Enharmonic Modulation involves enharmonic respelling of the chordal notes. It is a very useful tool to have if you want to modulate to distant keys.
In the above example you can see the cadence in C major with modulation to B major. The main modulating chord here is on the beat 4 in measure 1: Dominant seventh chord in C major but respelled enharmonically as II34 chord in B major with the triple alteration (lowered 6th scale degree in the bass, raised 2nd scale degree in the tenor, and raised 4th scale degree in the soprano). Here is the easiest way to apply this kind of modulation in practice: Choose the destination key a half-step lower than the original key (major or minor), play a cadence in the old key and at the moment you want to modulate, play a Dominant seventh chord of the original key which simply leads to the Tonic 64 chord of the destination key followed by the Dominant and the Tonic chords in the new key. Of course, there are other more advanced ways to complete this kind of enharmonic modulation (and the range of keys is much wider) but this is something you can put into practice right away.
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As an organist who composes music, I often come to realize the importance of creativity in this process (I hope you do, too). The other day I was struggling to find interesting and original ideas for my Organ Mass for the 30th Sunday I'm currently working on. In order for you to understand what it means to be truly creative, I'd like to share with you this story which I hope can inspire to take action and to create something.
You see, my intent was to create 11 pieces (Prelude, Introit, Kyrie, Gloria, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Communion, and Postlude) to be performed on the small 19th century organ in Mosedis (in the northern part of Lithuania). As I was thinking about the style of these pieces, the issue of creativity was very close to me. On the one hand I was thinking about my future listeners in Mosedis and what they could appreciate. On the other hand I understood that their experiences would limit my imagination, creativity, and originality. It was really difficult to decide on the style of these compositions. I even had to look at the examples of my favorite French modern composers, such as Guillou, Langlais, Messiaen among others. If you know any of my pieces, you might see why I like to create using the modes and colors that the French school favored. But then the question of the instrument came into my mind. This is rather small 2 manual 19th century organ from the German Romantic tradition with just a few foundational pedal stops, lots of strings and flutes at 8' pitch level. Obviously the question about the French style working for this type of instrument would become a little complicated. But it could be done, I'm sure. However, I decided to stick with what this instrument likes best - the Romantic style with lots of modulations to closely related and distant keys. Most importantly I tried not to take too much time into thinking and planning. Of course, I had to do some sketching with the time signatures and keys, but it only took me about 10 minutes. And so little by little these pieces began to appear. One of the worst things in this creative process is too much planning and preparatory work which may take weeks and months. Only a few people can survive that long without seeing at least a partial result. But the thing that's fascinates me about it is that when you actually sit down and do the work, the creativity will strike, sooner or later. Maybe not right away, but if you insist and create a little habit of actually sitting and doing the creative work as opposed to just wishing, dreaming, planning, talking about it or even whining, it will happen. Every person who wants to find his or her unique style has to find a unique path. But it will only happen if we take action. And taking action rises from motivation. Motivation comes from the desire to make change happen. So if you want to be creative but don't know how or think that it's not for you ("it's for other people who are creative"), simply sit down and start writing something for the initial 4 measures. It could be a melody (a theme) in any key, with any meter and rhythm. There are countless options. Just pick one. Of course, you will be limited by your theoretical knowledge. But don't worry about it right now, simply use what you know. Sure, it may not be great at first but trust me, if you continue writing this way for 4 weeks, at the end of the month you will have 120 measures worth of music (that's about 5 minutes in length). And after about 2 weeks, it will begin to feel like you really like this process. So you only really have to force yourself to work for this time. Later it will become easier and it will give you much pleasure. In fact, you will feel pleasure after creating these 4 measures already. Here is a post worth reading about creativity from Steven Pressfield. He is a worldwide authority on this topic. Today I have finished creating a Gradual for the Organ Mass for 30th Sunday. In a couple of weeks I will be performing the entire cycle of 11 pieces for the 19th century organ re-dedication recital in the church from the 18th century in Mosedis (Northern Lithuania). Incidentally, this place is famous for its museum of stones.
