [1911], p 360; _Theory of Harmony_, p 322.]

> In each case Schoenberg's arrogant claims reflect his ignorance
> of the actual sound and function of members of the overtone series as
> well as Schoenberg's basic incompetence as a musician. Any competent
> musician realizes that musical consonance is not the same thing as
> acoustic roughness...but Schoenberg's effort to equate dissonance
> with position in the overtone series utterly and completely ignores
> this basic fact. By foolislhly and ignorantly equating musical
> consonance with position in the overtone series Schoenberg by
> definition ignored the musical context in which the interval occurs.
> No surprise. He was too arrogant and too ignorant of the subjects he
> discussed and too incompetent as a musician and as a scholar to be
> able to even the simplest rudiments of elementary musicianship into
> account in his so-called "theory." (Acutally not theory at all, but
> idle numerological speculation which systematically conflicts with
> everyday facts readily apparent to competent musicians.) In fact,
> since Schoenberg never even bothered to audibly observe the overtone
> series, his claims cannot even be called "theories," for theories
> derive from observation and get tested against the real world.
> Schoenberg's claims about the overtone series are not theories,
> they're mere delusions and hallucinations, derived from nothing, and
> never tested against anything -- the musical equivalent of Dianetics.
>
> There is, of course, no evidence that Schoenberg ever bothered
> to tune up the members of the overtone series and listen to their
> various combinations. This why Schoenberg made his laughable and
> pervasively false claims about the overtone series -- because
> Schoenberg never actually heard the harmonic series intervals he
> pontificated about in his "Harmonielehre." Accordingly, the book
> should actually be called "Harmonielacheln."

For the non-German readers, that's a pun on "teacher" and "laughter".

>
> This explains why Schoenberg's statements about the overtone
> series are so ignorant. It's because Schoenberg was ignorant. He was
> ignorant of the sound of the pitches and intervals taken from the
> overtone series because there is no evidence that Schoenberg ever
> bothered to tune them up and listen to them. There is not the
> slightest shred of hard proof to show that Schoenberg ever lifted
> even one finger to listen to the overtone-series intervals he
> pontificated about -- that's called "ignorance."
> ... <snip> ...
> For if a person is so overweening as to make pronouncements about
> musical intervals he has never heard, there's a word for that,
> kiddies -- that's called "arrogance." Lastly, we may note as a
> matter of simple ordinary common sense that a person who has never
> *heard* intervals in the overtone series by definition cannot be
> competent in their manipulation. And when a person is not competent,
> there's a word for that too -- that's called "incompetence."

Based on my (at this point, quite deep) study of Schoenberg's
work from the beginning to c. 1913, I've come to the conclusion
that he had a fantastically perceptive ear. It's true that
he never tuned any instruments up to hear the rational intervals
as actual pitches, but he spoke enough about manipulating
overtones (_klangfarbenmelodie_, "tone-color melody") that
it's obvious that he could hear the overtones in music played
even in (nominal) 12-tET [See the end of his book, _Harmonielehre_
[1911], p 470-471; _Theory of Harmony_, p 421-422]. And he
actually composed a famous experiment based on this idea in
the 3rd piece of his _F�nf Orchesterst�cke_, op. 16.

So there's no doubt in my mind at all that he did actually
hear rational intervals, in the form of overtones up to
about the 11th or 13th. This is not fantasy... I've clearly
heard overtones up to the 11th in tuning the low strings
on a piano.

>
> "Schoenberg was proud of never having studied a history of
> music, of never having worked through a textbook on the theory
> of music. `That is too dull for me.' [Schoenberg, Harmonielehre,
> 1911, pg. 350] It apprently never occured to Schoenberg that it
> is imputed to have published a Theory of Harmony of 470 pages in
> which one...tells the reader that eht author himself would never
> condescend to read a similar treatise for by anyone else. (..)
> The fact that New Music developed this way is due, in the final
> analysis, to the inadequate theoretical knowledge of the main
> protagonists. Schoenerbg's words: At such times I regret athat I know
> so little are pairseworthy for their honesty but they indicate that
> whole sorry state which existed at the time." [Vogel, Martin,
> "On the Relations of Tone," Orpheus: Bonn, 1993, pp. 297-298]

And Vogel has *his* own points to prove against Schoenberg,
by also taking Schoenberg's words out of context and misinterpreting
them. Reading Vogel's work on Schoenberg must be done with a
*very* critical eye.

