FW: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo

here's a post that i sent to the tuning list
and which never got posted ... today the server
sent it back to me as "undeliverable".

-monz

> From: <monz@...>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo
> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:21:57 -0700
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>
> i just happened to re-read this old post:
>
>
>
> > From: monz [mailto:joemonz@...]
> > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:53 PM
> > To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [metatuning] Re: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring
> > up the term religion here..."
> >
> >
> >
> > > From: genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>
> > > To: <tuning-math@yahoogroups.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:44 PM
> > > Subject: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring up the term
> > > religion here..."
> > >
> > >
> >
> > > --- In tuning-math@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hopefully this will be seen as a little levity ... ;-)
> > >
> > > Pretty good. :)
> >
> >
> > (see tuning-math Message 2860 for details)
> > /tuning-math/messages/2860?expand=1
> >
> >
> > > [Gene:]
> > > Why is music, even here, so rife with arch-conservativism?
> > > In other fields you seem to be able to express a thought
> > > without people jumping you, but here even the radicals
> > > are conservatives.
> >
> >
> > [me, monz:]
> > I think this might have something to do with a circumstance
> > which Partch touched on in his book. It's not as true today
> > as it was during his lifetime, but to a large degree it's
> > still more true of music than of any other art-form. Most
> > musical compositions require an outside body of performers
> > for their realization, with the resultant need for cooperation
> > and standardization that artists working in other media don't
> > have to deal with. Thus, the concommitant conservatism about
> > changing the status-quo.
>
>
>
> this discussion began on the tuning-math list, right
> at the time when i was working out my study of the
> "rational implications" of Schoenberg's theory as
> presented in his 1911 book _Harmonielehre_.
>
> thus, i'm surprised that at that time i didn't mention
> Schoenberg in connection with what i wrote here, because
> i had already come to the conclusion that it was primarily
> for reasons of his own career survival that he decided
> to abandon his quarter-tone experiments and stick
> with 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg maintained at several points in his book
> that microtonality would surely become practical for
> use in the future ... but that at that time (1910)
> microtonality was not a practical choice for a composer
> who wished to have his music performed (mainly because
> of the lack of suitably tuned instruments). thus, his
> decision to stay with 12edo but use it in a new way
> (which we now call "free atonality", but which he
> called "pantonality").
>
> what's really interesting to see are the changes which
> Schoenberg made to the revised 3rd edition of _Harmonielehre_
> which appeared in 1922, just after he made public his
> invention of the "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones
> Which are Related Only with One Another" (now called
> "serialism"). he removed or softened many of his 1910
> pronouncements about microtonality, since he felt, as he
> announced in his new method in 1921: "I have made a
> discovery that will ensure the superiority of German music
> for the next 100 years."
>
> unfortunately, the only complete English translation
> available for the _Harmonielehre_ is Roy Carter's 1978
> version, titled _Theory of Harmony_, and it's based
> on the 1922 edition. Carter mentions the most important
> changes made by Schoenberg in footnotes, in two cases
> even including translations of several sentences which
> Schoenberg removed or modified. but it would be nice
> to have a complete English text of the 1911 version.
> i've been translating chunks of it myself when i find
> a big discrepancy between the two editions.
>
> the original 1911 version of _Harmonielehre_ was written
> right after Schoenberg had made his most radical experiments
> in the first group of "atonal" pieces (listed here in
> order of composition):
>
> Quartet no. 2, F-sharp minor, op. 10 (1907/08)
> 15 poems from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_, op. 15 (1908/09)
> 3 pieces for piano, op. 11 (1909)
> 5 pieces for orchestra, op. 16 (1909)
> Erwartung [Expectation], op. 17 (1909) (soprano, orchestra)
>
> he had not yet formulated a new "method" for the
> manipulation of the harmony in his music, and was
> at this point more interested in freeing music from
> the restrictions imposed by "traditional tonality",
> so that his compositions could "express pure feeling".
>
> none of Schoenberg's quarter-tone experiments have
> come to light -- those sketches were probably destroyed
> in World War 2 -- but based on the survival of some
> microtonal sketches of Webern songs, also on poems by
> Stefan George, i have concluded that Schoenberg played
> around with quarter-tones in the voice parts of some
> of the later songs from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_,
> in late 1908 and/or early 1909.
>
> it was only a short-lived experiment, for by September
> 1909 he had written to Busoni that he had abandoned
> the idea of using microtones in his own compositions.
> Busoni had just sent Schoenberg a copy of his _Sketch for
> a New Aesthetic of Music_, in which Busoni outlines
