Talk:Tonality/Archive 1

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Contents

Fétis

"Hermann von Helmholtz wrote, 'The predominance of the tonic as the link which connects all the tones of a piece, we may, with F['e]tis, term the principle of tonality.'"

I don't know who F['e]tis is and this info is now in the first paragraph.Hyacinth 06:12, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)

"['e]" is a sort of shorthand (well, longhand really) for "é", which would likely make this François-Joseph Fétis, a 19th century Belgian composer, teacher, writer, theoretician and all-round clever bloke. (Of course this doesn't need to be in the article, I'm just mentioning it for interest's (boredom's?) sake.) --Camembert

"The term tonality seems to have been introduced into music by the Belgian composer and musicologist Joseph Fétis around the middle of the nineteenth century. It was meant to signify a musical state, which had for several centuries already been in general use, according to which a musical group is conceived (by the composer as well as the listener) as a unit related to, and so to speak derived from, a central tonal fundament, the tonic. This tonal fundament is understood as one note, or, in a more comprehensive sense, as the full triad-harmony of a note, be it major or minor. In fact, the word tonality was probably chosen merely as a linguistically pleasant abberviation of tonicality (thus also presaging atonality instead of the tongue-twisting atonicality)." (Reti, 1958, Tonality: Harmonic Tonality)

Outline

In this article tonality is described as a set of rules, which are actual guidelines created after the fact, and not as a system of relations and perceptions. Hyacinth

  1. Intro:Tonality is the character of music written with hierarchical relationships of pitches, rhythms, and chords to a "center" or tonic. Tonic is sometimes used interchangeably with key. Musical sensations associated with tonality include consonance, dissonance, and resolution.
    1. Tonality, however, may be defined in various ways.
      1. One is through reference to pre-existing music of a specific time period and location which is assumed to be tonal, such as that of the common practice period.
      2. Analysis of the above music may be used to define tonal music from similarities and restrictions inferred from analysis. This includes the use of the major scale or minor scale, their triadic chords and diatonic functions, and the compositional techniques, procedures, and materials used.
      3. A definition may be formed from observations or assumptions of the characteristics of sound, organization or order, and/or perception, possibly combined with aspects of the above analysis, that considers tonality a practice correctly based on physical or psychological constants.
      4. Tonal music may simply be contrasted with atonal music, music which does not feel as if it has a tonal center.
    2. Tonality, however, may be considered more 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. 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.
  2. Vocabulary of Tonal Organization
    1. Scale: [table].
    2. Chords
    3. Degree & Diatonic function
    4. Form
  3. Tonal Theory
    1. Intro: 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. 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. Further, temporary secondary tonal centers may be established by cadences or simply passed through in a process called modulation (key change), 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 accomodate tonality and facilitates interpretation.
    2. The assumptions of tonal theory are:
      1. Octave equivalency and diatonic functionality not enharmonic equivalency
      2. Less so transpositional equivalency and very little inversional equivalency
    3. Cadences: Though modulation may occur instantaneously without indication or preparation, the strongest way to establish a tonal center is through a cadence, a succession of two or more chords which 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. The strongest cadence is the perfect authentic cadence, which moves from the dominant to the tonic, mostly 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.
  4. History
    1. Common practice period
    2. Post-tonal: According to different theories tonality began to "break down" because of expansion, disinterest in functionality, increased use of leading tones, alterations, modulations, tonicization, the increased importance of subsidary key areas, use of non-diatonic hierarchical methods, and/or symmetry.

Criticism of the Outline

Note that most or all of the problems identified here have been corrected.

The article, as written, isn't very useful at all to someone without a strong working knowledge of music theory and musicology. Also, style of prose is more appropriate for a graduate-level college essay than for an encyclopaedia. For example, there is no need to sum up a section - if you need to sum up, you haven't done a good enough job breaking down the information into digestible bits. Along those lines, paragraphs and sentences should be shorter, and the whole thing needs to be further subdivided into sub-sections.

Also the content is wanting. First, remember that "tonal music" redirects here. This can't just be an article about the theory of tonality! If I wanted to know about tonality and tonal music, I'd probably want to see the following information (i.e., this is my propsoed outline):

  • Basic definition. The first paragraph of the article is ok, but it needs to mention more (and more simply) about scales, chords, etc. The four "definitions" of tonality given in the intro are okay, but need to be rephrased so that they will be meaningful to all readers. I have a lot of formal training in music and music theory, and I was unable to parse several of these items on the first try.
    • Also, the various parenthetical citations should be changed to wiki-style citations, and the Jim Samson definition does not belong at all (Who cares what Jim Samson thinks? Put him in the "definitions" section below.)
  • Characteristics of Tonal Music - this first section of the body of the article needs to have sections on scales, chords, progressions, cadences, form, etc. Each of these should be one section and be explained clearly. Since there are other articles on these topics, they can also be (blissfully) short, but should give enough information to make them worth reading.
    • The table of solfege is especially out of place here as there's already an article on it and most people don't (principally) use solfege anyway. Under the subsection on "scales", it could perhaps be included as a sentence like "The solfege system gives the notes of the major scale the names do, re, mi, fa, so, la, and ti, while other systems assign numbers from 1 to 7."
    • Sentences like "Most tonality is 'functional harmony', which is a term used to describe music where changes in the predominate scale or additional notes to chords are explainable by their place in stabilizing or destabilizing a tonality." should also be strongly avoided, as they are hard to read and full of jargon. A better restatement would be something like "Functional harmony describes a type of music where particular notes are present not because part of a scale or chord, but because they create additional consonance or dissonance. In this way, functional harmony may be used to stabilize or destabilize a particular tonality." Of course, I'm not sure this material should be here at all; perhaps you might have a sub-heading on exceptions to the general rules of tonality, and include "functional harmony" with a link to a separate article on that topic.
    • These sorts of changes, made throughout the document, will be greatly beneficial.
  • the next three sections can be in whatever order makes most sense...
  • Definition(s) of tonal music - clearly, there are several. First, say why there are different definitions. Then, describe each succinctly and, most important, clearly.
  • History of tonal music - when did it start, and how? When did other movements break off? What qualifies (not just in "serious" composition, but also popular and world music genres)? What is the state of tonal music today? Again, make things succinct and clear!
  • Tonal Music Theory - the current section is pretty good, but the writing style needs to be clearer; more scientific and less storytelling. I do really like the examples of different principles from actual pieces and/or composers.
  • History of the term "tonality" - because that's already in the article. Cut it down, though. Much of the information belongs in one of the other sections.

