costly "free" atonality

Carl Lumma wrote:

> I believe that worthwhile
>composition can also be done on large, microchromatic scales, where
>melodies are played locally, and the sense of a global source set is
>non-existent. In fact I believe this has been done with 12-tET in this
>century. Rothenberg's model still applies, to local events, but the
>usefulness of the model at this scale (ahem!) is questionable, IMO.

Isn't this "anti-procedure" what "free" atonality was all about at the
beginning of the 20th century?? -- Schoenberg and others?? Of course,
the "freedom" was costly, since there was a loss of organizing principle
leading to the "solution" of serialization... Yes??

And Kraig Grady wrote:

> Another problem with the
>Rothenberg (out of just being not understandable to the average
>musician) is those scales which he thinks are of importance like the
>whole tone (and the other symmetrical scales shows) have had limited
>historical use.

I find a grain of humor in the fact that the most symmetrical scales,
like the whole tone, are essentially the "dullest" (not in the hands of
Debussy, of course!). Perhaps in art as well as in life, it's the
little anomalies that make things interesting!

But, if I am following the arguments correctly, the symmetrical scales
are not really the Rothenberg "efficient" ones... it's the MOST
individual scales that are "efficient" in determining their tonics,
yes??

_____________ _______ ___ __ _
Joseph Pehrson

Joseph Pehrson wrote...

>>I believe that worthwhile composition can also be done on large,
>>microchromatic scales, where melodies are played locally, and the
>>sense of a global source set is non-existent. In fact I believe
>>this has been done with 12-tET in this century. Rothenberg's model
>>still applies, to local events, but the usefulness of the model at
>>this scale (ahem!) is questionable, IMO.
>
>Isn't this "anti-procedure" what "free" atonality was all about at the
>beginning of the 20th century?? -- Schoenberg and others?? Of course,
>the "freedom" was costly, since there was a loss of organizing principle
>leading to the "solution" of serialization... Yes??

Many of those works may do it, but the movement is not about it, as far
as I can tell. Rather, in Rothenberg's terms, the movement was about using
proper inefficient scales. In fact, many of the serial methods are quite
bent on treating the 12-tone scale as a single perceptual gestalt, wether
90% of the population could hear it that way or not. But Rothenberg does
make several interesting comments on serialism and atonality in his papers;
you may want to check them out.

>But, if I am following the arguments correctly, the symmetrical scales
>are not really the Rothenberg "efficient" ones... it's the MOST
>individual scales that are "efficient" in determining their tonics, yes??

You're right -- the least symmetrical (most individual) scales are the
most efficient (quickest) in determining their tonics. But that's not how
Rothenberg uses the word "efficient". He uses it to mean the amount of
key-locating information, per tone, that a scale can provide. Which means
that the most individual scales are the _least_ efficient, since it doesn't
take much before the listener knows the key. IOW, efficient scales are
the _slowest_ at telling you their key.

For completely symmetrical scales, there is no way to know the key,
except from cues in the composition. So efficiency is not defined
for these scales, but Rothenberg decided to call them perfectly
efficient, in that it's entirely up to the composer to tell the key.
So Rothenberg intends to use efficiency to measure how much work
the composer needs to do if he wants you to know the key.

-Carl