![Chromatic notes diagram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Chromatic_notes_diagram.png)
Chromaticism is a
compositional technique interspersing the primary
diatonic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...
pitches and
chords
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 (as ...
with other pitches of the
chromatic scale
The chromatic scale (or twelve-tone scale) is a set of twelve pitches (more completely, pitch classes) used in tonal music, with notes separated by the interval of a semitone. Chromatic instruments, such as the piano, are made to produce the ...
. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses only seven different notes, rather than the twelve available on a standard piano keyboard. Music is chromatic when it uses more than just these seven notes.
Chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...
ism is in contrast or addition to
tonality
Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and/or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived relations, stabilities, attractions and directionality. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or triadic chord with the greatest stability is call ...
or
diatonicism
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pai ...
and
modality
Modality may refer to:
Humanities
* Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations
* Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales
* Modalitie ...
(the
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 indicators ...
and
minor
Minor may refer to:
* Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities.
** A person who has not reached the age of majority
* Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education
Music theory
*Minor chord
** Barb ...
, or "white key", scales). Chromatic elements are considered, "elaborations of or substitutions for diatonic scale members".
[Matthew Brown; Schenker, "The Diatonic and the Chromatic in Schenker's "Theory of Harmonic Relations", ''Journal of Music Theory'', Vol. 30, No. 1 (Spring 1986), pp. 1–33, citation on p. 1.]
Development of chromaticism
Chromaticism began to develop in the late
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
period, notably in the 1550s, often as part of ''
musica reservata In music history, ''musica reservata'' (also ''musica secreta'') is either a style or a performance practice in '' a cappella'' vocal music of the latter half of the 16th century, mainly in Italy and southern Germany, involving refinement, exclusivi ...
'', in the music of
Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore (occasionally Cypriano) (1515 or 1516 – between 11 and 20 September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish composer ...
, in
Orlando Lasso
Orlande de Lassus ( various other names; probably – 14 June 1594) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palest ...
's ''
Prophetiae Sibyllarum
''Prophetiae Sibyllarum'' ("Sibylline Prophecies" or "Sibylline Oracles") are a series of twelve motets by the Franco-Flemish composer Orlande de Lassus. The works are known for their extremely chromatic idiom.
History
This cycle of motets is ...
'', and in the theoretical work of
Nicola Vicentino
Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most progressive musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard.
Life
Little is known of hi ...
.
The following timeline is abbreviated from its presentation by Benward & Saker:
[Benward & Saker (2003), pp. 42–43.]
:Baroque Period (1600—1750) "The system of major and minor scales developed during the early part of the baroque period. This coincided with the emergence of key consciousness in music."
:Classical Period (1750—1825) "The major and minor keys were the basis of music in the classical period. Chromaticism was decorative for the most part and shifts from one key to another...were used to create formal divisions."
:Romantic Period (1825—1900) "Chromaticism increased to the point that the major—minor key system began to be threatened. By the end of the period, keys often shifted so rapidly in the course of a composition that tonality itself began to break down."
:Post-Romantic and Impressionistic Period (1875—1920) "With the breakdown of the major—minor key system, impressionist composers began to experiment with other scales....particularly...pentatonic, modal, and whole-tone scales."
:Contemporary Period (1920—present) "The chromatic scale has predominated in much of the music of our period."
:Jazz and Popular Music (1900—present) "Popular music has remained the last bastion of the major-minor key system... The
blues scale
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...
a chromatic variant of the major scale"is often found in jazz and popular music with blues influence."
![Fifteenth chord from Schoenberg on C](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Fifteenth_chord_from_Schoenberg_on_C.png)
As tonality began to expand during the last half of the nineteenth century, with new combinations of chords, keys and harmonies being tried, the chromatic scale and chromaticism became more widely used, especially in the works of
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
, such as the opera "
Tristan und Isolde
''Tristan und Isolde'' (''Tristan and Isolde''), WWV 90, is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg. It was compose ...
". Increased chromaticism is often cited as one of the main causes or signs of the "breakdown" of tonality, in the form of increased importance or use of:
*
mode mixture
A borrowed chord (also called mode mixture,Romeo, Sheila (1999). ''Complete Rock Keyboard Method: Mastering Rock Keyboard'', p. 42. . Bouchard, Joe and Romeo, Sheila (2007). ''The Total Rock Keyboardist'', p. 120. Alfred Music. . modal mixture, ...
