You, Jacob Gran and Dr. Brellochs are the three youtube sources that are helping me the most. Thank you very much sir. I appreciate your time and effort to create these videos.
Thank you so much for this series! I have been following each video. I’m learning music composition so the in depth explanations on all fundamental theory topics is really useful. The examples are great and well explained!
I always comment when I finish every lectures for making sure I have studied surely. Studying with utube is not easy to focus because there are lots of interesting things. But still here so many people are supplying such nice quality videos. Always thank you professor! :)
Thank you so much Professor Monahan. I am an aspiring pianist and I cannot express how grateful I am for these lectures. Learning harmony has proven very useful in analyzing and memorizing music, especially since my performance oriented teacher does not give me much instruction in theory.
This is so brilliant. Thank you! I've learnt so much from these videos. (using real life classical music examples really really helps understanding the concepts)!
I was wondering, would you say that it's an apt analogy to compare overlapping functional cycles to overlapping melodic phrases? Because this is what I say in my music theory book after showing an example in Mozart of overlapping functional cycles: This is very common for the ending tonic of one functional cycle to be the starting tonic of the next functional cycle, a harmonic elision if you want to think about it that way. An elision is where 2 melodic phrases overlap seamlessly. Similarly, the overlapping functional cycles can be thought of as a harmonic elision.
Minor error: Doesn't the third bar of the Mendelssohn example begin with a I64 rather than a V7 as you labeled it. This doesn't really matter, of course, because it's a dominant function, but I want you to see I'm paying attention. [Smiley face.] Anyway, I'm crazy about your course so far!!! I started two days ago and I've made it to video 18 already because I can't stop watching. This is as good as working through a weighty book like Tonal Harmony. I'm a concert pianist who studied harmony at Princeton, Yale and NEC. But I still felt I didn't have things firmly down in my mind. You are tremendously clear and concise. And this will be very helpful to my playing and deeper feeling of music. -Brett
Glad you like the series, Brett! It's a work in progress, so you can expect to see a few new videos every summer. There should be two more this year-then the fall semester starts, and I'm out of business. :)
I am thinking of writing a humorous sounding Presto piece. Mozart is the composer of inspiration for this piece. This is what I hear from Mozart in my head when I compose something inspired by him: Go with the flow. Don't worry about breaking the rules, you can always fix them later. Just get down your main melodic and bass ideas and then fix it if need be. I know you can get across humor melodically(dynamics, sudden absence, fast notes), and I do that whenever I aim for a humorous sound. And I know of a few harmonic ways to get across humor. The easiest way is through a deceptive resolution. Another way I know of harmonically getting across humor relies partly on melodic motion, that being undermining a cadence in a way, like for example, doing a diminuendo into another theme right as the cadence ends, or in some other way, using melodic motion that suggests that things aren't done, despite the harmony suggesting otherwise. Is there anything else I can do besides these approaches I have mentioned to get across a humorous feel while having the piece stay Mozartian in nature?
I think rhythm is huge in creating a comedic tone. You should listen to some early Beethoven: in terms of harmony and counterpoint, he's basically imitating Mozart. But his rhythmic sense is much more playful, even absurd at times. I think one could imitative early Beethoven and still claim to be writing in a "Mozartean" style!
Hello Dr. Monahan, I believe the exception that you pointed out early in the video, occurs at about 15:27, at the beginning of the second measure of the Bach chorale that you have shown as an example of overlapping functional cycles, because the IV6/5 chord doesn't belong to the Big 18. By the way, thank you very much for making these videos, they're fantastic.
Well done, sir! I never imagined that anyone would actually go looking for the one non-Big-18 chord! (But that IV6/5 chord is so wonderful...I hope you'll forgive me...)
@@SethMonahan Well done to you, sir. I'm actually fascinated very much by all of these exceptions in classical music, and also thank you very much for your kind words, you made my day!
@@SethMonahan I love the sound too but I wonder if the IV 6/5 might be better thought of as a IV6 with the 'c' the 7th of the chord being a suspension?
Hi Boyd! I love these kinds of questions, because they move one to think really carefully about little details of style. It would be hard to call that C a "suspension" in the traditional sense, since it doesn't actually resolve into a chord tone within the surrounding harmony. But one does sometimes find unresolved suspensions in this music-or rather, suspensions that "wait out" a whole chord change before finally resolving. So for me, the matter of its chord-tone status rests on two questions: (1) do we ever see this progression WITHOUT the chordal seventh in IV6?; and (2) do we ever see a version of this progression where the C resolves down by step, during the chord with F in the bass, making a ii4/3 chord? The answer to (1) is "definitely." IV6 goes to V6/5 all the time. But the answer to (2) is "pretty much never." That's important: it means that the C is far less convincing as a possible non-chord tone. (In this case, it's also instructive to compare this IV6/5 to a root-position IV7. In the latter, the chordal seventh IS often treated like a non-chord tone, resolving down by step to make a ii6/5. So I'd be comfortable saying that many "apparent" IV7 chords are really ii6/5s with a non-chordal decoration. For a great instance of that, see the slow movement from Mendelssohn's second piano trio. Beat 3 of bar 1 has a gorgeous "IV7" that actually turns out to be a plain old ii6: ruclips.net/video/KioVcstEF9E/видео.htmlm07s.)
