Group 3
Welcome to the NEW TWO WEEK INTENSIVE on tonebase!
Improving your Lyricism (feat Chopin)
Post your progress with videos and written commentary on how things are going for you!
- Course Period: June 26 - July 10th
- Class Size: ALL are welcome!
- Optional check-In via Zoom: July 2nd at 11am PT
- ZOOM MEETING Recording!
- https://youtu.be/Fl-ExGT9aZY
Assignment #1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQpw6fZBOlE
- Pick a short piece (Mazurka, Nocturne, Prelude) or excerpt of a longer piece (Ballade, Polonaise, Scherzo, Sonata, Concerto). Focus on lyrical/slow sections.
- Learn bass carefully, labelling all chords and cadences.
- SING melodic line. Practice singing until your voice can identify the melody instantly.
- Submit a video: playing the Bass while singing the Soprano.
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Assignment #2
https://youtu.be/ri2UD1z8sKE?si=w36XWzqb_rao3RAu
-Label all breathing points with an apostrophe between phrase markings. Practice deep breaths between significant points or use a regular breath for phrase changes.
-Sing Bass notes of all chords while playing Soprano melody.
-Submit a video: playing hands together (performance).
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Here is my assignment #2.
I am sorry I cheated, but singing harmony is new to me and I got distracted, especially where bass notes are unexpected. I really had a hard time with this assignment and practised a lot! But this piece fits my grade and is new to me, I can't do multitasking yet, I really tried! So I decided to record the melody and also cheat a bit by playing the bass at the tricky spots where I know I am insecure to sing, so that I can focus on the bass and how it supports the melody.
However I think this was a really good exercise. I notice the harmonies a lot more now and found some spots where I think the bass melody might be worth being heard a little more, and others where I tjink I could back off a little because it gets plain. I also highlighted the spots in the music where my instinct pulled me me to sing something else, as I think those might be startling, interesting spots for the listener, so I should maybe lean into those bass notes a bit more, instead of just take them as simple accompaniment.
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Jarred Dunn
Thank you, singing needs some more practice, I think I'll have a version ready tomorrow with your suggested improvements.
Analysis see attached picture. I don't know how to correctly write the Schenkerian analysis things, I hope you can guess what I mean?
Bar 4: G7 is third degree (III7), but 7 non diatonic. Secondary dominant to cm? cm is also vi in Eb, or i if G7 is seen as its dominant.
With the Adim7: no idea... non diatonic, mediant related to Eb, The 7th is leading tone to the G in Eb with C and Eb already in place. But why A, not Ab? What's the theory behind this?
Bar 5: 64 inversion nice because bassline rises chromatically from A to Bb.
Bar 12-14: Eb7 (non diatonic) coloration of Eb and secondary dominant to Ab. Ab then coloured minor (not necessary for going back to Eb but nice unexpected change), Eb both V7 of ab-m and I in original key. Followed by PAC.
I interpret bars 4-5 and 12-13 as "special" (these are also the ones I find hard to sing). So I thought this tells me that I should lean a bit more into them, especially the unexpected notes (bass A in bar 5, treble Cb in bar 13).
For me it also seems that the climax if the piece is bar 13, rather than the G in bar 14, as I previously thought. So I think it's more interesting to present bar 13 and lean into the unexpected notes and the tiny modulation, and play the high arpeggio light, almost shy, with a short fermata/hesitation on the G, but no volume intensity.
Are any of my thoughts reasonable? Or am I overthinking it?
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Dagmar you are not overthinking it and your work is right on point. I especially find your harmonic analysis of m. 13 as the climax an appealing interpretation, because it is about the modal mixture of a-flat minor which was among Chopin's beloved harmonic colour signatures. I think m. 13 with its colour changes and m. 14 form a climax phrase, we can think of the rising soprano in m. 14 as a consequence of its descending by step in m. 13: one bar causing the next to happen. The way you sing it clarifies this subtle musical lyricism in sound - well done.
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Jarred Dunn
And here is my second singing attempt. Would you also please be so kind to check my analysis post from yesterday (previous post)? That'd be awesome! It was "pending review" again. I don't know why I get blocked all the time
Perhaps my timezone? Maybe the forum thinks I am a spambot because I post a lot in short time at weird PST hours?
I'd really love to know which of my thoughts were right, I love theory and see a chance to get a deeper understanding, as there are some interesting spots in this music!
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Jarred Dunn Oh thank you so much, I am so happy that my analysis was right, it feels like a real achievement.
Could you or anyone else perhaps tell me how that Adim7 in measure 5 fits in there? Any keyword I can look up for the theory/concept behind this? It's not diatonic, and also not a bridge between two chromatic adjacent chords. Is it modal interchange from Lydian? But why? Ab would also fit.
