Christopher:
OK, I guess we're running out of words to describe things.
We are now in roughly the same position that composers were in ca. 1700, when the only theoretical framework available for describing music was no longer adequate for discussing current practice, and had in fact been out of date for a century. We badly need a Rameau. "Do they not have a name then?" No. Not yet, anyway.
All right then. But I think I will continue anyway to extend the meaning of traditional terms like "sub-dominant", in the interests of having a way to refer to these chords as a group.
Your position, if generalized, would lead to the conclusion that there is no harmonic motion in, say, 15th-c. fauxbourdon, or the numerous passages in Debussy of strictly parallel harmony. I'm sorry but that is nonsense.
You'll have to step me through that one, as I would conclude no such thing.
I presented a case where an (atonal) chord was played at a variety of different pitch levels. You said that in this case there was no harmonic work going on and that all that was left was rhythm.
"Functional harmony." There would be no tonally or modally functional harmony going on in a series of chromatic clusters, in my opinion. Not to say that one would not hear harmony, or motion, or a "home - not home" action, but one would probably not hear a key or mode.
I replied by citing other instances of perfectly parallel harmony, and suggested that by your reasoning there would be no harmonic work there either.
Depends on how cloudy it gets, whether one would hear harmony IN THE KEY OR MODE. Not that there is no harmonic work. Just whether or not we hear it easily in a key.
I am trying to distinguish (and have been since the beginning of the thread) between harmony that is so chromatic that one cannot hear a relationship to a home key or scale, and harmony that outlines the key or scale clearly. I jumped in when you lumped the two together under the "non-functional" heading; I disagreed, as I maintain that a V7-I is not the only way to define a key or mode. I also maintain that one can use limited chromaticism without destroying the basic key perception, like a I7 or IV7 in the blues. I reserve the term "non-functional" for harmony that goes against the key. Some parallel chords do that, some don't.
Since that is manifestly not the case, your original assertion is falsified--unless it is your claim that parallel triads do harmonic work, but parallel secundal chords do not, in wh. case I can only shrug my shoulders.
What I find most disturbing is that you seem to be claiming that all motion by fourth or fifth is inherently tonal and functional, which in turn necessarily leads to the conclusion (commonplace 100 years ago, but long since abandoned by most thinkers) that early music and world music are tonal and functional--a conclusion not in any way supported by the elaborate music-theoretical systems that the creators of these musics have used to explain what they were doing.
Huh? Where did I say that? In fact, I thought I was arguing the OPPOSITE, that harmony can be perfectly functional without dominant 7th chords resolving down by fifth, and that functional modal harmony exists with no leading tones, and that movement around the circle of fifths is not the only motion possible, and strong harmonic motion can exist with OTHER movements, in fact, even triadic harmony is not essential to hearing a key or mode.
You didn't *say* it, but it inevitably follows from your reasoning. If "functional modal harmony" exists w.o X Y or Z, then it must follow that any music in which a mode can be identified must necessarily exhibit functional harmony. But since functional harmony is a specifically modern and Western concept, its terminology clearly ought not to be applied to ancient or non-Western music. So what is there about the blues that makes it functional while, say, Josquin's _Missa Pange Linua_ is not?
I WOULD say that Josquin uses functional harmony, without knowing the exact work. I know he didn't compose harmonically in the way that we understand the term, but there is harmony, and it outlines the key (or closely-related key areas), and key resolutions are followed. Yes, I know that there aren't necessarily V-I's all over it like in later music, but unless one equates the word "functional" with "dominant 7 resolution", that shouldn't be a problem.
And as for non-Western music, if there is only monody, then there is no harmony. But I have heard excellent examples of what I would call functional modal harmony in Middle Eastern music, that use altered modes and characteristic resolutions. The musicians might look at me funny if I tried to explain it in those terms, but that doesn't mean that the analysis doesn't stand up. I regret that I don't know enough about Gamelan music and South Asian music to talk intelligently enough to make a contribution on that topic.
Would you consider North American folk, rock, and jazz to be Western music, even though they don't come directly from the classical tradition? Because most of THOSE practitioners definitely don't know about the niceties of modern theoretical approaches, yet most of the music stands up quite nicely to analysis from several different points of view.
I suppose what I am saying is that the definition of the term "functional" as I understand it has changed over the last century. No need to abandon it after Mahler. It just changed usage, that's all.
Christopher _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
