Musical questions and answers thread

[Joseph K]

Aaaaargh! What's that when it's at home?

No, best not to tell me yet!

Mario

Sixth mode of the major scale, e.g. ABCDEFG in C major - in other words, a minor scale without the altered sixth or seventh degrees.

[Mario]

Thanks again to all.

As I said in my OP, we’ve been given a simple melody for the clarinet of two and a bit bars long, in 6 / 8 time, and we have to complete the melody on the G clef for eight bars. They asked me to modulate. That’s when the trouble started...

I’m also told to try and “hear” the music. This I simply cannot do. I’ve tried and failed. It’s like trying to recognise intervals. Pretty hopeless.

The only modulation that I think makes sense to me is Joseph K’s suggestion of going to the relative Maj key.

Would a perfect 5th above D min (A Maj) or a perfect 5th below (G Maj) make sense, because of the tonic-dominant relationship? NO, because these keys have not been suggested!

If I’m in D min, apart from F Maj, why would I go elsewhere, apart from the sound effect, which I cannot hear in my mind’s eye?

Sorry to continue parading my ignorance publicly.

Mario

[Serial_Apologist]

From what I can make out there is no key signature, just flats, sharps and maybe accidentals against pitches to suggest what one to apply to the entire passage. Would that be right? It seems a very laborious way to introduce composition!

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks again to all.

As I said in my OP, we’ve been given a simple melody for the clarinet of two and a bit bars long, in 6 / 8 time, and we have to complete the melody on the G clef for eight bars. They asked me to modulate. That’s when the trouble started...

I’m also told to try and “hear” the music. This I simply cannot do. I’ve tried and failed. It’s like trying to recognise intervals. Pretty hopeless.

The only modulation that I think makes sense to me is Joseph K’s suggestion of going to the relative Maj key.

Would a perfect 5th above D min (A Maj) or a perfect 5th below (G Maj) make sense, because of the tonic-dominant relationship? NO, because these keys have not been suggested!

If I’m in D min, apart from F Maj, why would I go elsewhere, apart from the sound effect, which I cannot hear in my mind’s eye?

Sorry to continue parading my ignorance publicly.

Mario

I promise you “hearing “ the music will come with time and practice . One tip : try singing the melody rather than playing it on an instrument. That might make for a better melody and improve your aural skills.

[Joseph K]

Thanks again to all.

As I said in my OP, we’ve been given a simple melody for the clarinet of two and a bit bars long, in 6 / 8 time, and we have to complete the melody on the G clef for eight bars. They asked me to modulate. That’s when the trouble started...

I’m also told to try and “hear” the music. This I simply cannot do. I’ve tried and failed. It’s like trying to recognise intervals. Pretty hopeless.

The only modulation that I think makes sense to me is Joseph K’s suggestion of going to the relative Maj key.

Would a perfect 5th above D min (A Maj) or a perfect 5th below (G Maj) make sense, because of the tonic-dominant relationship? NO, because these keys have not been suggested!

If I’m in D min, apart from F Maj, why would I go elsewhere, apart from the sound effect, which I cannot hear in my mind’s eye?

Sorry to continue parading my ignorance publicly.

Mario

Regarding the ability to hear the music in your head AKA 'audiate' the best thing to do would be to practice sight-singing, with an instrument to check whether you've judged the interval correctly - this is a trial and error process, but if you're persistent, it should pay off. Then what you can do is sing say the first two notes, then try to imagine the third note, then sing the fourth. Basically, what you want to do is develop your musical memory - you must get music in your head, I assume? then try transferring it to an instrument.

Regarding modulating, it sounds like a fairly short piece, so the relative major is probably the safest bet ...

[Mario]

To Ein Heldenleben and Joseph K, genuinely, thank you both so much for your suggestions.

I WOULD like to be able to sight-read a piece of music and be fairly accurate as to how it should sound before hearing it. I don’t know why, it just sounds like an important skill to develop.

Thank you both for giving me the motivation to continue.

Mario

[Ein Heldenleben]

To Ein Heldenleben and Joseph K, genuinely, thank you both so much for your suggestions.

I WOULD like to be able to sight-read a piece of music and be fairly accurate as to how it should sound before hearing it. I don’t know why, it just sounds like an important skill to develop.

Thank you both for giving me the motivation to continue.

Mario

Like a lot,of amateur pianists (I think - no evidence really ) I was hopeless at sight singing until I more or less forced myself to do it.I’m not particularly good at it but I’m a lot better than I was,

[Bryn]

Listening now to Quartetto di Cremona playing Beethoven's Op.130 I was struck by the thought that the instruments (including the bows) might not be able to get anywhere near the power and attack of their playing. No wonder the Kuijkens put aside their historically set-up instruments when they recorded Op. 59.

The question, directed at experienced string players here, is "has the beefing-up of the construction and stringing of baroque instruments fundamentally changed their root characteristics in the way those of the piano have changed? We know that Beethoven was dissatisfied with the power of the violin, from the exchange between him and Schuppanzigh. I feel the Quartett di Cremona make a good fist of exploiting the power of their instruments while being considerably informed by the historical conditions obtaining at the time Beethoven was struggling with the restrictions of the instruments he had available to him".

