<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Although I have not been following this thread closely, I very much like Nicolas's notion of pc-leading. With pc-leading as a sort of baseline, one can go on to acknowledge degrees and kinds of salience for successions from tone to tone: e.g., registral, metrical, rhythmic, timbral, dynamic, or sonorous (i.e., with regard to simultaneities).<br><br>As well, I had not noticed until my recent work with Mesopotamian music that in a heptatonic setting, any immediate succession of 3rds/6ths and/or 4ths/5ths involves at least one of the two tones in each dyad proceeding by unison or step: <br>e.g., CE to or from DF, EG, FA, GB, AC, or BD;<br>CF to or from DG, EA, FB, GC, AD, or BE;<br>CE to or from DG, EA, FB, GC, AD, or BE.<br><br>Accordingly, in heptatonic music there is always at least one 'pc-path' or (or
more precisely, dc-path, i.e., degree-class path) of unisons and steps through the immediately successive of 3rds/6ths and 4ths/5ths. (In pentatonic music, there is always a 'dc-path' through the immediately successive 4ths/5ths, or more precisely, 3rds/4ths). How salient such paths might be is another matter.<br><br>Jay Rahn, York University (Toronto)<br> </div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></b></font><br></div></div></div></body></html>