This Gradual is based on the opening of the modified Gregorian chant melody "Unam petii a Domino". I thought I would share with you the beginning of this piece because it works perfectly as a harmonization exercise. So in the above picture you can see this melody of 8 measures. Try to harmonize it with 4 part harmony observing the rules of voice leading and avoiding parallel fifths, octaves, and movement of all parts in the same direction. I have harmonized this melody using root position, first and second inversion chords as well as the D7 chord at the end. Below each chord I have written the chord symbols so that you will see exactly what kind of chord I used for each instance. See if you can create a different harmonization than I did (there are dozens of ways to do this). Here is the PDF file for printing and the MIDI file for listening. Now that I've written about how to deal with criticism, it's probably fare to discuss a little the issue of how to criticize someone in a way that the person you are criticizing will feel inclined to agree with you and to be compelled to take action on what you said.
It's so tempting to say everything we think the person did wrong but in reality, if you want to get a positive response, you have to consider another way. Here are a couple of questions you might want to ask yourself before criticizing someone: 1. What is the worldview of this person? What does he/she believe in? What is important to him/her? What is this person afraid of? 2. How do you approach this person in a way that he/she trusts you and your criticism? Unless you answer these two questions, there isn't going to be an agreement between the both of you. At the heart of all interactions is trust. So how do you amplify it? The answer is simple but not easy to admit: You have to help a person to realize his/her dreams. Then your criticism will not be seen as a negative but as a positive. In fact, this person will be glad you cared enough and took the time to say something to him/her. Sure, you can amplify fear and some people will listen to you. But they won't be glad they did. Amplifying fear takes their dignity away. It's far more productive and effective to amplify passion instead. There are 2 reasons why we get criticized for our work (performance or any other activity).
1. We are playing (talking) to the wrong audience. 2. We are not doing good enough work. Everyone of us has had an experience when after a great and important work we did (in our opinion) we receive some harsh feedback. This can touch us very deeply, if we let it. The criticism can darken our day, it can produce writer's (composer's, or performer's) block. It can even take away our motivation to continue practice or otherwise to make or create things. If you are playing to the wrong audience, then you simply have to find your own audience. That's it. But if your work can be improved, go do it, too. Although the above 2 reasons are why we get criticized, it's sometimes very difficult to know which one of them (or both) you are experiencing in your situation. So sometimes we want to hide and avoid criticism and settle for average stuff of trying not to offend anyone and please everyone. But the thing is - we can't please everyone. And if we tried - we will not matter to anyone. The more productive strategy is to try to make things that matter deeply to a few. And if you receive a criticism from an individual whom you trust - pay attention. That's usually people who are on the same journey we are and who share a similar worldview we have. But don't let the words of the critic destroy your passion and help you hide from important work. The words of the critic belong to the critic. They can only touch you if you let it. If your work is important, you will get criticized. Some people will hate it and some will love it. That's personal. And this can be your compass - if you care enough about your work to get criticized for it, then you just learned something worth remembering. The best way to improve and deal with criticism is to continue to take action and create things. My yesterday's post about continuing the Bach tradition, received a few comments. Thank you everyone who replied. One feedback from my friend Marcel got me thinking if Widor and Dupre really continued the Bach tradition.
My initial thought was that of course they changed everything and played legato. But later I started wondering if this issue goes deeper than that. You see, both of these masters thought of themselves as continuing the Bach tradition even though we could think otherwise. But I think being a student of Bach goes beyond the issue of articulation or registration or performance practice in general. I think these masters studied deeply Bach's works and were influenced by his ideas. They both improvised and wrote fugues which were modeled after Bach's examples. So although both of them had their own unique style and were mirrors of their time (that's unavoidable), they could be considered Bach's students to some extent. Of course, this question can be answered by every person differently. It really depends by what you think the Bach tradition is. But I thought it could be an amazing inspiration to know that our teachers were connected with the old Bach in one way or another. In fact we could go much further than that. We could go back until Sweelinck. Because Bach learned from Buxtehude who was influenced by Reincken who was a student of Scheidemann who was a student of Sweelinck. But wait, Sweelinck also was someone's student and so we could trace our lineage perhaps to even older times, the days of Schlick or Paumann. Every time I have a difficult day and can't find motivation to practice or feel frustrated about something, I think about these early masters who went before us and how they also must have had similar struggles and frustrations. For a long time I have carried a thought in my head that we all organists sort of continue the Bach tradition. However, only recently I have discovered that we can actually trace our lineage quite literally back to Bach.
