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The Lili Marlene discussion is already pretty well underway, so I say start a new thread with the next piece.

I also prefer individual threads to focus on specific pieces rather than concepts for all the reasons you mention. Doing so will provide enough of a framework for people at all levels to meet and have something discuss, but still allow for chasing rabbits, as my teacher calls it. Lots of rabbits to be chased in any discussion involving music theory/analysis ...

If the threads are intended to "build" from one to another (perhaps posing more difficult pieces of music as we go along?), then, yes, numbering would be very useful. And it can't hurt, even if people don't chose to read them "in order." I suspect there's going to be lots of repetition of the basics in each thread, and people are certainly free to focus on the pieces that interest them.

I do recommend that the first numbered thread be 01 not 02, and that the first post include a big bold statement that the conversation started in this thread (linked, of course). That way, people can read this conversatin, know why we're creating numbered individual threads, and all that ... and we're not constantly responding to posters who write, "I can't find Analysis_01. Is there an 01? Where's 01?!"

We discussed having separate threads before this was set up, and we discussed it again at the beginning. Various people were against it, which is why we have this format. Over in the Sonata thread we have successfully used the bold feature to highlight the name of the piece being discussed. I'm behind about 3 pieces over there, so I'll be using the feature liberally.

The suggestion for separate threads keeps coming up from participants, and the preference for one thread seems to only come from a few of the thread organizers, so that is why I have changed my mind and think we should switch to separate threads.

I think if you use separate threads, more people will get involved. When you see a mile long thread, I think people shy away.

Some pieces people will pass on and when a popular piece shows up people will dive in...

my 2 cents...

To the newcomers - welcome - and are there any questions about what has been discussed so far?

That's my feeling, too. Some find it daunting to dive into a long thread just as a reader. Posting is another challenge, especially if one wants to respond to statements that were made many pages earlier. Not everyone is comfortable posting several topics behind the discussion, or is willing to wade through numerous posts about more recent topics in the hope of finding possible responses to their late post on the earlier topic. (Darn, that was a crazy sentence, huh? I hope it makes sense.)

PianoStudent88: You mentioned thread "organizers." Besides you and keystring, I gather, who's going to be running this show? Can general participants, particularly beginners who can't necessarily lead the discussion, recommend/provide musical selections for analysis?

"Organizers" is probably a poor and misleading choice of words. Before I kicked this off, I checked in with keystring, Richard (zrtf90) and Greener, as the most active people on the other analysis thread. The shape of the OP was entirely at my own instigation.

Everyone is welcome to join in both asking questions and giving answers, and also suggesting pieces to look at. I have a general idea in mind of topics that approximately build on each other which I would like to work into some progression of pieces.

It's wonderful how much thought and care you're putting into this PianoStudent88 ... or may I call you 88?

I'm more excited about this thread than anything else on PW. Although I arrived late and didn't post anything about "Happy Birthday," I had a lot of fun analyzing it -- and was ridiculously proud of sorting out all the various bits correctly. That may sound like a small victory, but it means that my teacher's very patient and repetitious explanations of time signatures, key signatures, inversions, what turns a G maj. chord into a G7 chord, etc. is starting to percolate through my apparently rock-hard brain. Halleluiah!

Lili Marlene



Thanks for your help Greener. I was playing the chords exactly as they were written on the score. but today tried to play them in broken chord form just for fun (since I'm doing song without words 85/1 for the recital which has lots of broken chords in it). I see now how I can move the notes in the chord around slightly and it still sounds ok with the melody (as in change their position octavewise on the keyboard). I'll give the video a listen to all the variations.

That's right. I'll do the bar 10 - 11 fix tomorrow. That appears to be the last of the fixes.

Yes, it's already happened. Lili Marlene was all my fault. ;-)

Lili Marlene, final (I hope?) corrected version


Here it is, very possibly the final corrected version of Lili Marlene

The following link is *NOT* me playing -- it's the digital output from the MuseScore program saved as MP3:

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Norbert_Schultze_Lili_Marlene_C_GS_Analysis2d.mp3

And here's the corresponding PDF:

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Norbert_Schultze_Lili_Marlene_C_GS_Analysis2d.pdf

Lili Marlene

thanks for uploading this recent version john.

I noticed when playing it at the piano that in many places, the chords that are "7" chords could also be played just as regular chords without it sounding wrong. Are the 7th chords mostly to add richness to the sound? The one in the LH at the end of bar 7 sounds like it shifts the sound, but for example, in bar 5, when I play that Dm chord without the 7, it sounds ok to me too.

Also, in measure 6, the second chord is listed as being a D minor chord. Could it also still be played as a G major chord? (I know the first chord in that bar is a G7, but I was just playing it as a G major and it sounded alright to me...).

JohnSprung, I notice that on the C#dim chord, it's labeled as ii/vii°. That should be vii°/ii. (I wonder if I typed it wrong when I answered your original question about it.)

I would add the "7" notation to the Roman numeral notation for all the 7 chords e.g. ii7, V7. Without the 7 it implies a triad.

Valencia, I think sometimes the 7 is there for colour, and sometimes it's there for a specific effect of leading to the next chord.

For an example of the specific effect of leading to the next chord, look at the C7 in m.7 followed by F in m.8. The C7 includes the notes E and Bb. The interval between these notes is known as a "diminished fifth" and Western harmony of a certain era treats it as an unstable interval, that wants to change, or "resolve", to some pair of notes forming a different, more settled, interval. (Even earlier Western music didn't permit that interval at all.) In this case, the Bb in the C7 chord moves down a half-step to A in the F chord, and the E in the C7 chord moves up a half-step to F in the F chord. This creates a very stable sense of arriving at the F chord.