>
> And so, as usual, we see the hallmarks of Schoenberg's writings
> and his ideas -- arrogance combined with ignorance and incompetence.
>
> Any competent musician realizes that the exact same chord or
> interval in one musical context can function as a relative consonance,
> while functioning as a relative musical dissonance in another musical
> context. Any competent musician realizes this...but Schoenberg
> didn't, as evidenced so clearly by Schoenberg's own words:
> "The dissonances are consonances which as overtones are more
> remotely situated." [Schoenberg, Arnold, "Harmonielehre," 1911, pg.
> 356]
> Schoenberg made this foolishly false statement not just once, but
> several times, because Schoenberg was too arrogant and far too
> ignorant of the distinction between acoustical roughness and musical
> dissonance and far to incompetent as a musician to understand the
> difference.

> Schoenberg's faulty and ignorant claims about the supposed
> relation between dissonance and the overtone series are typically
> foolish and typically uninformed. Here, as so often throughout
> Schoenberg's arrogant ignorant incompetent writings, we see the
> penalty Schoenberg paid for not having bothered to obtain a genuine
> musical education from experts. Schoenberg constantly makes ignorant
> and foolish claims about music which had been dismissed with laughter
> and disproven long before Schoenberg's time.

You are correct that Schoenberg boasted of "never having read
a harmony textbook", etc. But at the same time, his perceptive
ears and mind noticed things about music (especially harmony)
that hadn't been noticed by those before him who had been blinded
by what they learned.

I know very well of what I speak here. I've stated publicly
many times what a revelation it was to me to read (and understand)
Partch's book, precisely *because* I had had such a thorough
training in music... a training which, while thorough in many
other ways, completely ignored anything having to do with tuning.

> ... it is in equal parts pathetic and laughable to
> see Schoenberg parrotting this kind of ludicrous 18th-century
> pseudo-science at the late late *late* date of 1911:
>
> "Schoenberg derived the diatonic scale, our major key, from the
> overtones 1-11 of three overtone-series related by fifths. (..) The b
> was the seventh overtone of c. Schoenberg used the 11th overtone of
> c for F-sharp/g-flat, even though he had given it as f in his
> derivation of the diatonic scale. In fact, the 11th overtone of c is
> neither an f for an F-sharp, at 551 cents it lies in the middle
> between these chromatic degrees. It is thus just as unsuited for
> derivation of the chromatic scale, as the 13th overtone, which
> likewise leads to quartertones." [Vogel, Martin, "On the Relations of
> Tone," trans. Vincent Jean Kisselbach, Orpheus: Bonn, 1993, pg.
> 295]

This is essentially the same negative analysis of Schoenberg's idea
which Partch wrote [_Genesis of a Music_, 2nd ed., p 418].

> At this point it behooves everyone to notice that the attack dogs
> on this discussion group have produced no music recently, and they
> have not yet released even one (1) single CD of their music between
> them.
> Joe Monzo has produced no CDs of his music, and of course John
> deLaubenfels has produced no CDs of his music.

In fact I have produced a CD of my music, but it's still not finished
to my liking and so I haven't yet released it.

And please don't refer to me as an "attack dog", even if you're
lumping me in with two other people. I'm a pacifist, and I consider
your epithet to be an insult. And you know me personally as a
friend and know the way I am, which makes it more insulting to me.
I do not attack people, and never would. I simply try to point out
what seems to me to be a misunderstanding or an error.

(For that matter, since you *do* know me well, I bristle when
I see you publicly proclaiming that I am "lying". I don't do
that even in ephemeral everyday situations -- i.e., when the vast
majority of other people *would* lie -- and I certainly would never
knowingly propogate false information in an archived public forum.
The differences in our opinions on Schoenberg boil down to a matter
of interpretation.)

> Meanwhile, I continue to produce CDs of my music. My latest CD,
> now more than halfway finished, continues toward completion at a
> rapid pace. By contrast, neither of three attack dogs on this
> discussion have produced any music lately as far as anyone can
> discern.
> While I continue to upload works in progress, Joe Monzo has
> uploaded nothing lately.

Excuse me, but you really make yourself look foolish by saying stuff
like this without first visiting my website.

I put new music there every week, and have been for nearly three years.
If it is in need of any apology, I'll just say to you that much of it
is my rendition of other people's music, and much of my own stuff is
in the dreaded 12-tET, but I *am* producing actual music on a regular
basis, and I make it all public... and free of charge, I might add.

