by Giovanni Grosskopf, 1998
Version 2.0, 1998 for Macintosh and PowerMacintosh
Shareware $23
Vai alla VERSIONE ITALIANA / Go to THE ITALIAN VERSION
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
Introduction
The traditional classical music of the past ages was based on arranging
all the tones and chords of a composition in relation to a central key note
(called the Tonic), thus forming a system or an arrangement of seven tones
built on a tonic key or note, which ought to be also the last note of the
piece in order to obtain an effect of satisfying conclusion. This traditional
system was also based on a number of mainly consonant well-known traditional
chords which could be easily classified according to the well-known traditional
rules of harmony. It was named Tonality. Pop, rock and non-classical music
are still based on tonality nowadays. During the 20th Century, on the contrary,
classical music has developed greatly, getting more and more different from
tonality-based music: composers tried to avoid arranging music in relation
to a conclusive sound, and began to employ even strong dissonances as ordinary
sounds with wonderful astonishing suggestive effects, and irregular rhytms
as ordinary rhytms, and also began to abandon the use of motives and of
leading musical themes, focusing on tone color and timbre qualities rather
than on melody. This new musical style is very distinctive of the contemporary
classical music, sometimes called also learned contemporary music,
or New Music, or Avant-garde Music, that is simply classical music of our
age. This fascinating, strongly evocative new style of music is not really
new at present: it began to exist in European and Western music
about the year 1900, and we must remark - for instance - that some of its
features have always been part of ethnical musical traditions of many peoples
in the world. It is not therefore a music without natural bases, of course,
but it has only different natural bases. This new musical style is simply
not based on tonality, so it is often referred to as Atonal Music.
What is NonTonalAnalysis?
Is the chord C,C#,F#,B more or less dissonant than the chord E,F#,G,Bb,F?
And how much? Do they have a dissonant effect for the same reasons or for
different ones? How will I build another chord having a degree of dissonance
placed between those two, to connect them without perceivable disparities?
And which of the two is more similar to the chord D,G,G#,C#,A in sound and
structure? And how can I have the complete list of - say - all the 3-notes
chords that do not contain semitones but contain minor thirds and whose
lowermost and uppest notes are not more distant than a minor seventh? Which
are the proper chords to place under this atonal melody? And do these atonal
chords I composed recall the traditional world of tonality or not?
NonTonalAnalysis is an almost essential help when you need to answer to
questions of this kind!
NonTonalAnalysis (often referred to as NTA in this text) is a powerful application
developed in 1997-1998 by Giovanni Grosskopf, an Italian composer and pianist,
for the analysis of (mainly) atonal music. It is intended as a practical
tool for frequent and common use, to help composers, musicologists, performers
and music students. It is NOT based on seriality and dodecaphony (two ways
of composing that are very much used in modern and contemporary classical
music and were first developed by Schoenberg), but it uses concepts such
as calculation of the dissonance level of chords, calculation of the tension
level of melodies (in future versions of the program) classification of
atonal chords in families and so on. The user can define in details what
is to be considered as dissonant or tensive. If you are a composer, a musicologist,
a performer or a music student and you deal often with 20th Century classical
music, NTA is made for you! The program performs the automatic analysis
of atonal chords, telling you how much dissonant they are and which other
chords sound closer to a given one, . It will accept any chord, provided
it does not contain octaves nor unisons and only if the distance between
two consecutive notes of the chord does not exceed a major ninth.
While working, you may see many different alert windows displaying a message.
Most messages will concern the fact that the chords you have chosen can
recall the traditional sound of tonality chords: NTA is specifically made
for atonal music. This is why NTA warns you if it founds major or minor
chords (with a Number of Notes less than 7, since it is impossible to avoid
major or minor chords using more than seven different notes) or consecutive
notes forming major or minor chords (conventionally called consecutive
chords in the dialogs) or uncomplete chords of 7th (in three notes chords)
or diminished 7th chords or other note combinations that may recall tonality.
System Requirements, Shareware Info, Registering, Obtaining Updates
and Contacting the Author
To use NTA you should have at least:
a 14'' Monitor, a 68030 Macintosh computer, System 7.0, 2050 K of free RAM,
1MB of free hard disk space. A 68040 Macintosh and System 7.5 are recommended.
