Re: chord quality etc...

>
> But news of new concepts getting around doesn't mean that they
> are immediately accepted/used with all the implications. I, too,
> would argue that the training of composers -- and their idea of
> artful music -- was based on counterpoint: looking at isolated
> intervals. Consonances in thorough bass were a third (major or
> minor depending on the mode), the fifth, and a sixth (again
> depending on the mode). The mode took care of what in later
> terms could be called chord quality.
>
> klaus schmirler
>

Very succinctly put. Chromaticism was also brought up in this
thread as evidence of harmonic thinking. The way I see chromaticism
in modal music is entirely a melodic phenomena,
notes seemed to be added specifically to form a "leading tone" to
important notes in the mode. The harmonic treatment came from the
modal material and was completely different than the "V of V"
treatment of the same notes in later traditions.

I'm also of the opinion that counterpoint and figured bass practice
had very little to do with the idea of triads and inversions even
if eventually could be interpreted using those terms.

As a side note, the modern day equivalent of figured bass, the
lead sheet, practically ignores voice leading and inversion
considerations completely save for specific instances. It is
fully based on being able to do some sort of approapiriate
on-the-fly smoothing of completely harmonic information.

Bob Valentine

--- In tuning@y..., Robert C Valentine <BVAL@I...> wrote:

> Very succinctly put. Chromaticism was also brought up in this
> thread as evidence of harmonic thinking. The way I see chromaticism
> in modal music is entirely a melodic phenomena,
> notes seemed to be added specifically to form a "leading tone" to
> important notes in the mode.

I mentioned Lassus and Gesualdo in particular, not "chromaticism in
modal music". I don't think your analysis is correct for The
Sibelline Prophecies of Lassus, for instance, where the pervasive
chromaticism is more or less the point of it all. It goes well beyond
what you are suggesting.

The harmonic treatment came from the
> modal material and was completely different than the "V of V"
> treatment of the same notes in later traditions.

It's also completely different than tossing in a few accidentals to
help the melody along in the cases I cited.

Robert C Valentine schrieb:
>
> Very succinctly put. Chromaticism was also brought up in this
> thread as evidence of harmonic thinking. The way I see chromaticism
> in modal music is entirely a melodic phenomena,
> notes seemed to be added specifically to form a "leading tone" to
> important notes in the mode.

the cadential notes. in more chromatic music, there were shifts
to other modes for expressive purposes, introduced, of course,
by "foreign" cadences.

> The harmonic treatment came from the
> modal material and was completely different than the "V of V"
> treatment of the same notes in later traditions.

there is one prominent kind of chromaticism in instrumental
music that may want an explanation outside the modal system: the
passus duriusculus.

>
> I'm also of the opinion that counterpoint and figured bass practice
> had very little to do with the idea of triads and inversions even
> if eventually could be interpreted using those terms.
>
> As a side note, the modern day equivalent of figured bass, the
> lead sheet, practically ignores voice leading and inversion
> considerations completely save for specific instances. It is
> fully based on being able to do some sort of approapiriate
> on-the-fly smoothing of completely harmonic information.

my impression was that inversions (taking only the "1" as
relevant) are unwanted(?).

klaus