# Did Baroque music have "keys?"



## millionrainbows

Did Baroque music have "keys?" 

Without harmony, and if everything is counterpoint and linear, how can there be "keys?"

I thought what we now call "key signatures" were, in the Baroque era, only indicators of notes in the scale, not indications of "key" or tonalty, and that "accidentals" simply indicated notes that were not in the scale. 

I thought the Baroque didn't have chords or 'chord functions' because it was all linear.

Without harmony, and if everything is counterpoint and linear, how can there be "keys?"


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## Vasks

Oh please, Just stop.


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## millionrainbows

Vasks said:


> Oh please, Just stop.


Well, Bach's figured bass system didn't indicate "chord function" because it didn't exist.

But this raises an important question, Vasks: what is a "key signature," and should it be called that?


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## BabyGiraffe

millionrainbows said:


> what is a "key signature," and should it be called that?


In this case it's the best approximation of 7 equal in 12 equal (or unequal, in historical systems, that's why we get stuff like sharps lower in pitch than flats etc, if we extend the chain of generator -> the metric is based on fifths or fourths, not on chromatic semitones). It has many nice properties for notation or voice leading and easily get us intervals that sound good together in most cases. The last one is big advantage, compared to other viable alternatives (like hexatonic ((whole tone or Messiaen/Liszt scale))or octatonic). 
This can be easily generalized to any system. If generator isn't co-prime to the number of steps, the period is a fraction of octave and the scale is a mode of limited transposition.


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## EdwardBast

Yes, please just stop.


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## Woodduck

Does Florida have keys? Do locks have keys? Does Alicia have Keys?


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Does Florida have keys? Do locks have keys? Does Alicia have Keys?


You missed Evelyn.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Does Florida have keys? Do locks have keys? Does Alicia have Keys?


"I'm wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be," Bob Dylan.


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## hammeredklavier

1. D major ( tonic , I ) 
2. A major ( dominant , V )
3. B minor ( submediant , vi )
4. F♯ minor / D major ( mediant / first inversion of tonic , iii / I6 )
5. G major ( subdominant , IV )
6. D major ( tonic , I )
7. G major ( subdominant , IV )
8. A major ( dominant , V )

In 2002, pop music producer Pete Waterman described Canon in D as "almost the godfather of pop music because we've all used that in our own ways for the past 30 years". He also said that Kylie Minogue's 1988 UK number one hit single "I Should Be So Lucky", which Waterman co-wrote and co-produced, was inspired by Canon in D. The Farm's 1990 single "All Together Now" has its chord sequence lifted directly from Pachelbel's Canon.


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## millionrainbows

WIK says:

Relationship between _key signature_ and _key
_A key signature is not the same as a key; key signatures are merely notational devices. They are convenient principally for diatonic or tonal music.The key signature defines the diatonic scale that a piece of music uses without the need for accidentals. Most scales require that some notes be consistently sharped or flatted. For example, the only sharp in the G major scale is F sharp, so the key signature associated with the G major key is the one-sharp key signature. However, it is only a notational convenience; a piece with a one-sharp key signature is not necessarily in the key of G major, and likewise, a piece in G major may not always be written with a one-sharp key signature; this is particularly true in pre-Baroque music, when the concept of key had not yet evolved to its present state.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> Does Florida have keys? Do locks have keys? Does Alicia have Keys?


No; I think that Little Walter had the key.


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> *WIK says:
> 
> Relationship between key signature and key
> A key signature is not the same as a key; key signatures are merely notational devices. They are convenient principally for diatonic or tonal music.*
> 
> The key signature defines the diatonic scale that a piece of music uses without the need for accidentals. Most scales require that some notes be consistently sharped or flatted. For example, the only sharp in the G major scale is F sharp, so the key signature associated with the G major key is the one-sharp key signature. However, it is only a notational convenience; a piece with a one-sharp key signature is not necessarily in the key of G major, and likewise, a piece in G major may not always be written with a one-sharp key signature; this is particularly true in pre-Baroque music, when the concept of key had not yet evolved to its present state.


Actually I've wondered for more than a few years whether the key that we hear while we're playing a piece - is always accurately the key? Most of the time it is.. IOW, how does that all work in our brains?


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## millionrainbows

Luchesi said:


> Actually I've wondered for more than a few years whether the key that we hear while we're playing a piece - is always accurately the key? Most of the time it is.. IOW, how does that all work in our brains?


Just as an amusement, I sometimes listen to a Mozart Piano Sonata in C as being in A minor. It works pretty well, if you keep an "A" drone in your mind as a reference tone.

You can do this with any "root" of any mode of C major, as well.

If I'm really feeling adventurous, I keep a "B" drone in my head, and listen to the piece as if it were in B Locrian.


