![]() ![]() Conservatories are divided with strong partitions (ivory towers) between their departments. Unfortunately, the word "sonority" (like many musical terms) developed a lot of artistic baggage as it was used to describe similar (but different) things during the evolution of western music. From the concepts below I have tried to illustrate interesting insights about the "multi colored" nature of this term and hence give a better understanding of what it may mean in different contexts. Unfortunately this is not a specific answer. I think of those as special cases of the more generic "sonority." ![]() ![]() Of course, new music has its own references such as "cluster" (simultaneous adjacent tones) and "cloud" (non-simultaneous aperiodic textures made up of a multiplicity of unrelated tones). This, even when the notes are equally-tempered, but more so as non-harmonic overtones and tunings come into play (as in soundmass, Klangtone, and outright non-harmonic sounds like bells). But as chords become more complex - for example bitonality such as one might hear from Stravinsky, or the use of even higher overtones to create eleventh and thirteenth chords - they tend to switch to the word "sonority." My inference from their usage is that the "sound" of the vertical simultaneity stops having the implications of functional harmony, wherein each note in the chord has tendencies to lead to adjacent diatonic notes, and becomes instead more of a timbral appeal. I generally hear composers and theorists use traditional terms like "chord" when discussing triads, seventh chords, ninth chords - harmonic structures built on thirds - and their inversions. ![]()
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