On Jun 30, 2005, at 12:54 AM, Mark D Lew wrote:
On Jun 29, 2005, at 9:14 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Subdominant (used to mean the 4th of the scale, or the chord built on
it. Now means ANY chord that can lead to a dominant
Really? I only know the term as referring to the chord built on the
4th of the scale.
So you're telling me that a IIm7 chord would be described as
"subdominant"? To me that sounds very wrong.
mdl
Described as a "subdominant function" or "subdominant area", yes. This
confusion is why so many theorists use the term "predominant" as I had
mentioned. But that term has its pitfalls, too.
Ideally (IMHO) a music theory jargon term would be
1) easy to pronounce and spell,
2) unambiguous in application, and
3) have a sense of what it meant built in. Kind of like the German way
of building compound words ("Fork" might be
"Foodpickerupandputterintomouth" to use my old theory teacher's example
that always got a giggle. The purpose of the thing is evident as soon
as you say it.)
"Predominant", while it satisfies the first two requirements, causes
confusion as to its function. "Subdominant function" is long, and
certainly could be called ambiguous, since "subdominant" also means
just the IV chord and the 4th scale degree.
Christopher
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
