# The Harmonic Model



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Consonance is simpler vibration, and dissonance is more complex, even chaotic vibrations.

Western tone-centered music, including folk, popular, and classical, and all forms of basic tone-centered music globally, are based on harmonic (adj.) models.

These "models" are not the harmonics themselves (used as a noun), but "harmonic models" based on divisions of the octave to "1" or a key note. This can be done with any division of the octave. It produces a "harmonic model" of ratios to "1." 

What this does is, in effect, create a "tonality" with the scale-steps (the divisions), and each step (division) will be a ratio. 

These ratios can be classified in order of their consonance (close relation to "1") or dissonance (more distant relation to "1"). 

These can be called "functions" when triads or other chords are built on them, and that "root" will have a function which is a measure of its "tonal gravity" or its tendency to "pull" or "repel" our ear to or from "home" or the key note.


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