Quarter-Tone Dissertation

Example 4.2

a) B-chord; b) C-chord; c) C-chord as a subset of B-chord

Example 4.2a transcribes Ives's secondary sonority; I refer to this chord as the "B-chord" in my dissertation. Example 4.2b is a third sonority described by Ives in Some Quarter-Tone Impressions as a "nine-five-five" chord. I'm confident that Ives was indicating quarter-tone intervals built up from the root; in the previous sentence, he explicitly mentions the interval of five quarter tones. I call this chord the "C-chord" and it does appear in the opening of the chorale.

In Example 4.2c, I've transposed the C-chord to a root of F-natural and rearranged the chord voices to show that the C-chord is a four-note subset of the B-chord.

The pitches C-natural, F-natural, B-flat, G-quarter-sharp, and D-quarter-sharp.
The pitches C-natural, G-natural, E-quarter-sharp, and A-quarter-sharp.
The example shows that adding one note to the C-chord turns it into a B-chord.
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