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The tonic is the first note of a musical scale, and in the tonal method of musical composition it is extremely important. The triad formed on the tonic note, the tonic chord, is thus the most important chord. More generally, the tonic is the pitch upon which all other pitches of a piece are hierarchically referenced. The tonic is often confused with the root, which is the reference note of a chord, rather than that of the scale.

After tonic, the names of the remaining scale degrees (of a diatonic scale) in order are as follows: supertonic — second scale degree (the scale degree immediately "above" the tonic); mediant — third scale degree (the "middle" note of the tonic triad); subdominant — fourth scale degree (the scale degree immediately "below" the dominant); dominant — fifth scale degree (the most "pronounced" harmonic note after the tonic); submediant — sixth scale degree (the "middle" note of the subdominant triad); leading tone (or leading note) — seventh scale degree (the scale degree that "leads" to the tonic); subtonic - also seventh scale degree, but applying to the lowered 7th found in the natural minor scale. 1 and 8 notes are the Tonic.

In western European tonal music of the 18th and 19th centuries, the tonic center was the most important of all the different tone centers which a composer used in a piece of music, with most pieces beginning and ending on the tonic, usually travelling to the dominant (the fifth above the tonic, or the fourth note up from the tonic) in between.

There can be major scales and minor scales. The tonic remains the same in these two different "modes," for a given key, whereas scale degrees such as the third degree and the sixth degree are altered in the minor scale.

This can be seen another way. Each minor scale uses exactly the same set of notes (key signature) as some major scale and vice-versa. The only difference is which of these notes functions as the tonal centre — which of them is the tonic. For example, C major and A minor have no sharps or flats. Consequently, the tonic plays an important part in determining why music composed using a minor mode sounds different from music composed using a major mode.

A tonic may be considered a tonal center, while a pitch center functions referentially or contextually in an atonal context, often acting as axis or line of symmetry in an interval cycle (Samson 1977). Pitch centricity was coined by Arthur Berger in his "Problems of Pitch Organization in Stravinsky".

The tonic diatonic function includes four separate activities or roles as the principal goal tone, initiating event, generator of other tones, and the stable center neutralizing the tension between dominant and subdominant. The tonic of a scale can sometimes be determined by those with perfect pitch.

• Tonality
• Final (music)
• Root (chord)

• Samson, Jim (1977). Music in Transition: A Study of Tonal Expansion and Atonality, 1900-1920. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-02193-9.

• Benward, Bruce, and Marilyn Saker. Music in Theory and Practice. 7th ed. Vol. 1. New York: McGraw Hill, 2003. 32-33. ISBN 0-07-294262-2