> No wonder Joe Monzo and John deLaubenfels have composed no new
> music in the last few weeks. They have no time to compose music. All
> their time is taken up by frantic and desperate efforts to square the
> cube and defend the indefensible.

I found this to be *really* amusing, because *just the night before
I read it* I composed a brand-new choral piece (inspired by Margo Schulter's
recent MIDI-file <http://value.net/~mschulter/20tgz002.mid>) in 12-tET
and sent it to John deLaubenfels to hear what retunings he could come
up with!

> Like prelates of Galileo's time who wasted their lives in a
> desperate effort to "prove" by study of the Holy Scriptures that the
> sun actually orbits the earth (in blatant contradiction of all
> Galileo's telescopic observations, viz., the phases of Venus), the
> latter-day musical prelates Joe Monzo and John DeLaubenfels waste
> their lives in a near-hysterical effort to conjure out of existence
> by elaborate and incoherent arguments the masssive errors and
> obviously audible fallacies of their respective cult leaders --
> Arnold Schoenberg and Hermann Helmholtz.

*I* hardly view Schoenberg as a cult leader, even tho that *is*
essentially what he became. To me, he was simply a brilliant
mind and extraordinarily talented composer, much like his friend
and my real idol, Mahler. Fortunately, Mahler never wrote a
damn word about theory, so I think he's safe from mclaren attacks.

> Standard stuff. It's an old story. On every discussion group,
> there are always a bunch of do-nothing know-nothing people who never
> create -- they only destroy. They can't build up, they can only tear
> down. They can't generate anything, they can only harp and carp and
> shriek lies and innuendos and demonstrably false canards in praise of
> long-bypassed kooks like Schoenberg whom no serious musician
> takes seriously nowadays.
> Like cockroaches or bad weather, characters like these will
> always be with us. People who never create, never generate anything,
> never have much time to produce new music...only meaningless words
> backed up by nothing but vague rambling claims and unsupported
> hysterical outbursts.

If I wasn't able to blow this off easily as "just another mclaren rant"
(which I am), I'd be insulted by this too.

Anyone on the planet who has access to the internet (several million
people is my guess) can see and hear that I have created a tremendous
amount of music, whether new (my own) or old (my new versions of other
people's) and essays about music which are filled to the brim with
citations and references.

In the past, to my face, you yourself, Brian, have complimented me
on my scholarship, calling me "one of the few real scholars writing
about microtonal music". So it's easy for me to flush this one...

And why, when *you* get upset by something I write, do you
characterize my calm (possibly even *boring*) prose as an
"hysterical outburst"?! Look at your *own* response, right here!!

> Typical of the low low standards of scholarship of the attack
> dogs on this discussion list, the interested observer might query Joe
> Monzo as to how many scholarly citations he posted in his futile
> effort to support Schoenberg's insupportable ignorance and
> incompetence.
> Well, Joe didn't make any citations in his post attacking me for
> my alleged "lack of knowledge" of Schoenberg's claims.
> And where are the citations from Schoenberg's own writings proving
> that "schoenberg never said that" as Joe Monzo ignorantly and falasely
> claims?
> Well, Joe didn't put in any citations from Schoenberg in his post
> attacking me for my supposed "lack of knowledge" of Schoenberg's
> ideas.
> So what have we got here?
>
> Joe has no evidence and no scholarly citations and no facts and no
> musical examples to prove his case. All Joe has is a bunch of
> meaningless vague insults to try to save the already ruined
> reputation of his dead debunked false idol Arnold Schoenberg.
>
> What we've got here is a guy named Joe Monzo who claims "Brian, you
> dismiss Schoenberg's theories without apparently having taken the
> time to really grapple with his ideas and understand him fully" yet
> Joe Monzo himself does not even know what Arnold Schoenberg said.
> Joe Monzo claims that I am ignorant yet I produce vast numbers of
> citations documenting my statements of proven fact...meanwhile, Joe
> Monzo produces no citations of any kind, no proof, no hard evidence,
> nothing whatsoever other than his vague and pervasively false fuzzy-
> wuzzy maunderings about Schoenberg.
>
> Typical.
>
> Just as Arnold Schoenberg's claims are characterized by arrogance
> combined with ignorance and incompetence, Schoenberg's defenders
> reveal themselves as arrogant and ignorant of what Schoenberg actually
> said and believed and incompetent as scholars as well as
> psycoacousticians and mathematicians and physicists and acousticians
> when they try to defend Schoenberg's indefensibly foolish claims.

