Global Music Theory

Tag: parts of music

  • Not Yet, Not Gone: Suspensions in Music and Life

    Not Yet, Not Gone: Suspensions in Music and Life

    A suspension is a point of potential that is followed by a result that causes redefinition of what led up to the suspension and resolution. For example a series of tonic chords don’t demand reinterpretation, but put a dominant leading to the dominant with a suspension and now those repeated tonic chords take on new meaning. It’s where/how a suspension resolves that can reshape the past and setup expectations for the future – perhaps more than other musical devices.

    A musical suspension is a stretch of sound—a note that lingers, that clings to the previous intention with the fragile grip of a spider’s thread. A suspension exists not as a question, but as the space where questions are born, where tension rises and falls but does not yet break – that’s the resolution. Suspense is a mandatory part of music and life. Even monotony or silence or non-action have their own suspense that will eventually resolve.

    In music, the suspension is a tool of tension. A 4-3 suspension, or a 7-6—these are numbers that speak of dissonance and resolution, of sound that twists and shifts and finally lands. Or doesn’t. Because a suspension does not always “resolve” to anything expected. Sometimes it lingers, its edges fraying into silence or folding into a diminished chord that resolves nothing at all. And yet, whether it lands or lingers, whether it settles or disappears, the suspension gives meaning to what came before and to what follows after.

    Life is full of suspensions. A breath caught before an answer. The quiet seconds after a question has been asked but before it has been met. The anticipation of footsteps approaching—a lover, or a stranger, or an answer in their hand. In these moments, we live fully, suspended not just in time but in the possibilities that time holds. These are the intervals where the world waits for itself to become something else. And we, like that note, are caught in the act of transformation many times unsure of where we will land.

    What makes the suspension so powerful is not just the tension it holds but the way it resolves—or refuses to resolve. A major chord following a 4-3 feels inevitable, even comforting. It tells us that everything we worried over was unnecessary because the suspension resolved to a place of comfort. A minor resolution feels bittersweet, as though the tension was necessary but could not help leaving a shadow behind. A diminished or augmented (or any “unstable” chord) chord—sharp-edged, unresolved—takes the suspension and reframes it, leaving it neither here nor there. In music, this can be thrilling. In life, it can leave scars.

    Suspensions have a way of rewriting themselves. If they resolve well—if the answer is kind, if the waiting was worth it—we look back on the tension as purposeful, even beautiful. The anxiety we felt is reframed as a necessary part of the journey. But if the resolution falters, if the answer is unkind, the suspension twists in memory. What was once anticipation becomes dread, confirmed and eternal.

    But a suspension’s true power is in its impermanence. It is not meant to last, and it never does. Even unresolved suspensions—those that refuse to settle—fade in time. There are many pieces of music that begin and end with a kind of unease, perhaps not a traditional 4-3 suspension or anything but it is suspense. Think of Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima! This piece is pure unyielding suspense. But even a piece this infused with suspense must fall –  the piece end. The music concludes and other sounds take its place. And so must we.

    Not all suspensions are grand. Some flicker by unnoticed, like the dissonance in passing tones that resolve before we have time to feel them. Others stretch for measures, pulling the listener into their web, the weight of them almost unbearable. The same is true of life. The brief hesitations—a glance, a pause, a decision left hanging—pass without leaving a mark. But the long ones, the years spent waiting, searching, wondering—these are the suspensions that carve into us, that change the shape of who we are.

    There is a symmetry in the suspension. It begins with tension, and it ends—sometimes quietly, sometimes abruptly—with release. But what comes in between is not a void. It is not silence. It is a fullness, a potential. To be suspended is to be stretched, to exist in a state of possibility, not yet one thing or another but both at once. This is why we remember them. This is why we hold them close.

    Western music depends on the suspension, but not all traditions see it the same way. In Indian classical music, tension grows not from dissonance but from cycles—melodic and rhythmic—turning over and over, each return to the tonic a kind of resolution. Javanese gamelan stretches time itself, the resolution found not in chords but in layers of sound dissolving into one another. What feels fraught to one listener might pass unnoticed to another, just as what feels urgent in one life might barely register in another.

    The performer holds the suspension. They shape its tension, its weight, its promise. A violinist must stretch the bow just so, neither too much nor too little, for the note to hold its fragile dissonance. A pianist must feel the keys without crushing them, letting the sound ring and resolve. A life suspended is much the same. We hold what we cannot control. We shape what we cannot see. We trust that what comes next will give meaning to what is now.

