We examine a collection of particles interacting with inverse-square two-body potentials in the thermodynamic limit. We find explicit large-amplitude density waves and soliton solutions for the motion of the system. Waves can be constructed as coherent states of either solitons or phonons. Therefore, either solitons or phonons can be considered as the fundamental excitations. The generic wave is shown to correspond to a two-band state in the quantum description of the system, while the limiting cases of solitons and phonons correspond to particle and hole excitations.