Composition

Harmony and Tonality

Abstract • Main Text

What is form?

• Form as a purely musical structure:
  • Large Scale
  • Medium Scale
  • Small Scale
  • (Genre - Oeuvre - Opus - movement - section - episode - phrase)
• Form as a generalised (and mappable?) medium for communication (links with literature, graphic arts, physics, etc...)
• Form not as a purely musical structure but as a social and interactive medium
• Form as an aesthetic study of the history of form...
• What has harmony to do with form?

Form and Harmony

• Discussions of aesthetic history become discussions of forms.
• Discussions of form become discussions of rules and theories (at least in Western Art Music).
• Discussions of rules & theories become discussions of conventions.
• The basis of conventions are perceptions of harmony, i.e. consonance/dissonance and complexity and these are psychological and aesthetic issues.
• Discussions of aesthetics are discussions of taste and this is what we are to investigate.
• Also problems with contemporary music are arguably caused by misperceptions of taste.

Harmony

• what is harmony (for)? discuss
• what does it do? discuss
• what is tonality?
• play a note has this a tonality?
• play two notes in succession (C-E)
• Is this tonal? Is it in C? Why isn't it in F or G? What can I do to emphasise its tonality?
• play three notes (C-E-G) Is this tonal? Is it in C? Why isn't it in F or G? What can I do to emphasise its tonality?
• Play (click on a score for a MIDI rendition) Is this enough? What about:
• Play What's the key now, and where does it change? Does this affect the first three/four chords? Has the overall phrase any tonality?
• Another example:
• Or even: What's the tonality here? Is this tonal? How about ambiguous tonality - that is, neither tonal in the classical sense nor atonal in the serial sense.
• Is tonality, then, a purely local issue?
• So what does what we choose to call tonality do?
• It causes feelings of progression - what sort of progression? How does it do this? Does 'non-tonal' have a sense of progression? If so, how is it achieved? Could there be different forms of progression? Suggest some, (think especially of World Musics as well as Contemporary Music).
• Palestrina - progression by part movement
• Bach - progression by (stepwise) movement.
• Use chorale as an example
• Debussy - progression by movement
• Stravinsky - progression by rhythm/momentum
• Pop and folk - frequently without 'classical' tonal functionality
• It provides a backdrop that we can understand - so tonality is a form of comprehension - is we understand something we call it 'tonal' whether it is or not?
• Harmony as texture or colour only
• 'functional and non-fucntional' discuss...

Dissonance

• Play
• Is this tonal, is this dissonant? - Is dissonance tonality? - Does it feel like it needs to resolve?
• What is required to make it tonal?
• What if I used Db major? - is it tonal then? - what key is it in?
• C-E-G-Bb-D
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb-F#
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb-F#-A
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb-F#-A-B
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb-F#-A-B-D
• C-E-G-Bb-Eb-F#-A-B-D-F, etc.
  
  
• Now play C-E-G-Bb-Eb. Is this still dissonant? Is it more or less dissonant? Is not dissonance, then, a purely relative matter of creating and then relieving tension? Is this not similar to the reputed effect of Sonata form's tonal conflicts?

Examples

• Wagner Rhinegold
• Stravinsky Rite of Spring
• Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time
• Messiaen Et Expecto
• Ligeti Volumina
• Ligeti Double Concerto
• Ligeti Continuum
• Stockhausen Stimmung

Symmetrical and Assymetrical Chords

Awaiting Material 01/01/01

The Illusion of Tonality

Optical Illusions

Other Issues

• The western obsession with pitch - cf performing - playing wrong notes, appreciating melody and harmony rather than rhythm - what's the biggest difference between a 'rave' track and a Mozart Symphony?
• Serialism - world musics - popular music - rave music...
• What are the important elements in the music? What do we listen to most?
• If we accept that different musics have different 'values' how do we go about assigning these 'values'?