'The Rest is Noise' and musical notation

[Guest]

I finally got around to starting to read this and immediately ran into a problem. You see, I know very little (aka none) about musical notation. OK, I can follow a simple melodic line ...providing it's one note going up or down! But when you start to dig in the excellent website that underpins the book and then see this for Page 7...



with this text

Right at the start, in a soft run of notes on the clarinet, you can see a kind of crack opening in the facade of the tonal system. The scale begins in the key of C-sharp-major, then unsettlingly detours into G major before ending up in C-sharp minor (see p. 7 of The Rest Is Noise):

Here is a piano demonstration of the two segments of the scale:


And then listen to the demonstration and try to align it to the music then I'm all at sea. There doesn't seem to be enough notes on the score to correspond with the music played.

OK..I now know, thanks to a member here, that there are indications on the score of repeats etc but I would like to understand musical notation better. I looked at various bits and pieces on the web regarding musical notation but didn't find it that helpful.

So...any suggestions from the floor as to how I can improve my knowledge so that I can appreciate this book better?

[Pabmusic]

Right at the start, in a soft run of notes on the clarinet, you can see a kind of crack opening in the facade of the tonal system. The scale begins in the key of C-sharp-major, then unsettlingly detours into G major before ending up in C-sharp minor.

And then listen to the demonstration and try to align it to the music then I'm all at sea. There doesn't seem to be enough notes on the score to correspond with the music played.

Don't worry too much about it. Your enjoyment of most things will rely on more than the analysis of a phrase. However, here's my take on it.

The first four notes above come from the second half of a C-sharp minor melodic scale, whereas the next four notes are the first four of a D major scale (or second four of a G major scale) - if you treat the F-double sharp as being a G natural. In the second and third bars, which are clearly in E major/C-sharp minor, the F-double sharp reappears to remind us of the ambiguity from the previous bar. So the composer does something clever (and attractive, which is more important) by mixing different tonal centres within a phrase, but it is not the cleverness that should ever impress, beyond perhaps raising a knowing smile - it is the distinctiveness, memorability, or 'beauty' that counts. (By the way, I don't think that this example warrants "a crack opening in the facade of the tonal system" - it extends the palate of tonal centres, or more accurately still, 'side-slips' into D major for a fraction of a second, but that's about all).

Is this from Salome? If it is, then Strauss makes great play with the juxtaposition of close keys. That appalling and wonderful discord at the end, at the height of Salome's ecstasy, is (you could well argue) the logical conclusion of this - instead of side-slipping any more, Strauss simply superimposes all the notes in one unforgettable moment. But you need the earlier side-slipping to prepare you for it.

[Resurrection Man]

Don't worry too much about it. Your enjoyment of most things will rely on more than the analysis of a phrase. However, here's my take on it.

The first four notes above come from the second half of a C-sharp minor melodic scale, whereas the next four notes are the first four of a D major scale (or second four of a G major scale) - if you treat the F-double sharp as being a G natural. In the second and third bars, which are clearly in E major/C-sharp minor, the F-double sharp reappears to remind us of the ambiguity from the previous bar. So the composer does something clever (and attractive, which is more important) by mixing different tonal centres within a phrase, but it is not the cleverness that should ever impress, beyond perhaps raising a knowing smile - it is the distinctiveness, memorability, or 'beauty' that counts. (By the way, I don't think that this example warrants "a crack opening in the facade of the tonal system" - it extends the palate of tonal centres, or more accurately still, 'side-slips' into D major for a fraction of a second, but that's about all).

Many thanks for taking the time to reply in detail. But therein lies my problem...I followed you as far as...The first four notes above come from..... .

[Thropplenoggin]

I finally got around to starting to read this and immediately ran into a problem. You see, I know very little (aka none) about musical notation. OK, I can follow a simple melodic line ...providing it's one note going up or down! But when you start to dig in the excellent website that underpins the book and then see this for Page 7...



with this text

Right at the start, in a soft run of notes on the clarinet, you can see a kind of crack opening in the facade of the tonal system. The scale begins in the key of C-sharp-major, then unsettlingly detours into G major before ending up in C-sharp minor (see p. 7 of The Rest Is Noise):

Here is a piano demonstration of the two segments of the scale:


And then listen to the demonstration and try to align it to the music then I'm all at sea. There doesn't seem to be enough notes on the score to correspond with the music played.

OK..I now know, thanks to a member here, that there are indications on the score of repeats etc but I would like to understand musical notation better. I looked at various bits and pieces on the web regarding musical notation but didn't find it that helpful.

So...any suggestions from the floor as to how I can improve my knowledge so that I can appreciate this book better?

That's exactly how I feel too, RM! More than

[heliocentric]

Is this from Salome?

It's at the very beginning. I find it strange that Ross should give this as an example of a "crack" in tonal harmony since Strauss's harmony always resolves somehow or other, even if he does these little sidesteps, which in fact Schubert was also fond of (for example in the second subject of the first movement of the A major Sonata D959), while the unresolved harmonies in Tristan und Isolde and subsequently in the music of Debussy and others, open a much wider "crack" since the concept of harmonic closure is much more fundamental to tonality than the inclusion of "unrelated" elements in an otherwise more or less straightforward progression (one of Strauss's signature techniques which often becomes a perfunctory mannerism, though not in Salome). But Ross's book is misleading in so many ways. Paul Griffiths in his guide to twentieth-century music chooses the flute solo that opens the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune as his starting point, and this makes a lot more sense to me.

[Andrew Slater]

RM: I know little more than you (I can't spot a key or a chord to save my life - I have to work things out from first principles all the time). I found that the Associated Board Guides to Music Theory are of great help. Use of a keyboard will help as well.

[Resurrection Man]

Many thanks, Andrew. They look as if they might well help. How many octaves on the keyboard do you think one might get away with? I'm thinking something electronic that I can plug into the computer maybe and listen on headphones. I realise that something 'cheap' won't have the 'feel' of the real thing.

[Andrew Slater]

I suppose it depends how serious you are: 3 or 4 would be enough to get some idea of 'what's going on'. Mine (a hand-me-down - so I didn't have to choose it) has 5 and I've never felt it to be a restriction, but then I'm not that serious about it.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Learning Music Theory from purely written sources isn't going to get anyone very far; you need to be able to hear how the technical terms sound. This is best done with two or more people learning together with a teacher explaining the points, and the group of learners sorting out difficulties and helping each other. Failing that, there are online Music Theory courses that have sound samples that enable the single learner to hear the chords, notes, rhythms etc as frequently as they need for the points to "sink in". This one looks ok:

http://www.8notes.com/theory/

... but I've never used it as a self-teacher, and other sites are available if you type "Music Theory" into your search engine.


Once you're more confident with Theory, you might find that you start to disagree with what writers have to say about a passage of Music. For example, I hear the Salome extract as a "wonky" perfect cadence in C# minor - the G that Mr Ross hears as a "detour into G major" sounds to me as a Dominant of the Dominant (and the sight of the score - with its Fdouble-sharp, and ne'er a G natural in sight) which resolves onto the tonic for the last three notes. Not much more of a "crack" in the Tonal "facade" than the opening of Beethoven's First Symphony (and less of one than the opening bars of Tristan). I agree with Helio (and Griffiths): Debussy is far more radical (in the true sense of that word) than Strauss.