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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