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Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 12/6/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

Sonata form is the name we give to the structure of many symphonic first movements. It’s a ternary (or three-part) form: exposition–development–recapitulation. However, even in the late symphonies of Mozart, you’ll find a repeat sign at the end of the recapitulation, going all the way back to the start of the development. What does this reveal about the origins of sonata form?

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, December 10th to see if you’re right!

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 1 Comment

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 11/29/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

Listen to this symphonic excerpt (I’ll tell you which symphony on Friday…don’t give it away if you already know!). What meter is this passage in?Hint: the fast notes in the clarinet are eighth notes.

Listen to Audio

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, December 3rd to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 11/29/21

The meter of this theme is 9/4, compound triple meter. It’s from the first movement of the Third Symphony by Johannes Brahms. Each measure has three beats, and the dotted half note is the beat unit. Being an example of compound meter, each beat is divided in three; each dotted-half note beat is divided into three quarter notes.

What makes the meter hard to identify by hearing is that this theme is a compact, rapidly unfolding set of variations. Bars 2 through 4 are elaborations of bar 1, and each one ends unexpectedly, sometimes on the downbeat of the next measure, sometimes before the downbeat. The result is a metric ambiguity typical of Brahms, a playful tap dance around the barlines.

Brahms, Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90, 1st Movement

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 3 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 11/15/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

Here’s the start of a fugue I wrote in my undergraduate years. Is the answer real or tonal?

Listen to Audio

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, November 19th to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 11/15/21

This is a TONAL answer to our fugue subject.

A real answer is identical to the fugue subject, note for note, merely transposed to the key of V.  But a tonal answer is slightly altered so that its first few notes sound like we’re still in the key of I.  The DO–SO leap in the subject (A to E) is reversed to SO–DO in the answer.  This makes the transition from subject to answer smoother and less jarring.  Tonal answers typically follow fugue subjects that have this explicit leap (DO to SO, or vice versa).

Composers deemed this necessary because the fugue was a musical form that appeared before the rules of common-practice harmony had fully cemented.  If you want to modulate from the tonic key to the dominant (I to V), the common-practice method is to use an applied dominant.  In this case, you’d write a II7 chord (V of V) and tonicize the new key.  But in a fugue, we don’t do this.  We have the subject in the key of I, and then BAM––we have the answer in the key of V.  So the tonal answer was a kind of workaround, smoothing over the key change.

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 3 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 11/8/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

This is the end of the Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79, No. 2, by Johannes Brahms. What starts happening to the rhythms halfway through the third measure, and what’s the effect? Listen to the audio too:

Rhapsody in G minor, Op. 79, No. 2 by Johannes Brahms
Listen to Audio

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, November 12th to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 11/8/21

Why simply write “ritardando” when you can build it into the music?! Starting halfway through the third measure, Brahms begins augmenting the rhythms, stretching things out from triplet eighths to normal eighths, then to triplet quarters in measure 5, and and finally to normal quarters in measure 6. This creates the effect of slowing down even though the tempo remains the same. A neat little trick if simple isn’t your cup of tea.

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 8 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 11/1/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

Reaching back to the High Renaissance this week! This is the opening of a paraphrase mass by Josquin des Prez (I’ll tell you which one on Friday). The melody in all four voices is based on a Medieval hymn. Which mode was it in? HINT: look at the tenor and soprano voices, and try not to read too much into the major/minor implications of this mass. Josquin was making near-tonal use of a much older (and modal) hymn. Be sure to listen to the audio as well!

Listen to Audio

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, November 5th to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 11/1/21

This is Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua, written in the early 16th Century. It’s based on the Medieval hymn of the same name. In its original form (seen in the tenor and soprano voices here), the hymn was in the Phrygian Mode:

The tonic is E, and the hymn has the half-step from E to F characteristic of the Phrygian mode. In Josquin’s mass, the bass and alto have an altered version of the hymn in the Aeolian mode (natural minor). In the entire mass, we never actually hear the entire hymm; it’s used instead as a giant motive for imitative writing and quasi-fugal techniques. This is different from a cantus firmus mass, in which the original hymn is heard in its entirety, and the other voices are “scaffolded” above and below it.

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!