Talk:Four-part harmony

Doubling

The sentence "It is unusual for any of the four parts to share the same note, although it happens at times" does not make sense because a triad needs to double a note. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.39.16.102 (talk) 23:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

 Fixed - changed from "note" to "pitch" Ibadibam (talk) 01:50, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

It would make a perfect cadence a bit hard to write, certainly, (;-> but then many chords have more than four notes. I'm not sure it belongs there at all unless we can source it and probably rephrase it, see below. Andrewa (talk) 23:56, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

So it now reads It is unusual for any of the four parts to share the same pitch, although it happens at times. That's unsourced, and either waffle, WP:OR or just plain false, in my opinion, depending on what unusual means here. At the risk of more WP:OR I'm going to conduct a little survey... Andrewa (talk) 23:53, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

@Andrewa I'm not sure it is false, although I'm in agreement that it is very ambiguous and vague. It is not all that uncommon for, say, bass and tenor to share a note in SATB music, or even all 4 parts of a barbershop quartet to sing a short passage in unison. JZCL 18:29, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

There are definitely cases where doubling at the unison is done. Bass-tenor in SATB, as JZ mentioned, is definitely common, as is the occasional unison between other parts. Passages when an ensemble sings in unison, as in the barbershop example, is an outright change of harmonic texture, and is no longer four-part harmony, but there are still examples of passing doublings in barbershop, gospel and other styles. That said, Andrewa is right that we need sources to back everything up, however true it might be. It will probably be easy enough to find textbooks like this that discuss the topic, but to actually account for common practice we need books and scholarly journals. Ibadibam (talk) 19:20, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

@Ibadibam Good point in general, it would indeed stop being 4 part harmony. Looking at this article as a whole, I am becoming more and more concerned both with the lack of information and the dubiousness of the few statements there are:

the lower notes of the bass part typically cannot be reached by a soprano voice, with some notes so low that alto and tenor voices cannot reach them either. No kidding?!? Sopranos not "quite being able to sing the lowest bass notes"? This must have been put in as a joke.

The supporting voices can provide counter-melodies, close harmonies, or a walking bass to the melody line, which is sung in a middle voice. Really?!?

a quartet might play some harmonies with very high notes or very low notes How vague can you get?

The third part is often a harmonic mirror of the first part, which will sound somewhat melodic as well (if played separately). Could well be; never heard this myself and seems a bit dubious.

the second and fourth parts usually play close harmonies, in a more monotonous range, and rarely sound as melodic as the third part Ditto.

Basically, there isn't much in the article, and the little that there is is mostly wrong, dubious or vague. This needs one hell of a tidy up. JZCL 20:10, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me most of it is fairly true to the way it is taught in Western music theory courses, but there needs to be sources documenting that this was what was used in the common practice period, and discussing changes to the "rules" in the 20th century. That said, yes, there's a fair amount of seemingly obvious statements, but then Wikipedia is written for a general, not a specialist, audience. I'd lean more toward including stuff like that but backing it up with sources, rather than cutting the article down to a single paragraph or two. Ibadibam (talk) 20:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

The result would be more like a fork of the much better Harmony article. This article has very little of independent use. It's tempting to suggest merging whatever is worth keeping into Harmony. --Stfg (talk) 21:01, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I have searched in vain for corresponding articles on Three-part harmony and Five-part harmony. It does look to be as if this is really a minor appendage to Harmony and should be merged there.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:14, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Four part harmony is common enough both as a topic of study by music students and as a factor in many major works (perhaps even most works of the common practice period) that it's certainly deserving of an article. The main question seems to be, is this article going to be useful even as a framework for such an article? And even assuming that the answer to that is yes, is the damage having such a multiple-issue article hanging around meantime going to be worth the eventual result? Andrewa (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @JZCL, I didn't get around to doing my little survey of the repertoire of the a cappella group to which I belonged for some years, but from the comments above it seems that my concern is supported, at least. Andrewa (talk) 04:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Why we need an article on this topic

I'm a little taken aback by the suggestion above that as we don't have articles on five-part harmony and three-part harmony that perhaps we shouldn't have one on four-part harmony either. My reply was probably verbal karate and shouldn't be taken too seriously (I think it's true but there are more important things to do than defend it).

