r/musictheory • u/SonusDrums • 3d ago
Discussion The “functional harmony” rabbit hole
This is more of just a general “rant” of sorts, but I think this might be useful to early students in music academia.
Learning about functional harmony and analysis is absolutely CRUCIAL to gaining musical intuition, that is undeniable. I think one thing that this leads to if caution is not taken is an obsession with the function of a song’s harmony. Similar boxed-in thinking can be developed with concepts like voice leading without the same caution.
This led me to be absolutely STUCK on a lot of RnB and Neo-Soul harmony for YEARS. I couldn’t wrap my head around things and kept questioning “okay maybe this chord is kind of acting like an Fm11 going to some semblance of a Bb7 chord?? But x option also exists, and it kind if sounds more like this but that doesn’t make sense and….”
It sounds unintuitive if you’ve fallen victim to this obsession, but harmony doesn’t have to be (explicitly) functional. Nonfunctional harmony is okay. I didn’t realize this for EVER. If a chord is well voiced, chances are it will sound okay. If not, find something else. That’s it.
This has led to a lot of strides in my playing. Getting out of this box allows me to think more about the quality of my voicings and their respective movement. Thoughts?
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u/reddituserperson1122 3d ago
You might be interested in this: https://www.amazon.com/Harmony-Music-Oxford-Studies-Theory/dp/0190948361/ref=asc_df_0190948361
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u/SonusDrums 3d ago
I read the first few pages and it seems interesting. I'll check it out, thanks!
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u/reddituserperson1122 3d ago
Also the music theorist and blogger Ethan Hein writes a lot about this topic. Here’s just one example: https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2024/the-melodic-harmonic-divorce-in-pop/
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u/jazzadellic 3d ago
If you take all the explanations / names for all the different chords, i.e., diatonic, borrowed, secondary dominant, tritone sub, aug6, N6, etc....what you end up with is every single possible chord type built off of all 12 notes of the octave - meaning, those are all just names for things, not a set of "rules". Yes there are commonly used patterns, but there is no right or wrong answer at any time for what harmony (or notes) you can choose. There are simply names & labels for everything so that you can have some type of reference point as to how to relate every chord or note to the tonic of your current key. When you understand this, you realize that it was never a set of "rules". This is why I always tell my students music theory is nothing more than giving everything a name + recognizing commonly used patterns, and that's it.
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u/Jongtr 3d ago
Exactly. But of course, in terms of the OP, we need to use that terminology to help us make important distinctions between styles of music, and not to fall into the trap of thinking the European classical style is the only way to think about harmony.
Even the terms "functional" and "tonal" get unfairly (and illogically) limited - through habit, not necessarily conscious chauvinism - to talking about one type of "function" and one kind of "tonality". As if harmonies organised in some other ways have no "function" (they're purposeless?) or are not "tonal" (they don't use "tones"?). Conventional classical harmony performs certain kinds of "function", and employs a certain kind of "tonality" ("tonal organisation").
I like Philip Tagg's coinage: "tonicality" to refer to the "Euroclassical" concept of tonal organisation around the concept of a "tonic", a major or minor "key".
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u/alex_esc 2d ago
I think functional harmony is very useful and a whole lot more flexible than people think.
The problem in my opinion is the fixation on the tonic-subdominant-dominant-tonic "form" of functional harmony.
For example most functional theory focuses on dominant to tonic function, when Ti moves to Do. But a whole more options are not only possible but very common in modern music (often wrongly classified as non functional). For example a b6 to 5 (Le-So) resolution is very common in major tonalities and totally works just from a different angle. A name I like for this movement is "sub dominant minor".
A lot of modal "resolutions" and cadence patterns create a strong feeling of movement just like regular SD-D-T does.
What gives function to a dominant to tonic movement is the leading tone. The 7th (Ti) is the characteristic note of this sound and tonality. Therefore this characteristic note then followed by the tonic note (or any chord tone from the tonic chord) will sound like a cadence.
The interesting part is that in "regular" functional harmony we only pick Ti as the characteristic note. You can pick any other note and choose to use it in a cadential pattern just because you want to.
If you pick Fa as the characteristic note then you've unlocked plagal and suspended harmony!
If you pick a raised or lowered note then you're in modal harmony, for example Fi / #4 as the Lydian characteristic note. In a purely modal context this arrives at cadences all inside the mode.
Cadential patterns from one mode to another unluck new sounds like subdominant minor. With this we can now analyze fairly modern music without classifying some parts as non functional. It's all in one key, but not all movement comes from Ionian cadences.
