Seems to me that the reason for the more welcome sound of a doubled
minor third rather than a doubled major third is that the major third
is already so strong in the harmonic series of the root, and the
minor third is not. This provides some explanation of the doubled
third in a first inversion chord, where the harmonic of the root is
not there to reinforce the third.
As I have pointed out before, it is my contention that the jazz
musician's practice of adding a bass note a fifth below the root of a
final minor chord is a "modern" way of stabilizing the sound. A
Picardy third does this one way, and the F7 for C minor does it
another way. In either case, it eliminates the conflict of a minor
third above the bass note.
As far as the "rules" are concerned, I believe that they are a
function of the "language" of the moment, and that strong statements
can be made in different ways.
Chuck
On Feb 4, 2007, at 5:44 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
On Feb 4, 2007, at 8:11 PM, A-NO-NE Music wrote:
Sorry for OT question, but I can't think of any better place to
ask this.
Kinda embarrassed to ask. Please go easy on me. I did google around
but couldn't find anything helpful.
I remember, in traditional harmony, you are not supposed to double
the
3rd, but I don't remember what is the reason for this. The sound
isn't
obvious to my ear as it does with parallel 5th and parallel 8th.
And no doubling on the leading note, is another one I am vague
about its
reason. Is this limited to SATB, or the leading note is not
allowed to
be doubled even though the voices are more than 4?
I'm sure there are theory gods here on the list to help you out,
but it was mostly the MAJOR third that is the last note to be
doubled. This normally means that with four voices, there is only
one major third. Once you get above six or seven voices, then the
major third is more likely to be doubled. The general rule (non-
specific) is that any note with a lot of tension on it should have
less doubling than notes with less tension do.
Minor thirds could be doubled, at least, more so than major thirds.
In most cases, it is the bass note that gets doubled most of the
time (first inversion being a notable exception) but the needs of
voice leading can cause some rarer note to be doubled gracefully
from time to time. You are correct that the leading tone is very
resistant to being doubled, more so than any other note.
Of course, in late Romantic and early 20th C works (as well as
jazz!) these doubling rules go out the window.
I saw another explanation of this that intrigues me. It stated that
the stable notes of the major scale are the perfect intervals 1, 4
and 5th degrees, and these notes can sustain more doubling than the
other, less stable, scale notes. In effect this means that the
major triads in a key generally allow the root and 5th doubled,
whereas the minor triads can allow the third doubled. No
explanation was given for minor keys!
As to the reason, well, as one of my theory teachers put it,
"Nobody from the period did it. That's the reason we don't either
when we are writing in their style." Fair enough, I guess. (This
was in answer to why I couldn't have parallel fifths when the
second fifth was diminished, which was NOT strictly parallel fifths
in my opinion.)
Christopher
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Chuck Israels
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