The Schillinger System of Musical Composition

Schillinger, Joseph

doi:10.2307/890850

Cited by 18 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Joseph Schillinger (1941) is credited with conceiving the terms rhythmic consonance and dissonance. Rhythmic dissonance is taken to exist since the strict pulse of most Western music can act as a consonance.…”

Section: Background To Rhythmic Dissonancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, rhythmic and meter-based dissonance have increasingly been analysed, concentrating on key bands like Meshuggah (Pieslak 2007;Capuzzo 2018;Hannan 2018;Lucas 2018). Such studies can be credited with applying concepts of metric and rhythmic dissonance (Schillinger 1941;Krebs 1987Krebs , 2003Biamonte 2014) to metal music through defined, detailed case studies, but they have not yet developed a systematic understanding of the various forms that dissonance can take. In addition to these structural and compositional parameters, other studies have highlighted the relevance of timbral qualities for the perception of dissonance (Lilja 2009;Herbst 2018;Virtala et al 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Dissonance in metal music: Musical and sociocultural reasons for metal’s appreciation of dissonance

Swallow

Herbst

2022

Metal Music Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article explores reasons for the proliferation of dissonance in metal music. It asks why metal musicians compose dissonant songs and what sociocultural functions dissonance may have for metal as a community. The findings suggest that exploring ways to further utilize dissonance is crucial to the genre’s development and continued transgression, especially in progressive and extreme subgenres, and that fans derive pleasure and meaning from dissonance in the music. Dissonance is not only present in many metal compositions, but its prominence suggests that dissonance is one of the genre’s central aesthetic features, at least in its more extreme subgenres. This is a subversion of the typical values in mainstream popular music, where dissonant features are fleeting points of tension. The article argues that dissonance is valued for its congruence with an aesthetic that transcends the genre through its overall transgressive traits. Such an aesthetic is appealing because it facilitates the exploration of negative emotions and ideas in safety, both individually and communally.

show abstract

Section: Background To Rhythmic Dissonancementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissonance in metal music: Musical and sociocultural reasons for metal’s appreciation of dissonance

Swallow

Herbst

2022

Metal Music Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…(1) by forming scales based on interval cycles that equally divide a given octave-range, as in Slonimsky (1947), Schillinger (1946), Yamaguchi (2013), or Weston (2020);…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using a generative interval cycle is perhaps the most common way of creating multi-octave scales. During the first half of the 20th century, composers and theorists such as Nicolas Slonimsky or Joseph Schillinger devised multi-octave scales based on interval cycles that equally divide a given octave-range; see (Schillinger, 1946) and (Slonimsky, 1947). The most extensive text published on the subject is Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (Slonimsky, 1947).…”

Section: Symmetrical Multi-octave Scalesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural properties of multi-octave scales

Crowley

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

First and foremost, my new friend and brother in arms, Paco Gómez, for guiding me on this amazing journey and for opening my eyes to a fantastic world where there are so many things worth discovering. I am forever humbled by your knowledge and humanity. I look forward to many more adventures! Julián Ávila, for the gift of a marvellous software that turns scales expressed by a string of integer numbers indicating inter-onset distances into musical notation. You probably saved me about three months work on Appendix 2! Ander Garcia, for helping me actually put some of these scales into practice. This is merely the beginning! José Antonio García Sevilla, for the technical support with spreadsheets which enabled me to filter through tens of thousands of scale options.Luis Díez Antolinos, for the hours of conversation about the subject and for patiently undertaking countless preliminary experiments.Ramón Paús, for being a mentor and friend throughout my life and teaching me so much about art, life and music, including the existence of multi-octave scales.My dear Maud, Liam and Aaron, for all your love and support throughout the years. My wonderful parents, Jerry and Angela, for making me who I am and opening my heart to life, art, music and knowledge.My precious daughter, Alana, for being a continuous source of love and inspiration and for teaching me so much about myself and the world.A very special thanks to Pahola, my wife, friend and companion and so much more. Without your invaluable love, support, encouragement, patience and courageous go-for-it attitude towards everything you do, there is no way I would have completed this work (or started it). It's a privilege to share my adventures with you and I look forward to turning these scales into music together.And, last but not least, to you, dear reader. Whilst I am pretty sure that a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it probably does make a sound, I am positive that v vi PrefaceThe present research deals with multi-octave or non-octave-repeating scales. That is, scales in which pitch content differs in successive octaves. Throughout the text both terms are used indistinctly. While not exactly common, these structures have been employed in a variety of musical settings to organise pitch content in music from the middle ages to present day. Yet the literature dealing specifically with the topic is scarce and it would appear that a large number of musicians are unaware of their existence, or, if vaguely acquainted with the concept, have not considered the possibilities inherent in such scales. After discussing the musical cultures in which non-octave-repeating scales have existed for centuries and the music of composers and improvisors who have employed them in their work, we define a collection of two-octave scales based on musically desirable intervallic characteristics. We subsequently analyse their structural properties and provide a basic taxonomy. Finally, we look into these scales from the point of view of perception and cognition, considerin...

show abstract

The Feel of the Flesh: Towards an Ontology of Music

Backhaus¹

2001

Life the Play of Life on the Stage of the World in Fine Arts, Stage-Play, and Literature

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Schillinger System of Musical Composition

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Dissonance in metal music: Musical and sociocultural reasons for metal’s appreciation of dissonance

Dissonance in metal music: Musical and sociocultural reasons for metal’s appreciation of dissonance

Structural properties of multi-octave scales

The Feel of the Flesh: Towards an Ontology of Music

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About