In my partimento lessons, we are switching over to work on melody and counterpoint. This week we began with chapter 6 of Harmony through melody A: .
The text is quite distinct from other undergraduate harmony textbooks, and seems to have anticipated some of the problems encountered in writing partimento. As is evident from the title, there is a much greater focus on the horizontal lines, rather than the vertical, chordal structure.
This week be looked at the options for filling in, or embellishing a single interval with an additional note. This is normally called “diminution”, but Horton and co. refer to this as “duple paraphrase”. (There doesn’t seem to be a corresponding definition of paraphrase to this in the Oxford dictionary of music ).
Today we looked at several cantus firmi, written in whole notes, and paraphrased them, by replacing each two half notes (or in some cases, leaving the notes as given). The authors provide a useful taxonomy for these diminutions, based on the interval to be paraphrased as follows:
- Unisons
- neighbour note (N) a second above or below
- prime embellishment (PEM) a third above or below.
- Seconds
- échappée (E), a contrary step, then a similar third
- skip-step (SS), a similar third, then a contrary step
- double-skip (DS), a similar fourth, then a contrary third
- Thirds
- passing tone (P), two similar seconds
- skip-step (SS), a similar fourth, then a contrary step
- broken chord (BC), a similar fifth, then a contrary third
- Fourths
- cambiata (C), a similar step, then third
- incomplete passing note (IP), a similar third, then step
- skip-step (SS), a similar fifth, then a contrary step
- broken chord (BC), a similar sixth and a contrary third
- Fifths
- arpeggio (ARP), two similar thirds
- skip-step (SS), a similar sixth, then a contrary step
- Sixths
- arpeggio (ARP), a similar third and a similar fourth
These paraphrases can then be used to embellish a phrase. This terminology extends, but is slightly different from other presentations I have seen, usually used to identify non-chord tones in harmony textbooks.
For homework, I will work on duple paraphrase of a number of cantus firmi, in a variety of modes. The part that I find most challenging in these exercises is in a cantus with extended stepwise patters, it is hard not to create a series of diminutions that simply oscillates above and below the cantus, or for the embellishments to overwhelm the melody.
My teacher suggested the traditional exercise of embellishing the stepwise ascending or descending octave. Will do this as well as four or five paraphrases of each cantus I was provided for the lesson.
(The text also provides an online workbook.)