[Smt-talk] Harmonic and Melodic Scales

[Nicolas Meeùs]

Ildar,

While I fully agree with you that detecting sets and collections of 
pitches is a Western concern, I believe it to be older than you think. 
In the case of Arabic music, the Western musicians present at the Cairo 
Congress of 1932 advocated a conception of the Arabic system as formed 
of 24 quarter tones, against all evidence as we can see it today, and 
this had the most nefarious influence on Arabic theory itself.

We should realize, I believe, that even in Occidental music, even if we 
think it based on an underlying dodecaphonic system, it would be more 
reasonable to view tonalities as founded on heptatonic scales, of which 
the 3d degree determines the major or minor character (but with the 
possibility of passing from the one to the other as a result of a 
possible mobility of this degree), with the mobility of the 7th or the 
4th degree possibly (but not necessarily) opening paths to modulations 
by a fourth or a fifth (flatwards or sharpwards), and the mobility of 
other degrees (mainly the 6th and to a lesser extent the 2d) opening 
paths to other, more remote regions.

To view the mobility of these degrees as changes of scales (from major 
to Mixolydian or Lydian, from 'natural' minor to 'harmonic' or 
'melodic', etc.) seems to me quite unmusical. Our note names, be they 
letters or solmization syllables, count only seven degrees in the 
octave, with additional signs to denote the mobility; and our keyboards 
show 7 white keys in the octave, with black keys for the mobility. Pitch 
class set theory replaced these with 12 numerals in the octave, or tried 
to, but may not have been so successful for describing our music of the 
past.

I can follow your description of Rimsky's gradual modulation through 
pivot chords (e.g. the minor subdominant), and I would easily agree with 
it. The question, however, is whether he understood such shifts as 
resulting from scale shifts, say from 'natural' (or 'diatonic') major to 
'harmonic' major, which would seem to me an unduly complex description, 
so much more complex than explaining that the subdominant can become 
minor as a result of the mobility of the 6th degree. You certainly know 
Rimsky better than any of us, and I'd be eager to know how he conceived 
this.

Nicolas Meeùs
University Paris-Sorbonne

(PS. While you certainly know Rimsky better than any of us, you should 
refrain from statements about Schenker based on a superficial 
knowledge... There is much more in Schenker than Oster's /Free 
Composition/.)



Le 2013-11-29 09:30, Ildar Khannanov a écrit :
> Dear List,
>
> I can add to Dimitar's post that harmonic major played a significant 
> role in Rimsky-Korsakov's and, further, in Russian views of harmony 
> not only as a pitch collection, but as a means to other goals. In 
> general, it is only after WWII the theory of music in the West has 
> focused on detecting various sets and collections of note heads. This 
> has become a favorite pastime of theorists with mathematical 
> background. It is important to remember that theorists of the 19th 
> century were composers working in the domain of real tonal music. For 
> them, the categories of theme, motive, classical forms, tonal-harmonic 
> function and, ultimately, modulation (all of which has been carelessly 
> discarded by Schenker) have been the tools of the trade. 
> Rimsky-Korsakov's inclusion of harmonic major was a result of his work 
> on theory of modulation. In his concept of degrees of kinship of keys 
> the modulations to keys that differ in 3-5 signs in a key signature 
> present the most difficult tasks. Still, he and Tchaikovsky suggest 
> that in the large-scale form modulation should unfold slowly, 
> step-by-step. In the so-called gradual modulation the remote key 
> should be reached as a result of simple pivot chord modulations (or 
> sequences). The use of a minor subdominant provides a shortcut when 
> one modulates towards the flatted keys. That is why Rimsky-Korsakov 
> included the minor subdominant into the list of closely related keys 
> in major. Hence the harmonic major.
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
> Dr. Ildar D. Khannanov
> Peabody Institute
> solfeggio7 at yahoo.com <mailto:solfeggio7 at yahoo.com>
>

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