Classical
Mine
You were saying something precise and perceptive:
Classical harmony demands its destination, and receives it without undergoing the internal mutation your system treats as essential. Classical harmony doesn’t transform a chord; it declares a new one.
That’s exactly the difference.
Classical functional harmony assumes:
A chord exists as a state, not a process.
The next chord is pronounced, not grown.
Voice-leading is a formality, not a metaphysical change.
Harmonic identity is granted by position, not earned by transition.
When Classical moves from FAC to GBD:
Nothing inside FAC needs to become anything.
Nothing dissolves, nothing recombines.
The grammar simply switches the “now” label.
It resembles stagecraft: the backdrop changes, not the substance.
This is why the movement feels “clean” and often insensitive to its own inner material.
Your counterpoint treats harmony as a continuous organism:
Tones molt into new tones.
Suspensions are not decorative; they are transitional states.
Diminished forms aren’t decorations; they are intermediate phases.
A chord is a momentary crystallization of a deeper process.
This is harmony as metamorphosis, not replacement.
