Questions tagged [phrase]
For questions related to the smallest unit of musical form, often defined as a musical unit ending with a cadence.
13
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Can an offbeat note be loudest when playing Bach?
My primitive understanding of Bach's music tells me that an offbeat note cannot be the most accented or the most important note in a phrase. But in the last gesture of the ubiquitous C major prelude, ...
5
votes
1answer
118 views
Highly irregular beaming in this Liszt piece - is phrasal beaming a no-no or not?
The piece is Liszt's Heroischer Marsch im Ungarischem Stil, S.231, and the passage is this (measures 57-64). Notice how irregular the beaming is in the right hand, going across barlines and grouping ...
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votes
5answers
134 views
Questions on Fundamentals of Musical Composition by Arnold Schoenberg
I am reading this book and I need help to understand this line on page 4 (Construction of themes):
"Nearly always the phrase crosses the metrical subdivisions, rather than filling the measures ...
4
votes
2answers
331 views
Definition: Three ascending half steps as a phrase?
Is there an official definition used to describe a phrase constructed by playing three ascending half steps in quick succession, e.g. for a bass fill? I hear this used by a lot by John Taylor from ...
6
votes
3answers
179 views
Avartan in Western music score
What is the term closest to avartan of Indian classical music in Western music score? Is it a phrase, or is it a bar? Or is there another term which denotes the cyclic ticking of musical time? How is ...
2
votes
1answer
224 views
What are the horizontal lines in this renaissance piece?
In one of the scores of Byrd's Ave verum corpus on CPDL, one notices horizontal lines :
What do they mean? Are it a kind of phrasing marks?
Were they added by the editor?
Edit
The Misa de Notre ...
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vote
3answers
586 views
How can I analyze some parts of this excerpt?
I have two questions about this excerpt.
In measure 1 (don't include the pickup note as a measure), there is an Eb tonic chord in the bass staff. How would the F in the melody line be analyzed as a ...
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vote
2answers
192 views
What is the music theory behind the ending to this Chopin Etude?
Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 3:
I'm wondering about how to best analyze the final 3 measures.
This piece simply ends on the I chord over the final 3 measures.
Would ...
3
votes
2answers
184 views
What is the smallest difference in note lengths that an average listener can still perceive?
Approximately speaking, what is the smallest temporal difference, expressed in milliseconds, in note lengths (for consecutively sounded notes) that an average, untrained listener can still (semi)...
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5answers
3k views
Motifs in melody writing
I read in many books/teachings etc. that the first step for creating a melody is to come up with a motif, and use that for further development. Are all melodies created like that? I hear melodies that ...
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3answers
1k views
Legato and staccato in Mozart?
I'm not sure what this means in Mozart's K 545 but it is that same movement in which the left hand is almost 100% Alberti bass, that is the second movement.
I see twice a passage of 8 16th notes ...
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3answers
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Does every phrase in music end with a cadence?
I'm just wondering if every phrase in music ends on a Cadence? Much like every sentence in English ends with a period?
I am mainly talking about common music such as pop, rock, classical, traditional,...
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votes
1answer
724 views
Chord Succession vs. Chord Progression in Douglass Green's “Form in Tonal Music”
Douglass Green defines "chord succession" as a movement of chords that starts in a certain area and reaches the same area (I believe "area" means the classification as tonic, mediant, submediant, etc ....
