source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 00:15:26 -0800 Subject: Re: TUNING digest 1008 From: Daniel Wolf Andrew Milne wrote: ''If the 7th in a dominant 7th chord is tuned to 7/4, then it loses its dissonance and instability. Indeed such a chord can function as a tonic (as it does, quite exceptionally for the time, in Chopin's 22nd Prelude).'' The category ''dissonance'' is, ultmately, contextual, and may not always be the most useful arbitrator of musical functions. James Tenney's _A History of Consonance and Dissonance_ is very useful in beginning to sort out how variously such terms have been used. The most striking characteristics of a dominant seventh chord within an otherwise triadic environment are - for me - the density of the chord (a triad contains three interval classes, a tetrad six) and the appearance of a new (even ''xenharmonic'') interval. These features are enhancements of the dominant/tonic voice leading relationship: root movement by fifth, and stepwise ''resolution'' in the remaining voices. The introduction of a raised third in the minor dominant illustrates the classical emphasis on acoustical contrast between the chords. When a dominant seventh chord is suspended for a classical cadenza, it suffers little when tuned as 4:5:6:7 and indeed, the stability of the chord enhances its contrast with the tonic triad. On the other hand, the suspension of a 16/9 (or 9/5) as the seventh introduces a tone dissonant to the rest of the chord, but not foreign to the scale. One often-raised objection to the septimal tuning is the narrow semitone (21/20) voice leading from the seventh to the third of the tonic. I find this line of argumentation more compelling, but the interval itself is not difficult to sing - and if melodically ''strange'', it does maximize the contrast function. Readers might have some fun investigating the traditional rule of thumb for the relative density of the chords in V7 - I cadences: In four voices, if the voice leading is correct, then one of the two chords has to be incomplete (that is with a doubled pc). (Why this should be so I will leave as a kind of ''Puzzler''). Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:48 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA01762; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 10:48:26 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA01760 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id BAA06874; Tue, 11 Mar 1997 01:46:33 -0800 Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 01:46:33 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu