dnmusic

Example 1: W.A. Mozart, Sonate K. 331

Here’s the top of the first page of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Sonate, K. 331. This is not written for euphonium or trombone, but it illustrates the idea of looking for clues.

There are things you have to learn about music in order to recognize the clues. All the necessary skills can be developed through reading, individual practice, and private lessons.

Example 1, Clue 1: Composer’s name

The first clue is the name of the composer. Knowing the piece was written by Mozart gives us a good idea of the general character of the music and how we should interpret it.

To understand that clue, you need to learn a bit about music history and the styles of major composers.

From this, we know the piece is likely to be light rather than ponderous or bombastic.

Example 1, Clue 2: Time signature

The piece is marked 6/8, which means there are six 8th notes to a bar. Music written in 6/8 may have a 6-beat feel or a 2-beat feel, depending on tempo. So we need to look for a clue about the tempo.

Example 1, Clue 3: Tempo

This music doesn’t specify a metronome setting, but it gives a tempo indication in the form of Italian musical terms: andante grazioso.

To understand this clue, we need to learn a bit about Italian musical terms.

Andante means “walking speed” and grazioso means “graceful.” From this we know the piece doesn’t go at a fast 2 like a Sousa march, and it isn’t supposed to be heavy or punchy.

On the other hand, it also doesn’t go at a particularly slow speed. We don’t walk gracefully at a painfully slow pace. We would fall over.

We’ll probably be in the neighborhood of 8th note = 126 to 136 beats per minute. We could “feel” it in a relaxed 2 or a moderate 6.

Example 1, Clue 4: Key

Music of Mozart’s period generally stays in one key up to a point and then modulates to the 5th of that key before returning to the original key to finish up.

So, what key is this piece in? We have two clues: the key signature and cadences.

To understand the key signature we need to learn a little bit about music theory and history. In the case of Mozart’s music, we’re interested in major and minor keys, because those are what he used nearly always.

Knowing the circle of fifths helps us understand which key the music is in. In this case, the key signature has three sharps - F#, C#, and G#. That tells us the music is either in A Major or F# minor.

So, which is it? We need to look through the music to find the cadences; the places where the music comes to a logical conclusion, in the same way as a sentence might contain commas and semicolons before finally arriving at a period.

The snippet in the example starts with an A major chord and comes to a cadence at the end of the line that looks like E major - the dominant of the key of A major. So, this appears to be in A Major rather than F# minor.

Knowing a little about music theory helps us understand this clue. Besides that, sight-singing enables us to “hear” the music in our mind before we attempt to play it. No surprises!

In fact, if we silently sight-sing the top line, which is the melody, we can tell it’s in a major key rather than a minor key.

Example 1: Summary

The music contains notes and rhythmic patterns. Unless we’re absolute beginners (which we all are at some point), we should not have to struggle with the notes or the rhythmic patterns in this piece.

We’ve seen each of these notes thousands of times before, even if we haven’t seen them arranged in precisely this order.

It’s analogous to reading English. We’ve seen all the letters thousands of times. When we see an unfamiliar word, we don’t have to think very hard about each letter.

There are no unusual rhythmic patterns here. We don’t have to work out any complicated patterns. It’s all routine.

For this kind of music, the raw translation from written to aural music should not require our full attention. We can think actively about appropriate interpretation and expressive playing.