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Having looked at many analyzed scores, I find the lower case for minor and diminished and upper case for major and augmented much easier to read. The most common places I found hard to read were in music that uses both major and minor of the same key (tangos come to mind). (As far as I can tell from looking at older books, the use of both cases is an earlier ...
12
As long as you use the two systems with the degree of specificity that you've done in your question, it ultimately won't matter, because they tell you the exact same thing.
As you've mentioned, major/augmented chords use uppercase Roman numerals while minor/diminished chords use lowercase. But note that in your system of using uppercase Roman numerals, ...
8
This is basically a better-phrased version of Albrecht Hügli's answer, but I'd treat the chord progression as this, with the diminished chord in bold:
Isus4 - I - vii°7/V - I6/4 - V7 - I
Yes, I'd treat the diminished 7th chord as a secondary dominant, especially since it resolves its root by step to I6/4, then V7. The I6/4 chord is so strongly associated ...
8
This is often notated as sub(V), spoken as "sub five". The "sub" is short for "substitution", and it is understood as specifically the tritone substitution of the chord. The chord in (sometimes omitted) parentheses is the chord which is being replaced by the substitution, as in "sub of five" or "substitution for ...
7
Interesting. I think the problem lies in a pretty poor definition.
As you've said, there are all kinds of ways to understand "intensity," so it's not hard to come up with examples that seem to defy the definition.
It seems that they mean "intensity" as something like "tendency to resolve towards tonic," but presumably the tonic ...
7
These minor v chords are not typically viewed as dominant in function, no.
Instead, they most often function as passing chords. Imagine we pass from i through v6 down to VI (or even iv6). In these cases the v chords very clearly do not reach the hierarchical level of a "real" dominant and instead are just voice-leading conduits leading from one ...
7
My preference, and I think it's the more contemporary style, it to user upper/lower case to show chord quality.
Using all upper case (and sometimes only Roman numerals) seems to be an older analysis style. At least, I see it more often in theory books from the first half of the twentieth century. I have always assumed this style took for granted people knew ...
7
Any mode or scale can be built on any tonic.
So, yes, you can have D mixolydian... or D flat mixolydian, C mixolydian, etc. etc.
If you have analyzed the song to have a D tonic and is mixolydian in mode, then you can say it's in D mixolydian. It's good that you analyzed for what is the tonic, then the mode. That's analyzing tonality. Simply seeing all the ...
6
Should I be able to sing each note of the melodic interval in order to recognize it? Or... Should I be able to recognize them only by their unique flavour?
Both. Moreover singing what you hear is a very good method to learn. I guess you're practicing with recordings or some training app, but try also practice with an instrument (e.g. piano, guitar): play ...
5
I also think both ways will be helpful!
But here is a 3rd technique, starting from your first impression:
What do you hear? Consonance or dissonance? Perfect consonance or imperfect?
Sharp or mild dissonance? Long distant or short distant? Then you can continue with the finer analysis.
Most successful to me is to have for every interval a beginning motif of ...
5
There are a few although they may be open to interpretation. Two are very similar, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry. Both sound like unresolved IV-V vamp progressions (Perry’s has a quick vi between the IV and V). The melodies of each are grounded in the non-existent I chord. Maybe not having a tonic is a “dreamy” sound, that would ...
5
No. Functional harmony is great. So is non-functional harmony. It's good to trek the mountains heading for a destination, it's good to sit by the lake watching the colours of the light on the water. And it's good to mix the two.
When you find something that sounds interesting it can be productive to analyse WHY it sounds interesting, and that won't ...
5
Those rules are more like guidelines. If all music had to stick to the 'rules', it would have run out of new ideas years ago!
You can do whatever you like with music, chord progressions, etc., and have people give their opinions on the results. In the past, composers have 'thrown out the rule book' (whatever that may be!), and produced weird and wonderful ...
5
I second @Richard's comment that it's a poor definition. Here is some evidence from other textbooks than AP Barron's.
In Steven G. Laitz's The Complete Musician (which uses the "phrase model" mentioned by @Richard), retrogression is defined as follows:
a backward motion [such as] from D to PD [dominant to predominant] is called a retrogression.1
...
5
No, this is not frequently done, for a lot of reasons:
The pattern of scale tone Fa resolving to scale tone Mi is just too strongly-embedded in this style to allow for Fa-Sol in the bass there.
The leading tone always resolves upwards, and likewise it is important to remember that the fourth almost always resolves downwards. The tritone pair of notes ...
4
Please note that chords like G7b5 (G-B-Db-F) are used on a regular basis in jazz and there is nothing "wrong" with them.
