Tonal theory

1. What is tonal theory?
2. What is tonal hierarchy?
3. What does tonal mean in music?
4. How do you identify tonality?

What is tonal theory?

The arrangement of all the tones and chords of a composition in relation to a tonic. 2. The scheme or interrelation of the tones in a painting.

What is tonal hierarchy?

Tonal hierarchy refers to both a fundamental theoretical concept in describing musical structure and a well-studied empirical phenomenon. As a theoretical concept, the essential idea is that a musical context establishes a hierarchy of tones.

What does tonal mean in music?

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 called the tonic.

How do you identify tonality?

The tonality of the song will be one degree above the last sharp. In the example above, the last sharp was in the C note, so the tonality is D major. Note: a degree, in this case, is the next note of the line or space. If you want to know the relative minor tonality, just take a degree below that last sharp.