Was Beethoven the first composer to start a phrase on the Predominant chords or other chords not on the Tonic? Most Composers from 1800 to 1900 started phrases not on the tonic chords?
I have a question. I had been composing for quite sometime now, and I still dare not to call myself any more than an amateur. I knew there were such functions but no one taught me. It is just that I did what I felt like. I had never kept in my mind about functions while writing harmony. I don't know if others could find in my composition these cycle no matter I consider them or not while writing. But does that mean if I ever after this compose I should always keep in mind these function cycles and for some reason, may be carelessly, disobey them I am doing something wrong? For example one could find in my work a beginning with Dominant function, and then there is Predominant and Tonic where should not feel so strongly tonic and perhaps I64s at tonic-like phrase endings which I believe would sound not at all disgusting. With all these rules would I be proven wrong and have to correct them even if any correction to me would sound cliched passe? And I love V64, III6 and I believe they have functions too.
Hi Shombit. The system of harmonic functions I describe here is ONLY a tool for understanding harmony in Western European classical music of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Of course some of these sorts of relationships continued to be used in later music, and even non-classical music. (Mid-20th-century Jazz, for instance, relied extensively on transformations of the ii7-V7-I progression, which is essentially PD-D-T.) But there's no reason at all that music composed in the 21st century should observe these "rules" (which aren't really rules so much as stylistic tendencies-there are always exceptions).
@@SethMonahan There's still one more question. If these tendencies were time specific, What was there in this time that naturally lead composers to use these set rules without much thought, and when it comes to us who are following the time need to take so much care if we ever care to imitate their style and can't be even accidentally come up with a mM7th. It's not that we are not allowed to, but but do not more have the natural tendencies to come up with the stylistics limitations. If I reverse the question, why can we come up with all that is possible in tonal music now and not three centuries ago? I saw your video 14 and 16. as for 'rules' I agree there is historical context of Leonel Power and Johannes de Garlandia, But other than that, I see there are pretty many limitations that arose from the practise itself, without any older theorisations, and there were rarely any deviations. Did the classical composers never noticed these limitations? or is it that they chose to follow them? When I mean limitations I do not intend to shrink its capabilities. Limitations also generate challenges and that can make things beautiful. I mean, I guess this Harmonic function is a pretty new study when modern musicians look into the past. But did classical composers ever think the way 21st century composer think? sure we have a tool now to understand harmony in European classical music, but did they ever retrospectively got hold of this "tool" and used it as a"rule"? or did they just go on composing with their hive minds? I observe many pop musicians think alike.
Good question, Nicolas. My own feeling is that this elusive thing we call "harmonic function" lies in the combination of specific scale degrees, rather than in any one in particular. Take scale degree ^4: it is virtually always present when we have the predominant function. But it's ALSO one of the hallmarks of V7. So for me, ^4 suggests predominant function when it's paired with ^6. But when that ^6 moves to ^7, making a tritone against ^4, suddenly we're getting blasted with dominant function. Does that make sense?
@@SethMonahan Yes, it does. I was also taught that the dominant chords are those that contain 4^ and/or 7^ while tonic chord are those that contain neither. All this stems from the notion that 4^ and 7^ are "unstable" notes since they precede a semitone step.
@@nicolaslg1421 Mostly yes-but don't forget minor. ^4 and ^7 still make a tritone together in minor, and they're still unstable for that reason. BUT, the ^4 resolves down by whole-step rather than half-step. (I say this as a guy who has flubbed this in front of real students more than once. There's just something very intuitive about characterizing the I/V7 relationship in terms of "unstable" notes moving by semitone. The only problem is...they don't always do that!)
I am analysing Rondo a Capriccio by Beethoven. And I came across a very odd chord. That being iii° in a major key. Here are the chords that come afterwards: Key: Bb major Roman numeral analysis: iii° V7/ii ii Actual chords: D° G7 Cm I'm thinking that maybe the iii° is an implied diminished seventh. But then, what is it vii°7 of? How would you, Seth Monahan explain this iii° chord? It is part of a secondary dominant sequence that modulates to G minor, but the chord just seems odd, even for Beethoven.
Hi CC. I'd need bar numbers to confirm this, but what you're describing sounds like ii° of ii. In other words, it's Beethoven leading into C minor with a full ii-V progression. That certainly happens sometimes!
@@SethMonahan The bar numbers are 66-68 for where the progression to C minor occurs. At the last eighth note of bar 68 is a G minor harmony that so far I have analyzed as the pivot from Bb major to G minor.
