In our efforts to understand intervals, we have been talking about what makes up a major or minor scale, and how these scales underpin everything we know about music. From Haydn and Mozart, to Elvis, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, then to Beyonce, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake.

However, what we’d call classical, or more accurately, academic music, diverged from this common tonality during the first World War. As did much of art. Gone were romantic feelings and the idea that art/music should communicate lofty ideals, everything will be all right sort of emotions. The stark reality was grim, uncertain, and death was everywhere. There was a concerted effort to remove these feel good feelings from music, and even to take music in a completely different direction.

The first 2 videos are pieces by Arnold Schoenberg, who came up with the 12 tone method. This did not entirely remove our humanity from music composition, but did upend traditional music composition rules. First, there is his String Quartet No. 1. This is before he went to the 12 tone method, but you will hear how different it sounds from most other music.

This second video is his String Quartet No. 4, which uses his 12 tone row. You will probably find it a little difficult to latch onto anything, though you will hear similarities to the first quartet. We can think of this as a different musical language that we don’t intuitively understand, but can understand better with study and listening.

The 3rd video is a piece by Anton Webern, another atonal composer, who employed serialism in his composition. We don’t need to know much more about that, so just listen to this, and try to make sense of it. It certainly sounds rather random, dire, and thin, and yet there are beautiful moments. In many ways, we can think of parallels to life during the world wars. The uncertainty, trying desperately to pick out something beautiful from the mess, and tragedy everywhere.