NTA is fully compatible with PowerPC computers (including 32-bit addressing
memory) and with System 8. It has been tested on an 8600 PowerMac with a
250MHz processor without any problem as well as on an old 68030 LCII Mac
and on a Performa 630 68LC040 Mac.
Mathematical coprocessor (FPU) is not required, but it can speed up calculations.
Balloon help is fully supported under System 7 or higher. To use it Choose
Show Balloons from the ? Menu (Italian Users: choose Mostra Aiuti
under System 7 or Aiuti Veloci under System 8 from the Help menu).
Another version of NTA called NonTonalAnalysis2.0.1old, compatible with
68020 computers and System 6, is available from the Author at the same shareware
conditions (a 14'' Monitor is strongly recommended also for this version,
though not strictly indispensable).
(Contact e-mail: ggrossk@tin.it).
Please contact the Author to register. NonTonal Analysis, version2.0, is
SHAREWARE $23. This means you can copy ONLY UNREGISTERED copies of this
program and give them to your friends or colleagues, copy them online, publish
them on a CD-ROM and so on, provided you include all the files contained
in the NonTonalAnalysis2.0 folder. If you publish NTA on a CD-ROM please
notify the fact to the Author. SHAREWARE means also that you may use NTA
freely for 10 times, and after that all the unregistered copies will expire
and will cease to work until you register or reinstall the complete NonTonalAnalysis2.0
folder again. To go on using the software, you will have to register paying
23 U.S.Dollars or the same amount in Italian money or EURO. You can pay
via International Money Order (for Italians: Vaglia postale), specifying
on it that you are paying for the Registration of the software NonTonalAnalysis
version (and here you put the correct version number). Let me know your
name and address or e-mail (you can also write) and a personal registration
code will be sent to you by e-mail or ordinary mail as soon as your payment
has been registered. If you register all those annoying messages will disappear
for ever and you will be able to use the program without any limitation.
When you ask to register please let me know also which computer model you
are using, if you are a composer, a musicologist, a music student and/or
an instrument player (or a combination of these) and what kind of music
you are usually involved with. After you have registered, you can at any
moment ask me to destroy all the copies of your personal data and it will
be done immediately, according to the Italian law. If you want this, however,
I will not be able to notify to you any news about the future NTA developments.
On the contrary, you may also ask to be contacted by other NTA users and
to contact them, to exchange information and ideas about music, concert
organization, working projects of analysis, new composition projects, new
music you have composed or known of, and so on. I myself am very much interested
to receive news of this kind!
The useful addendum NTA SmallChords.DB can
also be sent to registered users of NTA (and ONLY to them) for additional
3 U.S. Dollars via e-mail or ordinary mail (on a floppy disk). Please see
the chapter named About NTA SmallChords.DB in the Manual for information
about it. Manual is attached to the program. I can only tell this:A very
interesting case has happened to me: it is a well-known fact that strong
dissonances are much less bearable if played on instruments that do not
have a rich harmonic spectrum (and have therefore an almost sinusoidal waveform)
and do not have the capability of changing the intensity of the sound during
a long note. On the contrary, they are much more bearable when you play
them on instruments that have a rich tone colour, can vibrate and can play
crescendos and diminuendos.
I had to compose two pieces: one for organ and the other one for recorder
quartet, two kinds of instruments belonging to the first of the above categories:
they do not have a rich harmonic spectrum (and have therefore an almost
sinusoidal waveform) and do not have the capability of changing the intensity
of the sound during a long note. Now it has been really MUCH useful to find
all (and really ALL, without forgetting anyone of them) the 3-notes chords
that did not contain semitones, nor major seconds, and were less dissonant
than a given limit using the NTA addendum NTA SmallChords.DB. Despite the
absence of strong dissonances, by strictly following all the indications
given in the chapter Comparing different chords of the Manual I have
obtained a typical atonal sound and full control on dissonance changes using
the NTA application program.
You may register for both the NTA program and the addendum at the same time
by sending the correct amount of money. Registered users of NTA will also
receive news about updates or about future versions of NTA.
News about you, about the way you use NTA, questions and suggestions will
always be welcome!
