Study Guide
Week 9
[ Reading ] [ Textbook ] [ Review ] [ New Material ] [ What You Should Know ] [ Homework ]
Textbook
Reading: pp. 71 -79
Review
Keep working with rhythmic patterns. The best place to study is with the Tap Machine.
By now you should be able to transcribe rhythms using (dotted) quarters, (dotted) eighths, and sixteenths. Listen to this measure of 4/4. Try to notate the rhythm, then check your work. There's a four beat count off to show what the tempo is, followed by one measure for you to write down.
New Material
Chords in open position
Chords in closed position have the notes so close together that there is no space between two adjacent notes where another note of the chord could be inserted. Open position chords, on the other hand, have one or more open spaces between the notes, for example in the chord below, the three notes, "G", "B", and "D" are not as close together as they could be. There is space between the "D" and "B" where the "G" could be inserted.
The first step in identifying the chord is to get it into closed position. You may get lucky and find root position right away. If you don't, then that would be the next step. Look and see what pitches are in the chord as written in open position. Start with any note of the chord and copy it to the staff you're using to figure out the closed position version. In this example I've started with the letter "B", but it work as well starting with either of the other two notes, "D" or "G". Starting with "B" I then go through the lines and spaces above it and fill in any notes that I had from the open position chord. "B - C - D - E - F - G - A". When I ran into "D" and "G" going through the lines and spaces I filled them in above the "B" that I started with, but this time in closed position without extra space. The notes that I copy down may or may not be in the same place as they were in open position. All that matters in figuring out the chord is that I maintain the same letters with their sharps or flats -- it doesn't matter what octave I place them in. On the staff marked "Closed position" I've ended up then with "B - D - G":
We have the chord in closed position now, but it's not in root position yet. Let's rearrange the notes to get line-line-line or space-space-space:
Now the chord is in root position, so we can compare it with a major triad built on the same root. If we were trying to identify a four-note chord we'd compare it with a major seventh instead. In this example our closed position "mystery chord" is the same as the major triad we are comparing it with, therefore the open position chord at the top that we started with in the identification process is also a G major triad. It doesn't matter what order you stack the notes up in or whether they are in open or closed position. If you have the pitches "D", "B", and "G" sounding together then you have G major.
Here are some for you to try. Work out the steps on paper :
- get the open position chord into closed position
- get it into root position -- this gives you the LETTER part of the chord symbol
- compare with a major seventh chord and see what's been altered in -- this gives you the QUALITY of the chord symbol
After you have figured out what the chord symbols you can check your work:
Modulation and transposition.
Modulation is a process of moving to a new tonic. It may happen during a song and then move back to the original key. This often happens during the bridge of a song to give it more contrast. The piece starts out in C major. In the fifth bar we see an E7 chord. This chord is not in C major, and neither are the A, Bm, D, or A chords that follow. There is such a long series of chords unrelated to C major that we can't explain what's happening by saying that E7 is a secondary dominant. Instead, we say that we have modulated to A major (E7 is the V7 chord in that key), and indicate a new tonic of A major for the fifth through ninth chords. We have modulated directly from "C" to "A", there are no chords in measures 5-10 in common with "C" major, so we've put a squiggle (
) before the new tonic ("A:" for the key of A major).
In measure 11 we get to a G7 chord. Neither it nor the chords that follow are related to A major, so we have another squiggly line followed by the new tonic ("C:" for C major). The last six chords are in C major. This direct modulation was set up by G7, the V7 chord of C major.
bar# 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 C Am G7 C E7 A Bm C:
I vi V7 I
A:
V7 I ii
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 D A G7 C Am F G7 C IV I
C:
V7 I vi IV V7 I In the piece above we start and end in C major. The middle section is in A major, providing contrast.
Another use of modulation is to play through the form once or twice in the original key and then repeat some part of the song (often times the chorus) up some interval, usually a half or whole step.
C F G7 C Am Dm G7 C C: I IV V7 I vi ii V7 I
C F G7 C Am Dm G7 C C: I IV V7 I vi ii V7 I We've gone through the 8-bar form of the piece now twice. Usually in a real piece you would do more than 8 bars.
After establishing the key of C major in our listeners' ears we are ready to modulate. This creates a new feeling by hearing new chords and usually brightening the tone. Now the piece continues up a whole step in A major. The functions remain the same (I - IV - V7 - I - vi, etc.) but when related to the key of D major rather than C major a different series of chords results (D - G - A7 - D - Bm, etc. instead of C - F - G7 - C - Am, etc.)
A7 D G A7 D Bm Em A7 D D: V7 I IV V7 I vi ii V7 I Study the other examples of modulation. The third example shows the use of pivot chords.
What You Should Know
At the end of this week you should be able to:
Identify what the chord symbol is for a chord written in open position
Homework
Add a modulation to your leadsheet from Assignment 6. Decide what part of the original form you must use to establish the original key--you may have to use all of it if it is short. After the modulation you will return to the original form, this time transposed to a new key. You may want to use the copy and paste a section to save time entering the chords again. Copy the section you want to transpose, paste it into new bars. Now copy the first section, the part that you don't want to transpose. Under the Song menu you can then go into the Title/Key/Tempo option and transpose the music relative to C major (if you didn't enter a key signature for the piece before you started entering the chords the first time, calculate how much you want to raise your piece and indicate the same interval relative to C major--what Band in a Box thinks your piece is in). This will transpose the whole piece. Now, click on the first measure of the original section you copied before transposing. Paste (<command>-v) what you copied over the transposed version. You should now be back to the original for the measures in the section before the transposition started. Example.
©2001 Robert Willey
