Chord naming in atonal music

[Kris]

Usually it isn't. Jazz players are experts in rapidly working out the upper reaches (tertiary harmony) of chords and don't need to have the root sounding in order for them to hear and understand the chord sans root.

Well I didn't want to take that point any further because it was not essential to the original question, but you are quite right Denian! And it's not just in jazz either. It was a while ago now, and I can't remember if it was during one om my guitar lessons or piano lessons, but I remember my teacher calling out the chords we where playing. At one point, I stopped playing and asked "What? An Xyz chord?". The root was missing, and my teacher explained that it was implied, and your brain will "fill in the gap". I do know it was classical music though, because that's 100% of my guitar teaching and 99% of my piano teaching.

defines a chord as a "simultaneous sounding of three or more tones..."

Ah, but that doesn't necessarily imply that all "simultaneous sounding of three or more tones..." are chords. A parrot is a bird, but not all birds are parrots

Interestingly, in "Romantic" music you might find traditional chords all over the place, but no "key center".

But isn't it more the case that romantic music has many key centers rather than no key centers?

But I think I get it. In atonal music, you can call a set of notes a chord if you want to, and even label it with a name. However, there would be little point in doing so. Chords are based on harmony, which is absent in atonal music.

[Larry McDonald]

Hi,

Quote: Try this one instead: C-F#-A-D#.

OK. I'll bite. If I was analyzing in ordered Pitch-class space, it would be a [0,6,9,15]. If I was analyzing in pitch-class set-class space (unordered), it would be a [o,3,6,9].

One could also think of it as a mirror chord. It is a pair of stacked tritones, mirrored in the quarter step between G and Ab.

If I was playing this in a George Harrison piece, I would finger the D# on the 4th string on the first fret, call it D# diminished, and let it resolve to E-minor, as it does in "My Sweet Lord".

All the best,
Lare

[yotamz]

What he said.

FYI, there are no 'chords' in atonal music, only 'tone-clusters', 'pitch-class subsets', and 'vibrational concurrences'.

Actually, the Harvard Dictionary of Music defines a chord as a "simultaneous sounding of three or more tones...". If we agree on this definition then chords actually do occur in atonal music (as well as the other items you mentioned). They just don't have the same function or meaning as in tonal music.

lam

Hey, I was kidding. Of course there are 'chords', and I agree that three or more tones make a chord.

I want to point out that a tonal chord like Am would never appear in atonal music, and the 'chords' that do come up are referred to as 'tone-clusters'. The other names were an attempt at a joke about the stiff scientific nature of 12-tone composers.

Kris - Theoretically, any three or more notes can be analyzed as a chord. It doesn't mean that it always makes sense, but theoretically it's possible.

The 'ear filling in' part only works within a harmonic context. For example take a standard progression like IV - vi - ii - V -I and omit a note from one of the chords, it will still sound like a IV - vi - ii - V - I. Omit a note from a standalone chord and you won't have the context to know what note was omitted. Kind of like if I wrote 'The girl plyed with her doll', you'll know I really meant 'played', but if I just present you with the word 'plyed' you wouldn't have any context to deduce that this is a whole other word with a letter omitted.

[lam]

Hey, I was kidding. Of course there are 'chords', and I agree that three or more tones make a chord.

I want to point out that a tonal chord like Am would never appear in atonal music, and the 'chords' that do come up are referred to as 'tone-clusters'. The other names were an attempt at a joke about the stiff scientific nature of 12-tone composers.

Sorry, I missed the "smiley" face. I wasn't trying to be pedantic but the "ex-professor" in me is a bit sensitive to anything that, in a public forum, might be mis-interpreted by those who might not have the background to separate the facts from fiction.

lam

[Kris]

Hi,

Quote: Try this one instead: C-F#-A-D#.

OK. I'll bite. If I was analyzing in ordered Pitch-class space, it would be a [0,6,9,15]. If I was analyzing in pitch-class set-class space (unordered), it would be a [o,3,6,9].

One could also think of it as a mirror chord. It is a pair of stacked tritones, mirrored in the quarter step between G and Ab.

If I was playing this in a George Harrison piece, I would finger the D# on the 4th string on the first fret, call it D# diminished, and let it resolve to E-minor, as it does in "My Sweet Lord".