Johann Sebastian Bach: 1. Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809) 2. Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770-1846) 3. Adolf Friedrich Hesse (1809-1863) 4. Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881) 5. Félix-Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)/Charles-Marie Jean Albert Widor (1844-1937) 6. Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) 7. Rolande Falcinelli (1920-2006) 8. André Isoir (b. 1935) 9. George Ritchie (b .1942) 10. Vidas Pinkevicius (b. 1976) 11. My students So if you read my blog, pay attention to my advice and tips, practice the exercises I propose etc., this actually makes you a student of mine in one way or another. In turn you are the 11th generation student of Bach (of course, many people can trace this lineage through other organists as well). Think about this next time you feel depressed, unmotivated to practice, and frustrated. P.S. The only connection which I'm still not 100 % sure about is Rinck-Hesse. If you know for sure if Hesse studied with Rinck or not, please leave a comment. In addition, I think we could trace the Bach tradition through Helmut Walcha, because he was one of George Ritchie's teachers as well. However, this remains to be researched. A couple of days ago one of my students in my Organ Sight-Reading Master Course asked me a question about the frustrating situation he is in. I thought I would share it with you because perhaps more people are facing the same challenges similar to this student.
The thing is he is starting to practice two-voice exercises and is finding that he is making many more mistakes than in single voice exercises. So he is wondering if he is doing something wrong. I wrote to him that he needs an extremely slow tempo when doing these two-part exercises because the texture is begining to look much more polyphonic. Normally people understand the necessity of the slow practice and start my course really slow which is a good thing. As the single voice exercises progress, often they are starting to feel that they are advancing their skills and so they make very few mistakes. So after some weeks into this course they can sight-read one voice melody fairly well. And then two-part exercises begin to appear and it becomes really hard for some of my students. I think that many of them even didn't notice their tremendous progress and they naturally began to play a little faster with single voice exercises. And so they started two-part exercises with the same mindset and tempo which is obviously too fast. So the only thing they need to do in order for the exercises to begin to feel quite easy again is to slow down the tempo so much that they could play the exercises rhythmically and melodically correct. This means extremely slow but rhythmically stable practice. If you ever encounter such difficulties when learning to sight-read on the organ, try to apply this tip and you might be surprised and how easy the exercise or the piece might become for you. The melody for today's harmonization exercise is written using the question-answer method. Below it I have created my harmonization in 4 parts (SATB) which you can take as one possible model.
Try to harmonize this exercise in 4 parts on paper. You can perfectly get away without using tonicization to C major in measure 6 or writing advanced 7th chords and their inversions (measures 5 and 7). The only real rule here is to avoid parallel 5ths and 8ves. The rest is optional. After you have completed the exercise, play it on your instrument to see if you like it and how it can be improved. Here is the PDF file for printing and the MIDI file for listening. Try to harmonize this Gregorian chant melody in parallel 7th chords (in writing/and or playing). Since the melody is in the D Dorian mode (white keys only), the 3 lower voices will also move in white keys.
Notice how modal this exercise sounds. There will be plenty of parallel 5ths in the left hand but it's OK because this style permits these intervals which otherwise would be forbidden in tonal writing. I have completed the first measure for you. If you want, you can change the mode and experiment with adding Bb or F# everywhere you find these notes. In fact, you can add strange combination of accidentals, such as F# and G#. This will create Lydian-Mixolydian mode from D (raised 4th and lowered 7th scale degrees). Feel free to add some pedal points, too. Here is the PDF file for printing. Enjoy! |
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Drs. Vidas Pinkevicius and Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene Organists of Vilnius University , creators of Secrets of Organ Playing. Our Hauptwerk Setup:
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