The Tonic as Triad: Key Profiles as Pitch Salience Profiles of Tonic Triads

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 333-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Parncutt
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Music Psychology ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Composition ◽  
And Inversion ◽  
Tonic Triad

Major and minor triads emerged in western music in the 13th to 15th centuries. From the 15th to the 17th centuries, they increasingly appeared as final sonorities. In the 17th century, music-theoretical concepts of sonority, root, and inversion emerged. I propose that since then, the primary perceptual reference in tonal music has been the tonic triad sonority (not the tonic tone or chroma) in an experiential (not physical or notational) representation. This thesis is consistent with the correlation between the key profiles of Krumhansl and Kessler (1982; here called chroma stability profiles) and the chroma salience profiles of tonic triads (after Parncutt, 1988). Chroma stability profiles also correlate with chroma prevalence profiles (of notes in the score), suggesting an implication-realization relationship between the chroma prevalence profile of a passage and the chroma salience profile of its tonic triad. Convergent evidence from psychoacoustics, music psychology, the history of composition, and the history of music theory suggests that the chroma salience profile of the tonic triad guided the historical emergence of major-minor tonality and continues to influence its perception today.

scholarly journals The Rules of Engagement: Richard Taruskin and the History of Western Music

2007 ◽  
pp. 21-49
Author(s):  
Harry White
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Tonal Music ◽  
Western Art ◽  
Radical Critique ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
History Of ◽  
Anglo American

The Oxford History of Western Music (2005) is a scrutiny of the ‘literate tradition’ of music in European and North American culture from the beginnings of notation to the end of the twentieth century. Richard Taruskin’s monumental and profoundly erudite engagement with a thousand years of western art music is animated from the outset by a radical critique of German idealism and the influence which this has exerted on the formation and transmission of European and American musical thought. Taruskin takes the view that as a result of this influence, the history of music has been seriously distorted, especially in regard to the contractual intelligibility of musical discourse in relation to society. The prestige of progressivism, as this is manifested in atonal and serial composition, in primitivism and neoclassicism, has enjoyed an excessive pre-eminence which eclipses in turn the narrative clarity of tonal music in the twentieth century.In this review essay, Taruskin’s indictment of historicism as a primary agent in the perpetuation of (German and Anglo-American) musicological orthodoxy is appraised in the context of his own obligations to narrative, musical analysis and the reception history of musical works. Taruskin’s identification of an historicist ‘master-narrative’ in earlier surveys of western music is considered in relation to a new master- narrative, of Taruskin’s own making, which condemns the hegemony of musical idealism at every turn. The tension which arises between this enduring preoccupation and the author’s sustained engagement with individual musical texts tends to confirm the autonomy of the musical work, not as an object immune (or indifferent) to history, but as a nexus of social, ideological and political expression which attains to a self-standing aesthetic integrity.

The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory

2007 ◽  
Vol 93 (4) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Fetters ◽  
Thomas Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Music Theory ◽  
Western Music ◽  
History Of

MusicXML

2012 ◽  
pp. 187-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael D. Good
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Music Notation ◽  
Design And Development ◽  
Sheet Music ◽  
History Of

MusicXML is a universal interchange and distribution format for common Western music notation. MusicXML’s design and development began in 2000, with the purpose to be the MP3 equivalent for digital sheet music. MusicXML was developed by Recordare and can represent music from the 17th century onwards, including guitar tablature and other music notations used to notate or transcribe contemporary popular music. MusicXML is supported by over 160 applications. The development and history of MusicXML is described in this chapter.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document