Less common keys

[Mario]

Atonality doesn't do away with the need for double accidentals actually - if you want to write a chord consisting of E, F, F# and G, the simplest way to notate it is Dx, E#, F# and G.

Returning to Marco's post, C# and Db might be the same key on keyboard instruments but on strings they aren't really.

Ahem, can you please explain why? Is it for clarity?

And, ahem, who's Marco?

MARIO

[ardcarp]

Yes. Singers do that too [adjust their pitch from strict equal temperament] assuming they can sing in tune in the first place

Sunday's Listening Service about close-harmony singing was quite interesting on the above subject:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0009qyw

I usually find Tom Service's breathless, gushing delivery a bit OTT. However he was quite lucid on singers adjusting their tuning in a non-keyboard sort of way,

[RichardB]

Ahem, can you please explain why? Is it for clarity?

Can I explain why what? Sorry about the typo, there's no need to shout though.

[ardcarp]

Ahem, can you please explain why? Is it for clarity?

The above quote didn't refer to anything I've posted (I don't think), Auferstehen, but although I am no expert on Serialism, I think the 12-note row treated all the semitones as equal....in other words, equally tempered semitones as on a piano. So I really can't see that how you notate them matters one jot*. No doubt someone will correct me if wrong. All I remember from my undergrad days is drawing coloured lines on the score of Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra to link up the tone rows. I disliked them intensely, but they were mercifully short. To prove I'm not a complete Philistine, I love Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Berg's Violin Concerto plus his opera Lulu. But that's 2nd Viennese School Lite.

*I doubt Grades VI to VIII ABRSM Theory concerns itself with such matters!

[RichardB]

But that's 2nd Viennese School Lite.

Not in the least - Berg's serial method is vastly more complex than those of his colleagues! With regard to accidentals in serial music, though, it does matter how they're spelled because the resulting music needs to be read by performers who are more often than not steeped in tonal music, so if you have to make your mind up whether to write a D# or an Eb in some particular context it's usually the case that one makes more sense than the other.

[Mario]

Can I explain why what? Sorry about the typo, there's no need to shout though.

Oh dear! If there's one thing I seem to be good at in life it's upsetting people! Sorry, Richard, it's a feeble joke on my part. You're right though, capitalising does seem rude.

I merely wondered why, in your #27, you would notate those notes that way. Is it some technical reason I haven't yet learnt, or easier to read maybe?

Thanks for your input. Blushes abound when I have to admit publicly that having just turned 70, this is the first time I'm liaising with a professional composer and trying to learn as much as I can.

I'm quite a harmless creature really.

Mario

[Mario]

The above quote didn't refer to anything I've posted (I don't think), Auferstehen, but although I am no expert on Serialism, I think the 12-note row treated all the semitones as equal....in other words, equally tempered semitones as on a piano. So I really can't see that how you notate them matters one jot*. No doubt someone will correct me if wrong. All I remember from my undergrad days is drawing coloured lines on the score of Webern's Six Pieces for Orchestra to link up the tone rows. I disliked them intensely, but they were mercifully short. To prove I'm not a complete Philistine, I love Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Berg's Violin Concerto plus his opera Lulu. But that's 2nd Viennese School Lite.

*I doubt Grades VI to VIII ABRSM Theory concerns itself with such matters!

Sorry ardcarp, as can be seen, my question was directed at RichardB's #27.

I think I'm a million miles away from understanding Serialism and Tone Rows quite yet.

Mario

[Joseph K]

I merely wondered why, in your #27, you would notate those notes that way. Is it some technical reason I haven't yet learnt, or easier to read maybe?

The example Richard gave was for a cluster chord where the double accidental makes the notation just simpler and neater.

[RichardB]

I merely wondered why, in your #27, you would notate those notes that way.

