TONAL HARMONY – Kostka/Payne

 

CHAPTER 5

 

Principles of Voice Leading

 

This chapter serves as an introduction to the composition (partwriting), exercises that begin in Chapter 6.  After some guidance in the composition of simple melodies in chorale style, you will learn spacing conventions and the proscriptions regarding parallels.

 

It is extremely important to emphasize the historical context of what may at first appear to be arbitrary and fussy “rules.”  You should understand that when we study a style (if tonal music may be broadly termed a “style”), we learn the stylistic norms –those practices that are appropriate to the style because they conform to stylistic norms.  Parallel fifths are not unstylistic in all musical styles, and they are not bad in and of themselves, but they are not stylistic in tonal music.

 

We may compare traditional style in tonal music to, perhaps, other styles.  The style of Dixieland jazz, for example, is easily recognized, but a Dixieland cornet player certainly would not fit in stylistically with a progressive jazz group. Because the cornet player would have the wrong timbre, employ the wrong rhythms, and stay too close to the harmonies in improvisation.  Country music or rock music are similar examples.

 

The Melodic Line

  1. Rhythm
  2. Harmony
  3. Countour

a)    Conjunct (stepwise)

b)    Focal point (the highest note of the melody)

 

  1. Leaps
  2. Tendency tones

 

Notating Chords

      Musical score

1.    Full score

2.    Reduced score

 

Voicing a Single Triad

1.    Close structure

2.    Open structure 

 

Parallel Motion

1.    Parallel 5ths and parallel 8ths (octaves)

2.    Objectionable parallels

3.    Unequal 5ths

4.    Direct (or hidden) 5th or 8ve

5.     

CHAPTER FIVE SUMMARY (from the text book – pg.84)

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