music theory

Title: Descending Chromatic scale on keyboard

Description: A descending Chromatic scale (playing a semitone below it is pitch one note at a time on a 88 key keyboard which includes 7 octaves) played on a Yamaha PSR-E453 keyboard by me recorded and edited in a small bedroom with a midi (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) cable on Logic Pro X (music editing software). This sound was inspired by the discussion in class about discordance in music early African America studies and me relating it back to how a descending chromatic scale reflects back to the discordance that was used by many African Artists during the time but is now used and praised within Eurocentric music stylings.

A half cadence is a musical gesture which can begin with any chord, in this case the tonic chord of D Major, and ends on the dominant chord, A Major (I-V). Usually the half cadence calls for a continuation of the piece, due to its sounding incomplete or unfinished. The first movement of Carlos Seixas' Overture in D Major ends with a half cadence, continuing into the second movement in D minor. This is a rare occurrence, as a half cadence usually happens in the exposition of a sonata form, or at the end of the first part of a binary form.

Excerpt from the introduction of the Sinfonia in Bb major by Domenico Cimarosa, which shows a clear example of a parallel binary musical form. Parallel binary is a term used for a musical phrase which consists of 4 sections, generally two contrasting ideas, repeated.