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20-408: Four-part harmony using soprano, alto, tenor and bass is a common scoring in classical music, including chorales and most Bach cantatas . The letters of the abbreviation are also used by publishers to describe different scorings for soloists and choirs other than four-part harmony. For example, the listing "STB solos, SATB choir" of Bach's Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme , BWV 140 , indicates that

40-427: A tonic in a song or some other piece of music. That is, a song or other vocal or instrumental piece can be in the key of C major or A minor, but a song or some other piece cannot be in the key of B diminished or F augmented (although songs or other pieces might include these triads within the triad progression, typically in a temporary, passing role ). Three of these four kinds of triads are found in

60-514: A triad is a set of three notes (or " pitch classes ") that can be stacked vertically in thirds. Triads are the most common chords in Western music. When stacked in thirds, notes produce triads. The triad's members, from lowest-pitched tone to highest, are called: Some 20th-century theorists, notably Howard Hanson , Carlton Gamer , and Joseph Schillinger expand the term to refer to any combination of three different pitches, regardless of

80-444: A " tertian triad". The root of a triad, together with the degree of the scale to which it corresponds, primarily determine its function. Secondarily, a triad's function is determined by its quality: major , minor , diminished or augmented . Major and minor triads are the most commonly used triad qualities in Western classical , popular and traditional music . In standard tonal music , only major and minor triads can be used as

100-450: A C major triad uses the notes C–E–G. This spells a triad by skipping over D and F. While the interval from each note to the one above it is a third, the quality of those thirds varies depending on the quality of the triad: The above definitions spell out the interval of each note above the root. Since triads are constructed of stacked thirds, they can be alternatively defined as follows: Triads appear in close or open positions. "When

120-1002: A performance needs three soloists: soprano, tenor and bass, and a four-part choir. "SATB/SATB" is used when a double choir is required, as in Penderecki's Polish Requiem . or SSATB, with divided sopranos, is a typical scoring in English church music . A listing for Bach's Mass in B minor includes the maximum of SSATB soloists and SSAATTBB eight-part choir and also indicates that it contains choral movements for SATB, SSATB, SSATBB and SATB/SATB, as well as arias for individual soloists, and duets for SS, ST and SA. Other letters of abbreviation, however with less consistency, have been used by publishers, such as "Tr" for treble ( boy soprano ), "Mz" for mezzo-soprano , "Ba", "Bar" or "Bari" for baritone , "C" for both canto (the highest part) and contralto , and "Ct" for countertenor . "SATB div." indicates that parts are sometimes divided ( divisi ) during

140-403: A piece, often sharing the same staff . Moreover, multiple parts can be assigned; first tenors, second basses, and so on. When the soprano and alto are notated in one staff, all stems for the soprano go up, and all for the alto go down. Similarly, when the tenor and bass are notated in one staff, the upper voice is marked by stems up, and both voices are written in bass clef , while the tenor

160-413: A set of rules developed for voice leading in four-part harmony. In these rules, the bass voice would be assigned the root of the chord, although it can occasionally be assigned the fifth or the third. If the chord is a triad , the root is generally doubled by one of the other voices. When two voices are harmonized in perfect intervals (fourths, fifths and octaves), repeats of the same interval between

180-410: Is tessitura . Since the music is usually written for four-part choirs, each part should be able to be sung by the appropriate section of the choir, thus it should remain in the appropriate pitch range. As well as that, each voice should be easy to sing, meaning that large intervals within the same voice are to be avoided, instead favoring step-wise motion. Voices should also not overlap: the pitch sung by

200-405: Is music written for four voices , or for some other musical medium—four musical instruments or a single keyboard instrument, for example—for which the various musical parts can give a different note for each chord of the music. The four main voices are typically labelled as soprano (or treble and countertenor ), alto ( contralto , countertenor or mezzo ), tenor , and bass . Because

220-656: Is usually written in treble clef marked an octave down if it has its own staff. The rules of voice leading apply to SATB notations. In a broader sense, choirs of instruments can also be described by the abbreviation SATB, often for members of the same family of instruments, such as consorts of recorders , viola da gamba , saxophones and trombones . The abbreviations are also a common way to describe which "voices" perform in instrumental compositions such as fugues , including Bach's The Art of Fugue and The Musical Offering , written without indicating specific instruments. Four-part harmony Four-part harmony

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240-468: The alto should not be higher than that of the soprano, and so on for the other voices. Voices should also remain suitably close to each other, usually within an octave of each adjacent voice, except for the bass. These rules were generally followed during the common practice period. Nowadays, they are usually taught in music theory classes, but most compositions follow less strict rules, if not outright disregarding them. Triad (music) In music ,

260-484: The first, fourth, and fifth degrees (respectively) of the diatonic scale, and the triads are accordingly symbolized I, IV, and V. Primary triads "express function clearly and unambiguously." The other triads in diatonic keys include the supertonic , mediant , submediant , and leading-tone , whose roots are the second, third, sixth, and seventh degrees (respectively) of the diatonic scale, symbolized ii, iii, vi, and vii . They function as auxiliary or supportive triads to

280-406: The human voice has a limited range, different voice types are usually not able to sing pitches that lie outside of their specific range. The effort required to perform four-part harmony varies greatly. Pieces written in such a style can be usually executed by a single keyboard player, a group of 4 instruments (or singers), or even a large choir with multiple singers per part. In the baroque era ,

300-412: The intervals. Schillinger defined triads as "A structure in harmony of but three parts; conventionally, but not necessarily, the familiar triad of ordinary diatonic harmony." The word used by other theorists for this more general concept is " trichord ". Others use the term to refer to combinations apparently stacked by other intervals, as in " quartal triad"; a combination stacked in thirds is then called

320-567: The late Renaissance music era, and especially during the Baroque music era (1600–1750), Western art music shifted from a more "horizontal" contrapuntal approach (in which multiple, independent melody lines were interwoven ) toward progressions , which are sequences of triads. The progression approach, which was the foundation of the Baroque-era basso continuo accompaniment, required a more "vertical" approach, thus relying more heavily on

340-413: The major (or diatonic) scale. In popular music and 18th-century classical music, major and minor triads are considered consonant and stable, and diminished and augmented triads are considered dissonant and unstable. When we consider musical works we find that the triad is ever-present and that the interpolated dissonances have no other purpose than to effect the continuous variation of the triad. In

360-469: The three upper voices are as close together as possible, the spacing is described as close position or close harmony. [...] The other arrangements [...] are called open position or open harmony." Each triad found in a diatonic (single-scale-based) key corresponds to a particular diatonic function . Functional harmony tends to rely heavily on the primary triads : triads built on the tonic , subdominant , and dominant degrees. The roots of these triads are

380-421: The triad as the basic building block of functional harmony . The primacy of the triad in Western music was first theorized by Gioseffo Zarlino (1500s), and the term "harmonic triad" was coined by Johannes Lippius in his Synopsis musicae novae (1612). Triads (or any other tertian chords) are built by superimposing every other note of a diatonic scale (e.g., standard major or minor scale). For example,

400-437: The two voices (also known as moving in parallels ) are almost always avoided. Another rule concerns perfect cadences . In such cadences, the leading tone (the seventh scale degree ) must resolve step-wise to the tonic. That is, the voice that plays the leading tone must resolve up to the tonic, and if the chord is a dominant seventh chord , the subdominant should resolve to the mediant. Another concern of four-part writing

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