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By Aron Bernstein 6 Comments

Weekly Music Challenge: 6/6/22

Test 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 beginning of Contrapunctus V from J.S. Bach’s Die Kunst der Fugue (The Art of Fugue). As opposed to a more conventional fugue, this one has an unusual answer…why?

Contrapunctus V, Die Kunst der Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach
Listen to Audio

Post your reply and come back Friday, June 10th for the answer!

ANSWER for 6/6/22

While a typical fugal answer is more or less a literal restatement of the subject, this answer is the inversion of the subject. It also remains in the tonic key, a further departure from conventional practice; fugal answers usually bring the music into the key of the dominant. It isn’t until later in this fugue that Bach employs a more typical answer–a tonal answer in the key of v….but still inverted!

Learn More Here!

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

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Weekly Music Challenge: 5/23/22

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:

In counterpoint, describe the difference between the double neighbor and the cambiata.

Post your reply and come back Friday, May 27th for the answer!

ANSWER for 5/23/22

The double neighbor and cambiata are closely related as non-harmonic tones. They both involve two neighbor tones and skip away from a dissonance. But a double neighbor returns to the chord tone it started on, while the cambiata does not. Watch the video clip at 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 2 Comments

Weekly Music Challenge: 5/2/22

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:

In this excerpt from Jules Massenet’s Vieille Chanson, what is the name of the non-harmonic tones at the red arrows?

Vieille Chanson, Op. 10, No. 7 by Jules Massenet
Listen to Audio

Post your reply and come back Friday, May 6th for the answer!

ANSWER for 5/2/22

These are escape tones, also known as the échappée. They’re neighbor tones that do not return to the starting chord tone, but rather skip in the opposite direction to a new chord tone. For this reason they can also be thought of as a type of incomplete neighbor, leaping from a dissonance to a different chord tone from the one we started on. In this sense they’re the opposite of appoggiaturas, which leap to a dissonance.

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 8 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 10/11/21

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:

Below is one of Beethoven’s last and greatest utterances: the opening fugue from his C-sharp Minor String Quartet, Op. 131. The subject melody is in blue, and the answer is in red. What’s unorthodox about this fugue’s answer?

Listen to Audio: Beethoven, String Quartet No. 14 in C# minor, Op. 131

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, October 15 to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 10/11/21

This fugue’s answer is in the key of IV, the subdominant. It’s in F-sharp minor. The more standard key for an answer would be V, the dominant (G-sharp minor in this case). But by having the answer in the subdominant, Beethoven avoids a more typical emphasis on the V–I relationship. J. S. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor is an even more famous example of an answer in IV instead of V.

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 being added, so stay tuned!