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Yes, I saw that. I saw the naming of chords, but I was looking for an answer to your question of tonality - whether it was just passing through a key before settling. I think the naming of those chords does define it as a passing through thing.

Meanwhile I've seen PianoStudent88's take on Sonatina 4, especially that by looking at the patterns in Roman Numeral analysis, she can see which sections fit with which sections. That makes a lot of sense, because if a section is, say, in F major one time, and in C major the next time, the notes will be different but the relationship of chords will still be the same. Therefore the RN's may be identical all the way or part way. (If part of the section is modulating to a new key as we've seen a few times, then it won't all be identical.)

Sonatina 5 - movement 1
In the Development where Greener saw the D7, I am thinking that the D is actually already present in the pickup to that measure.

One thing I really wondered about is the Eb in the RH beat 4 of m. 37. The chord is identified as Gm, but what is that Eb doing there? The RH melody traces a diminished chord: G, Eb, C#, and that C# adds tension like (as?) an appoggiatura in m. 37 before resolving to D. So is that whole diminished passage a kind of tension which builds to the release in the D?

Sonatina 5 - movement 2 - Air suisse
Richard's information that this movement is based on the Ranz des vaches was interesting. It is based on music that accompanied driving cattle home, featuring the alphorn which has limited notes and can't be played quickly. It is associated with nostalgia.
Wikki article on "Ranz des vaches"
Here are some examples of this kind of music:
Ranz des vaches sung - Bernard Romanens
on Alphorn - Ranz des vaches

PianoStudent88 pointed out that m. 1 - 6 was not identical to m. 7 - 12, but that m 1 - 12 formed a unit. I see the same thing from the "call-answer" angle. We have a basic writing exercise in music theory where you write a 4 - 6 measure phrase ending on I-V, and an almost identical phrase of the same length, ending V-I. That's what we have here. P88 then pointed out that at the end of the piece, this 12-measure pattern isn't duplicated, and wrote of a coda. What I hear is that at the end the "call" part keeps getting stretched out and repeated. It can't get answered or the piece would finish then and there. So finally at the end it gets answered and finished. I guess I'm seeing the same thing, but haven't called it a coda (and maybe should).

- I do not see the first movement duplicated in the second movement. A 3 note figure that dips down and up again can occur anywhere in music. Personally I don't find the examples close enough to see a figure being deliberately repeated, but that might be my hearing.

In regards to when D comes in for movement 1, Presto, I'm with Richard that it doesn't really come in until m. 16 with a strong cadence. You do hear D, but it's ambiguous. D could be V of G major, or I of D major, and to me it doesn't shout out "key of D major" until m. 16.

Sonatina 5 - Rondo
Essentially what Richard and Greener said before. The second half is very interesting. I don't have anything to add. Trying to write out an analysis of the chords in this format makes it too complicated in written form.

Sonatina 5
Good analysis, keystring. I like the way you thought about the purpose of the Eb in the first movement to build on the tension and release. We have sadly neglected this aspect of the analyses.

Regarding the duplication of figures, this is a very subjective thing. Mathematicians look for patterns and artists tend to see them more than others. It is often remarked that children look like their parents but they and their parents are not so easily convinced. I was often told my brother and I inherited our dad's features and I often could see his temples and his eyes in the mirror but I never could see my brother in my face.

When my eldest son began to grow facial hair I decided to teach him to shave properly with a wet-shave and a straight razor. The first thing I had to do was remove my twenty or thirty year beard. I stared in disbelief at the reflection in the mirror, I was looking at my brother's chin!

I slaved for hours over Mozart's and Beethoven's sets of variations I dare say I now inject more into the music than the composers intend when I look for 'family resemblances' between movememts. But I also think it increases listening and hearing skills.

Sometimes there is neither a melodic, rhythmic nor harmonic resemblance but they seem to say the same thing, were they blessed with lyrics, and I hear that - a similar mood, emotion or inflection. Sometimes, of course, it's just the composers voice and I can't distinguish the clues that tell me why I hear it.