I'm so eager to learn
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Dagmar Adim7 is correct. I could very well be wrong, but it seems like this might be a "common-tone diminished seventh" chord, with Eb as the common tone ,and chromatic-movement is the reason why the dim 7 chord is used, ie: A moves to Bb, and F# to G.
https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/chapter/common-tone-chords/
https://myweb.fsu.edu/nrogers/Handouts/Common-Tone_Dim_7_Handout.pdf
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Dagmar your analysis is great! Romantic music, as compared to Classical period, is not as easy to analyze as it's already starting to push the envelope more and more. The a-dim would stump me too! I think most 4-semester college theory class will probably cover "CTdim" (aka common-tone dim) in the 3rd or 4th semester, right before moving onto 20th century theory.
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Lc thanks for the links! Highly appreciated
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Two videos. The week 2 assignment (as I understood it...; really difficult to do it) and the entire piece. Thanks to the exercises I've been more aware of the structure, breathing, harmony... than on other occasions.
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Juan Carlos Olite Bravo, Juan Carlos! And well done on the assignment! I can hear very clear singing lines in your playing, and the dramatic narrative of this prelude is very well built up.
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Juan Carlos Olite Really enjoyed listening to your beautiful performance of this Prelude! The ending/return to calm/peace feels so good after the dramatic build up- all feels right in the world
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Juan Carlos Olite glad to see you're more aware of structure, breathing, and harmony - it's also helpful for your melody timing and structure. You're articulating cadences through the voice, and in your case there are two important types of cadences: from 0:38-1:01 these are part of the phrase, then at 1:07-08 the cadence returns us to theme 1. Singing translates well into your playing of the whole piece - alto has presence and sounds like a separate voice. In 1:49, take the upper E in RH. Crescendo to fortissimo at 2:03 is very direct playing, the same passage at 2:43 is arrived at with more room for the ff moment - leave some more room the first time. Soprano is full of lyricism in 2:57, maintain that as the phrase goes on - the alto should be just as lyric. 3:25-34 sounds heroic, perhaps bring this down in intensity and highlight the alto intervals more sensitively. At 4:24 mind the accent on E-flat, that's where Chopin marked it originally. I like how you finish it - very soft, sensitive last chord - could be longer since you have beautiful sound (we only wish for the last chord to be short if the pianist has ugly tone).
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Sindre Skarelven Vidhya Bashyam Thank you so much, dear friends! It's been very rewarding to revisit this beloved piece with these absolutely helpful assignments.
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Jarred Dunn Thank you so much Jarred for your detail and insightful remarks! I'm very grateful for the plan of the intensive course and the time you've taken to analyze our videos.
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Juan Carlos Olite that is really lovely Juan Carlos!
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Angela Fogg Thank you Angela!
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Running a bit late: I'm getting stuck trying to sing the bass AND play the RH. So, I'm just trying to sing the LH line, but can't seem to manage the octave jumps with my voice.
I've never actually tried to do a harmonic analysis before, so here's my "kindergarten" attempt. This assignment has inspired me to sign up to take Grade 6 ABRSM theory!
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Gail Starr You have beautiful voice Gail! Happy to have you as my “theory buddy”
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Gail Starr beautiful singing, Gail!
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Gail Starr if this is what you designate kindergarten you have nothing to worry about. The basic way to handle Harmonic/Roman Numeral analysis is to list all the chords as triads on the top of the page, for example in E minor:
i = EGB
iio = F#AC
III = GBD
iv = ACE
V = BD#F#
VI = CEG
viio = D#F#A (raised leading tone)A few pointers about your analysis to get you along the lines of phrasing, direction, and harmonic development:
-- m. 9 is B (correct) but you label it VI. This was already in m. 5 correctly labelled as B and V (dominant).
--mm. 11-12 you label and mark chords F-sharp major and B major correctly. Those form a cadence, so we label F-sharp major as V7/V. This indicates an applied dominant, or the so-called "five-of-five" harmony.
--mm. 24-25 is correctly marked "C Major Section". This change is called a pivot. We label the pivot using a special bracket to mark the end of one harmony and its "pivot" into the next, which is called a pivot chord. The pivot chord applies to our current key (m. 24, E minor) and next key (m. 25, C major). Pivot chord in this case is m. 24, E minor tonic chord, labelled correctly, i for e minor. Then, beneath the i, we need a second line to continue our harmonic analysis but in the new key. See the diagram attached for pivot chord indication. In this case, you would finish analyzing in E minor at the tonic chord on m. 24, draw the bracket as in the diagram below, write a capital letter "C" for C major in the new bracket, and then continue analyzing.
The comments from our Tonebase friends on your video are correct - your singing is great and you follow the bass well. Good work! I think this TWI has been most useful for you with harmony and finding an active sense of harmony when you play.
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Jarred Dunn Thank you so much for your detailed and super helpful comments on my analysis!
This TWI has been incredibly useful to me.
I’m going to apply these techniques going forward.
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Vidhya Bashyam We will ace that Grade 8 exam by this time next year, I bet!
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Gail Starr Lovely and beautiful singing, Gail!
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Gail Starr beautiful singing again!
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Gail Starr that is such a tricky line and you make a pretty good job of it! All those leaps - well done!
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Angela Fogg Yiu are too kind, dear Angela!
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