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…
Functional Analysis is a system of harmonic analysis that has the cadence as the basis. Functions are determined aurally; each has its own sound – sometimes we talk about chords having desire (this chord wants to go here). The principle contributor to each chord’s function is its root – at this point the bass pitch. (In…
Here are some terms and concepts that we will refer to. Cadences: PAC – Perfect Authentic Cadence. Dominant moving to Tonic. Stereotypical end of a tonal piece. So-do in the bass, do in the soprano IAC – Imperfect Authentic Cadence. Dominant moving to Tonic. Destabilized version of PAC, either because of inversion, pitch in the…
I’m very excited to teach this course this quarter. I plan to post weekly summaries on Fridays for people who are observing or unable to attend class in person due to constraints of the time-space continuum.
Functional Analysis 