Here is my tiny aria, for harpsichord or organ. (Only after writing this did I realize the first two bars of the melody blatantly plagiarize Dowland's Lachrymae Pavane.) I post the Finale fine here just as a score; if you want to hear it, please listen to this tiny MP3 I prepared (on organ):
Aria Example - eSnips, share anything
Of course Finale plays it back and it sounds terrible. Likewise, I think your tiny melody sounds totally lifeless in MIDI form
, but I think that in actual performance it would be much more attractive. Your harmony is mostly fine, but actually I wanted you to focus more on melody. Perhaps in trying to write proper harmony you made your melody a bit too simple. As we work on these lessons, whether writing counterpoint or homophony, I think melody will be a most crucial aspect to focus on. (Even though we will be studying harmony, chromatic
harmony necessarily implies chromatic
melody.)
When writing music, do you generally begin with a harmony or a melody? As I slowly grow and learn as a composer, I have recently begun approaching compositions from a variety of perspectives like harmony, melody, rhythm and counterpoint before putting anything together. Thus I am sure that none of those aspects are deficient because of my hard work in another.
All that said, your melody is nice. Its curve moves down and then up again, the reverse of the most common arrangement, but that isn't necessarily an issue. I do hope that you are paying attention to the shapes of your melodies; if that's something you are unfamiliar with or interested in reviewing, I can briefly discuss. (One minor issue, I would have not used that ornament on the penultimate note. Ornaments can usually go wherever you want, but they are much more common on rhythmically strong notes. And the turn only became common in the classical period, although by Bach's time it was already showing up. I personally would have placed a medium-length trill on the note before that.)
Your harmony is not quite so stunning however. The harmonies themselves don't venture past the tonic and dominant! I have seen you do much better before; I think if it's not too much trouble you should reharmonize it using more varied chords. Also the A in the bass in measure five could be seen as an unaccented appoggiatura or as the root of a 7th chord, in which case the 7th is not resolving properly.
And one last note about the continuo itself. I understand many classical musicians might not know too many details about the performance of continuo, so don't worry too much about this, but know that the continuo's upper line should never rise above the solo instrument. Also the continuo should never double a leading tone or 7th in the solo melody. Both of these rules keep the continuo from drawing attention away from the instruments. "Illegal" parallels between the continuo's upper parts and the soloist are very common since the continuo is usually improvised, but they should never become too consistent. Your main issues are the doubled leading tones and crossings.
So I would like for you to reharmonize your melody with some interesting new chords, keeping in mind these guidelines for the harpsichord. I hope my example helps you; analyze its chords and figure out how it works! I think for both you and me, writing little melodies like this reveals deficiencies that are easier to hide beneath counterpoints, imitations, etc... My ridiculously short melody took a lot of thought and about half an hour to write, and I'm sure yours did too.
I really liked your chorale prelude and invention. Today or tomorrow I will begin the actual lessons
, beginning with, I think, a brief summary, with short examples, of the types of baroque chromatic harmonies and their historical uses.