[Smt-talk] "Core syntax" and 6/4 chords etc.

Mon Jan 25 14:55:24 PST 2010

This is either faulty logic or another lawyer's trick: 

>Dissonance treatment, if anything, can be described as part of the "core syntax" of conventional tonality (an aspect it inherits from the preceding modal era). Dissonances resolve by step, and in "strict style" they are also approached by step or by suspension. Since bass-related fourths are (usually) dissonant, it follows that they require stepwise voice-leading, which can be described as passing, neighboring, or suspension (or incompletely neighboring/appoggiatura, in freer style). Hence these categories are crucial simply for relating 6/4 usages with more general principles of dissonance treatment, principles that have enormous descriptive power for centuries of Western art music.>

Dissonance resolves into a consonance. This is the core syntax. This is the core of harmony. The neighbor note and passing note have nothing to do with this resolution and, therefore, they are not the part of the core syntax. Yet you put the dissonance resolution  in dependence from neighbor and passing notes. The vicious circle! Dissonance resolution determines passing and neighbor notes, while they determine the dissonance and its resolution.
It there is no consonant chord, the triad, there are no neighbor notes. Where did you find passing tones in music of Palestrina and before? There are some notes which do not coincide with other notes in other voices. But what do you compare them with? Triads? Tonic triad? You have been reading too much of Fux, the most anachronistic and unreliable source on counterpoint. Neighbor note and passing note are two attributes of tonal-functional harmony. They do not exist outside the context of Tonic triad, Subdominant triad and the Dominant seventh chord.

Best wishes,

Dr. Ildar Khannanov
Peabody Conservatory
solfeggio at yahoo.com

--- On Mon, 1/25/10, Olli Väisälä <ovaisala at siba.fi> wrote:

From: Olli Väisälä <ovaisala at siba.fi>
Subject: [Smt-talk] "Core syntax" and 6/4 chords etc.
To: "smt-talk smt" <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
Date: Monday, January 25, 2010, 7:55 AM

Dear List,

FIRST a very basic note on "core syntax" and 6/4 chords. This point seems self-evident and I have already made it, but since it almost seems to have been forgotten at parts of this discussion, pardon me for repeating it this context:

Dissonance treatment, if anything, can be described as part of the "core syntax" of conventional tonality (an aspect it inherits from the preceding modal era). Dissonances resolve by step, and in "strict style" they are also approached by step or by suspension. Since bass-related fourths are (usually) dissonant, it follows that they require stepwise voice-leading, which can be described as passing, neighboring, or suspension (or incompletely neighboring/appoggiatura, in freer style). Hence these categories are crucial simply for relating 6/4 usages with more general principles of dissonance treatment, principles that have enormous descriptive power for centuries of Western art music.

SECOND, a comment on Dmitri's view that if we restrict ourselves to quarter-note chords in Bach chorales, we "find many fewer passing 6/4 chords than Olli does, and they almost all conform to the standard type," i.e., between IV6 and II6/5. Actually, the share of "non-standard" 6/4s in my little sample does not diminish significantly, if we make the rhythmic restriction Dmitri suggests. My sample of 42 chorales included 15 passing 6/4s, 8 of which were "standard" (including cases in which II6/5 is chromaticized to become V6/5 of V). Of these 15 occurrences, 7 are quarter-note chords. Of these 7, 4 are "standard" and 3 "non-standard." Hence the share of "non-standard" occurrences is almost half of the occurrences (7/15 or 3/7), whether or not we count eight-note chords or not. (For those interested in the "non-standard" occurrences, I'll attach a list below.)

Of course, my the sample is too small for drawing general consequences (and my figures may not be accurate, since I browsed rather quickly through the chorales). But be this sample representative or not, I sympathize with Michael Chikinda's comments concerning the limited value of such statistics. While I do find it interesting to know what usages are typical in which style, a general principle of passing 6/4s, related with the even more general principle of dissonance treatment, helps us to cope with the less typical usages as well.

THIRD. I would like to add that while the significance of passing or neighboring chords for the "core syntax" is most easily justified for dissonant chords, the generalization of these notions to consonant situations is not much further from the "core." See, for example, the I6–V6/4–I and VII4/2–"V"–VII4/3 progressions in Beethoven's Pathetique, mm. 1–2. For grasping the syntax, it is crucial to understand that both the dissonant V6/4 and the consonant "V" function as passing chords. What would we think of a harmony course that does not prepare students for recognizing this just because such passing progressions are not statistically prominent in some repertoire (say, Mozart Sonatas)?

FOURTH, a comment on another of Dmitri's statements:

"It's also important to remember that Bach chorales have a lot of genuinely weird stuff in them, stuff you don't find in Mozart or elsewhere.  The same chorale [#14] has vi-iii and V-iii progressions  (m. 2, m. 11-12)."

I was astonished to see vi–iii characterized as "genuinely weird." Actually, there is no vi–iii in the measures Dmitri mentions, but I assume he refers to that in m. 1, after the initial ubbeat (please correct me if I am wrong). Here the iii occurs on a weak beat between strong-beat vi and IV supporting a passing 7^ in an 8^–7^–6^ top-voice progression. To me, this is anything but weird; it is one of the most characteristic functions of iii. ("vi–iii" combinations also occur in the extremely common sequence by descending thirds I–V, vi–iii, IV etc; I wonder whether sequences were excluded from Dmitri's Mozart counts?)

This is justs one detail which suggests that insofar as we wish to substantiate the "core syntax" of tonal harmony through statistical research, we are likely to miss essential aspects if that research is limited to two-chord successions with no consideration of aspects such as larger context, voice-leading, and meter (+ other kind of emphasis). I would like to add that I find Aldwell&Schachter's work impressive precisely for the reason that it so finely does allow for these features.

***
"Non-standard" passing 6/4s in chorales 1–42 (the numbering is from Neue Bach Ausgabe III/2.2, but I think it agrees with so called Riemenschneider numbering for these chorales):

1. Quarter-notes

– Chorale 11 (Jesu, nun sei geprieset), m. 17. Between C: V and d: II4/3 (perhaps possible to interpret as between IVn and II4/3 in d).
(The same chorale also includes a 6/4 in m. 19 between VI and II6/5, but since this only involves a passing motion in only one voice, I didn't include it in my count.)
– Chorale 21 (Herzlich tut mich verlangen), m 3. Between VII°6/5 of V and V6/5 of V.
– Chorale 21, m. 5. Between V4/2 and VII6.

2. Semi-accented eighth-notes

– Chorale 36 (Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist), m. 2. Between V4/2 and VII6.
– Chorale 40 (Ach Gott und Herr), m. 7. Between VI and IV (all voices move).

3. Unaccented eighths

– Chorale 14 (O Herre Gott, dein göttlich Wort), m. 10. Between II and V4/2.
– Chorale 18 (Gottes Scohn ist kommen), m. 2. Between III of G = VI of D and II6/5 of D.

***
Olli Väisälä
Sibelius Academy
ovaisala at siba.fi

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