Klarinet Archive - Posting 000122.txt from 2001/06

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: RE: [kl] ....more about harmony
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2001 12:55:35 -0400

<><> Karl Krelove wrote:
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.

If you or Ed or anyone else wants to go all the way with me on
this, I am willing to make photocopies (as part of a public education
effort, therefore allowable?) and to mail it to you.

The piece is "Bist Du Bei Mir", as it appears in "Notebook for Anna
Magdalena Bach" published by Belwin Mills under the Kalmus Classic
imprint. The editor's name is not mentioned (unless Kalmus is the
editor?), but the preface insists that this edition was reproduced
directly from Anna's original notebook and that it includes all the
'probable mistakes' that appear in the original.

<><> When you say the chord appears several times

The importance of this chord is emphasized by the fact that the
piece is two parts --- vocal + keyboard --- and the vocal has a 1/4-note
rest (measure 5) while the keyboard begins to repeat the chord on every
1/4-note beat. I mention this because the vocal rest means that
there's no way to confuse the issue by combining two parts into a single
part; and also the chord is not a 'transient' chord that slips past in a
brief moment. The keyboard stays with this chord and bangs it out,
over and over.

<><> What follows the chord you're asking about?

I am more than happy to answer this question, but I know that it
would require more effort from you and Ed to read a long post than to
simply read the music.

So I'll stop typing now and wait to hear if you have the music in
your library already, or if you are willing to receive a photocopy (3
pages).

I would like to explain one more thing, however. Namely, why am I
interested in this piece? And why have I posted some harmonies that
_don't_ appear in the piece?

The primary reason is that this piece has a huge assortment of
things for a student to practice and to analyze, none of them requiring
virtuoso skills, but all of them being fundamental to playing and to
understanding harmony and <gasp!> to part writing; and all of them are
squeezed into three pages of music. So I view this piece as an ideal
training ground.

In addition to learning how to play this piece smoothly (crosses
the break often, large leaps, uses all of the clarinet from top to
bottom, trills, several changes of rhythm, a couple of phrases that
require big breaths), I have also undertaken to discard the keyboard
part and to write my own part for a second Bb clarinet --- not because I
think I can do it better than Bach (although he probably didn't write
this, he or his wife collected it from somewhere else), but simply
because I want to do something on my own with the music.
I've posted often enough my strong feeling (please....accept this
as a statement of my own pleasures, not as a sermon) that it is more
pleasurable to _do something_ with music than it is to merely play it as
written.
....anyway, in order to write my own part, I need to understand (to
learn) enough about the harmony involved in order to write something
that fits with the vocal part (which, for the purpose of this exercise,
I have decided to leave untouched).

Cheers, and thanks for reading all of this,
Bill

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