There are two ways of doing it - either the way I suggested, with Dx standing in for E, or as a chord consisting of E, F and G with the F# notehead attached to an extra sloping stem attached to the main stem of the chord, which looks much more complicated. Any four- or five-note chromatic cluster can be written using double sharps and/or double flats and some (like D# E F Gb) don't even need these. Six-note clusters spanning a fourth, and wider ones, can be more easily written by just giving the lowest and highest pitches with a thick vertical line connecting them.

Not that this has much to do with uncommon keys!

[Dave2002]

The example Richard gave was for a cluster chord where the double accidental makes the notation just simpler and neater.

It's a bit of a mess anyway. My guess is that anyone sight reading that would just aim fingers at the keyboard and hope.
For precise notes deciphering such chords can be a pain. Gould's Behind Bars presumably has detailed instructions, which I expect will be as Richard describes.

This page on clusters is quite interesting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_cluster

[Dave2002]

Message 6. Now this is confusing me EA! There is no B# Maj key is there? I know B# is enharmonically C Maj, but can you do that?

Am I allowed from now on to refer to Tchaik’s PC No 1 as being in Cb min?

Not unless you intend to play it at a semitone higher pitch. I think you meant Cbb min. A# min would be another "alternative" - not normally accepted.

[Joseph K]

It's a bit of a mess anyway.

Some of us actually quite like such harmony!

My guess is that anyone sight reading that would just aim fingers at the keyboard and hope.
For precise notes deciphering such chords can be a pain.

It's not that difficult! A decent sight-reader ought to manage it.

[RichardB]

It's a bit of a mess anyway. My guess is that anyone sight reading that would just aim fingers at the keyboard and hope.

Your guess is pretty wide of the mark in that case. It's no more difficult than any other non-tonal chord containing four pitches.

Scriabin was (as a follower of Chopin, at least initially) wont to explore strange tonalities. His 7th Sonata, for example, has no key signature. The first chord in its third bar, whose harmony is then extended through the rest of the bar, is spelled Gb Bbb D F, with these pitches doubled an octave higher. The sequence leading to this chord is then repeated a whole tone higher, leading to the corresponding chord Ab Cb E G, and then again (this time truncated) leading to Bb Db F# A. The use of double flats and mixing flats and sharps are "necessary" so that this chord always appears as two minor thirds with an augmented third in between. The chord and its transpositions function in what I would call a tonal sort of way, acting as a point of reference in the same way a tonal triad might in earlier music; so I don't think it would be very helpful to describe the piece either as tonal or as atonal; obviously it isn't twelve-tone music either.

[ardcarp]

Sorry ardcarp, as can be seen, my question was directed at RichardB's #27.

I think I'm a million miles away from understanding Serialism and Tone Rows quite yet.

Mario

Absolutely no apology needed Auferstehen! I know the question wasn't for me. I admire you enormously for doing the Ass Board theory grades in later life. I really shouldn't bother at all about serialism and 12-note rows. I'm perfectly certain the Theory Exams don't even go there! Of course there's nothing to stop you taking a personal interest in the system.

This is a question to other Forumistas. Is there anyone still toying with serialism among present-day composers?

[RichardB]

Is there anyone still toying with serialism among present-day composers?

It isn't something to toy with! - I would say there are very many composers working today whose working methods are influenced by seriality (I use that formulation to avoid calling it an "ism"). Anyone working with electronic music, for example, is working with hard- or software whose architecture is based on the systematic separation of "parameters" that stems from serial thinking. By the same token anyone working systematically with such parameters in notated music could be described as composing with methods that evolved from serial composition. The number 12 isn't the important thing - Stravinsky's serial music was often based on series containing fewer pitches, and Stockhausen's concept of serial composition could be described as involving first identifying musical parameters (pitch, duration, dynamic etc.), assigning minimum and maximum values to these parameters, and making musically significant traversals of the space between them. In other words serial thinking has been absorbed into a more generalised view of systematic compositional procedures. A series of pitches might then consist of (to cite my own last two compositions) 48 pitches encompassing all the chromatic pitches within a four-octave range, or 8 pitches corresponding to the first eight odd-numbered partials of a given fundamental.