Modern Music Theory Improvisation and Application

Please Watch Video Above for detailed info:

Hi Guys,

Today, a look this great but lesser known Austrian composer:

ATONAL BEGINNINGS:

Many people associate the abandonment of traditional tonality, wether 12 tone/serialism or some other form with the second Viennese school of composers, especially that of Arnold Schoenberg.

But, there was another thinker, composing at the same period of time [some say before] creating in his own unique atonal form…..

His name was Josef Matthias Hauer.

TROPES:

Hauer took a different approach by exploiting atonality and employing “Tropes”.

These consist of an “unordered pair” of complementing “Hexatonic” six note sets/groupings that employ all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. [The key being to play the first 6 notes before moving onto the next 6 notes].

EXAMPLE 1:

Guitar Version:[Sextuplets]

EXAMPLE 2: [Exploiting Both Whole Tone Scales]

Although, they are hexachords these tropes can also work well divided into three 4 note groupings of “Tetrachords”

HAUER’S 44 TROPES: [479 million permutations into 44]

Example of Hauer’s personal writing’s:

EXPLORING A TROPE:

We, will take this as our “Trope”

Now, let’s extend this to two octaves:

From here, we will play the same trope in an intervallic manner: [Strict-each note in order ]

This time, let’s play each trope with the notes in a different order: [Not strict]

Here, we have “Trope”-in an Arpeggio Form;

Example.1

Example. 2

Example. 3

Finally, the trope as a lick:

Video Examples:

TRI-CHORDS:

From, our tropes we can create chords.

These can be,

Dyads–2note chords,

Tri-chords–3 note chords,

Quartal–4 note chords,

Penta–5 note chords

Hexatonic–6 note chords.

For this short blog we will exploit 2 note voicing’s.

Here, is an example of our two hexatonic’s as “Dyads”

We could also superimpose the retrograde of our trope on top of our trope:

From this, we can exploit some more harmony with dyads:

COMPOSITION:

Here, is an example displaying some harmonic movement and chordal development that I quickly manipulated form our trope. [See-Chords in video chapter above]

IN CONCLUSION:

This was just a very brief look at Hauer’s tropes. It’s an amazing concept because original harmonic content and original ideas develop naturally as the material reveals itself.

These simple tropes give birth to a wealth of creative content that can lead one into directions that may not have ever been taken or otherwise thought of or even considered.

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