Harmonic Evolution

Joseph alluded to the notion of Western music evolving by
marching ever higher up the overtone series.

I tend to think this is an incorrect viewpoint of evolution
for one thing, and a questionable view of Western music
history as well.

The history that many seem to agree upon is something along the
lines of a 3-limit theoretic underpinning to medeivel music
moving to a 5-limit theoretic underpinning in the rennaissance
as thirds became treated as concords. The idea that the
addition to seventh chords, ninth chords etc to the Western
composers harmonic pallatte are 'adding the higher
harmonics' is just plain wrong no matter who says it. These
are extended references in the 5-limit (we could say
5-prime-limit), and are aurally quite distinquishable from
addition of higher primes.

My take on Western music "evolution" is that it was something
more like the evolution of the whale. We swam in a sea of
3-limit, later addition of schismic thirds leading to the
great "step onto the land" of 5-limit and then, as
transposition and "sameness of keys" became more important,
"back into the sea" of a closed 3-limit cycle with some
"good enough" 5-limit identities.

A similar whalelike bit of evolution in Western music is
the reduction of the complexity of accidental useage in the
modal systems as well as the simplification of historic
rhythmic techniques as Western music fell into the local
minimum of "major minor march and waltz".

In the thread it appeared, Joseph was suggesting that
analogs between harmonic usage and rhythmic usage should
follow the same evolution as in harmony. I guess I've made
my point about the problems I saw with that comment.

Happy New Year everyone.

Bob Valentine

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_32161.html#32161

>
> Joseph alluded to the notion of Western music evolving by
> marching ever higher up the overtone series.
>
> I tend to think this is an incorrect viewpoint of evolution
> for one thing, and a questionable view of Western music
> history as well.

*****Hello Bob...

I wish I could say I invented this viewpoint. However, it is
*very* "common practice" thinking among *many* composers, Schoenberg
included... and also many music historians.

It's true, however, that the higher partials are very "out of tune"
in 12-tET and in extended tertial chords.

I believe it was Harry Partch who pointed out this "limitation" of
Schoenberg's teachings, although I don't have my copy of _Genesis_
handy...
>

>
> In the thread it appeared, Joseph was suggesting that
> analogs between harmonic usage and rhythmic usage should
> follow the same evolution as in harmony. I guess I've made
> my point about the problems I saw with that comment.
>

****Again, I would *love* to take credit for this. However, the idea
of trying to integrate rhythm and harmony, mostly through serialism
was something, as you undoubtedly know, that *many* contemporary
composers have tried to do for a long time now... as well as the fact
that these more complex systems were somehow "evolving..."

Many of these ideas have failed, and probably due to some of the
concepts you explain in your interesting post...

> Happy New Year everyone.
>
> Bob Valentine

Same to you, Bob!

J. Pehrson

> From: "jpehrson2" <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> Subject: Re: Harmonic Evolution
>
> --- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:
>
> > Joseph alluded to the notion of Western music evolving by
> > marching ever higher up the overtone series.
> >
> > I tend to think this is an incorrect viewpoint of evolution
> > for one thing, and a questionable view of Western music
> > history as well.
>
>
> *****Hello Bob...
>
> I wish I could say I invented this viewpoint. However, it is
> *very* "common practice" thinking among *many* composers, Schoenberg
> included... and also many music historians.

I think you should be quite happy you didn't invent this viewpoint.

The view that evolution inevitably leads "upwards" and extending that
"upwards" to be 'Western civilization' gave a psuedo-scientific
justification for all forms of colonialism including musical
colonialism.

>
> >
> > In the thread it appeared, Joseph was suggesting that
> > analogs between harmonic usage and rhythmic usage should
> > follow the same evolution as in harmony. I guess I've made
> > my point about the problems I saw with that comment.
> >
>
> ****Again, I would *love* to take credit for this. However, the idea
> of trying to integrate rhythm and harmony, mostly through serialism
> was something, as you undoubtedly know, that *many* contemporary
> composers have tried to do for a long time now... as well as the fact
> that these more complex systems were somehow "evolving..."
>

I think that when serialist extended the technique from pitch space
to other spaces they really were barking up the wrong tree. The serial
pitch approach helps a composer defeat a central pitch (tonal center)
by presenting all pitches approximately the same number of times. What
phenomena in rhythm or dynamics is useful to defeat using similar
techniques? A stable rhythm? Dynamics and time-feel that 'make sense'
musically (i.e., lyricism)?