I've gone back to take a listen to see what you mean by this, Keystring. Very neat. If I've got this right, we see this tension/release effect again at M53-54 and M61-62 (in these instances C/G to G.) This is all recap. so it would make sense we are recapitulating on the same theme.

Now, that you mention this -- tension -- where it is quite prevalent to me is in M42 to M45, but I'm not sure why. I see a Bb at the beginning of M42, but as soon as I hear the 7th in beat 4, things feel like they are heating up. Then to G7 in M43 and Cm-M43 and bringing in the 7th on final beat, then A7 in M45 ... Is it the compile of all the 7ths that is affecting this rising tension? At least, is seems this way for me.

Thanks for pointing out, Keystring. I've also gone back to understand what PS88 has identified in Air Suisse, and actually with you on the V I, and I V phrase endings.

Thanks for the link posts, as well Keystring. May just have to go get me one of those Alphorn things. Not sure about how I going to handle it with the elevator and all, but will figure something out .

I see were making good progress. I'll re-post # 6 when we are good to proceed, for ease of finding and identifying start of next Sonatine.

It is not a pleasant day in Toronto today, so another great reason for me to learn more on Sonatine analysis and some dedicated practice.

I posted a long post about #5 mvmt 1 but I deleted it in favour of not making the discussion more chopped up, since Greener and keystring are talking about mvmt 1. I'll gather my thoughts on mvmt 1 tonight or tomorrow, and then when we're done with that I'll repost my mvmt 3 thoughts.

G Eb C# is not a diminished chord, as G-Eb is a major third, and Eb-C# is a diminished third. G E C# would be diminished.

I agree with you about the role of the C#, though.

Sonatine No. 5



No pressure PS88, but just wanted to quickly inquire of how you are coming along.

I know we had been jostling along and varying paces before, so want to ensure we are all on the same page -- so to speak, -- before we move along.

I'm getting fired up for page one of No 6. But, looking forward to seeing any more you may have to share on No. 5.

Sonatina #5, movement 1

Thanks for the nudge, Greener.

I seem to have misplaced my annotated score . My questions on this movement were about the progression in the development. IIRC, it's Gm Bb Cm D, and then the recapitulation returns in G. I'm just naming on the I (or Im) chords/fleeting-keys that are played after corresponding V7 (or related) chords.

Richard mentions that this is a daring progression, but I think he mentioned circle of fifths. I wanted to underline that it's daring because it's *not* a simple circle of fifths. Not only does it jump back and forth between major and minor, but it makes a big jump from C minor over to D major.

On the circle (or ribbon) of fifths, we can see the nearby-key movement of Gm Bb Cm, and then D major is far away (the dots are just to try to make this line up):

Eb.. Bb. F.... C... G.. D
Cm Gm Dm Am Em Bm

I'm going to have to look at the score again to see how the move from C minor to D major is handled.

Sonatina #5, movement 3

Previous discussion starts here.


I agree with you about sometimes not being sure where the switch flips, but I don't quite agree about the keys.  More anon.


All harmony is ambiguous to me .  But I am profoundly curious about the role of accidentals, and I hate having to just call them "colour"," so I have been wrestling with this section mm.59-112 (I'm using Greener's score numbers now).  I'm presenting this moving forwards through the movement, but I only figured it out by first working from the back, and finding what seemed to be 8 and 10 measure phrases, and playing sections a lot, and thinking very hard about my scrawl of chord letternames.

Mm.60-63.  Em B Em B suggests Im V in E minor.  Confirmed by accidentals F# (for E minor's key signature) and D# (for leading tone).  This is the relative minor of the piece's overall key of G major, so not a big surprise.  The contrast of minor tonality to the preceding major catches my attention, even if just listening aurally I can't *name* what I'm hearing.

