Creative Artefacts
The Harmony Project
This is a practical study of the role and function of harmony in music.
Traditionally, the use of harmony in any music of any period can be placed in one of two categories:
- functional harmony
- non-functional harmony
Functional Harmony
Examples of the former include most (but not all) of the music of western 'classical' musical culture; for instance, Mozart's F major piano concerto, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Bach's Goldberg Variations, all contain harmony that is functional in character.
Also, the majority of the music of western 'popular' culture is functional. Most popular songs involve some aspect of functional harmony, although it is sometimes more modal in character.
Functional harmony is harmony in which the tonal/directional power of chords is utilised to provide a sense of movement and possibly resolution. So, the ultimate expression of the functional power of harmony could be thought of as the perfect cadence. Many of you will have had more or less happy experience of the harmonised chorale melodies by J.S. Bacb and these are typical, indeed archetypal examples of the use of functional harmony. This is why they are often used in the teaching of this aspect.
However, if these are typical examples there are many others and some are less clear than others. As the style of music changed and developed more and more examples of less typical yet still fairly functional harmonic sequences developed.
Non-functional Harmony
This harmony uses harmony in a less directional way. In much popular music and jazz, although there may be an element of functionality, the harmonies used are usually less directly functional than the phrases and cadences of Bach Chorales. It is not uncommon for harmonic progressions to be repeated over and over again to achieve a hypnotic rather than directional feel. Similarly, in some of the music known as 'minimalist' this can be the case. If these examples are in the more popular idioms, at the other end of the style scale less functional harmonies can be found. In this music, the impression that is desired may well be hypnotic, but it may also be timeless. directionless, disturbing, whatever.
Modal harmonies are an interesting case. They are not functional in the 'classical' sense - they do not need to follow 'traditional' cadential formulae, (although neither did classical composers have to do this, they simply did, in general). However, modal harmonies clearly do have a functional component. They often 'sound' as if they're functional at least to an extent.
This is where Messiaen plays a part. His use of custom-designed modes enabled a sort of functionality (at least in terms of things sounding as if they resolved) while making traditional functionality almost entirely redundant.
These cases and others put severe pressure on the idea that functional harmony is quite as clear cut an idea as a lot of people might suggest. The fact is that entirely irregular harmonies can sound cadential and we are left with the feeling that 'functional' harmony is nothing other than a facet of style.
Tonality
Tonality is not the
Rhythm
...
Harmonic Rhythm
See this document.
Symmetry
One of the fundamentals of the sense of tonality and
The Rules
Find an example of harmony that has a cadential 'quality' but which does not use 'traditional' functional, tonal harmony - as used in the chorales of J.S.Bach, for instance. Try to avoid anything that could be interpreted in this way; so, for instance, modal progressions such as V-I but with a flattened seventh come into this category. As a good example, look at the the first few bars of the 'cello 'hymn' from Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time.
Use the string chord from the Rite as a starting point NB the Rite does have substantial periods of development-like material in it (although these are still not complete movements). What happened to Stravinsky to make this so difficult later? The emergence of the theme at the beginning of part 2 of the Rite: the theme must have been pre-composed and then designed as if to 'emerge'. Actually it didn't *have* to have been pre-done, but it probably was. Layering Project - especially Stravinsky and Bartok Find out about the folk origins of themes in the Rite.
Good luck!