Lessons
90 lessons
- Beat & meterPulse, tempo, measures, bars
- Subdivision & syncopationSplitting beats, dots, offbeats
- How beaming readsBeat groups, stems, stubs, triplets
- Polymeter & polyrhythmParallel fields, 3 against 2, nesting
- Drums & groovesThe GM kit, inst aliases, fills
- Fives and sevensMeters that do not divide evenly
- Three against twoCross-rhythm in one field
- The three duration marksDouble, extend, diminish
- Tension & releasePassing tones, neighbors, suspensions, appoggiaturas
- Voice leadingCommon tones, steps, contrary motion
- Harmonizing a tuneOne melody, five settings
- Accompaniment patternsBlock, Alberti, oom-pah, wash, ostinato
- Ground bassA passacaglia: variations over a repeating floor
- Modal colorDorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian — as inflections
- The ornament shelfTrill, mordent, turn, grace, roll — spelled exactly
- The shape of a lineOne climax, leaps that recover, arcs that breathe
- Call & responseConversation as form — drums, voices, echoes
- TextureMonophony to polyphony — how many musics at once
- Writing a pieceEverything, put to use
- Slice developmentHeads, tails, strides — variation by index
- Selector harmonyA space of divisions, picked by number and by pattern
- Anchor applicationOne gesture stamped at every anchor
- Silent anchors & sequencesA figure counted from a note that never sounds
- Bent restatementsThe tonal answer, the sliding pedal: one figure, a slot, a selector
- Ornament spacesTimed slots keep their length; substitutes scale to fit
- The mirror systemAxes, mirror answers, reflect-before-transpose
- Cross-rhythmVoices of different lengths sharing one span
- Relative pitch machineryInterval threading, anchors, chords, direction forms
- Canon over a groundOne rule entered twice, offset by a rest
- Building a formPeriod, sentence, rounded binary — rules as architecture
- A variation setEvery machine on one theme — the capstone
- Choosing a derivationSelector patterns over items
- Stamping a figureStamping a figure through a line
- HemiolaSix beats heard as 3+3, then as 2+2+2
- A rhythm with holes in itA tango whose rhythm is written three times, and its notes once
- Toccata & FugueThe whole of BWV 565 in fifty-six named figures
- Sonata facileMozart K 545 — Alberti bass, diatonic sequences
- SolfeggiettoC. P. E. Bach — one rolling idea
- Caprice No. 5Paganini — the sweep and the moto perpetuo
- GreensleevesTraditional — relative minor, the two leading tones
- March of the Wooden SoldiersTchaikovsky — a toy march, staccato as rests
- TräumereiSchumann — one long breath, rising to its dream
- ImpertinenceHandel — a two-voice quip, imitation and answer
- Invention No. 1Two voices, one subject
- Minuet in GBinary form, plainly
- Air on the G StringA long melody over a walking bass
- SarabandeWeight on the second beat
- Dun Dun DunA falling four-note line over a pedal — 288 bars of e harmonic minor
- Doot DootTwo knocks and a reply in falling thirds — 76 bars of e harmonic minor, half of them the riff played against itself upside down
- Noodlin'A bass riff, a tune doubled in thirds, and a bell that ends it twice
- InversionA subject against its own reflection — 31 bars of e harmonic minor, every note a sixteenth, three voices by the end
- Slap FinalA four-bar riff, three voices stacked on it one entrance at a time, and two breaks — eighty bars of e harmonic minor in twenty-seven names.
- DevelopedA four-bar bass machine under a theme that falls three octaves — 100 bars of e harmonic minor, six beats to the bar
- GnomestepFour voices trudging in e harmonic minor — three note-lengths, and no note outside the scale
Lessons · Pattern Engine