Tertian

For other uses, see Tertials, Tertian fever, and Tertianship.

A progression of tertian chords in A minor (i-v-i-iv {\displaystyle {}_{4}^{6}}

{}^6_4-i-v-I) ending on a Picardy third About this soundplay (help�info)
Look up tertian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
In music theory, tertian (Latin: tertianus, "of or concerning thirds") describes
any piece, chord, counterpoint etc. constructed from the intervals of (major and
minor) thirds.[1] An interval such as that between the notes A and C encompasses 3
semitone intervals (A-B?-B?-C) and is termed a minor third while one such as that
between C and E encompasses 4 semitones (C-D?-D?-E?-E?) and is called a major
third. Tertian harmony (also called tertiary harmony[2]) principally uses chords
based on thirds; the term is typically used to contrast with quartal and quintal
harmony which uses chords based on fourths or fifths.

Quartal chord on A equals thirteenth chord on B?, distinguished by the arrangement

of chord factors About this soundPlay (help�info).[3]
A common triad chord can be regarded as consisting of a "stack" of two thirds.
There are four permutations: A major third stacked on a major third creates an
augmented triad. A minor third on top of a major third manifests a major triad. A
major third on top of a minor third produces a minor triad. Finally, a minor third
stacked on a minor third constitutes a diminished triad.

A musical scale may also be analysed as a succession of thirds.

The meantone temperament, a system of tuning that emphasises pure thirds, may be
called "tertian".

Chords built from sixths may also be referred to as tertian because sixths are
equivalent to thirds when inverted, and vice versa: any sixth can be taken as the
inversion of a third. For instance the interval C-A is a major sixth that, when
inverted, gives the interval A-C, which is a minor third.

Tertian root movements have been used innovatively in chord progressions as an

alternative to root motion in fifths, as for example in the "thirds cycle" used in
John Coltrane's Coltrane changes, as influenced by Nicolas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of
Scales and Melodic Patterns.

Quartal Quartal and quintal harmony

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"Fourth chord" redirects here. For other uses, see Eleventh chord � Fourth.
In music, quartal harmony is the building of harmonic structures built from the
intervals of the perfect fourth, the augmented fourth and the diminished fourth.
For instance, a three-note quartal chord on C can be built by stacking perfect
fourths, C�F�B?.

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\clef treble \time 4/4 <c f bes>1
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0:00
Quintal harmony is harmonic structure preferring the perfect fifth, the augmented
fifth and the diminished fifth. For instance, a three-note quintal chord on C can
be built by stacking perfect fifths, C�G�D.

{
\override Score.TimeSignature #'stencil = ##f
\relative c' {
\clef treble \time 4/4 <c g' d'>1
} }
0:00

Contents
1 Properties
2 History
2.1 Precursors
2.2 20th- and 21st-century classical music
2.2.1 Schoenberg
2.2.2 Others
2.3 Jazz
2.4 Rock music
3 Examples of quartal pieces
3.1 Classical
3.2 Jazz
3.3 Folk
3.4 Rock
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
Properties

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\relative c' {
\clef treble \time 4/4 <a d g c f bes es>1 <bes d f a c es g>
} }
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The notes in a quartal chord on A can be arranged to form a thirteenth chord on B?
(Benward and Saker 2009, 279).
Use of the terms quartal and quintal arises from a contrast, compositional or
perceptual, with traditional tertian harmonic constructions. Listeners familiar
with music of the (European) common practice period perceive tonal music as that
which uses major and minor chords and scales, wherein both the major third and
minor third constitute the basic structural elements of the harmony.

Regarding chords built from perfect fourths alone, composer Vincent Persichetti
writes that:

Chords by perfect fourth are ambiguous in that, like all chords built by
equidistant intervals (diminished seventh chords or augmented triads), any member
can function as the root. The indifference of this rootless harmony to tonality
places the burden of key verification upon the voice with the most active melodic
line. (Persichetti 1961, 94)

Quintal harmony (the harmonic layering of fifths specifically) is a lesser-used

term, and since the fifth is the inversion or complement of the fourth, it is
usually considered indistinct from quartal harmony. Because of this relationship,
any quartal chord can be rewritten as a quintal chord by changing the order of its
pitches.
Like tertian chords, a given quartal or quintal chord can be written with different
voicings, some of which obscure its quartal structure. For instance, the quartal
chord, C�F�B?, can be written as

{
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\clef treble \time 4/4 <c f bes>1 <f bes c> <bes c f> <f bes c f>
} }
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History
In the Middle Ages, simultaneous notes a fourth apart were heard as a consonance.
During the common practice period (between about 1600 and 1900), this interval came
to be heard either as a dissonance (when appearing as a suspension requiring
resolution in the voice leading) or as a consonance (when the root of the chord
appears in parts higher than the fifth of the chord). In the later 19th century,
during the breakdown of tonality in classical music, all intervallic relationships
were once again reassessed. Quartal harmony was developed in the early 20th century
as a result of this breakdown and reevaluation of tonality.

