History of Tonal Harmony

2. The Andalusian Cadence (i - VII - VI - V)

The descending sequence Am - G - F - E originated in Iberian Renaissance guitar and flamenco. Its dramatic pull towards the major dominant (E) creates a signature fiery melancholic timbre.

3. Johann Pachelbel's Canon in D

Composed around 1680, the sequence I - V - vi - iii - IV - I - IV - V established the blueprint for looping cyclical progressions, serving as the direct ancestor of modern popular music.

4. The 1950s Doo-Wop Circle

Vocal groups in the 1950s popularized the C - Am - Dm - G7 progression. Replacing degree IV with the minor supertonic (ii) creates a smoother voice-leading bridge to the dominant seventh.

"The human ear instinctively seeks resolution towards the tonic to restore acoustic balance after dominant tension." — Arnold Schoenberg (1911)

Tablature predates the modern guitar. Printed sixteenth-century vihuela books used lines and symbols to indicate an instrumental position; Luis de Milán’s El Maestro (Valencia, 1536) is an early example. Tablature answers where to play a note, while staff notation describes pitch and duration independently of one fretboard.

The direction of historical tablature lines and the meaning of their signs vary by source, so a modern player should consult the edition’s legend before reading a passage.

The two systems can be read together. A fret number identifies a practical choice of string and position; the corresponding staff note helps reveal the melodic line and how one voice meets another. When two positions produce the same pitch, compare their timbre and their effect on the following notes rather than treating either location as the only correct one.

A figured bass places interval numbers above a written bass line to guide the realisation of harmonies in Baroque practice. Later functional analysis asks how a chord behaves around a tonic, while Roman numerals identify scale degrees and chord quality within a key. These systems answer different questions and should not be treated as interchangeable spellings of a fixed chord shape.

The Nashville Number System uses scale-degree numbers to make a song’s harmonic plan portable between keys. In C major, 1–6m–2m–5 can be played as C–Am–Dm–G; in G major the same pattern becomes G–Em–Am–D. The numbers preserve relationships while the sounding pitches change. On guitar, choose new voicings and check the vocal melody after transposition.

Johann Joseph Fux presented a graded approach to counterpoint in Gradus ad Parnassum (Vienna, 1725). Its dialogue between teacher and student examines how melodic lines remain independent while their simultaneous intervals are controlled. The exercises are a historical model for strict counterpoint, not a universal rule for every later style.

In a chord change, a retained pitch creates oblique motion; two lines moving in opposite directions create contrary motion. Strict counterpoint restricts parallel perfect fifths and octaves because they can weaken the impression of independent lines. A guitar player can use the same listening method without reproducing every rule: hold a common tone where possible and hear which individual voice moves to the next chord.

The treatises cited in this article were written for different instruments and readers. Rameau wrote about harmony in general, Fux taught counterpoint through vocal exercises, and the tablature books for plucked instruments recorded music by string and fret rather than by pitch.

When a guitarist reads these sources today, the useful question is not whether a rule is still obligatory, but which musical problem it was trying to solve: how to connect chords smoothly, how to write a clear bass line or how to notate a piece so that other musicians could play it.

A practical way to use this history is to take one idea at a time to the instrument.

Play a cadence and follow the bass as Rameau would describe it; write a two-voice exercise and check its intervals against the rules that Fux recommends; read a short passage of tablature and compare it with the same music on the staff.

These exercises connect historical theory with the chords and circles that you study elsewhere on CifraLab, and they show that modern chord symbols are one notation among several possible ones.

Short questions to reinforce what you've just read. There's no grade or record, so if you miss one, just listen again and repeat.