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Inmusic, thetonic is the first notescale degree (
) of thediatonic scale (the first note of a scale) and thetonal center or finalresolutiontone[1] that is commonly used in the finalcadence in tonal (musicalkey-based)classical music,popular music, andtraditional music. In themovable do solfège system, the tonic note is sung asdo. More generally, the tonic is thenote upon which all other notes of a piece are hierarchically referenced. Scales are named after their tonics: for instance, the tonic of theC major scale is thenote C.
Thetriad formed on the tonic note, thetonic chord, is thus the most significantchord in these styles of music. InRoman numeral analysis, the tonic chord is typically symbolized by the Roman numeral "I" if it ismajor and by "i" if it is minor.
In very much conventionally tonal music,harmonic analysis will reveal a broad prevalence of theprimary (often triadic) harmonies: tonic,dominant, andsubdominant (i.e., I and its chief auxiliaries a 5th removed), and especially the first two of these.
— Berry (1976)[2]
These chords may also appear asseventh chords: in major, asIM7, or in minor asi7 or rarelyiM7:[3]
The tonic is distinguished from theroot, which is the reference note of a chord, rather than that of the scale.
In music of thecommon practice period, the tonic center was the most important of all the different tone centers which a composer used in a piece of music, with most pieces beginning and ending on the tonic, usually modulating to the dominant (the fifth scale degree above the tonic, or the fourth below it) in between.
Twoparallel keys have the same tonic. For example, in both C major and C minor, the tonic is C. However,relative keys (two different scales that share the samekey signature) have different tonics. For example, C major and A minor share a key signature that features no sharps or flats, despite having different tonic pitches (C and A, respectively).
The termtonic may be reserved exclusively for use in tonal contexts whiletonal center orpitch center may be used in post-tonal andatonal music: "For purposes of non-tonal centric music, it might be a good idea to have the term 'tone center' refer to the more general class of which 'tonics' (or tone centers in tonal contexts) could be regarded as a subclass."[4] Thus, a pitch center may function referentially or contextually in an atonal context, often acting as anaxis or line of symmetry in aninterval cycle.[5] The termpitch centricity was coined byArthur Berger in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky".[6] According toWalter Piston, "the idea of a unified classical tonality replaced by nonclassical (in this case nondominant) centricity in a composition is perfectly demonstrated by Debussy'sPrélude à l'après-midi d'un faune".[7]
The tonic includes four separate activities or roles as the principal goal tone, initiating event, generator of other tones, and the stable center neutralizing the tension between dominant and subdominant.
The tonic chord is said to have tonicfunction where the tension is at its lowest and the chord progression is resolved, alongside other chords such as thesubmediant (vi) chord.
Media related toTonic (music) at Wikimedia Commons
