Harmony
The words diatonic and chromatic are also applied inconsistently to harmony:
- Often musicians call diatonic harmony any kind of harmony inside the major–minor system of common practice. When diatonic harmony is understood in this sense, the supposed term chromatic harmony means little, because chromatic chords are also used in that same system.
- At other times, especially in textbooks and syllabuses for musical composition or music theory, diatonic harmony means harmony that uses only "diatonic chords". According to this usage, chromatic harmony is then harmony that extends the available resources to include chromatic chords: the augmented sixth chords, the Neapolitan sixth, chromatic seventh chords, etc.
- Since the word harmony can be used of single classes of chords (dominant harmony, E minor harmony, for example), diatonic harmony and chromatic harmony can be used in this distinct way also.
However,
- Chromatic harmony may be defined as "the use of two successive chords which belong to two different keys and therefore contain tones represented by the same note symbols but with different accidentals". Four basic techniques produce chromatic harmony under this definition: modal interchange, secondary dominants, melodic tension, and chromatic mediants.
Read more about this topic: Diatonic And Chromatic
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