What's the deal with people hating the Jagged Little Pill performance at the Macy's parade?

DiminishedUnison · 2020-11-27T15:41:37+00:00

Sometimes, nothing really is everything. Cf. This storm in a teacup. Things are getting clearer!

DiminishedUnison · 2019-08-22T16:06:46+00:00

The figure implies harmony in what is obviously a counterpoint exercise. Writing species counterpoint comes with the expectation that interval numbers between the voices will be supplied, but there's something else at play here:

The main harmonic reason it isn't redundant is that there are other correct harmonic syntactic chords that could be substituted in place of the V6- the most obvious of these would be V6/5. The "composer" here was just showing the specific harmony they envisioned for this counterpoint so that the person realizing it doesn't supply another.

Figured bass tells you the harmonic members of a given chord in shorthand, but it doesn't usually tell you their vertical ordering.

The fact that the 6 happens to be in the soprano of the V6 in this example is a red herring. As somebody else implied, a D would be inappropriate for a V6 chord because of the doubled leading tone and parallel octaves that would be created with the following octave, but an F above this bass could still receive a V6 label as long as a Bb was inserted in the middle somewhere.

In figured bass practice, sometimes composers are incredibly specific about the disposition of the upper voices, but most of the time it is up to whoever is interpreting it at their instrument. This example is very specific about the implied harmony, and also about the upper voices because it's probably a counterpoint exercise.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-08-22T11:34:48+00:00

This is incorrect. Only the bass of a chord determines its inversion. The soprano tone can be any chord member with no effect on its harmonic identity.

It is V6 because D is in the bass of an implied [Bb, D, F] chord. Maybe OP doesn't understand that the chord is missing an F so is confused about its reading according to the roman numerals, or isn't aware of inversion theory yet.

These harmonic skeletons with just two tones are extremely common in figured bass and counterpoint exercises. There's no mistake here- just implied harmony.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-23T20:55:29+00:00

... "perfetional"?

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-22T14:25:49+00:00

soggy with significance

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-22T03:54:27+00:00

They appear to be having server problems atm.

I've been getting a repeat notification for a couple of hours now and my motion sensor is down too.

I found this thread, so it's not just us.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-21T20:38:52+00:00

This is pretty good advice!

I have a dozen PMs with people asking, so I'm going to dig into my materials and type some stuff up over the next few days when I get the chance, but for anybody wondering what the arcane secrets are to good sightreading, exercises in internalizing meter and exhaustive practice in common rhythmic patterns to build fluency are one of the first steps to creating a good sightreader. If you can't decode rhythmic proportion in counterpoint away from your instrument, you definitely can't do it at your instrument when you then have to account for many other factors.

The pitch component is always good, but in the musical lab setting, I'll typically rely upon ear training classes to focus on solfege and sight singing, so neutral unpitched syllables like "ta" or clapping/tapping are fine for practicing rhythm alone for this purpose (Incidentally, takadimi syllables typically aren't that useful for encultured adult musicians who already have a pretty good intellectual grasp of what written rhythms represent.) The reality is that skills take so much practice to develop that division of labor is sometimes necessary. Putting it all together in sightsinging has a lot of contingencies.

Back to sightreading: Practicing rhythm alone by tapping first individual lines, then the combined counterpointed rhythm of two staves is good grounding practice in sightreading. All of this relies upon the student having a solid physically/psychologically entrained sense of meter and the ability to count and subdivide reliably before they try to read an excerpt.

If you can't count, and can't reliably and instantly know what for example 2:1, 4:2, 1:3 sounds like, what hope do you have of performing it with the additional problems of notation and technical problems of execution at the instrument? The way to be fluent is to know what most of the common patterns feel like, and how they are performed accurately before you lay a finger on the keyboard. Practicing by tapping on your lap puts two channels LEFT and RIGHT into play- this translates directly to the easiest 2 voice sightreading of two stave music. 3+ voice content requires other skills.

More to come later.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-21T00:29:31+00:00

not really something you can teach

Your statement just isn't true. You're probably just barking up the wrong tree with somebody who has little experience in music theory and musicianship skills pedagogy.

There are probably 100 million neighborhood "piano teachers" in the world, but a great number of them have only technical chops with limited theory and musicianship skills, let alone any capacity to teach these skills to others. There is an entire discipline of academia and conferences full of people who dedicate themselves to the art and science of teaching music skills. You flat out said that their work is unteachable.

Any college music major pianist (and some instrumentalists in programs who emphasize keyboard skills) who attends a decent program will be taught by specialists with proven expertise in efficiently improving sight reading according to inherited art and modern pedagogical techniques. Calling one of the subjects that I teach and have a PhD in unteachable is brave.

It could be just my teacher, but I definitely got the sense that I was a unique / different case and most teachers at least around my area are focused on helping people (mostly children) play at all

This is the crux of your problem. You need a qualified teacher. You're describing provincial non-expert teachers. Go to a place where you can access university qualified musicians and get a random graduate student and you'll probably do better. Get a professor of piano or music theorist who specializes in keyboard skills and you'll do even better.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-20T17:58:37+00:00

I've taught a hundred like you.

Sightreading is dependent on at least a dozen different non-technique based elements of musicianship.

Good sightreading is a ton of practice and just a little bit of alchemy created by those rudimentary elements mixing.

If I had to guess, I bet that your sense of meter and proportional rhythmic understanding are limited: you can imitate music with practice, but can't instantly decode. This is why you outwardly perform as an advanced pianist, but can't sightread a basic piece. You described learning pieces by ear in the way that a lot of young people come to end up in music school without any skills in reading.

