# Resistance is futile; you have 100 of your Earth years to accept harmonic development



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think that "resistance to post-classical harmony" is simply a matter of what you have listened to. When I was beginning to _really absorb_music, it was the Beatles, The Byrds, The Doors, Eric Burdon and The Animals, Motown, and The Rolling Stones that ruled the airwaves; and this was not simply I-IV-V Western harmony; it had a strong element of blues, jazz, and folk music.

I had trouble understanding the simplicity of Handel and Haydn, and the simplistic sonatinas I was attempting to learn; I had already expanded my ears in another direction; I was already "corrupted" by jazz and my listening habits, and electric guitars.

For example, when I was studying diminished seventh chords in junior college first-year theory, I pointed out to the teacher the connection between dim7s and flat-nine dominants, a jazz idea; but n-o-o-o, she wouldn't hear of it.

I also questioned the consideration of vii as being a "B diminished." To me, it always sounded like an incomplete G7 chord. I was later proved correct in my intuition by Walter Piston's _Harmony,_and Schoenberg's _Harmonilehre,_ both of which treated the resolution of vii as an incomplete G, resolving to C as normal.

The problem is the restricted experience, practices, mindset, and worldview, on the part of elite musical specialists who are so immersed in Western tradition that they are unable or unwilling to_really listen_ to _all kinds_ of music.

I agree that harmony evolved and developed; and terms like "breakdown / destruction of tonality" create the perception that modernism is a destructive force. Like religious zealots who want evolution to be taught alongside creationism, tonality does not need defending, nor is modern chromatic thinking aimed at tonality's destuction.

There comes a time when it must be recognized that "harmonic evolution" is not tied inextricably to 18th century CP tonality. Tonality _did_ "break down" and become chromatic, but this was a natural evolution in musical thought, not a "modernist conspiracy."

If even relatively tame post-classical and later harmony is "naturally resisted," then there is something amiss; these people have been conditioned very strictly, and have not exercised their ears enough.

Also, there is a political component to this: "evolution" of music, and "progress in musical thinking" is seen as a justification for modernism, so the idea that late-tonal chromaticism led to a chromatic thinking which _broke_ with tonality cannot be entertained, as this might cause sensitive tonal advocates to feel "discriminated" against.

The only "inevitability" is the ear. This being a "given," all music is "harmonic." Harmony will not cease to be harmony; it will simply be subject to another language, or system.

CP tonality should not be synonymous with harmony; all music is harmonic. It got that way by being a sustained pitch. That's the only real criterion. If it's not a sustained pitch, it's rhythm.

When I see the underlying thrust of the "anti-modernist/anti-development" argument, and its attempt to assuage and sidestep the issue of a "progressive or advanced tonality," the fact is that tonality as a system of organizing harmonic principles _did _evolve and progress. To refuse not to see this is somewhat unrealistic, when faced with the "nuts and bolts" of our Pythagoran heritage.

CP tonality uses the 12-note chromatic scale as its foundation, and this is simultaneously the means of its sustainability and expansion. If tonality had wished to stay "pure," it should never have modulated, used minor scales, diminished chords, or chromatic notes.

Tonality is a "7-note system living in a 12-note world." Therein lies both its strengths and weaknesses. The expansion of harmonic ideas into chromaticism, and the consequent emergence of a truly different chromatic thinking, separate and different than CP tonality, based on symmetrical division of the octave, recursive interval projections, and localized, moving tone-centers, was built-in to the 12-note infrastructure.

Development as a mere notion to serve a modernist agenda? I think not, because in addition to going "forward in time," there is the inevitability of accumulation: after 7, there are 5 more notes, which add up to 12.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

That's brilliant! Pythagoran heritage _and_ electric guitars. Excellent stuff!


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