Lessons with Matthaeus

Hmm - well it depends how you look at it really - if you're a music analyst and you need them to be cadences, they can be, but then if you want them not to be they don't have to be...

But 6/3 cadences aren't really much good for final cadences at the end of a phrase, except perhaps with imperfect cadences as I showed you early on - so if you want to use for example V6/3 - I as part of a progression, then do, because it'll sound good. But at the end of the exercise, I wouldn't use it as the final cadence. The same applies to the others (except the IV6/3 - I with the passing note in the bass that we saw before).

Don't worry about the questions though! There will come a time when you will know all these things and I'll be testing you!

Matt

OK, understood: The best thing is to stick to cadences described in earlier lessons. I'll finish my homework as soon as I get a chance and asking if something is not clear.
Thanks for your answer, I'll try to keep everything in mind.

Hi, Matt!
Still not ready (2 more to go) and still have questions!

1.) Is the perfect 5th acceptable as the resolution of the tritone (one of the notes repeated)?

2.) I have a diminished chord in 1st inversion and the augmented 4th is between the Soprano and Alto. Is it an acceptable resolution that the Soprano steps a semitone up, and the Alto does not steps down (moves in another direction) but the desired note is presented in the Tenor.

eg. ii6/3 -> III in E minor (3rd doubled):
f#-> g
c -> d
A -> B
A -> G

or with the 5th doubled:

f#-> g
c -> d
c -> B
A -> G

Hi Máté,

Sorry for late reply. I'm really really busy right now, but I will get back to you when I have more time. I'm glad you've asked this question, I'm sorry it wasn't clearer before. What I'll do is get some examples written up for you to make it easier. For now just take it easy.

Matt

Hello, Matt!

Finally I've managed to do my homework. Forgive me if you find some weak progressions, but - as usually - it's written on paper first.
And don't worry about replying so late, because I'm really busy, too. It's ok for me if you reply in one or two months - we don't have to hurry. It's much more important for me to make everything clear.

Just one more question:
Are the things I've already learnt sufficient to harmonize a simple melody for a SATB choir?

Máté

Hi Máté,

As usual I've been really slow in getting back to you! Thanks for doing the homework, which was tough. There are actually quite a few things I'd like to say about this if you don't mind.

Firstly, well done on your voice leading, it's excellent, I haven't spotted any consecutives yet.

Secondly, there are a few things I think I must have missed, that we need to sort out quickly:

I thought it was a shame that you didn't use the formula I - vii6/3 - I6/3 as this is particularly good to practice. I've put a couple of examples up here (i and ii) to give you a hand with that, and to show you how to approach the chords (which you asked my advice on and I never got back to you...), in both minor and major moving up and down. These progressions should sound quite familiar to you as they are very common (and good)!

I think it's a good idea to stick my advice about using chords a 3rd, 6th, 5th or 4th apart. There are too many progressions that move from roots that are only one step apart, which sounds very weak. The only exception (for now anyway) is I - vii6/3 (or the same backwards) (and ii6/3 - i in minor keys); try to stick to progressions with a note in common otherwise. I wouldn't use vii6/3 to VI as much as you do, especially in the major, I'm not sure it works very well. ii6/3 - VI in the minor does sound quite nice however, because the tritone is still able to resolve properly. We'll look at this sort of thing more at some point, a lot of it has more to do with voice-leading resolution than anything else.

Most important of all, don't forget that vii is always diminished!!!!!! For example the progression you have written in F-sharp minor starts I - 'VII6/3' (an F sharp minor triad moving to an E major triad in first inversion), and as a result doesn't really sound like F sharp minor at all, it sounds like A major. If instead of E, you had used E sharp, this problem would be resolved - This is really important -.

To help you I've also come up with a rule about how and when to use v (minor).
Basically you must always try to stick to using V, and all the other chords formed by the harmonic minor, (ii (diminished), iv, V, VI). The only situation where you can safely use v, or a minor dominant is when it is used to connect the tonic note to the submediant. In my example iii) we have a classic situation where this happens in the bass part, in G minor. We start with a G minor tonic chord, and the bass line descends by one whole tone to F natural, above which chord v6/3 (i.e. minor) can be used. After this the bass line 'wants' to keep moving downwards, so in my example I've put in I - v6/3 - iv6/3, which takes us to an e-flat in the bass.

So here you can see that the melodic minor scale (descending) has been used in the bass, which has meant we've used B-flats, and chord v. However as the continues to move down to the dominant note, we have to use V (major) above it. This is because the third of the chord no longer wants to go downwards, here we need it to rise up to the tonic, and we use the leading note, B natural, from the harmonic minor. This leading note relationship is pretty much the most defining aspect of tonal music, and underpins the tonic-dominant relationship that all tonal music is about.

When you don't use the leading note like this a passage will sound begin to lose its sense of key, and you might be beginning to suggest a move to another, which is something that obviously needs to be followed up. For example, if we were to have a progression in G minor, beginning on chord i, and then moved to a chord of f major in first inversion ('VII6/3'), the sense of G minor is immediately obscured, and it's quite confusing when nothing happens as a result of this. Change the f natural to f-sharp here however, ('vii(dim)6/3') and the sense of G minor is restored. I hope this isn't too complicated, please don't worry you're doing great, and we'll go over these things many times.

I've also included an example progression to give you some idea of how to put all these things that I've mentioned together. (Ex iv)

Can I ask one thing also? From now on, please write key signatures at the start of each progression, it'll make it easier to see where accidetals etc come from, and when you have used V correctly.

