Analysis (Introduction)

With the above information in hand, you can approach complete pieces of music and make analytic judgements about their content.  It can be troublesome, however, to reduce compositions to their triadic components, so be patient with yourselflike anything, it is an acquired skill!

6.1 Reducing three-part textures

Let us use the following three-part example:

 

> Play the example if you are able, or have a classmate do it for you.  It is always important to listen to every example you are analyzing.

Next, you reduce the three staves to either one or two staves so you are able to understand the chord spelling better.  As you get better with this process, you will omit this step, but for now, we will take all of the notes in each verticality (triad) and put them on one staff.

To do this, simply forget about the register each pitch appears in (the bass pitches, for example, are all an octave or more lower than the upper voices, but for our reduction, place all notes in the same register).  You should reach the following (or similar) conclusion:

 

The triads are numbered for reference purposes.  Now that we have all of the pitch information in one place, its much easier to tell what is going on as far as the triads being used.

For each triad, ask yourself the following questions:

For triad #1, we can see immediately that it is a triad and it is obviously built in thirds.  We can then name the triad as a G triad, and specifically, it is a G major triad (it has a major third and a perfect fifth).

For triad #2, notice that it does indeed contain three notes, but it does not appear to be built in thirds (note the fourth between A and D).  Recall, however, that triads may appear in various guises, and triad number two may be "reduced" to its original form through the following steps:

 

This example shows how we can reduce three notes to their triadic origins by methodically "flipping" or "inverting" the triad.  The second triad shows the pitch that was originally on the bottom (f#) moved to the top, then its bottom note (a) moved to the top of the next, and voila, we have a D-F#-A triad.  This triad is major, because it has a major third and perfect fifth.

Triad #3 is a C-E-G triad, and is therefore a C major triad (Major third, perfect fifth).  This triad needs to be reduced or inverted to discover its name.

Triad #4 is a D-F#-A triad, a D major triad (Major third, perfect fifth).  Does this sound anything like Triad #2 (which is also a D major triad)?

Triad #5 is a G major triad (GBD).  This should sound somewhat like triad #1.

Triad #6 is a D major triad, like #4 and #2.

Triad #7 is a G major triad, like #1 and #5.

When you have determined these answers, you may write the answers in the score as seen below:

 

The above analysis illustrates that, harmonically speaking, this composition uses the triads G, D, and C (and nothing else).  Play the piece several times, looking at this analysiscan you hear these chords as they are performed?

6.1 Identifying inversions

As you have seen, it can be a little tricky at first to identify triads that have been "mixed up" or inverted.  In analyzing your music, it is also helpful to indicate how a triad may have been inverted.  This is done by indicating the intervals above the bass in the vertical structure. 

The example below will clarify.  There are three different versions of the same triad (F-A-C), and each one has a different note as its bass pitch (that is, the first triad is in "root position" and the other two are inverted).  To identify the second and third triads as being inverted, we indicate the intervals from the bass pitch up to each additional note:

 

With this logic, our previous analysis (6.1) could be changed to incorporate inversions:

 

 

You can see that the actual triad names have not changed, but we have added numbers to indicate inversion where appropriate. 

Ultimately, inversion does not change the triad in a fundamental way, but you will hear that inversions do have a different sound than the original "root position" triad.  This change should be notated in your analysis by using inversion numbers, which show the intervals above the bass pitch.