What is the different between atonality and serial technique?

Answer 1

both "atonality" and "serial technique" are fairly broad terms: the first can refer to any music that doesn't make use of scales and keys (at least, not as traditionally conceived). a piece of music can be called atonal if there is not one, singular pitch that serves as a point of stability and rest. in tonal music, this is the note that generally begins and ends the piece, the one without which the piece would sound "unfinished." tonal music is composed in such a way that this note, called the "tonic," has a special privilege for the listener. (sing or play a major scale and stop at the seventh note...generally, it will sound like something is missing, and what is missing is that tonic note.) atonal music is composed in such a way that there is simply no tonic, no one note that becomes a central point, the point of rest, etc. that said, many kinds of music can be atonal, being composed without a tonic, just as many kinds of music (from classical symphonies to jazz to pop) can be tonal, or make use of scales and keys and their tonic notes. "serial technique" refers (broadly) to a method of composing musical works. the composer decides on a group of pitches (a series), and uses this group as the basis for the piece. generally, the series is presented in a variety of ways: it can be used as a melody, with an instrument playing the pitches one after the other, or it can be used as a harmony, with many or all of the pitches being played at once, etc. it can also be "transformed" through any number of processes: with retrograde, the pitches of the series are played backwards (if the series is A B E G, the composer calls for an instrument to play G E B A); with inversion, the series is flipped upside down; with transposition, the series can be started at a new pitch; etc. serial technique can refer to the way that some atonal music is cosntructed, but not all. it can also be used in tonal music: the composer simply creates a series that lends itself to centralizing one pitch, and uses the series almost like a tonal scale. (if the series is C D E F G A B C, then the composer could easily use serial techniques and still create a piece "in C major," since those notes are the same as the notes of a C major scale.) (note: around 1908, composer Arnold Schoenberg wrote some of the first music that we consider atonal, although he himself rejected the label. see his Three Piano Pieces, Opus 11 for an example of his atonality. since then, many many atonal works have been composed, and they are as diverse as can be!)