Harmonic Progression and Tonality

1
Harmonic Progression and Tonality

• New Approaches to Motion

2
Breakdown of Tonality

• As tonality broke down as the organizing force at
  the end of the nineteenth century, not one but
  many directions were explored.
• Different composers developed different systems
  whether they were writing tonal or atonal music.
• Uniqueness, originality, and experimentation are
  a hallmark of the twentieth century.
• Even tonal music did not have a codified
  vocabulary.

3
Traditional Approaches

• Certain chord successions became standard
  cadential formulas.
• The voice-leading conventions of the authentic
  cadence -- the supertonic scale degree descending
  to the tonic, supported by a dominant scale
  degree resolving to tonic -- became the V - I
  progression.
• The V - I progression became the basis for the
  typical circle of fifths progression.
• Some conservative composers, at times, still used
  the typical harmonic progressions in their music,
  but the standard harmonic progressions are
  largely abandoned in the twentieth century.
• However, traditional harmonic progressions are
  still widely used in pop and folk music.

4
New Approaches

• There is no common harmonic language shared by
  all composers.
• Most tonal music avoids root movements by fifth.
• Composers devised their own strategies of root
  movement.
• Standardizing harmonic progressions becomes even
  more difficult with the addition of nontertian
  sonorities.
• The roots are not identified by the common
  agreement of listeners or an agreed upon theory.
• If there are no generally identifiable roots, the
  problem lies in developing a way to create
  meaningful harmonic progressions.

5
New Approaches

• Paul Hindemith tried to codify a systematic
  approach to harmonic theory in his book Craft of
  Musical Composition.
• This book proposes a universal theory of
  determining the chord root.
• He developed six groupings of chords with six
  subgroups each.
• These chord groupings were assigned relative
  degrees of harmonic tension.
• Using his theories, Hindemith proposed
  progressions based on tension and release.
• It had some mid-century influence, but is now
  mainly an interesting curiosity.

6
Nonharmonic Music

• Though harmony can be defined as any collection
  of pitches sounded simultaneously, it is a
  misleading definition for some music.
• Sometimes the the simultaneities are merely the
  result independent lines coming together.
• Linear counterpoint is term often used to refer
  to music where the compositional method is
  overwhelmingly linear.
• This is typical in atonal music, but can happen
  in other styles, too.

7
Establishing a Tonal Center

• The Common Practice used leading tones,
  dominant-tonic root movements, and the tritone
  between scale degrees 7 and 4 resolving to 1 and
  3, as well as other elements, to establish tonic.
• While some of these elements may be present, the
  twentieth century tends to establish tonic by
  assertion.
• Devices such as pedal points, reiteration,
  return, ostinato, accent, formal placement, and
  register tend to draw the listeners attention to
  a particular pitch class.
• Sometimes this is referred to as neotonality.

8
Polytonality

• This is also know as bitonality.
• Like a polychord, the different tonalities must
  be aurally distinguishable.
• In most cases, it is limited to two tonalities.
• Generally, each tonal layer is diatonic to its
  own scale.

9
Other Methods

• Atonality attempts to prevent the listener from
  hearing any pitch as a tonal center.
• Listeners do not always agree whether a
  composition is atonal.
• Pandiatonicism is where the composition or
  passage uses only diatonic pitches but not
  traditional harmonic progressions and dissonance
  treatment.
• Often the harmonies are not tertian.
• Some consider a passage pandiatonic only if it is
  atonal, others do not.