<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="MS Exchange Server version 14.02.5004.000">
<TITLE>RE: [Smt-talk] Chord Inversion</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<!-- Converted from text/rtf format -->
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Dear All,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Like many of us I would also be very sorry to see Gregory off the list, its dire current state notwithstanding.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Like Olli and others</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">I was also puzzled by his remark. Although of course I cannot speak on his behalf, it seems to me that he merely overstated a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">n</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> obvious point for anyone</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">who</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> believes in the existence of harmonic functions</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">:</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> rarely, if at all,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> can the</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">inversion</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">of a chord</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">change</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I> <FONT FACE="Calibri">its function</FONT></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> (the cadential six-four chord</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> is a conceivable exception, but perhaps only apparently so). For example, in the Bach prelude that Olli cites the opening "contrapuntal" progression expresses T-S-D-T much in the same way that does that I-IV-V-I progression that governs the piece's large-scale harmonic structure.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">This is</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> of course not to say that chords</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">always</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><I> <FONT FACE="Calibri">have</FONT></I></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> a</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> function.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">In s</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ome</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">contexts and</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">usually, but not always, in inversion</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">,</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"> chords</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri"></FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"> <FONT FACE="Calibri">are obviously "passing," and so forth.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Eytan Agmon</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Bar-Ilan University</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">-----Original Message-----<BR>
From: smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org [<A HREF="mailto:smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org">mailto:smt-talk-bounces@lists.societymusictheory.org</A>] On Behalf Of ovaisala@siba.fi<BR>
Sent: Monday, April 22, 2013 6:46 PM<BR>
To: smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org<BR>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] ABSENCE OF LEAD SHEET</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Dear list,</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Reacting to my previous post, Gregory Proctor wrote:</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">> I knew people would choose to miscast my remarks. I should know better </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">> by now that lists like these have sunk bit by bit to the level of </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">> comments on political blogs. I give up. Goodbye list.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Unfortunately prof. Proctor seems thus to have chosen to abandon the list owing to my humorous comment. I regret this; it was certainly not my intention.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">I by no means "chose to" misunderstand his assertion that "inversion is overrated in classical music." I genuinely found no sensible way to understand it and thought that perhaps taking this assertion at its face value and drawing conclusions from it ad absurdum might provoke him to explain what he actually meant. Unfortunately his post implies that this will not be the case.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Perhaps I should not have tried to be humorous or ironic (especially in a foreign language, whose nuances I am far from mastering), but my attempts to find a serious approach to that assertion simply failed. I thought that in principle it might mean either literally "inversions were overrated by classical composers" or "approaches to classical music overrate inversions." In my previous post, I played with the consequences of the first option. But the second option also seems ? </FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">how should I say ? utterly problematic, if we consider how an approach making no distinction between "root position" and "inversion" would succeed in describing the organization, say, in a paradigmatic classical piece such as Bach's C-major Prelude from WTC I.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Hence, what I hoped to do in my post was to provoke greater clarity in postings, but clearly my approach was a failure.</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Olli Väisälä</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Sibelius Academy</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">University of the Arts, Helsinki</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="mailto:ovaisala@siba.fi"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">ovaisala@siba.fi</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<BR>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">_______________________________________________</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Smt-talk mailing list</FONT></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="mailto:Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
<P DIR=LTR><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN><A HREF="http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org"><SPAN LANG="en-us"><FONT FACE="Calibri">http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org</FONT></SPAN><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></A><SPAN LANG="en-us"></SPAN></P>
</BODY>
</HTML>