*
leading tone
In music theory, a leading-tone (also called a subsemitone, and a leading-note in the UK) is a note or pitch which resolves or "leads" to a note one semitone higher or lower, being a lower and upper leading-tone, respectively. Typically, ''the' ...
s
*
tonicization
In music, tonicization is the treatment of a pitch other than the overall tonic (the "home note" of a piece) as a temporary tonic in a composition. In Western music that is tonal, the piece is heard by the listener as being in a certain key. A ...
of each chromatic step and other
secondary key areas
*
modulatory space The spaces described in this article are pitch class spaces which model the relationships between pitch classes in some musical system. These models are often graphs, groups or lattices. Closely related to pitch class space is pitch space, which re ...
*hierarchical organizations of the chromatic set such as
George Perle
George Perle (6 May 1915 – 23 January 2009) was an American composer and music theorist. As a composer, his music was largely atonal, using methods similar to the twelve-tone technique of the Second Viennese School. This serialist style, an ...
's
*the use of non-tonal chords as tonic "keys"/"scales"/"areas" such as the
Tristan chord
The Tristan chord is a chord made up of the notes F, B, D, and G:
:
More generally, it can be any chord that consists of these same intervals: augmented fourth, augmented sixth, and augmented ninth above a bass note. It is so named as it is h ...
.
As tonal harmony continued to widen and even break down, the chromatic scale became the basis of modern music written using the
twelve-tone technique
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer, who published his "law o ...
, a
tone row
In music, a tone row or note row (german: Reihe or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets ar ...
being a specific ordering or series of the chromatic scale, and later
serialism
In music, serialism is a method of Musical composition, composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other elements of music, musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, thou ...
. Though these styles/methods continue to (re)incorporate tonality or tonal elements, often the trends that led to these methods were abandoned, such as modulation.
Types of chromaticism
David Cope
David Cope (born May 17, 1941 in San Francisco, California) is an American author, composer, scientist, and former professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). His primary area of research involves artificial intellige ...
describes three forms of chromaticism: modulation, borrowed chords from secondary keys, and chromatic chords such as
augmented sixth chord
In music theory, an augmented sixth chord contains the interval of an augmented sixth, usually above its bass tone. This chord has its origins in the Renaissance, was further developed in the Baroque, and became a distinctive part of the musi ...
s.
The
total chromatic
In music, a tone row or note row (german: Reihe or '), also series or set, is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets a ...
is the collection of all twelve
equally tempered pitch class
In music, a pitch class (p.c. or pc) is a set of all pitches that are a whole number of octaves apart; for example, the pitch class C consists of the Cs in all octaves. "The pitch class C stands for all possible Cs, in whatever octave positio ...
es of the chromatic scale.
List of chromatic chords:
*Dominant
seventh chord
A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a dominant seventh chord: a major triad together with a minor ...
s of
subsidiary keys, used to create
modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the ''carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informatio ...
s to those keys (V
7–I cadences)
*Augmented sixth chords
*
Neapolitan sixth
In Classical music theory, a Neapolitan chord (or simply a "Neapolitan") is a major chord built on the lowered ( flatted) second (supertonic) scale degree. In Schenkerian analysis, it is known as a Phrygian II, since in minor scales the chord i ...
chords as chromatic
subdominant
In music, the subdominant is the fourth tonal degree () of the diatonic scale. It is so called because it is the same distance ''below'' the tonic as the dominant is ''above'' the tonicin other words, the tonic is the dominant of the subdomina ...
s
*Diminished seventh chords as chromatic vii
7
*
Altered chord
An altered chord is a chord that replaces one or more notes from the diatonic scale with a neighboring pitch from the chromatic scale. By the broadest definition, any chord with a non-diatonic chord tone is an altered chord. The simplest examp ...
s
*Expanded chords
**Shir-Cliff, Jay, and Rauscher (1965)
[Justin Shir-Cliff, Stephen Jay, and Donald J. Rauscher (1965). ''Chromatic Harmony''. New York: The Free Press. .]
Other types of chromaticity:
*
Pitch axis theory
Pitch axis theory refers to a way of thinking about chord progressions and modes, that was heavily used and popularized (though not invented) by the guitarist Joe Satriani.
