A Measure of Textural Patterns and Strengths

Abstract

Although in existing writings about music the term texture is not always clearly defined, the term is used to describe phenomena relating to the structure of music. Existing concepts fall generally into two categories: (1) polyphonic or homophonic, and (2) light or heavy. Rimsky-Korsakov points out that harmonic texture is common to both polyphonic and homophonic styles [W, 71]. In this concept the vertical relationship of sounds makes up the texture. Rimsky-Korsakov, as are others interested in orchestration, is concerned with the proper scoring of instruments to avoid too heavy or too light sonorities. Students of orchestration are warned that too many gaps will cause thinness in the harmonic structure [ , 86] and that low scoring of the middle parts will cause heaviness [2, 76, 88]. In the consideration of the total structure of music, the exploration and classification of certain vertical relationships are explained in the study of harmony. Our present-day chord classifications are a great simplification over the classifications existing prior to the time of Rameau, e. g. Johann Mattheson's classification of seventy-four chords into three general groups: consonant, dissonant, and less-used dissonant [8, 16]. Yet, with our classifications, there may be something left unsaid with regard to sonority or the total effect of simultaneously sounded tone-combinations. It is believed by some theorists that the first inversion of a triad sounds lighter than the same triad in its root position, that harmony in open position usually sounds less intense than in close position, and that large gaps between inner parts produce a weak effect [, 43-4; 1, 4; a, 68]. With regard to this, Piston makes the following statement: