"Proper Boundaries" and the "Incoherent" Succession V(7)–IV

A predicament awaits anyone who contemplates authoring a textbook on tonal music theory. On the one hand, a textbook should provide a clear and rational pedagogical foundation, one that stresses the order and logic essential to the formulation of tonal music. On the other hand, music is not an exact science, and there should be an acknowledgement that for every rule, there is an exception to it. The author’s challenge is to achieve a balance between these opposing concerns. A textbook that places too much emphasis on unalterable edicts turns the study of tonal music into an unimaginative puzzle for which one seeks hackneyed solutions. A textbook that muddies the waters with too many unusual sidelines risks a loss of pedagogical focus and obscures the idea that coherence—not quixotic flights of artistic fancy—is at the heart of tonal composition. Even so, deviations from the fundamental tenets of music theory are some of its most fascinating topics. Tonal composers consistently find ingenious ways to circumvent theoretical statutes while still adhering to the Mozartian dictum: “Music, even in the most terrible situations, must never offend the ear....”1 Often, decisions to omit theoretical tangents from a textbook are made by its publisher rather than its author. Limitations of space prevent most monographs from delving more deeply into these matters. Consequently, authors pepper their maxims with adjectives such as “usually” and “typically” as a means of tacitly admitting there is more to the story than is being told. Particularly for beginning students, certain regulations leave strong impressions, ones that tend to create false assumptions regarding actual tonal works. Directives such as “no parallel fifths” and “sevenths