Transformations of Triads and Seventh Chords: Group Extensions and Duality

Abstract

Transformational music theory, pioneered by David Lewin, uses simply transitive group actions to analyze music. In this paper, we construct a simply transitive group action on a disjoint union of two sets, built from a simply transitive action on each set and an equivariant bijection connecting them. Motivational examples are the omnibus progression and the reflected omnibus progression, which involve the consonant triads and the dominant/half-diminished seventh chords, connected by the inclusion bijection. We provide other examples from Jazz tunes. More generally, we combine multiple simply transitive group actions via a "meta-rotation"; examples include a simply transitive group acting on consonant triads and a variety of seventh chords, as well as a meta-rotation that realizes the root position seventh chord sequence of the flattening transformation (described by Clough-Douthett's J-function). The constructions in our theorems extend Lewin dual pairs to Lewin dual pairs. We formulate the constructions in terms of short exact sequences and central extensions as well. Contextual groups are also elucidated: the interval content of the generating pitch-class segment determines whether or not a generalized contextual group is generated by contextual inversions.