Precursors
The Tristan chord is made up of the notes F?, B?, D? and G? and is the first chord
heard in Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde.

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\new Voice \relative c'' {
\clef treble \key a \minor \time 6/8
\voiceOne \partial8 r8 R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red
gis4.->(~ gis4 a8 ais8-> b4~ b8) r r
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\new Voice \relative c' {
\override DynamicLineSpanner.staff-padding = #4.5
\once \override DynamicText.X-offset = #-5
\voiceTwo \partial8 a\pp( f'4.~\< f4 e8 \once \override
NoteHead.color = #red dis2.)(\> d!4.)~\p d8 r r
}
>>
\new Staff <<
\relative c {
\clef bass \key a \minor \time 6/8
\partial8 r8 R2. \once \override NoteHead.color = #red <f b>2.( <e
gis>4.)~ <e gis>8 r r
}
>>
>> }
MENU0:00
The bottom two notes make up an augmented fourth, while the upper two make up a
perfect fourth. This layering of fourths in this context has been seen as highly
significant. The chord had been found in earlier works (Vogel 1962, 12), notably
Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18, but Wagner's use was significant, first because it
is seen as moving away from traditional tonal harmony and even towards atonality,
and second because with this chord Wagner actually provoked the sound or structure
of musical harmony to become more predominant than its function, a notion which was
soon after to be explored by Debussy and others (Erickson 1975,[page needed]).

Despite the layering of fourths, it is rare to find musicologists identifying this

chord as "quartal harmony" or even as "proto-quartal harmony", since Wagner's
musical language is still essentially built on thirds, and even an ordinary
dominant seventh chord can be laid out as augmented fourth plus perfect fourth
(F�B�D�G). Wagner's unusual chord is really a device to draw the listener into the
musical-dramatic argument which the composer is presenting to us.

At the beginning of the 20th century, quartal harmony finally became an important
element of harmony. Scriabin used a self-developed system of transposition using
fourth-chords, like his Mystic chord (shown below) in his Piano Sonata No. 6.

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Scriabin wrote this chord in his sketches alongside other quartal passages and more
traditional tertian passages, often passing between systems, for example widening
the six-note quartal sonority (C�F?�B?�E�A�D) into a seven-note chord (C�F?�B?
�E�A�D�G). Scriabin's sketches for his unfinished work Mysterium show that he
intended to develop the Mystic chord into a huge chord incorporating all twelve
notes of the chromatic scale (Morrison 1998, 316).

In France, Erik Satie experimented with planing in the stacked fourths (not all
perfect) of his 1891 score for Le Fils des �toiles (Solomon 2003). Paul Dukas's The
Sorcerer's Apprentice (1897) has a rising repetition in fourths, as the tireless
work of out-of-control walking brooms causes the water level in the house to "rise
and rise".

20th- and 21st-century classical music

Composers who use the techniques of quartal harmony include Claude Debussy, Francis
Poulenc, Alexander Scriabin, Alban Berg, Leonard Bernstein, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor
Stravinsky, and Anton Webern (Herder 1987, 78).

Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony Op. 9 (1906) displays quartal harmony: the
first measures construct a five-part fourth chord with the notes C�F�B?�E?�A?
distributed over several instruments.

