Deck The Halls...

Late last night -- after imbibing rather significant amounts of
eggnog-plus -- I was awakened by the restless shade of Darius Milhaud.
The old gent commanded me to channel the following tidbit. I had nothing
to do with it. Really.

Deck The Halls

http://zebox.com/jlsmith/music/ <http://zebox.com/jlsmith/music/>

Best,

jls

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

That's bi-modal, not bitonal. Anyway it sounds a lot better than the
usual versions. :-)

-Cameron

At 12:04 AM 12/19/2006, you wrote:
>That's bi-modal, not bitonal. Anyway it sounds a lot better than the
>usual versions. :-)
>
>-Cameron

I'd call it bitonal. In tonal music, E major and E minor
are different keys.

-Carl

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@...> wrote:
>
> At 12:04 AM 12/19/2006, you wrote:
> >That's bi-modal, not bitonal. Anyway it sounds a lot better than the
> >usual versions. :-)
> >
> >-Cameron
>
> I'd call it bitonal. In tonal music, E major and E minor
> are different keys.
>
> -Carl
>

Carl,

Technically, Cameron is correct. Since E major and e minor are two
different modes with the same tonic, and since they share a tonic, one
might say 'bimodal'.

However, the relative major of e minor is G major, and G major vs. E
major is certainly 'bitonal', so in that sense, *you* are correct, Carl.

Having not heard the piece yet, I don't want to say more--it would
depend on if he's using the key signature of 1 sharp as a major mode
or minor mode against the 4 sharps of E major....

-A.

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@...> wrote:
> I'd call it bitonal. In tonal music, E major and E minor
> are different keys.
>
> -Carl

In real life, tonality happens courtesy of actual physical
phenomena. Different "keys" sure- but same tonal center.

There probably are ways of making E "minor" and E major clearly
seperate, as Aaron suggests above- clearly outlining e as the vi of
G? e "superlocrian" would probably do it too, because its tonal
center is kind of floating while the E of the major would be rock
solid.

If I hear one tonal center, as I do in this example, I just can't
call it bitonal- that would reduce the word to a desription of a
specific compositional technique in a specific historical style.

Who, by the way, is the clown on Wikipedia hell-bent on proving the
God-given status of late 19th-century Germanic bourgeois music by
wielding a fancifully reconstructed version of the Neanderthal flute
(the original of which lives nearby to me and patently does not
justify his/her claims)?

-Cameron Bobro

>> I'd call it bitonal. In tonal music, E major and E minor
>> are different keys.
>
>In real life, tonality happens courtesy of actual physical
>phenomena. Different "keys" sure- but same tonal center.

Hi Cameron,

I guess it depends on what is meant by "tonal". In common
practice music, this word takes on a special meaning. Only
the Ionian and Aeolian modes are allowed to create "keys",
and despite sharing a root of (in this case) E, they are
different tonalities (it's why there are 24 Preludes and
Fugues in each book of the Well Tempered Clavier). This
isn't necessarily what Milhaud (or whoever coined the term)
meant by polytonal, of course, but it would be my guess.
Now whether Jon's piece achieves any of this is a subjective
matter. I will only say that it tickled me (in a good way)
to listen to it. I am sure also that "bitonal" in a harmonic-
series sense or Parchian sense is possible and well-worth
exploring.

-Carl

yes, I'm well aware of this of course- but deliberately and
methodically trying to improve and clarify the definition of the
word. :-)

I think that post-modernism is a horrible thing, so I certainly
don't want the word to whimper out into meaninglessness. Quite the
opposite- it would be very nice if "bitonal" had a solid, universal
meaning, and then could be qualified when refering to different
practices. Common-practice bitonality, psycho-acoustic bitonality,
whatever. So we could lose both imperialistic definitions and pomo
vapor definitions.

take care,

-Cameron Bobro

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, Carl Lumma <ekin@...> wrote:
>
> >> I'd call it bitonal. In tonal music, E major and E minor
> >> are different keys.
> >
> >In real life, tonality happens courtesy of actual physical
> >phenomena. Different "keys" sure- but same tonal center.
>
> Hi Cameron,
>
> I guess it depends on what is meant by "tonal". In common
> practice music, this word takes on a special meaning. Only
> the Ionian and Aeolian modes are allowed to create "keys",
> and despite sharing a root of (in this case) E, they are
> different tonalities (it's why there are 24 Preludes and
> Fugues in each book of the Well Tempered Clavier). This
> isn't necessarily what Milhaud (or whoever coined the term)
> meant by polytonal, of course, but it would be my guess.
> Now whether Jon's piece achieves any of this is a subjective
> matter. I will only say that it tickled me (in a good way)
> to listen to it. I am sure also that "bitonal" in a harmonic-
> series sense or Parchian sense is possible and well-worth
> exploring.
>
> -Carl
>

--- In MakeMicroMusic@yahoogroups.com, "Cameron Bobro"
<misterbobro@...> wrote:

> Who, by the way, is the clown on Wikipedia hell-bent on proving the
> God-given status of late 19th-century Germanic bourgeois music by
> wielding a fancifully reconstructed version of the Neanderthal flute
> (the original of which lives nearby to me and patently does not
> justify his/her claims)?

You probably mean Bob Fink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Fink

It's no worse than claiming a meatone fifth of exactly 600+300/pi cents
is mysteriously wonderful, I guess.