Editing Leading tone (section)

=== Analysis ===
According to [[Ernst Kurth]],{{sfn|Kurth|1913|loc=119–736}} the [[major third|major]] and [[minor third]]s contain "latent" tendencies towards the [[perfect fourth]] and whole tone, respectively, and thus establish [[tonality]]. However, [[Carl Dahlhaus]]{{sfn|Dahlhaus|1990|loc=44–47}} contests Kurth's position, holding that this drive is in fact created through or with harmonic function, a root progression in another voice by a whole tone or fifth, or melodically ([[monophony|monophonically]]) by the context of the scale. For example, the leading tone of alternating C chord and F minor chords is either the note E leading to F (if F is tonic), or A{{music|b}} leading to G (if C is tonic).

In works from the 14th- and 15th-century Western tradition, the leading tone is created by the progression from imperfect to perfect consonances, such as a major third to a perfect fifth or minor third to a unison.{{Citation needed|date=November 2018}} The same pitch outside of the imperfect consonance is not a leading tone.

Forte claims that the leading tone is only one example of a more general tendency: the strongest progressions, melodic and harmonic, are by [[Semitone|half step]].{{sfn|Forte|1979|loc=11–2}} He suggests that one play a G major scale and stop on the seventh note (F{{music|#}}) to personally experience the feeling of lack caused by the "particularly strong attraction" of the seventh note to the eighth (F{{music|#}}→G'), thus its name.