Mm.64-67.  (Actually, I hear almost all the boundaries in the middles of measures, but I'm going to go nuts if I have to say "pickups to" and "first beat of" every time I mention a measure, so I'm going to see how much I can avoid it.  I know, I'll follow the lead of Biblical studies and use "a" for first beat and "b" for second beat.  Ok, mm.63b-67.). Anyway, the D natural in m.63 is interesting, but not unheard of in E minor.  The C# in m.64 however suggests we're not in E minor any more.  Where might we be?  The phrase ends with the RH tracing F#7 over two measures, and the LH playing F#, which adds up to F#7 as V7 of either B or B minor.

Mm.67b-75a.  These measures start off with Bm F# Bm F#, confirming that we are now in or passing through B minor.  This explains the C#'s (completing the key signature of B minor) and the A#'s (leading tone).  We're in the minor dominant of E minor, a reasonable place to be from the standpoint of theory and nearby keys, but actually quite interesting.  I don't think we've met a minor dominant previously on these sonatinas.

This eight measure phrase starts out just like the first eight measure phrase, but the ending is altered.  Well, no big surprise: we'd expect an alteration so we could end back at E minor.  Except we don't; we give E minor a complete miss and end up on it's subdominant A, with a distinct ii-V-I cadence (Bm7 E7 A).

Mm.75b-85a.  From A chord we move straight to D chord, and A the subdominant if E minor turns out to also be the dominant of D major.  The G# sixteenth notes in mm.75 and 77 act in my mind to emphasize the A just above them: like an upside-down trill.  The most interesting notes to me of the whole movement are the D#dim tonicizing the Em in mm.78-79.  Are we leaping in a slightly wrenching way back to the key of E minor?  Nope, false alarm, Em is just the two of a ii-V-I progression in D, with the V-I extended and repeated over six measures, and possibly dressed up with some vii° C#dim to boot (depending how you read mm.80 and 82, or perhaps m.84 is better read as IV, G).

Mm.85b-95a.  There's a bevy of diminished chords suggesting the key if the following chord -- G#dim to A, F#dim to G, G#dim to A again, and a V-Im F# to Bm, but we never settle anywhere.  That Bm turns out to be the leadin to a conservative vi-ii-V-I in D major, where we started this 10-measure unit.

Mm.95b-107.  We flirt with A major again, via a G#m7b5, but it's just a brief flirtation (including the wonders of an Asus chord, and the pleasures of the suspended D resolving eventually down to C#), but really we're in D.  The Em7 A D7 G of mm.97b-98a on paper might look like a circle of fifths return to our original key of G major, but try as I might I absolutely don't hear that G as a resting point.  So I'd say we've just landed on the subdominant of D major, and then we continue solidly in D major all the way up through measure 108.

The C natural of m. 107 signals a change, and with several D7 chords at the end of this section, D ceases to be tonic, and as dominant announces the imminent return of our original key, G major, when we return da capo to the A section.

I've been thinking about this notion of being in a key, as signaled unambiguously by a cadence, vs. other types of relation to key: fleeting, transitional, passing through, borrowing notes from, briefly tonicizing with a V7 I, etc.

I think my personal roman numerals which I mentioned somewhere not too long ago, with upper and lowercase roman numerals and slash notation for key (or perhaps merely scale) suggests a more definitive relation to key than might be audible in the sound. For example, in my personal notation (when I can get away with it in Baroque and Classical music) an A7 D7 G progression in the key of G is V7/V V7 I, which suggests that we are "in" the key of V (with the A7 in D major) before being back in the key of I. That's perhaps not a great example, because cadences like that are such an idiom that I read them easily as a variety of cadence in G. But dress the music up a bit, and prolong what's going on, and my slashes will start to make think we're really in a key.

Particular example that got me thinking of this is where I said we were in D in m.13 of an exposition, and everyone else said, no, not in D until the cadence and m.16. I think this was in Sonatina #5, movement 1. My slash notations (have to) start to show /V as early as m.13.

