Tonality

Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a "center" or tonic. The term tonalité was borrowed from Castil-Blaze (1821, François Henri Joseph Blaze) by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840 (Reti, 1958; Judd, 1998; Dahlhaus). The term is often used synonymously with major/minor tonality; however, in more recent theory, the term is used more broadly to encompass a number of systems of musical organization.

Effect of tonality

Rudolph Réti differentiates between harmonic tonality, of the traditional homophonic kind, and melodic tonality, as in monophonic. He argues that in the progression I-x-V-I (and all progressions), V-I is the only step "which as such produces the effect of tonality," and that all other chord successions, diatonic or not, though being closer or farther from the tonic-dominant, are "the composer's free invention." He describes melodic tonality as being "entirely different from the classical type," wherein, "the whole line is to be understood as a musical unit mainly through its relationship to this basic note ," this note not always being the tonic that would be interpreted according to harmonic tonality. His examples are ancient Jewish and Gregorian chant and other Eastern music, and he points out how these melodies often may be interrupted at any point and returned to the tonic, yet harmonically tonal melodies, such as that from Mozart's The Magic Flute below, are actually "strict harmonic-rhythmic pattern," and include many points "from which it is impossible, that is, illogical, unless we want to destroy the innermost sense of the whole line." (Reti, 1958)

Related Topics:
Rudolph Réti - Gregorian chant

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::x = return to tonic near inevitable

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::circled x = possible but not inevitable

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::circle = impossible

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:::(Reti, 1958)

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Which may be compared with in which the melody returns to the tonic after the first circle, and which returns after the second.

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Consequently, he argues, melodically tonal melodies resist harmonization and only reemerge in western music after, "harmonic tonality was abandoned," as in the music of Claude Debussy: "melodic tonality plus modulation is modern tonality." (page 23)

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