AH Challenge: Most Western music is atonal

By which I mean Western music up to the early 20th century was not in a key, and that music in a key was regarded as strange and revolutionary. Here is an article about keys in music: http://www.studybass.com/lessons/harmony/keys-in-music.

In other words reverse the situation in OTL whereby Western music was usually in a key until the early 20th century.

My music teacher back in middle/high school told us straight in our face why atonality didn't succeed, it sucks. And he proved to be right.

Dr. Nodelescu said:

My music teacher back in middle/high school told us straight in our face why atonality didn't succeed, it sucks. And he proved to be right.

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Well, I wouldn't simply say that, but the human ear is atuned to pick up patterns in music, and these patterns of notes and intervals form keys, meaning that while you can get some very nice pieces which are essentially atonal (Satie's gynopedies and gnossiens technically are though like all atonal music they could be described as a series of phrases in constantly shifting keys), there's a very limited amount of notes you can have being played at one before it just becomes a wall of noise rather than music. Not to mention that it's damn near impossible to hold a tune to.

So I'd say this isn't really possible because the way how the brain is built means that as a general rule people find tonal music more pleasing and as it can be sung to far more easily, the tonal pieces will inevitably be more succesful financially and more popular in terms of what people want to hear.

Now, this doesn't mean you can't have more atonal music, but you can't get the majority of music to be atonal.

pipisme said:

By which I mean Western music up to the early 20th century was not in a key, and that music in a key was regarded as strange and revolutionary. Here is an article about keys in music: http://www.studybass.com/lessons/harmony/keys-in-music.

In other words reverse the situation in OTL whereby Western music was usually in a key until the early 20th century.

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It isn't the word way around? As far as I know there's no key in Atonal Music.

IMHO Atonal Music is just annoying, I face it much more as an intellectual statement than a new way to make (pleasant) music.

Alex Richards said:

Not to mention that it's damn near impossible to hold a tune to.

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I think this is a much bigger issue than whether or not people on this site like atonal music(and taste is far, far more malleable), given how much pre-classical music was meant to be sung to. If you want western music that works differently, of course, you could have a different dominant scale emerge(say, pentatonic rather than diatonic) or otherwise highly variant from the Common Practice Period's methods.

Deliberately "atonal" music (Equal use of all notes in the 12-note scale) simply won't occur naturally in traditional music. It is a very intellectual and formalized form that can really only after tonal music (with the notion of a scale of 12 or more tones) already exists.

That said, some non-western "primitive" music makes little or no use of melody and chordal harmony. The focus is on complex percussion, with little melody or harmony in the western sense. Perhaps a culture that simply did not evolve complex instruments (strings, woodwinds) capable of reliably producing particular notes might evolve a complex musical tradition that sounds "atonal"

zoomar said:

Deliberately "atonal" music (Equal use of all notes in the 12-note scale) simply won't occur naturally in traditional music. It is a very intellectual and formalized form that can really only after tonal music (with the notion of a scale of 12 or more tones) already exists.

That said, some non-western "primitive" music makes little or no use of melody and chordal harmony. The focus is on complex percussion, with little melody or harmony in the western sense. Perhaps a culture that simply did not evolve complex instruments (strings, woodwinds) capable of reliably producing particular notes might evolve a complex musical tradition that sounds "atonal"

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Though whether you can really call that 'Western music' in the same sense as the OP is asking for rather than being simply music made in the same general area is debatable.

Alex Richards said:

Though whether you can really call that 'Western music' in the same sense as the OP is asking for rather than being simply music made in the same general area is debatable.

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Then, no. If we define "western music" is music that evolved from the same cultural, vocal and instrumental base as OTL "western" music, atonalism or serial music would not develop earlier, nor would it ever come to dominate a musical tradition. Atonalism is an intellectual exercise that is, as you say, un-natural to how the human ear (or brain) percieves melody and harmony. It could only develop late in the evolution of a "classical" musical tradition, be it western or eastern.