What Makes Music Tick?
by Nick Turner
There are many factors that make music what it is. The three
most important aspects in Western Music are Melody, Rhythm, and
Harmony. Whenever we look at music, these factors are the basic
building blocks, but also we look at other larger scale factors
such as Form and Tonality.
A melody is any sequence of notes. That statement covers just
about anything from Gregorian Chant to Tone Rows. What is
characteristic about a sequence of notes can include: the
duration of each one, the highest one, the lowest one, and the
final note.
A melody can also be defined in terms of its tonality or
modality. In Ancient and Medieval music, 'modality' is the
predominant characteristic, whereas from the Renaissance (late
15th century onwards), the concept of 'tonality' begins to
emerge. Modal music is music built upon different types of scales
or species of notes. Only the notes from that scale can be used
in the melody. In modal times, there were 7 modes, of which 6
were most commonly used. Think of a mode as being a scale that
starts on a white note of the piano. Different modes start on
different white notes of the piano. They are named after the
ancient Greek modes, but bear only a slight resemblance to
them.
In the Renaissance period, the concept of modality began to
decline as polyphonic music (ie. that with many voices) began to
proliferate. When many voices are present, their vertical
concurrence (sonority or harmony) dictates that new rules of
consonance (ie what sounds pleasant) and dissonance (that which
sounds unpleasant) be devised. Polyphonic music in certain modes
tended to sound dull and was contrary to the aesthetics of the
day which were moving towards the idea of tension and resolution.
The number of modes in use began to decline until only two were
in common use by the end of the Renaissance. These were the
Ionian and Aeolian modes, those beginning on C and A
respectively. These modes became what we call the Major and Minor
scales today (with some minor alterations), and are the basis of
modern tonality.
Tonality is concerned with the ideas of tension and
resolution. A tonal piece of music, such as a hymn, or more
sophisticated pieces such as sonatas and concerti, always begin
in one 'key', move away from that key in some way, then return to
that key at the end. The way in which this is achieved varies
both in history, as well as in the form that the pieces took.
In the Baroque period, many instrumental pieces adopt a
'solar' approach to their tonality. Each movement of a Baroque
sonata or concerto is all in the same key, but moves out
episodically to related keys such as the relative minor (A is the
relative minor of C) , the dominant (G is the dominant of C) or
the subdominant (F is the Subdominant of C). Their form or
structure is closely related to their tonality and could be
described by using the letters of the alphabet. 'ABACADA', for
instance, indicates that a section (marked 'A') recurs throughout
the composition and is the unifying force behind it. 'A' will
always be in the 'tonic' ('home key') and the others will be in
its related keys.
In the Classic period (roughly 1750-1810), the episodic nature
of pieces reduces to just two or three tonal areas. Most
commonly, these will be the tonic or the dominant, but the
relative minor or subdominant are sometimes also used. Form in
the Classic period centres around these two tonal areas, which
are called by analysts as 'First Subject' and 'Second Subject'
respectively. The overall form of Classic period sonatas has
become known as 'Sonata Form'. Sonata form usually has three
sections - the exposition, in which the principal subjects are
stated and their relationships established, the development, in
which their relationships are exploited and extended, and the
recapitulation, where they are restated. It is in the development
sections where tonality - tension and resolution - is most
obvious, particularly towards the end when the tension becomes
most acute. Indeed, resolution really occurs only with the
recapitulation.
However, 'Sonata Form' is really only applicable to the first
movements of the Classic sonata - the second movements are often
in simple 'Da Capo' form (a form very common in the Baroque
Arias, described as 'ABA') and the third movements are often
similar to the Baroque ABACADA style, called a 'Rondo'. Quite a
number of 19th and 20th century analysts have mistakenly tried to
apply 'Sonata Form' to the other movements and have got caught
out. Yes, tonality prevails in these other movements, but not
'Sonata Form'. Even in classical concerti, 'Sonata Form' per
se does not apply, although tonality definitely does.
In the Romantic period (roughly 1810-1900), tightly structured
form begins to break down because tonality itself begins to break
down. The composers of the period were more concerned with
musical expression of emotions through the vertical sonorities
of each chord, rather than on where the piece was going tonally.
In the classic period, progression from key to key had certain
underlying formulae, but in the Romantic period, free expression
of ideas tended to remove all formulae, although the ideals of
'Sonata Form' permeate throughout the period and well into the
20th century. Even the music of Brahms, which is regarded by most
musicologists as conservative for the era, is still very advanced
in terms of tonality. But rather than extending the sonorities
vertically, Brahms builds up horizontal (ie. temporal) tiers of
tonal structures within structures: sort of like the Russian Doll
- open it up and there is another doll inside… and so on
and so on.
The Romantic preoccupation with sonority (harmony) as the
basis of musical expression reaches its climax in the music of
Schoenberg. With pieces such as Verklärte Nacht
(Transfigured Night) and Erwartung (Expectation),
Schoenberg felt he had brought tonality to a conclusion and
needed a new way to compose in order to further the development
of music. He devised a system of tonreihe ('note rows')
which are essentially modes. His tone rows, however, are selected
from the 12 notes of the diatonic scale (ie. that found on a
modern piano including black notes) and must be used in sequence,
not at random, and not in a manner that implies consonance. He
also said that they could be used backwards ('retrograde'),
upside down ('inversion'), as well as backwards and upside down
('retrograde inversion'). These four modes of construction become
the basis of form in 'Atonal' music.
Many 20th Century composers have built on the ideas of
Schoenberg, and others have rejected it in favour of other modes
and scale systems. Debussy, for instance, was very fond of the
whole tone and pentatonic scales. Others such as Howells and
Messiaen invented their own modal systems. But one factor seems
to be very obvious in the 20th century: none of the replacements
to tonality ever became the norm for composition. Furthermore,
most popular music of the 20th century was still tonal. Atonal
and modal systems do not involve tension and resolution when used
on their own. Atonal music seems to be mainly tension
without resolution and thus alienates most people. Modal
music has no tension or resolution and thus appears to be
static and unchanging. Only tonality provides both and thus fits
well into the aesthetic of our age. This is not to pass a value
judgement on the relative merit or 'beauty' of each type of
music. That, as they say, 'is in the eye of the beholder!'
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