On Sep 12, 2006, at 6:51 PM, John Howell wrote:
At 11:49 AM -0400 9/12/06, A-NO-NE Music wrote:
In music, I was taught it is what is divided in four regions called
harmonic rhythm, which is a wrong term according to my net
search. What
is the correct terminology for this?
I agree with those who question whether the strength of each beat
in a 4/4 measure can be used as a universal analysis of "form." It
seems to be quite a stretch, and one that does not really work, at
least for me. (Disclaimer: I am no theorist, just a musician.)
Harmonic rhythm, if it means anything at all, would relate to the
complexity of harmonic changes within a measure, not to anything in
the overall form of a piece. It is more complex (i.e. there are
more changes--passing chords, if you like) in the pop music of the
20s and 30s than in the pop music of the 60s or 70s. It is more
complex in the music of Bach than in the music of Handel. It can
be more complex in music written for smaller chambers than in music
written for reverberant cathedrals.
I agree with Andrew that there is no term for this in English,
because it is not a widely used concept in our analysis of music.
(But again, I'm not a theorist.)
I agree that it is not a widely used concept, but it SHOULD be.
Strong chord movements (not a qualitative judgement, it's just a
name) tend to announce the second chord as being stressed. Weak chord
movements tend to announce the first chord as stressed. This affects
our perception of meter and phrase, and thus form. It is not
universal, but it DOES show up an awful lot, which is enough to
qualify it for analysis.
My colleague at McGill, Bill Caplin (also my first university theory
teacher!), includes relative strengths of chord movement and their
rhythm as a form indicator in his excellent book (some call it ground-
breaking) "Classical Form". It applies to middle classical-era music,
but I think the concepts are valid through a lot of tonal (and new
tonal) music, and to a certain extent, non-tonal music as well. A lot
of jazz musicians I know read this book and were in agreement with
the ideas, even though the musics are centuries apart.
http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~caplin/Classical_Form.html
Christopher
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