tonality/atonality, key

[de_aztec]

tl;dr: playing in key: good or bad?

-do you compose within keys?
-should metal stay in key or bounce around or have no key?
-does playing in key limit creativity? or does it improve it?
-which keys do you like? (major/minor/modal, and then their keys)
-in reference to opeth, do you prefer them staying in key or not? For me, yes, and example being the phrasing about 45seconds in during Dirge for November, when the guitars play in C major, the solo on piti2 in D (unless my sources decieve me). these happen to be some of my favourite parts

thanks arasmas for clearing that up

 

[{-sapob-}]

bklergh hizzle pizzle,
happy amiley kieny jahoooveneee.
monopoly scrabble backgammon,
poker blackjack, tummikins.

 

[de_aztec]

After a bit of a read,
I think i can fairly say that, i couldnt say one over the other.
I think being both tonal and atonal add and subtract from each other, to create some of the music that i love.
I wont say anything else on the subject because im still not sure if i have fully grasped the concept.

nvm im just talking about playing in key, not tonality

 

[Lateralus14]

Isn't that just borrowing the parallel minor or some nonsense.

 

[de_aztec]

maybe that was a bad example. playing a D# would be out of the current key, if you were the A major. using the m3 is still out of A major key, even though they are parallel keys

 

[Arasmas]

MUSIC THEORY 101
by arasmas

"dissonant" is not the same as "atonal"

100% of rock music is tonal, including metal. much of it, especially the metal/prog that you guys are used to, can be quite dissonant, but i assure you it is all very firmly tonal. does each musical phrase have a "root" note that it feels like it "pulls" toward? the answer is always yes, and that's what the word "tonal" means.

tonality in the modern sense was more or less defined in the late 1500s, with the arrival of the baroque era. before that, music tended to wander in meandering lines (with no chords, mind you) and there often was not a clear "home" note. but this isn't exactly atonal in the modern sense either, because if you separate out the phrases, you can always find some logical key center, even if it differs within the same piece or if the composer wasn't aware of it himself.

"atonality" as it is usually defined was created more or less by arnold schoenberg and his students alban berg and anton webern, in the early 20th century. if you listen to it, you'll understand - there is (at least in theory) no true tonal center to the music. this is much harder in practice than it is in theory. if you just lay random notes down, or just play what you "feel" (as in free jazz), there usually will be some sort of tonal structure to your playing. that said, some free jazz is indeed atonal, but a lot of it isn't.

also, repeated for emphasis: 0% of rock/pop music is atonal, not even the most dissonant death metal songs or whatever

 

[de_aztec]

nvm]

 

[Arasmas]

nope

 

[de_aztec]

thanks for the contribution

Ok, nevermind tonality, how about playing in key arasmas?

 

[de_aztec]

sorry ur right, i dont mean tonality, i just mean playing in key. thanks arasmas

 

[HemeHaci]

"atonality" as it is usually defined was created more or less by arnold schoenberg and his students alban berg and anton webern, in the early 20th century.

In fact credits also should be given to Wilhelm Richard Wagner here.

 

[Arasmas]

kind of. he "stretched" tonality as they say, but all of his music has a definite tonal center

 

[de_aztec]

kind of. he "stretched" tonality as they say, but all of his music has a definite tonal center

can you explain what you mean by stretched?

 

[Arasmas]

to put it simply, he goes on huge meandering tangents away from the key he's in, but he always eventually makes it back (i think? correct me if i'm wrong, i'm not an expert in music theory). also, if you take any individual phrase in isolation, it conforms to SOME kind of tonality.

 

[Arasmas]

basically with schoenberg, the POINT of his music was to eliminate tonality. wagner still was trying to make "normal" music, albeit very experimental for the day. but schoenberg put great care into the fact that his music was atonal - he tried to make sure no listener could possibly read any tonality or sense of key into it. of course, you could argue that this is actually impossible in practice, because ANY two notes in sequence could be coherent together in some context. you could say atonal music is really tonal, but the key just keeps changing really really fast. but since nobody could reasonably follow it, we say it's "atonal" in a practical sense

 

[Frosties]

^ Thanks for the explanations, Arasmas - pretty interesting.

 

[ozric]

i'm curious as to how you would define the music on the drift by scott walker? i'm not one to bask in the theory side of things but i've always thought that dissonant would be a good word to describe it??

 

[Arasmas]

dunno it

 

[Braighs]

THE DRIFT is always tonal but often dissonant. Not only in that intervals like minor second are used but...donkey sounds.

Limits can always aid creativity. Schoenberg limit himself by not having tonal centers and wrote very creative music.

I listen to metal for anthemic emotion. THis is hard to do without tone, so I like my metal tonal. Key changes are gay.

 

[ozric]

^ i see, thanks for that mate. it must be hard to analyse the music structure of a donkey haha...now, what you hear now is a donkey being beaten to death in the studio by scott walker, it sounds like it's dying in C minor.