Reddit Reddit reviews Sonata Forms (Revised Edition)

We found 5 Reddit comments about Sonata Forms (Revised Edition). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Sonata Forms (Revised Edition)
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5 Reddit comments about Sonata Forms (Revised Edition):

u/parkerpyne · 3 pointsr/classicalmusic

\> This composition was focused on the balance and elegance of the Classical era (like Mozart and Haydn).

It doesn't quite achieve that either, mind you. The following paragraphs sound harsh but aren't intended to be.

There are lot of what I would call mechanical mistakes. Take the second bar. You shift an E-major chord up a second to F#-major, all voices moving in parallel. And then you compound it by the F#-C# to B-F# parallel fifths in the cello, viola and second violin. You will not find anything like this in the body of works of Haydn or Mozart. It's just a simple violation of rules that cannot happen when you strive to write in the Classical style.

Aside from these types of formal issues, there is something that takes much longer to get right and it has to do with all these unwritten rules that you would find implemented in every Mozart and Haydn sonata movement. The second theme appears to be presented in bar 17 and it is according to the standard rules in the dominant. So far so good. The problem is that you are missing the transition from first to second theme. The first section is just a repeat and alternation of two-bar motives. The 16 bars entirely consist of three chords: B-major, E-major and F#-major. And then, after ending on the tonic B-major, you introduce the second theme in the dominant F# but you never established that key, and it needs to be.

According to classical rules it requires either a cadence on the dominant, often introduced via vi which in the case of B-major would be like a g#-minor chord with the third in the base but more correctly denoted as B^(6), or a half-cadence on the double-dominant C#-major. You have neither and you don't have a single reference to the new leading tone E#, and you kind of do need it to convincingly present the second theme in the new key.

Whole books have been written specifically about how Classical composers treated the sonata form. I recommend Charles Rosen's Sonata Form or The Classical Style by the same author. These are incredible books and eye-opening. I keep repeating this and a lot of people don't believe it but the Classical era was the height of formalism in music. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were the most comprehensively trained composers in history. They had to be. They knew everything that Bach did but in addition to that they had mastery of the far richer structural and harmonic principles and rules of the Classical era (which, actually, they created themselves). That's why a scholar such as Charles Rosen spend his whole life (well, apart from performing as a pianist) on studying what made Classical music Classical.

But not to worry. It seems this competition that you won is for young (as in teen) composers. I've taken part in various composition competitions myself decades ago (and never really won anything). You'll figure it out. But do get these Charles Rosen books. When I read them for the first time they elevated my appreciation and understanding of classical music to an entirely new level.

u/qutx · 3 pointsr/classicalmusic

A collection of thoughts

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As has been said

> Don’t be afraid to build up a giant stack of half formed ideas on top of your piano.

Beethoven is notorious for his sketch books, and for playing with and developing ideas for years and years and years after the initial thought.

The original ideas for the 5th symphony are junk, for example. but he kept playing with it

get this book for more on this

https://www.amazon.com/Beethovens-Sketches-Analysis-Style-Sketch-Books/dp/0486230422/

part of music is the actual musical architecture and structure of the music. This is covered in the subject of "musical form" but this goes deeper

see this short video by whitacre on the subject

"Discovering the Golden Brick"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjqptQ5R-w

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for more general instruction on the basics and the bigger issues of music composition, see this YT channel by Alan Belkin

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg

for a more popular music perspective, see Rick Beato and related channels

https://www.youtube.com/user/pegzch

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One of the longest traditions in music education is the making of arrangements and transcriptions of other people's music. This seems to far more effective if you do it by hand, and copy out all the parts yourself (again by hand)

Bach arranged Vivaldi, Mozart arranged Bach, Beethoven arranged Handel, etc.

If these masters did this as part of their own musical studies, maybe you could so this for your own education, using the music you admire most.

Even if it is arranging the music to a new key or mode (major to minor, etc)

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As a general thing I recommend books by Charles Rosen for music of the Classical era

https://www.amazon.com/Sonata-Forms-Revised-Charles-Rosen/dp/0393302199

https://www.amazon.com/Classical-Style-Mozart-Beethoven-Expanded/dp/0393317129/

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Probably the best place to start is by writing "etudes" which basically means "Studies" You could also call them "Experiments".

These would be shortish pieces where you try out different things. Thus if you do not know which way to go with something, you try them all or most of them, and flesh them out into separate things. Each is an experiment.

one idea might give a dozen experiments (major vs minor, slow vs fast, 3/4 vs 4/4 vs 5/4 = 12 combinations)

As experiments, not everything has to work. (but you might come back to it later)

Nothing has to be perfect, They are experiments

Later own, you experiment with ways to make it better. (see the Beethoven sketches again)

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part of the musical problem of form is to how to continue something in order to maintain interest, without it getting boring for a variety of factors. Traditional forms are solid solutions to the problem but you can come up with your own.

As an example, check out the old popular songs of John Denver (!) many of which do not follow a conventional common practice song format. What is he doing there?

u/scientologist2 · 3 pointsr/composer

sonata #1 sounds like a psuedo Beethoven/Liszt

sonata #2 sounds like a young psuedo Mozart. It sort of feels like you are trying to stuff the music into the form, like trying to stuff a genii into a bottle. The Genii doesn't always cooperate.

:-)

sonata #3 sounds like a psuedo Mozart, but is much more masterful than your earlier efforts. it is the more accomplished, and seems much more listenable and enjoyable. It sounds like you are starting to put in additional layers so that everything isn't obvious on the first go around. This is a very good thing to do. It sounds like you are starting to have fun with the form. It has a good flow.

Keep this up, and we won't have to shoot the critics.

Recommended reading: Charles Rosen: Sonata Forms





u/spike · 1 pointr/musictheory

Sonata Forms by Charles Rosen

u/krypton86 · 1 pointr/composer

I thought I might be walking into a buzz saw with this one...

Right, so I won't dispute that your large scale structure looks like sonata form, but a successful exposition, development and recapitulation requires very distinct themes in order to work. As other comments have noted, the thematic material lacks character and direction. That's a huge problem if you're writing in sonata form as the thematic material is primary over any considerations of large scale formal structure.

The distinction between the A and B sections should be dramatic and easily recognizable. This piece is much too homogeneous, in my estimation. Stylistically, it sounds like a sort of binary waltz form, not what I would hear as a sonata in the spirit of the great 18^th and 19^th century works.

Also, key changes (or at least tone center shifts, if you aren't writing tonal music) play an incredibly important role in Sonata form, but I'm having trouble discerning contrasting key centers here. This detracts from the internal conflict one likes to hear in a sonata, especially a short one like this.

Finally, I believe the development could be much longer. One truly important aspects of a modern sonata form is the extent of the development. The more far off field you go, the longer its temporal extension, the more tension you can build before the recapitulation. Listen to any of the first movements of Beethoven or Schubert sonatas and you'll hear what I mean. I'm not saying you should be writing something of the magnitude of Schubert's 960 or anything, but proportionally, your development could be two or three times longer, minimum.

Hopefully this clarifies where I'm coming from. My initial comment wasn't nearly as specific or helpful as it could have been (in fact it was basically inaccurate). What I'm trying to convey here is that Sonata form is so very much more than an extended binary form, and in that respect you have a lot of room left to explore.

One more book recommendation: Charles Rosen's Sonata Forms