Whatever. Back to the original point, something I left out of my reply
was there are all kinds of rhythmic approaches in the world, and some
of them are accompanied by certain pitch/harmonic techniques. The most
prime oriented rhythmic stuff I've heard is in the Balkan musics. Some
of this is cross-polinated with scalar material we understand from
Turkish and/or Persian musics, such as the use of neutral intervals.
If one takes a JI interpretation of the neutrals coming more from
11-limit, then this would suggest a corralary between higher prime
useage and higher prime rhythms. On the other hand, some of their
theorists tend to see the materials coming from extended pythagorean
tunings, which would suggest that higher prime rhythms evolve in
the context of lower prime scalar environments.

But as I said somewhere on this thread, the main reason why I think
rhythm and pitch are fundamentally different phenomena is that we
perceive rhythm in a linear domain and pitch in a logarithmic domain.
A very different processing is going on, however we may want to draw
analogies.

Not arguin', just discussin'.

Bob

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:
The serial
> pitch approach helps a composer defeat a central pitch (tonal center)
> by presenting all pitches approximately the same number of times.

It is however important to note that it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for atonality.

>>Joseph alluded to the notion of Western music evolving by
>>marching ever higher up the overtone series.
>
>I tend to think this is an incorrect viewpoint of evolution
>for one thing, and a questionable view of Western music
>history as well.

I don't know about the overtone series, but it is clear that
Western music is evolving more and more complex structures,
both rhythmic and harmonic.

>>I wish I could say I invented this viewpoint. However, it is
>>*very* "common practice" thinking among *many* composers,
>>Schoenberg included... and also many music historians.
>
>I think you should be quite happy you didn't invent this viewpoint.
>
>The view that evolution inevitably leads "upwards" and extending
>that "upwards" to be 'Western civilization' gave a psuedo-scientific
>justification for all forms of colonialism including musical
>colonialism.

Whoa! It may have gave, but it doesn't give.

>I think that when serialist extended the technique from pitch space
>to other spaces they really were barking up the wrong tree. The
>serial pitch approach helps a composer defeat a central pitch
>(tonal center) by presenting all pitches approximately the same
>number of times. What phenomena in rhythm or dynamics is useful to
>defeat using similar techniques? A stable rhythm? Dynamics and
>time-feel that 'make sense' musically (i.e., lyricism)?

Why not?

>Whatever. Back to the original point, something I left out of my
>reply was there are all kinds of rhythmic approaches in the world,
>and some of them are accompanied by certain pitch/harmonic
>techniques. The most prime oriented rhythmic stuff I've heard is
>in the Balkan musics. Some of this is cross-polinated with scalar
>material we understand from Turkish and/or Persian musics, such as
>the use of neutral intervals. If one takes a JI interpretation of
>the neutrals coming more from 11-limit, then this would suggest a
>corralary between higher prime useage and higher prime rhythms. On
>the other hand, some of their theorists tend to see the materials
>coming from extended pythagorean tunings,

Including myself.

>which would suggest that higher prime rhythms evolve in the
>context of lower prime scalar environments.

It could suggest absolutely nothing about a rhythm-harmony
connection.

>But as I said somewhere on this thread, the main reason why I think
>rhythm and pitch are fundamentally different phenomena
/.../
>A very different processing is going on, however we may want to
>draw analogies.

Absolutely. In fact, the action of a beat, and the action of the
harmonic series in sounds, take place in completely different parts
of the hardware.

-Carl

--- In tuning@y..., "genewardsmith" <genewardsmith@j...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_32161.html#32203

> --- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:
> The serial
> > pitch approach helps a composer defeat a central pitch (tonal
center) by presenting all pitches approximately the same number of
times.
>
> It is however important to note that it is neither a necessary nor
a sufficient condition for atonality.

I was actually going to comment on this... it's something that we
have discussed previously on this list a while ago. Schoenberg was
not trying to *eliminate* a "tonal center." He was, instead,
thinking of *expanding* the idea of a tonal center so that *every*
tone became a center, a constantly changing tonality.

Monz can elaborate on S's idea about this if he cares to...

J. Pehrson