Secundal harmony

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'Secundal harmony is a technique that uses Seconds as the building blocks of harmony, as opposed to Tertian harmony or Quartal and quintal harmony. Secundal harmony is somewhat less common than the previous methods of building harmony, but it is often found through the use of Tone clusters.

Chords created with secundal harmony

Basic secundal chords will be composed of tones directly adjacent to each other (at least in a notational sense). A basic chord of three major seconds on D is shown below:

<music> \meterOff

<d e fis>1

</music>

Major and minor seconds may also be used. Below is a secundal chord on Eb composed of, respectively, a major second and a minor second above the root:

<music> \meterOff

<ees f ges>1

</music>