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<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Baskerville" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Baskerville">Dear Folks,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Baskerville; min-height: 18px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Baskerville" size="5" style="font: 16.0px Baskerville">We can define voice-leading as Dmitri suggests and thereby gain precision, but at the risk in reducing perhaps inherent complexity of voice-leading in sophisticated tonal pieces to a simplicity that belies the musical situation as many of us experience it intuitively and even theoretically. Do we want rich music with messy theory or simple music with precise theory? We will take our error somewhere. Where do we want it?</font></div><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div>Richard Hermann, Prof. of Music</div><div>University of New Mexico</div><div><br></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span> </div><br><div><div>On Sep 4, 2009, at 9:49 AM, Dmitri Tymoczko wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On Sep 4, 2009, at 10:22 AM, Bryan Parkhurst wrote:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">One thing that would illuminate this discussion of voice-leading and it's pertinence to the analysis of popular music is a (more) rigorous definition of voice-leading.</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Formally defining "voice leading" is not so difficult.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Intuitively, a voice leading is a way of mapping the notes of one chord to those of another.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Voice leadings, as I understand them, can be identified with phrases such as "move C major to F major by holding C constant, shifting E up by semitone to F, and G up by two semitones to A."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I've written a number of papers dealing with this issue.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>See, for example, "Scale Theory, Serial Theory, and Voice Leading" Music Analysis 27.1: 1-49.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The complications arise from the fact that voice leadings can be:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>1. Explicitly present in the scores, as articulated by polyphonic voices.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>2. Less explicitly present, as in a series of homophonic piano chords in which individual voices are not notated.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>3. Imposed upon a relatively neutral stimulus by the listener -- for instance when we hear a particular melodic connections in a series of chords played in Shepard tones.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>4. Imposed upon a recalcitrant stimulus by the listener -- as when we take a piece of polyphonic music, and assert the presence of a voice leading that is different from the one implied by the voices.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">So I would say that any ambiguities here arise not so much from disagreements about what voice leading is as from disagreements about how to go about identifying voice leadings in particular pieces.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>There's probably no one right answer here -- for different purposes, different approaches are appropriate.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Indeed, I rather doubt that we are all talking about the same thing.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>In the last batch of messages I received, these characterizations of voice-leading appeared:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"A kind of aural streaming" (Covach), something "whose tokens are taken as objects of aural experience" (Fitzgibbon), a "system of principles and parameters" (Wolf, quoting Seeger), and something identical with "the combination of melodic lines" (Porterfield, describing counterpoint).<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Pretty bewildering.</div> </blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Maybe it's not so complicated after all.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">The reference to aural streaming arises when we identify voice leadings by ear, as in #2-4 above.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Ditto for "tokens of auditory experience."<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The "principles and parameters" refer to style-specific conventions for articulating mappings between successive chords (and largely applies to #1 above) -- in some styles, for example, parallel octaves are OK, while in others they're not.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>"Combination of melodic lines" refers to this as well.</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">DT</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dmitri Tymoczko</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Associate Professor of Music</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">310 Woolworth Center</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Princeton, NJ 08544-1007</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">(609) 258-4255 (ph), (609) 258-6793 (fax)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri">http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Smt-talk mailing list</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:Smt-talk@societymusictheory.org">Smt-talk@societymusictheory.org</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; 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