When composing using this concept, the pitch axis is simply a chosen note ...
*Parallel scales
*
Nonchord tone
A nonchord tone (NCT), nonharmonic tone, or embellishing tone is a note in a piece of music or song that is not part of the implied or expressed chord set out by the harmonic framework. In contrast, a chord tone is a note that is a part of the f ...
*The minor mode in major keys (
mode mixture
A borrowed chord (also called mode mixture,Romeo, Sheila (1999). ''Complete Rock Keyboard Method: Mastering Rock Keyboard'', p. 42. . Bouchard, Joe and Romeo, Sheila (2007). ''The Total Rock Keyboardist'', p. 120. Alfred Music. . modal mixture, ...
)
**Shir-Cliff, Jay, and Rauscher (1965)
Chromatic note
A chromatic note is one which does not belong to the scale of the key prevailing at the time. Similarly, a chromatic chord is one which includes one or more such notes. A chromatic and a diatonic note, or two chromatic notes, create chromatic intervals.
A chromatic scale is one which proceeds entirely by semitones, so dividing the
octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
into twelve equal steps of one semitone each.
Linear chromaticism is used in
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
: "All improvised lines ... will include non-harmonic, chromatic notes." Similar to in the
bebop scale Bebop scale is a term referring to the practice of adding a note (typically a chromatic passing tone) to any common seven tone scale in order to make it an eight tone scale. An eight tone scale is balanced, meaning that it contains an even number o ...
this may be the result of metric issues, or simply the desire to use a portion of the chromatic scale
[ Coker, Jerry (1997). ''Elements of the Jazz Language for the Developing Improvisor'', p. 81. .]
Chromatic chord
A chromatic chord is a musical
chord that includes at least one note not belonging in 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 steps, ...
associated with the prevailing
key
Key or The Key may refer to:
Common meanings
* Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm
* Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock
* Key (map ...
, the use of such chords is the use of chromatic harmony. In other words, at least one note of the chord is
chromatically altered. Any chord that is not
chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...
is a ''
diatonic chord
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...
''.
For example, in the key of C major, the following chords (all diatonic) are naturally built on each degree of the scale:
*I = C major triad
ontains pitch classes C E G*ii = D minor triad
ontains D F A*iii = E minor triad
ontains E G B*IV = F major triad
ontains F A C*V = G major triad
ontains G B D*vi = A minor triad
ontains A C E*vii = B diminished triad
ontains B D F
However, a number of other chords may also be built on the degrees of the scale, and some of these are chromatic. Examples:
*II in first inversion is called the
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
sixth chord
The term ''sixth chord'' refers to two different kinds of chord, the first in classical music and the second in modern popular music.
The original meaning of the term is a ''chord in first inversion'', in other words with its third in the bass a ...
. For example in C Major: F–A–D. The Neapolitan Sixth chord resolves to the V.
*The iv diminished chord is the
sharpened subdominant with diminished seventh chord. For example: F–A–C–E. The IV diminished chord resolves to the V. The IV can also be understood as the
tonicization
In music, tonicization is the treatment of a pitch other than the overall tonic (the "home note" of a piece) as a temporary tonic in a composition. In Western music that is tonal, the piece is heard by the listener as being in a certain key. A ...
of V where it functions as vii7 of the V chord, written vii7/V.
*VI: The
augmented sixth chord
In music theory, an augmented sixth chord contains the interval of an augmented sixth, usually above its bass tone. This chord has its origins in the Renaissance, was further developed in the Baroque, and became a distinctive part of the musi ...
, A–C(–C, D, or E)–F, resolves to the V.
*Consonant chromatic triads, modulation to these triads would be
chromatic modulation:
**III, VI, II, iv, vii, and VII in major
**iii, vi, II, iv, ii, and vii in minor.
Chromatic line
In
music theory
Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...
, is a Latin term which refers to
chromatic
Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...
line, often a
bassline
Bassline (also known as a bass line or bass part) is the term used in many styles of music, such as blues, jazz, funk, Dub music, dub and electronic music, electronic, traditional music, traditional, or classical music for the low-pitched Part ( ...
, whether descending or ascending.
A line cliché is any chromatic line that moves against a stationary chord.