@@caterscarrots3407 OK-I found the spot. Actually, the "d diminished triad" there is an incomplete V4/2 of IV in Bb major. We start on Bb major, the bass drops to Ab, implying a continuation of the triad plus a chordal seventh in the bass (Bb-D-F over Ab). The next chord "should" be a first-inversion Eb-major triad. But instead we get V7 of Cm, which is built over the same bass note (G). Those two bars then serve as the model for an inexact sequence that moves up in steps. (It's "inexact" because the the RH in m. 68 starts arpeggiating on the chordal third of Cm, rather than the chordal fifth [as in m. 66].)
selling that big 18 in a big way makes me wonder if there was a push back from the pupils... or if its just that our hyper ad-focussed world established the precedent
Glad you're enjoying the series! Things take a pretty serious turn around Video 16-that's the point where the "basics" in the series title becomes a bit misleading. I use Lesson 16 and onwards as the backbone of grad courses I teach at Yale, so they're really more "intermediate." But still, if you watch them in order and work through them carefully, I think there's a ton to be learned. These are the kinds of resources that I wish had existed when I was teaching myself all this stuff 20 years ago!
Hi, I hope you don't mind me asking yet another question. When analyzing a given bar, it's still hard for me to see which notes belong to which chord, especially when there are arpegiated notes or chords, syncopated quarter and eight notes, etc..Is there an easy or practical way to see which notes belong where and how many chords there are in that bar? I hope my question is understandable. Thanx
Hi Flora! This is a great question, and a very important one. In the next video, no. 18, I start to talk about pattern recognition and its importance for sorting chord tones from non-chord tones. Very often, when one has to choose which tones are chordal and which aren't, one option will be a common progression and the other will be an unusual/uncommon one. It's nearly always better to go with the common progression. Music in this style relies on a fairly small stock of harmonic progressions, at least by comparison with what we find in the 1850s and later. In my classes, pattern recognition is THE most important thing my students learn. For every video lesson starting around Nos. 18-19, I give them keyboard progressions to play, memorize, and be able to recognize by sound. I then build listening activities that let them hear these short idioms in context. It's a pretty effective way to help students "listen through" the busy musical surface to the chord progressions lying underneath. If you happen to have questions about a specific passage, don't hesitate to ask for help! I'm always glad to weigh in.
Is there a reason why the inverted vi chord and IV6/4 do not have their usual functions? If I am to write a progression with these inverted chords, would their functions be lost, weakened, or is this just because of convention?
Great questions, Solanine. First, I'd stress that what I'm describing here is the grammar of music from the late 1700s/early 1800s. So it's all a matter of convention. (That's not to say that historical composers thought about progressions in this way; they certainly didn't. But the challenge is to find a way to account for as much as possible with some efficiency and elegance.) Now, specific answers: everyone asks me about IV6/4, because it's a very common chord. BUT, it's almost never used as a predominant. Instead, it usually goes to tonic. In this series, that makes it an instance of the "Subdominant" function, which I explain a few videos down the line. As for inverted vi: we just don't see it that often. Usually, when you seen an "inverted vi," there's just a better way to understand it. For instance, a chord might LOOK like "vi6," but on closer inspection, it's probably a sign that the music is changing keys ("vi6" in the home key is ii6 in the key of the dominant, and that's usually where it's headed). Does this help?
@@SethMonahan Yes, thank you for explaining! However, looking from a compositional perspective, if a V4/2 chord goes to vi6 (if I want to maintain a descending bassline, for example), would it still be a valid deceptive cadence? Or is it necessary to break that bass motion and use root position V-vi? Is there a reason why it usually is not inverted?
@@solanine6452 I guess it depends what you mean by "valid." 99.9% of cadential dominants in this style are in root position, so having any kind of "cadence" using V4/2 already puts one outside of the European common-practice style. (Misinformed people will tell you that inverted dominants can be used to make "imperfect authentic cadences." In reality, that's so stylistically rare as to be irrelevant.) The other issue here is that deceptive resolutions of V7 work because the "tendency tones" can still resolve as they normally would: the leading tone can still go up by step and the chordal seventh can go down by step. But if V4/2 went to vi6, you'd have a chordal seventh leaping by fourth, which would've been seen as faulty voice leading in the 1700s-1800s.
@@SethMonahan My mistake! I meant to say V6/5 or V4/3 going to vi6. What I see you saying is that it is not really a cadence if the destination chord is not in root position. But as I6 is used for cadence evasion, could vi6 be used in the same way since the entire point of the V-vi resolution is to evade resolution?
I count 6 dominant chords in the Big 18, yet writing 6 or VI or 5 in the quiz yielded me wrong answers. Is your test Flawed? Or am I flawed? Seth we demand answers.
I don’t understand why “we” choose I as the tonic, ii & IV as subdominant, and V & vii as dominant. The key of C is constructed by stacking 5ths on F. Why is F not the tonic? Also, Dorian is symmetrical up and down, does this not suggest that it could have a neutral function rather than a dominant function? Ionian is Phrygian upside down. Why is the iii not tonic? I just don’t understand who came up with the rule and why “we” use these particular labels. If you do an axis modulation (negative harmony) the I and IV are the same, the ii and iii are the same, and the V and vii are the same. One could argue that there needs to be more than 3 categories. The pentatonic positions I and vi outline all major and minor chords. Is this why we use those as major and minor keys? If the 5 is dominant then G and Em would be dominant. Is subdominant comes before the dominant then Dm and Bmb5 would be subdominant. F is all that is left. The analysis makes sense if you accept these conditions as the definition but I fail to see the reasoning behind it. It seems pretty subjective.
