What is tonality in music. The tone of the song. Major, minor

Before analyzing this or that musical composition, the performer first of all pays attention to the key and key marks. After all, it depends not only on the correct reading of notes, but also on the integrity of the work. An interesting fact is that many composers have a color hearing and represent each key in certain colors. Does this happen by chance? Or is this a subtle inner flair?

Concept and definition of key

Famous theoreticians BL Yavorsky and IV Sposobin point out that this is a high-altitude fret position. So, for example, if the tonic is "before", and the mode is "majeure", then the key will be "C major".

In a narrower (specific) meaning, the tonality in music is also a system of functionally differentiated connections, with a certain height. Only on the basis of the triad of the consonant. It is characteristic for the harmony of the 17-19th centuries (classic-romantic). In a concrete case it is possible to speak about the existence of several tonalities, their system of relationships. Such, for example, as the quarto-fifth circle, their related tonalities, parallel , the same name, and so on.

Another value. This is a hierarchically centralized system of high-altitude connections, which are functionally delineated (differentiated). From its unification with the fret, palmarity is formed.

Tonality in the 16th century

The tone in the music of the 16th century is in a quandary. The term itself was introduced in 1821 by F. A. J. Castil-Blazl (a famous French theoretician). Continued to develop and disseminate the concept of tonality since 1844 F. J. Fetis. In Russia, this term was not used, and at all until the end of the 19th century. In the writings of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky on tonal harmony is nowhere to be found. And only Taneyev's book "Movable counterpoint of strict writing," finished in 1906, sheds light on her.

The term "tonality" has several meanings. Firstly, it is a ladotonal harmonic-functional system. Secondly, this is a concrete tonality in music. That is, some kind of pancake variety at a certain height. The modern concept of tonality is excellently revealed in the work of Charles Dalhaus. He treats it in the broadest sense of the word. Based on its definition, it becomes obvious that the ancient Gregorian melody is the first pattern of tonality. He notes that, in addition to the accordion-harmonic, there is a melodic tonality.

The main signs of tonality

1. Presence of a certain base or center. It can be a sound, a chord or a completely different central element.
2. The presence of some organization of sound relations, which directly combines them into a hierarchically co-ordinated system.
3. Single head, center or whole system, which must be fixed at the same height. Proceeding from this it follows that the tonality in music assumes the existence of a kind of centralization, which is located around this or that element.
4. Lad (major, minor), which is given in the form of a chord system and a melody going along their "canvas".
5. A number of characteristic dissonances: D with septima and S with sexta.
6. Internal change of harmony.
7. The ladder structure, which is based on three main functions: a tonic, a subdominant and a dominant.
8. Large forms based on modulation.

The tone and tonality of Palestrina

The classical tonality is dominated by the principle of gravity toward the center (tonic). In the modal same mode, on the contrary, there is no such thing. There is only subordination to the scale. Palestrina clearly identified the main features of the fret system in the presence of two layers. This is a choral (monodic) substructure and its structural reorganization. In the Palestinian mode there is no clear attraction to the tonic. There is also no category as such. Palestrina has a holistic organization of sounds arranged in height. There are no cadences, accordingly, there is no inclination towards the foundations. That is, constructions can belong to absolutely any harmony. So, Palestrina does not have a tonality like the Viennese classics (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven).

Monodic frets and harmonic tonalities

Major and minor stand on a par with other modes: Aeolian, Ionian, Phrygian, everyday, Locri, Dorian, Mixolydian, and pentatonic. Between harmonic tonalities and monodic frets is a huge difference. The majorities of majeure and minor are inherent in internal tension, activity, dynamization and purposefulness of movement. They are also characterized by diverse functional relationships and marginal centralization. All this is absent in monodic modes. They also do not have a clear attraction to the tonic, its dominance. The pronounced dynamism of the tonal system closely adjoins the character of the European thinking of the epoch of modern times. E. Lovinsky successfully noted that modality, in fact, is a stable view of the world, and the tone on the contrary is dynamic.

What colors of the rainbow do composers "color" the tonality?

Each tonality, being in the system, has a certain function not only in dynamic-harmonic relations, but also in the coloristic plane. In this regard, extremely common ideas about the nature and color (color in the literal sense).

For example, the key in C major is central in the general system and is considered the most simple, so it is painted white. Many musicians, including great composers, often have a color hearing. A clear representative of this rumor is Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov.

So, for example, the key in "E major" was associated with several: bright green, the color of spring birch and pastoral shades. "E flat major" for him is mostly a dark and gloomy tonality, which he painted in his imagination in a gray-bluish tone, characteristic of cities and fortresses. Ludwig van Beethoven considered the "B minor" black. This color is not surprising, because the works written in this key, always sound sad and tragic. As you can see, colors do not arise randomly, they fully correspond to the expressive nature of music. If you change the tonality, it will acquire completely different colors. A graphic example of this, the arrangement of the motet of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Ave verum corpus, K.-V. 618) by Franz Liszt. From "D major" he transposed it into "B major", in connection with which the style of music changed, the features of romanticism appeared.

What role and role does tonality play in music?

Since the 17th century, various tonalities of chords, mostly with complex structures, have become an important musical expressive medium. Sometimes and tonal drama is a competition of thematic, stage and text. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky believed that the essence of musical thought directly depends on harmony and modulation, rather than on the melodic figure. In the construction of musical forms, the tremendous role of tonality is indisputable. This is especially true of large forms: sonata, cyclic, opera, rondo and so on. Among the tools that give prominence and relief, the following stand out: the gradual or sudden transition from one tonality to another, the rapid change of modulations, the juxtaposition of contrasting episodes. All this happens against a background of a stable stay in the main key.

Kinship of tonalities

Related tonalities are the first, second and third degree. To group number one all the chords of the diatonic system of the selected or given tonality are included. To find them is extremely simple. For this, it is required from the tonic to find chords of subdominants and dominants. This is the fourth and fifth steps. They also have their own related chords, which are identical to them in terms of sound composition. The second degree of kinship is a tonality with the same tonic, but different frets (like the same tones). For example, "C major" and "C minor". Signs of tonalities, respectively, will be different. In "C major" they are not, and in the minor of the same name are three flats.

The chords of the third group have a common stage (3). To the third degree of kinship there are also two chords identical in structure and standing at a distance of three tones. For example, this is "C major" and "F sharp sharp". All this knowledge is very useful if you need to change the key of a song by modulation or rejection.

Conclusion

Thus, tonality has a set of main features that determine its essence. Theorists interpret it in different ways. Also, scientists disagree about its revival and extinction. If researchers and musicians of Western European countries discovered it early (back in the 14th century), in Russia it was used much later. That is why the tonality in the music of the Viennese classics and romantics differs significantly from the one that Palestrina had and will have in Shostakovich, Hindemith, Shchedrin and other composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.