Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark
You comments on my Sarabande are interesting. Is your objection to the 7th in the first bar stylistic or musical? If the former then it's just because I treat 7ths and 9ths much more liberally than anyone in the Baroque era - to me, the only dissonances that need resolution are fourths and tritones. This is more of a personal issue, the treatmeant of dissonance, and to me the sound of a 7th that doesn't necessary resolve is quite beautiful - but I know this is a definite no no in Baroque style, and so I shall stick to being stylistically faithful as far as possible in exercises - this was just a bit of music I wanted to write, and as we'd been looking at Sarabandes I chose that idiom to work in, but with more elements of my own style.  If, however, the latter - you think it's a musical problem then I should perhaps use a few more, so it doesn't stick out so much  As for the Dnat -> D# - I don't feel that's that much of a problem in this case, but I understand how it could be slightly jarring, I shall avoid that sort of thing in exercises in the future.
As far as continuing it is going, I may have my 16 bar B section finished in the next few days - this would constitute my longest (and in my opinion best) composition to date
Mark |
Not to worry; it's like I said, I certainly encourage you to develop your own harmonic ideas, and after all, you are writing the piece for yourself. You already know that in the Baroque sevenths and ninths are usually prepared and resolved (and ninths were always suspensions, oftentimes sevenths too). Really then my objection is your second point; perhaps you should use more of these unresolved sevenths and ninths so that the two I noticed become less unexpected.
I hope that our previous lessons on harmony not only taught you the specifics of secondary dominants but also a general method to study new harmonic ideas. For example, if you want to explore tall, unresolved chords, but in a tonal context, you could write progressions using each of the diatonic ninth chords in different exercises. The difference is that you would be writing to learn rather than to practice; after playing each on the piano or Finale you can consciously decide which new effects you like the most and which are not so great.
Also I recommend you formally practice voice leading sevenths and ninths the normal way and with various sorts of preparation and resolution. Try, for example, using a chord like iv7 in various exercises: the seventh treated as a suspension, the seventh treated as a passing tone, the seventh treated as a border tone, the seventh treated as an appoggiatura, the seventh resolved up by step, the seventh resolved down by leap, etc..., carefully listening to the effect of each.
Oddly enough my own tendencies go in the opposite direction, towards increased consonsance... you may have noticed I rarely use seventh chords or even diminished chords in my music. My boldest harmonic experiments are with a chromatic and consonant style; look at
Chromatic Chorale - eSnips, share anything
and parts of
Das Alte Jahr vergangen ist - Partita Prima - eSnips, share anything,
not to mention my interest in microtonality.
I have two questions for you to carefully consider:
1. What effect, if any, do unresolved sevenths and ninths have on the tonal system? Do they strengthen tonality or weaken it, or do they affect tonality in an entirely different way?
2. What effect, if any, do unresolved sevenths and ninths have on counterpoint? The major difference to consider is that in the old system dissonances are not in the chord (whether a passing tone or 7th, the dissonances are treated as embellishing an essentially consonant base); with unresolved sevenths and ninths, dissonances are chord members rather than melodic embellishment. Do those sevenths and ninths strengthen or weaken counterpoint?