Hi Jesse. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think there are two kinds of non-composers interested in music theory: (1) those who turn to theories to help them better understand *actual music*; and (2) those who are attracted to theories of music for their own internal logic/coherence/elegance. The former are pragmatists; they're not usually "theorists" at all, in the strict sense. They're analysts. The latter are system builders-true "theorists"-who don't tend put a premium on the use-value of theories. I am resolutely in the first category. I'm attracted to conceptual systems that help me understand how particular historical styles work. These are "theories" whose purpose is to explain and illuminate works of art after the fact. This video series attempts to do just that with one of the many styles of music I enjoy. If you've got a better way of understanding it-if you have a better way to teach people how to appreciate it-I'd be eager to hear any criticisms you had. But your comments here don't reference any real music at all. Nor do they address issues of musical perception. As such, I'm at a loss about how to respond. You say "Ionian is Phrygian upside down." True-but respectfully, who cares? What good does that do me as a listener? Dorian is symmetrical? I've known that since I read it in Guitar Player magazine in 1989. It's never once helped me understand any actual experience of music. I'm just not interested in theories that allow me to make ahistorical assertions that have no bearing on real repertoire or real musical experiences. I'm not interested in theories that tell me that "I and IV are the same," or that "Em would be dominant" in C. Because I'm a careful listener, and experience tells me otherwise. The 19th and 20th centuries are littered with theories of that sort-some of them astounding in their combination of tone-deafness and pseudo-scientific pretension-and they're interesting to me only as historical artifacts. At the end of the day, what matters to me is music. And music is-apart from rare exceptions-not composed based on "theories." Theories of the sort I care about come after the fact, as a means of groping to understand musical practice. They make me a better, more perceptive listener. Finally, on a more practical note: you may want to be careful about overly blunt assertions about where musical phenomena come from. It's an easy trap. You say "The key of C is constructed by stacking 5ths on F," as if it were legislated by some celestial committee. But it's simply not true. Stacking fifths on F is ONE way of arriving at a collection of notes that CAN be arranged as a C major scale. (It also produces the notes of G mixolydian and D dorian. Should F be the tonic of those scales too?) The point is, there are many ways to build a C-major scale. You can do it with whole steps and half steps. Or you could build it as a double chain of alternating major/minor thirds in two directions: up from C (C-E-G-B) and down from C (C-A-F-D). Or you could build it in perfect fifths going down from B. And so on. And all of this misses the crucial point that the "key of C" is NOT the same as a C major scale. I can experience music as being "in the key of C major" even though it contains all twelve pitch classes. (The other five notes can be chromatic embellishments or parts of secondary dominants, etc.) Keys are experiential phenomena, vastly more complex in their inner workings than scales, which you can teach to a kindergartener. Or a kid reading Guitar Player magazine in 1989. :)
Seth Monahan the diatonic scale is created by stacking 5ths. The 5th is the most basic harmonic in the harmonic series. Music is math with color. Major and minor don’t exist until the diatonic scale exists. You can’t use the word in the definition you want to define. I don’t like harmonic function because it isn’t concrete and musical analysis based on subjective experiences does me no good. Musical analysis theorists tell me Dorian is subdominant because that’s how it feels in a ii-V-I but in a ii-iii progression it feels like the tonic. You can tell me that Mixolydian is dominant for the same reason but in V-vii it feels like the tonic as well. There’s more exceptions to the rule than the rule itself. If you want we can compare compositions. We can listen to a composition of yours that uses all of your harmonic function knowledge and then mine that uses no harmonic function knowledge and we can see which is more creative.
@@elementsofphysicalreality if you don't like subjective judgements, you should do STEM, not music. Music is art, not science. Music analysis is always subjective.
No, Jesse. Historically, the diatonic scale was not "created by stacking 5ths." It emerged by way of a convoluted process that took several hundred years-and which you can't simply choose to ignore because you prefer to think in soundbites, or would rather spend your time picking fights on RUclips with people who know more than you. (Did you read a word of what I wrote above?) It's pretty clear from your latest comment that your understanding of all this stuff is, frankly, shallow and confused. No one to my knowledge-no one credible, anyway-has ever claimed that "dorian is subdominant" or that "mixolydian is dominant." Those claims don't even make sense; they mash together concepts from unrelated theories-modal scale theory and harmonic function theory-which explain different phenomena in different repertoire. Your argument is literally nonsense. So I think we're done here. Please take your truculence and overconfident bluster elsewhere. I'll save my time for viewers who at least *kind of* know what they're talking about.
You, Jacob Gran and Dr. Brellochs are the three youtube sources that are helping me the most.
Thank you very much sir.
I appreciate your time and effort to create these videos.
Thank you so much for this series! I have been following each video. I’m learning music composition so the in depth explanations on all fundamental theory topics is really useful. The examples are great and well explained!
I always comment when I finish every lectures for making sure I have studied surely. Studying with utube is not easy to focus because there are lots of interesting things. But still here so many people are supplying such nice quality videos. Always thank you professor! :)
Very professional and interesting,thanks a lot
Brillante. Todos los vídeos me parecen extraordinarios. ¡Felicidades!
