music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

, the tonic is the first

scale degree In music theory, the scale degree is the position of a particular note on a scale relative to the tonic, the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the size of intervals an ...

() 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 Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards. Don Michael Randel ( ...

in tonal (musical key-based) classical music,

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). ''Funk ...

, 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 Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * Notes (album), ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) sho ...

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 C major (or the key of C) is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor a ...

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 Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * 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 t ...

, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it is major and by "i" if it is minor. These chords may also appear as seventh chords: in major, as I^M7, or in minor as i⁷ 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 sur ...

, which is the reference note of a chord, rather than that of the scale.

Importance and function

In music of the

common practice period In European art music, the common-practice period is the era of the tonal system. Most of its features persisted from the mid-Baroque period through the Classical and Romantic periods, roughly from 1650 to 1900. There was much stylistic evoluti ...

, 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 key In music theory, a major scale and a minor scale that have the same tonic note are called parallel keys and are said to be in a parallel relationship. Forte, Allen (1979). ''Tonal Harmony'', p.9. 3rd edition. Holt, Rinehart, and Wilson. . "Wh ...

s have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C. However,

relative key In music, relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signatures ( enharmonically equivalent), meaning that they share all the same notes but are arranged in a different order of whole steps and half steps. A pair of ma ...

s (two different scales that share a

key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef a ...

) 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 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 In music, an interval cycle is a collection of pitch classes created from a sequence of the same interval class.Whittall, Arnold. 2008. ''The Cambridge Introduction to Serialism'', p. 273-74. New York: Cambridge University Press. (pbk). In other ...

. The term ''pitch centricity'' was coined by Arthur Berger in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky". According to

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter ...

, "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 ''Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune'' ( L. 86), known in English as ''Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun'', is a symphonic poem for orchestra by Claude Debussy, approximately 10 minutes in duration. It was composed in 1894 and first performed ...

''". 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.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tonic (Music) 1 Diatonic functions

Importance and function

See also

References

External links