Perhaps you could do another two progressions for homework? One major and one minor, showing some of these things, and remembering to avoid the weaker progressions (roots moving by step - except of course vii6/3 - I and ii6/3 - i in the minor), and keeping chord vii as diminished always. Perhaps with these you should end on a 'closing' cadence, either plagal or perfect, and use one of the other cadences in the middle (imperfect or interrupted), you will probably hear that this will give your works a more rounded and finished feel.

Matt
PS Let me know if you have any trouble opening the finale file, I think I have a newer version than you.
I've also had to delete some of the old PDFs, I'm running out of space! If didn't get the chance to download them, I can email them to you.

Hello, Matt!

Thanks for the corrections and the examples! I'll try to do that 2 progressions following the given rules, soon.
Sorry, but I still have some things I don't understand:

1) About progressions by 2nd (and 7th): I see that it's good to have a note in common when moving to another chord, but I feel progressions like IV-V, V-vi, V-IV, VII-i strong, while some progressions like iii-I seems very weak to me.

2) Sorry about the VII in minor but I thought that the leading note is only required at cadences only, since the purpose of a cadence is to define the key (- as in first lesson).
But "vii is always diminished" means that I can never use VII, because it destroyes the sense of minor key?
Is there any rule how to use it safely?

3) OK, it's safe to use the v in minor in 1st inversion when connecting the tonic to the submediant (as in my F sharp minor prog.), but is there any other situation when it can be used in root position?

4) Is vii6/3 - i a cadence (in your ex.i and ex.ii)? I feel it pretty stable.

5) In your ex.iii) you've used a 7th and a 2nd inversion chord. Both have dissonant notes with the bass. Can they be used without preparation?

6) In ex.iv) the tritone of the ii6/3 - V progression is resolved to a perfect 5th, but it sounds very good. The ii6/3 - VI is similar but the resolution is done by motion in the same direction - and it sounds very good, too. Can I use such progression in my homework?

7) I'm using key signatures on paper, but Finale Notepad only supports 1 per file. I'm trying to switch to some console notation program like abcm2ps.

Hi Máté, thanks for replying and taking the time to check out the corrections!

In answer to your questions:

1) You are completely right, all the progressions you have listed are strong, and when I get the next lesson done, I'll try to touch on this - also, you're right iii-I is very weak, and it is something that I would urge you to avoid (unless you were writing in a later style like Faure or someone) but for now I have set that 'basic' rule, because it avoids the weakest progressions (like I-ii). But I'll go into some depth about the strength of progressions in the next lesson, which will be on dominants and suspensions. Every chord in the scale has a function, and iii is in general considered to be the weakest of all, it's rarely used in its normal form (especially in major keys), but we will get on to that. I'm glad to see that you've got a good ear for these things in any case!

2) Well in theory, you could say that VII (as a major triad) doesn't really exist at all. Schoenberg calls it the subtonic chord sometimes. I wouldn't worry too much about it now. The thing is if you're in C minor, and you use a B-flat major chord you will most likely have moved to another key at that point, so it will actually have another name (like V in E-flat) that you can use. It's not really possible to use it in the kind of progressions we're working on here. In renaissance polyphony it can occur sometimes, again we might look at that at some point but it's some way into the future...

3) Using v can sometimes be a matter of taste, but for now I'd rather you didn't use it much - again mainly because it is what gives the sense minor key in tonal music. In renaissance music again you can use it (but not at cadence points).

4) Very good question. The answer is actually no, although it's often argued about. The thing is, if you put a G in that chord (the dominant note), it then turns into V7. So chord vii is bascally V7 with one note missing, and because of the leading note and resolution of the tritone it sounds very much like a cadence. But I wouldn't really use it at a major cadence point, but when you move to another key, it can be a very useful way to strengthen the sense of that new key. Let's just say for now that it's a very strong progression, but not quite a cadence.

5) They are prepared, and correctly resolved! I'll show you how this happens in the next lesson!

6) I'll get back to this, for now just stick to the type of voice-leading I've shown you.

7) Ok don't worry! I don't mind.

Next lesson will be soon!

Hi Máté just wanted to say that your lessons will be up here soon. I've prepared a few but I've decided the next few steps need to come all at once, rather than just teaching you one thing at a time. This way a lot of your questions will be answered, and I think the exercises will be more succesful. Pretty soon after that we'll be getting onto real music assignments. Is there anything in particular you'd like to do?
Traditionaly everyone does Bach chorales, but while these are good for study I think they're actually a little hard to begin with - so what we might do is have a go at something simpler like Mozart/Haydn string quartet minuets, which are also really good fun.
I'm not 100% sure but after that I might let you have a go at doing some Purcell Ground Bass Arias. I know that sounds really tricky, but I think you might be up to it. We'll see...

Hi Matt! I'm really sorry that I couldn't finish my homework, yet, but I was really-really busy. I only want to go on after it's completed. I'm trying to finish it today.

I'm especially interested in choral music, but Minuets(!) and String quartets are fine, too. I'm also interested in renaissance-style counterpoint/imitation, but I know that it's a bit harder to learn.
Since male singers (especially tenors) are really rare in my city I would like to write choral pieces for 3 voices (2 female + 1 male voices, 10-20 person). I know that this kind of composition may have incomplete harmonies, so a contrapuntal 3-voice writing would be better and much more interesting than a chord-by-chord one (correct me if I'm wrong!).
But I also know that it's easier to learn how to write 4-voice pieces, so we can start with that.