Bach Chorales! URGENT help needed!

Okay, so my A2 music 3hr Bach Chorale exam is on May 11th, and I REALLY need to gain as many marks as possible.

When you are doing a progression..e.g. I-V7-I...is the 7th the 7th note of the scale (of whatever key you're in) or the 7th of the 5th chord?!

ALSO,

Do specific parts (SATB) have particular rules...e.g. High tenor part, jumpy bass etc...

Reply 1

stephjess

The 7 means the 7th note of chord V.
If you were in C Major, chord V would be GBD and chord V7 would be GBDF

& yes:
Soprano- Nice melody, conjunct and disjunct really
Alto- Must stay conjunct
Tenor- Must stay conjunct
Bass- Can jump but watch the intervals it jumps to as some sound a bit weird

Oh & don't let the parts cross unless necessary!

Reply 2

thesilvermagnolia

OP

13

Original post by stephjess

The 7 means the 7th note of chord V.
If you were in C Major, chord V would be GBD and chord V7 would be GBDF

& yes:
Soprano- Nice melody, conjunct and disjunct really
Alto- Must stay conjunct
Tenor- Must stay conjunct
Bass- Can jump but watch the intervals it jumps to as some sound a bit weird

Oh & don't let the parts cross unless necessary!

Thank you so much! :smile:

Reply 3

Mamaji

Hi, you know when you write a cadence.
On the last chord of the cadence can you add a dissonace and suspend a note in one of the inner parts but then resolve it even though there is no chord after that one. So all part will be moving in crotchits except the part with the dissonce which will have two quavers on the last chord. Can i do this??

Sorry what i wrote is probably really hard to undersatnd :smile:

Reply 4

dirtyoldriver

10

Original post by Mamaji

Hi, you know when you write a cadence.
On the last chord of the cadence can you add a dissonace and suspend a note in one of the inner parts but then resolve it even though there is no chord after that one. So all part will be moving in crotchits except the part with the dissonce which will have two quavers on the last chord. Can i do this??

Sorry what i wrote is probably really hard to undersatnd :smile:

I've never heard of that being done. I would avoid it to stay on the safe side, as we're meant to be writing in the 'style of bach' you don't want to do anything he wouldn't have done conventionally! I would keep suspensions to either II7b V7 1 cadences or just inner parts when you have a note moving down :smile:

Reply 5

Mamaji

Original post by dirtyoldriver

I've never heard of that being done. I would avoid it to stay on the safe side, as we're meant to be writing in the 'style of bach' you don't want to do anything he wouldn't have done conventionally! I would keep suspensions to either II7b V7 1 cadences or just inner parts when you have a note moving down :smile:

Thank you

Do you know what sort of technical stuff you can do in the Bach Chorale Harmony to try and get better marks?? Aldo what about dim chords my teacher keeps saying it's fine to use a dim chord every now and then like chord VII in a minor key, but can we actually do this. he also toldus to use phrygian cadences but then my others teachers told us not too?? :biggrin:

Reply 6

dirtyoldriver

10

Original post by Mamaji

Thank you

Do you know what sort of technical stuff you can do in the Bach Chorale Harmony to try and get better marks?? Aldo what about dim chords my teacher keeps saying it's fine to use a dim chord every now and then like chord VII in a minor key, but can we actually do this. he also toldus to use phrygian cadences but then my others teachers told us not too?? :biggrin:

You could use a phrygian cadence but I don't really see the point when you could just do perfects and imperfects well. If you did a phrygian correctly then it would probably get you extra marks but make sure it's right and you're not forcing it in :smile:

A good thing to do is use secondary dominant chords - if you don't know them, you can use them to replace II7b in a cadence by raising the bass (i.e the 3rd) by a semitone and the 5th of the chord but only if it's minor (sorry if you did know them and that was unnecessary :p:

) it just spices things up a bit.

I never really understood diminished chords so I avoided them, I know if you have 1-2-3 in the melody at a perfect cadence you can use one on the first chord by basing them on the raised 4th of the key.

Umm if you have 1-2-3 in the melody you can use Ib VIIb I and it's really easy if you just insert the notes like
S 1 2 3
A 5 4 5
T 8 7 8
B 3 2 1

and if you have 3-2-1 do exactly the same thing in reverse.

If there's two notes that are the same in a row and not at a cadence then do the same chord twice but with a first inversion the second time, and use 4 quavers in the bass going tonic-passing note-3rd-tonic (if that makes sense).

If you have a 332 perfect cadence do 1-1b-V and have the bass line run up nicely in quavers.

Sorry if I've told you stuff you already know, this is just the tricks I've kept in my head :smile:

if you have a lot of 221 cadences then do a secondary dominant at one, II7b V7 I at another and V4 V3 I at another to keep it varied.