| Author |
Subject |
Bob
Registered User
(10/7/00 2:20:20 pm)
Reply |
Bigfoot
Ever since I was little, I'd heard
people talk about a key called "Ab minor." Probably saw it once in a
theory book somewhere. But I never thought I'd encounter it in real
life.
Well, if you live long enough, strange things will
happen. I was rehearsing "Jenufa" this morning, and by God, there it
was!!! Not just for a few measures either! A couple pages of this
stuff. I suppose Janacek had his reasons, but wow did it sound &
feel bizarre.
|
Ellen
G 
Registered User
(10/7/00 6:20:57 pm)
Reply |
Help?
You KNOW I never had theory courses.
Splain, please. I've been trying to get the hang of this, with great
difficulty. Where am I going wrong? Five sharps, B major, relative
minor Ab? If this is it, why would it be a "mythical" key one only
hears about as a little person but never encounters until playing
Janacek? Inquiring minds want to know.
|
Tom
Flaherty
Registered User
(10/7/00 6:37:18 pm)
Reply |
Re:
Help?
Hi Ellen,
The relative minor
of B major is G# minor, also with five sharps (which is why it's
called "relative" - same key signature, tonics a minor third apart).
If you were to respell G# as Ab, you would of course respell all the
other notes in the scale and come up with Ab minor (whose relative
major would be Cb.) Although different contexts may make it
important to spell a note as either G# or Ab, a key signature IS the
context most of the time. Given a choice of spelling a minor key as
G# (5 sharps) or Ab (7 flats), most composers would choose G# as the
easier one to read, unless you are making a short excursion from a
key with a lot of flats.
I'm curious Bob, is the section you
are playing surrounded by flat keys? or is Janacek just being
ornery? By the way (Bob), Justin says hello. He just zoomed through
LA.
Hope (Ellen) that's not too confusing .
|
Bob
Registered User
(10/8/00 8:00:55 am)
Reply |
Re:
Help?
The passage, as I said, isn't short,
but it is preceded by a key signature with only 3 or 4 flats. Sure
feels good when it ends, though.
Glad you & Justin
hooked up. Of course what we're REALLY interested in is how his
other socializing went . . .
|
Peter
D
Registered
User
(10/9/00 10:18:58 am)
Reply |
Encountering Ab Minor in your daily excercises
Hello Bob,
Don't you love the
Caprices of Piatti and Servais? The great Piatti Caprice #6 takes a
fairly long journey through Ab minor on its way homeward. The music
is as deep as Australia and well liked. Servais Caprice #3 is
written outright in Ab minor.
|
PatWhite
Registered User
(10/10/00 9:12:58 am)
Reply |
Re:
Help?
Ellen, think of it this way: the
sixth note of a major scale is the name of that major key's relative
minor. Example, the sixth note of the C Major scale is A. Therefore,
A minor is the relative minor to C Major. If you use this method,
the enharmonics will not confuse you.
|
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