> 113 new scales that could be constructed in 12edo,
> then suggests using 1/3-tones, in the form of 36edo
> as two "bike chains" of 18edo a semitone apart.
>
> Schoenberg, having just decided to give up microtonality,
> didn't put much stock in this last proposal, but Busoni's
> rhetoric does seem to have inspired Schoenberg to
> produce what i think is his most radical work of all,
> _Erwartung_, which he began composing immediately after
> this exchange with Busoni.
>
> it's also important to note that, after struggling for
> years to find a publisher with whom he could hope to
> gain some financial security, immediately after composing
> _Erwartung_, Schoenberg signed a 10-year contract with
> Universal Edition, then the leading publisher -- and
> an aggressive promoter -- of "new music" in Vienna.
>
> when it came time for Schoenberg to write _Harmonielehre_
> in the summer of 1910 for his upcoming teaching job in
> September, he was clearly trying to formulate some
> suggestions on how to deal with the complex sonorities
> he had introduced in these pieces, especially _Erwartung_,
> and was just as clearly still interested in microtonality,
> at least intellectually.
>
> but by the time the revised edition came out in 1922,
> he had hit on his new strategy for regulating the use
> of all 12 pitches of 12edo, and therefore no longer saw
> any need to promote the idea of microtones.
>
>
> but to relate all of this back to the original point ...
>
> the *reasons* which compelled Schoenberg to abandon
> microtones had to do with his survival as a composer.
> he emphasizes in _Harmonielehre_ that at that time
> (1910) there were too few instruments available which
> could produce those microtones.
>
> of course, today we have talented performers who know
> how to produce quite specific microtonal pitches from
> regular orchestral instruments. but in 1910 it's likely
> that instrumentalists had not yet figured out how to
> do that, and in fact that most wouldn't be the least
> bit interested in doing so. at that time, the piano
> was clearly the "king of instruments" in the German
> musical world, and it was, almost universally, tuned
> in 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg, having grown up in this musical mileu and
> almost entirely self-taught, was not aware of the
> history of Pythagorean and meantone tunings in European
> music (up to about 1500 for Pythagorean and 1850 for
> meantone). and as he clearly states several times in
> _Harmonielehre_, aside from his more-or-less simplistic
> "overtone model", he was also unaware of the mathematics
> of intonation. he had "perfect pitch" and could hear
> overtones up to about the 11th harmonic, and he could
> hear that the 7th and 11th harmonics were tuned quite
> differently from their 12edo representations, but he
> was obviously unfamiliar with any actual use of tunings
> other than 12edo, or of a conception of tuning where
> the "sharps" and "flats" are different pitches, as in
> both Pythagorean and meantone.
>
> many performers, audiences, and newspaper critics had
> already displayed a tremendously negative reaction to
> his "atonal" 12edo music in concerts of 1909 and 1910.
> but even outside of his immediate circle of students
> and supporters, Schoenberg did have a small group of
> admirers, and his new contract with Universal Edition
> gave him at least some small measure of confidence about
> the future of his work, and the possibility of earning
> income from it.
>
> it makes complete sense to me that at this juncture
> (1910), he would not have been willing to jeopardize
> the prospect of earning royalties from his compositions
> by using "non-standard" tunings. it seems to me that
> this desire for standarization is what lies at the root
> of Schoenberg's rejection of microtonality and
> enshrinement of 12edo.
>
> if Schoenberg had been in a position to create his
> music entirely by himself, as Partch had the courage
> and skills to do for many years, and as we can do easily
> today, i think it's very likely that he *would* have made
> further explorations into the use of microtonality.
>
> i find it one of the great ironies of music history
> that just at the time that microtonalists such as
> Mager, Mollendorf, and Haba began giving demonstrations
> and concerts involving quarter-tones in Vienna
> (around 1912-1918), Schoenberg moved to Berlin and
> thus missed the opportunity to actually experience
> quarter-tone music. he had already been in contact
> with Josef Hauer during this period and had begun to
> formulate his 12-tone method. perhaps if he had
> stayed in Vienna during those years, or if the
> microtonalists had begun their work just a few years
> earlier, Schoenberg might have been more favorable
> towards the actual implementation of microtonal music,
> and the history of 20th-century music may have turned
> out to be vastly different. i just love to speculate ...
>
>
>
>
> REFERENCES
> ----------
>
>
> Monzo, "Sch�nberg's 1909-8-24 letter to Busoni"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/to-busoni-1909-8-24.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Searching for Schoenberg's Pantonality"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/harm/1911-1922.htm
>
>
> Schweiger, "Webern's Rejected Microtones"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/Webernmicro.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Program notes to Webern's microtonal songs"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/webernmicro-monznotes.htm
>
>
> "bike chains"
> http://sonic-arts.org/dict/bikechain.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Christ Jesus, folks, don't send tuning posts here!!

