Music Theory - Chapter 3

[mtsusean]

my kid is taking AP Music Theory, junior year of high school.

Chapter 3 is already challenging. I suspect that there is inadequate instruction being given in class already, or he is truly not paying attention. The textbook seems to be lame.

In the worksheet he was given for homework, they are given an example from the Sound of Music, "Do, Re, Mi" is the song. They are to identify the Pentachords, Embellished Pentachords, Tetrachord beneath the Pentachord and or Pentachord beneath the Tetrachord. The book is woefully inadequate in their explanations and no examples are given.

My research so far has given me the idea or impression that Pentachord in this case is the first five notes of the scale (not a 5 note chord...for this problem.) A Tetrachord is a grouping of 4 notes.

Here is a somewhat good visual explanation that I have found

http://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewc...&context=gamut


Is the reference above a good explanation? I think maybe using it, I can help him figure out the solution. Or, if someone has a better reference or example, please share.

[jasperguitar]

why of course .. the tetra and the penta ... 4, 5

I'd rather study Hank Williams ...

ha ha ha

[Scallywag]

^^^^
Well, that was an woefully unhelpful comment.


Question for the OP, is this an ear training exercise or does the worksheet require that your son visually recognize the elements you describe via reading notation/sheet music?

You are correct in your understanding of basic pentachords and tertachords.

Embelishments are just what the name suggests... notes or flourishes added to a basic melodic motif - Tetra and Pentachords in this case - which are not required to carry the melodic idea. Identifying those will expose the underlying harmony.

These tetrachords and pentachords are usually rooted in the diatonic modes (in western systems, anyways.) Does this worksheet refer to that broader subject? What is the larger context to which this assignment relates?

Perhaps I can help a bit. Might you be able to provide a more complete example or a specific question from the worksheet itself?

EDIT: The link you provide seems to be more a critique of an instructive text rather than a practical resource that will help you with reasonable clarity.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by mtsusean

A Tetrachord is a grouping of 4 notes.

This is correct, so I agree Pentachord must mean a 5-note grouping. They consist of consecutive scale notes in each case, as I understand it. So that makes a pentachord different from a pentatonic scale: A B C D E = pentachord; A C D E G = pentatonic scale.

Personally I'd never heard of the other phrases, but the reference you found (p.385) looks good to me. (At least I now understand those phrases which were previously new to me - although I still don't believe they're ever going to be of any use to me.)

They are essentially common historical components of a scale.
The Ancient Greek system was based on tetrachords: a 7-note mode is formed by joining two tetrachords, either conjunct (sharing a note, eg A B C D / D E F G), or disjunct (A B C D / E F G A).
Obviously, with a tetrachord plus a pentachord, that means a shared note in the middle, with both octaves.
Having just googled some references for myself, a lot of them relate to Arabic or Turkish music.

My question is: what is the purpose of your son's study? Unless he plans on pursuing music seriously later in life (and classical music at that), I wouldn't worry too much about success in this course.
If he is personally interested in music - for enjoyment, recreation - the important thing is not to be put off by incomprehensible bits of theory.
My own view is that if you don't understand a piece of theory, then you don't need to understand it.
The idea is to describe a particular sound, to give it a useful label. If you don't know what that sound is, then why would it matter? OTOH, if you do know the sound being referred to, then the theory will make sense (it's only labels, descriptions, not explanations).
It may well be that these fancy terms turn out to be very simple sounds - "oh, that's all it is!" But until you (or rather he) knows what those sounds are, the theory is bound to be incomprehensible (and pointless).

[stanron]

Originally Posted by mtsusean

my kid is taking AP Music Theory, junior year of high school.

Am I right in assuming that AP Music Theory is Aural Perception? It would explain the exercise.

One definition has the first five notes in a diatonic scale and another says it can be any five consecutive notes in a diatonic scale. This gives five different sets of tone and semitone patterns.

The example on page 385 uses the first definition and this makes things easier.

I remember a dreary slog through a Charles Dickens novel for GCE O level English Literature. It didn't put me off reading for ever but it did put me off reading Dickens for the fifty years that followed.

It would be a shame if this became a dreary slog that put a kid off music for life.

[mtsusean]

already he had problems with the first exam, so I need him to get caught up before he gets totally left behind. To be honest, I would have gotten the order of sharps and flats wrong (I always assumed that the order began with the first sharp/flat but I was wrong...the book says you start on "F" so anyhow)


Here's the specific worksheet with the instructions. The book is woefully inadequate but between the responses above, and, the link I found with the visual description, I think now we can figure it out. You can see his scribbling where he wrote in the scale degrees.

The material is interesting enough for him, and he wants to take the class. But he's already said that Geometry and Physics are easier than this. I think mostly, because there is no reference. Hopefully I can rely on folks here to help out occasionally. Sometimes, it's just in the 'splaining

[Howard Klepper]

The link is not to the book, but to a review of it. It includes a figure from the book that explains what they mean by tetrachord and pentachord. They simply mean a four or five note sequence of consecutive tones from the scale.

The book in question would appear to be a book on ear training, not a book on music theory. The reviewer mentions that it is a companion to a theory book by the same authors. An ear training class is sometimes called "musicianship". The student learns to sing the notes from written music, or transcribe them from aural music. Valuable skills for a player, but they are not an education in music theory.

The use of "tetrachord" and "pentachord" may cause some confusion since these are not what are commonly called "chords." They are here part of a system for ear training, not a study of harmony.