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> Just as an amusement, I sometimes listen to a Mozart Piano Sonata in C as being in A minor. It works pretty well, if you keep an "A" drone in your mind as a reference tone.
> 
> You can do this with any "root" of any mode of C major, as well.
> 
> If I'm really feeling adventurous, I keep a "B" drone in my head, and listen to the piece as if it were in B Locrian.


Thanks. Now I'm even more curious about how the musical brain does what it does.

I sit down to warm up and it's all right there from the recent past, ...and pieces I haven't heard in years. It's like talking. No thoughts or thinking required.


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## millionrainbows

Charles Ives said his dad used to get them to sing a familiar hymn in C, while he would play the piano accompaniment in F# or something weird like that...just to exercise their ears.


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## hammeredklavier

If MR performed in public, he would sound a lot like these guys:


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> Charles Ives said his dad used to get them to sing a familiar hymn in C, while he would play the piano accompaniment in F# or something weird like that...just to exercise their ears.


Shift those hymns to the minor and you have some dark, brooding new dirges. As simple as that!


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## millionrainbows

Another simple formula: any 7-note scale has a 5-note pentatonic counterpart that is as far removed from the tonality as possible.


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> Another simple formula: any 7-note scale has a 5-note pentatonic counterpart that is as far removed from the tonality as possible.


Like the pentatonic on Db is far from the C scale? It shares only the F. But the pentatonic on B shares the B and the E notes (at least on a keyboard).


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## millionrainbows

Luchesi said:


> Like the pentatonic on Db is far from the C scale? It shares only the F. But the pentatonic on B shares the B and the E notes (at least on a keyboard).


No, I'm talking about F#-G#-A#-C#-D#, the F# *major* pentatonic. Or call it D# *minor* pentatonic.


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> No, I'm talking about F#-G#-A#-C#-D#, the F# *major* pentatonic. Or call it D# *minor* pentatonic.


Yes, that's better, because it shares no notes with the C scale. I should have known that the Diabolus in Musica would be involved in this and lead us to the best case. The Devil is the reason I missed it.


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## SanAntone

millionrainbows said:


> Did Baroque music have "keys?"
> 
> Without harmony, and if everything is counterpoint and linear, how can there be "keys?"
> 
> I thought what we now call "key signatures" were, in the Baroque era, only indicators of notes in the scale, not indications of "key" or tonalty, and that "accidentals" simply indicated notes that were not in the scale.
> 
> I thought the Baroque didn't have chords or 'chord functions' because it was all linear.
> 
> Without harmony, and if everything is counterpoint and linear, how can there be "keys?"


Is _The Well-Tempered Clavier_ a Baroque period work?


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## HolstThePhone

millionrainbows said:


> Just as an amusement, I sometimes listen to a Mozart Piano Sonata in C as being in A minor. It works pretty well, if you keep an "A" drone in your mind as a reference tone.
> 
> You can do this with any "root" of any mode of C major, as well.
> 
> If I'm really feeling adventurous, I keep a "B" drone in my head, and listen to the piece as if it were in B Locrian.


Look at you flexing your perfect pitch in front of us mortals :lol:


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## Luchesi

HolstThePhone said:


> Look at you flexing your perfect pitch in front of us mortals :lol:


It doesn't have to be perfect pitch (which is sad for many folks who have it), but almost everyone has this 'key' recognition brain pathway. That's mysterious to me, but children acquire it after the simple tonal songs of youth and the teasing chants at play, with their obvious tonal building blocks. How do they do it? Bernstein shows that there's a simple, integer arithmetic encouraging this acquisition, and making it irresistible.
Do you remember nursery songs?


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## HolstThePhone

Luchesi said:


> It doesn't have to be perfect pitch (which is sad for many folks who have it), but almost everyone has this 'key' recognition brain pathway. That's mysterious to me, but children acquire it after the simple tonal songs of youth and the teasing chants at play, with their obvious tonal building blocks. How do they do it? Bernstein shows that there's a simple, integer arithmetic encouraging this acquisition, and making it irresistible.
> Do you remember nursery songs?


Yeah to be fair I understand it can ruin music performances if one trombone is playing slightly off. Still, as someone with absolutely terrible ears I can't help but slightly envy it.

As in children all learn the songs in the same key, and know how to sing them in that key without a reference tone?


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## Luchesi

HolstThePhone said:


> Yeah to be fair I understand it can ruin music performances if one trombone is playing slightly off. Still, as someone with absolutely terrible ears I can't help but slightly envy it.
> 
> As in children all learn the songs in the same key, and know how to sing them in that key without a reference tone?


Well, any fundamental tone not just C, multiplied 5 times to get the notes of intervals. Fascinating stuff what the brain does. It's probably more than one brain center.


