Involution in 12-note system in Western musical culture

 In pop and western classical music, from Bach to today, there are billions of pieces using the 12-note music theory system to compose. From the conservative functional harmony to the modern 4 trichords progress, things do not have big evolved in the field of diatonic. There was a big evolution from the hexatonic to the diatonic system from the middle age to the renaissance period. The transformation from meantone temperament to 12 well and equal temperament from the Baroque period, set the holy grail of 12 notes in an octave and the Twelve-tone technique (dodecaphonism) reached the maximum application of 12. Since the establishment of the 12, there has not been any big evolution. Although composers like E. Blackwood, H. Partch, W. Carlos, L. Harrison, A. Haba etc tried to make different attempts, very few gain public attention.

The modern-day problem in the western music system is we are not only stuck in the 12-note system, but also stuck with the traditional functional harmony. In Maths, set theory, the universe describes a collection that contains all the entities of all possible forms of music theory, non-Western, western, non-12-note, 12-note, common practice functional harmonic, etc. The music we commonly perceive as functional harmony is the subset of the western music practice and the subset 12-note system in the universe of music. We keep exploring the same system in the finite world of a small subset.

The total combination of 12-note and even within the functional harmony is finite and very limited as expected. It is possible to exhaust all the new melodies and fall into the situation of "involution". It is especially obvious in the Pop music scene. The term “involution” was coined by anthropologist Alexander Goldenweiser, and describes a culture that cannot (or does not) adapt and or expand its economy but continues to develop only in the direction of internal complexity and inefficiency (Hui, 2009). Goldenweiser showed that the possibilities of cultural development and expression are limited and that limited possibilities make similarities inevitable (Wallis, 1941). The similarity is due to the similar limitations imposed by the respective environments. This idea further inspired Clifford Geertz. When Geertz studied agriculture in Indonesia, the Dutch rulers and the internal pressures due to population growth led to intensifying the labour rather than change (McCullough, 2019). It created an increase in agricultural productivity per hectare, though without the accompanying economic increase per capita, which generated a desperate cycle of poverty and static opportunity (McCullough, 2019).

The inevitable similarity, mentioned by Goldenweiser, in pop music scene is a problem troubling musicians, some musicians are accused of plagiarising others' works due to the similarity. but it can be just coincident due to the limitation of 12 note diatonic system. New composers feel all possible good melodies have been composed, and their new compositions are considered as someone's style in this limited system, as Geertz describes a desperate cycle of poverty but in this case, the drain of creativity.

Hui, Y.( 2009). The (un)changing world of peasants: Two perspectives. SOJOURN: Journal Of Social Issues In Southeast Asia 24 (1): 18–31.

McCullough, C. (2019) Review of ‘agricultural involution: the processes of ecological change in Indonesia’ by Clifford Geertz. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology. [Online] 3 (1), 1–5.

WALLIS, W. D. (1941) Alexander A. Goldenweiser. American anthropologist. [Online] 43 (2), 250–255.

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