And I can't really hear any of this. Other people said they still heard D as dominant in mm.13-15. But I don't know what that sounds like. I have imagined that other people hear the C# intruding into a G major phrase and immediately make some connection like "that's from another key, and here's the tonic it suggests" and then they can hum D, or hear it in their mind's ear. But maybe that's not how even skilled listeners are hearing it at all. The problem is, that I can hear the eventual cadence as a cadence, but I can't hear that we've cadenced on a different tonic (D) than the original (G).

So now I feel like I need to add an additional principle to my paper analysis, which is "we're not in a key until we cadence in it, until then we're only suggesting, or passing through, or borrowing from, another key." But this feels unsatisfactory to me, because while it may produce written analyses which other people will agree with, I feel as if most other people can say things like this based on being able to hear the difference between being in a key vs. passing through it, and I can't.

Sonatina #5, movement 1


Yep, that's what I was saying!




I don't think it's that simple.

Other people can't say it's tonic precisely because there's been no cadence! It's not that they can hear that it's not tonic it's that they can't hear whether or not it's tonic until there's been a cadence.

You need good pitch memory to know whether it's a new key or the same one. When I hear a piece on YouTube I can go to the piano (half a house away) and play it on pitch. I don't have perfect pitch. I play an approximate pitch on the piano and know how far away that is. That's just pitch memory. That's how I know whether we're back in tonic or we've gone to the dominant.

You sing; can you sing the root of a chord you hear even if you hear it in an inversion?

If you sing the note, does it help you remember the pitch? If it does, that's how you can tell.

Hearing a cadence doesn't tell me any pitch information; it just tells me a phrase has ended. No, that's not quite right, because if you play me part of a ii-V-I cadence, I can hum where it should go. (I think). But I don't have enough pitch memory to remember if that's different or the same than the last time we had a cadence, a few measures ago. And even if you had cadences one right after the other, I don't have a good pitch memory even over a couple of notes to remember if it's different. And even if I can tell that it's cadencing at a different pitch, I can't distinguish intervals quickly and I can't tell if it's cadencing on a distinctly different note, or whether it's remaining within the same pitch *class* and just cadencing an octave up or down.


These are foreign skills to me. Actually, come to think of it, I do have a little bit of pitch memory in very specific circumstances. Sometimes in choir if we end a phrase on one note, and start the next phrase on the same note a few measures later, I can remember that note. But I have to concentrate very hard to do it. Similarly I have to concentrate to remember the starting pitch from the piano rolling them off, to when we start singing. And that's just one single pitch, and concentrating on it very forcefully, and trying to match it. Not trying to figure out if I'm different by a fifth or by an octave from its previous occurrence when lots of things were going on.

Wierdly, although I can't sing an octave by itself completely reliably, I can do other things with octaves. Like if the basses are singing a phrase ending on my alto starting note of the next phrase, but an octave or two down, I can silently hum along with the basses in my range and get my starting note that way, quite accurately. But if you give me a note and say, "sing an octave", I will very likely be somewhat inaccurate, and if you play one note after another, I will have to cogitate very hard to try to decide if it's anything from a fifth to octave, even if I sing the pitches I'll still struggle.


No. Definitely not. I can sing the top note easily, and the bottom note less easily, and sometimes I can find the middle note, but I have no idea of the relations between them (like, I can't hear "top is here, bottom is there, and middle in this middle place is a fourth above the bottom so it's a second inversion chord").

But I can pull notes out of the accompaniment somehow for knowing where to come in, and as an alto that means a lot of middle notes, so in context I guess my ability to hear middle notes is much better than my ability on an isolated basis.


It does, if I'm doing that thing of hearing something on Youtube and then carrying it across the room to the piano. If I don't sing it, I have no hope of matching it. If I sing it, then I can keep singing it and try notes at the piano until I can hear it's the same note.

