Modern Harmonic Movements?

Question

I know quite a bit about the progression of harmony during the common practice period and up to basic jazz theory, but anything beyond the early 20th century just drops off for me. I know a little about serialism, but even that seems a little dated. Are there modern movements in harmony that go beyond these ideas? And are they being studied on an academic level yet? It seems like a lot of schools of music are just starting to recognize jazz theory and yet I really want more modern material to study from.

Answer 1

I think that if you asked a number of active composers, you get a variety of answers to this question. Here's mine: The end of the Common Practice era was the height of Romanticism which harmonically speaking was typified by increasing chromatism. Then serialism erased the idea of a tonic and increased the chromaticism so that each tone has equal gravity. What came up alongside of the serialism were various ways of using tonal materials and non-traditional harmonic structures but without being bound to a key. Vincent Persichetti wrote a book called Twentieth Century Harmony in which he talks about various kinds of new chord structures and some examples of how they are used - you might find this book interesting.

One trend was called Pandiatonicism in which you can make chords out of any notes of the scale you are using. My take on what is happening with many contemporary composers is that we make up our own chords as our taste dictates for the composition at hand. This is an extension of the principle of Pandiatonicism because often there is no single scale that's being used. So a composer's choice of chordal materials is often his or her synthesis of many harmonic styles using their own sense of what works and it becomes an important element of the composers style. In other words, anything can be used to make chord. For me, it is the resonance, the voice leading and the emotional tone of the result that are guiding principals or what works.