[Smt-talk] Caution versus Generalization

[Marcel de Velde]

Dear Joel,

I actually meant the same thing you do.
That in certain cases what at first appears to be a 6/4 chord (has the 
same pitches) is not a 6/4 chord when we hear the bass (or any other 
note than the 4th above the bass) as the root.
You explain it very well and I completely agree.

Sorry for the poor explanation and chord naming in my previous email.
My excuse is that I work alone on music and never use chord names :-)

Kind regards,

Marcel de Velde
Zwolle, Netherlands
marcel at justintonation.com


> Dear All:
>
> I think this is more a response to Dimitar than Marcel, and it mainly address the question of whether certain 6/4 chords are actually rooted.
>
> When a 6/4 chord (e.g., the one colloquially called "the cadential 6/4") follows a pre-dominant harmony and precedes a V or V7 (as in the progressions VII7/V--cad 6/4--V7  or II6/5--cad 6/4--V7), then I don't believe it makes syntactic sense to take the 4th above the bass of the 6/4 as a root.  If you want to assert that these particular 6/4 chords have tonic roots, then you also have to start explaining that although a V-of-V or a VII-of-V would normally go to V, it can also go to I, provided the I is in 6/4 position, and accented, and the 4th of the 6/4 resolves to the 3rd of the V, and etc. etc.
>
> Nor do I understand why there should be a conceptual difference between a V whose third is delayed by a 4-3 suspension or accented passing tone and a V in which the 4-3 is accompanied by parallel 3rds above or parallel 6ths below.  If we have no problem interpreting the stand-alone 4th as an accented dissonance, why should the addition of a suspended or accented passing 6th alter the situation?  We gain, to be sure, melodic and rhythmic enrichment and often smoother voice leading by interpolating both a 6th and a 4th, but neither alters the harmonic situation, whether singly or together.  (IMHO, as the kids write.)
>
> As for the passing 6/4, let's take a motion between two closely related pre-dominant harmonies, such as II4/3 and V6/5/V or IV6 and II6/6, and let's soften the resulting leaps with passing tones.  Lo and behold, a 6/4 emerges.  But it is surely not a tonic chord with root ^1.  It happens to have the same pitches as  tonic chord, but that's just happenstance--the fortuitous result of a filled-in voice exchange, usually.  Do we really say in such instances that a II4/3 chord, which ought to proceed to a V (directly or by way of continued prolongation of the pre-dominant function), somehow changes it's mind (as it were), retreats to a tonic, then moves on to another pre-dominant?
>
> What I try to tell my students is that pitch content alone does not determine the harmony, and we cannot assume, just because a chord contains the same pitches as a tonic chord, that it actually is a tonic.
>
> To clinch the argument, I say that surely no one would take a C-major song ending with C-E-G-A or even C-E A as ending on a VI6/5 or VI6.  They end on tonics, even if the notes are the same as those that might appear in a VI6 or VI6/5.
>
> First day of class tomorrow, and I expect that all the transfers, as usual,  will want to know why I don't label cadential 6/4 chords as tonics.  As always, there will be some that are unconvinced.  Well, as long as they use them successfully, I'll be happy.   It's a practical class (part writing, somemodel composition)--not really theory.
>
> Dimitar may reply that I too am guilty of extrapolating from a strict contrapuntal style to the tonal realm of common practice. And I suppose he would be right, although I do not think the realms are so distinct that some translation across them is impossible (see, for example, the  "Bridges to Free Composition" section of Schenker's COUNTERPOINT.)
>
> All the best,
>
> Joel
>
>
>
> All the best,
>
> Joel
>
>
> Joel Galand
> Associate Professor of Music Theory
> Graduate Program Director
> School of Music
> Florida International University
>