source file: mills2.txt Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 04:57:04 -0800 Subject: Diatonic Analysis Insufficient, from Gary From: Manuel.Op.de.Coul@ezh.nl (Manuel Op de Coul) From: Gary Morrison > > > ...tone should be considered a "wandered" tonic, or the major > > > third of the V of ii (near C# in C) should be considered a > > > "wandered" tonic. " > > Frankly I wouldn't buy that. If the harmony makes clear > > that you're playing a vi chord, then its third is the tonic. > > That's built into the definition of diatonic triads. > Sure, but definitions are not music. I say let the > music make the definitions, not the reverse. ... > If a diatonic analysis is crippled enough to confuse 81/80 > with 1/1, then it doesn't fall within the realm of usefulness. Well, then I recommend you avoid diatonic-triad nomenclature and concepts (e.g., "V", "ii", or "vi") if you're not interested in diatonic harmony! Yes, you're certainly right that definitions don't make music; they make models for music. How much heed a composer chooses to give to those model structures is largely a different matter entirely. It's easy for students and instructors, composers and performers to get the impression, after writing their 629th SATB part-writing exercise, that those annoying voice-leading rules from Freshman and Sophomore Theory classes aren't meaningful to "real" music. I really disagree. Anybody who feels that way needs to listen to Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus", or the "Agnus Dei" of his Requiem. I'm certainly not suggesting by any means that that is the only valid or useful mindset from which to write music. But it's far from useless just because it doesn't comprehend the idea of a comma. The ideas of traditional harmony has value applied to certain microtonal systems - as much or as little value as it has in 12TET. Traditional theory is based upon triadic harmony, but it's most basic emphasis is functional harmony: * Leading tones want to go up, * Sevenths want to go down, * Dominant seventh chords want to resolve to tonic chords, etc. Functional harmony is also the basis behind wandering tonics: If you can convince an audience that some pitch is the leading tone, and you resolve it upward by half-step, then they'll believe that the pitch you land on is the tonic, even if it's not the tonic you started on. Taken out of the framework of functional harmony, and of tonality, the idea of wandering tonics is no longer meaningful. So it's certainly not unreasonable to think that the tonic could wander down to the original pitch of the leading tone, for example. But if it does, it's still functionally the tonic, because that's how our ears will perceive it. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 14:02 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA15122; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 14:02:27 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA15115 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id FAA02395; Sun, 23 Feb 1997 05:00:31 -0800 Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 05:00:31 -0800 Message-Id: <33103EB4.712@ix.netcom.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu