[Smt-talk] Harmonic and Melodic Scales

[Ildar Khannanov]

Dear Nicolas,

I agree with you on this topic, completely. Indeed, Rimsky-Korsakov did not generate the minor subdominant from the harmonic major scale. It was the other way around, from the use of minor subdominant as a handy pivot chord in modulation he came up with the idea of including it into the closely related triads list and, as a consequence, mentioned harmonic major. It is only later, in the work of Boleslav Yavorsky (who, indeed, was interested in new modes that he called symmetrical modes) and, of course, in North American neo-Riemannian theory, the harmonic major has been given a new status. I remember Dr. Cohn being very excited about Rimsky-Korsakov's harmonic major, for the reason, of course, that it balances the symmetry in a Tonnetz. 

I also remember one participant at the conference in Corfu, several years ago, saying that the triad is not preconditioned by the seven-step scale, and tonal function is not preconditioned by the triad. It took additional theorizing to come up with the new categories, including the parsimonious role of the harmonic major pitch collection. In the course of innovation, older things are being abandoned. For example, diatonic is not heptatonic pitch collection. Neither pentatonic, nor octatonic have been honored by Greek root dia--, only the seven-note scale. Dia--, of course, does not have anything to do with the number of notes; rather, it refers to a mysterious linear coherence, achievable in tonal music. So, when Rimsky-Korsakov uses diatonic--he uses it not as a pitch collection. When he switches to octatonic (which in Russia is always called R-K scale, see, e.g. opera Sadko, immersion scene), he treated it as an artificial pitch collection.

Best wishes,

Ildar Khannanov
Peabody Conservatory
solfeggio7 at yahoo.com



On Saturday, November 30, 2013 9:08 PM, Nicolas Meeùs <nicolas.meeus at scarlet.be> wrote:
  
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 
>  
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