Monday, June 23, 2008

A music theory discovery...possibly!

Ok all, time to discuss something that has been on my mind for a while now, but maybe I can find someone else here who can give me some insight.

As most of you music theory nuts know, music evolution has hit a little "snag" when it comes to new and exciting things not based on technology. I mean, we've been through microtonal scales, jazz chords, and even trichordal arrays that expand the 12-tone matrix and its 48 probabilities to over 60,000!
-Side note: To prove my point:
A trichord is a set of three notes, which can be arranged a total of six unique ways (ABC, ACB, CAB, CBA, BAC, BCA). Considering that there are 4 trichords in one row form, you have 6x6x6x6, which equals 1,296 possible formations for just ONE row! Now, considering that there are 48 row forms...this means 1,296x48 which is 62,208 unique possibilities! Sheesh! Way to go, Milton Babbitt!

Anyways, with Babbitt's continuing expansion of the dodecaphonic system of Schoenberg or Hauer, I began to wonder if there was any other possible direction to go. Well, in my search, I noticed these discoveries and had to try to find someway around them. These included:
-Modes of limited transposition
-Nonretrogradable rhythm
-German nomenclature spelling in notation (Bach, Sacher, etc.)
-Microtonality
-Tempo/Metric Modulation
-13-tone rows
-Microtonal tone rows
-Biomusic (animal notation, neurofeedback, etc.)
-Technological music (synthesizers, Ondes Martenot, etc.)
-Minimalism
-Post-minimalism
-Neo-Romantic
-Neo-baroquism
-Aleatory music
-Indeterminacy
-Prepared Instruments (piano, harp, harpsichord, etc.)
-Set theory (trichord, tetrachord, pentachord, superset, prime form, etc.)
-Colored notation
-Total serialism (everything serialized)
-Morse Code music (the rhythms alternate long/short to spell things in morse code...this was a very interesting find.)
-Many more than I can list!

However, there was one specific thing I did not see until recently, and was something I wondered about for a long time. This is the idea of INVERTED music, where every pitch EXCEPT THE ONE THAT USUALLY IS HEARD is played simultaneously. This would start off sounding like insanity, but if you get into it for a few minutes, it actually begins to become perceptible to your ears! You can hear the missing notes and can follow the melody by NOT hearing it. It was an insane experiment, but the surprising thing is that this could be the next move in music theory, since everything thus far has been aimed at working with what someone HEARS, not what someone DOESN'T hear. Call me crazy, but this idea could go somewhere. I wrote some pieces based on this and it's sort of amazing how well it is working right now.

Beyond that, a friend of mine discussed with me the idea of something he coined the "Super Staff", which would make ledger line octaves a thing of the past! The concept was very intriguing, and after some work on it, it could actually prove useful for future compositions! Some things are still being worked out such as how key signatures and the like would be notated, but as of right now, the idea is going well. I'll keep you all posted on the developments!

Finally, I will leave this post with one last music theory thought. Does anyone else find it amusing that people crave structure in music yet they hate serial music? I mean, serial music is a very structured and organized form of composition, especially total serialism, but most people perceive it, which I do not blame anyone that is not a music theorist for believing, as incredibly random. Sadly, randomness did not become a major part of music until the idea of aleatory came along. But yeah, I find it sort of funny that people have this paradox and few realize it! Ha!

That's it for now. Enjoy!

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