ansthenia

Hey everyone I'm a little confused at to what this very simple dissonance is, or it would even considered "acceptable" dissonance in traditional harmony. At first I thought maybe it's pedal point, but then I read that a pedal point tone eventually becomes consonant again before moving away, rather than leaping to a different tone while it's still in its dissonance phase. So if I start with something simple like this, where there's a passing tone in the bass, and the top voice leaps to a new consonant tone: And then I decorate the bass tone by arpeggiating through chords, the second of of which creates dissonance with the melody: Would the top voice, in this case, be considered a pedal tone, even though it doesn't resolve into itself and essentially leaps from a dissonance? Thanks for your time.

Thanks for your help.

Hello everyone Just a simple question about basic Schenekerian analysis, because I need something clarified. The fundamental structure; the two voices that are left when you reduce any texture to its most simple possible form, do these have to be the outside voices i.e Bass and Soprano? I'm reading a few books on the theory, and they start with a simple two voice structure and then elabrorate it into a more comlex multi voices texture to show how it works, but the two voices that were started with always end up being the two outside voices of the new texture (though elaborated on with passing and embelishing motions etc...). Is it possible for the upper of the two voices, the most reduced form of a texture, to not represent the soprano, so that the alto for example is responsible for the basic structure? Thanks

Thanks.

Hello I'm a little unsure if the 4th tone of the 3rd species can leap to a different tone if it's consonant with the cantus firmus but dissonant with the 2nd species. For example: Ignoring the fact that the amount of similar motion isn't very good, Is this leap here ok in terms of handling dissonance? I thought maybe it's acceptable because the 2nd species, the note at this point which is causing the dissonance, is resolved by step? Thanks for your time

Hello everyone, just a quick question about if chord inversions can change the root due to a perfect 5th in the bass. I've read in quite a few books that a perfect 5th as the bottom two notes points so strongly towards the bass that it's undoubtedly the root. Does this apply to inverted tertian harmony or only ambiguous note collections? (the books only show examples where it isn't clearly an inversion of an obvious chord stacked in 3rds so I don't know if it applies or not) . For example does this Fmaj7 chord turn into a chord with A as the root if I change the notes like this or is it still an F chord? >>>>>> Thanks for your time

Hello Just in case of the slim chance that someone who visits here owns Paul Hindemith's book "The Craft of musical composition, Book 1: Theory" I have a question to ask about "degree-progression" that is confusing the hell out of me and if someone here understands it better and could explain it to me it would be greatly appreciated. Hindemith lists the harmonic value of a chord movement first by a fifth: "A progression based on the interval of a fifth between it's roots naturally has a surer foundation than one based on a minor sixth; this is the strongest of all chord progressions" and shows an example of a CMaj chord moving to a GMaj chord. The next strongest chord movement is by a 4th: "the next best chord progression after that based on a fifth is that based on a fourth" and shows an example of a CMaj chord moving to a FMaj chord. So obviously this book differentiates the different chord movements of a fourth and a fifth by stating they have different strength. My confusion is how do you know when the chord progression is a fifth or a fourth? In the example shown a Cmaj chord moving to a Gmaj chord is considered a "fifth". Yet another example in the book shows a G chord moving to a C chord and calls this the movement of a fifth, but the movement "G-C" is exactly the same as "C-F" which was previously said to be a fourth. Hindemith sometimes calls a progression a fifth and then the exact same movement at other points in the book a fourth and vice versa, yet it's not like these are interchangeable as he has already established the difference in strength between a a root movement of a fourth and one of a fifth. I've read it all as carefully as I can but I can't figure out when a chord movement is considered a fifth up or a fourth down/ fourth up or a fifth down. If any understands this could you please give me some pointers?

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Thanks for the reply Chris. I did read something very interesting that adresses the first question in my topic in "Modern Arranging Techniqie" by Gordon Delamont, where he's talking about the relatioship between the main melody and the accompaniment (in this situation the "accompaniment" is a fully developed counter melody): "The interval relationship between the main line and the LEAD of the accompaniment is the concern! When the countermelody is harmonized in a sectional manner, the relationship between the main line and the HARMONY parts of the accompaniment is not usually a consideration"

I'm reading in a lot of part writing rules about how doubling the 3rd is bad and if one voice moves to the 3rd then another voice that's on the 3rd should move away to another note in the harmony so the 3rd isn't doubled, but that would suggest that this really simply melody over a basic chord is wrong according to the "rules": Surely there's nothing wrong with the 3rd in the melody doubling the 3rd that's playing in the background chord? if you were a student and had to follow the rules for an exam or something would it really be considered a breaking of a rule because the 3rd is doubled in this situation? I mean it seems to be implying that if you have a full traid sustained over a bar as accompaniment then you can't use a 3rd in the melody because it will be doubling the 3rd...I'm obviously missing something here.

Hello I'm a little confused with mixing non-triadic chords in with traditional functional triadic progressions. How important is the root tone of the more non-triadic chords? For example, in the key of C major if I use a non-triadic chord that has a root tone of F then does this still function as a typical FMaj chord would in a progression simply because the root tone is still F? A few books I have on contemporary harmony go into how to figure of what the root tone is in a ambiguous non-triadic chord, but I don't really understand why the root tone matters when apparently these chords are "non-functional" anyway. For another example so you understand what I mean let's say in CMaj I start with the chords: CMaj-Amin-E (tones stacked as E-B-A-D, root of chord is E), what is the significance that the root of this chord is E? could it just be though of as a more dissonant alternative to the Mediant triad and function the same way in a progression? Thanks for your time

I very strongly recommend Gordon Delamont's "Modern Harmonic Technique" Volume I+II books. Very clear, extremely detailed and easy to understand books teaching harmony and composition in 4-part 'Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass' writing.

Hi plutokat I understand that doubling a voice at the octave does not count as adding another voice, but if you double a voice an octave higher for "orchestration" purposes and this upper octave of the voice clashes and crosses with a completely diferent voice then doesn't that still count as voice crossing?

Well what I mean is lots of books on part writing will forbid voice crossing and voice overlapping amongst the different lines, but then say you can double the soprano, alto and tenor an octave higher and the bass an octave lower for more strength (all doubled at the same time). This always creates a lot of voice crossing and overlapping between one of the different octaves of the tenor, alto and soprano lines, but this overlapping and crossing is never mentioned. Why is it ok to have voices cross in this case but not before you double the lines in ocatves?

Hello In some music theory books I read they tell you to avoid voice crossing between any two voices to avoid confusion. I make sure to avoid voice crossing between my main lines but then lots of it always appears as a result of doubling some or all of the voices at the ocatve. Is voice crossing that appears as a result of ocatve doubling the lines non-consequential?