Tonic (music)
This article may be too technical for most readers to understand.(December 2021) |
In
The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant chord in these styles of music. In Roman numeral analysis, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it is major and by "i" if it is minor.
In very much conventionally tonal music, harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of the primary (often triadic) harmonies: tonic, dominant, and subdominant (i.e., I and its chief auxiliaries a 5th removed), and especially the first two of these.
— Berry (1976)[2]
These chords may also appear as seventh chords: in major, as IM7, or in minor as i7 or rarely iM7:[3]
The tonic is distinguished from the root, which is the reference note of a chord, rather than that of the scale.
Importance and function
In music of the common practice period, the tonic center was the most important of all the different tone centers which a composer used in a piece of music, with most pieces beginning and ending on the tonic, usually modulating to the dominant (the fifth scale degree above the tonic, or the fourth below it) in between.
Two parallel keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C. However, relative keys (two different scales that share a key signature) have different tonics. For example, C major and A minor share a key signature that feature no sharps or flats, despite having different tonic pitches (C and A, respectively).
The term tonic may be reserved exclusively for use in tonal contexts while tonal center or pitch center may be used in
The tonic includes four separate activities or roles as the principal goal tone, initiating event, generator of other tones, and the stable center neutralizing the tension between dominant and subdominant.
See also
- Final (music)
- Fundamental frequency – Lowest frequency of a periodic waveform, such as sound
- Double tonic
- Key
- Subtonic
- Supertonic
References
- ISBN 978-0-07-310187-3.
- ISBN 0-486-25384-8.
- OCLC 51613969.
- JSTOR 832876.
- OCLC 3240273.[page needed]
- JSTOR 832252.
- ISBN 0-393-95480-3.
External links
- Media related to Tonic (music) at Wikimedia Commons