How is post-tonal music listened to?

[A Lark Ascending]

I'm thinking of music that quite deliberately steers away from all the conventions of 'classical' music in order to not repeat what has gone before.

I'm currently reading Paul Griffiths 'Modern Music and After' - very interesting for the history but rapidly becomes impenetrable in the musical analysis for someone unschooled in musical theory like myself. What rapidly becomes clear is that the reasons why certain pieces of music have giant reputations lies in organisational methods that the ordinary listener will be unlikely to hear.

Yet at one point Griffiths refers to an observation by Boulez: "Here is confirmation of what was said above about Kreuzspiel, that the process enacted in the music is a way of making it, not a way of hearing it. For the listener, the process lies hidden, and what is heard is a succession of instants, just as, for the observer of the world, elementary laws of physics and genetics - laws Stockhausen might have preferred to interpret as the purposes of God - are concealed behind and within a seeming chaos of phenomena'.

The same could be said of the centuries of tonal music before 1945 - except that a fair amount of the structural organisation can be easily learnt and heard by an interested but non-expert listener. But I'm not sure I could ever hear Elliott Carter's layers of varying speeds (even though I've been told they are there) without first undergoing some proper musical training.

Interested in this because I like to push my listening into previously unexperienced areas - I frequently find myself fascinated by the sounds I'm hearing but frustrated by the fact that I can't pin down what is going on. This applies as much to free jazz as post 1945 classical music.

Musicians and musicologists are going to hear this very differently as they will be able to penetrate to the structural levels. But I'm intrigued as how other musically non-literate listeners deal with this.

(Apologies for the rather vague 'post-tonal music' descriptor in the title - I was struggling for an appropriate term)

Edited January 24, 2015 by A Lark Ascending

[MomsMobley]

why post-tonal and not pan-tonal? do you know the symphonies of Benjamin Frankel?

Milton Babbitt composer >>>>> Pierre Boulez, Paul Griffiths is good but read Peter Yates if you haven't already

http://www.amazon.com/Twentieth-Century-Music-Peter-Yates/dp/B0013PLBFY

learning basic music theory & learning how to read music is actually pretty easy so...

[JSngry]

This is likely to sound flip and/or snide, but I promise you it's not meant that way - I listen to it like I do anything else, with the realization that it all starts with silence, and then somebody decides to change the silence into sound, just as a painter starts with a blank canvas and then get going making decisions. I can't stress that enough - all this noise, joyful or otherwise, is made because somebody decides to break the silence. I don't think enough people on the noise-making or the noise hearing side of things take that into account, especially today, where we're collectively deciding that silence is perhaps an unnatural condition that NEEDS to be altered, regardless of the decision-making skills/motivations involved. That is just gonna be what it's gonna be, it's evolution in action. But that itself is a decision,. No getting away from the decision.

So start there.

After that, its a question of noticing what's being used to replace the silence. And not just what, but when, and how. Rhythms, colors, sometimes "melody" but not necessarily in the "traditiaonal sense. But if you have an event of any duration that has a shape and a color, I say you can start thinking of that as a melody just as readily as not.

And really, that's what you're going to have to do with music that is not based in strict diatonic/diatonic-derived harmonic theories, because looking for something that's not really going to be there and then getting frustrated because you can't find it, that's one of those self-fulfilling prophecy things, right? And truthfully, the notion of "harmony" is really defined after-the-fact, and although it it has been defined in such a way as to be universally true in terms of math, it is a Universal Truth only in terms of preferred practice. V-I is never NOT gonna be "true", but there are plenty other things that will work just as well, and therefore be as true, for any number of people. Consensus may look like math, but it is only as a factor, not as the Final Answer. It goes on the left side of the "=", not the right (or vice-versa, if that's how it rolls for you).

Colors, rhythms, spaces, shapes, these are things to be found in any people, and therefore in any music. For musics with any kind of "non-traditional" harmonic base, that's where to start looking. Once you find that, you have the beginning of some bearings, and then it's easier to relax and hear what all else is going on (and there always is),

Ok, I'm a musician with some training, but really, what I'm talking about has nothing to do with theory or training. It's simply about perception and what to look for when what you're used to looking for isn't there (or isn't obviously there).

You mention Elliot Carter...I can find the hook in a lot of his stuff just by feeling the accents. A good performance of Carter will always have a strong rhythmic impulse, I think. Once you get a feel of where the accents are, then you can start looking at what leads up to them and comes out of them, and then at which line is doing what, etc. Not at all an "easy" task necessarily, but it is happening, it's not imaginary. The first String Quartet grabbed me because the mercurial phrasing reminded me of the more insane early fusion music, where cats were just playing SO fast and yet so, for lack of a better term, "blithely". So I had an immediate reference point. LOTS of them actually, because there's lot of it happening at once.

