Re: Quicky about naming a chord

"Hans Aberg" <haberg_20080313@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:frpied$fuq$1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Tom K. wrote:
>
>> We're talking about 12 ET here, remember?   So F# and Gb sound the
same.
>
> Ah, sorry, I thought you were interested in the music before 12-ET - you

> had some formulations giving that impression.
>

Well, is Bach's WTC before 12TET, that is are you differentiating between 
12TET and "Well Temperament"?  If so, how does the Urtext manage a D#
minor 
Fugue where the Czerny Edition notates the very same fugue in Eb minor? 
And 
hasn't (Western) piano music always assumed F#-Gb equivalency?

>> Again (assuming 12 ET):
>>
>> B (fully) dim. 7 functions as viio7 in the keys of C, Eb, F# or Gb, A 
>> (major and minor)
>>
>> Or to put it another way:
>> Bo7=Do7=Fo7=G#o7 and
>> Co7=D#o7=F#o7=Ao7 and
>> C#o7=Eo7=Go7=A#o7
>>
>> As all 12 possible roots and key centers are covered, there are only 3 
>> possible o7 chords, each one having 4 normal resolutions.
>
> If those keys are all harmonic minor, then I see it,

There is no such thing as an "harmonic minor" key.  Minor keys use 9 tones

diatonically (^6 and ^7) are variable and 3 chromatically.  As composers 
think in these terms, the 3 forms of the minor scale are merely
theoretical 
abstractions.

> but how is the dim7 fit into a major key, as you have written above?

You're kidding, right?
The fully diminished 7th has been freely employed in the major mode since 
the Baroque.  See, for example Prelude #1 in C major, WTC1, measure 14, 
where Bach writes a fully diminished viio4/3 resolving to a (major) I in
bar 
15; or the fully diminished viio7/V in measures 22 and 28;  or the Bb
major 
viio7-I in bar 25 of Schubert's Erlkonig.

Tom K.