Mediante

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Mediante (via Latin medians from Latin medius "the middle") originally referred to the third degree ( third ) of a scale as the middle between the root ( tonic ) and fifth ( dominant ). Today there are mainly two different definitions of the term mediante. In the first one, it means any triad that is related to another triad of thirds . In relation to a C major chord within the key of C major, these would be A minor, A major, A major, A minor, E minor, E major, E flat major and E flat minor. In other harmony teachings for this, a mediant only explicitly refers to the chords that contain non-diatonic, i.e. not conductor-specific material. Thus, according to the latter definition, e.g. B. A major or E flat major within the key of C major and related to its tonic center, although mediants, but not A minor or E minor, as they can be formed from the root tones of the C major scale without further alteration. What both definitions have in common is that, for a more precise determination, a distinction is made between upper and lower mediants (also submediants ), depending on whether the root of the third-related triad is above or below the root of the reference triad. The following section is devoted exclusively to the first definition.

Explanation

Every triad whose root note is a third apart from the root note of another triad can be seen as its mediant. A distinction is made between minor and major ore relationships .

All major and minor triads are related to the minor triad whose root is a minor third above or below the root of the starting triad . It is irrelevant whether the required triad tones are contained in the original key ( ladder-like ).

For C major these are:

KleinterzMedianten.PNG

All those triads whose root is a major third above or below the root of the starting triad are related. Here, too, all major and minor variants are possible.

GroßterzMedianten.PNG

Particular importance is attached to those mediants who consist exclusively of the material of the starting scale:

  • The (major or minor) parallel sound is the mediant related to the Kleinterz; with major a minor third below, with minor a minor third above the root.
    Examples: C major ↔ A minor; F minor ↔ A flat major; E major ↔ C sharp minor; B minor ↔ D major
  • The counter-sound (= counter-parallel: see graphic below) is a mediant related to the major third; in major a major third above, in minor a major third below the root.
    Examples: C major ↔ E minor; F minor ↔ D flat major; E major ↔ G sharp minor; B minor ↔ G major

history

In the Middle Ages, mediante was next to mediatio and pausa another name for the middle cadence in the psalmody .

The term found its way into modern music theory through Charles Masson , who used it in his Nouveau traité des règles pour la composition (1694) for the third degree of the scale (the third as the middle between the root and fifth). The term mediante was adopted by other theorists and was widespread in the 18th century. The mediante was considered to be the tone that determines the tone gender ( Rousseau : "... qui détermine le mode"). Rameau only uses the term in his Traité de l'harmonie (1722) , with equal weight alongside note tonique , dominante and note sensible .

Mediante originally referred to the third stage as a single tone, but has been used, and more recently for the built up over this tone triad at the same time to all to a main function terzverwandten side triads transmitted.

In the 19th century, the term mediante , which initially referred to the ladder's own triads, was also extended to those that contain tones outside the ladder (e.g. E major as the upper, A flat major as the lower median of C major) . From then on, the term was increasingly specialized on these chords (and keys) that were not part of the ladder. B. hardly spoke of A minor as a sub-median to C major, but simply called this tonic parallel , while the designation sub-median was reserved for the alien A-flat major (A-flat minor).

In the Classical period, the relationship between the thirds and the fifths played a rather subordinate role and was largely limited to the parallel sounds / keys related to the third . The tonal appeal of the mediators who were not the leaders was then increasingly discovered and savored by the Romantics , which prompted Ernst Kurth to speak of Romanticism as the "age of thirds". One of the first (if not the first) to introduce the secondary movement in the exposition of a main sonata in major instead of the conventional dominant key in the upper mediant key was Beethoven (examples: first movement of the piano sonata op. 31,1 and first movement of the Waldstein Sonata ).

Mediants from a functional theory perspective

“Mediante” is not actually a functional term. Most of the time, chords that contain tones not related to the ladder occur in connection with deviations and modulations, so that they can usually be related to a temporarily “new” tonal center. For example, the mediant A major triad in a C major context usually has the function of an intermediate dominant to the subdominant parallel in D minor (function symbol: (D) Sp  ). Or the median sound of A flat major appears functionally as a parallel to the collapsed subdominant (symbol: sP  ). Only if the chord to be determined (e.g. E flat minor in C major) appears as a pure color change and cannot be interpreted functionally, the term “mediante” can be used instead of a functional designation.

For the functional-theoretical interpretation of major-third and minor-third-related chords, an overview using the example of C major:

Median relationship (major) .jpg

The term variant describes the transformation of the tone type (the variant of A major is therefore A minor and vice versa).

In this example

  • A flat major the tonic variant counter-parallel (also "tonic variant counter-sound") of C major,
  • A major, the tonic parallel variant of C major,
  • C major the tonic,
  • E flat major the tonic variant parallel of C major,
  • E major, the tonic counterpart parallel variant (also known as the "tonic counter-sound variant") of C major.

This will be explained using the example of A major: The parallel of the tonic in C major is A minor. The variant of A minor is A major. Thus, A major is the tonic parallel variant of C major.

Accordingly is

  • A flat minor is the tonic variant counter-parallel variant of C major;
  • E flat minor is the tonic variant parallel variant of C major.

One way of classifying mediants is to divide them into three degrees according to the number of tones that are common to the reference sound:

  • First degree mediants are therefore chords with two identical notes, that is, parallel and counter-sounds, from C major that is A minor and E minor.
  • Second degree mediants are chords with only one common tone, on the one hand the variants of parallel and counter-sound, of C major, i.e. A major and E major, and on the other hand, parallel and counter-sound of the minor variant, i.e. of C major A flat major and E flat major.
  • Third degree mediants are chords with no common tone, from C major that is A flat minor and E flat minor.

See also

literature

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