Romantic Era Techniques
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1music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush
Romantic Era Techniques
early 20th
baroque
classical
romantic
renaissance
contemporary
century
however, the music of the romantic
the music of the baroque, classical
era employed some interesting
and romantic eras share a consistent use
techniques that set it apart from
of harmony and counterpoint, enough to cause
the baroque and classical eras...
theorists and historians to group them together
as the “Common Practice Period .”
...and foreshadow some of
the big changes coming in
ii°
11
the twentieth century!
V
we’ve already mentioned a few chords
IV
that were specific to the romantic era:
ii°
dominant eleventh and
13
V
thirteenth chords,
V
&
˙ #
˙ n
b
the “flat three” borrowed chord,
˙
˙
iv
III
and secondary subdominants.
IV
?
˙ b
˙
˙ b
˙
another technique that is unique to the romantic era is
the resolution of an augmented sixth chord to a
dominant seventh chord rather than a dominant triad,
causing the interval of the augmented sixth to resolve
7
obliquely instead of moving outward to the octave.
Ger.6
V
finally, romantic era composers would sometimes use a particular type of chord
progression that had the effect of suspending tonality for a portion of the
piece. By temporarily removing the feeling of being in a certain key, the composer
could easily modulate to a distant key!
if you think of
tonality like
being in a
this technique is called
room...
third relations because it
involves moving by root
movements of a major or
minor third without respect
to key signature.
for example...
œ œ œ
here, we’re
œ œ œ
...here, we’re just
& b œ œ œ
œ œ œ
in F major...
˙ ˙ ˙ #
moving down by thirds...
˙ ˙ ˙ n b
b
F:
I
IV
V
I
DM
B M
...which obscures any
*whump*
˙ ˙ ˙ # #
œ œ œ # œ œ œ # œ
#
& b
˙ ˙ ˙ b b
n
sense of key we had...
#
œ # n
œ œ
...and then turning
#
œ œ
the gravity back
on... but in a
different
#
b
direction!
F M
E M
B:
I
IV
V
I
and then we land
in b major!
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