AboutClare Redfarn Expertise All aspects of the academic/theoretical side of music, including harmony, counterpoint, elementary composition, history, harmonic analysis, aural training, sightreading - the lot! Please note: I'm neither a professional composer nor a singing teacher.
Experience 48 years as pianist (professional soloist and accompanist); 33 years as harpsichordist (professional soloist and continuist); 10 years as violinist and 6 years as bassoonist (youth orchestras/chamber groups); 35 years as piano teacher, coach in performance/interpretation (all ages, instruments and levels) and private tutor (mainly the old O'level, Grade VI+ ABRSM theory/practical musicianship, A'level and undergraduates).
Organizations I've been a member of the Musicians' Union in Britain since 1978.
Publications I've written many programme notes and a few articles for an online magazine. During the '90s I was also a Music Assessor for London Arts and as such regularly wrote critiques of concerts given by recipients of Arts Council funding.
Education/Credentials MA in European Cultural Policy & Administration (Warwick University, 1994)
B Mus with Honours (London University, 1977)
Postgraduate Diploma in Arts Administration (City University, 1982)
Licentiate of Royal Academy of Music in Piano Teaching (1976)
Licentiate of Royal Academy of Music in Harpsichord Teaching (1978)
Studied RAM Junior School (1966-74), then as full-time student (1974-78).
Expert: Clare Redfarn Date: 5/8/2008 Subject: harmony in textures other than 4 part vocal
Question QUESTION: I've have an advanced understanding of harmony but only as it operates in 4 part vocal textures, as is taught in the text books.
I've found the textbooks(I own a small library of them) have very little in the way of explaining how hamony and voiceleading in non 4 part vocal writing operates.
I find myslef at a loss as how to apply the knowledge of harmony I have to composing anything other than 4 part vocal harmony.
In trying to analyse intrumental textures i find far more than 4 voices, all kinds of inversions and general consistant violation of all harmony priciples.
How can I find information on how harmony operates outside of textbook harmony exresises?
ANSWER: Hello Stuart,
You've asked me this question before, or something similar. I sent you a follow-up to my original response which I don't think you've read, so here it is again. You asked me how to set about composing:
As I've already said, you'll need to thoroughly understand about intervals, triads and their inversions, diatonic scale construction and the cycle of fifths before you start trying to compose. If you've got the opportunity to take music theory classes, do so, and combine them with aural training. Both are equally important and both, to my mind, are inseparable from the other. You study theory to recognise the "tools" of music when you see them written down, but you should also study aural to recognise them when you hear them, which is vitally important. You start off by recognising intervals and reproducing them by singing them back, and you gradually progress to triads, cadences, modulations etc. The aim of all this is to enable you to develop inner hearing as *you must be able to hear internally every single note you read or write*. You're aiming to read a page of music as easily as you'd read a newspaper. When you compose, do so away from an instrument - hear it in your head, write down what you hear and then try playing it to see how accurate your internal hearing was. Faffing around at the keyboard in the vague hope that you'll hit on something that sounds okay isn't going to get you very far.
When you start to tackle composition, you're given huge amounts of guidance. In the baby stages you're given two bars of music and told to complete the phrase, then you're given the opening two bars and told to complete the phrase with an imperfect cadence then follow it with a balancing phrase, giving you eight bars. In Grade 6 you're given the first bar or so and told to produce 16-20 bars (so if you want to include an interrupted cadence or tack on a coda you can) in the style, say, of a minuet or hornpipe or any other form that has well-defined characteristics, including at least two modulations. So you know the mood of the piece, you've got some material to work with and your signposts are set. Or you can choose to set poetry to music, which gives you the mood and also the rhythm, which must follow the natural stress of the words.
Once you've had practice doing that, you can start adding simple piano accompaniments, at which point I set my students a theme for whatever instrument they play plus piano accompaniment if necessary, and get them to write me three contrasting variations on it - so they have to follow the same harmonic progressions but otherwise can use their imaginations.
Everything I've said so far applies to all musicians. However, to become a successful composer musicians need something extra which cannot be taught. If it's within them it's unmistakeable; if it isn't then all the commitment and study in the world can't put it there. That something is the overriding compulsion to create using a voice that's original and individual.
