Tonality

Tonality is a system of music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

 in which specific hierarchical

Hierarchy

A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...

 pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

 relationships are based on a key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

 "center", or tonic

Tonic (music)

In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...

. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron

Alexandre-Étienne Choron

Alexandre-Étienne Choron for a short time directed the Paris Opera. He played an essential role in France in making a clear distinction between sacred and secular music, and was one of the originators of French interest in musicology.- Biography :Choron studied mathematics at the collège de Juilly...

 (1810) and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis

François-Joseph Fétis was a Belgian musicologist, composer, critic and teacher. He was one of the most influential music critics of the 19th century, and his enormous compilation of biographical data in the Biographie universelle des musiciens remains an important source of information today...

 in 1840 (Reti, 1958; Simms 1975, 119; Judd, 1998; Dahlhaus 1990). Although Fétis used it as a general term for a system of musical organization and spoke of types de tonalités rather than a single system, today the term is most often used to refer to Major-Minor tonality (also called diatonic tonality, common practice tonality, or functional tonality), the system of musical organization of the common practice period

Common practice period

The common practice period, in the history of Western art music , spanning the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, lasted from c. 1600 to c. 1900.-General characteristics:...

, and of Western-influenced popular music throughout much of the world today.

Characteristics and features

David Cope

David Cope

David Cope is an American author, composer, scientist, and professor emeritus of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz...

 (1997,) considers key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

, consonance

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 and dissonance

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

 (or relaxation and tension, respectively), and hierarchical relationships to be the three most basic concepts in tonality. In describing these tenets of tonal music, several known terms are used to refer to various elements of the tonal system.

Carl Dahlhaus

Carl Dahlhaus

Carl Dahlhaus , a musicologist from Berlin, was one of the major contributors to the development of musicology as a scholarly discipline during the post-war era....

 (1990,) lists the characteristics schemata of tonal harmony, "typified in the compositional formulae of the 16th and early 17th centuries," as the "complete cadence" (vollständige Kadenz): I-IV-V-I; I-IV-I-V-I; or I-ii-V-I; the circle of fifths

Circle of fifths

In music theory, the circle of fifths shows the relationships among the 12 tones of the chromatic scale, their corresponding key signatures, and the associated major and minor keys...

 progression: I-IV-vii°-iii-vi-ii-V-I; and the "major-minor parallelism": minor: v-i-VII-III equals major: iii-vi-V-I; or minor: III-VII-i-v equals major: I-V-vi-iii.

Other scales or modes are often introduced for variety within the context of a major-minor tonal system without disturbing the diatonic nature of the work. The major scale predominates, and the melodic minor contains nine pitches (seven with two alterable). The seven basic notes of a scale are notated in the key signature

Key signature

In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes unless otherwise altered with an accidental...

, and whether the piece is in the major or minor key is either stated in the title or implied in the piece (there is a major and minor key for each key signature).

Other important scales include the blues scale

Blues scale

The term blues scale is used to describe a few scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. See: blues.The hexatonic, or six note, blues scale consists of the minor pentatonic scale plus the 4th or 5th degree...

, the whole tone scale

Whole tone scale

In music, a whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole step. There are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales:...

, the pentatonic scale

Pentatonic scale

A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...

, and the chromatic scale

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

. As these are not the major or minor diatonic scales, music written exclusively with them is not tonal by the definition above.

Chords

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

 are built primarily from notes of a diatonic scale, or secondarily from chromatic notes treated as variations or embellishments of the basic scale. The identity of the scale is important, as the size of the steps between notes are used to determine the system of chord relationships.

Form

The traditional form

Musical form

The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...

 of tonal music begins and ends on the tonic of the piece, and many tonal works move to a closely related key, such as the dominant

Dominant (music)

In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...

 of the main tonality (for example sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

). Establishing a tonality is traditionally accomplished through a cadence

Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

, which is two chords in succession which give a feeling of completion or rest, with the most common being V7-I cadence. Other cadences are considered to be less powerful.

Consonance and dissonance

In the context of tonal organization, a chord or a note is said to be consonant when it implies stability, and dissonant when it implies instability. This is not the same as the ordinary use of the words consonant and dissonant. A dissonant chord is in tension against the tonic, and implies that the music is distant from that tonic chord. Resolution is the process by which the harmonic progression moves from dissonant chords to consonant chords and follows counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 or voice leading. Voice leading is a description of the horizontal movement of the music, as opposed to chords which are considered the vertical.

