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.

History of tonality

In the early 20th century, the definition of tonality which was held to have prevailed since the 1600's was felt to reach a crisis or break down point. The belief was that tonality had "snapped" because of expansion of vocabulary, decreased functionality, increased use of leading tones, alterations, modulations, tonicization, the increased importance of subsidiary key areas, use of non-diatonic hierarchical methods, and/or symmetry in interval cycles. This "crisis" lead to a series of responses, many of which were considered irreconcilable with tonal theory or tonality at all. At the same time, other composers and theorists maintained that tonality had been stretched but not broken. This led to more technical vocabularies to describe tonality, including pitch classes, pitch sets, graphical analysis, and describing works in terms, not of their notes, but of their dominant intervals.

Related Topics:
Leading tone - Alteration - Modulation - Tonicization - Subsidiary key - Symmetry - Interval cycle

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While tonality is the most common form of organizing Western Music, it is not universal, nor is the seven note scale universal, much folk music and the art music of many cultures focus on a pentatonic, or five note scale, including Beijing Opera, the folk music of Hungary, and the musical traditions of Japan. Pre-classical concert music was largely modal, as is much folk and some popular music. In the early 20th century many techniques were developed and applied to tonal music, such as non-tertian secundal or quartal music. Some, such as Benjamin Boretz, consider tonal theory a specific part of atonal theory or musical set theory, which is in turn part of a more general theory of music. Many composers such as Darius Milhaud and Philip Glass have been interested in bitonality. While at one point in the middle of the 20th century classical composers interested in the twelve tone technique and serialism declared tonality dead, many composers have since returned to tonality, including many minimalists and older composers such as George Rochberg. Other composers never abandoned tonality entirely such as Lou Harrison who says he has "always composed both modally and chromatically." (Harrison, 1992) Much music today that is described as tonal is nonfunctional tonality such as in that of Claude Debussy, Steve Reich, Aaron Copland and many others.

Related Topics:
Western Music - Modal - Secundal - Quartal - Benjamin Boretz - Atonal - Musical set theory - Darius Milhaud - Philip Glass - Bitonality - Twelve tone technique - Serialism - Minimalists - George Rochberg - Lou Harrison

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