924
Lectures Watched
Since January 1, 2014
Since January 1, 2014
- A History of the World since 1300 (68)
- History of Rock, 1970-Present (50)
- A Brief History of Humankind (48)
- Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science (35)
- The Modern World: Global History since 1760 (35)
- The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future (28)
- Introduction aux éthiques philosophiques (27)
- Jesus in Scripture and Tradition (25)
- Roman Architecture (25)
- Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender (23)
- Descubriendo la pintura europea de 1400 a 1800 (22)
- Introduction aux droits de l'homme (19)
- Buddhism and Modern Psychology (18)
- Calvin: Histoire et réception d'une Réforme (17)
- The Ancient Greeks (16)
- À la découverte du théâtre classique français (15)
- The French Revolution (15)
- Letters of the Apostle Paul (14)
- Key Constitutional Concepts and Supreme Court Cases (14)
- Christianisme et philosophie dans l'Antiquité (14)
- Egiptología (12)
- Western Music History through Performance (10)
- The Rise of Superheroes and Their Impact On Pop Culture (9)
- The Great War and Modern Philosophy (9)
- Alexander the Great (9)
- Greek and Roman Mythology (9)
- Human Evolution: Past and Future (9)
- Phenomenology and the Conscious Mind (9)
- Masterpieces of World Literature (8)
- Villes africaines: la planification urbaine (8)
- Greeks at War: Homer at Troy (7)
- Pensamiento Científico (7)
- MongoDB for Node.js Developers (7)
- Fundamentos de la escritura en español (7)
- Introduction to Psychology (7)
- Programming Mobile Applications for Android (7)
- The Rooseveltian Century (6)
- Karl der Große - Pater Europae (6)
- Fake News, Facts, and Alternative Facts (6)
- Reason and Persuasion Through Plato's Dialogues (6)
- The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (6)
- A Beginner's Guide to Irrational Behavior (6)
- Lingua e cultura italiana: avanzata (6)
- L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (5)
- Understanding Einstein: The Special Theory of Relativity (5)
- Dinosaur Paleobiology (5)
- Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas (5)
- War for the Greater Middle East (4)
- Emergence of Life (4)
- Introduction to Public Speaking (4)
- The Kennedy Half Century (4)
- Problèmes métaphysiques à l'épreuve de la politique, 1943-1968 (4)
- Designing Cities (4)
- Western Civilization: Ancient and Medieval Europe (3)
- Paleontology: Early Vertebrate Evolution (3)
- Orientierung Geschichte (3)
- Moons of Our Solar System (3)
- Introduction à la philosophie de Friedrich Nietzsche (3)
- Devenir entrepreneur du changement (3)
- La Commedia di Dante (3)
- History of Rock and Roll, Part One (3)
- Formation of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life (3)
- Initiation à la programmation en Java (3)
- La visione del mondo della Relatività e della Meccanica Quantistica (3)
- The Music of the Beatles (3)
- Analyzing the Universe (3)
- Découvrir l'anthropologie (3)
- Postwar Abstract Painting (3)
- The Science of Religion (2)
- La Philanthropie : Comprendre et Agir (2)
- Highlights of Modern Astronomy (2)
- Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know (2)
- The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome (2)
- Lingua e letteratura in italiano (2)
- Gestion des aires protégées en Afrique (2)
- Géopolitique de l'Europe (2)
- Introduction à la programmation en C++ (2)
- Découvrir la science politique (2)
- Our Earth: Its Climate, History, and Processes (2)
- The European Discovery of China (2)
- Understanding Russians: Contexts of Intercultural Communication (2)
- Philosophy and the Sciences (2)
- Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity (2)
- The Fall and Rise of Jerusalem (2)
- The Science of Gastronomy (2)
- Galaxies and Cosmology (2)
- Introduction to Classical Music (2)
- Art History for Artists, Animators and Gamers (2)
- L'art des structures 1 : Câbles et arcs (2)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (2)
- The World of Wine (1)
- Wine Tasting: Sensory Techniques for Wine Analysis (1)
- William Wordsworth: Poetry, People and Place (1)
- The Talmud: A Methodological Introduction (1)
- Switzerland in Europe (1)
- The World of the String Quartet (1)
- Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (1)
- El Mediterráneo del Renacimiento a la Ilustración (1)
- Science of Exercise (1)
- Социокультурные аспекты социальной робототехники (1)
- Russian History: from Lenin to Putin (1)
- The Rise of China (1)
- The Renaissance and Baroque City (1)
- Visualizing Postwar Tokyo (1)
- In the Night Sky: Orion (1)
- Oriental Beliefs: Between Reason and Traditions (1)
- The Biology of Music (1)
- Mountains 101 (1)
- Moral Foundations of Politics (1)
- Mobilité et urbanisme (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Thinking (1)
- Making Sense of News (1)
- Magic in the Middle Ages (1)
- Introduction to Italian Opera (1)
- Intellectual Humility (1)
- The Computing Technology Inside Your Smartphone (1)