Anybody who really hears the music they listen to will have a feel for its elements, and the nuances of same. I can guarantee you that pretty much all music will have many of the same elements - in concept. Maybe not in manifestation, definitely not in manifestation, but in concept. So if you want to learn a "foreign language", start with the notion that it IS a language, and like all languages, the intent is communication, which is achieved through statements of place, purpose, action/reaction, etc., and then look for how that language goes about doing that. There will be grammar, inflection, punctuation (and the aural has punctuation just as surely as does the written). I mean, don't expect Vietnamese to sound like English, but DO expect it have its own integrity as a language, and DO expect it do be adequate to express the needs of its practitioners.

Similarly, Penderecki, or Elliott Carter, or John Cage, or Morton Feldman will not bear an immediate resemblance to Bach or Haydn or Wagner or whoever. But past that, they are still dealing with same the basic elements of language. So if you really want to start hearing their musics, start by finding what you already know to be true - again, color, rhythm, space, shape, things that are common to all music, and then considering how it is being used to different, specific ends.

But here's the catch (there's always a catch) - once you hear it and figure it out, you still might not like it. Nothing says you have to. But for me personally, I always feel better about not liking something that I've taken the time out to be able to hear on a somewhat objective level instead of reflexively denying the validity of something that just seems...unreal/unecessary/untrue/etc..

[JSngry]

Also, we can all have a problem with density, when there's so much happening (vertically and/or horizontally) that the mind just shuts down, get overwhelmed, and goes to the bar for an evening.

But - this is reality, and we've come to realize it as such. Time is a dimension, not a wristwatch or a tower. "Here" is no longer jsut what we can see in front of our face or know is happening in our town. At any given moment, thre's some kind of a way to be most any place on Earth, and many places in space - and never mind those places that we know HAVE to be out there even if we have no idea where or how.

So density is reality. One can perhaps argue persuasively for the benefit of selective culling of the total reality, but one can not argue against to objective truth that it's a pretty thickass bitch of an existence by any known standard today. Such was not always the case, but today it is. So, music that goes there may or may not be "wrong" for many reasons, but the objective truth of its premise is not one of them.

[sgcim]

As little as possible...

[Chuck Nessa]

This is likely to sound flip and/or snide, but I promise you it's not meant that way - I listen to it like I do anything else, with the realization that it all starts with silence, and then somebody decides to change the silence into sound, just as a painter starts with a blank canvas and then get going making decisions. I can't stress that enough - all this noise, joyful or otherwise, is made because somebody decides to break the silence. I don't think enough people on the noise-making or the noise hearing side of things take that into account, especially today, where we're collectively deciding that silence is perhaps an unnatural condition that NEEDS to be altered, regardless of the decision-making skills/motivations involved. That is just gonna be what it's gonna be, it's evolution in action. But that itself is a decision,. No getting away from the decision.

So start there.

After that, its a question of noticing what's being used to replace the silence. And not just what, but when, and how. Rhythms, colors, sometimes "melody" but not necessarily in the "traditiaonal sense. But if you have an event of any duration that has a shape and a color, I say you can start thinking of that as a melody just as readily as not.

And really, that's what you're going to have to do with music that is not based in strict diatonic/diatonic-derived harmonic theories, because looking for something that's not really going to be there and then getting frustrated because you can't find it, that's one of those self-fulfilling prophecy things, right? And truthfully, the notion of "harmony" is really defined after-the-fact, and although it it has been defined in such a way as to be universally true in terms of math, it is a Universal Truth only in terms of preferred practice. V-I is never NOT gonna be "true", but there are plenty other things that will work just as well, and therefore be as true, for any number of people. Consensus may look like math, but it is only as a factor, not as the Final Answer. It goes on the left side of the "=", not the right (or vice-versa, if that's how it rolls for you).

Colors, rhythms, spaces, shapes, these are things to be found in any people, and therefore in any music. For musics with any kind of "non-traditional" harmonic base, that's where to start looking. Once you find that, you have the beginning of some bearings, and then it's easier to relax and hear what all else is going on (and there always is),

Ok, I'm a musician with some training, but really, what I'm talking about has nothing to do with theory or training. It's simply about perception and what to look for when what you're used to looking for isn't there (or isn't obviously there).

