Have the functions like tonic and dominant their effect WITHOUT chords?

[crazyfiltertweaker]

I dont use chords, I use many voicings and get in this way a big fat sound, but do the functions have their well sounding effect without the chords out of third and dominat? I ask because I cant give myself a answer when Im listening to it...

[tapper mike]

If you are using a pad that you did not create by yourself then there in lays If your question is Can I have harmonic movement without implying or expressing the harmony the answer is no.

the possibility that the pad actually does have a chord assigned to it. That is one of the way's pads developed in electronic music. The One finger auto accompaniment chord.

Then there is the power chord debate. You don't use chords but you use voicings. Contemporary popular music treats power chords as chords. And their movement implies a progression. Traditional music teaches us that there must be at least three different identifiable notes to be considered a chord.

You can't create a harmonic function without harmony not unison. You can imply it by ostinato or other means. Once a harmony is shaped by an arpeggio for example that expresses the chord function you have established the chord. The distance between the chords become the focal point of how a progression resolves.

There are two schools of thought regarding modality. The more traditional one states that you remain in key but start on a different degree. You work through the iterations based on the degree. At which time your progression revolves around the mode. That is traditional modality or what I like to call "Static" modality.

Lets say you are playing in the Key of G major. However your chord movement revolves/resolved around the Am chord. The 5th of Am is E If you are resolving to the 5th of the dorian mode then you are resolving to Em. Traditional modality is alive and well in many forms of music but it is not the only method available.

A more fluid or dynamic (though when played it can often turn to mush and sound less dramatic) is contemporary modality. In contemporary modality the melody supports the harmony but is not grafted to the key. Say you are playing a melody over an Am chord and the original key was G. You can choose any variant of Am modes to handle the melodic line. What matters most his how you connect it to the next chord. In "modern jazz" 'jazz fusion' and smooth jazz the focus is where you are moving to. Not where you are. There are a wide variety of substitution methods available for harmonic motion. To improvise successfully in this area requires a great deal of skill, and experience with a small bit of knowledge put into practice. Moreso then other forms of music.
But once again. Once you go down that road you may find that harmonic movement has less dramatic impact. It loses it's "clout"


So in conclusion. Can a simple E note played in unison ever function as an E7 chord. No it will just sound like an E note played in unison. It may sound thicker due to micro tuning of the voices but if they are all the same note then they are all still the same note.

[Plasuma!!!]

Quite the contrary, the traditional approach to modality is very restrictive in the drama department.

Listen to any cinematic score that isn't focused on rhythm and you will hear many examples of a contemporary or Romantic approach - lots of modal interchange and surprising substitutions.

[jancivil]

There are two schools of thought regarding modality. The more traditional one states that you remain in key but start on a different degree. You work through the iterations based on the degree. At which time your progression revolves around the mode. That is traditional modality or what I like to call "Static" modality.

Lets say you are playing in the Key of G major. However your chord movement revolves/resolved around the Am chord. The 5th of Am is E If you are resolving to the 5th of the dorian mode then you are resolving to Em. Traditional modality is alive and well in many forms of music but it is not the only method available.

There is the actual school of thought and yours, which god only knows where that derived from. "resolving to the fifth"; The tonic for A Dorian is A. Full Stop.
EDIT: "Resolving" - for a westerner - connotes a new tonic; if it is a "new tonic" you are, first of all operating in the functional harmony paradigm, and second of all, you're not in A Dorian anymore. This is supposed to be the traditional modality? Who knows what it is, it's something you do with materials but it is not modal usage at all. Now you can have a plateau on another tone in a raga, which is going to accord with P4 or P5 relationship with the tonic, and here we encounter a 'subdominant/dominant' meaning in the shape of the line, but the word 'resolve' here has the implication of harmonic practice as I indicated.

Then we have this:

A more fluid or dynamic (though when played it can often turn to mush and sound less dramatic) is contemporary modality. In contemporary modality the melody supports the harmony but is not grafted to the key. Say you are playing a melody over an Am chord and the original key was G. You can choose any variant of Am modes to handle the melodic line.

If you are playing lines over an Am in the key of G, you are still in the KEY OF G, only the chord is a ii chord. This is meaningless language and it is only going to confuse terms for people. The entire point of a mode is to present melody that belongs to its character. There is no Dorian character in Major, these are two different characters. This may be a belief held by people including you, but there is no reason whatsoever to reform G Major into 'A Dorian' to 'support the chord' A minor.

So in conclusion. Can a simple E note played in unison ever function as an E7 chord. No it will just sound like an E note played in unison. It may sound thicker due to micro tuning of the voices but if they are all the same note then they are all still the same note.

This is not true. A single E can sound like E major, it can sound like E7. This is true because of the overtone series, which is present when there is enough amplification 'distortion' of that fundamental. You can push an open E string on a guitar to a palpable #11 for that matter, at least, with enough feedback between the strings/magnetic pickup and the magnet of the speaker.