I think that every harmony method, current and historic, that I have yet seen starts out with either counterpoint of (please note that I meant to type or not of, I won't change it retrospectively as Jerome Kohl has already replied. Andrewa (talk) 07:18, 14 May 2015 (UTC) ) four-part harmony, and if it starts on counterpoint then it quickly progresses to four parts and spends far more time there. (I could be wrong, I've looked at a lot of methods over the years.)

Every church hymnal that I have ever seen, if it contains vocal parts at all, contains more SABT than all others combined. Many contain only SABT.

Is that OK for a start? Is there any real question that four-part is a worthy topic for an article? Andrewa (talk) 04:21, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Of course you are perfectly correct that four-part writing is a standard didactic framework. A case can therefore be made for having an article on this topic. However, the question has also been raised whether this is really a large enough topic that it cannot be covered more appropriately in the more general article on Harmony.

Assuming that it is worth keeping as a separate article, there are several questions that need answering. To start with, is really the case that four-part writing has been an essential part of the teaching of harmony since the earliest writings on the subject? Perhaps this is true, perhaps not, but it should not be difficult to establish. Presumably, we would be looking at figured-bass treatises from the early 17th century, with a particular eye toward the question of whether they actually describe harmony or counterpoint. As far as I am aware, there are no organized theories of harmony from before the 17th century, and while it may be argued that figured-bass theories do not actually treat harmony as such, I think it may still be used as a starting point for our purposes. Four-part writing of course goes back as far as the 14th century, but this is surely the province of counterpoint, not harmony, and certainly is not as "normal" as three-part or two-part writing at such an early point in music history. Second is the question of the degree to which the teaching of part-writing is independent from the teaching of harmony. Perhaps these things cannot be separated, but if they can, then the current subject may not properly belong under "harmony" at all, but rather under the more specialized study of voice-leading.

One thing seems certain: the article as it stands is a shambles and, assuming the subject is agreed to be worthy of an article, it will have to be rewritten from scratch.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:51, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we should take a step back... What I am looking for is an article on four-part music for the layman, titled after our article naming policy. The distinction you are making between part-writing and harmony is of course valid, but at the level of an article for a general encyclopedia not relevant IMO.

At that level, there's plenty of material. It should cover SATB (another article in need of work or perhaps even merging) and quartet, particularly but not only string quartet music, and at least mention the prominent place that four-part writing has had historically in musical education and in the development of orchestration and the like. Andrewa (talk) 07:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. Perhaps I should have been bolder and proposed that some time ago rather than quibbling about particular points. I wanted to see what reaction I got, and now I know.

So perhaps a merge (not much to merge) and redirect to harmony is the short term answer. Andrewa (talk) 07:09, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

That seems right to me. A few points, if I may:

1. SATB is the simplest arrangement that gives each vocal range something to sing. 4-part writing originates from sung music and is still most common in sung music.
2. String quartets obviously have four parts, but the genre isn't dependent at all on 4-part writing. Typically, a string quartet will employ a variety of textures. (Forget about student attempts at string quartet writing that use nothing but vocal textures.)
3. Your claim that it influenced "the development of orchestration and the like" surprised me. Can you source this?
4. A good source for the fact that 4-part is the standard for beginner courses in harmony is

Roger Sessions (1951), Harmonic Practice. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

Sessions has a section on "Harmony in Four Voices" very early in the book (page 33 ff.) He states (my italics throughout):

"As it is taught, harmony is nearly always written for four voices: soprano, alto, tenor, and bass.

"The reasons behind this procedure are pedagogical, and by no means entirely arbitrary. First of all, by writing in "voices" ... the student will never lose sight of the necessity for clear and consequent voice leading ...

"Secondly, four voices are on the whole easier to manipulate than either a smaller or a larger number of voices would be."

Sessions goes on to elaborate at some length on the difficulty of combining good voice leading with harmonic completeness in three voices, and of managing the density "denseness of texture" of five or more voices. --Stfg (talk) 10:18, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

I've put a merge template on the article for what its worth. JZCL 10:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Four part harmony should be merged with Voice Leading - since it is usually used in reference to this in the UK. On the Voice Leading page, it is stated that we use the term part-writing. But often the term Four part harmony is used when referring to learning this type of harmonization. This is why I landed on this page, to find out more on this type of harmonization which has 4 voices that are independent but sonorous - ie avoiding parallel/consecutive 5ths and octaves. Voice Leading is the American term. Sigil5 (talk) 20:42, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Why Four-part Harmony?

