FUNDAMENTAL HARMONY

Dr. Declan PlummerLesson 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 part-writing.

• The texture will also include music that is characteristic of the piano (e.g. scales arpeggios etc.,)

Piano Writing Guidelines

• 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

Piano Writing Guidelines• There are several different directions for stems in piano music:

Notes that are to be played together share one common stem

Up and down stems are used to show movements of parts in multitiered textures

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Piano Writing Guidelines

Notes with different rhythms, held notes etc., also need independent directional stems

• For spacing, notes between and should be

more than a 3rd apart.

• For notes below at least an octave or more is preferred.

Piano Writing Guidelines

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Piano Writing Guidelines• There are several common piano accompaniment styles

Block Chord / Harmonic Style

Leaping Bass Accompaniment

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Broken Chords and Arpeggios

Piano Writing Guidelines

Hi

Hi HiHi

Alberti Bass Accompaniment

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Piano music has exceptions to the consecutive 5ths and 8ves 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.

• By the Classical period, consecutive perfect 8ves in contrary motion were commonplace at perfect cadences

Piano Writing Guidelines

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Piano music has exceptions to the consecutive 5ths and 8ves rule:

• For keyboard music consecutive 5ths and 8ves between upper and lower parts were accepted in a passage that was melodic and in unison.

• For keyboard music consecutive 5ths in the right-hand part are not allowed, though acceptable in the left-hand accompaniment figures

Piano Writing Guidelines

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Stylistic Features: Classical Piano1. 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 Piano1. 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 Piano1. 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, poly-chords, note clusters, quartal harmony and many other possibilities.

Further Extension of the TriadIn addition to the 7th, further extensions can be made to the triad by inserting a 9th, 11th or 13th from the root (usually of the dominant V)

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!).

Further Extension of the Triad

Both V9 and V13 resolve to I, but V11 usually progresses to another dominant chord (i.e. V or V9 or V13) before resolving to I.

The dominant minor 9th is a chromatic chord in a major key, but it’s a diatonic chord in a minor key

c:c:

Further Extension of the Triad

• 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.

Further Extension of the TriadVery 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):

I6 V7 vi I6 V7 vi IV V9 8 I

app

not V9 not V11 not V13

sus

4 3

app

sus

Further Extension of the TriadHowever, sometimes it is more logical to describe the chord extensions

not iii6

vi ii V13 I 65

not iii6

vi7 V /V V I 97

131197

very rare

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Further Extension of the Triad

V7/V V i97

V V7 V viiO /V V97

7

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