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Scales were used widely in 19th century as signature of ethnic music.. it was development of national musical concepts in professional music (Polish - Chopin, Czech - Dvorak, Russian - well... many, Hungarian/Gipsy - Brahms. Sibelius - Finnish etc. etc.Theorist/Composers such as Busoni and Messiaen deal with synthetic scales of various kinds, of course. I think the half-whole had been in use by Rimsky Korsakov IRC.
What I mean I think it is important to understand also what they meant under this scale - sometimes it was reference for church music, sometimes ethnic... Schoenberg, Messiaen did not mean either though they could take those ideas jsut as sounding impulse...
Sibelius is one of the greatest! I am always happy to see someone who shares my admiration... he was really trying to reach something with his music.Myself, I think Sibelius is one of the best composers of the 20th century
Messiaen has some big tunes, but I reckon he's the Andrew Lloyd Webber of modernism haha. ;-)
Messiaen is like scientist a bit.... great scientist... some touch of 'science fiction' is there.Last edited by Jonah; 01-29-2015 at 01:08 PM.
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01-29-2015 01:04 PM
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The Parallel Majors is more interesting, but unfortunately Schoenberg's 12 Tone Row method lost him a lot of credibility, years ago I concluded that it was not much better than picking notes out of a hat.
- Well... sometimes we need someone to provide this hat... so that someone like Berg could come
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Not "perhaps"! He knew all this stuff. The harmonic minor and melodic minor have been bread and butter in music for centuries! If you have a minor tonality in a piece from Beethoven and he wrote a scalar passage over a dominant 7th chord you will see harmonic minor and melodic minor everywhere because they don't appear out of nowhere!
Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
There is not that much "new" stuff in Schoenberg books. Its a textbook (he was teaching) for his students. Its mostly still in print because he is well known.
They also used melodic minor going down but because it was used mostly as a "scale" (we talk scale right not pitch collection) they adjust to best voice leading.
The reason these scales exists is because of basic tonal movements. I-V (need a leading tone)-I
Here is an excerpt from Bach Chaconne in D minor for violin. Bach was born before Schoenberg. Look at bar 47.
Last edited by Takemitsu; 01-29-2015 at 02:32 PM.
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Sure - there's the interesting example of Dvorak using the pentatonic to reference African American music (spirituals and blues) in the New World symphony. I love Dvorak too. Underrated I think. Originally Posted by Jonah
I was strange that the Middle European nationalist composer wrote a nationalist symphony for America, who to be honest seemed very slow to recognise the value of their indigenous music. They were probably expecting someone European sounding. Partly, perhaps it was the racism and snobbery of the time that an outsider could look past. See also the history of Blue Note and Chess records :-)
I always liked what he said:
"In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. They are pathetic, tender, passionate, melancholy, solemn, religious, bold, merry, gay or what you will. It is music that suits itself to any mood or any purpose. There is nothing in the whole age of composition that cannot be supplied with themes from this source."
So I did bring it back to jazz :-) Although when you think about it, jazz is as much about the African American transformation of mainstream (white) popular music - show tunes, society marches and so on. Fantastically resistant to cultural imperialism....
I don't know if you agree, but I feel there's something very cosmic about Sibelius. It's a force of nature, quite remote and impersonal. Like the anti-Mahler! Originally Posted by Jonah
Going to Finland I kind of got it. It's one of the few places in Europe where you can still see huge, unending forests.
Nothing sounds quite like his orchestration either.
Haha yes, he's like a science fiction mad scientist. He's got lots of test tubes full of brightly coloured liquid and a big machine that makes lightning. Originally Posted by Jonah
Last edited by christianm77; 01-29-2015 at 03:35 PM.
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Every time I revisit Schoenberg's 12-tone music it makes more sense to me and sounds more and more tonal, weirdly. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
Schoenberg lost no credibility. In fact his system of composition became the prevailing model for decades. In fact, he got stick for not going far enough.
But you have to get your ideas from somewhere, actually. Making complex structures from (to the lay eye) unpromising elements is what being a composer is about. Picking notes out of hat might not be a bad way to get started. You can then start to make aesthetic decisions, editing the notes, developing them into bigger structures and actually composing. It's not necessarily the ideas but what you do with them.... Any composer will tell you that.
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I like this piece a lot
It's interesting to have the score there too...
If it's all a bit plinky plonky for you, here's a piece by John Adams inspired by (or critiquing) Schoenberg's Harmony Book (Harmonielehre)
Adams gets ripped off so much for film music these days...Last edited by christianm77; 01-29-2015 at 03:58 PM.
