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Classical Music
for
Young Musicians
Jaime Kardontchik
2
Foreword to the abridged book
At the end of my previous book, “Modulation in classical music”, under the heading
“Some thoughts” , I wrote “… teachers have so many simple and nice classical pieces
of so many composers (as well as popular folklore music) available to them as an
infinite source for Modulation Puzzles, that finding the right assignments for every kid
would not be a problem”.
Well, it turned out that it was a problem: The general feedback I got from teachers was
that – although they liked my book – they would like to have a second book ready,
directed to and useful for their main audience, which were children and teenagers.
This was the origin of “Modulation in classical music for young musicians”. I enjoyed
every beat and every note while writing this new book. But it was also a lot of work. And
– as every musician and performer knows very well – work should be paid, even if they
enjoy teaching, playing and performing.
“Modulation in classical music for young musicians” is available through Amazon and
IngramSpark. The paperback ISBN number is: 978-1545063576. The hardcover ISBN
number is: 978-0692874431.
However, I consider the abridged version of the book that is offered here, without
chapters 2-5, as of independent value by itself. It is directed to a general audience of
people who love music. As it is clear from Chapter 1, I would like to reset the direction of
music teaching for the next generation. Chapter 6 – which is also included in the
abridged book – is more explicit regarding the way to achieve this. Many may find this
objective pretentious, but life taught me that one should always aim high (“aim to the
moon”) if you want to achieve something – even small.
3
Preface
How come a physicist is writing a book on Music (and using the language of Music and
not the language of Physics)? Classical Music and Classical Mechanics share a lot in
common. The simple rules of Galileo and Newton (F = ma) explain why we can sip our
coffee at pleasure without spilling it while riding on a high-speed train. These same rules
enabled us to reach the Moon. The simple rules of Classical Music enable us to
compose from simple tunes for one instrument to complex symphonies combining
orchestras and the human voice that we enjoy listening again and again.
Chapter 1 of this book explains in plain words and tones the rules of Classical Music. Its
intended audience is everyone who is interested in music, from children to adults. It is
the same chapter that you will find in my previous book, “Modulation in classical music –
from piano to string quartets”. But from Chapter 2 and on the two books are completely
different, because they address different audiences. The audience for “Modulation in
classical music for young musicians” is from children in the last years of Elementary
School to teenagers attending Middle and High School. The book is intended both for
piano students and for students playing any other “classical” instrument, like the violin or
the clarinet. If you know what a “scale” is and you play scales on your instrument – then
you are ready to read and understand this book.
4
Contents [unabridged]
Introduction 10
Chapter 2: Bach
Abstract 41
Introduction 42
5
Chapter 3: “Papa” Haydn
Abstract 89
Introduction 90
Chapter 5: Mozart
Abstract 151
Introduction 152
6
5.1.3 – 3rd movement: Presto 160
5.2 – Mozart – Sonata in F Major K 280 168
5.2.1 – 1st movement: Allegro assai 168
5.2.2 – 2nd movement: Adagio 172
5.2.3 – 3rd movement: Presto 173
5.3 – Mozart – Sonata in Bb Major K 333 175
5.3.1 – 1st movement: Allegro 175
5.3.2 – 2nd movement: Andante cantabile 185
5.3.3 – 3rd movement: Allegretto grazioso 192
7
8
Chapter 1: The theory
Abstract
© 2017 Jaime E Kardontchik. “Modulation in Classical Music for young musicians”, Chapter 1.
9
Introduction
What makes a collection of notes a good piece of music, something that gets stuck in
our brain? Why is it that we keep listening and enjoying the music of Bach, Mozart and
Beethoven – composers long dead two hundred years ago? What makes a piece of
music memorable? Is musical creativity an innate property – an ability that some people
have and most do not? Or can be nurtured? If so, what could be taught and how? Is
musical composition different from, say, writing a novel?
Of course, a good composer, as well as a good novelist, has something original to say,
otherwise people would not listen to him/her. But, besides the fact that one uses letters
(consonants and vowels) and the other uses tones, the process of becoming a good
composer (in writing or in tones) is similar: 1) read (or listen to) the works of good
writers (or musicians) and learn from them, 2) study the basic rules of grammar (how to
build a correct phrase and how to move from one sentence to the next) and 3)
experiment and try a lot until you break the barrier and begin producing consistently
good results.
It is a fact that we have been blessed by good writers during the last several centuries
and when we want to suggest a good reading to a young person we do not have to go
back to Cervantes or Shakespeare: there are good enough writers in the 20th century
and today to choose from. Unfortunately, this has not been the fate of the “serious”
music (the music that we hear in the concert halls).
