Why is the dominant "daggy" and not the subdominant?

[slane]

OK ... obviously I know doodly squat about theory so please be patient.
I was reading this blog post https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/the-dominant-is-daggy/
where the author asserts that the dominant is daggy (unfashionable, dorky, for you non aussie speakers) but the subbdominant is cool. But if you invert the dominant you get the subdominant.
so how on earth does our brain, or by what convention do we, distinguish between C+F
and and F+C???  To much twinkle twinkle I guess.

I'm learning a piece in F at the moment that starts off CFCF FAFA
although its in F, our brain has only heard those few notes at the beginning and must assume its hearing the subdominant in C, but after hearing the rest of the piece, clearly in F, and we return to the theme i don't now hear it as "daggy". Sounds pretty to me.

Now this is one of those frustrating questions I occasionally put to musical people trying to discover what they know that I don't and failing miserably because I don't even know enough to ask the right question so can you tell me please, I have a book on theory, but I guess I'm asking about the cultural conventions that lead us to think of the dominant as cliched .. how can I found out about that? A lot of the excitement in music is when our expectations are not met such as in a deceptive cadence, but to understand when that occurs one first has understand what the conventions are. I don't even know what this subject is called!!

So can you a) tell me what this subject is that I'm grasping at and b) point me to a book?

to muchly
Samantha

[Bob]

Haha... "...it’s time for piano teachers and piano examination boards to start looking at the kinds of new cadences that express the meanings of the 21st century..."

I think they've done that already.  Been there.  Come back.  Gone back and returned again.

I wouldn't take that blog post very seriously.  The dominant chord just usually leads back to a tonic chord or sometimes to a vi chord of some kind.  If you don't get to the dominant chord, you can move around, stretch it out, but once you get to the dominant hcord it's going to sound like to wants to resolve.  Although I think the blogger was talking about pop music.

There are a lot of basic theory/harmony books on here.  Just search around.

The chords used and notes of the scale force our minds to hear things relating to one tonal center.  If you play a major scale, it might start sounding like that key -- Play a C major scale, C starts sounding like the center.  F has Bb, so if you play Bb instead of B natural, it can start sounding like F is the center.  If you're hearing things in a major key -- You could hear them as a minor or d minor.  The chords will really hammer it in though.  If you play a C dominant seventh -- C E G Bb -- it will sound like it wants to resolve to F, and it will sound like F is the tonal center.  If you play G dominant seven, then C will sound like the center.  They're different that way, but the keys of C major and F major are related since it's just the B natural vs. Bb that makes them different in terms of notes.

That's for making the music progress or sound like it's moving forward.  Pop music doesn't always do that.  Not all classical music does either, but from 1650-ish to 1900 most of it is.  In the 20th century they did go in different directions -- It's been done and it is taught and it's not something you would start off teaching to a beginning music student. 

I didn't study out that blog post.  Didn't look that interesting, but the blogger appears to be some of kind Australian educational piano composer. 
https://elissamilne.wordpress.com/category/about-elissa-milne/
Out to change the world.  Everyone is wrong and only they know the true way things should be done.  Haha.  Looks a little more interesting if they're a composer or music teacher.

[nanabush]

When I was learning theory/harmony, we'd consider a perfect fourth as a dissonant interval.  It kind of bugged me because the teacher wouldn't really give a good explanation why.  I've come to accept it, but I still think fourths sound really awesome.  PARALLEL FOURTHS (I'm going to hell!).  It's not the kind of thing that would fit in classical harmony, but it doesn't create a black hole, so I'll play all the fourths I want to.

It's late, and I'm kind of posting to myself... anyways, C-F to me instantly shouts out subdominant-tonic because of how I was taught it for the past 10 years.  What if we had a 15 key piano with all these alien intervals?  I'd love to see how many people would go absolutely insane 

[prometheus]

Tonal music is hierarchical. It matters in what hierarchy the tones have to be interpreted.

Music is ordered sound. A sound is a vibration of air. This vibration has a certain frequency. You may know that middle C is 262 Hz.

But if you generate a 262 Hz vibration then that is a sound unlike any 'natural' sound. A string or bell or flute tone will have overtones. It will not be a pure sound that is made up of just a single vibration.

Natural overtones dictates how we humans hear music. Overtones are higher in frequency. They stack on top of the base frequency. This relation is not equal. Higher tones are overtones of lower tones. Lower tones are not undertones of higher tones.

Because of this C and a higher F mean the tone A and it's overtone F while F and a higher C mean the tone F and it's overtone C. This makes them very different.

If a C with an overtone F or an undertone F would be the same thing, then they would also be the same as a F with an overtone C and an undertone C. This is not the case. A interval of a perfect fourth isn't identical to the interval of a perfect fifth. They have difference characteristics. They aren't the same thing mirrored. They are not symmetrical.

[zeroblackstar]

When I was learning theory/harmony, we'd consider a perfect fourth as a dissonant interval.  It kind of bugged me because the teacher wouldn't really give a good explanation why.  I've come to accept it, but I still think fourths sound really awesome.  PARALLEL FOURTHS (I'm going to hell!).  It's not the kind of thing that would fit in classical harmony, but it doesn't create a black hole, so I'll play all the fourths I want to.

It's late, and I'm kind of posting to myself... anyways, C-F to me instantly shouts out subdominant-tonic because of how I was taught it for the past 10 years.  What if we had a 15 key piano with all these alien intervals?  I'd love to see how many people would go absolutely insane 

Dissonance doesn't refer to the sound being unpleasant, rather to it being considered "unstable" in the musical sense. A P4 was considered dissonant in the Middle Ages while later on in the Common Practice period is was considered a consonance except when its function was contrapuntal.

Here's an article I found:

https://www.ars-nova.com/Theory%20Q&A/Q85.html

[dcstudio]

When I was learning theory/harmony, we'd consider a perfect fourth as a dissonant interval.  It kind of bugged me because the teacher wouldn't really give a good explanation why.  I've come to accept it, but I still think fourths sound really awesome.  PARALLEL FOURTHS (I'm going to hell!).  It's not the kind of thing that would fit in classical harmony, but it doesn't create a black hole, so I'll play all the fourths I want to.

It's late, and I'm kind of posting to myself... anyways, C-F to me instantly shouts out subdominant-tonic because of how I was taught it for the past 10 years.  What if we had a 15 key piano with all these alien intervals?  I'd love to see how many people would go absolutely insane 

I read all the replies and I was most impressed with yours--though you were not wordy like those trying to prove their theory knowledge (it's a result of music school neurosis resurfacing years later--I suffer too--so I forgive them) ---anyhoo--you understand, or at least you're getting there.  and I believe there ARE parallel 5ths in heaven along with tritones and crossed voices