You mention Elliot Carter...I can find the hook in a lot of his stuff just by feeling the accents. A good performance of Carter will always have a strong rhythmic impulse, I think. Once you get a feel of where the accents are, then you can start looking at what leads up to them and comes out of them, and then at which line is doing what, etc. Not at all an "easy" task necessarily, but it is happening, it's not imaginary. The first String Quartet grabbed me because the mercurial phrasing reminded me of the more insane early fusion music, where cats were just playing SO fast and yet so, for lack of a better term, "blithely". So I had an immediate reference point. LOTS of them actually, because there's lot of it happening at once.

Anybody who really hears the music they listen to will have a feel for its elements, and the nuances of same. I can guarantee you that pretty much all music will have many of the same elements - in concept. Maybe not in manifestation, definitely not in manifestation, but in concept. So if you want to learn a "foreign language", start with the notion that it IS a language, and like all languages, the intent is communication, which is achieved through statements of place, purpose, action/reaction, etc., and then look for how that language goes about doing that. There will be grammar, inflection, punctuation (and the aural has punctuation just as surely as does the written). I mean, don't expect Vietnamese to sound like English, but DO expect it have its own integrity as a language, and DO expect it do be adequate to express the needs of its practitioners.

Similarly, Penderecki, or Elliott Carter, or John Cage, or Morton Feldman will not bear an immediate resemblance to Bach or Haydn or Wagner or whoever. But past that, they are still dealing with same the basic elements of language. So if you really want to start hearing their musics, start by finding what you already know to be true - again, color, rhythm, space, shape, things that are common to all music, and then considering how it is being used to different, specific ends.

But here's the catch (there's always a catch) - once you hear it and figure it out, you still might not like it. Nothing says you have to. But for me personally, I always feel better about not liking something that I've taken the time out to be able to hear on a somewhat objective level instead of reflexively denying the validity of something that just seems...unreal/unecessary/untrue/etc..

Nicely done sir. I am not a musician and got everything you said. Bunches of fun in Carter's Double Concerto.

[7/4]

listen to the texture.

[Larry Kart]

Nicely done, indeed. In fact, fairly experienced in listening to lots of so-called "modern music" of many kinds though I am, I just had the sort of experience that Jim is talking about.

Bought a new CD of piano music by Martin Boykan (Bridge), Donald Berman performing. Dipped in yesterday and couldn't take it in, though I know and admire several previous discs of Boykan's sometimes spiky, "lyrical, yet atonal" (Berman's words) music. I decided to try to pay closer, more focused attention, listen on earphones and start with the first of four shortish pieces that together make up Boykan's "Usurpations," trying to listen with pretty much the "noticing what's being used to replace the silence" mindset that Jim spoke of, kind of lying in wait for the work's structure/language to reveal itself instead of assuming/guessing what it would be. And zip-o-bang, in the act of listening there it was. Further, and this happens a lot, the adventure (so to speak) of discovering what I found there became part of the musical event.

[papsrus]

Those may be among the best insights Mr. JSngry has ever offered hereabouts ... and that's saying something.

Start with silence. Thank you.

(I'd edit out the introductory disclaimer; no need at all)

[David Ayers]

Have to say, there is no substitute for learning to play an instrument or instruments, taking singing lessons, studying music theory, and reading up on the compositions which interest you. Really anyone can do it. It all gets easier after that.

[MomsMobley]

Have to say, there is no substitute for learning to play an instrument or instruments, taking singing lessons, studying music theory, and reading up on the compositions which interest you. Really anyone can do it. It all gets easier after that.

Total agreement with David here. I don't care how clumsy or reticent one is... Especially when one considers how important tutelage was to great composers... just to follow Schoenberg's students-- whatever one thinks of Arnold himself (whom I love)-- throughout Europe (not just Berg & Webern but Gerhard, Skalklottas etc) and America... Hindemith... Think of all the jazz cats who crossed paths with Stefan Wolpe... Bartok Mikrokosmos... Both Peter Yates books are fantastic btw (the other being "An Amateur at the Keyboard"...

hold on, let me check something-- ah! here's some Peter Yates' Harry Partch presentations from mid-1960s KPFA--

https://archive.org/search.php?query=peter%20yates%20AND%20collection%3Aaudio_music

Yates a fine poet also-- though he's not the sometimes awesome-- no superlatives enough for "The Friends o Eddie Coyle"-- film director of the same name.

re: Berman, do you know his Ives recordings, LK?

re: "silence," there's a woman named Sabine Liebner who'd made some brilliant Cage recordings for the Neos and Wergo labels-- some of thee greatest Cage recordings I've ever heard.

There's noone now living that can't learn from Cage though how much that's needed, daily, afterwards, is subect to determination.

[Chuck Nessa]

Have to say, there is no substitute for learning to play an instrument or instruments, taking singing lessons, studying music theory, and reading up on the compositions which interest you. Really anyone can do it. It all gets easier after that.

