On Friday, May 31, 2002, at 12:27 PM, Jamin Hoffman wrote: > Dear all -
> Pardon me for asking what should be a simple question - BUT: > One of my theory teachers once told me the three most common > intervals of > root movement in chord progressions. I know I ought to be able > to figure > this out through reasoning and other thought processes, but I > think it's one > of those things I have thought about so much that I have > confused myself. > Are they: > 1. Down by fifths, > 2. Up by seconds, and > 3. Down by thirds (in that order)? > What confuses me is the Pachelbel Canon, which he used as an > example, but it > goes down by fourths, not fifths - but the dominant/tonic (down > by fifths) > is generally recognized as the strongest root movement, right? > [You can see > how I have talked myself out of what should be a simple line of > reasoning.] > BTW - The reason I started thinking about this again (recently) > is a recent > story on NPR about a woman who wrote a song that has become > embedded in the > folk song culture - and one of the reasons they gave for its > success was its > root movement, which parallels the Pachelbel Canon. Hello Jamin, Another way of analyzing Pachelbel Canon is that the root movement mostly proceeds _up_ by fifths. So if you left out the directionality indicator, your list would be accurate. To avoid further confusion, I'd recommend cruising through some basic music theory books like "Harmony" by Walter Piston (there is a chapter on plagal vs authentic cadences) and "The Structure of Atonal Music" by Alan Forte to realize the full extent of Chuck Israels' statement about inversions being implicated. Cheers, Philip Aker http://www.aker.ca § _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
