Asked • 06/14/19

Tension and Tonic?

It is widely known that music "wants" to be resolved on the tonic. But does it mean that I can end with the tonic, let's say, one/two octaves higher or lower than the whole melody that is being played? Or does it have to be in the "borders" of the whole piece? Can you, for example, resolve a Gmaj chord with Cmaj, but going up in pitch? It seems to me that it always go down in the pitch when resolving.Also, can you build tension going down in pitch, instead of up?

Daniel T.

If you desire to resolve a V chord to a I chord, you can certainly do that. It doesn't matter whether you go up to I or down to I. For example, "Arabesque No. 1" by Debussy goes from V DOWN to I. But during the elongation of I, he uses the vi and goes back to I. The hymn "Nearer My God to Thee", you could go either up or down to I. If you are a composer or arranger, you have the liberty to use the V-I progression, or use another way to resolve your piece like Bartok with one of his Sonatas. The decision is yours.
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06/21/19

Daniel T.

By the way the recording of "Arabesque No. 1" by Debussy is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh36PaE-Pf0.
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06/21/19

Samantha Z.

It depends on the style. As Daniel pointed out, this sort of "octave displacement" became more common in the late 19th / early 20th centuries, especially when serialism and chance music came around. Earlier composers like Beethoven and Bach *did* do this from time to time, but the trouble is that it's much more difficult to follow the counterpoint when there's octave displacement. For someone like Debussy, mucking up the counterpoint was part of his goal, so it makes sense in his case. In chance music, it also makes an awful lot of sense to randomize the octaves in addition to the pitches. But if your goal is the sort of smooth, mostly-stepwise-and-small-leaps counterpoint of Bach's chorales, then it makes more sense to avoid this.
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02/18/20

1 Expert Answer

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Danny L. answered • 02/21/20

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Short answer: you can do whatever you want. The more important questions are, "does this sound good?" and "am I conveying the message/emotion I'm intending to?"


As others have indicated, there are plenty of examples where composers have done exactly what you've detailed -- it certainly has precedence. As with a lot of part writing "rules," you have to consider them as guidelines to write in specific styles. For example, if you're trying to sound like Bach, maybe don't write parallel 5ths. But if you're trying to write a 90s grunge song, parallel 5ths are welcome.


Hope this helps!

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