Harmony Dissonance Control: Ulehla Chord Tension Level and Hindemith Chord Groups

In her book on contemporary harmony Ludmila Ulehla discusses dissonance control and proposes a chord tension level scheme. This tutorial presents chord structure examples for all 9 tension levels and a mapping on the 6 Hindemith chord groups. Tension control is demonstrated in Schillinger diatonic and symmetric harmony chord progressions, considering aspects such as root movement, tension curve, voice leading and dissonant chordal function handling. Two of these progressions are used to develop musical composition examples: a rock synthesizer texture with lead soprano saxophone and an orchestral suspense cue.
Contents:
00:00 What this video is about
00:30 Section 1. Introduction
00:59 Section 2. Fundamentals. Ulehla chord tension level, Hindemith chord groups
02:56 General observations
04:43 UTL1. Major/minor triads and their inversions
05:30 UTL2. Minor 7th chords, extensions and inversions
06:28 UTL3. Major 7th chords, extensions and inversions
07:26 UTL4. Concordant chords, many M2, p4, p5, m7, M9 intervals
10:06 UTL5. Special chords, diminished triad, augmented triad, whole-tone without tritone
11:20 UTL6. Dominant 7th chords, extensions and inversions
13:10 UTL7. Diminished 7th, extended and altered dominant 7th
14:48 UTL8. Discordant without tritone, many m2, M7, m9
16:23 UTL9. Discordant with tritone, polychords, clusters
17:51 Section 3. Chord progressions
18:22 Progression example 1, diatonic harmony, low-to-medium UTL, 4-part
19:34 Progression example 2, diatonic-symmetric harmony, medium UTL, 4-part
21:09 Progression example 3, symmetric harmony, R2i, medium-to-high UTL, 4+1 part
22:13 Progression example 4, diat-sym harmony, medium-to-high UTL, 5-part
23:47 Progression example 5. Symmetric harmony, R3i, increasing UTL, 6-part
25:04 Section 4. Example compositions
25:09 Composition example 1, diat-sym harmony, waltz, synthesizer-jazzrock idiom, sax solo
26:29 Composition example 2, symmetric harmony R3i, 4/4, orchestral suspense cue
28:01 Summary and conclusion
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#Harmony #Dissonance #Uhleha

[@patcupo]

This is blowing my mind a bit. I had a system similar to this in my undergrad decades ago. I reorganized the Forte table in increasing dissonance by using the interval vectors and giving each interval a weight (referencing Hindemith). This way, I could control dissonance in a piece and create arcs similarly. I'd never heard of Ludmila Ulehla until now, but I'll definitely check out her music. Thanks for this video!

[@FransAbsil]

@patcupo Indeed, weighting the Interval-Class Vector elements allows dissonance ranking of Forte pitch-class sets. The Ulehla 10 level classification is more refined than the six Hindemith groups (in fact four, since the two contain symmetrical chords), and covers both tonal and atonal harmony, plus takes voicing into account. Other chapters from her book give a nice historic overview of the harmony domain. Thanks for the feedback.

[@peterwloszek5472]

Thank you! I really enjoy watching all your videos!!!

[@FransAbsil]

Thank you for the positive feedback. If you have any requests for a future tutorial, just let me know.

[@edbuller4435]

perfect timing. I just bought her book !..thank you

[@FransAbsil]

@Ed Buller, You're welcome. Hopefully this tutorial helps making part of Ludmila Ulehla's book more accessible to the reader. For me the chord tension level classifier turned out a practical tool. Enjoy the reading.

[@mattiapaterna]

That is brilliant, thank you! One question I would like to ask: I just watched your series on NRT as I would like to have a programming counterpart for it (i.e. a piece of software that calculates paths, transformation etc.). Do you see any possible link between NRT and Ulehla chord tension level? Example: having a sequence written using NRT with its corresponding sequence of chord tension level. Do you have any reading suggestion, if any?

[@FransAbsil]

@Mattia Paterna, thanks for the positive feedback. Your question is hard to answer. There must be music-generating software algorithms that include an NRT module; but I am not an expert in that field, and also old-fashioned in the sense that I prefer developing my own harmony designs. Uniting NRT and Ulehla/Hindemith chord tension classification is not straightforward, since the former is based on sequences of triads. One might consider the NRT triad pair as a hexachord with inherent dissonance level. Some compound NRTs will yield either a hexatonic or octatonic set, which corresponds to a certain dissonance group/level. But remember that in the Ulehla scheme the voicing is another degree of freedom. And, finally, I find that NRT has limited potential for tension control, notwithstanding its overuse in (epic) film music. I prefer working with atonal pitch-class sets as the starting point for tension curves. Does this somehow answer your question?

[@telmomirandacomposer]

Plug-in Boutique's Scaler 2! Its newest update includes Neo-Riemannian modulation options. Cheers

[@Acroma69]

Dear Frans Absil, your video are gold Im a big fan of them, what do you suggest to start this topic?Hidemith or Pitch class?

[@FransAbsil]

@Mariano Mauro Thanks for the positive feedback. I recommend to start with PC-Set theory, as it is somewhat more generally relevant to modern, 20th century classical, atonal music. The Hindemith books more or less force you to write in his musical idiom (1930-1950s). In this video I focussed on the parallels between the two. So read some Hindemith then return to PC-Sets and build a more complete picture, that may stimulate your creativity. Hope that helps, good luck.

[@christopherheckman7957]

A few comments: 08:04 You have C-A-F here, which is a consonant triad. Perhaps you meant to have C-B-F instead? 08:26 Another mistake? There is a 5 (F#) present in your "(no 5)" chord. 27:51: This reminded me of an old Far Side cartoon. There's a orchestra, and the conductor is ready to start. One of the musicians looks at the sheet music and says, "Gee, look at all the little black dots!" There doesn't seem to be much about Ulehla's tensions, either in the literature or online. (The top references come back to this video and a couple of papers you've written.) Maybe it's something that never caught on, or was never recognized in the first place.

[@FransAbsil]

@Christopher Heckman. At 8:04 I discuss UTL4 concordant triad examples. And you've correctly identified another quality control slip: in the 4th example C7sus4 the pitch A should have been Bb, to obtain a chord in 4ths. Well spotted. And thanks for pointing out the incorrect chord label Badd9(omit5) at 8:26 in the tetrachord set of examples; the sound is according to UTL4 though. Took me a while but then I found the 10/29/1984 Far Side cartoon you are referring to at 27:51. Well, ocassionally one needs 16th notes to create a certain musical effect. Zappa also said something along the lines of 'scribbling little black dots on paper'. The Ulehla tension classification scheme may not really have caught on, but still has its value for writing music with dissonance control IMHO. As always, thanks for the careful review.