Lesson Objectives:
To understand what is meant by chromatic harmony.
To understand what a sextuplet is and the ways to divide a beat evenly.
To think about how orchestration contributes to creating a particular ‘sound colour’.
To analyse from bars 30—41.
To understand what makes up a cluster chord and a Neapolitan chord.
To analyse bars 42—60.
To choose a performance or a composition task based on bars 42 –60.
Chromatic Harmony
Sextuplet
From bar 32 you will see/hear a lot of these! Though they look a bit scary, they simply mean that the beat is divided evenly into 6.
This is the same as the triplet motif, when the beat is divided evenly into 3
Orchestration
Every instrument has it’s own particular sound or ‘colour’.
When choosing what instrument to compose for, it is important to think what is the appropriate ‘colour’.
In the theme music to Jaws, John Williams chose low strings and horns giving a dark, hunting sound; perfect for a shark. Would this have worked so well on the flute and harp?!
In Star Wars at bar 36-38 under the image of an endless, starry sky, John William’s chooses all instruments in the treble clef, as if suspended, including the very high piccolo playing 8va (an octave higher than written) a harp and a flute, which is playing a long trill.
Note Clusters
We have looked at triads, extended chords and chromatic harmony. There are 2 more harmonic tricks up John William’s sleeve!
The first are note clusters. Imagine falling on a keyboard. The sound you would get would be quite similar to that of a note cluster.
This is a chord where most of the notes are next to each other and form no recognisable chord. You can find lots of these from bar 46.
Neopolitan Chords
This may seem complicated, but it really isn’t if you follow the steps!
Find the triad that begins on the flattened 2nd degree of the major scale.
If you are in C major the notes and degrees of the scale are:
The flattened 2nd degree means the D goes down to a Db.
The triad on Db is Db F Ab (there is an Ab in the scale of Db major)
You can find this in bar 53 above the bass C pedal.
Review Questions:
1) What chords can be heard at bar 34 and bar 35?
2) Identify 3 ways Williams creates the sound of an endless, starry sky from bars 36 –38
3) What harmonic feature can be heard from bars 42 till the end?
4) What type of chord is added on top of this in bars 52—56?
5) State 2 ways Williams contrasts the A and B themes