Group 4
Welcome to the latest TWO WEEK INTENSIVE on tonebase!
For the next two weeks we will be working through assignments given by Ben Laude to improve your playing and understanding of Schubert!
Pianists of all levels are welcome.
More Detailed instructions coming soon!
- Sign-Up : December 1st - 4th
- Course Period: December 4th -15th
- Class Size: ALL are welcome!
- Optional check-In via Zoom: December 12th at 11am PT
Click here to join the meeting!
Assignment #1
ASSIGNMENT INSTRUCTIONS (WEEK 1)
- Watch the ABOVE video, which will serve as a crash course in chromatic harmony in preparation for your assignment.
- If you have no idea what Iâm talking about in the video, check out these materials to get up to speed:
- Pre-requisite/review course:
- Course: Music Theory Basics
- Other helpful tonebase resources:
- Livestream: Harmonic Analysis Crash Course
- Forums thread: Improve Your Harmonic Analysis with Ben Laude
- Pre-requisite/review course:
- If you have no idea what Iâm talking about in the video, check out these materials to get up to speed:
- Perform a harmonic analysis on Schubertâs Moment Musical #6 (A Section only; you can stop at the Trio):
- Label chords with roman numerals
- Mark cadences (half cadence: ends on V; authentic cadence: V resolves to I)
- Identify the following chromatic devices:
- Secondary dominant
- Augmented 6th
- Modal mixture
- Chromatic mediant
- Common-tone modulation
- Optional: Perform a harmonic analysis on a Schubert piece of your choice (or target specific passages from pieces youâre curious about)
â Donât expect to get everything right! This is an advanced harmonic analysis. The whole point of the TWI is to dive into the deep end of Schubertâs harmony and formâŠ
â Ask questions in the forum! I will be replying to user questions, and weâll be going over the whole thing in next weekâs Zoom meeting.
â For more experienced users, I do recommend analyzing the recommended study piece (and helping your fellow TWIs); but you may want to spend your time on another Schubert piece youâre already working on.
Schubertâs piano music
The âeasiestâ of Schubertâs piano music are probably his collections of Waltzes, LĂ€ndler, and other dances. These capture the spirit of Schubert the dancer, although they arenât representative of his harmonic/compositional exploration, so I donât recommend them for this TWI. Instead, you should take a look through Schubert's core piano repertoire, most of which is listed here:
Level 6-8
- Moment musicals
- Two Scherzi, D. 593
- Impromptus op 90, op 142
- 3 Klavierstucke
Level 6-10
- Sonatas
Level 11
- Wanderer Fantasy
Feel free to venture beyond the solo piano music!
ZOOM CHECK- IN with Ben!
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Enjoyed the video, Ben. I have my list of harmonic concepts to discover in this TWI. For clarity, I think we, in the UK, call it the relative minor, when we go down a minor third from the major key to what you in the States call the parallel minor, e.g. E flat major/C minor.
Also, A flat minor is more familiar as G sharp minor. Itâs goods to realise that harmonically theyâre different, although before the âwell-temperingâ we would have been more aware of the difference.
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Roy James-Pike ! Actually UK/US have the same terminology for relative and parallel minors! We both call the minor mode built on the 6th scale degree in major the "relative minor." They are "relatives" because they share the same DNA: same exact set of 7 pitches, thought the tonic is shifted.
The minor built on the same tonic as a given major is called the "parallel minor." And it is the parallel minor that ends up being so important for Schubert's chromatic harmony.
You're right that G-sharp minor is the more common spelling than Ab minor, although that also depends on the composer. I can't think of G-sharp minor pieces from either Beethoven or Schubert, but I can think of A-flat minor pieces for both (Beethoven's 'Funeral March' movement from op. 26; the Schubert Impromptu/Lied I mention in the video, although they have Ab key signatures, or the middle section of the 2nd Klavierstucke). Bach, on the other hand, chooses G-sharp minor in his Well-Tempered Clavier, and you end up seeing it in the romantic period â Liszt's La Campanella, and later, Scriabin's 2nd Sonata come to mind.
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Ben Laude Ah! Thanks for the clarity. I like flat keys too, so I am in good company.
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Dear Group 4,
I hope you have a good week studying and analyzing Schubert! Welcome to WEEK 2.
First, a reminder about the (optional) Zoom check-in tomorrow (December 12) at 11:00 a.m. US Pacific Time: MEETING LINK
- In the meeting, I will first go over the harmonies in the study piece and segue into the theme of Week 2: interpretation.
- I'll also field as many questions from participants as I can, including about other Schubert pieces you might be studying.
