So since I am not the type of person at all that takes part in social networking or internet blogging at all, I have clearly neglected the journal aspect of this course thus far. So I have decided that I will write a series of blogs tonight reflecting on the course, and what I learned and some thoughts pertaining to it.

My first musing is about our first project. Specifically the the type of musical language that we were asked to write in. That is, "atonal" music. Now, anyone that knows me knows that I hate the term atonal. If atonal is considered a legitimate term then we might as well start calling Mozart amodal. The problem I have with the term atonal is the same that Schoenberg did, and that is the fact that is does nothign to describe what the music IS, it describes what it ISN'T.

So after hearing my classmates interpretation of what they percieved to be atonal music, it got me thinking, what exactly do people mean when they say atonality? Alot of people immediately associate the term atonal with randomness, dissonance and generally chaotic textures, but surely all the music written for the class was not dissonant, nor random and chaotic. As a matter of fact, it seemed all types of different musical approaches could be considered atonal from a certain point of view. Which made me realize something, for something to be considered tonal, in the classical sense, it has to follow some pretty strict guidelines. For example, the basic building block of tonality is the fact that the tension caused by the leading tone and chord seventh resolves outwards to a tonic harmony. This is how we achieve our dominant-tonic cadence. Without this, would something rightfully be considered tonal? What if someone took some very nice sounding traidic chords, and put them together in a way that sounded nice, but didn't follow any chord flow "rules"? Is this music tonal? Look at the music of Debussy and Satie, they do exactly this, and most people, upon first hearing the music would not immediately call it atonal, because it doesn't sound like Webern or Boulez.

I think people just have a harsh association with the term atonal, when they probably have heard, and enjoyed some music which could be considered as such. I guess another problem lies in the fact that people like to label things, and not all atonal music fits into neat catergorization. Let's look at Webern, his later music is serial, therefore, there is no reason to ever call that msuic atonal, that's not describing his music, it's telling you what it isn't. It woudl be like calling a blue car a not-red car, that's just foolish. The blue car should be called blue, just like Webern's piano variations should be called serial. But look at his earlier output, the so called "free atonality". That is a bit harder to put a solid label on, as even though it clearly has much structural and harmonic unity, what could we rightfully call it? Perhaps set music? Or does it even need a label?

Basically, even though I had similar thoughts to these before, participating in this course has really made me really just how hazzy terms like atonality, and even tonality can be. There is no clear black and white, and nor does their need to be. As a matter of fact, I think it's great that there isn't.