Again, I wasn't intending to "attack" you, merely to helpfully
point out what I perceive as misunderstandings in your knowledge
of Schoenberg's theory.

OK, so that other post was simply a "quickie" response to you, which
I see is something I should *never* do when responding unfavorably
to you, because you're lying in wait with your collection of
fat tomes and butcher knives. Hopefully you're satisfied with
the scholarly work I've put into this one.

Well, at least you'll let me get away with *complimenting* you
with "kind words" without going thru all the academic bullshit. :)

> You want to "grapple with [Schoenberg's] ideas," Joe?
>
> Good. Let's grapple.
>
> Schoenberg claims that dissonance depends on how "remote...in the
> series of overtones" the musical interval is [Schoenberg, op. cit.,
> 1956] These are Schoenberg's own words and as demonstrated they are
> pervasively and foolishly false.
>
> Schoenberg ineptly tries to explain this supposed relationship
> between remoteness in the overtone series (AKA height in the overtone
> series) and musical dissonance by the faulty claim that consonances
> are more comprehensible musical relationships which dissonances are
> less comprehensibel musical relationships. (As always, Joe Monzo will
> deny this, and when he does he'll be lying. As always, I look forward
> to proving it.) But this boils down to the foolishly false claim
> that music is nothing more than communication -- those aspects of
> music which communicate with difficulty are less comprehensible and
> therefore dissonant, according to Schoenberg's obviously false claim,
> while those aspects of music which communicate easily are more
> comprehensible and therefore consonant. (As always, Joe Monzo will
> deny this, and when he does he'll be lying. As always I look forward
> to proving it. As always, I have citations in Schoenberg's own words
> proving my statements of documented fact.)

Brian, you're really twisting Schoenberg's words here.
Yes, I'm denying what you say and, no, I'm not lying.

Schoenberg does not say anything about music being communication.
And he does not say that "those aspects of music which communicate
with difficulty are less comprehensible and therefore dissonant".
What he *does* say is that the intervals that *other* people
consider to be dissonant, and which are represented by the higher
overtones, are merely (to him) "the more remote consonances".
There's quite a difference between that and what you seem to
understand him to have written. No need for further citations here...
it's all in the big quote I gave above [_Harmonielehre_ [1911],
p 18-20; _Theory of Harmony_, p 20-21.].

> But music is not communication. Music has nothing to do with
> communication. Music involves emotions and wordless evocative
> impressions. This is not communication, it's art.

I think you're drawing false distinctions here. You're *assuming*
that it's *always* the case that "people communicate in order to
learn and to motive [_sic_, motivate] others to act", and it just
ain't so.

Some people communicate simply because they're compulsive
communicators and for no other reason (hasn't everyone here
known at least one person who simply would never shut up?).
Sometimes people communicate because they need to "blow off steam",
and don't give a rat's ass about education or motivation.
And there are plenty of people who communicate because it's
their way of wielding and/or manipulating power. Some
communicate because it's their way of earning a living.
And so on and on and on and on...

And some of *them* use music to do their communicating.

> Bottom line?
> Schoenberg is a pimple on the ass of music. Schoenberg is a turd
> in a flaming paper bag on the doorstep of music history, and it is
> demeaning even to step on him in order to put the fire out.

So the bottom line is you can't stand Schoenberg's guts.

You should therefore correspond with Neil Haverstick about him
... you two would have a ball tearing apart his work.

Me, I like Schoenberg's music and his theory, and find it to be
a deep and intriguing universe with its own unique kind of logic.

So unless you're prepared to reevaluate your ideas about
Schoenberg's work based on what I've written here, I'm finished
corresponding with *you* about *him* (at least in public).

If you have any interest in pursuing my ideas about Schoenberg
further, please consult my future books, papers, webpages, etc.
on the subject. Also, I've already written a ton of stuff
about aspects of tuning in Schoenberg's work to the Tuning List,
which is in the searchable list archives:
/tuning/messages

That should take care of that. And anyway, it's off-topic
for this list, so no more about it from me here.

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"

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> So just skip it if you're not interested.

Already skipped it, thanks.

Rick