Part 3: Descants, Rounds & Polyphony

Research Point – Atonality

Jarrett & Day (2008) state, “Atonality is a condition of music in which the constructs of the music do not "live" within the confines of a particular key signature, scale, or mode. To the uninitiated listener, atonal music can sound like chaotic, random noise. However, atonality is one of the most important movements in 20th century music….In tonal music, one tone functions as a sort of center of gravity, and the other tones in the chromatic scale are "attracted" to it in varying degrees of strength. But in atonal music, there is no gravity. You're allowed to use any of the 12 tones in the chromatic scale any way you like.”

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer and artist believed to be somewhat of a pioneer in terms of musical thought.    Large parts of his work functioned around atonality in composition (a composition that lacks a tonal centre or key).  In the 1920’s, Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone technique, which was a process of ordering all twelve notes of the chromatic scale into a workable pattern, using all notes in the scale an equal number of times.  This method of composition is described by Roman (2008):

“In its strict usage, the twelve-tone technique is quite simple:

·      First, the composer has to “invent” a twelve-tone row. This row will contain all the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale, and they will be arranged in whichever order the composer finds suitable. This row will be used as a sort of generative seed for the creation of a composition


·      The row will then be used as melodic or chordal material throughout the piece, with one fundamental rule: once a pitch has been used, it cannot be reused until all the other remaining pitches of the twelve-tone row have been used. This rule forces equality between all pitches of the chromatic scale, avoiding preference and thus eliminating the chance for the establishment of tonality.


·      Composing a piece just using a particular twelve-tone row has the potential of being very limiting and restrictive. Thus, to expand the compositional possibilities of the twelve-tone technique, the composer is allowed to manipulate the twelve-tone row in several ways: by making a retrograde out of it, by inverting its intervallic content, by transposing it, and by splitting it into several subsets. These types of row manipulation will be explained in the next pages.

The composer can then use any of these manipulations of the twelve-tone row in the piece, either separately or simultaneously. In addition, the composer can also introduce new twelve-tone rows, and manipulate them throughout the same piece of music.”

Other composers, such as Josef Matthias Hauer and Charles Ives have also been credited with inventing similar systems of incorporating dissonance into their compositions.  Hauer is credited with devising and naming the musical ‘tropes’, a collection of unordered pitches, most usually six notes, now referred to as an ‘unordered hexachord’. 

Hauser TROPE no. 3

Many composers have experimented with different methods of composition, but atonality in music has long been used as a way to escape the confines of the diatonic system.    Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten, Op.15 (1909), was the beginning of his experimentation with atonal composition using harmonic dissonance as opposed to consonance.  Although the use of atonality is evident throughout this piece, it is the 13^th section of this composition, Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide, which is composed entirely using Schoenberg’s atonal system.  In contrast, Bela Bartok’s String Quartet No. 2 seems to use a different style of atonality, achieved by the intertwining polyphonic melodies that occur throughout the piece.  Of course, this approach also results in a number of diatonic chords occurring in additional to the tropes that naturally occur. 

Studies of atonality in music continue today, with more modern examples of the use of dissonance as harmony.  Atonal Post Modern Piece – 016 by Carlos Rodriguez (2012), found on SoundCloud, is a great example of the use of an atonal system in composition.  The atonal nature of the piece, teamed with the use of microtones, seems to even further develop some of the ideas devised by composers such as Bartok and Schoenberg.