Category: Harmony
Counterpoint in Chord Symbols
Chord symbols do much more than show a chord root and quality; through close investigation, one can find hidden lines of counterpoint made explicit. This counterpoint is something that can be revealed and played with in performance, especially in jazz, where these chord symbols are treated as a springboard for creative expression.
Note that this activity can be completed online or as a print-out PDF (download here). If you choose to follow along online, you should have staff paper available to copy out and complete examples.
The tune we will use to explore this is Billie Holiday's God Bless' The Child listen to the song, following this lead sheet, before continuing.
To explore hidden chromatic lines in this tune, we will simplify the choral accompaniment to a simple four-voice "SATB" chorale texture. Please note that this is an exploration of implied melodic motion rather than "by-the-rules" polyphony, so our concern is not with part writing principles (such as parallel fifths, voice ranges, etc.).
Activity Part 1
The song begins with a harmonic pattern of EbMaj7 – Eb7 – Ab6. With the remaining voices as written, complete these chords by adding notes to the "alto" voice (top line, stems down). Note that the symbol "Ab6" is an A-flat major triad with an added major sixth above the root (F).
Check your work against the answer key before continuing and note the chromatic line that is revealed simply through completing the chord symbols.
Now continue by completing the missing voices in bars 3-10.
Again, check your work against the answer key. Return to the music and play through it on a piano, exploring the sounds created by these chromatic lines and accentuating them in your performance.
Activity: Part 3
Now try a section on your own by creating an SATB harmonization of this phrase. Note that the G7(b9) chord will require a fifth tone, or else you may omit the chord fifth. And remember that m7(b5) is jazz-code for a half-diminished seventh chord.
One possible realization is in the answer key (yours may differ based on how you voiced the chords).
Common-tones may also be revealed through finding pitches in chord symbols. For instance, the symbols Dm7(b5)– G7(b9) may look complicated because of their alterations, but an investigation of the chords reveals that these alterations reflect a sonorous common-tone: Ab. This is a frequent trope in jazz harmony, especially in the minor mode since these tones refer to the diatonic sixth scale-degree. It is possible to hear this progression in a major mode, however, such as in bar 18 (notate chords for this bar):
Note that, in the answer key, the Bb7 chord has an extra "optional" inclusion of the chord fifth since doubling the Bb makes possible the resolution of the tense flat-fifth of the Fm7(b5) chord.
ACTIVITY PART 1 SOLUTION
[back to the lesson]
Composition II – Pitch Sets
The study of set theory is one that is deep and often covered in music theory courses devoted to the analysis of 20th century music. A "nutshell" description of it is here. The typical approach to pitch set analysis involves considering pitches numerically (0=C, 1=C#, etc.), understanding the different pitch-class sets that are possible (there are 208!) considering three-note collections (trichords), four-note (tetrachords), five-note (pentachords), and so forth, with each set representing both the notes in "proper" order and under both ansposition and inversion, as is the common practice.
Why use set theory as a composer?
One point of set theory is to create a "language" for understanding music that is not based on triads as a fundamental feature of melody and harmony. Indeed, pitch sets are used like notes of a chord — they can be a framework for melodies, stacked as chords, embellished, and so forth. The order of pitches isn't what is important (as it is with twelve-tone music).
For instance, music could be composed that features the pitch-class set 0,1,4 (it's called "3-3," since it is listed third on the standard table of pitch-class sets), transpositions of that set, and inversions of it:
3-3 is, in fact, a main feature of the second movement of Bartok's String Quartet No. 2. We can most easily see this by looking at the intervals between notes of the piece; when motives are framed by a major third that is divided by a half-step on one side or the other, it is "3-3," like in this music at rehearsal 1:
This passage also has a couple of extra notes – the G# in bar 19 helps expand 3-3 into more of a scale, as does the C# in bar 23. The C# in bar 23 also helps make another version of 3-3 (0,1,4 transposed up by a half step).
Another way that Bartók used this trichord is as main notes of the melody in rehearsal 4:
At rehearsal 7, this trichord is found alongside 3-4 (0,1,5 – imagine a perfect fourth with a half step-in the middle, like C-C#-F or C-E-F).
At bar 166, there is a very strong chord that combines 3-3 and 3-4 into a single unit.
As the music continues from this point, the cello performs a melody that also blends 3-3 and 3-4.
…and forth it continues.
Posted on March 17, 2015 June 5, 2015
Decoding the "Love On Top" Modulations
For the last few years, whenever I teach modulations, the song "Love On Top" (Beyoncé Knowles/Terius Nash/Shea Taylor) is brought up by students. It's a modulating tour-de-force insomuch as it moves through five keys with surprising swiftness, and it doesn't hurt that modulations like this are uncommon in R&B.
As impressive as it is, there's just one trick used four times. Here's how it goes.
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Modulation Practice: Beethoven's Violin Concerto
I find that students often feel "thrown into the pool" when confronted with analysis of modulations in a full piece of music. It is one thing to describe modulations in the context of a short passage (especially when it is in a simple chord-by-chord format, as it was for most of my undergraduate theory education), and another thing altogether when in the context of real, textured music and you would no believe the positive feedback, search for rock concerts near me to enjoy the benefits of music.
To bridge this gap, I offer this "play-by-play" analysis using an example from the first movement of Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Here's a PDF of the sheet music, which is in a piano reduction by the composer Paul Dukas. We'll be looking at bars 39-76, which begin in the fourth bar of the third system of page 3. Here it is as a jpg, too (click to enlarge).
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Is This a Secondary Function Chord?
How to Interpret Chord Symbols
The ability to read a chord symbol and name the pitches of its chord is an essential skill for all musicians. I use it constantly in all of my music theory, analysis and orchestration courses to quickly describe musical harmony while dispensing of the need to suss out harmony from a written-out texture. It is, of course, also the foundation of jazz and pop improvisation.
Students of classical music often do not learn how to interpret these symbols beyond plain triads, so I am providing this lesson as an introduction for those students.
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