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## millionrainbows

HolstThePhone said:


> Look at you flexing your perfect pitch in front of us mortals :lol:


No, I don't have perfect pitch, just good relative pitch. But maybe as I get older and more OCD, I will acquire perfect pitch. :lol:


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## isorhythm

Sure does. Often composers wrote the keys in the titles of their pieces. But you knew that.


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## Vox Gabrieli

millionrainbows said:


> Charles Ives said his dad used to get them to sing a familiar hymn in C, while he would play the piano accompaniment in F# or something weird like that...just to exercise their ears.


I once had an ear training teacher do the same thing. Its very effective.


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> It doesn't have to be perfect pitch (which is sad for many folks who have it), but almost everyone has this 'key' recognition brain pathway. That's mysterious to me, but children acquire it after the simple tonal songs of youth and the teasing chants at play, with their obvious tonal building blocks. * How do they do it? * Bernstein shows that there's a simple, integer arithmetic encouraging this acquisition, and making it irresistible.
> Do you remember nursery songs?


It's intuitive and easy and not particularly mysterious. Children hear it, they imitate it, and they get it without having to work at it. We already have the necessary apparatus built in genetically. It's a trivial consequence of being a verbal species.


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> It's intuitive and easy and not particularly mysterious. Children hear it, they imitate it, and they get it without having to work at it. We already have the necessary apparatus built in genetically. It's a trivial consequence of being a verbal species.


Trivial and not mysterious. That's pretty funny. I guess it's how each person looks at it.

People go bonkers over their perceived concept of consciousness. I don't think it's particularly mysterious. 'Just sensory inputs and recording/comparing brain.centers. Seemingly automatic circuit pathways, but hearing the tones for the intervals accurately within such a small frequency range, THAT takes more 'conditioning' I would think. I have a friend who's a scientist and he says he's tone deaf. We talk about this at length. He's tired of my questions. lol


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## Mike Strand

I may be off, but I think Bach was a "baroque" composer, and each piece in both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier is identified by its key signature. Bach covered all of the major and minor keys. Counterpoint, I think, is independent of key -- it can be atonal or tonal (key-oriented).


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## Mike Strand

The pieces in Bach's works, I've found, can be "harmonized" with standard chords. It's an interesting exercise to go through a Bach prelude or fugue and assign chords to the bars of music -- harmonies that go well with his original music.


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## Luchesi

Mike Strand said:


> I may be off, but I think Bach was a "baroque" composer, and each piece in both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier is identified by its key signature. Bach covered all of the major and minor keys. Counterpoint, I think, is independent of key -- it can be atonal or tonal (key-oriented).


Welcome to the forum.
Yes, you're right, it was merely a conversation starter from a discussion weeks ago. An idea I had is what is the key of an atonal fugue? Is it what we hear as a key? Is there a key? We must hear one?


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## Luchesi

Mike Strand said:


> The pieces in Bach's works, I've found, can be "harmonized" with standard chords. It's an interesting exercise to go through a Bach prelude or fugue and assign chords to the bars of music -- harmonies that go well with his original music.


Yes, it's easier to memorize and play a few chords in the left hand to get the melodies in the right, so that my students can recognize which prelude and fugue I'm presenting to them. They can play them, but it's slow going.. Such dedication.


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## Mike Strand

Thanks, Luchesi!


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## Mike Strand

Thanks for this insight into your teaching -- sounds great!


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> Trivial and not mysterious. That's pretty funny. I guess it's how each person looks at it.
> 
> People go bonkers over their perceived concept of consciousness. I don't think it's particularly mysterious. 'Just sensory inputs and recording/comparing brain.centers. Seemingly automatic circuit pathways, but hearing the tones for the intervals accurately within such a small frequency range, THAT takes more 'conditioning' I would think. I have a friend who's a scientist and he says he's tone deaf. We talk about this at length. He's tired of my questions. lol


Yes, it's mysterious to the tone deaf. And it's as easy as walking and talking for many of the rest of us.


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## millionrainbows

Mike Strand said:


> The pieces in Bach's works, I've found, can be "harmonized" with standard chords. It's an interesting exercise to go through a Bach prelude or fugue and assign chords to the bars of music -- harmonies that go well with his original music.





EdwardBast said:


> Yes, it's mysterious to the tone deaf. And it's as easy as walking and talking for many of the rest of us.


Yes, you can hear clearly-defined harmony in Bach, but Bach's harmony was _his ear._ He did not use chord functions or think in chord progressions. He did not call suspended lines "sus chords" or passing lines heard as "Major seventh chords," even though the net effect on the ear was that of a Maj7 chord.

If Bach did "plan-out" chord progressions, he was going strictly by ear, by how he knew it was going to sound. So the question really becomes an 'academic moot.' The net results are often harmonic, but are not called that.

