Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange
Musical Practice and Performance Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [atonal]

Music that does not have a recognizable key center, which does not make use of common-practice, consonant chords in recognizable chord progressions, and which does not follow the common practice of cadence and resolution

Atonal music may be written by obscuring tonal structures or by ignoring conventional harmonies altogether.

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Is it possible to write a song without a key?

"This song is in F Major", "That song is in A Minor", "This song is in D Minor, but modulates to F Major in the middle", etc. Can we say "This song has no key"? Are there songs that have/follow no key? Is it possible to create song without adhering…
Saeed Neamati
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What is an atonal mode?

I got an album by Ornette Coleman and Pat Metheny, "X", and on the linear notes it talks about atonal experiments within the song structures. Are there scales and chord progressions that go along with atonal music?
JustnBeaver
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Is there music where it makes no sense to talk about a tonic?

Is there music without a tonic? I.e., the structure of which is such that it makes no sense to talk about some stable home base note where we return. Or maybe music tonality changes so frequent that there is no point in talking about a tonic?
CrabMan
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When to use flat or sharp in atonal music / accidentals rules for atonality?

Einojuhani Rautavaara sometimes uses flats and sometimes uses sharps in chords. Once it's atonal music, what're the rules for sharps and flats?
Rogério Dec
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Why did composers write atonally?

Can anyone tell me the best justifications for writing atonally by the composers who did so? Did anyone, including Schoenberg, explain what "freeing the dissonance" means? Does it imply that he believed that dissonance (and hence consonance) is a…
Souvaroff
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Fundamental and In-Depth Music Theory for an Absolute Beginner

I know nothing about music theory, but I have been playing the guitar for over 5 years and have been only working with tabs. I want to learn music theory from scratch, fundamentally and meticulously. Then I want to move on to orchestration and…
Conrad
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Rahn Atonal Prime Form Confusion

A review via the mark I eyeball of the prime form tables in "Basic Atonal Theory" (Rahn, 1980) versus modern software calculations of the prime form yields some differences; are these errors in publication, the software, or something else? 7-Z18 …
thrig
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Learning the concept of Serialism from its basics - where should I start from?

I am completely new to the concept of Serialism. A music theory workbook I have only mentions about the concept in short, with an example of Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra. It also mentions about the 4 types of tone rows: Original,…
Grace
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Is there a way to determine a set's prime form when given its interval vector?

Typically, we use a pitch-class set's prime form to determine the interval vector. But is there an algorithm that lets us go the other way? In other words, given a set's interval vector, can we reverse engineer what the prime form of that set is (or…
Richard
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Writing a simple 12-tone row

A few days ago my instructor taught me the basis of the twelve-tone system and taught me how to write a dodecaphonic row and its retrograde, inversion, and the inversion of retrograde. Now I have no more classes with him for a few months and he is…
Bend
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Error computing prime form of a pitch class set

I'm working on coming up with prime forms. I've been using this calculator online to check my work. My problem is that the prime form I compute for a certain PCS doesn't agree with the calculator, but I can't find my error. I need help figuring…
FrobberOfBits
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Accidentals in atonal scores

What are the rules for annotating accidentals in atonal scores, especially in 12-tone row compositions? For instance, if you use F sharp once, should that note always be scored as F sharp and never as G flat? Should the rule "sharps up, flats down"…
Jon Corelis
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Inversionally equivalent pc sets relation with transposition

So, I'm reading Allen Forte's Structure of Atonal Music and in the sub-chapter 1.4 Inversionally equivalent pc sets he affirms: It is important to observe that whereas transposition does not imply prior inversion, inversion always implies…
fefff
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Intervals when making a tone row - what to keep in mind?

For writing 12 tone or serial music, one generally makes a tone row, and then uses that for constructing a melody. I want to know what would be the maximum range of intervals between any 2 consecutive notes of the tone row that will be feasible to…
Grace
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How can I make 12 tone and atonal melodies sound interesting?

I have recently started learning about serialism (12 tone melody writing) and atonal music. When I attempted to write a short melody, it didn't sound quite pleasing to the ears. Yes, I know atonal music is different than the usual tonal harmonies we…
Grace
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