One of my peers plays piano and he always gives me a hard time because I dont care to understand what chords are being played in a piece. I just play whats written and play it well. but he believes i should know when an Eflat7 is being played in a piece and i shoulde know the progression otherwise dont play. He likens it to reading and says that we read because we know sentences and words and tells me you just know letters and dont understand what they make up. Even though my repetoire is larger than his he still doesnt give me any credit he can only play rach c-sharp minor prelude fully some of g minor and half of Hungarian rhapsody number two where as i can play pathetique second movement, lento con gran espression, Nocturne op 27 no1 op 55 no1 and military polonaise. he always belittles me. is it important to know progressions? i can tell when i change key by hearing it and what not
If you want to become reasonably advanced, you will find that understanding the chords and the harmonic progressions in any music from Beethoven (or even late Mozart) on is very important to really understanding what the piece has to say.
My quibble with this is that from Beethoven on, naming chords becomes increasingly descriptive rather than providing so much "why". In other words, yes you can name the chord, but that offers no insight whatsoever as to why that particular chord was chosen. And, after all, any random arrangement of notes can be given a chord name.
There are no random arrangements of notes in beethoven
The descriptive naming of chords does not in itself tell you "why" but it is a part of finding out why. Knowing what they are tells you about their function in relation to the other chords, and knowing its function tells you something about its purpose. Some teachers always insists on "bring out the harmony, do what the harmony tells you" but if you have no idea how the harmony works, how will you know how to do that? How will you know when something "expected" or "unexpected" happens?
My Ears. I know what things sound like, but what does naming them add?
The ears are the ultimate guide. Knowing the theoretical end gives you more tools to know what to look/listen for.Sometimes I hear people who play very nice but fail to notice harmonically significant chords. They are not exactly doing something wrong per se, because their ears guide them to play very nice sounds and phrasing but they don't show that something harmonically significant is happening.
The composers knew all this stuff so to them i.e. a mediant was something special, it should be to us too.
It seems unlikely something harmonically significant could be happening that wasn't audible.
Perhaps for Beethoven. What about Scriabin, say? What about extended tonality, atonality, serialism?
One of my peers plays piano and he always gives me a hard time because I dont care to understand what chords are being played in a piece. I just play whats written and play it well. but he believes i should know when an Eflat7 is being played in a piece and i shoulde know the progression otherwise dont play. He likens it to reading and says that we read because we know sentences and words and tells me you just know letters and dont understand what they make up.
To simply know what an E7 chord is is not quite important, I think. What's important is to know how the voicing goes, and it's relationship with other chords. Deceptive cadences becomes much more "powerful" (in lack of a better word) when you know how it got there, and why it's special.
Just listen to how Horowitz brings out the minor 9th from g sharp to a just before the main theme comes back in scriabin's op. 2 no. 1. He knew that if he didn't bring it out, it wouldn't be heard properly as the tension that it should be. A pianist who assumes that merely because a minor 9th exists, musical tension will sort itself out is not a pianist I can bear to listen to.
Perhaps it is fortunate you came to him late, then. By the 1980's, he was doing as you say regularly....Most clearly, or similarly.Listen, however, to his earlier recording from 1962:Missing in action.I would explain the need to bring out that A (and I agree it should be) in terms of the polyphony of the piece - how it works in the voice it appears in - but we have been down that path before and it may, in any case, be a case of pronouncing tomato.As an aside, this piece is based entirely on common practice harmony, albeit somewhat chromatic. It is, in this instance unproblematic to regard that interval as a minor 9th. How does one do the same thing in late Scriabin, where he uses a synthetic scale? Are you suggesting the same relationships apply anyway?
Missing in action? Really? Compare to other pianists playing the piece. The note comes out loud and clear still, just marginally less extremely than his late performances.
What's the big deal about a new voice that enters merely to do a descending second?
In late scriabin, a minor 9th is still tension. His collections of fourths often sound extremely consonant. Traditionally chromatic intervals still give the tension to his music. Look at the opening tritones in ver la flames. That shouldn't sound ordinary to anyone, simply because he was using more chromatic chords in general. Minor seconds, major 7ths and such intervals always tend to evoke the most tension. Hearing the different qualities of different intervals can only be considered more important for scriabin.
If you say so. New? You haven't been paying attention.My question - an it is a question - is whether in a synthetic scale it is appropriate to refer to scale intervals by reference to the synthetic scale or by reference to a standard scale or to consider them in that way. Even moreso in some 12 tone, particularly serial 12 tone, or other atonal forms. It 's clearly possible to do so, but doesn't thinking of it in that way presuppose the primacy or inevatbility of tonality?
Still, its not much of an argument that it is essential that somebody should know what an Em7 chord is before he can properly play classical music.
They can do this because they think in terms of emotion or color, not pianism (e.g. Scriabin, who was not a good improvisor).
If someone doesn't know what E minor 7 is, neither will they have much sense of what chords are interesting.
Understanding what an Em7 chord is, doesnt mean somebody can do better things with music either. And believe it or not.... But some people create a feeling for music by -listening- to music, instead of reading about music.
Given that you never heard him improvise and that he was regarded by many as a very fine improviser, what are you basing this on?
His compositions, my dear. No one who improvised well would really write in such heavy, block-like chords. They'd make far better use of the notes to express the intended emotions.
No one who improvised well would really write in such heavy, block-like chords. They'd make far better use of the notes to express the intended emotions.
Your polyphony explanation fails, because nobody would bring out the rest of that tenor part in most of the middle section. In orchestration, you'd expect the fs to be merged in with other strings. It's just harmonic filler.
