ACCENT AND REGNANT HARMONY 139 



only one in which the interval-numbers and the har- 

 monic report do not conflict. Numbers are used for 

 so many and various purposes in music that we cannot 

 wonder that students are so easily confused. Since 

 the harmonic numbers alone accord with the common 

 feeling and perception of relations they should bring 

 some order out of this confusion. The term minor 

 appears over and over again in the above description 

 of intervals notwithstanding the fact that the entire 

 example does not contain a single minor harmony, 

 percept and concept. Why not like the Germans 

 use the terms major and minor exclusively in connec- 

 tion with modes and harmonies? Why not, as they 

 do, describe major intervals as great (gross), minor 

 intervals as small (klein) f How much simpler, 

 clearer, more sensible and practical to describe the 

 above intervals thus: great third, small third, small 

 third, great sixth, small sixth, and so on. This 

 German custom will henceforth be adopted in these 

 pages. 



We have seen that one-voice harmony is self-asser- 

 tive, that in one voice the harmonies are always com- 

 plete, that is, single tones give rise to harmonic threads 

 of three, four and five components. Chords are selec- 

 tive combinations of tones and may represent a har- 

 mony incompletely as well as completely : thus a triad 

 may be represented by a combination of two or all 

 three of its components ; a seventh-chord by two, three 

 or all four of its components; a ninth-chord by two, 

 three, four or all five of its components. Briefly, one- 

 voice harmony is assertive and its harmonic forms 

 are complete; chord-forms are selective and may be 