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> Christ Jesus, folks, don't send tuning posts here!!

I've set up microtuning@... for the purpose of taking over from
tuning. However, now would be a good time to move off Yahoo if we
wish.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, <monz@a...> wrote:
> here's a post that i sent to the tuning list
> and which never got posted ... today the server
> sent it back to me as "undeliverable".

/metatuning/topicId_5356.html#5356

***Thanks for this post, Monz. I found it extremely interesting.

Joe Pehrson

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> Christ Jesus, folks, don't send tuning posts here!!
>
> -Carl

***And why not, during this "blackout..." I suppose we could use
Tuning_Files temporarily.

I'm just posting the "bouncers..."

J. Pehrson

> > Christ Jesus, folks, don't send tuning posts here!!
//
> ***And why not, during this "blackout..." I suppose we
> could use Tuning_Files temporarily.
>
> I'm just posting the "bouncers..."

Because they don't belong here. Hopefully, the main list
will come back up and you'll repost them there, and then
delete them from these archives.

I've also written to yahoo about the main list. I couldn't
find anything about such a problem in their help files.
The list clearly shows us far below quota on the messages
and photos, and we've been working just fine with however
many files are there for a while. It's clearly a *bug*.
It's their fault, and with a group of 600+ members and one
of the largest message archives (the largest?) in the entire
yahoo groups system, they owe us a fix.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_5356.html#5387

> > > Christ Jesus, folks, don't send tuning posts here!!
> //
> > ***And why not, during this "blackout..." I suppose we
> > could use Tuning_Files temporarily.
> >
> > I'm just posting the "bouncers..."
>
> Because they don't belong here. Hopefully, the main list
> will come back up and you'll repost them there, and then
> delete them from these archives.

***I'll repost over on the new "microtuning" list in the meantime...

J. Pehrson

> From: Carl Lumma [mailto:clumma@...]
> Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2003 10:16 AM
> To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [metatuning] Re: FW: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo
>
>
> I've also written to yahoo about the main list. I couldn't
> find anything about such a problem in their help files.
> The list clearly shows us far below quota on the messages
> and photos, and we've been working just fine with however
> many files are there for a while. It's clearly a *bug*.
> It's their fault, and with a group of 600+ members and one
> of the largest message archives (the largest?) in the entire
> yahoo groups system, they owe us a fix.

on top of our own needs, the main tuning list has
appeared as a bibliographic reference is hard-copy
published articles, such as one i have in the journal
_Music Theory Spectrum_.

so it's pretty clear that the Yahoo home of the tuning
list is perceived as more-or-less permanent.
yes, Carl, i agree that Yahoo owes us a fix.

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, <monz@a...> wrote:
> on top of our own needs, the main tuning list has
> appeared as a bibliographic reference is hard-copy
> published articles, such as one i have in the journal
> _Music Theory Spectrum_.
>
> so it's pretty clear that the Yahoo home of the tuning
> list is perceived as more-or-less permanent.

Less. Any reference to a piece of information on the Internet is neither permanent nor guaranteed. If one uses such information as a bona fide reference, they have to do it with the firm knowledge that some day it may very well go away.

> yes, Carl, i agree that Yahoo owes us a fix.

It is a free service - they don't "owe" us anything. Unless and until you can show the data that a lot of tuning members clicked on the advertisements in this 'advertisement-supported' medium, and therefore paid for Yahoo's server loads, you can't even begin to expect them to "owe" you something.

You get what you pay for, and we didn't pay for anything. Except that, in some people's viewpoint, we're paying for it now.

Cheers,
Jon

interesting if not tell tale signs of use of language

> owes us a fix.
>

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, kraig grady <kraiggrady@a...> wrote:
> interesting if not tell tale signs of use of language
>
> > owes us a fix.

What about these:

A wise fox, us.
Waif sues ox.
Sousa we fix.
As few sioux...

Computers do anagrams *real* easily!

Cheers,
Jon

>>yes, Carl, i agree that Yahoo owes us a fix.
>
>It is a free service - they don't "owe" us anything.
>Unless and until you can show the data that a lot of
>tuning members clicked on the advertisements in this
>'advertisement-supported' medium, and therefore paid
>for Yahoo's server loads, you can't even begin to
>expect them to "owe" you something.

No, it is not a free service. It is service by
contract, which places significant burdens on users
in exchange for services. IIRC the contract
specifically states that service is not guaranteed.
But that does not mean that if we uphold our end of
the contract, they are without obligation.

-Carl

In a message dated 2003:08:18 10:53:27 AM, kraiggrady@... writes:

>interesting if not tell tale signs of use of language
>
>> owes us a fix.