Please contact:
e-mail: ggrossk@tin.it
Giovanni Grosskopf
via Petrarca, 66
I-20099 Sesto San Giovanni (MI)
ITALY
Phone: international dialling code+02-22479610 (late morning and evening
- in Italy, of course!) or+(0)338-7699200 (afternoon).
When you download it, in the NonTonalAnalysis2.0 folder you must find: NonTonalAnalysis2.0
(the program itself), the NTA Preferences file (which must always be in
the same folder with the application, cannot be renamed in a different way
and cannot be locked), a ReadMe file, the NTA2.0 Manual folder containing
the manual documents, a Version history file and a Frequently Asked Questions
file.
Launching NTA
The application NonTonalAnalysis must be in the folder named NonTonalAnalysis2.0
. Always run NTA from your hard disk. Copy the whole folder named
"NonTonalAnalysis2.0 " to your hard disk before launching the
program. When you launch the program, you will see a presentation
window. Press OK to dismiss it. (If you have an unregistered copy you will
see a dialog before the opening: answer OK). TO GO ON PLEASE download and
SEE MANUAL!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Giovanni Grosskopf was born in Italy in 1966. In 1986 he won as a pianist the National Competition for Young Instrumentalists "Città di Sesto San Giovanni". He had his Piano graduation in 1988 and his Composition graduation in 1994, at the Conservatorium "G.Verdi" in Milan. He also attended the three-years International Piano Master Class at the Academy of Music "G.Marziali" in Seveso (Milan) and a Composition Master Class at the Municipal Music School of Milan, Contemporary Music Section. Among his main teachers there are the great Italian pianist Bruno Canino and the composer Niccolò Castiglioni (an outstanding protagonist of the modern musical life in Italy), Pippo Molino, Maria Cecilia Farina, Luigi Zanardi. He attended a Master Class with Franco Donatoni and a seminar with György Ligeti at the I.C.O.N.S. in Novara. Since 1985 he plays as a pianist in concerts and recitals in many towns of Italy, dealing mainly with Bach and the 18th century age, with monographic concert programs devoted to rarely performed pieces, with the 20th century composers and with contemporary music. He has a great activity as a composer: his music has been performed in international and national musical seasons both in Italy (Milan, Bolzano, L'Aquila, Massa, Busto Arsizio, Amandola, Portogruaro, Mogliano Veneto, S.Giorgio del Sannio, Appiano Gentile, Montefiore, Brugherio, Arese, Cogorno among others) and abroad (Regentenkamer Theater in The Hague, Netherlands, S.Paulo University Concert Season, Brazil, Omni Foundation in S.Francisco, U.S.A., Adelboden Guitar Master Class, Switzerland) and appears regularly in the repertoire of many performers. His composition "Lauda 1989" has been broadcast during the National Italian Radio RAI-RADIOTRE program "Musica in Italia oggi" ("Music in Italy nowadays"). A composition of his has been awarded with an official note of merit by the jury of the National Composers' Competition "Eolo Prima'93" in Prato (Florence). He has worked together with many ensembles (Gruppo Kairòs and Insight Quartet in Bolzano, Paul Klee Quintet and Compagnia della Luna Nuova in Milan, Trompeten Ensemble Linz, Austria) and soloists such as the singer Gemma Bertagnolli, the guitar player Silvia Cesco, the conductor and pianist Gianandrea Noseda, the oboe player Daniele Scanziani, the guitar player Emanuele Segre, and many others. He attended the course in Computer Music at the Conservatorium of Milan, having his graduation in 1997 with full marks and now works very often with electronic music. He is the author of studies about some common problems in contemporary music: the way of analyzing and classifying atonal chords to use them effectively (he is the author of a world-wide known software for this purpose), the use of forms and sounds of nature, the relationship between "learned" and ethnical music traditions and the education to a proper approach to music. He is writing essays on the musical magazine "La Rassegna Musicale Curci" and has been invited to give lectures and seminars in many parts of Italy. He is teaching Composition and also Piano at the Musical Lyceum in Monza and at the Municipal Music School in Brugherio (Milan). In January 1999 the Vatican Radio will dedicate to his compositions a whole episode of a program about contemporary composers.
Address:
Giovanni Grosskopf via Petrarca, 66 I-20099 Sesto San Giovanni (Milano) ITALYTel./Phone: international dialling code +02-22479610 or (0)338-7699200