Thank you so much Professor Monahan. I am an aspiring pianist and I cannot express how grateful I am for these lectures. Learning harmony has proven very useful in analyzing and memorizing music, especially since my performance oriented teacher does not give me much instruction in theory.
Thank you for the kind words; I'm glad the lectures are proving helpful!
This is so brilliant. Thank you! I've learnt so much from these videos. (using real life classical music examples really really helps understanding the concepts)!
i'm abselutely grateful to find this series ! thank you professor!
Wonderful lessons series... of a great help. Thank you Mr.Seth Monahan. Love from India ♥
I love ur videos ❤. Tons of knowledge 🎉
Thank you Professor! very enlightening!
I was wondering, would you say that it's an apt analogy to compare overlapping functional cycles to overlapping melodic phrases? Because this is what I say in my music theory book after showing an example in Mozart of overlapping functional cycles:
This is very common for the ending tonic of one functional cycle to be the starting tonic of the next functional cycle, a harmonic elision if you want to think about it that way. An elision is where 2 melodic phrases overlap seamlessly. Similarly, the overlapping functional cycles can be thought of as a harmonic elision.
Minor error: Doesn't the third bar of the Mendelssohn example begin with a I64 rather than a V7 as you labeled it. This doesn't really matter, of course, because it's a dominant function, but I want you to see I'm paying attention. [Smiley face.] Anyway, I'm crazy about your course so far!!! I started two days ago and I've made it to video 18 already because I can't stop watching. This is as good as working through a weighty book like Tonal Harmony. I'm a concert pianist who studied harmony at Princeton, Yale and NEC. But I still felt I didn't have things firmly down in my mind. You are tremendously clear and concise. And this will be very helpful to my playing and deeper feeling of music. -Brett
Glad you like the series, Brett! It's a work in progress, so you can expect to see a few new videos every summer. There should be two more this year-then the fall semester starts, and I'm out of business. :)
I am thinking of writing a humorous sounding Presto piece. Mozart is the composer of inspiration for this piece. This is what I hear from Mozart in my head when I compose something inspired by him:
Go with the flow. Don't worry about breaking the rules, you can always fix them later. Just get down your main melodic and bass ideas and then fix it if need be.
I know you can get across humor melodically(dynamics, sudden absence, fast notes), and I do that whenever I aim for a humorous sound.
And I know of a few harmonic ways to get across humor. The easiest way is through a deceptive resolution. Another way I know of harmonically getting across humor relies partly on melodic motion, that being undermining a cadence in a way, like for example, doing a diminuendo into another theme right as the cadence ends, or in some other way, using melodic motion that suggests that things aren't done, despite the harmony suggesting otherwise.
Is there anything else I can do besides these approaches I have mentioned to get across a humorous feel while having the piece stay Mozartian in nature?
I think rhythm is huge in creating a comedic tone. You should listen to some early Beethoven: in terms of harmony and counterpoint, he's basically imitating Mozart. But his rhythmic sense is much more playful, even absurd at times. I think one could imitative early Beethoven and still claim to be writing in a "Mozartean" style!
Really good video!
Hello Dr. Monahan, I believe the exception that you pointed out early in the video, occurs at about 15:27, at the beginning of the second measure of the Bach chorale that you have shown as an example of overlapping functional cycles, because the IV6/5 chord doesn't belong to the Big 18.
By the way, thank you very much for making these videos, they're fantastic.
Well done, sir! I never imagined that anyone would actually go looking for the one non-Big-18 chord! (But that IV6/5 chord is so wonderful...I hope you'll forgive me...)
@@SethMonahan Well done to you, sir.
I'm actually fascinated very much by all of these exceptions in classical music, and also thank you very much for your kind words, you made my day!
@@SethMonahan I love the sound too but I wonder if the IV 6/5 might be better thought of as a IV6 with the 'c' the 7th of the chord being a suspension?
Hi Boyd! I love these kinds of questions, because they move one to think really carefully about little details of style. It would be hard to call that C a "suspension" in the traditional sense, since it doesn't actually resolve into a chord tone within the surrounding harmony. But one does sometimes find unresolved suspensions in this music-or rather, suspensions that "wait out" a whole chord change before finally resolving. So for me, the matter of its chord-tone status rests on two questions: (1) do we ever see this progression WITHOUT the chordal seventh in IV6?; and (2) do we ever see a version of this progression where the C resolves down by step, during the chord with F in the bass, making a ii4/3 chord? The answer to (1) is "definitely." IV6 goes to V6/5 all the time. But the answer to (2) is "pretty much never." That's important: it means that the C is far less convincing as a possible non-chord tone.
(In this case, it's also instructive to compare this IV6/5 to a root-position IV7. In the latter, the chordal seventh IS often treated like a non-chord tone, resolving down by step to make a ii6/5. So I'd be comfortable saying that many "apparent" IV7 chords are really ii6/5s with a non-chordal decoration. For a great instance of that, see the slow movement from Mendelssohn's second piano trio. Beat 3 of bar 1 has a gorgeous "IV7" that actually turns out to be a plain old ii6: ruclips.net/video/KioVcstEF9E/видео.htmlm07s.)
Thanks for such a convincing answer and wonderful musical example to back it up.