*snarfle!*

In a message dated 2003:08:18 12:03:49 PM, JSZANTO@... writes:

>What about these:
>
>
>
>A wise fox, us.
>
>Waif sues ox.
>
>Sousa we fix.
>
>As few sioux...
>
>
>
>Computers do anagrams *real* easily!

ROTFLMAO

---
Hanuman Zhang, _Gomi no sensei_ [Master of junk]

"To live is to scrounge, taking what you can in order to survive. So,
since living is scrounging, the result of our efforts is to amass a pile of
rubbish."
- Chuang Tzu/Zhuangzi, China, 4th Century BCE

"The most beautiful order is a heap of sweepings piled up at random."
- Heraclitus, Greece, 5th Century BCE

Ars imitatur Naturam in sua operatione.
[Latin > "Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation."]

" jinsei to iu mono wa, kichou na geijyutsu to ieru deshou "
[Japanese > "one can probably say that 'life' is a precious artform"]

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> No, it is not a free service.

Carl, reading and posting to the tuning forum has not cost you one single penny.

> IIRC the contract
> specifically states that service is not guaranteed.
> But that does not mean that if we uphold our end of
> the contract, they are without obligation.

If you want to spend time reviewing that contract, so be it. I am not expecting a single blessed thing from Yahoo, because AFAI can see they have no reason to fix it. I *hope* they would fix it, if nothing else then good 'customer relations', but since I've written 3 times and never gotten *any* response, my breath isn't being held.

Cheers,
Jon

> > No, it is not a free service.
>
> Carl, reading and posting to the tuning forum has not cost
> you one single penny.

And getting a paycheck doesn't cost you a penny -- you
work for it. In this case, we view ads. Yahoo makes money.
There's a contract. There's no such thing as a "free
service" economically, legally, or logically. It's sales
speak designed to get people to do things.

-Carl

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_5356.html#5438

> >>yes, Carl, i agree that Yahoo owes us a fix.
> >
> >It is a free service - they don't "owe" us anything.
> >Unless and until you can show the data that a lot of
> >tuning members clicked on the advertisements in this
> >'advertisement-supported' medium, and therefore paid
> >for Yahoo's server loads, you can't even begin to
> >expect them to "owe" you something.
>
> No, it is not a free service. It is service by
> contract, which places significant burdens on users
> in exchange for services. IIRC the contract
> specifically states that service is not guaranteed.
> But that does not mean that if we uphold our end of
> the contract, they are without obligation.
>
> -Carl

***I'm sure they won't be happy to know that the Tuning List is
down... They just have one big worm, or such like... :)

JP

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Jon Szanto" <JSZANTO@A...> wrote:

/metatuning/topicId_5356.html#5441

> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> > No, it is not a free service.
>
> Carl, reading and posting to the tuning forum has not cost you one
single penny.
>
> > IIRC the contract
> > specifically states that service is not guaranteed.
> > But that does not mean that if we uphold our end of
> > the contract, they are without obligation.
>
> If you want to spend time reviewing that contract, so be it. I am
not expecting a single blessed thing from Yahoo, because AFAI can see
they have no reason to fix it. I *hope* they would fix it, if nothing
else then good 'customer relations', but since I've written 3 times
and never gotten *any* response, my breath isn't being held.
>
> Cheers,
> Jon

***We really don't know how big a sucker this problem is! It could
be *thousands* of lists. Whoknows?? There are thousands, and
thousands and thousands of lists.... :(

[I've only checked through about 1000 myself... :)

J. Pehrson

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, "Carl Lumma" <clumma@y...> wrote:
> And getting a paycheck doesn't cost you a penny -- you
> work for it.

I don't get that one.

> In this case, we view ads.

Not if I subscribe only by email.

> Yahoo makes money.

Yahoo would make money whether we looked at the ads or not - though I don't know their business model, I'm willing to be the ads are done flat-rate, rather than per-click. Per-click ad rates went out, oh, 3 years ago or so.

> There's a contract. There's no such thing as a "free
> service" economically, legally, or logically. It's sales
> speak designed to get people to do things.

I very frequently offer my services to others for free, the very same services I sometimes charge for. The people that get them for free, get them for *exactly* that - I ask, expect, and accept nothing in return. It is logical if I feel that I enjoy sharing those services with those who might not otherwise be able to have them.

Cheers,
Jon

> > In this case, we view ads.
>
> Not if I subscribe only by email.

When's the last time you looked at one of those e-mails?

> > Yahoo makes money.
>
> Yahoo would make money whether we looked at the ads or
> not

No, believe it or not, users actually have to look at ads
for Yahoo to make money.

