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Understanding Harmony, Texture, Tonality, and Mode in Music

Explore the essence of harmony, texture, tonality, and mode in music, distinguishing between monophony, homophony, and polyphony, and understanding major vs. minor modes and tonal centers.

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Understanding Harmony, Texture, Tonality, and Mode in Music

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  1. Chapter 4 Harmony, Texture, Tonality, and Mode

  2. Key Terms • Chord • Harmonize • Harmony • Consonance • Dissonance • Resolve

  3. Harmony • Prominent feature of Western music • Simultaneous pitches • Accompaniment for a melody

  4. Chords • Groupings of simultaneous pitches • A shifting sound background for melody

  5. Consonance • Sounds pleasing or at rest • Octaves are most consonant

  6. Dissonance • Sounds discordant, creates tension • Creates a desire to resolve to consonance

  7. Listening Exercises • Stability and instability • Tension and release • Consonance, dissonance, and resolution

  8. Key Terms • Texture • Monophony (monophonic) • Homophony (homophonic) • Polyphony (polyphonic) • Counterpoint • Imitative and non-imitative

  9. Texture The relationship between a melody and all other lines and figures that coexist with it

  10. Three Questions to Identify Texture • How many melodic lines do you hear? • Are all the lines equally interesting? • How similar or different are they?

  11. How many melodic lines do you hear? • How many different things are going on at one time? • Melody only? • More than one melody? • Any chords, figures, bass lines, or countermelodies?

  12. Are all the lines equally interesting? • Is there a foreground/background relationship? • Is there one main melody with clear patterns supporting it? • Is it hard to tell which is the main melody?

  13. How similar or different are they? • Same rhythms or different rhythms? • Same melodies or different melodies?

  14. Monophonic Texture • Only one line, nothing else

  15. Homophonic Texture • Two or more lines • One main melody with other parts supporting it (accompaniment)

  16. Polyphonic Texture • Two or more lines • All competing for your attention • Same melodies = Imitative • Different melodies = Non-imitative

  17. Imitative Polyphony

  18. Non-imitative Polyphony

  19. Listening Exercises • Monophonic? • Homophonic? • Polyphonic? • Imitative or non-imitative polyphony?

  20. Key Terms • Tonality, tonal • Tonic • Modality • Mode • Major mode, minor mode • Key • Modulation

  21. Tonality • Musical center of gravity • Feeling of a “home” pitch • A nearly universal phenomenon

  22. Tonal vs. Atonal • Tonal = Having sense of tonality • Atonal = Absence of tonality • Creates a wandering, unsettled quality • Used in some contemporary styles

  23. Tonic Pitch • The “home” pitch toward which other pitches lead • The first note of a scale (do re mi fa sol la ti do) • The most stable, fundamental pitch • The “at rest” note on which tonal melodies end

  24. Modality • Different ways of organizing the diatonic scale • Most Western music uses major and minor • Major scale = do re mi fa sol la ti do • Minor scale = la is the tonic, not do

  25. Major and Minor Modes

  26. Major vs. Minor • Major scales • Begin with two whole steps • End with a half step • Tend to sound brighter, happier • Minor scales • Begin with a whole step and a half step • End with a whole step • Tend to sound darker, sadder

  27. Major vs. Minor • Scale steps 3, 6, and 7 are a half step lower in the minor mode

  28. Key • Scales can begin on any note on the keyboard • Tonic pitch = Name of key • Scales can be major or minor • Pattern of whole and half steps must be observed

  29. Keys • Key of C major: major scale beginning on C • Key of D minor: minor scale beginning on D

  30. Modulation • Changing to a different key • Disrupts the pull toward the tonic • Creates a new tonal center • Creates variety, mystery, excitement, disorientation, etc.

  31. Listening Exercises • Tonal or atonal? • Major or minor mode? • Modulation?

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