Traditional tonal music is described in terms of a scale of notes, upon which are built chords. Chords in order form progressions, which establish or deny a particular chord as being the tonic chord. The cadence is held to be the sequence of chords which establishes one chord as being the tonic chord; more powerful cadences create a greater sense of closure and a stronger sense of key. Chords function by leading the music towards or away from a particular tonic chord. When the sense of which chord is the tonic is changed, the music is said to have "changed key" or "modulated". Roman numerals and numbers are used to describe the relationship of a particular chord to the tonic chord.

The techniques of accomplishing this process, are the subject of tonal music theory

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

 and compositional practice.

18th century

Theories of tonal music are generally said to have begun with Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau

Jean-Philippe Rameau was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François...

's Treatise on Harmony (1722), who was the first theorist to justify harmonic practice through a coherent system based on acoustical principles (Girdlestone 1969, 520). He claimed that his work represents "the practice of the last 40 years" (Rameau 1722). Rameau's work was introduced to Germany by Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg

Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was a German music critic, music-theorist and composer. He was friendly and active with many figures of the Enlightenment of the 18th century.-Life:...

 in 1757, and used Rameau's system to explain the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (Marpurg 1753–54). The vocabulary of describing notes in relationship to the tonic note, and the use of harmonic progressions and cadences, became part of Bach's practice. Essential to this version of tonal theory are the chorale harmonizations of Bach, and the method by which a church melody is given a four part harmony by first assigning cadences, then creating a natural, or most direct, thoroughbass, and finally filling in the middle voices.

19th century

Fétis (1844) defined tonality, specifically tonalité moderne as the, "set of relationships, simultaneous or successive, among the tones of the scale," allowing for other types de tonalités among different cultures. He considered tonalité moderne as "trans-tonic order" (having one established key, and allowing for modulation to other keys) and tonalité ancienne "uni-tonic order" (establishing one key and remaining in that key for the duration of the piece). He described his earliest example of tonalité moderne thus: "In the passage quoted here from Monteverdi's madrigal (Cruda amarilli, mm. 9–19 and 24–30), one sees a tonality determined by the accord parfait [root position major chord] on the tonic, by the sixth chord assigned to the chords on the third and seventh degrees of the scale, by the optional choice of the accord parfait or the sixth chord on the sixth degree, and finally, by the accord parfait and, above all, by the unprepared seventh chord (with major third) on the dominant" (Fétis 1844, 171).

Fétis believed that tonality, tonalité moderne, was entirely cultural, saying, "For the elements of music, nature provides nothing but a multitude of tones differing in pitch, duration, and intensity by the greater or least degree... The conception of the relationships that exist among them is awakened in the intellect, and, by the action of sensitivity on the one hand, and will on the other, the mind coordinates the tones into different series, each of which corresponds to a particular class of emotions, sentiments, and ideas. Hence these series become various types of tonalities" (Fétis 1844, 11–12). "But one will say, 'What is the principle behind these scales, and what, if not acoustic phenomena and the laws of mathematics, has set the order of their tones?' I respond that this principle is purely metaphysical [anthropological]. We conceive this order and the melodic and harmonic phenomena that spring from it out of our conformation and education" (Fétis 1844, 249). In contrast, Hugo Riemann believed tonality, "affinities between tones" or Tonverwandtschaften, was entirely natural and, following Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann

Moritz Hauptmann , was a German music theorist, teacher and composer.Hauptmann was born in Dresden, and studied violin under Scholz, piano under Franz Lanska, composition under Grosse and Francesco Morlacchi,...

 (1853), that the major third and perfect fifth were the only "directly intelligible" intervals, and that I, IV, and V, the tonic, subdominant, and dominant were related by the perfect fifths between their root notes (Dahlhaus 1990, 101-2).

By the 1840s, the practice of harmony had expanded to include more chromatic notes and a wider chord vocabulary, particularly the more frequent use of the diminished seventh chord—a four-note chord of all minor thirds. It is in this era that the word tonality became more common. At the same time, the elaboration of both the fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

 and the sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...

