The Primacy of Melody (1)
As ‘the New Lyricist’, I am of course dedicated to writing music based on line and melody. ‘Melody’ is not in fact a terribly easy concept to define. Parry, in the version of Groves Dictionary of Music, used up until 1954, defines it as ‘the general term vaguely used to denote successions of single notes which make musical sense’ (kindly brought to my attention by Mr. Sean McCormack). This is all right as far as it goes, but it doesn’t really go very far – note the word ‘vaguely’. My understanding of the concept is heavily influenced by the ideas presented in Deryck Cooke’s remarkable book, The Language of Music, which really ought to be better known. In it he tries to show that the effect both of melody and what we in the west call harmony basically stems from the increasing and diminishing tension between successive notes or simultaneously sounding pitches produced by their relationship to the harmonic series. (Basically, the series of overtones that sound above the fundamental note when a string is plucked, which are always in a fixed relationship upwards – 8ve, 5th, 4th, 3rd, etc). For me, the harmonic series – a hierarchy occurring in the physics of sound, or possibly in our brain’s perception of sound, is the foundation of all pitched music (one reason why theories of ‘atonal’ and ‘twelve-tone’ music are in my opinion not just unmusical but actively anti-musical). We actually perceive the meaning of music at all times, unconsciously, in relation to this hierarchy. The deliberate departure from the hierarchy of the harmonic series and the adoption of various completely artificial systems by Schoenberg and others in the early 20th century account for the incomprehensibility of their music to the majority of music-lovers, and in particular the lack of recognisable melody that most of us deplore; this problem still afflicts the majority of ‘serious’ or academic ‘avant-garde’ or contemporary classical music composers, to this day, and it is a very great problem. In the last few years there has been a reaction in the shape of a certain number of composers, many from rock or pop backgrounds, who have taken to writing ‘classical’ music of what I call the ‘Classic FM’ variety – music which has recognisable tunes and harmonies and appeals widely, but unfortunately, for the most part, lacks any kind of distinctive or truly memorable musical ideas. This is what results from aiming for the lowest common denominator. My conception is to try to find a middle way, by which it should be possible to write music of high quality and aspiration, recognisably ‘of our time’, but also still recognisably part of the tradition of classical music going back for centuries that most people know and understand.
In order to do this, in my opinion it is necessary to reassess the concept of melody; melody rather than harmony – firstly because I believe that harmony arises out of melody, and secondly, because it was the excesses of late romantic progressive harmony that led to ‘atonalism’ and then to ‘serialism’ and got us into this mess in the first place! My attempt to do this will form Part 2.
The Primacy of Melody (2)
Looking at the basic elements of music, it is immediately evident that they consist essentially of rhythm and melody. Harmony, in my opinion, important and valuable as it is, is clearly a secondary element. There are many traditions of music in the world which can rightly be described as ‘classical’ – Indian, Balinese/Javanese, Chinese, Persian, Turkish etc. Yet it is a fact that ‘harmony’, as we understand it today, was invented exclusively in the western European classical tradition (actually, probably first in the tradition of church music). There are effects within other classical musical traditions which resemble harmony, but they are invariably the result of the coincidence of various melodic lines either against a drone or laid over one another (as in the ‘colotomic’ structure of Balinese and Javanese gamelan orchestras, where, in simple terms, a single tune is played simultaneously at different speeds and at different octaves). If we imagine the music of the earliest human cultures (the best clues we have are the surviving remnants of the music of the Australian aboriginals and the Bushmen of Africa), it appears to arise firstly out of rhythmic effects produced by clapping, stamping and banging things together (perhaps with our sense of rhythm originating in the steady, unending heart beat we all live with from birth), and then secondly, out of pitched sounds produced by the human voice, then later by objects such as stones, pieces of wood, reeds, etc. (ancient tuned stone plates have been discovered in China dating from several centuries B.C., and these represent the sophisticated version of a technique which must have existed far longer). As I am writing about melody, let us concentrate on that (while remembering the huge importance of rhythm, too). All folk traditions I am aware of, apart from those which are purely rhythmic, like the amazing African drumming traditions, utilise single, unaccompanied melodic lines – primarily vocal (although often instruments are used to imitate the vocal line and sometimes to replace it); the harmonisations in which we are accustomed to hear folk songs presented are much later additions. It is interesting to note that in the Pacific there are strong choral singing traditions in many cultures, but as far as I am aware, these traditions all used monody (a single melodic line)exclusively, until they came into contact with western harmony through the medium of Christian missionaries and their hymns. When they had been introduced to the novel and striking concept of four-part harmony, they immediately adapted their monodic songs to this style and became expert exponents of this kind of choral singing.
