Трезвучие в музыке: структура и функции

Three notes in intervals of a third

In music, 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: Carlton Gamer, and Joseph Schillinger expand the term to refer to any combination of three different pitches, regardless of 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 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 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 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.

In 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 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).

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 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 the primary triads.