Re: [Finale] 2/10 time signature

[Daniel Wolf]

I agree with Mr. Stiller's analysis that the blues -- and other 
vernacular tonal musics -- is not party to a voice leading regimen along 
the lines of classical part-writing. However, and despite the fact that 
there are instrumental playing styles for the blues which suggest an 
alternative but equally rigid voice-leading practice, I contend that 
this is, ultimately, beside the point: in the blues, no matter what the 
vertical constitution of a chord may be, the players and listeners will 
always be aware of a relationship to a tonic.  Consider the case of a 
chorale consisting of only I, IV, and V chords, but with every 
imaginable rule of "good" voice leading broken.  (I'm certain most of my 
teaching colleagues will be familiar with such monsters of the 
imagination!)  The piece may be clumsy, awkward, ugly etc., but I find 
it hard to support an argument that it is anything other than an example 
of functional tonality.   Such a badly-written chorale and genres like 
the blues may both exhibit minimal cases of functional tonality, but an 
audible relationship to a tonic is the essence of a function, and I 
insist that this essence remains despite any deficits in voice 
leading.   In fact, I would go so far as to insist that while a fixed 
voice leading regime may assist in the perception of functions, such a 
regime is not a necessary precondition to such perception.

Daniel Wolf
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