Search results

On another forum, I just had a big fight with another contributor over how the last movement of the Tchaikovsky piano concerto shoud be analyzed. Before I give you his opinion and mine, I would like a third opinion. What form do YOU think it's in? What form do other analysts think it's in...

We often hear concerto grosso defined as a concerto for two or more instruments. Yet Bach and Vivaldi both composed concerti for two or more instruments, and neither of them ever used the term. Note that both composers always wrote their concertos in three movements--fast-slow-fast. Handel...

I am reading a book written by an author who criticizes popular music for "its constand reversion to the tonic, the insistent repetition of its rhythms, the inevitability of its melodic lines, its extreme harmonic poverty." (Bachmann, M-L. (Parlett, D., transl) [1991] 2002. Dalcroze today: An...

In sociolinguistics class, I wrote a term paper on stylized spoken intonation in the American English language. In case you're interested, here it is: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/int1.jpg http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v500/pentatonika/int2.jpg...

I would like for one member to compose a theme, and the rest of us will write variations on that theme. I am curious to see what we will come up with. I tried this on a newsgroup. One member wrote a theme, but I was the only one who wrote variations on the theme. I hope for better luck this time.

After a lifetime of hearing the name of Domenico Alberti (c. 1710-c. 1740) associated with the Alberti bass, but never hearing any of his work, I grew curious. So I ordered a photocopy of his 8 keyboard sonatas from the Library of Congress. I chose a couple of the sonatas which I thought were...

According to Hindemith, every good melody which has ever been written has been a variation of the ascending one-octave scale. In "The Craft of Musical Composition," he analyzes several melodies as such. I wonder what Hindemith would think of songs which follow the one-octave ascending scale by...

My battery-operated metronome, as well as ticking even quarter notes, can sound pitches to tune to. To play a pitch a semitone lower, turn counterclockwise. To play a pitch a semitone higher, turn clockwise. That means that the metronome is a musical instrument capable of playing any melody...

I apologize for the state of the manuscripts of "We are the Champions." I copied the song from a recording. It was for my job at an English school in Korea. Throughout the stanza, which lasts for the first four lines, the chordal accompaniment consists of intermittent chords, interspersed with...

I don't know why, but I'm intrigued by the trick of entering a restatement or recapitulation through a sneaky side path, and at a time when a first-time listener would least expect it. In the Mendelssohn violin concerto, the development section ends with an unaccompanied solo passage. The...