>Per-click ad rates went out, oh, 3 years ago or so.

Follow-through is still pretty popular, but even with
flat rate ads still have to be effective.

-Carl

OK, i wanted this post to appear here in the first place.
since Joe Pehrson made the request, here it is ...

-----Original Message-----
From: <monz@...>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:21:57 -0700

i just happened to re-read this old post:

> From: monz [mailto:joemonz@...]
> Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:53 PM
> To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [metatuning] Re: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring
> up the term religion here..."
>
>
>
> > From: genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>
> > To: <tuning-math@yahoogroups.com>
> > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:44 PM
> > Subject: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring up the term
> > religion here..."
> >
> >
>
> > --- In tuning-math@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> >
> > > Hopefully this will be seen as a little levity ... ;-)
> >
> > Pretty good. :)
>
>
> (see tuning-math Message 2860 for details)
> /tuning-math/messages/2860?expand=1
>
>
> > [Gene:]
> > Why is music, even here, so rife with arch-conservativism?
> > In other fields you seem to be able to express a thought
> > without people jumping you, but here even the radicals
> > are conservatives.
>
>
> [me, monz:]
> I think this might have something to do with a circumstance
> which Partch touched on in his book. It's not as true today
> as it was during his lifetime, but to a large degree it's
> still more true of music than of any other art-form. Most
> musical compositions require an outside body of performers
> for their realization, with the resultant need for cooperation
> and standardization that artists working in other media don't
> have to deal with. Thus, the concommitant conservatism about
> changing the status-quo.

this discussion began on the tuning-math list, right
at the time when i was working out my study of the
"rational implications" of Schoenberg's theory as
presented in his 1911 book _Harmonielehre_.
> > thus, i'm surprised that at that time i didn't mention
Schoenberg in connection with what i wrote here, because
i had already come to the conclusion that it was primarily
for reasons of his own career survival that he decided
to abandon his quarter-tone experiments and stick
with 12edo.

Schoenberg maintained at several points in his book
that microtonality would surely become practical for
use in the future ... but that at that time (1910)
microtonality was not a practical choice for a composer
who wished to have his music performed (mainly because
of the lack of suitably tuned instruments). thus, his
decision to stay with 12edo but use it in a new way
(which we now call "free atonality", but which he
called "pantonality").

what's really interesting to see are the changes which
Schoenberg made to the revised 3rd edition of _Harmonielehre_
which appeared in 1922, just after he made public his
invention of the "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones
Which are Related Only with One Another" (now called
"serialism"). he removed or softened many of his 1910
pronouncements about microtonality, since he felt, as he
announced in his new method in 1921: "I have made a
discovery that will ensure the superiority of German music
for the next 100 years."

unfortunately, the only complete English translation
available for the _Harmonielehre_ is Roy Carter's 1978
version, titled _Theory of Harmony_, and it's based
on the 1922 edition. Carter mentions the most important
changes made by Schoenberg in footnotes, in two cases
even including translations of several sentences which
Schoenberg removed or modified. but it would be nice
to have a complete English text of the 1911 version.
i've been translating chunks of it myself when i find
a big discrepancy between the two editions.

the original 1911 version of _Harmonielehre_ was written
right after Schoenberg had made his most radical experiments
in the first group of "atonal" pieces (listed here in
order of composition):

Quartet no. 2, F-sharp minor, op. 10 (1907/08)
15 poems from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_, op. 15 (1908/09)
3 pieces for piano, op. 11 (1909)
5 pieces for orchestra, op. 16 (1909)
Erwartung [Expectation], op. 17 (1909) (soprano, orchestra)

he had not yet formulated a new "method" for the
manipulation of the harmony in his music, and was
at this point more interested in freeing music from
the restrictions imposed by "traditional tonality",
so that his compositions could "express pure feeling".

none of Schoenberg's quarter-tone experiments have
come to light -- those sketches were probably destroyed
in World War 2 -- but based on the survival of some
microtonal sketches of Webern songs, also on poems by
Stefan George, i have concluded that Schoenberg played
around with quarter-tones in the voice parts of some
of the later songs from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_,
in late 1908 and/or early 1909.

it was only a short-lived experiment, for by September
1909 he had written to Busoni that he had abandoned
the idea of using microtones in his own compositions.
Busoni had just sent Schoenberg a copy of his _Sketch for
a New Aesthetic of Music_, in which Busoni outlines
113 new scales that could be constructed in 12edo,
then suggests using 1/3-tones, in the form of 36edo
as two "bike chains" of 18edo a semitone apart.