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M Takemitsu
are you a jazz player?
HBLast edited by Hyppolyte Bergamotte; 01-29-2015 at 04:52 PM.
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I am not a professionnal jazz musician. Why? Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
Last edited by Takemitsu; 01-29-2015 at 05:22 PM.
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I do not like it actually.... I mean as symphonic form - not really interesting... like a western movie soundtrackI was strange that the Middle European nationalist composer wrote a nationalist symphony for America, who to be honest seemed very slow to recognise the value of their indigenous music.
(What is really funny that one of the major Russian composers (though not much of a nationalit school) wrote the music dedicated to the Russian victory that is now unseparable element of The Independence Day in US))).
I would like to metion also one of my favourite composers - Charles Ives... not only because of his inventive creativity, but also solely musical....
Yes it is one of the most general feel that I get from his music... I also fell it in Finnland, I live in St. Petersburg so I visit Finnland quite often and also have close connection there for my non-musical job... they have short history that was strongly connected with Russia and Sweden but they managed to go their own way, they juat made nature their national idea... and Sibelius really represents this spirit. There is something prehistoric in his music, he is like trying to compose 'first music'.I don't know if you agree, but I feel there's something very cosmic about Sibelius. It's a force of nature, quite remote and impersonal. Like the anti-Mahler!
Going to Finland I kind of got it. It's one of the few places in Europe where you can still see huge, unending forests.
But there is also antother thing about him... he is a real modernist also (sometimes not for the best, he was very prolific and not all of his music is equally good imho).
4th is probably the most wild, primeval...
5th symphmy combines both approaches - he is like unenveloping symphonic form vice versa... (and C major there has really the meaning of something 'first' in ntural and cultural sence...)
7th of course gets his modernism as far as possible
He also has a touch of salon musical culture in his music - violine concerto at least takes something from this style too...
About impersonal I see what you mean... but I would not call it that way maybe... for me it is quite fundamental idea... but sure he touches something out of this world, probably something he himself does not expect to touch...
Mahler - well... difficult for me to say... I used to love him when I was on my teen, but now I can hardly listen for a minute or two.. I can understand where he comes from, I can feel compassion... his material is pretty corny... means of developmet are excessive comparing to the material... played on piano he sounds so... unobligatory, you can change this or that and it makes practically no difference... Last time I tried to listen I thought that he is all gone in orchestration... it is a kind of neurotic, painful mania... it was not colouristic orchestration of Ravel... it was functional but with such a feel for detail that makes it overwhelming... and probably this obssession makes him genius...
He belongs to his time so much... real decadance, no showtime he really lived it through... the beauty of his music has so destilled and vain character... Visconti caught in the Death of Venice.. with thois famouse Adagio behind dead painted face... but with all that it was someone's life too, we can feel it.
I noticed also that Mahler sounds best in Bruno Walter's performance (kind of authentic) - also a sign of strong
I agree that Mahler's huge spaces are all inside one person, but in this concern I would compare him with Wagner who is all outside.
And there was also Bruckner who was with angels)))
At the same time I can understand how people get involved in his music.... he develops his concepts to such an extent that they become 'live worlds'... 'St. Francois d'Assis' is crazy but you can't resist it.Haha yes, he's like a science fiction mad scientist. He's got lots of test tubes full of brightly coloured liquid and a big machine that makes lightning.
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I am not a professionnal jazz musician. Why?
Because I thought you were rather a classical musician
The harmonic minor and melodic minor have been bread and butter in music for centuries! If you have a minor tonality in a piece from Beethoven and he wrote a scalar passage over a dominant 7th chord you will see harmonic minor and melodic minor everywhere because they don't appear out of nowhere!
Could you explain when did appear the first attempt to invent those scales ?
I have a friend who play middle -ages music with a lute.He don't know anything about modes and scales ?
Did it came after ?
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I would think during the 15th and 16th centuries, although happy to be corrected. Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
During the late middle ages (14th and 15th century) use of chromatic notes to raise the seventh and the fourth in the Dorian mode say, was common to give cadences a particular sound - the Lydian cadence. Take Machaut for example, the music is Dorian, but check the cadence at 0:57:
At this point the third wasn't considered an acceptable note for a final chord in a cadence, so the #4 was there to resolve to 5, in the same way that we have 7 resolving to the octave in familiar tonal music.
When the third came into fashion (late 15th century) I can see them wanting to keep the 4th natural so it resolves to the 3rds in cadences in different modes. Having trouble coming up with minor mode examples from the 16th century though - any helpers?
