Frederic Gill Posted Thursday at 04:42 PM Posted Thursday at 04:42 PM Here is a variation on a motive by Weber (B flat major) with figuration in middle part, as an exercise (ch64, 4.6) from the book 'Material used in Musical Composition (1909)' by the great professor Percy Goetschius. I learned everything I know on melody, harmony and counterpoint from 6 of his books (available for free on the web's archives). The key is to learn music like a language, experiencing rules and their licenses, through practice with a lot of exercises, which most books I have found don't offer. Although I am green at composition, I have completed over 1600 of his small exercises and a dozen larger (small inventions and this variation). MP3 Play / pause JavaScript is required. 0:00 0:00 volume > next menu MUMC (1909) - Exercise 64 no. 4.6 2026 v3 HQ > next PDF MUMC (1909) - Exercise 64 no. 4.6 2026 v3 Quote
Luis Hernández Posted 8 hours ago Posted 8 hours ago A beautiful piece with particularly harmonious interest. It needs to be completed with dynamics and accents. With that, the fact that the accompaniment pattern does not vary would not be such a problem, as it is a little monotonous as it stands. 1 Quote
Frederic Gill Posted 1 hour ago Author Posted 1 hour ago Thanks for your feedback. I'm here to have peers pointing at flaws that I have not noticed yet. This way I can improve faster. I don't consider figuration as a true accompaniment, like the counterpoint in bass. The aim of the exercise is to keep the (imposed) figuration (in the middle voice) mostly constant throughout the piece, so that it doesn't distract from the melody and the counterpoint. All but with some changes at key points, to avoid monotony. Which I did. I found that 3 variations of the motive with that fast & complex figuration was enough. All my exercises so far are without dynamics or accents, and for sure they lack it and are just exercises, not finished pieces. Yes there was a lot of harmonic potential to develop from this motive. In the same exercise, I had 2 other figurations to apply with that motive, but it is this figuration that made a strong effect on me. So I wanted to explore and develop the harmony the way it makes sense to me. Quote
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