As others have said, whether this is a good book or good class is hard to determine from a review of the book, and without any exposure to the teacher. Whether it is a good class for your son depends also on what he expects to get from it.

[mtsusean]

I should clarify that the first image I posted is merely a link to a book that I found when searching out pentachords. It is the only graphical example I found. It is in no way related to the textbook provided in the Music Theory class he is taking.

The second image is the workbook assignment. This workbook supports "The Musicians Guide to Theory and Analysis" by Clendinning and Marvin. That book is the textbook for the class. It is not a functional ear training class although there may be some of that later.

[Dulcilo]

Music theory was not taught in my high school and I majored in sciences in college so never got it there. I have been slowly trying to teach myself and always envied those who were exposed to it at a younger age. However, this type of exercise seems very frustrating, especially if the text is not supporting the exercise with examples and explanations. I'm glad you son is motivated, because this would be a turn off for most kids his age. I have not run across the concepts in this exercise in any of my theory books, or the two online course I took.

[mtsusean]

Originally Posted by Dulcilo

Music theory was not taught in my high school and I majored in sciences in college so never got it there. I have been slowly trying to teach myself and always envied those who were exposed to it at a younger age. However, this type of exercise seems very frustrating, especially if the text is not supporting the exercise with examples and explanations. I'm glad you son is motivated, because this would be a turn off for most kids his age. I have not run across the concepts in this exercise in any of my theory books, or the two online course I took.

just think what I'm learning

It's an AP class, so I'm guessing it is going to be a college level class. In a sense, it's like I'm auditing the class and no doubt will learn quite a bit this year. Will I ever apply it? Doubtful, but it is interesting.

[mtsusean]

AP meaning Advance Placement

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by mtsusean

already he had problems with the first exam, so I need him to get caught up before he gets totally left behind. To be honest, I would have gotten the order of sharps and flats wrong (I always assumed that the order began with the first sharp/flat but I was wrong...the book says you start on "F" so anyhow)


Here's the specific worksheet with the instructions. The book is woefully inadequate but between the responses above, and, the link I found with the visual description, I think now we can figure it out. You can see his scribbling where he wrote in the scale degrees.

The material is interesting enough for him, and he wants to take the class. But he's already said that Geometry and Physics are easier than this. I think mostly, because there is no reference. Hopefully I can rely on folks here to help out occasionally. Sometimes, it's just in the 'splaining

Personally I've no idea how to answer that. All the scale degrees are correctly answered, but they seem to want one answer for the whole piece. Obviously it's using the whole scale, but whether it's PT or TP I couldn't say.
I'd guess PT, but only because I regard the major scale (tonic to tonic) as having that structure (C-G plus G-C). I.e., if themelody was to run from G up to G, I might guess TP (G-C plus C-G). The melody obviously runs between C and C in this case, but I can't see it being clearly structured in pentachords and tetrachords.
(Obviously I lack the necessary training... Like Dulcilo, I've never come across these concepts in any theory book I've read - as far as I can remember (I've been reading theory books for some 40 years, but admittedly not on any college course.)

In fact, the book is wrong to say you can "determine the key by examining the key signature". In this case - blank key sig - the key could be C major or A minor. You need to examine the music to be sure which it is - and that matters because identifying scale degrees is the issue. (In A minor, the C note would be 3.)
It's pretty obvious, in fact, that the key IS C major, but that's still a misleading instruction.

BTW, are you sure AP means "Advance Placement"? "Aural Perception" makes more sense to me.

[LeftArm]

I have never heard of pentachords before, it seems a bit of a misnomer.
My take on this is that the clue is in the piece of music chosen.
The chorus is a series of I-IV (C7-F D7-G E7-Am F G C) (I IV II V III ii IV I)

So the pentachords are C, D and E and the Tetrachords are C7, D7 and E7

Maybe too simplistic?

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by LeftArm

I have never heard of pentachords before, it seems a bit of a misnomer.
My take on this is that the clue is in the piece of music chosen.
The chorus is a series of I-IV (C7-F D7-G E7-Am F G C) (I IV II V III ii IV I)

So the pentachords are C, D and E and the Tetrachords are C7, D7 and E7

Maybe too simplistic?

Yes, you have the definitions wrong. As explained earlier, "pentachord" and "tetrachord" refer to segments of a scale (dividing a scale into two parts), not to chords at all.
C D E F G, or F G A B C = pentachord
C D E F, or G A B C = tetrachord

So - if I have the book's concepts right:
C D E F G + G A B C = PT
C D E F + F G A B C = TP
?

[stanron]

Originally Posted by LeftArm

I have never heard of pentachords before, it seems a bit of a misnomer.
My take on this is that the clue is in the piece of music chosen.
The chorus is a series of I-IV (C7-F D7-G E7-Am F G C) (I IV II V III ii IV I)

So the pentachords are C, D and E and the Tetrachords are C7, D7 and E7

Maybe too simplistic?

Actually a pentachord isn't a chord at all. It is a series of five consecutive notes from a diatonic scale. This definition,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentachord

also refers to 'pitch-class set theory' and I'm pretty sure it's not that.

I taught music theory, grades one to five, for some years before I retired. This covered all basic concepts to do with score reading and writing, basic chords, scales, intervals, harmony and vocabulary. Pentachords were not a part of that curriculum. There are grades six to eight which, as I understand are to do with classical music, and pentachords might be included in them. Aural perception is to do with evaluating music through listening and analising. It is possible that examining a score of a familiar piece of music could be a part of that learning process.