Monotonality is a theoretical concept, principally deriving from the theoretical writings of

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

and

Heinrich Schenker Heinrich Schenker (19 June 1868 – 14 January 1935) was a Galician-born Austrian music theorist whose writings have had a profound influence on subsequent musical analysis. His approach, now termed Schenkerian analysis, was most fully exp ...

, that in any piece of tonal music only one tonic is ever present, modulations being only regions or prolongations within, or extensions of the basic

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 ...

History

Schoenberg laid out his concept of monotonality in his book ''Structural Functions of Harmony'', writing that: "According to this principle, every digression from the tonic is considered to be still within the tonality, whether directly or indirectly, closely or remotely related. In other words, there is only ''one tonality'' in a piece, and every segment formerly considered as another tonality is only a region, a harmonic contrast within that tonality...subordinate to the central power of tstonic. Thus comprehension of the harmonic unity within a piece is achieved."

References

{{Reflist Tonality

History

See also

References