The premise of this book is that the culprit for this failure in the field of music lies in the
second pillar: the grammar. The grammar of speech has been quite steady for the last
several centuries. Even more, if anything, it has evolved towards simplification and
unification. This has enabled generations of pedagogues to codify it in simple rules and
teach them to the next generations, creating a positive feedback that brought new good
novelists and writers to the field.
The grammar of music went in the opposite direction: it became more and more
complex, with more and more rules to include the diverging compositional caprices of
each and every new composer that became the favorite of the day. As a result, if you
open today a book on modern Harmony (Harmony is the grammar of music), you are
lost immediately in an almost infinite jargon of words difficult to comprehend and
useless to help you in your main objective: composing music or teaching a new
generation of children how to compose music (or how to speak with tones.) We will try
to restore in this chapter the broken link with the classical great composers.
10
The grammar of classical music
1.1 - The major keys
You are probably already familiar with scales. Figure 1.1 shows the scale of C Major. It
consists of seven tones (for convenience we have repeated the first tone at the end,
one octave higher.)
The first tone of the scale is called the ‘tonic’, in this case the tone C, and it gives its
name to the scale. This is a very peculiar way to build a scale. It was invented (or
perfected) by musicians around the 18th century as a good compromise that offered
both enough simplicity, on the one hand, and flexibility, on the other, to build (compose)
complex works of music. If we look at a keyboard, notice that there is no key between
the E and F and similarly between the B and C at the end. The ‘distance’ between them
is a minimum. This distance is called a ‘semitone’ or ‘half-tone’. The distance between
all other consecutive notes in the scale is double: 2 semitones or, simply a ‘whole tone’.
For instance, the distance between the D and the E is 2 semitones, because looking at
the keyboard we see that between them there is another note (a black key in this case).
Since there are 12 tones in an octave (7 white keys plus 5 black keys), we can build 12
major scales in the same way keeping the same distance between tones as in the scale
of C Major. For instance, Figure 1.2 shows the scale of D Major:
Notice that we have kept the same relative distances between successive tones. For
instance, the distance between the 3rd and 4th tone (F# and G, respectively) is again
one semitone, as it was in the scale of C Major. If you are going to write a long piece
based on the scale of D Major (or, musicians will say: based on the D Major key) adding
a sharp sign every time that an F or a C appear becomes a tedious matter, so we just
put the sharps signs at the beginning of the staff at their correct position, a notation
meaning that, from now on, any time you see an F or a C in the score we really mean
11
F# and C#, respectively. Figure 1.3 shows the same scale in D Major using this short-
hand style:
Notice the apparent similarity of the D Major scale (compared to the reference C Major
scale) when one moves the sharps to the beginning of the staff. Using this shorthand
notation (putting the sharp – or flat - signs at the beginning of the staff), it is easy to
write down the 12 possible Major scales: Each one begins with a different tone (one of
the 12 possible tones) and is modeled on the C Major scale. They are all shown in
Figure 1.4 and Figure 1.5 and in an order that has become ‘standard’ in music: In Figure
1.4, we begin with the C tone (C Major scale) and we progress in jumps of 5ths adding
one sharp at a time to get the scales of G Major, D Major, …, C# Major. The scale of C#
Major has 7 sharps. We can also go back in 5th intervals and begin adding flats instead
of sharps. In this case we get the scales of F Major, Bb Major, Eb Major and Ab Major,
as shown in Figure1.5.
12
Figure 1.4b: (from top to bottom): Major scales in E, B, F# and C#
But why stop here? Why not move another 5th and add another flat to get the Db
Major? But we already created 12 scales based on the 12 keys of the keyboard. It does
not seem logical that we would get a ‘new’ different 13th Major scale. And as we will see
13
immediately, this intuition is correct. Figure 1.6 (top) shows this ‘new’ scale in Db Major.
Figure 1.6 (bottom) shows the previously created scale in C# Major.
Figure 1.6: top: the new scale in Db Major. Bottom: the scale in C# Major
Musicians have summarized in a graphic way, called the “Circle of Fifths”, the property
that we fall back into an existing scale if we try to add more flats. The “Circle of Fifths” is
shown in Figure 1.7.
14
Figure 1.7: The Circle of Fifths for the Major Keys
Notice that if we jump clockwise around the circle, adding a flat after the key of Ab Major
in order to get the Db Major key, we “fall” instead into the key of C# Major: we do not get
a new scale neither we go “off a cliff”. Similarly, if we jump counterclockwise by a 5th
and add a sharp after the key of C# Major, the new key, G# Major, happens to be
identical to the existent key of Ab Major.