So now the question arises: is it really "worth it" to say that Bach did not use the tools of harmony like "chord function" in order to be academically correct, if that becomes misleading and confusing to the listener? And has this confusion been compounded by the fact that academic thinkers have not given proper credit to "intuitive thinking by ear?"


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## Bwv 1080

Luchesi said:


> Welcome to the forum.
> Yes, you're right, it was merely a conversation starter from a discussion weeks ago. An idea I had is what is the key of an atonal fugue? Is it what we hear as a key? Is there a key? We must hear one?


What key to you hear in the opening of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste?


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## millionrainbows

Bwv 1080 said:


> What key to you hear in the opening of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste?


I hear the opening melody keep returning to A-flat.

As far as "overall" tonality, I don't think that's a very good question, because I hear "local" tone centers like that Ab which don't last very long, and keep changing. Still, I think if you sing an Ab all the way through while listening, it becomes a believable tone center.


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## Bwv 1080

millionrainbows said:


> I hear the opening melody keep returning to A-flat.
> 
> As far as "overall" tonality, I don't think that's a very good question, because I hear "local" tone centers like that Ab which don't last very long, and keep changing. Still, I think if you sing an Ab all the way through while listening, it becomes a believable tone center.


But the five entries are chromatic figures starting on A, E, D, B then G, so symmetrically going up then down a 5th, so the center or axis is A, not Ab. The figures all reflect around this axis - during the development after the fugal exposition the transpositions by 5th continue until Eb is reached


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> If Bach did "plan-out" chord progressions, he was going strictly by ear, by how he knew it was going to sound.


Isn't that how everyone does it? I've composed music, and I "go by ear" - by how I know it will sound. Occasionally it may occur to me to think, "I'm moving to the dominant," but that happens mainly as an epiphenomenon; generally I don't have to name chords to myself know which one needs to come next. Even if I'm moving through a sequence of keys, I don't need to apply their names to recognize their relationship to each other. And if I'm writing chromatic progressions I certainly can't occupy my mind with complicated nomenclature.

I guess I'm questioning just how different Bach's mental processes were from, say, Wagner's. Was Wagner's thinking different from Bach's in some significant way during the composition of the _Tristan _prelude? Apparently he didn't have a name for the "Tristan chord," and was rather pleased when some theoretician suggested one. He was certainly aware that he was playing with the key of A minor/C major, but did he name to himself the progressions he was writing, and did he need to? or did he just "go by ear" - by how it sounded and felt? Bach wrote some complex chromatic passages too - I'm thinking of one of the Goldberg Variations. Was he in any way inhibited by not having the chord nomenclature that Wagner could have been thinking about but probably (I feel pretty sure) wasn't much of the time?



> So now the question arises: is it really "worth it" to say that Bach did not use the tools of harmony like "chord function" in order to be academically correct, if that becomes misleading and confusing to the listener? And has this confusion been compounded by the fact that academic thinkers have not given proper credit to "intuitive thinking by ear?"


Who has not given proper credit to thinking by ear? Certainly not composers. I really don't know what theory professors think Bach was doing, but it's clear to me that his ear for harmony was extraordinary, and is one of the reasons for his reputation for greatness.


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, it's mysterious to the tone deaf. And it's as easy as walking and talking for many of the rest of us.


When did it become as easy as walking and talking for you? Were you a very young music student?


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## Luchesi

Bwv 1080 said:


> But the five entries are chromatic figures starting on A, E, D, B then G, so symmetrically going up then down a 5th, so the center or axis is A, not Ab. The figures all reflect around this axis - during the development after the fugal exposition the transpositions by 5th continue until Eb is reached


I was thinking of piano pieces, because they're clearer for me to hear the logic of the lines and they can't help but evoke diatonic memories.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Apparently he didn't have a name for the "Tristan chord," and was rather pleased when some theoretician suggested one.












"There is no country, no town, no village that I can call my own. Everything is alien to me and I often gaze around, yearning for a glimpse of the land of Nirvāṇa. But Nirvāṇa quickly turns back into 'Tristan'; you know the Buddhist theory of the origin of the world. A breath A basic motive in Tristan: clouds the clear expanse of heaven: it swells and grows denser, and finally the whole world stands before me again in all its impenetrable solidity."
[Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonk, 3rd March 1860]


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## hammeredklavier

Giovanni Battista Martini (1706~1784, a.k.a. "Padre Martini"), a friar and a renowned counterpoint pedagogue of the 18th century, who had taught Mozart during his Italian trips of 1769~1773, talked about "harmony and modulations" in his reply when Mozart sent Martini his most recent contrapuntal composition at the time, Misericordias domini (1775).

