Group 2
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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Hi Ben,
I am a new member and I am really excited to learn more advanced techniques and expend my repertoires.
analysis is not my favourite subject even though I learned from it long time ago in my university.
I watched your video and try to analyze #6 by Schubert but not enough time to complete the task.I can hear the different colour of the chords but having a difficult time to figure it out.
I will try to summit my analysis later.
thank you.
Gloria-
Ben Laude Hi Ben,
thank you for your email.
M.10-11 RH G 7 but bass Db?
M 12-13 it ends v-I but E natural. Is it just chromatic passing note?
m38 on the first beat 2 sixteen notes play on the beat or before?
Also is any quick tips to recognize the specials chords by hearing ?
thank you very much.Gloria
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Gloria Thanks - I'll touch on these questions in the video!
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I am lost! I thought Ben would be diagnosing and demonstrating Schubert and am looking for week two today. Instead, I am looking at basic theory and harmony again. This too is confusing as I know it already but have used it to brush up. I have repeated several in this series but the credits disappears. When does the emphasis on Schubert recommence?
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Mari Adams Please ask specific questions and I'm happy to help you! Did you attempt an analysis of the study piece? Even trying the first phrase is worthwhile. If you aren't sure where to even begin with that, I can help you with the rudiments.
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When does the Schubert analysis re-start? I assumed it would be today? Why do the credits disappear. I have repeated the Basic Theory/Harmony plus several reviews and the check off seem to vanish, even though checked after completing components?
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Mari Adams I'm not sure why the checks appear/disappear in the tonebase app. Tagging head of the tonebase product team Patrick Finazzo who might have seen this before.
Meanwhile: check out my written analysis of the Schubert, and the long video I just posted. If you have any questions before the Zoom call today (even if you can't make it, it will be recorded), please drop them here!
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Dear Group 2,
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 Iâm so sorry, we have other commitments during that time. Will this check-in be recorded so I can watch it later? But, thanks for your analysis, I can at least check mine against that. This has been good for me to do this. Itâs still a bit of a foreign language, but better than before. Thanks.
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Jennifer Mehta It will be recorded! And if you have questions ahead of time, let me know and I can still address them in the call. When you're watching back, it will feel like you're there live!
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Ben Laude Thank you Ben! I was stuck on measures 7 & 8, but your example above helped with that. Then I was completely lost at measure 17-27. There is definitely a key change or switch to minor there, but I had no idea what to do with this........ Thank you for this challenging class. I will continue to learn. Thank you again.
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Jennifer Mehta Yes m17 is where things start to get tricky! It's one of several "augmented 6th" chords in the piece. And it doesn't help that it's in Ab minor.
I'll make a note to discuss augmented 6th chords a little bit more in the Zoom call.
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Ben Laude thank you so much!!!!!!
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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.