As far as is known, the unique Western idea of harmony – of sounding several pitches simultaneously and enjoying the very powerful and colourful effect produced thereby, appears to have arisen out of the practise of organum, which some unknown artist introduced into the plainchant singing of the church. This started with the chant being sung against a drone, which would have introduced simple harmonic effects, then with the singers split into two, with one group singing a 4th or a 5th above the original melody; this would have produced more startling effects – then it only remained for one voice occasionally to move in a different direction from the original melody to produce the beginnings of vocal polyphony and the series of fascinating tensions and resolutions that is what makes tonal harmony (is there any other kind?) work. From then on a process of development occurred in western music which led through the various polyphonic styles of medieval church music to the madrigals, part-songs, consort pieces, etc. of the 16th century, and then eventually to the fully developed counterpoint of the Baroque, in the chorale prelude, canons and fugues of Bach and the others. Note that these are all essentially linear or melodic forms, where the harmony arises out of the coincidence of melodic lines. But at the same time a different tradition was developing, first brought to the fore by composers like Monteverdi, where melodic lines in recitative and then the melodies in arias were accompanied by chords - later developed into the ‘figured bass’ also used by Baroque composers like Bach and Handel. It was this other side of harmony that finally led to the new style of the 18th century ‘classical’ period, based not so much on line as in polyphony (though of course there were still melodies and some counterpoint), but on the dramatic contrast produced by the changes from one chord to another and from what had become known as one ‘key’ to another. I believe that this is what gave rise to the concept known as ‘progressive harmony’, which came to dominate western music in the 19th century, and the gradual increase in more and more complex and ‘chromatic’ harmonies. (After all, ‘chromatic’ means literally ‘coloured’ – the search was for ever greater emotional contrast and effect through ever more strained harmonic devices). Also to the idea of harmony being ‘structural’ (rather than the earlier polyphonic structures based on melody), with, say, a symphony ‘progressing’ from a ‘tonic’ key, basically to sub-dominant, to dominant and then back to the ‘home’ key, by a more or less roundabout route.
In the Romantic period – particularly in the German tradition, which so dominated western classical music at the time, through figures like Wagner, the process of striving for ever more extreme harmonic effects and their psychological/emotional by-products, in late Romantic composers like Mahler, Richard Strauss and Schoenberg eventually led to a crisis, and in the end to the effective ‘collapse’ of traditional harmony (apparently). Composers like Schoenberg then attempted to write ‘free atonal’ music, organised on an ad hoc basis, perhaps more of sound and colour than anything else, and attempting to avoid any conventional tonal implications, but found this an increasing strain. Which resulted in the notorious decision of Schoenberg to institute his ‘system of composing with the twelve notes of the chromatic scale’ – an invention which he proudly announced in a letter to a friend ‘would ensure the supremacy of German music for a century to come’! It is in this decision, I believe, that the problem with melody lies in 20th century music. Although not by any means all composers followed Schoenberg and the 2nd Viennese School into the twelve-tone style, what happened was that an abstract, quasi-mathematical approach became fashionable that was based not on the natural language of music derived from the hierarchy of the harmonic series, but on essentially arbitrary theoretical principles that could be invented for every new piece, if necessary. This undoubtedly led to a lot of very clever note-spinning, but the results were largely incomprehensible to the vast majority of the audience for classical music. As the great music critic, Hans Keller, once said ‘a lot of composers today are now writing non(sounding)sense – and some of our greatest talents are among them.’ The resulting alienation of the larger classical musical audience led the ‘avant-garde’ to retreat ever-further into a specialised little world of its own – an ivory tower, in fact – to which only those ‘in the know’ could or would be admitted. ‘Contemporary music’ became a cult – the more obscure and, frankly, hideous, the more authentic it was deemed to be. This situation continued from the late 50’s right up to at least the 1980’s, and in some areas it still persists – particularly in academic music departments to this day. Not that all composers went along with this – there were always some brave souls who persisted in writing basically tonal music, with actual tunes involved – eventually, with the advent of ‘minimalism’ in the late 70’s and the 80’s – mostly coming from the USA, where the cult was not so widespread, a loosening up came about, and avant-garde composers like Lutoslawski in Poland, Arvo Part in Estonia, John Taverner in the UK and others simply rejected the abstract avant-garde style, and re-discovered tonality and modalism in various forms. So where did this leave the future of melody? I will try to deal with this in Part 3.
The Primacy of Melody (3)
What of the future for melodic music? It seems to me that there are two paths for music, plus one cul-de-sac. The latter is for contemporary classical music to remain in the largely academic and specialised realm that has characterised most of it for the last few decades and to stagnate in an ever more obscure pursuit of esoteric number games. Another path which appears to be possible is one that is worryingly dominant in pop music, and gaining in ground in music of the ‘Class FM’ variety; that is, music based on the repetition of banal common chords, simplistic repetitive rhythms, and extremely uninspired and formulaic melodies over the top – music that appeals (commercially very successfully) to the lowest common denominator, in fact. Pop music has already largely succumbed – beautifully written and often quite original song-writing like that of, say, The Beatles, has mostly been replaced by thoroughly mediocre and poorly put together stuff which is in fact largely produced by computers. It would be a disaster if classical music went the same way. The other path, though, would be for classical composers in general to reject the false trail started by Schoenberg and his disciples, and return to the basic concept of music as being based on the hierarchy of the harmonic series – not in order to go backwards and write pastiche of old music (a mistake which some of the ‘Classic FM composers’ clearly make), but to find ever new ways of using the basic materials, largely on the basis of line and melody, rather than harmony as such. This is what I am trying to do myself, and there are other composers around who are trying to do the same thing. The situation is not hopeless, but it is dangerous; as long as the music publishers, the BBC and composers here in the UK are locked in an unhealthy symbiotic relationship of reinforcing one another in the promotion of what is ‘flavour of the month’, and still promulgating the doctrine of the ‘avant-garde’ and ‘atonalism’ we can’t really move forward. This is why things loosened up first in the USA and elsewhere – because there was not such a concentration of vested interests supporting the status quo. We can only hope that enough composers adopt a forward-looking vision, and enough ‘new blood’ comes into the music profession in the UK in the near future to help secure the future of classical music through the primacy of melody.