I came only recently to this article and after having read everything, the article itself and its talk page, my wonder is not about four-part, but about harmony. I'd like to invite everyone to discuss this.

Four-part writing became a norm (because it indeed used to be a norm) long before anyone began to speak or think of harmony. It has been the norm, I believe, from the 14th century at least, after the four-parts organa of Perotin. It is the norm, unless I am mistaken, from Vitry through Machaut, the Ars nova, the Franco-Flemish composers up to Josquin, and culminating in the second part of the 16th century, especially under the form of a voce piena writing, when the SATB arrangement also became a norm, materialized among others by the two standard clef arrangements, Chiavi naturali and Chiavette. It must be added, besides, that the grouping or human voices in the four categories SATB is a result of 'a voce piena' writing, not its cause.

To answer a question raised by Jerome Kohl above, I think that early figured-bass treatises could be characterized by their abandonment of four-part writing, which has been a perequisite for the installation of the kind of thinking that we today associate with "harmony" (the conception of chords as atomic blocks). The usage was to play the bass in the left hand (usually doubled by a string instrument) and to have the right hand playing as many or as few notes needed to make the harmony clear. Voice-leading was a concern only for obligatory movements such as the resolution of dissonances or of the leading tone.

Four-part writing, in other words, seems to me in essence to belong to counterpoint, not harmony. And if it nevertheless took on some importance in harmony pedagogy, it is because harmony, in our classes, too often boils down to tonal counterpoint. The main rules taught in traditional harmony are contrapuntal rules: resolve the dissonances, avoid parallel or hidden perfect consonances, and the like. I personally never had a class that told which chord should follow which other and why – unless for the contrapuntal consideration of preparing and resolving dissonances which, it is true, do regulate the succession of chords. (On this point, see Chord progression and Root_(chord)#Root_progressions_in_music, which are in need of some coordination.)

A Four-part writing article (with the necessary back links from "Four-part harmony" and "Four-part counterpoint") may retrace the history of this kind of writing from the 13th century (Perotin) and try to find out how and why it was reintroduced in harmony pedagogy after (or during) the parenthesis of figured bass pedagogy. It could discuss the reasons for the 16th-century a voce piena writing and its clefs. It could comment on such exceptional cases (exceptional in their mentioning the number of parts) as Thomas Campion, A new way of making fowre parts in counter-point, by a most familiar and infaillible rule (c1613); John Christopher Pepusch, A short treatise on harmony, containing the chief rules for composing in two, three and four parts (1730); Philipp Joseph Frick, A guide in harmony, containing the various manners in which every chord in four parts can be prepared, resolved, or otherwise freely used (1793); and wonder why all these are in English, while nothing similar can be found in any other European language (there is an interesting list of treatises here).

Wuddyathink? — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:20, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I think your historical summary is a bit suspect. In the fourteenth century, three-part writing was much more common than four-part textures, which seems to have been regarded as very difficult. In the fifteenth century, four-part writing does become the norm, but by the middle of the sixteenth century five-part writing is nearly as common. Further, in the late-fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, four-part texture was normally in layered pairs of voices, SSTT. The SATB four-voice texture only becomes the norm after about 1450. Apart from that, I agree with your description.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 18:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