, in terms of key relationships, became more rigorous, and the study of harmonic progressions, voice leading, and ambiguity of key, more precise.

Theorists such as Hugo Riemann

Hugo Riemann

Karl Wilhelm Julius Hugo Riemann was a German music theorist.-Biography:Riemann was born at Grossmehlra, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. He was educated in theory by Frankenberger, studied the piano with Barthel and Ratzenberger, studied law, and finally philosophy and history at Berlin and Tübingen...

, and later Edward Lowinsky

Edward Lowinsky

Edward Elias Lowinsky was an American musicologist born in Stuttgart, Germany,to Leopold L. and Clara Rosenfeld....

 and others, pushed back the date at which modern tonality began, and the cadence

Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

 began to be seen as the definitive way that a tonality is established in a work of music (Judd, 1998).

20th century

In response, Bernhard Meier instead used a tonality and modality, or modern and ancient, dichotomy, with Renaissance music

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 being modal. The term modality has been criticized by Harold Powers

Harold Powers

Harold Stone Powers was an American musicologist.Powers attended Stanford University and then Syracuse University, where he received a BMus in 1950. He obtained his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1959 after studying music theory under Milton Babbitt and Edward T. Cone, and musicology under...

, among others. However, it is used to describe music whose harmonic function centers on notes rather than on chords, including some of the music of Bartók

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

, Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...

, Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

, and composers of minimalist music. This and other modal music is broadly tonal.

In the early 20th century, the vocabulary of tonal theory was decisively influenced by two theorists: composer Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, whose Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony) describes in detail chords, chord progressions, vagrant chords, creation of tonal areas, and voice leading in terms of harmony. To Schoenberg, every note has "structural function" to assert or deny a tonality, based on its tendency to establish or undermine a single tonic triad as central. At the same time, Heinrich Schenker

Heinrich Schenker

Heinrich Schenker was a music theorist, best known for his approach to musical analysis, now usually called Schenkerian analysis....

 was evolving a theory based on the expansion of horizontal relationships. To Schenker, the background of every successful tonal piece is based on a simple cadence, which is then elaborated and elongated in the middle and foreground. Though adherents of the two theorists argued back and forth, in the mid-century a synthesis of their ideas was widely taught as tonal theory, most particularly, Schenker's use of graphical analysis, and Schoenberg's emphasis on tonal distance.

The practice of jazz developed its own theory of tonality, stating that while the cadence is not central to establishing a tonality, the presence of the I and V chords and either the IV or ii chord in progression is. This theory emphasized the play of modal elements against tonal elements in an effort to allow improvisation and inflection of standard melodies.

Tonality may be considered generally, with no restrictions on the date or place the music was produced, and little restriction on the materials and methods used. This definition includes pre-17th century western music, as well as much non-western music. By the middle of the 20th century, it had become "evident that triadic structure does not necessarily generate a tone center, that non-triadic harmonic formations may be made to function as referential elements, and that the assumption of a twelve-tone complex does not preclude the existence of tone centers" (Perle 1991, 8). Centric is sometimes used to describe music which is not traditionally tonal, but which nevertheless has a relatively strong tonal center. Often the term common practice tonality is used specifically to refer to tonal music that utilizes the diatonic system of relationship between tonic and dominant, whereas tonal or tonality refers more broadly to describe any music or musical practice that relies on or exhibits tonal centers, modalities, or both, often with triadic organization and relatively consonant harmonies.

In the early 20th century, the tonality which had prevailed since the 17th century was seen to have reached a crisis or break down point. Because of the "increased use of the ambiguous chords, the less probable harmonic progressions, and the more unusual melodic and rhythmic inflections" (Meyer 1967, 241), the syntax of functional harmony was loosened to the point where "At best, the felt probabilities of the style system had become obscure; at worst, they were approaching a uniformity which provided few guides for either composition or listening" (Meyer 1967, 241).

Alfred Einstein wrote that in ancient China, "the development from the non-semitonal pentatonic to the seven-note scale is certainly traceable, even though the old pentatonic always remained the foundation of its music" (Einstein 1954, 7). He notes a similar development in ancient Japan and Java. Much folk and art music focuses on a pentatonic, or five-note scale, including Beijing Opera, the folk music of Hungary, and the musical traditions of Japan.

