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Richard, what bothered me yesterday is that a member was quoted but called "parrot". I have mixed feelings about a judgment on opinions being passed, whether "trite", "erudite", "clever", or "stupid". It's a gray area because if it's ok to call something clever, then if someone sees an opinion as trite - maybe that is actually ok.

I've put in my comments before looking at yours, in regards to the same quote. I will use italics to make the two voices more clear.

I believe that "slow and accessible" is a factor and it may be a big factor. "People want to hear it." - now this doesn't cut it for me. Also consider that what gets sold on the marketplace is what the music industry (producers of CDs, records in the old days) deem will sell. I am grateful for the Internet, so that we can finally be exposed to music that has not been deemed "popular" (will sell) and we can finally discover gems we never get to hear.

It's also chicken and egg. If it gets put on the radio, into commercials, and so forth, then it gets to be known, and then it becomes popular because it is known, etc.


As soon as you asked the question, "Why is this piece popular?" we have moved beyond the realms of analysis. Something that might be asked, however, is whether other popular pieces, especially popular among amateur musicians and those who are not deeply into classical music - do they also have these attributes? How about the Pachelbel Canon? Why is the first part of Fuer Elise so popular?


I found several references in my research which stated just that, and which quoted Beethoven. I only did a 5 minute search so this was not even exhaustive.

The concert-goer wasn't, but the families who had pianos in the home were into it. And sheet music sales might well have been it. Beethoven died in 1827. My grandparents were born in the late 1800's. The music I got as a teen came from one grandmother, who was forced to pursue the "gentle arts" such as embroidery, art, and music. All of the music passed on through her was "beautiful" music in easy to play keys, with a relative predictability which made it accessible to the "well brought up young lady".


A pianist cannot just rent a concert hall one day and get an audience. Before the Internet he could not just have his music recorded and sold in the millions in stores all over the country and maybe the world. Somebody has to invest in this pianist, and these decisions are financial marketing decisions. What will sell? "Popularity" is tied to the market, and what gets out there. Or at least it was, before the Net and Youtube.


You asked what makes it popular, and that was answered. I am wondering if you actually intended to ask "What can we find, by analyzing the piece, that may make it appealing?" which is a different kind of question, where perhaps you were trying to lead to particular things.

I do not find the post trite. It led me to do research, and each point led to something which was not uninteresting.



I would like to suggest that as we are all different, we will be interested in different things. If you didn't like the types of answers that Pp gave, then it is ok for you to feel that way. But that's individual. Personally my eyes glaze when I read things like "emotive whimper" and "tug at the emotions". But just because I don't think that way about music doesn't mean that I'm not open to it and ready to consider that way of looking things. So shouldn't other angles that don't resonate with us personally still be allowed in?

Am I right that we decided on the Moonlight Sonata? Shall we get started on it if that is the case? Was part of it discussed previously, and if so, should we start afresh anyway, or link/quote or how shall this be done?

No, I didn't! What I said was...
This is a call to look more closely at the music and then beyond it. The questions are rhetorical...

No, it wasn't! Nowhere did the answer explain what the music itself was doing to merit such popularity!

Telling me it's got a high ratio of chords to melodic or rhythmic complexity gives me absolutely zero information about the musical content and 100% opinion! It was proffered in a way that that should be a conclusion drawn from analysis not as a replacement for it.

What we've been doing here is getting people to extract the data and letting them draw their own conclusions from it not spoon-feeding them answers. We've been teaching analysis as a skill not using it to foist conclusions on those that can't analyse themselves.

Maybe we don't need to look at the music. Perhaps we should be learning marketing so that we can sell melodically simple tunes with dozens of chords and appealing names!


Although there have been no dissenting voices and no-one has thus far suggested alternatives after it's being put forward, I'd wait a while for more affirmation (did Jeff not say he'd be quiet until Sunday?) but if we are going ahead with it I think a fresh start would be in order. I for one have moved on from what I did in August of last year. I've probably learnt as much about theory and analysis as anyone else involved and what I've learned most of is how little I know and how much more there is!

I'd like to know who's following along and whether they're able (or if they want) to do a harmonic analysis. Some may only be interested in a practical discourse for learning the piece.

