Dominant chord

“ First is shown the G major triad; 46a gives the three part chord played in arpeggi form; 46b has the mediant and the dominant repeated, and 46c introduces the C and the A♯, both notes being foreign to the harmony, but used as passing notes. ”

“ Men chord sometimes as the flute and the pumpkin vine, a perfect chord, a harmony, but no melody. They are not of equal fineness of tone. For the most part I find that in another man and myself the keynote is not the same, so that there are no perfect chords in our gamuts. ”

“ Not quite so trifling as you may think, however; for a single musical chord is a more important and complex thing than to the careless ear it would seem. Who ever cares to study a single chord of music? ”

“ Harmony arranges musical sounds with reference to their union, and is regulated by artistic and æsthetic rules and requirements. It has endless modes of transforming, inverting and intensifying its materials, thus continually affording new means of development. All the intervals and chords used in music had to be discovered, one by one. It often took more than a century to bring into a general use a chord effect introduced by some adventuresome spirit. ”

“ Ah! could we but see the vibrations of the atmosphere which a single musical chord produces—the rolling bass, the gliding alto, the sweeping soprano, and the soaring tenor, rolling onward in one broad channel of harmony, with its myriad tributary streams of thirds and fifths, and its curling, twinkling, shifting, blending, soaring mists of delicate-toned harmonics, how would our enjoyment of music be enhanced! ”

“ Successions of consonant perfect chords of the triad have nowadays become so strange and unfamiliar to us, in our effeminacy, that many an one whose soul is wholly closed to the holy sees nothing in them but helpless unskilfulness of technical construction. But, looking away from those higher considerations, and adverting merely to what we are used to call 'effect,' it is clear as day (as you said already, Theodore) , that, in a church, in a great resonant building, everything in the nature of the blending of chord with chord by means of 'transition notes,' weakens the power of the music. ”

“ But nature is ever liberal, and her chords are generally harmonies, or exquisite modifications of concord. The chord of the tonic, in music, is the primal type of this harmony in sound; it is perfectly satisfactory to the tympanum; and the ear, knowing no further elements (for the tonic chord combines them all) , can ask for nothing more. ”

“ These simple sequences of harmony, consisting almost wholly of triads, this mixing and sustaining of the voices, at one time increasing to the most tumultuous forte, at another dying away into the softest pianissimo; the continual and lengthened sustaining of single tones to a degree attainable only by the lungs of a castrated person, and then especially the soft introduction of a chord, while that of other voices is still faintly sustained, give to this music, in spite of all its deficiencies, something so peculiar, that one feels irresistibly attracted by it. ”

“ A truer simile may perhaps be drawn from the Baptistery of Pisa, where the janitor—humble link in the “nutritive chain”—chants a note to show the wonderful echo, and after its long reverberation has been sufficiently demonstrated he sounds the notes of a simple chord, one after another, so that the earlier notes remain alive and enter into harmony with the new ones, and one hears an enchanting quartet—yea, even a quintet or a sextet. Sometimes he will set an even more complex chord in vibration, and all the air is full of delicious harmony. ”

“ The fact that these pieces invariably close on the tonic or keynote proves that all the modulations are referred to the fundamental tone of the chord, and gives evidence of a musical feeling and sense of harmony such as only human beings are usually supposed to possess. ”

“ This chord, constructed on the tonic C, or Do, as a key note, and consisting of the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the diatonic scale, or Do, Mi, Sol, is called the fundamental chord. The harmony in color which corresponds to this, and leaves nothing for the eye to desire, is, of course, the light that nature is full of [Pg 539] —sunlight. White light is then the fundamental chord of color, and it is constructed on the red as the tonic, consisting of red, yellow, and blue, the 1st, 3d, and 5th of the solar spectrum.
This little analogy is suggestive, but its development is striking. ”

“ Well, the musician has taken for the fundamental basis of his music, for its sole motif, a simple chord in C. The sun first sheds its light on the mountain-tops and then in the valleys. In the same way the chord is first heard on the treble string of the violins with boreal mildness; it spreads through the orchestra, it awakes the instruments one by one, and flows among them. Just as light glides from one thing to the next, giving them color, the music moves on, calling out each rill of harmony till all flow together in the tutti. ”

“ A very important technical point of the work is the treatment of the chords in the introduction and in the allegro. All must have a melodic quality in their highest tones, since the melody passes through the chord. Neglect of this imparts a brutal and unmusical quality to the tones of chords struck so forcibly. Throughout the work strong contrasts continually occur between the impassioned motive and the pathetic or appealing idea. ”

“ A certain chord, or succession of chords, or especially a certain melo-harmonic phrase, touches the sensitive ear with a peculiar thrill, and this happens over and over again, and continually in the more fortunate works of all the great masters, when followed by sympathetic hearers. The point in this connection which we have to notice is that the capacity of feeling to be touched and awakened by tonal incitations is practically universal as regards civilized man. ”

“ What a rich note is to a pure and thin one, that a chord is to a note; nor is melody wholly different in principle, for it is a chord rendered piece-meal. Time intervenes, and the harmony is deployed; so that in melody rhythm is added, with its immense appeal, to the cumulative effect already secured by rendering many notes together. The heightened effect which a note gets by figuring in a phrase, or a phrase in a longer passage, comes of course from the tensions established and surviving in the sensorium—a case, differently shaded, of chords and overtones. ”

