# How can we destroy tonality?



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Since the fifth, our most traditional root movement, can be replaced with a minor second root movement (called a tri-tone substitution), then it's an easy step from normally modulating fifths into a chromatic morass of half-steps, which incidentally makes perfect tonal sense to the ear.
So it's really not chromaticism or half-step root movements which destroy a sense of tonality, although it helps.

Even the chromatic collection, when considered as a "scale" or index of notes which can be freely drawn from, is easily "tonal-ized" by putting a reference tonic note under it.

What has to happen in order to create a situation of "no tonality" is to remove logical references to a tonic.

A descending chromatic root movement will not do it, since it is so easily related to a cycle of fifths which has been tritonally substituted into a series of dominant seventh chords.

Better would be root movement by major seconds (eventually outlining a whole-tone scale, with no fifths), or major thirds (eventually outlining the augmented scale), or leaps. 
This scheme avoids tritones (which can't be "cycled" since they are symmetrical, and invert to themselves), fifths and fourths (the common tonal movement), minor seconds (too much like a tritone-related fifth), and minor thirds (eventually outlining a diminished scale, ambiguous tonally, but "inward-directed" towards "local" root points within the octave).

Still, all of these "projections" of different intervals, used as root movements, are still going to have tonal references, because of inherent symmetries within the 12-note division of the octave.

On top of that, the ear still tends to hear harmonically. No matter what note we put in the bass, it's still going to sound "root-like" or have some tonal reference, like a harmonic with its partials. We hear "up," from bottom to top.

So, if no matter what we do, the ear will still try to hear it tonally (harmonically), then we are left with no other alternative in our quest to destroy tonality, but to dismantle the system itself.

CP tonality achieves its effect in two ways:

1. By considering chords as harmonic entities unto themselves, rather than as the congruence of separate musical lines or melodies. This is derived from vertical harmony, as opposed to horizontal melody.
2. By using melodic lines which create tonal references, by constructing these melodies by using "scales," which are "indexes" of notes (unordered sets) with the first note listed in skeleton form as the tonal center.

So, to counteract these ways of achieving tonality, we could create a system which effectively does away with these elements:

1. Harmony is not considered as chordal entities, with functions, but as the congruence of melodic lines. This greatly necessitates a polyphonic approach.
2. Whatever melodic lines are used, will be created *not* by using scales, since the scale is an "index" which can be freely chosen from, enabling repetition and tonal reference as an unordered set will do;
3. Melodic material will be synonymous with an ordered set consisting of all 12 notes, with no repetition.

Therefore, in this non-tonal or serial method, we have an essentially non-harmonic schema, which is polyphonic in nature, and non-scalar, since it is ordered, with no repetition, which insures a total chromaticism of the lines and suppresses any tonal tendencies which might be created by melodic means.

Although pre-tonal Gregorian chant is similar in that it is melodic (later polyphonic), it is scalar, not harmonic, and achieves its tone-centric sound by using modes, which are essentially scales (unordered sets of notes) which allow tonal references to be created.


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