Schoenberg, having just decided to give up microtonality,
didn't put much stock in this last proposal, but Busoni's
rhetoric does seem to have inspired Schoenberg to
produce what i think is his most radical work of all,
_Erwartung_, which he began composing immediately after
this exchange with Busoni.

it's also important to note that, after struggling for
years to find a publisher with whom he could hope to
gain some financial security, immediately after composing
_Erwartung_, Schoenberg signed a 10-year contract with
Universal Edition, then the leading publisher -- and
an aggressive promoter -- of "new music" in Vienna.

when it came time for Schoenberg to write _Harmonielehre_
in the summer of 1910 for his upcoming teaching job in
September, he was clearly trying to formulate some
suggestions on how to deal with the complex sonorities
he had introduced in these pieces, especially _Erwartung_,
and was just as clearly still interested in microtonality,
at least intellectually.

but by the time the revised edition came out in 1922,
he had hit on his new strategy for regulating the use
of all 12 pitches of 12edo, and therefore no longer saw
any need to promote the idea of microtones.

but to relate all of this back to the original point ...

the *reasons* which compelled Schoenberg to abandon
microtones had to do with his survival as a composer.
he emphasizes in _Harmonielehre_ that at that time
(1910) there were too few instruments available which
could produce those microtones.

of course, today we have talented performers who know
how to produce quite specific microtonal pitches from
regular orchestral instruments. but in 1910 it's likely
that instrumentalists had not yet figured out how to
do that, and in fact that most wouldn't be the least
bit interested in doing so. at that time, the piano
was clearly the "king of instruments" in the German
musical world, and it was, almost universally, tuned
in 12edo.

Schoenberg, having grown up in this musical mileu and
almost entirely self-taught, was not aware of the
history of Pythagorean and meantone tunings in European
music (up to about 1500 for Pythagorean and 1850 for
meantone). and as he clearly states several times in
_Harmonielehre_, aside from his more-or-less simplistic
"overtone model", he was also unaware of the mathematics
of intonation. he had "perfect pitch" and could hear
overtones up to about the 11th harmonic, and he could
hear that the 7th and 11th harmonics were tuned quite
differently from their 12edo representations, but he
was obviously unfamiliar with any actual use of tunings
other than 12edo, or of a conception of tuning where
the "sharps" and "flats" are different pitches, as in
both Pythagorean and meantone.

many performers, audiences, and newspaper critics had
already displayed a tremendously negative reaction to
his "atonal" 12edo music in concerts of 1909 and 1910.
but even outside of his immediate circle of students
and supporters, Schoenberg did have a small group of
admirers, and his new contract with Universal Edition
gave him at least some small measure of confidence about
the future of his work, and the possibility of earning
income from it.

it makes complete sense to me that at this juncture
(1910), he would not have been willing to jeopardize
the prospect of earning royalties from his compositions
by using "non-standard" tunings. it seems to me that
this desire for standarization is what lies at the root
of Schoenberg's rejection of microtonality and
enshrinement of 12edo.

if Schoenberg had been in a position to create his
music entirely by himself, as Partch had the courage
and skills to do for many years, and as we can do easily
today, i think it's very likely that he *would* have made
further explorations into the use of microtonality.

i find it one of the great ironies of music history
that just at the time that microtonalists such as
Mager, Mollendorf, and Haba began giving demonstrations
and concerts involving quarter-tones in Vienna
(around 1912-1918), Schoenberg moved to Berlin and
thus missed the opportunity to actually experience
quarter-tone music. he had already been in contact
with Josef Hauer during this period and had begun to
formulate his 12-tone method. perhaps if he had
stayed in Vienna during those years, or if the
microtonalists had begun their work just a few years
earlier, Schoenberg might have been more favorable
towards the actual implementation of microtonal music,
and the history of 20th-century music may have turned
out to be vastly different. i just love to speculate ...

REFERENCES
----------

Monzo, "Sch�nberg's 1909-8-24 letter to Busoni"
http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/to-busoni-1909-8-24.htm

Monzo, "Searching for Schoenberg's Pantonality"
http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/harm/1911-1922.htm

Schweiger, "Webern's Rejected Microtones"
http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/Webernmicro.htm

Monzo, "Program notes to Webern's microtonal songs"
http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/webernmicro-monznotes.htm

"bike chains"
http://sonic-arts.org/dict/bikechain.htm

-monz

oops ... apparently i sent this *again* to
metatuning. i'm just trying to get a copy
into the archives of *this* list, which is where
it was meant to be in the first place. sorry
about all the extra copies floating around.

