TwelveTone Music a few pointers

Hi Peter,

I must confess that I find the harmony of stictly written 12-tone row, ala Schoenberg, to be cold and unemotional. In many pieces, that feeling might be the intent. That said, I also believe that 12-tone composition technique is a great way to force the composer to exercise variety in other dimensions of the music: rhythm, accents, texture, orchestration, etc. By removing one freedom in the writing-- to use traditional harmony-- the composer must exercise even more care in the other dimensions of the music (rhythms, accents, etc.) if he wishes to create music that is interesting, minimally to himself if not to others.

I would write in 12-tone row only if a composition instructor required me to do so. However, I have voluntarily done some other similar writing. I wrote a suite of piano pieces, where each piece is based on a _vertical_ interval, such as a 4th. The RH and LH almost always must play a 4th. Anything else in the piece is fair game; but the rule is, the two hands have to play vertical 4ths. I found that this _constraint_ actually seemed to free me up, or loosen me up, to experiment a little bit more adventurously with other dimensions of the music. In the case of the 4ths piece, I focused a lot on the larger shape of the piece, particularly volume (dynamic) levels. In that piece, I also completely removed the dimension of rhythm by using a steady beat pattern of alternating chords in the RH and LH. This was at great risk of producing a very boring piece. Other things had to happen to make it interesting (to me, at least).

If I were to teach composition, I'd probably make it an assignment for my students to right a series of pieces, as I did, using vertical intervals: 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, 7ths. (I mixed minor and major 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, and 7ths). And, to be fair to our musical heritage, yes, I would also assign 12-tone row composition writing exerices :-)

Listening to your recent submission of 12-tone pieces, it's obvious to me that you know your stuff really well about 12-tone writing. I look forward to hearing more, and also learning about how you think about composing.

Cheers
-- Mark