I composed throughout my childhood; piano pieces to start with, then odds and sods for my school orchestra and choir. All fairly derivative - although I didn't set out to copy anyone deliberately, you can see in my work the influence of the composers I was studying at the time. Fair enough and all to be expected from a child, but if you're going to become a composer you expect to develop your own individual voice, and that just didn't happen with me. I'm used to improvising for dance classes in a variety of styles, including "fairies and goblins" type stuff for the baby classes, and every now and again I'll come up with an idea that I think is worth developing into a piece, and if you put a gun to my head I can produce work that's okay, even if it's not particularly original. But if you've got that spark of creativity that's the mark of a true composer, you can't stop the ideas from coming anytime anywhere, so get in the habit of carrying manuscript paper around with you. If you're going to compose, scribbling down ideas should be as natural as breathing.
It's not something that can be taught or acquired through book-learning - if the spark is there then good teaching will bring it out, but if it isn't then there's absolutely nothing that anyone can do to put it there. The composer Richard Rodney Bennett said in an interview last year, "You can't teach composition. You can guide people towards things that are important to them and you can teach them all the practical things of how you can convey your musical thought to a player, but you can't teach somebody to be a composer, absolutely not".
Hope this helps. I'll have a search for online resources on harmonic analysis and get back to you.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Hi Claire
Sorry, yes I did ask you the question before but I thought I'd try and make a bit more clear as I wasn't really sure you understood what it was I was asking.
In response I do have a very good understanding of common practice harmony and some familiarity with 20th century harmony. As far as aural is concerned that's not really my strong point and while I do think composing straight from the minds ear to paper is kind of the ideal it is of course not without it's limitations and I'm not sure it's really that necessary, extemporisation is named by lots of composers as their main method of working.
Having done a really huge amount of harmony work in 4part harmony this is now instinctively the lens through which I understand music. For instance if faced with an alberti bass figure arpeggiating a c major triad I'd see it as three voices, subject to the usual conventions of voiceleading.
My understanding of the situation is this; composers built their compositions upon a 4-part chorale like framework. So, underneath every composition there is 4 part chorale much like one you would do for a harmony exercise obeying all the same rules and conventions.
I find in practice to uncover this frame work requires a lot of "fudging" to make it work, which doesn't really help me to an understanding of how the music "works". An example when a bass line arpeggiates from the root down to the fifth and then back to the root the chord will be considered in root position, why not 2nd inversion? The answer can't just be "because that would be a stylistic violation" because that is obviously a circular argument.
Even something as simple as the movement of the melody when considered from the perspective of 4 part harmony gives constant "bad" doublings in harmonies.
On working through the grade books. In my first email I sent you may remember I talked about "holistic" approach I developed towards harmony to simply get by. You may have noticed that this approach is exactly what is prescribed in the grade books. For example the little dashes telling you which notes to consider as one harmony essentially tell you the answer and shield the student from the complexity of having to address the conceptual labyrinth that I'm faced with. So while these books are good passing for the exams they don't really bring me to any deeper understanding of the music it analyses works.
If you really still have little idea what it is I'm asking, I refer you to the chapter on "musical texture" in Harmony by Walter Piston(this is quite a famous books isn't it?). This is in essence the very aspect of harmony with which I have a problem and if you look closely you might be able to see where I find the contradictions. For example the idea of the d in the second bar of the Schubert example being treated both as a rhythmical displaced black chord and a melody capable of non harmonic tone embellishment.
I hope you will be able to understand my problem and be able to point me in the right direction. All teachers I’ve spoken to so far either look like it is something they've never had to consider before and seem to have even less idea than myself about the matter or just denounce theory as useless.
I look forward to your response.
Stuart.
Answer Hello Stuart,
I understand the problem all right, but I'm not sure how motivated you are to put things right. You're going to have to accept that pretty much everything you think you know is wrong and start all over again filling in the gaps in your knowledge of theory and your aural ability. Part of your problem is that you treat harmony as a paper exercise. If you're going to understand music, let along compose it, you need to develop inner hearing. You won't get anywhere without it. End of story.
*Of course* composers didn't build compositions on a 4-part framework - whatever gave you that idea? SATB harmony only applies when you're writing for four parts, and not always then - barbershop doesn't follow SATB rules, for example. Triads/chords and their relation to the home key are important and underpin the piece, whether they're played by an entire orchestra, the left hand of a pianist (and an Alberti bass is simply a series of broken chords) or implied in two-part counterpoint, and it's these you need to recognise and analyse before you even attempt SATB harmony, which only applies under specific conditions.
Get hold of The AB Guide to Music Theory by Eric Taylor, parts 1 and 2, published by the Associated Board. These came out in the late 80s/early 90s when they revised their syllabus to bring it in line with the dumbed-down A'level, which eliminated the 4-part harmony question. Chapters particularly relevant to you are Part 1: Chapter 8 and Part 2: Chapters 15, 16, 17, 18 and 24.
