วีดีโอ

how about it‘s root chords related by descending thirds connected via passing tones? Although the Romanesca shows properties of this („ falling thirds“) I would hesitate to call this a stepwise Romanesca as a Romanesca would require 6th on the passing tones. Any more questions??😝😝😝

@@en-blanc-et-noir That's what I figured! It definitely felt like I was trying to cram a square piece into a circle hole. Is a descending bass by thirds with 5 chords a standard bass motion? I guess I reached for the romanesca since I haven't come across that motion in my (very brief) foray into this stuff

good boy :D

circled numbers indicate absolute bass degrees, no roman numerals! It is a different kind of annotation, you‘ll see it all over my channel, so: 6th chord on descending 6th degree. When doing this longer you‘ll recognize that it makes a lot more sense to localize chords on the typical scale degrees on which they usually occur. That is not my own system but it is a common way of annotation in historically informed music theory. hopefully this clarifies😝

​​@@en-blanc-et-noir👍 that makes sense! There's one more thing would like to ask you. At the end you said you modulate: I --> II (which there's no doubt) II --> V (I don't see this 5th degree) You start playing in A (I) you move to Bm (II) then you're on D (new I) and you move to Em (new II). Are you meaning you move a V down? For me it looks: I (A) --> II (Bm) II (Bm) --> IV (D) (becomes new I, etc.) I (D) --> II (Em) II (Em) --> IV (G) Etc... Just one more dude to sleep happily 😅 Thanks 🙏

you're right lol, it's a lapse. I constantly modulate fifths DOWN like that. I made an annotated video on this improv, there it is more clear: th-cam.com/video/trDFAfF0Wxk/w-d-xo.html

Thanks man! That sounds like a cool idea. I wonder where I'd find those. I know similar sketches by Liszt, there are actually quite a lot. One guy digitalized them all an put them on ismlp.

@@en-blanc-et-noir there is a video on TH-cam called „10 lost Chopin works and pieces“, alternatively you can find them in Piano Library if you search for „Incipits of lost works(frederic Chopin)“

My opinion is: species cp is a total waste of time and should be banned from every curriculum. I learned species with three different professors and I absorbed absolutely nothing from it, I taught it in University until the department decided that lesson content apart from some very general alignments is up to the teachers entirely (I kicked species and ‚old’ counterpoint) . The problem with species is that it is not really connected to any kind of concrete musical style - some people seem to think you can teach the ‚sheer’ counterpoint, abstracting from any stylistic considerations but they‘re wrong. Methodically: there is no linear way through the jungle, if you wanna learn thoroughly you should get a teacher and avoid reddit 😂

I look younger lol

good boy… I guess how you sound depends mostly on how much labour you put into that. Nobody becomes an improviser/composer just from watching YT videos😂😂

@en-blanc-et-noir oh, I play. Practicing is fun for me. I only watch TH-cam videos when I'm away from my piano

good point! Wouldn't say "less sophisticated" though, he surely sometimes is a little more twisted but usually there is "reason" in the voiceleading. Liszt is a little underestimated in comparison to Chopin, I guess the difference is just that he published a lot more / was less self critical towards his own output than Chopin and that's why it may seem like as if there is lesser high quality pieces, but that ain't the case IMO. I think he is just as great. I'm gonna check the Rhapsody, thx!

​@@en-blanc-et-noir I hope that my comment didn't come across as hating Liszt! I love his music. The passage I'm referring to in the rhapsody is before the climax ending, where he pairs up mediant chords on the right hand along with a very typical lisztian chromatic octave run in the left. I'm also thinking of the ending of "Les preludes" But, in the case of Chopin, as I'm seeing in your video, he makes the effort of introducing chords between the mediants, such as dominants or augmented 6ths in order for it to make """more sense"""

lol no hate haha, I didn‘t understand it as hate. It is a reasonable observation. Yeah you are right: Liszt does progress through chromatic mediants just for the sheer sound, another good example is the final bars of un sospiro. BUT there is examples where he modulates very elegant through chromatic mediants - ‚with chords in between‘. ✌️

Thanks a lot, appreciated :D I'm actually happy with how it is. With more pupularity comes the snobs and smartasses, I'm not missing them and I already had some encounters of the third kind, you can believe me.

yeah haha, it's the font - tbh I'm not so much of a Roman Numerals guy, I find them somewhat superfluous, unnessecary , I do it more like for the crowd lol... anybody watching that vid seeing a VI in a major key context should know it's a minor chord anyway. So: no particular reason, just the font.

​@@en-blanc-et-noir yes, in general anyone trying to understand this _should_ know that, that's for sure... I was just wondering because in general when what I see and what I expect to see are not aligned it feels a bit weird :D And for what it's worth, I feel there's function to numerals because (as you know, just for conversations sake) it abstracts away the exact chord, it's voicing and the key and only cares about the relation of that chord. and when you talk about functions for chords, modulation and that stuff, it's very VERY helpful to take away everything that's not actually necessary. It also helps anyone who's not formally trained and might not have such a strong base that you have for theory. And often, just the knowledge that a concept exists, and here's the short compressed version of it, is enough for many to realize they might want to explore and understand it more. :)

Well, sometimes it is actually good and reasonable to abstract to a high degree. Roman Numerals aren't bad at all - but often I witness some sort of "abuse". E.g. when I watch a random youtube analysis of Chopin's E Minor prelude and the whole thing is tagged with weird symbols, I just find this grotesque :DDD sometimes it just doesn't make any sense to apply this device and many people don't seem to reflect that as a fact. But when it's about V-I's - I'm all in hahah

@@en-blanc-et-noir That's a reasonable way of looking at it :)

Also, you crack me up when you refer to Chopin's "outbursts" 😂

Thanks, Claire. ✌️😌

Nice touch with the organ playing chromatic mediant chords - very effective (3:07)

So much to say on your video (I'm rewatching). As I'm studying early Romantic, this borrowing of the Augmented 6th chord to cadence in a major key was actually a really common move. Chopin just pushed it one step further by using it as a modulator. I love making these connections between the how things progressively evolved. Ok I'll stop commenting now😅 ☺️😀 thanks again!

Common move! And it was already used as a modulator: check slow mvt. of Beethoven's 5th. It's a variation set and the theme modulates from Ab to C by using an aug6th chord that's resolving into exactly this kind of "grandiose" cadential 6/4 like in the video and if I remember it correctly this move reappears in all of the variations. It's a super cool movement, as always: Beethoven has the upper hand... I'm pretty sure there is more classical examples, let alone examples from the "brilliant style" period...