Fourpart-Harmony
Hi!
I have created (read attempted) a four-part set, but I don't know if it complies with all the rules. Or if it is correct at all. Can someone please take a look?
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Comments
Plays nicely. That D+11 (I guess that's how you'd name it?) in mm.2 and 4 is interesting. Quite jazzy, I'd say.
"Complies with all the rules"? Music theory is not "rules"! It is "descriptive" rather than "prescriptive". Any (Western European music!) sound you can make--however dissonant, consonant, beautiful, ugly, melodic, or ... what's the opposite of "melodic"?--can be described by (Western European!) music theory. Doesn't make it good music or bad. Just describes a collection of notes.
"Correct"? Again, does it sound like what you want it to sound like? Then it's correct. No matter what someone else says (even your Music Composition teacher :-)
Now, there is one minor issue I would change. Notice that all the notes in the bass clef have rests over them. Click on one of the rests and you'll see that it is blue. Click on one of the notes in the bass clef and you'll see that it is green. Normally one uses "Voice 1" for the first voice entered on a given staff. So the right hand of a piano piece is written in Voice 1 on the treble clef and the left hand of that piece is written in Voice 1 on the bass clef.
MuseScore must have notes/music in Voice 1. Those rests cannot be deleted. Rests in Voices 2 through 4 can be.
So, for this piece, select all of the bass clef. Click on Tools / Voices / Exchange voice 1-2. Now all the notes are in Voice 1, on both staves. Select the rests and delete them.
Use Voice 2 (and 3 and 4) if you have a place where the part lines are rhythmically different. For example, something like this:
The notes with stems up are in Voice 1 and the notes with stems down are in Voice 2. (You can change this if necessary, but those are the defaults.) Voice 3 is up and Voice 4 is down as well, but it will be fairly unusual to need those. (Not unheard of, by any stretch, just less usual.)
In reply to Plays nicely. That D+11 (I… by TheHutch
Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, absolutely.. That's how it is, that it sounds like I want it to sound.
But what I'm thinking about is whether it relates to the rules that apply to four-part movements? For example, voice crossing, or big leaps, wrong cadence handling, etc.
I'm in the beginning stages of trying to "learn" for real.
I will take your feedback into consideration.
In reply to Plays nicely. That D+11 (I… by TheHutch
I'm also trying to learn how to do functional analysis of sentences.
Here's one I did on a four-part sentence.
Are there any obvious "errors"?
I find it a bit tricky.
In reply to I'm also trying to learn how… by backmanandrea
If it sounds right, it IS right. If it doesn't sound right, see whether you have transgressed one of the "rules" and whether avoiding the transgression makes it sound better, or perhaps transgressing a further rule makes it sound better. But don't be afraid that the music theory police will send a SWAT squad round if you break the rules.
If you are writing music it is YOUR rules that you need to follow, A large part (the biggest part, I suggest) of learning composition is learning what your rules are; what rules you personally follow to make the music sound like you want it to. Experiment, experiment, experiment and see what works for you and what doesn't.
In reply to If it sounds right, it IS… by SteveBlower
Thanks, that gives me some confidence.
It's exactly that, that you think the "theory police" will come with the stick.
But when I do a functional analysis (as I have posted above) for example, it is more "strict". Those are the chords.
Are you good at functional analysis? If, is what I am doing right?
In reply to Thanks, that gives me some… by backmanandrea
Again, if YOU are happy with YOUR results, YOU are doing it right. Someone else may think it sounds awful. That is their prerogative. Someone else may have written it differently, and that would also be right. You might not like how it sounds, but then you didn't write it. I am never going to say that what a composer writes is correct or incorrect. Only whether I like it or don't like it. There is plenty of published music in both categories and some in the "I don't like" category may all be transgressing particular "rules" described in music theory text books. But that just means that I personally don't like music that transgresses those rules, not that the music is invalid in some way. Someone else (and presumably the composer) may think it sounds great and that that "rule" is a waste of space.
The "rules" are a means of analysing what is written, not instructions for how to write it. Parallel perfect fifths have a certain sound. If that is the sound you want, then that is how to get that sound. Music is not like computer programming; the music will never stop with a beep if you make a theory error (unless your write a beep as the last note). It may end up in a car crash if you don't write your repeat structure correctly but that is another matter.
I can suggest a book, "The Evolution of Harmony" by C H KItson. It is quite old, first published in 1914 and the edition I have is dated 1947. It may not still be in print. It describes the "rules" that were considered "correct" from the medieval period up to the early 20th century and how composers of their day worked around them to introduce new and more exciting sounds and how their bending of the rules became established practice or a new set of rules that later composers would push the limits of.
In reply to Thanks, that gives me some… by backmanandrea
The "rules" are very conditional. If you want to sound like Bach and his contemporaries, follow this set of rules. If you want to sound like Mozart and his contemporaries, follow this different set of rules. If you want to sound like Stravinsky and his contemporaries, follow this RADICALLY different set of rules.
If you want to sound like you, follow your rules ... and take the stick to the theory police yourself. :-)
In your piece, I would use that D+11 sound either a little more, or a little less. As Adam Neely says, "Repetition legitimizes! Repetition legitimizes! Repetition legitimizes!"