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What is Polytonality?

History

  • The simultaneous use of two or more tonalities or keys in a musical composition usually by different instruments at the same time.
  • For instance, one player may perform in C major while another simultaneously plays in E flat major.

Sydney is

a snake

  • early use of polytonality occurs in the classical period in the finale of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's composition A Musical Joke, which he purposely ends with the violins, violas and horns playing in four discordant keys simultaneously.
  • but Polytonality wasnt very obvious in non-programmatic music until the 20th century for example in Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911) combining C major and F♯ major.

Further into Polytonality

  • Polytonality is the simultaneous use of more than one key or tonalty.

  • Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time

Example

Works Cited

A type of polytonality is called 'Bitonality' which is used by

The Beach Boys in 1966 in

theyre song "Wouldnt it be Nice"

The song opens in an arpeggio figuration in A major. This idea comes back during the bridge while the singers and the rest of the band perform in D major

  • http://www.britannica.com/art/polytonality

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytonality

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrushka_chord

Example

Polytonality is also shown in Stravinsky's Petrushska(a ballet) where he

combines C major and F♯ major which was later referred to as the Petrushka chord which clashes and sounds "horribly wrong" (A tritone apart)

Employment

  • Lithuanian traditional singing style sutartines

is based on polytonality.

  • A typical sutartines song is based on a six-bar melody, where the first three bars contains melody based on the notes of the triad of a major key (for example, in G major), and the next three bars is based on another key, usually a major second higher or lower (for example, in A major).
  • In a typical Sutartine the six-bar melody is performed as a canon, and the repetition starts from the fourth bar.
  • As a result, parts are constantly singing in different tonality (key) simultaneously (in G and in A)

Polytonality

By: Elvin

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