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MUSIC
ETHNIC MUSIC
Advancing to the Transcendental Play of Music
The Obstacle in the Mastery over the Instrument

 



Tone Analysis

 

 

 


The Refinement
of Tonality

 

 

 

Refinement of Comprehension

 

 

The Fourth as the Reverse of the Fifth

 

Prohibiting the Conventional in the Study of Music

 

 

 


The Conventional Compositional Instruction

 


The Mental Narrowness of the Conventional Viewpoint on Compositional Elements

Natural Relations in the Overtone-Spectrum

 



The Hierarchy
of Sounds in the Spatial Expansion

 

 



Inner View
of the Tonality

 

 


Penetrating the Life of Music

 

Making the Microcosm of Music Audible


Tonality as the World of Sociological Musical Standards


Tonal Relations

 


Polyphony and the Social Structures of Music

 



A New Understanding
of Composition

Nevertheless, there is a way to go beyond that border to disharmony. The obstacle, namely the lack of control over the instrument, which the classical composers were faced with, can be overcome as soon as we recognize the inner world of the musical sound-space – that is, to fathom our inner thinking by means of our inner hearing, and to recreate the transcendental play of music from there.

Due to a great amount of scientific research and a recent improvement of our habits of hearing we know today that a tone is not just a tone. We know that, in the so-called tone, lies a hidden world which had been ignored so far by conventional music and even by music theory. Furthermore we know that, proceeding from the music of the classical and romantic periods, true progress, so necessary today, is only possible through the mastery over the microcosm of music. This rediscovery of the microcosm of music is closely linked to the revival of music as such.

The fact that the third for example is today considered "corny," and indeed stimulates sentimentalism in the masses, calls for further refinements which were so far impossible due to the deficient conventional training of musicians. Such an advancement through the mastery over the musical microcosm is fully in line with the concepts of the great classical composers and blends smoothly with their own musical accomplishments.

In the historical development of the technique of composition the octave-parallels were employed first. At the time of the fifth, the smaller interval, the octave parallels were condemned due to their "grossness." The dispute among the experts, concerning the octave parallels and the fifth parallels, lasted for quite some time and was finally settled in favour of the fifth parallels, which are finer differentiated.

The fourth is that interval which complements the fifth to become an octave, and it can thus be regarded as the reverse of the fifth with respect to the octave. Therefore, the fourth in its practical use may, and historically has been, roughly equated with the fifth.

During the era of the fifth and the fourth, the octave and the third came under attack – the former being the past and the latter the future interval. However, once the modern advocates of composition had won the historical victory in favour of the third – creating an influence that reaches even into our time – the octave and the fifth parallels, then regarded as gross, were banned from the composition lessons at schools and academies. To this day, we still find this prohibition, even though any conventionally played instrument, simply by its very nature, constantly produces octave and fifth parallels, a fact that can be easily proven with an oscilloscope.

Therefore, in today's conventional composition lessons mainly the third interval, and by the "most modern" the second, is glorified – and being parallels, they both will, in the foreseeable future, most likely be banished from composition lessons, in much the same way we have witnessed in the past in the case of the octave and the fifth parallels.

The mental narrowness of such an extrovert, unmusical consideration of the compositional elements seems almost grotesque to an observer who knows the actual spectrum of overtones – and be it only from the standpoint of physical measurements – and forces us all to readjust our thinking if we are concerned with true music.

A dog is no more important in creation than a cat, and sometimes the one or the other animal appears more prominently in the lively diversity of our world – at times they even may appear together harmoniously. Likewise, the elements of the musical sound-space, the overtones with their relations, the intervals, appear in the world of music in many different ways, displaying varying degrees of relationship.

In the natural spectrum of overtones all neighbours maintain good relations. The presence of stronger and weaker sounds in the natural order of the overtones is an indication of a very natural hierarchy in which the stronger sound requires more space for itself than the weaker sound.
When an instrument is being played, the basic tone therefore is usually very loud, and the overtones, that are built succcessively upon the basic tone, sound less and less while the space between the individual overtones simultaneously becomes increasingly narrow.

Experience in music teaches us that subtler overtones, located at a greater distance from the basic tone, are more directly appealing to our more subtle inner-human aspects than the grosser overtones which are closer to the basic tone. Therefore, the unfoldment of the more and more subtle spectra of overtones not only provides a greater complexity in the musical order of the sound-space, but also lays the foundation for a completely new system of infinite musical diversity.

Only through the natural, artistic mastery over the subtle spectrum of overtones of a sound the very life of music is made accessible – that secret power, that secret magic which constitutes true music.

To make the microcosm of music audible – those subtle and ever more subtle spectra of overtones and their ever more closely spaced tones – is the rewarding timely task for the instrumentalist of today.

Tonality is the world of the sociological standards of music, and the melody, which moves in a tonality created from of the natural spectrum of overtones, remains, despite its diversity, within the standards of that social order of overtones – the tonality.

In complete appreciation of natural, tonal relations the motif moves as the melody within the tonality, and within these great social laws it establishes, determined by the harmony, its natural relationship with the other motifs that take part in the musical event.

Within a sounding social framework which is ruled by the tonality, polyphony describes, in terms of this understanding, the development of the various motifs in the form of various melodies. Moreover, in an integrated world of many such social structures, polyphony forms the melodious descriptions of the development of many motifs sharing a common goal under very different social circumstances.

Naturally, this understanding of composing requires a synthesis of composition and instrumentation – two specialized fields which even today are still taught separately and therefore behave almost like stepparents towards music.





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© AAR EDITION INTERNATIONAL 1982

 

 

THE SYSTEMS
OF ORDER
IN MUSIC

Tonality

Differences
in Understanding
as Reflected by Language

The Beginnings of Musical History

"New Sound" Composers of the 20th Century and the Range of Intervals

Advancing
to the Transcendental
Play of Music

Musical Insight
into the Culture
of Peoples

Musical Relationships

The Musical Path
to Self-Knowlegde

Homophony

Polyphony

The Counterpoint

The Threefold Perfect
Form of the Harmony

Relations in Music

 

 

Ethnic Music                                                              continued 6