There is nothing magical or divine in this Circle of Fifths. It is just a nice diagram that
summarizes how to build 12 similar Major scales based on the scale of C Major. Again,
by ‘similar’ we mean that the intervals between successive notes in the scales are
similar to the corresponding intervals in the scale of C Major. Why jump by 5ths? Why
not use any other interval for the jump? Why not begin with the scale of C Major and
jump only a 2nd interval to begin a scale in D Major adding only one sharp? Because it
won’t work: you will not get a new scale similar to the C Major scale. If you want to get
all the 12 major scales by adding each time just only one sharp (or, if you decide
instead to go the other way and add instead flats), the only way to obtain similar scales
– with similar intervals between their notes - is to go in jumps of fifths.
One could now begin composing music based on a single key. For instance, Figure 1.8
shows the first sentence of Mozart’s piano sonata in C Major.
15
Figure 1.8: Mozart piano sonata in C Major, K 545, 1st movement
If you ever played the piano you surely played this sonata. What do we mean when we
say that a piece of music is written in the key of C Major? Simply: that the melody (and
its accompaniment) uses only the seven tones found in the scale of C Major. Figure 1.9
shows another example, this time in G Major, from Beethoven’s piano sonata Op 49 No
2, which, most probably you played as well.
16
becoming repetitious and dull? Well, if we always talk in the seven notes of C Major we
will end up losing the attention of our audience. In classical music this is done in two
interrelated ways: First, we built an expectation that something is going to happen. And
then we move to another key to continue our story. In music this is called “modulation”.
We create the expectation that something is going to happen by using the 7th chord.
Each major key has a combination of four tones that is unique to the key and you will
not find in other keys. Before entering into the explanation of the feeling of expectation,
let us first explain how to build this chord. We will explain how to build this chord in the
key of C Major. The procedure of building the 7th chords in the other keys is exactly the
same. The simplest explanation of how to define (or build) this chord is graphical. Figure
1.10 shows again the scale of C Major with some other continuation tones in the next
octave.
Figure 1.10: how to build the 7th chord in the C Major key
The 7th chord is built by choosing the 5th tone of the scale (in this case the G) and piling
up on top of it three tones selected by skipping each time one tone of the scale. The
bottom tone of the chord, in this case G, is called the ‘root’ of the chord. The resulting
chord is shown in Figure 1.11.
We call the chord as the ‘7th chord’ because if we align all the sounds of the scale
between the root of the chord (the G in this case) and its top (the F) we get 7 tones (see
Figure 1.12)
Figure 1.12: There are 7 tones between the root of the chord (G) and its top tone (F)
For the same reason, we call the B tone ‘the 3rd of the chord’, or simply ‘the 3rd’, we call
the D tone ‘the 5th of the chord’, or simply ‘the 5th’ and – although it might sound
17
confusing – we also call the F tone ‘the 7th of the chord’, or simply ‘the 7th’ (this may be
confusing at first look, because the whole chord is called the ‘7th chord’, but depending
on the context in which it is used it will be clear when we refer to ‘the 7th’ as the tone on
top of the chord or ‘the 7th’ as the complete chord itself).
The same procedure is used to build the 7th chord in all the other keys. Let us take, for
example, the key of E Major. Figure 1.13 shows the scale of E Major with some added
tones in the second octave:
Figure 1.13: How to build the 7th chord in the key of E Major
Figure 1.14 shows the resulting 7th chord in the key of E Major.
The 7th chord is unique to a key. Why do we say this? Let us take, for example, the 7th
chord of the C Major key (Figure 1.11, repeated here to have it at hand):
Why do we say that this chord is unique to the key of C Major? Well, on one hand it has
an F without a sharp: hence this chord cannot belong to any Major key that has sharps.
Notice that all the keys that have sharps (G Major, D Major, etc.) include at least the F#
in their scales. Hence, the F without a sharp cannot belong to any of these keys. On the
other hand, this chord also includes a B: this rules out all the keys that have flats (F, Bb,
Eb and Ab), since all of them use the B flat (‘Bb’) tone instead of the B. In summary, you
can never see this chord in any other Major key, except the key of C Major.
Once we defined how to build the 7th chord in the key of C Major it is easy to write down
the 7th chord in all the other keys. Figure 1.15 shows, for example, the 7th chords in the
keys of a Bb, F, C, G and D Major.
