[Smt-talk] I - II- IV as a progression (counterpoint)

[Nicolas Meeùs]

It seems to me that the voice leading that can be subsumed in Roman 
numerals is not the actual contrapuntal voice leading, but rather an 
abstract one, at the level of pitch classes, without consideration of 
registers. This type of voice leading is present in chord strumming on 
the guitar, even when no account (conscious or not) is taken of the 
counterpoint – this is how the guitar and other plucked instruments 
played a prominent role at the origin of tonality.

Cases in point include
– whether the chord following a major one includes a resolution of the 
major 3rd of the first chord, retrospectively identifying it as a 
leading tone.
– whether the chord preceding a dissonant one includes (and so prepares) 
the PC that is dissonant in the second.
– whether the chord following a dissonant one includes the PC that 
resolves the dissonance.

These situations create the kind of teleology that we associate with 
tonality – they correspond, in most cases, with what I described as 
"flatwards progression" in a previous message, and justify the high 
level of asymetry in tonal chord progressions. Situations that do not 
correspond to these often are dubbed "modal" (the word, in this case, 
merely indicating that the chord successions do not produce the usual 
sense of tonal necessity).

I certainly know very little about pop harmony, but it seems to me that 
it does try to keep the level of fluency that characterizes tonal 
harmony, while avoiding the feeling of necessity that is its other main 
characteristic. This effect is achieved by techniques that can be 
described, I believe, both in terms of harmonic progression or of, say, 
PC leading.

Nicolas Meeùs
Université de Paris Sorbonne
http://www.plm.paris-sorbonne.fr
nicolas.meeus at paris-sorbonne.fr