Klang (music)

Major chord on C Play.

In music, klang (also "clang") is a term sometimes used to translate the German Klang, a highly polysemic word.^[3] Technically, the term denotes any periodic sound, especially as opposed to simple periodic sounds (sine tones). In the German lay usage, it may mean "sound" or "tone" (as synonymous to Ton), "musical tone" (as opposed to noise), "note", or "timbre"; a chord of three notes is called a Dreiklang, etc.

Klang has been used among others by Hugo Riemann and by Heinrich Schenker. In translations of their writings, it has erroneously been rendered as "chord" and more specifically as "chord of nature".^[4] The idea of the chord of nature connects with earlier ideas that can be found especially in French music theory. Both Hugo Riemann and Heinrich Schenker implicitly or explicitly refer to the theory of the chord of nature (which they recognize as a triad, a Dreiklang), but both reject the theory as a foundation of music because it fails to explain the minor triad. The theory of the chord of nature goes back to the discovery and the description of the harmonic partials (harmonic overtones) in the 17th century.

^ Jonas, Oswald (1982). Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker (1934: Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: Eine Einführung in Die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers), p.16. Trans. John Rothgeb. ISBN 0-582-28227-6. Jonas' example extends to the 16th overtone, but another example gives the first five overtones, shown simultaneously, in quarter notes, unnumbered.
^ Jonas (1982), p.17
^ Alexander J. Ellis devotes a long footnote of his translation of Helmoltz's Sensations of Tone to describe the difficulties in translating Klang and other related German terms meaning tone, musical tone, compound tone, note and simple tone. See Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, translated, revised and corrected from the fourth German edition of 1877 by Alexander J. Ellis, 2d edition, London, Longman & Co, 1885; reprint New York, Dover, 1954, pp. 24-25, note *.
^ According to Fred Lerdahl (1989). "Atonal Prolongational Structure", p.74, Music and the Cognitive Sciences. McAdams, Stephen and Irene Deliege, eds. ISBN 3718649535, the klang in Riemannian theory is the referential consonant sonority, the tonic triad. But the passage from Riemann's original quoted below does not endorse this, if only because the Klang, for Riemann, is not a chord but a "compound sound", which in addition may or may not represent the tonic. Thomas Pankhurst writes that "Schenker argued that only the first five [overtones] were really audible and that together they made up the basic unit of tonal music – the triad (C, E and G). Schenker attributed almost mystical properties to this chord calling it the 'chord of nature'" (http://www.schenkerguide.com/harmony2.html). As will appear below, Schenker on the contrary clearly implied that the chord of nature, even if it did provide a model of the major triad, could not form "the basic unit of tonal music".

[1] Jonas, Oswald (1982). Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker (1934: Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks: Eine Einführung in Die Lehre Heinrich Schenkers), p.16. Trans. John Rothgeb. ISBN 0-582-28227-6. Jonas' example extends to the 16th overtone, but another example gives the first five overtones, shown simultaneously, in quarter notes, unnumbered.

[Jonas17-2] Jonas (1982), p.17

[3] Alexander J. Ellis devotes a long footnote of his translation of Helmoltz's Sensations of Tone to describe the difficulties in translating Klang and other related German terms meaning tone, musical tone, compound tone, note and simple tone. See Hermann L. F. Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music, translated, revised and corrected from the fourth German edition of 1877 by Alexander J. Ellis, 2d edition, London, Longman & Co, 1885; reprint New York, Dover, 1954, pp. 24-25, note *.

[4] According to Fred Lerdahl (1989). "Atonal Prolongational Structure", p.74, Music and the Cognitive Sciences. McAdams, Stephen and Irene Deliege, eds. ISBN 3718649535, the klang in Riemannian theory is the referential consonant sonority, the tonic triad. But the passage from Riemann's original quoted below does not endorse this, if only because the Klang, for Riemann, is not a chord but a "compound sound", which in addition may or may not represent the tonic. Thomas Pankhurst writes that "Schenker argued that only the first five [overtones] were really audible and that together they made up the basic unit of tonal music – the triad (C, E and G). Schenker attributed almost mystical properties to this chord calling it the 'chord of nature'" (http://www.schenkerguide.com/harmony2.html). As will appear below, Schenker on the contrary clearly implied that the chord of nature, even if it did provide a model of the major triad, could not form "the basic unit of tonal music".

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