It was a gradual process. Even by the 18th century, Bach was writing one flat in the key signature for G minor, like it was the Dorian mode (but would actually compose in the three modern minor scales and write in the E flat as accidental)
You don't need to know this stuff to play lute. You don't even need to know how to read music. Just read the tablature. Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute/tab-intro.html
Actually many classical musicians don't know much about theory or have much interest in it. If you are not a composer it's not really necessary. I'm just a massive music geek :-)Last edited by christianm77; 01-30-2015 at 10:50 AM. Reason: Lute link fixed
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@Jonah
You live in St Petersburg? I've always wanted to visit :-)
I still love Mahler - Das Lied Von de Erde was a favourite, and the Ressurection was the first orchestral work I heard live - think that was a good intro!
Later on I went to see Uri Caine's post-modern jazz/Klezmer Mahler project (back in the late 90s ?). I think he did two albums in the end. Quite strange really, but I really liked it :-)
But yeah, I kind of think of Mahler as quite an episodic composer really, and I'm starting to enjoy the more integrated symphonic composers - like Sibelius and Brahms....
Bruckner is amazing, for sure.
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it's clearly a Amin Major with a G#!check the cadence at 0:57:
Thank you very much, christianm 77 for all these clear explanations !
HB
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I am indeed a classical musician by formation. I come from a family of musicians where there is some jazz pros. Been only doing and studying and practicing music since as long as I can remember. After I got myself a job in a great orchestra I had to work on his particular repertory for a few years and when it was done I took on the guitar and improv journey because some time was available. I have been practicing I would say an average of 2 hours a day for the last 4 years (mostly all my after dinner time, no tv Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
. the rest of the time I am doing classical music. End of bio.
As for scales. If there is a novelty/difference between the use of minor scales in jazz vs classical its by using them as a way to memorize a note "collection" (a pool) to be superposed on different roots and chords. It is very smart because it allows endless creativité from a relatively small brain bandwidth.
As for the origins of those variation of the minor scales, I knew I is bound to progressions to the tonic (cadence). But renaissance music I don't know very much ( maybe a bit the voice ensemble stuff) Thank you Christionm77 for those info.
By the way Hippolyte, I always wonder how it was possible to be friend with Tournesol, you guys must a some weird conversations!Last edited by Takemitsu; 01-30-2015 at 09:48 AM.
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The Schoenburg Piano Concerto is quite beautiful to me and still "cutting edge" to my ears. I love it.
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I'm beginning to realise this works for jazz too. The old advice 'play into the cadence' Originally Posted by Takemitsu
E.g. Bird plays - Bb Ab G F E against G7. The reasons are as horizontal as they are vertical. You can contextualise the reason as Bird playing a #9 against G7 or understanding the parent scale for the first three notes to be the G altered scale (Ab jazz minor) but there is no compelling evidence to suggest this is how Bird thought of it. If he thought about it at all.
I suggest that it could just be that it makes better melodic flow - the Harmonic Major (B Ab G F E) might be harmonically correct, but the Bird line sounds more melodically flowing, exactly as we have with the (classical) melodic minor scale.
In my own understanding I really want to move towards a melodic understanding and a horizontal understanding of how lines in jazz connect up to points of congruence rather than total vertical connection all the time. I really hear this in Bird's music and I see the similarity to 16th and 17th century music.
Jazz is polyphonic (from the early days) - even in bop you have a walking bass against the soloist - two part counterpoint, plus chords. Contemporary and Early jazz is much more polyphonic. Therefore a harmonic understanding of jazz lines is always only half the story.
Harmonically there is some similarity to the famous English Cadence of Tallis and his peers. Here you have C# against C in the final cadence
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Just 2 days ago we discussed this cadence with my friend who studies early music.check the cadence at 0:57:
it's clearly a Amin Major with a G#!
Thank you very much, christianm 77 for all these clear explanations !
I cannot say for sure but with Machaut I think it has different nature...
It is not minor in any way - becasue for minor we need functions - not just heard by our cultivated hearing in a short moment but as basis for form of the piece, and in Machaut music there is nothing like this.
I think ealiest functional idiomas can be found in late Rennaissance and then we can more or less speak about a kind of minor
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rather strange you say that..By the way Hippolyte, I always wonder how it was possible to be friend with Tournesol, you guys must a some weird conversations!
cause I choosed my avatar "HB" because I live next the former house of Hergé, where he lived there for years with his first wifeGermaine.