The first thing I would do is go through the old checklist of composer, title, date (and all that those things imply), key signature, metre, tempo indications (and, again, their implications).

Before looking specifically at the harmony I would look briefly at the scale, dynamics, colour, rhythmic diversity, major landmarks, thematic changes and see if there are any devices, figures or motifs that are discernable to the eye without necessarily understanding or 'hearing' what I'm seeing. In essence, what can I get out of the score from just a brief perusal?

It might be worthwhile listening to the music a few times while following along with the score. Is everyone able to do this?

Would I be right in thinking that most, if not all, of us will be referring to the score rather than just listening to the music?

Harmonic analysis, hooray!

I'm up for all of what you describe, with the exception that I am not one whit interested in analysis for the sake of how to learn the piece. Don't let that stop you from doing it, though.

I'll start out listening without the score, but eventually move to the score.

I had not seen the actual question. I only knew the question had been asked, and therefore answered. But this rhetorical question also makes an assumption that we should assume that the structure of the music is what makes it popular. A rhetorical question can be taken literally, and you shouldn't get upset if it is considered seriously and explored in full, which it was.

I also do not want to accept an assumption as being fact - I would leave the idea of the piece's popularity aside altogether, because I do believe that the reasons mentioned for its popularity have credence. And when we want to understand music, its history etc., these things that were mentioned are important. There was nothing trivial or trite about the answer - it just didn't meet the purpose you had in mind. I'm glad that answer was given.


It gives an answer to the question of its popularity, if your question was taken seriously rather than rhetorical - which it was. That 100% opinion is shared by many people, according to the research I did.

Anyhow, this confusion having been cleared up, let's get to the music.

Oh, gosh, I had no idea my post would be so controversial.
I've decided I'm not going to weigh in further on this particular issue, because I'm not too crazy about talking with someone who has to resort to silly personal insults as a substitute for a coherent argument. Sorry, Richard. Think whatever makes you happy.

Whatever then consensus, I'm in for the Moonlight sonat, if everyone is interested. I absolutely agree with the fresh start.


I'm interested in analysis. By "learning" the piece, is this the definition I'm discovering means "memorizing" music? Or perhaps how to go about practising it until it is mastered? If so, I think here we would venture into a whole other topic which goes into "how to practice a piece of music." That would be too broad, imho, if that's what is meant.


In other words - the general framework that we see immediately upon meeting the piece?


Again an overview. However, I cannot completely divorce what is seen from what is heard. And I'm also not sure that I can divorce these completely from at least some chords, such as cadences for example.

I've highlighted "colour" - what does that mean?


I'm thinking that with a diverse group, different combinations are good for different people depending both on where their strengths are, and what kinds of things they are trying to learn and strengthen. I think that how each person chooses to work will be up to them, but that all of us will be considering both how it sounds and how it is written in one manner or another.

Hi PianoStudent88, basically I only know what we went through in the beginning analysis thread, and really I'd have to go back and review all that before I can say I know it. I checked out the previous Moonlight Sonata analysis thread you posted the link to...just tried to read the first few posts. Hahaha...:P I've only looked at the first few bars and already there is some confusion. I did follow some of what people were saying, but i got confused when things like 'augmented fifths' came up. And then there was discussion about the second half of the third bar. I thought that chord was D major. But then some people thought it was f# minor with an augmented fifth. I have no idea how to understand it that way or what that even means.

Anyway my analyzing is very slow. And to do bar 4, I had to sit at the piano and figure it out that way. I haven't tried bar 5 yet.

I see in that other thread that you've already gone through the whole first movement and named the chords through the piece. So maybe I'll try to go through the piece this way slowly and I can check against that other thread to see how I do in that regard.

As a side note, the Schiff lecture on this Sonata said the first movement was written with the death scene from Mozart's Don Giovanni in mind. huh.

You’re quite right to wonder why one would argue between D/F# and F#m aug5 - it’s a contentious, probably pointless, distinction to try and draw in the context. Certainly D/F# would be fine by me. Perhaps this is a matter of listener perception rather than composer intention? And why would the latter ever hold sway over the former in a discussion about ‘appreciation’? More to the point; does the chord name make a whit of difference to the way the music is perceived?