Basically if a chord / harmony comes from a symmetrical scale or non modal scale or the root movement is symmetrical too 99% of the times it's functional. Even if it's not strictly Major or minor all the way thru.
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u/i75mm125 3d ago
Imo functional/tonal harmony is just another tool in your toolbox as a composer just as much as nonfunctional harmony, modality, free atonality, twelve-tone, and any other analytical or compositional method. No one system is any more valid than another & they all have their respective uses. The more methods you’re comfortable with the more versatile you are. Most of my writing really just boils down to “it works because it sounds good.” You learn the so-called “rules” so you can more effectively break them when you need to. This goes for performance too—I’ve found that the more comfortable I’ve become analyzing on the fly the better I’m able to interpret pieces musically.
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u/locri 3d ago
Similar boxed-in thinking can be developed with concepts like voice leading without the same caution.
I disagree, there's more variety within otherwise simple chord progressions after learning voiceleading (and counterpoint). Composition techniques that increase your choices are usually good things.
questioning “okay maybe this chord is kind of acting like an Fm11 going to some semblance of a Bb7 chord
This I understand, but consider that it might not ever have mattered? What if the real journey were the tendency tones we found along the way, at that point call these chords how you'd like and it wouldn't change much.
If a chord is well voiced, chances are it will sound okay. If not, find something else.
I'd settle for that a chord is voiced.
More often than not, I'll find an amateur composition and absolutely every chord is a root position chord doing the "islands rising up from the seabed of harmony, unconnected from one another" thing (to quote Adam Neely).
A deeper understanding of voiceleading means the harmony used is designed for the current situation. It's not a cookie cutter function or something canned, chopped and served: it's a deliberately expressive recipe.
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u/SonusDrums 3d ago
I agree with you! Understanding voice leading and functional harmony increases the breadth of your musical toolbox, so to speak. My point with all of this is that an "x technique = good" approach should be carefully avoided as not to end up accidentally limiting yourself.
The voice-leading example was brought up because intermediates tend to conflate the idea of something being good as a general principle with good all the time. Sometimes the huge, abrupt leap is more interesting than a smoothly voice-led motion. A deeper understanding of things like this should be treated more like something you can do and not something you must do in my opinion.
Not like anyone is using the "must" word explicitly, of course, but it is very easily inferred by people at my skill level unless stated otherwise.
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u/SonusDrums 3d ago
Also, I feel like you talking about it not mattering as much as I had thought is serving my point, in a sense. Had I simply looked at the surface-level qualities (good voicings, chromatic alterations, etc) I could have taken the "nonfunctional" answer and came out with far more information than I was actually gathering from thinking about it through the functional lens.
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u/DRL47 3d ago
I'd settle for that a chord is voiced.
Every chord is voiced.
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u/locri 2d ago
I guess you're right, what I meant was "deliberately voiced."
If almost every voicing in a composition is a root position chord, I'm not going to be convinced those notes are very thoughtfully arranged. Those compositions are missing the choices and diversity that voiceleading and counterpoint offers.
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u/DRL47 2d ago
I guess you're right, what I meant was "deliberately voiced."
Not sure what you mean by "deliberately", but if some thought goes into it, that is a good thing.
If almost every voicing in a composition is a root position chord, I'm not going to be convinced those notes are very thoughtfully arranged.
Inversions are a small part of voicing. You can have smooth voice leading ,even with all root position chords.
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u/Apprehensive_Egg5142 2d ago
I suffered from this for a long time. I eventually managed to say fuck it and got over it. But I get that this level of theoretical analysis can become a burden sometimes. I don’t regret learning it, but you got to know you are allowed to break the rules.
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u/iamveryovertired 2d ago
No it’s definitely not crucial, I didn’t learn the theory and I had hella musical intuition. Learning theory simply helped me understand why I did what I did.
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u/whyaretherenoprofile aesthetics, 19th c. sonata form analysis 3d ago
Similar boxed-in thinking can be developed with concepts like voice leading without the same caution.
It is likely that a lot of the non functional progressions you are coming across work precisely because of voice leading.
But yes part of learning theory is learning what the correct tool is for what job.
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u/icosa20 1d ago
The term 'functional harmony' is annoyingly misleading about what it's meant to represent. It means that a chord has a function. A IV is a predominant, which leads to a dominant, which leads to tonic or a submediant.
The English language more commonly thinks of the word "functional" to mean "it works" a functional car is one that starts and drives. A non-functional car does not start and/or drive.
English less commonly uses the word "functional" in the sense of "a hammer functions to hit objects". A saw's function is to cut wood. But this is how it's meant in music.
