Day Thirteen: Hearing and Analysis

Through analysis, you learn the way to hear a piece of music. Musical example is transition harmony of first movement of Beethoven’s 7th.

The purpose of this lesson is to teach you how to analyze any tonal piece of music, and in doing so, understand the possibility of writing or performing one yourself. 

The work of re-familiarizing yourself with the inner feeling of the intervals and diatonic chord progressions can now be put to use when analyzing a piece of music with the goal of finding out how it articulates, how it breathes. For example, you know how an interval of a fourth feels like, and how the movement from the tonic to its subdominant feels like. 

In musical analysis these feelings that emerge from foundations are the most important aspects to pay attention to. These feelings are what give life to the piece, and you'll see that these are the most permanent structures that we take with us. Very often we don't "remember" the notes of a piece after we hear it, but we remember how the tonal relations made us feel.

We've already considered why and how those feelings arise by considering the elemental and striking nature of stable tones, which is itself a contrast from the sounds we normally hear. Then as we delved deeper into the notion of musical contrasts we built chord progressions, cadences, and modulations, all while finding the origin of musical tension in the intervals. The smallest musical structures will continue to provide you with experiential information into how the larger musical forms and structures are built. 

In practice, what are some different types of musical analysis and how can you apply it to become more creative and musical?

Reduction is just one type of harmonic analysis. 

1. There is the popular harmonic analysis with Roman numerals, which expresses the relationship through diatonic chord progressions. We mainly used this approach in the Bach chorales since it is music in one key that relies on diatonic chords. The usefulness with this approach is limited in different kinds of music though. As an example, certain chords sound ambiguous and aren't necessarily "attached" to a stable key, so expressing that with a scale degree number wouldn't have an advantage.

2. Harmonic analysis with chord names is probably a much better and more useful type of analysis. Simply labeling the name of the chord by finding the root of the chord is one of the best ways to find the stable notes of a composition. You can then find out how the stable points themselves are related in other parts of the piece. With this you can analyze music from Bach all the way to Bartok and beyond by calling the chord by what the ear hears as the most stable note. It's the most flexible way of harmonic analysis and still allows you the freedom of expressing the chord relations with the chord names. 

How do you find the root and name of any chord?

Conventionally we're taught to organize the notes being analyzed into stacked thirds and inverting the pitches to find the root. This way is limited because even if you've found the "root" in this way, the root can be subject to various interpretations.

What's better musically is to find the perfect fifths and fourths in the chord. As you know from the harmonic series (and from the experience of hearing a single tone) the fifth is the first new tone above the fundamental that supports it. If there is a fifth in the chord, then the lower tone of the fifth is the root of the chord. Conversely, if there is a fourth in the chord, then the upper tone is the root of the chord. This is highly useful. If there are two fifths in a chord (D-A-E), then the lowest root is the root of the entire chord. If there is no fifth, then use another consonant interval like a third and apply the same principle to find the more stable tone. Usually what I do is skip ahead in the piece to the next chord where there is a fifth. Then, I work backward and find out the harmonic impacts and resolutions that guide the ear the stability of that particular fifth.

3. Phrase analysis is probably one of the most important ways of musical analysis that relies on underlying harmony, because it's the most useful to us. It is not theory for theory's own sake. It is for the active listener, the performer, the composer. It is using a firm understanding of music theory to understand how it was possible for the composer to hear the sound relations and live the structured sound, with all of its disparate elements, as a unified experience. The essential question being asked with this type of analysis is, "For me, where does the new phrase begin?"

How do I know which method of analysis to choose?

Analysis must first express how you hear something.

The purpose of analysis is to deepen your hearing and to also learn about the structure of the composition. In every piece, whether tonal or atonal, you want to know how the piece articulates, which means you have to find out where the impacts and resolution are. 

If a piece relies heavily on chords, similar to a chorale, then you'll analyze it as such. If the piece instead is melodic and has many horizontal lines moving at once, like a fugue, then you'll lean toward more of a phrase analysis. 

The key is to then find out how the different parts of a piece relate together.

The musical details are meaningless without awareness of the bigger structures at play. 

Let's consider this brief passage in Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, that comes right after the full statement of the first main theme in the sonata form. 

Celibidache and The Munich Philharmonic 1989

Figure 1. After a driving statement in A major, our home key, Beethoven thunderously tonicizes B major (the major second of A major) with an A# diminished triad. The D# in B major isn't in the key of A major, so we're clearly modulating away from A major, and he's doing so in the ascending-fifths direction. The A# diminished triad functions to break us out of the home key. 

With regard to chord analysis, the A# diminished chord doesn't contain a fifth, but the next bar does, between B and F# (see in the bass). The B is the root of the chord since it's the lower fifth, and so the A# is charged toward that stable B just as it is in the B major scale. The stability of the B is strengthened by the F# in the harmony. The fact that the perfect fifth appears so audibly above every sounding note from the harmonic series gives this interval a much richer meaning when it appears in music.

Figure 2. The step from the A major to B major in the Beethoven is clearly extroverted! But what if the music had been in C# Major before the step to B major?

The relation from the previous chord to B is still a step of a major second (A to B and C# to B). The only difference is the direction, which changes the entire quality of the B major. Even though both chords have the same name, how it unfolds within us is totally different. 

For comparison:

A to B

C# to B

In the larger context, the B major is heard on the way to C# minor, which is more stable. How do I know that C# minor is a stable point? Because it is surrounded by tones that support and strengthen it, especially its dominant (G#). It is a resolution of the G# major chord, which is tense relative to the A major of the beginning since it has a D# in it. 

Through the familiar process of harmonic reduction, the Figure 1 passage can be summarized as:

Figure 3. From the third bar on, Beethoven is using notes of the C# minor scale, not the A major scale, so the Roman numerals reflect that, representing C# minor with iii. The VII-iv-V-i cadence in C# minor connects back to A major via the A# diminished chord. So this passage is a mini-modulation to C# minor. But in the piece, Beethoven doesn't stay in C# minor for long. 

The C# minor is actually one of two neutral harmonies on the way to a bigger stability to come in E major. So you can say the bigger and more structurally important modulation is from A major to E major via the neutral field of C# minor.

Take a listen to this section in its larger context and see if you can hear the entire modulation from A major to C# minor and then to E major at the end of the clip. Hear the C# major functioning to pull us away from A major and point the ear in the direction of E major:

Celibidache and The Munich Philharmonic 1989

Through analysis, you learn the way to hear a piece of music.

The final leg of the 14 day journey will take a look at a few pages of the last movement of the Third Symphony by Johannes Brahms, and analyze it in the ways that we know how for the purpose of coming closer to the piece.

This post is part of 14 Days of Harmony, a free course for musicians who want to deepen their understanding of harmony, and learn how to develop their connection with sound as a result. You can view the entire course here.

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