Dr. Kit Music

AKA modulation and secondary dominants First, let’s start with the title: Chromaticism. Up until now, we’ve only been looking at chords that don’t need any extra sharps or flats, once we determine what key signature we should be using, known as diatonic harmony. However, most classical music uses some sharps or flats at least part of…

We’ve almost finished covering most of the chords present in diatonic classical music. If you have any previous experience with chord analysis, there are a couple chords you’re probably wondering about. We’ll discuss diminished triads and seventh chords today. To start, let’s review some intervals. Intervals like seconds, thirds, sixths, and seventh come in the…

Remember last week the chord P6? In context of C major and a given piece, this sonority is Predominant, but has a sixth above the fa in the bass, instead of a fifth. In a different context, these notes (re fa la) might have a different function. That is one of the most important things…

(We’re going to be in C major all day today.) Back in lesson 2 we talked about triads. We defined a triad as being a chord made of three notes, each a third apart. Because of octave equivalence, triads can look like many things. Here’s what the close-packed version looks like: But all these are…

ok, let’s talk about minor. Listen to the first 15 seconds of these two recordings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB9INrprn0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zvRWFD_1_M The first recording is the first movement (“Prelude”) from JS Bach’s Partita no 3 in E major, and the second is the fifth movement (“Chaconne”) from Bach’s Partita no 2 in D minor, both for unaccompanied Violin. While…

Last week we covered open and closed cadences, using in part, the Theme from Mozart K331 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP9KWQ8hAYk. This week we will only need the first 22 seconds. For reference, the music notation looks like this: Don’t worry if note reading doesn’t come easily to you. There are plenty of ways to learn to read music…

The most common type of musical analysis is arguably formal analysis. Formal analysis answers the question: How are the large parts of this music related to one another? Form analysis is one of the first types of analysis non-specialist music-lovers grasp; think of any pre-concert talk, program notes, or the like. These often consist of…