I have had lessons in piano, trumpet, singing and music theory. I do not consider myself a musician.

[StarThrower]

Have to say, there is no substitute for learning to play an instrument or instruments, taking singing lessons, studying music theory, and reading up on the compositions which interest you. Really anyone can do it. It all gets easier after that.

I don't think it's necessary for the listening and enjoyment of any kind of music, unless one desires to know what's going on technically. The effort of concentrated and repeated listening is what helps me get the most out a piece of music.

That said, I have played instruments and studied music, but not at anywhere near the advanced level of sophisticated orchestral composition.

[paul secor]

Simple but true:

Ives: "Why can't you stand up before fine strong music like this and use your ears like a man?"

[Larry Kart]

re: Berman, do you know his Ives recordings, LK?

Have Berman's Ives discs and his Ruggles too. He's a good one. Compare his recording on Bridge of Martin Boykan's "Towards the Horizon" (quite a work) with a concert performance by another pianist on YouTube, and you'd hardly think it was the same piece.

[johnblitweiler]

Jim Sangrey, yhou are positively eloq

Jim Sangrey, you are positively eloquent. Thank you.

[AllenLowe]

I would suggest Harold Rosenberg, whose insights on action painting can apply to this kind of music - basically saying what Beckett saying, "he has nothing to say, only a way of saying it," and Rosenberg adds that the art is in the action presented in the painting itself, not in any externalized story-telling. As Rosenberg says:

"To work from sketches arouses the suspicion that the artist still regards the canvas as a place where the mind records its contents—rather than itself the "mind" through which the painter thinks by changing a surface with paint."

"Form, color, composition, drawing, are auxiliaries, any one of which—or practically all, as has been attempted logically, with unpainted canvases—can be dispensed with. What matters always is the revelation contained in the act."

"The act-painting is of the same metaphysical substance as the artist's existence. The new painting has broken down every distinction between art and life."

"The critic who goes on judging in terms of schools, styles, from—as if the painter were still concerned with producing a certain kind of object (the work of art), instead of living on the canvas—is bound to seem a stranger."

"The work, the act, translates the psychologically given into the intentional, into a "world"—and thus transcends it.
With traditional esthetic references discarded as irrelevant, what gives the canvas its meaning is not psychological data but the way the artist organizes his emotional and intellectual energy as if he were in a living situation. The interest lies in the kind of act"

Edited January 26, 2015 by AllenLowe

[David Ayers]

Maybe this interview with Magnus Lindberg is relevant to this discussion

http://www.sinfinimusic.com/uk/features/interviews/composer-interviews/10-questions-for-finnish-composer-magnus-lindberg-ahead-of-his-london-premiere

[A Lark Ascending]

Maybe this interview with Magnus Lindberg is relevant to this discussion

http://www.sinfinimusic.com/uk/features/interviews/composer-interviews/10-questions-for-finnish-composer-magnus-lindberg-ahead-of-his-london-premiere

Interesting article.

His interest in the 'grammar' of music seems to be something that, perhaps, distinguishes composers from most listeners. I can see that absorption in what I've been reading about the 1950s - seeking a new grammar or a grammar that integrates all elements or even a grammar that renders the composer's ego redundant and generates its own sentences.

But he doesn't seem to address whether he writes the music so that the audience can also become intrigued by the grammar; or whether there is a larger purpose that the grammar scaffolds, rendering the grammar subsidiary.

After all Bach and Beethoven were also meticulous with the grammar. They are loved by millions, a large proportion of whom probably enjoy the music without either awareness of or interest in the grammatical underpinnings.

I can go and visit Lincoln Cathedral and I'm impressed, excited, exhilarated, intrigued. I can access some of the grammar - very basic architectural history, historical reference, religious iconography. But the mathematics and construction techniques that make the building possible are beyond me (unless I choose to learn about them). Yet the building has at least part of its impact because of the mathematics. I absorb that unconsciously.

The building is there - the 'meaning' if you like - not for the grammar but because it was intended to glorify God, remind the people of their religious duties and impress both the people and secular authorities on the power and importance of the church. Most of that has no meaning in the 21st century so people are overawed by it for other reasons.

Which might suggest that even if you can't comprehend it, the mathematics is the constant.

I'm blathering.

[Larry Kart]

Just got and listened to Martin Boykan's Violin Concerto, a terrific piece:

http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Boykan-Orchestral-Works/dp/B009CYGMVQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1422464498&sr=1-1&keywords=boykan

It can be heard in full on Spotify, but from what I just heard at home on a good sound system, reproduction that way is more than useful.