<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I think there's a distinction between logically consistent naming conventions and "mnemonic etymologies" we make up to explain received terminology of ancient vintage.<div><br></div><div>I'm not a historian of theory, but I assume that "dominant" to refer to the fifth scale degree derives from earlier modal theory, where for many modes, the dominant was the fifth tone. No doubt some SMT-listers can enlighten us as to what "dominant" connoted to those who came up with the term. </div><div><br></div><div>It's pedagogically *convenient* to explain the dominant's name as relating to its function (at least as a chord--I agree this is less obvious as a melody tone). But I don't pretend to my students that this is *why* it was named the "dominant" way back when.</div><div><br></div><div>David</div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On May 4, 2012, at 1:35 PM, Arthurs, Daniel wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Skia; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div bgcolor="white" lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple" style="margin-left: 3pt; margin-top: 3pt; margin-right: 3pt; margin-bottom: 0.75pt; "><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; "><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 3pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; "><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; color: windowtext; ">To Michael, David (Feurzig), and the list,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 3pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; "><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; color: windowtext; "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 3pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; color: black; "><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; color: windowtext; ">To clarify my remark: it’s strange to me because Venth (et al. according to David) is describing a scale step, not a sonority (so far as I can tell, and which your descriptions focus on). It’s entirely possible I am reading it too literally when he states, “</span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; color: windowtext; ">Each tone of the scale, whether major or minor, has its distinctive name.” It’s going to be much harder to teach a class that the dominant scale step somehow governs over the key (and do we really use such tyrannical metaphors in describing stuff like this? Michael says it “dominates” the tonic, and so does the Clendinning & Marvin text). <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10.5pt; font-family: 'Segoe UI', sans-serif; color: windowtext; ">Otherwise I agree with both of your descriptions of functional harmony. </span></div></div></div></span></blockquote></div></div></body></html>