-monz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: <monz@...>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: standardization, Schoenberg, and 12edo
> Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 11:21:57 -0700
>
>
> i just happened to re-read this old post:
>
>
>
> > From: monz [mailto:joemonz@...]
> > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:53 PM
> > To: metatuning@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [metatuning] Re: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring
> > up the term religion here..."
> >
> >
> >
> > > From: genewardsmith <genewardsmith@...>
> > > To: <tuning-math@yahoogroups.com>
> > > Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 12:44 PM
> > > Subject: [tuning-math] Re: "I didn't bring up the term
> > > religion here..."
> > >
> > >
> >
> > > --- In tuning-math@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hopefully this will be seen as a little levity ... ;-)
> > >
> > > Pretty good. :)
> >
> >
> > (see tuning-math Message 2860 for details)
> > /tuning-math/messages/2860?expand=1
> >
> >
> > > [Gene:]
> > > Why is music, even here, so rife with arch-conservativism?
> > > In other fields you seem to be able to express a thought
> > > without people jumping you, but here even the radicals
> > > are conservatives.
> >
> >
> > [me, monz:]
> > I think this might have something to do with a circumstance
> > which Partch touched on in his book. It's not as true today
> > as it was during his lifetime, but to a large degree it's
> > still more true of music than of any other art-form. Most
> > musical compositions require an outside body of performers
> > for their realization, with the resultant need for cooperation
> > and standardization that artists working in other media don't
> > have to deal with. Thus, the concommitant conservatism about
> > changing the status-quo.
>
>
> this discussion began on the tuning-math list, right
> at the time when i was working out my study of the
> "rational implications" of Schoenberg's theory as
> presented in his 1911 book _Harmonielehre_.
> > > thus, i'm surprised that at that time i didn't mention
> Schoenberg in connection with what i wrote here, because
> i had already come to the conclusion that it was primarily
> for reasons of his own career survival that he decided
> to abandon his quarter-tone experiments and stick
> with 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg maintained at several points in his book
> that microtonality would surely become practical for
> use in the future ... but that at that time (1910)
> microtonality was not a practical choice for a composer
> who wished to have his music performed (mainly because
> of the lack of suitably tuned instruments). thus, his
> decision to stay with 12edo but use it in a new way
> (which we now call "free atonality", but which he
> called "pantonality").
>
> what's really interesting to see are the changes which
> Schoenberg made to the revised 3rd edition of _Harmonielehre_
> which appeared in 1922, just after he made public his
> invention of the "Method of Composing with Twelve Tones
> Which are Related Only with One Another" (now called
> "serialism"). he removed or softened many of his 1910
> pronouncements about microtonality, since he felt, as he
> announced in his new method in 1921: "I have made a
> discovery that will ensure the superiority of German music
> for the next 100 years."
>
> unfortunately, the only complete English translation
> available for the _Harmonielehre_ is Roy Carter's 1978
> version, titled _Theory of Harmony_, and it's based
> on the 1922 edition. Carter mentions the most important
> changes made by Schoenberg in footnotes, in two cases
> even including translations of several sentences which
> Schoenberg removed or modified. but it would be nice
> to have a complete English text of the 1911 version.
> i've been translating chunks of it myself when i find
> a big discrepancy between the two editions.
>
> the original 1911 version of _Harmonielehre_ was written
> right after Schoenberg had made his most radical experiments
> in the first group of "atonal" pieces (listed here in
> order of composition):
>
> Quartet no. 2, F-sharp minor, op. 10 (1907/08)
> 15 poems from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_, op. 15 (1908/09)
> 3 pieces for piano, op. 11 (1909)
> 5 pieces for orchestra, op. 16 (1909)
> Erwartung [Expectation], op. 17 (1909) (soprano, orchestra)
>
> he had not yet formulated a new "method" for the
> manipulation of the harmony in his music, and was
> at this point more interested in freeing music from
> the restrictions imposed by "traditional tonality",
> so that his compositions could "express pure feeling".
>
> none of Schoenberg's quarter-tone experiments have
> come to light -- those sketches were probably destroyed
> in World War 2 -- but based on the survival of some
> microtonal sketches of Webern songs, also on poems by
> Stefan George, i have concluded that Schoenberg played
> around with quarter-tones in the voice parts of some
> of the later songs from _Das Buch der h�ngenden G�rten_,
> in late 1908 and/or early 1909.
>
> it was only a short-lived experiment, for by September
> 1909 he had written to Busoni that he had abandoned
> the idea of using microtones in his own compositions.
> Busoni had just sent Schoenberg a copy of his _Sketch for
> a New Aesthetic of Music_, in which Busoni outlines
> 113 new scales that could be constructed in 12edo,
