Applied Harmony: A Text-book for Those who Desire a Better Understanding of Music and an Increase in Power of Expression - Either in Performance Or Creative Work

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C.A. Alchin, 1921 - Harmony - 201 pages
 

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Page 4 - These melodies and their harmonic index plainly set the student's task before him, and give him the key to the whole musical rationale of the situation. Melody being the one simple and real fact in the beginner's inner consciousness and experience of music, it follows that the given melody is the one thing that his musical faculties can seize upon and be stirred by, the one thing that lies within his intellectual grasp and appreciation, the one thing he appreciates and remembers as a whole and in...
Page 4 - It will be observed that the above exercises are the exact counterparts in minor of those just presented in major. This comparative study and treatment of corresponding material in major and minor by means of such parallel exercises in given melodies is commended for its usefulness to students. Exercises in the given bass, owing to their arbitrary prescription of the order and arrangement of material, completely cut off the student from that independence of thought and judgment in the use and selection...
Page 4 - ... study. Thus to begin the study of chords is to reverse the natural order. Below are examples of first exercises embodying the primary triads. It is a psychological error to suppose that any beginner however gifted possesses the con280 ceptive power to grasp the four-voice music-thought embodied in these given basses. The impossible being demanded, the student's performance is necessarily mechanical and musically dead since his musical faculties are not called into requisition.
Page 4 - ... Melody being the one simple and real fact in the beginner's inner consciousness and experience of music, it follows that the given melody is the one thing that his musical faculties can seize upon and be stirred by, the one thing that lies within his intellectual grasp and appreciation, the one thing he appreciates and remembers as a whole and in relation to which it is easy for him to add something else since it explains the musical what, how and why of the addition. The beginner feels and can...
Page 3 - ... of his musical faculties and intelligence with which at the crucial moment his face will not fail to light up. Melody, the original reporter and raison d'etre of harmony, the universal voice and form of the inner music-consciousness, is the student's natural key to the what, how and why of chords. Melody is the direct reporter of fundamentals and chords. Fundamentals and chords are not reporters of melody though they may suggest them. The common practice of conceiving different melodies to a...

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