Today, the terms “music design” and “composition design” are often used to describe the field. However, looking back on history, music and design have not always been so easily associated. Rather, music and musical works have been discussed mainly within the category of art. Nevertheless, there are many issues that can be considered from the framework of design at various levels, such as the structure of musical works, the act of creating music, and the environment in which music functions in society.

In this section, we will look at tonal music that originated in Western Europe, that is, music with a key such as C major or A minor (for example, the music of Mozart or The Beatles). This is because although the novelty of this system has long since worn off, much of the music that we still hear on a daily basis is tonal music.

Music with a sense of major or minor key has a long history, dating back to the Renaissance. However, it was not until the 19th century that a serious discussion of the term “tonality” began. The most famous example is the discussion by François-Joseph Fétis. In his Complete Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Harmony (1844), Fétis stated that “tonality resides in the order in which the notes of the scale are placed” and that tonality reflects the characteristics of each ethnic group. From this point of view, the scales of one ethnic group may be difficult to understand for those who follow different scales, but this is because the tonality is different between them.

Here, tonality is not limited to the major and minor keys of Western origin, but includes the various tone systems of the world. In his Theory of Harmony (3rd edition, 1922), Arnold Schoenberg argued that anything that arises from a series of notes forms tonality. Therefore, the term “atonality” is rejected because the meaning of the term “ton-al-ity” implies that any series of tones can be tonal.

As interest in the mechanism of tonality increased in the latter half of the 19th century, the first half of the 20th century saw the rise of analytical theories that grasped tonal music as a “structure,” decomposing the music into a hierarchical structure and basing it on a deeper archetype. In the 1920s and 1930s, music theorist Heinrich Schenker proposed the theory that tonal music as a masterpiece, originates from an archetype called “Ursatz” (Fundamental structure), as shown in the figure. The lower section (bass) shows the “stability–tension–stability” process of I (tonic) – V (dominant) – I (tonic), and the upper section (melody) shows the smooth melodic line of E-D-C that descends sequentially. By attributing even the longest piece to this simple structure, he tried to guarantee the unity and consistency of the work.

However, there have been some objections to the structural thinking of reducing a piece to a single prototype. After the Second World War, Schenkerian analysis, whose founder was Schenker, emerged in North America. Schenkerians who used this method proposed the term “design” or “tonal design” as an alternative to “structure” early on. In this case, design is seen as a multilevel concept, such as the relationship between themes, motives, tonal arrangements, and sections, which are directly perceivable on the surface of the work, rather than the internal and overall rules of the work. This makes it easier to evaluate the specificity of the design itself, such as a theme that should be presented in the main key but appears in a different key.

In this way, especially since the 1980s, rather than standardizing tonal music works, there has been an active movement to shed light on works that deviate from the model. This is a change in persepective, to look at the surface rather than the depths, the details rather than the whole. In this context, the music of Franz Schubert, for example, was actively taken up, since its tonal design, which deviates from the norm of tonal relations (keys with many common notes are called related keys and are easily modulated), is its most distinctive feature.

Furthermore, genres other than art music, which have been relatively new subject to study, can also be included in the scope of design. For musicians in the first half of the 20th century, such as Schenker, a piece of music was dominated by a central key (the main key), and other keys that arose through modulation were only temporary phenomena. However, in recent years, such hierarchical tonal relationships are rarely heard in Western and Japanese popular music. Rather, in some cases, each section, such as the verse section or the chorus, is designed separately. That it is not uncommon now to find multiple keys juxtaposed parallel within a piece of music leads us to rethink the difference between understanding tonality as a hierarchic structure and as a design.

From the point of view of tonal and motif design, music for movies and video games is a perfect example. The leitmotif technique, which originated with Richard Wagner in the 19th century, is a compositional method that links musical motifs to specific characters, scenes, and emotions. It has become a classic technique, especially in Hollywood movies. For example, in order to express a different space, the music modulates to a distant, unrelated key as the shot changes. Through this kind of audiovisual information, it skillfully works on the emotions of the viewers. One of the areas in which tonal music has great potential is research that combines cognitive science and design theory, where the mechanisms of music listening can be clarified and effective applications can be explored. Tonal music and design are topics that are involved in a wide variety of diachronic phenomena today.

(NISHIDA Hiroko)

Related Classes

• KIKAN Education Introduction to Art Studies
• Acoustic Design Course Western music history, Music Theory and Music Analysis
• Acoustic Design Course, Future Design Course 応用音楽表現演習I、応用音楽表現演習II
• Acoustic Design Course 音楽学
• Department of Acoustic Design 音楽社会文化特論

References

• 西田紘子・安川智子編（2019）『ハーモニー探究の歴史 思想としての和声理論』音楽之友社
• Beach, David (1993) “Schubert’s Experiments with Sonata Form: Formal-Tonal Design versus Underlying Structure,” Music Theory Spectrum 15-1, 1-18.
• Capuzzo, Guy (2009) “Sectional Tonality and Sectional Centricity in Rock Music,” Music Theory Spectrum 31-1, 157-174.
• Fétis, François-Joseph (1844), Traité complet de la théorie et de la pratique de l’harmonie. 2e édition. Paris.
• Schönberg, Arnold (1922) Harmonielehre. 3te Auflage. Leipzig und Wien.