On Feb 5, 2007, at 8:17 AM, David W. Fenton wrote:
No, it's because if you apply the doubling rules in four-part traditional harmony *it sounds better* (smoother, more homogeneous) than if you don't. It's not a matter of arbitrary rules at all.
This, I think, is the most pertinent answer in the entire thread. You don't follow the rules because someone tells you to; you follow the rules because you want your music to sound better, and the rules happen to work.
In my younger days I didn't care much for rules. Fortunately, I wasn't in school or anything, so there was no one to tell me what I could or couldn't write.
Then one day I happened to be writing a Christmas piece where I had a refrain that I wanted to have the sound of traditional four-part choral harmony. There was one tricky passage which I had harmonized it in a way that was basically OK, but it just didn't quite sound as strong as I knew it could. I wasn't satisfied with that so I spent an afternoon poring over those eight bars analyzing just what it was that made me feel it wasn't quite right. When I was done, lo and behold, the weaknesses I identified corresponded exactly with practices that those hoary old rules of harmony warned against.
I learned a good lesson that day about why one should pay attention to the rules. The experience has motivated me far more than any lecturing teacher could have.
mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