Theoretical underpinnings

Tonality allows for a great range of musical materials, structures, meanings, and understandings. It does this through establishing a tonic, or central chord, based on the lowest pitch, or degree, of a scale, and using a somewhat flexible network of relations between any pitch or chord and the tonic

Tonic (music)

In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...

, similar to perspective

Perspective (graphical)

Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...

 in painting. Tonality has a hierarchical structure: one triad, the tonic triad, is the center to which other chords are supposed to lead. As within a musical phrase, interest and tension may be created through the move from consonance to dissonance and back. A larger piece will also create interest by moving away from and back to the tonic, and tension by destabilizing and re-establishing the key. Temporary secondary tonal centers may be established by cadences

Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

, or simply passed through in a process called modulation

Modulation (music)

In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...

, while simultaneous tonal centers may be established through polytonality

Polytonality

The musical use of more than one key simultaneously is polytonality . Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time...

. Additionally, the structure of these features and processes may be linear, cyclical, or both. This allows for a huge variety of relations to be expressed through consonance and dissonance

Consonance and dissonance

In music, a consonance is a harmony, chord, or interval considered stable, as opposed to a dissonance , which is considered to be unstable...

, distance or proximity to the tonic, the establishment of temporary or secondary tonal centers, and ambiguity

Ambiguity

Ambiguity of words or phrases is the ability to express more than one interpretation. It is distinct from vagueness, which is a statement about the lack of precision contained or available in the information.Context may play a role in resolving ambiguity...

 as to tonal center. Music notation was created to accommodate tonality and facilitate interpretation.

The majority of tonal music assumes that notes spaced over several octave

Octave

In music, an octave is the interval between one musical pitch and another with half or double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referred to as the "basic miracle of music", the use of which is "common in most musical systems"...

s are perceived the same way as if they were played in one octave, or octave equivalency. Tonal music also assumes that scales have harmonic

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

 implication or diatonic functionality. This means a note which has different places in a chord will be heard differently, thus there is not enharmonic equivalency. In tonal music, chords which are moved to different keys, or played with different root notes, are not perceived as being the same; transpositional equivalency and especially inversional equivalency are not considered applicable.

A successful tonal piece of music, or a successful performance of one, will give the listener a feeling that a particular chord — the tonic chord — is the most stable and final. It will then use musical materials to tell the musician and the listener how far the music is from that tonal center, most commonly, though not always, to heighten the sense of movement and drama as to how the music will resolve the tonic chord. The means for doing this are described by the rules of harmony (or throughbass) and counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

. Counterpoint is the study of linear resolutions of music, while harmony encompasses the sequences of chords which form a chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

.

Though modulation may occur instantaneously without indication or preparation, the least ambiguous way to establish a new tonal center is through a cadence

Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

, a succession of two or more chords which ends a section, gives a feeling of closure or finality, or both. Traditionally, cadences act both harmonically, to establish tonal centers, and formally, to articulate the end of sections; just as the tonic triad is harmonically central, a dominant-tonic cadence will be structurally central. The more powerful the cadence, the larger the section of music it can close. The strongest cadence is the perfect authentic cadence, which moves from the dominant to the tonic, most strongly establishes tonal center, and ends the most important sections of tonal pieces, including the final section. This is the basis of the dominant-tonic or tonic-dominant relationship. Common practice placed a great deal of emphasis on the correct use of cadences to structure music, and cadences were placed precisely to define the sections of a work. However, such strict use of cadences gradually gave way to more complex procedures where whole families of chords were used to imply particular distance from the tonal center. Composers, beginning in the late 18th century, began using chords such as the Neapolitan, French or Italian Sixth. These temporarily suspended a sense of key, and by freely changing between the major and minor voicing for the tonic chord, they made the listener unsure of whether the music was major or minor. There was also a gradual increase in the use of notes which were not part of the basic 7 notes, called chromaticism

Chromaticism

Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...

, culminating in post-Wagnerian music such as that by Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

 and Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, and trends such as impressionism

Impressionist music

Impressionism in music was a tendency in European classical music, mainly in France, which appeared in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Similarly to its precursor in the visual arts, musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere...

 and dodecaphony.

