This week we continued working with concepts from the last two weeks, putting them together to look at the details of musical phrases. Remember, different analysts are looking for different things. There is more than one right answer. Prolongation begins with the idea that T, P, and D are more stable or structural chords than…
This week we added arabic numeral superscripts and subscripts to our functional letter labels. These numbers represent interval relations to the root of the chord. To review, the root of each chord in solfege and scale degree numbers: Primary functions, major and minor Major keys Minor keys T, t –…
Here’s the analysis of the Bach Chaccone we did today, plus a couple extra phrases. You can see how the functions stay stable but have variations in the details. chaccone for wordpress Here’s another practice worksheet for identifying and spelling some of the chords. practice with inversions
This week we secondary or substitute functions. These are chords that can stand in for primary functions (tonic or predominant) for various purposes – most often variety, voice-leading, or to keep the phrase moving forward. The quality of a chord (major or minor) is always shown by the last letter of a functional label. These chords…
Here is a visual explanation of secondary functions (week 2) in minor. A notated explanation of secondary functions.
Here is a visual explanation of secondary functions (week 2) in major. A notated explanation of secondary functions.
As requested this morning, here’s a color version of the chart I made on the board today. Red are chords in C major, green are chords in C’s relative minor – a minor, and blue are the parallel, c minor. Other theorists often call this a Tonnetz (German for “web of tones”) if you want…
