Atonal Harmony

Introduction & Tonality

In this lesson we will discuss atonal harmony. But in order to do this we are first going to have to cover some semantics.

When people talk about ‘Tonal’ music they typically mean two things:

  • That the chord progression is functional; and
  • That the chord progression has a tonic chord, and by extension a tonal centre – which is just the root note of the tonic chord.

‘Functionality’ means that every chord in a chord progression is allocated one of three functions:

  • Pre-dominant;
  • Dominant; or
  • Tonic.

The Pre-dominant chord pulls to the Dominant chord, and the Dominant chord pulls to the Tonic chord.

Pre-Dominant → Dominant → Tonic

For example, taking a ii-V-I in C, we would have:

Dm7 | G7 | CMaj7 ||

The Dm7 feels like it wants to move to the G7; the G7 feels like it wants to move to the CMaj7; and the CMaj7 chord feels completely resolved and at rest, thus it is our Tonic chord. So a functional chord progression feels like it’s moving inevitably towards a Tonic chord. And as our Tonic chord is CMaj7, this means our tonal centre is C. The melody of the song typically adheres to that tonal centre. So here, the melody would most likely use the C Major Scale and retain that tonal centre of C. Generally then, in Tonal music, the tonal centre is established with a II-V-I or a V-I cadence.

It’s important to differentiate between these two ideas. That of:

  • Functionality; and of
  • ‘Tonal centeredness’ or ‘Pitch centricity’.

So again, all Tonal music must be functional and have a tonal centre. And up until the 1960’s most Jazz was Tonal.

Non-Functional Harmony

But from the 1960’s onwards Jazz musicians started writing songs that used non-functional chord progression, which are chord progression that do NOT have a strong pull to the tonic chord. For example:

Em7 | Dm7 | Em7 | Dm7 ||

Without that V7 chord there is no longer a strong pull to the tonic chord.

Non-functional songs:

  • May have tonic chords and tonal centres; or
  • They may not – in which case they are ‘atonal’ – or without a tonic or without a tonal centre.

Non-functional chord progressions avoid the V-I perfect cadence at all costs. Instead a tonal centre (if there is one) is established by some other means, like by using a pedal point.

So fundamentally, function progressions use V-I cadences and thus pull strongly to a Tonic chord, while non-functional progressions do NOT use V-I cadences and thus do NOT pull strongly to a Tonic chord. And that, really, is the key and slightly oversimplified difference between the functional and non-functional harmony.

Note that no chord is inherently functional or non-functional. It depends on the whole chord progression. To distinguish between functional and non-functional harmony, you must understand a chords purpose.

  • If it’s purpose is to support the establishment and to lead towards a tonic chord, it is functional.
  • If it’s purpose is decorative (so it’s not contributing to the progression towards a tonic chord), it is non-functional.

Atonal Harmony

When I talk about ‘atonality’ in this video I use it to mean a very specific thing – the lack of a tonal centre. Now, unfortunately, most people associate ‘atonal’ music with really dissonant and cacophonous music like 12 Tone Serialism or Free Jazz – which is atonal, in that it lacks a tonal centre, though it also sounds pretty jarring. But this does not need to be the case. You can write very pretty and very melodic and lyrical songs that are ‘atonal’, again, in the sense that they do not have a tonal centre.

So Atonal Jazz:

  • Uses Non-functional harmony;
  • Does NOT have a tonal centre; and
  • Is generally NOT in any single key – so it is NOT diatonic. And in fact, you can use unusual non-diatonic chords that are not in any particular key – such as a Maj7♭5, which is not in any Major, natural minor, melodic minor, or harmonic minor key.

So again, this means Atonal Jazz songs:

  • Do NOT have a tonal centre; and thus
  • Do NOT have a tonic chord; and thus
  • Do NOT pull strongly to a Tonic chord; so
  • They avoid the V-I perfect cadence; and
  • They are not in any particular key.

This causes the chords to have no harmonic relation to one another and thus the whole song sounds very harmonically ambiguous. Now literally any chord can go to any other chord, even though they may be completely unrelated. And because chords sound harmonically unrelated, voice leading becomes particularly important for non-functional chord progressions. If chords are not connected harmonically or functionally, they at least have to be connected in terms of the way they flow from one to the next, so in terms of voice leading. In this way the chords sound like they are, in fact, part of a single chord progression in a single song, rather than a whole bunch of completely isolated and standalone chords that don’t form a single coherent whole. So make sure you’re not jumping around too much and connect your chords smoothly.