Mozart: "A few days before my departure the Elector expressed a desire to hear some of my contrapuntal compositions. I was therefore obliged to write this motet in a great hurry, in order to have time to have the score copied for his Highness and to have the parts written out and thus enable it to be performed during the Offertory at High Mass on the following Sunday."

Martini: "Together with your most kind letter, which reached me by way of Trent, I received the Motet… It was with pleasure that I studied it from beginning to end, and I can tell you in all sincerity that I was singularly pleased with it, finding in it all that is required by Modern Music: *good harmony, mature modulation*, a moderate pace in the violins, a natural connexion of the parts and good taste. I am delighted with it and rejoice that since I had the pleasure of hearing you at Bologna on the harpsichord you have made great stride in composition, which must be pursued ever more by practice, for Music is of such nature as to call for great exercise and study as long as one lives."


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## millionrainbows

Bwv 1080 said:


> But the five entries are chromatic figures starting on A, E, D, B then G, so symmetrically going up then down a 5th, so the center or axis is A, not Ab. The figures all reflect around this axis - during the development after the fugal exposition the transpositions by 5th continue until Eb is reached


The opening notes are A-Bb-Db-C-B.
I hear the opening A as a "leading tone" going to Bb. Then Db (heard as a minor third of a Bb minor chord), then C (sort of a suspension Db-C), then I hear B as a flat ninth of a Bb chord. 
So for me, the first impression was that of Bb as a tone center, for that fragment. Of course, the following notes might change the context of that.

What you say about "A" as an axis, or local tone center, may be true, but your question was "What key is it in?" which, as you can see, can vary from that. 


Bwv 1080 said:


> What key to you hear in the opening of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste?


I take the question to be "What is my impression?," not a definitive answer.

What conclusion can we draw? That a "tone axis" might just be structural in nature, not "tonal." It has more to do with intervals than any supposed "root." I also think he's using diminished scales.

But you asked it, so I answered.


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## millionrainbows

MR said:


> _If Bach did "plan-out" chord progressions, he was going strictly by ear, by how he knew it was going to sound._





Woodduck said:


> Isn't that how everyone does it? I've composed music, and I "go by ear" - by how I know it will sound. Occasionally it may occur to me to think, "I'm moving to the dominant," but that happens mainly as an epiphenomenon; generally I don't have to name chords to myself know which one needs to come next. Even if I'm moving through a sequence of keys, I don't need to apply their names to recognize their relationship to each other. And if I'm writing chromatic progressions I certainly can't occupy my mind with complicated nomenclature.
> 
> Who has not given proper credit to thinking by ear? Certainly not composers. I really don't know what theory professors think Bach was doing, but it's clear to me that his ear for harmony was extraordinary, and is one of the reasons for his reputation for greatness.


I thought it was worth pointing out that the idea of "no chord function or chord progressions in the Baroque" does not mean that chord function and chord progressions did not exist; these conceptual harmonic ideas simply were simply not accounted for at the time. The fact that these harmonic ideas did emerge later is testament to their "intuitive existence" in the ear of Bach.

Pointing this out also emphasizes that Bach used his ear, and hearing chords such as I Maj7 in his music is not unusual.


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## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> ... I "go by ear" - by how I know it will sound. Occasionally it may occur to me to think, "I'm moving to the dominant," but that happens mainly as an epiphenomenon; generally I don't have to name chords to myself know which one needs to come next. Even if I'm moving through a sequence of keys, I don't need to apply their names to recognize their relationship to each other. And if I'm writing chromatic progressions I certainly can't occupy my mind with complicated nomenclature.


You *do* know the names of the notes, don't you? :lol:

When I play piano, I think in roots. But I know all the dominant relationships (E-B, A-E, etc.), so it's instantaneous.


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## RubberDuckie

The key or not the key?

That is the question. But I firmly think that the structure of a piece supersedes the tonal center or the meandering of tonal centers.

In Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ... the return to the home-key does not happen in the Recapitulation section of the first movement. It goes to ... (wait for it) ... F Major *gasp* ... but the final cadence of the movement is in C. And the structure of a Sonata Form remains intact.

But whether or not the idea of "key" existed in the heads of musicians before J.S. Bach ... I would be lying if I said I knew the answer. But musicians knew "instinctively" what to do in those days. That's why a lot of baroque music is/was printed with nearly no dynamic marking, tempo, and other details. One glance at the title, they would know what to do.

And for people sensitive to identifying pitch ... the supposed "key" in baroque would be like ... a halftone lower. It was not A=440 back then.

Fun time to be alive.


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## hammeredklavier

RubberDuckie said:


> In Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ... the return to the home-key does not happen in the Recapitulation section of the first movement. It goes to ... (wait for it) ... F Major *gasp* ... but the final cadence of the movement is in C. And the structure of a Sonata Form remains intact.