Maybe these reductive skills aren't the right skills for me. Maybe there's some entirely different set of learning and assessing that would make sense for what I can do, and what I could improve at and how to improve at it. I mean, reading all the things I've listed here that I can't hear and can't do, you'd think I'd be barely scraping by in choir. But in fact, I think I do pretty well and feel confident in the music we're learning.

I think I get so wound up about this because my paper analysis skills are so far beyond my aural skills, and I feel so inadequate about my aural skills.

Let me try this from a different tack than my previous lengthy moan.

Isn't there a sense of whether a phrase cadences in an expected place, vs. an unexpected place? Suppose you had 8 bars in G, cadencing with Am D7 G. Then take the same first 6 bars, but change the last two bars and take on my brute force a cadence in a remote key. Say, Cm F7 Bb. Would people here that the first one cadenced in a natural way, and the second way went somewhere else, with a big wrenching movement?

Play them far apart, so they're not just remembering "it went this way the first time, and this other way the second time."

My belief about how other people hear is that they would hear it as something unusual. But I could be wrong; my general mindset is that I can't hear things in theory, but that other people can, but I'm open to correction that other people can't here them either.

All the same, I think even I might hear that big wrench in the second way. (I'm not at a piano right now, I'm just constructing an example that I think might sound more wrenching than the first example).

If people can hear that the second way does something unexpected or odd, doesn't that imply that they can hear something about what key those first six bars were in, even though there had not yet been a cadence?

(Of course if they don't hear that second way as odd, in general, then I'm going to have to completely rethink my theoretical construct of what music theory means in relation to the aural effect of a piece.)

Yes.

*I* would if I am in the key of G major. I have a sense of where “home base is”, so if I am in the key of G major, home base is G, the chord, and D7 to G is what I expect for a really strong ending feeling. C D7 G is even stronger, and I would expect the last two chords to have roots in the bass, D to G.

Your Cm F7 Bb is logical to me. It is a smooth MODULATION, which can be a long one, going on in the key of Bb for pages OR immediately jumping back to G, in this way:

Cm F7 Bb G C G/D D7 G

That is I call “just visiting” Bb, or a “peek-a-boo” modulation. Pardon my silly expressions, but I work a lot with little kids who can PLAY this stuff.

I think your perception is extreme. There are people who hear so well, I feel deaf by comparison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Paravicini

What would it be like to hear anything once, then be able to play it back flawlessly? It is unlikely that a single human being on this planet with a “normal mind” can do what he can do. But I don't enjoy his playing. He sounds like a robot to me.

There other extreme is a rare genetic condition that prevents an individual from perceiving music as anything else but noise. If you love music, you are hearing and you are hearing well. The fact that you do not hear the way I do, or the way someone else does, should not stop you from developing in any of a million different ways.

[Sonata 5, movement 1]

Yes, you're right, and I must have played it wrong too. I'm now seeing:
m. 37 - D7/A, Gm, Ebm maj7/G
m. 38 - D maj7 /F#, D/F#

The D# in the soprano of m. 38 is still an appoggiatura creating tension which resolves into the D, sliding into it. At the same time we have the tension of the two major 7 chords which are only a semitone apart but in different inversions. That same feeling of tension and resolution is there.

Ebm is vi of G minor. That same Eb pops up in m. 39 as the 7 of an F7 chord.

Reading through the newer posts, the word "cadence" comes up again. If my question was answered before, then I apologize, because I missed it. This involves the notion that a key is not established before there is a "cadence". Richard, we may have different meanings and this should be cleared up.

As I understand it, "cadence" broadly means that a section, phrase, etc., is either pausing or ending. This pause, ending, (semi-)conclusion is signaled by a number of things. Often the music slows down, and the sudden appearance of a white half note or break in the rhythm is visible to the eye. Sometimes we have a rest in the measure. There is also a chord progression that can go I-V, I-IV (the 'pause' part), or V-I or V-vi for the deceptive cadence.

