Fundamental Passacaglia: Harmonic Functions and the Modes of the Musical Tetractys

摘要

In this paper we take the three tonal functions tonic, subdom-inant and dominant out of their usual theoretical domicile—the combinatorics of fifth-related triads e'nriched by a dialectical interpretation—and redeploy them within an alternative theoretical framework: the combinatorics of the modes of the musical tetractys, enriched by musical-theoretical interpretations of selected mathematical facts. Section 1 introduces tonal perspectives of the analysis of the fundamental bass. Section 2 provides a short overview of the combinatorics of the three modes of the musical tetractys. The concluding Section 3 binds the two strands of investigation together.