I should say, while being forever wrapped up in fascination with chordal harmony, I have no interest at all in this broader kind of analysis although I know it’s often cited as useful for those engaged in it.

Incidentally, I’ve never believed that one needs to understand music on any kind of intellectual level to be completely swept away by it, so could anyone explain to me what purpose is served by a visual (score only) analysis of chord structure for those who are not able to hear or recognise or name the chords, or even the chords’ component notes, aurally?

I don't believe that!

You've blundered on these forums with all your erudition and used it with all the diplomacy of a cricket bat on the side of the head. You're a Latinist; you're well capable of understanding and constructing multi-faceted and multi-threaded constructions in English. I cannot excuse your ejaculations as those of an incompetent fool - you're clearly not one.

With 2250+ posts in six months I could even excuse you not taking the time to think before making them and put it down to genuine ignorance. But I don't. I'm not the only one who's noticed so I don't ascribe it to paranoia.

My personal insults are retaliation. I'm just less discrete than you've been.

I'm also a Latinist and well capable of coherent argument. Where I fail, it's because I am an incompetent fool!

You're still welcome on the thread. Don't withhold valuable information from the others because you don't want to deal with me. This is not my thread - it's public domain.

It almost pains me to say it but you do have much to offer in these discussions. Just try not to direct your attacks at me and I'll make no more of it.

It means whatever 'learning' means to you.

I consciously memorise music before I play it. Not everyone does but practise does constitute automatic or involuntary memorisation (otherwise it's rather pointless outside of improving our sight reading).

If someone can't make the stretch of a ninth in M16 I think it's worth addressing the issue here. If we're talking about the climatic phrasing in M24-28 I think it's reasonable to ascertain that the C# at the start of M25 is louder than the B# but should the crescendo make the following C# louder than the B# or just a shade quieter because of its position in the bar.

Also if someone raises an issue that's causing them difficulty playing it I'd be happy to field questions about it.


Colour=chromatics=non-diatonic notes=accidentals.

I was careful to note that this is what I do but let me put it another way.

The first thing I do is listen to the music if it's there for me to hear and look at the score if it isn't, for example, a piece of music that I'm about to sight read.

Many people are advised to look at the key sig, time sig, tempo indications at the start of the piece. For analysis I would suggest composer, title and approximate date would also be very valuable information (they mean something to me, they might not to everybody). What I would look for in the score are landmarks that I (personally) can identify and register. Some of those following may not notice, for example, that the E in M27 is the highest note in the melody and falls between a crescendo and decrescendo. That is significant for me and suggests it's probably the climax of the piece. For someone who doesn't sing that may be less significant. They may not even be looking for a climax.

Whether we hear what we're reading or whether we can't know from the score where we are in the music should not rule out participants still able to follow the music by sound and at least find the bar numbers associated with what they're hearing.

There's no point looking for things that don't mean anything. The greater our knowledge and experience, the more we can pick up from a perusal of the score. Your own checklist will grow over time.

If we know that a baby has big eyes to make it appealing we can make cartoon characters with bigger eyes to make them more appealing. One of the things I want from analysis is to understand WHY I like the piece. What exactly is making the piece appealing. Will knowing that help me write better music that appeals more to me? I hope so.

Understanding the mechanics of what the music is doing helps me appreciate the effects better.

I can't hear the component notes of a chord very well. I know that you can home in on them with laser like precision. Seeing that there's a dissonance or chromaticism on paper helps me listen more carefully and pick it up eventually. It increases my aural skills.

Incidentally, have you always heard with such precision or has it improved from practise and/or training?

The last time we did this we flew through at an alarming rate. I would like to go slower on this iteration and use more of time for other things!

I'd love for you to keep stopping us, Valencia, and allow you to catch up or explain better what's going on and some among us enjoy the explanations. It helps cement things for ourselves, too. If you love this piece I think it'd be good for us to hear your comments on it.

The Guicciardi family believe it to be Beethoven's own requiem music after learning of his deafness and the morbidity of his thoughts at the time. He wrote his Heiligenstadt Testament around the time of this sonata in which he contemplated his own suicide. Countess Julia Guicciardi is the dedicatee.