More confusing, as I worked as Endocrinologst,my nickname in the hospital was Professor Tournesol..don't know why ?
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Always loved Tintin, Hyppolyte is from "les 7 boules de crystal" if I remember well. Originally Posted by Hyppolyte Bergamotte
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Really enjoyng this thread. Even though all I remember about Schoenberg from my college days is Pierrot Lanaire collection of songs (?), and especially the one about washerwoman or something... That made a big impression. But how and why would it have any connection to jazz? I mean, Schoenberg music is an interesting thing in itself, and I can see from this thread some of his theories kinda apply to jazz music, but is it significantly so so one can spend time deeply studying it and it will add something to one's jazz improvement or understanding? I'm not sure for myself. Maybe form the composer's point of view..
@Jonah- I was born and lived most of my years in St. Petersburg. Graduated from my first jazz program there. Do you gig there too? It's a great jazz scene there!
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right!Hyppolyte is from "les 7 boules de crystal" if I remember well.
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definitivelybut is it significantly so so one can spend time deeply studying it and it will add something to one's jazz improvement or understanding?
https://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theor...tml#post478351
cheers
HB
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Christian,I'm beginning to realise this works for jazz too. The old advice 'play into the cadence'
E.g. Bird plays - Bb Ab G F E against G7. The reasons are as horizontal as they are vertical. You can contextualise the reason as Bird playing a #9 against G7 or understanding the parent scale for the first three notes to be the G altered scale (Ab jazz minor) but there is no compelling evidence to suggest this is how Bird thought of it. If he thought about it at all.
I suggest that it could just be that it makes better melodic flow - the Harmonic Major (B Ab G F E) might be harmonically correct, but the Bird line sounds more melodically flowing, exactly as we have with the (classical) melodic minor scale.
In my own understanding I really want to move towards a melodic understanding and a horizontal understanding of how lines in jazz connect up to points of congruence rather than total vertical connection all the time. I really hear this in Bird's music and I see the similarity to 16th and 17th century music.
Jazz is polyphonic (from the early days) - even in bop you have a walking bass against the soloist - two part counterpoint, plus chords. Contemporary and Early jazz is much more polyphonic. Therefore a harmonic understanding of jazz lines is always only half the story.
Harmonically there is some similarity to the famous English Cadence of Tallis and his peers. Here you have C# against C in the final cadence
I somehow missed this post...
I agree with you in most points. I wrote somewhere already that I think that jazz is originally modal... even chord changes in jazz are often understood as 'a mode'...
The way jazz uses functional idioms is also modal... ii-v-i only looks/sounds the same as classical cadence but it has different meaning... in jazz it is not cadence, it's not even stable (I mean not an original song chart harmony, but 'ii-v-i' as an approach).
I called it plying 'over' the original... this word might be criticized... and justly. I agree that using this word may lead to total separation of player from harmony - maybe 'through' is better, but anyway it is important that even being one in another they keep distinct independence and actually work like 'modes' which is impossible in functional approach
But at the same time jazz depends on vertical, on harmony... and depends strongly... in most of the modal jazz even played only in lines - vertical harmony plays very important role...
Chord stays one of the key notion.
I do not think that there is really need to make any parallels between jazz and early music, there is no connection actually - absolutle different cultures/aesthetics/content...
Today how should it sound to be called jazz? Something very general - probably groove... today it has no language, only traditional social/historical connections that somehow stick it all tohether...
No language, no problems... I can take any word or sentece ot rule from any foreign language and put it in my seach using however I want...
Great thing about jazz that one can borrow any tool without any relation to content, jazz is essentialy non-recordable.. but using 'old language' is also a kind of record... so jazz players all the time need new tools - otherwise they begin playing historical period music (not that it is bad but probably not what one needs)
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Yes. I am talking about this with a modern mindset. This is not how Medieval composers thought about music. Originally Posted by Jonah
I might add that an interesting thing about the treatises on music of the time is that (IRC) they discuss rhythm (specifically notation) and form, but nothing about harmony or polyphony....
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None at all, but why not, for fun? Originally Posted by Jonah
I think no one really knows. I think it's a rhythmic thing, a sensibility. Or whatever people decide is 'jazz'. Originally Posted by Jonah
TBH I don't really care. I'm happy just to be a musician, albeit one who has studied and has a love for many artists in the 'jazz' sphere.
Yeah. Originally Posted by Jonah
BTW a lot of what you said in your post reminds me of an article by Conrad Cork in his book 'Harmony with Lego Bricks'
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