music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, the tonic is the first scale degree () 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 tonal (musical key-based)

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" al ...

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). ''Fu ...

, 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 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 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 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 ...

, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it is

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 indicato ...

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

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

Importance and function

In music of the common practice period, 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 keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C. However, relative keys (two different scales that share a key signature) 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 Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...

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