Reply to Rick Sanford

>I agree, but the term 'tonal' means specifically
>supporting a tonic-dominant relationship
>in the piece, no? If not, we could call
>many drone-type things 'tonal', which
>they are not.

I would say that many pentatonic styles from around the world are
'tonal' in that they have a specific home pitch, though they have
nothing resembling a tonic-dominant relationship. Drone-type things
might qualify too, although Mathieu uses the term "dronality" as opposed
to "tonality".

Message text written by INTERNET:tuning@onelist.com
>From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PErlich@Acadian-Asset.com>

>I agree, but the term 'tonal' means specifically
>supporting a tonic-dominant relationship
>in the piece, no? If not, we could call
>many drone-type things 'tonal', which
>they are not.

I would say that many pentatonic styles from around the world are
'tonal' in that they have a specific home pitch, though they have
nothing resembling a tonic-dominant relationship. Drone-type things
might qualify too, although Mathieu uses the term "dronality" as opposed
to "tonality".
<

Tonic-dominant relationships are in fact quite common in pentatonic musics.
Indeed, it's hard to imagine any stronger organizing element in the
repertoire with which I am familiar. I don't wish to belabor the point
here, but wouldn't it simply be safer to accept a broad, inclusive
definition of 'tonal' (everything from drones to early Webern) and then
distinguish a 'classical' tonal practice within the broader concept? This
would be the western European, voice-leading derived, 'common' tonal
practice whose properties, extents and limits have been debated since
Christ left Chicago and will continue to be debated until the cows come
home.

By the way: Is it just me, or does 'dronality' seem to be a particularly
awful neologism? Aside from the awkward etymology (the word drone comes
from the Greek _threnos_, which was the lyric form usually translated as
'dirge', so making a new term on analogy with _tonos_/tonality is a kind
of category error ) , does it really convey anything that couldn't be said
with something like 'static tonality'?