And here we come to the great practical insight of western tonal music. It ought to be obvious by now that music, for maximum musicalness, needs to have a perfect 5th driving behavior and a second driving behavior. With one melody (or a melody and a drone), insofar as the music acknowledges one, it ignores the other. But where accompaniment (the first great part of the insight) is involved, there must be some sort of system that insures that the two are not parts that are randomly thrown together. Arrangements based on consonant intervals allow the whole music, at any one moment, to be arranged around order while the existence of melodies allows the arrangement of the music around the other order (the second great insight). Hence, it is clear that in this regard, western tonal music, which is based in the Catholic culture of Christendom and is a completely unique and different music in all the world, is philosophically superior to all other musical traditions. Of course, there are other parts to music, such as the complexity of the scale, the expressive qualities, et cetera, but we have not considered these yet.
Along with the conventional musical idea of the scale, however, comes the ideas of mode, tonal center, and progression versus retrogression. The definition and making of mode has already been discussed, but the other two related topics have not yet even been defined. The three all revolve around the idea of Tonal Center. We will resort to a Socratic dialogue to explore the questions of tonal center.
Characters of the dialogue:
St. Thomas Aquinas
Oliver Messiane
Aquinas: Welcome to Purgatory, sir composer! May the grace and peace of Jesus Christ be with you!
Messiane: And with you, good sir. I was told that I would be released soon. Already I can feel the pains lessening. But why do you come to visit me?
Aquinas: It is your last purgation. I was sent here to tell you where you succeeded and where you had room for improvement in pleasing God in your music.
Messiane: I always intended to please God when I composed.
Aquinas: Of course. But regardless of your intentions, what did your music actually do?
Messiane: I see. Go on. I am sure that the Angelic Doctor would know about the perfect music much better than I.
Aquinas: Very good. Now, of the things that were musical conventions or traditions in your time, what did you omit?
Messiane: There was very little tradition in my time. Tonal center had been denied, …
Aquinas: Stop. What is Tonal Center?
Messiane: Harmonious music has, at any given moment, one note that it is organized about. If these organizing notes have any particular direction, the Tonal Center is the place towards which they move. I denied the phenomenon in my music.
Aquinas: So tonal center is evil?
Messiane: No.
Aquinas: Then why did you deny it?
Messiane: I did not write harmonious music. Therefore, tonal center was nearly impossible.
(Aquinas proceeds to demonstrate the goodness of harmonious music)
Messiane: The time had passed for tonal center. I would not have used it even if my music were harmonious.
Aquinas: As Catholics, we both know that good, true, and beautiful ideas do not fade away.
Messiane: Not in a theoretical sense. But in art, everything that can be done in one way can be done. The artistic community was no longer so prudish that they would not accept music without a tonal center. I wanted to compose music without a tonal center, and they let me with their money.
Aquinas: I never did enjoy accounting. But I still wonder: lack of tonal center lacks the goodness of tonal center. What virtue does this lack possess that would even make you desire it?
Messiane: A wider variety of music can be composed if a tonal center is not required.
Aquinas: But even the violent musical iconoclast Arnold Schonberg (who I interview as well), admitted that “There is plenty of music to be composed in C major.” You still could compose music with a center. If a tonal center is in fact good, I do not see the point in denying it for purposes of “freedom.” If a tonal center is integral to music, then you cannot deny it anymore than you could deny harmoniousness. Tell me, what determines harmonies if there is no tonal center.
Messiane: The composer, of course. His will is free to write any chord he wishes.
Aquinas: But how does he choose? What are the goods toward which his will can move?
Messiane: There is the tonal center system, of course. But if he wishes to disregard this, then he must look to a not-harmonic thing, such as his whim, the melody, the psychological effect he wishes to produce, et cetera (if there is an et cetera, which I doubt).
Aquinas: I can see the logic of choosing according to the melody. But, being a disembodied spirit, I cannot see the logic behind whim or the psychology. I have no psychology of course, so that reason is out for God and I.
Messiane: So, considered by itself, music without a tonal center provides no opportunity for the composer to make a worthwhile choice. It is like the conviction that all special actions are good that leads to nothing.
Aquinas: Is this an evil?
Messiane: No.
Aquinas: Is this a good?
Messiane: No.
Aquinas: So, would you admit it is preferable to have a tonal center?
Messiane: No.
Aquinas: Why not?
Mesianne: The center must be chosen just as arbitrarily as the chords without a center. And even though (in Pythagorean tuning) the other notes owe their existence to the center, the chord-progression behavior is not a necessary response to this fact. And in equal temperament, there is rarely any owing. A child is not constantly required to be with his parents, nor is it good for him to do so.
