Steady sounds and unstable sounds. Tonic.
Contents
How does our ear find “support” in a melody? What musical terms can be used to explain this feeling?
Sustainable sounds
Listening to a piece of music, you probably paid attention to the fact that there are sounds that stand out from the general mass – they are, as it were, the “basis” of the melody, it would even be more accurate to say the “support” of the melody. Very often the melody begins with such sounds, and ends with them even more often. We immediately offer an example. Listen to it and pay attention to the last note. We highlighted it in red. Your task now is to hear that she is indeed the “pillar” of the melody.
Figure 1. Fragment of the melody “At the samovar…”
Did you hear? Does it really feel like this is the backbone of the melody? Like a dot at the end of a story. This is sustainable sound.
Now a little more difficult. Look at the first note of the second measure. It is also a stable sound. Try to hear it.
Tonic
Among stable sounds, one stands out more than others. It is called tonic. In our example from the previous paragraph, the red note is the tonic.
Unstable sounds
Let’s go back to the example above. Notes from the penultimate measure seem to “fall” on our red note – “support”. You can hear it. Such sounds are called unstable.
Now let’s listen to the first two measures. The notes of the first measure seem to fly up to the first note of the 2nd measure. And these sounds are also unstable. Try to hear it.
Permission
In both examples, unstable sounds “run” to their support, tend to it. Such a transition from unstable sound to stable is called resolution . It is said that an unstable sound resolves into a stable one.
Results
You got acquainted with the tonic, stable and unstable sounds, you know that unstable sounds are resolved into stable ones.
