Talk:Klang (music)

Sundry remarks
1) The reference to Jonas for the musical example showing the harmonic series is somewhat inappropriate: there exist similar figures by Schenker himself, and the harmonic series has been known (and illustrated) since the 17th century.

2) The mention that for Riemann "The Klang is the abstracted referential sonority, the tonic triad" is somewhat biased: Riemann defines the Klang as follows: "The ear comprehends a tone with its direct relatives (third and fifth or their octaves) [...] as forming one compound sound, which we will call a CLANG". He adds that "a clang may be either principal clang - in which case it is called TONIC - or derived clang", etc. (This is in the English translation of Vereinfachte Harmonielehre, p. 7).

3) The quotation attributed to Schenker is not, under this reference at least, by Schenker but by the translator, Richard Kramer (and not Ian Bent!). The quotation should better refer to Schenker's own statement, in "Erläuterungen" (e.g. in Der Tonwille 8/9, p. 117 of the English translation; Schenker published it four times, also in Der Tonwille 10 and in Das Meisterwerk I and II). Schenker says there "The fundamental chord in nature (Der Klang in der Natur) is a triad" (Ian Bent's translation) and gives the example of the harmonic series in a vertical piling up. Bent's translation also is somewhat biased, because nothing allows to say that Klang, in Schenker's vocabulary, meant "the fundamental chord". The quotation actually comes from Harmonielehre where it reads, in E. Mann's translation (p. 26), "The natural version of the major triad is shown in Example 16" (once again a piling up of the harmonic partials, numbered from 1 to 5); the original German says: Der Durdreiklang der Natur lautet eigentlich so (Harmonielehre, p. 39). In all this, it appears that Klang merely means "chord" and that Dreiklang merely is a triad (any triad). As Schenker elsewhere makes clear, the triad of Nature is major, and the minor triad does not derive from the harmonic series ("Any attempt to derive even as much as the first foundation of this [minor] system, i.e., the minor triad itself, from Nature, i.e., from the overtone series, would be more than futile", Harmony, p. 49). The article should perhaps be renamed Klang der Natur, or "Chord of nature", but should then also quote other theorists (e.g. Schoenberg) who derived the (major) triad from the harmonic series.

4) Jonas does not say that the fifth is "a stronger interval", he merely says that it is "the strongest upper partial". He adds that "the disposition of the triad in Nature also explains why the third produces a stronger effect in higher position than in the lower or close position within the triad" (my own translation; I do not have Rothgeb's translation) (Die Lage des Dreiklangs in der Natur erklärt auch, weshalb die Terz in der höheren Lage einen stärkeren Reiz auslöst als in der tiefen, respektive engen Lage innerhalb des Dreiklangs, p. 15).

The article is about an acception of Klang that merely does not exist in German, and hardly in English. Klang means "sound"; Dreiklang means "(chord of) three sounds", triad. The "chord of nature" is the major triad, allegedly found in the harmonic series.

All this considered, the article should perhaps be deleted.

Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 15:20, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

I almost forgot this:

5) In the Schubert example, the lowest part is written a third too high (and probably played a third too high in the sound track). This once corrected, only the C major triad (with C in the bass, not E) is spaced according to the overtone series. The dominant chord (on B, not D) of mes. 3 is not.

Once again, it would be best to delete the article without delay. I don't know who is entitled to do so.

Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 15:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Why do you think this article should be deleted, as opposed to correcting the errors? If they were all corrected according to your outline above, would it still be a worthless article? Alternatively, might the content be merged into the article Overtone series? FWIW, "Chord of nature" currently redirects to this article, so your suggestion to rename would involve simply switching the redirect with the current article title.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 15:49, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think the article should better figure under the heading "Chord of Nature" because that concept has a long and interesting history, probably beginning with Rameau's theories in the early 18th century. Writing it under the heading "Klang"
 * — unduly suggests that this corresponds to a common German notion. Klang, in German, does not seem to be understood as indicated here, nor to ever have been.
 * — unduly suggests that the question concerns Riemann's and Schenker's theories, while the concept is mentioned also, directly or indirectly, say, in Catel's Treatise (and in many other French treatises) of the 19th century, in Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, and in many others, in several languages. In a way, the theory of the Chord of Nature is probably more French (up to Jacques Chailley) than German.
 * For these very reasons, reverting the redirection would not be enough: the article needs complete rewriting in order to include the history and the many avatars of the concept. I trust that an article "Chord of Nature" is needed: it might provisionally be included in one on Overtone series, but it deserves better than that.
 * Note that "correcting according to my outline", as you say, involves rewriting - or deleting - everything. I have no time just now to rewrite the article, hence why I suggested deleting it. But it would of course be much better to rewrite it, with a new title and a new content... (doesn't this amount to the same ;))?)
 * Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 19:36, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
 * To say it otherwise: if all corrections were done according to my outline, the very notion of "Klang" as described in the article would vanish, as it exists as such in neither of the theories quoted, Riemann's or Schenker's. I should add that even the reference to Ayotte in note 3 is doubtful. What is found there is a reference that reads as follows:
 * 1937 Jonas, Oswald. "Mozarts Ewige Melodie." Der Dreiklang 3 (June): 84–92. Reprinted in Musikerziehung 30/3 and 30/4: 118–21 and 158–60. Discusses the nature of melody as the Auskomponierung of the chord of nature (Klang), i.e., the first five partials of the overtone series; shows the underlying coherence of many Mozart examples, focusing on hidden motivic repetitions.
 * Unfortunately, I cannot consult Jonas' article of 1937, but it seems to me that this quotation hardly substantiates the idea of "Klang" as expressed here, and certainly cannot lead to pretending that Ayotte would endorse this definition. The truth is that Jonas believed in this idea of the chord of nature to a point where Schenker would certainly not have followed him; but this, then, should also be discussed in the article...
 * Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:30, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Revision
Seeing that we could not agree on what to do with the article, I revised it in a version that I consider a first draft of what it should become. I still believe that it would better be restored to its original title, "Chord of Nature" -- even although as presented hereby it makes sense under the heading Klang.

I removed the Schubert example because, as explained above, it was faulty -- and I have no time to redo it. I consider the other examples in the article somewhat irrelevant, but I left them for the time being.

A lot remains to be added, mainly to the history of the theory of the Chord of Nature.

Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 12:58, 21 September 2013 (UTC)


 * When was this article titled "Chord of nature"? Hyacinth (talk) 23:43, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I had assumed that it had first been written under "Chord of nature", then redirected to "Klang" (I thought this to be the meaning of 'redirection'), but I see that I was wrong.
 * I removed "(German: Naturklang)" from the first paragraph because I never met such an expression in German and Ruth Solie's usage of the term is in English. The whole idea of Klang or Naturklang as the "chord of nature" originates in American musicology.
 * "It is only seldom found in scholarly literature to denote the chord of nature.." It is extremely difficult to provide evidence that something is rare. The two quotations that follow (Solie and Ayotte) are the only ones that I could find.
 * Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 08:58, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

Future direction
This article is extremely confusing!

The information in the lead doesn't seem to summarise the body of the article, and may even contradict it.

I note the continual reservations of previous editors, but don't want to muddy the waters further with any of my own. My prior understanding of the noun "Klang" was simply as meaning much the same in German as the noun "sound" does in English. So, having encountered the compound noun "Klangfarben", I took it to mean "sound colour" - a figurative expression for "timbre".

The present article seems to indicate that:
 * 1) Hugo Riemann used "Klang" to describe any compound (musical) sound, inclusive of its overtones;
 * 2) Sundry others have taken "Klang" to refer to the hypothetical and probably non-existent "chord of nature";
 * 3) Recent theorists further abuse the term.

But if that's all that can usefully be said about it, I find myself thinking that the term hardly seems to have improved the power of music theory, and agreeing with editor Hucbald that the article might be better deleted. On the other hand, however, sorting out the various confusions and misunderstandings could be a nice little research exercise for some diligent music theorist and Wikipedia editor.

So, where to from here? yoyo (talk) 06:33, 21 October 2017 (UTC)


 * My own impression today, yoyo, is that the article is less confusing than it was, and I now think that it is useful, under its present heading ("Klang"), because it corrects a common misconception. It might be useful to create a redirection from "Chord of nature". But as you rightly say the lead remains far from satisfying. It should be rewritten to summarise the contents of the article.
 * As Richard Kramer explains in the English translation of Schenker's Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (vol. I, p. 3, footnote 2), Schenker wanted "to convey the sense of Klang as some primordial sonority, preliminary to the notion of 'chord', which allows of no such ambiguity in English." The problem is not so much whether the term "improved the power of music theory" than to acknowledge the fact that it is used in music theory in a way that often is misleading. Isn't this what the article in its present state more or less does? Do you think the "sorting out" of the confusions should be more developed?
 * I'll try to rewrite the lead as soon as possible. Any suggestion to this effect will be welcome. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 09:39, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I made a first attempt at rewriting the lead. Comments and emendations will be welcome. The question might remain whether such an article is useful. I think it is, even if it addresses specialists in the field and makes a rather complex technical point. I see no reason why WP should not address specialists as well as laymen and, after all, nobody is forced to read it. — Hucbald.SaintAmand (talk) 20:10, 21 October 2017 (UTC)