WebFacts 1
The idea of describing phrase components as functional areas developed over a
period of about 250 years. In the oldest sources introducing this concept, what we refer to as the
predominant, or dominant-preparation, area was called the "subdominant area,' since the
subdominant chord was often found there.
The terms "tonic," "dominant," and "subdominant," referring to chords built on the first,
fifth, and fourth degrees of the scale, first appeared in the theoretical writings of Jean-Philippe
Rameau in the mid-eighteenth century, but these terms refer primarily to chords rather than
functions. In the mid-nineteenth century, Hugo Riemann developed a theory that tonal music is
organized by balancing two opposing functional areas-one controlled by the dominant triad a
perfect fifth above the tonic scale degree and the other by the subdominant triad a perfect fifth
below the tonic scale degree. Riemann's was a "function" theory, whereby ii and IV, for
example, were viewed as functionally equivalent. In his analytical system, tonic-function
harmonies were labeled T, dominant-function were D, and subdominant S.
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