“ He will not be content with a mere accompaniment to some leading part. The harmonizing of these several melodies, that they may at every instant make recognized and well-proportioned combinations called chords, constitutes the modern science of harmony. This science is based upon the comparatively recent discoveries that Nature herself supplies a full chord, or cortége of harmonic sounds, to attend every single note, and others also to attend a union of two notes, and so on. ”

“ Only by passing on and on, from chord to chord in ever-changing forms, from sweetest consonance to most brilliant dissonance, from exciting successions and combinations to calming ones, is harmonic texture provided for musical compositions. Sometimes, also, the melody remains unchanged when the harmonies are greatly altered, so that its expression may be varied, as the features of the same countenance may express varied emotions, and yet be always recognized. ”

“ It is everything. It stops the power of poisons and is redoubted by evil spirits.” According to the Pythagorean school of philosophy, the world is a piece of harmony and man the full chord. The major chord consists of a fundamental or tonic, its major third and its just fifth. The eighth note, or complement of the octave, is the diapason of man. ”

“ With the development of our modern system of tonality we have come to think tonally; and a chord lying outside of the key in which a musical thought is conceived will carry with it a sense of confusion or mystery that our modern art of harmony and tone colour has made its own. Thus, while any simple low chords accompanying the first notes of Raff's “Im Walde” symphony, given by the horns and violins, would suggest gloom pierced by the gleams of light, the remoteness of the chords to the tonality of C major gives a suggestion of mystery ”

“ These irregular forms of rhythm are called syncopation. See also Ex. 6, second Phrase.
MELODY.—Any succession of single tones is a melody. If we strike the keys of the piano with two or more fingers of each hand simultaneously, we produce a body of tones, which—if they are so chosen that they blend harmoniously—is called a Chord; and a series of such chords is an illustration of what is known as Harmony. If, however, we play with one finger only, we produce a melody. The human voice, the flute, horn,—all instruments capable of emitting but one tone at a time,—produce melody. ”

“ Sing C, think D and E and sing F. The major Sixth and Seventh are always hard to sing. To reach a Sixth, strike the Fifth, already learned in the common chord, and go up one, then think the Fifth and sing the Sixth. When the Third, Fifth and Octave of the common chord are sung readily, the singing a Fourth becomes merely a matter—for the time being—of thinking the Third and adding a semitone; similarly with a Sixth—thinking the Fifth,—and with the Seventh, thinking the Octave and subtracting a semitone. In a short time the thinking of other tones will not be required. ”

“ And this is particularly true of these complex impressions which result from several notes combined in harmony. The stimulus which we receive from a chord is, for obvious reasons, more vehement and acute than that which we receive from any of its constituent notes taken separately; and hence it is in our appreciation of harmonies, more than in any other form of musical effect, that the sensuous side of the art becomes apparent. ”

“ Among all the chords practicable in music, there is only one in each key which is called the perfect common chord, or perfect triad. It consists of a bass note or root, its third, its fifth, and when in four parts, the perfect octave also: viz.
or
The third may be either major or minor, according as the key is major or minor; but the fifth and octave must be perfect.
I must once more remind you that all the intervals in each chord are always computed and sought for from the lowest note upwards. ”

“ But by far the most extraordinary fact, with reference to the final adjustment of the piano-forte, is the general acceptation of its particular "temperament" for all instruments having twelve notes to each octave. Whatever other temperament may be chosen for such instruments, only one simple, natural diatonic scale can be properly rendered. With this arrangement, called the "equal temperament," not a single chord is correctly tuned. ”

“ The augmented chord at the words auf ödem Meere, the humorous middle part of the horns, the unison of the trombones which, with the sharp entry of the violas, effect the modulation from B flat to D major, impart the most living colour to each moment. ”

“ The human soul may be compared to those instruments, of which the chords, already diversified in themselves, by the manner in which they have been spun, are also strung upon different notes: struck by the same impulse, each chord gives forth the sound that is peculiar to itself; that is to say, that which depends on its texture, its tension, its volume, on the momentary state in which it is placed by the circumambient air. ”

“ The means of satisfying such a desire being sensations, aural sensations ingeniously built up and combined, they have rightly concentrated their attention on the single moment of merged sounds—the chord—rather than on the procession of separate sounds—the melody, and its relation to other melodies sounding with it. ”

“ We must conceive modal harmony and tonality as a scheme in which voices move independently and melodiously in a scale capable of bearing the three chords of the tonic, dominant and subdominant, besides three other minor triads, but not under such restrictions of symmetrical rhythm and melodic design as will necessitate a confinement to schemes in which these three cardinal chords occupy a central position. The only stipulation is that the relationship of at least two cardinal chords shall appear at every full close. ”

“ The harmonic structure requires to be clearly ascertainable in works of art which are felt to be masterpieces of form, and to be perfectly understood and felt by those who attempt to follow such models: hence, in discussing the structure of works of this kind, the frequent use of such terms as Tonic, or Dominant or Subdominant harmony, which is only a short way of describing harmony of which these respective notes are the roots.
The simplest and most stable of complete combinations in music are the chords consisting of a bass note with its third and perfect fifth ”

“ Now, the modern minor mode is too firmly rooted in its minor tonic chord for the 16th-century feeling of an oblique harmonic scheme to be of more than secondary importance, though that feeling survives, as the discussion of key-relationships will show us. ”

“ But the major triad and its inversion are not the only concords that will be produced by our flux of melodies. From time to time this flux will arrest attention by producing a combination which, while it does not appeal to the ear as being a part of the harmonic chord of nature, yet contains in itself no elements not already present in the major triad. Theorists have in vain tried to find in “nature” a combination of a note with its minor 3rd and perfect 5th ”