CHORDS IN THE LIGHT OF THEIR ORIGIN 245 



components is alive with its harmonic self-report, for 

 the chord is musically related. We are here con- 

 cerned with chords that are alive. We have seen 

 that in concrete music, harmonies may be completely 

 and incompletely represented by chords; completely 

 when the chord presents all the harmonic components, 

 incompletely when certain components are omitted. 

 Whatever their number, when the components of a 

 chord report a common root then the chord is simple, 

 and when they report two or more roots then the chord 

 is compound. The largest number of chords in use are 

 compound. The subject of compound chords belongs 

 to Part II of this work, but a few examples at this junc- 

 ture will suffice to show what they are. To the two 

 definitions of chords at the opening of this section we 

 now add a third which is general. 



3. Chords are selective combinations of two or 

 three or four or five or more individual tones. They 

 are classed under the following heads : I. Consonant 

 or Dissonant. II. Simple or Compound. In the fol- 

 lowing parallel examples in major and minor all the 

 combinations marked by asterisks, with the exception 

 of the second, are compound chords. In these com- 

 pound biads ^ (two-tone-chords) the two tones are 

 components of different harmonies; one reports one 

 root, the other another root. 



133 915 353135 1 

 131 531 139577 3 



In 



Major 



mi: 



uiU-jMeU^ 



fVCTr- r 



r-rrf=f 



* The writer coined the word biad by analogy with triad and tetrad. L. E. K. 



