Re: Chord Function?

kuNOrtSPAMshapTHANKiro@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>Does European Classical theory provide a way to invent tonal melody, and 
>perform tonal reharmonization on-the-fly without sheet music?

Of course. What do you think organists still do with plainchant and 
hymns?

>Does it provide for on-the-fly tonal stylistic interpretation of harmonic
and 
>melodic skeletons without sheet music and without imposing the stylistic 
>restrictions of figured bass?

See above. Organists improvise melodically and motivically.

>Does it provide a way to properly play East 
>Indian Ragas?   Rhetorical questions.  Of course not, at least not
without 
>really pu****ng some definitions.  Somewhere, there's probably a music 
>professor convinced that East Indian Classical music can be explained
with 
>European Classical harmony.

Having studied both Western medieval and Renaissance modality and ?East 
Indian classical music, I can confirm many affinities.

>There's a certain silliness to this whole thing.  Every style or type of 
>music has its own rules.  It's highly unlikely that the music from a 
>culture, period, and style of music will be better understood and 
>communicated by the rules of another than by its own.

I agree that each style of music has its own stylistic conventions and 
aesthetics governing its rules. However, musics can surprisingly relate 
in terms of one another; the rules and strategies behind one music can 
often help make sense of another.

Orlando