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In music analysis, the macroharmony is what comprises the discrete pitch classes within a given (structural) duration of time. [1]
| The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for neologisms .(September 2024) |
In music analysis, the macroharmony is what comprises the discrete pitch classes within a given (structural) duration of time. [1]
There are slightly different definitions of macroharmony in the literature. In general, it may be said to determine pitch content within some duration of a musical composition. [2] Dmitri Tymoczko defined it as "the total collection of notes used over small stretches of time". [3] Neil Newton defined it as "the collection of pitches from which harmonies are sourced". [4] Ciro Scotto wrote that it is "a large harmony that subsumes the individual chords", adding that he used it more specifically to denote pitch-class subsets. [5] Julian Hook related it to the concept of a field of pitch classes, noting that the difference was one of terminology. [2]
Scotto suggested the term to Tymoczko, who introduced and defined it in A Geometry of Music (2011). [6] Tymoczko sought to discuss "music that is neither classically tonal nor completely atonal" (see chromaticism and nonchord tones). [7] He observed that a macroharmony of between five and eight pitch classes, or a limited macroharmony, typically contributed to a sense of tonality. [8] He included this feature, limited macroharmony, as one among five general (universal) features of "virtually all" music. The others were conjunct melodic motion, acoustic consonance, harmonic consistency, and pitch centricity. He considered their (non-)interaction, relative importance, and mutual reinforcement. [9]
Of macroharmonies specifically, he asked: [10]
He proposed to show the rate at which pitch classes are used with "pitch-class circulation graphs" and the number and relative proportion of pitch classes on a large scale with "global macroharmonic profiles". [10]
In general, macroharmony may be understood in some relation to musical scales. [11] Theoretically, the pitch-class content of tonal music may be that of the chromatic scale. [11] Practically, it is often limited to that of modes, especially the major or minor diatonic scales as subsets of the chromatic scale. [11] [b] In a similar way, though scales may in fact constitute the entire pitch-class content of a given tuning system or the macroharmony of some portion of a composition, they are nonetheless defined as subsets of the macroharmony within the context of Tymoczko's project. [12]
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
The harmonic series is the sequence of harmonics, musical tones, or pure tones whose frequency is an integer multiple of a fundamental frequency.
The major scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note.
In music theory, a scale is "any consecutive series of notes that form a progression between one note and its octave", typically by order of pitch or fundamental frequency.
The chromatic scale is a set of twelve pitches used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce the chromatic scale, while other instruments capable of continuously variable pitch, such as the trombone and violin, can also produce microtones, or notes between those available on a piano.
Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. The Oxford Companion to Music describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation ; the second is learning scholars' views on music from antiquity to the present; the third is a sub-topic of musicology that "seeks to define processes and general principles in music". The musicological approach to theory differs from music analysis "in that it takes as its starting-point not the individual work or performance but the fundamental materials from which it is built."
Anton Webern was an Austrian composer, conductor, and musicologist. His music was among the most radical of its milieu in its concision and use of then novel atonal and twelve-tone techniques in an increasingly rigorous manner, somewhat after the Franco-Flemish School of his studies under Guido Adler. With his mentor Arnold Schoenberg and his colleague Alban Berg, Webern was at the core of those within the broader circle of the Second Viennese School.
Polytonality is the musical use of more than one key simultaneously. Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time. Polyvalence or polyvalency is the use of more than one harmonic function, from the same key, at the same time.
In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking. Twelve-tone technique orders the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, forming a row or series and providing a unifying basis for a composition's melody, harmony, structural progressions, and variations. Other types of serialism also work with sets, collections of objects, but not necessarily with fixed-order series, and extend the technique to other musical dimensions, such as duration, dynamics, and timbre.
In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave position." Important to musical set theory, a pitch class is "all pitches related to each other by octave, enharmonic equivalence, or both." Thus, using scientific pitch notation, the pitch class "C" is the set
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the twelve available on a standard piano keyboard. Music is chromatic when it uses more than just these seven notes.
Pandiatonicism is a musical technique of using the diatonic scale without the limitations of functional tonality. Music using this technique is pandiatonic.
In music, transposition refers to the process or operation of moving a collection of notes up or down in pitch by a constant interval.
The shifting of a melody, a harmonic progression or an entire musical piece to another key, while maintaining the same tone structure, i.e. the same succession of whole tones and semitones and remaining melodic intervals.
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed,
Transformational theory is a branch of music theory developed by David Lewin in the 1980s, and formally introduced in his 1987 work, Generalized Musical Intervals and Transformations. The theory—which models musical transformations as elements of a mathematical group—can be used to analyze both tonal and atonal music.
The Hungarian minor scale, double harmonic minor scale, or Gypsy minor scale is a type of combined musical scale. It is the same as the harmonic minor scale, except that it has a raised fourth scale degree to introduce an additional gap, or augmented second. It is a symmetrical scale with a slightly ambiguous tonal centre, due to the many half steps.
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, especially when applied to contrasting features of the common practice music of the period 1600–1900.
Neo-Riemannian theory is a loose collection of ideas present in the writings of music theorists such as David Lewin, Brian Hyer, Richard Cohn, and Henry Klumpenhouwer. What binds these ideas is a central commitment to relating harmonies directly to each other, without necessary reference to a tonic. Initially, those harmonies were major and minor triads; subsequently, neo-Riemannian theory was extended to standard dissonant sonorities as well. Harmonic proximity is characteristically gauged by efficiency of voice leading. Thus, C major and E minor triads are close by virtue of requiring only a single semitonal shift to move from one to the other. Motion between proximate harmonies is described by simple transformations. For example, motion between a C major and E minor triad, in either direction, is executed by an "L" transformation. Extended progressions of harmonies are characteristically displayed on a geometric plane, or map, which portrays the entire system of harmonic relations. Where consensus is lacking is on the question of what is most central to the theory: smooth voice leading, transformations, or the system of relations that is mapped by the geometries. The theory is often invoked when analyzing harmonic practices within the Late Romantic period characterized by a high degree of chromaticism, including work of Schubert, Liszt, Wagner and Bruckner.
Dmitri Tymoczko is an American music theorist and composer. As a theorist, he has published more than two dozen articles dealing with topics related to contemporary tonality, including scales, voice leading, and functional harmonic norms. His article "The Geometry of Musical Chords" was the first music-theory article ever published by the journal Science. His music, which draws on rock, jazz, and romanticism, has been performed by ensembles such as the Amernet String Quartet, the Brentano Quartet, Janus, Newspeak, the San Francisco Contemporary Players, the Pacifica Quartet, and the pianist Ursula Oppens.
Richard Parncutt is an Australian-born academic. He has been professor of systematic musicology at Karl Franzens University Graz in Austria since 1998.