18
Figure 1.15: The 7th chords in the keys of Bb, F, C, G and D Major
Since the 7th chords will be used to move (‘modulate’) from one key to another within
the same piece, it is better this time to put them together under one key, with the sharps
and flats included as necessary, so you get used to their appearance. This is shown in
Figure 1.16.
We showed before that the 7th chord in the key of C cannot appear in any other key.
The same is true for all the other 7th chords. For instance, let us look at the 7th chord of
D Major (the last chord in Figure 1.15 or 1.16). It has a C# tone. Hence, we can rule out
all the keys with flats and also the keys of C and G that do not have a C# tone in their
scales. What about the other keys that have sharps, the keys of D, A, E, B, F# and C# ?
Well, we also see that this chord has a G tone: This rules out the keys of A, E, B, F#
and C# that have a G# tone in their scales. Hence, the only key where this 7th chord fits
is the key of D Major.
Notice that when trying to find out to which key a 7th chord belongs to, we only looked at
its 3rd and 7th tones. So, if we really are looking for what is the simplest chord that can
tell us in what key we are (or towards which key we want to move if we want to
modulate to another key in the middle of a piece), we really do not need a chord
consisting of 4 tones: 2 tones are enough: the 3rd and 7th tones of the 7th chord. The 3rd
and 7th tones of the 7th chord are the most important tones of this chord. They tell us in
which key we are or, if we wish to continue the piece in another key, they can be used
as indicators of which direction are we heading to.
19
sentence written in the key of C Major to our next sentence written in the key of G
Major? We first create the expectation that something is going to happen by introducing
something unexpected, something that does not belong to the previous sentence, at
least one tone that does not belong to the original key of C Major. But we do not only
want to suggest that change is coming but also point out in which direction we are going
to go. Classical musicians found – from their experience – that the best way to achieve
these two goals is by using the 7th chord of the new key, in this case the G Major. This
chord has an F# note, that clearly does not belong to the original C Major key. The ear
(and the brain) is a very sensitive device and this F# - that does not belong to the
hitherto discourse - will immediately grab the attention of the listener. And by using all
the four tones of the 7th chord, that are all tones that belong to the G Major key, it will
also signal the direction we are going to, providing a smooth transition to the new key.
Bach shows us the way in, perhaps, his most famous and popular piece: the first
prelude in the first book of his Well-Tempered Clavier (see Figure 1.17).
20
The piece begins in the key of C Major (we do not see any sharp or flat at the beginning
of the staff and all the notes in the first few bars clearly belong to the C Major key.) But
in bar 6 unexpectedly an F# tone appears, repeated four times, once in every beat of
the bar. The F# tone clearly does not belong to the C Major key. But where is the 7th
chord? Well, we usually do not play all the four tones of the chord at the same time: it
would be too rude for such a delicate melody. We play them, instead, one after another
(this is called an “arpeggio”). If you look at the first beat in bar 6 (include both the treble
and the bass staff) you will find the four tones of the 7th chord in the key of G Major.
They do not have to be in the same order as the chord, D – F# – A – C, from root to top.
In a piece they are usually not. In our case, the C appears first (in the bass) followed by
the D, F# and A in the treble staff. To be sure that the listener does not miss it, Bach
repeats the 7th chord in the second, third and fourth beats in the same bar. And then, in
bar 7 we are already in the new key, the key of G Major. And if you look carefully at bar
7 it is almost a repetition of the 1st bar of the piece, transposed from C Major to G Major.
That is, it is a retelling of the story with slight nuanced changes, to avoid making it
repetitive, but at the same time, close enough to the original melody to keep intact the
core of the story the composer wanted to convey.
21
1.4 - The minor keys
We can create a lot of good music using the twelve major keys and their respective 7th
chords. However, if we would like to convey also dark feelings and extreme emotions
or, quite simply, noble and elevated feelings, writing pieces exclusively in the Major
keys will not do the job: Melodies written in the Major keys are too “bright”. Hence,
classical musicians also added 12 minor keys. The reference minor key – from which all
the other minor keys are derived – is the A minor key, whose scale is shown in Figure
1.18.
This scale looks initially similar to the scale in C Major, except that it has a G# instead of
a G, but the relative distances between successive tones are completely different. In the
C Major key we had a relative distance of one semitone between the 3rd and 4th tones
and between the 7th and 8th tones (the last being the repetition of the tonic tone), with all
the other distances being whole tones. Here, in the A minor scale, the semitone
distances are between the 2nd the 3rd tones, between the 5th and 6th tones and we have
an additional semitone distance between the 7th and 8th tones. Furthermore, between
the 6th and 7th tones (F and G#) the distance is three semitones! Quite a different
creature compared to the C Major scale. If you play this scale you will notice
immediately that it sounds completely different from the C Major scale.