    Yet even resolutions are temporary. A suspension resolves into a chord that resolves into another chord, and on it goes. The music moves. The questions change. Stability is not the end but a way station, a pause in the motion, and then the motion begins again. This is the nature of life: to be suspended, to resolve, to be suspended once more.

    The beauty of the suspension lies not in its tension, not in its resolution, but in its existence. It is the moment when the music, life, holds its breath, the moment when possibility blooms. It is not a pause, and it is not an end. It is what carries us forward and comments on the past.

    Suspension is the stretch. Suspension is the weight. Suspension is the thread that holds, for a moment, all that might be. And when it lets go, when it resolves or dissolves or disappears, it does not leave us empty. It leaves us with a living life and living music.

    I’ve written a short book for composers that explores how music is organized and the roles it can play across the globe. The book is called Formative Forces in Sound. If you are interested, it’s available on Amazon here for $0.99 www.amazon.com/formativeforcesinsound

  • The Quiet End: Piano, Pianissimo, and Listening

    The Quiet End: Piano, Pianissimo, and Listening

    There is a sound that exists at the edge of silence. It is not absence but presence, a fragile vibration that seems to hover just beyond reach. To hear it, you must lean in—not just with your ears but with your whole being, as though the act of listening itself could amplify its existence. This is piano—not merely a soft dynamic in music, but an invitation into an intimate and deliberate act of attention.

    The quietness of piano is not timid. It does not shrink or hesitate. Instead, it draws you in, commanding not through force but through trust. It is the composer trusting that softness has something profound to say, the performer trusting in their ability to shape sound so delicately, and the audience trusting that what they hear will be worth the effort of leaning forward, of quieting their own noise to receive it.

    To write piano into a piece of music is an act of bravery. It asks the performer to make themselves small, to resist the safety of volume and instead offer the barest vibration of sound. It asks the audience to meet that sound halfway, to leave behind the distractions of the world and truly listen. It is not a dynamic of ease. It is a dynamic of trust—a shared vulnerability between composer, performer, and listener.

    And yet, in its softness, piano holds a kind of power that cannot be matched by louder sounds. It is the power of presence, of intimacy, of connection. To perform or hear piano is to experience sound at its most delicate and human. It is to step into a space where every note, every nuance, every breath carries meaning. This is the quiet end of the dynamic spectrum, a place where music ceases to be a backdrop and becomes an encounter—if you let it.

    The Performer’s Challenge: Bravery in Quiet

    For the performer, playing piano is one of the greatest tests of their artistry. It is far easier, on most instruments, to produce a beautiful tone at forte. Loudness can mask imperfections, allowing the player to rely on the sheer power of volume to carry the sound. But piano demands a different kind of mastery—a careful balance of control, technique, and emotional commitment.

    On a violin, playing softly requires precision in bowing. The slightest inconsistency in pressure or angle can cause the note to falter, its tone becoming thin or uneven. A woodwind player must shape their breath with painstaking care to produce a soft, clear sound that does not break or lose resonance. On the piano, the touch must be light yet intentional, each note placed with exactness to maintain its clarity within the delicate dynamic.

    This precision is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the works of composers like Anton Webern. Webern’s music, characterized by its brevity and sparseness, often relies on pianissimo and quieter effects to create its hauntingly intimate soundscapes. In his Five Pieces for String Quartet, for example, the soft dynamics are not merely an embellishment but the core of the music’s expressive language. The performers are tasked with crafting sound so fragile that it seems to dissolve into the silence it emerges from. Here, the boundary between sound and silence blurs, demanding not only technical precision but also profound emotional sensitivity.

    Webern’s music exemplifies the power of quiet to communicate depth. It also underscores the bravery required of both composer and performer: the composer trusting that these delicate gestures will speak, the performer trusting their skill to bring those gestures to life, and the audience trusting in the experience of opening up to quiet music.

    The challenge is not merely technical. Piano dynamics also expose the performer in a way that forte does not. Every note at piano is bare, vulnerable, and open to scrutiny. There is no wall of sound to hide behind, no dramatic flourish to distract from the smallest imperfections. Similarly, as a composer forte can be a great way to hide. The loud dynamics overwhelm the listener and force an impression upon them, which can be useful and powerful in its own right, but writing at the volume of forte is a completely different craft than writing at the volume of piano.

