Techniques - Ways to Create Form

Techniques assure a certain balance in any activity, but they cannot create. When the systematic principles of a work of art are understood, those principles become common knowledge as techniques. Techniques create a channel between the composer and the listener. The composer uses the techniques to create the piece, while the listener, using the knowledge about the technique, looks for cues and feels a satisfaction when his expectations are met. From approximately 1650 to 1910, tonality was one of the most powerful techniques for creating form and coherency in music. In this section we will try to establish a relationship between self-similarity and the development of principles of tonality and, its counterpart, serialism. We shall show that the principles of tonality -- a technique for organizing sound -- come from the structures of the harmonic sound. Further we shall suggest that the technique of serialism should be regarded as creation of sound from musical structures.