TonityOver the years, many ideas about tonality and how it has shaped Western musical culture have been discussed. According to an article on tonality by Danlee Mitchell and Jack Logan, tonality is a term used to describe the arrangement of the dominant and subdominant above and below the tonic. Another definition of tonality is that it refers to the systematic arrangements of pitch phenomena and the relationships between them. With all the technical terms and confusion, it's no wonder many students struggle to understand the meaning of tonality. What is tonality? There are many different aspects of tonality that one must know before one can begin to fully understand its meaning. The first would be the relationship between the different locations. Each pitch can be considered tonal when placed at the tonal center, otherwise known as the key of the music. For example, if you were playing a piece in the key of C, you would probably start and end on the note C because it would be considered tonal. Now, just because it ends on C doesn't mean it's tonal, but when you take into account the relationships between the dominant and subdominant, it gives better definition to the tonality. The dominant is the fifth note of the scale that has the most distance from the tonic or base note such as from G to C. This phenomenon is governed by the harmonic series and can be found everywhere, including in the nature. Male mosquitoes have been found to fly at a higher frequency than females, causing them to vibrate at a perfect fifth. The harmonic series is a complex measurement of pitches that helps musicians understand their relationships to each other. Above you will see a picture of the harmonic series and pitch relationship. Right in the middle of the paper......in the article below you can see how he uses the relationship between the dominant and the tonic to create this inevitable drive.III viio7/VVI II IV V7 IV I Below above you will see a small extract from Vivaldi's Spring of the Four Seasons movement. If you notice the music follows the same pattern of I-IV-V but there is a major difference in this piece compared to the one discussed previously. This piece takes the main tone of the dominant and creates an unresolved movement that can only be resolved by the dominant. Normally the minor II chord would be used in this situation, but Vivaldi thought it would be more effective to use a viio7/V to reinforce the dominant relationship. This gives listeners an idea of ​​all the possibilities in which tonality can emerge and how it is present in a wide variety of Western music..