[ahinton]

Listening now to Quartetto di Cremona playing Beethoven's Op.130 I was struck by the thought that the instruments (including the bows) might not be able to get anywhere near the power and attack of their playing. No wonder the Kuijkens put aside their historically set-up instruments when they recorded Op. 59.

The question, directed at experienced string players here, is "has the beefing-up of the construction and stringing of baroque instruments fundamentally changed their root characteristics in the way those of the piano have changed? We know that Beethoven was dissatisfied with the power of the violin, from the exchange between him and Schuppanzigh. I feel the Quartett di Cremona make a good fist of exploiting the power of their instruments while being considerably informed by the historical conditions obtaining at the time Beethoven was struggling with the restrictions of the instruments he had available to him".

Beethoven "struggling with the restrictions of the instruments he had available to him" is a valuable consideration in the entire thrust of questions about what instruments to use for what music as well as how they should be played. Did he perceive the pianos available to him to lack sufficient tonal clarity to enunciate chords in their extreme bass registers? Did Chopin believe that the instruments available to him only a few years after Beethoven's final keyboard works were fully up to the demands of his Op. 10 études. Might a question similar to that just asked about Beethoven have applied equally - or even more so - to Alkan? How adequate were the repetition mechanisms available to Chopin but even more so to Liszt and Alkan deemed to be? WHat brought Liszt (and possibly others) to speculate in the possibility of a device that was later to become the sostenuto pedal (a device which, however, is rarely used even though standard today)? As to the matter of the sheer carrying power of pianos, the movement from salons towards larger venues in the mid-later 19th century was obviously one influential factor upon design developments - but all these are just some of the unanswerable (rather than unanswered!) questions on this and related topics...

[Mario]

To Ein Heldenleben and Joseph K, genuinely, thank you both so much for your suggestions.

I WOULD like to be able to sight-read a piece of music and be fairly accurate as to how it should sound before hearing it. I don’t know why, it just sounds like an important skill to develop.

Thank you both for giving me the motivation to continue.

Mario

One quick question please, and asked with some trepidation…

Dominant 7ths!

7/5/3, 6/5/3, 6/4/3 and 6/4/2, trying to embed these in my memory for Level 6 Theory.

But casually surfing I see there’s 9ths and even 11ths to come! So, here’s my question.

Am I expected to have to memorise all combinations of these as well, and where does it all stop? Are there Dominant 27ths around?

[Joseph K]

One quick question please, and asked with some trepidation…

Dominant 7ths!

7/5/3, 6/5/3, 6/4/3 and 6/4/2, trying to embed these in my memory for Level 6 Theory.

But casually surfing I see there’s 9ths and even 11ths to come! So, here’s my question.

Am I expected to have to memorise all combinations of these as well, and where does it all stop? Are there Dominant 27ths around?

It stops at dominant 13th, and probably yes, eventually, memorising all the inversions of all extended chords would be good, although probably beyond grade 6...

[ardcarp]

Suggest just doing plenty of playing from figured bass. R.O. Morris's Figured Harmony at the Keyboard books 1 and 2 just take you through step by step. It's a bit outdated (though still available) in that most continuo work is for Baroque music, and the Morris books are not typical of the score that will be shoved in front of you (where sometimes the 'figuring' is less complete and relies on you to scan the score as well).

I had an interesting pleasure recently. A late-teenage Norwegian niece + family came to stay with us a couple of weeks ago. She spotted my harpsichord and fell in love with it. I mentioned 'continuo work' to her, which she-hadn't heard of. So I explained roughly what a continuo player does in a Baroque ensemble, and then dug out my old R.O. Morris books and gave them to her as a present. She became almost obsessed with the whole thing and spent hours practising, sometimes preferring this over trips to the seaside.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

One quick question please, and asked with some trepidation…

Dominant 7ths!

7/5/3, 6/5/3, 6/4/3 and 6/4/2, trying to embed these in my memory for Level 6 Theory.

But casually surfing I see there’s 9ths and even 11ths to come! So, here’s my question.

Am I expected to have to memorise all combinations of these as well, and where does it all stop? Are there Dominant 27ths around?

Once you reach the dominant 13th, there are no more notes of the diatonic scale to add.

[Serial_Apologist]

Suggest just doing plenty of playing from figured bass. R.O. Morris's Figured Harmony at the Keyboard books 1 and 2 just take you through step by step. It's a bit outdated (though still available) in that most continuo work is for Baroque music, and the Morris books are not typical of the score that will be shoved in front of you (where sometimes the 'figuring' is less complete and relies on you to scan the score as well).

I had an interesting pleasure recently. A late-teenage Norwegian niece + family came to stay with us a couple of weeks ago. She spotted my harpsichord and fell in love with it. I mentioned 'continuo work' to her, which she-hadn't heard of. So I explained roughly what a continuo player does in a Baroque ensemble, and then dug out my old R.O. Morris books and gave them to her as a present. She became almost obsessed with the whole thing and spent hours practising, sometimes preferring this over trips to the seaside.

You must mean she fell in love with your ardcarpsichord!

[Mario]

Grateful to you all for your helpful guidance.

Those Morris books look useful, so thanks ardcarp.