What could I do to make this part have no tonal centre?
I have an assignment for a composition class in which I have to compose a tonal piece with no tonal centre (in the context of Dmtri Tymoczko's theory and what he underlines as the 5 principles of tonality).
My approach to doing that was trying to compose something that, to my ear, would lead to an ambiguity about where the piece would "want" to resolve.
I really don't have much foundation on harmony, so I showed it to a friend of mine more acquainted to it and, in his analysis, he told me this part kind of gravitates towards F minor.
My question is: what strategies could I explore and what could I do differently from what I have done so to achieve something closer to a true lack of tonal centre while still being tonal?
Here's the audio clip of the part I have composed and, here below, its sheet music.
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Seems like it's really just the last two chords that pull you back into (sounds to me like) Bb minor. I'd avoid the I-V or V-I root progression in the final bars.
If by centrality one means a particular key such as F minor then generic advice to avoid or weaken the sense of that key would include:
Inversions: weaken chords by placing the root note not in the bass, e.g. from the bass up <e g c> instead of <c e g>. Consider also doubling the 3?, e.g. <e g c e> which is usually frowned upon in traditional harmony.
Diminished: in F minor the chord <g bes des> or ii? is quite distinctive; avoid it, or use it with diminished chords from other keys (tritone sub? modulation?).
Harmonics: avoid conventional progressions, most especially dominant sevenths to tonic (which Robert Fink touched on). These could be weakened via V-III instead of V-I and also with inversions.
Rhythm: especially avoid V-I motions on strong beats to avoid the rhythm reinforcing the harmony; if you need a V-I put it on an off-beat, or as an accent or grace note.
Sequences: certain harmonic sequences have less of a "goal" than others e.g. the ascending fifths sequence (bass goes up a fifth, down a fourth, wash rinse repeat). Consider also panning (parallel harmony) or whole-tone scales used by e.g. Debussy.
Modulate: to avoid sounding like a particular key, move to some other key. A spiral canon would be one way to do this.
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