- Human Origins (1)
- Miracles of Human Language (1)
- From Goddard to Apollo: The History of Rockets (1)
- Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales (1)
- Handel’s Messiah and Baroque Oratorio (1)
- Theater and Globalization (1)
- Gestion et Politique de l'eau (1)
- Une introduction à la géographicité (1)
- Frontières en tous genres (1)
- Créer et développer une startup technologique (1)
- Découvrir le marketing (1)
- Escribir para Convencer (1)
- Anthropology of Current World Issues (1)
- Poetry in America: Whitman (1)
- Introducción a la genética y la evolución (1)
- Shakespeare: On the Page and in Performance (1)
- The Civil War and Reconstruction (1)
- Dinosaur Ecosystems (1)
- Développement durable (1)
- Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us (1)
- Imagining Other Earths (1)
- Learning How to Learn (1)
- Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (1)
- Web Intelligence and Big Data (1)
- Andy Warhol (1)
- Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life (1)
- Practicing Tolerance in a Religious Society (1)
- Subsistence Marketplaces (1)
- Physique générale - mécanique (1)
- Exercise Physiology: Understanding the Athlete Within (1)
- Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1)
- What Managers Can Learn from Great Philosophers (1)
- A la recherche du Grand Paris (1)
- The New Nordic Diet (1)
- A New History for a New China, 1700-2000 (1)
- The Magna Carta and its Legacy (1)
- The Age of Jefferson (1)
- History and Future of Higher Education (1)
- Éléments de Géomatique (1)
- 21st Century American Foreign Policy (1)
- The Law of the European Union (1)
- Design: Creation of Artifacts in Society (1)
- Introduction to Data Science (1)
- Configuring the World (1)
- From the Big Bang to Dark Energy (1)
- Animal Behaviour (1)
- Programming Mobile Services for Android Handheld Systems (1)
- The American South: Its Stories, Music, and Art (1)
- Care of Elders with Alzheimer's Disease (1)
- Contagious: How Things Catch On (1)
- Constitutional Law - The Structure of Government (1)
- Narratives of Nonviolence in the American Civil Rights Movement (1)
- Christianity: From Persecuted Faith to Global Religion (200-1650) (1)
- Age of Cathedrals (1)
- Controversies of British Imperialism (1)
- Big History: From the Big Bang until Today (1)
- Bemerkenswerte Menschen (1)
- The Art of Poetry (1)
- Superpowers of the Ancient World: the Near East (1)
- America Through Foreign Eyes (1)
- Advertising and Society (1)
Hundreds of free, self-paced university courses available:
my recommendations here
my recommendations here
Peruse my collection of 275
influential people of the past.
influential people of the past.
View My Class Notes via:
Receive My Class Notes via E-Mail:
Contact Me via E-Mail:
edward [at] tanguay.info
Notes on video lecture:
The Tonic, the Dominant, and Sonata Form
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on January 30, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
dry, shape, Beethoven, dominant, major, listener, Rosen, first, psychology, Bach, relationship, effect, academic, emotional, resolve, analysis, grammar, focus, Haydn, minuet, 5th, prosaic, classical, invent, rules, home, dominant
form
necessary when discussing the of music
people hear form or analysis in a musical context and they tend to think of something
form is indeed about
and about the and construction of music
it is ultimately all about
not just the way the music is put together or works
but the way it works on the
to study the musical structure is to create a map of the content of a piece of music
it's no accident that work on harmony and form is called
Charles
books
Sonata Forms
The Classical Style
better to understand the sonata culture
explains the sources of the power in classical music
"the sonata is not a definite form like a , a da capo aria, or a French overture, it is, like the fugue, a way of writing, a feeling for proportion, direction and texture, rather than a pattern. This is why it was able to encompass such a wide variety of music and why it is so difficult to speak about clearly. It was also difficult to create. 's music, while it involves certain harmonic relationships which become crucial in the classical style, is in very clear cut ways different, pre- . And after he died, there was a period of at least fifteen years before the new style asserted itself. It's not a coincidence that after Bach's death, well over a decade passed before , the next great composer, started writing great music. And from that point on, with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, there's always significant overlap and a non-stop stream of masterpieces being written. The classic style was slow to come into , but once it did it almost immediately became the basis for much of the most extraordinary music ever. Many people, and not just hopelessly conservative ones, feel that the classical era, a.k.a. the heyday of sonata form, is the pinnacle of Western music.
so sonata form was difficult to
was also in a constant state of evolution
even before , composers were constantly testing the limits of the form, seeing if it could accommodate more material, different harmonic centers, tinkering with order of events
rare animal
neither primarily a pianist or an
perhaps the most well-rounded and most seen musicians ever
sonata form
does not refer to the of an entire sonata
but to a single movement
it is the movement on which this structural attention is usually lavish
the story of two oppositions
the opposition of two themes
the opposition of the tonic and the
these are harmonic terms
tonic
the fundamental chord of whatever key we happen to be in
if we are in the key of B-flat major, the tonic is a B-flat chord
dominant
the chord that begins on the scale degree
for the key of B-flat major, this is the F-chord
it is the central fact of tonal music that the dominant chord always wants to to the tonic chord
it may sound but that is really what all classical tonality is about
everything else is an embellishment of that tonic
we start at home, the tonic, then we move away from home, traditionally always the , and the tension in the work from that point on involves our emotional need for a return
Spelling Corrections:
pinnicle ⇒ pinnacle
heydey ⇒ heyday
accomodate ⇒ accommodate
Ideas and Concepts:
Book tip via tonight's Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas class: "This book is endlessly engrossing, you cannot come away from it without understanding many of the main differences between and among Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, and between Classical, Baroque, and Romance music, and with a good understanding of why these three great Viennese exponents were such masters. For those who believe that creative genius is stimulated by severe suffering (Beethoven, Van Gogh in art, Godel in mathematical logic, Galileo in physics and astronomy, etc.), you will find much material in this book that seems to indicate the accuracy of this theory more or less. However, if you don't know the music from that period and you can't read music, this will leave you seriously lost. In other words, you need some background or you will need to do some serious listening to really get the jewels out of this book. If this sounds elitist to you, you are right. Yet it is done with the purpose of keeping you from wasting your money. So make sure you have some background or are willing to do some work if you expect to get the best this book has to offer."
On the significance of sonata form in the classical era, via this evening's Exploring Beethoven's Sonatas class:
"The sonata is not a definite form like a minuet, a da capo aria, or a French overture. It is, like the fugue, a way of writing, a feeling for proportion, direction and texture, rather than a pattern. This is why it was able to encompass such a wide variety of music and why it is so difficult to speak about clearly.
And it was also difficult to create. Bach's music, while it involves certain harmonic relationships which become crucial in the classical style, is in very clear cut ways different, or pre-classical. After he died, there was a period of at least fifteen years before the new style asserted itself. It's not a coincidence that after Bach's death, well over a decade passed before Haydn, the next great composer, started writing great music.
And from that point on, with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, there's significant overlap and a non-stop stream of masterpieces being written. The classic style was slow to come into focus, but once it did, it almost immediately became the basis for much of the most extraordinary music ever produced. Many people, and not just hopelessly conservative ones, feel that the classical era, a.k.a. the heyday of sonata form, is the pinnacle of Western music."
"The sonata is not a definite form like a minuet, a da capo aria, or a French overture. It is, like the fugue, a way of writing, a feeling for proportion, direction and texture, rather than a pattern. This is why it was able to encompass such a wide variety of music and why it is so difficult to speak about clearly.
And it was also difficult to create. Bach's music, while it involves certain harmonic relationships which become crucial in the classical style, is in very clear cut ways different, or pre-classical. After he died, there was a period of at least fifteen years before the new style asserted itself. It's not a coincidence that after Bach's death, well over a decade passed before Haydn, the next great composer, started writing great music.
And from that point on, with Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, there's significant overlap and a non-stop stream of masterpieces being written. The classic style was slow to come into focus, but once it did, it almost immediately became the basis for much of the most extraordinary music ever produced. Many people, and not just hopelessly conservative ones, feel that the classical era, a.k.a. the heyday of sonata form, is the pinnacle of Western music."
The structure of classical tonality in a nutshell via tonight's Exploring Beethoven's Sonatas class:
"The tonic chord is the fundamental chord of whatever key we happen to be in. If we are in the key of B-flat major, the tonic is a B-flat major chord. The dominant chord begins on the 5th scale degree, or the fifth note, of the tonic chord, so for the key of B-flat major, this is the F-chord.
It is the central fact of tonal music that the dominant chord always wants to resolve to the tonic chord. It may sound prosaic but that is really what all classical tonality is about. Everything else is an embellishment of that tonic relationship:we start at home, the tonic, then we move away from home, traditionally always to the dominant, and the tension in the work from that point on involves our emotional need for a return home."
"The tonic chord is the fundamental chord of whatever key we happen to be in. If we are in the key of B-flat major, the tonic is a B-flat major chord. The dominant chord begins on the 5th scale degree, or the fifth note, of the tonic chord, so for the key of B-flat major, this is the F-chord.
It is the central fact of tonal music that the dominant chord always wants to resolve to the tonic chord. It may sound prosaic but that is really what all classical tonality is about. Everything else is an embellishment of that tonic relationship:we start at home, the tonic, then we move away from home, traditionally always to the dominant, and the tension in the work from that point on involves our emotional need for a return home."