When analysing the regularities and structure of music as well as the processing of music in the brain, certain findings lead to the question of whether music is based on a syntax that could be compared with linguistic syntax. To get closer to this question it is necessary to have a look at the basic aspects of syntax in language, as language unquestionably presents a complex syntactical system. If music has a matchable syntax, noteworthy equivalents to basic aspects of linguistic syntax have to be found in musical structure. By implication the processing of music in comparison to language could also give information about the structure of music.
Comparison to linguistic syntax Syntax in general can be referred to as a study of the principles and rules needed for the construction of a language or as a term in particular describing these principles and rules for a special language.
Linguistic syntax – three principles Linguistic syntax is especially marked by its structural richness, which becomes apparent in its multi layered organization as well as in the strong relationship between syntax and meaning. That is that there are special linguistic syntactic principles that define how the language is formed out of different subunits, such as words out of morphemes, phrases out of words and sentences out of phrases. Furthermore, linguistic syntax is featured by the fact that a word can take on abstract grammatical functions that are less defined through properties of the word itself and more through the context and structural relations. This is for example that every noun can be used as a subject, object or indirect object, but without a sentence as the normal context of a word, no statement about its grammatical function can be made. At last, linguistic syntax is marked by abstractness. This means that only conventional structural relations and not psychoacoustic relationships are the basis for the linguistic syntax.
Musical syntax Concerning musical syntax these three aspects of richness in linguistic syntax as well as the abstractness should be found in music too, if one wants to claim that music has a comparable syntax. An annotation that has to be made concerns the fact that most of the studies dealing with musical syntax are confined to the consideration of Western European tonal music. Thus this article can also only focus on Western tonal music.
Multilayered organization Considering the multilayered organization of music, three levels of pitch organization can be found in music.
Scale degrees The lowest level are musical scales, which consist of seven tones or "scale degrees" per octave and have an asymmetric pattern of intervals between them (for example the C-major scale). They are built up out of the 12 possible pitch classes per octave (A, A♯, B, C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯) and the different scale tones are not equal in their structural stability. Empirical evidence indicates that there is a hierarchy concerning the stability of the single tones. The most stable one is called the "tonic" and embodies the tonal centre of the scale. The most unstable tones were the ones closest to the tonic (scale degrees 2 and 7), which are called the "supertonic" and the "leading tone". In studies scale degrees 1, 3 and 5 have been judged as closely related. It was also shown that an implicit knowledge of scale structure has to be learned and developed in childhood and is not inborn.
Chord structure The next superordinate level of pitch organization is the chord structure, which means that three scale tones with a distance of two scale steps each are played simultaneously and are therefore combined into chords. When building up chords on the basis of a musical scale there are three different kinds of chords resulting, namely "major"(e.g. C-E-G), "minor" (e.g. D-F-A) and "diminished" (e.g. B-D-F) triads. This is due to the asymmetric intervals between the scale tones. These asymmetric intervals effect, that a distance of two scale steps can comprise either three or four semitones and therefore be an interval of a minor (with three semitones) or a major (with four semitones) third. A major triad consists of a major third followed by a minor third and is built on scale degrees 1, 3 and 5 (or 4, 6 and 1, for the subdominant, and 5, 7 and 2, for the dominant, the other two major triads that can be formed from the major scale). A minor triad consists of a minor third followed by a major third and is built on scale degrees 2, 4 and 6 (or 3, 5 and 7, for the mediant, and 6, 1 and 4, for the submediant). Only on scale degree 7 the triad consists of two minor thirds and is therefore defined as a diminished triad. Chordal syntax touches mainly four basic aspects. The first is, that the lowest note in each triad functions as a fundament of the chord and therefore as the structural most important pitch. The chord is named after this note as well as the chord's harmonic label is grounded on it. The second aspect is, that chord syntax provides norms for altering chords by additional tones. One example is the addition of a fourth tone to a triad, which is the seventh tone of the scale (e.g. in a C-major scale the addition of F to the triad G-B-D would lead to a so-called "dominant seventh chord"). Concerning norms for the progression of chords in time the third aspect focuses on the relationship between chords. The patterning of chords in a cadence for example indicates a movement from a V chord to a I chord. The fact that the I chord is perceived as a resting point in a musical phrase implicates, that the single chords built up on notes of a scale are not equal in there stability but show the same differences in stability as the notes of the scale do. This describes the fourth basic aspect of chordal syntax. The tonic chord (the one built on the tonic, C-E-G in C-major, for example) is the most stable and central chord, followed by the dominant chord (built on the 5th scale degree) and the subdominant chord (built on the 4th scale degree). "
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