{"id":13545,"date":"2023-03-29T12:22:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T16:22:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joviala.com\/jovialaworks\/?p=13545"},"modified":"2026-10-12T11:14:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-12T15:14:18","slug":"tonality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joviala.com\/jovialaworks\/tonality\/","title":{"rendered":"Tonality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The relationship between two tones is not necessarily black and white (see previous post<\/a>). Tonality puts those two tones into a context which could consist of the many shades of gray, unrestrained technicolor or a tasteful complimentary color palette. When I use color in a drawing, I sometimes have trouble limiting myself. However, in one Sunday morning\u2019s exploratory session with some new watercolor pencils (above), I made it a point to work within some constraints. It was a relief to not be overwhelmed by a riot of color!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My weakness for unrestrained color combinations has its corollary in sound: I am an avowed congregant in the church of dissonance. When I improvise for myself, I very rarely end up using diatonic harmony, and I do not shy away from this in my playing for children\u2019s classes. Though they may be only able to reproduce a limited range of tones in their singing voice, I see no reason not to expose kids to all sorts of tonal relationships, beyond major and minor. Walks can be Lydian and lunges Phrygian; stories can be excellent backdrops for all sorts of harmonic worlds. The sun can rise with a Schoenbergian series of perfect 4ths<\/a>; chromatic birdsongs<\/a> \u00e0 la Messiaen can stop bird-loving giants in their tracks while they are hiking through diminished-scale forests; later we can float on the open seas of freely juxtaposed triads for a feeling of the awesome power of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when we are doing something that calls for more precision, there is no substitute for diatonic tonality. For little ones taking a solo flight out their adult\u2019s \u201cnest,\u201d I end the phrase on a dominant when they bend down to pick up their worm, and resolve it with an authentic cadence when they return. Every once in a while (OK, pretty often), one of the little birds just wants to keep flying. If I stay on that dominant long enough (or even backpedal to a tonic second inversion), that little bird will get the signal: time to land. It’s the feeling of one of those long trills at the end of a cadenza that says to the orchestra, \u201cThis has gone on long enough!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Older kids are ready to recognize and respond to tonic and dominant harmonic function with an association-type Dalcroze game (\u201cthis=that\u201d). For example, during locomotor movement (walks, runs, skips, lunges, etc.), they could be asked to sit if a phrase ends on the tonic, but stay standing and reach toward someone if it ends on the dominant. Whether they are children or adults, if they are doing something at all complicated like a Dalcroze “dissociation” (i.e., \u201cdo these different things at the same time\u201d), I will most likely play as clearly as possible with the diatonic color wheel. I am then careful also to use 8-bar phrasing punctuated with half and authentic cadences at the appropriate moments. Clarity of form through classical harmony does wonders to regulate the mind and organize the body.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The relationship between two tones is not necessarily black and white (see previous post). Tonality puts those two tones into a context which could consist of the many shades of gray, unrestrained technicolor or a tasteful complimentary color palette. When I use color in a drawing, I sometimes have trouble limiting myself. However, in one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[128],"tags":[113,133,131],"class_list":["post-13545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dalcroze-reference","tag-children","tag-edited","tag-subjects"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s9ohMj-tonality","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19086,"url":"https:\/\/joviala.com\/jovialaworks\/invisible-subjects\/","url_meta":{"origin":13545,"position":0},"title":"Invisible Subjects","author":"Michael Joviala","date":"June 20, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Sometimes, to see the whole, we need to look at the parts. But suppose some of the parts are difficult to see? This is one of the things that makes Dalcroze education so notoriously hard to describe. In one sense, the curriculum for the Dalcroze classes I teach is very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dalcroze Reference"","block_context":{"text":"Dalcroze Reference","link":"https:\/\/joviala.com\/jovialaworks\/category\/dalcroze-reference\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":389,"url":"https:\/\/joviala.com\/jovialaworks\/register-and-scale\/","url_meta":{"origin":13545,"position":1},"title":"Register And Scale","author":"Michael Joviala","date":"December 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Translating musical phenomena into verbal language can be tricky. Most adults are familiar with the use of the words high and low as applied to musical pitch. Specifically, these words refer to the frequency of the musical tone: higher tones have a more frequent wavelength than lower tones. 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