    The Quiet of Nature and Human Nature

    Let’s take a step away from the artificial dynamics. Out in the wilderness, far from the hum of electricity and the grind of traffic, the world moves softly. The rustle of leaves, the distant chirp of crickets, the trickle of a stream—these are not rare sounds, nor rare places. The world beyond human sonic pollution is vast, its expanse far greater than our cities and machines. It is humans who cluster in noise, who live in the loudness of their own making. And when we step out of these clusters, when we remove ourselves from the hum of our constructed world, we are reminded of a simple truth: the world is much bigger than us, personally and as a species, and far quieter.

    In this greater world, nature speaks in piano. Most of its voice is subdued, subtle, full of nuance. The great crashing forte moments—thunderstorms, avalanches, hurricanes—are rare, and when they come, they carry weight, meaning, and often danger. But nature’s default is gentleness: the wind through the trees, the soft movement of water, the muted padding of an animal on a forest floor. This is the soundscape humans evolved within, a soundscape that rewards listening with care and attention.

    When we sit in a concert hall and the performers dare to play at the edge of silence, they are reconnecting us to that larger, quieter world. The piano and pianissimo dynamics do not mimic the loudness of our urban lives; instead, they call us out of them. They ask us to remember the calm spaces beyond the city, the places where our ears evolved to attune to softness, where the quiet holds the richness of life itself.

    The Cleansing Power of Quiet

    I was reminded of this during an acoustic performance by Ludovico Einaudi. As I entered the concert hall, I noticed something unusual: there were no microphones, no visible speakers. It was an entirely unamplified performance. At first, I was surprised. I was so used to concerts being mediated by technology, the sound projected and balanced through microphones, wires, and speakers. But here, it was just the instruments and the room. The directness of it was startling.

    When the music began, I found myself leaning in, not out of habit but out of necessity. Without amplification, I had to truly pay attention, to focus in a way that felt foreign at first. The quiet notes weren’t just sounds; they were moments of profound connection between the performer and the audience. Every vibration, every subtle dynamic shift, felt immediate and unfiltered. There was no translation, no manipulation—just the raw, acoustic truth of the music.

    It was such a different kind of concert experience, one that demanded more of me as a listener but gave back something far greater in return. In that space, the music wasn’t just something I heard; it was something I engaged with, something I felt in its purest form. The absence of amplification wasn’t a limitation—it was a revelation.

    Conclusion: A World at the Edge of Silence

    When a composer writes piano or pianissimo into their music, they are inviting us into a world that exists at the edge of silence. It is a world of trust, vulnerability, and profound connection—a world that asks for our attention and rewards us with its depth.

    To embrace the quiet end of the dynamic spectrum is to choose presence over distraction, connection over chaos. It is to seek meaning in the small, the fragile, the delicate. It is to allow in the piano of life, not because it is easy, but because it is necessary. And in doing so, you may find that the beauty of the quiet is not just in the sound itself but in the way it reminds you to truly listen—to the world, to others, and to yourself.

    I’ve written a short book for composers that explores how music is organized and the roles it can play across the globe. The book is called Formative Forces in Sound. If you are interested, it’s available on Amazon here for $0.99 www.amazon.com/formativeforcesinsound

  • Where Nothing Ends: Legato and the Truth of Connection

    Where Nothing Ends: Legato and the Truth of Connection

    First Section: The Sound of Vulnerability

    There is a note. It begins with the press of a key, the weight of a finger, the flow of eternal causality into sound. The vibration swells, full and open, carrying its tone into the room. It lingers, fragile and unguarded, before fading—not into silence, but into the next note. As the second sound rises, the first is not gone. Its sound waves still move the air, still mingle with the new. The two are inseparable, their boundaries dissolved. What you hear is not two notes, but a single, unbroken thread.

    How should one play legato? To play legato is to surrender to this truth. It is to acknowledge that there is no pause, no boundary, no space to mark where one moment ends and another begins. The notes flow, as time flows, as breath flows—continuous and unbroken. Even when the sound fades, it does not vanish. It becomes part of the next, inseparably intertwined. This is the paradox of legato: to listen is to hear the connection, but to live it is to know that connection was never needed. There was no separation in the first place.

