# Musical Analysis Thread



## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Thought since some wanted a forum for this discussion. Why not a thread? I'll be a spectator since I'm no expert in this area. Enjoy.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Just to start off the thread, does anyone have/can do a proper harmonic analysis of Chopin's prelude no. 4? I always found it so harmonically unusual and I could never quite crack it, it seems to derive it's power more from then simple harmonic progressions alone.


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## humanbean (Mar 5, 2011)

A bit of a longshot, but could someone explain what exactly makes the following popular Dufay tune sound so "weird" at points, especially the cadences? I THINK it utilizes a heavy amount of chromaticism, but I really don't know a whole lot about such things. This is actually a characteristic of many of the Burgandian period (Medieval-Renaissance transition) and is the reason why I love music from that period. It just sounds so foreign to 21st century ears and I've always wanted to know what made these compositions "tick". One particular moment happens at about 0:18:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SottoVoce said:


> Just to start off the thread, does anyone have/can do a proper harmonic analysis of Chopin's prelude no. 4? I always found it so harmonically unusual and I could never quite crack it, it seems to derive it's power more from then simple harmonic progressions alone.


Weird, I duplicated this. Apologies.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SottoVoce said:


> Just to start off the thread, does anyone have/can do a proper harmonic analysis of Chopin's prelude no. 4? I always found it so harmonically unusual and I could never quite crack it, it seems to derive it's power more from then simple harmonic progressions alone.


Here you go: 
This is a land-mine analysis assignment in many a sophomore college theory class. This is given after you have learned all about the exotic German, Italian and French Sixths and secondary chord functions. Somewhere along the way, it is to be hoped sooner or later, you were directly told or picked up on the fact that nothing gets a Roman Numeral unless it is a Functioning Harmony.

Okee-dokey. What usually happens? Just lately conditioned and constantly conscious they are to account for Everything -- "Leave no tone unturned," -- the students invariably label every vertical they see, thinking, My God, this is one complex little piece! Some go so far, out of the glee of displaying to themselves they can find and Identify those exotic sixth chords, to enharmonically spell a melody pitch and then, like a very proud Little Jack Horner, pull a french sixth out of this pie.

What that mistaken analysis ends up yielding is an inky bloodbath with monstrous secondary ID's such as iii/vi, etc for each eighth-note vertical.

Back up a moment. The piano piece has typical piano configuration notation. 
What IF you wrote it out on a multi-stave score as if for strings? Hmm. 
All those chromatic descending horizontals would be individual lines, wouldn't they? And there it is,
BINGO.

This prelude is famous for 'going nowhere.' 
It is I - V - I (and that has nothing to do with Herr Schenker's way of looking at analysis.)

It has to do with all those chromatic lines being chromatic = Chroma = color: one does not, in classical analysis, give 'color' a Roman Numeral. One names only functioning chords which are HEARD as functioning chords.

I - V - I, then, with perhaps a small written memo stating the chromatics are horizontal chromatic polyphony (because they are). Sometimes called, "Chromatic side-slipping," or similar.

I -V - I are all we actually Hear As Functioning Vertical Harmonies. The rest is 'coloration.'

Those horizontal polyphonic lines do certainly alter the perception of what is heard as to its color, and create a fantastic uncertain ambiguity in this brilliant short piece. The melody, if played alone, quickly reveals it is barely what anyone in their right mind would call a 'tune' and that too, is as it is because the piece was conceived as a whole, those vacillating steps of the 'melody' also setting the ear further off balance. Those chromatic lines, especially, are that 'power' you perceived, in juxtaposition over the most fundamental progression of I - V - I, which here is more a mere frame upon which to span the chromatic lines.

That analysis is certainly very helpful to anyone playing the piece as well 

Pretty masterly little ditty, Frederic!


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Here you go:
> This is a land-mine analysis assignment in many a sophomore college theory class. This is given after you have learned all about the exotic German, Italian and French Sixths. Somewhere along the way, it is to be hoped sooner or later, you were directly told or picked up on the fact that nothing gets a Roman Numeral unless it is a Functioning Harmony.
> 
> Okee-dokey. What usually happens? Just lately conditioned and constantly conscious they are to account for Everything -- "Leave no tone unturned," -- the students invariably label every vertical they see, thinking, My God, this is one complex little piece! Some go so far, out of the glee of displaying to themselves they can find and Identify those exotic sixth chords, to enharmonically spell a melody pitch and then, like a very proud Little Jack Horner, pull a french sixth out of this pie.
> ...


This is amazing, PetrB. Thank you for such an insightful and eye-opening response, I was always wondering how to look at it from a more technical standpoint. Now I've learned that some pieces are more than that. Thank you


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Find a very thorough and clever analysis of the Brahms B-Flat Minor Intermezzo, if anyone is interested"

Brahms B-Flat Minor Intermezzo Analysis


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## sah (Feb 28, 2012)

@humanbean:

The score: http://maucamedus.net/transcriptions-e.html

I think these parallel fourths are the explanation for that 0:18.
G-F#-G
D-C#-D


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