One area of disagreement going back to the origin of the term tonality is whether tonality is natural or inherent in acoustical phenomena, whether it is inherent in the human nervous system or a psychological construct, whether it is inborn or learned, and to what degree it is all these things (Meyer 1967, 236). A viewpoint held by many theorists since the third quarter of the 19th century, following the publication in 1862 of the first edition of Helmholtz's On the Sensation of Tone (Helmholtz 1877), holds that diatonic scales and tonality arise from natural overtones (Riemann 1872, 1875, 1882, 1893, 1905, 1914–15; Schenker 1906–35; Hindemith 1937–70).

Rudolph Réti

Rudolph Reti

Rudolph Reti , was a musical analyst, composer and pianist. He was the older brother of the great chess master Richard Réti ....

 differentiates between harmonic tonality of the traditional kind found in homophony

Homophony

In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...

, and melodic tonality, as in monophony

Monophony

In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave . If the entire melody is sung by two voices or a choir with an interval between the notes or in...

. In the harmonic kind, tonality is produced through the V

Dominant (music)

In music, the dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale, called "dominant" because it is next in importance to the tonic,and a dominant chord is any chord built upon that pitch, using the notes of the same diatonic scale...

-I

Tonic (music)

In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale and the tonal center or final resolution tone. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord...

 chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

. He argues that in the progression I-x-V-I (and all progressions), V-I is the only step "which as such produces the effect of tonality," and that all other chord successions, diatonic or not, being more or less similar to the tonic-dominant, are "the composer's free invention." He describes melodic tonality (the term coined independently and 10 years earlier by Estonian composer Jaan Soonvald (Rais 1992, 46)) as being "entirely different from the classical type," wherein, "the whole line is to be understood as a musical unit mainly through its relationship to this basic note [the tonic]," this note not always being the tonic as interpreted according to harmonic tonality. His examples are ancient Jewish and Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...

 and other Eastern music, and he points out how these melodies often may be interrupted at any point and returned to the tonic, yet harmonically tonal melodies, such as that from Mozart's The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute

The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....

below, are actually "strict harmonic-rhythmic

Harmonic rhythm

In music theory, harmonic rhythm, also known as harmonic tempo is the rate at which the chords change. According to Joseph Swain it "is simply that perception of rhythm that depends on changes in aspects of harmony." According to Walter Piston , "the rhythmic life contributed to music by means of...

 pattern[s]," and include many points "from which it is impossible, that is, illogical, unless we want to destroy the innermost sense of the whole line" to return to the tonic (Reti 1958).

and compare with after B

x = return to tonic near inevitable

circled x = possible but not inevitable

circle = impossible

(Reti 1958)

Consequently, he argues, melodically tonal melodies resist harmonization and only reemerge in western music after, "harmonic tonality was abandoned," as in the music of Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

: "melodic tonality plus modulation

Modulation (music)

In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...

 is [Debussy's] modern tonality" (Reti 1958, 23).

See also

• Atonality
  Atonality
  Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
  
  
• History of music
  History of music
  Music is found in every known culture, past and present, varying wildly between times and places. Around 50,000 years ago, early modern humans began to disperse from Africa, reaching all the habitable continents...
  
  
• Schenkerian analysis
  Schenkerian analysis
  Schenkerian analysis is a method of musical analysis of tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker. The goal of a Schenkerian analysis is to interpret the underlying structure of a tonal work. The theory's basic tenets can be viewed as a way of defining tonality in music...
  
  
• Peter Westergaard's tonal theory
  Peter Westergaard's Tonal Theory
  Peter Westergaard's tonal theory is the theory of tonal music developed by Peter Westergaard and outlined in Westergaard's 1975 book An Introduction to Tonal Theory...
  
  

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Further reading

• Khramov M. 2008. "Project Commator and Sonantometry." Proceedings of the International Symposium FRSM-2008. Kolkata, pp. 133–140.

External links

• Music Fundamentals: Tonal Music PDF
• Tonal Harmony Reference Materials for the Undergraduate Theory Student
• Tonality, Modality, and Atonality by Larry Solomon
• Basic guide to tonal theory
• The Tonal Centre "explains and demonstrates some of the key concepts of tonality"
• Algebra of Tonal Functions.