Tone Tendencies in Major Key

In the article “Tendency Tones” you learned that fa and ti has strong tone tendencies.

In this article we’ll see all the seven notes.

1. Stable/Unstable Notes

First, The seven notes do–re–mi–fa–so–la–ti are devided into two categories, namely, Stable Tones (st) and Unstable Tones (ust), based on its stability.

Do, mi and so are the stable tones in a major scale, while all the others are unstable tones¹.

Mi and so can be said to have some sort of instability because the progressions mi→do or so→do may evoke a slight sense of “rest”. But since they can well function as the tones to release the tension produced by the other tones (re,fa,la,ti), they’re definitely on the “stable” side².

Or it could be better illustrated by moving ti to the bottom of the scale.

You can clearly see the governance of a major key—Do, mi and so are the central pillars of a tonality, accompanying the vassals on both sides of each.

2. Tendency and Resolution

The unstable tones function as creating musical tension and the most basic form is to resolve it on the next note. The half-step motion of fa→mi or ti→do is the smoothest of all because the shorter the difference between two notes is, the smoother the melodic progression will be.

The rest two, re and la, missing half-step relationship between conjunct notes, don’t have so strong tendencies as fa or ti. So they are defined as tones with a medium tendency³.

La has no choice but to descend as its upper neighbor is ti, another unstable tone. If you want to form an ascending resolution, it has to ascend two steps, la–ti–do.

Re, on the other hand, sandwiched between stable tones (do and mi) which are equidistant from re, can resolve naturally to either direction. But in several books it is said that descending resolution is a bit smoother than ascending⁴.

The reason why some authors think that way may be, for one thing, do is the tonal center so it should have stronger attraction; for another, descending is thought to be more natural than ascending in general, by the logic of tonal gravity, as explained before.

But since it is an indisputable fact that re has its neighbors equally distant unlike fa leaning to mi, re can progress to either way with not much sense of resistance.

“Sad Machine” by Porter Robinson is a typical example using re–do and la–so resolution, at the phrase “she depends on you”.

Two smooth resolutions are formed here! Such iterations of tension-release add up to a large musical story. Since whole-step resolution does not represent so strong an emotion as that of half-step, the phrase “she depends on you” sounds a bit dry, which fits the scene greatly.

Primary/Secondary Resolution

Summing up, re,fa,la primarily resolve by descending, while ti does by ascending. Resolution in the opposite direction is regarded as secondary. In some books it is really termed Primary Resolution and Secondary Resolution⁵.

In practice, you usually don’t have to think about melodic progression this much formally. But anyway this is the whole picture of tone tendencies and their resolution structure so if you’d like to print some cheat sheet, this is the one.

Delayed Resolution

Thus resolving to neighbor notes is the most basic form but you can also choose to prolong the story of tension-resolution by making a detour, which is called Delayed Resolution⁶.

(3) changes the landing target from mi to do, which is also a good way of releasing tension. Thus you can make various patterns of tension-release just with 3 tones connection; or you can even choose not to resolve! The number of possible combinations is enormous.

3. Tonal Gravitation

As mentioned in the initial explanation of tone tendency, there is a concept in music theory that discusses the relationship between notes in terms of mechanics like gravitation. Even in rigorous theoretical texts, you often encounter expressions like “pulled toward” or “drawn,” and words such as “gravity” or “magnetism.”

Some scale degrees have melodic tendencies—they tend to move in a certain direction to a specific scale degree. All scale degrees are drawn to 1 ˆ, which explains why melodies frequently end on 1ˆ. We might imagine that 1ˆ exerts a strong gravitational pull or magnetic attraction on the other scale degrees.
Solomon, Jason W.. Music Theory Essentials (p.25). Taylor and Francis.

This is a proper classical theory book published in 2019, and as you can see, the words “gravitational pull” and “magnetic attraction” appear. Just a moment ago, there was also the term “tonal gravity” in this text too. Indeed, the tendency of ti going upwards desptite the law of “tonal gravity” is as if it’s pulled by the magnet of do.

Of course, tones aren’t really turning into magnets, and this is purely a metaphor, which is why the above quote also uses the term “imagine”. Nevertheless, such expressions are convenient both for explanation and practice, as they visualize the movement of invisible sounds into imagery. Therefore, in Liberal Music Theory, we adopt this approach and encompass various characteristics of melody in tonal music, such as stability/instability and progression tendencies, under the term Tonal Gravitation. And all discussions related to tonal gravitation are called Tonal Gravitation Theory (TGT). There’s a lot more to talk about tone tendencies and tone stability, all of which are categorized under the name of T.G.T.

For example, incorporating the concept of tonal gravitation has made it much easier to understand the musical properties of the Pentatonic scales. This will also be the case when learning various other scales in the future. TGT involves deepening our understanding of scales and melodies through the concept of “gravitation”.

OK, there are so many new terms introduced so far that you might get sick of it. What you should remember first is just the categorization “stable note / unstable note”.

Explore the patterns of resolution and find your favorite ones!