Harmonic Ambiguity

Atonal chord progressions are really strange and ambiguous. This is because they lack that feeling of harmonic tension and resolution that you get with functional harmony. We are used to hearing a chord progression create tension (with a V7 chord) and then resolve that tension (with a Tonic chord and to a tonal centre). So really, when we listen to music we hear an entire song relative to the tonal centre of that song. The further away we move from that tonal centre the more tension we build, only to then resolve that tension by returning to the tonal centre. But if we remove the tonal centre, we remove that point of reference so suddenly we are floating around in complete harmonic relativity.

Avoiding the V-I by avoiding the V

An easy way to avoid a V-I cadence is to write a song that has no Dominant chords at all. And one such song is Bills Evans’s masterpiece Time Remembered. This song is beautiful and atonal.

Atonal Harmony

Have a listen to this song, you’ll notice that:

  • The melody has no obvious root note to which it resolves.
  • There are no Dominant chords. The chords are not from any single key and there is no obvious Tonic chord. They don’t really look like they are related to each other in any meaningful way. They almost look a little random that simply complement the melody.
  • The other interesting thing is that the only chords used are min9 & Maj7#11 chords. And a min9 = Rootless Maj7#11 chord. That is, Em9 = Rootless CMaj7#11. So there’s some nice symmetry in this song.

Harmonic Analysis

There are two ways to look at this song:

  • Random chords linked by smooth voice leading which have no tonal centre and form no key; or
  • Basically in a key but with lots of passing and substitute chords.
    • If we look at the first 4 chords, we see that the note B is in each of the 4 chords.
    • Further the songs starts on the chord Bm9 and plays a Bm9 in bars 15 & 16, which you could argue is the end of Section A (or maybe B). Although this is a non-standard 26 bar song, so it’s a bit harder to discern firm sections.
    • We also find the chord Em9 a few times, which is the IV chord in the key of Bm. So there’s a IV-V plagal cadence in bars 14-15.
    • The melody is largely in B Aeolian

So you could arguably say that this song is in the key of B natural minor just with a heap of really complex substitutions and passing chords. But to me, it doesn’t really sound like that. It doesn’t sound like it’s in a particular key. Rather it sounds atonal.

Improvisation

Similarly, to improvise over this song, you can do one of two things:

  • Assume the chords are random and just play the related scale for each of the chords
    • min9 = Dorian;
    • Maj#11 = Lydian.
  • Assume the song is in B natural minor and improvise over this whole thing in B Aeolian – it’ll clash over some chords, but that’s ok. It’ll create tension which will then resolve itself when you return to the Bm9. And the consistency of playing a single scale the whole way through will give the improvisation a structure and constancy which will sound good.

Because you lose the crutch Tonal harmony, you are forced to make your improvisations more interesting by using different devices such as motivic development and rhythmic patterns. And as chords become less important (read non-functional), the melody becomes relatively more important. The soloist can’t rely on the chord progression to structure his/her solo anymore, the solo must instead rely on the melody – by taking a fragment of the melody as a motif and then developing it to create an entire solo out of an idea stolen from the melody.

Chord Progressions or Chord Successions?

Arguably, a more appropriate name for an Atonal chord progression is a chord successions – as the chords are not really progressing anywhere. Atonal chord progressions raise a number of really interesting questions:

  • How do you analyse a chord progression if the chords are not related to each other?
  • Are atonal songs constantly modulating through many different keys and tonal centres or do they just not have a key or tonal centre at all?
  • If the melody and the harmony clash should we analyse them independently or in their totality?

These are questions you can think about and answer yourself based on how you personally and subjectively hear the music.

Have a Listen to

Have a listen to the following artists/songs:

  • Some Jazz from the 1960’s, especially Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Miles Davis before they moved on to Fusion.
  • Time Remembered ~ Bill Evans
  • 12 Tone Tune ~ Bill Evans
  • Hand Jive ~ Tony Williams

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