Note the mention of V-I. The V-I heralds a cadence. But a V-I is not always a cadence. The problem is that when theory books teach about cadences they are lazy, and only mention these chords. Thus what we get stuck in our minds is that the combination of V-I or I-V is cadence, when in fact it can simply be two chords that work well together, but don't herald an ending. We use V-I and "cadence" synonymously, and shouldn't.
---------------------
I think that what Richard is actually saying is that we need something to let us know we are in a given key, settled down into it. This is often done through a series of V-I-V-I-V-I at the start of a new key. the V keeps pointing to the I and finally we "get it" that we're in that I (tonic). If anyone is studying the Sarnecki book, (level 1), there's a lot about "tonic prolongation". Here you are trying to keep the tonic going. some suggestions are:
I I6 (C - C/E)
I viio6 I6 (C - Bdim7/D - C/E)
I V6 I (C - G/B - C)

The idea is that you have something that lets you hover around your tonic chord so that you hear it long enough to get the "C-ness" if it's in C. The reason for the V6 instead of straight V is that you have a gentle bass movement (Bass going C,B,C) which doesn't give a strong cadence (conclusion) feeling.

I think the idea is that you need to get pointed at the tonic for long enough for it to register. It's like those commercials, "We eat JackO's cereals - O - O - O - how good, Jack-O. SO-O-O-O jackilicious, O so good! Want some, Jack? Oh!" The O and Jack stays in your head forever.

I'm a singer, and suspect still function a lot like a singer. Chords don't play much of a role for me when I'm singing. I discovered a few years ago that I had learned something subconsciously that is actually done: bringing the 7 & 8 notes closer to each other than a semitone, and the same for 3 & 4. "Ti Do" slip together, and ditto for "Fa Mi". Of course, the "Ti" has an implied V, and the Fa is also the 7 in a V7. It's a different kind of hearing. I think that it can become confusing when mixing instruments that are so different.

The other thing about hearing is that some of it is subliminal and elusive. We hear things that we don't know we hear, and we don't know how. When we try to be too clinical about it, we can actually drive create roadblocks as well as anxiety. It's like the tale of the millipede that was asked how it kept its feet from tangling up, and then got too mixed up to know how to walk. Hearing has many angles to it, and hearing can also grow when we start pursuing new things in music. Some angles of it are probably personal, and different from one person to the next.

My use of the term thus far has implied a final cadence (perfect or plagal) strong enough to establish key unless I have qualified it as an imperfect, or interrupted cadence - they are the only four terms I normally use to reference a cadence.

A V-I progression is not a cadence except at the end of a phrase when the melody ends on tonic (or in some cases fifth but bass is on tonic root).

When I'm discussing establishment of key I would not consider tonic-dominant harmony enough, on it's own, to establish tonality. If there's a change of key there must be a final cadence in that new key, and usually a new phrase begun in that key, before that new key has been established.

Thank you Richard. It's important to have our terms straight rather than assuming. This is how I learned it too.

Ok, exploring this --- If you're discussing the final cadence, then it is happening at the END of the passage that is in that key. In practical terms in reality, something isn't right here. Music happens in real time moving from now into the future. So going by the idea that the key is established by the final cadence, our listener hears the music, and finally when the cadence comes, he knows what key he was hearing, or what the tonality was. We cannot expect him to then mentally rewind what he just heard, and re-hear it in that key. Hearing music moves forward, in real time.

In analysis we might get a clear sense of what key a section was in once we find the concluding cadence. But in reality, the tonality has been established before that. It has to be. I suggest that the ideas of "extending the I chord" which I brought forth are at least a part of the answer to this.

This is also why I was confused by your initial statement, since for me the tonality is established near the beginning, not at the end. I think that I understand now where you're coming from. I also use the final cadence as part of the process of establishing what key a passage is in.