Vertical quartal-harmony in the opening measures of Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber

Symphony Op. 9 About this soundPlay (help�info)

Six-note horizontal fourth chord in Arnold Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony Op. 9

The composer then picks out this vertical quartal harmony in a horizontal sequence
of fourths from the horns, eventually leading to a passage of triadic quartal
harmony (i.e., chords of three notes, each layer a fourth apart).[citation needed]

Schoenberg was also one of the first to write on the theoretical consequences of
this harmonic innovation. In his Theory of Harmony (Harmonielehre) of 1911, he
wrote:

The construction of chords by superimposing fourths can lead to a chord that

contains all the twelve notes of the chromatic scale; hence, such construction does
manifest a possibility for dealing systematically with those harmonic phenomena
that already exist in the works of some of us: seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and
twelve-part chords� But the quartal construction makes possible, as I said,
accommodation of all phenomena of harmony. (Schoenberg 1978, 406�407)

For Anton Webern, the importance of quartal harmony lay in the possibility of
building new sounds. After hearing Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, Webern wrote "You
must write something like that, too!" (Webern 1963, 48; "So was mu�t du auch
machen!"[citation needed])

Others
In his Theory of Harmony (Schoenberg 1978, 407): "Besides myself my students Dr.
Anton Webern and Alban Berg have written these harmonies (fourth chords), but also
the Hungarian B�la Bart�k or the Viennese Franz Schreker, who both go a similar way
to Debussy, Dukas and perhaps also Puccini, are not far off."

Fourths in B�la Bart�k's Mikrokosmos V, No. 131, Fourths (Quartes) About this
soundPlay (help�info)
French composer Maurice Ravel used quartal chords in Sonatine (1906) and Ma m�re
l'oye (1910), while American Charles Ives used quartal chords in his song "The
Cage" (1906).

Quartal harmony in "Laideronnette" from Ravel's Ma m�re l'oye. The top line uses
the pentatonic scale (Benward & Saker 2003, 37) About this soundPlay (help�info)

Introduction to Charles Ives's "The Cage" from 114 Songs (Reisberg 1975, 345).
About this soundPlay (help�info)
Hindemith constructed large parts of his symphonic work Symphony: Mathis der Maler
by means of fourth and fifth intervals. These steps are a restructuring of fourth
chords (C�D�G becomes the fourth chord D�G�C), or other mixtures of fourths and
fifths (D?�A?�D?�G?�C? in measure 3 of the example).

Fourth and fifth writing in the second movement of Paul Hindemith's Mathis der
Maler
Hindemith was, however, not a proponent of an explicit quartal harmony. In his 1937
writing Unterweisung im Tonsatz (The Craft of Musical Composition, Hindemith 1937),
he wrote that "notes have a family of relationships, that are the bindings of
tonality, in which the ranking of intervals is unambiguous," so much so, indeed,
that in the art of triadic composition "�the musician is bound by this, as the
painter to his primary colours, the architect to the three dimensions." He lined up
the harmonic and melodic aspects of music in a row in which the octave ranks first,
then the fifth and the third, and then the fourth. "The strongest and most unique
harmonic interval after the octave is the fifth, the prettiest nevertheless is the
third by right of the chordal effects of its Combination tones."

Quartal harmony in Hindemith's Flute Sonata, II with tonal center on B established

by descent in left hand in Dorian and repeated B's and F?'s (Kostka, Payne, and
Alm�n 2013, Chapter twenty six: Materials and techniques, Chord structures, Quartal
and secundal harmony, 469�70) About this soundPlay (help�info)
The works of the Filipino composer Eliseo M. Pajaro (1915�1984) are characterised
by quartal and quintal harmonies, as well as by dissonant counterpoint and
polychords (Kasilag 2001).

As a transition to the history of jazz, George Gershwin may be mentioned. In the

first movement of his Concerto in F altered fourth chords descend chromatically in
the right hand with a chromatic scale leading upward in the left hand.
Jazz
The style of jazz, having an eclectic harmonic orbit, was in its early days
overtaken (until perhaps the Swing of the 1930s) by the vocabulary of 19th-century
European music.[clarification needed] Important influences come thereby from opera,
operetta, military bands as well as from the piano music of Classical and Romantic
composers, and even that of the Impressionists. Jazz musicians had a clear interest
in harmonic richness of colour, for which quartal harmony provided possibilities,
as used by pianists and arrangers like Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Art
Tatum, Bill Evans (Hester 2000, 199) Milt Buckner (Hester 2000, 199) Chick Corea
(Herder 1987, 78; Scivales 2005, 203) Herbie Hancock (Herder 1987, 78; Scivales
2005, 203) and especially McCoy Tyner (Herder 1987, 78; Scivales 2005, 205).