For another example, look at G7 in m.14 followed by C in m. 15. The diminished fifth this time is between the notes B and F. The F in the G7 chord moves down a half-step to the E in the C chord, and the B in the G7 chord moves up a half-step to the C in the C chord. This creates a very stable sense of conclusion.

Series of chords that end a phrase are called a cadence, and this is a "V7-I" cadence. It is very very common. You probably recognize the sound, even if you haven't studied the details of it before.

Diminished fifths: play the notes B and F. Play them together and separately. Can you hear that this sounds different from the sound of B followed by F#, or B together with F#? If you've been working with the major triads that keystring described (all-white, oreos, reverse oreos, etc.) you may recognize B-F# as the outside of the B major triad BD#F#. This is a "perfect fifth": F# is the fifth letter over from B, and there are 7 half-steps from B to F#. Now look at B-F. F also counts as "the fifth letter over from B", but there are only 6 half-steps from B to F. This is a "diminished fifth", and it's always one half-step smaller than a perfect fifth.

In the same way, explore the diminished fifth E-Bb, compared to the perfect fifth E-B (which is the outside of the E major triad EG#B).

What other perfect fifths and diminished fifths can you find at the keyboard? Listen to them. (One way to find perfect fifths is as the outside notes of any major or minor triad in root position.)

Hi All,
I'd like to join this discussion, but it will take me a while to catch up
(I just finished page 1 of 9). Is there a way to "bookmark" my place in the forum?

I don't know whether y'all covered this yet,
but my pet peeve with sheet music is that it doesn't match the "poetry" of the music;
instead, it's printed like "prose".

For example, most songs use 4-bar phrases,
but most publishers just put as many bars on a line as will fit,
regardless of where the music phrases break.

So when I "analyze" a piece, one of the first things I do is break it up into phrases,
and if I'm really motivated, I'll put it in an editor
and reprint it with line breaks matching the phrase breaks.

BTW, as for songs, I've been thinking of creating a list of "10 songs everyone should know."
Happy Birthday was #1 on my list, along with your national anthem, your school song,
maybe some songs for popular holidays, etc.
In other words, if you were the only piano player at a social gathering,
what songs would you most likely be asked to play?

Are 7th's really absolutely necessary? Sometimes. But sometimes you can get away with dropping back to a simple triad, and as you observed, it's not so bad.

Consider Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", bars 9 and 10, the lyrics "tree tops glisten". The first three notes have E for the melody line, and the chords go C, CMaj7, C7. The only change is that the second time you have a B, and the third time a B flat, added to what you started with. Just plain C all three times wouldn't be nearly as good.

The same thing happens the other way. I sometimes catch myself adding a 7th where only a triad is written. That happens a lot with the ii chord, playing ii7 (Dm7 in this case) instead.

In addition to 7ths, there are some less frequently added notes, 9ths, 11ths, 13ths, that you can also get away with dropping in some cases. The higher the number, the less it seems to matter.

Staying on G7 instead of going to the Dm kinda works in bar 6. The main reason to go to Dm is that there's also G7 ahead of this in bar 5 and after it in bar 7, which gets to be monotonous, like a bagpipe drone. If you hold down all the keys for G7 and Dm above it, you'll notice that it's just every other white key from G up past the octave to an A, which is a G9 chord. So, what you have are two subsets of that bigger G9. It's sort of a bigger version of the "Oom Pah" trick of playing the root, then going to the third and fifth, and back to the root.


(Edit: I'm just assuming here that everybody knows Irving Berlin's music. But am I wrong about that?)

I'll put those fixes into the files.

Perhaps it's worth noting that the diminished fifth works out to be the same as an augmented fourth. A fifth plus a fourth adds up to an octave, as does a fourth plus a fifth. This weird diminished fifth/augmented fourth is exactly in the middle of the octave. It's also sometimes called a Tritone.

Lili Marlene, final (I hope?) corrected version


Here it is again, with PS88's corrections to the Roman numerals.

The following link is *NOT* me playing -- it's the digital output from the MuseScore program saved as MP3:

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Norbert_Schultze_Lili_Marlene_C_GS_Analysis2e.mp3

And here's the corresponding PDF:

http://www.pianoworld.com/Uploads/files/Norbert_Schultze_Lili_Marlene_C_GS_Analysis2e.pdf

Lili Marlene 2e
RE: the C#dim chord in M13.
I thought someone earlier called it #Idim7 or #io7 rather than viio.
The sharp i makes more sense to me since the bass is ascending from C to D,
rather than descending to B. Besides, wouldn't the other alternative have to be a flat seven, since the chord tone is Bb, but the seventh note of C major is B natural.
I may be confused about Roman Letter chord names,
especially in an example like this, where essentially all four notes are modified (vs. the C triad):
raised root, minor 3rd, dim fifth, and dom 7th.

A partial answer to Tinman

We have movement going on. The primary movement is V7-I, which is G7 to C at the end of the piece. Going backward, you have Dm7 to G7. In the circle of fifths, D is the dominant chord of G major or minor, and even if it is Dm here because it is staying diatonic (keeping the notes of the key signature) it is giving that sense of movement. Then going back further, you have this C#dim. C#dim is the viio chord of D major or minor which is also a movement. C#dim also constitutes the top notes of A7 (AC#EG) which is the V7 of D major or minor. So the viio/ii reflects that. You almost have a V/V/V (A7 is V/D, D is V/G, G is V/C) all of which creates a movement leading to resolution.

Meanwhile - in regards to the C#dim - It's breaking the rule or advice to avoid having diminished chords (viio) in root position. Does it sound odd or ok here?