Was Beethoven the first composer to start a phrase on the Predominant chords or other chords not on the Tonic? Most Composers from 1800 to 1900 started phrases not on the tonic chords?
I have a question. I had been composing for quite sometime now, and I still dare not to call myself any more than an amateur. I knew there were such functions but no one taught me. It is just that I did what I felt like. I had never kept in my mind about functions while writing harmony. I don't know if others could find in my composition these cycle no matter I consider them or not while writing. But does that mean if I ever after this compose I should always keep in mind these function cycles and for some reason, may be carelessly, disobey them I am doing something wrong? For example one could find in my work a beginning with Dominant function, and then there is Predominant and Tonic where should not feel so strongly tonic and perhaps I64s at tonic-like phrase endings which I believe would sound not at all disgusting. With all these rules would I be proven wrong and have to correct them even if any correction to me would sound cliched passe? And I love V64, III6 and I believe they have functions too.
Hi Shombit. The system of harmonic functions I describe here is ONLY a tool for understanding harmony in Western European classical music of the late 1700s and early 1800s. Of course some of these sorts of relationships continued to be used in later music, and even non-classical music. (Mid-20th-century Jazz, for instance, relied extensively on transformations of the ii7-V7-I progression, which is essentially PD-D-T.) But there's no reason at all that music composed in the 21st century should observe these "rules" (which aren't really rules so much as stylistic tendencies-there are always exceptions).
@@SethMonahan There's still one more question. If these tendencies were time specific, What was there in this time that naturally lead composers to use these set rules without much thought, and when it comes to us who are following the time need to take so much care if we ever care to imitate their style and can't be even accidentally come up with a mM7th. It's not that we are not allowed to, but but do not more have the natural tendencies to come up with the stylistics limitations.
If I reverse the question, why can we come up with all that is possible in tonal music now and not three centuries ago?
I saw your video 14 and 16. as for 'rules' I agree there is historical context of Leonel Power and Johannes de Garlandia, But other than that, I see there are pretty many limitations that arose from the practise itself, without any older theorisations, and there were rarely any deviations. Did the classical composers never noticed these limitations? or is it that they chose to follow them? When I mean limitations I do not intend to shrink its capabilities. Limitations also generate challenges and that can make things beautiful. I mean, I guess this Harmonic function is a pretty new study when modern musicians look into the past. But did classical composers ever think the way 21st century composer think?
sure we have a tool now to understand harmony in European classical music, but did they ever retrospectively got hold of this "tool" and used it as a"rule"? or did they just go on composing with their hive minds? I observe many pop musicians think alike.
According to my notes, what gives the predominant chords their sound is that the contain the fourth degree of the scale. What do you think?
Good question, Nicolas. My own feeling is that this elusive thing we call "harmonic function" lies in the combination of specific scale degrees, rather than in any one in particular. Take scale degree ^4: it is virtually always present when we have the predominant function. But it's ALSO one of the hallmarks of V7. So for me, ^4 suggests predominant function when it's paired with ^6. But when that ^6 moves to ^7, making a tritone against ^4, suddenly we're getting blasted with dominant function. Does that make sense?
@@SethMonahan Yes, it does.
I was also taught that the dominant chords are those that contain 4^ and/or 7^ while tonic chord are those that contain neither. All this stems from the notion that 4^ and 7^ are "unstable" notes since they precede a semitone step.
@@nicolaslg1421 Mostly yes-but don't forget minor. ^4 and ^7 still make a tritone together in minor, and they're still unstable for that reason. BUT, the ^4 resolves down by whole-step rather than half-step. (I say this as a guy who has flubbed this in front of real students more than once. There's just something very intuitive about characterizing the I/V7 relationship in terms of "unstable" notes moving by semitone. The only problem is...they don't always do that!)
@@SethMonahan thank you!
thank you . your courses are very helpfull
I am analysing Rondo a Capriccio by Beethoven. And I came across a very odd chord. That being iii° in a major key. Here are the chords that come afterwards:
Key: Bb major
Roman numeral analysis: iii° V7/ii ii
Actual chords: D° G7 Cm
I'm thinking that maybe the iii° is an implied diminished seventh. But then, what is it vii°7 of?
How would you, Seth Monahan explain this iii° chord? It is part of a secondary dominant sequence that modulates to G minor, but the chord just seems odd, even for Beethoven.
Hi CC. I'd need bar numbers to confirm this, but what you're describing sounds like ii° of ii. In other words, it's Beethoven leading into C minor with a full ii-V progression. That certainly happens sometimes!
@@SethMonahan The bar numbers are 66-68 for where the progression to C minor occurs. At the last eighth note of bar 68 is a G minor harmony that so far I have analyzed as the pivot from Bb major to G minor.