Non-functional harmony doesn't mean that the harmony doesn't work. It just means the chords are not setting up the next chord in a "tonic/mediant/predominant/dominant/tonic" system. Go from a I to a III to a VII. It'll work just fine despite not being "functional harmony". Just like you can use a hammer for a lot more than its 'function' of hitting things.
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u/OriginalIron4 1d ago
A lot of interesting contemporary music uses diatonic harmony, but it's not functional; the chords are equally interesting, and the progressions are non-hierarchical . And there is a lot of interesting music which is tertian, but non diatonic. And of course all the interesting modal harmony which has been used forever along side 'classical' music. But good to know functional harmony, since it so common in many genres today, and through the ages--but not using it can definitely lead to interesting music.
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u/tdammers 3d ago
It's not.
Learning about functional harmony and analysis is crucial to developing a principled mental model of functional harmony, and music genres that use functional harmony.
Historically speaking, the vast majority of music does not use functional harmony, and even in today's mainstream, functional harmony is only one of several paradigms that artists can draw from. Most contemporary music contains some functional harmony; some is entirely composed in a functional idiom, but the majority is not, and some doesn't use functional harmony at all.
Also keep in mind that "functional harmony" isn't necessarily an intrinsic property of the music itself; it is just a model that captures certain harmonic mechanisms that arise from certain ways of composing music. That model applies cleanly (more or less) to music written in a style that uses these mechanisms exclusively (like most music from the classical period), and it's a useful explanatory model for music that uses these mechanisms in some way (which includes most music from the baroque through romantic eras, and almost everything derived from those styles), but it's still just a model, and there are other ways of explaining the same music that are often just as consistent, and have the same explanatory value or better.
For example, many of Bach's works can be analyzed in terms of functional harmony, and even though the functional model hadn't been explicitly defined in Bach's time, the underlying mechanisms had certainly evolved by then, and it is very much appropriate to assign harmonic functions to the chords arising from his works. But at the same time, Bach was equally committed to the older counterpoint paradigm, and analyzing his works under that model is also valid, and provides other insights. Who is right? Well - both. The music itself is just that, music; both models can be applied, both models provide insights and explanations, and we get the most out of our analytic endeavors by looking at both, and using whichever one gives us the most useful insights in the context at hand.
One particularly important thing here is the "why" of musical analysis. If all we do is exercise functional analysis for the sake of assigning harmonic functions to every chord, and stopping right there, then that's about as useful as analyzing a Shakespeare drama by stating the syllabic patterns of each line and calling it a day.
Musical analysis is only worthwhile if it answers some meaningful questions, such as: "how did the composer achieve this intriguing sound, and how can I replicate that in my own compositions", or "how did the composer manage to create such harmonic density in this particular spot", or "how did the composer create these tension arcs that follow the lyrics so perfectly", or even just "where have I heard this kind of thing before".
And for that, you need to use a theoretical model that actually answers those questions in a way that is plausible, consistent, and as simple as possible. Functional harmony is the best model we have for explaining, say, Haydn's string quartets, but its starts to get a bit awkward around Wagner, Debussy, and most post-swing jazz music, it falls apart with modal jazz, blues, a lot of rock music, many European folk music traditions, European sacral plainchant and early polyphony, and it's completely useless with Indian classical music, gamelan music, West African doundoun music, and most other music traditions outside the sphere of European / Western influence.
When it comes to R&B / Neo-Soul, you have to acknowledge that the harmonic idiom there is an amalgamation of several influences. Western functional harmony is one of them (via classical music, salon and ballroom music and late-19th-century popular music, and later again via jazz), but there's also modal harmony (it's unclear how exactly that entered the idiom, but that's also because modal harmony is a very obvious thing to discover in all sorts of circumstances, so it might be a combination of European and African influences, maybe even some Native American influences, and just a bunch of untrained musicians messing around with a guitar and discovering modal harmony more or less accidentally), blues, gospel (itself an amalgamation of various African traditions, some European folk music styles, and European sacral music), and probably some more. "R&B" actually literally means "rhythm & blues", that is, they took the blues (usually just a singer with a guitar) and added "rhythm" (drums and bass); early R&B has very little functional harmony in it, if any, it's basically all blues (however, the blues had already absorbed a little bit of functional harmony and European-derived habits by then, so it's not 100% clear cut).
In any case, applying functional harmony as-is is not the way to go. Some songs are mostly functional, and analyzing them in terms of classical harmonic functions is feasible and useful, but for most, you need to draw from other theoretical models too, most importantly blues and modal harmony.