Tritone chord root movement

[Christian Miller]

I was wrong! It’s a sequence :-)


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[pamosmusic]

Yeah the part writing rules are so riddled with exceptions that they aren’t really useful as rules beyond classrooms.

I think they all boil down to The Voices Must Sound Independent.

Parallel fifths just tend to start sounding like a more homophonic and less independent texture. Etc. overused they sound kind of weird, but in practice they’re all over the place in chorale style music.

I think the problem is just that tritones are very distinctive intervals, so the ear just jumps to that part and it dominates the others a bit. But someone like Bach is always going to be able to use that sound in an artful way that doesn’t draw from the other voices. Or maybe that draws attention from the other voices at a strategic time.

Anyway —- seems weird to have to say this, but art is of course an art, not a science

[ragman1]

a popular myth

Apparently so.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah the part writing rules are so riddled with exceptions that they aren’t really useful as rules beyond classrooms.

Tbh I think this has always been the case. The CPE Bach keyboard book which Derek Remes seems to think is fairly representative of how his dad taught has some fun stuff in it but the details of four voice leading in continuo makes my eyes glaze over. I suspect it’s the sort of thing that would just come from many thousands of hours of actually doing music. Just like jazz…

I think they all boil down to The Voices Must Sound Independent.

Parallel fifths just tend to start sounding like a more homophonic and less independent texture. Etc. overused they sound kind of weird, but in practice they’re all over the place in chorale style music.

That’s my understanding of it.

I think the problem is just that tritones are very distinctive intervals, so the ear just jumps to that part and it dominates the others a bit. But someone like Bach is always going to be able to use that sound in an artful way that doesn’t draw from the other voices. Or maybe that draws attention from the other voices at a strategic time.

Anyway —- seems weird to have to say this, but art is of course an art, not a science

Of course we are talking about melodic tritones. Which makes me think of this where it is used expressively to paint the text on ‘Nach Golgotha.’

Here the soloist and bass are basically in unison, so it’s not quite the same.

Having the tritone in both voices is interesting, but I don’t think I know enough Bach to comment on how common or uncommon they are. I would expect him to use them more than most - it seems like a Bach sound to me. But I don’t really know tbh. I’ll see if I can spot any examples from now on….


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[pauln]

Tritones were introduced progressively first in measure 5 as the lone tritone C# - G.
Then measure 6 revealed two pairs of tritones, familiar C# - G and the new E - Bb.
Diminished can't produce more tritones without projecting outside themselves.
One way is to project voice motion as in the lead-in tritone moves into measure 9.
Projecting that motion in opposed directions is wonderful and dramatic.
Notice that the preceding two plain Jane measures of Dm crescendo up to mf for the beginning of measure 9, then the notes of measure 9 decrescendo fully back within that measure.

[alez]

I don’t think the OP was attempting to analyze the Bach in these terms. Just noticing that it was considered unusual in the context of counterpoint, but that it is not terribly unusual in jazz harmony

Yes. I mixed the two things because my knowledge on counterpoint is nonexistent and I was wondering whether this had any relation to the tritone root movement I sometimes find in jazz.

Not that anyone asked but at a glance it’s a short Quiescenza in Dm (Dm Gm/D C#o7/D - classic Bach prelude move see also bwv999) followed by a move into the dominant of Am (E7) via a 6 4 chord (Dm/A G#o7 E.)

I see, so it's a E7. I thought the A note on the downbeat made it whatever else, but no.

For extra Nerd points note the ascending form melodic minor used in decent in bar 10. Classic German late baroque.

Interesting. I guess it can only remain a E7 if that form is kept regardless of what direction is being used, ascending or descending.

First page.

Hey, nice one, thanks.

Tritones were always fine, apparently that's a popular myth... There's quite a good Adam Neely video on it. Actually one of his best IMO.

It must be this:

I see it's more about the sound of two simultaneous notes a tritone apart, but it's really interesting, thanks.

[Christian Miller]

I’ve been playing around with that little Dm/A G#o7 move with the tritones in the outer voices and I have to say it does sound very Bachian specifically to my ears.

@Alez yes then ascending melodic minor is used as a dominant. Very common in Bach but also I noticed it in a David Kellner lute piece (Kellner being a Leipzig contemporary of JS) so presumably not uncommon. Not sure about Italian baroque music etc. I think it’s regarded as a bit of a Bach thing?


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[Jonah]

The other day I was talking with a friend who is a composer and teaches counterpoint about these first few measures of a Bach prelude:

Attachment 112236

She noted that it's unusual (and "harsh") for both lines to have simultaneous tritone intervals (as they land on measure #9). It indeed sounds to me very striking and unexpected (like the crude modulation it probably is?)..

I think the effect of 'harshness' of this modulation is a combination of texture and harmony: stable tonic chord arpegiated in agressive ascending lines (in parallel movement - which is very strong move in the context of those days) comes to another key. Though it is a very 'subtle harshness', quite complex.

To me it is typical Bachian mergence of time and space: 8-9 bars concentrate more harmonic information than we just see in the text.

That 'b natural' belongs both to 8th bar as a continuation of a melodic run (which outlines harmony) ... it is like reaching out a bit further (going beyond, going higher (for Bach it is litterally higher!) than one might expect. Like at the end of the phrase the harmonic inertion is overcome and a breakthrough into a new space is made.
But this also gives the feeling that this B nat belongs yet to the harmony of the previous bar. Space belongs here to ii7
But time puts G# here and establishes another harmony.
So this ii7 is both there and not there.

Then in the left hand there is an 'a-a-a-g#' as a hidden voice. It is very strong and it hides a triton jump, softens it a lot.

All together it makes much less straightforward than it may seem if we just play it as two purely melodic lines.

Though overall it is still quite forced modulation in character, I agree, though it is also quite sophisticated.

[Christian Miller]

Yes, that’s what I thought - if I was doing something like this in my pedestrian baby’s first baroque harmony sort of way, I’d have out the B in the previous bar. Oh, Dm to Dm6 becomes the iv6/5 (or inverted ii7) of Am, and duly prepared we move to the G# diminished seventh. Smooth and natural and also utterly routine.

It’s withholding creates a different effect.

It sounds and feels distinctly Bachian. It’s something he does a lot I suppose, in different ways, withholding things….

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[Jonah]

Yes, that’s what I thought - if I was doing something like this in my pedestrian baby’s first baroque harmony sort of way, I’d have out the B in the previous bar. Oh, Dm to Dm6 becomes the iv6/5 (or inverted ii7) of Am, and duly prepared we move to the G# diminished seventh. Smooth and natural and also utterly routine.

It’s withholding creates a different effect.

It sounds and feels distinctly Bachian. It’s something he does a lot I suppose, in different ways, withholding things….

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and by the away in the left hand a few bars later it is the same move as in the left hand in 8th bar, only now it is C to F# (but also G-G-F#)

but right hand is different.

So it makes right and left hands elements in 8-9 bars also kind of retrospectively separated.
It is also very Bachian: time stops, or time moves the other around.

and also left hand goes on the same texture ( but harmony changes) but right hand goes it’s own way … so many things in a few bars!

With Bach it is especially strong feeling that you see clearly written out notes which seem quite straight but it sounds like much more things are happening there and all together and separately at the same time.

whenever we analyse it we see only one side, then the other etc
but when it is played well they are all there at the same