re: dominanat chords in Barbershop

>Carl, one could give a meaningful functional analysis for all your examples.
>This is not the list for that -- there might be a music theory list
>somewhere for you. In the meantime, take a look at Forte and Mathieu (you'll
>absolutely _love_ the latter). Mathieu shows how, in the right contexts, a
>G7 chord can resolve _functionally_ to 27 different major or minor triads,
>including all 24 12-tET equivalence classes.

The subject was not functional harmony, but dominant 7th chords. I said
that there are 7th chords in Barbershop that have no teleological
interpretation as the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th degrees of a dominant key. If
you can find such an interpretation for the examples I gave, I can't think
of a better place to put them than here.

-Carl

>>Carl, one could give a meaningful functional analysis for all your
examples.
>>This is not the list for that -- there might be a music theory list
>>somewhere for you. In the meantime, take a look at Forte and Mathieu
(you'll
>>absolutely _love_ the latter). Mathieu shows how, in the right contexts, a

>>G7 chord can resolve _functionally_ to 27 different major or minor triads,

>>including all 24 12-tET equivalence classes.

>The subject was not functional harmony, but dominant 7th chords. I said
>that there are 7th chords in Barbershop that have no teleological
>interpretation as the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th degrees of a dominant key. If
>you can find such an interpretation for the examples I gave, I can't think
>of a better place to put them than here.

First of all, go get yourself a copy of Mathieu. Secondly, terminolgy may be
stinging us again -- the term "dominant 7th" is commonly used merely to
distinguish the M3, m3, m3 chord from "major 7th", "minor 7th", and other
seventh chords. The term "dominant" is meaningless here, except to remind us
where, in the diatonic scale, this chord normally appears.

>>The subject was not functional harmony, but dominant 7th chords. I said
>>that there are 7th chords in Barbershop that have no teleological
>>interpretation as the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th degrees of a dominant key.

>First of all, go get yourself a copy of Mathieu.

If I was near a library... No money of mine is going to these guys until
I've seen a lot more. I've been over this ground a few times already -- as
recently as '96, with my professor at the conservatory of music at Indiana
University. As it's been presented to me in these previous encounters, I
can only conclude that it's a lot of B.S. Perhaps I'll state, at some
point, how I've come to this conclusion.

>Secondly, terminolgy may be stinging us again -- the term "dominant 7th"
is >commonly used merely to distinguish the M3, m3, m3 chord from "major
7th", >"minor 7th", and other seventh chords.

Ouch. Yes, indeed. I usually use the term, "maj/min 7th" to speak of
4:5:6:7 chords in 12-tet. In this thread, I was using dominant chords to
mean 1-3-5-7 chords. It sounded like you were too, since the context was
functional harmony, etc.

>The term "dominant" is meaningless here, except to remind us where, in the
>diatonic scale, this chord normally appears.

The original statement was "diatonic in function and origin". I admit this
statement is pretty general, but the way I was reading it, I had to disagree.

-Carl