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music theory challenge

By Aron Bernstein 7 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 3/21/22

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:

A whole-tone scale is just that: only whole steps, not a half step to be seen. Why does the use of this scale undermine common-practice harmony and tonality?

Post your reply and come back Friday, March 25th for the answer!

ANSWER for 3/7/22

Great comments on this week’s challenge! Common-practice harmony is centered around major-minor tonality. A whole tone scale undermines this because there are no perfect fifths, and so it’s impossible to create major or minor triads with this scale. Only augmented triads can be formed. Also, as Steve, Madison, and Brian said, with no half-steps, there can be nothing resembling tendency tones, the building blocks of common-practice cadences. Patricia and Robert correctly pointed out that there’s no sense of resolution, and that each chord sounds as much like a tonic as any other.

Because of this scale’s intervallic symmetry (based only on the whole step), it has been called a mode of limited transposition by French composer Olivier Messiaen. It can only be transposed once before repeating the same pitches, and so there are only two whole-tone scales. In the late 19th-Century, along with octatonic scales and a renewed interest in the old church modes, the whole tone scale was one of many tools that circumvented, and ultimately undermined, the rules of the common-practice.

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 5 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 3/7/22

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:

When approaching a cadence, you’ll very often see a I chord in second inversion (I 6/4). It’s called cadential 6/4, and you can see it below in this excerpt from Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag. What harmony does this chord really imply, and why does it function this way?

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin
Listen to Audio

Post your reply and come back Friday, March 11th for the answer!

ANSWER for 3/7/22

A triad sounds most unstable in second inversion. This is because the bottom interval is a perfect fourth, which is technically treated as a dissonance because of its tendency to resolve down to a major 3rd. So near a cadence, a I 6/4 chord really sounds like a V chord with a couple of suspensions above the bass. The 4th, in particular, wants to resolve down to the 3rd of the V chord. So, near a cadence, a I 6/4 chord is really a delayed dominant, or, put differently, an expansion of the dominant harmony. You can also think of I 6/4 as a dominant that hasn’t put the other shoe in yet!

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 4 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 2/21/22

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 the audio for the first four bars if this Symphony (if you already know it, shhhhhh……don’t tell anyone until Friday!). Then, explain how we get the violins’ melody from the chain of falling thirds pictured below:

Listen to Audio
Violin Melody
Chain of Thirds

Post your reply and come back Friday, February 25th for the answer!

ANSWER for 2/14/22

This is the opening of the Fourth Symphony in E Minor, Op. 98 by Johannes Brahms. His very economical method of composing was what Arnold Schönberg would later call “developing variation.” Brahms derives the entire first part of this melody from the interval of the third, and twice inverts a falling third into a rising sixth. Another way of looking at it is octave displacement. Either way, Brahms constantly reinterprets these tiny building blocks to generate new ideas. The result is music that organically develops and evolves throughout the 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 4 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 2/14/22

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

Valentine’s Day Challenge:

Scintillating Scarlatti! Here’s a passage from Domenico Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonata in E minor, K. 198. What is the harmony inside the red circles, and what harmony does it resolve to on the notes with the red asterisks?

Scarlatti, Keyboard Sonata in E minor, K. 198
Listen to Audio

Post your reply and come back Friday, February 18th for the answer!

ANSWER for 2/14/22

Ninth chords don’t just appear in pop and jazz…you’ll find them in early 18th-Century Baroque music too! The harmony inside the red circle is F#7, which is V7 of V in E minor. However, the F#7 is decorated with a ninth, G natural, making it an F# dominant minor ninth chord. But unlike in jazz, the ninth here is really just a suspension, which resolves to the root of the F#7 at the asterisk. Jazz music typically treats ninth chords as a more permanent sonority, rather than a temporary decoration.

F# Dominant Minor 9th resolving to F#7

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 7 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 2/7/22

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 from the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony in B minor, Op. 74. What is the name of the non-harmonic tones with the red arrows? They’re in the trombone melody, beginning after the violins’ entrance.

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74
Listen to Audio

Check back on Friday, February 11th to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 2/7/22

This is an example of the appoggiatura, a word that literally means “to lean.” The indicated notes are dissonant non-harmonic tones that are approached by a leap, and then resolve by step in the opposite direction. Although they sometimes appear off the beat, they’re more commonly seen as an accented dissonance, right on the beat where they really demand your attention!

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!