    In the act of playing legato, there is nowhere to hide. The sound reveals everything. The tone, the dynamics, the pitch—all are exposed, stretching across time in a way that asks more of the player’s attention to shaping and crafting the note. Staccato can conceal; it can mask a fleeting note with brevity, leaving no time to linger on imperfections. Though legato doesn’t indicate tempo or speed, legato connects. It insists. It lingers long enough for every flaw, every nuance, every beauty to be fully known – in spite of tempo.

    Legato, then, is not just a musical technique—it is a way of being. It demands vulnerability. It demands presence. It demands the courage to flow, without breaks, without excuses, without rushing past the places that are difficult or raw. To play legato is to embrace the seamlessness of existence, to lean into the reality where nothing is separate, where everything belongs.

    Second Section: The Truth of Time

    Person giving themselves over to the legato stream of life.

    Time does not wait. It does not stop or pause or falter. Like the legato phrase, it pours forward, unbroken, carrying with it everything that has come before. A note lingers in the air, its vibrations mingling with the next, and we call this connection. But the truth is, there was never any break between them. What we perceive as connection is the illusion of separation falling away.

    In music we notate sound as black dots with space between which simply furthers the illusion of separation. In life, we are similarly deceived by this illusion. We carve time into pieces: hours, days, years. We label moments as beginnings and endings, departures and arrivals. But beneath these human distinctions, time continues its legato, one endless stream. The breath you take now cycles into the one you took before and the one you will take next. The conversation you have today is shaped by the silences and words of yesterday. Nothing stands alone. Nothing is truly separate.

    To live in this truth is to embrace legato—not as a concept, but as a practice. It means letting go of the need to define the edges of moments, to resist the urge to isolate experiences as if they were islands. A legato life is one that acknowledges the endless chain of cause and effect, that feels the weight of the past and the pull of the future, yet remains present in the now. It is a life that understands time not as a sequence of isolated beats, but as a melody without gaps.

    Yet this way of being is not easy. Just as playing legato requires discipline and focus, so does living it. In music, the legato phrase asks the performer to give their full attention, to shape each note with care while never losing sight of the whole. To live legato is to do the same—to shape each moment with intention, even as we surrender to the structure of the larger melody

    I’ve written a short book that explores how music is organized and the roles it can play across the globe. The book is called Formative Forces in Sound. If you are interested it is available on Amazon here for $0.99 www.amazon.com/formativeforcesinsound

    Third Section: The Vulnerability of Flow

    Barber Adagio under the stars

    There’s a reason we mix legato and other articulations in music and in life. While legato embodies continuity, staccato and accents bring contrast, punctuation, and release. Without these breaks, our experience can become overwhelming, even suffocating. Consider Barber’s Adagio for Strings, a work that bathes us in pure legato. The sound is seamless, unbroken, pulling us into its depth with every rising and falling phrase. It is beautiful. It is devastating. And yet—how long can we sustain it? How long can we immerse ourselves in its unrelenting flow before we crave a pause, a breath, a moment of articulation to anchor us?

    In life, as in music, the constant flow of legato can be both liberating and unnerving. Buddhism and Taoism teach us that the separations we perceive—between one note and the next, one moment and another—are illusions. They remind us to see beyond these artificial divisions, to live in the present as part of a seamless whole. And yet, human experience is marked by our need to define, to isolate, to name. We create breaks in the melody, not because they truly exist, but because we need them to make sense of the song.

    This is the paradox of legato. It shows us the truth of continuity while also revealing our discomfort with it. To embrace legato fully, as in Barber’s Adagio, is to surrender—to let go of the illusion of separation and immerse ourselves in the flow. But this surrender is not easy. The vulnerability of legato lies in its demand for presence. It does not allow us to step back, to hide in the spaces between notes or moments. It asks us to remain, exposed and connected, for as long as the phrase lasts.

    And yet, even in this vulnerability, there is power. In the unbroken line of legato, we glimpse the essence of existence: a flow that cannot be paused or divided, only lived. It is in this surrender to continuity that we begin to see the illusion of separation for what it is—a fleeting thought, a shadow cast on the surface of an endless river.

    Final Section: The Unbroken Presence

    In the end, legato is not just a musical articulation—it is a way of being, a way of seeing. It teaches us that life does not unfold in fragments but as a seamless, unbroken thread. It calls us to live in the flow, to shape each moment with care, and to recognize that every note, every action, is part of a larger melody.