Movement to the subdominant in the "false recapitulation" (or "secondary development", whichever term you want to use) to "ease tension" (and establish a sense of contrast with the [movement to the dominant in the development]) was quite common in the late Baroque and Classical periods, I believe. In the early Romantic era, composers started to replace those key relationships with mediant/submediant. (ex. Beethoven "spring" violin sonata)

*[ 7:36 ]*


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## RubberDuckie

Exactly. It is the structure that takes center stage. The tonal center, or the lack of as in atonal music, takes a secondary (sometimes tertiary) role. The theme, or subject, or thematic material(s) would probably what our ears gravitate to in that case.

In the case of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545, the Recapitulation goes to the subdominant, not the development or the second subject. In other words, the opening theme of this movement is in C Major but when it returns in the Recapitulation, the same opening theme is in F Major.

As for the use of mediant/submediant keys ... it is usually employed in the second subject of the Exposition and maybe sometimes in the Recapitulation.

In any case, how one uses a key in a Sonata Form is irrelevant to how the Sonata Form is usually utilized :

(Intro)
Exposition with Subject I, (transition/modulation), Subject II, (Codetta)
Development (maybe new Subject)
Recapitulation with Subject I, (transition), Subject II
(Coda)

No matter what one does, key or no key, this structure remains intact.


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## isorhythm

You can't separate tonality and structure in Baroque and Classical music. They're facets of the same thing.

The Romantic era, when composers started to get more whimsical with their modulations, might be a different story.


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> When did it become as easy as walking and talking for you? Were you a very young music student?


We're talking about singing simple tonal melodies right? I have no idea when because I don't remember a time when I couldn't do it and I don't remember having to think about it.


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> We're talking about singing simple tonal melodies right? I have no idea when because I don't remember a time when I couldn't do it and I don't remember having to think about it.


Thinking about hearing the circle of fifths, for example, in Liebestraum no.3 won't be helpful. So, for me it's a big mystery, because we hear that something logical is going on.. I III7 VI7 II9 V7 I


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> Thinking about hearing the circle of fifths, for example, in Liebestraum no.3 won't be helpful. So, for me it's a big mystery, because we hear that something logical is going on.. I III7 VI7 II9 V7 I


Isn't that acculturation to the western harmonic language over a lifetime, including hearing music back to early childhood? It's like trying to remember when one first understood how to structure a sentence - that is, we can't remember a time when we couldn't, so it just seems like we always understood it.

Are we talking about the same thing?


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> Isn't that acculturation to the western harmonic language over a lifetime, including hearing music back to early childhood? It's like trying to remember when one first understood how to structure a sentence - that is, we can't remember a time when we couldn't, so it just seems like we always understood it.
> 
> Are we talking about the same thing?


"Are we talking about the same thing?"

Acculturation. No.
Chinese children becoming thoroughly acquainted with Chinese and Western music. No.

Structuring a sentence, when I still sometimes have to hear a sentence to decide how I want it structured. Yes. I think that's a hint about the mystery, but our spoken language teaches us how to form sentences (to sound like everyone around us), OTOH with music there's nothing like this from the outside (..or maybe there is, I'd have to think more about that.. What would it be?, what words describe the layers from the outside?). It's an interesting mystery which comes up when teaching young children. We teachers try to remember back to our early days of hearing more and more complicated music. Some kids are ahead, some kids struggle to be like the advanced kids. I remember those days. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud, and I remember you have advanced degrees.


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## EdwardBast

Luchesi said:


> "Are we talking about the same thing?"
> 
> Acculturation. No.
> Chinese children becoming thoroughly acquainted with Chinese and Western music. No.
> 
> Structuring a sentence, when I still sometimes have to hear a sentence to decide how I want it structured. Yes. I think that's a hint about the mystery, but our spoken language teaches us how to form sentences (to sound like everyone around us), OTOH *with music there's nothing like this from the outside* (..or maybe there is, I'd have to think more about that.. What would it be?, what words describe the layers from the outside?). It's an interesting mystery which comes up when teaching young children. We teachers try to remember back to our early days of hearing more and more complicated music. Some kids are ahead, some kids struggle to be like the advanced kids. I remember those days. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud, and I remember you have advanced degrees.


From hearing coherent paragraphs of music from the outside our whole early lives we learn what harmonic and tonal grammar makes sense without even thinking about it, just as we do when we learn verbal grammar and syntax. We just don't have language to express how and why it makes sense and how we know it makes sense. Or so it seems to me …


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## Luchesi

EdwardBast said:


> From hearing coherent paragraphs of music from the outside our whole early lives we learn what harmonic and tonal grammar makes sense without even thinking about it, just as we do when we learn verbal grammar and syntax. We just don't have language to express how and why it makes sense and how we know it makes sense. Or so it seems to me …


When I discovered that a tritone was the tonic note multiplied by the square root of 2 it seemed 'irrational' to me. lol 'Just kidding..