Dave 21:19, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Some criticisms duly taken.
Basic definition: I rewrote the four definitions to make it more clear by phrasing them "tonality is" rather than "tonality is defined through".
Citations: There was, last time I checked, no standard. Citations may be in text or note style. If you want notes, change them yourself.
Jim Samson. You didn't write the book, he did. Although many people prefer to simply state opinions I and many others like to attribute opinions. This is more NPOV in my opinion.
Definitions: I explained in the introduction why there are several definitions of tonality.
Hyacinth 23:55, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
I apologize for the citations bit - having re-read the guidelines, it doesn't matter. Also, thank you for cleaning up the language and presentation of the material in this article - it has undergone a metamorphosis into something I think will be useful for readers of all knowledge levels. Dave 03:28, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

Practical Sets

Compositional resources

I propose that compositional resources in the common practice period can be described in terms of practical sets.

The ultimate source set is the harmonic series. Common Practice composers and theoreticians have responded to this basic fact of nature by creating sets of:

Major scales, minor scales (all flavors), diatonic triads and extensions (tertian structures.) cadences, non-harmonic tones, secondary functions, partwriting procedures. harmonic progression practices,and the reconciliation of dissonance and consonance. Transition technics such as modulation were developed to tie everything together as coherently as possible.

To mold these basic resources into what Suzanne Langer would call "significant forms" composers craft phrases, melodies and genres and seek meaningful unity, variety and symmetical and asymmetical balance. This constitutes the raw materials of grammar and rhetoric of musical ideas within style periods, nationalities, individual composers and even specific works. In other words the common practice period languages provided ample room for individuality for a very long period of time.

Impressionistic Set Repertoire

The revolutionary vision of the impressionist composers expanded the repertoire of sets described above to include:

Modes, whole tone scales, pentatonic scales, quartal and quintal chords, pan diatonic, pan pentatonic and pan whole tone structures.

New grammar such as planing and new types of modulations were invented to bind this expanded wealth of resources together. A heightened interest in timbre and new rhythmic designs added even more dimension to the new language.

The genius of Debussy and Ravel was to create a great number of works that effectively blended old and new resources into significant forms. There seems to have been no trial and error or "mannererist" period of experimentation involving gimmicky failures and half successes. They also proved that the musical wheel could be effectively reinvented.

Beyond Impressionism

The challenge to composers ever since has been to craft a personal language whose new and old sets can be combined into expressive and formally significant compositions. In this quest 20th century composers often forgot that the audience is the client for their products. Verbose and convoluted annotations were typically provided to beg for respect for fundamentally unlikable experiments.

Enough! As 21st. century composers we must now direct our efforts to successfully serve the only population who, in the final analysis, justifies our existence. To paraphrase Bill Clinton's famous campaign slogan, "It's the audience, stupid."

Robert C. Howard

Do you have a source for these theories? Hyacinth 23:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Titles?

The article currenlty has sections titled "Vocabulary of Tonal Organization" and "Tonal Theory" and "History". What exactly do those title mean? Is the "Vocabulary of Tonal Organization" the vocabulary use to describe organization according to traditional theory? Is "Theory" then the history of theory? Is "History" the history of the "use" of tonality, or the history of the theory of tonality, or both? Hyacinth 05:54, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

The article has an accumulation of material. The Vocabulary of tonal organization is a description of chord names and functions - which is required to able to read tonal analysis of almost any kind. The theory and history sections should probably be rewritten to make each clearer. The current article is defective in that it spends a great deal of time on some POVs which, while interesting, are not the dominant meanings of the word as it is generally used.

Thanks. Which POVs are you referring to? Hyacinth 06:05, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Stirling Newberry I would have to say that Reti gets a good deal more attention in the article than he does in the real world, particularly with respect to Schenker and Schoenberg who are still the most influential theorists on the subject of tonality. The use of tonality in Jazz is, similarly, given a somewhat short shrift. I feel we should rebalance the article to put more emphasis on the sort of material that most people will encounter and want information on.

Stirling Newberry added a great deal to the vocabulary section. I want the poor stiff who reads "and then cadence on vi leads back to the tonic triad" to at least feel that there is some sense there.

Please sign messages. Hyacinth 06:05, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Also, please note that the Reti section/example explains tonality in ways not covered in the article and possibly not covered in more well known sources. Hyacinth 18:38, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Are you talking to yourself? Didn't Stirling Newberry write this, "Stirling Newberry added a great deal to the vocabulary section."? I'm confused. Hyacinth 00:15, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

User:Stirling Newberry, thanks for integrating the section on Reti into the history section.

Please Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Is the history section the history of tonality or the history of tonal theory? Hyacinth

Removed

  • "In his influential article on the subject, music theorist Carl Dahlhaus provided a broad survey which included seven definitions of tonality he felt had been used with regularity."

I removed the above sentence because the article, as of yet, in no way mentions Dahlhaus' seven definitions. Hyacinth 00:10, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)