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Standard Terminology
Traditional harmony texts generally contain a discussion of "non-chord notes" or "nonharmonic tones".
These are, as the names imply, notes which do not belong to the current chord and thus require some
explanation. Although these do not exactly correspond to the 'decorations' to be discussed in the rest of this
chapter, the terminology will be useful for analysis.
The basic concepts of passing notes, neighbouring notes, suspensions, anticipations and appoggiatura are
defined in this section. The nomenclature for non-chord notes differs significantly from one text to
another. This section presents the most common variations.
There is some overlap with earlier sections where the concepts of neighbouring and passing notes was
introduced as a means of chord generation. The definitions offered here do not conflict with this.
© 2005 Andrew Hodgson
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