The ii�V�I cadence About this soundPlay (help�info); the fourth-suspension or sus
chord About this soundPlay (help�info)

A typical hard bop brass part, from Horace Silver's "Se�or Blues"
The hard bop of the 1950s made new applications of quartal harmony accessible to
jazz.[citation needed] Quintet writing in which two brass instruments (commonly
trumpet and saxophone) may proceed in fourths, while the piano (as a uniquely
harmonic instrument) lays down chords, but sparsely, only hinting at the intended
harmony. This style of writing, in contrast with that of the previous decade,
preferred a moderate tempo. Thin-sounding unison bebop horn sections occur
frequently, but these are balanced by bouts of very refined polyphony such as is
found in cool jazz.

The "So What" chord uses three intervals of a fourth.

On his watershed record Kind of Blue, Miles Davis with pianist Bill Evans used a
chord consisting of three perfect fourth intervals and a major third on the
composition "So What". This particular voicing is sometimes referred to as a So
What chord, and can be analyzed (without regard for added sixths, ninths, etc.) as
a minor seventh with the root on the bottom, or as a major seventh with the third
on the bottom (Levine 1989, 97).

From the outset of the 1960s, the employment of quartal possibilities had become so
familiar that the musician now felt the fourth chord existed as a separate entity,
self standing and free of any need to resolve. The pioneering of quartal writing in
later jazz and rock, like the pianist McCoy Tyner's work with saxophonist John
Coltrane's "classic quartet", was influential throughout this epoch. Oliver Nelson
was also known for his use of fourth chord voicings (Corozine 2002, 12). Floyd
claims that the "foundation of 'modern quartal harmony'" began in the era when the
Charlie Parker�influenced John Coltrane added classically trained pianists Bill
Evans and McCoy Tyner to his ensemble (Floyd 2004, 4).

Jazz guitarists cited as using chord voicings using quartal harmony include Johnny
Smith, Tal Farlow, Chuck Wayne, Barney Kessel, Joe Pass, Jimmy Raney, Wes
Montgomery, however all in a traditional manner, as major 9th, 13th and minor 11th
chords (Floyd 2004, 4) (an octave and fourth equals an 11th). Jazz guitarists cited
as using modern quartal harmony include Jim Hall (especially Sonny Rollins's The
Bridge), George Benson ("Skydive"), Pat Martino, Jack Wilkins ("Windows"), Joe
Diorio, Howard Roberts ("Impressions"), Kenny Burrell ("So What"), Wes Montgomery
("Little Sunflower"), Henry Johnson, Russell Malone, Jimmy Bruno, Howard Alden,
Paul Bollenback, Mark Whitfield, and Rodney Jones (Floyd 2004, 4).

Quartal harmony was also explored as a possibility under new experimental scale
models as they were "discovered" by jazz.[citation needed] Musicians began to work
extensively with the so-called church modes of old European music, and they became
firmly situated in their compositional process. Jazz was well-suited to incorporate
the medieval use of fourths to thicken lines into its improvisation. The pianists
Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea are two musicians well known for their modal
experimentation. Around this time, a style known as free jazz also came into being,
in which quartal harmony had extensive use due to the wandering nature of its
harmony.

Fourths in Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage"[citation needed]

In jazz, the way chords were built from a scale came to be called voicing, and
specifically quartal harmony was referred to as fourth voicing.

ii-V-I turnaround with fourth voicings: all chords are in fourth voicings About
this soundPlay (help�info); They are often ambiguous as, for example, the Dm11 and
G9sus chords are here voiced identically and will thus be distinguished for the
listener by the root movement of the bassist (Boyd 1997, 94)
Thus when the m11 and the dominant 7th sus (9sus above) chords in quartal voicings
are used together they tend to "blend into one overall sound" sometimes referred to
as modal voicings, and both may be applied where the m11 chord is called for during
extended periods such as the entire chorus (Boyd 1997, 95).

Rock music

Disliking the sound of thirds (in equal-temperament tuning), Robert Fripp builds
chords with perfect intervals in his new standard tuning.
See also: Progressive rock and Symphonic rock
Quartal and quintal harmony have been used by Robert Fripp, who has described
himself as the rhythm guitarist of King Crimson. Fripp dislikes minor thirds and
especially major thirds in equal temperament tuning, which is used by non-
experimental guitars. Of course, just intonation's perfect octaves, perfect fifths,
and perfect fourths are well approximated in equal temperament tuning, and perfect
fifths and octaves are highly consonant intervals. Fripp builds chords using
perfect fifths, fourths, and octaves in his new standard tuning (NST), a regular
tuning having perfect fifths between its successive open-strings (Mulhern 1986,
[page needed]).

Tarkus by Emerson, Lake & Palmer uses quartal harmony (Macon 1997, 55).