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In tonality, the tonic (tonal center) is the tone of complete relaxation and stability, the target toward which other tones lead. [5] The cadence (a rest point) in which the dominant chord or dominant seventh chord resolves to the tonic chord plays an important role in establishing the tonality of a piece.
In music, the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale (the first note of a scale) and the tonal center or final resolution tone [1] that is commonly used in the final cadence in tonal (musical key-based) classical music, popular music, and traditional music. In the movable do solfège system, the tonic note is sung as do.
A piece using some other type of harmony, resolving e.g. to A, might be described as "in A" to indicate that A is the tonal center of the piece. An instrument "in a key", is an unrelated usage that means the pitches considered "natural" for that instrument.
Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. [1] Atonality, in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a single, central triad is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale function independently of one another. [2]
The Viennese theory on the other hand, the "Theory of the degrees" (Stufentheorie), represented by Simon Sechter, Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg among others, considers that each degree has its own function and refers to the tonal center through the cycle of fifths; it stresses harmonic progressions above chord quality. [19]
Since modulation is defined as a change of tonic (tonality or tonal center), the change between minor and its parallel major or the reverse is technically not a modulation but a change in mode. Major tonic harmony that concludes music in minor contains what is known as a Picardy third.
This implies a functional scale, as is the case in tonal music. This example gives the names of the functions of the scale degrees in the seven-note diatonic scale . The names are the same for the major and minor scales, only the seventh degree changes name when flattened: [ 2 ]
Although C is considered zero in this example, this is not always the case. For example, a piece (whether tonal or atonal) with a clear pitch center of F might be most usefully analyzed with F set to zero (in which case {0,1,2} would represent F, F ♯ and G. (For the use of numbers to represent notes, see pitch class.)