In
music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
, the tonic is the first
scale degree () of the
diatonic scale
In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole st ...
(the first note of a scale) and the
tonal center or final
resolution tone that is commonly used in the final
cadence in tonal (musical
key-based)
classical music
Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...
,
popular music
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or no musical training.Popular Music. (2015). ''Fu ...
, and
traditional music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has ...
. In the
movable do solfège system, the tonic note is sung as ''do''. More generally, the tonic is the
note upon which all other notes of a piece are hierarchically referenced. Scales are named after their tonics: for instance, the tonic of the
C major scale is the
note C.
The
triad
Triad or triade may refer to:
* a group of three
Businesses and organisations
* Triad (American fraternities), certain historic groupings of seminal college fraternities in North America
* Triad (organized crime), a Chinese transnational orga ...
formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most significant
chord in these styles of music. In
Roman numeral analysis
In music theory, Roman numeral analysis is a type of musical analysis in which chords are represented by Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, …). In some cases, Roman numerals denote scale degrees themselves. More commonly, however, they represent ...
, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it is
major
Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...
and by "i" if it is minor.
These chords may also appear as
seventh chords: in major, as I
M7, or in minor as i
7 or rarely i
M7:
The tonic is distinguished from the
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
, which is the reference note of a chord, rather than that of the scale.
Importance and function
In music of the
common practice period, the tonic center was the most important of all the different tone centers which a composer used in a piece of music, with most pieces beginning and ending on the tonic, usually modulating to the dominant (the fifth scale degree above the tonic, or the fourth below it) in between.
Two
parallel keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C. However,
relative keys (two different scales that share a
key signature) have different tonics. For example, C major and A minor share a key signature that feature no sharps or flats, despite having different tonic pitches (C and A, respectively).
The term ''tonic'' may be reserved exclusively for use in tonal contexts while ''tonal center'' and/or ''pitch center'' may be used in
post-tonal and
atonal
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...
music: "For purposes of non-tonal centric music, it might be a good idea to have the term 'tone center' refer to the more general class of which 'tonics' (or tone centers in tonal contexts) could be regarded as a subclass." Thus, a pitch center may function referentially or contextually in an atonal context, often acting as an
axis or line of symmetry in an
interval cycle. The term ''pitch centricity'' was coined by
Arthur Berger in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". According to
Walter Piston, "the idea of a unified classical tonality replaced by nonclassical (in this case nondominant) centricity in a composition is perfectly demonstrated by Debussy's ''
Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune''".
[ Piston, Walter (1987/1941). ''Harmony'', p. 529. 5th edition revised by Mark DeVoto. W. W. Norton, New York/London. .]
The tonic includes four separate activities or roles as the principal goal tone, initiating event, generator of other tones, and the stable center neutralizing the tension between dominant and subdominant.
See also
*
Final (music)
*
Double tonic
*
Subtonic
*
Supertonic
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tonic (Music)
1
Diatonic functions