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.

Uses of the term

What is now known as tonality originated through centuries of musical practice, during which it was not known by any name, and was defined, and its features compiled, by theorists such as Heinrich Schenker in reaction to music which broke with tradition (nontonal music). Arising from sometimes disparate practices over a large area and period of time, tonality may thus be defined in various ways:

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• By history and geography: The music of a specific time period and location, such as that of the common practice period of European music from after the Renaissance to before Modernism. In this context it generally means major-minor tonality plus the use of additional scales such as the semi-tone scale, pentatonic modes and others such as the Magic Scale of alternating tones and semitones.
• By characteristics: By extension, the above music and all other music which shares the characteristics of the above music (and does not display characteristics counter to those of the above music). These characteristics may include the use of the major scale or minor scale, their triadic chords and diatonic functions, and the compositional techniques, procedures, and materials used. This would include theories of tonality which focus on the through bass rather than on chords, and alternate systems of tuning such as monotonic.
• By nature: As music which corresponds to or uses the characteristics of sound, organization or order, and/or perception. Thus tonality is a practice correctly based on physical or psychological constants such as the overtone series or human perception.
• By contrast: Tonal music may simply be contrasted with atonal music, music which does not feel as if it has a center. More subtly, it may be contrasted with earlier modal music.

One may clarify between "the principle of tonality", "the requirement that all the events in a musical group should be co-ordinated by, and experienced in relation to, a central point of reference," and "tonality" as "the specific language of 'classical tonality' - the major-minor key system of the Classical and Romantic periods." (Samson 1977)

Related Topics:
Classical - Romantic

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Functional tonality, or sometimes narrative tonality, is the use of chords and other features according to their functions or relationship with the tonic (so that they "go somewhere"). "Nonfunctional" tonality such as is the use of tonal characteristics in nontonal successions or without regard to their role (so that they "go nowhere"). Examples include the pandiatonicism of Aaron Copland or Steve Reich which often consists of tonal or tonal added tone chords (trouves or "finds" as Aaron Copland described some of his own nonfunctional tonality).

Related Topics:
Pandiatonicism - Aaron Copland - Steve Reich

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Extended tonality is "the incorporation of complex harmonic phenomena within a single tonal region, as in much of the music of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." (Samson 1977)

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