[jancivil]

but do the functions have their well sounding effect without the chords out of third and dominat?..

first of all we need to clarify terms. The presence of the fifth in a chord does not equal 'dominant'; 'dominant' is a functional harmony term that means you have a push from a harmony - or tone - to another harmony or tone. Typically a V chord or harmony to I or something resembling it. The push, or tension, is wrapped up in convention and the usage of harmonies. It isn't necessarily going to be true because you are using chords.

Now to answer your actual question: if you have enough amplification of your one note, for instance the waveform has enough 'shape', the harmonic series is present accordingly. You can hear this in a filter sweep according to the cutoff and resonance. You can have what amounts to a chord; a major chord is what it is out of this physical reality, the first five partials are present and you have the root, fifth and major third essentially.

Or in an electroacoustic situation such as magnetic loudspeaker overdrive, and feedback, the series manifests according to the amount of drive, of gain.

[jancivil]

Harmonic function - which I don't have any evidence you are involved in, particularly given the other post where you don't believe you're in any key - do not depend on chords per se. You can have lines against other lines that function harmonically and never define a chord for that matter. Counterpoint is the name for this, which pre-existed 'chords' as we know them today, and in the pedagogy pre-existed 'harmonic' practice; the latter was formed out of the former, historically.

[jancivil]

You can choose any variant of Am modes to handle the melodic line. What matters most his how you connect it to the next chord. In "modern jazz" 'jazz fusion' and smooth jazz the focus is where you are moving to. Not where you are. There are a wide variety of substitution methods available for harmonic motion. To improvise successfully in this area requires a great deal of skill, and experience with a small bit of knowledge put into practice. Moreso then other forms of music.

You're presenting to someone that doesn't think their music is even in a key, Mike.

"A minor modes" denote A minor, a key; now if the target is A minor, that's valid. What you are actually talking about is applying scales to chords. It is in no way modal thought. "'A Dorian' in G Major"; you have two names for one thing, for what reason? Starting a G major scale on A does not get you there. If it helps you to not start it on G, great. But if there is a key of G, there is no mode but that of G. Say you have A-7b5 and you need to think of a scale to fit it and you have a name for that scale. But you're dealing in scales. Call it dorian mode if it helps, fine, but this is not 'contemporary modal school of thought' except to you.

Evidently you will never be convinced, but for the rest of people reading, that is just not too useful, to confound 'modal' with modulatory harmonic practice, ie., "how you connect it to the next chord". It will confuse people and muddy the waters.

[Plasuma!!!]

Evidently you will never be convinced

With their one post to your four in this thread, what evidence is there to even suggest their resistance to other ideas? It's fairly evident that you don't even want this person to learn, you just want to masturbate over theory and boost your post count.

Just pouring over and blathering on about what they wrote like some enraged, pseudo-intellectual weasel is not a solution to teaching. At least give them a chance to converse with you about it so some kind of understanding can be reached.

Honestly, the forum is not a mirror.

[BertKoor]

This thread so far is too theoretic.

Michael, like I said in the other thread, let us listen to an example. Then we can analyse what you are actually doing. That avoids the guessing game and all academic possibilities of the meaning of your statements. Let's focus on the practice.

[datroof]

Evidently you will never be convinced

With their one post to your four in this thread, what evidence is there to even suggest their resistance to other ideas? It's fairly evident that you don't even want this person to learn, you just want to masturbate over theory and boost your post count.

Just pouring over and blathering on about what they wrote like some enraged, pseudo-intellectual weasel is not a solution to teaching. At least give them a chance to converse with you about it so some kind of understanding can be reached.

Honestly, the forum is not a mirror.

Yeah, there's something very unhealthy going on there. If you can't share knowledge with others without trying to include some kind of penalty, or emotional toll, in the form of insults - you've got issues that need to be addressed. Get some help.

[jancivil]

I was addressing things that are very much incorrect, posted by Mike consistently for years (certain evidence that he is going to stick with that story and is resistant to facts that don't fit it) that will confuse people that are new to terms. I think now it is a kind of mistake to do that here; one, because it takes threads off topic, and two, because of people such as you that are somehow driven to (outside of the context of the interaction between Mike and myself) exact a personal toll from me. which, as far as mirrors, you - both of you trolls - could stand to reflect some yourself, isn't it.

when it is pretty much the extent of what you have to contribute to this subforum perhaps you're not the person to act as policeman here. I wasn't abusing Mike personally, what I said is true about the situation. we've been back and forth more than once on it, there is nothing unfair in what I wrote about it.

[Lazos]

This thread so far is too theoretic.

Michael, like I said in the other thread, let us listen to an example. Then we can analyse what you are actually doing. That avoids the guessing game and all academic possibilities of the meaning of your statements. Let's focus on the practice.

This.

We cannot know what to give advice on without hearing the sounds that the OP is referring to. Then we can begin to talk about whether it has a speck of "functional harmony", "modal characteristics", is primarily textural, etc. etc.

[datroof]

It's not my fault!! It's those other people [insert names here]!

Isn't it always?

Attack the messenger, etc.

Does that strategy ever really work for you?