TUNING digest 1008

Ray Tomes wrote:

> I certainly don't know enough about music history to argue on that score
> and anyway accept that 16/9 is sometimes the correct value for that
> note. However I would argue on the basis of logic. If you have a
> dominant 7th chord and the other notes have frequency ratios of 4:5:6:8
> why should the extra note be 64/9 in that ratio scheme when 63/9 would
> cancel down nicely to 7 and make an elegant 4:5:6:7:8? Whatever was
> actually played historically I still feel that the intention or meaning
> of such a chord is 4:5:6:7:8.

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).

But, in common-practice classical music, and indeed in most contemporary
(not blues-based) pop music, the dominant seventh chord is a chord which
actively seeks resolution to the tonic (usually a major or minor triad a
perfect fifth below) with the seventh resolving down a minor or major
second and the third resolving up a minor second.

It is the unrelatedness of the seventh to the rest of the triad that
makes this such an effective leading tone.

For this reason it is absolutely incorrect to tune the seventh of a
dominant seventh to 7/4 in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin
(exception noted) etc., because to do so is to misunderstand the
harmonic function of this note, and to give the dominant chord an
entirely different function to that intended.

Andrew Milne
Islington
London

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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).

Ray Tomes wrote:

> Even if perfectly tuned, the 4:5:6:7:8 chord is more tense than the
> 4:5:6:8 chord. Certainly it is still more so if the 7 is something
> else, as you say. I acknowledge that sometimes composers want "out of
> tune" chords for effect.
>
> These are not good reasons to deny ourselves the possibility of the
> 4:5:6:7:8 chord however and I like the idea of it being available.

Please don't misunderstand me. I would never want to deny the
possibility the 4:5:6:7:8 chord. I am simply saying that this tuning is
*inappropriate* to the function of the dominant seventh in
*common-practice classical music*.

For me the functional implications of 4:5:6:7:8 (36:45:54:63:72) and
36:45:54:64:72 are profoundly different.

Andrew Milne
Islington
London

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-------------------- Begin Original Message --------------------

"Even if perfectly tuned, the 4:5:6:7:8 chord is more tense than the
4:5:6:8 chord. Certainly it is still more so if the 7 is something
else, as you say."

-------------------- End Original Message --------------------

I for one agree. I too have found 4:5:6:7 very definitely functional as
a dissonance.

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