Tonal Centers in Music

The elements that define a tonal center are harmony and melody. Usually, the chords over scale step I, IV, and V are sufficient to set the musical key. All of these steps are neighbors on the Circle of Fifths. Melodies get their shape due to their rest points on a scale. The strongest rest points outline the basic triad over the tonic (scale tone 1, 3, or -3, and 5).
Example: If C was the tonal center, the strongest rest points are the notes C, E (or Eb), and G.

Scale steps I, IV, and V

Let's start simple. We pick the Ionian mode over a C root tone. We can build triads on all scale steps using only scale tones. Here's the result.

If the music notation of major and minor triads is new to you, here's the most common convention: We use Roman numerals, and you want to use uppercase Roman numerals for major triads and lowercase ones for minor triads.

The essential steps for a tonal center are I, IV, and V because those triads create authentic and plagal cadences to the tonal center. When we bring up the Circle of Fifths (in Interval Theory, we refer to it as the Root Cycle 5), it becomes apparent that the root tones from scale steps IV and V surround the tonic - they are neighbors.

But why is the middle note the tonic? Why can't we say that the other notes become the tonic instead, like the G, for example? 

Let's look closer at the chromatic distances between all the tones, and it becomes apparent that there's a symmetry. We want to hear C as the logical tonal center because the F and the G share the same distance to the C but in opposite directions. This symmetry makes the whole constellation stable, and that's why it sounds pleasing to our ears.

The tonic is an essential part of the tonal center. It's like home, and the other chords (in that key) set up a musical journey that wants to resolve back to the tonic. It's logical and satisfying to hear the tonic at the end of a chord progression.

This knowledge connects directly to musical storytelling. And never forget that you can always move contrary to a resolution - you can even bring in a deceptive cadence to leave it a bit more open to pick up that storyline at a later moment again.

Because of this symmetry, F and G are reflections of one another, making the C into the reflection axis. The distance from C to F is five chromatic steps up, and from C to G, it is five chromatic steps down. That's what we call a reflection. In fact, that's an excellent entry into the world of Negative Harmony, as we'll discuss in other materials.

The root cycle 5 outlines your essential harmony for tonal centers. Whenever you pick three neighboring steps from the Circle of Fifths, you create a tonal center with the tonic in the middle.

Let's make this all more musical and add major triads on top so you can hear how familiar these sounds are.

Relative Keys

In the example above, we've established a musical key, C major, using the Ionian scale. Every major key has a relative minor key, which uses the same number of sharps or flats.

In other words, relative keys are based on the same key signature. All the notes stay the same, and we only shift the tonic from the major tonal center 3 chromatic steps downwards.

That is helpful knowledge as it enables us to enhance our cadences into more extended and colorful progressions - all based on the same notes.

We even give the impression of maintaining the same tonal center, which is actually not true as we move to a new tonic!

Let's see what chords we get from the relative minor key and add them to our palette.

If we consider the relative minor key as our point of reference, everything from the major key applies in the same manner. We can create cadences based on the tonal center of A, and this way, define a neighboring tonal center as shown in the picture below.

If you aim for a career in Pop music, stop reading this article right now because essentially, this is enough knowledge about music theory to write a bunch of number one hits! :) But obviously, this just scratches the surface of what is possible, and the real fun is still about to come!

Here's a quick recap of what we just did. We've used only authentic and plagal connections to establish the relative minor tonic.

Let's come back to the C Ionian scale. With the help of the relative minor structures, we've opened up almost all the triads from our original starting point so that we can use them in composition.

You can use the triads from the relative minor as substitutions for the major scale steps to color up your cadences. So, here are all the triads based on the C Ionian scale.

Let's skip over the diminished chord on scale step seven for the moment, as this opens up many other great musical opportunities that we want to cover separately.

This also explains why the authentic cadence is so strong in music! You've heard the progression below a million times, and it works!

Switching Tonal Centers - Musical Demonstration

Once we've declared the tonic of the major key, all these other chords from the relative minor become instantly available, and we can use all of them to reinforce the current tonal center.

Remember that if we change the tonic, all related chords change accordingly. This is very powerful as it lets you move freely through different key signatures without leaving the Diatonic point of view. 

In my own music education, I experienced that the way music theory is taught in our Western culture doesn't embrace switching tonal centers. In fact, you are supposed to stay in your key and scale!

However, having worked as a professional composer for over 20 years, I find it more practical to think of temporary tonal centers instead of one musical key on which you base your whole composition.

Now, the big question is how to modulate elegantly from one tonal center to the next, right? There are a thousand ways to change tonal centers, but here's one of the most common techniques.

Here's an example of the process. For demonstration's sake, let's randomly pick two tonal centers, C major and E major. Next, let's use the technique described above to transition from the first one to the second and back. So, here's the pool of chords on both tonal centers that we can use.

Now that we've defined the musical colors, let's create a sketch next. As usual, we want to keep it simple. Just write down whatever is essential to develop this idea into a more significant piece of music. In our case, it's just the chord progression that we will be using later. We are going to add some lines and other functions as we go. So, here's our sketch.

From The Sketch To The Orchestration

Now, let's turn the draft into something more sophisticated, following the same chord progression. Take into account that this is the moment you want to bring in your unique voice and emotional decision-making combined with technique.

There are a million ways to orchestrate an idea, and this is part of the fun! In this article, I want to stick to tonal centers and explain how they work.

Marc Bercovitz, an academy graduate from Paris, France, orchestrated this sketch and created the following development. Let's listen to the finished result!

Did you recognize how Marc used the modulation from one tonal center to the next to bring in new colors and variations of the same elements, like the melody or the arpeggio that enforces harmony? This is a technique that will push you forward quickly. You want to give yourself some inspiration so that you can make a choice based on your emotional response! Ultimately, it all comes down to what YOU want to hear from the sketch!

You know that these articles are all about how to write music efficiently and with a process in mind. Writing such a sketch won't take long, and you will probably have it done in less than 10 minutes. 

The problem is not the sketch but the coordination of your steps and options after the sketch.

In simple words ...

The secret is to split the big problem into many small ones, which you can tackle one after another. Here are some of these problems ...

Once you know the answers to some of these questions, the following steps fall into place naturally.

Do you still remember that on top of this article? We said that different tonal centers could work similarly to having different chapters in a book. Actually, this is an implicit description of letting your musical ideas follow some type of form.

If you just scanned this article quickly, please take this one thing away from it as it will make your writing more sophisticated and exciting:

Think strategically when you compose and orchestrate, as it will accelerate your overall process. This is what we teach and how we help music creators inside the Music Interval Theory Academy.

Although creativity also needs attention, composers often get stuck in the process and, as a result, run into writer's block. It's not because they don't know how to come up with a melody; it's because they cannot decide what to focus on next.

You might have heard that various instruments have their unique "cash register." That is the register where the musician has the most control over intonation, articulation, dynamics, and expression. By shifting your melody to different tonal centers, you can help those instruments shine in their cash register when you want them to play an expressive solo part. You want to consider this when you compose, as it will affect the orchestration later.

Professional musicians usually won't have any problems playing in any tonality, but unfortunately, we don't always have the luxury of working with pros! For that reason, you want to focus on parts that are easy to play on particular instruments to help the musicians give you their best performance in a recording session.

And by the way, samples also sound better in those cash registers.

Summary

Tonal centers are essential in music, and you need to know how to use them in musical storytelling because your audience will recognize them emotionally. Here's a quick summary of what we've covered so far.