> then suggests using 1/3-tones, in the form of 36edo
> as two "bike chains" of 18edo a semitone apart.
>
> Schoenberg, having just decided to give up microtonality,
> didn't put much stock in this last proposal, but Busoni's
> rhetoric does seem to have inspired Schoenberg to
> produce what i think is his most radical work of all,
> _Erwartung_, which he began composing immediately after
> this exchange with Busoni.
>
> it's also important to note that, after struggling for
> years to find a publisher with whom he could hope to
> gain some financial security, immediately after composing
> _Erwartung_, Schoenberg signed a 10-year contract with
> Universal Edition, then the leading publisher -- and
> an aggressive promoter -- of "new music" in Vienna.
>
> when it came time for Schoenberg to write _Harmonielehre_
> in the summer of 1910 for his upcoming teaching job in
> September, he was clearly trying to formulate some
> suggestions on how to deal with the complex sonorities
> he had introduced in these pieces, especially _Erwartung_,
> and was just as clearly still interested in microtonality,
> at least intellectually.
>
> but by the time the revised edition came out in 1922,
> he had hit on his new strategy for regulating the use
> of all 12 pitches of 12edo, and therefore no longer saw
> any need to promote the idea of microtones.
>
>
> but to relate all of this back to the original point ...
>
> the *reasons* which compelled Schoenberg to abandon
> microtones had to do with his survival as a composer.
> he emphasizes in _Harmonielehre_ that at that time
> (1910) there were too few instruments available which
> could produce those microtones.
>
> of course, today we have talented performers who know
> how to produce quite specific microtonal pitches from
> regular orchestral instruments. but in 1910 it's likely
> that instrumentalists had not yet figured out how to
> do that, and in fact that most wouldn't be the least
> bit interested in doing so. at that time, the piano
> was clearly the "king of instruments" in the German
> musical world, and it was, almost universally, tuned
> in 12edo.
>
> Schoenberg, having grown up in this musical mileu and
> almost entirely self-taught, was not aware of the
> history of Pythagorean and meantone tunings in European
> music (up to about 1500 for Pythagorean and 1850 for
> meantone). and as he clearly states several times in
> _Harmonielehre_, aside from his more-or-less simplistic
> "overtone model", he was also unaware of the mathematics
> of intonation. he had "perfect pitch" and could hear
> overtones up to about the 11th harmonic, and he could
> hear that the 7th and 11th harmonics were tuned quite
> differently from their 12edo representations, but he
> was obviously unfamiliar with any actual use of tunings
> other than 12edo, or of a conception of tuning where
> the "sharps" and "flats" are different pitches, as in
> both Pythagorean and meantone.
>
> many performers, audiences, and newspaper critics had
> already displayed a tremendously negative reaction to
> his "atonal" 12edo music in concerts of 1909 and 1910.
> but even outside of his immediate circle of students
> and supporters, Schoenberg did have a small group of
> admirers, and his new contract with Universal Edition
> gave him at least some small measure of confidence about
> the future of his work, and the possibility of earning
> income from it.
>
> it makes complete sense to me that at this juncture
> (1910), he would not have been willing to jeopardize
> the prospect of earning royalties from his compositions
> by using "non-standard" tunings. it seems to me that
> this desire for standarization is what lies at the root
> of Schoenberg's rejection of microtonality and
> enshrinement of 12edo.
>
> if Schoenberg had been in a position to create his
> music entirely by himself, as Partch had the courage
> and skills to do for many years, and as we can do easily
> today, i think it's very likely that he *would* have made
> further explorations into the use of microtonality.
>
> i find it one of the great ironies of music history
> that just at the time that microtonalists such as
> Mager, Mollendorf, and Haba began giving demonstrations
> and concerts involving quarter-tones in Vienna
> (around 1912-1918), Schoenberg moved to Berlin and
> thus missed the opportunity to actually experience
> quarter-tone music. he had already been in contact
> with Josef Hauer during this period and had begun to
> formulate his 12-tone method. perhaps if he had
> stayed in Vienna during those years, or if the
> microtonalists had begun their work just a few years
> earlier, Schoenberg might have been more favorable
> towards the actual implementation of microtonal music,
> and the history of 20th-century music may have turned
> out to be vastly different. i just love to speculate ...
>
>
>
>
> REFERENCES
> ----------
>
>
> Monzo, "Sch�nberg's 1909-8-24 letter to Busoni"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/to-busoni-1909-8-24.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Searching for Schoenberg's Pantonality"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/schoenberg/harm/1911-1922.htm
>
>
> Schweiger, "Webern's Rejected Microtones"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/Webernmicro.htm
>
>
> Monzo, "Program notes to Webern's microtonal songs"
> http://sonic-arts.org/monzo/webern/micro/webernmicro-monznotes.htm
>
>
> "bike chains"
> http://sonic-arts.org/dict/bikechain.htm
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -monz