Roger Sessions on the overtone series

(from_The Music Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener, 1950)

A great deal of musical theory has been formulated by attempting to
codify laws governing musical sound and musical rhythm, and from
these to deduce musical principles. Sometimes these principles are
even deduced from what we know of the physical nature of sound, and
as a result are given what seems to me an essentially specious
validity. I say "essentially specious" because while the physical
facts are clear enough, there are always gaps, incomplete or
unconvincing transitions, left between the realm of physics and the
realm of musical experience, even if we leave "art" out of account.
Many ingenious and even brilliant attempts, it is true, have been
made to bridge these gaps. One of the difficulties of trying to do
so, however, is apparent, in the way in which the physical fact of
the overtone series has been used by various harmonic theorists to
support very different and even diametrically contradictory ideas.
Because the first six partial tones obviously correspond exactly with
the tones composing the major triad [well, you know what he means,
ed. JP], theorists are fond of calling the latter the "chord of
nature." On that premise, Heinrich Schenker, for example, a
brilliant and at times profound writer, has reconstructed the theory
of tonality as basically an elaboration of that chord or
its "artificial" counterpart, the minor triad. He bases what he
considers the immutable laws of music on these deductions, even
though in doing so he virtually excludes the music written before
Bach, after Brahms, and outside of a rather narrowly Germanic orbit.
Furthermore, what is perhaps even more problematical, he is forced to
disregard the evolutionary factors within even those limits, and to
regard the musical language of Bach and Mozart and Beethoven and
Brahms in exactly the same light; and he remonstrates with even those
composers whenever he catches them punching holes in the system he
has thus established. Or again, Paul Hindemith, also a brilliant and
certainly a more creative writer, has carefully examined the overtone
series and made very interesting deductions regarding it, but he
gives it an even more outspoken status than has Schenker, as a kind
of musical court of last appeal, with the triad as final arbiter, on
the basis not of musical experience, but of physical science. Other
writers, however, noting that the overtone series extends well beyond
the first six partials, have found in this fact justification for
harmonic daring of a much more far-reaching type, and have in some
cases sought to discover new harmonic principles based on the
systematic use of these upper partials.

Such speculations have been in many cases the product of brilliant
minds, of indisputable musical authority, and I do not wish in any
way to minimize this fact. Yet it would be easy to point out that
each author, in a manner quite consistent with his musical stature,
found in the overtone series a tool he could adapt to his individual
and peculiar purpose. Above all it seems to me clear that physics
and music are different spheres, and that, though they certainly
touch at moments, the connection between them is an occasional and
circumstantial, not an essential, one. For the musician at any level
of sophistication, it is his experience, his relationship with sound,
not the physical properties of sound as such, which constitute his
materials. Experience, and only experience, has always been his
point of departure, and while it has often led him to results which
find apparent confirmation in the non-human world, this is by no
means always the case. Even when it is the case, it can be regarded
as no more than an interesting coincidence until a clear connection
with musical experience can be demonstrated."

> From: jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 12:54 PM
> Subject: [tuning] Roger Sessions on the overtone series
>
>
> (from_The Music Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener, 1950)
>
> A great deal of musical theory has been formulated by attempting to
> codify laws governing musical sound and musical rhythm, and from
> these to deduce musical principles. Sometimes these principles are
> even deduced from what we know of the physical nature of sound, and
> as a result are given what seems to me an essentially specious
> validity. <... etc.>

Hi Joe,

Note that Sessions was a student of Schoenberg.

-monz

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--- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_32578.html#32586

>
> Hi Joe,
>
>
> Note that Sessions was a student of Schoenberg.
>
>
>
> -monz
>

Hi Monz...

I don't believe this is true, although I admit that it *sounds* like
he should have been. It's not in any of the biographies, some
extensive, that I've seen... !

Of course, he was a student and close associate of Earnest Bloch,
whose music his doesn't resemble in the least, at least in the later
works.

And Cage, of course, was a student of Schoenberg, whose music doesn't
resemble in the least Cage's...

Ah... the student/teacher relationship... :)

JP

> From: jpehrson2 <jpehrson@rcn.com>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 8:02 PM
> Subject: [tuning] the student-teacher paradigm
>
>
> --- In tuning@y..., "monz" <joemonz@y...> wrote:
>
> /tuning/topicId_32578.html#32586
>
> >
> > Hi Joe,
> >
> >
> > Note that Sessions was a student of Schoenberg.
> >
>
> Hi Monz...
>
> I don't believe this is true, although I admit that it *sounds* like
> he should have been. It's not in any of the biographies, some
> extensive, that I've seen... !

Hmm ... I really should have put an "AFAIK" with that, because
I didn't research it before posting it, and while Sessions has
written some cool stuff (3rd Symphony comes to mind), I'm not
*that* huge of a fan ...

> Of course, he was a student and close associate of Earnest Bloch,
> whose music his doesn't resemble in the least, at least in the later
> works.
>
> And Cage, of course, was a student of Schoenberg, whose music doesn't
> resemble in the least Cage's...
>
> Ah... the student/teacher relationship... :)

Yes, well, don't forget ... Lou Harrison was also a Schoenberg student,
and most of his music has *nothing* to do with either Schoenberg's
music or his ideas.

For that matter, George Gershwin also studied with Schoenberg for
a time ... and they were, famously, frequent tennis partners.

OK, any more commentary on this goes to "metatuning".

-monz

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