Simpedia

Mark M., New York

When you consider the variety that you just said is possible using the “Family of Chords,” and when you consider that the same family of chords could just as easily be used for other styles as well, including classical music, it becomes quickly clear that these kinds of extremely general principles/”tricks” are incredibly widely applicable precisely because they relate to an extremely general level of music theory. They’re not of the same order as tricks that have a particular sound/quality that could evoke a particular style of music.

Likewise, consider the unbelievable breadth that really exists underneath what we consider “classical music.” In fact, truly proper use of the term refers only to a particular period of music history that lasted only about 70 years — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_music#Classical_period_music — and yet for some time now the popular understanding of the term encompasses essentially any “serious” music that tends to be played on acoustic instruments and intended for active listening, from hundreds of years prior to the actual classical period right up through today, i.e., essentially hundreds of years after that period ended. And that definition is weak not only because of time ranges, but since we can easily find music that was intended to be playful as opposed to serious, intended for dancing as opposed to listening, intended for popular audiences as opposed to highbrow ones, music that includes electronic instruments and not just acoustic instruments, etc., and still they’d all be found in the classical section of a music store. When you consider this staggering variety, it becomes quickly clear that there simply cannot be many specific tricks that inherently make something sound classical in any general sense whatsoever. It’s practically like asking for a trick that makes something sound like 20th Century popular music, which includes everything between Scott Joplin and Victor Herbert on one hand to Britney Spears and Radiohead on the other. What trick might sound like all of that? It’s pretty hard to imagine.

The best that comes to my mind off the top of my head for classical music are things not to do because they do tend to come from the world of what we consider to be popular music. Syncopated rhythms and the blues scale. “Classical” music tends not to have too much of these. Even then, there are exceptions. And telling you what not to do doesn’t really give you any clues of what to, in fact, do.

Really, you’d probably need to have something much more particular in mind, a more particular target classical composer, or form, or even an individual piece, in order to seek tricks to make things sound “that way.”

Missy M., Nebraska

I LOVED playing Canon in D as a chord progression song! Have you done this yet? In Level 7, students learn an arrangement of Canon in D – which is just a series of CHORDS played a few different ways. I have spent so much time playing these chord-progressions and improvising my own version of Canon in D and had such fun! It has proven to me that somewhere in most (maybe all?) songs, even classical, each measure or phrase is based on a chord “station” on the scale.

I think it IS very possible to remember classical music and repetoire in a manner of chord progressions. The chords would understandably be the “foundation” and the melody follows within the rules of the chords. Obviously some classical and other kinds of music can move all over the place and break the rules of the chords with accidentals and such, but somewhere in there IS a chord progression.

Wouldn’t it be fun to have a Simply Music course – kind of like ear training and treasure hunting – for dissecting songs into chord patterns?