Pandiatonicism

File:Stravinsky pandiatonic nonharmonic bass- Symphony of Psalms 3rd mov.png

Pandiatonic chord from Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms 3rd movementTemplate:Sfn File:Stravinsky pandiatonic nonharmonic bass- Symphony of Psalms 3rd mov.mid

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Pandiatonicism is a musical technique of using the diatonic (as opposed to the chromatic) scale without the limitations of functional tonality. Music using this technique is pandiatonic.

HistoryEdit

The term "pandiatonicism" was coined by Nicolas Slonimsky in the second edition of Music since 1900 to describe chord formations of any number up to all seven degrees of the diatonic scale, "used freely in democratic equality".Template:Sfn Triads with added notes such as the sixth, seventh, or second (added tone chords) are the most common,Template:Sfn Template:Sfn) while the "most elementary form" is a nonharmonic bass.Template:Sfn According to Slonimsky's definition,

Pan-diatonicism sanctions the simultaneous use of any or all seven tones of the diatonic scale, with the bass determining the harmony. The chord-building remains tertian, with the seventh, ninth, or thirteenth chords being treated as consonances functionally equivalent to the fundamental triad. (The eleventh chord is shunned in tonic harmony because of its quartal connotations.) Pan-diatonicism, as consolidation of tonality, is the favorite technique of NEO-CLASSICISM Template:Sic.Template:Sfn

Pandiatonic music typically uses the diatonic notes freely in dissonant combinations without conventional resolutions and/or without standard chord progressions, but always with a strong sense of tonality due to the absence of chromatics. "Pandiatonicism possesses both tonal and modal aspects, with a distinct preference for major keys".Template:Sfn Characteristic examples include the opening of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3, Alfredo Casella's Valse diatonique, and Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella.Template:Sfn "The functional importance of the primary triads...remains undiminished in pandiatonic harmony".Template:Sfn An opposed point of view holds that pandiatonicism does not project a clear and stable tonic.Template:Sfn Pandiatonicism is also referred to as "white-note music,"Template:Sfn though in fact occasional accidentals may be present.Template:Sfn Other composers who employed the technique are Maurice Ravel, Paul Hindemith, Darius Milhaud, Aaron Copland, and Roy Harris.Template:Sfn Pandiatonicism is also employed in jazz (e.g., added sixth ninth chord) and in Henry Cowell's tone clusters.Template:Sfn

Slonimsky later came to regard pandiatonicism as a diatonic counterpart of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, whereby melodies may be made up of seven different notes of the diatonic scale, and then be inverted, retrograded, or both. According to this system, "strict pandiatonic counterpoint" may use progressions of seven different notes in each voice, with no vertical duplication.Template:Sfn

The term has been criticized as one of many by which, "Stravinsky's music, everywhere and at once, is made to represent or encompass every conceivable technique",Template:Sfn and that has, "become so vague a concept that it has very little meaning or use".Template:Sfn Pandiatonic music is usually defined by what it is not, "by the absence of traditional elements":Template:Sfn chromatic, atonal, twelve-tone, functional, clear tonic, and/or traditional dissonance resolutions.Template:Sfn "It has been applied...to diatonic music lacking harmonic consistency [or]...centricity".Template:Sfn Slonimsky himself, making fun of the definition, quoted a professor calling pandiatonicism "C-major that sounds like hell".Template:Sfn

Examples of pandiatonicism include the harmonies Aaron Copland used in his populist work, Appalachian Spring,Template:Sfn and the minimalist music by Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and the later works of John Adams.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn William Mann describes The Beatles' "This Boy" as, "harmonically...one of their most intriguing, with its chains of pandiatonic clusters".<ref name=ME>Template:Harvnb cited in Template:Harvnb</ref>