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Summary - could we stay with analysis and leave personal differences between people aside.

If someone does not yet have this aural ability, is there anything you suggest they do to develop this ability?

The two parts of your statement/question seem unrelated to me. I agree with you that someone doesn't need to understand music intellectually to be swept away by it. But what does that have to do with a separate desire to do to a score-directed harmonic analysis, even if one can't consciously hear or aurally identify the parts of the analysis?

I used to be very score-oriented. I've consciously moved to listening to the piece first, and seeing how much I can say about my response to it and any elements I detect in the music. Then I move to the score. Harmonically, I don't consciously hear nor am I able to aurally name most of what I can visually identify from the score. But that's, in a way, part of the point. I learn things from studying the score that suggest things to listen for in the music. My hope is that my hearing will improve by this kind of guidance. (Honesty compels me to admit that it hasn't happened yet, but hope springs eternal.). But even if I can't hear what I analyse, it gives me pleasure to know about it. For example, I like seeing the regularity with which Clementi uses a certain kind of cadence pattern (to choose an example from my last extended harmonic analysis). I like knowing where the dissonant bits are in Bach's Prelude in C, and using them to shape my dynamics (you may laugh at my inability to hear those bits unaided, and/or at the use of dynamics in Bach, but such is the state of my musicality, or lack of it if you prefer). I like having the harmonic analysis that suggests where a composer is doing something fairly standard or where they are breaking new ground, or where they are being restrained or where they are being wild, and seeing if the score analysis matches up to what I can hear, or if I can develop my hearing to match my sight.

I don't know if you can imagine what it's like to really have such very minimal aural comprehension of basic music theory ideas as I have. For example, I don't consciously hear tonic to dominant movement. Heck, I can't even identify tonic. I can often identify major vs. minor key aurally, but I have no idea how I do it, and I can't do it reliably. I can't identify types of chords aurally, much less the root of an inverted chord. If I didn't examine the score, I would have no idea these things were even there to try to listen for. Perhaps I should be spending more time in listening Purgatory fruitlessly trying to develop my ability to hear these things (but how would I know they were there to be heard if I didn't examine the score?). But I do score analysis because I like knowing that these things are there, even if I can't consciously distinguish them aurally.

I mentioned "listening Purgatory" and want to clarify. I like listening to music. I like thinking about how to put into words what I do hear. But if I try to listen for the standard kinds of things that other people seem to be able to hear, like "did the key change" or "have we returned to the original key" or "what kind of chord progression is being used (or even, did the chord change)", I can't tell if any of those things are happening (except for certain kinds of wrenching modulations, like a sudden move up a step... unlikely in most of the music I listen too). So that just feels exhausting and leaves me feeling stupid and frustrated and takes away from my pleasure in listening to music.

If I started out with any advantage it was a determination to mimic the music I loved at a time when information/scores/transcripts were rare. I toiled for hours on early efforts that would now take me minutes.
Practise and training are everything. And in terms of speed/accuracy there's probably no limit to how skilled one can become. I doubt if I'm realising more than 10% of my potential.



Nothing springs to mind. I'll have a think...



I was thinking there’s a blurring between various kinds of appreciation and that to some extent the intellectual feeds the emotional – there’s nothing new in that, it’s what drives us to understand although there are often times when I would rather just listen and remain intrigued by what I find to be beautiful than to try and deconstruct it.

Of course, I realise for some time you’ve been trying to intuit harmony, I don’t mean to make light of your determination or efforts. In fact, you’ve answered my question; you’re hoping for the penny to drop sooner or later and that’s why you continue with the harmonic analysis. That seems as good a reason as any. I don't know if it will work, or if a more efficient approach exists.



If you can do it at all, that has to be a good start. I don't know how I do it either.



I don't think there's anything unusual in that although it depends on how common the chord is. Roots can be difficult too.



Surely hearing a piece of music presents you with things to listen for whether you have the score or not?



How about starting a thread inviting ideas to improve these aural skills? I suspect most PW members are in much the same boat, up or down-stream.

