<head><style>body{font-family: Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;}p{margin:0px}</style></head><body id="compText">Dear all,<div><br></div><div>Nicolas Meeus writes -</div><div><br></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">1) "...</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">To start with, your way of notating 6/4 chords begs for the answer. Trying to follow this discussion, I spend way too much time counting on my fingers in (at times vain) attempts to understand what was meant, say, by ii6/4 or V6/4 – or, worst of all, I6/4. This last figure is, I think (and I hope), forbidden in all classes in my university, where we teach that a I chord can (almost) never occur in 6/4 position – or else, that anything that might seem to call for a I6/4 ciphering actually is something else, a double appoggiatura in most cases.<br> I personally teach that it is almost impossible that any harmonic degree would ever be presented as a triad in second inversion, unless by some kind of analogy, and that such an apparent inversion usually must be discussed in terms of voice leading (I teach analysis, not tonal writing). Doing so soon evidences that the same apparent 6/4 (I mean, the same degree in 6/4 position) could result from a variety of situations: this is one reason why Dmitri's statistics is questionable: it apparently assumes that all 6/4 can be identified and classified as second inversions, and so doing forms categories from things that cannot be compared."</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Some of us (people on the list and elsewhere) having a training and perspective which tries to tie perception on the part of reasonably musically educated musicians to theory. For example, I understand and have written about the difficulty with the pedal (some call neighboring), arpeggiated (a distinction very limited in its applicability from my perspective and almost always misapplied [explanation upon request], and cadential 6/4 designations. On the other hand, to say that a 6/4 does not exist in the many simple homophonic folk and folk like pieces with the designation I, IV6/4, I, V, I seems a bit extreme to me when A) the melody notes over the designated IV6/4 are unequivocally arpeggiating something like fa-la-do-la changing to mi-re-do-mi with the return of the I harmony and B) close to 100% of sophomore musicianship students agree (independently) on when the harmonies change in the above and most will tell you what they are with little difficulty. That I can later explain to them how the progression is I-V-I from another perspective does not convince them that the foreground is not real with real harmonies. I think we all agree that harmonic rhythm (something to which those writing about examples in Bach chorales have alluded) acts as an arbiter in some situations.</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia"><br></font></font><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia"><br></font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">And Nicolas also writes</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia"><br>2) <br>"The "passing" 6/4 is, in my opinion, a situation where the bass passes under basically standing upper voices, leading from a root position to a first inversion, or the reverse. I see no essential difference, say, between I–(V6/4)–I6 and I–(vii°6)–I6: this is prolonged I–– in both cases.<small></small>And if the choice between V6/4 and vii°6 defines a style, it merely proves that style is a matter of surface (which is well known)."</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">This is clearly the case to me. At the same time I would add that, whereas the other 6/4 uses are problematic in some respects at the surface level, the passing 6/4 at least survives what some of us call "the species test". Without the species test allowing for the reality of designations at one level or another it can be a slippery slope to deconstruction and the mind numbing "everything is everything".</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Best wishes,</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Paul Setziol</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Musicianship Coordinator</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">De Anza College</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">Cupertino, California USA</font></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Georgia, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br></span></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">setziolpaul@earthlink.net</font></font></div><div><font size="-1"><font face="Georgia">setziolpaul@deanza.edu<br><br><br><br><br></font></font><br><br><blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 0px; BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid"><nicolas.meeus@paris-sorbonne.fr><ovaisala@siba.fi><smt-talk@societymusictheory.org><zzzhtml>
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