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## millionrainbows

RubberDuckie said:


> Exactly. It is the structure that takes center stage. The tonal center, or the lack of as in atonal music, takes a secondary (sometimes tertiary) role. The theme, or subject, or thematic material(s) would probably what our ears gravitate to in that case...
> In any case, how one uses a key in a Sonata Form is irrelevant to how the Sonata Form is usually utilized :
> 
> (Intro)
> Exposition with Subject I, (transition/modulation), Subject II, (Codetta)
> Development (maybe new Subject)
> Recapitulation with Subject I, (transition), Subject II
> (Coda)
> 
> No matter what one does, key or no key, this structure remains intact.


I disagree, and think this is somewhat misleading. As we all know, harmony as a formal concept was not developed until after the Baroque. Still, Bach used harmony intuitively, and this ties in with what EdwardBast is saying: our sense of harmony and of perceiving key centers is largely intuitive, because it is guided by the ear.

So you can't just ignore key centers and focus on form. Tonality DID EXIST in the Baroque. It was just not explicitly expressed in formal concepts or thought about.


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## Luchesi

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree, and think this is somewhat misleading. As we all know, harmony as a formal concept was not developed until after the Baroque. Still, Bach used harmony intuitively, and this ties in with what EdwardBast is saying: our sense of harmony and of perceiving key centers is largely intuitive, because it is guided by the ear.
> 
> So you can't just ignore key centers and focus on form. Tonality DID EXIST in the Baroque. It was just not explicitly expressed in formal concepts or thought about.


I wonder how children learned to play back then? No chords?, no naming of the scales in sequential keys?


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## isorhythm

Luchesi said:


> I wonder how children learned to play back then? No chords?, no naming of the scales in sequential keys?


They definitely learned scales, keys, and chords.


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## BabyGiraffe

isorhythm said:


> They definitely learned scales, keys, and chords.


You forgot the most important part - they learned melo-chordal stylistic patterns and existing songs.
Of course, they did learn about more abstract objects like scales and chords, but there was no unified and consistent system. And it was probably way more practical than theoretical teaching (someone recently created a topic on Neapolitan school, there are many funny details in books that research it, like the way children practiced cliche patterns on different instruments at the same time, I can only imagine the cacophony ). Many chords and modes were recognized quite recently as cyclic permutations of each other. Many interval names are also quite recent. I am pretty sure that village folk musicians (and most people didn't live in cities until 19th-20th century) were also not trained in whatever was passing for "classical" training and learned from older traditional music like it was until recently in places like India/Africa etc.


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## EdwardBast

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree, and think this is somewhat misleading. As we all know, harmony as a formal concept was not developed until after the Baroque. Still, Bach used harmony intuitively, and this ties in with what EdwardBast is saying: our sense of harmony and of perceiving key centers is largely intuitive, because it is guided by the ear.
> 
> So you can't just ignore key centers and focus on form. Tonality DID EXIST in the Baroque. It was just not explicitly expressed in formal concepts or thought about.


This is completely incorrect. The concept of harmony was well established in the late Renaissance and it was specifically established in favor of what we would call triads in root position and first inversion. In the third part of his Istitutioni harmoniche (1558), Chapter 59,* Gioseffo Zarlino describes in detail what is required for "perfect harmony." Since I have quoted passages from this chapter to correct your previous misstatements, I'll just summarize briefly: Zarlino advises that "harmony is truly perfect" when "in every change of chord … there are heard all of those consonances whose components give a variety of sound." The consonances to which he refers are the fifth and the third and their compounds, along with the sixth, which can sound in place of the fifth. He is advocating that composers use, as much as possible, complete triads in root position or first inversion. This is harmony as a formal concept used to describe the practice of composers 200 years before Bach.

Oh, and tonality was explicitly expressed in formal concepts and it was thought about. You might want to look up the word "key."

Conclusion: You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know enough about the history of theory to make pronouncements on the subject. You've repeated this same erroneous information several times in different threads. Please try to educate yourself or at least stop misleading others.

*trans. Guy A. Marco and Claude V Palisca, New York, Norton (1976), pp. 184-90.


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## millionrainbows

EdwardBast said:


> This is completely incorrect....You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know enough about the history of theory to make pronouncements on the subject. You've repeated this same erroneous information several times in different threads. Please try to educate yourself or at least stop misleading others.


