Static/Dynamic Harmony

Anyone heard of this idea, if so, have you any thoughts?

The basic idea seems to be that phrases are made up of two different type of harmony: The first part of the phrase being static harmony ("Harmony that is made up of the prolongation of one chord rather than a series of chord progressions. Static harmony based on tonic or dominant chords serve as syntactic elements within the syntactic structure. Static harmony is made up of a sustained tonic or dominant chord or the oscillation of the tonic or dominant chord with other chords. The chords may be further elaborated by passing chords or linear progressions."), and the second dynamic ("Harmony that is made up of chord progressions rather than a prolongation of one harmony. In tonal music, dynamic harmony is most commonly made up of the α, β and γ strong chord progressions in that order of frequency of use.") followed by a cadence.

Demonstrations

Check it out, seems interesting, to say the least...

Yes, I know this website, visited it two years ago or so. This is a theoretical work (not the most interesting though) build around syntactic structures and explores the similarity between language and music - something which we generally already know, but little more extended.

Since more dynamic harmony usually builds interest and tension, it is logical to appear later in phrases.

Any opinion/other thoughts?

Lots of words, and making up terminology for no good reason. Also, the thing with language and music is bordering the "beating the dead horse" by now, and the convenient bypassing of modern music is also grounds to disqualify this altogether.

Plus I don't really see the point of it. There are enough people who have done this already, and really when it comes down to it trying to dress the same ol' Mozart or Chopin in new theoretical clothes is just too much for my taste. Nevermind that the whole thing doesn't bring new or meaningful anything to the actual composition process.

There's of course the whole other subjective aspect of what chords "mean" and what harmonies "mean" what. Today that's all practically irrelevant, all those idioms are old and therefore context which they were built with (as far as "tonal harmony" blah blah) are pretty much gone. Let's not forget "natural language", what is that?

Plus the whole "WELL HERE'S MY BOOK!" thing turns me off. That he's "This is so EASY! HOW CAN THIS BE!?" is also a turn off. Then of course saying that most of what people hear today is based on 18th-19th century traditional harmony is insane.

This junk doesn't provide anything useful for a modern composer, and it's best to skip it. It's also poorly written and complicated to read, in part because the thesis trips on its own foot with things like noting the "simplest theory is the best" principle from Occam's razor. By the same token simply saying "Composers wrote what sounded good to them" is just as valid and much, much simpler than all this nonsense.

The moment you start bringing scientific method and principles into music is the moment you're doing something other than music. Even within this context, stuff based on mathematics or probability by composers such as Xenakis is still done on the simple basis of "I wanted to do it".

It makes me laugh a little at least that the guy claims he's "currently extending the analysis to include 20th century classical and popular music." Good luck fitting something like Ligeti's "Continuum" to such pointless model.

In fact, this dude is just some nut with a lot of time on his hands and instead of actually writing music, he wants to sell a book. Eh.

Edit: Oh wow I can keep on going with this the more I read it the less I like it. He compares language grammar to music and says that "rules" in music INCREASE possibilities! That's just retarded, sorry.

Seems like a fairly accurate summary, from what I've read of it aswell :D I do think there may be some merit to that way of thinking, if you're really going nowhere and need a change of perspective to get some music flowing - if only one four bar phrase - but then the same could probably be said of any number of slightly mental analogies for music.

I think a more fine-tuned awareness of harmonic distance (how closely a chord either reaffirms a tonic or weakens it by suggesting another tonic) and harmonic rhythm accounts for all of this. I think this author tries to codify classical and romantic harmony more than anything else. Since many harmony textbooks offer little advice on how harmonic rhythm and motion affect a piece (most books I've seen limit themselves to "ii can follow vi but never V.... V can follow ii or IV" and such nonsense), I think a theorist like this might provide a fresh and useful point of view.

More crucial is an underlying knowledge of the significance of harmonic motion on many scales... not only on a chord-to-chord level but on the phrase level, section level, entire piece level. I think most harmonic patterns can exist on all these levels. For example, a tiny phrase might exhibit predominantly bordering harmonies like I V6 I V6 I V6 I I64 V7 I. On a larger scale you can find the exact same relationships, say in the exposition of a fugue with a real answer, where the exposition might begin in G Major, then D Major, G Major, D Major (the same I V I V pattern but in weak modulations).... etc... Or on an even larger scale, a dance piece in AABB form, where A modulates from GM to DM and B modulates from DM back to GM; with repeats you get G-D-G-D-D-G-D-G, a similar pattern once again. At your largest scale, those could be the keys for long parts of a multi-movement work.

And of course other patterns could do the same. For example, a progression like I iii iv IV V I departs much further from the tonic with a distant progression and then slowly moves "downwards" back to I. Or say La Folia, i V i VII III VII i V i, has more of an arch form, with the tonic emphasized at the beginning and the end. Both these examples can be transplanted to all levels of a piece's structure, from the non-chord tone to the chords to the progressions to the modulations to the overall form.

Of course harmonic rhythm plays a giant role and this should also be acknowledged at various levels.... not only does a phrase have a harmonic rhythm, there is a harmonic rhythm of modulations.... a modulatory rhythm, a rate of modulatory change.

So basic patterns like more static and more dynamic progressions should be recognized and each one chosen (and controlled) for its own effect at every level of a piece's structure. And those concepts are easily extended to other systems of tonality or even rhythm and melody.

So that sort of thinking has been around for a while; I think that that analyst is just codifying it in an interesting way at the phrase level.

For me, good theories of high value are those which have more scientific basis, which are more useful in the process of composing and lead to deeper understanding; those which rely on acoustics and psychology. Stating and stretching something obvious and known is not really exciting and useful, I think; I want deeper and more scientific approach.

For example, V-ii seldom occurs (and ii - vi) in tonal music and this makes sense, since it is devoid of tonal value. This is implied by the overtone series and the ear's familiarity with this natural phenomenon, but most books don't say a word about this. The progressive motion from ii to V, up by fourth (second-to-third overtone, octave equivalent of the progenitor), has tonal logic and value to which the ear immediately responds; it leads to the tonic through the tonal hierarchy. Then the strongest progression from V to I releases the tension immediately by re-confirming the tonic I. Of course, in practice V can go everywhere and V to ii is irregular harmonic resolution by regression (down by fourth), it weakens what you've build and doesn't lead to satisfactory confirmation of the tonic; in terms of tonality, V to ii leads to nowhere; it's modal, just as V-IV, and so on. If you like, you could break down V-I into V-iii-I which is weaker. In short, since progressions have tonal logic, tonal music rarely uses regressions, therefore books simply say "ii cannot follow V", and so on. Almost every rule in music could be explained.

Someone is interested in larger scale relationships? Well, Schenkerian analysis seems to be great for this, so I have in mind to familiarize better myself with it in the future.

Considering what music depends on, things should be based on: properties of sound and properties of auditory system - acoustics; and psychology - which includes musical memory (short-term, long-term, etc.), on which depends the power and the effect of the time interval between two events; this includes cultural bias since it is directly connected to the formation of our minds. Theories, which don't account at least one of this, go away from the very being of music and perception, turning into pseudo-scientific mambo-jumbo and they are seldom useful (for me).