d.

5. Select one of the following forms: rounded binary, ternary, or theme and variations. Write an instrumen-
tal work for resources available in class, or study text-setting and write an extended choral work or solo
song with piano or instrumental accompaniment. The harmonic vocabulary should represent the mate-
rials and techniques covered thus far. Refer to the Composition Checklist (Part V, Unit 22).

178 CHROMATIC MATERIALS

 Part IV
Twentieth-Century
Materials
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1 Twentieth-Century Techniques:
General Comments

The music of the twentieth century is remarkably diverse in its styles and techniques. There is no single com-
mon practice in this music but, rather, a wide spectrum of materials and treatments. The authors have chosen
to deal briefly with many of the most widely used of these materials and techniques in the following units, as
an introduction to the much larger subject of twentieth-century music. Please take careful note of the follow-
ing general points.

I. The specific details of traditional part-writing apply less strictly to twentieth-century music, but the under-
lying principles are the same.

A. Parallelism of all types of intervals, including perfect fifths, is common, but the principles of linear inde-
pendence are often the same as in tonal music.

B. Chords may be built of intervals other than thirds, but the general considerations of good-sounding spacing
still apply.

C. Chords may be highly dissonant, but the necessity for harmonic and textural consistency still applies. The
concepts of consonance and dissonance are not necessarily the same as for older music, nor are they nec-
essarily consistent between given twentieth-century works. Each work typically establishes its own norms
of consonance and dissonance.

II. Any given piece of twentieth-century music may involve several of the techniques and materials under dis-
cussion in the following pages. Few works clearly exemplify only one technique. However, certain techniques
and devices tend to be mutually exclusive (for example, modality and serialism).

III. Much twentieth-century music is clearly built around a central tone but lacks the harmonic functions associ-
ated with traditional tonality. This music is frequently referred to as centric. The use of key signatures is
optional and depends on the composer, even with centric music.

IV. Certain techniques or styles of twentieth-century music typically start with only a limited number of pitches
(for example, pentatonic or modal music), whereas others regularly use all twelve notes of the chromatic
scale. The former tend to be predominantly diatonic, with chromaticism used for variety or increased inten-
sity; the latter tend toward more complex harmonic relationships and a higher dissonance level.

V. Planing (pronounced with a long a) is a technique involving parallelism of lines or chords. There are two
types: chromatic (exact, real) planing, in which the chord structure or harmonic interval is preserved exactly
from sound to sound; and diatonic (tonal) planing, where because of the presence of a particular scale,
slightly different chords or intervals in successive sonorities may result. Diatonic planing usually supports a
feeling of key and scale, whereas chromatic planing does not.

181
 A. Chromatic planing.

B. Diatonic planing.

VI. According to the transposition factor, any collection of notes will contain certain intervals. If any interval,
including inversional equivalents (for example, M2  m7), is missing in the set, the collection may be trans-
posed by that interval to yield an entirely new collection of notes. Other transpositions will yield one or more
notes in common with the original collection. Compositional use can be made of these facts in terms of
achieving variety while still using a restricted set of intervals.

Basic collection, lacking m2 ( M7) and A4 ( d5)

Transpositions by m2 and A4 (no common notes with basic collection).

182 TWENTIETH-CENTURY MATERIALS