[Smt-talk] "Neighboring" 6/4 Chords

[David K Feurzeig]

Ciro's point brings up an important angle on the topic of functions  
and expectations: that they have a lot to do with conventions and  
idioms (as in "sounds too much like a cadential 6/4").

This sounds obvious, but I think that as theorists we tend to try to  
find "objective" reasons for tendencies and functional classification.

This predisposition to see a rigorous order where there may be more  
idiomatic explanations is behind the common statistical misjudgments  
that Dmitri suspects lurk behind our pedagogy of 6/4's.

See, in this regard, William Thomson, Emergent Dissonance and the  
Resolution of a Paradox, in College Music SYmposium, Volume 36, Fall  
1996

David


David Feurzeig
Southwick Music Complex
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405

On Oct 5, 2011, at 12:37 PM, Ciro Scotto wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I tend to think and explain to my class that the V6/4 in the context  
> of being an upper neighbor to ^1 sounds too much like a cadential  
> 6/4 (even if the V6/4 is in the wrong rhythmic position) implying a  
> move to the dominant, as Charles Ditto suggested. As soon as I play  
> the V6/4, I hear the cadential function, and ^2 looses its upper  
> neighbor function and becomes a point of arrival. Of course, this  
> does not happen with V4/3 because the tritone reinforces the  
> embellishing function of ^2. The stepwise bass approach to the V6/4  
> I think reinforces hearing  a cadential function for the V6/4.
>
> All the best,
>
> Ciro

David Feurzeig
Southwick Music Complex
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405

On Oct 5, 2011, at 12:37 PM, Ciro Scotto wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I tend to think and explain to my class that the V6/4 in the context  
> of being an upper neighbor to ^1 sounds too much like a cadential  
> 6/4 (even if the V6/4 is in the wrong rhythmic position) implying a  
> move to the dominant, as Charles Ditto suggested. As soon as I play  
> the V6/4, I hear the cadential function, and ^2 looses its upper  
> neighbor function and becomes a point of arrival. Of course, this  
> does not happen with V4/3 because the tritone reinforces the  
> embellishing function of ^2. The stepwise bass approach to the V6/4  
> I think reinforces hearing  a cadential function for the V6/4.
>
> All the best,
>
> Ciro