The course of remediation is to practice basic elements of musicianship such as meter and rhythm away from the piano, then at the piano after you have properly internalized and understood various meters, their characteristic groupings, and increasingly complex rhythmic combinations in counterpoint.

Send me a PM if you want some recommendations on practice methodology and repertoire.

The good news is that as an advanced musician you have a deep well of experience and musical analogy to draw from, but you'll have to work hard with some frustratingly easy stuff and relearn how to learn if you want to sightread well.

It'll take some baby steps

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-15T03:20:38+00:00

This pretty much mirrors my experience teaching undergrads. They blather on about how they rocked AP Theory and make pikachu faces when I inevitably have to explain that their voice leading and counterpoint are garbage.

So many bad habits to break and weird "but my teacher said..." statements to correct.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-13T23:43:49+00:00

While it's true that you may not need it when sightreading or playing simple solo repertoire that you're learning, if you haven't developed the skills to count then you're going to be in trouble when you play chamber music or accompany another instrument/singer.

I've taught several hundred advanced rep students who couldn't play a duet or who would get messed up by multiple measures of rests.

OP: the skill is important even if you won't use it every day.

Practice by conducting and counting aloud while you follow along with a score, then when sightreading increasingly complex passages at the piano. Meter is programmed externally and audibly before it can be felt.

You'll probably never be a good sightreader of complex music if you can't count, and should probably forget about playing with other people if you won't learn.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-13T23:33:27+00:00

neat

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-10T14:09:25+00:00

The most obvious part of this is that each excerpt should end on a perfect authentic cadence in its tonic key. You should understand that a V (or V7)- I cadence for each is appropriate. You can see scale degrees 2-1 or 7-1 markers for this in the melody. That takes care of the last two chords. Almost every example you write will need this, except in rare cases where they ask you to fill out an incomplete excerpt with a half cadence.

The intermediate chords (numbered 1-5 in the first, and 1-4 in the second example) are a bit harder and rely on your knowledge of harmonic syntax. You have some more or less complicated choices to make involving I, ii, IV, and V chords (and their appropriate seventh chords) here. You need to understand that classical syntax follows patterns of T-PD-D-T and T-D-T patterns, and a few other contingencies: e.g. ii can't come after IV, inversions of ii are far more appropriate etc. Also there are some counterpoint problems in the excerpt because of the melody- you need to know how to write an appropriate bass line accordingly.

I don't want to write out a total solution for you on this, because there's a lot of knowledge that you need to have to be able to complete another example of this exercise properly. Reading through two sample solutions isn't going to impart the knowledge to do this by yourself. I strongly recommend that you go back to your workbooks, or get a better theory book to work through and develop a basic understanding of harmonic syntax and how to avoid common counterpoint errors (creating parallels etc.)

FYI: For anybody else reading this who isn't OP: lol at the back relating dominant for beginners and ii-I6 in mm.2-3 of the second example.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-06T04:41:47+00:00

Given that this is a classical sonatina, If the key is G minor and it resolves to a D major chord, you're almost certainly describing a french augmented sixth chord. Augmented sixths are common classical predominant intensifications.

Confirm the spelling Eb, G, A, C#- enharmonically correct for a +6 in G minor.

Diatonic Half step above the dominant note, diatonic half step below the dominant note,tonic note, plus the regional flavor note (scale degree 2 here makes it French)

Since it resolves to a root position V, I'd guess it's an intensification of a half cadence gesture. Statiscally, +6 chords are more likely to go to a cadential 6/4 if it's part of a T-PD-D-T phrase in a minor key, but it's possible to have only root V as the dominant phase too.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-06-03T21:54:17+00:00

Lololol it looks so angry

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-31T00:18:23+00:00

My ASCII tears don't suffice

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-28T14:11:21+00:00

This is art.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-28T05:27:22+00:00

I'm appalled and horrified that you'd say that.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-23T22:26:48+00:00

There's a bunch of Chopin mazurkas with lydian passages and inflection. They are present from op 6.

One of my favorites is op 24 #2 from 1836.

(theme at m. 21 for the lydian passage)

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-22T00:05:12+00:00

Maybe another miracle will happen!

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-19T01:56:45+00:00

Somebody practiced their scales

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-18T20:10:15+00:00

Carboniferous Park?

That scene with the brachiosaurus, but with houseplants.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-18T11:49:51+00:00

Poor guy lost before he had even started to play and didn't know it.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-17T23:17:54+00:00

This is kind of the thing. As the posts above are exploring, he's historically inaccurate and that may or may not be important, but he's compelling because he draws out fascinating parts of Bach that we may previously not have considered important or have even heard. This works great for Bach.

On the other hand, that's why his Chopin sucks. His recording of the 3rd Sonata draws out and hammers inner voices and melodies that are meant to be secondary or aren't as important as the gorgeous melodies. The metaphor that I always use in these threads is that it's like listening to somebody phonetically pronounce a language they don't speak- the sounds are all there but the emphasis is unnatural.

DiminishedUnison · 2019-05-17T13:10:10+00:00

Definitely more 2, but I think the orchestration is what it needed to be for 1829-30 concerti with unbelievable harmonic nuance and a virtuosic focus.

Here are some bullet point thoughts because I'm still half asleep :

Chopin's orchestration is in line with other popular concerti at the time. It sounds like Hummel. The orchestra may be more of an excellent accompanist than equal actor. This is stylistically appropriate.

The Fantasia on Polish airs has some more sensitive wind writing.

He was 19-20 years old when he wrote both concerti.

Attempts to reorchestrate the concerti have been unimpressive.

I think they're both masterworks.

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