All the other minor scales are obtained – similar to the Major keys – by jumping in
intervals of 5th in one direction to add sharps or in the opposite direction to add flats.
The results are shown in Figure 1.19 for the sharp keys and in Figure 1.20 for the flat
keys.
22
Figure 1.19: The minor scales in A, E, B, F#, C#, G#, D# and A#.
A cross-like sign before a tone, like xG in the last scale in A# minor, means technically a
double sharp: xG =G##. But G## = A. One could have just written an A instead of xG.
But this would have destroyed – at least formally – the way we define and build the
scale in a key, moving one tone after the other without skipping any tone. Furthermore,
if a composer is writing a melody in the key of A# minor, he would prefer to write down
the tone as xG, instead of A, because it clearly indicates then to the reader the key he is
23
using in his piece. An A tone in the written score would appear as a foreign tone to the
key of A# minor (although it is not, and the ear does not care: for the ear an A and a xG
are the same)
A new sign appears in the 7th tone of the scales of C and F minor: it is not a sharp
neither a flat. It is called a “natural”. The “natural” before a note means: just play the
plain tone, in this case B (for the scale of C minor) or E (for the scale of F minor). As it
was the case for the Major keys, there are only 12 minor keys. For instance, if we try to
create a new minor key by jumping another 5th and adding a 5th flat, we obtain the scale
Bb minor:
But this Bb minor scale is identical tone-by-tone to the scale of A# minor (that uses
seven sharps). As before, it is a matter of individual choice, whether to use the Bb minor
key (with only five flats) or the A# minor key (with seven sharps). The complete set of
Major and minor scales can be summarized in the generalized Circle of Fifths for these
scales, shown in Figure 1.22.
24
Figure 1.22: The Circle of Fifths including both the Major and minor keys. Major keys
are drawn in full lines and minor keys are drawn in broken lines.. Major keys are
indicated using uppercase letters, minor keys use lowercase letters. Major and minor
keys that share the same number of accidentals (sharp or flats) are abutted together.
Figure 1.23: The scale of C minor with some added notes in the next octave
25
As before we select the 5th tone of the scale (in this case a G) as the root of the chord
and we select the three tones marked in Figure 1.23 above the root, skipping each time
one tone of the scale. We end up with the chord shown in Figure 1.24:
But this chord is identical to the 7th chord of the key of C Major! If we continue
building all the 7th chords for the minor keys we end up with the same result: there are
no new 7th chords: the C Major key (that has no flats nor sharps) and the C minor key
(that has three flats) share the same 7th chord. Similarly, the G Major key (that has one
sharp) and the G minor key (that has two flats) share the same 7th chord, and so on.
Keys that have the same tonic tone share the same 7th chord, irrespective of
whether they are Major or minor.
What can we do if we are in the middle of a piece of music and we want to modulate,
say, from the key of D Major to the key of D minor? Is there a way to provide a clue to
the listener that we are going to switch from a Major key to a minor key that share the
same tonic (or the opposite, from a minor key to a Major key)? Yes, there is: the 9th
chord.
Figure 1.25: The expanded scale of C Major with the tones selected for the 9th chord
26
Figure 1.26 shows the 9th chord in the key of C major:
We do now the same for the key of C minor. Figure 1.27 shows the expanded scale of
C minor:
Figure 1.27: The expanded scale of C minor with the tones selected for the 9th chord
Figure 1.28 shows the corresponding 9th chord using the selected tones:
Notice that for both chords we use only tones that are available in their respective
scales. Hence, in the key of C Major the top tone is a natural A, whereas in the key of C
minor the top tone is an A flat. Hence, major and minor keys with the same name (same
tonic tone) can be differentiated by their 9th chords.
The 9th chords are unique and can be used to identify any key, Major or minor. Using
the same analysis we did before for the 7th chords, the 3rd and 7th tones of the chord
eliminate all the keys except two, in this case the C Major and C minor. The 9th tone of
the chord serves to differentiate between the C Major and the C minor keys. The 3rd, 7th
and 9th tones are the most important tones of the 9th chord and together they uniquely
define the key, Major or minor.
7th and 9th chords are the chords used to modulate, to transition, from one key to
another during the course of a piece of music. They provide both the anticipation that
something is going to happen and also the clearest sense of direction where the music
is headed to.
27
It will be instructive to redraw the Circle of Fifths so that instead of abutting together a
Major and minor key that share the same accidentals (sharp or flats), as was done
previously in Figure 1.22, we abut instead together keys that share the same 7th chords.
This is shown in Figure 1.29.
Figure 1.29: The Circle of Fifths with all the Major and minor keys. Major and minor keys
that share the same 7th chord are abutted together.
This figure shows the expected result that, for example, the “A Major” key and the “a
minor” key are abutted together (since they share the same 7th chord.) However, at the
bottom of the Circle we get three unexpected results: the letters of the abutted chords
do not match. For example, the “Eb Major” key is abutted to the “d# minor” key. The
puzzle is solved if we remember that Eb and D# are one and the same tone: they are
just two different names for the same key in the keyboard. An indeed, although the 7th
chords of the “Eb Major” key and the “d# minor” key might appear completely different
(in the first chord you will see tones with flats and in the second chord you will see tones
with sharps) the two chords are identical. Musicians have a name for this: the two
chords are ‘enharmonic’.
28
Figure 1.30: Haydn Sonata in E minor, Hob XVI No 34, 1st movement
Before analyzing it, I would suggest that you play it at the piano (or listen to it on the
web) to get immediately the feeling of this sonata.
That is, Haydn includes a F# in the key as a global indication (every F appearing in the
piece should be played as F#) and plays in the bass the tonic chord of the E minor key
(see Fig 1.31b):
29
Figure 1.31b: tonic cord in the E minor key
It does not matter whether all the tones of this chord are played together or one after the
other (in “arpeggio” form): the brain ‘processes’ arpeggios and chords in a similar way,
in the sense that they both ‘center’ the brain in the key of E minor. Putting this chord at
the beginning of the piece is a direct hint to the listener that the piece will be in the E
minor key. Just play it and you will get immediately the feeling that you are in the key of
E minor. But … you could find the tones E, G and B in other keys too. For example,
these tones are also part of the scale of C Major. To clarify the matter Haydn
immediately follows with:
Hence, Haydn writes down in the last chord of bar 1 the 3rd and 7th tones of the 7th
chord of E minor (D# and A), the most important tones of the 7th chord, to leave no
doubt that we are indeed in the key of E minor. We emphasized before that the 7th
chords are used to provide the means to move from one key to another. But they also
have another important function: they are used to reinforce the present key. This is the
function that the chord plays in bar 1.
Haydn finishes the task by “resolving” this chord into the tonic chord of E minor again at
the beginning of bar 2. The 7th and 9th chords create “expectations”. You can “feel” this
30
when we you hear them. The brain – either by Nature or by learning – wants these
expectations to be “resolved” or come to a rest. The sensation of rest is achieved when
these chords are followed by the tonic chord of the key.
Haydn continues developing the piece in the key of E minor until suddenly in bar 6 a
foreign tone appears in the bass: A#:
Usually, in classical music the modulations are between “neighboring” keys, keys that
have almost the same number of flats and sharps and, therefore, whose scales share a
large number of tones. Transitions to faraway keys are seldom encountered. This has to
do with minimizing dissonances that might be unpleasant to the ear during the transition
from one key to the next. Looking at the 7th and 9th chords of the neighboring key of B
minor:
We see that the A# in the bass together with the E and G in the treble (see bar 6, at the
end of the first beat) are just the 3rd, 7th and 9th tones of the 9th chord. We also see in
Haydn’s score that the 9th chord ‘resolves’ into the tonic chord of B … Major!
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Hence, bar 6 marks the modulation from E minor to B Major. Classical composers
sometimes liked to surprise their listeners by creating the expectation that they were
going to move to a minor key and then suddenly ending up, or ‘resolving’ in the Major
key with the same tonic tone. Or, perhaps, it was just the spirit of the time to end or
‘resolve’ into a ‘positive’ bright mood. Bars 7 and 8 are a repetition of bar 6, but with
‘spice’ added to it: bar 7 begins with an A natural, creating the expectation in the listener
that we are going back to the original key of E minor. But no! The 9th chord of B minor
brings us back immediately to B minor. And the same happens in bar 8.
Is it permissible to jump suddenly from the previous key of B Major back again to E
minor without a 7th chord enabling the transition? Well, if this creates a nice artistic
effect, why not? It surely does. However, Haydn does not break the grammar rules.
Between the previous section ending in B Major and the new section in E minor he adds
a silence sign with an added fermata (the fermata is the semicircle with a point in its
center added on top of the silence sign). The ‘fermata’ means: stop following the
metronome and take a deep pause. It is like breaking the piece. Hence, what follows is
technically a separate piece. A separate piece may begin in any key.
The piece continues a few bars in E minor until in bar 11 we find again a foreign sound:
a G#.
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Haydn is also kind enough to emphasize that the following D note is natural, which
technically speaking is not necessary: a pianist would play a D natural with or without
that sign, since the piece was defined such that only the F notes appearing on it should
be sharp. However, by emphasizing that the D note is natural, Haydn is telling us that
he is abandoning the E minor key: the scale of E minor does have a D#. Hence, we are
given two clues that we are abandoning the E minor key: a G# and a natural D.
Looking for a 7th chord of a neighboring key we find one that meets these requirements:
it is the 7th chord of the A minor key:
Well, this time Haydn has used all the four tones of the 7th chord: the tones of the two
last chords in the treble staff, when put together, form the complete 7th chord in A minor.
And they ‘resolve’ correctly into the tonic chord of A minor in the next bar:
But not for long! After entering the A minor in bar 12 with the tonic chord in A minor, he
announces at the end of the same bar that he is transitioning to a new key: a natural G
appears:
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The natural G indicates that we are abandoning the A minor key. Another indication
appears at the beginning of the next bar (bar 13) where we see both in the treble and
the bass an F#, that clearly does not belong to the A minor key (Remember that a
global # sign was assigned to F at the beginning of the piece, so when we see an F in
the piece you should interpret it as an F#). Are we going back to the E minor key? No,
because in this key the D should be D# and we see clearly in bar 13 a lot of natural D
notes. So, towards which key is Haydn moving? The answer is provided in bar 13 itself:
The complete bar 13 is just a large and expanded implementation of the 7th chord of the
key of G Major. All the notes in bar 13 belong to the 7th chord of G Major:
And indeed it resolves correctly in the next bar (bar 14) with the tonic chord of G Major:
The above analysis shows you two things: a) how to read a piece of classical music to
understand how Haydn handled the movement from one key to the next, or, from one
sentence to the next: This could give you some ideas on how to compose your own next
piece of music; and b) that you may end up getting lost with so many 7th and 9th chords
and changes of keys and fail to see the structure of the whole piece. The next chapter
will show you that there is another way to do this analysis that is both fast, interesting
and gives you a graphical picture of the overall architecture of the piece, a picture of the
forest that is lost here in the details of the trees.
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1.8 – Additional items in the toolbox of the musician
Part of the toolbox of a musician is to create not only expectations but also surprises.
So, occasionally you will find in a score, say, a 9th chord of the D minor key followed by
a passage in the D Major key instead. The musician does not have to tell the listener
what is exactly what is going to happen, either a transition to a Major or a minor key. Or,
perhaps, even no transition at all.
Occasionally, you are in a minor key and in a brief passage you want to go ‘from here to
there’ using a fragment of the minor scale that includes the seventh tone of the scale.
For instance, you are in the A minor key and would like to make a gradual descent from
A to E:
Figure 1.32a: gradual descent in the A minor key using a fragment of the scale
The transition from G# to F has a 3 semitone step and if you play it at the piano (or any
other instrument) you will find that it raises the feeling of being too “rough”, especially if
your piece is more of a “melodic” character. In this case you can eliminate the edgy
feeling by deleting the sharp, as shown in Figure 1.32b:
This does not mean that you moved to another key (say, C Major or F Major): It is just a
short (modified) fragment of the minor scale that does not change the key. You are still
in A minor, and if you would like to transition to another key you will have to use
something more effective: the 7th or 9th chord of the new key. As you can imagine, there
is also a short “melodic” ascent from E to A that eliminates the rough edges of the G#:
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But this is quite less often found in the works of the classical composers. Take, for
example, the beginning of the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata:
Figure 1.33a: 3rd movement of Beethoven’s piano sonata No 8 Op 13; bars 1-11
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Figure 1.33b: 3rd movement of Beethoven’s piano sonata No 8 Op 13; bars 12-17
The whole section is in the C minor key. However, in the 2nd half of bar 6 you find a
foreign note: F#. A closer look shows that we have here a strange looking chord:
We will return to this chord in the next chapter, after we introduce the Neapolitan chord.
When you hear this sonata you feel at this moment an expectation that something is
going to happen. However, this expectation evaporates in the next bar that returns to
the main key of C minor. Even a more dramatic moment appears in the second half of
bar 12, where we have two strongly accentuated tones that do not belong to the key of
C minor: an E natural in the bass and a B flat in the treble.
