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Tonality

Tonality is the character of music written with hierarchical relationships of pitcheses, rhythms, and chordss to a "center" or tonic. Tonic is sometimes used interchangeably with key. The term was likely first introduced by Joseph Fétis in the mid 19th century (Reti, 1958).

Tonality, however, may be defined in various ways:

However, tonality may be considered generally with no restrictions as to the date or place at which the music was produced, or (very little) restriction as to the materials and methods used. This definition includes much non-western music and western music before 17th century. In fact, many people, including Anton Webern, consider all music to be tonal in that music is always perceived as having a center. Centric is sometimes used to describe music which is not traditionally tonal in that it used triads of a diatonic scale but which nevertheless has relatively strong tonal center. Other terms which have been used in an attempt clarify are tonical and tonicality, as in "possessing a tonic," and Igor Stravinsky used the term polar.

A distinction is commonly made between functional tonality, or sometimes narrative tonality, and other (nonfunctional) tonality such as the pandiatonicism of Aaron Copland or Steve Reich which often consists of tonal or tonal added tone chords (trouves or "finds" as Aaron Copland described some of his own nonfunctional tonality) in nontonal successions.

Table of contents
1 Vocabulary of Tonal Organization
2 Theory of Tonal Music
3 History
4 External link
5 Sources

Vocabulary of Tonal Organization

In the vast majority of tonal music pitches generally conform to one of four specific seven note scales: major, natural minor, melodic minor, and harmonic minor. The major scale predominates and melodic minor contains nine pitches (seven with two alterable). The basic seven notes of a scale are notated in the key signature, and whether the piece is in the major or minor is either stated in the title, or implied in the piece. While other scales and modes are used in tonal music, particularly after 1890, these two are the scales which are considered the most normal. In notation, each note or degree of the scale is often designated by a Roman numeral, or less commonly solfege:

Function Roman Numeral Solfege
Tonic I Do
Supertonic II Re
Mediant III Mi
Sub-Dominant IV Fa
Dominant V So
Sub-Mediant VI La
Leading VII Ti 


Thus "I" describes the tonic chord at a given time.

Chords, all triadss, are also built upon, in a tertian manner, and named by the scale degree which acts as their root. Chords are then further named according to their quality or makeup, determined by the scale notes which lie a third and fifth (two thirds) above the degree a chord is built upon. If minor the numeral is lower case, if major, uppercase, and other chords are designated in other ways. Quality is generally not as important as the chord's root.

The degree of a scale is both the pitch of that note and that pitches diatonic function, which is why chords are named by scale degree. Thus the notes of a chord do not have to be sounded simultaneously, and one to two notes may function as a three or more note chord.

To describe a chord progression, the roman numerals of the chords are listed. Thus IV-V-I describes a chord progression of a chord based on the fourth note of a scale, then one based on the fifth note of the scale, and then one on the first note of the scale.

The traditional form 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 of the main tonality.


Theory of Tonal Music

Tonality allows for a great range of musical materials, structures, meanings, and understandings. It does this through establishing a tonic, or central pitch, and a somewhat flexible network of relations between any pitch or chord and the tonic similar to perspective in painting. This is what is meant by tonality having a hierarchical relationship, one triad, the tonic triad, is the "center of gravity" to which other chords are supposed to lead. Changing which chord is felt to be the tonic triad is referred to as "modulation". As within a musical phrase, interest and tension may be created through the move from consonance to dissonance and back, an larger piece will also create interest by moving away from and back to the tonic and tension by destabilizing and re-establishing the key. Distantly related pitches and chords may be considered dissonant in and of themselves since their resolution to the tonic is implied. Further, temporary secondary tonal centers may be established by cadences or simply passed through in a process called modulation, or simultaneous tonal centers may be established through polytonality. Additionally, the structure of these features and processes may be linear, cycical, or both. This allows for a huge variety of relations to be expressed through dissonance and consonance, distance or proximaty to the tonic, the establishment of temporary or secondary tonal centers, and/or ambiguity as to tonal center. Music notation was created to accommodate tonality and facilitates interpretation.

The assumptions of tonal theory include octave equivalency and diatonic functionality and thus not enharmonic equivalency. Less so transpositional equivalency and far less still inversional equivalency are assumed.


History

Though modulation may occur instantaneously without indication or preparation, the least ambigous way to establish a new tonal center is through a cadence, a succession of two or more chords which ends a section and/or gives a feeling of closure or finality, or series of cadences. 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 structrually 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) which temporarily suspended a sense of key, and by freely changing between the major and minor voicing for the tonic chord, thereby making the listener unsure 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.

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 and counterpoint, though some influential theorists prefer the term "through-bass" instead of harmony, the concept is the same. Counterpoint is the study of linear resolutions of music, while harmony encompasses the sequences of chords which form a chord progression.

While tonality is the most common form of organizing Western Music, it is not universal, nor is the seven note scale universal, many folk musics and the art music of many cultures focuses on a pentatonic, or five note scale, including Beijing Opera, the folk music of Hungary, and the musical traditions of Japan. Pre-classical concert music was largely modal, as is much folk and some popular music. In the early 20th century many techniques where developed and applied to tonal music, such as non-tertian secundal or quartal music. Some, such as Benjamin Boretz, consider tonal theory a specific part of atonal theory or musical set theory, which is in turn part of a more general theory of music. Many composers such as Darius Milhaud and Philip Glass have been interested in bitonality. While at one point in the middle of the 20th century classical composers interested in the twelve tone technique and serialism declared tonality dead, many composers have since returned to tonality, including many minimalists and older composers such as George Rochberg. Other composers never abandonded tonality entirely such as Lou Harrison who says he has "always composed both modally and chromatically." (Harrison, 1992) Much music today that is described as tonal is nonfunctional tonality such as in Claude Debussy, Steve Reich, Aaron Copland and many others.


External link


Sources