@@caterscarrots3407 OK-I found the spot. Actually, the "d diminished triad" there is an incomplete V4/2 of IV in Bb major. We start on Bb major, the bass drops to Ab, implying a continuation of the triad plus a chordal seventh in the bass (Bb-D-F over Ab). The next chord "should" be a first-inversion Eb-major triad. But instead we get V7 of Cm, which is built over the same bass note (G). Those two bars then serve as the model for an inexact sequence that moves up in steps. (It's "inexact" because the the RH in m. 68 starts arpeggiating on the chordal third of Cm, rather than the chordal fifth [as in m. 66].)
selling that big 18 in a big way
makes me wonder if there was a push back from the pupils... or if its just that our hyper ad-focussed world established the precedent
Thanx so much! 😊
Glad you're enjoying the series! Things take a pretty serious turn around Video 16-that's the point where the "basics" in the series title becomes a bit misleading. I use Lesson 16 and onwards as the backbone of grad courses I teach at Yale, so they're really more "intermediate." But still, if you watch them in order and work through them carefully, I think there's a ton to be learned. These are the kinds of resources that I wish had existed when I was teaching myself all this stuff 20 years ago!
Hi, I hope you don't mind me asking yet another question. When analyzing a given bar, it's still hard for me to see which notes belong to which chord, especially when there are arpegiated notes or chords, syncopated quarter and eight notes, etc..Is there an easy or practical way to see which notes belong where and how many chords there are in that bar? I hope my question is understandable. Thanx
Hi Flora! This is a great question, and a very important one. In the next video, no. 18, I start to talk about pattern recognition and its importance for sorting chord tones from non-chord tones. Very often, when one has to choose which tones are chordal and which aren't, one option will be a common progression and the other will be an unusual/uncommon one. It's nearly always better to go with the common progression. Music in this style relies on a fairly small stock of harmonic progressions, at least by comparison with what we find in the 1850s and later. In my classes, pattern recognition is THE most important thing my students learn. For every video lesson starting around Nos. 18-19, I give them keyboard progressions to play, memorize, and be able to recognize by sound. I then build listening activities that let them hear these short idioms in context. It's a pretty effective way to help students "listen through" the busy musical surface to the chord progressions lying underneath.
If you happen to have questions about a specific passage, don't hesitate to ask for help! I'm always glad to weigh in.
@@SethMonahan Thank you! I shall watch the next two videos and see if I get it...patter recognition, those were the words I was looking for :)
Is there a reason why the inverted vi chord and IV6/4 do not have their usual functions? If I am to write a progression with these inverted chords, would their functions be lost, weakened, or is this just because of convention?
Great questions, Solanine. First, I'd stress that what I'm describing here is the grammar of music from the late 1700s/early 1800s. So it's all a matter of convention. (That's not to say that historical composers thought about progressions in this way; they certainly didn't. But the challenge is to find a way to account for as much as possible with some efficiency and elegance.)
Now, specific answers: everyone asks me about IV6/4, because it's a very common chord. BUT, it's almost never used as a predominant. Instead, it usually goes to tonic. In this series, that makes it an instance of the "Subdominant" function, which I explain a few videos down the line.
As for inverted vi: we just don't see it that often. Usually, when you seen an "inverted vi," there's just a better way to understand it. For instance, a chord might LOOK like "vi6," but on closer inspection, it's probably a sign that the music is changing keys ("vi6" in the home key is ii6 in the key of the dominant, and that's usually where it's headed). Does this help?
@@SethMonahan Yes, thank you for explaining! However, looking from a compositional perspective, if a V4/2 chord goes to vi6 (if I want to maintain a descending bassline, for example), would it still be a valid deceptive cadence? Or is it necessary to break that bass motion and use root position V-vi? Is there a reason why it usually is not inverted?
@@solanine6452 I guess it depends what you mean by "valid." 99.9% of cadential dominants in this style are in root position, so having any kind of "cadence" using V4/2 already puts one outside of the European common-practice style. (Misinformed people will tell you that inverted dominants can be used to make "imperfect authentic cadences." In reality, that's so stylistically rare as to be irrelevant.) The other issue here is that deceptive resolutions of V7 work because the "tendency tones" can still resolve as they normally would: the leading tone can still go up by step and the chordal seventh can go down by step. But if V4/2 went to vi6, you'd have a chordal seventh leaping by fourth, which would've been seen as faulty voice leading in the 1700s-1800s.
@@SethMonahan My mistake! I meant to say V6/5 or V4/3 going to vi6. What I see you saying is that it is not really a cadence if the destination chord is not in root position. But as I6 is used for cadence evasion, could vi6 be used in the same way since the entire point of the V-vi resolution is to evade resolution?
4:45 was hilarious.
I count 6 dominant chords in the Big 18, yet writing 6 or VI or 5 in the quiz yielded me wrong answers. Is your test Flawed? Or am I flawed? Seth we demand answers.
I count eight: V, V7, V6, V6/5, V4/3, viiio6, I6/4, V4/2. I don't think it's me who is flawed, my man!
awesome! Thanks !
You're very welcome!
Thank you :)
You're welcome! :)
Schönberg's eyes at 0:53. I laughed more than I care to admit. :D
I'm quite sure you're the first person ever to notice that...thank you! (I thought it was pretty funny too.)
