Stealing Like an Artist: Adam Schoenberg's Planing

Harmonic planing is one way to send your music in fresh and interesting directions but that don't feel totally off the wall

To me, parts of Adam Schoenberg’s music often strike the perfect balance between something that grooves and something that still behaves in pleasantly unexpected ways. Check out the central movement from each of his two symphonies, for example.

Creating music that is simultaneously accessible but has a level of sophistication and surprise is also one of my north stars when I’m writing. And so I’ve found much to learn from in Mr Schoenberg’s music.

Harmonic planing—block chords moving in parallel motion, usually non-diatonically/without respect for a key—is one technique Adam Schoenberg employs that I really enjoy and makes his music sound simultaneously familiar but fresh, with unexpected twists.

The opening of the Rondo movement from his American Symphony is all planing, set to a propulsive dancing rhythm. Check out the harmony in the first few bars of that movement below (snapshot taken from the composer’s perusal score (transposed), harmonic annotations by me); though there are other instruments playing, the saxophone section expresses the full harmony and chord voicing at this point in the score:

Schoenberg planes using a major chord (in an open Bach-like spacing (root, fifth, third)) to take the music places that diatonic harmony doesn’t go but where the listener still experiences a sense of rest when the harmony comes back to the G major chord.

I liked this treatment so much, I began to play around with this technique and mood for the finale of a reed quintet I recently finished After Hours. I wanted the same sense of dynamism lent by Schoenberg’s planing and syncopations but whereas his comes across relaxed and laid back, I wanted something a bit more driving; I went with a faster tempo, more half-step relationships between the planed chords, a more active rhythm, and at the most intense moments, I would stack two additional voices atop the plane for a major 9th sound.

With this energy and mood established, the rest of the movement kind of wrote itself. If you are interested in hearing the whole piece, check it out over on my composition website shanevallemusic.com.

Planing is by no means a new technique (Debussy made extensive use of it) but to me it still sounds interesting and provides lots of expressive opportunities. What are some of your favorite examples of planing? Have you used it recently in your own work?