Acoustical reality, or just "chord naming?"

Hi Jerry (Eskelin)

Thank you for your recent post, and for your contribution:

[TD 530:3]
>Tonic harmony: I, vi, and sometimes iii
>Dominant harmony: V, vii, and sometimes iii6
>Subdominant harmony: IV and ii

>Think of ii, iii, and vi as little "relative minors" of IV, V and I
>(respectively). Going from a primary to a secondary is cool, but not the
>reverse. Any subdominant chord can be "preparation" for dominant but is
not
>obliged to go there. Any dominant chord is obliged to go to a tonic chord,
>but does not go to a subdominant chord unless it returns to dominant
before
>going to tonic.

This little chart helps clarify the Riemann classifications that Joe Monzo
first delineated and, obviously, the Germanic teaching the Daniel Wolf is
speaking about which is associated with it. Thank, Jerry, for including
it...

You have to admit it is a "far cry" from the Forte classifications... I
also believe it is much more based on "triadic chord naming" than Forte's
method and actually, in that way, more closely linked to the old
"_Stufen-theorists_" that Joe Monzo is complaining about than to overall
"gravitational" acoustical theory as described by Joe's paradigm
3^(-1,0,1), even though Joe was the first to bring this up in the context
of the Riemann chart.

Surely it is more related to the 5-limit view of triadic consonance than
Forte, which is more general, and Pythagoreanly linked. I would think the
Forte method might be a better analysis of older systems of music, such as
meantone, and maybe even earlier, than the system you describe.

The biggest problem, in my view, is the classification of the vi chord as a
I. Sure, and also according to Forte, it can "substitute" for a I.
However, I much prefer Forte's description of the vi as "dominant
preparation" since Pythagorean chain progressions such as I-vi-ii-V-I are
so common... Also, the classification of III as a "tonic" might be
especially good in the *minor* mode, where III can take on a predominant
*tonic* role but maybe not so descriptive in the major mode where, as
according to Forte, it elaborates the Pythagorean chain with the obvious
iii-vi-ii-V-I.

Joseph Pehrson

> [Joseph Pehrson, TD 531.8]
> ... more closely linked to the old "_Stufen-theorists_" that
> Joe Monzo is complaining about than to overall "gravitational"
> acoustical theory as described by Joe's paradigm 3^(-1,0,1) ...

Joe, I wasn't really 'complaining' about _stufen_-theory
(well, in the particular subset of it connected with
Schenker I do... but not in general).

Each theory has valid points, and points which can be criticized,
but in general, it works for the particular repertoire
(i.e., *context*) for which it was formulated.

_Stufen_-theory (= 'scale-step theory') derived from figured-bass
accompaniment notations during the 1600-1700s, and was developed
further (as Daniel Wolf pointed out, mainly in Vienna) during the
1800s.

I believe that it analyzes very capably many of the aspects
of harmonic practice for the western European repertoire from
that period. And it certainly represents harmonic paradigms
which a lot of those composers had in mind, since most of them
*learned* it as 'their' music-theory.

But it is *always* the case, as none other than Harry Partch would
argue strenuously, that gifted composers and performers will
do things that fall far outside any theory than anyone has so
far formulated, and theory is always playing a game of catch-up,
with the few execeptions of *proscriptive* theory such as Yasser's.

(... as opposed to *descriptive* theory, which tries to find ways
to analyze those gifted creations in a way that makes some kind
of logical sense out of them according to 'rules' about which
theorists are already familiar; i.e., making sense of the
unfamiliar in terms of the familiar.)

> [Joe Pehrson]
> The biggest problem, in my view, is the classification of the
> vi chord as a I. Sure, and also according to Forte, it can
> "substitute" for a I. However, I much prefer Forte's description
> of the vi as "dominant preparation" since Pythagorean chain
> progressions such as I-vi-ii-V-I are so common...

But others have pointed out the idea (valid for Riemann) that
'normal' progression was:

from IV to V,
from V to I, and
from I to anywhere.

This does not invalidate vi=I as a 'dominant preparation'.

I suppose maybe we just see the relationship between Riemann
and Forte differently; to me, Forte is simply an elaboration
of Riemann.

> [Paul Erlich, TD 531.24]
>
>> [Joe Pehrson]
>> Obviously, Paul, your teacher was teaching Reimann and *not*
>> Forte, since the definitions you mention are quite different
>> from Forte's definitions and terminology shown above.
>
> [Paul]
> Not at all! As I see it, the two are virtually identical!

And with Paul on my side, I'm feeling pretty confident... :)

I've already said that there's a lot of Riemann that I'm
not remembering and reporting here, and to do him justice
I'd really have to go back to the library, which is not
possible right now.

Joe, I hope you'll forgive me if I haven't responded to your
rebuttals in as much depth as you'd wanted, but the reason was
that others (mainly Paul Erlich and Jerry Eskelin, and most
perceptively, Daniel Wolf) responded with pretty much anything
else that I would have said. Jerry, whether he knows it or not,
has a pretty good grasp of Riemannian functional-harmony theory
as I understand it.

-monz

Joseph L. Monzo Philadelphia monz@juno.com
http://www.ixpres.com/interval/monzo/homepage.html
|"...I had broken thru the lattice barrier..."|
| - Erv Wilson |
--------------------------------------------------

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