    Barber’s Adagio fades into silence, but the silence is not an end. It is the transition into something else—the next sound, the next moment, the next truth. Legato reminds us that there is no true ending, only the continuous transformation of one thing into another.

    To live legato is to embrace this truth. It is to bathe in the flow of life, even when it overwhelms, even when it exposes. It is to know that the melody never stops, that every note belongs, and that nothing is truly separate.

    And so the music continues, unbroken, always forward. A single, endless thread, carrying us all.

  • Writing music analysis for non-musicians & music majors

    Whether you know music or not, you may be asked to write an essay/analysis on a piece of music. If you’re a music major or thinking about studying music in college, get used to it! This task can feel a little overwhelming, especially if it is your first time writing about music. This article is tuned for people who have very little music knowledge on up to people who have some formal music theory courses under their belts. I think the tips, suggestions, and resources I provide are useful to anyone who is tasked with this kind of writing.

    Your teacher or professor gave you some direction as to what they are looking for in your work, so I’ll be addressing the topic more generally and offering my own ideas. Always refer to your specific assigned requirements.

    What should music analysis include?

    Before we get to the step-by-step, here’s what I think most music analysis essays should include:

    • Background of the music.
      • Context
      • Significant performances
    • Background of the composer(s).
    • Musical analysis
      • Timbre
      • Form
      • Harmony
      • Melody
      • Orchestration
      • Composition techniques
    • Your own ideas and conclusions

    So, how do you start analyzing music? I lay out some step to get you started below.

    Step 1: Get to know the music

    Before writing you should listen to the music many times. Each time you listen, try listening for different things. I suggest listening at least five times in five different ways.

    1. Listen then write what the music made you feel or imagine. Did it take you on a ride? Did it make you think of your childhood? Jot down a few notes. Then try to articulate why it had that effect on you. Was it the melody? Was there a rhythm or specific instrument that pulled you on a journey?
    2. Listen for instrumentation. What instruments do you hear? Are they playing all the time? What combinations of instruments did you hear? Is there any significance in the instrumentation that was chosen? Are these traditional instruments or perhaps all electronic?
    3. Listen for dynamics. You can use a line on a page to indicate the dynamic shape of the music. Did it start out quiet and stay quiet for the entire piece? Or did it go up and down?
    4. Listen for rhythm. What kind of rhythms did you hear? Were they steady throughout the piece? Did the rhythm become more complex in some places? Polyrhythms?
    5. Listen for meter and tempo. Were you able to identify the meter? Did the music speed up or slow down? If yes, where in the music?

    Once you have listened through five times with different ears on, I like to sketch what I think the music looks like visually. I use colors, shapes, figures, words, anything to attempt to capture the music on one sheet of paper.

    Finally, to get the know the music, you must get the score or written version of the music. This will help you see things in the music you may not have heard. It will also be essential if you’re going to be doing detailed music analysis (see steps 5-7). If you have a good ear, you can make your own transcription of the piece.

    Step 2: Get to know the composer

    Whether you’re writing about Adele or Bartok, you need to know some background information about the composer. Some key things to know are:

    • Full name
    • Date of birth
    • Date of death (if applicable)
    • About their musical background/career
    • Their other works
    • Musical “trademarks” they have
    • Where they live(d)

    Having this knowledge before writing will help you add colorful details to your writing. Rather than simply listing these elements as facts, you’ll be able to sprinkle these facts into your paragraphs breathing a little more life into them.

    Depending on the scope of the assignment, I wouldn’t recommend doing a deep dive into the composer but rather grab info from a few sources outside of Wikipedia.

    • Interviews on youtube can be a great place to grab quotes and get to know more about the composer in their own words.
    • Documentaries on youtube are great places to get a fast overview of the composer.
    • Composer websites is a curated experience that the composer wanted you to experience.
    • Fan websites
    • Books about the composer or by the composer (if you have the time to read an entire book about the composer, this is where you will learn the most).

    Step 3: Put the music in context

    Nothing exists in a bubble, so figure out where this music fits in. Here are three parameters you may explore.

    • Time era – When were they writing? What was the time like? Are we talking horses or Teslas? How does the time in which the composer wrote the music affect the music? Was the composer part of a particular music or art movement?
    • Geography – Where in the world did the composer live and where did they write the music in question? Was it in the French countryside? Or an island off of Australia? Austin, Texas? Does the geography influence the music and in what ways?
    • Within their works, when was this piece written?
      • Listen to the first piece of music this composer released (or the earliest one you can find), how is it similar or different?
      • Listen to the last piece of music released by this composer, how is it similar or different?
      • Was the music written during a particular phase or episode in the composer’s life? A bad breakup? The death of a child? Just won prestigious award? Was the composer overtly trying to say something?

    With this knowledge, you’ll be able to add depth to your analysis.

    Step 5: The Music’s Structure

    Every type/genre of music has its own musical structures. Here are a few types of structures your piece may be using:

    • Strophic – a specialized binary form where all verses are sung to the same music. You might see a song labeled with “A section and B section” or “verse and chorus”.
    • Ternary – a three-part form typically ABA.
    • Theme and variations
    • Through composed – the music does not repeat sections (Bohemian Rhapsody uses this form).
    • Sonata – be careful with this one, there are many variations.
    • Chance

    In tonal music (most music form the West) we have many cues to let us know the structure of the music. If there are lyrics, then there may be lyrical patterns that inform the structure of the music. Typically, it’s a combination of melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic cues that let the listener know where the end of a section is. Here is a quick example from Adele’s Hello that exemplifies three typical signs the phrase has ended.

    1. The melody moves downward and finishes on the tonic.
    2. The melodic rhythm ends on a long note.
    3. The harmony ends on the tonic.
    Example of phrase ending for music analysis

    The key to analyzing musical structure is to find the major sections of the music and determine how the composer fit these sections together – how are the various sections related? There is a lot that can go into this part of the analysis, but at the very least you should know the basic structure of the piece.

    For an in depth look at form and structure here is a book by Leon Stein, Anthology of Musical Forms — Structure & Style: The Study and Analysis of Musical Forms

    Step 6: The notes

    After the structure is understood, getting a handle on the melody, harmony, articulation, and dynamics is the next step. Once again, this can go as deep or shallow as you like. I’ll go over some of the basic elements to highlight in each area.

    Melody

    You will want to do some basic phrasal analysis, which entails understanding the smallest units of the melody that combined together to create the full melody. You are looking for how long the phrases are. How do they relate to each other? Are the phrases transposed, inverted, retrograded, etc…? But remember to keep in mind why it matters in the first place to understand this. I look at analysis as the practice of figuring out what “works” in music. What makes music communicate so powerfully? It’s easy to get lost in the minutia of the music and then not say anything important. How are the melodic phrases and structures related and how and why do you think this contributed to the music? Here is a brief example of how I’d start a melodic analysis. This is from MINUET No 1, in G Major by Mozart. This example is by no means exhaustive of how deep you can go analyzing melody.

    • The pink dashed box shows the prime melodic unit – two eighth notes descending to a quarter note all slurred together.
    • There are two short phrases that make up the red “phrase #1”. These two phrases are a descending sequence.
    • The blue phrase #2 uses the prime melodic unit but shortens it by using it back to back.
    • Phrase #2 in measure 8 ends on the dominant five chord – a half cadence.
    • Phrase #1b begins with the prime melodic idea just transposed down a 6th from measure 1.
    • Phrase #2b begins like phrase #2a but transposed down by a perfect 5th.
    • The green arrows indicate a change in melodic direction at the same point in the phrase.
    • Phrase #2b ends on a tonic – a perfect cadence. This type of cadence completes the section before it moves onto the a B section.
    Brief melodic analysis of Mozart

    Harmony

    If you’re a music student, you should probably go ahead and do a full roman numeral analysis. In some music, harmony will reveal many structures and patterns that hold the piece together. But be aware that many types of music place little to no importance on harmony. For example, one time I was analyzing a piece of traditional Thai music and very quickly found that there were only two harmonies used throughout the entire piece. It just went back and forth between a I (tonic) and a V (dominant). In a way the Roman numerals did their job by showing the harmony was not an element that the composer was used to hold the piece together. In most tonal music, the harmony is very important, but be careful to point out areas of harmonic interest rather than just rattle off the chords. Here are a few things to look for in harmony:

    • harmonic rhythm
    • cadences
    • repetitions in progressions and how the repetitions are varied
    • sequences
    • modulations
    • key changes
    • how expectations may have been played with (did the composer end on a surprising chord? and why?)

    articulation

    It can be useful to pay attention to some of the less structural elements in the music, like articulation. Articulation is one of those aspects of the music that is riding on the surface playing a significant role in the experience of the music.

    • legato: note are performed smooth and connected
    • staccato: notes are shorter than their written rhythmic value
    • tenuto: hold the note for the entire rhythmic value
    • marcato: louder and more forceful
    • accent: play the note with a little bite at the beginning of the note

    dynamics

    Dynamics are an important way for the composer to communicate. The very quiet sections can get an audience on the edge of their seats just as much as a loud section. Here are some basic dynamics volume terms:

    • fortissimo = very loud
    • forte = loud
    • mezzo forte = kind of loud
    • mezzo piano = kind of soft
    • piano = quiet
    • pianissimo = very quiet

    Here are some terms to describe changing dynamics:

    • crescendo = slowly get louder
    • decrescendo = slowly get quieter
    • diminuendo = slowly get quieter
    • subito piano = suddenly perform at the piano volume level
    • sforzando = suddenly loud

    Step 7: Compositional techniques

    Whether it’s Bon Iver or Bach, composers use compositional techniques to express themselves through the music. Every genre, composer, time period, geographic location, has their own unique set of established compositional techniques. I’m providing just the smallest sample of a few common techniques, but there are way to many to cover here.

    • chance: a set of rules is created and the composer plays a game to generate musical ideas and content. For example, I have some dice. Every time I roll a “1” I write the tonic of my key. I roll again to determine the rhythmic value. And I roll again to determine the articulation. And this can go on and on. If you did this, then you’d be able to generate a piece by the roll of the dice – chance.
    • repetition: self explanatory, just repeat a section.
    • sequence: take a melody or piece of the music and repeat it but alter it by transposing it up or down. Usually, do this three or more times.
    • pedal tones and bell tones: a pedal tone is a low pitch that is repeated over and over while the other parts change. A bell tone is a high pitch that is repeated over and over while the other parts change.
    • textures: think of complex vs simple.
    • counterpoint: layered melodic lines that follow carefully thought out rules of voice leading.
    • range: low vs high and everything in between.

    Step 8: Outline the essay

    Now that you know the music, the composer, the context, and the specific musical elements of the piece, it’s time to start outlining what you’re going to say about this music. One common method for presenting music is to start wide and zoom in with every paragraph. Think of it like an opening shot of a movie. The camera is pulled out (an establishing shot) to give the viewer context. So maybe imagine a setup with something as big as a planet, a continent, country, or city. Then the camera moves in to a neighborhood or high rise, or field. Then we get in closer to the home where we find our protagonist. We can do the same thing throughout the musical essay. Here is an example outline I did for the essay I wrote on Alfred Schnittke – Concerto Grosso no. 1.

    Five-paragraph essay outline

    Introduction – zoomed out look at the context of the composer, time, location, performance, etc

    Establish polystylism the compositional technique as my “protagonist.” Start zoomed out and discuss what polystylism is and other examples of this technique in use. Introduce Schnittke and his personal context. Get down to the piece and list a few of the styles that will be encountered in the music. Finally, deliver the thesis of the essay (the problem of the story), an examination of how to successfully deploy polystylism through consonance and dissonance.

    Body paragraph #1- looking at polystylism across the entire piece and form

    Discuss how many time styles are changed. Maybe present a chart showing the combinations of styles. Where’s the climax of the piece and what happens there?

    Body paragraph #2 – zoom in a bit more and look at an entire section of a stylistic change

    Give examples from a few different sections that show the stylistic writing of the various styles. For example, during a baroque section, show the counterpoint involved. Show the extended piano technique in the “contemporary” sections.

    Body paragraph #3 – zoom in and look at the notes, articulations, orchestration, voice leading of the moment of change

    Discuss what is happening in the music at one of the shifts from one style to another. What orchestration, textures, dynamics, and harmonic language is being used?

    Conclusion – draw conclusions and say something interesting

    Discuss the specific techniques Schnittke employed to transition between styles. What other contextual elements supported this music? If a composer wanted to use this as a case study, how would you distill down the polystylistic technique of Schnittke?

  • Timbre’s Deep Evolutionary Power

    There are many great articles and videos discussing the technical side of timbre (pronounced “tam” + “bur”), so I wanted to address timbre from a different angle. I was reading The Musical Human by Michael Spitzer and found a section that brought up the issue of timbre to be interesting.