All the best,
Lare

I would call it a diminished 7 chord. But which one? Is it a C, D#, F# or an A diminished 7 chord? I thought it a better example of an ambiguous chord. Obviously, the harmonic context would tell us which of the four is the better chord name.

[Kris]

The 'ear filling in' part only works within a harmonic context.

Exactly! That's what I was trying, most unsuccessfully apparently, to get across. It's the harmonic context that lets us omit a note, even the root, yet still perceive it as an FMaj7 instead of an Am (in my example). I wasn't prepared to have that point questioned, and it wasn't intended to be the subject of the thread. But it's all good, whichever way it leads is fine.

[Larry McDonald]

Hi,

I would call it a diminished 7 chord. But which one? Is it a C, D#, F# or an A diminished 7 chord? I thought it a better example of an ambiguous chord. Obviously, the harmonic context would tell us which of the four is the better chord name.

Yes, it is a fully diminished (some call it doubly diminished -or "ddm") 7th chord. There are only four of these; the 1 you have written -and its enharmonic equivalents, plus three transpositions -and their enharmonic equivalents. The spelling in this example shows that it is a D# ddim, since the seventh would be between the D# and the C. Written in this way, the chord stacks up in the traditional tertian manner (3rds).

You are right to ask the question about which chord it is, since the ddim 7th has perfect symmetry within in a key, which is shared with several other keys. (It is just this symmetry that composers exploit to change keys through this chord, kinda like the secret doors in the "Clue" board game). If you respelled the chord starting on C for example, the ddim 7th would be C, Eb, Gb, Bbb, and would resolve one half-step higher into the mythical key of Db minor. You can see that the seventh is between the C and the B double-flat.

It sounds and looks the same on the guitar, but we like to write accidentals that are associated with the key. In "My Sweet Lord", we are in the key of E minor, where F# and D# are components of the E harmonic minor scale, and, therefore, we spell it as a D#dd7. So you see, by respelling the chord -our secret door, we can resolve it in several ways into several keys.

All the best,
Lare
Private -Worst Class, Theory Police, Semantic Division

[Denian Arcoleo]

Hi Larry, I fully agree with all you've explained in this thread, except for this:

Yes, it is a fully diminished (some call it doubly diminished -or "ddm") 7th chord. There are only four of these; the 1 you have written -and its enharmonic equivalents, plus three transpositions -and their enharmonic equivalents.

Surely there are only three diminished chords which contain notes distinct from one another. For example, if you play an E diminished chord on the guitar at fret 2 off string 4 ( E,Bb,Csharp,G) and then move it up the neck by semitones, when you reach fret five you are playing G,Csharp,E,Bb ...the same chord. In between there are only two other distinct dim' chords, so three in total.

[Larry McDonald]

Hi Denian,

Surely there are only three diminished chords which contain notes distinct from one another. For example, if you play an E diminished chord on the guitar at fret 2 off string 4 ( E,Bb,Csharp,G) and then move it up the neck by semitones, when you reach fret five you are playing G,Csharp,E,Bb ...the same chord. In between there are only two other distinct dim' chords, so three in total.

Thank you Denian. You are correct, of course.

Lare

[joeshie]

Not to "beat a dead horse" here, but Chris Davis is correct in answering the original question (which seems to have had many responses). An A-C-E chord is still an Am chord no matter the tonal or atonal context. Function does not determine everything about what we call a chord, only its "functional label (i.e. tonic, dominant, sub-mediant, etc.). An Am chord has no harmonic function outside of a tonal context so we can only call an Am chord.

I have to agree with Chris too, that calling A-C-E an FM7 with no root is not appropriate or neccessary in an atonal context. As you wrote, jazz musicians do this all the time, but ONLY in a tonal context where it is appropriate at times and where another instrument may be playing the root. There may be numerous modulations in a given jazz tune, but modualtions would obviously not negate a tonal context. Actually, classical musicians do this all the time too (imply omitted roots of chords), but again, only where the tonal context warrants.

In any event, in an atonal piece of music, there is likely to still be a compositional system used that would determine the analytical system to use to make sense of the material.

Sorry for the redundancy. -Joe