Dominant seventh chord

Mark Nowitzky wrote:

> I think this whole tuning issue is boiling down to how harsh or smooth the
> chords "should" be. The case of the Dominant Seventh chord is tricky, 'cuz
> on the one hand, I'm voting for smoothness (just intonation is smoother
> than equal temperament), but on the other hand I'm voting for harshness
> (the chord is unresolved, consonance isn't really the main goal of the chord).
>
> So maybe that's why everybody's got a different opinion about it. It hard
> to make a chord smooth and not smooth at the same time.

I suspect that the tendency of the dominant seventh chord to "resolve" is
more than a matter of dissonance. The more "in tune" (consonant) the tritone
is (leading tone and chord seventh) in terms of its destination tonality,
the more its "magnetic property" can be felt by the listener. Also, fine
tuning of the tritone minimizes the 12-tET ambiguity of "enharmonic
equivalency."

Consider that even more dissonant chords (major-major seventh, for example)
can be experienced with little or no need for resolution. The important
difference, I think, is the functional influence of the well-tuned tritone.
Certainly, this effect is cultural to a large degree, but I think it is also
acoustic. The fact that there is only one functional tritone per key seems
too good an opportunity for creating specific tonal direction to be ignored.
In this sense, the "tritone" between scale steps 2 to flat 6 in the minor
mode is not a functional tritone (unless, of course, its tuning is modified
from subdominant function toward dominant function and "leans toward" the
relative major key).

Jerry

Gerald Eskelin wrote,

>In this sense, the "tritone" between scale steps 2 to flat 6 in the minor
>mode is not a functional tritone (unless, of course, its tuning is modified
>from subdominant function toward dominant function and "leans toward" the
>relative major key).

I disagree. The "tritone" between scale steps 2 to flat 6 in the minor mode
is used as a functional tritone in the dominant-function diminished seventh
chord; the 2 resloves up a half step to b3 and the b6 resolves down a half
step to 5.