source file: mills2.txt Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 19:19:21 -0700 Subject: 88CET #23: Traditional/Nontraditional Bridges From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Finding chords to bridge smoothly between traditional and nontraditional chords by stepwise movement of parts proves more difficult than at first meets the eye. The reason is that the basic building blocks of 88CET traditional harmony, such as sixths and tenths, are far away from the building blocks of nontraditional harmony, notably subminor, neutral, and supramajor thirds. Adding a part to the harmony can sometimes help. For example, consider a wide-voiced major chord, like what in traditional notation would be E up to C up to G. An equivalent-sonority chord in 88CET would be notated D up to C up to A. You can immediately create a nontraditional sound by injecting an additional note between chord tones to form supramajor or neutral thirds with the original parts. For example, adding an G and an Eb to form D G C Eb A produces a very nontraditional chord to say the least. But there are some nontraditional intervals within a stepwise-motion's distance of traditional intervals. For example, consider tritone resolution, one of the most basic cadential effects in traditional harmony. Diminished fifths traditionally either resolve inward to thirds, and augmented forths outward to sixths. In 88CET, tritones do resolve outward to traditional sixths, but to nontraditional thirds. Here are some examples of how this can be exploited: Traditional Nontraditional Resolution: Progression: A G G F# (SM3) (TT) (m6) (TT) C# C C B (sm7) (sm7) (M6) (sm7) C# C C C dom7 major dom7 new Of course leaps are always an option, especially since in transitioning to nontraditional harmony, you're beginning to toss traditional part-writing notions out the window. But as in traditional music, too much leaping breaks the flow of the counterpoint and harmony. Although there's nothing inherently wrong with breaking that flow, it can obscure the surprise or oddness of a transition to nontraditional harmony. This harkens back to the notion of "relativistic voice-leading": When everything seems "normal" and your progression all flow normally, people expect all of the chords you play to sound normal. When they turn out unusual, you have a powerful effect. When the flow breaks, all bets are off, so there's less surprise. But when a seemingly normal collapsing tritone produces something strange, you'll get your audience's attention! There are many other possible smooth transitions from traditional to nontraditional. Your best bet in locating them is through experimentation. In particular, start with a traditional chord structure, and then resolve one or more of the tendency tones in the wrong direction. Many of these also work great in retrograde as transitions from nontraditional to traditional. Received: from eartha.mills.edu [144.91.3.20] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sat, 28 Oct 1995 05:38 +0100 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id UAA17136; Fri, 27 Oct 1995 20:38:10 -0700 Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 20:38:10 -0700 Message-Id: <951027233718_78428733@mail02.mail.aol.com> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu