Klarinet Archive - Posting 000114.txt from 2001/06

From: "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] ....more about harmony
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 10:34:03 -0400

Bill,

Someone who's closer to his/her harmony classes than I may have a more
specific answer for you.

1. It would be easier to analyze this if we had the actual citation so
people could look at the source as you're seeing it. When you say the chord
appears several times, there's no way for you to indicate in a reasonable
amount of space what the context is each time Bach uses it.

2. It looks from your description as if Bach is using it as some kind of
(incomplete) VI9, perhaps leading (as a secondary dominant) to a ii of some
kind or even a II on the way to a V (Eb-C9-f(F)-Bb). What follows the chord
you're asking about?

3. To enjoy the music it really doesn't matter what you call the chord - it
sounds the same. To perform the music it can be a great help to understand
the function of the notes you're playing, but the name still doesn't matter
much. The voice leading is what it is, beautiful or boring, magnetic or
stodgy and pedantic. The only place where I's, ii's and VI7's (as distinct
from the tonal functions of the chordal voices) matter much is in
undergraduate harmony classrooms.

So ultimately, if you can't label it, just enjoy it and, where appropriate,
marvel at its inspiration. Or, as you suggested at the end of your post,
"just play it." :-)

FWIW

Karl Krelove

> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Wright [mailto:Bilwright@-----.net]
> Sent: Sunday, June 03, 2001 3:20 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] ....more about harmony
>
>
> Thank you, Karl and Ed, for the replies (and to anybody else whose reply
> I haven't seen yet).
>
> In the dozen or so measures of Bach's piece that I'm trying to
> understand, I have labelled the chords in the normal method of Roman
> numerals (I ii iii IV V etc). I have thought about inversions, and I
> have identified which note is the root of each triad, and I have
> identified which note is the "7" in a four-note chord, and so forth.
>
> But Bach (not me) uses one chord repeatedly that I can't fit into the
> normal scheme as I understand it. Can someone tell me what this chord
> is?
>
>
>
> In the key of Eb major, and I'm spelling each note chromatically:
>
> E-natural G-natural Bb D-natural
>
> My (struggling) analysis is:
>
> The fifth (E-natural to Bb) is diminished (ambiguous tritone), and the
> third (E-natural to G-natural) is minor. Therefore this is a
> diminished chord with a 7 (D-natural) as the fourth note.
>
> But the key signature (Eb) causes the chord's root to be an accidental,
> and therefore assigning a Roman numeral to it ("I" in this case) doesn't
> make sense, does it? If I have identified the chord correctly, what do
> I do with this anomaly? (besides just play it? <smile>)
>
> Thank you,
> Bill
>
>
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