[log in to unmask] writes:

>No one did.  And, for rigor, dodecaphony's a weak sister, just as "school"
>voice leading is.  You might as well say that standard 4-part harmonic
>writing was invented to make people more creative.

School voice leading is the product of centuries of part writing practices
which were essentially developed to ensure that a 4 part piece was actually
4 parts and that the writing was a smooth as possible for the ears and for
the vocalists.  It was NOT invented to make peopel more creative.  This is
a common mistake I hear even among professors.  Just because a professor is
an expert in 4 part writing doesn;t mean he/she is an expert in why it is
what it is.

>On the other hand, maybe there's a legitimate point.  Stravinsky said that
>he didn't want absolute freedom.  He had to put limits on himself before
>he could begin to compose.  If you can do anything, you have too many
>decisions to make, and you can never make all of them.

I agree..I never said the contrary.

>There is no essential difference between dodecaphony and passacaglia, for
>example, or from the "solfeg" pieces of the Tudor keyboard composers or
>from the cantus firmus masses from the Renaissance.  All of these things
>have the same level of constraint.  It's just that the particular set of
>constraints differ.

Once again...I agree......and I have never said the contrary to this.

>...  But perhaps your assumptions of what music should be caused you to
>ask it.  I, for example, don't quite understand why the row of tones has to
>be beautiful in itself or beautiful simply aurally.  I also don't see why
>melody (in a conventional sense - and a tone row is *not* a melody) must be
>the basis of a composition.  I *like* a nice tune, but for me it's not the
>sine qua non.  Most composers generally called great don't often come up
>with astonishingly beautiful melodies.  It's what they do with basic
>musical material that makes them great.

I answered this fairly thoroughly in a reply to a posting by Kyle
Major....read that and you will have my reply to your very similar posting.

--Wes Crone