# Impressionist Harmony



## TomDickson

Hey, I'm looking for books, other resources and advice for understanding impressionist harmony. Is there anything you would recomend? I'm particularly interested in voicing and resolving extended chords. 
Thanks,


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## QuietGuy

Google Messiaen's Modes of Limited transposition, of which the whole tone scale & octatonic scale are the first and second modes. I really like harmony which conveys an impressionistic sound, and those two got me started.

Beyond that, study the scores of Debussy: "La Mer", or even the Piano Preludes.

Messiaen's Technique of My Musical Language is a good source book, if you can find it in English, and Techniques of Twentieth Century Composition by Leon Dallin (Amazon).


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## Ludric

One of the best things you can do is simply study the scores of the composers of that kind of music. Get the score, listen to it with a recording, play it at the keyboard, and analyze it in depth to figure out how they did it.


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## tdc

I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the impressionist style available aside from "analyze the score". 

A few other things I've read in various places - the modes were often used in impressionism as well as pentatonics, and the music often features glimmering passages that function as kind of a temporary distraction - after which there can be a seemingly random change of key.


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## TomDickson

Thanks everyone for the advice. I agree that there doesn't seem to be much reading about impressionist harmony, but I will check out the books listed. The modal concepts (both Messiaens & church) are interesting and I can imagine some great chords can be built from them. I guess the next step is to go grab some scores


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## KenOC

An interesting quote: "Remember the music of Java [at the Universal Exhibition of 1889], which contained every nuance, even the ones we no longer have names for. There tonic and dominant had become empty shadows of use only to stupid children." --Claude Debussy


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## PetrB

tdc said:


> I find it interesting that there doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the impressionist style available aside from "analyze the score".
> 
> A few other things I've read in various places - the modes were often used in impressionism as well as pentatonics, and the music often features glimmering passages that function as kind of a temporary distraction - after which there can be a seemingly random change of key.


The impressionist style covers about one and a half composers: Debussy, and Ravel. (The few others named as such are more just a little tinged with a few Debussyisms than 'the real deal.') Ravel is 'only somewhat an impressionist' when it comes to the technical devises Debussy deployed. It isn't an era, and barely a 'style' as written in by numbers of composers, ergo, the scores are the only real textbooks that will inform.


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## tdc

PetrB said:


> The impressionist style covers about one and a half composers: Debussy, and Ravel. (The few others named as such are more just a little tinged with a few Debussyisms than 'the real deal.') Ravel is 'only somewhat an impressionist' when it comes to the technical devises Debussy deployed. It isn't an era, and barely a 'style' as written in by numbers of composers, ergo, the scores are the only real textbooks that will inform.


I feel there is truth to what you're saying - however could the term "impressionist harmony" not possibly be extended to include a range of early 20th century composers who seemed to at times use a very similar harmonic language ie - Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Bax, Walton, Szymanowski, Delius etc.?

edit - it seems like enough composers used strong elements of this harmonic language that there should be a little more information out there on how to use it.


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## PetrB

tdc said:


> I feel there is truth to what you're saying - however could the term "impressionist harmony" not possibly be extended to include a range of early 20th century composers who seemed to at times use a very similar harmonic language ie - Bartok, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov, Bax, Walton, Szymanowski, Delius etc.?


It could be, but I think it is less 'right / meaningful' than anything. Extended chords, polytonality and use of octatonic with other scales (Bartok) is not 'just an impressionist thang.'


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## Vasks

Sure, other composers used some of Debussy's approaches to harmony and chord progressions. Just study "The Rite of Spring" and you'll see a bar or two here and there that clearly is impressionistic, but if anybody chose to use all of Debussy's techniques the end result would be second-rate Debussy. 

Almost all theory books that cover 20th Century harmony devote a chapter on Impressionism and their info is really sufficient to understand what Debussy did.


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