Aquinas: But the Lord says “Honor your father and your mother.” Unless the origin is given a special place (and if a key is chosen in equal temperament, this origin is implied) how is this done?
Messiane: One could make that note louder, or accented.
Aquinas: But would not that merely increase its importance in the eyes of the listener? We want something that actually increases its importance regardless of psychology. Loudness would merely make it different. A goal (which is reached by either progressions or retrogressions, in any mode) would fit the bill. Just as if you tried to be like your parents, you would be honoring them, but if you spoke their name louder than all other words, you would merely honor them psychologically.
Messiane: Something else could honor the center as well.
Aquinas: I challenge you to find it.
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Oh, one omission from the dialogue. You can, of course, compose chords and progressions that just go and go without resting anywhere. But tonal center is a thing to have, and music that does not have it is lacking in that quality (which is good because it exists, of course), and thus is less good than music that does have it but is equal to it in all other respects.
Except that music that lacks it is not equal to it in all other respects.
Much rock refuses to rest, preferring half-cadences, that is an effect in its own right. Also, any chords where the roots are not minor thirds or tritones apart have to each other some kind of dominant or subdominant to tonic relation.
Palestrina and Lasso were polytonal, i e each phrase ended in a cadence, but they were not necessarily in tune with each other. That was the original twelve-tone, with two flats, three sharps and seven naturals, no enharmonic confusions. No chords other than major and minor thirds with major fifths, minor or major sixths: except in cadences, where major third and fifth with minor seventh where used in double dominants, and a minor fourth could could precede a major third in the dominant (sometimes there was a parallel movement a third higher or sixth lower).
ps, this composer is called Messiaen
What do you mean that refusing to rest is an effect in its own right? Isn't that part and parcel of having no tonal center or is there something I'm missing?
Palestrina's music always seemed like it had a tonal center to me, although I do see how it changes with the phrase. I am sure you will admit that Messiaen has no center in any sense of the word, and no harmonious chords.
Question: Do you find lack of tonal center to be an aesthetic unbeauty (aesthetic equivalent to an evil), or merely a lack of beauty. Why? I find it merely to be provably a lack, not an unbeauty, although I daresay that it might be an unbeauty anyway.
I find it a lack of a particular kind of perfection.
Just like dithyrambic lyrics lack the unity of action, comedy the dignity, humdrum poetry both of tragedy and epics, nevertheless they are all legitimate kinds of beauty in themselves.
Evil is the lack of a beauty/perfection proper to the thing by its genus, like blindness is lack of sight in a man. Lack of sight in a stone is neither blindness or evil (despite the "farseeing stones", palantirs, in LotR). Which I think answers the question.
Messiaen is famous for "symphony of birds" and I do not recall any birdcall that is disharmonic.
As for that kind of rock harmonics, its refusal to rest is not based on lack of tonal center, but on half-cadences, i e cadencing away from the tonal center, so the lack and the perfection are not identical.
I see...very insightful. So theconsistent half-cadences in rock would be evil because it has a tonal center but never actually uses it?
no
rock is a style where resting is sometimes inappropriate
the basics of it is a melody repeat ad lib, and the half-cadence at the end prepares the repetition
true, there is often a bridge between second and third repeat, but that does not invalidate the use of the previous half-cadence, on the contrary: if the bridge modulates the preceding half-cadence prepares the modulation instead
if there is ANY evil in ANY kind of rock, it is in combining very heavy bass, very sad harmonics with great speed: just as drinking a bottle of Burgundy as if it were a litre of milk would be an evil for the stomach
An analogy doesn't count as a proof, you know. I half-counter (as I actually agree with you) with another one: if it were possible to drink a bottle of burgundy quickly without damage to one's health or sanity, what would be the point of not doing so?
The parallel point in both cases is damage to health (certainly, ears as stomach) and sanity (at least temporarily, since stomping to heavy metal seems to be a kind of frenzy).
O.K. What's wrong with a frenzy? Plato called artistic creation a frenzy. Christian mysticism is a sort of frenzy. Of course, music-induced frenzy is different, as it is a less rational, not more rational state. But do you think that the other two things I mentioned are frenzies? They cause you to lose youself in something and behave in a manner difficult to explain...in other words, what precisely is a frenzy?
I will post my very humble opinion. It would seem to me that
since there are two opposing spiritual forces in our world, there must be two kinds of frenzy.
One is induced by the good force, namely God, and the other by evil.
In both types of frenzy you lose
yourself, but to whom? I think that might be the real question.
Goodness! How do you get your
paragraphs to look so neat??
I don't remember...I suppose that if it looks bad when you paste it into the box, you can alter it there.
Sometimes, I just put a line of space between paragraphs. Indenting doesn't work here.
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