<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">P S to Scott Murphy's implied Cad 6/4 idea: Going from I to a 6/4 on ^2 and then not following through<div>into a cadence in the dominant feels like the motion is 'chickening out.' Or, to be experiential, like</div><div>walking along a swimming pool deck, deciding to jump in, then changing one's mind midair. : )</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Donna Doyle</div><div>_____________________<br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Donna Doyle <<a href="mailto:donnadoyle@att.net">donnadoyle@att.net</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">October 3, 2011 10:28:13 AM EDT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Dmitri Tymoczko <<a href="mailto:dmitri@princeton.edu">dmitri@princeton.edu</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Cc: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Matt Bribitzer-Stull <<a href="mailto:mpbs@umn.edu">mpbs@umn.edu</a>>, Society for Music Theory <<a href="mailto:smt-talk@societymusictheory.org">smt-talk@societymusictheory.org</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>Re: [Smt-talk] "Neighboring" 6/4 Chords</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </div><div>I almost agree with Dmitri that "it's better to get rid of the terms 'neighboring' and 'passing' chords."<br><br>I almost agree in that I think the N 6/4 is misnamed. As David Headlam points out, the N 6/4 is an<br>embellishing chord; actually, all three named 6/4s are embellishing. Since the other two are<br>identified by their bass activity, a better label for the N would be "Pedal 6/4." This would allow for<br>various upper-voice activities (e. g., "walking the bass" [in both classical and jazz]). These<br>various upper-voice workings-out could become sub-categories, i. e., "P above the Ped,"<br>"IN above the Ped," etc.<br><br>RE Matt's original query: I agree with Scott Murphy--that a bare 6/4 above an ascending step-wise<br>bass suggests IV - V 6/4 in the dominant key. Of course, metric accent would play a role.<br><br>Best,<br><br>Donna Doyle<br>Queens College<br><br><br>_____________________<br><br><br>On Oct 2, 2011, at 9:05 AM, Dmitri Tymoczko wrote:<br><br><blockquote type="cite"><blockquote type="cite">I find when instructing undergraduates in core harmony courses that students accept the guidelines we provide for part-writing much better if they understand the reasoning behind them. I'm at a loss, however, to explain why common-practice composers rarely used a 6/4 chord above scale degree 2 as a bass neighbor motion expanding tonic.<br></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Sorry for being dense, but I'm not exactly sure I understand. As I read it, you are asking for an explanation of why we don't often find progressions like:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(C4, E4, G4, C5)->(D4, D4, G4, B4)->(C4, E4, G4, C5)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I guess my first question is whether you can think of any common tonal progression in which a 6/4 chord acts in this way, with the bass moving in neighboring fashion (e.g. IV->I6/4->IV). Off the top of my head, I can't think of one, on any scale degrees. So "neighboring 6/4 chords" typically involve fixed bass. But that's just a restatement of your question, I guess.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">My second thought is that this sort of question has convinced me to abandon the term "neighboring 6/4 chord." If you use the term, you create the (reasonable!) expectation that there is a general procedure here -- "6/4 chords can be used to create neighboring motion." But common-practice music doesn't bear out this expectation. The vast majority of "neighboring 6/4 chords" fall into just a couple idioms or schemas -- chiefly I->IV6/4->I and V->I6/4->V. (I'd wager that upwards of 98% of the "neighboring 6/4 progressions" are in these two categories.) Progressions like ii->V6/4->ii and vi->ii6/4->vi, which are perfectly neighboring, don't ever appear.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">So I have reluctantly concluded that it's much better just to get rid of the terms "neighboring" and "passing 6/4" chords and to speak of a small number of idioms instead. This more particular (idiomatic or "schema-based") explanation correctly gives the expectation that there are just a couple relevant progressions, occurring on specific scale degrees, and expressing specific harmonic functions. The problem with more general explanations is that they suggest there should be a more general phenomenon, but there really isn't.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">We've actually discussed this on the SMT list previously, I think. There may be relevant posts in the archives.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">DT<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Dmitri Tymoczko<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Associate Professor of Music<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">310 Woolworth Center<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Princeton, NJ 08544-1007<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(609) 258-4255 (ph), (609) 258-6793 (fax)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://dmitri.tymoczko.com">http://dmitri.tymoczko.com</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Smt-talk mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org">Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org">http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org</a><br></blockquote><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>