I think you're just misinterpreting what I said, Edward. It's true that their was some elementary theorizing about harmony (Rameau also), but this concerned triads, and was geared for figured bass thinkers. There was no concept of chord function, or chord progression.

Harmony had not fully developed in the Baroque; they still used figured bass. Every schoolboy knows that.


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## RubberDuckie

millionrainbows said:


> I disagree, and think this is somewhat misleading. As we all know, harmony as a formal concept was not developed until after the Baroque. Still, Bach used harmony intuitively, and this ties in with what EdwardBast is saying: our sense of harmony and of perceiving key centers is largely intuitive, because it is guided by the ear.
> 
> So you can't just ignore key centers and focus on form. Tonality DID EXIST in the Baroque. It was just not explicitly expressed in formal concepts or thought about.


I don't disagree with you. But the overall way of organizing a musical piece is still governed by the structure. Key or tonal center was thrown out in the Second Viennese School and beyond, but structural construct still plays a role.

I suppose ... if we were to make it into the music history, we need to temper with structure as well as tonal treatment of materials.


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## hammeredklavier

millionrainbows said:


> Harmony had not fully developed in the Baroque; *they still used figured bass*.


MR. MR, refer back to my post, #47, for Classical era examples of figured bass














JOURNAL ARTICLE
The "Galant" Style in J. S. Bach's "Musical Offering:" Widening the Dimensions
Gregory Butler
"What has been written about galant features in Bach's late works in general and the Musical Offering in particular has tended to focus on surface details. As a result galant style is said to be characterized by simplified melody clearly articulated into short, balanced phrases, and employing such figures as triplets, syncopations, and appoggiatura "sigh" motives, dominating a thinned-out, polarized texture in which the bass part abandons any thematic engagement with the upper part for a sort of bland, generic diet of repeated notes and other similar patterns. The view that in the case of the Musical offering these references to the galant style were intended by Bach both to demonstrate his engagement with progressive tendencies and to appeal to certain aesthetic sensibilities at the Potsdam court of the collection's dedicatee is widely accepted by Bach scholars. ..."


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## millionrainbows

I'm not sure what the point is, but in the Baroque the concepts of chord function and chord progression had not developed. There may have been talk of triads and roots, and other elementary ideas.


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## Torkelburger

But isn't there chord progressions and chord functions in the Bach chorale harmonizations? I see plenty of blocked chords progressing and functioning in a harmonic fashion in those pieces. Granted, you can say the 4-voice structure is somewhat contrapuntal as well since it is voice-led and each line has motion, but nonetheless the texture is chordal for stretches at a time.


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## millionrainbows

Torkelburger said:


> But isn't there chord progressions and chord functions in the Bach chorale harmonizations? I see plenty of blocked chords progressing and functioning in a harmonic fashion in those pieces. Granted, you can say the 4-voice structure is somewhat contrapuntal as well since it is voice-led and each line has motion, but nonetheless the texture is chordal for stretches at a time.


Sure, we could analyze it that way.


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## millionrainbows

EdwardBast said:


> This is completely incorrect. The concept of harmony was well established in the late Renaissance and it was specifically established in favor of what we would call triads in root position and first inversion. In the third part of his Istitutioni harmoniche (1558), Chapter 59,* Gioseffo Zarlino describes in detail what is required for "perfect harmony." Since I have quoted passages from this chapter to correct your previous misstatements, I'll just summarize briefly: Zarlino advises that "harmony is truly perfect" when "in every change of chord … there are heard all of those consonances whose components give a variety of sound." The consonances to which he refers are the fifth and the third and their compounds, along with the sixth, which can sound in place of the fifth. He is advocating that composers use, as much as possible, complete triads in root position or first inversion. This is harmony as a formal concept used to describe the practice of composers 200 years before Bach.
> 
> Oh, and tonality was explicitly expressed in formal concepts and it was thought about. You might want to look up the word "key."
> 
> *Conclusion: You don't know what you're talking about. You don't know enough about the history of theory to make pronouncements on the subject. You've repeated this same erroneous information several times in different threads. Please try to educate yourself or at least stop misleading others.
> *
> 
> *trans. Guy A. Marco and Claude V Palisca, New York, Norton (1976), pp. 184-90.


You're ascribing too much importance to Zarlino. He was an Italian theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and his main contributions were in the area of tuning, temperament, and meantone tempering. He theorized the primacy of triad over interval, thus perhaps foreshadowing Rameau's "root" idea.
But this was all before harmony had developed the ideas of chords and chord progressions.

*Retort: You don't know what I'm talking about. Your knowledge of music history is distorted, and does not venture outside the box of your paradigms. So before you make insulting pronouncements such as the above, please be sure you understand what it is I am saying about harmony. Your arrogance in accusing me of spreading erroneous information has no place in a civil forum where ideas are discussed.
*


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