Regarding intervals, usage of standard accepted terminology for intervals is only terminology- not a reflection of being stuck in major vs minor thinking . Given that a minor second is not even the interval found in a minor scale, the system doesn't even fit consistently logically within tonality. I haven't been discussing in relation to minor or major, but in relation to the different innate qualities of different intervals, be they in regular tonality or in atonal music.
I'd humour you, were that not one of the single stupidest and most illogical pieces of reasoning I've ever heard. Even if he only wrote the first piano sonata, the reasoning would not make sense. The link is absurdly tenuous. But even the initial statement is not even accurate. Are you completely unfamiliar with the preludes? I've never encountered such an embarrassingly empty piece of reasoning for such a damning proclamation about something you are unable to judge or even witness.
Just out of curiosity, when you listen to a polyphonic piece (and lets step aside from this one, let's make it one that is undoubtedly polyphonic and fully contrapuntal) do you hear each of the voices as voices all throughout, whether they are the most prominent at a given point or not, or do you hear the most prominent voice and the remainder as harmony?
OK, makes sense. But do different intervals only have an innate quality. Don't they also have a contextual quality?
Why would you even ask that?
The point is that individual intervals still have their own personal flavour.
No offence intended. I didn't doubt your analysis incorporated such factors, but it wasn't clear from what you had said that your actual hearing did. Not everyone's does, even if their analysis is impeccable.Some pieces have polytonality. I'm curious how you regard intervals between the (say) two differently based parts. Are they more tightly bound to the tonality of the part they are in, or are all intervals equal?
How is it even possible to hear a five voice fugue as if mere melody and harmony? Different ears will pick out different levels of detail and different performers will make a point of drawing attention to different details. But I struggle to see how it's even possible to hear that way- nevermind how it might be implied by the fact that I choose to pay attention to the musical significance of vertical intervals within a harmony (be they approached by voice leading or a one off chord). All intervals are compared to all intervals. That's the crux of what I've been saying. Say if you have f sharp and C major together, superficial analysis reveals two harmonies that can be reasonably clumped together as groups of sound. It may also pay heed to the obvious tritone. Proper intervallic awareness ALSO reveals that the tension exists primarily in f sharp against g and C sharp against C. Nothing is separate from the value of these principles, assuming it's grounded in the western scale.
A lot of theory and analysis of music, but the ability of putting this on paper doesnt suddenly make someone better at getting it out of the piano, neither is it a requirement.A decent performing musician can hear the friction/tension in a chord and the effect it has on the surrounding notes. Its all about the emotion that surrounds it, not about talking about it.
And it's also about whether you have the first clue to how to convey that. The whole point here is that you don't get to hear the tension unless you appreciate what generates it and voice accordingly. Even then, it takes a lot of practise to bring it out. There's is no advantage to rummaging around in the dark. Someone who doesn't even understand which notes generate the tension of a harmony is at a big disadvantage. appreciating precisely where harmonic tension actually lies is only the first steps towards expressing it, but it's a very important step. As jmenz described, people who work on mere feel tend to make a nice melody that stands out from harmonic background, but they also tend not to catch all the interesting harmonic details.
I suppose that will also mean that a pianist will never be able to master a piano untill he has worked in a piano factory and fully understands how the piano mechanically functions?
How is it even possible to hear a five voice fugue as if mere melody and harmony?
Say if you have f sharp and C major together, superficial analysis reveals two harmonies that can be reasonably clumped together as groups of sound. It may also pay heed to the obvious tritone. Proper intervallic awareness ALSO reveals that the tension exists primarily in f sharp against g and C sharp against C.
Quite a lot of people do. Cultural training?If you have a melody in C major, and a simultaneous melody in F# major, it is quite possible that the intervals you describe never actually occur simultaneously. It mat be all perfectly harmonious regular intervals. My question is to what extent do we need to regard the intervals between the two voices as the harmonic determinate, and to what extent does the place of an individual note in the scale of the key of which it is part have a place?
A completely illogical comparison. You cannot sculpt the details in intervals if you are not aware of them and cannot perceive which ones carry tension and which ones carry normal consonance. Everyone knows what pianos do in practise. Anyone who doesn't understand which notes carry consonance and dissonance has no means of reflecting it. Everyone who does achieve good voicing will still have to notice these issues to succeed, without any guidance or assistance. Most likely they just won't notice and will miss all the interesting details that they know nothing of. You have be even more aware of the ingredients involved in harmonic tension, to do it on intution. It's a fools goal, given how easy it is to take the time to organise the process of listening in and getting to know the flavour of each possible interval and then get used to recognising the interesting ones at first sight, rather than rummaging in the dark until it sounds nice. Very basic analysis shows where the interest lies in chords and gives the basis upon which to 'feel' the necessary colouration. Real interpretation is not slapped on randomly but reflects tensions and releases.
You call it a completely illogical comparison because 'everybody knows what pianos do in practise' and at the same time you claim that people cant make music of an Em7 chord unless they analysed it till they can call it an Em7 chord?I'd rather 'rummage in the dark' and hear the chords and patterns in them, than trying to cope with it like some math project like you seem to do know.Do you even get to the point that you start -playing- the pieces?
You can't play the opening of tristan and Isolde effectively on the piano unless you either copy someone else's interpretation like a mindless fool, or understand that the a sharp is a chromatic note that resolves into a hanging 7th chord.
Is it that hard to understand that maybe not everybody has to analyse music that much before being able to play it? I listened to your recording and you seem to play it decently (recording isnt that good), so it obviously works for you. But dont make the mistake to think that because it is a requirement for you, other people can not effectively play it without the analysis unless copying. That is a pretty bold statement only based on yourself.