You are right, Jerome, and I apologize for not having been entirely clear (or, I must avow, not entirely kowledgeable). On the one hand, however, I am not so sure about the statistical importance of three- vs four-part writing in the 14th century (unless I am mistaken, Vitry often wrote in four parts, and Machaut did the same for his Mass and many other works). On the other hand, what seems to become a norm is that even five-parts (or more) appears to involve two or more parts of the same tessitura: let's say that four-tessituras writing may have become one of the norms. (Machaut's mass, on reflection, seems to be in four parts but three tessituras.) You are right and the situation is complex: instrumental quartets of the early 16th century (e.g. in Virdung) involved only three tessituras, etc. Let's say that all this deserves comments in the article that we may have in mind (rather than Barber shop quartets singing in unison!). — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:30, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Statistically there is no doubt that Machaut's three-voice compositions outnumber the four-voice ones by a proportion of at least four to one, the importance of the Mass notwithstanding. This is complicated somewhat by the presence of several three-part compositions with substitute countertenors (possibly not by Machaut himself) which have been mistaken for four-part compositions, though when performed that way produce some very perplexing counterpoint! You are correct that the normal four-part texture in the late-15th and early 16th century is actually ATTB, not SATB as I mistakenly said. Later sixteenth-century textures are more varied but, as you say, when there are more than four voices at least one pair share the same register (SATTB is quite a common five-voice texture, for example). This is a complication for the concept of a "convention" consisting of a four-part SATB layout. This of course closely matches Bach's chorale settings, which commonly are used as a pedagogical basis for teaching part-wrting in that texture.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

History of four parts

While I commend Margalob for their recent efforts to expand the article, I have to wonder whether it's really in our interests to duplicate content from voice leading. I also think it unnecessarily limits the scope of the article to present voice leading rules as inherent to all four-part music. It's certainly worth mentioning that Fux set a standard of using four-part chorales for teaching counterpoint. But this should be presented in the context of a history of the development of four voices as a musical institution, including organum quadruplum and the emergence of Lutheran chorales. Ibadibam (talk) 00:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The fact remains that voice leading isn't particularly about four part writing, while this kind of writing is of some importance for any student in tonal harmony. The idea of dividing the overall human vocal range in four tessituras (soprano, alto, tenor, bass; SATB) has been of utter importance in our music, from the 16th century onwards I think, and has regulated much of the subsequent composition techniques.

It is this kind of writing that is the main topic of the present article, I think, and I myself am guilty to have believed that other kinds of four-part writing (often covering only three of these four tessituras) should be treated here in the same way.

The purpose of this article seems to me to discuss the canonic, scholastic, SATB writing, which indeed is an important concept. Introductory sections might explain why other four-part structures, say ATTB, our four equal voices, are not really the topic here, but SATB is the central point of interest.

One problem then is that the article should be about these four parts (SATB), but not about "four-part harmony". I didn't yet think much further than this, but I think this might form the object of our further discussions. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

We've already got an article on SATB, so then what's the use of this article? Ibadibam (talk) 22:07, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I would never have thought of looking for an article SATB! After all it is unimportant whether the information is there or here, but I'd think it more likely that the average reader would look for "four voices" or "four parts" than for SATB. And the information given there is extremely poor. So something must be done ... — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 05:54, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

There were previous discussions (in older sections above) about merging this page with one of several others. Do you have any fresh ideas about that? Ibadibam (talk) 18:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

I wonder whether this merely is a question of "fresh ideas", or one of the overall organization of WP – a question of the hierarchy of articles. As merely an occasional Wikipedian, it is not to me to answer, but here are my five cents. My (limited) experience is that a good solution generally is of having a rather large main article, doubled by a series of shorter ones on specific aspects.

In this case and so far as I can tell, the articles more or less concerned include Voice leading, Four-part harmony, Polyphony, Harmony, Counterpoint, SATB, Choir, Chiavette, Quartet, String quartet, Woodwind quartet, Saxophone quartet, Barbershop quartet, A cappella, Cantu a tenore, Gospel quartet, Klapa, and probably severall others.

The question then is which of these is the best candidate to form an overarching article, especially for what we want to express here. My opinion that it is Voice leading, at least for the most part of what we want to say. I don't think that this article should be merged with Harmony, because harmony properly speaking is not about the leading of (four) voices, but about the progression of chords. The idea that harmony should be about voice leading is a didactical artifice, going back to 19th-century conceptions. This was addressed by Jerome Kohl in an earlier message above, and I fully agree with him. For sure, the SATB disposition originated before tonal harmony and is very much linked with a particular choral sonority favored in the time of Palestrina. It developed after a tradition of ATTB writing, I believe. [Which, it must be stressed is three voice tessituras in four voices!] The SATB disposition has as main characteristic that the voices are distant by about half an octave. Compared to this, the classical string quartet is a SSAB disposition. Etc. etc.

Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 21:06, 22 September 2016 (UTC)