Module 4 - Abstracting

Abstracting is when you take a subject and boil it down to simplicity; representations are abstractions. For this module, I chose to examine a piece I am teaching to my students, “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” (yes, I know, it's way early, but we learn a lot of Christmas music and this works). There are actually several abstractions that take place with what I did. First of all, written sheet music is an abstraction of the actual music, as it is only a representation. Without the understanding that the different marks mean something, the sheet music itself is meaningless.

I chose to further abstract this piece (as sheet music is not as much of an abstraction for me anymore, as every mark on music has meaning for me) by analyzing the chord structure. Most pieces in Western music are built around chords, which generally have three or four notes, in a 1-3-5 arrangement. For example, for a G chord, it will have G (the first note of the scale), B (the third note of the scale), and D (the fifth note). Within these chords, only the first and the third are vitally necessary. The first determines what chord it is, and the third determines whether the chord is major or minor (sounds happy or sad).

Pieces often make frequent use of I, IV, and V or V7 chords. A I chord in the key of G Major is a G Major chord (G, B, and D), a IV chord is a C Major chord of C, E, and G, as C is the fourth note of the G Major scale, and a V chord is a D Major chord of D, F#, and A, with a C (the 7 in a V7) optional. However, there are other chords. There are minor chords, like the ii, iii, vi, and vii°. In the key of G, these are the a, b, e, and f#°, respectively. Major chords and keys are always written with an upper case letter or roman numeral, while minor chords and keys are always written lower case.

In order to analyze “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful,” I wrote out both the letter and roman numeral for each chord under the music. I also circled the root (the “1”) of each chord, and put a box around each third, as these are the two most important notes in each chord. This was my physical representation of my abstraction. For an audio representation, I played the piece as it was written, played only the root, and then mixed the two together to over-emphasize the root of each chord.

Closely analyzing the chord structure of a piece helps me understand what is going on within the piece. With music, you can use your gut feelings to make decisions about how things should be played, but you can also mentally analyze a piece to help you make those decisions. Often, you will come up with slightly different interpretations, but that is the beauty of music. Analyzing the chord structure gives me another way to look at it. I could emphasize either the root or the third, or only play the melody with the root and the third, I could emphasize the melody, emphasize the lower cello part, or any other individual part, emphasize the second violin part (the harmony), or do any other of a number of things. But analyzing the chord structure helps me to make this decision in an informed manner.

Module 3 - Patterning

Patterns are all throughout music, in the rhythms, the notes, even the “form,” or the order of the notes. Patterns are also all throughout life, so being able to discern and create patterns is important. Patterning is the ability to not only find patterns, but also to interpret them, make sense of them, use them, and then to create new patterns that are also useful.

Most music that most people are familiar with is written based on triads. That is, the music is based on the interval of a third. An interval is the space between two notes (counting both notes), so a third has one note in between the two. For example, A to C skips one note, B, so is a third. Of course, this isn't always the case. In the middle ages, when music was brand new, it was first used by the church, and all the music was written in fifths (for example, A and E). These are called Gregorian chants. In more recent times, composers have attempted to do new things with music, resulting in some very odd things indeed. Webern was one of the first minimalists. In minimalist music, an instrument may literally have only one or perhaps two notes at a time, with a fair amount of rests in between. The overall combination is music of a sort, but not any like we are used to. Another relatively recent development, in the last hundred years, has been the development of twelve-tone music and serial music. These composers believed that all the combinations of notes using the old patterns (the thirds) had been used. In these types, composers will put apparently random notes on the page, but they cannot use a note a second time until all the notes have been used once. The result is that no one note is played more than any other.

To create a new pattern, I didn't want to go so out on a limb like the minimalists, serialists, or composers writing twelve-tone music. However, I wanted to write something a little different, but still working with intervals. So I wrote a short piece based on the interval of a fourth. A fourth is not so unusual in music (“Here Comes the Bride” starts with a fourth), but you don't often have music based on fourths. My result is a bit different-sounding compared with what we are used to, but not completely strange.

Intervals are a topic that some students struggle with initially, but that is very helpful for musicians to know. Any musician that wants to get at all serious about their music must become very familiar with all intervals and how they interact. By composing a piece based on fourths, it really drove home to me just how dependent I am on thirds. It was actually rather difficult to keep it to fourths; I kept drifting to using thirds. This exercise would be useful to use with my students, to compose songs based on each different interval (seconds, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, sevenths). It would really help them get to know each interval, how it sounds (some really don't sound great!), and it would be great practice harmonizing with a melody.

 I'm having a difficult time representing my composition on blogger, but so far the best I have is a link to the file that I uploaded to google documents.  I'm working on getting a recording of it, as it does sound a bit different, but not too different.  So here's what it at least looks like.