    Spitzer pointed out that a change in timbre completely changes the meaning of a word. Nothing real novel except that he was referencing apes, not humans. He argues that timbre above melody, grammar, or syntax is what drives the meaning in communication. What I take from that is, timbre is the prime mover of meaning and emotions in music.

    What is Timbre?

    Before diving into this topic, I want to quickly go over what timbre is. Timbre is what makes each sound have a unique and identifiable sound. It’s how we can tell our mom’s voice from our sister’s voice. Or how we can tell the difference between a piano playing the pitch A and an oboe playing the same note. It’s the physical differences of the instrument or object and how vibrations interact with that object that gives everything a different timbre. A vibrating string versus vibrating vocal cords will sound very different even if they are creating the same pitch.

    Timbre is related to words we use to describe sounds like bright, dark, round, tinny, warm, etc. Each of those words is describing the frequencies that are produced by that particular instrument. Timbre can be very apparent and very subtle. It’s obvious to hear the difference between the sound striking a rock makes versus a gong. But it can be extremely difficult to hear the difference between a $40,000 brand new cello and an $800,000 cello made 200 years ago. The difference is there but more difficult to articulate.

    Why is timbre so important?

    Back to why timbre is perhaps the most important part of music. I say this because it may be the most ancient part of music that came to modern humans via apes. Spitzer points out that humans don’t come from a long line of music-making ancestors. Primates don’t have a sense of rhythm like insects, melodies like birds, or a repertoire of songs that adapt and are passed down like whales. Primates, aside from humans, don’t use vocalization as their primary way of communication – they use body language. But if we look at what does matter to our primate cousins it’s timbre or “tone of voice.”

    Spitzer’s example is of a species of Old World monkey from Ethiopia called geladas. Geladas have a wide range of calls that are typically used to “keep the peace within their harems.” Here is a short clip showing the sounds the geladas make.

    According to research by Bruce Richman, the geladas can have multiple meanings for the same series of sounds (word). One example he gave was of the sound that meant “a male’s friendly approach.” But he also witnessed this same series of sounds that were made with a tight voice that expressed the male had just engaged in a bout of threats with competing bachelor males. Richman says the gelada is expressing two emotional states at the same time by changing the tone of voice. Spitzer claims this is evidence that the emotional tone, contour, rhythm, and pace of voice are more important to the origin of language than previously thought. I think this also shows that the parameters that music manipulates (tone, contour, rhythm, etc.) have deep communicative power stemming from our evolutionary roots.

    I have truly enjoyed reading Spitzer’s book, The Musical Human, and highly recommend those interested in music to give it a read.

    The difference between calls and music

    Spitzer discusses the difference between a call and music. Some primates sound like they sing songs, but some key features make these calls and not music.

    “Male and female gibbons sing love duets, intricate and beautiful, sometimes lasting an hour. We also know of song in tarsiers, indri and langurs. The point is, however, that gibbons, tarsiers, indri and langurs are born knowing these sounds, they are the same across the habitat, and they never change. They are calls, not music.”

    Spitzer, michael. the musical human. 2021. pg 305

    My thoughts on this are that humans have hung on to this ear for timbre and rely on it heavily in speech as well as music. Composers think long and hard about what instruments they want playing which parts. But perhaps renewed emphasis on timbre will emerge with the knowledge that different timbres communicate at a deeper level. Timbre speaks to our emotions more readily than even rhythm, harmony, or melody.

    Examples of timbre

    Many pieces of music explore timbre and many traditions of music value timbre above other aspects of the music – particularly vocal music. Listen to these Tuvan throat singers and how they exploit a very specific timbre the voice can produce.

    Now compare that timbre to this Native American pow wow music. It’s more than a difference in style or pitch, it’s a difference in timbre choice.

    The examples could go on and on because there are virtually an infinite number of distinct timbres. Here is an example from Indian music. The singer’s timbre is more nasal and “pinched” than is typical in Western music.

    Concluding thoughts on timbre

    Timbre communicates before melody, rhythm, or any other musical factor. Think of how parents can tell the differences between cries of pain, hunger, fear, and frustration, that come from their children. The “words” are the same. There is no melody or rhythm to speak of. It is the timbre of the cry that conveys so much meaning.

    When listening to or writing your own music, consider the extreme power of timbre and how it can enhance your work and experience.