Tonal & Atonal

[Billbrpt@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/10/98 12:56:55 AM Central Daylight Time,
Tunapiana@adisfwb.com writes:

<< I would like to hear (in your own words) the definition of these two
 terms:
 
 Tonal & Atonal. >>

Someone else gave you a pretty good definition of the distinction between
Tonal and Atonal music.  However, he gave the impression that music ceased
being tonal about a century ago.  There was a movement towards Atonality at
the time but music with no tonal center never became popular or very
interesting.  Tonal music did however accept much more dissonance and
chromaticism, while remaining clearly Tonal in its basic nature.

All popular music of the 20th Century remained tonal.  Most Rock music is as
tonal as Baroque and Classical with no adventurous modulating at all.  Modern
Jazz is certainly tonal but often is complex in its harmony.  All current
popular styles, Broadway tunes, Country & Western, soft/hard/pop Rock, NewAge,
"Easy Listening", you name it, they are all tonal styles.

Only the most obscure kinds of music that really appeal to very few people are
truly Atonal.  Curiously enough, people who write music still choose key
signatures seemingly based upon the same criteria that composers/writers did
in centuries past.  I have nevr seen an example which contradicts this trait.

This is why the Historical Temperaments indeed work well on virtually all
music.  ET is by definition,  Atonal.  Yes, there is a Major and minor quality
but otherwise, all keys sound alike, only their position in the scale gives
them any distinction.  In the 20th Century,piano tuners simply decided that ET
was the best compromise for reasons that seemed logical but from a musical
composition point of view are clearly not.  Therefore,  most people today are
used to Tonal music being played in an Atonal temperament.

So, to the person whose message I deleted, not caring who he was, and who
resorted to vulgar language to display his ignorance, we here in Madison
Wisconsin tune the HT's for virtually every performance and are quite annoyed
to find a piano left by some hacker in a bad ET or worse yet, Reverse Well,
which is usually what someone who says something like that offers as ET.
Tuning a piano in an HT will leave it no further "off" with respect to an ET
than the natural amount that a piano will go out of tune anyway.  This kind of
gripe is simply defensive posturing by someone whose skills are so limited as
not to be able to handle a typical tuning challenge without trying to blame
someone else for his difficulties.  I have no sympathy for that kind of
complaint whatsoever.  I NEVER destroy my own tunings by "running an FAC
program afterwards".  If someone insists upon that, I get someone else who is
foolish enough to enjoy doing it to do that disservice.

Bill Bremmer RPT
Madison, Wisconsin