Lesson with Mark

My exams are finally over! I now have two weeks before returning to school in which to dedicate some serious time to music I have a guitar exam next week which will eat up quite a bit of time preparing for that but I will still have a good bit of time on my hands, and even more the following week

Expect more exercises soon

As I said, I've got a little more time now, so I've been able to put some serious thought into these exercises. These four melodies are all for exercise 2, in Em, four bars, with a range of an octave (diminished octave in the case of the second melody) and start and end in E minor (though the second one could be harmonised to end in G major perhaps more readily than E minor (because of the D matural) but both are possible).



I hope these are a little better than my last attempt, certainly I spent more time on them...

Well, I'm trying to get to work too! I will be leaving on the 14 to Oberlin College for their Baroque Performance Institute and will probably not be able to teach anymore after that , though I could advise you every so often if you wish. But until then I think there is much we can do. Are you still interested in writing a full piece step by step under my guidance? Of course your sarabande turned out very nice but if your still interested in keyboard piece we could start that too. If you're tired of sarabandes it could be another suite movement.

Of those last melodies in e minor I like the first and last very much. You have captured some solemn melancholy in the first and the last is flowing (though not really in a singable style!). The two middle ones quite honestly don't work as well for me, but clearly you have put lots of effort into all of them. I would suggest for the last one that you change the first G in bar 15 to F#. That way the G isn't immediately repeated afterwards.



So about the topic of melodic curve, most of the time melodies in actual music, particularly contrapuntal music, will not be in simple arch form. But they will have a sense of direction, a sort of purpose, a well defined curve even if not a simple one.

The sort of singable melody we have worked on is only one of many sorts of melody. Especially in contrapuntal music melodies are often conceived from motives.

Let's take a look at a very nice sonata by Rosenmueller at http://icking-music-archive.org/scor...1682/03son.pdf.

You can hear that at Track 1 of Ensemble Vermillian: Stolen Jewels. You will probably enjoy the recorder-gamba combination. (I recommend the rest of the Rosenmueller sonata and the Buxtehude sonata starting at Track 18. The Biber sonata is one of the absolutely most fantastically amazing awesome sonatas ever written, but I think the intended instrument, the violin, suits it much better. You could hear that at Track 1 of SCD: Biber Violin Sonatas. Track 2 of that collection is by my favorite composer. I would like to hear your thoughts on all this music if you have the time to carefully listen.)

I will post the rest of this lesson soon. I just want to keep a steady flow of information even if the exercises are still in progress . On another note, did you ever analyze that Rameau sarabande from a while back? Because if you did I would like to see the chords and other details you may have noticed. (I'm actually learning to play some of that suite.)

I understand that our lesson probably won't be able to continue once you're at College, but I thank you very very much for the time and effort you've put into these lessons, I've learnt so much, and am continuing to learn much from doing the exercises and similar ones I've devised myself.

This Rosenmueller sonata is very nice indeed, I played through the recorder part of the first movement, and I think I might do a bit of analysis on this and try my hand at a trio sonata sort of texture.

I have been continuing with my experimentations with Sarabandes, and I think I've improved somewhat since my last posting in that respect - I shall try and get some phrases/possible A sections notated and uploaded in the near future. After Sunday (my practical exam for my teaching diploma) I will have a whole week to work and hopefully shall produce some good exercises

I also listened to the rest of the Rosenmueller sonata, and the Buxtehude sonata and enjoyed them both greatly. I shall try and dig out my book of Haendel recorder sonatas and play through a few, and perhaps do a bit of analysis on them too.

My exam is over (and went remarkably well) and from tomorrow I shall be dedicating myself to composition for a whole week, which means I may not be on here much, as YC is such a wonderful distraction for me . I should hopefully have done quite a bit of work on all of the things we've discussed by next weekend

I have managed to write a period in a trio sonata sort of texture - I'm quote proud of it, though I think my melodies still need more work. As I didn't want to deviate too much from the main thread of the lesson I used this as an opportunity to try and work a neopolitan 6th and an italian 6th into real music, and there are a few V of ivs in there too.



Also attached is a midi of it, with quite possibly the worst figured bass realisation imaginable, probably full of parallels and stuff, but it's just to give a slightly better feel of what it's meant to sound like (I'm sure you imagine a considerably better performance in your head actually, now I think about it

I'm positively annoyed at myself to have to say that this is about all of the musical work I managed to get done this week - I have allowed myself to get distracted (by YC amoungst other things) and not done nearly as much work as I'd hoped I would. Laziness angers me

Very nice! I'm glad you finally got around to writing something... though I would like to see some of those assigned melodies too... but I think this little phrase is the beginning of much finer musicality in you. You now know how to deploy chromatic harmonies and those melodies show careful design. Try writing a bit more of that!

I would be posting a lesson today but I have graduation parties to attend... but I will try to post tomorrow.

The melody assignments are in the works, don't worry Your comments on the trio thing are appreciated, I'm glad you can see improvement. I shall try writing more in that idiom, aswell as hopefully get some Sarabande type phrases written, and more melodies.

I look forward to the next lesson