There are many different types of line clichés—most often in the root, fifth or seventh—but there are two named line clichés. The major line cliché moves from the fifth of the chord to the sixth, then back to the fifth.
Assuming the starting chord is the tonic, the simplest form of the major line cliché forms a I–I+–vi–I+ progression. The minor line cliché moves down from the root to the major seventh, to the minor seventh, and can continue until the fifth.
From the late 16th century onward, chromaticism has come to symbolize intense emotional expression in music. Pierre
Boulez
Pierre Louis Joseph Boulez (; 26 March 1925 – 5 January 2016) was a French composer, conductor and writer, and the founder of several musical institutions. He was one of the dominant figures of post-war Western classical music.
Born in Mon ...
(1986, p. 254) speaks of a long established "dualism" in Western European harmonic language: "the diatonic on the one hand and the chromatic on the other as in the time of
Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...
and
Gesualdo whose madrigals provide many examples and employ virtually the same symbolism. The chromatic symbolizing darkness doubt and grief and the diatonic light, affirmation and joy—this imagery has hardly changed for three centuries." When an interviewer asked
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
(1959, p. 243) if he really believed in an innate connection between "pathos" and chromaticism, the composer replied "Of course not; the association is entirely due to convention." Nevertheless the convention is a powerful one and the emotional associations evoked by chromaticism have endured and indeed strengthened over the years. To quote Cooke (1959, p. 54) "Ever since about 1850—since doubts have been cast, in intellectual circles, on the possibility, or even the desirability, of basing one's life on the concept of personal happiness—chromaticism has brought more and more painful tensions into our art-music, and finally eroded the major system and with it the whole system of tonality."
Examples of descending chromatic melodic lines that would seem to convey highly charged feeling can be found in:
Quotes
Some individual views on chromaticism include:
Connotations
Chromaticism is often associated with
dissonance.
In the 16th century the repeated melodic semitone became associated with weeping, see:
passus duriusculus,
lament bass
In music, the lament bass is a ground bass, built from a descending perfect fourth from tonic to dominant, with each step harmonized.Brover-Lubovsky, Bella (2008). ''Tonal Space in the Music of Antonio Vivaldi'', p.151-52. . The diatonic versio ...
, and
pianto In music, the ''pianto'' (en:crying) is the motif of a descending minor second, has represented laments and been associated textually with weeping, sighing (called the Mannheim sigh by Hugo Riemann); or pain, grief, etc.; since the 16th centur ...
.
Susan McClary
Susan Kaye McClary (born October 2, 1946) is an American musicologist associated with " new musicology". Noted for her work combining musicology with feminist music criticism, McClary is professor of musicology at Case Western Reserve University ...
(1991) argues that chromaticism in
opera
Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
tic and
sonata form
Sonata form (also ''sonata-allegro form'' or ''first movement form'') is a musical form, musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle ...
narratives
A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narra ...
can be chosen to be understood through a Marxist narrative as the "Other", racial, sexual, class or otherwise, to diatonicism's "male" self, whether through modulation, as to the secondary key area, or other means. For instance,
Catherine Clément
Catherine Clément (; born 10 February 1939) is a French philosopher, novelist, feminist, and literary critic, born in Boulogne-Billancourt. She received a degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, and studied under its faculty Cla ...
calls the chromaticism in Wagner's ''
Isolde'' "feminine stink".
["Opera", 55–58, from McClary (1991) p. 185n] However, McClary also contradicts herself saying that the same techniques used in opera to represent madness in women were historically highly prized in
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
instrumental music, "In the nineteenth-century symphony, ''
Salome
Salome (; he, שְלוֹמִית, Shlomit, related to , "peace"; el, Σαλώμη), also known as Salome III, was a Jewish princess, the daughter of Herod II, son of Herod the Great, and princess Herodias, granddaughter of Herod the Great, an ...
''s chromatic daring is what distinguishes truly serious composition of the vanguard from mere
cliché
A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...
-ridden hack work." (p. 101)
See also
*
20th-century music
The following Wikipedia articles deal with 20th-century music.
Western art music Main articles
*20th-century classical music
*Contemporary classical music, covering the period
Sub-topics
*Aleatoric music
*Electronic music
*Experimental music
*Ex ...
– Classical
References
External links
Chromaticism for Jazz Guitar ''Bach-Cantatas.com''.
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