I don’t understand why “we” choose I as the tonic, ii & IV as subdominant, and V & vii as dominant. The key of C is constructed by stacking 5ths on F. Why is F not the tonic? Also, Dorian is symmetrical up and down, does this not suggest that it could have a neutral function rather than a dominant function? Ionian is Phrygian upside down. Why is the iii not tonic? I just don’t understand who came up with the rule and why “we” use these particular labels. If you do an axis modulation (negative harmony) the I and IV are the same, the ii and iii are the same, and the V and vii are the same. One could argue that there needs to be more than 3 categories. The pentatonic positions I and vi outline all major and minor chords. Is this why we use those as major and minor keys? If the 5 is dominant then G and Em would be dominant. Is subdominant comes before the dominant then Dm and Bmb5 would be subdominant. F is all that is left. The analysis makes sense if you accept these conditions as the definition but I fail to see the reasoning behind it. It seems pretty subjective.
Hi Jesse. At the risk of oversimplifying, I think there are two kinds of non-composers interested in music theory: (1) those who turn to theories to help them better understand *actual music*; and (2) those who are attracted to theories of music for their own internal logic/coherence/elegance. The former are pragmatists; they're not usually "theorists" at all, in the strict sense. They're analysts. The latter are system builders-true "theorists"-who don't tend put a premium on the use-value of theories. I am resolutely in the first category. I'm attracted to conceptual systems that help me understand how particular historical styles work. These are "theories" whose purpose is to explain and illuminate works of art after the fact. This video series attempts to do just that with one of the many styles of music I enjoy. If you've got a better way of understanding it-if you have a better way to teach people how to appreciate it-I'd be eager to hear any criticisms you had.
But your comments here don't reference any real music at all. Nor do they address issues of musical perception. As such, I'm at a loss about how to respond. You say "Ionian is Phrygian upside down." True-but respectfully, who cares? What good does that do me as a listener? Dorian is symmetrical? I've known that since I read it in Guitar Player magazine in 1989. It's never once helped me understand any actual experience of music. I'm just not interested in theories that allow me to make ahistorical assertions that have no bearing on real repertoire or real musical experiences. I'm not interested in theories that tell me that "I and IV are the same," or that "Em would be dominant" in C. Because I'm a careful listener, and experience tells me otherwise. The 19th and 20th centuries are littered with theories of that sort-some of them astounding in their combination of tone-deafness and pseudo-scientific pretension-and they're interesting to me only as historical artifacts. At the end of the day, what matters to me is music. And music is-apart from rare exceptions-not composed based on "theories." Theories of the sort I care about come after the fact, as a means of groping to understand musical practice. They make me a better, more perceptive listener.
Finally, on a more practical note: you may want to be careful about overly blunt assertions about where musical phenomena come from. It's an easy trap. You say "The key of C is constructed by stacking 5ths on F," as if it were legislated by some celestial committee. But it's simply not true. Stacking fifths on F is ONE way of arriving at a collection of notes that CAN be arranged as a C major scale. (It also produces the notes of G mixolydian and D dorian. Should F be the tonic of those scales too?) The point is, there are many ways to build a C-major scale. You can do it with whole steps and half steps. Or you could build it as a double chain of alternating major/minor thirds in two directions: up from C (C-E-G-B) and down from C (C-A-F-D). Or you could build it in perfect fifths going down from B. And so on. And all of this misses the crucial point that the "key of C" is NOT the same as a C major scale. I can experience music as being "in the key of C major" even though it contains all twelve pitch classes. (The other five notes can be chromatic embellishments or parts of secondary dominants, etc.) Keys are experiential phenomena, vastly more complex in their inner workings than scales, which you can teach to a kindergartener. Or a kid reading Guitar Player magazine in 1989. :)
btw negative harmony is bs because the so-called "undertones" don't exist in nature
Seth Monahan the diatonic scale is created by stacking 5ths. The 5th is the most basic harmonic in the harmonic series. Music is math with color. Major and minor don’t exist until the diatonic scale exists. You can’t use the word in the definition you want to define. I don’t like harmonic function because it isn’t concrete and musical analysis based on subjective experiences does me no good. Musical analysis theorists tell me Dorian is subdominant because that’s how it feels in a ii-V-I but in a ii-iii progression it feels like the tonic. You can tell me that Mixolydian is dominant for the same reason but in V-vii it feels like the tonic as well. There’s more exceptions to the rule than the rule itself.
If you want we can compare compositions. We can listen to a composition of yours that uses all of your harmonic function knowledge and then mine that uses no harmonic function knowledge and we can see which is more creative.
@@elementsofphysicalreality if you don't like subjective judgements, you should do STEM, not music. Music is art, not science. Music analysis is always subjective.
No, Jesse. Historically, the diatonic scale was not "created by stacking 5ths." It emerged by way of a convoluted process that took several hundred years-and which you can't simply choose to ignore because you prefer to think in soundbites, or would rather spend your time picking fights on RUclips with people who know more than you. (Did you read a word of what I wrote above?) It's pretty clear from your latest comment that your understanding of all this stuff is, frankly, shallow and confused. No one to my knowledge-no one credible, anyway-has ever claimed that "dorian is subdominant" or that "mixolydian is dominant." Those claims don't even make sense; they mash together concepts from unrelated theories-modal scale theory and harmonic function theory-which explain different phenomena in different repertoire. Your argument is literally nonsense. So I think we're done here. Please take your truculence and overconfident bluster elsewhere. I'll save my time for viewers who at least *kind of* know what they're talking about.