On Mar 20, 7:27=A0am, "Tom K." <tkor...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Fiona Abrahami" <fiona@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
> news:frtlld$2h5$1$8300dec7@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
>
> > Much of my harmonic thinking these days seems to revolve around higher
> > tensions, and I rarely build a diatonic chord in a composition without
> > including a ninth and thirteenth (and 11th where appropriate) -
> > non-diatonic intervallic structures are another thing, but even then
I'm=
> > into big chords these days.
>
> > Generally, having decided my melody and bass notes I'm taking the mode
o=
f
> > the moment, re-arranging it as a stack of thirds to get my 13th chord
an=
d
> > then deciding how to voice it - which includes whether it will be
rootle=
ss
> > and whether to include the 5th and 11th.
>
> > My question to you guys is simply one of terminology, what is the
easies=
t,
> > most understandable name for a stack of thirds up to the 13th? Is
there =
an
> > existing term? Or do we have to invent one, Septachord, perhaps? Urgh,
> > that sounds like a disease. A Septad? Like triad, that sounds a bit
> > better.
>
> You could borrow from pitch class set theory and call them: "Ordered
> collections of the cardinal number seven", but I suspect that's not
quite
> what you're looking for:-) =A0What's wrong with (as you mentioned above)
"=
13th
> chord"?
>
> And, of course, another issue is voicing since if you stack the tones in
> 2nds rather than 3rds, you'll have a tone cluster.
Agreed on all points. "Thirteenth chord" is the only term I have ever
heard and, yes, the voicing is doubtless more im****tant than the pitch-
class content.
However, a fine point about Fiona's suggested alternatives: "triad",
"tetrad", "pentad", etc., as well as the "-chord" constructions use
Greek stems, not Latin ones, so the form for seven-membered sets would
be "heptachord" and "heptad".
The Greek "sept-" stem ultimately goes back to the verb "sepein",
which means "to make putrid", so the distaste these forms evoke is
well deserved. They would mean something like "rotten chord" and
"putrid set [of pitch cl*****]". (Mind you, this could be perfectly
appropriate to describe the harmonies of some compositions I have
heard, but that is another matter.)
The confusion comes from the ensemble names, "quartet", "quintet",
"***tet", "septet", "octet", "nonet" (rarely "decet", "undecet",
duodecet"), which are derived from Latin.
--
Jerry Kohl
"Mea navicula pendens anguillarum plena est."
"To aerostromatokhema mou einai gemato khelia"
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