FUNDAMENTAL HARMONY. Piano Writing Guidelines 0:50 3:00

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1 FUNDAMENTAL HARMONY Dr. Declan Plummer Lesson 12: Piano Textures There are several important differences between writing for piano and writing for vocal/choral/satb music: SATB range rules no longer apply. Rather than 4-part texture, the piano texture has a wider register and there is a RH / LH division. 8ves & 5ths are often used as sonic devices, but not for partwriting. The texture will also include music that is characteristic of the piano (e.g. scales arpeggios etc.,) The leading note, the 3rd and any chromatic dissonant note may be doubled, provided there are plenty of other notes in the chord that are also doubled to balance its effect! Beethoven, Sonata Op.10 No.1 There are several different directions for stems in piano music: Notes that are to be played together share one common stem 0:50 Notes with different rhythms, held notes etc., also need independent directional stems Up and down stems are used to show movements of parts in multitiered textures 3:00

2 For spacing, notes between and should be more than a 3rd apart. For notes below at least an octave or more is preferred. There are several common piano accompaniment styles 7:23 Block Chord / Harmonic Style Leaping Bass Accompaniment 0:30 Alberti Bass Accompaniment Piano music has exceptions to the consecutive 5 ths and 8 ves rule: For keyboard music that is clearly not contrapuntal, the normal voice-leading conventions do not apply. Either the right hand or the left hand may be doubled in octaves. 5:25 Broken Chords and Arpeggios By the Classical period, consecutive perfect 8 ves in contrary motion were commonplace at perfect cadences End

3 Piano music has exceptions to the consecutive 5 ths and 8 ves rule: For keyboard music consecutive 5 ths and 8 ves between upper and lower parts were accepted in a passage that was melodic and in unison. For keyboard music consecutive 5 ths in the right-hand part are not allowed, though acceptable in the left-hand accompaniment figures 0:48 Stylistic Features: Classical Piano 1. Well-articulated and distinct phrases, two or four bars in length. Inclination towards symmetry leads to periodic sentences and formalised sections being organised around related key structures. 2. Constructed on simple, straightforward chords, decorated by lots of NHT. Chromatic chords justified by resolutions of dissonances, established cadences and conventional key structures. 3. Motivic development was favoured (esp. Haydn and Beethoven), using sequences and repetitions.rhythmic patterns are usually consistent and predictable giving beauty, pulse and momentum to the music 4. Mostly homophonic texture, never too cluttered, thick or complex. Predictable accompaniment patterns (broken chords, Alberti bass). 5. Most works written in extended binary, ternary, variation, radon or sonata forms Stylistic Features: Romantic Piano 1. Artistic freedom of the individual, unrestrained movement, passion, expression of personal feelings. Replaces the classical ideals of universality, control, order, equilibrium, serenity and restraint. 2. Piano more capable of a range of expressions than the classical piano. Sudden and extreme changes in range, tempo, dynamics and tonality. 3. New styles emerged, nearly all of which suggest some specific mood or scene (sometimes specified in the title): imagination, fantasy, quest for adventure, far-off lands, distant past, nature, human emotions, legends, fairy tales, magic and the supernatural were all popular. 4. Homophonic accompaniment much thicker and based more often on chromatic harmony that takes longer to resolve. Multi-tier texture consisting of a melody (which can be in any register), a bass line and inner parts. Stylistic Features: Modern Piano 1. A period of searching, turmoil experimentation and discovery. No unanimous style or ideals, but instead a whole range: impressionism, expressionism, serialism, post-modernism, neoclassicism etc. 2. Rhythm received the greatest attention in modern music: especially freedom from regular metric pulse: Russian composers introduced and integrated speech accents into their rhythms, which included wider leaps, more syncopation and shifted accents. 3. Melody became more discursive and fragmented, using repeated pitches, variations of a single motivic cell, atonal procedures like 12- tone serialism, or modal, pentatonic, whole-tone scales. 4. Traditional harmony often replaced by non-functional chords, polychords, note clusters, quartal harmony and many other possibilities.

4 In addition to the 7 th, further extensions can be made to the triad by inserting a 9 th, 11 th or 13 th from the root (usually of the dominant V) The dominant minor 9th is a chromatic chord in a major key, but it s a diatonic chord in a minor key c: c: Both V 9 and V 13 resolve to I, but V 11 usually progresses to another dominant chord (i.e. V or V 9 or V 13 ) before resolving to I. An SATB choir is traditionally limited to just four notes, whereas a single pianist can played up to ten notes simultaneously. Coupled with Romantic exploration of thicker textures and harmonies, it is not surprising that extended chords occur more often in piano music than SATB music (especially at cadences!). Very often, what may appear to be a 9th, 11th or 13th chord is nothing more than the result of adding non-harmony notes to simpler versions of the same chord (even for dominant chords): app sus app sus The 7th and 9th normally resolve down When not used as an appoggiatura the 11th usually remains on the same note, the tonic. When not used as an appoggiatura the 13th normally falls a 3rd. I 6 V 7 vi IV V 9 8 I I 6 V 7 vi 4 3 not V 9 not V 11 not V 13

5 However, sometimes it is more logical to describe the chord extensions 0:24 not iii 6 4:23 End 6 vi ii 5 V 13 I 3:33 V 7 9 /V V 7 i 9 not iii 6 vi 7 11 V 7 /V V I 9 very rare 13 7 V V 7 9 V vii O 7/V V 7