Yes, but not very many analytical things. On first several listens, I'm just listening. Eventually, I might start recognizing themes, for example after several listens I noticed that the slow part in the first movement of the Pathetique returns part way through. Now I wonder if that's the linchpin of the start of the recapitulation in a sonata-allegro form movement, so the next time I listen I might see if I can hear those parts: Exposition with first theme, second theme, repeat. Development, identifiable as the part that follows the part that repeated. Recapitulation, identifiable as the part that sounds like the beginning again. Key or modulation won't be any kind of aural guide for me in this most likely, except that I might be able to hear a slight dislocation at the start of the development, depending on how it changes key. But I won't be able to tell you what key it changed to. That's about all I can notice aurally.

[ETA: I know we're doing Moonlight, not Pathetique. Pathetique is just an example that I've listened to several times recently.]

Another reason I like harmonic analysis from the score is that it shows me the notes aren't just random. Also it explains a lot of the accidentals in the score. Also, there's just an intellectual pleasure in knowing the structure of a piece even if I can't hear it.

I'm thinking about the suggestion to start an aural skills thread. In some ways this ties into a discussion I'm having elsewhere about harmony textbooks and their usefulness or uselessness -- or at least, their severe limitations. I fear the answer for aural skills might just be what you have said you did: a long apprenticeship of working things out aurally at the piano (at least, that's how I understood what you to be saying). And I'm really slow and incompetent at that and don't enjoy doing it. Which won't change the laws of the universe if that's the only way to improve, alas.

Developing aural skills thread started.

Moonlight Sonata - A Starter
(Opus 27, No. 2 - 1st movement

This is for those who are relatively new to this - which was indicated a while back - for orientation. (Hoping this will work).

I looked back at the original thread on the sonata. I think it was done before we ever looked at musical form, sonata form - I see it starts off with chords right away. We've talked about starting fresh, and that seems like a good idea.

As per its name, this is a sonata, consisting of several movements (as sonatas do), and the first movement is in sonata form. Knowing this will help us orient in the piece, so here is a refresher on:

sonata form.
This is the form of the movement. It has three main parts:
a) Exposition - where two or more themes are set up
b) Development - where the composer gets creative with some of the material
c) Recapitulation - where we go back to the original themes. In the simplest earlier sonatas theme 1 is in the main key, theme 2 is in the dominant (V) key or relative major/minor on the exposition, and then in the Recap. both themes stay in the main key. In earlier simpler works, the Recap. is basically identical to the Exp. except for this difference in keys. Later on, the composer plays with the material in the Recap.

I'd go for finding the three sections first, and especially finding the Recap. The piece is in C# minor which you can get by the opening chords where we have C#m chords together with G#7 chords. The telltale accidentals of B# give a visual clue that we are probably in a minor key, gotten at a glance. Of course pieces modulate, and this one does.

You'll find the first theme coming in at the end of m. 5, in the melody, with the very familiar "dummmm da/daaaaaaa" (dotted 1/8, 16th, dotted half). The whole is introduced with broken chords setting the mood.

Scoot over to measure 42. We get some chords, and there is our "dummmm da/daaaaaaa". M. 42 & 43 have the same notes and rhythms as m. 5 & 6. Going through it a bit more you'll conclude that the Recap starts at m. 42, which also marks the end of the Development.

So that can get you started at least for a framework:
Exposition: at the beginning, of course.
Recapitulation: from m. 42 and on
I have the Development marked at m. 28. For those who know the piece, is there agreement?

Does this help for starters?

Thanks keystring this is helpful.

So the dominant (V) of C sharp minor is....G#....major or minor?

If the first theme is in C sharp minor, then at the end of bar 5 here the first theme starts, I can see this is C# minor .But then what happens in bar 6 where the triplet changes to G#, D# and F#? (and then beneath it where there is the chord with the B#s in there.)

The theme will be repeated again in the exposition but in the key of the dominant (V) so that will be G# (major or minor)? But instead in Bar 10 I see the theme repeated with a G natural, B, and E. hmmm. what is happening here?

Then it repeats again at bar 24 only this time on a C# instead of a G# and the triplet is C#, A, F#.

I have to figure out what all these chords and keys are because I don't know off the top of my head.

Your guess that the development starts at bar 28 sounds good to me, since the musical form seems to change up there.