In music theory, ''tertian'' ( la, tertianus, "of or concerning thirds") describes any

piece Piece or Pieces (not to be confused with peace) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Games * Piece (chess), pieces deployed on a chessboard for playing the game of chess * ''Pieces'' (video game), a 1994 puzzle game for the Super NES * P ...

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 ( ...

, counterpoint etc. constructed from the intervals of ( major and minor) thirds. An interval such as that between the notes A and C encompasses 3

semitone A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically. It is defined as the interval between two adjacent no ...

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 ) principally uses chords based on thirds; the term is typically used to contrast with

quartal and quintal harmony In music, quartal harmony is the building of Harmony, harmonic structures built from the Interval (music), intervals of the perfect fourth, the tritone, augmented fourth and the diminished fourth. For instance, a three-note quartal chord on C can ...

which uses chords based on fourths or fifths. A common

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 ...

chord can be regarded as consisting of a "stack" of two consecutive thirds. This allows for four permutations, each producing a chord with distinct

quality Quality may refer to: Concepts *Quality (business), the ''non-inferiority'' or ''superiority'' of something *Quality (philosophy), an attribute or a property * Quality (physics), in response theory *Energy quality, used in various science discipl ...

: A musical scale may also be analyzed as a succession of thirds. The

meantone temperament Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Me ...

, a system of tuning that emphasizes 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 progression In a musical composition, a chord progression or harmonic progression (informally chord changes, used as a plural) is a succession of chords. Chord progressions are the foundation of harmony in Western musical tradition from the common practice ...

s as an alternative to root motion in fifths, as for example in the "thirds cycle" used in John Coltrane's

Coltrane changes Coltrane changes (Coltrane Matrix or cycle, also known as chromatic third relations and multi-tonic changes) are a harmonic progression variation using substitute chords over common jazz chord progressions. These substitution patterns were first d ...

, as influenced by

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. B ...

's ''Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns''.

References

{{Chords Chords Thirds (music)

See also

References