-FIRST SENTENCE of Schoenberg’s Structural Functions of Harmony AND I QUOTE:“A triad standing alone is indefinite it it’s harmonic meaning”
TAKE THAT, GUY I KNEW IN COLLEGE WHO DISAGREED WITH ME!!! (see next sentence)
we had a discussion once, in which “I” thought that c minor, could be ANYTHING of ANYTHING… and he thought it was more powerful AS the opening chord of, say, Beethoven Piano Sonata Pathetiqe, C minor, #8.
First page of this book also shows not one but FIVE Examples from WAGNER, INCLUDING the very “POWER OF THE RING” motif…. DANG.
he says:
a succession (of chords) is aimless, a progression has a specific goal in mind.
I have taught about this in my classes, with the instinctual aim of liberating “successions” from the judgement of negativity due to not BEING progressions.
things don’t HAVE to be “GOING SOMEWHERE” to BE and EXIST and BE VALID IN AND OF THEIRFUCKSELVES…