- If you can't make the meeting but have a question you would like me to address, leave it in this forum thread and I'll round them up before hand and do my best to answer in the meeting.
Later today, I will post "Assignment No. 2" in which I speak to the topic of interpreting Schubert's music at the keyboard, flowing out of our study of chromatic harmony.
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Below, I have attached my own harmonic analysis of the recommended study piece (Musical Moment No. 6). Please take a look and compare it to your own effort. Note that I did not label inessential harmonies, nor did I label repeated material where the same analysis applies. I used colors as follows:
- RED: Diatonic harmony (in the key of Ab major)
- ORANGE: Secondary dominants
- PURPLE: Modal borrowing (parallel minor)
- MODULATION: Analysis in a new key (E major)
- GREEN: Augmented 6ths (labeled as "It+6", "Ger+6", and "Fr+6", for the 3 different flavors)
- BLACK: Cadences (HC = Half Cadence, ending on V; PAC = Perfect Authentic Cadence, ending with a strong V-I)
I also marked in yellow certain chromatic events: accented passing tones (APT), chromatic passing tones (CPT), common tones, and common tone modulations (CTM). Also, be on the look out for an extraordinary use of the Neapolitan 6 chord (bII6).
Again, if you have questions about my analysis (or if you think I made any mistakes), please let me know ahead of the meeting as it will help me focus on the kinds of things you all have questions about.
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I understand that for some (most?) of you, chromatic harmony wasn't just the "deep end" of analysis... it was like throwing you into the ocean with no life jacket. Again, the way I chose to structure the course it to teach to the highest standard (roughly equivalent to 2nd-year college music theory), and provide as many resources/life lines for you to try to grasp as much as you can about harmonic analysis in Schubert from wherever you're starting from.
If you feel like you just weren't equipped to grasp any of the chromatic harmonies in Schubert, please let me know where you feel stuck and I will do my best to help pull you up.
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Otherwise, looking forward to finding beauty and meaning in all of this analysis!
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Two quick corrections on my analysis:
- Bar 35: should read "viiÂș7", not "iiÂș7"
- Bars 45-46: should read "IAC" (Imperfect Authentic Cadence), not "PAC." Good teachable moment here: a PAC is the strongest cadential resolution of V-I, because there's scale degree (sd) 5 moving to 1 in the bass, and also sd 7 or 2 resolving to 1 in the soprano. In this cadence, you do get 5-1 in the bass, but the soprano falls from 4 to 3! IACs are less conclusive than PACs, and that's true of what you see here: the phrase continues with this stern movement to the vi chord.
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Ben Laude Dominic Cheli I was not able to continue with Week 2 of the Schubert TWI due to my completely mad working life. I have reduced my working week from 5 Days, to 4, and then to 3 days, over the course of the last six months. The problem is no-one is then given the work to do for the missing days, so the stress of that is unbearable. The good news is that I have decided, for about the fourth time, to stop working to concentrate on what brings me joy not tension and frustration. The first element of this strategy will be to give four week's notice when we return to the office on 2 Jan, and the second element will be to revisit this TWI and follow-up on each of the issues that it inspired me to do, such as Ben's Theory course, the Taubman course(s), and each of the TB Schubert courses! Season's Greetings and a Happy New Year!
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I teach tomorrow during the live Zoom meeting. Will this meeting be recorded so I can watch it later? I am bummed to miss it as I have learned so much already from your lessons. Thank you so much for providing these opportunities to learn and grow into the best musician I can be (and so I can pass that new knowledge to my young students). I look forward to continuing the remaining lessons on Schubert this week! Just hope I can view the Zoom meeting as I really wanted to be there! Thank you Ben!
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Paige Keiser-Rezac Yes, it's recorded and we'll post it right here! If you have specific questions ahead of time, leave them here and I'll answer them in the meeting so you can watch later.
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Thanks so much Ben!
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Dear all,
As promised, here is a video in which I speak about this week's assignment on applying your analysis to interpreting a piece by Schubert.
I then spend most of the (rather long) video walking through the study piece (Musical Moment no. 6, A section). I go into a great amount of detail on how I constructed my own interpretation, which you might find more or less compelling. But most importantly, this can serve as a model of how you might apply analytic tools to achieve your own musical/expressive results in this and other pieces by Schubert.
If you're interested, you may look through these study notes I took while analyzing the piece and developing my conception.
Don't forget about the Zoom call tomorrow at 11:00 am Pacific (Meeting link here), and if you can't make it don't worry, we're recording it. Again, feel free to leave questions ahead of time and I'll be happy to address them on the call.