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Figure 1.35: bars 12 and 13
You feel the intensity, as you hear the piece, as if Beethoven is trying to move a
mountain. However, no key change follows and the intensity dissipates in bar 13 in a
subdued “melodic” scale descent in C minor, like a sign of resignation to an unknown
tragic fate. Beethoven wrote this piece in 1798, at the age of 27, around the time when
the first signs of his deafness appeared.
Oftentimes when you read a score you find suddenly tones that do not belong to the
key, but they are obviously not part of any 7th or 9th chord either and they do not lead to
any key modulation. For instance, take the following beginning from a sonata by Mozart:
At the end of the second bar we find a natural B, suggesting that we are going to leave
the F Major key, but “nothing” happens next: we are back to F Major as strongly hinted
by the tonic chord in F Major in the bass at the beginning of bar 3. In bar 3 Mozart
restores the sound to B flat, as it should be, but immediately adds a G# tone that clearly
does not belong to the F Major scale, but he still remains in the same key of F Major.
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Nothing would have happened if Mozart would have written the beginning of the sonata
as follows, without the foreign tones:
If you play the modified version, it also sounds “good”. However, Mozart’s original
sounds better. What happens? Why Mozart decided to write that way, with the foreign
tones? What does the natural B achieve in bar 2? If we listen carefully we might find
that it creates some “expectation” that something is going to happen. Perhaps if we take
a second look at the six semiquavers at the end of bar 2:
Figure 1.39: six semiquavers at the end of bar 2 with the foreign B natural tone
It would appear that we have here a repeated tone (C) that – together with the strong
accompaniment in the bass – completes the tonic triad in F Major. If the function of this
repeated tone is just to emphasize the key, what is left from these six semiquavers
when we extract out the C tone is this:
This is just a broken 7th chord of C Major (the root G is missing). However, if you hear
again the original version of Mozart it seems to create some expectation that something
is going to happen, we are going to transition to something else, perhaps to C Major
(which finally does not). This adds ‘spice’ and interest to the music.
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Figure 1.41: six semiquavers in bar 3 with the foreign G# tone
Again, we have a repetitive tone (A) that – together with the tones in the bass
emphasizes the tonic chord of F Major. Here, the G# (together with the Bb) eliminates
the sensation of repetitiveness to the ear of the A tone by adding some ornamentation,
or slight movement, around this A tone. And if you compare the original version with the
modified one, one can only say that Mozart knew what he was doing: It just sounds
better.
At the risk of trying to figure out what was going on in Mozart’s brain when he sat down
to write this sonata, the following is perhaps the skeleton that went through his mind:
This can be summarized simply as three big tonic chords telling the unaware listener
that he was going to hear a piece in the key of F Major:
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Chapter 6: Composition in classical style
Abstract
This is the final chapter of the book and it will be written by you. Till
now you were on the receiving side, learning the grammar of
classical music and learning from Bach, Haydn and Mozart how this
grammar could be used to create beautiful works of art. But your
experience will not be complete until you yourself will try to be on the
other side, the creative side. Remember when you learned a spoken
language: In Elementary School, after you learned the rudiments of
reading and writing, you were asked to come with something of your
own, to write a few sentences about simple subjects. Later in Middle
School these short sentences evolved into more elaborated one-
page compositions and finally, in High School, you were asked to
write complete essays about complex subjects. The same process
happens with the language of music. Do not despair trying to invent
first beautiful ‘melodies’ – they will come by themselves and when
you least expect it: it is called “inspiration” and there is little you can
do to try to be inspired. However, when the ‘inspiration’ suddenly
comes from nowhere, you should be prepared to write it down on the
spot with all the added 7th and 9th chords and modulations. In simple
words, you cannot write an essay, if you did not gain experience
writing first many short compositions, and before this, even shorter
ones: two-three brief sentences with a simple motif. Writing a simple
and unassuming motif to begin with is less complicated than one can
think and it takes only a couple of seconds. I will give you one:
Without further ado, sit at the piano with a notebook and pencil at
hand and begin writing music in classical style. No matter which style
you will use later in your life, knowing to write in classical style will
always help you.
© 2017 Jaime E Kardontchik. “Modulation in Classical Music for Young Musicians”, Chapter 6
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About the Author
The author is a Physicist (PhD in Physics) and Engineer in the Silicon Valley, California.
In his free time he enjoys reading books and – sometimes – playing the piano.
May 2017
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