You may want to explore incomplete chords. E.g. G-B-F-Ab suggests the sound of G7b9, and avoids a bit awkward (though also "legal") sound of G7b9b5.
B-F-Ab is another way to suggest the sound of Bo7, even if it doesn'...
4
A,C,Eb,Gb (=vii o7) -> Bb,Eb,G (=I46) (resp. V46
The secondary VIIdim to the dominant (also interpreted as #IVdim) usually in a I46 chord - like in your example.
e.g.:
Very common in Bach‘s recitatives!
4
This is a "common-tone diminished seventh chord". It's used, in this case, as an elaboration of the I chord. You can read more about it and see examples in a few SE questions:
Diminished chord constructed over the tonic degree?
A chord progression from Leavitt: how to analyze it correctly
How does this Bdim7 resolves to F/C?
Is this a harmonic ...
4
Don't try to force a harmonic function onto it. It's just a decoration created by planing up from the same shaped chord a semitone lower.
It's possible a 'blue' G♮ is intended in the last chord, and that E7 is written as a simplification of E7(#9). But I suspect that either the chord symbol or the staff notation is a misprint. And it COULD be the ...
3
A great example of this is Chopin's Prelude in E Minor, Op. 28 No. 4. The root position i chord is not heard until the very final chord of the piece.1
Another example is Robert Schumann's "Der Dichter spricht" ("The Poet Speaks"). The piece is in G Major, but again, the root position G major chord is only ...
3
I think the basic theory idea you are looking for is that each tone of a diatonic scale (exluding TI and MI) can be chromatically altered, raised a half step, to become a temporary leading tone to the diatonic tone above. And importantly, only that one altered tone is needed to create the secondary dominants. These alterations can be inserted into ordinary ...
3
I think the answer depends on both a) whether you mean a dominant triad, a dominant seventh, or both; and b) the style of the music in question.
If you mean a dominant triad only, then you're correct: by calling it a dominant, you are implying that this must be V, and therefore you're implying what tonic (I or i) must be.
But as Bennyboy mentions, the ...
3
This ambiguity is an important feature of the i-III pairing of first and second themes in classical sonatas and baroque (and pre-baroque) overtures. The progression c-f-Bb-Eb, taken in isolation, can be heard as i-iv-VII-III in C minor or vi-ii-V-I in Eb major. Schoenberg's suggestion of "neutralization" (emphasizing the notes that are different ...
3
From just VII III... no.
You need more context.
In some kind of circle of fifths or other sequential passage, it doesn't necessarily make sense to label any descending fifth progression as a key change.
Length matters too. If it's brief, tonicization is the term. If it's longer, like a whole phrase or period, then a modulation may make sense. Technically, I ...
3
D Mixolydian is a mode of the parent key G major - both contain exactly the same 7 notes. The main difference, as you say, is that a piece in key G is recognised as that, due to the home note/chord being perceived as G. This has a home of D, thus will be in D Mixolydian - or the Mixolydian mode of G. It ought to have the key signature of one sharp (F♯).
2
Is this really presented with no key signature?
That is the most confusing part about it. The melody so obviously is in G major (key signature of one sharp) but this has a key signature of zero sharps/flats.
The reason the key signature matters isn't a nit-picky gripe, it has bearing on the strategy for harmonizing, which should be done with chords that make ...
2
A minor is a problematic choice for your realization, for the reasons you've discovered. Were A minor the intended key, and unless this is a relatively advanced exercise, I would expect all of the given Gs to be G#s. Minor V is unusual in a beginning exercise, as is the prominent use of III chords.
The most important factor in answering your question is ...
2
Should I be able to sing each note of the melodic interval in order to recognize it?
You don't need to be able to sing the interval in order to recognize it, but it's still a great idea to do so! Your voice is the best device you have available in ear training, since it's the more direct way to get out of the abstract world and experience the interval as a ...
2
Had to check up on this! A melodic interval occurs when two notes are played or heard consecutively, and a harmonic interval is when two notes are played or heard together.
If you find the melodic easy, then just change the harmonic in your mind - or sing each note.
There are certain intervals which are notable when heard harmonically. A violin playing two ...
2
Harmonic function is specified without regard to the specific arrangements of notes within a chord or their positions relative to the previous/next chord.
All of the following are considered as I chords moving to V chords in the key of C.
X: 1
T: I → V progressions
M: none
K: C
L: 1/1
[CEG] [GBd] | [ceg] [GBd] | [CGe] [G,B,D | [Gce] [Gdb] | [E,cg'] [DBg'] ||
...
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