This has to be one of my most favorite presentations yet. I think I'm going to have all of my theory students watch this one for homework next week!

Amazing presentation.

Excellent! Very clear and such a lot of musical common sense - just what we would expect from Alan Belkin!

Very good perspective

2:47 Very Zelda.

excelent ¡¡

Thanks very much for posting this Alan, it's fantastic. Out of interest, what was the piece at the end of the video, I really liked it but couldn't place it.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

music is a scheme - a large-scale systematic plan or arrangement for attaining a particular object or putting a particular idea into effect. you lost some people when you said open system :)

I object to your notion that "serial" or 12-tone music (though yes I agree some acolytes profess that it ought to be practiced in an intentionally "closed" way, it is by no means the only approach) is a "closed" system -- it possesses the same features of interpretation and extension of signification as so-called tonal systems, and this has been demonstrated formally in many cases (Babbitt, Xenakis, Mazzola, etc.) The 12-tone series' functioning as the basic unit of aggregation does not imply that they/it need to be memorized, just as a listener doesn't need to memorize the notes of a scale in a tonality that is being used in order to comprehend the basic structure, which, in both cases, is defined inherently by the nature of interval in 12-pitch chromatic space -- which, combined with music's inherent existence in the domain of time, imposes no limitation whatsoever on the number or number of intricacies of a series of contiguous and audible (i.e. interval identity or difference, over time, inherent to both "systems") intervallic structures. They are merely 2 ways of approaching structure in music, both of which are, by all coherent meanings of the word in this context, open. Actually, if anyone deems themselves fit to talk about the schoenberg's marvelous approach, for lack of a better name, they might choose to be so germane as to, oh, I don't know, actually _read_ Schoenberg's writings on the matter, where he is most explicit about the fact that composing with the tones of a row is an approach he developed directly _from_ the principles of structure in tonal music, not against it. The entire Vienna trio was committed to exploring the most fanciful and compelling aspects of tonality, and now we live in world that seems to find it appropriate to shower their names with ignorant sloganeering. Yes, I very much object.

@danb2622

4 ай бұрын

Personally I find using a 12-tone row very liberating in fact. For one, it provides a ready resource of related material to draw from, and also allows me to write things I would otherwise probably not have come up with. So it actually excites rather than inhibits my creativity. Moreover, I find Schoenberg’s view of harmony as expression and nothing more very liberating. I find that trying to fit everything ultimately into a ii-V-I scheme straightjackets my creativity and leads to predictable results. The powers of using a row seem utterly infinite in my view. But I do realize that not all musicians share these views, and I’m wholly at peace with that.

@UncleC1025

4 ай бұрын

@@danb2622Schoenberg really got a lot right, and he does not get his flowers these days. Happy to hear about your experience, thanks for sharing!